Found: The Government have acknowledged this issue, and in Clause 1 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: The Government have acknowledged this issue, and in Clause 1 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Financial Allowance and enabling implementation of the social care commitments in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will further strengthen multi-agency working and information

Found: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Families First Partnership programme, the recently published

Found: That is why I welcome the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill with the elective home education register

Found: Passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will ensure that, following the Review and the

Found: 238 HC Deb, 29 July 2024, col 41WS (Commons written ministerial statement). 239 The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we have begun the process of defining kinship care

Found: We welcome the extension of powers to local authorities through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: We welcome the extension of powers to 8 local authorities through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill seeks to introduce, for the first time, a statutory requirement

Found: However, we understand that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill now progressing through Parliament

Found: The Government, through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, have introduced a number of measures

Found: You will probably also be aware that there is a provision in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: In line with these recommendations, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces new powers

Found: , we have supported Munira Wilson MP for Twickenham in laying an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: sector 2.1 PAG welcomed Munira Wilson MP’s intervention in recent debates on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: about the link between SEND and Poverty for the Big Issue and putting evidence to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Baroness Longfield: We have the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill at the moment, and certainly there

Found: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools’ Bill currently going through parliament includes provisions for

Found: Baroness Longfield: We have the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill at the moment, and certainly there

Found: is an urgent need to review aspects of current education policy, and the proposed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: private education and many more have lost access as schools close. o The upcoming Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: One of the things that we are calling for in relation to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill,

Found: One of the things that we are calling for in relation to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill,

Found: As part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee stage, we have been discussing the overemphasis

Found: endorsed by the Sex Education Forum, Brook and EVAW, which seeks to, through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: We are bringing in new requirements on school uniforms as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on ensuring that adult (a) mental health services and (b) social care are involved in improving information-sharing through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

No discussions have been had regarding either aspect. The focus in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is to improve information sharing by introducing a consistent identifier for children up to the age of 18. We will consider the role both the adult and child identifiers can play in the transition to adulthood as this work moves forward.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that lessons learned from grooming gang cases are applied nationally.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

This Government is committed to strengthening local and national responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse, through the new national police operation in response to Baroness Casey’s Audit recommendations, which will identify inconsistencies in approach to investigating group based child sexual exploitation (including grooming gangs) and ensure identified best practice and lessons learnt are shared through guidance, including on the identification and protection of children at risk.

Additionally we continue to support existing investments to support policing to tackle this type of offending.

Central to these efforts is the Home Office-funded Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce which provides practical, expert, on the ground support for all 43 forces in England and Wales. This includes identifying best practice and promoting it nationally to ensure any lessons learnt are shared widely, and providing specialist interventions where needed to support forces’ capabilities to identify and tackle group-based offending more effectively. The Home Office engages regularly with the Taskforce and policing leaders on this work which has victims and survivors at its heart.

The Home Office is also investing over £9 million this year in the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme (TOEX), including an expedited rollout of its Capabilities Environment to ensure all police investigators in England and Wales have access to an array of AI-enabled and time-saving tools. This will increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation, including child sexual exploitation by providing dedicated intelligence, analytical and technical expertise.

The Department has regular discussions with policing on the identification and protection of children at risk, particularly in relation to the risk of sexual exploitation due to policing’s duties as a statutory safeguarding partner. This is particularly the case as reforms are implemented through the introduction of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

We are also working with the College of Policing and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection to consider how forces’ most important resource can be bolstered – its officers. We continue to identify opportunities to strengthen officer training at all ranks to ensure the most effective and up-to-date methods to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse are utilised.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with police forces on improving the (a) identification and (b) protection of children at risk of sexual exploitation.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

This Government is committed to strengthening local and national responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse, through the new national police operation in response to Baroness Casey’s Audit recommendations, which will identify inconsistencies in approach to investigating group based child sexual exploitation (including grooming gangs) and ensure identified best practice and lessons learnt are shared through guidance, including on the identification and protection of children at risk.

