Education Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, used the right words—“common sense”. I cannot understand this. As a parent and as a teacher, I have no objection to same-day detentions. As has been said, if there is to be a sanction or punishment often it is best that it is done straight away. However, the notion that young people, children and students are kept behind at school without their parents or their carers knowing does not seem right and proper.

If a school organises an after-school activity, whether it be football, netball, swimming or whatever, parents give their permission for their children to take part in those activities, understanding that their children will have to make other arrangements to come home. Why cannot that be done for same-day detentions? All we are suggesting, which is eminently sensible and supported by all the unions bar one—of the unions supporting it, even the National Association of Head Teachers thinks that it is right and proper that parents are notified—is that when a same-day detention is held the parent is contacted, not through a message left on a voicemail, an e-mail or a text but actually contacted. If they cannot be contacted, the same-day detention would have to be held the next day. That is the right and proper common-sense approach.

I have had various e-mails today saying that it would be a breach of the law if the child was not safeguarded and so on, but in all this guidance, about which no doubt we will hear in a moment, I cannot find an understanding that the parent comes first—that the parent matters. I hope that in the guidance it is made absolutely clear how we will protect the well-being and safeguarding of children.

We have spoken about rural areas and the school bus, but in urban areas—in my own city—children often have to travel two miles across the city to go to school. On dark nights they are placed in a very vulnerable situation. If the parents know their child is being kept behind, they can make arrangements.

I hope the Minister will understand the real sense of concern about this issue and give an assurance that the guidelines will clearly spell out what we are asking.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I recognised that there would be a number of reasoned arguments and I stand with my colleagues who made them. I took a rather different way on this. During the summer I consulted a number of friends and my family—it was a random experiment—and it became absolutely clear that they did not believe that I was telling the truth when I said that it was the Government’s plan that when their child was going to be detained they would not be told. They said, “You are making it up”. That was the first response.

The second response from rural parents—I work and have friends in London but I live in a rural area—was, “But there is only one bus. They cannot be detained without notice because if they do not get on the bus they do not get home at all”. We have to remember that not every poor parent in a rural area has a car; they depend on that transport. There are no other bus services or taxis; you catch the school bus or you do not get home. The third response was the sheer indignation that this was “my” child, not owned by anyone else.

The common thread through all that was that the parents were quite keen for the child to be disciplined at school. There was no disagreement that the child should not receive their discipline, that detention might be the right answer, or that the closer it was to the incident the better little Jonny would learn from it. The disagreement was that parents had to know that their child was going to be detained so that they could ensure the protection of their child and were not worried out of their minds. I hope noble Lords will forgive my anecdotal bit of research but it was pretty consistent with the reasoned arguments that we have heard this evening.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 33, which I have added my name to. I will not rehearse the arguments that have been made by noble Lords who have already spoken except to say, as I said in Committee, that these issues about safeguarding are absolutely paramount. There is one area that no one has picked up on but of which I have personal experience. Looked-after children, foster children or children with difficult family arrangements often have complex arrangements at the school gate. For this particular group, it is always vital that the parent with the residency order knows exactly what is happening.

My own experience was at primary school level, where the school was fully on board with all the issues. In a large secondary school with 1,200 pupils, I worry that a teacher or head of department handing out a detention might not be aware of such complex arrangements. For such reasons, which also come back to safeguarding, this is really important. Amendment 33 does not ask for much. The key thing from this Side is for the Minister to please look again at the wording. We want a really clear statement that nothing will be done that will compromise the safety of the child. That is the absolute nub of it. We can all give many more anecdotes but fundamentally, at its root, this is about the safeguarding of children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have some amendments in this group. Like my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I welcome the Government’s amendments. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Phillips on his success in persuading the Government to improve this clause as far as they have. However, I join him in urging the Minister to consider whether he could go a little further. There is devastating logic in what my noble friend says. I am also aware of cases where the abusing teacher has been asked to go away quietly so that no more will be said about the matter. Speaking of logic, I have two amendments in this group which seek to follow government policy and prevent an unintended consequence of this section of the Bill.

Noble Lords may remember that in Committee, speaking to Clause 42 stand part, my noble friend Lady Brinton said on behalf of both of us:

“I would also like to ensure that, where there has been abuse, the subsequent inspection overtly inspects what action has been taken, and openly reports whether the failures that allowed the abuse to occur have been put right. … Parents expect it, and children deserve it”.—[Official Report, 12/9/11; col. GC 117.]

I hope that the Minister will agree with that because it was the 22nd recommendation of the report of Sir Roger Singleton of June 2009, which was agreed to by the then DCSF under the previous Government. Significantly, the DfE under this Government also confirmed adherence to that positive response given in June 2009. Indeed, I know that our honourable friend Mr Tim Loughton has been considering how he can implement this and other recommendations of the Singleton report. There was some news of that only this morning.

