Lord Lucas (Con)

I am grateful for the Minister’s response to my amendments. I would be grateful for a brief response to the amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Wei—just a confirmation, I suspect, when it comes to Amendment 387, of the recognition that there is a lot to say about the methodology of home education and the curriculum, and similarly, on Amendment 393, confirmation that the timing of educational progress, which should in principle be respected, can form part of a suitable education. I have met a very capable young Oxford undergraduate who did not begin to write until they were 13. Having learned entirely through other methods and found writing extremely difficult, he was able to move on to a keyboard aged 13 and get himself eventually to Oxford. The generality, which is picked up in my noble friend’s amendment, of not beginning formal education until seven is very common on the continent. There are structures which do not impose reading, writing and arithmetic before that age and which succeed on a national level. The understanding that the Government recognise that there are other routes to educational success, and that this is something that local authorities do not understand, is of general interest, rather more so than some of my noble friend’s more focused amendments.