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Education and Skills Bill

A parenting contract might well be appropriate to meet precisely the objectives set out by the noble Lord. However, as I set out in response to a previous group of amendments, there are proper processes that need to be gone through in respect of a parenting contract. Provided those processes are gone through, a parenting contract can be enforced. However, a parenting contract cannot be tied to the provision of a place at a school. A parenting contract will have its own sanctions if the conditions are not fulfilled. The place at a school could not be removed purely because a parenting contract was not being fulfilled. However, if the behaviour of a child continued to be incompatible with their continuance at the school, which may have been the reason giving the rise to the parenting contract in the first place, it would be open to the school, acting by proper processes, to exclude the child. That would give an element of conditionality because the fact that that ultimate sanction was there would be well known to the young person and to their parents.