Education Bill

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

On that specific point, I do not have those figures in my head and I will try to find them and send them to the noble Earl. In response to my noble friend’s first question, the new arrangements are intended to apply to permanent exclusions. So far as his other points are concerned—again, they are generally not in the Bill—in terms of the way forward with the exclusion trials and with a point that we are trying to take forward and which we will come to later on about improving the quality of alternative provision available, the responsibility for a child in the situation he describes is unchanged and remains with the local authority.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

Can I press the Minister on one point, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Peston, who drew attention to the philosophical difficulty of new subsection (6)? I notice that the review panel will have the discretion to impose a fine for an adjustment in budget but it is not a requirement that the review panel would do so. I am puzzled as to how a review panel is going to decide between one case and another and on what basis. You almost then have the prospect of review panels grading the substance of their requirement that a responsible body review it according to a scale of fines. This strikes me as odd. It is in the subjunctive—that the review panel,

“may, in prescribed circumstances, order an adjustment”—

and I wonder whether the Minister would expand a little more on what the “may” represents.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It is our intention to publish guidance to cover these issues which we will be able to then share with Peers so that they can see how that is proceeding. That will address some of these issues.