My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the care with which he summed up and to all those who have taken part in what has been a very thoughtful debate. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Farmer, for giving us the benefit of their experience and taking a slightly different line.
The Minister said at the beginning that he was depressed about the attitude he had heard to making improvements. I have to say that I came into the Bill depressed, because there was clearly a great fixed gulf between the Government and the practitioners on the ground. That worried me, particularly as the Bill went on and more and more practitioners wrote to us about their concerns, in particular about these clauses. As I said at the start, I am totally in favour of innovation. I outlined the way in which the Army—I know the other services do the same—processed innovation by identifying it and turning good practice somewhere into common practice everywhere.
I am sorry to go back to my time as Chief Inspector of Prisons, but what worried me about good practice in prisons was that the prisons lacked a structure and a wherewithal for turning good practice into common practice. During my five and a half years as chief inspector, I identified 2,800 examples of good practice, only 40 of which were turned into common practice, because there was no machinery for doing the others. As I said, I am all in favour of innovation and of a bottom-up approach, but I am concerned that there appears to be no system in the Department for Education looking for innovation or improvements and then processing them. If necessary, and if legislation is the reason why they cannot be processed, then surely the initiation of a machinery which can get round that should be investigated.
As I said at the beginning, what concerned me about this was that the Secretary of State was being empowered to take action which might undo the law laid down for social work and therefore affect the rule of law. I do not believe that that machinery has been properly worked out in the ministry, and if it has, it certainly has not got through to the workers on the ground whose understanding and support for legislation is absolutely crucial. I asked at the end of my speech whether the Minister would consider withdrawing these clauses and holding a proper consultation with the people working on the ground—who clearly have no confidence in the clauses in the Bill—out of which could come a machinery for innovation and for identifying initiatives and processing them, which would satisfy everyone and give confidence in the system. If people have confidence in the system, the outcomes will be better for children.
I have listened very carefully to all the arguments and, as I say, am extremely grateful to those who have taken part, particularly because both sides of the argument have been put very clearly. Now the time has come for a decision, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.