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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, Amendments Nos. 126, 127 and 129, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley, relate to exclusions and parental responsibility for exclusions. We had a very lengthy discussion in Committee about exclusions. The key issue was how far parents of excluded children can keep them under house arrest, which is what the government proposals in effect suggest. There was general agreement on all sides of the House that, for many families—one must bear in mind that the pupils who are excluded often come from disadvantaged, often one-parent, families, where the sole breadwinner has a relatively low-skilled job, perhaps paid at the minimum wage, and is likely to be dismissed if they fail to turn up for work—requiring a parent to take time off from work to supervise a child poses considerable difficulties for them. This was summed up rather neatly by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, at col. 1708 of the Official Report, when he said: "““It is wrong to think that incarceration is the only form of punishment. The punishment is actually on the parents in this case. The people who will suffer are the parents, and the child will suffer because the parents are suffering. That is the mechanism being used. To inconvenience the parents sufficiently for them to ""want to discipline the child it is not necessary to tell the parent, ““You go home and stay home for five days””, in order that the child should be properly disciplined””.—[Official Report, 25/7/06; col. 1708.]" In replying to these concerns the Minister rightly pointed out that the recommendation that parents should take responsibility for their children came in the first instance from the Steer report, which many of us felt was very good and well balanced. It stressed the importance of ensuring that exclusions are seen not as a reward with time off from school but as a punishment. I confess that that rang very true, as I am a governor of a small primary school in a relatively disadvantaged area and one of the problems we have faced is children on short-term exclusions from school riding their bicycles round the school property. The pupils involved see their bad behaviour rewarded with extra time off from school, and that is not what we want. The Minister also pointed out that the provisions apply only to the first five days of exclusion and that the key issue was short-term, temporary exclusions. Of the 344,500 exclusions in 2003-04, 85 per cent were for five days or fewer, 50 per cent were for only one or two days and 26 per cent were for just one day. The very large burden of what to do with children during short-term exclusions is a real problem that has to be faced. Other problems continue to arise. My noble friend Lady Williams, who is unfortunately unable to be with us today to argue this amendment in my place, wrote a letter to the Minister in which she said: "““First, the defence of ‘reasonable justification’ does not in itself address the situation that may arise when others are unreasonable. Some of the parents of excluded children will be single parents, trying to bring up children while holding down a full or nearly full-time job. If their employer is unsympathetic, and will not give them immediate leave to pick up the child concerned, the parent will be faced with a difficult dilemma. Does she or he conform to the school’s request, or to the employer’s order? Many parents particularly in low-paid occupations may be at risk of [losing their job] if they absent themselves from work.""Second, some parents will have jobs that demand their presence, and cannot easily be replaced if they absent themselves. Nurses and medical aides in NHS hospitals fall into this category. So do teachers and teaching aides. So do carers in homes for the elderly or the dying. None of these people can easily abandon responsibilities just as weighty as that of attending to their child.""Third, many parents have elderly parents they cannot call upon, or spouses/partners who are unreliable and who may be largely absent or addicted to alcohol or drugs. For such a parent, the conflict between the needs of other children or elderly relatives and the demands of the job they hold may be virtually irreconcilable””." My noble friend makes very real points that led us to put forward Amendments Nos. 126 and 127, the thinking behind which I would like to explain a little more. I confess that Amendment No. 126 is not quite what we had in mind and I have, so to speak, an amendment to the amendment which I need to explain. The amendment reads: "““The local education authority for the area of the school which has excluded the pupil must offer a place at a pupil referral unit for the period of the exclusion referred to in subsection (2)””." We were picking up on the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, discussed in Committee. He said that the right thing would be for three or four local schools to club together to form a pupil referral unit which could be used jointly. Not every parent will have problems when confronted by the need to look after an excluded child but some will face real difficulties—and where there are real difficulties they should have the option of asking for a place at a pupil referral unit. The amendment that we would like to see would state: "““The local education authority for the area of the school which has excluded the pupil must offer the parent the option of a place at a pupil referral unit””." That would meet our requirements. To some extent Amendment No. 127 follows on from that. It refers to the child accompanying the parent to a pupil referral unit and provides clarification, as do the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. In looking at the concept of whether the parent is guilty of an offence, the alleviating circumstances must be whether the pupil is, "““accompanying a parent to the parent’s place of employment or a hospital or other healthcare facility””," or "““with a parent at the parent’s place of employment””," or—and this picks up on the point that I was making— "““accompanying a parent to a pupil referral unit." We tabled Amendment No. 129 at the request of the Advisory Centre for Education. I believe that its representatives have been to see the Minister and discussed with him their worries about the whole question of what is ““reasonable justification”” and its interpretation. The Minister’s letter to my noble friend Lady Williams refers at length to the agreements that he came to with the Advisory Centre for Education. Perhaps I may read out the letter because it will be useful to have it on the record. It states: "““My officials have recently met with representatives of Parents’ Groups such as Parentline Plus and the Advisory Centre for Education, to discuss possible changes to my Department’s draft guidance to LAs on penalty notices and parental responsibility for the whereabouts of excluded pupils. We were able to agree several changes with the groups. The main changes are to: amend the model letter for schools to issue to the parent at the time of exclusion, to make it clear to the parent what their duty is for the first five days and outlining the principle of the defence of ‘reasonable justification’””." One of the requirements of the Advisory Centre for Education is that there should be an understanding and information for the parent about what is meant by that wording. The letter goes on to say that the main changes will also, "““reflect the wording on the exclusion of pupils with Special Educational Needs included in the recently issued Exclusions guidance in the new guidance we will issue on penalty notices. This wording makes it clear that schools must have regard to the SEN Code of Practice on identifying, assessing and making provision for pupils with SEN, including those with behavioural, social and emotional needs. We will also cross refer the reader to the full exclusions guidance, include a reference in the Penalty Notice guidance to encourage local authorities to collect data to help them monitor the use of penalty notices for whereabouts; and revise the wording in the draft guidance to emphasise that a penalty notice should not normally be issued for a first offence””." I feel that that meets the requirements of the advisory centre for the provision of better information for parents on what ““reasonable justification”” means. I am grateful to the Minister for writing to clarify those issues. That covers the three amendments that I wish to speak to.