Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend was a most distinguished Secretary of State for Education, and I am very grateful to her for intervening in this debate. To answer her questions directly, she said that she was focusing only on new Section 436C(1), which is indeed the subsection that I particularly drew to your Lordships’ attention in covering paragraph (e). I have to disagree with my noble friend saying that it is okay; I do not think it is okay at all.

My noble friend asked what the onward obligation is to provide further information when, let us say, an extra teacher or the like is brought in. The answer according to the Bill is that there is a duty to inform the register every time, within 15 days, so that is the onward responsibility.

My noble friend is quite right that new Section 436C(2) refers to the local authority, not the parents. I pointed it out because there is an enormous number of requirements on the local authority in the registration process; they actually number 27. That is an illustration of how complicated the Bill has become and how unworkable it is in its present state.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has said, as the Minister will know from my numerous amendments later in the Bill, which I look forward to discussing with officials.

I have three amendments in this group. Amendment 204 inquires after the process in subsection (3) describing condition A. I hope that the Minister can describe today what the Government’s reasoning is in making this change. When it comes to what the process is going to be and whether there is the capability in system to do it, I am happy to leave that to discussions with officials.

Amendment 210 questions the meaning of “without undue delay”. If the hereditary Peers Bill was amended to say that we were leaving without undue delay, I would regard that as a plus. Such phrases in the mouths of government tend to mean quite a long time. I would have thought that in these circumstances, where the education of a child is concerned, something tighter might be advisable.

Amendment 221 says that, if this is what it looks like, the parent really needs access to a tribunal. If a local authority is on song and doing things quickly and it all goes smoothly and fairly, fine, but there are a lot of local authorities—my noble friend Lord Wei named the most notoriously worst of them—where this is not the case, often just temporarily because of staff changes or short-staffing. In those circumstances, the parent needs some recourse, because it is the child that matters.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 204 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lucas would narrow the scope of local authority powers to withhold consent to home education, in this case to exclude children in special schools. The driver of this—I looked at the Explanatory Notes but could not see anything that explains why special schools are all included—is that we seem to be treating parents of children with special needs in the same way as parents where there is an active investigation from children’s services and that feels disproportionate. There is also a risk of a conflict of interest where home education could be discouraged if the costs of providing therapeutic support to a child might be higher in that setting than in a special school, even if that was in the child’s best interests.

My Amendment 219 is a sort of common-sense amendment on an issue that I hope the Minister can clarify at the Dispatch Box. It seeks clarification that, if a local authority was to refuse consent to a parent to educate their child at home, it would need to provide the parents or carers with a statement explaining the reasons why, including the costs and benefits to the child. I assume that this would be good practice anyway, but if the noble Baroness can confirm that, that would be helpful.

I am sympathetic to the clarity that Amendment 210 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas would bring in terms of timings, but I think that Amendment 215A would be unduly onerous for local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, expressed concerns about the complexity of Clause 30. I am with him in that I think there is work to be done on Clause 30. He also focused on Clause 31 in his remarks, but I will cover those points in the next group.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Can I just clarify whether my noble friend is concluding the group or intervening on me?

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

In Committee, noble Lords may talk as many times as we like. We will try to keep it short though.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The questions that my noble friend asks are, I think, the subject of amendments in later groups, which is when I had presumed we would come to those details. I will stick to that, if that is okay.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for what she said. I entirely understand the limitations of discussions with officials, which is why I want to talk to her again about tribunals. Tribunals are an established part of mediating between the citizen and the state. In situations like this, or in many circumstances similar to those we are talking about—and this is by no means the only time we will discuss this; the next time will be when we are talking about best interests—when you have a hard-pressed local authority that may have a particular prejudice against home education and may be making life extremely difficult, as some of them do, you want an effective right of appeal. The system of appeal to the Secretary of State has existed in various forms in various bits of legislation for a long time. I am aware of one occasion when the Secretary of State agreed with the complainant. It does not work as an effective forum. It is not set up to be an effective forum. It does not allow for balanced and deep argument. The department is just not set up as a tribunal: it is not staffed as a tribunal, nor skilled as a tribunal. It is not the right place. I just say to my noble friend Lady Barran that I would very much appreciate her support for a tribunal amendment at Report, because that is what this appears likely to come to.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

We have heard in discussing this group of amendments a number of excellent suggestions for trying to take the edge off these complex—as the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, said—and, in my view, quite heavy-handed requirements on families. On the previous group, the Minister was very kind in offering discussions so that we can move forwards. Even though I have said that I oppose the register totally, that does not mean that I am shirking my responsibility as a legislator to help improve this legislation and to make it practical, based on the experience of someone from a home-educating family and having heard what was said by many Peers who have contributed to the debate. We are trying to make this practical and to make it work, so that people can get on with educating their children and local authorities can catch the perpetrators they want to catch.

