Education Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for those words. As ever, he is sensible, courteous, wise and thorough. I know that he is well aware of the importance of these issues. Perhaps, yet again, he could meet a small group of us informally to talk about how well-being is to be delivered in a guaranteed way. I am happy to organise a group to do that. We have had a very interesting, wise and dedicated debate on this issue, most of which I agree with and some of which I do not, but that is fine. I want to raise one or two issues. There is the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, not in this debate but in the one before: if something is to be inspected, schools will be aware of it and will look at it. I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield. I was the person who welcomed him to this House, in very difficult circumstances—he knows what I mean. He made some very astute comments. Schools have to teach some things and I think that this should be one of them. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for whom I have enormous respect, that parents sometimes feel somewhat uneasy about dealing with issues of sexual relations. He is nodding, so he must know, and I think schools can back that up. I am all for parental consultation and involvement, but I dealt with this myself when I was teaching and I agree that sometimes parents have difficulties dealing with the issue and children have difficulty talking to their parents about it. Let us leave it at that. The quality of teaching materials and the fact that they are age-appropriate is important, as my noble friend Lady Crawley said. I have no intention of calling a Division at this time of night, when there is other important business to come. However, while I am sorry to end on a sour note, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made a very impassioned and indignant speech and I, like her, still feel indignant and distressed by letter-writing campaigns that impute things to us that we never intended. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 80 withdrawn.