Unregistered Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I really hope that I did not give the House any impression of complacency. There is no complacency where there are serious safeguarding concerns. There have been more than 1,000 investigations by Ofsted of different out-of-school settings and, of those, 122 were offering a religious education, but there were also a number of other settings; 146 suspected illegal settings were found, 129 of those were closed or otherwise changed their operations, and we completed seven prosecutions.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, is it not possible to tackle this problem through regulations under existing legislation rather than having to wait to find the time for fresh primary legislation?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My understanding is that we would need primary legislation to address the specific instance in which schools are offering a purely religious education.

Children: Bereavement Support in Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sorry to hear of the noble Lord’s nephews’ personal experience of this. Of course, many of us in this House have been touched in different ways by the issues raised by the noble Baroness’s Question. The Government are doing many of the things the noble Lord points to. I mentioned training; every state school is being offered a grant, as are colleges, to train a senior mental health lead so that we have an effective response to these issues. Of course, education staff are not mental health staff in general, and nor are they bereavement or trauma specialists, but they are very well placed to observe the behaviour of children day to day and respond to that.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Are the improvements to training to which my noble friend referred being overseen by officials at the highest level, with just the right kind of approach to these deeply sensitive and important matters?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am happy to share with my noble friend in a letter more detail of the training, but it is something the department takes extremely seriously.

Initial Teacher Training Providers

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot prejudge, but it is only a few weeks away that we will be able to discuss the results of the review. Clearly the Government initiated the review because they take seriously issues for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

To what do the Government attribute their inability to meet teacher training targets? Could school-based training play a larger role?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend asks an important question. There is no single reason why the recruitment market is so challenging, but clearly there is a very competitive labour market. Historically, teaching has not offered the same flexibility that is now offered post-pandemic for many graduate jobs. School-based teacher training will play an extremely important part and we continue to promote the role of a teacher, with its incredibly important contribution to our children and our economy, as hard as we can.

Education System

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve the education system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, our reforms over the last 12 years are reflected in our highest ever scores in international tests in primary maths and reading, which are the building blocks for attainment. We have set out our ambitious plans for reform of education in the schools White Paper, the Skills for Jobs White Paper and the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, and we will publish a full response to the SEND and AP Green Paper early in the new year.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords of the important report published by the Times Education Commission in June, which has attracted widespread support—not least in this House, as a debate last month showed. Should we not continue to bear in mind the powerful case the commission makes for the introduction of a British baccalaureate offering broader vocational and academic qualifications at the age of 18, with parity of funding for both routes? Will the Government now put such bold educational reform at the centre of their strategy, drawing on the ideas in this landmark report?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government very much welcomed the report. Our strategy is ambitious in all these areas. My noble friend will be aware that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has challenged the department to consider how we can go further to ensure that every young person receives the benefits of a broad and ambitious education, so that every child has

“the best chance in life”

and can prepare

“to enter … a rapidly changing world.”

Schools: Resources

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As ever, the noble Lord raises an important point. Obviously, we will be able to say more about that in our responses to a number of the reviews into this area towards the end of the year. He will also be aware that we have raised funding for high needs by £1 billion to £9.1 billion. We remain very committed to that area.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will my noble friend ask the Treasury to bear in mind that, since the Second World War, the proportion of national wealth devoted to education has risen by a comparatively small amount—infinitely less than the amount devoted to the NHS, for example? May I also ask my noble friend whether there is any substance in the recent reports that the Government are, at long last, considering serious reform of the education system, including the introduction of the British baccalaureate?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right on the share of national wealth. On the British baccalaureate, the department is obviously considering the remarks made by the Prime Minister and we will be reverting in due course.