There have been discussions about the tribunal, appeals and the fact that the department’s appeals process generally does not seem to behave in the way you would expect of a proper appeals process when parents complain directly. We have heard some quite sensible amendments in this group and the Minister has not indicated that she is willing to adopt any of the ideas in them. We will see later on. We appreciate the clarification that, when we meet officials, we will be told what the Bill is about and why it has been written in this way, but I hope we can also improve the Bill, which is the intent of us all. There have been suggestions on ways to improve its wording, in order to treat children in special schools and their parents with a bit more care and to have a statement of costs and benefits. These do not seem unreasonable.

I am afraid I am hearing a bit of a “state knows best” argument—that it should have 28 days to give a reason for its decision whereas parents should have only 15. That does not sound very fair to me and I am not sure it will sound fair to the British public, let alone to home-educating families. However, in the interests of time and given that we will discuss in further groups and potentially over the summer more of what we have talked about today, I will reflect on what has been said. I may return to this on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

205: Clause 30, page 51, leave out lines 16 and 17
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to allow a debate on the effects of this clause and of the reasons for section 47 enquiries, and the intersection with abusive relationships.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 206. My concern here is that Section 47 has a very broad class of orders. Some are extremely serious and some, frankly, are irrelevant to whether someone should be concerned about a child being home educated. The amendment is to get some sense, which I am very happy to leave to further discussions, of how one deals, for instance, with spurious complaints from a former abusive parent who just wants to mess up the other parent’s life.

The overall statistics show that home-educated children are twice as likely to be referred to children’s social services, yet are much less likely to have a child protection plan result from that referral. There is a prejudice towards referring children who are home educated or whose parents are thinking of home educating them. We need to understand that in order to provide some circumstances that allow officials in local authorities to feel comfortable about taking informed professional decisions, rather than feeling vulnerable doing anything other than refusing. I look forward to discussing this at a later opportunity. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 207. Ever the optimist, I hope the Government will take it seriously and bring it back on Report with a “g” in front of it.

The amendment has two parts: the first extends the right of a local authority to withhold consent to home education for a child or their family who is in receipt of services under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989; the second extends this to children who have ever been classified as a child in need of protection under Section 47 of the Act. To be clear, both parts would give local authorities just the discretion to withhold consent on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, I am not proposing a blanket refusal, but, as drafted, the Government’s position is not altogether clear, although I suspect that the noble Baroness will tell me that my drafting is not altogether clear either.

All children who are in special schools would now be within scope, as we debated in the earlier group, of the local authority’s right to withhold consent, but not those under Section 17 where there are safeguarding or neglect concerns. That just feels the wrong way round in terms of priorities. I appreciate that my drafting could focus more narrowly on those children defined under Section 17 of the Act to focus on safeguarding and neglect, but it is curious not to focus on those children. Unlike my noble friends, I do not think it is easy to get either Section 47 or Section 17 status and I worry that the bar is too high with just the current Section 47.

On the inclusion of children who have ever been subject to a Section 47 child protection plan, we talked earlier about the tragic case of Sara Sharif. The Minister in the other place said that

“we cannot say for sure what might have made a difference, but we will learn lessons from the future … local child safeguarding practice review”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 30/1/25; col. 297.]

I think I am right in saying that Sara Sharif had been put on the child protection register at birth. She came off the register and, as we know, was removed from school and died, tragically. Without the changes in my amendment, the one thing we can be sure of is that the proposed law as drafted would not have made any difference to her.

I know that both Ministers on the Front Bench want to get this right; I am just trying to state the reality that if a child has ever been considered to be vulnerable enough to be subject not to a Section 47 investigation but to a child protection plan at any point in their short life then that is a massive red flag that needs to be removed before consenting for them to be educated at home. I respect the probing Amendments 205 and 206 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, but I support the Government’s approach to giving local authorities the power to withhold consent in cases involving child protection.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I recognise that. There are still questions about burden there, but I understand the noble Baroness’s point, and particularly her reference to the Sara Sharif case. On that case, we are still awaiting the detailed review from the safeguarding panel in order to be able to determine the causes there, but I understand her point and will write to her about that specific group of children.

