Rail Fares
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Baroness Pidgeon
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to simplify rail fares for passengers.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the fragmented railway we inherited has a fares system that passengers neither understand nor trust. We are addressing this through delivering pay-as-you-go, with simpler fares in London and the south-east, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, and trialling digital pay-as-you-go in the east Midlands and Yorkshire. On long-distance routes, we are learning from the LNER trial to make long-distance fares easier to understand.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. While it is good to hear about initiatives in some parts of the country, passengers have faced rail fare increases year after year for an unreliable service. I therefore ask the Minister, when will passengers have simplified rail fares so they can be confident they are not being ripped off every time they catch a train?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that people are very uncertain about buying tickets and do not trust that they are getting the best value. The fares system has grown like Topsy over the last 30-odd years. There are 50 million fares in the British railway system and, in order to eat the elephant, we have to do it in pieces. We are starting; nobody has previously started. The noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, once said to me that he had tried to do it as Secretary of State and the system had not allowed him to make the progress he had hoped for. We are making progress, but it will take time. Meanwhile, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act has enabled train operations to come back into public ownership. The noble Baroness will know, because she met the managing director of South Western Railway, that he inherited a fleet of 90 trains, 84 of which were in sidings. Today, 21 of them are in service. I think that that is progress.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, the Minister rightly pointed to my complete failure as Secretary of State for Transport. However, will he reassure us that in the brave new world he is promising for the railways, where the Treasury will be totally onside with everything he wants to do, he will manage to see a simplified rail fare system? When people say “simplified”, what they usually want is a cheaper rail system. What does he think the chances are when he is controller of Railways UK and the Treasury is the chairman?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord was not an absolute failure in the job; he was brilliant, and he of course appointed a very competent chair of Network Rail in his time—for which I am grateful, but my wife is not. My noble friend Lord Livermore is sat next to me, and he deals with Treasury matters; for the moment, at least, I deal with transport and the railways. The truth is that the railways are in a very bad financial position. They are taking twice the subsidy that they did pre-Covid, and they do not run very well—the noble Lord is right about that. We have a huge amount of work to do. Matters such as the balance between fares and subsidy and the performance of the railway need to be addressed, which is why the Government are addressing them through the public ownership Act and the Railways Act. It will take time—the system has taken 200 years to create—but we are determined to make a real difference in the course of this Parliament.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, the present system of passenger compensation for when the train is late seems to work well, in my experience. Will that change with the new, wonderful structure that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, outlined? Who will pay the compensation to passengers?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. It is right that there is compensation. The rates vary and the system of paying it is complex; for example, if you have bought your ticket from a third-party ticket retailer, it is sometimes not easy to get your money back through Delay Repay. We know that we need to address all those things. In the end, GBR will be operating the public sector railway, and therefore the system for people to make claims will inevitably be simplified.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, as a general South Western Railway passenger, it used to take three hours for me to get to Devon, but it now takes just under four. I now go by GWR, which takes two hours and 10 or 20 minutes to get to roughly the same area. I absolutely do not understand why something cannot be done to deal with South Western Railway, a point already raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I think the noble and learned Baroness is referring to the Salisbury to Exeter line, which has a long history. It was built cheaply to compete with Great Western Railway. The cuttings are steep and the tunnel portals are surrounded by earth, but, sadly, this summer journey times have been extended due to soil moisture deficit, which is a modern problem. The management of SWR has every intention of getting back to the normal timetable, but they must operate the railway safely in the meantime. I would be very happy to introduce the noble and learned Baroness to the new managing director, so he can explain that to her himself, because he is responsible for both its operations and its infrastructure.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, discount railcards such as the senior railcard can be an expensive lump sum for many people. Is the Minister looking at proposals for some kind of loyalty card to encourage people more widely to choose the railway for their journeys?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness highlights that the number of discount cards has grown over the years. Some of them have different conditions from others, so it is quite hard to understand, if you do not have one, which one might be applicable. We are mindful that, when GBR is up and running, it addresses consistency and examines what else can be done to encourage people to travel by train.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, fare simplification, by definition, means that there will be fewer fares options. Can the Government guarantee that, under their simplification programme, no individual fare will go up purely because of fare simplification?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord has some background in this, because he was deputy chair of Transport for London and, I think, the Deputy Mayor for Transport. He knows perfectly well that, when we rationalised the fare structure on the Tube, some fares did go up while others went down. We made sure that the fares that went up were generally ones that a lot of people did not pay for and that the benefits were found across the system. If we have 50 million fares, we inevitably need to reduce that number and ensure that they are balanced. The noble Lord has some experience of balancing them within an overall fare rise, so he should use that knowledge to his own advantage, because I do not particularly want to tell him this again.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, in introducing this Question, the noble Baroness talked about terrible railways. I know that, for many people, the world stops outside London and the south-east of England. As a regular traveller on LNER for the last 23 years, I think it is a very good system, with dedicated staff, and the timings are good. It is an example of what can be done with a nationalised railway system. I urge my noble friend to see what can be done to simplify the offer of tickets, because it is complex even on that line. But it is not all doom and gloom on our railways.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
That is a very welcome sentiment, and I appreciate it. We are trying hard, as is the management of LNER, to get some rationalisation into this, and it is convenient for people. The proposition that you can buy a ticket with plus or minus 70 minutes means that you do not have to travel on the train that you thought you might; there is some flexibility. Regardless of some of the comments about individual fares, the new system is proving very popular, and enormous numbers of tickets are being bought. For example, for the booking horizon between August and December, 1.1 million new semi-flexible tickets are available that are priced at less than the super off-peak fare. People are discovering that a different methodology for this works.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I have suffered a number of cancelled trains on my journeys, and cancellations have been explained as being due to a driver shortage. Is there a driver problem—a lack of numbers—or is there some other likely explanation?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble and gallant Lord is right: there is a driver shortage. Most train operating companies do not have enough drivers to staff the service. Although one would like to measure the railways in terms of passenger outcomes, I have determined that the number of drivers be one of the input measures of the business plans of all train operating companies, whether they are publicly or privately owned. Since Covid, a number of companies have not made enough progress in increasing the number of drivers. It is completely unacceptable, and we are in the course of correcting it.
Road Pricing
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce road pricing.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have no plans to introduce road pricing.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
That short reply will allow lots of time for questions. Three years ago, the Transport Select Committee in another place produced a unanimous report on road pricing. The committee’s chair said:
“It’s time for an honest conversation on motoring taxes”,
and the committee called on the Government to “act now” to avoid a £35 billion “fiscal black hole”—something we know the Minister disapproves of. As electric vehicles become the norm, fuel duty revenue will fall away. That can be made good by road pricing based on the distance a motorist travels, the time and the place. Modern technology makes that possible. It would reduce congestion and make better use of our railways. By the way, the Minister’s Treasury colleague, Torsten Bell, has written a publication strongly supporting road pricing, so might he have a conversation with him?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. As I said, the Government have no plans to introduce road pricing. As he will know, we need to balance several objectives: we must always ensure fiscal stability and sustainability, as he indicates; motoring must remain affordable for consumers; and we must support the decarbonisation of the transport sector. Achieving these objectives means that we need to take a balanced approach. As the noble Lord may know, electric vehicles are now in scope of vehicle excise duty, raising an additional £1.6 billion every year by the end of this Parliament. We have set the rates for company car tax to gradually normalise the taxation of electric vehicles. At the same time, in the last Budget we extended the temporary 5p fuel duty cut and cancelled the planned increase in line with inflation. Meanwhile, we are maintaining incentives for people to buy new electric vehicles, including investing £650 million in the electric car grant and £400 million to roll out charging infrastructure.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, when I worked at No. 10, I led a team, which had Treasury representation, that looked at road-user charging alongside other transport issues. Does the Minister accept that a flexible system of road-user charging could bring many benefits, such as an allocation of free mileage for the less well-off, rates set to incentivise decarbonisation and dynamic pricing to reduce peak-time congestion?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I absolutely recognise the considerable expertise and experience that he has in this matter—experience and expertise that is probably found right across this House. I do not have specific thoughts on the specific points he raises because, as I say, we have no plans to introduce road pricing.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, the last question identifies some of the key problems with road pricing. Mention was made of peak-time charging. That may be fine for civil servants and those living in London and the Home Counties, who have a high propensity to travel to work by rail, but the great majority of the rest of the country go to work by car. Those who live in rural areas have to travel long distances for facilities and for work. Those who work in industrial areas, again, quite often because of the location of the work, have to travel by car. There are huge socioeconomic issues here. Quite frankly, it needs to be taken out of the rarefied atmosphere of discussions between think tanks in Whitehall and instead have some common-sense examination involving car drivers.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I agree with a great deal of what he said. As I said at the outset, one of the objectives we must keep in mind is that motoring must remain affordable for consumers. As I say, that is why in the last Budget we extended the temporary 5p fuel cut and cancelled the planned increase in line with inflation, which saved drivers around £3 billion this year. It is why we are introducing a new fuel finder to increase competition between fuel stations and to help drive down prices. As my noble friend rightly says, a well-developed road network cuts transport costs, connects businesses to markets, and unlocks jobs and investment right across regions. That is why at the spending review the Chancellor announced £24 billion of capital funding over this Parliament to maintain and improve both motorways and local roads.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, while I hear clearly the Minister say that there will not be any national scheme, what support is being provided to metro mayors across the country who may consider road pricing as a tool to reduce traffic in city centres and help improve public transport?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, who I know has a great deal of expertise in this matter. The local schemes that she describes, such as clean air zones of the ULEZ type and so on, are the responsibility of local authorities, and it is right that the responsibility for those lies with local authorities.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, much revenue is raised from motorists through vehicle licensing, fuel duty and indeed congestion charges. If there was a move towards raising more from road pricing, can the Minister confirm that it would be coherent and reasonable and not just a policy of soaking the motorist? I have in mind the Government’s decision to scrap our planned Conservative restrictions on low-traffic neighbourhoods, which create congestion and encourage overzealous enforcement, and the overuse of 20 mph limits that hit working people—who are rightly a concern of the noble Lord, Lord Spellar—across the country.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Baroness asks a hypothetical question that I have already dealt with. The Government have no plans to introduce road pricing. She mentions low-traffic neighbourhoods. We want to support local authorities to deliver streets that work for all road users and enable integrated journeys. Decisions on which neighbourhoods should be low traffic lie with local authorities.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I urge the Minister to be not quite so adamant in his rejection of road pricing. My first job in government was as Minister for Roads. A year in, I was due to visit South Korea to look at road pricing and the opportunities that might occur in this country, but I was moved the day before I went. It was to be my first and only trip abroad as Minister for Roads, and I do not believe that anyone went after me. The arguments that have been made by the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Birt, have become only more pressing in the years that have gone by, but the opportunities for making the system fairer have also increased because of the increase in technologies. I therefore urge the Minister to think a little more broadly on this issue.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As I say, there is a great deal of expertise across the House on this matter, and the noble Baroness is no exception. She knows a great deal about the topic. I think I have said what I was going to say on this matter: we have no plans to introduce road pricing.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, why is it sensible to tax a motorist who drives 5 miles in the middle of Lincolnshire at 6 am exactly the same as a motorist who drives 5 miles on the M25 at 8.30 am?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
It may or may not be sensible but, as I say, we have no plans to introduce road pricing.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
Does the Minister agree that there is in fact a huge privacy issue here? If, maybe in a marriage, someone can see where their other half has been going when they are not around, it could well cause a major rise in the divorce rate and other things.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
That is an interesting question, but it is one that I have no view on since we have no plans to introduce road pricing.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, this is one of those occasions on which I hope the Minister will welcome the fact that I strongly agree with him. I am very pleased that he has adopted the policy that we set out in our manifesto at the election to rule out road pricing. As the noble Lord opposite said, most people in this country go to work in a car and depend on their cars. If the cost of motoring becomes cheaper as people get more electric vehicles, protecting the environment, we should welcome that it has become cheaper, not look for opportunities to make it more expensive. I urge the Minister to maintain the policy of no road pricing, however seductively I suspect Treasury officials will try to suggest that he change it.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support of the policy that we have set out. I have been clear that, on many of the issues that he raised in his question, we as a Government are having to balance several objectives. We must always ensure fiscal stability and sustainability, motoring must remain affordable for consumers and we must support the decarbonisation of the transport sector. We will continue to balance those objectives.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, returning briefly to my noble friend Lord Young’s question, I noticed that the Minister has unwontedly not mentioned the £22 billion black hole. Can he tell us what the current shortfall is?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I will not speculate now or give a running commentary on the next fiscal forecast. The OBR will produce a new forecast in the autumn for the annual Budget in the usual way, and the Chancellor will take decisions based on that forecast.
Genome Screening: Newborn Infants
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Lord Winston
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to screen the genomes of newborn infants for different genetic conditions.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave on behalf of my noble friend Lord Winston to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, as set out in the 10-year health plan, this Government have an ambition to offer newborn genomic testing as part of routine NHS care, subject to evidence gathered through the Generation Study, which is using whole-genome sequencing to test 100,000 newborns for over 200 rare conditions. With advice from the UK National Screening Committee and appropriate funding, genomic testing could be available for all newborns in the UK by 2035.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, because this is of course a very serious issue, particularly in the case of babies and minors. There are grave difficulties in obtaining informed consent. Every person may be born with hundreds of genetic mutations potentially associated with fatal diseases, but nearly all are unlikely to cause serious health issues in the vast majority of those carrying such markers. Can my noble friend say what plans the Government have for funding and ensuring properly informed consent in screening programmes? I thank my noble friend Lord Winston for informing my question.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, the Generation Study is particularly designed to inform policy of the type that my noble friend is rightly concerned with. These are extremely important issues, and I am glad to have spoken to our noble friend Lord Winston about these matters. Perhaps I could give the assurance that the study will test only for treatable conditions, where there is robust evidence that the condition is highly likely to develop within the first five years of life, and suspected positive results are then reviewed and confirmed through further tests. If genomic testing is used within future screening programmes, informed consent will still be required.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as chairman of UK Biobank. The value of large-cohort studies is not only in the collection of baseline data, and indeed, in this case, the genome sequences of the 100,000 newborns, but in the opportunity to secure the long-term longitudinal follow-up of participants, so that there is a broader understanding of the change in health and health dynamics.
The Minister mentioned the question of consent with regard to genetic testing, but there is another question of consent, with regard to long-term access to the primary care data of those individuals who have participated in the study. Is the Minister content that there are appropriate arrangements in place with regard to consent to ensure long-term access to primary care data for those individuals?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a very good point. Certainly, it is part of how we develop the use of data. I am aware that he did not directly ask me this, but perhaps I might use the opportunity to say that data safety, which I know is a matter of concern to many noble Lords, is absolutely paramount here. We also have absolute regard to conducting studies ethically, but the point about primary care data, its use and its value, as well as its safety, is very well made and one which we are certainly developing still further.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, while the screening of genomes in newborn infants is of course very important, it is even more important to find a cure for some of these dreadful hereditary diseases—I am thinking particularly of Huntington’s chorea. Does the Minister have any information as to what progress is being made, with a prospect some time, before too long, of having a cure for this dreadful disease?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord and will be very pleased to write to him on that specific. Part of this work in the programme we are referring to is on treatable diseases. For example, the Generation Study covers hereditary fructose intolerance, which means that babies would not be able to ingest fructose normally. By identifying it, we can then recommend removing fructose from their daily diet, which is a way of overcoming that condition. So, by spotting the condition early, we can take action. As the noble Lord says, there are indeed a number of areas in which further work needs to be done, but I would be very glad to write to him on the detail.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, while genome screening of newborns is welcome and could be an important part of the prevention agenda, it raises a number of ethical issues. I will focus on just one: at what stage do you tell someone who has a high probability of getting a medical condition, say in their 40s or 50s, about the probability or even certainty of developing that condition, without causing undue distress or even premature treatment? Can the Minister briefly tell noble Lords about the conversations that are going on in the department about these ethical issues, perhaps with the medical profession, and perhaps write in more detail later?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
As I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, the matter of ethics is crucial in this development. It might help if I restated— I absolutely understand the noble Lord’s point—that that is why the Generation Study, which is directed at newborns, is for treatable conditions that may develop in the first five years of life, not later on. I understand why that would be of concern, and similarly of concern to my noble friend Lord Winston, so I hope that assurance will be helpful.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I just want to return to the issue of data and consent and build on the question from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, talked about. Given that a newborn child cannot really provide consent for whole-genome sequencing and that the information collected has lifetime implications, what specific measures will the Government take to ensure that a child’s future rights to privacy and autonomy are protected, particularly concerning the storage and potential reidentification of their genetic data in research libraries?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
There were a number of very helpful points in there. To reconfirm and satisfy your Lordships’ House, this is for conditions that may develop up to the age of five. As with all screening, consent is required. As the noble Lord rightly says, a baby of course cannot consent, but the parents can. Around the age of 16, the plan is also to be able to seek that consent again from the young person. On data storage, it is stored securely in a research library run by Genomics England. Access is tightly controlled, overseen by an independent committee and permitted only within a secure environment. If the noble Lord would like more details, I would be very happy to provide them.