Times Education Commission Report

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lexden]

That this House takes note of the report of the Times Education Commission, published on 15 June.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to introduce and set the scene for this debate on the report of the Times Education Commission, which was published in June, attracting a good deal of praise, not least from former Secretaries of State for Education of both main political parties. That was an indication of the widespread consensus in its favour that the report evoked. I should mention at the outset that in the last few days the Royal Society has sent me its endorsement of the report’s key findings. That august body stresses that Britain needs an education system that acknowledges

“the value of academic study, technical training and career pathways.”

The commission had 22 very distinguished members, including four who sit in your Lordships’ House, and it is good to see one of them, the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, in his place today. It was chaired by the well-known Times columnist, Rachel Sylvester, noted for her acute assessments of political life. Her deputy chairman was Sir Anthony Seldon, a prolific historian who has long been prominent in the world of education. Their colleagues were all leading figures in the fields of business, science, the arts, politics and of course education itself. They worked intensively for over a year. They have produced a unanimous report—no mean feat in an area of policy where controversy thrives.

In the report, the commission makes 45 recommendations, all designed to equip our country with an education system fit for the 21st century. No one who reads the report can fail to be struck by the success with which the commission has carried out its work. Its conclusions and recommendations deserve the most careful consideration by the Government, the political parties and the country at large, particularly by the people with the closest interest in the proposals: families, teachers, employers and, of course, students—the working population of tomorrow.

The report charts a clear course of action, not for the replacement of the existing education system but for its evolution to secure the improvements that, in the commission’s view, are needed if Britain is to thrive in this century. Economic policy alone, even when successfully constructed, can never ensure a nation’s prosperity. Conservatives in particular should recall the words of Disraeli:

“Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/1874; col. 1618.]


In my experience, it is always a good idea to quote Disraeli in the presence of my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking; he is temporarily absent from his place, but I know that my noble friend Lord Willetts has a considerable interest in Disraeli as well. Disraeli’s simple truth can be easily obscured by the many other issues that clamour for attention day by day in political debate.

A little belatedly, I must declare my interest as president of the Independent Schools Association. Its members, nearly 600 strong, are small in size, diverse in character and successful in performance—not just academically but in wider terms, such as involvement in their local communities, to which the commission’s report rightly attaches great importance. They are totally ignored by the national media, which skews the perception of the independent sector as a whole as if it consisted only of big, expensive institutions. This large group of small schools forms part of a wider organisation, the Independent Schools Council, which has some 1,300 members that it accredits and represents.

The report treats independent schools with the same critical rigour that it brings to bear on other elements of the education system. It calls for

“much greater collaboration between state and independent schools”

and states:

“Many more private schools should join multi-academy trusts, sharing assets and expertise across the group”.


There is indeed no better way of drawing the two education sectors more closely together, wherever feasible. But there is great merit too in partnership schemes between schools in the two sectors, through which teachers and pupils work together as colleagues to their mutual benefit. Today, such partnership schemes are flourishing in their thousands across the country.

The inclusion in the report of wise comment about independent schools, a small component of the system as a whole, is an indication of the report’s comprehensive character. In this respect it is, I think, unprecedented. There have been reports and government papers galore on schools, universities and other individual parts of the system. Here we are given the carefully considered recommendations of a panel of experts on the system as a whole, from early years through to lifelong learning. It is the range of this report that gives it such significance and stature.

The commission has devised a bold 12-point plan, which would carry its recommendations into effect. At the very centre stands its proposal for a British baccalaureate. It would offer broader academic and vocational qualifications at the age of 18, with parity of funding for pupils in both routes, so students would be able to gain high-quality qualifications in a wider range of subjects and disciplines, as in other advanced countries. Time and again, across the House we have called for an end to the decline of sport, drama, music and other creative subjects in our schools. The commission’s plan would bring them back to the heart of education where they belong.

A YouGov poll carried out for the commission found that 72% of parents were in favour of

“all schools receiving extra government funding to provide additional extracurricular activities like sport, drama, music, debating or dance.”

For me, and for many others across the House, music has a particular importance. Its neglect over recent years would, I know, have once again stirred impassioned comment from my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, chairman of the Royal College of Music, if ill health had not prevented him taking part in this debate.