On that basis, I hope noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not move their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her replies. I look forward to meetings after today to go into these matters further, but I very much understand what my noble friend Lady Barran is saying with her Amendment 207. It convinces me that, if we can insert a tribunal into this process, we will make all these difficult questions flow much more easily for everybody. However, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 205 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

208: Clause 30, page 51, leave out lines 30 and 31
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe how school proprietors have knowledge of the information referenced in this paragraph.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendments 208, 216, 217, 220 and 225 seem eminently appropriate for discussing between today and September. Amendment 222 again raises the need for a tribunal to deal with tricky cases. We need something effective, we need something fair and open, and that is what tribunals are. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 209 in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Storey and Lord Watson.

Amendment 209 would require local authorities to ensure that they have offered a young carer’s needs assessment if they are notified of a pupil who is a young carer being withdrawn from school. This is to ensure that withdrawing a young carer from school does not result in increases in their caring responsibilities to the extent that it prejudices their education.

I am vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Young Carers, an active APPG producing reports on the challenges facing young carers and enabling parliamentarians to meet young carers, virtually and physically, to hear at first hand the challenges that confront them. A recent report told us of the difficulties that they face when their responsibilities as carers are not recognised by school and others, and that too many young carers cannot thereby access the support they need.

By way of background to this amendment, there are more than 15,000 children caring for parents or siblings for more than 50 hours a week. That is more than the average working week—and of course, they have to squeeze in their education on top of that. One issue that young carer services have shared with the APPG is that there are cases where a young carer is caring for a parent—for example, with a severe mental illness—and is withdrawn from school. Not being in school then results in greater responsibilities falling on those young shoulders, and in even more isolation from the support that a school can give them.

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[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, in part for the reasons given so eloquently by the supporters of the amendment, but also because it provides the opportunity for the child concerned to be home-educated if that is the right thing for them. It is not just about ensuring that being home-educated is in the child’s best interest, but about providing the opportunity for that to happen. This is an important, and presumably relatively small, concession in terms of numbers, because here we are talking only about people who are in special schools, although I know there is another amendment later. I hope that the Minister will consider this amendment favourably.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend said about young carers. We ought to be much better at collecting information on what is going on with young carers. The whole business of collecting information is getting easier with AI. The government AI team is a sight to be seen. I have not, in government, come across such an enthusiastic and effective team. I very much hope that the Department for Education will make contact and make use of the blockers. When you are faced with a difficult problem and need to find a way of collecting data that does not put a burden on the organisations that are having to do that data collection, and it is diverse and complicated, AI is a really good approach. I urge the Government to help look after young carers by taking that step.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, there is a large number of probing amendments in this group and, in the interests of making progress, I will not comment on most of them. I am very sympathetic to the intent behind Amendment 209 in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I would hope very much that a child who is a young carer would be supported to stay in school, given the obvious risk that their education would suffer and conflict with the care needs of their parent if at home, but I have no further comments on the other amendments in this group.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I certainly think it is right that we should attempt to ensure that people with lived experience are a key part of all areas of policy. That is why, for example, I talked earlier about the home educators’ forum that the department has brought together to help to inform our work here and the guidance. The point that the noble Lord was making went well beyond that. The suggestion that you could not make a professional social work or education decision in this area unless you had lived experience would make this area wholly different from any other area that professionals were making decisions about, and that is the stumbling block for this amendment.

We have a workforce of trained, dedicated practitioners who understand and champion the needs of the children they work with across schools and children’s social care. These amendments, in effect, would exclude around 99% of the population and, of course, would assume that one professional’s experience of home education is reflective of all parents. Working Together guidance is clear which practitioners should be involved in safeguarding decision-making and the importance of including children and families in that as well. We are confident that the Bill measures, and wider children’s social care reform that strengthens the protection of children, will mean that local authorities can draw on a range of expertise when making decisions—and so they should.

Amendment 220 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 224 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would allow a child not to attend school prior to receiving consent from the local authority. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who was not here for the earlier parts of the debate—for which I do not condemn her—that the points she made about the very successful home education experience of the children she was talking about who are close to her has very much been reflected in the comments that other noble Lords made earlier. We are clear that there are many children for whom home education has been a very fulfilling and successful process, and there is nothing in this legislation that removes, for example, the right of parents to make that decision to educate their children at home.