Of course, I am aware that Clause 13 only prevents a publication identifying a teacher who is the subject of an allegation. However, the difficulty sometimes arises where writing anything at all about an event might lead to readers having a very good idea of who it might have been. For example, if something occurred on a field trip and there had only been one field trip that year, then it would be possible to identify the alleged perpetrator. So my amendments seek to ensure that we do not fetter the ability of a regulator or a responsible Ofsted inspector to do their jobs properly and to write in their reports about what happened and how the school has, or has not, put measures in place to prevent a repetition. This is what Sir Roger Singleton recommended should happen and that wish has since been endorsed by the previous Government and the current one.

So I hope that the Minister will now see that, in tabling Amendments 50A and 50B, I am trying to avoid that unintended consequence. I believe that Clause 13 as currently written could prevent a regulator or inspector from producing an adequate school inspection report following a case of abuse; a report which stated what action the school has taken. Has my noble friend had time to consider these small, but, I hope, helpful amendments, since they seek to implement what I believe to be the intentions of the Government as well as of the previous Government; intentions which were so well set out by Sir Roger Singleton’s recommendations?

I support what my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, have said about the research that has been circulated to us from York Consulting. I looked at that myself, quite independently of my noble friend and the noble Baroness, and it occurred to me too that there was not a single fact in there that supports the need for this legislation; not one fact that talked about hyped-up, unwarranted publication of the name of a teacher prior to charge. There were lots of statistics about the increase in the number of allegations, lots of statistics about how many of those were eventually found to be unwarranted, but not a thing about publicity. So I still have great reservations about this legislation, despite the fact that in Amendments 50A and 50B I am trying to improve it, because I just do not feel that the Government have yet disclosed to us the pressing need for it, despite what the teaching unions would perhaps like to see. I really would say to the teaching unions—and I have said to the teaching unions—give me the evidence. Where is the evidence about these large amounts of terrible publicity that have brought the Government to decide that they need this legislation? I simply have not seen it yet.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, despite the late hour I think that this debate should not be curtailed, because it is so important. I have to express my great disappointment in the Government for not listening to the arguments that were made so cogently in Committee and again by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I want to ask the Minister whether some of my experiences would not now be possible. For 13 years I was chief executive of Childline, the helpline for children in trouble and in danger, and this month that helpline is 25 years old. During the time it has been operating, it has cracked a large number of rings and groups and situations where teachers have been abusing children. Children have been able to telephone the helpline and describe what has been happening to them.

Let me tell your Lordships about two cases because they are crucial. We had a series of boys ringing independently from a particular school, all telling us about the same teacher and similar abuse. We were able to get those boys to talk to their parents, to get the parents to come together, and together to take that issue forward, which ended up in a very serious prosecution of that teacher who went to prison. The other situation was that of Crookham Court, a very famous case, where a group of teachers were preying, just as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, described, on a group of children. We intervened in that situation by getting the proprietor out of the school and getting my chair, who happened to be Esther Rantzen, into the school to bring the whole situation into the open. That was again a very famous case when a series of people went to prison for a long time for serial abuse of children in a school.

I believe that those two cases could not happen under these arrangements. We would be prevented from encouraging people to share information that brings serial abusers to court. I do not think that the Government intend that to happen. I do not wish to believe that the Minister and his colleagues would wish that to happen. I do not like speaking at length as it is late and I, too, would like to go home, but the only other point I want to make is that if the Minister had worked for years, as I have, with young people who have to come to court and describe their abuse—the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, made this point—he would know that it is extraordinarily difficult for children and young people to make allegations because they know they have to say it again. Would noble Lords like to have to stand up and tell me about their recent sexual experience? We ask children to talk about extraordinarily painful sexual abuse in court, which they find extremely difficult. That is why I spent nine years of my life working towards children, as witnesses, not having to face the court but being able to give their evidence behind a screen. I am proud of that achievement.

If the Government take it through, we will condemn a large number of children and their parents to terrific pain. I ask the Minister to take it back to his masters and convey the message in the strongest possible terms, otherwise I predict there will be cause to rue the day.

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for terribly long but I would be grateful if I can say a few words as I raised this issue for the first time at Second Reading and then talked with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, about it in Committee. As this is an issue that affects the media, I declare an interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group. On Second Reading, I originally raised three concerns. The first was about the workability of these proposals and whether it was possible to muzzle the printed press and broadcast media in a digital age when gossip at the school gate would simply be transformed into dialogue on social media. The second was about the impact on press freedom and open justice, particularly because of the lack in this legislation of a public interest defence. The third, about which we have heard eloquent testimony this evening, was about the welfare of vulnerable children. Underlying all that was a belief that the case had not been made out for a substantial incursion into freedom of expression. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, spoke earlier of the latest statistics showing that only 2 per cent of cases related to malicious allegations. That is a very small number and in none of those has it been proved that publicity was responsible for that.

Those were my concerns. All that said, I am very grateful to the Government for having taken a number of those issues on board. Amendment 44 goes a considerable way to protecting the rights of children. It gives the courts the opportunity to balance the victim with the perpetrator of the crime. Amendment 49, which relates to individual teachers putting material into the public domain, again goes some way to dealing with the impact on the media and open justice, and I think helps to bring this legislation much more into line with the Human Rights Act 1998, which protects material which is in the public domain. That seems to me to be of especial importance in view of the concern I expressed about the impact of social media on this legislation.

