On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you received notice of the parliamentary statement that has been widely trailed in the media today on huge cuts in the Territorial Army, at a time when we have hundreds of territorials serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they represent the only framework for expansion that the country has for its very small Regular Army? Those cuts are viewed with considerable concern in the country.

Further to that point of order—

Let me answer the point of order. I have had no notice. The Minister would normally notify me in the morning, and there has been no notice.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to have given you notice of the point of order. My constituent, Captain Strong, has been unable to get a British passport because he has not been in this country for five years, as he has been serving valiantly in Her Majesty's armed forces abroad. I tabled a question on the subject to the Home Office in good time before the Queen's Speech. The Home Office avoided answering the question because of the new rule that Departments are not obliged to answer questions that fall at the end of a Session. I retabled the question on 29 November—a fortnight ago—and it has still not been answered. I am tabling a pursuant question today. How long can the Home Office go on avoiding answering this difficult question?

The hon. Gentleman has followed the proper procedure for trying to get answers out of Ministers, which is to ask the question twice. I will look into the matter. Hon. Members should have questions answered in a reasonable time.

Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), I have checked the Order Paper and we do not, unfortunately, have Defence questions before the House rises for the Christmas recess. Given the reports that are circulating in the press and causing considerable uncertainty in the Territorial community, it would be pernicious if the TA were punished for the chaos that exists in the Ministry of Defence. Is there anything you can do to bring a Minister to the Dispatch Box to clarify the matter and, hopefully, to save the Territorial Army from what appears to be in prospect?

Before we break up, we have the Christmas Adjournment debate. On that day, hon. Members may bring up any subject they wish. That is an opportunity, and there are others: the hon. Gentleman could table a written question and also, perhaps, try for an Adjournment debate.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance. As you know, we are about to have an important debate in Opposition time on the crucial issue of school discipline, and it is disappointing, to put it no more strongly, that the Secretary of State does not appear to have the self-discipline to be present for the debate. I have just been advised by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), in response to a sedentary question from me, that he does not know where his boss is. Is it in order that the Secretary of State should show such abject contempt for the House as to fail even to turn up to debate an issue of this importance? It sets a very bad precedent.

I do not know why the hon. Gentleman is disappointed. I am not disappointed, and the Under-Secretary is here, so we can look forward to a good day.

BILL PRESENTED

Child Benefit

Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Secretary Clarke, Mr. Paul Boateng, Mr. Secretary Johnson, Dawn Primarolo, Mr. Stephen Timms and John Healey, presented, under Standing Order No. 50 (Procedure upon bills whose main object is to create a charge upon the public revenue), a Bill to make provision for and in connection with altering the descriptions of persons in respect of whom a person may be entitled to child benefit: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 13].

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn but is concerned that their ability to do so is increasingly undermined by a disruptive minority; regrets the fact that an assault takes place on a teacher every seven minutes, as reported by teaching unions; further notes that incidents involving poor behaviour, intimidation, violence, guns and drugs in schools are all increasing; deplores the announcement by the Government that it will force every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head teacher, to take a share of pupils with disruptive or even violent backgrounds; believes that head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels; calls for a six fold increase in the number of places to be provided for high quality, intensive but separate education of those whose behavioural difficulties make them unsuitable for inclusion in mainstream schools; is confident that the ability of teachers to exercise discipline would be greatly enhanced by protecting them from the fear of false allegations of abuse, and urges swift legislation to guarantee anonymity for teachers facing accusations at least up to the point where a formal criminal charge is brought; recognises that teachers, parents and pupils all, overwhelmingly, want to see stronger action on discipline and have the right to expect it; and consequently, further believes that it is time for the rights of the majority of pupils, parents and teachers to be given greater weight.

There can be few more important subjects than the topic before the House today, and therefore I should like to add my expression of sorrow to those that have already been voiced at the absence of the Secretary of State today.

What is the essential pre-requisite for high-quality education? Getting resources, teachers, training, the curriculum, buildings and facilities right are all vital, but none can have effect unless learning can take place in a disciplined environment. As the Opposition motion makes clear, the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn. Many schools have few, if any, serious discipline problems. Unfortunately, however, there are plenty that do.

The Guardian reported last year that 31 per cent. of teachers leaving the profession cite poor pupil behaviour as the reason. The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers reports that a teacher is assaulted every seven minutes in one of our schools. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has recommended that metal detectors should be installed outside schools, a suggestion that it is predicted the Home Secretary will adopt on Wednesday. What was once a symbol of social decay confined to the worst excesses of inner-city America could soon become a daily part of life for many children in this country.

The Times Educational Supplement in August this year reported that the first termly exclusions survey of local education authorities by the Office for National Statistics showed that in just one term in 2003 no fewer than 17,424 pupils were suspended for violent behaviour. Sometimes these acts of violence can be genuinely horrific.

We think of Luke Walmsley, the 14-year-old stabbed to death in one of our schools a year ago, whose parents, with great courage, have come to London today to lobby for changes in the laws concerning knives. We think of the 15-year-old who died at school only last month, apparently after a fight with a pupil; of the 13-year-old left drenched in blood after being stabbed at her desk at school, also last month; of the pupil who was shot in the head at school in October; of the 12-year-old rushed to hospital after being stabbed on a flight of stairs at a school in September. Those may be the most extreme and shocking cases, but they are by no means entirely unrepresentative.

The ONS survey showed that in just one term in 2003, there were 288 permanent exclusions and 4,000 temporary ones for physical assaults on an adult, with a further 336 permanent and 12,800 temporary exclusions for assaults on fellow pupils.

My hon. Friend has mentioned a number of cases at one end of the scale, but would he also agree that at the other end of the scale pupils bullying pupils should also be taken extremely seriously, and where it is deemed sufficiently serious, pupils should also be excluded if they persist in bullying other pupils?

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has raised a serious problem. He is right to say that head teachers must have the unlimited right to exclude pupils and that they should be encouraged to exclude pupils who engage in organised, systematic bullying.

The hon. Gentleman has just said that head teachers should be given absolute authority to exclude pupils. If one head teacher has a low threshold for exclusion and is allowed to exercise that right untrammelled, they can offload every child who exhibits any problems on to other secondary schools in the area.

The hon. Lady has come to the heart of one of the profound differences between her party and mine. Her comment evidences a lack of trust in the professionals. We believe that if head teachers are allowed to take those decisions, they will not abuse that right and will use exclusion as a last resort, not a first resort. We have many of the problems that face us today precisely because the Government do not trust head teachers to take those decisions.

The hon. Gentleman has put his name to the motion, which states that

"head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels".

When we discussed changes to asylum and immigration policy, the Conservative party rightly opposed getting rid of all the levels of appeal, so why is he suggesting getting rid of a level of appeal for schools? Under that policy, such matters would end up in the courts rather than with the local education authority, which would make the situation worse.

I invite the hon. Gentleman to consider whether the independent judgment of head teachers should be trusted in a way in which employees of the present Home Office should not.

The Times Educational Supplement reported that teaching unions thought that the figures might be underestimates, since schools may have failed to report the full figures for fear of being labelled "failing". In other words, the numbers involved in acts of violence may be greater than the statistics that I quoted earlier. The Government may say that they have set a target to reduce permanent exclusions, which have been reduced by some 3,000 since 1997. However, given the steady rise in incidents of violence and indiscipline in schools and the number of teachers who cite poor behaviour as a major contributor to their stress, it cannot be argued that exclusions are falling because behaviour is improving. On the contrary, the Government have introduced a target to reduce the number of punishments handed out, rather than the number of offences committed. It is like the Home Office aiming to reduce the number of arrests rather than the number of crimes.

