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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 228E: 228E: After Clause 138, insert the following new Clause— ““Exclusion process: participation by pupils (1) Section 52 of the Education Act 2002 (c. 32) (exclusion of pupils) is amended as follows. (2) After subsection (2) insert— ““(2A) The head teacher referred to in subsection (1) and the teacher referred to in subsection (2) shall— (a) notify the pupil of the proposed exclusion; (b) provide all information that may be relevant to the representations referred to in paragraph (c) below to that pupil in language capable of being readily understood by or explained to the pupil having particular regard to any special educational needs he may have; (c) provide a sufficient opportunity for the pupil to make representations in relation to his exclusion; and (d) take into consideration any such representations before deciding to put that proposal into effect.”” (3) In subsection (4), after paragraph (d) insert— ““(e) relating to— (i) the scope and presentation of the information referred to in subsection (2A)(b) of this section; (ii) the minimum time to be allowed for the preparation of the representations referred to in subsection (2A) of this section; (iii) the eligibility of persons to act as representative or friend of a pupil referred to in subsection (1) or (2) of this section; and (iv) the circumstances under which the requirements to notify and to provide information to such a pupil shall be discharged if the notification is made and the information is provided to such a representative or friend.”””” The noble Lord said: As a sort of hors d’oeuvre I refer the Committee to the foreword of Working Together, which states that the aims of the curriculum recently identified by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority as enabling all young people to become successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens can be achieved only if children and young people are actively involved in decisions about their lives. A pupil should always participate in such decisions. My next comments are a slight rerun of what I said on the previous amendment. If it were a piece of organ music, it would have several more stops pulled out, because the power to move to a PRU is not as fundamentally destructive of a child’s morale and educational career as is a decision to exclude that child from a school altogether. I have already quoted Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and I do not propose to do so again, except for the part of paragraph 2 of that article, which states that, "““the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child””—" this is such a proceeding— "““either directly, or through a representative””—" my amendment provides for representation— "““or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law””." My Amendment No. 228E asserts the right of participation—not just the right to be informed, but to be heard—in the process leading up to the far more serious decision to exclude a pupil from the school altogether. I hope that I do not need to emphasise to the Committee the seriousness of such a decision. If the Minister were to tell us the average number of hours of face-to-face teaching that a child excluded from school gets in the first four weeks of exclusion, let alone its full duration, and what they cost, it might serve the purpose. Children who are untaught and unsupervised during school hours have only truants and other excludes for company unless, sadly, they are recruited to work for more adult criminals, as we recently saw in the astonishing case concerning Securicor. That energy and inventiveness have to be applied to something. If they lack legitimate new challenges and excitements, they will soon find themselves in a desert of boredom. Illegitimate thrills range from false fire alarms, taking and driving away or joining a gang in its vendetta to sampling the dreadful excitement of drugs. Once again, I come at this from the perspective of juvenile offending. Any steps that can be taken to avoid a young person being faced with those challenges must be taken. The amendment therefore provides that the pupil must be told of any proposal to exclude him, and he must be given all the information that he needs to make his own comments on that. My amendment uses words that I have taken from Participation Works, which is a confederation of the British Youth Council, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the National Children’s Bureau, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services, Save the Children and the National Youth Agency. They are, I hope, above reproach. The amendment gives the pupil a chance to make representations and requires the teacher concerned to take them into account. Proposed new subsection (3) adds to the regulation-making powers of the Secretary of State under the existing four paragraphs of Section 52(4) a further paragraph enabling him to set out the nature of the information that the pupil must have, the time that he can take to think about it before he uses it and the appointment of a representative to act for or a friend to act with him. I note in passing with some apprehension that the regulation-making powers in subsection (4) into which the text of my amendment would be incorporated is permissive only. In my view, the regulations will be needed, and I hope that by agreeing with me in that respect, the Minister will make it unnecessary for me to consider on Report who is to make the use of the new powers in this new provision mandatory. I am, of course, making common cause in my amendment with the formidable trio of noble Baronesses, some 66.6 per cent of whom are present on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, who tackle the same issue in their two amendments. We may yet find ourselves moving a combined effort at a later stage. I beg to move.