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Education and Inspections Bill

I had not intended to intervene on this topic, but I want to mention two matters, prompted by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. One issue that has been illustrated by this debate is the stereotyping that goes on—for example, the homophobic words that are used against bookworms or quiet pupils. The gay community includes some very macho young men, and we need to remember that inadvertently we use language that is difficult. That is an illustration. When I worked for Childline, we undertook apiece of work on bullying. Two areas caused us considerable difficulty. One was ethnic bullying—and our report on that was one of our best sellers—and the other was homophobic bullying. Although, clearly, young people were distressed, the real difficulty was among teachers who were not homophobic, but who found it hard to find the language to deal with the issue. What we really need is good guidance and help for people in education. I have noticed from listening to the debate how difficult it is for some people to talk about these issues. That is also true in schools. It is not easy for people who have come from fairly close communities to face the issue. I hope that we get good guidance. I should like to be able to support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in the hope that this amendment to the Bill would not exacerbate some of the issues, but I think that we would do better to look at the matter more broadly as a part of bullying and to get guidance for teachers to help with this very difficult issue.