Education Bill

My Lords, I remember sitting in a school classroom in a secondary school that is five minutes’ walk from your Lordships' House and seeing one boy disrupt the whole class and the poor teacher clearly at the end of her tether at the end of the period. The boy moved to a different seat as soon as she turned her back, and it was a great joke, but it clearly caused her a lot of anxiety. This is a very complex question, as this debate has shown. Further to what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, in my experience many looked-after children have families who are not working well before they are taken into care. However, after that, the key stepping stone into care is their exclusion from school, which puts all the additional pressure on the family that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, referred to. Excluding a child is a very grave step to take without the right means to ensure that the child goes somewhere appropriate, where they will get the support that they need. I look forward to the Minister’s reply. Perhaps between now and Report, he might consider convening a meeting for Members of your Lordships’ House and secondary school heads who deal with these problems regularly. We can then get some insight into their experience. I would certainly find that helpful, but I can do it for myself. Other noble Lords might also find it helpful. We are dealing not only with this question but with the issues of detention and behaviour more generally. Therefore, perhaps a meeting with a few head teachers, particularly secondary school heads, would be useful in our deliberations on these matters.