Education and Skills Act 2008

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, if my noble friend had been able to sit in on some of our extremely lengthy deliberations on the Education Bill, particularly as we ground through Committee in the Moses Room, where all those present were extremely resilient in the hours they put into debating it, he would know that a significant part of the current Education Bill has precisely the sort of measure that he would welcome—giving greater authority to teachers to teach. We all know that orderly environments are environments where children are safer, and environments in which children are safer are those where they can learn better. Therefore, I completely accept the need for an orderly environment. What I do not accept is that there is necessarily an either/or between looking after the interests of children and wanting to make sure that they learn in an orderly environment. It is possible to do both.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, at Third Reading the Minister told us that he estimates about 95 per cent of schools have a school council or some form of consultation process for pupils. That means that, despite the guidance he referred to, for pupils at more than 1,000 schools there is no such forum that we know about. Contrary to the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, does the Minister agree that engaging with pupils is not only good practice for the schools, but also encourages responsibility and active citizenship among the pupils? Therefore, in addition to the guidance, what do the Government intend to do to ensure that all schools have some appropriate consultation and active participation mechanisms for students?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

In all these things, one needs to strike a balance between seeking to move in the direction of involving children and being overly prescriptive in the ways one goes about doing it. We think the balance is about right in terms of the degree of guidance that we give and the way that schools are responding. One of the other developments, which will probably not be welcomed by my noble friend Lord Tebbit, is that the Government have said that they are looking at ways of strengthening the role of the office of the Children's Commissioner, and are thereby looking at making sure that children’s rights as set out under the UN convention would be enforced.