Schools: Indoctrination

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we introduced some statutory changes to requirements on schools quite recently. It is now a requirement that a school notify the local authority of what are called deletions from the register, whether the parent has formally notified the school of the destination of the child or not. Local authorities are made aware of closing schools in those situations.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House that my wife is a Prevent adviser on further education. Will the noble Lord take the opportunity to commend the head of Ofsted for her very rigorous action in the last few months? At times the head of Ofsted might have welcomed more ministerial support for what she is doing, taking up the point made by the noble Baroness. I understand that Ofsted feels that to tackle the problems effectively it needs more powers. In the light of his response on home education, will the Minister look at whether legislative changes need to be made to give the chief inspector more authority?