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Education and Inspections Bill

As someone who taught for 23 years, I recognise the importance of this issue, especially in more recent times, to those in the teaching profession. When I left the teaching profession about 10 years ago, it was not such a prevalent concern. For many who are still teaching, however, their worst nightmare is to have an allegation of assault or abuse of a child made against them. That can not only ruin their career but put terrific strain on their family lives. Several teachers with whom I served and several who are constituents have come to me about well publicised cases in Northern Ireland. I want to make three points about this new clause. First, in the absence of anonymity there is an incentive for youngsters to make allegations because they know that those allegations can have an almost immediate impact. I do not think it insignificant that over the past few years the number of allegations against teachers has increased fourfold. That may lead to one of two conclusions. Either the quality of the teaching profession and those who enter it is becoming worse, or youngsters who are now imbued with a knowledge of their rights, and who may want to be spiteful to teachers, are tending to use such allegations as a way of destroying a teacher’s life. I suspect that that is the more likely explanation. Secondly, in an era in which we are extremely sensitive to allegations made by youngsters and newspapers are happy to take up lurid stories, boards of governors and headmasters react immediately to such allegations and, moreover, want to be seen to react. In one case in Northern Ireland, in the wake of a scandal that had been well publicised in the local newspaper following an allegation made against a teacher, the members of the board of governors tripped over themselves to state publicly that they had dealt with the matter by suspending the teacher. The teacher was named in the local press. The governors thought that they were doing the right thing. They believed that they were protecting themselves. ““What a good board of governors we are,”” they said. ““We have taken immediate action, and have told people that we have done so””—which had not happened in the last case that had featured in the paper. The teacher was found not guilty of the serious abuse that had been alleged, and the effect on him and his family was devastating. My third point is this. The Government rightly want to attract the highest calibre of people into the teaching profession. That is one way of raising standards in schools. If such a disincentive is presented to teachers, however, it will be more difficult to attract good candidates. Who wants to put himself in a position in which not only his career but his family life can be ruined as a result of spurious allegations? I think that the new clause is right to propose the granting of anonymity up to the point of conviction, given the low conviction rate. I suspect that that low conviction rate is yet more evidence that when such allegations are made, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are very sensitive about the issue and will therefore give the benefit of the doubt and let the court make the decision. As a result, some cases probably go to court that in other realms would not go to court, and that compounds the problem for the teacher. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) raised two issues. First, he pointed out that on suspension a teacher loses anonymity to an extent. That is true, but at least the new clause does not encourage a board of governors to rush to take away that anonymity. In fact, it charges boards of governors with a duty to protect it. While the new clause may not be perfect and may not protect teachers completely, and while there may be instances in which—as a result of suspension and news on the bush telegraph—a teacher will named, it gives more protection than exists at present. I believe that the Government should accept at least the essence of the proposal. That is the right thing to do if we are to protect teachers from false allegations. It is also the right thing to do if we want to attract high-quality people to what is a very honourable profession.