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The Lord Bishop of Hereford: I express my warm support for the amendment. I believe that it goes to the heart of the question of whether the Government really and seriously put the welfare of the child before any other consideration in caring for them while they are in this country and preparing them, in many cases, to be fully integrated into British society.

Yesterday the Minister said on a number of occasions that he believed that accommodation centres would be good places for asylum seekers to be. That may be the case for some people. It may be the case for some of the adults. I believe that it is not the case for any children. It is self-evident that children will be better cared for if they are educated in mainstream schools.

There are serious worries about the educational provision that might be made in accommodation centres. The teachers there will not necessarily be required to have completed an initial teacher training course. What will the quality of teaching be? Matters such as anti-bullying policies and discipline will not be covered by statutory duties but set out in individual agreements made for each accommodation centre. There will be no obligation for an accommodation centre to have a child protection policy in place. That is a serious worry.

No one quite knows what the role of the LEA will be in the delivery of education in such places. It becomes clear that the education to be provided in

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such places would be less good than the education in maintained schools. By definition, we cannot want asylum-seekers' children to be educated in this way.

It is important to recognise the experience in mainstream schools of caring for asylum-seeker children, which, by and large, is quite good. It can be challenging but it can be successfully achieved. Some comments made by head teachers are relevant here. One said:

"We challenge anyone to stand in our playground and pick out the refugees from the rich array of children happily playing together. We regard the presence of refugee children with their particular experiences as a unique benefit to other pupils".

Quite apart from the benefit to themselves of being in that place.

"They [other pupils] learn a great deal from them and develop knowledge, respect and acceptance".

Another head teacher said:

"My point is not that the proposals are illegal"—

which of course they would not be if the Bill were to be enacted—

"nor that they are morally indefensible (which I believe them to be), but that they are unnecessary, resource-inefficient and fundamentally at odds with the Government's avowed commitment to pluralism and social inclusion. I am convinced that educating refugees and asylum seekers in a mainstream school actually works, and that my experience, backed by the judgement of Ofsted and HMI, supports that conviction".

There is evidence that it works; that it can be done; and that it is a better way of doing it. Certainly children, so far as they know their own minds, want to go into schools, as the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, has said. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has commented critically on that part of the provision of the Bill.

I wonder whether the Minister has done his sums on the matter. Yesterday it was claimed that 80 per cent of asylum seekers would be young single men and that 20 per cent would be partly single women and partly families. Families are parents as well as children. Might it be reasonable to suggest that 5 per cent of asylum seekers will be children of school age? Even if we have accommodation centres on the scale of 700 people, which I hope we do not, we shall have 35 children in each centre. One does not have to be a genius in educational policy or mathematics to know that schooling provided in such a place for 35 children, ranging in age from five to 16, would be an educational disaster, however good the teaching. The evidence is that the teaching will be less good than that provided in maintained schools.

It is self-evident that this amendment is a highly desirable one. I beg the Government to accept it so that families will go into accommodation centres only if schooling is available for school age children in mainstream schools.

Lord Moser: I strongly support the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. This is one of the most regrettable—I feel almost like saying disgraceful—parts of a Bill which sets out to be positive and welcoming to asylum seekers and to refugees generally. I dread to think what would have

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happened to me if, when I came here at the age of 13, I had been somehow prevented from going to a mainstream school.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia has said, these clauses send exactly the wrong signals to the rest of the country and to communities. They send a signal that for some reason or other best known to the Government these children will be educated in ghettos called "accommodation centres". That is exactly the wrong signal. The clauses go against all the worthy remarks that we have heard from Ministers about integration. On the first day in Committee, when I spoke about naturalisation, I questioned the Government's insistence that applicants for naturalisation, who were probably previously children of asylum seekers, should be tested not just for English, which is desirable, but for their knowledge of society. The whole signal was meant to be that these people should be integrated totally into our society. How do the Government square that with this attempt to separate children to begin with from the hope of total integration? It goes exactly in the opposite direction.

There are other objections of a more technical kind. What will happen to these children after six months when, having been in the obscure accommodation centre and separately taught, they go into a mainstream school—if that is what happens. I could go on, but the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, has made all the points. There are no sound arguments in favour of Clause 15 of the Bill.

I regard the Home Office's attitude to this amendment—the Home Office, as I remember from my days in Whitehall, is not always the most flexible of government departments—as a litmus test of its attitude in general.

3.30 p.m.

Lord Dholakia: We would like to hear much more from the Minister about some of the important issues raised by the three noble Lords, and, in particular, by the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, on the issue.

So far we have not disputed the establishment of accommodation centres. The Minister is well aware of our approach. There should be a time limit. Asylum seekers should not find themselves in such accommodation centres for more than six months. However, one of the difficulties is the blanket approach that the Government seem to have taken to the matter of education.

I shall cite an example. We must recognise that, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford said, there will be children and young people with different educational needs. We must bear in mind that a substantial number of asylum seekers are well-qualified people—doctors, vets and engineers. They have left their country to seek asylum here because of the persecution that they have suffered. Their children would have been to an educational establishment in their own country and are here only because of the persecution that their parents suffered. How will we arrange for the education of people who have obtained

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certain qualifications in their homeland? Will we, for example, provide classes in the accommodation centres for youngsters doing something in physics, botany or zoology? It is highly improbable that accommodation centres would have the facilities. That is why it is so important that we recognise the different needs.

We are talking of cases in which it is perfectly possible for youngsters to benefit from mainstream education in the area in which they find themselves. If the Minister or the system were, ultimately, to decide that those families do not qualify to stay in this country, we should try to ensure that, at the least, they return to their homeland with a high opinion of the standard of education that they have received, rather than adopting the broad-brush approach that accommodation centres would provide all the relevant facilities.

That important exception must be made. I hope that the Minister will consider seriously the substantial arguments made by noble Lords about the matter.

Baroness Whitaker: I should like to express some concern about the amendment, although I do so with great trepidation and with apologies to the NGOs that have discussed the matter with me. I also apologise to the noble Lords who moved the amendment, for whom I have a high regard.

It seems to me that education in accommodation centres could be safer—safer than some secondary schools that I know—not only for the children but for the parents who would take them to and from school. I say that with knowledge of secondary schools. Such provision could also be more appropriate for children who have, almost certainly, come through a traumatic experience. It ought, of course, to be of a standard equivalent to that in mainstream education. However, it must be for only the short period in which the families seek asylum. The matter is entirely different when such people become refugees.

Like other noble Lords, I have had many letters about the contribution made by refugee children, and I have direct knowledge of it. However, those letters are about refugees. I wonder whether some pressure groups have been confounding refugees with asylum seekers. The noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, used the term "refugee children" when moving his amendment, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford when he quoted the head teachers.

I add two riders to my feeling that education in accommodation centres might be better. First, the education must really be appropriate and be provided by qualified, expert and committed teachers who know about the context of asylum seeking, not by those who cannot get work elsewhere. Secondly, it must last for only a short period. As was said yesterday, six months is too formative a period in a child's life.

I remind noble Lords who referred to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the committee did not come down entirely against education in accommodation centres. The report says that such matters call for careful judgment and that the

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new clauses will be useful in various ways. I invite my noble friend the Minister to show such balanced, careful judgment in dealing with the amendment.

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