Lord Lucas (Con)

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group. This amendment concerns the practice of local authorities placing children in unregistered alternative provision. In my view, that should not happen. These children need quality provision, almost by definition. That they should be placed in unregistered provision by the state seems to me a complete dereliction of duty. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has a rather more subtle and nuanced approach to this; I very much look forward to listening to it. Amendment 427B suggests to the Minister that the Government should tighten up on, or give themselves additional scope to deal with, unregistered illegal schools that seek to disguise themselves by splitting into separate parts. This is merely a technical issue that the Government should address. The other amendments in this group address the challenge that the Bill presents to the Haredi community. Obviously, the same principles that I am addressing here will apply to other religious communities where they provide substantial education for their children, but I am focusing on Haredi because I have been talking extensively to them—though I claim no authority to speak for them and no deep knowledge of their life. The Haredi are a venerable and peaceful community. They are contributors to commercial life and to the common good, though they keep themselves apart in many ways. It is part of the British way, as I understand it, to respect religions. The Haredi community, as with other religious communities, has cultural values that differ from those of wider society, such as treating sexuality as a private, more intimate, subject and having both specific gender roles and a stronger community structure. However, in my experience of the way in which this country is organised, we allow space for these differences and do not attempt to eradicate them, although we set boundaries and should be confident in doing so. There have been religions where murder and child abuse have been common features, and we are quite right to say, “No, those are off-limits”, whatever our religious belief. Where we choose to set those boundaries will change over time and be a matter for debate, obviously, but we should be confident in setting those boundaries. This Bill, as it is currently understood, places the Haredi system of yeshivas beyond the boundaries set in the Bill; yeshivas would be outlawed by it. The principal conflicts are around the requirement that yeshivas would have to register at schools and thus be bound by the curriculum and moral teachings that we expect of independent schools. This, the community feels, would be fundamentally in conflict with the Torah and would make it impossible for them to continue.