I shall speak to Clauses 49, 50 and 51 and Schedule 4, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, opposes. She asked me to summarise the purpose of this part of the Bill. The overarching purpose is that we should feel confident that every child in this country is getting a suitable education, that we should offer support to those home-educating parents who feel they need it, and that we should address the very small number of children who are not in school or being suitably educated at home, and who are exposed to a range of risks which we have discussed tonight.
The other point behind the noble Baroness’s very fair question was to ask us about the spirit in which we approach this and how we are doing it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, it does not matter whether we tell parents to think a certain thing: if we feel it, we feel it. I hope that the Committee senses that we acknowledge that. I feel it is our responsibility to try to address those anxieties and put ourselves in the shoes of parents who are worried about the proposals. It is material, in our commitment to develop guidance for local authorities, that we will do that in partnership with local authorities and home-educating parents, so both voices are there. I hope very much that we will reach a good place with them, and that that recap responds to the noble Baroness’s question.
I am afraid that I will have to write to the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Chapman, regarding their questions. My understanding is that we are bringing the offence in this Bill in line with other similar offences, but both noble Baronesses have asked extremely good and detailed questions and I will respond to them in writing.
Clause 49 amends the school attendance order process in England to make an order a more effective measure for parents who are not providing their child with a suitable education, or who fail to demonstrate that they are doing so to local authorities. If a local authority knows that a suitable education is not being provided, or cannot deduce whether it is, it is important that this be acted on quickly to make sure that children get a suitable education as quickly as possible. For this reason, additional timeframes have been introduced and in some existing cases, as the Committee has debated tonight, shortened. We are trying to bring more consistency by aligning the process for and effect of orders for academy schools more closely with that for maintained schools.
Clause 50 similarly seeks to increase the efficiency of the process where a parent fails to comply with a school attendance order in England, and to support the child’s right to education and minimise the amount of time that a child misses education. Today, if a child is registered at a school but their parent keeps them at home without a valid reason, the parent commits an offence and can potentially receive a heavier penalty than if they simply withdraw the child from school completely without providing any education at all and ignore a school attendance order. Equalising the maximum penalties for those two situations removes this perverse incentive to take children out of school without providing suitable home education. These changes are only being made to the school attendance order process in England. Therefore, Clause 51 and Schedule 4 make consequential amendments to help separate the two processes in England and Wales and to ensure they are reflected in relevant legislation such as the Children Act 1989 and the Education Act 1996.
With that explanation, I ask the noble Baroness not to oppose Clause 49, the other clauses and Schedule 4.