Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Education Bill
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Lord Lexden
Thank you very much indeed, my Lords. Spare a kindly thought, if you will, for your comparatively new colleague who is speaking to his first amendment to legislation since he had the honour of joining your Lordships' House. This would have been my second amendment, if the nervous novice had not incompetently passed up the chance to move Amendment 65 at the end of proceedings on Monday, when we were caught up in a fascinating session on the GTC. Perhaps I may just mention that Amendment 65 was designed to tighten further the procedures for reporting serious misconduct and I hope that my noble friend will, in his usual benign fashion, be able to write to me about it.
I will turn, still as the nervous novice, to Amendment 73. The aim here is to explore the possibility of adding to the Bill a reference to partnership between maintained schools and independent schools. As before, I speak as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council. For generations, the best independent schools have reached out to maintained schools and their wider communities. The Independent Schools Council conducts detailed audits of these partnership activities. Nine out of every 10 ISC schools are involved in them. Sport, music and drama are the most widespread partnership activities.
Since the Second World War, the state has taken different approaches to the issue of partnership and the wider involvement of the independent sector in our education system. The Fleming scheme and then the assisted places scheme enabled talented children from less well-off families to attend independent schools. These are long gone and will not be repeated, but ambitious new schemes of partnership are in prospect. They include the participation of independent schools in the most important educational reform of our time—the academy movement, which features in a later amendment and in the new system of teaching schools.
Many independent schools have already applied for permission to become teaching schools. If they are successful, an increased percentage of the teaching workforce will get an opportunity to train in the independent sector. If this becomes the case, it is even more important that the sector should be able to take advantage of the opportunities that partnerships can bring and should not be unfairly excluded from the opportunities afforded to teachers in maintained schools. One thinks particularly of continual professional development, to which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made reference.
Whatever may happen in these exciting new areas, great effort should continue to be directed at ensuring the success of the independent/state school partnerships scheme, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government shortly after they took office in 1997 and made permanent by my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley when she was Secretary of State. Relatively small amounts of public money have brought teachers and pupils together in enthusiastic partnership projects throughout the country. Since its creation, the ISSP programme has funded no fewer than 346 projects and allocated just short of £15 million—not a large sum but one that produces considerable benefits. The average value of a grant has been around £43,000. The largest single grant, of just over £500,000, was to a consortium of 18 London schools to enable them to offer gifted and talented provision in mathematics, science and modern languages over a number of years. I will not go into further detail; the Government produce full reports on the outcomes of partnership schemes. The current round includes 24 excellent projects.
It is against this successful background that I bring forward the amendment. Much has been achieved and it may be appropriate, in order to safeguard the partnership in future, to put it on a statutory basis.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I will not detain the Committee. I just wanted, in principle, to support the spirit behind these amendments. We have all talked about the quality of teaching being paramount and about ensuring that this goes beyond initial teacher training and involves continued access to good-quality continual professional development.
I particularly wanted to ask the Minister if he could refer in his reply to Amendment 66(1)(b), which makes reference to minimum qualifications in child development and behaviour. I declare an interest because I used to teach such subjects to postgraduate social work and probation students many years ago. More recently my son did a postgraduate certificate in education and is now, I am very pleased to say, a primary school teacher. I was shocked at the very small amount of time spent on child development and behaviour in his training. I know that it is a question of fitting a lot into a relatively small space of time—a year—but the lack of focus on cognitive development and language development in particular was astonishing. Has the Minister any plans to look at initial teacher training and at the focus, or lack of it, on child development? Will each higher education establishment decide that for itself in terms of the national curriculum, or will there be national guidelines to determine that at least a minimum amount of time should be spent on this important subject?
Lord Knight of Weymouth
I do not want to delay the Committee, but this is really important. There is no requirement on academies. I can understand there being no requirement on academies if the number of academies is small, but if, as it would appear, we are starting to move towards a vision of every secondary school being an academy, how can we ever be sure that we have enough induction places for the workforce that we need to keep continuing to recruit?
