Home School Education Registration and Support Bill [HL]
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank noble Lords for taking part in the Second Reading of the Home School Education Registration and Support Bill. There have, to my knowledge, been two previous Private Members’ Bills on home education —one Labour and one Conservative. Both, sadly, ran out of parliamentary time. During and since Covid, the number of home-educated pupils has increased considerably.
I thank the numerous people who have emailed or written to me on this subject, some expressing their concerns about the Bill and some supporting it. I am particularly grateful to the LGA for its extensive briefing and, of course, to our own Library. I have had a regular email correspondence with Rabbi Gratt, who has told me in no uncertain terms that the Bill will have serious effects on religious freedoms and teachings. I have assured him that this is completely unfounded and that the Bill will do no such thing.
We believe that parents and children must have an ironclad right to choose home education when they feel that this is the right decision, whether that is because the school system has failed them or simply because they are dissatisfied with formal education. This might be because of special educational needs or for religious reasons. That should be their right, but with rights come responsibilities. We have grave concerns that thousands of children’s whereabouts are simply unknown because they have never attended school, or because parents said they were going to be home-educated and then simply withdrew them from school. By ensuring that local authorities must keep a register of home-educated children and that parents and guardians register for home education, we would know which children are home-educated and where they are, and safeguarding would be assured.
We estimate—and that is the crucial word—that between 125,000 and 180,000 children are being home-educated, but we do not know the exact figure and, in many cases, we do not know where those children are. It must surely be a concern that any parent can simply say that they are teaching their children at home and that is an end to the matter. We have no knowledge of whether education is taking place or whether the children are safeguarded.
Of course, thousands of children are home-educated by their parents very successfully, and those children thrive and develop. The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, only in the last few days has expressed concern over the rise in the number of families educating their children at home, citing unmet needs in schools, particularly among children with special educational needs.
I emphasise again that this Bill is in no way an encroachment on home educators and their autonomy. The Bill will fix the non-existent oversight of this area of education and ensure that authorities have accurate records of how many children are educated at home, where they are and that educational requirement are being met. If required by the parents, local authorities can offer support and advice where needed, always with the best interests of families and children in mind. It is worth noting that, currently, many local authorities have developed and resourced great support material for home educators, and built up trust and confidence with those home educators they know about, and work with them incredibly well.
The Bill seeks to establish a thoughtful and balanced regulatory framework that ensures effective oversight in the regulated institutions and protection of the rights and freedoms of home educators. It encourages a greater level of co-operation and fosters an effective working partnership between local authorities and home educators. With greater transparency provided through a clear structure and a framework, we can expect to see a rise in public trust in this country’s education institutions. I have ensured that the Bill is thoughtful and measured, so as to ensure that respect for home educators is maintained.
Ultimately, the Bill is a step forward in ensuring the quality of education for the children of this country. It should be viewed as an opportunity to develop the education system for the better, with a clear message of benefiting the children and young people of the nation. I commend the Bill to the House and look forward to future discussions in Committee. For the avoidance of doubt, the Bill does not deal with the vexed issue of unregulated schools, which is, I hope, a matter we will be able to deal with in the long-awaited education and children’s welfare Bill. If that Bill deals with home education then this Private Member’s Bill of mine will not be needed—hallelujah.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, it has to be said that this is not new territory. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, mentioned previous Private Members’ Bills. In the Queen’s Speech of November 2009, the Labour Government announced the introduction of a Children, Schools and Families Bill, which was to have amended the Education Act 1996 so as to require home-educated children to be registered with the local authority. Unfortunately, the proposed changes were dropped the following year due to a lack of cross-party support in the wash-up.
Now, 15 years on, despite support for a register being signalled by all four Tory Ministers whom I faced at the Dispatch Box during my time as shadow Education Minister in your Lordships’ House—including the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, now on the Opposition Front Bench—we are no further forward. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on presenting this Bill and I am fully supportive of its aims. However, I believe its title should have been “children not in school registration” rather than “home school education registration”, as the concerns go wider than the home. I say that bearing in mind the noble Lord’s comments at the end of his introduction.
In many instances, the decision on home education is right for the children involved; supported by parents who have an understanding of the educational needs of their children and the ability to ensure that these needs are delivered, it is beneficial to them. In those cases, home schooling is appropriate and can be nurturing, and such out-of-school settings do not cause any concern.