That is simply the wrong way to go about things. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and many senior members of the Government have rightly discussed the need to implement zero-tolerance policies to tackle yobbishness among young people. They have spoken persuasively about the way in which small acts of rule infringement escalate into far more serious issues if society sends out the message that it either does not care about those rules or is incapable of enforcing them, and they are entirely right. What is strange, however, is to take the view that zero tolerance is the right approach towards young people out on the street, but the wrong approach when they are in school. Indeed, zero tolerance is arguably more important in schools, given that by definition those who are shaped by the prevailing attitude towards rules are at the most impressionable stages of their lives.

The first part of the distinctive Conservative approach towards restoring discipline is to restore to heads the absolute and final authority to expel pupils whose poor behaviour makes them unfit to be part of that community. There should be no targets for the number of exclusions and no pressure, implicit or explicit, to go for a softer option. We do not believe that heads would use expulsion as anything other than a last resort, but if they need to use it, they must be able to use it without fear or favour.

If the hon. Gentleman's proposal were to come to pass, would the number of exclusions in England increase or decrease, and by how much?

Certainly in the short term, I would expect the number of exclusions to increase, which is why—I shall come on to this point later in my remarks—we have allocated significant public spending to multiply by six the number of places in what the Government currently call pupil referral units, which we would call "turnaround schools". We take the view that the subject is serious and that head teachers should be given greater freedom. If that means that more are excluded, more provision needs to be made for them.

A recent poll showed that 74 per cent. of the public—

Will my hon. Friend give way?

If I may just finish this point, I will by all means give way. My hon. Friend may be anticipating me, but I shall explain why he and I should be confident that we have the public on our side on this.

A recent poll shows that 74 per cent. of the public and 79 per cent. of teachers agree with us that independent appeals panels should be abolished and should lose the powers granted them by the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to overrule heads and force them to take back disruptive pupils.

My hon. Friend referred to the expectation that exclusions may increase in the short term once this policy has been put into effect. Does not he agree that although that may be the case in the short term, in the longer term parents and pupils will be given the message that if children do not behave, they will be removed from school, which will mean that fewer people are referred to turnaround schools?

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who is, after all, making precisely the point that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and others make when they advocate zero tolerance in other contexts—namely, that securing more arrests, more convictions and possibly more people being sent to prison in the short term sends a clear signal that society will take rule-breaking and lawbreaking seriously, which results in better behaviour and less crime in the long term. In the context of schools, the zero-tolerance approach would mean that in the medium to long term there would be fewer disciplinary offences. As my hon. Friend will agree, one cannot take the view that there are an acceptable number of people breaking the rules. We will deal with those people severely to ensure that we reduce the incidence of indiscipline over the medium to long term.

Several of us were intrigued by various parts of the Government's amendment, particularly the section—for which, no doubt, Labour Members will be invited to vote this evening—that says that the House supports

"the Government's reform of exclusions to strengthen the power of headteachers".

That is an interesting interpretation of the Government's record since 1997, given that it was they who introduced the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which gave independent appeals panels the power to overrule head teachers and to force them to take back disruptive pupils. That did not strengthen the power of head teachers—it removed and undermined it. Indeed, there has been at least one case in which an appeals panel forced a school to take back a pupil who had violently attacked a teacher. It is impossible to imagine a scenario that is more likely to demonstrate the impotence of authority or to lead to further, ever more severe, acts of indiscipline. Conservatives will therefore scrap those panels outright; I do not believe that many teachers will mourn their passing.

The Government amendment goes on to say that the House

"deplores attempts to destroy that system, which would expose headteachers to litigation".

If the independent appeals panels were abolished, head teachers would face being taken to court under judicial review. That is the very power that his party rightly said should not be removed in asylum and immigration cases, and I am glad to say that the Government backed off on that. Is he saying unequivocally, to use the word in his motion, that judicial review would not even be allowed in these cases and that the decision of the head teacher would be final, with no legal redress whatsoever?

Of course, there is a theoretical possibility of judicial review, in common with all other decisions taken by public bodies. However, we intend to take steps that will make it extremely unlikely that parents will choose to take that route. Parents who choose to sue schools will not have access to legal aid or to no win, no fee arrangements. It will take only one or two cases to go against parents, so that they have to face the entirety of the costs—not only their own but of the school in defending itself—for them to realise that they do not wish to follow that procedure. That will give heads an enormously strengthened role.

Of course, our approach of giving head teachers the final say and encouraging zero-tolerance policies is in even starker contrast with the latest evolution in Government policy. The Secretary of State announced last month that he intends to require every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head or governors, to take its share of pupils with a disruptive, or even violent past. That means that even schools that were oases of calm and good order until now might not be so in future.

We believe that we are considering a fundamental issue of principle: do we take the view that violence and disruptive behaviour is such an ingrained and unshakeable factor in school life that it is only fair to spread the misery around evenly; or do we believe that it is not inevitable, acceptable or tolerable, and that heads who are determined to stamp it out completely in their schools deserve not to be undermined or second-guessed but given full backing?

Of course, a strategy of exclusion alone cannot be the be-all and end-all of enforcing discipline. At least two other elements are needed. First, early intervention to help where possible avoids problems later in life. That will not work in every case but it is important to try, and the Government are to be commended for their commitment to early-years education. Conservatives will shortly set out how we hope to build on that.

Secondly, those who are excluded cannot simply be left to their own devices. Half of those sent to pupil referral units spend less than 20 hours a week there. Both the quantity and quality of the provision need to improve. The number of places at PRUs is insufficient and, therefore, the Leader of the Opposition and I recently announced that the next Conservative Government will make spending on separate specialist centres for excluded pupils—turn-around schools—our top spending priority. We will allocate at least £200 million extra a year to it. That sum could fund a sixfold increase in the number of places, or a smaller increase in the number of places but more investment per pupil.

It is in the interests of everyone who is involved in education—teachers, parents and pupils alike—for the issue of disruptive pupils to be tackled vigorously and for the rights of the 29 pupils out of 30 who wish to learn to be given higher priority than the one in the 30 who wishes to disrupt.

The hon. Gentleman repeats the motion's words about a sixfold increase in the number of places. There are currently 13,000 places in pupil referral units. Does the Conservative party propose that we should have 78,000 places in such units instead? If so, the cost would be considerably higher than £200 million. It would be at least £500 million and probably more.

The Under-Secretary cites a different figure from that previously published by the Government, on which we based our calculation of an increase from 4,000 to 24,000 pupils. The figure of £200 million is the sum that we have available for spending. Even on the figures that the Under-Secretary cited, it would provide for a substantial increase in places. We will review the figure, for which I have received the agreement of the shadow Chancellor. It could be reviewed upwards, but not downwards in school spending. It would be a substantial increase on any basis.

If the hon. Gentleman wants an increase in specialist schools for those who are having difficulties emotionally and behaviourally, why is the Tory county council in Dorset currently planning to close Penwithen school, which it had previously described as a centre of excellence?

It is always amusing to be challenged by a Liberal Democrat about consistency and policy. I shall not go further.

I have one other important policy matter, which is directly relevant to discipline, to discuss this afternoon. It is the sensitive issue of how best to balance the competing rights and interests of those involved when an allegation is made that a teacher has abused a pupil in his or her care.