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
As I understand this—I may be wrong—teachers’ training is not fully validated until they have successfully completed an induction period. If the choice of whether there is an induction period rests with the school or academy and is not a right for the teacher, there may be a large number of people going into those situations whose training is never finally completed and validated if they have not done a satisfactory induction period.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, we seem to have hit an area where it would be helpful if we take this away, look at the detail of the arrangements and write to members of the Committee. The position at the moment appears to lack some clarity. We will write.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Clause 13 introduces into law restrictions on the reporting of alleged offences by a teacher in a school up to the point at which that teacher is charged, if they are charged, and covers matters concerning the possible breach of those reporting restrictions and possible defences of those breaches. Noble Lords will know that this has long been an issue and that teachers organisations, and head teachers organisations, to some extent, have talked about it. In fact, the previous Government responded positively to the evidence put before them but decided not to legislate. Instead, they revised the guidance issued to the Association of Chief Police Officers advising police forces not to release the identity of individuals to the media prior to formal charges being brought. The Labour Government also brought in procedures to speed up the processes of investigation because that is another important issue.
I think the general view is that those two measures have had a significant impact and that the problem of reporting of—often very pernicious—allegations about teachers and people in schools has significantly gone away. However, the Government have decided to legislate and, because we are generally sympathetic to the arguments put forward, we do not oppose the legislation. What we are concerned about is that, having decided to legislate, which is a very important step because it is curtailing the freedom of the press by statute, the Government have decided to do so for teachers only. If you are going to legislate on such an important matter rather than go down the route that we have already gone down, which has had a great impact on the behaviour of the media through self-regulation, we have to be very clear about the principles on which you are legislating, about the evidence that is the basis for that legislation and, therefore, on where you draw the line. Those are the key issues that the Government have to speak to us about today to justify why they think the legislation is appropriate for teachers and for teachers only.
I think we all accept that if people are working with children, particularly in a situation such as a school where it is very concentrated and there are large numbers of children, they can suffer extreme difficulties from unproven allegations, even if no charges are eventually laid because it affects the way they do their job, it generates mistrust from parents and people are often assumed to be guilty, even if the police decide there is no substance to the allegations and charges are not brought. We have stories from the past of longer term difficulties when people’s employability has been adversely affected by these kinds of allegations.
We are also aware that it is not just teachers who are in situations where those kinds of allegations can be made. Changes in schools, particularly over the past 10 years or so, have made this very significant. There is a wide range of people now in schools who are doing very similar things to teachers in so far as they are in close contact with children and are often dealing with very challenging children with special educational needs or behavioural difficulties. It is not only teachers who are supervising children. For example, support staff supervise children in non-classroom situations in the school, in the playground, after school and in after-school clubs. It will not necessarily be teachers in those situations. Clearly, those same arguments apply in sixth-form colleges and further education colleges. In a previous day in Committee, I think that we heard the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, advise us when we were discussing searches that it would probably be security staff in colleges who would undertake searches, not the qualified further education lecturers. The reach of this provision is therefore very restricted.
Also, as I understand from reading it, the provision would not include—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—people who are teachers but who are providing supply cover, or who are on a temporary contract, or who are teaching in an off-site situation. As it stands, in its very limited reach this proposal does not relate to the real world in schools at the moment or to the wide range of people who are dealing in very close contact with children. In the other place, the justification which the Minister there gave for the limited reach of the Government’s proposal was that they had evidence of the impact on teachers but not to support the application of the legislation to school support staff, or to teachers in sixth-form or FE colleges. In fact, UNISON has carried out its own survey using the same question that the Association of Teachers and Lecturers used, which has provided some of the evidence to support a case for teachers.
The results of that survey showed that nearly half of all the respondents had experience of support staff in schools facing allegations from pupils, 33 per cent of which resulted in an investigation. Twenty per cent of those accused were suspended and 15 per cent were reported to the police, so there seems to be a substantial body of evidence to suggest that these are also issues for significant numbers of school staff. Similarly, in relation to lecturers and other staff at FE colleges, the Association of School and College Leaders has also provided a wealth of evidence and case studies, some of which were rehearsed in some detail in Committee in the other place. I will not detain this Committee now with those examples, as they can be read in the Hansard report from that Committee, but there is evidence of lecturers in sixth-form and FE colleges experiencing the same kind of problem.
My Amendments 73E to 73H, 73J and 73K would therefore simply extend the Government's proposals on reporting restrictions on allegations, which cover the period up to the point only of the person’s being charged, to non-teaching school staff and to lecturers in sixth-form and further education colleges. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has some amendments in this group as well and I look forward to hearing her arguments. I think she is supporting the extension to sixth form and FE lecturers with her Amendment 75, but in her Amendment 75A she is proposing “Wait and see—let's look again in two years” about school support staff.
