Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the amendment that stands in my name refers to further education colleges. I am afraid that it is an inadequate amendment because it refers to FE colleges and to children. The principles that I will talk about refer equally to sixth-form colleges, which are a separate category, and to vulnerable adults. The principles are exactly the same there.

I thank the Minister for the careful consideration that he has given to the issues that my noble friend Lady Walmsley and I have raised with him. I also thank him for his very helpful letter. I am grateful that he has agreed to a further meeting before Third Reading. My noble friend has already quoted extensively from that letter.

When I met the Minister, I used two examples of people who would not be in a position of supervision, but who would be in a position to build up a relationship of trust, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has just mentioned. One would be a learning assistant. Such assistants are in constant contact, but they are virtually never in a position of supervision. It was pointed out to me by the Minister that if they were dealing in any way with care for young people and vulnerable students, they would be subject to vetting and barring. But not all are in that position by any means.

My second example was used extensively last week in debate here in the Chamber—that of IT assistants. Noble Lords need to understand how teaching and learning take place in a modern further education college. I spent 23 years teaching in further education. It is not a simple, classical situation. A great deal of learning takes place, for example, in a learning resources centre, where there might be between 50 and 100 computers. There would be a supervisor—who would be the librarian or the learning resources administrator—but there would be an IT technician there to help. I can assure noble Lords that young people aged 14 to 16 develop a close relationship with IT technicians and regard them very highly indeed. It is that kind of position that could be exploited. Young people do not understand who is in charge—they relate to the people who are friendly with them, have a lot of contact with them and help them. They could not care less who is the boss in the set-up. We have to be very clear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, mentioned just now, that makes the situation very complex when we are dealing with this kind of problem.