It is an area in which the gap between independent and state schools tends to be particularly wide. Many independent schools are trying to help close it by working in partnership with their state sector colleagues. But it is the kind of approach that the commission’s plan embodies that could help bring the glories of music to our young people throughout the country. Above all, the commission’s plan makes provision for both knowledge and skills. Are both not required in our fast-changing economy?

I will not go through the plan point by point; noble Lords will have studied it and formed views about it. This debate provides an opportunity to consider them. But what should happen after our debate? The Government should, of course, give the report careful consideration as they continue to review their Schools Bill, a measure strongly criticised across this House on a number of specific grounds, and more widely for its lack of ambition and vision.

But we need to look beyond this particular Government. If a report like this had appeared when I was in the Conservative Research Department years ago, I would have said at once, “This is manifesto territory”. It used always to be the case that policy groups, serviced by the Conservative Research Department and drawing on the work of outside experts, were set up to prepare the ground for election manifestos. This has not happened in recent years in the Conservative Party. I suggest that now is the time to revive the practice, with a Conservative education policy group, stimulated by this report, leading the way. Who better to chair such a group than my noble friend Lord Willetts, an authority on education and on conservatism, whose features and character so badly need restating today?

The quality of government suffers if party election manifestos are not based on detailed, serious policy work conducted within the parties themselves. We have seen some of the ill effects of the absence of such work in certain policies of the Conservative Party over recent years. It simply will not do for a Conservative election manifesto to be cobbled together by one or two people at the last moment, with contents that take the party as a whole almost entirely by surprise. Should not renewed policy work within parties seek as much consensus as possible between them? Do we really want education to be a fierce party-political battleground? Is that in the national interest?

When I referred to the report of the Times Education Commission in the House in June, my noble friend Lord Cormack, who unfortunately cannot be in his place, quoted those well-known words from the Book of Proverbs:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish”.


The report of the Times Education Commission sets out both a vision and the means of achieving it. In the words of the report,

“Education should combine skills and knowledge; character and qualifications; oracy and literacy; emotional as well as intellectual understanding.”


Is this not the kind of system that a successful Britain needs? I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, it is the custom for those who introduce these Thursday afternoon debates to conclude by thanking all those who have taken part. I perform this traditional duty with the greatest possible sincerity this afternoon. I was particularly grateful for the kind comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, because I remember the last time that we found ourselves in debate, during which I spoke rather intemperately about her comments on independent schools. I have been seeking to smile benignly across the Chamber throughout this afternoon.

It is extraordinary to think that so long—12 years—has gone by since we last had a full and wide-ranging education debate in this House, as my noble friend Lord Baker, the Disraeli de nos jours, reminded us. We are united across this House—this is the great point—in recognising the enduring importance of the Times Education Commission’s report. My noble friend Lord Johnson, a member of the commission—thank goodness it was not his brother—spoke of the great commitment that the newspaper has made.

It is right that we end by giving proper, full recognition to that and to Rachel Sylvester, who guided the whole operation, with my long-standing friend, Anthony Seldon, alongside her. Above all, we recognise that the retiring editor, John Witherow, played such an important part in this great project. The best way in which we can continue to recognise the importance of the report is by keeping these hugely important recommendations in our mind, all gathered together, as noble Lords have said so clearly and effectively.