The issue was brought to life for me when a constituent, who has given permission for me to raise his case today, came to see me at an advice surgery. David Sowerbutts is a retired head teacher. He had a blemish-free 28-year career. His life was shattered after a woman, now in her 30s, claimed that he had assaulted her when he was a deputy head teacher in the 1970s.

When the case came to court, clear evidence was brought forward to clear Mr Sowerbutts, and the case was comprehensively thrown out. However, in the meantime, my constituent was branded a paedophile, spat at in the street, had his home vandalised and, worst of all, received a series of terrifying death threat calls telling him every day for a week to kill himself or get ready to be murdered.

My constituent is now trying to put his life back together. Sadly, however, that option is not open to the family of Alastair Wilbee, a head teacher on the Isle of Wight who hanged himself after being accused of sexually abusing a boy. The coroner in that case called for legislation to grant the same statutory right to anonymity for teachers accused of abuse that the law already gives to children making such an accusation.

The same call was made as recently as last Friday by Christopher Ifould, a former deputy head, who was cleared unanimously by a jury after being tried on a charge of sexually assaulting a pupil. I shall quote his words, which appeared in last Saturday's Daily Mail, and other papers. He said:

"Nobody should have to go through what I and my family, friends and colleagues have endured. Teachers are increasingly vulnerable to false and malicious allegations. It is all too easy for disgruntled pupils, and those in pursuit of compensation, to make false allegations. The scales have tipped too far in favour of complainants."

He went on:

"More must be done to protect the reputations of good teachers. In particular, I call upon the Government to protect the anonymity of teachers accused of abuse".

I could quote many more such examples.

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. I happen to believe that a similar argument could be made in regard to the youth service, in which exactly the same problems can arise in relation to informal teaching arrangements. However, everyone in a community such as the one that I represent would know that an allegation had been made, whether or not it had appeared in the newspapers, because that is the nature of our community. How would the hon. Gentleman deal with that problem?

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that no law can deliver perfection, but a law of this nature could make matters better than they are at the moment. Teachers and their union representatives are emphatic that legislation would help. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it would not solve every aspect of the problem; no law ever can. But it would make things better, and, for that reason, it is legitimate for the House to consider the wishes of teachers on this matter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on demonstrating—if demonstration were needed—that we are committed to the reintroduction into education not of the three R's, but of the six R's: reading, writing, arithmetic, right, wrong, and respect for legitimate authority in the classroom. Does he agree, however, that if we are to ensure that such measures are practically effective and not weakened or thwarted in Government, it will be necessary to act against that consistent and inveterate clique of left-wing officials in the Department for Education and Skills whose activities have done too much damage to the life chances of too many state school pupils for far too long?

I can certainly tell my hon. Friend that it is the intention of the next Conservative Government to free our schools from political interference, from left or right, by making it possible for them to take many more decisions for themselves and not be subject to interference from officials of whatever political orientation.

I could have quoted many more examples of the difficulties being experienced by teachers facing accusations of abuse. Ninety per cent. of those accused are never formally charged with an offence, and most of those who are so charged are subsequently acquitted. Indeed, according to figures from the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, only 69 of the 1,782 accusations of abuse made against members of that union in the past decade resulted in a conviction. In the meantime, however, many such teachers go through what they describe as a period of pure personal and professional hell so traumatic that many who are accused never go back to teaching, even though their name is subsequently entirely cleared. That is why the teaching unions have called for a statutory right of anonymity for teachers. The Conservatives believe that that call is reasonable, and we back it.

The link to discipline is also clear. As one teacher put it to me, "How can I enforce discipline in a classroom if I know that if I antagonise any one of the pupils, and they choose to use the word 'abuse', my entire personal and professional life could be over?" That is why anonymity is important.

Let us be clear about what this does and does not involve. No one is calling for a return to the past, when allegations of abuse were simply ignored or brushed aside. Teachers are not asking for immunity from prosecution or investigation, or even that they should not be suspended if a credible allegation is made. On the contrary, all such claims should be thoroughly investigated. However, teachers are very understandably of the view that they are treated now as though they are guilty until proven innocent, when it should be the reverse. The pendulum has swung too far. No doubt in past children's complaints were not given sufficient weight. Today, it is the right of teachers to basic justice, protection from false or malicious allegations and the presumption of innocence that needs to be given more weight.

In fairness, the Government have said that they recognise that there is a real problem with the current situation. Indeed, they spent several months earlier this year consulting and considering what to do. Unfortunately, their final conclusions have been greeted with some disappointment. I accept that the Government will seek to speed up the time scale for investigations and trials and that they have secured guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, and reached a voluntary agreement with the media, to limit the publication of the names of teachers in such circumstances. Those measures will undoubtedly improve matters and thus are welcome, but the police are already not supposed to provide such names during an investigation and the press have long undertaken to be responsible, yet names of teachers still keep being reported.

Those measures do not add up to what is being sought—the same legal right to anonymity for the accused teacher as for his or her accuser. So, let me make this offer across the Dispatch Box: should the Government choose to introduce a short Bill—it would need to be of no more than one or two clauses—simply to cover this point, the Opposition undertake to help to give it swift passage through both Houses of Parliament. Even in the short period before the expected election, such a Bill would have time to get on to the statute book. However, should Ministers choose to decline this offer, Conservatives undertake to include such a measure in the teacher protection Bill, which we are pledged to introduce in our first Queen's Speech.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I have given way twice to the hon. Gentleman, so, if he will forgive me, I shall make progress.

This morning, on Radio 4's "Today" programme, a teacher named Richard Anderson appeared. He is the teacher whose case has been widely publicised after huge numbers of present and past pupils backed him when he was suspended after a bag he threw towards a disruptive pupil hit that child. Mr. Anderson said this morning:

"There is a detailed and specific child protection act but there is nothing in place for teachers. The teachers do need a charter of their own . . . that protects teachers just as much as children.

There are increased pressures on teachers and they are finding it very difficult to survive with so few sanctions at their disposal."

That teacher is right. Teaching unions are right. Discipline matters, so protecting teachers matters. If the Government will not take action to do that before the election, Conservatives in office will do so after it.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"welcomes the high priority the Government gives to improving behaviour and discipline in schools; supports Government measures to promote positive behaviour by empowering headteachers to deal with badly behaved pupils; celebrates the success that is evident, including attendance being at its highest ever level and Ofsted reporting behaviour satisfactory or better in 99 per cent, of primary schools and 95 per cent, of secondary schools; affirms the Government's commitment to tackle problems that remain; further supports the Government's reform of exclusions to strengthen the power of headteachers; deplores attempts to destroy that system, which would expose headteachers to litigation; welcomes the fact that headteachers, local education authorities and staff are endorsing Government plans for Foundation Partnerships which help schools co-operate to put pupils back on the right track; notes that capacity of pupil referral units has almost doubled under this Government to 13,000 places; considers that to multiply this capacity by six would not represent cost-effective spending on behaviour; deplores the suggestion that privatised borstals are the answer to every problem; endorses the action that the Government is taking to keep drugs and knives out of schools; further endorses the Government's drive to ensure that parents play their part in ensuring that children attend school regularly and behave well; further supports the Government's reforms for dealing with allegations against teachers swiftly and fairly; and agrees with the Government that no pupil has the right to disrupt the education of others and that every pupil, not just the few, should have the opportunity to succeed in life and to contribute."