Additionally we continue to support existing investments to support policing to tackle this type of offending.

Central to these efforts is the Home Office-funded Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce which provides practical, expert, on the ground support for all 43 forces in England and Wales. This includes identifying best practice and promoting it nationally to ensure any lessons learnt are shared widely, and providing specialist interventions where needed to support forces’ capabilities to identify and tackle group-based offending more effectively. The Home Office engages regularly with the Taskforce and policing leaders on this work which has victims and survivors at its heart.

The Home Office is also investing over £9 million this year in the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme (TOEX), including an expedited rollout of its Capabilities Environment to ensure all police investigators in England and Wales have access to an array of AI-enabled and time-saving tools. This will increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation, including child sexual exploitation by providing dedicated intelligence, analytical and technical expertise.

The Department has regular discussions with policing on the identification and protection of children at risk, particularly in relation to the risk of sexual exploitation due to policing’s duties as a statutory safeguarding partner. This is particularly the case as reforms are implemented through the introduction of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

We are also working with the College of Policing and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection to consider how forces’ most important resource can be bolstered – its officers. We continue to identify opportunities to strengthen officer training at all ranks to ensure the most effective and up-to-date methods to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse are utilised.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure police forces have sufficient resources to investigate grooming gang offences.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

This Government is committed to strengthening local and national responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse, through the new national police operation in response to Baroness Casey’s Audit recommendations, which will identify inconsistencies in approach to investigating group based child sexual exploitation (including grooming gangs) and ensure identified best practice and lessons learnt are shared through guidance, including on the identification and protection of children at risk.

Additionally we continue to support existing investments to support policing to tackle this type of offending.

Central to these efforts is the Home Office-funded Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce which provides practical, expert, on the ground support for all 43 forces in England and Wales. This includes identifying best practice and promoting it nationally to ensure any lessons learnt are shared widely, and providing specialist interventions where needed to support forces’ capabilities to identify and tackle group-based offending more effectively. The Home Office engages regularly with the Taskforce and policing leaders on this work which has victims and survivors at its heart.

The Home Office is also investing over £9 million this year in the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme (TOEX), including an expedited rollout of its Capabilities Environment to ensure all police investigators in England and Wales have access to an array of AI-enabled and time-saving tools. This will increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation, including child sexual exploitation by providing dedicated intelligence, analytical and technical expertise.

The Department has regular discussions with policing on the identification and protection of children at risk, particularly in relation to the risk of sexual exploitation due to policing’s duties as a statutory safeguarding partner. This is particularly the case as reforms are implemented through the introduction of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

We are also working with the College of Policing and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection to consider how forces’ most important resource can be bolstered – its officers. We continue to identify opportunities to strengthen officer training at all ranks to ensure the most effective and up-to-date methods to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse are utilised.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to help protect the data of home educated children, in the context of provisions in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains provisions requiring local authorities to maintain registers of children who are not in school. These registers are intended to aid local authorities in identifying children who are missing education and support them.

The department is aware of the importance of protecting personal data. Existing laws, including the Data Protection Act and UK-GDPR, will apply to all data that is processed as part of the duty to maintain registers. These laws put in place robust restrictions on data collection, storage and sharing as well as respecting the rights of the individuals to access, rectification and erasure. However, there are circumstances where data sharing is essential, particularly when it concerns a child’s safety or wellbeing. The Bill provides a restricted list of individuals and agencies with whom data may be shared, solely for the purposes of safeguarding a child’s education or welfare. Any breach of these protections by a local authority could be subject to penalties or regulatory action by the Information Commissioner.

