The Earl of Effingham (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing forward this statutory instrument. We understand His Majesty’s Government’s intention. It has been some years since the last update on reasonable force policy, and there has never been a consistent and standardised measure across our schools on how seclusion and restraint are recorded and reported. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition support the principle of introducing such a regime, as does the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley. However, much like my noble friend Lord Lucas, we would like to probe the Government on the impact assessment and the updated statutory guidance that will come into force in April. We understand the rationale behind the need for new guidance after many years, and we appreciate that the grounds on which teachers will be legally permitted to use reasonable force will be the same. However, there are several issues on which we seek clarification. The new guidance makes it clear that teachers must be “adequately trained in its safe and lawful use, and in preventative strategies”. While it stops short of implementing a national training standard, the impact assessment assumes that each school will be responsible for ensuring that training is completed in accordance with the principles of the guidance. The impact assessment attempts to outline how this will work in practice. However, our concerns resound with those of my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted so well, the department has not accounted for schools in the state sector in its budgeting and suggests a cost of just over £350,000 to independent schools. Are the Government suggesting that there will be no cost to the state sector in implementing this change? If that is the case, can we please have clarification on how they get to their zero-cost calculation?