Education and Inspections Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:00 pm on 17 October 2006.

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Photo of Baroness Turner of Camden Baroness Turner of Camden Labour 6:00, 17 October 2006

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his sympathetic response to this interesting debate and I thank noble Lords who contributed to it. We have had a good debate on a subject that is important to a lot of people. I was interested to hear that the Minister feels there has been an outbreak of democracy—I am sure we are all glad to hear about that—and to learn that there has been a large growth in school councils and that, as a result of the experience in Wales, where school councils have recently been put into operation, there is to be a further study of how they have developed. I note what he said about exclusion. I would like a bit of time to consider that before we come to the next stage of the Bill. I am a little unhappy about the provisions for children who may face exclusion and do not yet have what many of us would consider a full range of rights in relation to representation and appeals. Not all children have a supportive parent and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, indicated, some children have no parent at all. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for what he said about mentors, which was very important. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.