We will outline in statutory guidance how local authorities must balance the need to share data for safeguarding and educational support purposes with individuals’ right to privacy.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of requiring academy trusts to incorporate the National Conditions of Service for Teachers in England and Wales 2023 into the contracts of employment of teachers; and if she will bring forward legislation to make such incorporation mandatory.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The National Conditions of Service for Teachers in England and Wales is a national agreement between local authority school employers and teaching and headteacher unions. The government has no input into the agreement or its implementation. As it has no statutory force, while maintained schools are expected to incorporate its provisions into teachers’ contracts, there is no legal obligation for them to do so. Academies will, following the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, be required to “have regard” to the entirety of the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risks of using the NHS number as the consistent child identifier in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill; and whether they will publish their assessment of the ability of the NHS to issue new NHS numbers in bulk, following reports of NHS numbers being stolen following a cyber attack in June 2024.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The potential for the National Health Service number to be used as a single unique identifier (SUI) for children is being explored in a series of pilots, which will include consideration of risk. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill does not specify the use of the NHS number as an SUI, but allows regulations to do so, if it is appropriate.

There is no expectation that the NHS will need to issue new NHS numbers in bulk. Misuse of personally identifiable information is guarded against via governance processes that are the responsibility of data controllers and processors.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure children are adequately safeguarded in family courts.

Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Children Act 1989 requires the court to have the child’s welfare as its paramount consideration when making a decision about the child’s upbringing. Any decisions the family courts make about the future arrangements for children are based on this fundamental principle.

This Government is delivering a package of reform to the family courts to ensure that children continue to be safeguarded and supported. This includes the expansion of the Pathfinder programme, which promotes child safeguarding through early multi-agency collaboration, expert domestic abuse support, and greater emphasis on the voice of the child.

This Government also recognises the significant impact that delays in court proceedings can have on children and families. That is why it is working to reduce backlogs and improve timeliness, so that children can access the support and stability they need without unnecessary delay. This includes the agreement of system-wide targets by the Family Justice Board for 2025/26, with a continued focus on tackling delay and reducing outstanding caseloads. In public law proceedings relating to children (such as care proceedings), this involves a renewed emphasis on the procedure set out in the Public Law Outline; and in private law proceedings relating to children (such as applications for child arrangements orders), areas delivering the Pathfinder model have made significant progress in addressing delays.

We are also working closely with the Department for Education to support the delivery of their reforms to children’s social care, underpinned by measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The Government will share further plans for reform in due course.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the challenges faced by military families when applying for school places (a) during school holiday periods and (b) other times outside of the normal admissions cycle.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department is committed to supporting the education of service children. Families of UK service personnel can be subject to frequent moves, often requiring them to apply for school places outside the normal admissions round.

The School Admissions Code requires admission authorities to allocate school places in advance of a service family moving into the area, where certain conditions are met.

Children eligible for the Service Pupil Premium can be prioritised in oversubscription criteria, and service pupils can be admitted as exceptions to the infant class size limit, outside the normal admissions round. Publicly-funded boarding schools must give second highest priority to service children who qualify for Ministry of Defence assistance with boarding fees.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are taking further steps to support children having difficulty securing school places in-year by giving local authorities improved levers to secure places for children quickly and efficiently.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they will take in response to the report by the National Audit Office Managing children's residential care, published on 12 September.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department welcomes the National Audit Office's (NAO) report and its recommendations. Many of the report’s themes chime with the action already being taken as part of the government's reform programme.

The department is reforming children’s social care (CSC) with a £2 billion investment this Parliament which will enable local authorities to prioritise prevention and keep more families together safely, reducing the number of children needing care.

We have introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will give us more powers to regulate the broken care market.

The department’s investment and legislation will transform care. We will recruit more foster carers, build children’s homes with the right support in the right places, innovate to support those with complex needs and regulate to ensure safety and quality of provision. The introduction of Regional Care Cooperatives will enable local authorities to better plan, forecast and commission places and negotiate with private providers, ensuring they can provide the placements children need at a sustainable cost to taxpayers.

The department welcomes the important insight of the NAO and will continue to reflect on how to bring about the change needed to tackle the challenges across the CSC system.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to promote recognition of, and publicise information about, the need to care equally for all children subject to violence.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Keeping children safe is a top priority for this government. Nothing is more important that safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.

