Education Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I want to argue against the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. One of the benefits of having someone else to act as a witness to a search is that there is a cooling-off period in a crisis when things could calm down; immediate intervention might well escalate the crisis.

My second point, which has not been made so far on this group of amendments, is that there has rightly been much concern about opposite-sex searching. Frankly, there are also issues about same-sex searching because, sadly, there are allegations against staff of homosexual acts, and there might be some incidents, again sadly, of same-sex abuse. I know that is very rare, but that is why we need to have a witness. You can then start to ensure that, first, the situation is de-escalated if it is rising rapidly, and, secondly, with a witness you can balance that with the safeguard of both the child and the member of staff.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, not for the first time I find myself welcoming the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. I might have this wrong, but the provision seems to be designed entirely to deal with a crisis. Of course, if we think there will never be a crisis, we do not need this section. I say that because paragraph (a) of new Section 6A in Clause 2(3)(c) states:

“the person carrying out the search reasonably believes that there is a risk that serious harm will be caused to a person if the search is not carried out as a matter of urgency”.

That must mean that the person who thinks they have to search is faced with someone in the room making an absolutely open threat, either to the person who might do the searching or to someone else in the room.

Paragraph (b) of new Section 6A says that the condition is satisfied if,

“in the time available it is not reasonably practicable for the search to be carried out by a person of the same sex as P or in the presence of another member of staff”.

I feel strongly that that is meant entirely as a back-up power to deal with a crisis that could not have been foreseen. In considering whether this provision should be in the Bill, that is how we should look at it. We should in no way confuse it with the wider issue of the powers to search.