I wish that the Government had been able to go further. Indeed, I wish that this clause had not been in the Bill in the first place. However, these changes seem practical and welcome, and may go some way to ensuring that these provisions will have a much less significant impact on the rights of children and on the free media than when the Bill was originally drafted.

I should add that, as a result of these amendments, and the explanations that the Minister has given today, I see no need for my own part—although it is still a matter for the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—to press Amendment 48 or Amendment 51, and withdraw my name and support from those.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am aware of that, and we have discussed that point before. I know that is the case, and I defer to my noble friend who is a very distinguished lawyer, who I think used to do libel. To expect a teacher who finds himself the subject of a malicious campaign to take a libel case on his own account, financially, emotionally or in any other way, is not a practical course of action.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

In making that comment, does the Minister feel that a teacher cannot take that action but that a parent, with all the distress that they are feeling about their child having accused a teacher of abuse, can go to a judicial review with all that means without the support of other parents? That is simply not the real world. Does the Minister not agree that there is some imbalance in the two things that he has just described?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I did not say that a parent who has concerns would have to go to judicial review. I am arguing that for a parent who has those concerns— I agree 100 per cent with the noble Baroness that a parent would want to have them investigated and taken forward—there are a number of ways, whether through the police, the local authority, the LADO, and so on, to make sure that those concerns are investigated. I am not at all saying that if they have concerns I would expect them to have to go to judicial review.

We are absolutely clear that genuine victims of abuse must be able to disclose the abuse and that such reports must be investigated properly. These provisions do not interfere with that. They do not prevent the police interviewing witnesses. We think that effective investigations are possible without press reporting. The police can seek to lift the reporting restrictions if necessary to draw attention to an issue if they are seeking more information about a particular person.

The other amendment proposed by my noble friend would mean that reporting restrictions would lift when a person who is the subject of an allegation resigned or was dismissed from the relevant employment. He is concerned that without this amendment, Clause 13 may help schools cover up misconduct and argues that press reporting is an important check on such behaviour.

One difficulty with the amendment is that its implications would go well beyond this issue; for example, it would mean that any teacher who resigned to take up a post at another school would lose their protection against the reporting of allegations, even if the allegation was unfounded and had no influence on the teacher’s decision to resign. We are committed to ensuring that genuine allegations of abuse are investigated properly by the appropriate authorities. Schools have a statutory duty to investigate allegations and, where appropriate, to refer them to the relevant authority. Our new statutory guidance on this subject makes absolutely clear that if a person tenders his or her resignation or ceases to provide their services, that must not prevent an allegation being investigated. If it is well founded, the investigation will lead to the police bringing a charge or to the regulator holding a hearing. At that point, the reporting restrictions will lift. If there is insufficient evidence to reach this point, we think it is right that the teacher’s anonymity is protected and their reputation and career safeguarded.

I accept that a small minority of heads may in theory seek to cover up allegations or may not be as swift in acting on them as we would wish. However, I do not think that press reporting is the best or the only way to counter this possibility. If parents or others are not satisfied that schools are dealing with an allegation, they have recourse other than through the press: they can refer the case to the national regulator; they can ask the Secretary of State to investigate and exercise his powers of direction; they can go directly to the police if they consider a criminal offence may have been committed. In addition, if any person feels that there is a strong public interest in publishing details of identifying information about a teacher against whom allegations of criminal behaviour have been made, they can apply to the local magistrates for reporting restrictions to be lifted.

I will quickly reply to a couple of less contentious points. My noble friend Lord Phillips asked about government Amendment 42. In order to cover ambiguous allegations that someone might be guilty of an offence where, for example, a pupil claims, “I think it was teacher X who did it”, we have changed the definition from,

“an allegation that the person is guilty of a relevant criminal offence”,

to “may be” guilty of an offence.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley was worried that Clause 13 might unintentionally hinder Ofsted from including information in its reports that it would otherwise want to include. I recognise her concerns about that. In cases where a school is found to be failing to implement arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children appropriately, we expect inspectors to include judgments or commentary about such failings in published reports. In light of her concerns, my officials contacted Ofsted today to ask whether it thinks there is a risk that Clause 13 might constrain inspectors in making their reports. Ofsted said that inspectors would not feel constrained in reporting on a safeguarding issue. As a matter of general policy, they always take care in writing reports to ensure that no individuals can be identified. Of course, if the inspectors uncover safeguarding concerns during an inspection they can and should provide full detail, including the identities of those concerned to the appropriate authorities and the reporting restrictions would not interfere with that in any way.

Those were the less contentious ones. I understand the strength of the feeling of my noble friend Lord Phillips, and the passion with which he has argued this evening. I have been able to agree with him on two of the improvements to the clause that he has proposed. I know he will not agree with me but I think there are difficulties with the two further ones he has put forward—that they would weaken the protection that we are seeking to give to teachers—and I ask him to withdraw his amendments.