Lord Hacking (Lab)

My Lords, I am somewhat disappointed that there has not been support so far for the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, which I co-signed. This is a very important amendment and I will explain why. The amendment is basically to remove from the Bill the provisions in proposed new Section 436D. The purpose therefore is to ask the Government and my noble friend the Minister to think again about it. The provisions place a requirement to provide information within 15 days on all parents, who must provide initial basic information under proposed new Section 436C, such as the name and home address of each parent and, under paragraph (e), a lot of very detailed information about the home educators who will be educating their children. If a parent is in breach of providing either the initial information or any changes to it, they are then guilty of breaching proposed new Section 436D. The further consequence, if they are in breach, is that they will suffer monetary penalty. This is unfair and far too harsh on ordinary parents who are trying to do an ordinary job of home schooling, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to think again about those provisions. They put the home-schooling parent into an almost criminal capacity, and that is just wrong. So I would be very grateful if my noble friend would think again about all those penalties. Let us remember that under new Section 436C(1)(e), a lot of detailed information has to be provided for Sunday schools, that a child may be going to, or for evening classes for physical exercise, and so forth. Things can easily change: perhaps there is a new gym mistress for the evening physical education class, or there are new preachers at the Sunday school. These are very detailed matters, but it does not matter about the detail. The obligation is for the parent to provide the details of the change and provide that detail of change within 15 days. This is far too onerous.