The problem which has to be acknowledged, however, is that many children—either never presented to school or subsequently withdrawn—do not enjoy such a benign experience. The issue that I find of most concern is that there are no accurate figures for how many children in England are not in mainstream education. For the status and safety of children to be allocated to a category marked “Don’t know” by government is totally unacceptable. Child protection is too important an issue for that to be the case, but under existing legislation it is.
Some parents are ideologically opposed to formal education and indeed to almost all forms of state intervention in their lives—apart from child benefit, of course. I endorse their right to hold such views, but it is unrealistic—indeed, irresponsible—to expect that the wishes of a minority of parents should be permitted to override issues of child safety and protection.
The significant increase in children not in mainstream education, which has taken place in recent years, has not arisen from any significant growth in the number of those who believe in the virtues of home education for its own sake. Rather, the factors leading to a significant proportion of the children now claimed to be receiving education at home are, I fear, more negative. They include difficulty in obtaining within the school system what parents see as adequate provision, especially for children with special needs; disagreement with schools about academic or behavioural issues; and a perceived lack of suitable alternative provision for those children who would benefit from it.
It is now essential to move towards a position where, when necessary, local authorities will be in a better position to take effective action to ensure that a child is receiving suitable education. The first step in this is to ensure that local authorities are aware of the existence of all children who are not in mainstream schooling.
I would like to see the Bill amended to include the introduction of a duty on settings attended by children on the register to respond to inquiries from local authorities as to whether a specific child attends that setting.
The Bill does not refer to unregistered schools, but it is impossible to separate them from the issue of home education. As long ago as 2018, Ofsted inspectors discovered 286 unregistered schools in England, with around 6,000 young people attending them. I do not have up-to-date figures but, in many cases, it was claimed that the pupils were being home educated when in fact they were attending such schools every day. Thus, the Education Act 1996 is being exploited to enable children to attend those establishments. For that reason, I hope the Bill will be amended in Committee to more accurately reflect the extent of the problems associated with children being invisible and therefore potentially at risk of harm.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for giving us the opportunity of looking at this Bill. I am a long-term supporter of home education, though I confess I have never had the courage to try it myself. I declare an interest as the proprietor of the Good Schools Guide, which covers home education and the best online schools. In that context, I may well stray over the four-minute ideal, but I think this is an important area to deal with since, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, says, we are likely to see this in the upcoming government Bill.
Home education is a very varied world; there is a great deal of good practice, some problematic areas and very little data. Therefore, a review, in this Bill or otherwise, is really timely. We should approach home education with both humility and respect. With respect because the parents who are taking this on are taking on a huge responsibility and a great deal of work, relying almost entirely on their own resources, and many parents I know have done so with huge success for their children. With humility because, despite the state’s resources and all the improvements that have been in the last 30 years in state education, we still have failing schools. Special educational needs, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, is still a mess and alternative provision is not what it should be.
We are far from perfect and we should understand imperfection in others. However, we should approach home education with confidence in our culture. Children have a right to education and a right to be part of society. Just because someone is a follower of the Taliban, it does not give them—in this country—the right to treat their children in the way the Taliban do. Based on that confidence, we should have confidence in accommodating difference—as indeed we do. I have been around some truly astonishing—in terms of what they are teaching the children—Catholic and Church of England schools. But, fine—we can live with that, as long as they are not closing their children off from a full education and from the world.
In dealing with religious authorities, we should negotiate with confidence and strength. We should approach the whole thing with support. Home education is a huge challenge, even if it is something you have chosen. And, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, it very often is not—it is because of some failing in the state system, and parents being determined that their child should not suffer from it.
I very much feel that the best way of interacting with home education is by making home-educated children visible, and by offering them support. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, says, there are many excellent examples of local authorities which will provide support in mathematics, which is always difficult for someone who does not have that skill to teach. Sport offers other ways of getting together and making the children visible, making it easier to see which children are thriving.
Yes, some local education authorities do this really well, and the result is that the money local authorities spend is mostly spent doing good, and the families that are not thriving in home education become immediately visible, because they are not participating. The money and the focus of helping children can just be on the children who really need it.
Other authorities, however, in my experience, are positively demonic and it really is up to the DfE to hold the ring. We must have clear requirements and a clear understanding of what both parents and local authorities are meant to do. It must be clearly expressed, so that there are no arguments over the language. We must have had the opportunity of extensive discussions about it. We must make it easy for people from the local authority to act with confidence, to know that their judgments—that, yes, this family is doing well—will not be questioned. We must have a confident appeals process, we must gather data—as we are not doing at the moment—and, when something is going wrong, we must deal with the rogues crisply.
