Education Bill

That is helpful, and I thank the Minister. I will refer not to a lighter touch, but if in fact the sharper focus is to lighten the burdens of the chief inspector and narrow the focus, however sharply, then the way we are trying to address this worries me. I used ““lighter touch”” because I heard those words used by the Minister—it may have been in a different context. However, a lighter touch is associated historically with the FSA which, as we saw, led to the disaster which we are all still suffering from. One of the additions that we seek to make here to provide protection to all pupils in our schools, as associated with the Equality Act 2010, is because a lighter touch has been so light that it has been almost totally ineffective. I worry when I hear about a lighter touch because that Act was predicated on a White Paper that talked about light-touch regulation, which does not work. Light-touch inspection does not work either, although I agree with it being sharply focused. However, in this case we have heard of the variation in the quality of inspection reports over the years. I have experience of seeing some of those reports and how they have either impacted on the way in which people have responded to the needs of children within those schools or avoided saying things that have to be said. The amendment is important because we need to make this as explicit and comprehensive as possible, without adding to the burdens of the chief inspector in reporting, so that we are able to provide what is intended and deal with the needs of all our children. By focusing only on those with special educational needs and those with a disability, we do a disservice to what is intended and to all those other children who have particular needs but will be excluded from that category. A great many other disadvantaged children will not be sharply focused on by any chief inspector’s report. The reason for the other two categories being included has been alluded to and cogently argued for by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. When we discuss meeting the needs of a range of pupils in the school, it is important that we recognise that there are many socioeconomically disadvantaged children whose needs have to be addressed. If the focus is on schools that are not achieving and not doing well, there will be many children within the range that we ought to be looking at who should be the subject of careful consideration and who should be reported on.