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Education and Inspections Bill

Any concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, such as those that she has raised here, merit my full consideration and I give her the undertaking that she sought. I will reflect fully on what she said. However, it is my duty to set out the Government's thinking behind the amendments so that she may reflect on what we have to say and, when we come to Report, we may further the debate. Of course, I take immensely seriously what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who also brings a great wealth of personal knowledge to this area. I shall make three introductory remarks before I deal with the detail. First, from the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, there may be a belief that the policy was entered into lightly and without due consideration. I should emphasise that that is absolutely not the case. Many speakers in debates on earlier clauses made reference to the report on behaviour and discipline produced by the working group chaired by Sir Alan Steer. That was a group of practitioners of great knowledge, wisdom and length of service who were expert in the area. It produced a whole set of recommendations which we are seeking to take forward. It placed great emphasis on meeting the needs of individual children and ensuring that schools do that more effectively by training, support and so on. The recommendations that it made in this area are precisely what we are taking forward inthe Bill. Paragraph 147 of the Steer report is headed, ““Making Exclusions an Effective Sanction””. It states: "““We consider it important to ensure that exclusions are an effective sanction and are not seen as a ‘reward’ (time off school) but as a punishment. We also consider it important to ensure that excluded pupils are not wasting time and making a public nuisance of themselves””." Anyone with any knowledge of the problems that schools face knows that excluded pupils at school gates and otherwise in the environment of schools is a very serious problem that schools must address. With all due deference to the other views that have been expressed in this debate, we have been recently debating the issue of knives in schools. I say that because an incident is very much in my mind. The fatal stabbing of a pupil in a school in north London recently involved a pupil who had been excluded who was at the school gate. The issue of excluded pupils making, as Sir Alan Steer’s report says, a public nuisance of themselves, is real and one that we as a community must seek to address. Sir Alan Steer’s report continues: "““Excluded pupils need to be supervised appropriately and continue to experience learning””." At paragraph 148 it states: "““In a democratic society parents must have responsibility for their children””." Let me emphasise that. I accept what the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Howarth, said; of course parents can be expected to take responsibility for their children only to the limit of their capacity. I do not believe, however, that we should accept that that limit is necessarily short of being able to supervise their child at home for one or two days. I appreciate the experience that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, brings to this, but I grew up in a community where there were many very challenging parents who had to deal with these situations. We do not properly recognise the responsibility that parents are capable of taking on. We assume that all parents who happen to be poor and have challenging lives are not capable of taking responsibility for their children when they are excluded for one or two days. Perhaps I should stress that 50 per cent of all temporary exclusions are for one or two days, and 26 per cent are simply for one day, so I implore the Committee to get this into perspective. In the great majority of cases covered by the amendments, we are talking about exclusions for one or two days, or at the outside three days, and saying to parents that they should take proper responsibility for their children and not as a matter of course regard it as acceptable that their children are unsupervised and not subject to proper parental discipline.