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Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 223: "Page 69, line 3, after ““pupil”” insert ““or student””" The noble Baroness said: Amendments Nos. 223 to 233 and 235 are all about inserting ““student”” instead of ““pupil”” in Clause 86. That clause is about members of school staff using reasonable force to prevent a pupil committing an offence, but the amendments would extend those powers to further education and sixth-form colleges. It is vitally important that colleges are able to operate in the same legal framework as schools, especially as more 14 to 16 year-olds are spending time in colleges. The recent estimate is that there are somewhere in the region of 120,000 doing so, but I believe that is shortly to go up to something like 400,000. It is not clear whether Clause 86 as it stands includes sixth-formers. If so, we need to remember that there are more 16 to 18 year-olds in full-time study at FE and sixth-form colleges than at schools, so again college staff arguably need the same powers, although one hopes that the sixth-formers are not causing as much trouble as some of those lower down. It is not sustainable for two differing legal frameworks to be operating across the same age range, especially as many of these youngsters will be spending more time in institutions from both the school and college sectors. There is a very recent precedent, which the Minister may choose to follow. The Violent Crime Reduction Bill currently before the House of Lords introduced a power for school staff to search their pupils for offensive weapons, but omitted colleges. My friend Lynne Featherstone in the other place persuaded the Government, through amendments tabled in Committee, that college staff should have identical powers to those proposed for schools. We were delighted that the Government agreed to that. I believe we might have some good news from the Minister on this occasion. Last week the Times carried an article which indicated that the Government were inclined to be generous on this occasion and to agree with this amendment. I look forward to hearing from the Minister. Amendment No. 234 again refers to Clause 86, which enables staff to use such force as is reasonable to prevent the committing of an offence causing personal injury to another person or damage to property, or to maintain good order and discipline at the school. The third purpose for which force may be used is very broadly drafted and, as cited by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its scrutiny of the Bill, may give rise to a risk of disproportionate useof force. Surprisingly, unlike existing legislation on physical restraint of pupils, the clause on the use of force does not refer to statutory guidance. That lack of guidance on the use of force seems to ignore developments in other sectors. This year the Youth Justice Board published its Code of Practice on Managing the Behaviour of Children and Young People in the Secure Estate, which provides some concepts that could usefully be transferred into the school setting, and which place the use of force or restrictive physical interventions within the broader context of the establishment’s behaviour policy. In particular, the code states that agreed methods of physical restraint should be used only when absolutely necessary, by trained staff. The code of practice refers to other techniques that can be used to defuse or de-escalate incidents that may otherwise lead to the use of force, and requires the proper recording of each incident and the staff’s response to it. Physical force may be imposed by members of staff who are not qualified and—since the definition of ““staff”” is so loosely drafted in Clause 82—by volunteers or others offering services on site if the head teacher so authorises, as was mentioned in our earlier discussion. Qualified teachers and teaching assistants receive training in disciplinary procedures and penalties, so are generally better able to understand and apply the concepts of proportionality and reasonableness. However, they do not receive training in the use of physical force. Other staff may receive no training whatever in this area. More worryingly, unpaid members of staff, volunteers and those delivering extended services are not under the control of, or answerable to, the school if mistakes are made. The aim of the amendment is to tighten up the wording and ensure that only those who have received proper training in the use of physical force when working with children should be able to do so. Additional safeguards would limit that power to teaching staff and introduce clearer guidelines on the types of behaviour and situations that would warrant the use of force. We discussed these amendments a while back. What training would be available to teachers in the use of physical force, and what training would be available to others who work in schools and are given permission to use physical force? Amendment No. 238 is a probing amendment aimed at defining ““force””, since it involves the use of physical intervention or direct physical contact between a member of staff and a child, and is intended to physically overpower or restrict movement. The Minister in the other place—I think it was Jim Knight—helpfully clarified that when deciding whether to use force, or what sort of force to use, school staff will have to take account of all the relevant circumstances. Those will certainly include a pupil’s special educational needs or disability. In this respect the Minister was entirely correct in saying that there is no statutory guidance on the use of force. Schools already have guidance on the use of restrictive physical intervention for staff working with children and adults who display extreme behaviour in association with learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorder—although, as we have been discussing, there are problems here too. There is separate guidance on the use of restrictive physical interventions for pupils with severe behavioural difficulty. However, these two sets of guidance are neither statutory nor well known in mainstream schools, which picks up the discussion we had earlier. Those with any knowledge of working with children with autism will know that, and it is imperative that mainstream schools also receive such guidance, especially on the avoidance and de-escalation of problems. We are seeking clarification from the Minister on how guidance will be distributed to schools, whether it will be made statutory, and how the DfES will ensure that all schools act in accordance with it. For example, when staff use force, will they have good grounds for believing that immediate action is necessary to prevent significant injury to children or others or to prevent serious damage; that only the minimum force necessary to be effective should be used; that every effort should be made to secure the presence of other staff before applying restraint so that there are assistants or witnesses; that restraint should be relaxed as soon as it is safe to allow the child to regain control; and that restraint should be used as an act of care and control, and not as an act of punishment? How do the Government define reasonable force, and how will they ensure that staff who resort to the use of physical interventions do so as a proportionate response to pupils' behaviour? Will Ofsted consider investigating the use of force in schools? Will the Government issue guidance to teachers on the use of force and ensure that it complements that already in use in residential schools? Those issues have been raised with us by the National Autistic Society, TreeHouse and the Advisory Centre for Education. We would be very grateful if the Minister could give us some guidance on those issues. I beg to move.