Alongside the Home Office, the department is tackling the problems that cause children to need help and protection and delivering better and safer outcomes through the government’s Opportunity and Safer Streets missions. As part of this, we will be publishing our government response to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report on child victims of domestic abuse and our cross-government Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy this autumn.

Our Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and reforms across education and children’s services, will further protect children at risk of violence and neglect, stopping vulnerable children falling through cracks in services.

Underpinning this, our multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ and ‘Keeping children safe in education’ set out duties to safeguard all children subject to violence, no matter what challenges they face.

The government’s approach to preventing violence spans family, education and community. We are working closely with the Youth Endowment Fund to promote recognition of and publicise best practice in violence prevention for children and young people.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve community (a) understanding and (b) acceptance of (i) residential and (ii) support services for vulnerable children (A) in the community and (B) in the criminal justice system.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The Children’s Social Care National Framework acknowledges that receiving help from children’s social care can be a stigmatising experience and encourages practitioners from first interactions to tackle stigma, build strong relationships with children, young people and families, and communicate clearly and effectively.

Through the Families First Partnership Programme, we are giving children and families access to better local support services to break the cycle of late intervention and help more children and families to stay safely together. Our reforms to Family Help will embed targeted support in the heart of communities, providing a non-stigmatising access point to a range of services to address the needs of the whole family.

We are determined to address the stigma and discrimination faced by children in care and care leavers and ensure they are supported. We are prioritising extending corporate parenting responsibilities to all government departments and relevant public bodies, through measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This will ensure that policies and services take account of the challenges they face, and remove barriers and provide opportunities for them to achieve and thrive.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help ensure that police forces implement changes in practice following Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel findings.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

Keeping children safe is a priority for this Government and we are committed to implementing improvements in practice, including through introducing multi-agency child protection teams in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection launched in April 2025 will improve the police response to child protection and we will also deliver a cross-government strategy as part of our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the number of pupils learning languages in school.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The study of languages is compulsory under the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 for all maintained schools, and will become compulsory in academies, subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The government continues to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which is developing a new model of language support for schools and online continuing professional development for teachers that will support high-quality language teaching. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.

​To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high-quality lessons and reduce planning time.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress she has made on expanding multi-agency safeguarding hubs across police forces in the North East.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Multi-agency working is critical to safeguarding children, and multi-agency safeguarding hubs (or ‘multi-agency front doors’) play an important role in the safeguarding system. However, the Government is going further to better protect children, including through the introduction of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is establishing multi-agency child protection teams and improving information sharing, including through a single unique identifier.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help protect young people in care from (a) grooming gangs, (b) exploitation and (c) other forms of criminal activity.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government is committed to protecting children and young people from all forms of abuse and exploitation, including child sexual exploitation and ‘grooming gangs’, alongside other forms of exploitation and criminal activity.

In June 2025, the Government accepted all the recommendations made in Baroness Louise Casey’s Independent National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girl’s statement made to the House on 2 September, which sets out an update on the Government’s work to establish a new national inquiry and national police operation to strengthen understanding and responses to group-based offending, including grooming gangs.

Since 2019, the Home Office has funded The Children’s Society to deliver the nationwide Prevention Programme that works to raise awareness of child exploitation to professionals working within the private, statutory and third sectors, as well as the public. The programme upskills staff, including within social care, to better respond to, disrupt and prevent all forms of child exploitation.

We are committed to tackling child criminal exploitation and have introduced a new offence of child criminal exploitation in the Crime and Policing Bill and developed new civil preventative orders to disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation and pursue the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. These will, alongside other additions in the bill, work to tackle the interconnected and exploitative practices often used by criminal gangs, especially in county lines.

An important protective factor for children living in residential children’s homes is ensuring that staff are trained, have the right skills, are supported to provide good quality care and can be challenged where they are not doing so. The Government has committed to improve qualifications, standards, and access to training for staff working in residential children’s homes to ensure they are able to safeguard and protect the children in their care.