We take the issue of behaviour and discipline in schools extremely seriously. For that reason, I very much welcome today's opportunity to set out the progress that we are making and the challenges that we continue to face. Discipline in schools matters for many of the reasons that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) set out. It matters for obvious educational reasons in the school; it matters because ill-discipline and bullying can affect the confidence and self-esteem of children, and their safety; and it matters because improving behaviour and tackling ill-discipline in schools will reduce criminal and antisocial behaviour later on, with a wide community benefit.

That is why we have invested significantly in improving behaviour, with a programme over the last three years of £470 million to improve behaviour both universally and through targeted support for schools, where the challenges are at their greatest. It is why we believe that every child has the right to the best possible education, the right to enjoy their learning in a positive environment, the right to achieve, and the right to make the very best of their life—every child, not just the few.

I shall address the points raised in the motion in turn. In a sense, the motion starts with the areas of consensus:

"That this House notes that the vast majority of pupils are well-behaved and eager to learn but is concerned that their ability to do so is increasingly undermined by a disruptive minority".

Of course I agree that the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and eager to learn. The vast majority of learners behave well almost all the time. They benefit from engaging teaching, and from the encouragement and support that they get from teachers and other members of our staff. They also benefit from this Government's massive investment in support for positive behaviour.

When I go to schools and meet pupils, I am impressed with what I see, as, I am sure, are Members in all parts of the House. Last month, I had the opportunity to attend the Diana awards, at which I met a young woman who had set up a bereavement counselling service in her school, and a young man who is leading the anti-bullying peer support network in his school. More recently, I went to Deptford Green school in south London, where I met pupils involved in the school council, which is ensuring that the voice of pupils is properly heard at all levels within the school.

Does my hon. Friend accept that children are often led to become disruptive because they are having extreme difficulty in coping with the teaching in the classroom? In those circumstances, investment in classroom assistants or support mechanisms for those children is a more useful tactic than immediately excluding them from school and further disrupting their education before they are allocated to another school.

I thank my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right. The investment in classroom assistants and other adults working in schools—I shall refer later to the role of learning mentors—plays a vital part in enabling schools to promote the very best behaviour.

We must, however, accept that there is a disruptive minority, as the motion correctly states. A central plank of our policy is to tackle disruption and to promote good behaviour. Contrary to what the motion says, there are some signs that behaviour overall is improving: the 25 per cent. reduction in exclusions since 1997 is something to be proud of. If we examine the evidence from Ofsted, we see that behaviour is regarded as satisfactory or better in well over 90 per cent. of schools inspected. Of course, we all know that good attendance reflects an improving climate of good discipline in schools.

Truancy is a big challenge. We were disappointed by a small increase in unauthorised absence in the past year, but that was combined with a larger decrease in authorised absence. As a result, school attendance is at its highest since records began. When we came to power in 1997, school attendance stood at 92.77 per cent. The latest figures, published provisionally in September, showed an increase to 93.43 per cent.—

Revolutionary.

Expressed in percentage terms, it does not sound dramatic, but when expressed in terms of the number of pupils, I am sure that even the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) would accept that an additional 17,000 pupils in school each day this year, compared with the previous year, is to be celebrated. The fact that there are over 40,000 more pupils each day in school, compared with 1996–97, is real evidence of improvement, which I would hope that all parts of the House would celebrate.

Is the Minister using the aggregate figures for authorised and unauthorised absence, or merely those for unauthorised absence?

I am using the aggregate figure for authorised and/or unauthorised absence. At the beginning, I acknowledged the weakness in my case by saying that, in the past year, unauthorised absence had marginally increased, although authorised absence had fallen much more dramatically than the overall figure showed. That resulted, as I said, in school attendance being the highest on record. Part of the reason for that shift is the fact that schools are increasingly reluctant to authorise certain forms of absence that they authorised in the past—for example, term-time holidays. We still have a long way to go on truancy, and I do not underestimate the challenge, but I think we can be positive about a 25 per cent. fall in exclusions, behaviour said to be satisfactory or better in well over 95 per cent. of schools inspected by Ofsted, and school attendance at its highest-ever level.

The Minister obviously visits a number of schools. Indeed, we all do so, in our role as constituency Members. I have never yet met a head teacher who made the decision to exclude a pupil lightly, but I am sure the Minister would agree that a disruptive pupil takes up a disproportionate amount of the time of both classroom teacher and head. When will the Government start thinking about the 29 children in the class who suffer because of a disruptive pupil, instead of always seeking to defend the disruptive pupil to the disbenefit of all the well-behaved children?

With respect, this Government think about all 30 pupils, but it is vital that we address the needs of those 29. I shall say something shortly about measures that we have taken and are taking, some of which are criticised in the Opposition motion.

We are the first Government to operate national truancy sweeps. A record 146 local education authorities—almost all of them—recently participated in the latest round of sweeps, which ended on 3 December. Earlier sweeps have stopped more than 25,000 truants. In particular, truancy has been tackled successfully in schools supported by the behaviour improvement programme. The amount of time lost to truancy in those schools has fallen by an average of 63 days for each school. They are bucking the trend in that there has been both a fall in their authorised absence figures, matching what is happening in the country as a whole, and a fall—including in the past year—in their unauthorised absence figures.

I believe that our drive to improve behaviour is earning respect. For example, we conduct regular stakeholder surveys. In the most recent, head teachers were asked to describe the pattern of behaviour: was it improving, worsening or staying about the same? The result showed a significant improvement in the optimism of head teachers, 41 per cent. of whom said that behaviour was improving. Three years ago the figure was 34 per cent. The number saying that behaviour was getting worse fell, albeit slightly, from 15 per cent. to 13 per cent. Although it is clearly not acceptable for 13 per cent. of heads to regard behaviour as worsening, I believe that, seen in the round, the figures show that the terms used in the motion cannot be justified.

In the real world, how many head teachers does the Minister think would be willing to admit in a questionnaire that behaviour was getting worse at their own schools?

In my experience of working with head teachers, they are never reluctant to talk about the challenging as well as the positive aspects—and quite right too. That is reflected in the response from the 13 per cent., and borne out by other surveys of head teachers.

Many behaviour problems in schools have their origins in incidents of bullying. The Government have led an unprecedented drive against bullying. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, who has taken personal charge of the programme—including the establishment of the anti-bullying alliance and the anti-bullying charter, which has been endorsed by all the professional associations and by key voluntary sector organisations and children's charities. We believe that the recent anti-bullying week and the wider work of the alliance are critical to providing a real, concerted drive to give support and confidence to those who face bullying in our schools.

I apologise to the Minister and to the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), for not being here for the beginning of the debate.

We support what the Minister is doing on bullying and we commend the Government for that, but Bullying Online, which for a decade has been at the vanguard of dealing with bullying in schools and is the most respected group in the country, is being denied access to the alliance because it will not sign a code of conduct that says that it must not criticise Government officials. Surely that is unacceptable. There should not be a gagging order on any organisation, certainly not a well respected organisation such as Bullying Online. That is bullying.

I am happy to look into the hon. Gentleman's specific suggestion. I am acutely aware of Bullying Online's concern because I have received a considerable number of letters from colleagues on both sides of the House about it. We are putting substantial additional resources into supporting anti-bullying work, including that by a wide range of respected voluntary organisations. I am happy to look into his specific suggestion and to respond to him.