And so to the Bill. A register must be of all children in the country, not just home-educated children. There are some dark corners of state education that are really not well enough documented. We must document children in private schools better than we do at the moment; they are not included in the national schools census.
I have some substantial problems with the wording of Bill. If the Government wish to proceed with the Bill, or with their own, a meeting would save a great deal of parliamentary time.
Lord Desai (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the Bill, which is long-needed. It is possible to say that there are some fantastic examples of home education. My education started when I was two years old and continued at least until I was six, by which time I had been taught almost everything I needed to learn in primary school. But I had to waste one year in primary school, because that was required.
Even the best education a family can give does not prepare the student for civic life. It does not prepare the student to mix socially or behave like a responsible adult. They may know the Talmud, the Koran or the Bible very nicely, but that is not enough. You have to know something else as well in life.
I think that, while we are playing around with this thing called home education, it is really about religious education. Let us call a spade a spade. Very often, children are educated at home because the religious beliefs not of the children but of their parents insist that they be taught only what is essential from a religious point of view, and not to be literate, mathematically informed or anything else.
On the one hand, you might say that that is religious freedom—of course, parents have the religious freedom to do anything they like for their children—but, on the other, their children have to grow up to be citizens of our society and know what it is like to be in this society. For that reason, we have to monitor, from the beginning, whether these children will be harmed for ever and prevented from being good citizens, or whether they will be all right. Again, I do not doubt that, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, some children are getting a fantastic family education, but the majority of such children are not getting the education they deserve—not only academic knowledge but civic training in being part of society.
I very much welcome the Bill and hope that, in registering who is home-educated, we will have strict standards and not take any excuse, such as someone saying, “The kid is backward”. It is the girls who suffer much more than the boys; boys somehow get better in terms of social background, but the girls really do suffer. I hope that the Bill speeds through, and that we absolutely get rid of the education that is holding our children back, and who, having been held back, will be handicapped for their entire adult lives.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I have not done home education myself. My only experience was standing over my own sons for long hours encouraging a more focused approach to their GCSE revision. This only affirmed my admiration for those who actively choose to home educate their children.
I commend the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for placing the welfare of children at the heart of the Bill. There is some resistance to the idea of compulsory registration in the home-education community, as set out in new Section 436B. There is also disquiet about the content of the proposed register, as set out in new Sections 436C and 436D, which is seen as an example of state overreach. While I support the overall thrust of the noble Lord’s Bill, I hope that further work will be done to clarify the limits of the information recorded and the provision of safeguards to protect parental rights. The proposals for registration and support in the Bill should allow a better collaborative approach between home educators and education professionals.
The Church of England’s approach to home education has been threefold: first, to ensure that people who say that pupils are being home-educated actually are home-educating them; secondly, to ensure that children are safe; and, thirdly, to ensure that schools are not using it as an excuse to off-roll “difficult” children in order to protect their exam results and place in the league tables. There is concern that children are being kept away from school because of their anxieties and poor SEND provision. ITV News research last year showed that over half of children with special educational needs and disabilities—58%—have had to take time out of school because their needs could not be met. Of those children, 36% spent between a month and a year out of school, while 7% spent more than a year out. Is the significant increase in the numbers of children being home-educated, as indicated in the Library briefing on the Bill, indicative of a collapse of parental faith in the SEND system, rather than an active choice?
In a number of rural areas, schools are under threat of closure from local authorities. We have current examples of Church schools in North Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight. In areas where public transport is poor and unpredictable, and parents are disenchanted with public education due to the closure of a much-loved school where their child is settled and happy, is there a risk that they will choose to home-educate instead of sending their child to a distant and unfamiliar school? Are we confident in the support available to those parents to farm and work in the rural economy and to provide their children with a good education?
The key to the success of the Bill’s proposals in new Section 436G will lie in consistent local authority support and nationally agreed culturally sensitive guidelines for such support. It will be especially important that those liaising with families understand the unique needs of those on the autistic spectrum—for example, in their interactions with them. Currently, home educators report a range of experiences of local authorities, from the collaborative to the hostile—it is a bit of a postcode lottery. As more and more schools academise, there is a danger that local authority provision may wither on the vine and the aspirations of the Bill will be disappointed. The preservation of that support will be crucial to ensuring the best outcome for all children in elective home education.