With these consent provisions, however—and in wanting to ensure that if a child is being educated at home, they are at least seen and understood to be being educated elsewhere than in school—we want to make sure that every child is seen. That is the expression that we were using earlier, and that is what we are aiming to do here. Also with respect to the consent provisions, we are concerned about those children for whom there might be particular reasons for a local authority to look carefully at the decision to grant consent by virtue of them being subject to a Section 47 inquiry, under a child protection plan or requiring the specific facilities of a special school.

For many children, a school is a protective environment and a means of offering essential support. I know that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness share our desire to reduce the risk of children falling through gaps and potentially going missing. It is therefore important that a child continues to attend school until a local authority has determined the consent request. Removing a child before this could subject them to unsuitable education or increase the risk of harm. I am sure that the noble Baroness could envisage a situation where, for legitimate reasons, a Section 47 inquiry is instituted where there are concerns about a child being at risk of very significant harm and—I am afraid that we have seen examples of this—a parent, thinking that this would be a way of avoiding it, decides at that point that they want to remove their child from school. In those circumstances, I do not think that any of us would want that child to be removed from what may well be the protective environment of a school before the decision had been made about consent.

For all children who are not subject to the consent process, which will be the vast majority of children whose parents want to home-educate them, all we are expecting is that the parent notifies the school that they want to remove their child from the roll and that the school has the opportunity to check, therefore, whether they fall within the criteria of a child for whom consent would be necessary or whether they are subject to a school attendance order. It would not be unreasonable to expect a child to carry on attending school while that relatively straightforward administrative check was made.

Amendment 222, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would require consent decisions to be revisited sooner than six months after the previous request when new evidence becomes available or the child has been disadvantaged by the decision. This six-month timeframe is proportionate and is provided to reduce multiple requests regarding the same child. There will be situations where it may be appropriate for the local authority to consider applications sooner—for example, if there has been a substantial change in the child’s circumstances. A local authority can do this under the clause as drafted, if it so wishes. I am sure that the noble Lord could also envisage a situation where a parent who was unhappy about the consent decision made by a local authority expected the decision to be revisited perhaps every week. That is the reason for setting this timeframe.

Amendment 223 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, is about establishing an independent ombudsman. I understand the theme that is developing here about independent review capacity. Notwithstanding that, the Government do not believe that it is necessary. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, uses almost every opportunity to push his tribunal suggestion. I am interested in whether the proposition now is that we should have both a tribunal and an ombudsman in these cases. Of course it is right that there should be a process for referring local authority decisions that parents are not satisfied with; however, it should be uncomplicated. It is right that the final decision should rest with the Secretary of State, or Welsh Ministers, who will fully and objectively consider the merits of the case.

Amendment 225, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would remove the definition of the “relevant local authority” that is responsible for making a home education consent decision. For children subject to a child protection inquiry or plan, the local authority where a child lives is responsible for making the consent decision. They will have the information needed to make informed decisions and should therefore determine consent. For children in special schools, who are not also subject to child protection processes, consent is needed from the local authority that maintains the plan, just as is the case under existing legislation. This new subsection provides legal clarity for parents, schools and local authorities.

Amendment 403, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, requests emergency court hearings for parents where a local authority seeks to remove, or removes, a child from their parents due to concerns arising from home education. To reiterate, the Children Act 1989 is clear that the threshold for care proceedings is significant harm. Home education as a singular factor would not reach the threshold for care proceedings. Child protection concerns about a home-educated child must be addressed through the same process as any other child facing harm. This includes parents’ rights to challenge decisions about the removal of a child into care.

Finally, Amendment 418, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would require local authorities to refer individuals who file false or malicious allegations against home-educating parents, who then may be subject to civil penalties. There is a concern that this could deter valid concerns about home-educated children being reported, potentially leaving children at risk. Local authorities have robust processes in place to identify whether a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, harm and appropriately respond to malicious allegations, regardless of a child’s educational status.

I said earlier that it would not only be in the case of home-educated children that a local authority might have to make a decision about whether a complaint about a child’s parents was well founded or malicious. Home-educating parents have the same rights as other parents. Families can seek support from the local authority or police advice if intentional false reports are being made against them.

For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s extensive responses to the amendments. She is right that I will keep coming back about tribunals. I am not attached to any particular form—a tribunal, an ombudsman or what the Government propose. My concern is that it should be effective, and my experience of the Secretary of State route has been that it is not. I am very happy to take the opportunity of the gap between now and 1 September to learn more about the Government’s proposals as to how the Secretary of State route should work, and it may be that I will come to love it as much as she does—that would be nice.