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford
When will the House have the opportunity to debate this policy for whole-genome sequencing with all its details, given that it has such weighty and far-reaching implications for healthcare, prevention and a number of ethical issues, as we have already heard?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
A debate in this House will be a matter for my noble friend the Chief Whip. Members of your Lordships’ House may seek to encourage such a debate, which I would certainly welcome. I can say to the right reverend Prelate that the sequencing of 100,000 newborns through the Generation Study will be completed by summer 2027. The evaluation part of the study will then be completed and presented to the UK National Screening Committee, which will make a recommendation. Subject to all of this and appropriate funding, genomic testing could be available for all newborns by 2035— so there is a long window of opportunity for the right reverend Prelate.
Gaza: UN Commission of Inquiry Report
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report published on 16 September, which found that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza against Palestinians, and what action they are taking in response.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s long-standing position remains that any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred should be made following a judgment by a competent national or international court. However, officials are carefully considering this report, and it will be taken into account in the regular assessments made by the Government of the compliance with international law by Israel in Gaza. We have been extremely clear that what is happening in Gaza is appalling. We continue to call on Israel to change course immediately by halting its ground offensive and letting a surge of humanitarian aid in without delay.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her Answer and the indication that the Government are carefully considering the report from the United Nations which was published earlier this week. In that light, can my noble friend the Minister outline what steps the Government have taken and will take pursuant to Article 1 of the 1948 genocide convention and in compliance with the binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024 and 24 May 2024 to ensure that the slaughter of people and devastation of communities in Gaza are stopped?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We respect and will always continue to adhere to the convention that the noble Baroness refers to, but it will remain the Government’s position—I genuinely think that this is right—that we do not ascribe genocide; it is for a competent court to do that. That is the right way to tackle these issues. By calling this genocide, we do not save a single life, feed a single child or restore medical services to a single community. It is important—it really matters—that the attribution of genocide is made by a competent court. That will remain this Government’s position, and it has been the very long-standing position of the United Kingdom Government.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, is it not incredible that, when the Government arrived at the conclusion the week before last that this was not a genocide, that was ignored by Parliament and buried by the BBC, but when the United Nations arrives at the opposite conclusion, we have debates in Parliament and wall-to-wall obsessive coverage on the BBC? People need to understand that if Parliament and the BBC continually tell the British people that Israel is a uniquely terrible place, committing uniquely awful crimes—by the way, I share the concern about the humanitarian position in Gaza—that obsessive coverage drives antisemitism in Britain. It drives hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community. That is why you had 70,000 Jewish people protesting outside the BBC and Parliament a week last Sunday, which ought to be a matter of profound shame to Parliament and our national broadcaster.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
As I have said, it is not for any politician or indeed the Government to determine whether or not genocide has been happening. It is for a competent court, and we will respect the decision of any competent court. Putting that to one side, it is absolutely right that we in this Chamber, others in positions of leadership or people in the community are able to say that what they see happening in Gaza is a thing of horror and shame that should stop immediately.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Will the Minister confirm that the commission of inquiry actually found that there were reasonable grounds for alleging genocide in Gaza, not that there is genocide in Gaza? Does she agree that that is not a robust legal test?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The legal test must be heard by a court. I understand that this report can be considered by the ICJ as part of its deliberations, and to that extent I think it is helpful. Whether or not you agree with every word of the report and with its findings, or however you view the wording of that report, it is absolutely clear—and you cannot read it without being horrified—that what is happening in Gaza is horrific and it should stop. It can be stopped, and the fact that it is not being stopped is a political decision by the Government of Israel. To that extent, I think we can all read it and come to a shared conclusion that what is needed is negotiation—and peace.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will hear from the Conservative Benches next and then the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her further explanation and updating of what she said yesterday about how it is not for politicians to determine whether there is a genocide or not—I fully agree with that principle. However, I am slightly confused, because only two weeks ago the Foreign Secretary wrote a letter to the International Development Committee and said that the Government have concluded that Israel is acting without intent to commit genocide. Surely, if the Foreign Secretary could assert that there was no genocide, he was making a political determination. On what basis has that conclusion been reached, and why is it acceptable to rule out genocide but not to affirm it?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The noble Baroness needs to read the letter in full. The letter was in response to an inquiry by the IDC, I think, on the issue of F35s. It is not for this Government to determine genocide. We have never determined genocide. There is one occasion when we have determined genocide, and that was the Holocaust, and that happened before there was a court that had the competency to do so. We have never done it since. It is right that we do not, and I think it would be a very dangerous move for national Governments, politicians or campaign groups to be able to decide what constitutes genocide and what does not. Determining genocide is not the main question that ought to be concerning us about what is happening in Gaza. What is happening in Gaza is costing the lives of thousands of people. There is famine. It is preventable. What should be at the forefront of all of our minds is not arguing about the determination and use of one word. It is about getting those children fed and getting the medical attention to those who desperately need it.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I respectfully say to the Minister that the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and I have read that letter in full. The Minister refers to preventable famine in Gaza. Starvation as an act of war is expressly prohibited by the additional protocols to the Geneva conventions. As the Minister just said, this is now happening. This is a war crime. This is the first conflict since those additional protocols to the Geneva conventions were accepted by the United Kingdom when we have not taken action against those responsible for carrying that out. Why?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
There are processes under way at the ICJ and the ICC. Although we do not take it upon ourselves to attribute genocide, that does not mean that we do not consider other breaches of international humanitarian law. We have taken a number of steps that we have discussed frequently in this Chamber in response to that around arms export licences and sanctions. We continue to use any levers that we have, including those that may arise next week at the United Nations General Assembly, in response to our grave concerns.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, it is time for this side. The Front Benches do not come first.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we can get both noble Lords in, whichever goes first.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, to nobody’s surprise, it has been reported that the Government are going to proceed with recognition of the state of Palestine, probably this weekend. While I accept that it was not their intention, this decision has been warmly welcomed by Hamas and its supporters, who regularly wave their flags on the streets near this place. Can the Minister tell the House why, when they originally announced this dramatic change of policy, they imposed lots of impossible-to-meet conditions on the State of Israel but none on Hamas, not even the release of the dozens of hostages still languishing in the dungeons of Gaza?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
If the Government of Israel do not wish the United Kingdom Government to do what they said they would do about six weeks ago—we can all read a calendar, and we know what is happening next week—it is clear what they need to do. It is up to the Government of Israel to make their decision.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, the exchanges here, as is often the case, really do not reflect the horror of what we see on our television screens night after night after night, which constitutes what is happening in Gaza. We have become immune. It is almost routine these days to see hospitals bombed, schools attacked, trade envoys or humanitarian envoys attacked, and children killed by the thousand. When all these things are going on in front of our eyes and are unchallengeable, to argue about precise definitions of genocide somehow misses the central point, especially when children are now being shot as they queue for food. That has plumbed a depth we have never seen before. Surely, we can acknowledge that whether there is genocide or not, there is no argument whatever that multiple severe war crimes have repeatedly been committed by the Israelis in the Gaza territory.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Like my noble friend, I worry about our immunity to this and that we lose our capacity for compassion and to feel the horror of what is happening. I note the concern that we see on the streets, which is sometimes expressed in ways that we do not agree with and would not wish to see further. The worst thing about what is happening is that it is so preventable. The attacks on hospitals and civilians, including children, and the danger that these put the hostages in, could and should be stopped. We are hopeful that by continuing to make the statements that we make and to exert diplomatic pressure on the Government of Israel and talk to them—Israel should be a close ally and friend; historically it has been so close to people in this country, which makes it all the more saddening to see what is happening—very soon we can see an end to this needless violence.
Procedure and Privileges
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That the Report from the Select Committee Questions for Short Debate; Select Committee Report Debate Time Limits; Speakers’ List Deadlines; Explanatory Statements for Amendments; Resignation and Powers of Attorney (3rd Report, HL Paper 144) be agreed to.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, the genesis of the changes proposed in the report was a letter from the Leader of the House containing various suggestions to make business clearer and easier for Members to navigate. The changes fall into three broad areas—Questions for Short Debate, time limits and deadlines for speakers’ lists, and explanatory statements for amendments. The committee gave these proposals full and detailed consideration and recommends the following changes to your Lordships.
The five proposals relating to Questions for Short Debate are intended to provide clarity and certainty for Members and to provide greater opportunities, particularly for Back-Bench Members, to ask QSDs. The first recommends increasing the flexibility for scheduling QSDs to allow them to be taken between other items of business and not just as lunch break, dinner break or last business.
The second proposal is that for a trial period, balloted topical QSDs should no longer be scheduled on a Thursday and instead a QSD from the reserve list of QSDs which is drawn from a ballot every five weeks should be tabled. This reflects that the number of entries into the topical QSD ballot has generally been low and on more than a quarter of occasions there has been no valid entry. To ensure that topicality is not lost, the usual channels will be able to select a debate from the reserve list which is particularly topical. If agreed by the House, the impact of this change will be reviewed by the committee by the end of the next Session.
The third proposal clarifies that only the final QSD on the Order Paper should be treated as last business, with the resulting hour and a half time limit. The fourth proposal aims to rebalance the allocation of time so that Back-Bench and Opposition Front-Bench speakers have a greater proportion of the time available. The final proposal on QSDs would add emphasis to the existing Companion guidance that QSDs should be limited in scope to ensure that the Member in whose name the QSD stands can articulate the issues clearly and comprehensively in the time permitted.
The next set of proposals relate to debates. The committee proposes that when Select Committee reports are scheduled for Thursdays, they should automatically be time limited to a total of five hours in the same way as party and balloted debates, thus giving greater predictability to timings on Thursdays. These time limits will not apply to Select Committee reports debated on other days.
The committee also proposes that speakers’ lists for debates should close at 5 pm rather than 6 pm from Monday to Thursday so that Peers participating are informed of the length of time for their contribution as early as possible. This has been happening on a trial basis since January and has received positive feedback.
The final proposal for your Lordships’ consideration relates to explanatory statements for amendments, on which the committee recommends that the guidance in the Companion
“should ‘strongly encourage’ explanatory statements for amendments”
when they meet the criteria in the report. The committee believes that this will be helpful to the House where the meaning of amendments is less clear. Clerks in the Public Bill Office will continue to be able to offer assistance in drafting these statements.
As with all changes, the committee will keep the operation of these latest proposals under review. Our intention, as always, is to assist the smooth running of the House.
I will not speak to the section of the report on resignation and powers of attorney, because it has been superseded by the amendment to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill which was moved by the Leader of the House at Third Reading. When the Bill receives Royal Assent, that amendment will provide an explicit statutory authority for notice of resignation to be given by a person acting on behalf of a Peer who lacks capacity. The committee will bring a Standing Order to the House to implement this provision once the Bill has passed. Until then, no change is proposed in this area.
I commend the report to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I welcome all the provisions in the report, but could the committee turn its attention to the time we are given to consider important subjects at Second Readings and elsewhere? The most egregious example, where the Chief Whip has been excellent in his response, is the Bill currently before the House, tomorrow’s Private Member’s Bill, where our speaking time is reduced to four minutes to talk on what is a highly complex issue. The four minutes has arisen only because of the action of the Chief Whip in ignoring the rule that we finish at 3 pm on a Friday and by providing two days for discussion, which was a sensible way forward and which I very much welcome. However, increasingly, we find at Second Readings of Bills that our speaking time is reduced to two minutes or less. That is because people put their names down to speak. Can the committee not look at this issue? There are a number of possible alternatives.
The great thing about this House is that it has people who know what they are talking about. It also has people such as me who do not always know what they are talking about. To squeeze out people engaging seriously because of the way in which the system operates is a great disappointment.
Given that the Government have a manifesto commitment to deal with ensuring that people participate in this House, I can see this becoming a bigger problem, because people will put their names down to speak and the result will be that our debates are less informed and less able. Surely, this is a matter the committee should turn its attention to.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
I add to that the fact that I remember listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had one minute to speak.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, I understand both contributions and the feeling of the House that has been made known by the noble and learned Baroness. Clearly, the procedure committee, if referred to, can look at these things, but the business of the House is obviously conducted within usual channels for the planning of debates. This is the way we have always conducted our affairs. I am sure the usual channels, who are present, understand some of the points that have been made.
If I may refer back to the report, it is one of the reasons why we reflected that we needed to have QSDs that could be managed in that time. Candidly, we thought it inappropriate to have a QSD where the subject of the debate invited so many noble Lords, because it was such a broad or big issue. Therefore, our suggestion is that we want to have QSDs that are manageable, so that the proposer can articulate properly in the time allocated, so that Back-Benchers have time and so that the Minister in turn is properly questioned.
One thing I will say on this, because it is a dilemma, is that my experience is that the House generally likes brevity if the points are well made. I have heard some brilliant speeches of three or four minutes. I have heard some of 10 minutes where I thought we could have had six minutes less. I think it is about the subject, and I well understand the noble Lord when he said that, last Friday—and tomorrow—there were deeply held opinions. But what I picked up a bit—because I am not allowed to speak—is that everyone thought those debates were conducted, even within that short time, with enormous courtesy and mutual respect. As someone said to me, in a way it was an example of the House of Lords at its best—dealing with issues of this intensity thoroughly and well, and often in a short time. But I take away what the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness have said.
Standing Orders (Public Business)
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That the standing orders relating to public business be amended as follows:
Standing Order 37 (Order of business) Line 1, after “SO”, insert “38(9) and”.
Standing Order 38 (Arrangement of the order paper)
Paragraph 9, leave out “except for balloted topical questions for short debate on Thursdays, which shall be entered after the first motion for general debate” and insert “but indication may be given by means of an italic note that a Question will be taken at a specific point earlier in proceedings”.
Hovercraft (Application of Enactments) (Amendment) Order 2025
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the draft Order laid before the House on 1 July be approved.
Financial Services (Overseas Recognition Regime Designations) Regulations 2025
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Livermore
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 15 July be approved.
Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hanson of Flint
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 and 9 July be approved.
Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025
Lord Lemos
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 22 July be approved.
Relevant document: 34th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice (Alteration of Overall Compensation Limits) Order 2025
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Levitt
That the draft Order laid before the House on 15 July be approved.