Baroness Gohir (CB)
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for proposing this Bill. I support mandatory home education registration—as well as the registration of those not in education, as highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Lucas—but this must be accompanied by mandatory checks to provide assurances that children are safe and receiving a quality education.
I understand that there is a legal obligation on parents to ensure that their child receives efficient full-time education suitable to their age and ability, including in the right format for those with special educational needs. Local authorities have a legal duty to establish that every child in their area is receiving a suitable education. However, how effectively is this happening? Do the Government have any evidence of how many inquiries local authorities have made and followed up? While I respect parental wishes on how to educate their children, and many parents will be providing a stimulating and safe environment and acting in the best interests of their children, this is not always the case, leading to lifelong barriers and affecting life chances.
When children are not in education and are home-schooled without oversight, they become invisible and vulnerable to various risks, such as domestic abuse, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation, poor mental health, forced marriage and so on. I asked the previous Education Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about this. She provided a detailed written response back in February 2024. I will use some of the data in that letter to make some of my points.
The noble Baroness provided elective home education data which showed that the numbers in 2016 were 37,500. Since then, they have been increasing every year. By 2023, they had rocketed to 126,100 and may well be higher, as has been highlighted. That is a rise of 236%, if I have got my maths right. The proportion increases as children grow older; it is one-third in year groups 10 and 11—14 and 15 year-olds. Children from minority-ethnic backgrounds are overrepresented: for 26% the ethnicity was unknown, 51% were white British and 23% were from minority-ethnic backgrounds. This 23% is an overrepresentation since the minority-ethnic population is 18%. However, if you consider the unknown data, assuming that it follows a similar trend, the proportion of minority-ethnic children in elective home education is more likely to be 30%. I therefore welcome the recording of protected characteristics in the Bill. We cannot ignore these trends of rising numbers, older children and high numbers of minority-ethnic children. Are the Government concerned about these trends? They should be.
I also inquired into the reasons for home education in my letter. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, shared that for 35% of the children the reason was unknown or the parents did not give one. Will the Government tackle the drivers of elective home education? Perhaps parents have no choice because schools are not meeting the needs of children and even pressuring parents to take their children out of school. Will the Government support this Bill or incorporate its recommendations into their future children’s well-being Bill?
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has form on this. I congratulate him on his determination, ever since he picked up the baton from my retired noble friend Lord Soley to rescue many vulnerable children. Despite the promises of the previous Government, nothing ever materialised, yet the number of children missing from school has clearly significantly increased, even though we do not know the exact number. So, alarmingly, has the number of children recruited on to county lines to deal in drugs under the intimidation and violence of criminal gangs. Was it not a dereliction of duty for the previous Government to abandon these children for so long without recognised education?
I should first say that it is still of prime importance to make it easier for all children to attend proper registered schools and thrive there. That has not always been so, and of course, as has been said, there have always been parents who educated their children at home well—often very well. Such parents have nothing to fear from the Bill, nor will the parents of children in registered religious schools. I hope that, in the interests of the large number of children who have massively missed out by being out of school, all parents will understand the need for the register.
This Bill will provide the lifeline of a proper education for some groups of children in particular. I first mention children of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, who drop out or are expelled or encouraged out of insufficiently inclusive schools in larger proportions than any other ethnic group. Their parents may have chosen home education because the bullying their children faced is intolerable, but they may not be equipped or have the time to home-educate properly.
However, there are also the children who have been made to attend those unregistered illegal schools whose narrow curricula and harsh punishments do not enable them to thrive. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found cases of physical and sexual abuse in some of those schools. This also needs to be dealt with
I have a few small concerns with the noble Lord’s Bill. In new Section 436D(1)(a), the obligation on parents to inform the local authority of home education may be impracticable for marginalised parents. Perhaps it should be the schools which inform the local authority, at least in the case of expulsion or the choice of elective home education. Also, I cannot work out what the difference is between new Section 436C(2)(j) and (k). That is only a detail, though.
Finally, a small number of families travel for work and in observance of cultural tradition, but local authority transit sites allow them to stop for only three months at a time, which disrupts their children’s education. They do not want that, but it predisposes them as a family to choose home education when they might not have the capacity. If the Department for Education were to continue its very welcome support for Open Doors Education & Training’s distance learning scheme, partnered with the Traveller Movement, this gap in home education could be filled. Can my noble friend guarantee that?