On Amendment 208, knowing a child’s address is not the same as knowing their local authority. There is nothing in the address that says what the local authority is; you need to have a lookup. Local education authorities are not necessarily coterminous with what we think, so the Government would have to provide a lookup. Also, in circumstances where children are in joint custody, the question of their address can be complicated and moot. In both circumstances, there needs to be some help from the Government to enable a school to be sure that, in all circumstances, it determines the right local authority with responsibility. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 208 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

211: Clause 30, page 51, leave out lines 39 and 40
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to restore the current relationship between state and parents with regard to education.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 211 goes to a much deeper part of this Bill: the assertion in lines 39 and 40 on page 51 that those in a local authority are the right people to determine what is in the best interests of a child. For the past 150 years it has been accepted that it is the parents who are the first people to determine what the best interests of a child are, so this is a fundamental change in education legislation, which may run out into all other aspects of the relationship between parents and children. If the local authority is the best judge in this space, why is it not also the best judge of which school a child should attend, or many other aspects of the child’s educational journey—what exams they should take or which university they should go to? Why is the local authority’s judgment being inserted here against all precedent?

Who in the local authority is making this judgment? Local authorities used to be staffed with a big school improvement department and lots of people who knew their way around education. They are much thinner now. How on earth is a local authority staffed to take this decision? Is it guaranteed to have the expertise? Will there be a special cadre of people capable of taking this sort of decision, and trained and experienced in it?

I find it very hard to understand why the Government wish to take this role away from parents. It is a big, fundamental change and something that gives me great cause for concern. Again, it brings me back, as the Minister will expect, to the idea that, if we are to have something like this, there has to be an effective right of appeal to someone who has access to a much wider and deeper pool of information and judgment.

My other amendment would mean that, if a local authority is making the judgment, it must make it as a real judgment—how the school they are thinking of placing the child in actually does for children like the child concerned. It must be a careful, individual judgment, and not a judgment in principle from someone in a local authority who believes that, in almost every circumstance, education in school is better than home education. There are people in local authorities like that.

I find these two lines in the Bill really disturbing and I hope the Government will reconsider them. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 211 is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendment 215 by reason of pre-emption.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to raise the threshold for the local authority to refuse consent to home-educate. This would mean that, if a parent was concerned that their child was being harmed by attending their current school, the local authority would be unable to refuse consent unless it provided evidence of a standard sufficient to satisfy a court that withdrawal would result in greater harm.

Let me be clear that parents’ concerns regarding bullying or their child’s mental health are serious, and these issues should be discussed with the school and local authority. I can quite understand why parents might want to remove their child from school in those circumstances.

However, it is important to remember that the requirement for local authorities to consent to home education relates to a specific set of children who are subject to a child protection plan or inquiry or who are in a special school. This measure is intended to ensure that the local authority takes a considered, proportionate and informed decision for these groups. Eligible children should not be withdrawn from school for home education if it is not in their best interests or if education outside school is not going to be suitable. I want to be clear that local authorities must evidence their decision-making, but requiring it to the degree that the amendment suggests is totally impractical. Local authorities are well placed to make this best interests and suitability judgment. They possess the required information and have access to multi-agency expertise as part of their child protection and education duties, and parents’ views will be taken into account by local authorities as part of their decision-making process.

Amendment 215, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure that a refusal to grant consent to home-educate is taken against the background of the characteristics of the school that the child might attend. Just to be clear, the consent process is not intended to keep children in a specific school or to keep children in a school that is not right for them. Parents remain free to remove their child from one school to attend a different school that they believe can better support their child’s needs, for example. I hope that assures the noble Lord that there is no intention that a child could or should be forced to remain in a specific school, so the need to compare different schools is unnecessary. I hope noble Lords feel that I have provided sufficient assurance and that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. Yes, I would very much like to pursue some of the details of this in meetings. The practicalities of what she described do not coincide with my experience of trying to get children moved from one school to another, particularly special schools. I do not see how it works. She described local authorities as fountainheads of expertise in this area. That is not my experience. It used to be, but not now. These are areas in which I really want to understand more about the Government’s reasoning and how they are approaching things.

There is a deep principle here. It is only a small footprint on the first bit of beach, but the direction is clear. If it applies to children with SEN, why does it not apply to everybody? If the local authority’s judgment is better for those children, why is it not better for everybody? If the local authority’s judgment is best for children who are being taken out of school, why is it not best for children who never go into school? There is no edge here. Once this direction has been taken, it will carry on, and we must question it hard at its first instance and not shy away from that just because it is small. But for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 211 withdrawn.