My Lords, these amendments give us another opportunity to talk about the important issue of safeguarding. It is an issue that has fallen between the cracks of the ambiguity we have dissected and discovered in our debates on most clauses of this Bill. The fact that there have been so many probing amendments in Committee speaks to the level of uncertainty in the House about dealing with such a vaguely worded Bill bereft of ideas and vision for making a better educational opportunity possible for all children and young people.
I acknowledge that the DfE has published an updated version of the statutory safeguarding and child protection guidance for schools in England, Keeping Children Safe in Education, which will be implemented this September. That contains important new guidance, not least the new paragraph setting out that
“children may not feel ready or know how to tell someone that they are being abused”.
It also includes the recommendation that
“governors and trustees receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection … training at induction”,
and then at regular intervals afterwards.
Nevertheless, there is always more that could be done. An old headmaster of mine used to say, “The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement”—I seem to remember he had it printed on a T-shirt. In a previous debate, my noble friend Lady Chapman mentioned the MacAlister review, which proposed that schools be made a statutory partner. The review said:
“In too many places the contribution and voice of education is missing from partnership arrangements, and so schools should be included as a statutory safeguarding partner”,
which we have also proposed as an amendment in another group. Would it be worth the Minister giving an update on the Government’s progress on working through the review’s recommendations, and is becoming a statutory partner something that the DfE is likely to accept?