It was marvellous to have so many young people up in the Gallery while we were engaged in our discussion. It was rather tempting to go up and ask them what they made of what we had to say. It really has been a splendid debate, for which I am extremely grateful. With that, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Children in Care

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point, and she will be aware that, sadly, some of those figures are mirrored during a child in care’s educational experience. We are working very hard with virtual school heads to support children in the care system throughout their education, and we have support for them beyond. The noble Baroness will be aware that over half of these children have a SEND diagnosis, which also has an impact, obviously, on higher education.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

What support are the Government giving to charities like the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation in their efforts to secure places in both state and independent boarding schools for looked-after children who would benefit from such places? Is it not the case that these places cost less than local authority childcare and greatly enhance the academic prospects of the pupils concerned?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department is grateful for the work that the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation does and works closely with it. My noble friend makes a good point. A child in care obviously faces a wide range of challenges starting from their early childhood, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, pointed out. Therefore, the role of the local authority in supporting children in all those aspects is critical.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Lastly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, over the last few weeks we have seen demonstrated what I would call the overweening will of the Executive. Frankly, they have just ploughed forward against the interests of my noble friend the Minister—and of the Secretary of State, as far as I was aware, because I had direct conversations with him about this Bill as soon as I understood the full extent of it. So, on the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, it is very important that the Executive not be able to just bulldoze their own agendas through. However, I thank my noble friend the Minister again, and I am delighted that these clauses are being withdrawn.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, may I just point out that Mr Johnson and his colleagues sought no mandate for the substantial reform of academies in the 2019 election manifesto? There is one page devoted to education in the Tory 2019 election manifesto, and it contains no sentence on or reference at all to academies.

[Lord Harris of Peckham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. She has been to one of our conferences with 200 people, and I am proud to say that she is coming to our conference in October, where we will have 4,500 teachers, and seeing some of our children. I am really passionate about academies. My noble friend Lord Baker got me involved in the first one at Crystal Palace 30 years ago. That was a very bad school, where 60 children a year were expelled. Over the last 30 years, it has been one of the best schools in the country. Last year, it had 5,000 applicants for 180 places. It is a world-class school for the second time, and 35% of its children are on free school meals.

The Harris Federation runs 51 schools, 52 this year. We have only taken over free schools from start-ups or failing schools. Some 90% of our schools are now outstanding, and we have five world-class secondary schools and one world-class primary school. I have to thank Michael Gove, Secretary of State at the time, for giving us that school seven years ago under a lot of opposition. It was in the worst 2% of schools in the country but now, seven years later, it is not just outstanding: it is world class. From the start, with my noble friend Lord Baker, and through to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, Tony Blair and Michael Gove, academies have made a great difference to many children in this country, as we have given them a better education. One of my ambitions is to see every child in this country getting a great education, because they only ever get one chance at it. They might have five or six jobs throughout their lives, but only one education.

Five years ago, everyone was against Michael Gove getting the school over the road to be a sixth form—Harris Westminster. I am so proud of that school. It was the eighth best in the country last year, with more than 50% of the children there on free meals. The seven that beat us cost anything from £50,000 to £100,000 a year to go to. It is all down to having great teachers, giving good service, making sure that children enjoy going to school, motivating them and making sure they do the best they can. That is what we should try to do with every child in this country. If we could do that, we would have a much better country.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely and I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Amendments 156 and 171 address the issue of school land and buildings that may not be safe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, outlined, Amendment 156 asks for condition reports on school buildings and land within a year of the Bill being passed. As we have heard from her, there are real worries that too many schools have major condition problems because school budgets have made it impossible to keep buildings safe and there is no money from central government.

I am particularly delighted that the noble Baroness referred to the Welsh 21st Century Schools plan. Kirsty Williams, while Lib Dem Welsh Education Secretary in the Senedd working in coalition with Labour, led with local government on this. It just shows what can be achieved when there is a will to do it. However, I am afraid that England at the moment is a different story. The Treasury is not providing funds for major structural repairs and rebuilds even when there is danger for children and staff.

One such school is Tiverton High School, which is in need of a multi-million-pound overhaul. The Environment Agency says that it is not a safe place for children, with staff having to deal with rain pouring into leaking classrooms; worse, there have been a number of incidents involving asbestos being exposed and then damaged, which is dangerous to both pupils and staff. Even worse, the school sits on a flood plain and requires flood protection. The school was promised a complete rebuild in 2009. It got planning permission and got detailed designs ready over the next four years, but the money never followed. It is vital that we know the condition of school land and buildings across England, and Amendment 171 says that, where a building is unsafe, the Secretary of State should take responsibility for it.

