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The Earl of Sandwich: Perhaps the noble Baroness will forgive my interruption. Does she see any difference between young people and adults as regards unruliness?

10.15 p.m.

Baroness Blatch: I do not think that any of us escapes from being described as unruly in some way. Some of us have a propensity for being more unruly than others. In today's world, teachers are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. There is the potential for challenges by parents or by pupils, as well as the full weight of human rights legislation. There has to be protection for children, but children will have different views about what schools should be providing, the method by which it should be provided and the way in which teachers should provide education. The extent to which that is listened to and responded to and the weight that is given to those views—that is the subject of the second part of the amendment—would be judged and could be challenged. I am fearful that the system could be open to vexatious claims and to a great deal of time wasting.

I support the thrust of what is being asked for—that the voice of children should be ascertained, listened to and, when possible, heeded and given due weight. The working of the inspectorate, which goes in and out of schools regularly, could be strengthened to test the way in which schools do that. I should prefer it to be done by encouraging examples in which the children come together. I recently came across a school in the North East that has a school pupil counselling service. A group of young people set aside part of their lunchtime and, after a bit of training in counselling, become a listening ear for any other pupil in the school who wants to come to talk to them. All sorts of safeguards are built in in case they are being told something disturbing.

The system is working in that school and it allows those who have been singled out to be the counsellors—to be the eyes and ears for the staff—to go to the staff and initiate new thinking about changes that could be made in the school that would make life easier or would pick up on the signs of the bullying that people do not see on the surface.

I am behind the aims of the amendment, but I am fearful of it going on the statute book, because without proper scientific ways of measuring the issue and without proper protection for teachers against vexatious claims, it would be difficult to implement in practice.

Lord Lucas: I entirely agree with my noble friend and support the thrust of the amendment in the way in which she has done. What she says about the school she mentioned in the North East is right. Such policies

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tend to result in the nice kids being those with power, influence and respect among the pupils, because they will be chosen as counsellors and will have the ear of the teachers. That produces a power structure in which the nice ones rather than the rough ones or the smart ones attract the adulation of the younger pupils. That produces an enormous benefit.

However, I take a lot of caution from what the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said about the fearfulness with which teachers will greet the idea if they are dumped into it and have to plunge into democracy with a lot of kids who may have been managed in a different way, particularly in more difficult circumstances. Such systems should be grown from inside rather than imposed from outside. To work, they have to come from within the school. The role of the Government is to encourage that.

There is a lot that the Government can do. They can put some real effort behind making sure that the next round of beacon schools contains some schools that are beacons for these ideas. They can make sure that the curriculum of the head teachers training college includes real experience of what it is like to run a democratic school. Perhaps they should spend a week or two in a Steiner school to see what it is like. Such schools work very well because of the commitment of the children, the parents and the staff to that environment, because that kind of democracy has grown up through the spirit of the school. To impose it through legislation is the wrong way. We want some real commitment from the Government to put force and money behind the idea, but I would not like to see it in statute.

Lord Peston: I refer to a point that has already been made. Why does not the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, apply the same argument to parents? What has he got against children, to put it bluntly? And what has he got against difficult children, to put it bluntly? His comments were a classic, but not surprising, example of a speech against democracy. For hundreds of years a case has been made against democracy on the ground that all the difficult people would start to exercise power and make demands. It has been suggested in quite a few of our debates on the future of this great Chamber that if we permit certain measures we might attract the wrong kind of people who will start to create difficulties.

I regard the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, as absolutely ridiculous. Either you believe in a free society, citizenship and democracy, which may lead to problems, but you believe in it because you think that ultimately it is right, or you do not. I reject those arguments from the Benches opposite. They are absurd. We have fought for a long time in this country not to be taken in by exactly that kind of argument. The argument was advanced that teachers will find the measure stressful. I make the point that they are meant to find it stressful as it is a good thing. I had to respond to this stressful process and it did me good. Other professors also gained from running their departments bearing in mind the interests of their students. I am

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sorry to press the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but he has explained exactly why I think our side of the argument is right.

The Earl of Listowel: I have listened to this debate with fascination. With regard to the value added criteria that the Minister is considering, will she say whether she might consider this measure as one of those criteria; that is, the engagement of children in the processes of a school?

Baroness Walmsley: I find the objections of the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, somewhat depressing. Must we really be held back from a great advance in engaging children and making them feel valued and consulted within a school simply because of a fear of possible bad behaviour? Almost anything is open to challenge. The wording of the amendment is "light touch"; it is not onerous. It is relatively easy to interpret. Although it may, of course, be challenged on occasion, a governing body that is genuinely attempting to give due weight and due consideration to the views of children and can justify the way in which it has done that will be impervious to scurrilous challenge.

Baroness Blatch: I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, on the subject of parents. There is a requirement in statute that one must heed parents' preferences for school places where that is possible and where it is consistent with the educational needs of a child. However, I know of no statute that states that one has to ascertain the views of parents and give due weight to them as regards the running of a school. It is the governing body that does that. Almost any school worth its salt knows its pupils. If it does not, that should come out in inspection reports which will state that the school concerned does not have a satisfactory relationship with its pupils or understand that it has some disquieted pupils. That would emerge in an inspection.

The idea that one must exhort this area of school activity through legislation is in my view depressing. I honestly believe that there are many ways in which one can encourage and disseminate best practice and give children a voice and make sure that the voice is properly heard. However, once such a measure is included in a statute, it becomes open to challenge in a way that I think would not be beneficial to teachers, or even frankly at the end of the day to children.

Lord Peston: The noble Baroness probably does not go as far back in education as I do. I go back to the days when a line was drawn and you could not go through the front door. I was part of those groups who fought to let parents through that door. I was part of a group who formed the first parents' association in a school in Haringey. Therefore, I know all about the battles and the stresses involved in these matters. But eventually parents managed to move forward.

The Bill contains measures which concern parents. I refer to the parent governor measure and the parent meetings measure. There are various other such

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measures. The hour is late and I am glad that the noble Baroness will return to the matter on Report. We may well have to debate that further.

I regard the argument about litigation as so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. The current scale of litigation in our country, which could be large, is minimal. We were told in relation to many matters involving standards—this is also true of universities—that there would be court cases on a massive scale. People would say, "Why was I given this grade, not that grade?". We have had hardly any experience of that. We should not have such fears. We should embrace the possibilities—the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, put that very well. It is particularly incumbent on your Lordships' House to give a lead in this area. One certainly cannot expect that from the other place, which has no vision at all in relation to such matters. That is why I press the matter strongly on my noble friend.


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