Relevant document: 34th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
(2 days, 16 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Blower
“Child rights impact assessment(1) A Minister of the Crown must prepare and publish a child rights impact assessment in relation to any legislative provision, policy decision, budgetary decision, or other decision of a strategic or operational nature that has or will have a direct or indirect impact on children’s wellbeing,social care or education, which are undertaken by virtue of the provisions in this Act.(2) The purpose of a child rights impact assessment is to secure better or further effect of the rights set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).(3) A child rights impact assessment must include consideration of the views, wishes and feeling of children and young people affected by the decision, insofar as the Minister is able to ascertain those views.(4) A child rights impact assessment should be undertaken on all relevant legislation, policy and budget development which are undertaken by virtue of the provisions in this Act at the earliest possible opportunity and prior to making final decisions.(5) The UNCRC includes the rights and obligations set out in—(a) the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Part 1;(b) Articles 1 to 6(1), 6(3) and 7 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict;(c) Articles 1 to 10 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography;(d) any other Optional Protocols to the UNCRC that the United Kingdom may in future ratify.(6) The UNCRC rights and obligations for the purposes of this Act are subject to any reservations, objections or interpretative declarations by the United Kingdom as may be in force at the time. (7) The UNCRC rights and obligations for the purposes of this Act should be interpreted in the light of General Comments prepared by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child under rule 77 of its procedure and Concluding Observations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in response to a United Kingdom report under Article 45 paragraph (d) of the Convention.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment will introduce a statutory requirement for Ministers – and thereby government departments – to routinely prepare and make publicly available a children’s rights assessment of the impact and/or expected impact of any proposed legislation, policy, budgetary decision or other strategic or operational decision undertaken by virtue of the provisions in this Act as they relate to children’s wellbeing, social care or education.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, having worked on these amendments with my noble friend Lady Lister, and in her unavoidable absence from the Chamber today, I shall move Amendment 469, speak to Amendment 470 and also mention Amendment 502F.
Amendment 469 introduces a duty routinely to prepare and make publicly available an assessment of the expected impact of any proposed legislation, policy, budgetary action or other matter that will have an impact on children. Amendment 470 provides for a more general duty, requiring Ministers to consider, protect and promote children’s rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Together, these amendments probe all options in the round. Amendment 502F, which is broader in scope, is complementary, but a clear duty to have regard to the UN CRC is preferable to the somewhat vaguer qualification “the desirability of”.
Amendments 469 and 470 had input from the NSPCC as part of the Children’s Charities Coalition, the Children’s Rights Alliance and UNICEF UK. They would place a clear duty on Ministers to have due regard to the UN CRC, although those bodies ultimately aim for full and direct incorporation of the UN convention in law, as in Scotland.
Three years ago, the British Academy published a report Reframing Childhood. It was the outcome of a wide-ranging programme chaired by my noble friend Lady Lister. Three themes emerged, each of relevance to this Bill. The first was “being and becoming”; this drew attention to the importance of childhood as a state of being of great significance to the child. The final theme was “children’s voices and participation”, and the second was “children’s rights” as articulated in the UN convention. This is missing from the Bill.
The Secretary of State has argued that the Bill represents the importance of understanding and promoting child-centred policy. Key to this is children’s rights. They help us value children as children, particularly those in the most marginalised groups. A children’s rights approach could encourage more coherent policy-making. These two amendments offer a practical way for the Government to explicitly enshrine a child-centred orientation in legislation.
UNICEF UK argues that children’s rights should be central to plans to improve children’s well-being and opportunities, as they are in these amendments. Having ratified the UN convention, the UK must comply with its principles and standards but, beyond ratification, Article 4 of the convention requires states to
“undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention”.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has ruled that the development of a children’s rights perspective is required for the effective implementation. In its 2023 report on the UK, it recommended that greater efforts to incorporate the convention into UK law and the development of mandatory children’s rights impact assessments for relevant legislation and policy should be taken. These amendments would be important steps in complying with that recommendation and would also bring England closer to the protection of children’s rights provided for in Wales, Scotland and Jersey. They would add teeth to the Government’s aim of child-centred action across departments and facilitate the Government’s mission-led approach in the opportunity mission in particular.
The duty on Ministers in Amendment 470 would ensure visibility of children’s rights and best interests in policy-making so that their needs and well-being were not overlooked. In line with Article 12 of the convention, it would mean listening to children so that they were heard and had their views respected. It would help to strengthen the public awareness of children’s rights, in particular through the publication of three-yearly reports. The duty could easily be integrated into existing decision-making processes. It is a step that other nations have taken, with positive results. A key element of the duty would be to involve mandatory children’s rights impact assessments, or CRIAs, as recommended by the UN committee in its report on the UK.
Amendment 469 spells out how CRIAs would be used to enable a systematic consideration of how children may be affected by a policy under development so as to identify, avoid or mitigate adverse impacts. They also enable policymakers to identify proactive measures, leading to better realisation of children’s rights. Evaluations have shown that CRIAs, properly conducted, are effective in improving policy-making from children’s perspectives. A comprehensive CRIA was provided for this Bill, but it reads more like an end-of-process assessment rather than one used from the outset to guide policy development. The expectation of the UN committee is that the CRIA would be part of the development of new policy and legislation from as early a stage as possible.
In response to an Oral Question earlier this year, my noble friend the Minister confirmed that
“the Government recognise the importance of considering children’s rights in that way”.
However, she added that they were continuing to encourage departments
“to carry out children’s rights impact assessments when they are making policy changes”.—[Official Report, 27/1/25; col. 9.]
But the fact that her own department does not collect information on the number of CRIAs carried out, as revealed in the Answer to a Written Question, shows that the Government do not know how many actually are carried out.
In discussing this with my noble friend Lady Lister, she described trying to get a CRIA published on previous asylum legislation as like trying to get blood out of a stone. When one finally emerged for Third Reading of the Illegal Migration Bill it was, alas, inadequate —a post hoc attempt to justify measures that actually undermined children’s rights.
Moreover, when asked about CRIAs, there is the tendency for departments to respond by referring to equality impact assessments carried out under the public sector duty, but EIAs are no substitute for CRIAs, which require consideration of children’s best interests and the full range of children’s rights. In the interests of good government, I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept the case for mandatory CRIAs that follow the UN committee’s guidance.
Over 115 organisations support these amendments, representing national charities and grass-roots groups, spanning areas such as child poverty, disability, youth justice and social care. More than 25 academics have written to the Minister for Children and Families to voice their support, pointing out that it is simply not possible to meet children’s needs in any of the areas covered by the Bill without first respecting and promoting their rights. Members of the Committee may have received an email from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which states that:
“It is essential that this legislation includes measures for ensuring children’s rights are upheld”—
hence it, too, is supporting the amendments.
Lord Banner (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 502F in my name. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, who is unable to be here today, for lending her name to it, and Mr James Maurici KC for assisting us with its drafting.
The amendment is like Amendment 470, albeit differently worded, in seeking to give domestic legal effect in a somewhat different way, in the context of functions by public authorities under the Bill, to the rights of children contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the noble Baroness has just outlined, the purpose of the UNCRC is that children’s rights need specific consideration due to the special care and protection often needed by children and young people.
The UK has been a party to the convention for three and a half decades. It was signed by the Thatcher Government in 1990. Around that time my noble friend Lady Bottomley, then Minister for Health, said in the other place that the UK played a leading role in drafting it. Despite that, the convention has not yet been incorporated in our domestic law in England. The UN committee with oversight of the convention, as we have just heard, has recommended that it should be, so that the rights are enforceable.
In 2011, Wales became the first country in the UK to make the convention part of its domestic law by the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, and that legislation has been judged to be a success so far in Wales. Scotland has more recently followed suit through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. England, however, lags behind, and this amendment would go some way to addressing that.
The amendment would not give effect to the UNCRC generally in English law—that would be outside the Bill’s scope and would in any case require further consideration—but would apply to the exercise of any functions by public authorities under the Bill. The proposed duty is modelled on Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the public sector equality duty. In particular, and importantly, it is a duty on authorities to have due regard to the convention rather than the duty of outcome, and thus it would not impose undue burdens on public authorities. Like the Welsh legislation, it contains a requirement for the Secretary of State to report every five years on how the Government have complied with the duty.
I suggest that the significance of the amendment is threefold. First, it would be an important initial step on the road to bringing the law of England in line with that in Wales and Scotland in terms of giving legal effect to the convention that we signed up to over three and a half decades ago.
Secondly, the new duty it would introduce would apply to the exercise of any functions conferred under the Bill in relation to children’s social welfare and schools, and all the better for that.
Thirdly, the amendment would have added importance in combination with Amendment 502M, proposed by my noble friends Lord Young and Lord Brady, which seeks to create a duty to keep educational institutions, early years provision and childcare premises open for in-person attendance during civil emergencies “so far as is reasonably possible”, and those words would engage the UNCRC “have regard to” duty under my amendment. The combined effect of the two amendments would be that any decisions by public authorities on school closures in such situations would have to be taken having due regard to the UNCRC.
The two amendments together would provide powerful protections in the future against a repeat of what happened during the Covid pandemic in terms of school closures, the documented effects of which include the highest annual rise of children living with obesity on record; severe impacts on children who are victims of domestic abuse; the amplification of differences in educational attainment between children who come from well-off families and those less fortunate; a marked decline of participation by children in sporting and extra-curricular activities; and a significant increase in mental ill-health, self-harm and suicide among children and young people.
The Government have made much of their commitment to fulfilling the UK’s obligations under international law; indeed, the Attorney-General gave a lecture about that only a few days ago. This amendment would contribute to achieving the objective by giving domestic legal effect to the obligations the UK has long signed up to in the international sphere. I urge the Minister and the Committee to consider it carefully.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502G in this group. This amendment would ensure that Part 2 of the Bill complies with Article 2 in Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the United Kingdom not only signed and ratified but incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.
My amendment is based on the wording of the second sentence of Article 2 of Protocol 1, which provides:
“In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”.
Part 2 of the Bill directly engages this article, since the Government will be, in the words of the ECHR, “assuming many new functions in relation to teaching and education”. For example, local authorities will be given sweeping new powers to monitor, register and regulate the independent sector. The Secretary of State will be empowered to regulate proprietors of independent schools, arrange inspections, prescribe standards and suspend registration. He or she will be able to make regulations using Henry VIII powers so as to dictate which educational institutions are covered, and to mandate the national curriculum for academies using yet more Henry VIII powers to regulate the contents of the four key stages, as well as attainment and assessment targets. We are well within the Article 2, Protocol 1 envelope. I know that this Government take their ECHR obligations very seriously.
Without my amendment, these new powers in the Bill would impede the right of parents to ensure an education for their children which accords with their own religious and philosophical convictions. Why is that? It is because Article 2 is about parents having the right to choose which education and teaching is right for their children. As the Strasbourg court said in a Danish case, Article 2 of Protocol 1 aims
“at safeguarding the possibility of pluralism in education which is essential for the preservation of the ‘democratic society’ as conceived by the Convention”.
Our very own Supreme Court recognised this need for plurality in a case in 2020 concerning members of the Orthodox Jewish community. The court stated that their needs are different from those who are not members of that community, and they have a need for their own community facilities, including schools. The same could be said for members of other faiths who choose schools which support their religious and philosophical convictions, such as Christian schools.
This is all about the primacy of parental choice. I repeat: it is about the primacy of parental choice. Whether it is an academy, a single-sex school, a language or music school, a faith school or indeed a maintained school, parents must have the freedom to choose an institution whose ethos accords with their own religious and philosophical beliefs and with what they perceive is best for their children. This may mean choosing a school which has freedom to innovate, without regulation by the state, so as to promote the skills and talents of each pupil, including varying the curriculum or attainment targets and adapting assessment procedures or the daily schedule with a view to bringing out the best in each and every child. All these are the hallmarks of our diverse educational landscape and exemplify the rights which Article 2 of Protocol 1 protects.
As it stands, Part 2 fails to respect such rights. Therefore, my amendment is surely unobjectionable and indeed to be welcomed by all who value maximising the unique talents of our children in an educational environment consistent with the religious and philosophical upbringing their parents have chosen.
Lord Meston (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendments 469 and 470 and have added my name to Amendment 502F. However, I suggest that altogether more forthright and comprehensive embedding of the UNCRC into English law is now both appropriate and overdue, even if that cannot be fully achieved under this Bill. That convention was signed by the United Kingdom, among many others, as long ago as 1991. It commands widespread respect. Since then, England has fallen out of step with Wales, where, as we have been told, a measure in 2011 placed an express duty on Ministers to have regard to the rights and obligations in the convention. England is yet more out of step with Scotland, where the convention was fully and directly incorporated into law by statute last year. Amendment 470 would align England with Wales, but not yet with Scotland.
Amendment 502F would impose a duty on public authorities, not just on Ministers, yet both fall short of unqualified incorporation. The convention provides a wide-ranging and valuable list of rights which should be an invaluable checklist for any public authority. Even if some may criticise parts of it as idealistic and aspirational, the convention both sets and raises standards, and specific articles of the convention supplement current gaps in practice and procedure and enhance accountability. Without going into too much detail, significantly, it was the first international convention expressly to recognise and underpin a child’s right to identity, as set out in Articles 7 and 8. This is not unimportant for migrant and unaccompanied children, or in the complexities of modern parental relationships.
Article 12 is widely recognised as important in requiring proper consideration of the views of a child on all matters affecting that child. Any family law practitioner can see the potential general and specific influence of many of the other articles. For example, Article 10.2 could influence disputes over child relocation. More broadly, several topics and problems discussed in the course of this Bill’s progress through Parliament are covered by the convention. Article 24 is relevant to the real problem of the poor take-up of vaccination for children; Article 28 to school attendance; and Article 33 to drugs. Overall, although I submit that these amendments could be more robust, they would be a step along the way to following Scotland.
Although I support Amendment 502F, I suggest that the drafting of proposed subsection (5) could be simplified to remove the double negative. Amendment 470 would require publication of reports every three years, and Amendment 502F would require them every five years. It would probably be better to co-ordinate the timing of any reports with those required under Article 44 of the convention itself, which may have been what was intended. Scrutiny of such reports is important to ensure that they are not selective and altogether uncritical, as can occur.
If we are serious about children’s rights, they should be incorporated into law—irrespective of any future formulation of human rights. These amendments should be accepted. I am glad that Amendment 502G has been added to this group; Governments have to balance children’s rights and parents’ rights with care. All children are entitled to equality of educational opportunity in a way that broadens horizons, rather than narrows potential. Children have rights and parents have rights, but parents also have responsibilities.
Baroness Longfield (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 469 and 470, and I thank my noble friend for making such a strong and clear case for why they are important.
As a former Children’s Commissioner who worked very much within the framework of the UNCRC as the legal person required to promote and support children’s rights, the Committee will not be surprised to hear me speaking up for these amendments. As part of that role, I met children’s commissioners and Governments from around Europe and the rest of the world. They were at different stages of having regard to the UNCRC, but it was very clear from all my conversations with those who had taken the step towards incorporation—senior members of Government and others working in the public sector and wider society—that this was an important declaration for their country and for how they viewed themselves.
I am proud of the work that this Bill, as well as the wider work of government, is putting forward to make children a much more central commitment in decision-making. These amendments would offer a next, important step. However, the discussion around this can often become quite legalistic and technical, which sometimes distracts. We need to get to the heart of what this is about: making sure that we have a consistent focus on how we, as a nation, put our children first. We know that what happens in childhood will have an impact throughout the whole of life—and that impacts at the heart of who we are as a nation.
Children do not fit neatly into government departments; no one at the Cabinet table exclusively represents the best interests of children. Children do not vote, so they often get missed out in key moments of decision-making, and, as we know, they are most likely to fall through the gaps. In short, it is very easy for children to be overlooked and to fall between the departments and decision-makers who are making policies.