I hope that our Government can give this Bill a fair wind or provide their own version of its promise.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, I have great hopes that we are pushing against an open door in respect of my noble friend’s Bill, because promises regarding a mandatory register have been made for years, although they never materialised under previous Conservative Governments. I have great hopes for our forgotten children this time. How many of them are there? We just do not know. The DfE can only estimate perhaps as many as 185,000 children, and all the rules regarding safeguarding children have seemingly ceased to apply.
On our Benches there is no disagreement in acknowledging the right of a parent to home-school their child. Post-Covid, this has become a lot more popular. But we need to understand what lies behind the decision to home-educate. Sometimes it is because, as has been mentioned, local authorities have failed in their duty to provide suitable, safe education. For example, children with special educational needs have been mentioned. There are also children who have been bullied at school.
However, sometimes, a child is not receiving enough of the right quality of education to fit them for adult life. Sometimes the reasons are more sinister, and a child is being neglected and abused, so luridly exemplified by the systematic abuse and tragic, horrific death of Victoria Climbié.
Concern about family privacy should never be allowed to undermine the best interests of the child. Lack of a compulsory register gives the opportunity for unregistered schools to flourish, which can then avoid oversight from the DfE and hence avoid regulations which may conflict with their religious teachings.
Freedom to practise a religion does not give religious groups the right to deprive children of an adequate education in a safe setting. I am respectful of mainstream registered religious schools, but unregistered religious schools in particular fail to conform to school standards, particularly regarding safeguarding and quality of education. This leaves those children open to physical abuse and woefully underprepared for the outside world, dependent on the insular religious community they were born into. They do not know what the outside world has to offer, and they may never break free.
I urge the Minister to take advantage of my noble friend’s Bill to reclaim our lost children and give them the education they need and deserve in a safe environment, to the standard that will equip them to become successful and productive citizens of tomorrow.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to the Home School Education Registration and Support Bill, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for introducing it. This Bill largely reflects Part 3 of the Schools Bill 2022, which aimed to set up a register of children not in school. I note however that there are some changes in scope, including proposed new Section 436G, which includes the offer of support in relation to safeguarding as well as education.
I would like to acknowledge the tireless work of Lord Soley, who long campaigned on this issue. I hope he is watching our debate today.
At that time, we acknowledged in this House that there are three main groups of children who are educated at home. First, there are those whose parents positively believe in home education and actively choose it for their children. Secondly, there are those children who have not thrived at school, perhaps because of bullying or unmet needs in relation to special educational needs and disabilities, and whose parents feel they have no choice but to educate them at home although initially they would not have chosen to do so. Finally, there are those children who are not in school, but neither are they receiving an education at home. As we have heard across the House, there are significant safeguarding concerns.
A register should permit parents who chose to educate their children at home to continue to do so. Combined with support, it should help parents who would prefer their children to be in school and who might be struggling to educate them at home. Finally, it should help identify that small group of children who could be at significant risk of harm and ensure that they are safeguarded.
When we were in government, we took the first steps towards increasing the level of information regarding the number of children who are educated at home. In February 2024, the Department for Education published experimental data to try to shed more light on this area, although I note that it uses data from 95% of local authorities and now, for the first time, we have data on each of the three school terms. The data published by the department showed that, in the 2022-23 academic year, there were 126,100 children receiving elective home education at any point in the year, which was an 8% increase on the previous year.
We recognise that this is an area of great sensitivity for parents, and we are clear that parents have the right to educate their children at home if they wish to. Thus huge care will be needed when the Government bring forward their children and well-being Bill—which I understand will include measures to create a register of home-schooled children—to ensure that the implementation of these measures is done with a focus on identifying those genuinely at risk or in need of support and does not intrude on the private life of families who are doing the best for their children.
It will be critical for services to be available to support those parents who need and request it. My noble friend Lord Lucas highlighted some of these sensitivities very eloquently. When I was sitting where the Minister now sits, I encouraged colleagues in the department when thinking about the guidance in this area to invite local authorities and home educators in to draft it together, because if they could agree in the room then perhaps it would work in real life. That is something she might want to consider.
