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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I also very much support the amendments. One increasingly sees the value of consulting the consumer—for that is exactly what the student or the pupil at school is—and getting a full response. They are the ones who are currently experiencing what is going on. I was particularly impressed by the Sorrell Foundation exercise in which pupils from something like 10 primary and secondary schools got together with architectural students and devised the ideal school. If you were able to do that to improve your own school, just imagine how much more that would ground you in the success of the school and in standing up for it. I very much hope that the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, will be taken seriously. The briefing from the Children's Rights Alliance for England was excellent. It made all the points and I shall not go into them again, but I want to mention exclusion hearings. It is crucial that children have a right to hear what is going on and make their contribution. I had a very interesting discussion with the Minister about involving mentors for, in particular, looked-after children, who often face exclusion because they are rather more difficult to handle. If a mentor were there to take their part, in addition to the children themselves having a say, that would be a huge improvement. I was delighted to hear in the letter from the Minister that such a scheme is being planned using the qualities of volunteers who are trained, to a certain extent, in the community. For all those reasons, I very much support what has been said on these amendments.