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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, Clause 90 re-enacts provisions that became law in 1998. As I said in Committee, we are not aware that they have caused difficulties over the past eight years and therefore we did not regard this as a controversial part of the Bill. However, we fully accept that the use of force is a sensitive issue, so from the outset the legislation has been supported by detailed, practical guidance. As I have already indicated, we will review and re-issue this guidance. It will be made available on Teachernet, which is our usual way of communicating with schools. That should ensure wide dissemination. Ofsted keeps all these issues under review, but I shall need to come back to the noble Baroness on the context in which it might carry out specific monitoring of this matter. I was looking for inspiration from the Box, which, alas, I have not received, but I do not believe that the guidance is statutory. I shall confirm that with the noble Baroness later. Our view, therefore, is that the first subsection of this amendment is unnecessary. There is no need to require my department to issue guidance because we are already fully committed to doing so. Enhanced guidance will be available to all schools when Clause 90 comes into force. I can also promise that it will cover issues highlighted in this and previous debates, including special educational needs and staff training. The second subsection of the amendment boils down to imposing a requirement on every school to provide specific training for every member of staff who supervises pupils. We continue to believe that this would be disproportionate. Guidance will make clear that decisions about training should be based on risk assessments carried out by individual schools. Those should focus on the likely frequency and seriousness of incidents requiring the use of force. There may well be schools where the head teacher concludes that the risk is such as to justify training of all staff with supervisory responsibilities, but it is more sensible to let heads make decisions based on the needs of particular schools rather than seeking to impose a uniform regime from the centre. I hope that, with that assurance, the noble Baroness will not feel the need to press the amendment.