Education Bill

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, Barnado’s deals with a lot of children who have been groomed for sexual acts. If a child who had gone through that kind of procedure were searched at school, it would have a devastating effect on them. I remember once launching one of our projects for Barnardo’s—I declare an interest as one of the vice-presidents. I put my arm around a young girl because I always like hugging people, but when I did that she flinched like an animal. I wondered why and the counsellor told me that she had been groomed since she was a 10 year-old child. She was now 15 and people showing her any type of affection had a devastating effect on her. Imagine what that girl would go through if she had to be searched at school. I fully support my noble friend Lady Walmsley’s amendment. This is something that should be carefully thought through before we put it into the Bill.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, we are in difficult and delicate territory. We accepted that when we discussed related points on Tuesday. However, there is a need to lean in the other direction and expose the argument. My focus is particularly on the question of having another witness available. I realise and accept that being searched by someone of a different sex is a more complex matter, and maybe we need to differentiate these two.

I make the point about whether another witness is necessary by quoting what my noble friend Lady Perry said on Tuesday. “There are crisis incidents” she said, and:

“At that point, a teacher has to take action”.—[Official Report, 28/6/11; col. GC 230.]

I am concerned about the parent who discovers that their child has been injured at school when perhaps an intervention would have made a difference.

This is a difficult point to make, but the issue in principle that we touched on and now face full on today is whether the legislation should preclude the possibility of a teacher exercising judgment. We all have the respect for teachers that we properly should have and we have insisted on the need for professional training and back-up. That is why the training has to be school-wide, not just for a specialist teacher who does this kind of thing. However, can we not leave room in the legislation for crisis incidents and for the exercise of good professional judgment by a teacher in a situation in which we hope none will be tested?

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I want to argue against the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. One of the benefits of having someone else to act as a witness to a search is that there is a cooling-off period in a crisis when things could calm down; immediate intervention might well escalate the crisis.

My second point, which has not been made so far on this group of amendments, is that there has rightly been much concern about opposite-sex searching. Frankly, there are also issues about same-sex searching because, sadly, there are allegations against staff of homosexual acts, and there might be some incidents, again sadly, of same-sex abuse. I know that is very rare, but that is why we need to have a witness. You can then start to ensure that, first, the situation is de-escalated if it is rising rapidly, and, secondly, with a witness you can balance that with the safeguard of both the child and the member of staff.

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[Baroness Walmsley]

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has stimulated me to emphasise the questions that I would like my noble friend the Minister to answer. I was saving them for my withdrawal speech, but it might be helpful to my noble friend if I emphasised them now. I really would like to know what sort of crisis we are talking about, because nobody has yet described to me the sort of crisis that would make it impossible for a teacher to send a child to fetch a senior member of staff or a member of staff of the correct gender.

Furthermore, what evidence is there that it is necessary to allow searches of a pupil alone, by a teacher of any gender? Like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I have not heard an outcry from the teaching profession telling us that the checks and balances in the current legislation need to be withdrawn to allow them the freedom to deal with the situations that they are being faced with. I am hearing it from some head teachers, though not all, but I am certainly not hearing it from teachers themselves. As I said at Second Reading, there is this disparity of opinion within the profession itself, which makes it very difficult for us as legislators and non-teachers—most of us are non-teachers—to legislate on what is right. Perhaps my noble friend can give us some evidence of the need to remove these checks and balances and a clear description of the sort of crises that we are talking about. Are we talking about a child with a grenade in his pocket and his finger on the pin? That I would describe as a crisis—but I have never heard of it occurring. But a child with a knife or a gun in his pocket and not with his hand on it and not wielding it is a situation that would allow you to send for somebody else. If a child has it in his hand, it is on view and you do not need to search for it. You have a common law right to remove it. But if you have to search for it, you have time.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, the question of evidence is close to my heart, having chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee. I absolutely agree that we should achieve an evidence-based policy. Seldom do we do so, but we ought to.

My question is simply this. If there is no evidence that this is needed, is there evidence that training is needed, in the many other provisions of the Bill? We are all very strong on the importance of training. I am just concerned about having blanket legislation that could rule out the unforeseeable—and I think we have accepted that just occasionally some teachers have experienced that.

[The Earl of Listowel]

In response to the noble Baroness’s remarks, I gave the example of a head teacher of an EBD school, who described a school trip to the seaside when the boy picked up a piece of glass. The teacher thought, “This boy is rather dangerous and it is dangerous for him to have that glass in his pocket—the best thing to do is to quickly check his pocket and get rid of it”. That may be an exceptional circumstance, but I can imagine that in working with those particular groups that might be when those exceptional circumstances came into play.

