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Education and Inspections Bill

If a parent has broken the confidentiality in those circumstances, that should be an offence. The protection that we are trying to provide for teachers is a general protection. The hon. Gentleman is right. The protection of anonymity is enjoyed only by children. Often it is the child versus the teacher. We want as much protection as possible for teachers when they face such allegations. I know that there are arguments against what we are proposing. One argument, which we hear from people who have reputations that we respect for their work with children who are genuine victims of abuse, is that children already find it difficult to make allegations of abuse, that many children suffer in silence, and that the proposal may make it even harder for them in future. The evidence that I quoted earlier shows that that is not the problem. The problem appears to be the very high proportion of allegations against teachers which are not well founded and which do not lead to a charge, let alone a successful conviction, but which cause enormous distress to many teachers, in some cases causing them to leave the teaching profession. It should be possible in some way or other for the Government to put the proposed guidance on to a clear statutory basis. We would like to go wider by, for example, implementing some of the proposals in the Home Affairs Committee fifth report, which recommended the protection of anonymity for defendants in such cases, at least until charges are made. We need clear statutory action, but in pressing for the problem to be tackled, we are speaking on behalf of many people within the teaching profession who find the use of allegations against them an increasing source of concern. Even if our particular drafting today is imperfect, I hope that it is possible for the Minister to indicate that the Government are committed to tackling the problem.