It is always a pleasure to joust with the Minister. If he will escape just for a moment from his statistical snowstorm, will he tell the House what objection ethically or intellectually he has to the idea that the ultimate arbiter of whether a child stays in the school or not should be the head teacher of that school?

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the part of my speech that I will come to in a moment. I decided to structure my speech around the motion. The ultimate arbiter is the head teacher, but any system beyond that will have some right of appeal. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) emphasised the fact that, without an appeal panel system in place, there is the danger of an increase in litigation, with parents going to the courts. I will come to that when I address that part of the motion.

Does the Minister accept that, although many of us, as constituency MPs, would wish for the most part to support the head teachers of our various schools, parents in my constituency have approached me—not all of them had children in the state sector; one in particular complained about the private sector—because, apparently, head teachers have acted arbitrarily and the rights of pupils and their parents have been compromised. It is essential that we strike a balance. Although head teachers for the most part make the correct judgment, they are not infallible. They are not God.

Some of us were.

My hon. Friend makes her point powerfully. She is right. I will not enter into a debate about the God-like qualities of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). I shall move instead to the second part of the motion, which

"regrets the fact that an assault takes place on a teacher every seven minutes, as reported by teaching unions".

Clearly, any assault on a teacher is unacceptable and everything must be done to prevent that from happening and to ensure appropriate punishment if it does happen. The allegation is based on a 2002 survey by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers. Of the 287 members who took part, 212 reported verbal abuse. Of course, no member of staff should be expected to suffer verbal abuse, but all of us in the House would accept that verbal abuse is not the same as physical assault. Indeed, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said in response to the tragic death of David Sandham:

"It must be remembered that schools place a high priority on maintaining high standards of pupil behaviour and that compared with the growing incidence of violence on the streets, they remain relatively safe havens of peace and security."

It is incumbent on all of us to remind ourselves of that fact, which in no way lessens the tragedy if there is an assault on a teacher, be it physical or verbal. We must not be complacent.

The Minister is right to say that it is important to give an accurate and balanced sense of what is going on, but he said that the NASUWT figures related to only 60 or 70 assaults on teachers—I think that that is what he implied—so would he not also put that in the context of the more recent statistics from the Office for National Statistics showing that in a single term in 2003 more than 4,000 pupils were excluded either temporarily or permanently for violent assaults on adults, almost all of them teachers? It is important to stress that side of it, too.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a serious challenge that we must face together. I referred to the survey for the sole reason that it is the one that he has chosen to refer to in the motion. In no sense was I seeking to suggest that there is not a big challenge here. We must work both to ensure that schools and their head teachers are in a position to deal with these incidents when they happen and, more optimistically, to bring about a position in which they do not happen in the first place.

That is one of the reasons why we have established the behaviour improvement programme, focusing on some of the schools that face the severest challenges, schools that are now often achieving against serious odds. I will not go into detail about some of the programme's provisions—extra learning mentors, learning support units, behaviour and education support teams, and police in schools—benefiting about 1,500 schools that face especially serious behaviour challenges and being extended to a further 500 next year.

Does the Minister acknowledge that where schools learn from best practice the need for exclusions goes dramatically down?

Absolutely. That is the emerging evidence from the behaviour improvement programme, which is resulting not only in improved attendance but in a reduction in exclusions.

The National Union of Teachers—we are all fond of quoting the teaching unions—says:

"The biggest problem in schools is low level disruption and cheek, not physical violence."

That is in some ways a more difficult challenge, which we seek to deal with through the behaviour improvement programme. In secondary schools and now in some primary schools we are offering materials and extra expert support to tackle the behaviour issues that schools themselves tell us are their top priority.

Schools can deal with the great majority of behaviour and attendance problems themselves, through good teaching, good policies and procedures, and creating a positive ethos. Our key stage 3 and primary strategies are giving schools the tools to improve all those.

The next part of the motion says that the House

"further notes that incidents involving poor behaviour, intimidation, violence, guns and drugs in schools are all increasing".

That is a sweeping statement, and the reality is more complex. I certainly recognise that there are some serious challenges and too many problems, and we need to take a very strong line on drugs, guns and knives in our schools, and of course heads need the powers to tackle them.

The Offensive Weapons Act 1996 makes it a criminal offence to carry offensive weapons on school premises. It is a crime to carry an illegal knife, or any other offensive weapon, in a public place, including in a school. Any pupil can be arrested if found with an illegal knife in school. Police have powers to enter and search on reasonable suspicion. The Secretary of State in his speech last month to head teachers said that we are supporting the Home Office in its review of the age at which knives can be legally purchased.

We are also working with the head teacher associations and others on the powers that heads have to undertake searches. We are encouraging local partnerships of heads, police and crime reduction partners to deal with issues about knives in their local area. We have proposed a new power for head teachers to search pupils who refuse to turn out their pockets, where the head suspects that a knife is being carried.

Any tragedy reminds us that schools need support to avoid such tragedies happening again. International research indicates that the most effective way of reducing the risk of such tragedies is to increase school security, and to help ensure a climate in schools in which pupils share information and act on it to prevent possible incidents of violence.

We need to support schools with, for example, additional funds for security improvements. We are committed to backing the authority of head teachers when pupils' behaviour warrants exclusion. We have made it clear that heads can permanently exclude pupils who are very disruptive or violent, even where this is a first or "one-off" offence. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred to the wording of our amendment, which mentions the strengthening of guidance. We have changed the guidance for exclusion appeal panels to make it clear that an exclusion should not normally be overturned in a range of circumstances, including where there has been violence or the threat of violence. For less extreme offences, head teachers may exclude pupils for a fixed period or impose detention. We expect head teachers to follow the best available practice in promoting good behaviour.

Is the Minister therefore saying that the Government should be given credit for amending regulations that they themselves introduced and subsequently found to be unworkable?

Absolutely. I am always in favour of learning from our mistakes. If the Conservatives had done so once or twice when in government, they might be in a stronger position today.

On violence, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale cited certain research referred to in the motion and I cited other research. A range of information is available on violence, particularly that suffered by teachers. Unfortunately, we do not have data covering the number of assaults on teachers and other staff, but we do have the Health and Safety Executive's figures on serious injuries to primary and secondary teachers in Great Britain caused by physical violence. In 1997–98, there were 119 such injuries. In 2000–01, that figure rose to 135, and it fell to 110 in 2001–02, the latest year for which we have fully verified HSE figures. That demonstrates that the number of such injuries is not necessarily increasing; however, we do face a very significant problem and challenge in this regard.

In partnership with the teacher unions, the Department is running a project to identify best practice in schools on violence avoidance and conflict resolution. As my colleagues will know, we are also working with the Home Office in support of the safer schools partnerships programme, which has led to the basing of more than 400 police officers in schools to reduce criminality and victimisation, and to improve the safety of staff and pupils. We are also supporting Skillsforce, an increase in the funding for which I was delighted to announce last week. There is powerful evidence that it has made a real difference by increasing the motivation of children and young people, and by reducing exclusion in those schools that form part of this programme.

The motion

"deplores the announcement by the Government that it will force every state school, irrespective of the wishes of its head teacher, to take a share of pupils with disruptive or even violent backgrounds".

However, this announcement is not about forcing head teachers to take disruptive pupils; it is about ensuring that when previously excluded pupils are ready to be re-integrated in schools, they are not sent to just one or two schools in a given locality. Both head teachers and school staff fully support the Government's proposal, which will help schools to co-operate in putting pupils back on the right track.