Children’s rights impact assessments can strengthen that move. They may sound technical and bureaucratic, but, again, this is about ensuring that decisions are made in the round and these issues are considered. We most seriously felt the lack of that during the pandemic, when decisions were made that were not in children’s best interests and there was no framework for wider consideration. Many departments undertake impact assessments, but I do not think that they yet have the status or consistency needed across government. During the pandemic, we saw other countries, such as Scotland and Wales, putting forward impact assessments on decisions made about children that considered wide-ranging issues, from economics to schooling and health, to ensure that children’s best interests were looked at in the round. It did not mean that those things could not be improved, but it meant that there was a consistent framework for consideration.
That is what I am putting forward for consideration today: that we take the next step to look at strengthening the framework, within government and our legal system, that puts children on a firm footing—not only in emergencies but in day-to-day life. We must have the ambition of putting children first in all the decisions we make, to ensure that we are not holding them back and that their best interests are taken into account.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502YP, which stands in my name. This amendment goes to the heart of how government power is exercised in the Bill. It would require the Secretary of State, when issuing guidance and reviewing parental appeals, to act in a manner that is substantively fair, proportionate and consistent with the best interests of the child while also taking into account the burdens that they might impose on families and parents.
Why is such a provision necessary? It is not enough for Ministers to draft guidance that looks acceptable on paper or to frame decisions in language that appears compatible with human rights law. What matters is how these powers operate in practice and how they impact parents and children, and other stakeholders in their daily lives.
Too often, many innocent families that I have spoken with experience the gap between theory and practice. They are told that regulations are light-touch, yet find themselves deluged with data requests, threatened with attendance orders or subject to investigatory processes that are often triggered not by evidence of harm but by mere administrative suspicion. From my work with home-educating families, I have heard repeatedly of parents treated as problems to be managed rather than partners in their child’s learning and well-being. That is not safeguarding; it is coercion disguised as oversight.
I understand that the guidance-led approach and strategy that the Government have taken is a means to try to block loopholes both now and into the future, but I urge the Minister and the department to think about the costs that this Henry VIII-led approach impose. For many families who find themselves on the wrong side of an investigation—and let us remember that the majority of investigations never lead to a conviction —it imposes huge court fees and requires them to set aside years of their lives to fight for their rights. It puts costs on to ordinary citizens. This amendment seeks to ensure that courts, when reviewing such actions, look beyond the fine words of official guidance to their real-world effect.
Does the policy genuinely protect children, or does it impose burdens that are unnecessary, unfair or disproportionate? Does it still respect the primacy of parents under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, or does it erode it by stealth? The principle of substantive fairness is well established in case law. The Supreme Court has affirmed that state interference with family life must be proportionate, necessary and justified by evidence of significant harm. In R (W) v Birmingham City Council, the court stressed that suspicion alone is insufficient to override parental decision-making, and in Strasbourg jurisprudence, cases such as TP and KM v United Kingdom, and Folgerø and others v Norway, make clear that formal compliance with Article 8 is not enough if, in practice, families are subjected to arbitrary or excessive state interference.
This is not only about legal safeguards but about rebuilding trust. Parents must have the confidence that when the Secretary of State issues guidance it is designed to support, not to harass, empower or intimidate. They must know that appeals will be judged not by a tick-box reading of regulations but by a substantive assessment of what is fair, proportionate and in the best interests of their child.
To use one example, guidance might say that local authorities may request information as necessary. On its face, this sounds reasonable, but in practice families have reportedly been asked for intrusive details about their beliefs, philosophies or private lives—information far beyond what is needed to confirm that a child is receiving a suitable education. Under my amendment, the court would be obliged to ask not just whether the words of the guidance seem lawful but whether its application crosses the line into disproportionate intrusion.
Let us also consider parental appeals. Without a substantive fairness test the Secretary of State could uphold decisions that technically meet the letter of the law or guidance but are manifestly unjust, such as refusing deregistration when a child is in acute distress or supporting disproportionate monitoring conditions that make family life untenable. This amendment would require that such decisions be tested against their effect on the ground.
Some may fear that this opens the door to endless litigation. I would argue the opposite. By embedding the principle of substantive fairness from the outset, we give clearer guidance to decision-makers, reducing the scope for arbitrary or heavy-handed action and thus reducing the likelihood of judicial review. It is precisely when parents and families feel trapped, unheard and mistreated that they resort to the courts.
This amendment is not limited to home-educators; it will protect all families affected by the Bill. Schools will also benefit if guidance remains targeted and proportionate rather than bloated with impractical demands. Local authorities, often stretched to breaking point, will be shielded from the impossible task of enforcing rules that look neat in Whitehall but are unworkable on the ground.
It also respects the proper role of Parliament—of this place. Too often, we legislate with the assumption that the department will interpret and apply the law reasonably, but when guidance becomes overreaching or unfair, it is our reputation that suffers. This amendment restores a crucial check, ensuring that actions under the Bill are judged by their substance, not their spin.
Finally, I stress that this does not prevent the Minister issuing robust guidance where children are genuinely at risk. It requires that such guidance be necessary, proportionate and practically implementable without undermining parental and family rights. That is exactly the balance struck in our domestic law and by the European Court of Human Rights: protection where there is evidence of harm but restraint where there is not.
If we pass the Bill without such safeguards, we risk embedding a culture of formal compliance that is blind to lived reality. We risk measures that look lawful and feel great about them, but that feel unjust. In doing so, we risk losing the trust of the very parents, families and children whose partnership we need to safeguard children’s lives effectively.
Amendment 502YP offers a principled, proportionate solution. It ensures that the law is not just words on paper but fairness in practice. It strengthens oversight, protects families and upholds the integrity of our child protection and education systems. I commend it to the Committee.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendments 469 and 470, particularly the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, who has such experience.
I should like to concentrate briefly on listening to the child. In 1987-88, I chaired the statutory inquiry into the Cleveland child abuse. I heard, with my assessors, a lot of videos of children being interviewed. It was extraordinary how even very young children of five or six were able to give astonishingly accurate accounts of what had happened to them and what they wanted done. The older children were explaining not only how they had been interviewed but how they wanted their voices to be heard, and they were not being heard.
In my recommendations, I pointed out that children were people and not packages. That idea, that children are people entitled to be heard, does not mean that they are entitled to have what they want done—it may not be appropriate—but it is crucial to hear what they want done.
It seems to me that these two amendments put on the statute book part of the very important United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been referred to frequently today. It is a bit odd that we have not embraced it fully in English law, though it is embraced in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is very odd indeed.
What really matters it that what children want should be heard. They should be listened to, and what they need and want should be evaluated. That is why these two amendments are so important.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, at Second Reading, I said that a great sorrow for me and many others is that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, is not with us, because she would have been intimately involved in the Bill. In particular, she would have put her full weight behind these two amendments. She was a clarion call for the voice of the child to be heard.
During the last five or six years in your Lordships’ House, we have had a succession of Bills—I include the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Victims and Prisoners Bill and the Online Safety Bill. In each case, a group of us across the Chamber has fought repeatedly to try to inject into the Bill as much as possible a recognition of the rights of children, and that children are not—and should not be treated in the same way as—adults. In each case, this has been necessary because it has become abundantly clear that this was not foremost in the minds of those drafting the Bill at that time. If that was embedded in the system, so that what is in the best interests of the child was automatically a major part of thinking behind drafting any part of a Bill, what a wonderful advance that would be.
I have been involved for many years with a charity called Coram, particularly the part of it called Coram Life Education, the largest provider of health education in primary schools across the United Kingdom. One thing that we teach children, starting at age five and through to 11, is the meaning of mutual respect. Mutual respect is about respecting children of different ethnicities, faiths, backgrounds and beliefs, and doing so in a considered and thoughtful way.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this rich and terribly important debate, having attached my name to Amendments 469 and 470, which are also signed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. They have broad cross-party support, and we have heard much more support from all corners of the Committee.
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Russell, even though he pre-empted—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
The noble Lord, Lord Russell. There we are—promotions are good. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Russell, even though he pre-empted one of my lines: imagine having on the front of every Bill a statement that says, “This complies with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child”—what a step forward that would be.
I want to return to the comments made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about listening to children—indeed, this is where the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, started us: nothing about us without us. The noble and learned Baroness referred to how important it is to listen to children. She said that children have really good ideas and a clear psyche. It is important that we follow Article 12 of the UN convention and ensure that we follow the right of children to be listened to and taken seriously. That is crucial for children’s mental health and well-being. The sense of agency really is important; a lack of that sense of agency is a problem across the whole of our society, but particularly for our children.
Turning that round, children have really good ideas. We are facing a polycrisis: we are exceeding our planetary boundaries and we are damaging our health with the state of our world. Children have ideas, with very clear sight of how to tackle those things—fresh ideas that we would all benefit from listening to.
On the specifics of the rights impact assessment proposed by Amendment 469, I will take us back to 2010. I declare an interest here that I was on the board of the Fawcett Society. In 2010, it took a judicial review over the lack of a gender impact assessment on the Budget that year. In the classic way of these cases, the Fawcett Society lost the judicial review but it won from the Government an acknowledgement that there should have been a gender impact assessment on various aspects of the Budget. Creating this right would force Governments to think harder to do the proper impact assessments that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, referred to. This could have real impact. It is not a panacea; it will not suddenly fix everything if we put it in the Bill, but it is an important step in ensuring that questions are carefully examined, not just brushed aside.
We have already heard from a former Children’s Commissioner, but I note that, in the last few days, the current Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, carried out a national census of school leaders and found that schools are being left to plug more and more gaps. Children are not getting the right to the services that they should have and schools are trying to fill in the gaps. I refer to that because I suspect there might be quite a few people out there listening to our debate who think that Britain is a good, developed and successful country and that we must therefore be meeting all our obligations under the convention on children’s rights. But of course we are not, demonstrably.
Our very respected Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who is not currently in his place, is starting an inquiry into the human rights of children in the social care system in England, having identified that there is a problem. I will cross-reference our recent debates on the Mental Health Bill—an attempt to deal with the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We have improved the law there, but there was broad agreement that we have not got the resources to deliver the improvement in the law. Ensuring that we are signed up to this convention is crucial.
I will briefly cross-reference an earlier amendment of mine which called for a place efficiency duty for local authorities. One of the less noted elements of the UN convention is Article 31.1, which states that:
“States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts”.
An academic article in the Human Rights Law Review of June 2025 by Dr Naomi Lott sets out how we could deliver on that. This takes a global perspective, but it is still highly relevant to the UK.
My final point is a large one and takes a global perspective, thinking about where the world is today—this is particularly relevant in the light of a certain ongoing state visit. As the noble Lord, Lord Banner, says, signing up to the UN convention was done by the Thatcher Government. The principle of respecting human rights and the rule of law has been embedded in British society over decades. However, on a global scale, human rights and the rule of law are under threat like never before. Previously leading countries in defending human rights, to at least a degree, are now stepping out and expressing opposition to them. We often heard from the previous Government, and we hear from the current Government, a desire to be world-leading. Wales and Scotland have been world-leading here. It is time for England and Westminster to step up to the plate.
This matters terribly for practical reasons of human rights and the rule of law and impact assessments and all those things within the UK, but it also matters on a global scale if we are to be leaders and say that human rights and the rule of the law apply to all citizens. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, referred to the right of a child’s identity. As he was speaking, I was thinking of the Ukrainian children kidnapped into Russia and being denied their identity. We cannot stand up for this unless we stand up for ourselves on our own soil. This is a globally important debate, as well as crucial for the children of England.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I oppose Amendments 469 and 470. I recognise that they are proposed with the very best of intentions and at first blush sound wonderful, yet it is blindingly obvious that they would be likely to do more harm than good in practice. They embody a fundamental misconception that children have no real rights in the UK except to the extent that they are specified in supranational charters and conventions. This is simply not the case. We have a long and generally positive history of acknowledging and protecting human rights, including those of children, and recognising the ways in which children need to be treated differently from adults. We do an enormous amount to give children a voice.
I will turn to the negatives. First, the amendments would create a vast and costly administrative burden for very little additional value. The amendments specify that children’s rights impact assessments would have to be published for every single ministerial decision, including operational decisions. Scotland and Wales have been repeatedly cited as models to follow, yet it is genuinely hard to find ways in which children in Scotland and Wales are doing better than children in England and easy to find ways in which they are doing worse. I am afraid that the educational comparative studies, on record for all to see, show very big gaps. The impact of lockdowns was no less harsh for children in Wales and Scotland. All countries have experienced a spike in persistent absence post-lockdown. Whereas the latest persistent absence figure in England is 23%, when I looked it up a couple of months ago, in Wales it was 31% and in Scotland it was 37%. I may have got those two the wrong way around but one is 31% and one is 37%. It is not obvious that those two nations provide a clear example of why we should adopt this approach.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, I am standing up to make a speech absolutely on the fly now. I have taken some legal advice and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, says there would be no adverse impact from this. So I add my support to Amendments 469, 470 and 502F. As a teacher, I think the history of education in this country is that it has gradually dawned on us that children have rights. If I may give a bit of hope to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I think we do listen to children much more now.
The noble Lord, Lord Banner, touched on the idea that we are very good at setting up conventions—we are extremely diligent signatories and very good penholders—but we are not usually very good at following our own advice. The Children’s Charity Coalition has said that the Bill currently lacks explicit measures to ensure that children’s rights are systematically considered in law and policy-making. That is a lot of children’s charities that think that. We have heard from Team Cross Bench, which I thought put some extraordinary power behind these amendments, but perhaps I may quote my legal adviser, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on this one: these are appropriate and overdue.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. I have not particularly participated in this Bill, but I am always interested when noble Lords seek to incorporate various treaties we have signed into domestic law. The reason I say that is because of my experience in a variety of ways of having been a Minister. Paragraph 1.6 of the Ministerial Code, which is not a new obligation on Ministers, states that Ministers have to comply with the international agreements into which Governments and previous Governments have entered and which have usually been ratified by Parliament. The need to think about these sorts of issues, particularly around children, is already embedded into how policy framework strategies are deployed.
“From the mouths of children”
is in the Psalms and in the Gospels. That element of truth comes through: it is absolutely vital that children’s voices are heard. This is why things such as the Children Act 1989 was really important, about aspects of that.
However, I am really concerned, and I share the concerns that my noble friend Lady Spielman expressed, about whether these need to be incorporated as a whole into domestic law. Only a handful of other countries have done this: Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Spain and, to some extent, or to the full extent of its devolved powers, the Scottish Parliament has decided to do the same—although noble Lords may be aware of the rulings after there was a referral to the Supreme Court which removed certain aspects of that legislation, partly because it counteracted the primacy of this Parliament in legislation and other matters.
However, as regards thinking through, I fully respect the long connection with education of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. Both my parents are teachers. I do not have children, so I do not have the same experiences there, but I am aware, from when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, of absolutely how much, just from the DNA, in effect, of being normal human beings, we would consider aspects of impacts on children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, said the difficulty about the conversations is that they get legalistic. Well, that is the whole point. We are talking about the law. If I think of Amendment 502G, perhaps there would have been a different ruling with the Michaela academy recently on whether somebody could pray at school or not. I think also of keeping schools open. I know there is an element of it being discussed in Amendment 502M. I encourage the people who have been distinguished general secretaries of unions to think of parents perhaps starting to sue schools for not staying open when there is some snow. The snow may not be stopping the children getting to school, but it might be stopping a couple of the teachers, so the decision is then to close down education for a whole day or more, not on behalf of the children but because they cannot get some teachers there. I referred to “legalistic” because that is where you start getting into disputes, going to court, trying to settle outside—all these other issues.
That is why I completely understand why ratifying that treaty was so important. That becomes guidance, a framework and an actual way of doing things, but it does not then become necessarily—I believe we have incorporated certain parts of the convention into domestic law—a straitjacket in effect on how we kind of evolve in terms of policy. There are risks, and I know that there has been another Supreme Court ruling trying to discourage judges and indeed people from bringing judicial reviews trying to change policy. But that is exactly where we get into issues that we can see in other legal cases that are often in the courts.