Furthermore, the Government is going further to better protect children, including children in care or leaving care, including through the introduction of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is establishing multi-agency child protection teams and improving information sharing, including through a single unique identifier.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the position of children in social care in Camborne and Redruth constituency.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department has announced the biggest overhaul to children’s social care in a generation, and this will ensure opportunity for all children, including those in Camborne and Redruth. Our reforms include significant new investment in children’s social care and landmark legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The local government finance settlement for 2025/26 grants councils in England access to over £69 billion in funding, which is a 6.8% cash terms increase on 2024/25. The settlement for 2025/26 includes a new children’s Social Care Prevention Grant, worth £270 million. In June, we announced that the total investment in children’s social care over the forthcoming spending review period will reach over £2 billion.

The Families First Partnership programme is rolling out national reforms to Family Help, multi-agency child protection and family group decision making from April 2025, to help more children and families to stay safely together. These reforms are backed by over £500 million of funding in 2025/26 and we are providing all local authorities, including Cornwall, with a flexible support offer, targeted to local needs, as they transform their children’s services.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support care leavers in Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department is committed to ensuring that, regardless of where they live, care leavers have access to stable housing, health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships, and opportunities in education, employment, and training.

All local authorities are required to publish a local offer for care leavers. This outlines both the statutory support they are entitled to and any discretionary services the authority provides. To strengthen this, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will make the Staying Close programme a national offer for eligible care leavers. This will require local authorities to assess whether care leavers need support to find and maintain suitable accommodation, and access services related to health, wellbeing, relationships, education, and employment, and provide that support where their welfare requires it.

The Bill will also enhance the local offer by strengthening requirements around accommodation and promoting joint working between leaving care and housing teams.

Local housing authorities currently owe duties to those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. To better support care leavers, the Bill removes the intentional homelessness test for eligible individuals, ensuring they receive the housing support they need without unnecessary barriers.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will prohibit the voluntary engagement of children as matchball assistants at grassroots football clubs.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill should not prohibit the voluntary engagement of children as match ball assistants at grassroots football clubs, as it does not change the scope of what is or is not considered employment for the purposes of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has she made of the economic impact on kinship carers arising from (a) reduced employment rights compared with biological parents, (b) variations in local kinship care offers and (c) reducing access to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.

Answered by Janet Daby

The government has launched a review of the parental leave system, which will consider whether the current support available meets the needs of working families who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements, including kinship carers.

We are legislating through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to mandate local authorities to publish a local offer for children and families in kinship care arrangements. This will help kinship families better understand what support may be available to them locally. However, the content of the local offer is decided by the local authority, based on their assessment local needs, and therefore the content of local offers may vary significantly between areas.

Eligibility for access to the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF) is unchanged, and the revised criteria for the ASGSF will enable as many children and families as possible to access funding.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of teaching of the works of William Shakespeare in secondary schools in England.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure an appreciate of our rich and varied literary heritage. It encourages pupils to read a range of books, poems, and plays to foster the development of a lifelong love of literature.

Maintained schools must follow the English programmes of study, and once passed, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will extend this requirement to academies.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of teaching of the canon of English literature in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure an appreciate of our rich and varied literary heritage. It encourages pupils to read a range of books, poems, and plays to foster the development of a lifelong love of literature.

Maintained schools must follow the English programmes of study, and once passed, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will extend this requirement to academies.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Smith of Malvern (HL8283), what assessment they have made of whether clause 46 of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which refers to school teachers' qualifications and induction, applies to 16–19 academies.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Qualified teacher status (QTS) has never been a requirement for further education (FE) settings. QTS is the professional qualification for teachers in primary and secondary schools, therefore the requirement established through clause 46 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will apply to primary and secondary state funded schools in England, with some limited exemptions set out in regulations.

High quality teacher training qualifications are available that are specifically targeted to those wishing to teach in FE settings.

The government has liaised extensively with stakeholders from a range of settings to ensure that the exemptions to the requirement for QTS set out in regulations will continue to provide them with the flexibility to employ individuals with the specialist skills and experience to support the needs of their pupils.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the information sharing duties in the (a) Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and (b) Crime and Policing Bill on GPs.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to improving information sharing across services to help safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with the Department for Education and the Home Office on their respective information sharing proposals, which are included in Department for Education’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Home Office’s Crime and Policing Bill.