I simply conclude with the points that I made right at the beginning: if we are going down this road of applying legislation to restrict the reporting in the media of certain allegations, it has to be on the basis of principle and of evidence. In that regard, I cannot see that the case can be made only for teachers. The Government have got themselves potentially in a difficult position, because I could of course go further. I could talk about people working in residential care and in children's homes, or about people working in a whole variety of situations—in young offender institutions, for example. To be quite honest, that is the problem that the Government have created for themselves here. Understandably, once you start to use legislation, other groups will say, “We are in the same situation so this should apply to us too”.
This is an education Bill and, for the moment, I shall not use those arguments to that extent. I feel that there is no justification for limiting these provisions to teachers only and, as regards education, these other groups of staff ought to be covered by the same protections. I beg to move Amendment 73E.
Lord Black of Brentwood
This is not the best day for British journalism, I fear, so I almost hesitate to declare an interest as a director of the Telegraph Media Group and chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance. I spoke on these matters at Second Reading, expressing my concern that Clause 13 is unworkable, unnecessary, has huge, significant ramifications for open justice, sets a damaging precedent and, above all, is based on scant evidence. I am very glad that the noble Baroness raised the issue of evidence because it is very important to this clause.
Of course, it is appalling if anyone, not just a teacher, is falsely accused of a crime, but the transparent pursuit of justice is vital too, as it is part of the constitutional compact between the courts, the media and the public. Justice can be effective only if it is seen to be done, and that is why the media is always opposed to reporting restrictions, except in the most pressing circumstances and where there is overwhelming evidence of need. I fear that my interpretation of the research and data in this area is that that evidence is incredibly thin.
On Monday, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, about the evidence-based approach to policy. He said,
“Creating policy involves learning lessons from the past and gathering evidence from the present”.—[Official Report, 4/7/11; col. GC 52.]
I could not agree more. The best evidence that we have is from the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ submission to the 2009 Select Committee inquiry into allegations against school staff, which concluded after careful analysis that there was no case for teacher anonymity. Subsequently, I have checked with some other bodies that might know about it.
It is important that the Committee looks at the issue of evidence. I have talked to the Press Complaints Commission, which has other issues on its mind at the moment, but it looked at the cases it had dealt with over the past four years and could find only two relating to teacher anonymity where there may have been a breach of the industry’s code. The secretary of the code committee of the Press Complaints Commission confirmed to me that there had been no representations from teachers' organisations to the code committee to deal with this issue. I talked to Mr Tony Jaffa of Foot Anstey, one of the leading solicitors in the country dealing with local media, who wrote to me to say that:
“My colleagues and I do not have any recollection of any regional paper ever having received a complaint from a teacher in this context … We have no evidence to support the proposed change … If this were a real problem I would expect to have seen post-publication complaints, PCC complaints, and/or libel claims. We have not seen any of these”.
The noble Baroness referred to a UNISON survey, which was very similar to the results of the survey conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which points to a high number of allegations that have been made against staff. Among that huge potential number, the number of actual press reports is tiny. This clause is all about restrictions on the media, so we have to look at the number of press reports that follow, not at the number of allegations made within schools and further education institutions. If there is precious little evidence of a problem relating to schools, I can find even less rationale for extending this to further education institutions and to other staff as a number of these amendments seek to do. I certainly cannot find any in the 2009 Select Committee inquiry.
The other point of great concern to me is precedent. At Second Reading, I warned that Clause 13 was,
“the thin end of a wedge that will lead inexorably to much wider reporting restrictions”,—[Official Report, 14/6/11; col. 734.]
that would have a profound impact on the local media in particular. If we extend the terms of Clause 13 beyond teachers to other members of staff and to further education institutions, as Amendment 73 and subsequent amendments seek to do, as the noble Baroness has said, why stop there? How do the Government explain where the dividing line is, especially when they have already said, as they did in the schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, that they would,
“consider whether these measures should also be applied to the wider children's workforce”?
In 2009, a survey among local authorities found that allegations—I make the point that it is allegations and not media reports—were an issue across a number of employment sectors involving children, including social care, health care, foster carers and the police. That already brings another significant potential group of people within this ever-expanding set of potential reporting restrictions. As the noble Baroness said, there are other careers where individuals are sometimes alone with children. If we accept the extensions to Clause 13, what is the logic in excluding them? The list could include hotel staff, babysitters, dentists, vicars, scout masters and museum staff. I do not know where it would end.
