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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I support all three amendments. I did not have the benefit of seeing the letter sent to the noble Lord, Lord Judd—there is no reason why the Minister should have sent it to me because I did not speak on the issue in Committee—so I cannot argue the detail of the case. The noble Lord makes the extremely important point that children should have rights and, in particular, a right to education. I used not to believe in rights but in responsibilities and duties. Those words are out of fashion today. However, given that we have substituted ““rights”” for ““duties””, we have to give those rights to children as well as to grown-ups. This is a particular case in point where the opportunity arises to do that for the great benefit of the child population. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is extremely important in so far as it places squarely on the local authority the duty to find those children who are not getting the education they deserve and need and to give it to them.