Obviously, I respect the distinguished legal experience of the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, but I would have thought that the public sector equality duty, which recognises religion and belief, would already capture perhaps some of what he is trying to incorporate in his amendment.
I do not want to delay the Committee too much longer, but I think this is a case of “Be careful what you wish for”. What has happened for children that now makes it necessary to do this? The children were ignored when they were being groomed and when they went to the police. Children have been ignored in other situations. That grooming is still ongoing; I hope the police and the CPS are more alert as well. But going back to the substance, I hope that the way that the UNCRC has been effectively incorporated into how we go about our affairs as Ministers, as Parliament and as public servants should be sufficient. However, I will continue to try to understand the deficiency that we are trying to address by this wholesale incorporation of this into our domestic law when I genuinely do not believe it is needed.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
I will just swiftly respond to the noble Baroness. During the 14 years that her party was in office—I witnessed this first hand, because I am a retread, as I got re-elected back in in 2014—there was a series of Bills, some of which I mentioned I have been involved with, where children are directly involved and affected. Repeatedly, those Bills arrive here after—as per usual—minimal scrutiny down the Corridor, by design. It is manifestly clear that the detailed needs, requirements and rights of children have not systematically been thought through and embedded in the legislation, which is why we have had to go through lengthy debates to try to tease that out. I am proud to say that, in the majority of cases, faced with strong cross-party arguments in favour, the Front Bench of the noble Baroness’s party, repeatedly in different Bills, acceded to the strength of those arguments and amended the legislation to put children’s rights in there. Whatever the Ministerial Code may say, unfortunately that was not filtering its way down into the way that Bills were being drafted. Your Lordships’ House did its work very well, but what some of us are hoping and asking for is a situation where that requirement becomes less frequent and is abnormal rather than, I am afraid, substantively normal.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I would say in return— I was trying to keep my speech brief—that I hear what the noble Lord said. He talked about being unsuccessful in keeping it brief. That is because we have had a lot of stuff about legalism. I am giving direct experience of government—I appreciate what the noble Lord said. I can give more examples. One reason why children get the flu vaccine every year is primarily to protect adults—the teachers and school workers—to stop the spread of flu. It is not really to help the kid. All sorts of things happen today that are actively encouraged to be done to the child in a way that should not be harmful.
I come back to the legislation and the point that is relevant. The Secretary of State for Education has the leading responsibility in government to have that horizon-scanning of every bit of legislation that affects children. If there have been deficiencies, I recognise them. I am not convinced that the incorporation of more law into domestic law is going to be the way to achieve that. I encourage the Minister in her reply to give confidence. Even if the noble Lord feels that the last Administration were deficient, I am sure that the current Administration will say that they are very much on top of it.
Frankly, it is a bit like when I was at DWP. I had primary responsibility for disabilities, so it was my job, working with my officials, to keep scanning legislation for how it would impact people with disabilities. That was not always very popular with other departments, which kept telling us to keep our noses out, but that is what we did. I am sure that that is what the Department for Education is intending to do. That said, I know that my noble friend Lady Barran was assiduous in her support of children, and I am sure that the Minister for this Government has continued to be so as well.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
I quickly respond to a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, made. The wording in my amendment is not my wording; it is already in the convention. I am not trying to incorporate it into our law, because it is already incorporated. That ship has sailed, really. All I am doing is pointing out its relevance to a Bill that I perceive as seeking to restrict parental choice in various ways. To pick up on one point that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, made, I entirely respect what he said about the importance of being aware that parents may make wrong choices. The assumption built into this provision of the convention is that they are entitled to make what they consider to be good choices. Otherwise, you would take away all rights of parents altogether, if you make the assumption that they are not. On children’s rights in respect of schools, it is their parents who have chosen to send them there. That was the parental choice.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, responding to the noble Baroness about vaccination, I think it is important that we put facts on the record. She suggested that vaccination of children was primarily to protect other age groups—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Yes, flu vaccination—I have just been looking at the Health Security Agency website about the vaccination of children against flu, and it says:
“Flu can be an extremely unpleasant illness in children, with those under the age of 5 being more likely to be hospitalised due to flu than any other age group. Vaccinating children helps protect them in the first instance, so that they can stay in school”.
I think it is important, given the debate around vaccination, that that is put on the record.
Lord Banner (Con)
My Lords, I want to come back on two points. First, I suggest that the analogy with the ECHR and the Human Rights Act is not a good one, because the Human Rights Act imposes duties of outcome. It requires adherence to the convention. The amendments before the Committee require “regard to”, which is a world apart from duties of outcome. Secondly, on administrative burdens, I pose this question: if it is too burdensome even to have regard to the convention, what is the point of us being a member of it?
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I inferred from what the noble Baroness said that she thinks I do not believe children should have vaccines. I do. In fact, there is an active element in me that considers that we should prosecute parents who do not give their children the MMR vaccine because of the potential outcomes. I am not saying that is a policy I would adopt overnight, but it is worrying that so many children do not have the MMR. But on a broader point, I hear what the noble Baroness said, and of course that is what will be written in the HSA and in PHE, but I can assure her that I am aware that this is a primary element of trying to reduce the transmission of flu. I have no doubt that, if children get flu, it can be serious. It can be serious for any individual. That was one of the driving forces and why it is aimed in particular at children in primary schools. It is widely available and is significantly designed to reduce the transmission to adults.
Lord Storey (LD)
This has been an important debate on these amendments. I want to start by saying that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is not able to be present. Her husband is not at all well. She added her name to Amendments 469 and 470. I am going to keep my comments brief. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, is right: I can almost see Baroness Massey on my shoulders. When I first arrived here, although she was of a different party, she immediately collared me, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and gave me a briefing on children’s rights. That was the first time I met Doreen Massey. At some stage, when we come to our senses on this, her importance on this issue will come to mind.
I also wanted to mention the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about the importance of the child being heard. For far too long, we had the old adage that children should be seen and not heard. Sadly, that filters through the whole of society in all sorts of ways. It is not just parents and public bodies. I remember my wife being heartbroken when a black boy in her secondary school was fostered by white parents. At the time it was quite rightly thought to be the case that culturally it is better if foster parents have the same heritage as the child. The boy, who was 12 or 13, was adamant that he wanted to stay with his white foster parents. Nobody listened to that boy. Nobody in the local authority, in the school or in social services listened to that boy. If we say we want to hear the voice of the child, it is a nice phrase to use, but we have to make it work in practice and it has to filter through the whole of what we do.
On the convention on human rights, I just do not understand this, and I would like a detailed letter from the Minister. It is 12 years since my noble friend Lady Walmsley and Baroness Massey talked to me about this. Why can we not follow Wales and Scotland? Let us do an impact assessment. Do we just not want to do it? Well, then let us have the honesty to say that. Or, if we do want to do it, what are the reasons why we cannot? I would like to know. Perhaps the Minister, when she replies, could tell us.
I do not have anything else to add to what has been a wide-ranging discussion. This issue is crucial, of course. The clue is in the Bill’s title, is it not? If we are talking about the children’s well-being Bill, everything that we and the Government do in legislation should look at the impact on children. That is an eminently sensible move. So, I hope Government will support Amendments 469 and 470, either now or if they are brought back on Report.
I was tempted to, as we sometimes say, respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. I am afraid I just do not agree with her comments, but perhaps now is not the time to do that. Perhaps we can have a private conversation on some of the things that, to be honest, got me quite angsty.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and other noble Lords who proposed the amendments in this group. This is a very technical area, and we have heard much expert opinion from my noble friend Lord Banner, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and, crucially in our opinion, the former Chief Inspector of Education my noble friend Lady Spielman, and my noble friend Lady Coffey.
It is important to flag that, although His Majesty’s loyal Opposition completely understand the spirit of noble Lords’ amendments, we are not in a position to support them. The UK has already signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1990 and 1991 respectively, and it came into force in January 1992. As such, the UK is already bound by international law to implement the agreement, and our progress is being monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. But several of the recommendations in the last report from the committee, including on child rights assessments and education, are ones we did not support when we were in government and still do not support in opposition.
Amendment 469 would bring an additional child rights assessment into all legislation, as recommended by the committee in its 2023 report. We simply do not believe that this is required; in fact, instead of enhancing a child’s education, it would further slow our ability to legislate and implement effectively.
The wider recommendations in the report are also not proposals with which we concur, including, for example, the recommendation to end academic selection and testing measures to reduce levels of stress on pupils. This has the potential to do real harm, particularly to disadvantaged pupils.
We believe that the huge opportunity before us is not to layer on new statutory duties or reporting mechanisms. To the contrary, it is to ensure that the education system we strive for is one that builds on the successes of the past 20 years, aided by noble Lords on all Benches of your Lordships’ House. An education that offers each and every child the opportunity to realise their full potential—that should be the endgame.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments in group 1, as we have heard in a very good and well-informed debate, relate to duties on Ministers and public bodies in respect of children’s rights and parents’ rights to educate children in accordance with their faith. Let me be clear in responding to this group that the Government are committed to safeguarding children’s rights, both in law and in practice, and firmly uphold the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I am grateful to noble Lords for their views on these important matters and for the opportunity, as I say, to hear from experts in this Committee. We have listened carefully to the arguments for these amendments and will continue to engage closely with all those advocating for the rights of children. We regularly meet, for example, with an expert advisory group to hear directly from key stakeholders in this area, including the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, Coram, Barnardo’s and several others. This group will in fact be meeting again in the department next week. Additionally, we convene regular meetings with all the major children’s charities. These fora provide Ministers and officials with excellent and important opportunities to hear first-hand from the experts on these issues and to help us advance our shared goal of putting children’s rights at the very centre of policy-making.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
May I just ask the Minister: does she meet groups of children?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I have barely got started, but yes, most certainly we do, and I will come to a bit more detail on that in a moment. As we have discussed at various points during the course of the Bill’s passage, there are a whole range of ways in which the Government engage with children, both on the specifics of legislation but also more broadly. For example, a very wide-ranging engagement has been led by colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, along with DfE and the Department of Health, on the development of this Government’s youth strategy, and a very large number of children have been engaged.
I was just about to say that my honourable friend and former Minister, Janet Daby, engaged readily with these key stakeholders and asserted—as do I and as, I am sure, my new colleague Josh MacAlister does—the fundamental importance of children’s rights to this Government. In parallel, we are also carefully considering the issues and amendments on the rights and voice of the child that were raised on Part 1 earlier in Committee, to ensure that children’s rights are protected throughout the Bill.
Amendment 469, in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister and introduced by my noble friend Lady Blower, would place a duty on Ministers to prepare and publish a child rights impact assessment concerning all relevant legislative, policy and budget developments in the Act that will impact children’s well-being, social care or education, prior to the decision being taken. On children’s rights assessments and more broadly on the UNCRC, this Government have put children at the heart of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity through our plan for change. Ministers already consider the impact of our children’s rights responsibilities in all new policies and legislation, and of course through this landmark Bill we are delivering the most significant reforms—for example, to child protection—in a generation.
By improving safeguarding, strengthening social care and ensuring that vulnerable children do not fall through the cracks, we are already putting children and families first. For this Bill, we published children’s rights impact assessments for all measures, and we are working hard in the department to deliver what I think my noble friend Lady Longfield rightly emphasised: the need to improve both the status of children’s rights impact assessments and to develop the culture and win hearts and minds in order to ensure that that is delivered across government.
That is why we are continuing to work with policymakers across government to carry out CRIAs to analyse the impact of government decisions on children. It is a valuable tool, and the department has worked with civil society experts, for example, to develop a robust template, which was one of the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. We will continue work with children’s rights experts to promote children’s rights across government and upskill officials on the importance of considering children’s rights in policy-making and how best to utilise the assessment tool.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, it is both a pleasure and somewhat of a challenge to respond to this extremely good and wide-ranging debate. I am extremely grateful for the mentions of our late noble friend Lady Massey, whose absence from this debate we feel quite deeply. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, even those with whom I disagree—I do not think I have ever before been described as being motivated by an elitist desire to thwart democracy when seeking to advocate for children’s rights.
However, the contributions were all extremely interesting. I am very pleased to have had the support of my noble friend Lady Longfield, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
In particular, I would like to mention the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who spoke about the need—this is really important—to balance parental choice and children’s rights. This may not occur often, but it may occur and we need to pay attention to that balance. He also mentioned the extremely worthy rights-respecting schools in which children can begin to advocate for themselves and understand what children’s rights really mean.
The need for children’s voices in the care system to be heard was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and that is important.
I will not be tempted into a discussion about academic selection, even though it is a matter on which I could say a very great deal.
I am pleased with the remarks of my noble friend the Minister, who said from the Dispatch Box that she is fully committed to children’s rights. I am sure that we will continue to discuss the question of a children’s rights impact assessment and the ultimate possible incorporation of the convention. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Layard
“Apprenticeship provisionThe Secretary of State must promote sufficient provision of apprenticeship places up to level 3 to ensure that every qualified applicant aged 16 to 18 receives an offer of a place.”
Lord Layard (Lab)
My Lords, this amendment aims to remedy one of the greatest injustices in our whole education system: the acute shortage of apprenticeships for young people not going to university.
If you qualify for university and want it, you can expect to find a place. However, if you qualify for an apprenticeship and want it, you have no such luck. On the Government’s matching scheme for apprenticeships, only one in three people applying finds a place. There is a more shocking fact, from which all thoughts about post-school education should start: by age 18, one in three of all our young people has ceased to receive any education or training. That one in three is of course nearly two in three of the people not going to university. That is how we are treating them—they are either NEET or in a dead-end job without training, heading for low productivity and low pay. The main reason for that is the shortage of apprenticeships.
This situation is a disaster for the economy—it is the major reason for our low economic growth—and it is a disaster for our young people. It is the prime duty of the state to give everybody a proper start in life and we are simply failing: we are not doing it. We have talked about this problem for years, but the scale of apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers today is no better than it was in 2009.
However, in that year, the previous Labour Government took a major step to remedy the situation. They passed the apprenticeships Act 2009, which obliged the Government to ensure that there were enough places for all 16 to 18 year-old qualified applicants for apprenticeships up to level 3. That would have changed everything, but, unfortunately, it was almost immediately repealed by the coalition Government.
Baroness Barran
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to broaden the discussion to include higher levels of apprenticeship.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I formally move the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas and I will speak to it in my closing remarks.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
I think we have yet to have a full discussion on Amendment 483, as well as Amendment 483A, so perhaps we could proceed to that discussion.
Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 483, which I have put my name to. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, has set out the arguments very eloquently. I would merely like to add the perspective of a former Treasury official.
Economic growth, or the lack of it, lies at the heart of the country’s problems. Without it, we simply will not be able to afford the costs of an ageing population. The Government will be forced to raise taxes even more than they already have and public services will deteriorate further, alienating an already alienated electorate. There is little the Government can do to promote growth in the short term. As an open economy, Britain is likely to grow only as fast as global demand permits, and we all know the effect of increased protectionism, but the Government can do something about the medium and long term.
We all know what drives growth: good infrastructure, competition, innovation, and a sensible tax system—but, above all, skills. Successive Governments have done a good job on education. Attainment in schools has improved and there has been a dramatic expansion in university education over the last 50 years, which, for the most part, has been reflected in the living standards of graduates. However, that still leaves 50% of school leavers who do not go to university who are poorly served by a vocational educational system that compares badly with our competitors’.
Technical and further education has never been prioritised sufficiently, and I can understand why. The media, the Government and the Civil Service are all dominated by graduates. Technical education is not sexy. The lags in the impact of any reform are long and variable. The plain fact is that there are not many votes in it, but sometimes Governments can do the right thing for future generations. I welcome recent announcements by the Government of a youth guarantee and the extra support for skills in the spending review, but they need to go further. An apprenticeship guarantee provides a golden opportunity to make a step change in provision and long-term economic performance.
