Education Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

I have no informed view on the mechanism that the noble Lord, Lord Laming, proposes to address this issue or to maintain pressure on it, because I do not have the knowledge. However, I assure your Lordships of the importance and size of that problem, and the much more distressing problem that came to my notice in the 1970s in the case of Maria Colwell. That was the first case to my knowledge where there had been a hideously unnecessary death of a child because of lack of information about her—poor thing—running home during the day in a nightdress and nothing else, and no one doing anything about it. She finished up dead. The only way to make sure that communications exist is to have a network within which they can exist. I am not advising the Minister of what he should do about the amendment or how that network should be not merely preserved but made perfect; I am saying that it is a compassionate duty on society to see that this endless repetition of the same syndrome, with desperately sad stories taking place as a result, is addressed. If this amendment is an opportunity to address it, let us seize it with both hands.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask a rather boring lawyer’s question about the amendment. I think I am right in saying that in Committee it is possible for the mover of an amendment to say something a second time. I am totally persuaded of the desirability of co-operation, and one has a wonderful example in the amendment of the wealth and depth of experience of Members of your Lordships’ House. If they combine together, as they have done, it is like a mighty rolling wave, and I do not envy the Minister having to answer it. However, I have a hoary question on which perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Laming, might help me. His Amendment 100 places on all providers of education,

“a duty to co-operate with local authorities”,

and goes on to say,

“to promote the well-being of children and young people”.

In the case of a school, is that duty confined to the children and young people in that school, or is it more general? On the face of it, it looks to be more general.

My second boring old question that the Minister might like to answer is: have there been any cases under the existing law—I see that he is proposing to change the 2004 Act—where a school has been sued or taken to task judicially for a failure to co-operate? If there is no such case and the duty is not justiciable, some of us in this Room might be disappointed.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, again, I shall be brief. I have absolutely no hesitation in supporting both amendments and congratulating my noble friend Lord Laming and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on the way they have presented the case. One is particularly thinking above everyone else of those with special needs, not least of the age of 19 or 21—whatever the ages are—up to which care is quite rightly to be continued and provision made. It takes me back to my 20-odd years as a chairman of a juvenile court in London. At that time, there was a darn sight more co-operation. All of us—the social workers, probation officers, midwives and magistrates—were trying to find the right solution for the problems that ended up in the courts, and many of them were to do with a lack of schooling. Children were not going to school but the reason for that was not followed up. All that ended with the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. It was a case of, “Magistrates, you make the decision and we the professionals will deal with it”. That would have been okay if it had really proved to be the answer but—this is why I come back to the point—we need co-operation. Returning to the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Laming, “If only we’d known that at the time”, so much more could have been done.

This issue also takes us straight back to the principles underlying this coalition Government. I refer to the form of localism in which everyone co-operates to do their best, particularly for the least able within our community. I therefore congratulate noble Lords and ask that this duty be reinstated.