We can already see it happening in other areas, which is why this clause and this debate are so important. The General Medical Council has suggested that open hearings should be replaced by private discussion between the GMC and a doctor intended to reach mutual agreement on,
“the measures necessary to protect the public without the need to refer the case to a public hearing”.
That would apply even in the most serious cases—possibly involving children—that end up in the suspension or removal of the doctor from the register.
It is not fanciful to see that unless we draw a strict line here, we will end up with a wide range of reporting restrictions fundamentally affecting the rights of children that, in effect, usher in a new age of secrecy and cover-up where crimes against children are concerned. As the noble Baroness has said, we interfere with media freedoms in this area at our peril, not because of their impact on the media but because of the impact on the justice system. That is why the groups of people covered by this legislation should not be extended but should be kept as tight as possible.
Finally, I know that my noble friend will speak to Amendment 75A, which is on a mandatory review of reporting restrictions. I am all in favour of a review of the efficacy of the legislation eventually passed in this area because I genuinely believe that it will prove to be unworkable, particularly with regard to issues to which we will turn in the next group. A review must be even-handed and must take evidence from all those involved; that is, the media, children’s charities, the police and so on. As I read it, the amendment seeks to direct such a review even before there is any evidence, which cannot be right. By all means, let us look at this again if this legislation reaches the statute book. I think that it will prove to be essential, but it needs to be a proper and independent review.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
The noble Lord seems to be arguing against any reporting restrictions. Is he arguing against the inclusion of Clause 13 or for the Government’s case that this should be restricted to teachers? If so, given the nature of his arguments, how would he justify this for teachers and for teachers only?
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. The weightiness of the contributions, whatever conclusion each noble Lord has come to, has exposed the dilemmas posed by the Government’s proposal. It will be difficult for the Government to hold the line.
I say with great respect to the Minister that he did not say anything about why the reporting restrictions should not also apply to school support staff, teachers in sixth forms and further education colleges and, as we have discussed, to a whole range of other people, some of whom work much more closely and in much more intimate situations with some very challenging young people than do teachers. As far as I understood the Minister, he gave two reasons for restricting the provision initially to teachers and targeting the provision on them.
First, the Minister argued that teachers had a lead role in discipline and that that placed them in a special situation. However, noble Lords have exposed the weakness of that argument. If a member of the school support staff can be in sole charge of a class for two days, they are going to have to apply discipline. Similarly, people in other situations who often deal with challenging youngsters will have to apply discipline. School support staff in the playground have to apply discipline, so I am not at all sure that it is right to justify this targeting by drawing a distinction between teachers and members of other professional groups inside and outside schools.
Secondly, the Minister acknowledged the dilemmas posed by the provision but argued that it should be focused narrowly and evaluated for three or five years to see whether it needed to be applied to other groups. The previous Government provided guidance to the Association of Chief Police Officers on what information they should release to regional newspapers and on measures to speed up the investigation process, as I and my noble friend Lord Knight mentioned. We have heard no evidence from the Government on the effectiveness of those measures or how they could be strengthened as an alternative to this legislation with all its problems.
The impact on people caught up in these situations is the same irrespective of whether they are school support staff or work in sixth forms or in FE. That is why the Government are introducing this measure in relation to teachers. I perfectly understand that the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Jolly, are trying to find a compromise but you can reasonably argue that school support staff are much more likely than many teachers to live very close to an education establishment and are much more likely to be known by a very large number of people beyond the parents whose children go to the school. Therefore, the reporting of allegations which are later proven to be unfounded is likely to have a much more serious impact on them because it will be picked up by the local free paper and everybody will know about that—friends, relations, everybody. That has to be considered.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, argued compellingly that the legislation will be unworkable as restrictions on the reporting of a case will apply to some members of staff but not to others even though the allegations may concern a similar incident. That could also apply to a school nurse running a clinic with a teacher present.
I argued before that when we pass legislation we ought to consider the evidence of the need for it, how it should apply and the principle. The principle that I referred to was that there should be parity before the law, which ought to apply equally to people faced with different situations. Clearly that will not be the case here. In so far as the Government have given us evidence, as far as I can see it is the same quality of evidence that we have in relation to teachers from the teaching unions as we have in relation to support staff and FE lecturers. We do not have a different quality or quantity of evidence supporting the case for targeting teachers.