Many of your Lordships, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will remember that, in the Schools Bill, these clauses were subject to a huge number of amendments. I tried to look it up last night, but, from memory, I think it was more than 130 amendments. So although we wish this Bill well, we expect to see it reemerge as part of the Government’s legislative calendar. It would be most helpful if the Minister could confirm when the education and well-being Bill will have its First Reading.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on securing a Second Reading for his Home School Education Registration and Support Bill. The aims of this Bill, as all noble Lords who have taken part in this very helpful debate today have identified, are admirable and important.
All children have the right to a suitable education, regardless of whether they are educated at school or at home. However, as noble Lords have emphasised, to ensure that this is the case, it is vital that local authorities have a complete picture of children in their area, including those not in school. That is why this Government have already committed to introduce proposals in the children’s well-being Bill that would require every local authority in England to keep children not in school registers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, knows that I am not in a position to say exactly when the children’s well-being Bill will be introduced, but we included it in this year’s King’s Speech, and in fact I spoke about it in my maiden speech from this Dispatch Box, so it will be within this parliamentary Session.
My noble friend Lord Watson identified that this is a development which has a very long history, going back, as he said, to the end of the previous Labour Government. I hope that, with the good will of noble Lords across this House, we are getting towards the end of that journey now and will be able to bring forward and get support for those proposals in the children’s well-being Bill when it arrives.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, was right to preface his comments by being clear that, in needing to know where every child is, that is not an attack on the legitimate right to home-educate when that is appropriate for children. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, there are some very good home-educating parents who, for a variety of reasons, feel that that is the appropriate decision for them.
However, it is also right that local authorities understand where those parents are, not least because, as noble Lords have identified, in some cases, local authorities are already providing good support to home educators. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, asked whether there is more we could do in that respect, and I can say that the children not in school proposals in the children’s well-being Bill will include a duty on local authorities to support home educators should they want it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, talked about the nature of the guidance and the conditions around what forms a suitable home education. The department’s elective home education guidance details eight components that local authorities should consider when determining whether a child is receiving a suitable education, and that includes literacy and numeracy standards, among others. But we recognise that every child learns differently, and relevant case law gives a broad discretion in how the fundamental right to an effective education is implemented. A local authority may request different types of evidence to help demonstrate that education provision is suitable. That could include samples of work, a meeting with the child, or a visit to the home.
Having been clear that there is a right to home-educate, it is important that we recognise the very big change that has happened over recent years. We cannot ignore official data that shows rising numbers of home-educated children, and that increasingly children are being moved into home education due to mental health concerns or special educational needs. In those cases, parents may be ill-prepared to begin home-educating, so children may be at risk of receiving an unsuitable education or no education at all—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, was right to say that we need to be clear about the characteristics of those children who have shifted out of schools. That will be an important way of identifying their needs and ensuring that they are safeguarded.
Local authorities have legal duties to identify children in their areas who are not in school and not receiving a suitable education, but this duty, as many noble Lords have said, is undermined by the fact that parents have no obligation to inform their local authority of their decision to home-educate. That is why this Government will use the children’s well-being Bill to require parents of eligible children to provide information for children not in school registers. This will help local authorities to identify all children not in school in their area, particularly those who are missing education, and, where this is the case, to take action to support those children.
The noble Lord’s Bill would require parents to provide information for children not in school registers, but it does not include a consequence if parents do not fulfil their legal duty. We think it is vital that local authorities can take action if parents attempt to evade registration—actions such as initiating the school attendance order process. Where a child is not receiving suitable education, the school attendance order process gives them a route to a suitable education through regular attendance at a named school.
Noble Lords rightly identified that there may be a variety of other reasons why the numbers of children either being home-educated or missing school are rising so considerably. I share noble Lords’ concerns that some parents are home-educating because they perceive that schools cannot meet their children’s special educational needs or disabilities. Making improvements for special educational needs and disabilities is a vital part of the Government’s opportunity mission, breaking the unfair link between background and opportunity. This starts by giving every child with special educational needs or disabilities—along with all other children—the best start in life. To do this, we urgently need to improve inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, while ensuring that special schools can cater to those with the most complex needs. This is an area of real focus for the department, and we will come forward with more action and reform here.
