Lord Lucas (Con)

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, for that comprehensive reply. I think the most important amendment in this group was Amendment 144. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, we should not be looking at placing children in unregulated accommodation. We are taking powers in this Bill to deal with unregulated schools—quite rightly, and I hope a great deal better than we have in the past. The idea that we are putting children into unregulated homes, or, as one of my amendments will address later, unregulated alternative provision, is really not acceptable. In Clause 30, we are giving power to the same local authorities that are making these placements to override parental judgment as to the best interests of their child. We really need to get our thinking straight in this area. Unregulated accommodation is not acceptable, particularly when we are talking about people charging at the level they are. We ought to be doing something clear about that in the Bill. I am glad that the Government say that they aim to end this practice, and that it should be done away with, but we need a stronger commitment than that. I was glad to hear the support for boarding schools. I had a miserable time at my boarding school. I would rather have been on the barge of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, frankly, such was the quality of accommodation. But I have seen the hugely transformational effect it can have when it works well, so it is very much a matter of choosing the right child for the right school. I hope my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton will pursue her campaign when it comes to the Planning Bill, because we need to be sharper than we are. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Russell, will pursue Amendment 165, which is so clearly achievable. If we are moving towards a consistent identifier for children, this is just the sort of thing that ought to be being done. My noble friend Lady Cash was told that it would be a burden on local authorities to collect the data. I hope that the Department for Education will wander down the road to their friends at the science department and look at what they are doing with AI, because that sort of function of data collection is so much quicker, cheaper and easier if you design the right systems. It ought not to be a matter of cost; it ought to be a matter of course. Lastly, I felt that that was a rather disappointing response to my amendment. I cannot see that it is ever going to be right to place a 17 year-old in an adult hostel. Children take a long time to grow up. A 17 year-old is not in a position to be with troubled 25 year-olds as their principal companions. I will look again at the Minister’s reply, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.