Lord Lucas

The Ofsted report on home education is out this morning - not yet on their website. It's more rational about local authorities than Badman (if muted in its criticisms), has a generally supportive tone about home education, but focusses on how to help children stay in school and on how to allow local authorities to fulfil their 'monitoring duties' - Ofsted sets outs its views on these in some detail. In my view a measured exposition of what Home Education is up against with officialdom.

Good news: the current government has no interest in early legislation.

Good news for some: it's looking as if the 'free schools' legislation may allow virtual schools to be funded.

No, not the final solution for the hereditary peerage, but secret discussions that appear to have been taking place under the last government to curtail backbenchers powers and, in effect, neuter our ability to reform legislation. I've put down a question asking what's been going on.

I bet Labour are glad now that they did not succeed - but why were the cross benches keen on the idea (presuming my sources are accurate)?

Before the General Election, David Cameron vowed to repeal a range of 'Big Brother' laws, including the controversial use of force by bailiffs. The repeal should include not just the power of forced entry to premises and to restrain people, contained in the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Act 2007, but also the forced entry provisions for fine enforcement slipped into the final stages of the Domestic Violence, Crime & Victims Act 2004.

Although statistics imply that this power is used only about once every two months, it is a power that rarely has to be used. As a matter of 'good' practice, bailiffs daily explain to people that unless they let them in, forced entry will be undertaken with police support. Who could fail to cooperate in the face of such persuasion? It is a stain on our civil liberties.

As the forced entry provision was going through Parliament, Labour Ministers were clear that it would be used only against people convicted of a crime. They didn't mention that they included crimes like truancy and failing to buy a TV licence; they didn't mention that they would be used against the families of those who committed these 'crimes'.

The new Government should turn back the clock so that fines are once again civil debts owed to the State, and restore the principle that all bailiffs must act peacefully against property and people.

We can be sure that the Conservative/Liberal coalition government will not be springing any horrors on us when it comes to home education. Barring accidents, we have five years of peace ahead of us.

As I have said before, I don't think that the motivations behind the attack on home education have gone away, and I do expect it to re-emerge in one form or another should the government fall. I am therefore a proponent of the idea that we should try to legislate in a couple of years time to secure the basis for home education in the way in which we would wish, and to remove the excuse for attack.

In just the same way, I welcome the proposed Lords reform: not that I am convinced that it is necessary, or that it will produce a better house than we have now, but I believe that it is inevitable that it will happen and I had rather that it was done by a government that I am comfortable with, and whose views I can hope to influence.

The BBC says that we are to have full Lords reform early in the session, with a move to complete proportional representation. Well, if that turns out to be the case, I think that we should welcome it.

We are almost PR in our house as it is. So there's nothing wrong with the proportions of the party representations of the House of Lords being set in that fashion

We will want to make sure that the House of Lords which emerges is at least as good and effective as the House of Lords that we have now, but given that the reform process is taking place under a friendly government over a decent timescale, and that given the views of backbenchers on all sides we have considerable power to make a mess of the legislation, or of legislation generally, I am sure that we will find that our views are listened to and that the reform which emerges preserves the best of what we have now.

This blog will be full of ideas as to how to achieve this, and I will be listeing for your ideas too. Here is one for starters:

There should be 25% appointed independent members. A coalition government would then have to command two thirds of the party seats in the House of Lords in order to have an absolute majority. I suspect that the five years to come will be a lesson in how the effectiveness of the House of Lords is reduced when the governing party/coalition has control.

No committee days have been scheduled for the bill this month, which now lies helpless in its cradle waiting for its inevitable dismemberment in the "washup". So is this the end of the story?

Not if the election is postponed until June - a faint possibility still.

And not if the issue of home education regulation rumbles on - as I judge it will do - into the next parliament.

I will lay some amendments to set out my views on where next.

It seems likely that the second reading of the Children Schools and Families Bill in the Lords will come soon after we return from our winter half term on 22nd February, and that Clause 26 will still be intact.

To interest peers in supporting HE at second reading, aim to canvass us before 9th February – we rise on the 10th.

Hints on canvassing us:

- keep it short. We have no staff, and too much to do. Make your main points on the first side, even if you say more thereafter;

- understand our limitations. We are most of us more or less ancient, more or less establishment, and conscious that political power rests with the Commons. Liberty plays well – but there are few absolute libertarians here;

- your aim is to find friends, not conquer enemies. You will find plenty;

- do offer to meet in the Lords, if that’s easy for you, or if you are part of one of the HE organisations ask if the peer would like to meet a HE family who lives near their home (peers have no published home addresses by and large, so only organisations are likely to be able to find a good local candidate.

After Second Reading comes Committee, when the whole house (meaning those who take an interest) go through the Bill line by line. What we will need for this stage are suggestions for amendments – different ways of having oversight of HE, different ways of supporting it. I know that the whole concept of oversight is anathema to some of you, but that’s the way we work and our strengths are more in grinding the government down gradually with practical arguments than cutting them down with politics. So do send in your ideas for amendments, as we can put them down straight after Second Reading.

I do not see how the home education section of the current Bill can be sensibly modified, in the time that we have, to take account of the committee's report.

There are too many of its recommendations that need careful analysis and discussion - the nature of registration, the definition of suitable education, LA officers' training and code of practice, the way support should be provided for HE - more, doubtless, when I have read the report carefully.

Also, first indications of the outcome of the Ofsted investigation are that it will be more on the side of HE than the Commons committee.

Given all this, I hope that the DCSF will take the opportunity of the committee's report to take a graceful step backwards. I shall not hold my breath, though, but I still expect the HE section of the bill to die when the election is called, if not before.

HE will remain unfinished business for the department and parliament. The conflicts evident in the committee's report, a compromise between strong and opposing views, will need to be resolved, and a strong, quarrel-free (which does not mean united) HE input will be important for the next couple of years at least.

I think that the most likely outcome is voluntary registration, withdrawal of registration subject to a proper court, support for HE from LAs, and training/standards for LAs - but it's clear from the committee's report that there's a strong thread of parliamentary thought that would prefer something that was much harsher on HE.