Education Bill

First, my Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for giving me an annotated photocopy last week of his proposals because it enabled me to work my way through them and really think about them. Having done so, if we are to have legislation of this form then the amendments that he has put forward and the powerful arguments he has made from his own experience are compelling. However, I want to draw the Minister's attention to Amendment 73HB, which would delete that phrase in subsection (5) where the court, in thinking about ““dispensing with the restrictions””, can have, "““regard to the welfare of the person who is the subject of the allegation””." That was picked up by a number of Members here. In our debate on the previous group, we were concerned that the Government were considering teachers, and only teachers, and not other professional groups. For this phrase to be included in the legislation is so illuminating. It speaks volumes to me of the mindset with which the Government have approached this issue. Again, we see the Government thinking of only the teacher vis-à-vis, in this situation, the child. That is so disturbing and demonstrates their tunnel vision approach to this whole issue. I hope that they will take this whole matter away and think again.