My Lords, I shall come in briefly on this because I did not put my name to my noble friend’s amendment on examinations. I am sorry to go back to a smaller point, but one thing that happens in education is that you usually need a certificate to carry on. It is your pathway to the next step. I have not been deaf to what has been said about the rights of home education but, to go back to one of the building blocks of our system, to gain access to the next stage of education, training or employment, you generally need the examination that proves you have done it. It does not prove much else; it just proves you have been through the process and reached a certain point. I hope the state will allow and support people to get the proof that says they have done the work to get through. If you do not have it, everything shuts down suddenly. You cannot do much else; it does not matter if you can quote Shakespeare fluently, you have still failed English if you do not have the qualification.
Think also about the home-schooling groups who have special educational needs, such as some of the groups I have met. They will sometimes need help and structure to be able to take that exam. It will be important to have some form of interaction around that; it is an important point in their process. The Government have been very keen on testing whether education is successful, usually using examination results, so if home education is to do anything, it needs that to go through.
I cannot resist making a comment about my noble friend Lord Shipley’s statement about having “expedient” in a Bill and not defining how it is used. If you wanted to cause trouble—I suspect somebody in the department was having a bad day when they drafted this—that was an excellent way of doing it; I congratulate them. Unless we get some clarification, and realise that we are trying to make sure that those who are doing things well are supported and those who are doing things badly are identified and stopped if necessary, we are going to have carnage when we come to Report.