I hesitate to say this because I do not want to appear divisive, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is another populist proposal from the Secretary of State that is ill considered, unfair and will have serious implications for many individuals. The excellent debate today has exposed that. I concur with my noble friend Lord Knight and others; if we are to legislate to protect people in schools, we ought to do it properly. We have had an excellent debate. I have no doubt that we will return to this matter and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, when I spoke a little earlier, I was trying to say that I was sad that the two groupings had not been moulded together because it was very important to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, had to say before the Minister has the duty to reply. He now has that advantage but I was also impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said previously about his own experience of looking at a similar approach to that which the Government are thinking about. In the end, for a number of reasons, they did not go down that path.
We have heard today of the disadvantage that it would be to some groups, if not to others, to say nothing of this sort of behaviour spreading around the country without anyone knowing what would happen if allegations are true and proved. I am afraid that we have had too many instances in the past of things coming to light much later on. We also know the damage that has been done to so many young people as they grow up. I very much look forward to what the Minister has to say because I hope that Members, obviously not just in this House but in the other House, will read carefully what has been said during this debate because it should have considerable influence, along with what the Minister will say to his colleagues in the other place.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
First, my Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for giving me an annotated photocopy last week of his proposals because it enabled me to work my way through them and really think about them. Having done so, if we are to have legislation of this form then the amendments that he has put forward and the powerful arguments he has made from his own experience are compelling. However, I want to draw the Minister's attention to Amendment 73HB, which would delete that phrase in subsection (5) where the court, in thinking about “dispensing with the restrictions”, can have,
“regard to the welfare of the person who is the subject of the allegation”.
That was picked up by a number of Members here. In our debate on the previous group, we were concerned that the Government were considering teachers, and only teachers, and not other professional groups. For this phrase to be included in the legislation is so illuminating. It speaks volumes to me of the mindset with which the Government have approached this issue. Again, we see the Government thinking of only the teacher vis-à-vis, in this situation, the child. That is so disturbing and demonstrates their tunnel vision approach to this whole issue. I hope that they will take this whole matter away and think again.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I know that my noble friend Lord Phillips is always helpful, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, because I benefited from his advice when I stumbled into this House last year on the Academies Bill. I was grateful for his help and advice on that, as I am sure I will be on this Bill. I know that my noble friend is always helpful.
The final point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, implied that the Government care less about children than they do about teachers. She did not put it in those words but there was that sense in the way in which she described the mindset of wanting to think about teachers before thinking about children. I am sure that the noble Baroness accepts that in a whole range of other ways the Government are demonstrating their commitment to thinking about children. But we certainly want to make sure that the interests of teachers are taken fully into account and that, in making sure that absolutely the right balance is struck between the interests of the children and the interests of the teachers, the interests of the teachers weigh properly in the balance. That lies behind a whole range of measures we are taking where the Government feel that there are ways that one can demonstrate that support to teachers.
This group of amendments and our very good debate have echoes of the previous debate. My noble friend Lady Walmsley rightly makes the point about trying to strike a balance. We have tried to draft Clause 13 so that there is clarity about when reporting restrictions commence and when they are lifted. We are keen to try to keep that. The provisions are about protecting teachers, but I understand that there may be cases where there should be balance with other matters in the public interest and the courts will be required to strike that balance when considering dispensing with these restrictions.
We have had a fair discussion about Amendment 73HB and the suggestion that under the clause as drafted it looks as though the teacher’s welfare is represented as the overriding consideration. It is true that the provision requires the court explicitly to have regard to the likely effect of publication on the teacher. The interests of other parties will also be taken into consideration by the court when considering what is in the interests of justice. But I take the point made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Hughes, my noble friend Lord Phillips and others. I will try to rattle through some responses to some of his amendments because I hope that we can allay some of his concerns. But, clearly, with a couple of them, I should like to sit down with him and make sure that we have got the balance right in the drafting to make sure that we do not inadvertently open up some of the concerns that he raises.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
With great respect to the noble Baroness, I cannot agree. Perhaps that is because I am a hoary old lawyer and she, happily, is not. A 15 per cent conviction rate in respect of all the allegations made is a very high outcome. I will happily discuss this with the noble Baroness outside the Room. The ATL figures seem to me to be hopeless as a basis for bringing in this important reform.