I recognise that money is hard to come by, but the Treasury is an economics ministry as well as a finance ministry, and it needs some positive announcements to offset the inevitable gloom in the forthcoming Budget. I encourage the Minister and her department to engage actively with the Treasury. It should be possible to, for example, tweak the apprenticeship levy to give it a greater youth focus. If the money cannot be found now, the Government should at least set out a timetable, and if they cannot set out a timetable, they can at least sign up to the objective.
As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said, a previous Government passed the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. It can be done, and I call on the Minister to act.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, this is a rather crucial amendment. The reason is that we are a nation that is inclined to talk about education as if it is always academic education. If I have criticisms of previous Governments—and I have of those from both sides—they are that we have emphasised education as if it is the only way, rather than part of a grouping of educational opportunities.
We are also rather inclined to not support technical education, and the comparison with our competitors is notable and historically of very long standing. I recently read a report about such education by a committee of the House that remarked that Prussia was much better at it than we were. The Committee will immediately see how long ago that report was produced. Curiously, we have always found this a difficulty in the way that we think about things and in many of the changes that we have made, such as the insistence that polytechnics should become universities, as if that somehow improved the circumstances and that there was something less good about having something that was aimed specifically at talking about the issues that we are discussing. We have to change the atmosphere.
I much approved of the comments just made by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, about what the Government could do if they did not have the money. However, there is quite a lot of money in that fund, which seems to have gone back to the Treasury rather than being used in quite the way one would have hoped. However, if they do not have the money, it is very important to make the statement that this is important, and that it is part of the way in which we help those who need it but who, once having had it, will be making a real contribution.
This is why I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Layard, that the Treasury will get the money back. There is a real truth in this. We need it; we have not had it. I am not blaming any particular Government for this, because, after all, this was a pretty late decision of that Labour Government, even though it was changed afterwards by the coalition Government for reasons that I cannot now remember. However, it is important that we recognise that this is an essential part of a modern educational system. We have not got it, we ought to get it, and the Government need to come to terms with a change in the way we think.
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)
My Lords, I would like to add one very specific but pertinent comment to the debate at this point. Obviously, we are not going redesign the whole of apprenticeships here on the Floor of the House, but I strongly support the emphasis that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has placed on 16 to 18 year-olds, and bring to your Lordships’ attention a very strange anomaly in the way we approach this.
When a young person fails to get an apprenticeship and remains in full-time education of some sort, this is paid for automatically as part of the open-ended commitment to pay for classroom-based education, even if it is also vocational or technical education, until somebody is 18 or 19. But apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds have to come out of the levy—of which there is going to be very little money left next year, by the way, but that is a whole other discussion.
At the very least, in the short term, the Government could commit to moving the funding for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds into a different budget, into the perfectly correct national commitment to fund young people’s education and training until the age of 18.
Lord Storey (LD)
Briefly, I want to reinforce what has been said. What is unspent of the apprenticeship levy gets returned to the Treasury, not to be spent on education or apprenticeships, which is bizarre. It is a double whammy, because businesses, seeing that their money has not been spent and is likely to go back to the Treasury, suddenly start putting staff on high-level courses, equivalent—
Baroness Barran (Con)
This is risky, because I am doing this from memory. I appreciate that in earlier years, significant amounts of money were returned to the Treasury, but in the last year we were in government, it was £11 million—so basically absolutely everything was spent. I say that in relation to my noble friend Lord Deben’s remarks, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Storey, will put that in context.
Lord Storey (LD)
The noble Baroness is right—the amount that was not spent or did not go to the Treasury was coming down.
Baroness Barran (Con)
No. To be clear, of the many millions of pounds that were raised through the apprenticeship levy, the amount that was not spent on apprenticeships and was returned to the Treasury was £11 million in the last year that we were in government, as I remember it.
Lord Storey (LD)
The point I was also going to make was that companies and businesses that had not spent the levy and did not want to see it returned to the Treasury were using it not for level 3 apprenticeships but for high-level master’s-type apprenticeships. That surely cannot be the right thing to do; it is not in the spirit of apprenticeships.
I was quite shocked that, in my city of Liverpool, Liverpool City Council, which had an apprenticeship scheme over a two-year period, returned £1 million of money to the Treasury. That money could easily have been spent on level 3 apprenticeships. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, gave us all the statistics at the beginning. We need to ensure that there is money for level 3 apprenticeships, because the original hope of apprenticeships was that they would go to the young people who desperately needed to have this opportunity.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, the issue of apprenticeships is really relevant to improving the life opportunities of young people. I respect what the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has done in tabling this amendment, which is supported by many distinguished people. Noble Lords should recognise that the introduction of T-levels was intended to provide education in a more controlled atmosphere, as opposed to young people —children—going out to work, legally of course.
T-levels—which, by the way, required a ministerial direction issued by my right honourable friend Damian Hinds because they were against the advice of civil servants—are a good way of trying to make sure that young people get that opportunity without necessarily having to be forced into the world of work. I may be overinterpreting the noble Lord’s amendment.
The other issue employers face is the balance between how you treat children in your workforce and how you treat adults. In my experience at the Department for Work and Pensions, that was a key difficulty in considering how to encourage young people into work. I note that the amendment is very specific, referring to the ages of between 16 and 18.
On my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment, which would promote provision of places up to level 7, thought is being given to how young people can then qualify as solicitors and the like by embarking on this path. However, I somewhat agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey: schemes were developed that effectively skewed away from the entry roles that we still need young people to get into. Regrettably, due to the Employment Rights Bill, we are seeing fewer and fewer such opportunities for young people. It is a real worry that, despite the Government’s best intentions, we will see NEETs going up rather than down.
I support the sentiment of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I fear it will be difficult fully to put into practice exactly what he wants, but I encourage the Government to continue to do whatever they can to make it as straightforward as possible for young people to get apprenticeships and, more importantly, for employers to take young people on as apprentices.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak as a design technology teacher, a veteran of the IfATE Act, an officer of the APPG on apprenticeships and a member of the House of Lords Social Mobility Policy Committee.
I think we all agree that apprenticeships are vital to this country. It is rather sad that this subject seems to have led to a general exit from the Chamber, but I think that is more because it is lunchtime. I welcome the defence industrial strategy and its new apprenticeship and graduate clearing system, which I know BAE Systems was heavily behind. We have seen Skills England start, and we hope upon hope that it is the answer. This is an incredibly important and nuanced subject, and I am afraid I do not think these amendments are the answer.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I shall try to make a few remarks in summing up. Apprenticeships really feel like they should be an answer but are proving to be extremely difficult to get into operation. Employers, especially SMEs, find it difficult to give the work, but they are where you would expect to find most of those apprenticeships, especially at the introductory level. Most people have said, “Yes, it’s a problem”. T-levels have been brought in but, if I remember correctly, you have to work with an employer while doing them, and that has proved difficult in the past.
The reason why they are proving so difficult is that it is a bit of a mess. We have boards and so on for careers guidance, and things locally and nationally. We clearly need more emphasis on making sure that people know where these opportunities are, how they will be supported and how they will get through. There is a general duty proposed in the Bill, but something inside me says that, as written, it is an invitation to Henry VIII powers—possibly Henry IX and X as well. The fact remains that we have not got this right. There have been some valiant efforts, but we have not managed to bring the people who want and would benefit from an apprenticeship to those who will give one to them. That is the problem.
I hope that, when the Minister responds, we will get a better idea of how this will work. The levy has, shall we say, had its problems—that would be a generous way of putting it. The Minister has an opportunity to tell us how the Government are going to develop this. It should be remembered that many of the people in the client base have not been that successful academically —I think just about everybody would agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben—and the fact is that schools are judged by GCSEs and A-levels. That is the path forward and everything else is a secondary option. That seems to be the culture; Governments have tried to change it, but I do not think they have succeeded. What are the Government going to do to get these more practical-based operations in?
It would be remiss of me if I did not say that we need to look at the English and maths qualifications. I refer to this again as somebody with dyscalculia and 14 fails in functional skills in an apprenticeship. We did some work on this. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, is not here because we managed to get some consideration on English when the original Bill was brought forward; both he and I bear the scars of that process. I thank him for taking on his own Civil Service and Government to get it. Any Minister who is prepared to show that degree of courage will always get my support.
I hope we can get an idea of how we are going to address the problems, which have certainly been accepted, associated with getting people into apprenticeships. On the question of the things that should be attractive to those who have not been great successes in conventional education, or according to normal cultural expectations, what are we going to do? We need to act, not only for the nation’s general economy, but for the people who are the clients.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the value of high-quality apprenticeships at all levels, with a focus on levels 2 and 3, and Amendment 483 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and Amendment 483A, which I have moved on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lucas.
The noble Lord, Lord Layard, predictably, gave a very insightful and expert analysis of the issues, particularly for young people who are not going to university, and painted, sadly, an accurate but rather bleak picture. I would agree with him rather than the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, but I think there would be votes in it. The noble Lord said that it would be very popular across the country to take action on this. Anyway, that is not perhaps for this Committee to worry so much about.
I feel that, as I make my remarks, I have former colleagues sitting on each shoulder: Gillian Keegan, the first member of the Cabinet who had previously been an apprentice; and Rob Halfon who saw apprenticeships as a key part of what he described as the “ladder of opportunity”. That is exactly the kind of image and vision that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, set out.
The previous Government did a huge amount of work to raise the quality of apprenticeships and to expand them from some of the more traditional areas into financial services and others to better mirror our very heavily service-based economy and, crucially, to support important areas of the public sector where we have significant workforce shortages. That is in part where level 7 apprenticeships came in. I know that one point that my noble friend Lord Lucas would have made, had he been here, was that level 7 apprenticeships also contributed to that parity of esteem and the sense that apprenticeships could have the same prestige as a degree qualification.
I absolutely recognise the urgency to address the high level of youth unemployment, particularly after recent figures that show how much it has risen in the past year, and to give all young people a sense of real opportunity, which an apprenticeship can bring. We have been concerned at some of the changes that the Government have introduced so far, shortening the length of apprenticeships and removing the funding for apprenticeships at level 7.
I would argue—maybe it is easier from this side of the Dispatch Box—that this should be an area of “both and”. Level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships clearly fulfil a different role in the economy from those at levels 4, 5, 6 and 7, but they are no less important. One is not more important than the other. When we were in office, we were particularly concerned about levels 4 and 5. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply to the noble Lord’s amendments. I hope that she can reassure the House that the Government are committed to continuing with the employer-created standards rather than the frameworks that the previous Government introduced and that further moves will be made to secure the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises in the use of apprenticeships.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is no longer in her place, made an important point about how to fund an expanded apprenticeship offer at levels 2 and 3. I also very much recognise the comments made by my noble friend Lady Coffey in relation to T-levels. My reflection on that is that these changes take a great deal of time to embed. I do not think that in visiting schools I have met someone who has not been thrilled to be doing a T-level. I visited many schools where children wanted good, high-quality technical and vocational options and were not even aware that T-levels exist. At the very least, the Government will need to do these things in parallel. I hope very much that we will hear a positive response from the Minister.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by noting that, although there are a smaller number of noble Lords in the Chamber, the quality of the contributions has nevertheless been truly significant. I thank my noble friend Lord Layard for bringing this to the Chamber and for continuing to share his enormous expertise and passion in this area, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson. I emphasise that this Government absolutely understand the importance of apprenticeships and the scandal of reduced opportunities for young people and are fully engaged in discussions on how to address this and move forward.
Lord Layard (Lab)
My Lords, I am most grateful to everyone who spoke in this excellent debate. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, got us off to a good start on the economics, which is, of course, a central part of this—but economics can appear to look just at the whole economy rather than at the fates of individuals. Ultimately, of course, the economy is about the fates of individuals and especially the fates of these young people who are headed for lives of such poverty and also, in many cases, inactivity, at a cost then to the rest of us.
I am very grateful for what I think was the main theme, which came out of almost all the contributions—from the noble Lords, Lord Deben, Lord Storey, Lord Hampton and Lord Addington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran, Lady Wolf and Lady Coffey. It is that we have taken our eye off the needs of these young people at the lower levels of skill. How do we get people to levels 2 and 3 as the top priority for the use of the levy money? What has been happening, as we know, is that the levy money has been increasingly diverted, I would say, to supporting older people—often existing employees—and to higher levels of qualification. That would be all right if it were not being diverted from the needs of young people, whom employers have increasingly been turning their backs on. That is what we have to reverse, and it requires a major policy decision by the Government and the setting up of a major administrative structure to reverse this whole trend. I think it is encouraging that the survey by the CIPD showed that employers are up for this if some leadership and support is given to make it come about.
We are worried that the levy is being diverted. We should revert to the principle that its main purpose is to get people up to levels 2 and 3—when it comes to levels 4 and above, there are many other potential sources of funding. There is obviously the student loan. It is not so obvious that essentially the taxpayer, through the levy, is funding higher-level education for people taking levels 4 and 5 or degree apprenticeships at level 6, when most of those studying at levels 4 to 6 are on student loans or alternative sources of funding. Obviously, if the employer wants to get a bright young person quickly, they can contribute to the cost. We must re-establish the idea that the central—the first—overriding claim on the levy is young people doing levels up to level 3.
I am very grateful to the Minister for what she said and for the sincerity of her concern about all this. We would very much like to meet and see how this can be carried forward and, in the light of that, for the moment I would like to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I thank the noble Lord, but we are debating Amendment 483A, so I need to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to withdraw that first.
“Parental complaints (maintained schools)(1) After section 29 of the Education Act 2002 insert—“29ZA Parental complaints: appeals(1) A complainant may appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) where—(a) the complaint was against a maintained school in England under section 29(1),(b) the complainant was a parent of a registered pupil at the school at the time they first pursued the complaint,(c) the complaint specified one or more legal duties listed in Schedule 1A of which the school was alleged to be in breach,(d) the complaints process under section 29(1) was completed,(e) the complaint was not fully upheld in respect of one or more of the matters specified as described in paragraph (c), and(f) the complainant does not have and has not had any other prescribed right of appeal apart from that provided under section 29(1) and this section.(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations about appeals to the First-tier Tribunal in respect of subsection (1), including—(a) making and determining appeals;(b) the powers of the tribunal on determining an appeal.(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may include provision conferring power on the First-tier Tribunal, on determining an appeal against a matter, to make recommendations in respect of other matters (including matters against which no appeal may be brought).(4) A person commits an offence if without reasonable excuse that person fails to comply with any requirement—(a) in respect of the discovery or inspection of documents, or(b) to attend to give evidence and produce documents,where that requirement is imposed by Tribunal Procedure Rules in relation to an appeal under this section or regulations under subsection (2).(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (4) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.”(2) After Schedule 1 to the Education Act 2002 insert—“Schedule 1ALegal duties for the purposes of section 29ZA1 (1) The legal duties to which section 29ZA applies are as follows.(2) The Education Act 1996—(a) section 9 (Education in accordance with parental wishes),(b) section 402 (Obligation to enter pupils for public examinations), (c) sections 403 to 405 (Sex education),(d) sections 406 to 407 (Politics) and(e) section 542(1) (Prescribed standards for school premises);(3) The Education Act 2002—(a) sections 78 to 80B (General duties in respect of the curriculum), and(b) section 175(2) and (3) (Duties ... in relation to welfare of children);(4) The School Standards and Framework Act 1998—(a) section 1(6) (Duty in relation to infant class size),(b) sections 69 to 71 (Religious education and worship), and(c) section 114A (Requirements for food and drink provided on school premises etc);(5) Childcare Act 2006, section 40 (Duty to implement Early Years Foundation Stage);(6) Children Act 1989, sections 87 and 87C (Welfare of children in boarding schools and colleges and national minimum standards) and(7) The Education and Inspections Act 2006, sections 88 to 94 (School Discipline).””