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[Baroness Whitaker]

By adding my name to the amendment in this group, which was moved and spoken to with such authority and experience by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I want to draw attention to a particular group of children where the role of local authorities and others in areas conducive to education—family issues, justice, mobile families—knowledge of the social services is crucial. If there are problems here, children may be disrupted and may drop out of school. Gypsy and Traveller children are particularly vulnerable to the combinations of circumstances that lead them to drop out. Their drop-out rate is far higher than any other group—very, very much higher. School alone cannot easily know all the factors behind this.

So if you want to give these children a better chance, a fair chance, and a chance that is comparable with that of other children, schools need to co-operate with local authorities over well-being. It must be done without exception and it must be a statutory obligation. Of course, it applies particularly in the harshest measure—exclusion.

The Minister referred in his closing speech at Second Reading to local authority children’s services. He said that they had,

“a critical role in the early years”.—[Official Report, 14/6/11; col. 773.]

Why stop at the early years? The need is just as great in later years. The Government’s White Paper on teaching says that local authorities have a role as “champions” of vulnerable pupils. Local authorities cannot exercise this role if schools choose not to co-operate with them. I support the amendments.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I am happy to find myself in my more natural position of supporting amendments rather than throwing four anchors astern. I pay tribute to the eloquence and passion of my noble friend Lord Laming and the experience on which that has been built. At Second Reading, I asked a specific question, which was that if there was a possibility of permanent exclusion—and it is included twice in the relevant clause in this legislation—there had to be a plan B. If any pupil is permanently excluded, there is a major problem that we cannot afford to put out into the wilderness without knowing the direction of travel that society ought to, and will want to, take.

The noble Lord, Lord Laming, has given us one possible solution to this—and I should like to think further about the details of Amendment 100—but there must be a solution, a plan B, and we need to know. If someone is permanently excluded, not simply from school but, as mentioned in Clause 2, from a pupil referral unit, we have a problem. What is plan B?

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, you will see from the Marshalled List that I added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in his intention to oppose the Questions that Clauses 30 and 31 stand part of the Bill. Amendment 100 replaces Clause 30. It may be appropriate if I comment now.

It was, I think, the Children Act 2004 that imposed a duty on the local authority and a number of relevant partners to work together to improve,

“the well-being of children in the authority’s area”

and reduce inequalities. Initially, schools were not included in the list of relevant partners, and I seem to recall my noble friend Lady Sharp and I protesting loudly about that. Perhaps we were influential in getting schools added to the list at a later date. Therefore, it will come as no surprise to your Lordships to hear that I am very unhappy about the proposal to take them out again. Schools are the only service that all children access at some time or another and therefore they are in a better position than most to affect children’s well-being and equality.

I am not one who believes that the job of legislation is to send out a message but I do believe that, if you repeal a piece of legislation, that sends out a message whether you like it or not. We should remember the outcry when the department ditched the phrase “every child matters”. Everyone suddenly believed that every child did not matter to the coalition Government, which I know for a fact to be quite untrue. Therefore, what will be the message that goes out if we repeal the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities? Some will believe that they do not have to do it any more and that would be a disaster, particularly for children who need joined-up services. Joined-up services are exactly what the recent Green Paper on SEN is trying to achieve. It is what all vulnerable children and their families want. Children’s trusts, being unaccountable, may not be the best organisations in whose hands to put the children’s plan, but it is essential that there is one and that schools are involved.

There are many special groups with needs that must wrap around the child and not stand alone, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has just spoken about a very important one. Another group is young carers and I shall use it as my example. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has concerns that, by withdrawing the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities and the duty to have regard to children and young people’s plans, the Bill makes it increasingly difficult for local authorities to deliver against their responsibilities towards vulnerable groups of children such as carers. Services work best for young carers where local authorities retain a strategic role, where they have an overview of all services, including education, and where services and professionals join together around the needs of the young carer and his family. The Carers Strategy 2010 highlights the coalition Government’s commitment to improving support for carers. It advocates a whole-family approach, with services in health, education and social care working together to address the needs when it comes to providing the most effective support. It is also committed to embedding Working Together to Support Young Carers, a model memorandum of understanding between directors for children’s and adult services and health, social care and education. Removing the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities—that is, with all services that matter working together—therefore runs opposite to the Government’s policy on supporting young carers.

We are not just talking about a few children. The 2001 census data show that there are 175,000 young carers aged from five to 18 in the UK, and I do not know how many more there are according to the most recent census. One-fifth are caring for more than 20 hours a week, and 13,000 young carers are caring for more than 50 hours a week. Twenty-seven per cent of young carers of secondary school age are experiencing educational difficulties. Where children are caring for a relative with drug or alcohol problems, the incidence of missed school and educational difficulties rises to 40 per cent. As young carers get older, so their caring roles often increase, and it gets more difficult for them to participate fully in education, as well as to take part in leisure and social opportunities. For them, time off is a thing unknown in many cases.

Therefore, young carers are a good example but there are others, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. Most schools will carry out this duty anyway but it is those that will not do it unless they have a duty to do so that worry me. I think that we need this duty and it should stay on the statute book.