Other noble Lords raised mental health, and I am concerned by the rise in parents reporting mental health as their reason for choosing to educate their children at home. As of the autumn census day in October 2023, local authorities have reported that mental health is now the second most commonly reported reason for moving to home education. That is why this Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people, because that is critical to breaking down barriers to learning. The right support should be available to every young person who needs it, which is why we will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. It is why we will put in place new Young Futures hubs that will include access to mental health support workers, and it is why we will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford spelled out, we are aware of cases where parents have felt forced or coerced into home education by their children’s schools. This is a clear instance of home education not being chosen in the best interests of the child. Ofsted takes any use of unlawful exclusions and off-rolling very seriously and, where evidence is found by inspectors, it will have a significant impact on the school’s leadership and management judgment.
As several noble Lords identified, many children who are home-educated use out-of-school settings, such as tuition centres, to supplement their education or provide enriching or social experiences. Many of those settings do a great job of providing safe and enriching activities to children. However, we recognise that there are concerns about the safety profile of some of those settings, which is why we are taking forward a package of measures aimed at improving safeguarding in the out-of-school settings sector. This includes updated safeguarding guidance for parents, providers and local authorities, as well as an accompanying e-learning package and a call for evidence on future policy proposals for raising standards.
My noble friend Lord Watson, the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, raised the issue of illegal schools. We do not choose to call these schools “unregistered” because, by being unregistered, they are illegal. The Government’s aim is that all children of compulsory school age receive a safe and suitably broad education. If parents secure part of their child’s education through attendance at an unregistered independent school, they are putting their child into an illegal school—one that is not known to the department and not subject to inspection against the independent school standard. There is therefore no system to assure their performance, and they can and often do pose a safeguarding risk. It is illegal to operate an unregistered school, and those conducting an unregistered independent school are committing a criminal offence. The premises from which they run may already be subject to no-notice inspections by Ofsted and, if sufficient evidence is found, those running them may be prosecuted. We will keep the powers available to Ofsted during these inspections under review, but I make clear that we are not willing to see children being put in danger in illegal schools.
There has been some debate today about how children not in school registers may impact particular communities. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised the correspondence from Rabbi Gratt, and I have received it as well. I want to reassure the House that this Government’s proposals would not give local authorities additional powers to mandate the content of home education. Parents could continue to instil in their children religious and cultural values, provided that the education being received is suitable.
My noble friend Lady Whitaker highlighted that home education is often a necessary choice for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, for reasons that are less to do with making a positive decision. On her question about support for distance learning schemes, as she knows, my department convenes a stakeholder group of representatives from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and education sector to inform thinking about which policies and reforms can make the greatest positive difference to children and young people from these communities. I will write to my noble friend to provide more detail on the work being taken forward to provide the sort of support that she has argued for.
In thinking about the implementation of these registers, I assure noble Lords that we will look to engage broadly and to engage with marginalised groups of parents to ensure that we are putting in place appropriate arrangements.
In conclusion, while we wholeheartedly support the intention behind the Bill, I do not believe that it is the most effective way of bringing compulsory children not in school registers into being. That is why I must express reservations on the contents of the Bill. This Government already intend to legislate for children not in school registers through the children’s well-being Bill. We are committed to ensuring that these measures are as robust as possible, to minimise the risk of children slipping under the radar. I look forward to discussing the Government’s Bill with noble Lords in due course, and I thank the noble Lord for bringing forward this important debate today.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and noble Baronesses for taking part in this Second Reading. I have learned a number of important things. The issue that comes out for me, on top of the need to register, is the importance of knowing where our children are. I struggle with this, because when I was a head teacher the Blair Government brought in what was called the “unique pupil number”. The idea was that every pupil had a number and, when a child moved school, the head would notify the new school or educational setting and the number would go with that child. I never knew what happened to that. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right. It is not just about registering home-educated children; it is about registering children right across the educational spectrum.
The second issue, which we have been quite nervous talking about—I quite like the Minister’s phrase “illegal schools”—is that of unregistered schools. I am absolutely horrified at what Ofsted has told me about unregistered schools that do not teach any basic subjects at all. From the age of eight, there is a curriculum or a time spent entirely on religious teaching. In one school inspectors found that somebody teaching children was on the sex offenders register, and in another there was somebody with a criminal record. Ministers will know this—but it is very difficult to close those schools down. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will correct me if I am wrong, but I thank that in the last 10 years we have managed to prosecute only one school, because as soon as pressure is put on them they quickly regroup and go somewhere else, or they say that they are going to home-educate. There is a real problem of illegal schools, to use the term, and we must grasp that nettle as well.