I shall follow the practice of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and quote from the various organisations involved. On the day that we announced this package, a representative of the Secondary Heads Association said:

"I welcome today's package of measures, which demonstrates strong government support for head teachers in dealing with discipline problems."

The National Association of Head Teachers said:

"We endorse the need for limits to be placed on the number of excluded pupils who are dumped on schools because they have spare places. Too often this has a bad impact on a small number of schools in each local education authority. Schools around the country are already working together . . . There is absolutely no reason why this co-operation should not apply nationwide."

Does the Minister agree that, with the odd exception, most children show signs of increasingly poor and violent behaviour before the point at which they need to be excluded? Does he further agree that if we are to deal with that problem, we need a system of managed transfer between organisations so that kids do not drop off the end of the cliff, then needing massive intervention? Is it not the Government's own policy, particularly in the five-year plan, to create more stand-alone, autonomous, state-funded private schools, which goes against the grain of getting schools to co-operate in order to deal with the problem?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the first point and, not surprisingly, disagree with him on the second. A range of measures is available in respect of managed moves and schools working together. What the five-year strategy says is that we want schools to have their own identity, ethos and autonomy, while at the same time we want schools to work together to promote solutions to precisely some of the challenges that we are addressing in today's debate—foundation partnerships, for example. In a few moments I shall refer briefly to a specific example.

The Minister quoted the National Association of Head Teachers, but he quoted only its applause for the good bit of the Government's promise—that bad pupils should not be poured into part-empty schools. However, I did not hear him quote anything about the bad bit of the Government's threat—that bad pupils would be put into good schools even though they were full. Can the Minister confirm that it is not his policy that a child who has been excluded from one school can be forced into another full school against the wishes of the head teacher?

Let me be absolutely clear: we cannot have it both ways. We need a position under which there is justice for the whole system. In fact, both the National Association of Head Teachers and the Secondary Heads Association worked closely together with us on this policy. We have not dreamt it up either on our own or with those two organisations. It is based on existing examples of good practice in many parts of the country. We are not saying that schools should be forced to take pupils who are clearly unsuitable for mainstream school education and we are not saying that grammar schools should have to take pupils who do not demonstrate the necessary academic aptitude. The guidance issued is based on best practice that already exists in a number of areas, including Stoke, Surrey and Kent, where the heads already share the admissions of pupils who are ready to return to mainstream schooling. They strongly support this approach. I am very disappointed to see the Conservatives condemn in their motion today a policy that is already working well in Conservative-run local education authorities such as Kent and Surrey, and is supported by both head teacher associations. I believe that our policy is based on common sense and clear evidence.

Is the Minister as disturbed as I am by the nomenclature used by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) when he referred to pupils who had been excluded but were deemed to be sufficiently rehabilitated as to be able to return to mainstream schooling as "bad pupils"? Is the Minister disturbed by the implication that such pupils cannot be rehabilitated and are therefore irredeemably damned as "bad pupils" who should presumably be excluded from the system for ever?

I think that we all have to be careful about the language we use in these discussions because we are talking about the lives of children and the important impact that these decisions have on school communities.

I shall now move on to that part of the motion whereby the House is said to believe

"that head teachers should be given, unequivocally, the final say on expulsions by abolishing independent appeals panels".

Some of the issues have already been rehearsed in interventions on the opening speech of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and earlier in my speech. We are seeking to ensure that heads have the powers they need to exclude when necessary, but without killing off the appeals system, which provides safeguards to protect schools from needless and time-consuming litigation, as well as ensuring that fairness is transparent.

It is well known that the previous Conservative Government introduced appeal panels in the first place. We have passed a number of reforms to the way in which those panels operate and I believe that they are a necessary safeguard for pupils and parents, that they conform to the interests of natural justice and comply with human rights legislation. Abolishing them would inevitably lead to a sharp increase in legal action by parents against schools. That would mean head teachers spending time in court, and it would be costly, both in time and money.

Does the Minister agree that under the Conservative policy, legal aid would not be available and only the rich could take action, so there would not be much legal action from parents of poor children?

There are things that can be said in opposition that are unlikely to become practice in the unlikely event of the Opposition coming to power in the immediate future.

I shall share with the House the statistics for independent appeal panels. In 2002–03, the latest year for which figures are available, independent appeal panels reinstated 149 out of 9,290 permanently excluded pupils, or less than 2 per cent. It cannot therefore be seriously argued that the abolition of independent appeal panels will make a big difference to the numbers of pupils excluded from school.

We have heard a call for a sixfold increase in the number of places to be provided for high-quality, intensive but separate education of those whose behavioural difficulties make them unsuitable for inclusion in mainstream schools. We heard clarification from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that that increase was based on a previous figure, so the sixfold increase would not take us from the 13,000 places that are available now to 78,000, which would cost around £650 million, but would mean an increase to 24,000, which is a more modest increase than that set out in the motion today.

I would argue that preventive work by schools to improve behaviour is the better solution for the vast majority of pupils rather than taking them away from their schools.

Does my hon. Friend share my bemusement at the Conservatives' proposals for turnaround academies or schools? In my constituency, we have the funding and the land set aside for a skateboard park, but we cannot get community agreement because of the worries about young people gathering. How on earth will the Opposition be able to propose that a turnaround school be built in any neighbourhood without provoking huge opposition? Or will we have another fantasy island for those pupils?

Perhaps they want an island for the bad pupils. My hon. Friend raises a serious point. The estimated cost of the proposals is based simply on the revenue costs of pupil referral units. However, what would be the capital costs for turnaround schools? Is it suggested that the turnaround schools would be in new buildings, which would be hugely contentious, or would an existing school in each community be turned into a turnaround school? The policy that we have been pursuing is seeking to improve all schools so that we do not have sink schools. Do the Tories propose a sink school in every neighbourhood as a priority for Government policy?

I do not know where the Opposition have got the 24,000 figure from, but we have been able to increase the capacity of pupil referral units. Indeed, we have almost doubled the number of places to 13,000, but we recognise that alternative provision is not simply confined to those units. For many children, work-based training or further education colleges—and some of the work done by the voluntary sector, such as the Prince's Trust and Skillsforce—can provide more appropriate ways to improve behaviour and therefore discipline. I am not persuaded that we need a further large expansion in pupil referral units. Indeed, the Ofsted report that was published last week raised some serious issues, but they were primarily issues of quality and were connected to the running of the system, not the number of places available.

Pupil referral units are important, but they are only one part of the solution. We need to support schools in preventing exclusion through the use of learning support units within schools. There are now more than 1,000 of those units. They are typically based in schools and provide short-term teaching and support programmes for pupils who are disaffected, at risk of exclusion, or vulnerable for other reasons. The programmes are tailored to the needs of each pupil. The aim is to keep pupils in school and working while their problems are addressed, but to prevent them from disrupting the education of other children in the classroom. LSUs support whole-school approaches to behaviour and learning and teaching, and are a source of expertise in strategies for promoting positive behaviour.

I welcome the report issued by Ofsted last Friday. Next month, we shall issue guidance on the quality of alternative provision to make it clear that the needs of each pupil have to be assessed and addressed. That will mean a range of approaches; yes, pupil referral units, but also the voluntary sector, Skillsforce, further education and work-based learning, depending on the needs of the particular child or young person.