The information sharing proposals aim to establish a clear and consistent process to share information. To support the formulation and test the feasibility of these proposals, we have engaged with health stakeholders, including general practitioners, though a variety of forums. We will continue to engage with health stakeholders as we plan for the effective implementation of the use of the single unique identifier, the information sharing duty, and the child sexual abuse mandatory reporting duty.

The Department for Education has published an impact assessment on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill-impact-assessments

The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have published an impact assessment on the Crime and Policing Bill, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-and-policing-bill-2025-impact-assessments

We will continue to support the departments leading on the respective bills to review and update these documents, once the bills have completed their passages through the House of Lords.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the compatibility of the immigration, asylum and nationality function exemption from corporate parenting responsibilities at clauses 21 and 22 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill with the removal of the UK’s immigration reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The government is committed to supporting all looked-after children and care leavers. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces corporate parenting responsibilities for government departments and public bodies. This includes a new duty on corporate parents to be alert to matters which could adversely affect the wellbeing of these children and young people, when exercising their functions.

The impacts of the policy on child’s rights and equalities have been assessed. The exemption of functions relating to immigration, asylum, nationality and customs only applies to the specific functions, not to young people themselves, so all looked-after children and care leavers, regardless of immigration status, will be in scope of support provided by corporate parents. Secretaries of State, including my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, will be required to consider the wellbeing of all looked-after children and care leavers when exercising functions other than those relating to asylum, immigration, nationality or customs.

The UK gives effect to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in immigration matters that affect children through Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. This requires my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to make arrangements for ensuring that immigration, asylum and nationality functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the UK.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with schools on the potential impact of branded school uniform policies on families; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools comply with the statutory guidance entitled Cost of school uniforms, published on 19 November 2021.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

Whilst many schools are taking action to reduce costs, too many families tell us that the cost of school uniform remains a financial burden. The department’s research shows that the average cost of uniform is significantly lower when parents can buy items from somewhere other than a designated shop or school. This research is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms-survey-2023.

The government has introduced legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to limit the number of compulsory branded items schools can require, to remove the cost of uniform as a barrier to pupils accessing school and activities in school.

We estimate that requiring fewer branded items from designated suppliers could save some parents over £50 per child during the back to school shop once the uniform limit comes into effect.

The department has statutory guidance on the ‘Cost of school uniforms’, and schools must have regard to it when designing and implementing their uniform policies. We expect all schools to now be compliant.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions her Department has had with (a) Buckinghamshire Council and (b) Milton Keynes City Council on the use of data sharing improvements set out in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Answered by Janet Daby

The department has not held formal bilateral discussions with Buckinghamshire Council or Milton Keynes City Council specifically on the data sharing provisions in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. However, all local authorities as well as multi-agency practitioners, were invited to national webinars held in June and July this year which engaged over 400 practitioners. The department will continue to engage with the sector throughout the implementation of these measures to ensure local perspectives are reflected.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what mechanisms are in place to share safeguarding intelligence between local authorities and law enforcement in cases involving suspected exploitative children’s homes.

Answered by Janet Daby

Although current legislation permits information sharing to safeguard and protect the wellbeing of children, practitioners have told the department that they often only feel confident sharing where there are serious child protection concerns.

As outlined in ‘Keeping children safe, helping families thrive’, the department is taking two important legislative steps to improve how services share information to support children and families more effectively.

Firstly, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces provision in law, paving the way for a consistent identifier to be specified and the organisations required to use it, at a later date, via regulations.