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 485, 487, 488 and 489. Before I do, I warmly concur with and support Amendment 502YM in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman, which I believe is clear, sensible and complementary to my amendments. The principle behind my amendments is simple, and it goes to the heart of the rule of law. The laws that this Parliament passes are not mere suggestions for our schools; they are the rules that must operate, and they must be properly followed. That requires accountability when those laws are broken.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 502YM. I will echo some of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Jackson in relation to his amendment. I believe that my amendment complements the comprehensive final-stage procedure he outlined neatly.
Anyone who works in education knows how problematic dealing with complaints is becoming. Of course it is right that public bodies should have a complaints procedure, as is required by law. Of course dissatisfied parents should be able to complain to or about a school, and schools failing in their responsibilities should rectify their errors and omissions promptly. But the current system is complex and, in the main, giving satisfaction to no one.
I remind noble Lords that complaining to government is, typically, a fourth-line action after a series of stages. The first stage is attempting to resolve the issue with the staff member most directly involved, such as a classroom teacher; the second is escalating the issue or making a complaint to the head teacher or another school leader; the third is making a complaint to school governors; and the fourth is escalating a complaint to the local authority or the academy trust.
Yet the number of complaints to government has grown enormously in recent years, although there is not much evidence of a corresponding deterioration in the service offered by schools to children and parents. It seems likely that it is at least partly down to a higher propensity to be dissatisfied in a more fractious world. Furthermore, the use of AI enables parents to generate extremely lengthy complaints, which are time consuming to read, investigate and respond to. Safeguarding will often be invoked to ensure that a complaint is prioritised.
The various provisions in law relating to the consideration of complaints by national education bodies generally require that local routes have been exhausted. The expectation was that escalation to national bodies was a last resort for when serious concerns are ignored or mishandled by those more directly responsible. But, sadly, we see today an increasing willingness to escalate even relatively minor issues if the school’s response is anything other than doing exactly what the parent wants. When more serious concerns arise, such as those pointed out by my noble friend Lord Jackson, the sheer volume can mean that those more serious concerns are drowned out by the volume of very minor complaints.
Furthermore, the patchwork of law and regulation often means that any complaint must be considered in all the places to which it is sent. Each of the government organisations has a different purpose and will apply a different filter to determine whether it needs to act, but all of them must take the time to read and understand what are often long and complex documents, and often must check with the school to establish the facts. This is a huge burden on schools as well as being a wasteful model for government to operate, and it does not appear to be making parents any more satisfied. We need to reset the system and return to the expectation that the vast majority of complaints are considered and closed at local level.
My amendment therefore proposes that a single government complaints system is established, which can triage and direct complaints to the most appropriate body or reply to the complainant to say that there is no further action to be taken. There would need to be discussion about where this should be located. If it was desirable for such decisions to be made by those with substantial school experience, it might be located in Ofsted; otherwise, it might be a DfE team. Either way, the complaints and action taken should be recorded in a single database, accessible to all bodies with regulatory functions, including inspection, so as to minimise duplication, with all the burdens that that imposes.
Such a system should reduce the wear and tear on parents themselves—pursuing complaints is very damaging to parents in their relationships with schools—as well as the wear and tear on schools from protracted and inconclusive complaints processes. In short, this is a pragmatic amendment that would benefit almost everyone.
Lord Storey (LD)
I understand where these amendments are coming from. Personally, I have not formed a complete view about this. I understand what the noble Baroness is saying and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply, because there is an issue here and this is about how we handle that issue.
Education has become a successful business for the lawyers, to be quite honest. Dare I say, you only have to look at special educational needs, which lawyers and solicitors have made a lot of money out of. I declare an interest as my daughter is a solicitor. One also sees solicitors involved in school admission procedures. In some cases, that is a natural route to take, and I wonder about complaints—never mind the bureaucracy involved—if lawyers get involved in that side as well.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this group focuses on the thorny issue of complaints. The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough would introduce a new right of appeal for parents who have made a complaint that has not been upheld to a maintained school, academy or non- maintained special school.
At the risk of stating the obvious, most schools follow the law; they follow guidance and non-statutory guidance. I remember one teacher saying to me, “We live our lives by the bell. Of course we follow the rules”, but I accept the examples that my noble friend cited. We know that the volume of complaints is rising considerably, sadly assisted by tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said on her amendment, to which I was pleased to add my name, a complaint can be made to the Department for Education, Ofsted and the TRA, as well as to the school itself. Most worryingly, the school is sometimes excluded and complaints are made to all the other agencies but not to the school.
I am grateful to the charity Parentkind for its research into complaints, which shows that the vast majority of parents are happy with their child’s school, but also that 38% of the 2,000 parents in the sample interviewed had filed a formal complaint in the last year. Head teachers report separately from the Parentkind research that, on average, they are dealing with five complaints a week.
As my noble friend Lord Jackson explained, his amendment would support parents who are not satisfied with the school’s response to a complaint and provide a different mechanism to enforce their legal duties. I find it troubling that this amendment is needed, particularly the second element, as there are significant safeguards to ensure that schools meet their legal duties. I would have hoped that the existing system, which allows a complaint to be referred to a panel chaired by an independent member, would be sufficient. However, I think the Committee will agree that my noble friend has raised some extremely worrying examples including—and this might be insulting to snails—about the pace of the response received from the department.
I turn to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman. As she set out, it aims to simplify and streamline the complaints process. We are trying to address the current problems in the system whereby parents can make complaints to multiple places, which leads to confusion, frustration on the part of parents, delays and extra work and stress for school leaders. I know that is something that the Secretary of State is very alive to and has promised to come back with ideas on in the schools White Paper, which is coming very soon, I think—but perhaps I put the “very” in.
Our amendment would ensure that complaints are dealt with by only one party at a time, and that it is the most appropriate one. The Minister will be aware of cases where tremendous pressure is placed on the leadership of schools, including on some occasions when false and vindictive allegations are made. I remember visiting a school where a parent had alleged that over half of the members of staff had behaved inappropriately towards their child. Each complaint was made to multiple organisations and had to be dealt with individually, which took a huge toll on school leaders and their colleagues. Indeed, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has said:
“We are hearing more often from school leaders who have seen a significant increase in complaints, including a big rise in those that are clearly vexatious or baseless. This can harm their wellbeing, and cause unnecessary stress and workload”.
He also agrees that:
“Too often complaints are escalated unnecessarily, including sometimes to multiple agencies at the same time”.
I hope that I am safe in saying that I do not think that either my noble friend or I are wedded to the particular approach that we have in our amendment, but we are wedded to supporting schools and parents so that complaints can be dealt with swiftly and clearly, with a minimum of stress and expense, human or financial, to all involved. I look forward to hearing from the Minister the Government’s plans in this area.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions and for raising this very important area around parental complaints and appeals and the introduction of a central school complaints system. The Government completely understand the concern on this matter. As I shall go on to mention, the increase in the number of complaints is quite staggering, when you see the statistics laid out.
Amendments 485, 487 and 488, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, would allow parents and carers of children in maintained schools, independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. Amendment 489, also tabled by the noble Lord, would allow for regulations to amend secondary legislation on the rules and procedures of the First-tier Tribunal. I note the detailed examples that the noble Lord highlighted to us.
Amendment 502YM, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, would introduce a central complaints system to handle all school-related complaints in England, and for these complaints to be held in a central database accessible to the Department for Education and Ofsted. I hope we have made it very clear throughout the passage of the Bill, and I repeat it, that the Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards, so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive. This area fits into the discussion of these amendments.
When parents and carers believe schools are not delivering the standards expected of them, they of course have the right to raise complaints with schools—that is of the utmost importance. All schools are required to have a complaints policy in place that is promoted and effectively implemented. However, we believe that the introduction of an additional level of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal would create increased burden on a school system that is already under enormous pressure, as we have heard, from the increasing number of parent and carer complaints.
Importantly, the existing system already allows for the escalation of complaints where parents and carers believe complaints have not been handled compliantly or a school has not adhered to education law. When non-compliance is identified, the Secretary of State for Education has powers to intervene in a way that is proportionate and necessary to bring resolution to the parent’s or carer’s complaint.
We have accepted and acknowledged the issues and concerns being raised, by both schools and parents and carers, about the current school complaints system, both the pressure it places on schools—we have heard some good examples of that—and the frustration it can cause for parents and carers. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, highlighted, the increase in parent and carer complaints is a growing concern across the sector. That is why we are working through the Improving Education Together group, bringing together colleagues from across the sector to improve the school complaints system. Our aim is to reduce the burden on schools and leaders, while also maintaining parents’ rights to raise concerns, including by exploring ways to reduce unnecessary duplication. We want to create a better and clearer system for parents and to improve the relationship between schools and families.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, highlighted the work that Parentkind has done in this space. I am very pleased to inform the Chamber that the Secretary of State went to the launch of its latest publication on this subject on Tuesday—when, ironically, we were in the Chamber. That was a very important step forward. She set out that we are resetting relationships between schools and parents, so that trust levels are high and any issues are resolved informally before becoming complaints.
The other pressure that I need to draw attention to, and why we are very concerned about introducing additional burdens, is from SEND-related tribunals. The number of appeals has risen by over 40% in the past year alone. I think that it is well known that we are working with the Ministry of Justice to bring more capacity into that system. That will be addressed in the SEND reform review that will be published later in the autumn.
The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, raises an important point about AI. I had not thought of it in that way, but of course people are finding new applications all the time, just putting their few words into ChatGPT or whatever and coming out with a whole document built on that. I want to reassure her that the department is fully aware of this situation and is looking at ways to support schools in this space, including revision of the department’s guidance to schools on this very important matter.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Can the noble Baroness say now, or write to me and put the letter in the Library, clarifying whether, in relation to simplification of the complaints system, which obviously the Secretary of State has said she would like to do and which is at the heart of the amendment in my name and in that of my noble friend Lady Spielman, that requires a change in primary legislation or whether it can be done in secondary legislation? If it requires primary legislation, I am sure that colleagues in the department would be able to craft some kind of commencement clause—I am not sure quite what sort of clause it would be—that would allow that to happen without us having to wait several years for more legislation.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a very important point, and these will all be matters that are being considered as the Secretary of State takes this important work forward. I can get a written note and put it in the Library to outline the way forward and where we are at this moment.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her well thought through and considered response. It ranged wider than I expected, but just for the avoidance of doubt, of course I deprecate any unreasonable or vexatious complaints against teachers from parents that might veer into anti-social behaviour of the type she mentioned in terms of WhatsApp groups. I am happy to put that on record.
This has been a very thoughtful and important debate and I am grateful to noble Lords who took part, not least the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Spielman, who both brought great expertise and experience to the debate—the noble Lord from his time on Liverpool City Council and my noble friend from her leadership of Ofsted.
At its heart, this debate has revolved around a single clear question: do we believe that the laws passed in Parliament should be enforceable in schools? People are worried about a litigation culture, yet the evidence demonstrates that the current system of bureaucratic brick walls and institutional inertia is the true source of conflict and frustration. We have heard concerns about costs, but I ask again, what is the price of the status quo? What is the cost of a department that fails in its duty, and of parental trust in schools evaporating?
This accountability vacuum does not remain empty for long: it is filled by an entire ecosystem of unaccountable third-party advisers and activists. This is not, I suggest, a failure of individual teachers but a systemic failure. In the absence of clear enforcement, the law becomes muted and professionals are left rudderless. Into this void step commercial subscription services. I will give one final example in this debate. The Key is an organisation ironically first established by the Department for Education before it was privatised. When the previous Government consulted on draft guidelines for schools on gender-questioning children, The Key actively counselled schools that it would be unlawful to follow that guidance.
The accountability these amendments would introduce is not just for schools; it is for the entire advisory industry, which is funded by stretched school budgets. When the advice of these organisations is tested before a tribunal and found wanting, schools will quite rightly cease to pay for it. The market for bad advice will therefore, for the first time, face a correction.
These amendments are not a radical proposal. They do not seek to create conflict: they seek to provide a clear, fair and independent forum for its resolution. They would not undermine professional judgment, but they do subordinate it to the rule of law, which is as it should be. They give parents a voice and give the law teeth.
In conclusion, the choice is simple. We can endure the current inertia, condemning parents to a system that does not work, or we could take a meaningful step to restore accountability, uphold the will of Parliament and ensure that, when a parent has a legitimate concern that a school is breaking the law, they have somewhere to go. I believe we must choose the latter. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment but will consider returning to it at a later date.
Lord Holmes of Richmond
“Curriculum review: recommended physical activityWithin six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must undertake a curriculum review on how the levels of physical activity recommended by the Chief Medical Officer can form part of physical education provision within schools.”
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 492 in my name I give more than a positive nod to the other amendments in this group. For Amendment 492 I also thank my friends the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Sater, and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for co-signing this amendment. I commend them for all the work they do in this area.
We have a physical and mental well-being crisis in this country. In previous sessions on the Bill, we have rightly discussed the mental well-being crisis. My Amendment 492 goes to the heart of the physical well-being crisis. It is costing the taxpayer in the billions, it is breaking the NHS, and at a community and—crucially—individual level, it is an absolute tragedy, which can, should and must be avoided.
My Amendment 492 simply suggests that the Government should look at a means of incorporating the Chief Medical Officer’s advice on weekly and daily physical activity into the school programme. Be in no doubt, I am not talking here about competitive sport. I am not talking even about games. I am talking about physical literacy and physical fluency: moving, dancing and being in this great physical form of our human selves which we are born with.
I look forward to the Minister’s response. It is a very simple amendment, but it could make a profound difference to so many people’s lives. I beg to move.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 492 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes, which he very eloquently summarised for the Committee. I will also couple it with my Amendment 502J. First, I will reflect on some of the key issues behind the need to improve physical education programmes of study in the UK school curriculum.
To me, physical education is not merely a subject; it is a cornerstone in the development of young people, fostering health, resilience, teamwork and confidence. Yet despite the considerable investment in PE and sport premium funding, programmes of study across UK schools remain inconsistent, underresourced and insufficiently ambitious. It is imperative that we take decisive action to ensure that every child has access to high-quality, inspiring physical education.
First, the curriculum must be rigorously structured yet flexible, ensuring progressive development from foundational movement skills in key stage 1 to more complex games, athletics and leadership opportunities in key stage 4. This structure should be underpinned by clear learning outcomes, encompassing not only physical competence but personal, social and cognitive development.
Secondly, teacher training must be enhanced and continuous. Too many schools rely on external coaches or undertrained staff, which undermines sustainability and consistency. Ongoing professional development, supported by national standards and mentoring, will equip teachers to deliver high-quality, inclusive PE lessons that inspire pupils across the ability spectrum.
Thirdly, inclusive practices must be central. The curriculum must accommodate disabled pupils, those less confident in sport and the unrepresented groups, ensuring that all children can participate meaningfully. Adapted activities, peer mentoring and differentiated assessment can facilitate this inclusivity, and inclusivity is essential.
Fourthly and finally, the curriculum should embrace innovation and breadth, incorporating non-traditional sports, dance, outdoor recreation and cross-curricular activities to engage diverse interests and build lifelong participation habits, such as participation and partnerships with local sports clubs, universities and community organisations, all of which can further enrich provision.
In short, by strengthening structure, training, inclusivity and innovation, we can transform PE from a marginal subject into a vibrant, central element of the school experience, preparing young people not only to be active but to thrive in life. With that in mind, I turn to my proposal—a call to action—for a national strategy for physical education and sport in schools.