The JCHR seems to be lacking in awareness of the balance of injustice and harm between pupils, particularly young ones, and their teachers when it comes to criminal allegations. We are in danger—and in the other place they are even more in danger—of expecting too much of the law. It is not the finely tuned truth machine that ideally we would like it to be. It never can be, given the machinations of mankind, despite the best efforts of our excellent judiciary. We do not talk about rough justice for nothing. That is why in criminal law we have a test of proof beyond reasonable doubt, rather than the lesser, civil test which is based on a balance of probabilities. The bias towards the accused is necessary to protect the innocent from conviction, which we as a society believe is much more important than convicting every guilty person.
We are not talking here about conviction or acquittal but about the freedom of the press to report, within the bounds of defamation, where criminal allegations are made, pre-charge, against teachers. We have to balance their vulnerability to unfair reporting against the undue sheltering of teachers, the interests of actual and potential victims and the interests of the public.
I turn finally and briefly to paragraph 112 of the June report of the JCHR, which states that,
“defamation proceedings offer no protection”,
to a teacher,
“where a report states that an allegation has been made”,
provided that it,
“does not assert that the allegation is true”.
The noble Lord, Lord Hill, referred to this in his earlier reply.
As one who has done a considerable amount of defamation work and overcome that defence put up by newspapers, I can only think that the committee is wrong when it says that libel proceedings offer no protection. The Reynolds case in 2001 and the Jameel case six years later prevent newspapers sheltering behind the defence of qualified privilege—or reportage, as it is called, in relation to a matter of public interest unless they comply with sensible tests. In the Jameel case, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, said that newspapers would not have a defence unless the report was responsible, fair, on a matter of public interest and in compliance with certain other tests, which would include the obligation to evaluate fairly and sensibly the basis of an allegation. They cannot simply recycle a verbal report of an allegation or something given to them by letter without checking. They have also to check with the person aggrieved, the teacher. They have to give the gist of both sides of the story and, importantly, they have to look at the whole tenor and pitch of the article. I hope that that is enough to show that teachers who are the subject of sensational, biased, unfair reports pre-charge have protection. One or more of the unions might make it their business to pick up a couple of test cases, which they could take and use to make their point. Believe me, that would reverberate around Fleet Street very quickly, as my noble friend Lord Black will confirm.
Teachers might also take up the invitation of the Press Complaints Commission—again the noble Lord, Lord Hill, referred to this—to report grievances in relation to pre-publication publicity. He rightly said that there had been none. But, as the JCHR report says, the notion that no complaints are made because it is a useless thing to do is simply not right. First, it costs nothing to make a report to the Press Complaints Commission. Secondly, it has very real powers over its newspaper members. It can and does make them publish retractions and apologies. So I do not agree with what it and my noble friend have asserted.
To summarise, I sincerely believe that the case for this most important of limitations on press freedom, albeit put forward with sincere concern for a most highly valued section of our community, is unsafe. Surely, the onus is on those who would restrict press freedom, especially to a single group and in a way never ventured before, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such a change is unarguably essential. But, as I have endeavoured to show, the Government’s lack of direct relevant evidence as to the present extent of pre-charge publicity affecting teachers is all but total. It is that publicity, and that alone, which Clause 13 addresses. Not only is the need for the clause wholly unproven but it could and will unfairly disadvantage pupils and, in the worst cases, prevent teacher abuse ever seeing the light of day if a charge for whatever reason, and there are many, is never brought or if a school fails to bring disciplinary procedures against a teacher, and there are many reasons why that might be the case. Nor will truth be a defence, as I have indicated. For those main reasons, I propose that Clause 13 should not stand part of this Bill.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I did not think that there would be anything for me to say on the clause stand part debate but I want to make one broad comment. When I opened the consideration of the first group of amendments, I introduced the criterion that one of the bases on which we should make a judgment about this matter is the basis of the evidence. In summing up that debate, I pointed out that the Government have not produced what the Minister said was important; namely, an evaluation of the impact of the current measures on reporting of pre-charge allegations against teachers. The whole Committee has to be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who has researched this and has produced some figures today, which look remarkably small in terms of the incidence of pre-charge reporting of allegations against teachers.
Today, I will go no further than to say to the Minister that, at the very least, he has to come back to every Member of the Committee before Report with as definitive information and statistics as he can gather on the current incidence of the reporting of cases against teachers before charges are made and some evaluation of the quality of that evidence. One point that I should make to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is that I think that his figures are very compelling. I cannot make a judgment today on whether they are the total number of cases or not. It may not be possible to get that information, but the Committee, in deliberating further on Report, must have the best information that the Government can put forward on that matter and an evaluation of how robust that information is so that we can make a judgment.