I want to turn to an important issue: the ability of teachers to exercise discipline and protection for them from the fear of false allegations of abuse. The motion urges swift legislation, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale set out in his speech. We share the belief in all parts of the House that someone who is under investigation by the police, but who has not been charged with a criminal offence, should not be identified in the press, and I pay tribute to the considered way in which the hon. Gentleman has raised that issue, both in this debate and at Education and Skills questions last month. As he knows, we are not persuaded that new legislation is required to achieve those aims. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) set out some of the challenges that we should face if we legislated in the way that has been suggested.

We were all moved by the examples given by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale and by some of the other examples that have appeared in reports today and over recent years. We have a system of press self-regulation, overseen by the Press Complaints Commission, which provides safeguards against the publication of inaccurate or misleading information. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the PCC has issued further guidance about identifying people accused of crime, and the Association of Chief Police Officers' advice to police forces makes it clear that anyone under investigation, who has not been charged, should not be named, and their details should not be provided to the press. We have to balance a number of competing rights and pressures: the protection of teachers and staff, and of the child, quite rightly; as well as the right to privacy of people who are accused but not charged versus the freedom of the press. My sense is that there is much justice in what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, but that many of his arguments would apply equally well to other public service professionals, such as the youth service workers in the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, social workers or people working in residential care homes. That highlights some of the practical difficulties that might occur in legislating as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale proposed.

In many care homes, one of the advantages of some publicity when a case comes to court is that other people who have been seriously abused in the past can come forward and find justice and retribution. Does my hon. Friend think that there is a way in which that could be achieved without legislation?

In a sense, that is what we are all grappling with in the debate—whether legislation is required, or whether the various existing codes, advice and guidance from both the PCC and ACPO are sufficient. We all need to watch the matter closely, but the Government are not persuaded, at this point, of the case for legislation. As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale rightly accepted, we have recognised that part of the problem is to do with the delays that often exist in the system. Not only may teachers face an allegation that turns out to be false, but the system itself is ill-equipped and ill-prepared to deal with that allegation efficiently. We have analysed about 1,600 cases over the past year. Most of them were resolved quite quickly but an unacceptably high number—although not quite as high as the number I quoted on the "Today" programme—take longer: 22 per cent. take up to three months, while about one in 10 takes as long as a year. We are currently consulting teacher unions and others about how we can put in place an effective system so that if an allegation is made, it is dealt with speedily and efficiently, which is in the best interests of the accused and the accuser.

To conclude, the motion says that

"it is time for the rights of the majority of pupils, parents and teachers to be given greater weight."

Of course, all pupils have rights as well as responsibilities. They have a responsibility to behave well, both for their own sake and for the sake of others in the school; to respect other pupils and authority, which is why we are investing in 10,000 learning mentors and, as I have said, doubled the capacity of pupil referral units. However, we do not want to abandon anyone, because that blights their future and creates problems for the communities in which they live. I do not believe that costly privatised borstals are the answer to any or every problem. It is far better to support collaboration among schools to offer any learner a second chance once their behaviour problems have been dealt with.

Parents play a crucial role in children's learning and behaviour. They have rights, as the motion says, but they also have duties. Local education authorities and schools employ a range of informal and supportive strategies to help parents tackle their children's behaviour. A small minority of parents, however, are unwilling do so, which is why we have introduced a number of measures, including parenting orders and the new penalty notice scheme, to reduce truancy. We take behaviour and discipline seriously, which is why we have put significant resources into that programme. We have invested in this area in a way that no Government have done before. The real challenge for all of us is to promote respect and discipline—respect for one another but also respect for authority, as the hon. Member for Buckingham rightly said when he talked about the six R's. We want every child to have the very best chance. Good progress has been made, but many challenges remain.

I do not want to destroy my hon. Friend's momentum, but will he advert briefly to the curriculum, as it affects pupil behaviour? The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) has talked about things that 14-year-olds might study within a school context but not necessarily at school. We should be talking about prevention as well as cure, and the curriculum has a role to play in prevention.

My hon. Friend is right, and I am confident that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) will respond to that point in his winding-up speech.

The Opposition's proposals are ill-considered and costly, and would undermine the progress that has been made. For those reasons, I urge the House to reject the motion and support the Government amendment.

This is a timely debate, because across the land schools are about to reach the end of the longest term of the year. Teachers are tired, and are clinging to the ropes. Pupils are more fractious, and problems are more evident. Everyone is focused on the last day of term and Christmas, and I am sure that we can all empathise with an experience that has been part of the natural history of British schooling for at least a century. However, there is a new phenomenon—blaming the Government for the problem of indiscipline. What people see of Parliament, especially Prime Minister's questions, on television does not encourage them to believe that we have a natural answer to unruly behaviour.

Historically, bad behaviour has been considered the fault of pupils and, if not controlled effectively, schools. However, if it is true that we live in a nanny state, we have probably reached the point where nanny is held responsible for the behaviour of all her charges, especially when the Government try to micro-manage the entire educational process. However, in the Government's defence, it is worth making the point that such indiscipline as there is may in part be a product of complex cultural changes for which the Government cannot be held entirely responsible and which, in a democratic society, they are not completely empowered to address.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one issue that has not been addressed so far this afternoon is the extent to which parents provide parameters for their children? One of the difficulties is that however much discipline may be enforced in a school and a disciplined environment achieved in which children may learn, it is difficult to maintain that the next day if no parameters are set for them when they go home.

It is an axiom in educational circles that, for good behaviour and good performance in school, parental support is crucial.

Indiscipline comes in two variants: the general indiscipline of whole classes and, at times, whole schools; and the seriously disturbed and disturbing behaviour of a small minority of damaged young people, often with a dysfunctional family life behind them. Both problems need addressing; although both can occur together, they are different. General indiscipline in a school is treatable, in part, as the Minister said, by spreading good practice. That can work anywhere and there is a known recipe. We all know schools in our own constituencies that had problems, the problems were dealt with and discipline is now good.

Counteracting indiscipline is not rocket science. It involves a range of specific actions: setting high standards; consistent and fair enforcement of those standards; and stamping out minor offences so that the major ones that lead to expulsion do not occur. I have taught in a secondary modern school, a dockland comprehensive and an independent school, and I found in all of them the recognition that clarity and consistency about educational standards and sensible enforcement is the secret. It is the main factor in good discipline in any school at any time and in any place.

The recipe for good discipline involves other factors, such as mutual respect between pupils and staff. In my experience, pupils will forgive many things, but never neglect and disdain. The recipe also requires a relevant and challenging curriculum. Everyone agrees that an inflexible, inappropriate curriculum causes trouble for the underachieving and sometimes for the exceptional child. The Government seem to be addressing the problems of those who find an overly academic curriculum too tough, by adopting a more flexible approach towards the 14-to-16 curriculum.

As a small footnote, it is worth pointing out that in the history of education, a number of exceptional people met difficulties at their schools. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) wrote in a recent statement:

"If bright pupils are not intellectually challenged in the classroom, is it any wonder that they get bored and cause trouble?"

Many exceptional people had problems. The best example is Einstein, who was expelled, as were numerous poets including Baudelaire, Robert Frost for daydreaming, and Robert Southey, the lakeland poet, apparently for writing an essay at Westminster school condemning flogging. I looked into the question of whether any politicians of note were expelled, but the only one I came across was Mussolini, who was expelled for stabbing a pupil, an event which, strangely enough, did not stop him becoming a primary school teacher later in his career.

