Education Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, we had a very good debate about this issue in Committee, and, although the hour is late, we have just had another such debate this evening. I recognise the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, made at the beginning: this is not a completely straightforward issue. There are difficult interests to balance. I understand the force of the arguments that have been made about the importance of safeguarding children. I am extremely clear that a huge amount of progress has been made over the years in making children safer in school, thanks to steps taken by the last Government, and no doubt Governments before that. To respond to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, we have no desire to do anything to unwind or undermine any of that. I listened with care to the point she made about Childline. My understanding is that the Bill would not prevent children talking to Childline, and Childline talking to parents. However, I understand the force of what she was saying, and I will check that that is the case. Clearly one would not want a measure inadvertently to have the effect which she raised.

At the heart of this, and the reason why the Government are doing this, is the evidence that has been provided to us on this issue. I think that that evidence is not contested: I know that there is a difference of opinion about the strength of the evidence of the number of cases of pre-charge publicity in the press, but there is an acceptance that we have a problem, that there is a growing number of allegations made against teachers, that teachers are fearful of this trend, and that they are fearful of the effect that it has on their ability to exercise their position of authority in the classroom. We think that they have a particular position—