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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, on Amendment No. 8 and have added my name to it. I also support her Amendment No. 82A, to which, I am afraid, I was too late to add my name—but I would have liked to. She rightly said that the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which does so much to promote children’s rights, believes that pupils need a statutory right to have their views considered in matters affecting the conduct of their school, which has a great impact on their everyday lives. Of course, schools would still require guidance and support to implement the amendment, which would make education law, policy and practice consistent with broader developments in public services and give England’s children entitlements that Scottish children have had since 2000. I sometimes feel a little frustrated when talking about the voice of the child in your Lordships' House. I often wish that we could hear children themselves standing up in this place to tell us why they would like to have statutory rights to have their voices heard, rather than having to rely on elderly Baronesses such as myself and some of my similarly minded colleagues. However, I am afraid that your Lordships will have to make do with the rather second-rate effort that I have to make on behalf of children. In Committee, the Minister said that the Government unreservedly agreed with the second part of the amendment tabled at that time, which aimed to remove the current exemption of nursery-age children from the consultation duties on schools and local authorities. Indeed, he has done something about that, for which I very much thank him. I also thank him for his Amendment No. 116 in this group, which accepts the point that these Benches made in relation to the development of a school behaviour policy to which every child in a school, rather than just a sample, should have the opportunity to contribute his views. That is a valuable move forward. In relation to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, the Minister said that the Government would continue to encourage schools to follow the Working Together guidance. However, encouraging schools to implement that guidance is not enough. We need a statutory right to pull the situation forward to provide a firm foundation for pupil participation in all schools. In its recent report on the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights notes that it has, "““written to the Secretary of State asking whether, in light of the requirements of Article 12””," of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, "““the Bill could do more to provide children with greater opportunity to express their views in matter which affect them””." Article 12 of the UNCRC states that all children, "““have the right to express and to have their views taken into account and given due weight according to their age and maturity in all matters affecting them””." In October 2002, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that the Government, "““should take further steps to promote, facilitate and monitor children’s effective participation, including in schools, like school councils””." The Government have certainly done much on school councils and I give the Minister a great deal of credit for that. The committee also stated that the Government, "““should take further steps to consistently reflect the obligations of both paragraphs of article 12 in legislation””." Now we are moving close to an opportunity for the UK Government to do that, because they must submit their next report to the UNCRC in 2007. Accepting Amendment No. 8 would be considered by that committee a major step towards fulfilling its recommendations in the 2002 report. I also very much support Amendment No. 82A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, about the well-being and educational attainment of children who have been excluded from school. We might have debated it later, in the group that starts with Amendment No. 119 on exclusions, although I accept that part of the noble Baroness’s amendment relates to giving the child a proper voice in the proceedings, so there is a case for debating the matter now. She rightly lays out in the proposed new subsection (5A) the basic principles of well-being and educational attainment, to which we should adhere when making arrangements for children who, for one reason or another, have had to be excluded. She also asks that the child’s right to represent himself in his own right and to have the necessary information to enable him to do so is given to him. That is important because some children cannot rely on their parents to represent them. Some parents do not want to be bothered or feel intimidated by the system so that they feel reluctant to appear before what seems a frightening panel, as if they are in the dragon’s den, to defend their child. Of course we should do everything we can to encourage them to feel more comfortable in taking part in those proceedings, but we also need to do something about ensuring that the child has its own rights as an individual whose whole life is in the hands of the panel considering their exclusion.