Under Part 1 of this Bill, the school—currently a foundation school—would become an academy. I ask the Minister: does the Secretary of State become responsible for the condition and fabric of school building and land under the extensive powers listed in Part 1 or is the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, necessary? It seems extraordinary that children are required to go to school in a building which other bodies have said is unsafe, the governors and local authority do not have resources to deal with, and central government just refuses to provide the funding for.

Amendment 167 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, calls for the Secretary of State to ensure that all schools are provided with defibrillators, in school and in sports facilities, which I support. Oliver King, who was 12, died of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, a condition which kills 12 young people under 35 every week. The Oliver King Foundation has been campaigning for a defibrillator in every school. Last September the Secretary of State for Education announced that every school should have a defibrillator.

In an Oral Question in your Lordships’ House on 15 June, the Health Minister said in response to a question from me:

“while we require defibrillators to be purchased when a school is refurbished or built, one of the things we are looking at is how we can retrofit this policy. We are talking to different charity partners about the most appropriate way to do this. What we have to recognise is that it is not just the state that can do this; there are many civil society organisations and local charities that are willing to step up and be partners with us, and we are talking to all of them.”—[Official Report, 15/6/22; col. 1582.]

While I know that the DfE has been working with the department for health and the NHS to make this happen, including schools being able to purchase defibrillators via the DHSC at an advantageous price, only a few thousand appear to have been purchased so far. The Health Minister is clearly expecting schools to find benefactors to fund life-saving defibrillators at a time when there are many other pressures on school budgets. How do the Government plan to enable all 22,000 schools to be given defibrillators now, not just when their school is rebuilt?

It looks as if we may need to support the amendment in front of us today about defibrillators. This is urgent and I hope that the Minister will give it some good consideration.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

I ask noble Lords to consider whether this really is the best use of public money given the cost of living crisis and the pressures on the vast majority of families. This is about asking noble Lords to engage with the reality we face in 2022. Independent schools are just not charities in any modern sense. It is a status they have inherited for good historical reasons, but one that we think is no longer justifiable.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I will comment briefly, following on from the noble Baroness. As usual in education debates, I declare my interest as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council, which accredits and represents some 1,400 schools, and as the current president of the Independent Schools Association, one of the council’s constituent bodies, which has some 580 of those schools in its membership. There is not a household name among them, and none of them is large in size: many have no more than 200 pupils, some less. But all of them are serving their local communities; responding to their parents’ wishes; striving to keep fees down; and fulfilling their charitable purposes, not just by providing education—recognised as a charitable purpose in law for over 400 years—but by delivering wider public benefit through bursaries, partnership projects with local state schools, and participation in local community projects. Because of the lateness of the hour, I will not give further details in full reply to the noble Baroness.

This amendment seems to have been dug out of the Labour Party’s archives.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It has not been dug out of an archive. I expect it to be in our next manifesto, so I expect the noble Lord to have to engage with this on a regular basis.

[Lord Lexden]

I want to give some background, if I may. At the general election of February 1974 the Labour manifesto declared:

“All forms of tax-relief and charitable status for public schools will be withdrawn.”


With some redrafting, “private schools” being substituted for “public schools” for example, this remained the Labour Party’s position during the rest of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. At the 1992 election, the threat to charitable status disappeared, 30 years later to suddenly come back now, a weary ghost from the past.