Best practice requires an emphasis on community and responsibility. That must be instilled through the whole curriculum and reinforced by giving pupils responsibility in extracurricular activity. More than lip service must be paid to the citizenship agenda. Equally crucial, as has been mentioned, are support from, co-operation with and help for parents, where necessary encouraged by home-school contracts. What is needed, and what may be lacking from the Government's agenda, is monitoring and active support from local education authorities, reacting early to difficulties and to parental dissatisfaction. A further factor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) mentioned, is the construction of a system that does not create sink schools but gives special help to schools in difficult circumstances.

Creating the conditions for good discipline is, I repeat, not rocket science, but it is not helped by emasculating LEAs or by intervening only when a school gets past the point of no return and is classified as a failing school. It is not helped by encouraging competition at the expense of co-operation between schools, or by using league tables as a sole and crude basis for estimating how well schools are doing. It is certainly not helped by overburdening schools and teachers with bureaucracy or squeezing out extra-curricular activities.

Liberal Democrats believe that every parent should be guaranteed undisrupted education for their child, whichever school they attend, and a school life free from bullying. It is a guarantee that I believe the professionals are capable of delivering, with very few exceptions, so long as we spread good practice and the Government provide the framework for it to happen.

The second aspect of the problem is damaged and destructive children, who can wreak havoc in any institution. They are from families and communities that have broken down and they are increasing in number—I think that that is a documented fact; we can see it in the primary schools. They are unloved, resentful and lacking in self-esteem, but I do not share Rousseau's belief that all we need to do is present them with an interesting education and they will go for it. They will not give education a chance and after a while they cannot give education a chance. They must be sorted out or they will simply fester in society, destined for a genuinely miserable life at odds with society. They are what used to be referred to as "bad pupils", but they are also pupils for whom there is no real hope at the moment.

Although pupil referral units were built for such pupils, they also need some genuinely creative solutions. Voluntary bodies such as Rathbone Training, the social commitments of which go back to 19th century Liverpool and which was started by a Liberal MP, have designed pioneering programmes.

Effective, imaginative treatment and family support—and, where family support is required to be extended, parenting orders—can genuinely lead to a rapid turn round, provided that they are coupled with a strategy of early intervention, rather than masked, as they sometimes are in the early stages of primary schools. The rise in primary exclusions shows how early severely challenging behaviour can occur. We remain optimistic that, even here, there is evidence that there are solutions. There are currently 380 PRUs and various home tuition schemes, costing in excess of £200 million and not always providing the full curriculum, with a cost per pupil place similar to the most exclusive independent schools in the land. Those millions come from school budgets and are essentially money not spent on the education of the well behaved.

I have some sympathy with the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who, on 29 November, said:

"good discipline should not cost an extra penny".

Strangely, he went on to promise to spend a further £200 million on the unruly, increasing sixfold the places for the uncontrollable.

I would not encourage the hon. Gentleman to become too worried about the arithmetic of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard)—he might get into troublesome areas. The hon. Gentleman is talking about the cost of this work. Much evidence shows that the youth service is an equally effective but much cheaper way of intervening in many young people's lives. How does he think the youth service can work effectively with the education system to improve the lot of some of those young people?

There is a crying need for outreach youth work right across the land, and the youth service is certainly as creative as anyone in coming up with solutions for children whose behaviour is fundamentally antisocial and needs correcting and directing in a different and better direction.

I have to go back to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, because his solution reminds me of Lord Whitelaw's detention centres, which were intended to deliver short, sharp shocks and solve the whole problem of crime, but which, in effect, did an enormous amount to improve the fitness level of burglars. Unlike the detention centres though, it is anticipated that the stay in turnaround schools, if we can call them that, will not be short. The whole approach smacks of the darkest pessimism, as does the figure of 24,000 places—twice the number of currently excluded pupils, on any estimation. Clearly, it is anticipated that indiscipline will get substantially worse under any future Tory Government.

I shall pass over the problems already mentioned of capital cost, planning difficulties and so on, and conclude by saying that throwing £500 million or more—we are talking about adding to the cost of existing PRUs—at those who cannot or will not behave themselves is an expensive philosophy of despair.

If we do not provide special support to improve behaviour among that group of people, the cost will be borne not in our schools, but in our criminal justice system and communities, when those children go on to cause greater social problems later in life. We must improve their behaviour at school, where we have a chance, rather than leaving the criminal justice system to take its toll.

We need a system that does not result in 24,000 exclusions—a system with 24,000 exclusions is failing. In a modern democracy and civilised society, 24,000 exclusions are unacceptable.

The Minister admitted that 10 per cent. of pupils are educated in schools in which Ofsted feels that discipline is inadequate—he said that Ofsted feels that discipline is adequate in 90 per cent. of schools, and the reverse must therefore be true. He also said that 13 per cent. of head teachers believe that discipline is declining. Is it not the case that it is better to provide places for those who are not excluded at the moment, but who would be, were the places available?

May I respond from a professional perspective? If the only remedy for the poor discipline of pupils in a school is to expel them and they can be corrected in no other way, either the system is failing or the pupils are very difficult. I do not think that the system contains 24,000 unmanageable pupils, if good practice and good standards are upheld.

A cheaper solution than that offered by the Conservative party is available. I shall use the example of the LEA of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), which I took off the Department for Education and Skills website. Cumbria LEA has introduced school re-integration officers. As far as Conservative Members are concerned, "re-integration" is a bad word, but employing those people reduced exclusions and decreased the cost of prolonged replacements by nine tenths, with no obvious downside. The Conservative policy would cost a lot of money and is an uneconomical solution to a serious problem. Early intervention would save a great deal of money. Early intervention and the spreading of good practice have been proved to work. Throwing people in a sin bin for a long time is expensive, and one must believe that it is the right solution before one uses it.

Wales will be spared the Conservative policy of turnaround schools, because education is a devolved matter. How would turnaround schools function in rural areas, where children would have to travel for many miles, which would take them out of their community and the support that it provides?

My hon. Friend has made an acute point. Later this week, we will debate the School Transport Bill, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will have to come clean and admit that his policy would add appreciably to the cost of school transport, which would be required in order to get pupils to turnaround schools.

Finally, Liberal Democrat Members take a different view on accused teachers from that of the Government. The issue of anonymity has been a leading story on the BBC—I heard the Minister on the "Today" programme this morning, and I have seen the press release from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale. The story is not new—the Minister and I discussed it at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers conference almost 12 months ago, and the Minister has followed a fairly consistent line on it—but it is serious.

I was not convinced by the Minister's response on the radio this morning. He can correct me if I am wrong, but he seemed to say that malicious accusations could be dealt with by relying on press protocols and attempting to speed up the inquiry process rapidly to dispose of groundless complaints. I support press protocols and speeding up the inquiry process, which is a sensible reaction, but it is a fair objection that there has never been a press protocol that has not been breached on occasions. However fast the inquiry process goes, it is never as fast as the publication of tomorrow's newspaper, and one ill-directed headline can ruin a teacher's professional and personal life. Given that fact, there needs to be a substantive legal reason for opposing the suggestion, and it is not clear that there is one.

The hon. Gentleman expresses concerns that all hon. Members would share. Clearly, press protocols do not in practice prevent such cases from going forward as they have in the past—that is why those protocols have been strengthened. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that although there is a strong argument for teachers, there is an equally strong argument for youth workers, residential care home workers and social workers, and that it would be difficult in practice to know where to draw the line?