Lord Nash (Con)

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 502YF in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Bailey, to require an assessment under the Children Act when a child is permanently excluded. The reason for this amendment is that, in my experience, when a pupil is permanently excluded without an adequate handover or adequate liaison between the school and the local authority, there is a risk that the pupil disappears into a black hole. I have sat on, thankfully, few PEx panels—we really do not like excluding pupils in my trust. I have always hated having to exclude a pupil, not just in its own right but because they just disappear from view. In my view, schools should continue to have some involvement, if not responsibility, for PEx students to ensure that they receive adequate provision. As things stand, they have no say in where children go when PExed, often because the local authority has an arrangement or a contract with one or two AP providers such that there are no other options—and, of course, in some areas, the AP providers have no capacity. As I have said, that is why we desperately need more such provision. I would like to see schools with greater involvement in this. I understand that, in Milton Keynes, there is a model where about a dozen secondary schools—11, I think—co-operate well with the local authority on this. That could perhaps be a model for the future. I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran in this group. Poor behaviour by a few students has a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of a school. Teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a few pupils who exhibit very poor behaviour, and they are increasingly acting as social workers. We must protect the other pupils in the school, and we must support our teachers. There comes a time when the disruption this causes to other pupils and to teachers means it is necessary to exclude certain pupils.