Education Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his, as usual, careful and considerate reply. There are a lot of very difficult technical issues involved in that group of amendments. I welcome his invitation to talk about them outside this Committee room, and I will certainly do that. I want to refer to only one of his answers particularly, because I am wholly, as opposed to partly, unsatisfied by what he said as regards Amendment 73HJ. The Minister’s claim was that one could get a parent who wanted to start a vindictive campaign against a teacher. I think that is at the far end of speculative possibility, not least because a parent who did that would be in direct danger of libel proceedings by the teacher concerned. One might argue that teachers do not do that, but I have acted for a few people who have done that and have prospered from doing something to recover their reputations. Anyway, we shall talk about that when the time comes. The only other thing I would say is that I am most grateful to the other Members of the Committee for their extremely wise and informative contributions to this mini debate and I note that not a single person opposed the amendments. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, will sleep on that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 73HA withdrawn. Amendments 73HB to 73M not moved. Debate on whether Clause 13 should stand part of the Bill.