Education Bill

My Lords, I was waiting to see if my noble friend wanted to take advantage of a chance to reply. He has not yet convinced me with his arguments. We have had an experiment running, and if we are to terminate it we ought at least to be allowed to see the results so far. It really ought to be up to the Government to provide them to us, and I very much hope that between now and Report we will have the chance to see a narrative, if not an evaluation, of what has been achieved so far. These are long-standing problems, particularly when it comes to bullying, SEN and children getting into home education when they do not really want to be there. I am conscious that this has happened over a long period and in quite a high volume without any indication that the current methods, which we are to go back to, have provided an adequate answer. What was proposed by the previous Government and is now being trialled is a transfer from one set of officials who are not specialised and have limited powers to another set of officials who are specialised and have better powers. That seems to be worth trying. That is not to say that this is something that should not be done by Government; rather, it is to say that if we do it in a slightly different way, it could be done better. I am conscious of the suffering that is caused by the current system and its inadequacies, and I do not want to go back to it. I do not mind going back to it if the system being trialled turns out to be no better and more expensive, but we ought to know what the evaluation is.