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Education Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20, which is narrow in scope but concerns an area that has been completely missed out. It is for those schools—I suspect that they will be predominantly secondary schools—which have security staff on the premises who will be employed, appropriately trained and well fitted to carry out such searches. One of the most difficult relationships to keep nurtured is one between a teacher and a child. I taught for 15 years. You work really hard, and when they are good they are very good and when they are bad, something such as searching a child cannot help. The amendment suggests that where there is a security member of staff, no other member of staff should be asked to search a child. It would be the role of the security staff to do that. They are appropriately trained; they know what they are doing. That will also help to keep the relationship between the teacher and the child. It will give clarity to all concerned. The children know that if any circumstance crops up, it will not be a member of staff doing that; not only the child but the governors, the head teacher and the parents know; it is crystal clear that a member of staff whose role is security will do that. I ask the Committee to view the amendment favourably. The Minister is nodding, so that is very positive. I hope that he will view this as something that will plug a gap. He says, ““No, resist””.