Education Bill

My Lords, I was going to make some comments on the content of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but I am struggling, as I gather are other noble Lords. I know that we got rather a lot of e-mails this morning in rather a hurry but I do not believe that I have seen the e-mail referred to by the noble Lord. This raises a wider question. Here we are trying to scrutinise legislation properly, but how on earth can we get involved in a debate when we are debating blind assurances that the noble Lord has been given that we do not appear to have seen? Forgive me if it is somewhere in the ether and I should have received the e-mail by now. The comment that I should like to make—and which this infamous e-mail might answer—is that the amendment is very stark. I suppose that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that teachers do not go into teaching to fail. The onus should be concentrated far more on identifying what has gone wrong and identifying support mechanisms than on simply setting out provisions such as those in the amendment for the disciplinary measures to be taken against an individual. Somehow the context is missing, although it may be that the Government have now provided it. My only other point is that, as I said, teachers do not go into teaching to fail, but there should be a requirement on all teachers, not just those who are struggling, to get involved in continuous professional development. Under this amendment, if all else fails, we will get them to do some extra training. It should be a requirement for all teachers at all times to update their skill-set. Those are my only comments, but it would be interesting to see this e-mail. Perhaps we can have the opportunity to come back and make further comments when we have seen it.