Children, Schools and Families Bill

I agree with much of what the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) said. I do not intend to detain the House for long, not because the amendments and new clauses do not deserve extensive debate but precisely because they do, and because today's debate—which has been necessarily brief because of the time restrictions—has only confirmed a view that I have held for some time. I believe that we would be foolish to rush consideration of what is, in fact, a highly complex and sensitive area with no proper scrutiny in this place, and that we would risk drawing the wrong conclusions and making decisions of which we would repent at leisure. After all, we are being expected, in a debate lasting only an hour, to scrutinise nearly 20 per cent. of the Bill, including an entire set of clauses and two schedules—clauses 32 to 41 and schedules 2 and 3—that we did not even touch on in Committee, although they deserved serious scrutiny. We know that this is one of the most controversial parts of a Bill which itself hardly lacks controversial content—including some of the other elements relating to home education, which we may touch on if we have time today and to which we also failed to give adequate time in Committee. We know that a long list of organisations have expressed concerns, and that, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk said, they represent a broad spectrum, from children's organisations at one end to legal and other organisations in the middle or at the other end. We have received representations from a variety of organisations, from the Children's Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to legal groups specialising in family law, but they have sent us a universal message. They believe that there is a real risk of our legislating in haste, and that the issues are too important to be rushed through Parliament with a minimum of debate and the risk that we will end up with ill-thought-out provisions. They have told us clearly that they think that the changes envisaged in schedule 2 should result from a proper process of consultation and dialogue, and proper scrutiny in Parliament. Although I accept that the Minister has made an attempt today to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed over the last few weeks and months and that she has talked to many of the organisations involved, I have no doubt that many of those concerns remain. As the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk said earlier, the fact that the Minister has found it necessary to bring to the House with very little notice—her letter is dated 19 February—a series of important amendments to clauses 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 40 and 41 is the clearest possible indication that the groups that have made representations to us are right, and that we should not rush such complex and sensitive legislation in the limited time that we have before a general election. That is particularly true given that many of the concerns expressed by groups such as the NSPCC seem to be precisely the opposite of the concerns expressed about serious case reviews that we have just discussed. While the Government claim to be taking the side of groups such as the NSPCC on the protection of sensitive information from serious case reviews, they appear to be taking the opposite side on many of the arguments. I genuinely feel that it would be extremely unwise of Members of this and another place to seek to make such important judgments in the absurdly short time that is available to us. I will confine myself to saying that Members of both Houses will do all we can to ensure that the proposals are not enacted, so that we can consider them in the detail that they deserve.