Secondly, the Bill also seeks to put an end to misconceptions about the legal barriers to sharing information, introducing a clear legal basis for sharing information for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

Ofsted inspect children’s homes once a year and take immediate action where there are safeguarding concerns, working with local authorities to protect children. The department is strengthening Ofsted’s powers via the Bill, introducing provider oversight to complement the existing regulatory regime, enabling Ofsted to act at scale and pace by requiring provider groups to improve quality where Ofsted identify concerns, and take action for non-compliance. The relevant local authorities will be informed.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the identification of young carers by adult mental health services.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Local authorities are required by law to take reasonable steps to identify young carers in their area that need support, and to undertake an assessment of need, where appropriate. To support local authorities in their child protection duties, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was introduced to Parliament in December 2024, contains provisions that will strengthen multi-agency working with children and families by introducing a new duty on safeguarding partners, including local authorities, police, and health services.

We recognise that, when someone is admitted to a mental health hospital or detained under the Mental Health Act, young carers are not always appropriately identified by adult mental health services. To improve this, as part of the reforms to the Mental Health Act, we plan to encourage individuals to make the presence of any young carers known in their Advance Choice Document. This document is intended to be a source of key information for mental health professionals if the individual experiences a mental health crisis.

Furthermore, provisions in the Mental Health Bill aim to ensure that people who care for a patient’s welfare, such as young carers, are proactively involved in the patient’s statutory care plan by the clinician. We will include guidance in the revised Mental Health Act Code of Practice to help ensure young carers are appropriately involved and supported.

NHS England is working to support the identification of young carers and has recently published guidance for general practitioners. NHS England is also utilising data to help support greater joined up work between health, education, and social care.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has considered allowing local education authorities to open new maintained schools.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the government is removing the legal presumption that all new schools are opened as academies, allowing local authorities to welcome proposals for all types of school, and to put forward their own proposals where they choose to do so.

These changes will better align local authorities’ responsibility to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support Surrey County Council to deliver more housing for care leavers to improve Education, Employment and Training opportunities.

Answered by Janet Daby

The government is committed to improving support for care leavers. Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are placing a new duty on local authorities to provide ‘Staying Close’ support to care leavers up to age 25 where their welfare requires it and requiring local authorities to publish their arrangements for supporting care leavers’ transition to adulthood. The Bill will also ensure care leavers cannot be found intentionally homeless and will introduce corporate parenting responsibilities for government departments and relevant public bodies so that they better take the needs of care leavers into account. We also fund local authorities to help care leavers stay with their foster families up to age 21, known as ‘Staying Put’.

Support is available for eligible care leavers to access bursaries to engage in education, employment and training, including £2,000 for university and £3,000 for apprenticeships.

Wider housing reforms will also benefit care leavers. On 2 July, we announced a ten-year plan to deliver the largest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, alongside lasting improvements in safety and quality. Additionally, from 10 July, eligible care leavers under 25 will no longer need to meet a local connection or residency test to access social housing.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to rural proof the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The government is committed to ensuring that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill delivers for all children, including those living in rural areas.

The Bill includes measures designed to be delivered flexibly by local authorities, regional bodies and schools, enabling them to respond to local contexts. For example, provisions in the Bill to reform the children’s social care placement market include Regional Care Cooperatives which will assist local authorities by analysing the future accommodation needs for looked-after children across the region. This will support improved planning across geographic areas. We are also legislating on a package of measures which will help ensure that decisions on school place planning and admissions support the needs of communities, including rural communities.

The department is keen to learn what will support providers in rural areas to implement measures in the Bill. That is why schools in rural areas are included in the early adopter scheme for breakfast clubs. Home educating families and out-of-school education providers in rural areas will also have the opportunity to engage when we consult on the implementation of the children not in school measures.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage more students to study languages in schools.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

The study of languages is compulsory under the national curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 for all maintained schools, and will become compulsory in academies, subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

The most important factor in encouraging students to continue studying languages beyond key stage 3 is the quality of teaching. The government continues to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education, which is developing a new model of language support for schools and online continuing professional development for teachers that will support high quality language teaching. This programme is designed to have national reach, ensuring that all schools can benefit regardless of their location.