What has happened during the last 30 years? Something significant has occurred: schools in the two sectors of education have moved ever closer together. The credit for this, of course, belongs to the schools themselves. They were drawn together by a recognition of the mutual benefits of partnership in so many different areas—in teaching, particularly in specialist subjects, music, drama and sport. Today this large programme of joint work is underpinned by a memorandum of understanding between the Independent Schools Council and the Government. Details are available on the council’s Schools Together website. Extensive though the programme is, there is more to be done. The best thing that everyone who has the interests of education at heart can do is to press independent and state schools to do more together. Noble Lords opposite should perhaps visit some independent schools to see what partnership work they are carrying out with state sector colleagues—that is the word they use, “colleagues”.

When I was at the Independent Schools Council, years ago, I found it quite difficult to interest the Conservative Party in any of this; Tony Blair’s Government was a different matter. Education Ministers, including Charles Clarke and David Miliband, came to the council’s offices for discussions. An official independent/state schools partnership scheme was set up to encourage progress, backed by modest funding from the Department for Education. In 2000, the then Schools Minister wrote that there had been “a huge cultural change”. In January 2001, she wrote: “There are no plans to legislate to remove charitable status from independent schools.” The same Minister got independent schools seats in the General Teaching Council and introduced special fast-track arrangements to help teachers in independent schools get QTS. She referred to them earlier in these debates. Always listen carefully to everything the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, says in this House. I am sorry she is not in her place at the moment.

For years, independent schools have used the benefits of their charitable status, and more besides, to give help with fees. Back in 2001, I used to say that for every pound of benefit received, they provided £2.30 in help with fees. What would be the effect of overturning a law that has stood for over 400 years by confiscating the schools’ charitable status? Fees would rise, bursaries would fall, and schools would become more socially exclusive. I think the policy embodied in this amendment should go back to the Labour Party’s archives.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, that was a very interesting and wide-ranging debate on a number of important issues, which I will try and cover in my remarks. I turn first to Amendment 146A from my noble friend Lord Lucas, which would exempt settings that are classified as being a family from regulation under the Education and Skills Act 2008. I can assure my noble friend that the Government already, and will continue to, consider private arrangements where parents home educate their own children only as exempt.

Turning to Amendment 146B from the noble Lord, Lord Knight: we consulted in 2020 on defining full-time provision as being 18 or more hours per week. However, we concluded that this approach would encourage gaming of the system, allowing settings to opt out of regulation by operating just short of the threshold. We heard powerfully from the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, about how there are settings determined to do just that. So, guidance will be produced to help settings to understand where the registration requirements apply.

Amendments 147 and 149 from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, seek to register part-time provision and other unregistered provision where local authorities place children. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also highlighted some of the cultural sensitivities that arise in addressing some of these settings. Unregistered alternative provision, as the noble Lord knows, can provide a valuable hook back into learning for children who have complex needs or require bespoke packages. Its use, though, as the noble Lord knows extremely well, requires extremely careful planning and oversight. We absolutely agree on the need to act to address poor commissioning practice, and I know my officials would be very keen to meet with the noble Lord if he would be agreeable to discuss this further. As we set out in the recent special educational needs and alternative provision Green Paper, we are absolutely committed to strengthening protections for children in unregistered alternative provision, and we will be issuing a call for evidence before the summer on its use. I know the noble Lord will contribute to that.

I turn to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. Regulating part-time settings would address the risk that currently unregistered full-time provision is split into separate settings. I know this is also a concern of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn. However, most part-time provision does serve a legitimate purpose, and this risks interrupting the support and education that those settings provide, where it is provided legitimately. We believe that automatically applying the regulatory regime for independent schools to therapeutic and part-time settings would be inappropriate and likely to introduce unnecessary burdens. However, we will look at this again in the light of the call for evidence.

On Amendment 152 from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, Clause 63 introduces, as she described, new search powers. The powers as drafted aim to balance the need to enable Ofsted to search effectively with the safeguarding of civil liberties. This amendment would risk disrupting that balance. I know that the noble Baroness’s concern is that one would lose the element of surprise if inspectors went to an address and then had to go away and get a warrant, but requiring warrants before people’s homes are searched, particularly where consent is not given to enter the property, is a proportionate safeguard.