Education Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, dealing with the issue of exclusions. As we have heard, the issue is not exclusions per se but one of process and, of course, procedure. More importantly, it is one of basic natural justice. All of us in this Room and in this debate start from the position that good discipline is important to good learning. We start from the position that everyone associated with the education system needs to be and should be supported. Teachers should be supported, heads and governing bodies should be supported and parents need support. In the overall context of those stakeholders, however, the children themselves need proper support. So these amendments, which I support, are necessary to prevent what I call the end game—exclusion without proper review, given the possible consequences of exclusion on the future of those pupils affected. The decision to exclude, without the process for the facts, the information and all the consequences that led to the decision, means that it is neither properly heard nor properly examined. Fairness and justice lie at the heart but it seems that the Secretary of State has taken the position that the heads and governing bodies are always right and that the pupil is always wrong. That cannot be sustained because here we have a situation where those associated with a decision, whether it is the heads or governing body, are the accusers in the first instance. They are the investigators, assembling the facts and putting together the arguments. They prosecute in the case and, in the end, they are the judge and jury, all without any recourse to justification. The review panel, as we have heard, has no powers for reinstatement, however unjust the decision might have been. In her introduction to the amendment, the noble Baroness set out the position of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and here I declare an interest as a member of that committee. Moving beyond its view, however, the fact of the matter is that legally decided opinions on the issue of expulsion without review are not on the side of the Government. The decided cases that the Government have used in their defence claim that expulsion from education is not a human right. But that is not the issue. There are equally strong legally decided cases which indicate very strongly that the real issue is not a question of whether education is a human right. What is a human right is the right of the excluded individual to return to the school from which they have been excluded. That is fundamentally different from the Government’s legal position that they cite in support. With that conclusion, I support the amendment. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.