To further support languages education, the department is offering a £26,000 tax-free bursary for trainee language teachers starting courses in 2025, or alternatively, a £28,000 tax-free scholarship for those training to teach French, German, or Spanish. Additionally, Oak National Academy is developing modern foreign languages lesson resources for key stages 2 to 4, to be fully released by autumn 2025, helping teachers deliver high quality lessons and reduce planning time.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the capacity of the NHS to contribute to the provisions for Multi Agency Child Protection Teams in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduced in Parliament on 17 December, will protect children at risk of abuse, by stopping vulnerable children from falling through the cracks in services. The bill will place a duty on local safeguarding partners to establish multi-agency child protection teams (MACPTs), aimed at strengthening the multi-agency child protection response to all types of harm. These teams will have a minimum membership, nominated by safeguarding partners, of a social worker, a police officer, a registered health practitioner, and a person with experience of education.

MACPTs have been embedded in 10 local areas through the Families First for Children Pathfinders programme. Based on the learning from these pathfinders, the teams are being rolled out nationally through the Families First Partnership (FFP) programme, launched in April 2025. The FFP programme guide enables flexibility in the composition of MACPTs, which are designed according to local need.

NHS England is supporting and learning from the nine integrated care boards (ICBs) currently working with the Families First for Children Pathfinders programme, which includes MACPTs. The national safeguarding leads are collaborating with the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care to profile how ICBs might implement MACPTs alongside local statutory partners, using Section 75 collaborative funding arrangements in order to optimise the Spending Review budget for the national rollout of the Families First Partnership programme and MACPTs.

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Found: Government set to enable and bring effect to many of our recommendations through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: (c) The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (which gives DfE an increased role in overseeing standards

Found: The Department for Education’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a significant step towards delivering

Found: These changes depend on the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and updated regulations

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Found: and support retention across both schools and colleges. 5.4 Consistent with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

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Found: This will build on existing reforms and deliver the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill’ social commitments

Found: These updates mark significant progress in delivering key measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

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Found: You will be aware that I am introducing measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which

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Found: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently proposes additional powers to allow us to fine providers

Found: You will be aware that I am introducing measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which

Found: I am writing to you following my commitment during the debate on day 11 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: I’d like to thank you for the interesting debate of new clause 479 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Letter dated 13/10/2025 from Baroness Smith of Malvern to Baroness Barran regarding Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: converting into academies, as discussed during the Committee stage (tenth day) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), as discussed during the Committee stage (tenth day) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: alternative provision, as discussed during the Committee stage (day eleven) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: alternative provision, as discussed during the Committee stage (day eleven) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: alternative provision, as discussed during the Committee stage (day eleven) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: local authorities in respect of Clause 32 (and also applicable to Clause 30) of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: These changes depend on the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and updated regulations

Found: (c) The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (which gives DfE an increased role in overseeing standards

Found: /2025 from Baroness Smith of Malvern to Baroness Barran regarding Clause 30 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: An amendment was attached to the UK Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the UK Government

Found: An amendment was attached to the UK Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the UK Government

Found: prevent companies making excessive profit from children’s care homes through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: This approach is in line with the powers being introduced for England via the UK Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: The UK Government Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill includes provisions which propose the development

Found: Regulation and Metrology Bill Consent recommendedxxi 26 June 2025 Consent granted Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: on the financial impact of any relevant UK Parliament legislation, for example the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: 5 Dear Chair Thank you for your letter inviting my views in relation to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: behalf of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, in relation to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Education Committee members, I am writing to express my strong opposition to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: UK Parliament legislation including the Welsh Government’s associated LCM on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: UK Parliament legislation including the Welsh Government’s associated LCM on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

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Found: , paragraph 7, June 2025 11 Welsh Government, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: Background The UK Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 1.

Found: 1 SUPPLEMENTARY LEGISLATIVE CONSENT MEMORANDUM (MEMORANDUM NO 3) CHILDREN’S WELLBEING AND SCHOOLS BILL

Found: consider and report on the Supplementary Legislative Consent Memorandum (No.3) on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Found: It appears that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains similar provision33; provision which