[Rebecca Smith: … Let us not forget that many parents opt to home-school because the state system has failed their children. I urge caution with the provision in the [Children’s Wellbeing and Schools] Bill, which will add further stress to such parents, who have already had to fight long and hard for their children.]

Sir Julian Lewis: I applaud my hon. Friend for the point that she is making. I, too, have had representations from excellent home-schooling parents. Does she think that there is a way, with reason and understanding on both sides, for a balance to be struck between the need to safeguard the right of responsible parents to home-school their children and the need to prevent the abuse of children by parents who have other, more sinister, objectives?

[Rebecca Smith: My right hon. Friend is correct. There has to be a middle ground that we could find. I suggest that we are using a hammer to crack a nut. A lot of these parents are not against having to say something about what they are doing, but to suggest that they have to give chapter and verse to their local authority, which in many cases will have failed them already that relationship may well have broken down – feels like too much of a strike.]