My Lords, I rise briefly to support the tenor of many of the amendments in this group, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas: they strengthen parents’ hands against any overbearing local authorities. That is not to suggest that all local authorities will be overbearing, but it ensures that they are not necessarily interpreting their role always as one of policing. This is all about balancing powers and having a sense of proportionality. I like the idea of the home school ombudsman suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, although I would rather it were not needed because I do not like lots of this part of the Schools Bill.
I listened carefully, in particular, to what the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, including his last point on this being supportive, not punitive. Those points are very important, but I want to raise my qualms about this. Of course, those noble Lords who raised the point about bad actors are correct: some parents are cruel and some represent a threat to their children. However, in a free society, do we not assume that the vast majority of parents are not a threat to their children? At the moment, as far as I know, we have not nationalised parenting. We are not saying that we are better at doing it than parents; we assume that parents are good at it.
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I am nervous that, according to this conversation, bad home schooling is being used as a means of abuse and presented as the tip of an iceberg, as though we do not know what is going on behind closed doors. This implies that there is a relationship between those who choose to home school and abusive practices. I want to kick back against that.
The emphasis has been on the rights of children, as though their rights are in contradistinction to those of their parents. It is as though parents are going round snatching all the rights of children and we should let the state and the local authority be the arbiters of protecting children. I hate to mention it, but the state as parent has a bit of a mixed record: ask the young women of Oldham who were sexually abused in plain sight of state authorities—the report on this is out now—whether it is likely that parents or other people would be the abusers in that instance. I am concerned by the tenor of the discussion because, in Committee on Monday, the Minister warned us against the tone of our language. She is right; nobody wants to hype up matters or scaremonger. But in our discussions about home schooling, I did not raise all the issues of abuse; the issues of abuse have come up in the course of a discussion about home schooling. It is understandable that many people involved in home schooling feel anxious that there is slippage between those sorts of things.
I like these amendments because we need to say to local authorities, if there is to be an intervention, that they should not have an implicit presumption that there is something dodgy about children not being in school and being educated outside a school setting.
There is no law against that at the moment. The reality is that nobody has a right to schooling. The law does not say that you have to be schooled; it says that you have to be educated. The majority do so through schools, but not everybody does and, as far as I know, the law is not trying to change that. We assume that this is part and parcel of a free society; it is a choice that people have. However, if we keep talking about bad actors and abuse whenever we discuss it, it is not surprising that those who choose to educate their children outside school are anxious about what the Bill is trying to do.