As a former Minister for Sport and a former chairman of the British Olympic Association, I have witnessed first-hand the transformative power of sport in shaping young lives. However, it is with a sense of urgency and concern that I address the current state of physical education and sport in our schools, not just over the last year but over a number of years. The absence of a cohesive national strategy has led to disparities in access, poor facilities and too much time allocated to travelling to and from sport during the curriculum, with the outcomes undermining the potential benefits that sport can offer to every child.
Baroness Sater (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 492, 502H and 502J, to which I have added my name.
Amendment 502H calls for a national strategy for physical education and sport in schools. I was fortunate to work alongside colleagues with significant experience in sport on the House of Lords’ national plan for sport, health and well-being Select Committee in 2023. This amendment is strongly underpinned by many of the recommendations from that committee. The report called for a long-term cross-government plan to embed physical activity and well-being into our educational system, for PE to be made a core subject, for teacher training to be improved, and for access to school sport to be widened to tackle the inequalities in participation. The committee also recommended that we gather better data through a national physical activity observatory. These are all the kinds of reforms that a national strategy as proposed in this amendment would deliver.
At present, fewer than half of children meet the Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines. According to the latest Sport England’s Active Lives children and young people survey, only 45% of children meet the target during school hours and 56% meet it outside of school, with levels varying significantly across different demographic groups.
This is one of the main reasons why we need a national strategy. The amendment comes with a list of recommendations, but it is not an exclusive one. The scope needs to be broad enough to obtain the right data and evidence to be able to create effective guidance and consistent delivery for all schools so that we can reach all children and better support their physical and mental development.
Without a coherent national strategy, we risk leaving physical education fragmented and underresourced. This amendment provides a clear framework to embed sport and physical activity as essential to children’s education, well-being and lifelong healthy lifestyle, through a truly holistic approach that supports physical, mental and social development.
Amendments 502J and 492 call for curriculum reviews to investigate how physical education programmes of study and recommended levels of physical activity can best be delivered in our schools. These reviews would provide a deep dive into the current delivery of PE and school sport, giving us crucial insights into the programmes of study being implemented and how they might improve the sport and physical activity offer in our schools. Without this insight, we risk continuing with fragmented and inconsistent provision that fails to meet the needs of all schoolchildren.
In 2019, I was delighted to serve on the Association for Physical Education’s task force on the future of physical education. It produced The Heart of School Life report, which looked closely at the future of physical education in schools. It was clear then, and it remains true now, that physical activity is about so much more than fitness or competitive sport.
These amendments responded to a growing consensus from a wide-ranging review of how PE is currently implemented and interpreted in our schools. The report The Heart of School Life highlighted the need to emphasise the unique role that physical education plays, distinct from general sport and physical activity, and to forge stronger links with health and well-being. It supported making PE a core subject, ensuring that it is valued and resourced accordingly. The report also highlighted how PE should develop a wide range of skills beyond competition, including leadership, teamwork, resilience and personal development.
Those broader benefits can be realised only through a curriculum that offers a diverse and inclusive programme. A national curriculum review would clarify what was delivered and how and where. It could also explore how PE might better integrate with other subjects such as maths, English and outdoor environmental learning, making it a more accessible and holistic part of school life, to the benefit of improved academic outcomes. If we are truly serious about improving sport and physical education in schools, we must consider whether there might be better ways to achieve our goals.
We all recognise that teachers and schools are under immense pressure, and the health and well-being of our children are not improving—in fact, we see worrying trends. It is a bit of a perfect storm. It is time to treat physical education and sport as an essential part of the curriculum, not an optional extra or an afterthought. The amendments would provide a clearer vision and a direction for the future of school sport and physical activity, and, hopefully, they would improve the health and well-being of our children.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I declare my interest as a board member of the London Marathon Foundation.
The amendments in this group call for a curriculum review and a national strategy to embed physical activity and sport firmly within the school day. They are timely and urgently needed because the evidence is overwhelming that physical activity is not an optional extra for young people; it is crucial to their health, learning and life chances. The statistics tell a worrying story. One-third of British children aged five to nine are projected to be overweight or obese by 2050. As we have heard, according to the Chief Medical Officer, children and young people aged five to 18 should be active for at least 60 minutes a day, yet around 2 million children manage fewer than 30 minutes of daily activity, including walking. We are also seeing a worrying trend of young people’s mental health deteriorating alongside their physical health. These are not just numbers. They represent millions of young people whose physical and emotional well-being is compromised before their adulthood begins.
Sport and daily physical activity are among the most powerful tools we have to reverse these trends. Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health, brings muscle and bone strength and helps to maintain a healthy weight, but its benefits go far beyond the body. Evidence consistently shows that physically active children perform better academically, have higher levels of concentration and better behaviour in class, and can develop social and emotional skills such as teamwork, resilience and respect. Sport is also a proven protector of mental health, reducing anxiety and depression, along with fostering friendships and a sense of belonging.
Yet, despite the acknowledged importance and benefits of having young people engage in physical activity, as my noble friend Lord Moynihan highlighted, Britain has 7,000 fewer PE teachers now than at the time of the 2012 Olympics. Together, these amendments would create a framework for a coherent evidence-based approach, a curriculum that guaranteed daily activity, a programme of study that developed lifelong skills and habits, and a national strategy that ensures accountability and investment.
But schools cannot achieve this step change alone. Nationally, there are many sporting organisations that can and already do work collaboratively with schools to encourage young people to be more active. Among them are the London Marathon Foundation and London Marathon Events, which are demonstrating how imaginative partnerships with local schools can reach children who might otherwise miss out. Take the Daily Mile: that simple idea—getting children to run, jog or wheel for 15 minutes a day—has spread rapidly because it works. The London Marathon Foundation and London Marathon Events have now become official implementation partners of the Daily Mile in England and will be funding three new regional development roles and creating 33 active playgrounds in areas of high deprivation. The aim is to engage more than half a million children in regular physical activity.
Junior parkrun offers free weekly timed runs for four to 14 year-olds, and a £1.2 million investment has already increased weekly participation from 13,500 to over 19,000, with more than 1 million junior parkruns completed in the first year of funding. Early pilots linking schools to junior parkrun have shown a 25% to 30% increase in participation by students of the linked schools, demonstrating the power of such joined-up initiatives. Importantly, almost a quarter of new registrations came from children who were previously inactive, showing that these initiatives reach those who need them the most.
There are many projects across the country that demonstrate what can be achieved when ambition, evidence and partnership come together, and they highlight how much more could be achieved if government policy were able to match the scale of the challenge. That is why these amendments are so important—to ensure that every child, wherever they live and whatever their background, has the chance to be active every day, enjoy sport and reap the lifelong benefits of a healthy body and mind.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, where did it all go wrong? I can look back to those halcyon days where, in primary schools, there were two lessons of PE a week timetabled, and PE covered a whole range of activities, from gym work to games and swimming—children regularly left school being able to swim 20 metres —and after-school sports competitions. In secondary schools, sport was thriving. As we have heard, that was beneficial for the well-being of children and young people and important for their health, with regards to obesity, and for teamwork, working together and understanding each other.
This is not something that can be laid just at the hands of the present Government. In fact, the present Government, in a former iteration, did a great deal of work on sport. People will think that I am a member of his fan club, but the Blair Government brought in some of the most radical proposals on sport that this country has ever seen. Whether it was a mixture of Covid, the recession or whatever, it all suddenly—
Baroness Bousted (Lab)
I am sorry, but I have to interject here to say that the narrowing of the curriculum and the teacher supply crisis was a direct result of austerity, teacher pay falling by 12% in real terms and chronic underfunding of schools, all of which were initiated during the coalition and continued until 2024.
Children absolutely deserve a rich and balanced curriculum, but that becomes much more difficult if they are not being taught by teachers qualified in the subject area but by unqualified teachers. The teacher supply crisis started and became acute during the previous Government. When we have this debate, we cannot ignore the practical consequences of chronic underfunding, chronic undermining of the profession and, from the start of the coalition, a policy of attacking teachers and leaders as being responsible for falling school standards.
There was also a deliberate narrowing of the curriculum through the EBacc to a range of academic subjects, which has meant a precipitous decline in arts and drama and a shorting of the experience that children get in physical education.
I am sorry, but I must put all that on the record. My friend the noble Lord is rightly asking these questions but he is coming up with a different set of conclusions.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, before the noble Lord continues, I do not recognise, luckily, the dystopian view that he has given. The primary school that both my children were at and the school where I now teach are full for before-school, lunchtime and after-school activities. I put on record in this Chamber that my daughter’s girls team won the under-15 Hackney cup.
Lord Storey (LD)
I am grateful for those comments, believe it or not. I could well have made the noble Lord’s speech, to be honest, and I might have gone on to say some of those things. In some of my other contributions in this House, I have, for example, decried the Government’s stance on the EBacc, which has created problems for the creative industries, as well as for sport and physical education. The noble Lord, Lord Gove, who is not in his place, spoke yesterday, and I referred to the cataclysmic changes that his time as Secretary of State brought about. I was slightly annoyed that he referred to a reasonable request for a national guarantee on tutoring as a sort of publicity stunt by the Lib Dems. That was my reaction to that, as those noble Lords who were present know. I accept everything the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said.
Politicians—not in this Chamber, of course—sometimes forget what happened beforehand. The country was on its knees because of the recession—it really was; you could see that—and the Government had to step forward and take some difficult decisions. But those difficult decisions did not have to see the dismantling of services that both the noble Lord and I think are really important. As the head teacher of a primary school for 23 years, I recognise what the noble Lords is saying, but it is not in every school.
However, we were talking about PE, so let me move on to one example of PE which I know a great deal about: swimming. I declare an interest as a patron of the Royal Life Saving Society. Swimming is important to us as a nation—we are an island. I do not have the figures to hand, other than the sad figure that somewhere in the region of 250 people drown every year and some 40 of them are children between primary age and 17, and those figures are rising. Why are drownings happening? It is because fewer and fewer schools have the resources to swim. How many schools have a swimming pool they can go to? I remember in those halcyon days in my borough, primary schools would have a small learner pool that you could walk to in every area. We could take even top infants to the learner pool to learn how to swim. Every child had a term and a half of swimming and 98% of children left school being able to swim 20 meters. That does not happen now, for the very reasons that we have heard.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I thought his speech was absolutely spot on. If we are serious about the importance of sport, everything he said I could not agree with.
Lord Storey (LD)
Did I say agree? I am still recovering from the interventions. To be clear, I agree with everything that the noble Lord said and would support all four amendments. I thank noble Lords for introducing them.
Children and young people get so much from sport and physical education. It is not just about their well- being; believe it or not, it helps them in their other studies. One of the local head teachers in my area used to start the school day not by doing numeracy or literacy but a creative activity—either sport, drama, dance or something like that—because it got people energised and helped with their learning. Sport is important not just for the mind and body but for the well-being and development of the child as a whole.
I thank noble Lords who put down those amendments. I speak for my party when I say we very much support them.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend has covered what happens in school, but that is just one area of activity. If it is done properly, school is merely part of a greater continuum that goes out into the community. The school sports partnerships were going to save the breakdown in the traditional links between small clubs, grass-roots sports and school, but they were not there for long enough for us to know whether they would. Many of us in both bits of the coalition Government thought that it was one of the weirdest things possible that they were kept going until the Olympics and then cancelled afterwards when we might have got some benefit. I got a small nod from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—a bigger one now—which says, “That’s exactly what we thought at the time”.
We also knew from that and from looking at studies that a big sporting event is great for tourism and volunteering but does not make any difference to grass-roots sport unless you back it up with something—with your inspiration. Schools have to work with the grass roots. In the amendments, we have the start of that structure, which we can go forward with. It is not just in this Bill or with this department. If we are going to lose lots of playing fields in the planning Bill, it does not matter what you do because you will not be playing anywhere else—probably not even at schools. We have to have something that goes forward. These amendments start to look slightly broader.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My noble friend in sport mentioned playing fields. One of the most important roles that Sport England plays is that it is the statutory consultee for playing fields in this country. It was exceptionally worrying when, just a few months ago, the Government announced that they were putting out to consultation whether Sport England should continue that role. Does my noble friend in sport see anybody else performing that role? Will it not be even more damaging to playing fields in this country, which are so important to the public at large, if there is nobody among all the statutory consultees whose job it is to ensure their survival?
Lord Addington (LD)
The answer is yes, yes and yes. I hope that the Minister will make sure that her colleagues in other departments take this on board. I moved an amendment on the planning Bill seeking to ensure that this duty is still there. I know that I am asking the Minister to part the Red Sea and take the salt out at the same time, but I am hoping for two parts of government to talk to each other on this.
We want people to remain active for all the reasons that we have stated. Physical activity leads to better exam results, which we seem to forget. If schools are to provide the initial smorgasbord of finding the right form of physical activity for individuals’ physique, culture and temperament, then I hope that the Government talk across departments in support of these amendments. I would like to hear from the Minister that they are having a coherent look at this and that they will lead other departments to do something solid. The Department for Education is best placed. We could ask the Department of Health but it would get buried there. If a lead department takes this on, there is a chance of achieving some of these aims. These amendments, or ones like them, are essential to making sure that we have a duty saying, “This is what you should be doing”.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for raising the critically important issue of sport and physical education in schools, which I personally feel particularly strongly about. If schools were to follow the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and perform physical exercise in the morning before classes, it would be transformational. School sport has no greater champion in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Moynihan, an Olympic silver medallist and former chairman of the British Olympic Association who has been leading the charge for greater provision of physical education and sport across our schools for many years.
In September last year, NHS England published research that found the truly frightening statistic that 15% of children aged between two and 15 in England are obese. Although that figure is a slight decrease from 16% in 2019, the fact that childhood obesity has remained stubbornly high should be a huge concern for everyone: parents, teachers, the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions. This issue affects us all in some way or other.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Well, I start by saying that I actually agree with the vast majority of the points made by noble Lords opposite, but I just have to say that we in this House are not disinterested observers of the activities of Governments. Several of the noble Lords opposite who rightly identified the decline in school sports, the reduction in teachers and the narrowing of the curriculum were supporters of or part of the Government who were responsible for it. I just want to put that on the record as we start this.
Having said that, there is good news. This Government are reviewing the curriculum and establishing a new national approach to PE and school sport. We value PE and sport as a great opportunity to improve not only the health but—
Lord Addington (LD)
I have one more question. If we are doing this for PE in schools, is there going to be a specific link to activity outside school? A lot of the sports education is done by sports governing bodies and grass-roots clubs. I hope the noble Baroness can give me some reassurance that that will be done.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I know that I added a little bit to the beginning of my speech, but I am actually only three lines through, and I will come to precisely that point.
The amendments proposed align closely with the important practical work already under way by this Government to expand access to high-quality PE and school sport for every child. We remain committed to ensuring that all young people, regardless of background, have the opportunity to thrive through physical education, school sport and physical activity. I also agree with the points ably made by the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Moynihan, about the broader benefits of sport, physical activity and physical education. The impact on academic achievement, mental health, healthy weight and sleep: those are all important elements of the broader benefits that come from children being active and being supported to move in a wide range of ways—something I thought about carefully as I finished the Worcester 10K on Sunday morning.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Thank you. If you had seen how fast I did it—or how slowly—you might not have been quite so impressed.
Of course, it is not only organised sport that is important. As several noble Lords said, other ways of moving our bodies, including dancing, are also beneficial, although people who saw my performance on “Strictly” would not necessarily recognise any benefit that I gained from it—or that anybody watching it gained. However, the point is that physical activity, the opportunity to move in a whole variety of ways and the requirement to make that as inclusive as possible are really important and at the heart of what the Government are trying to do.
In June, the Prime Minister announced a new national approach to PE and school sport. This new approach will establish a PE and school sport partnership network, designed to build stronger links between schools, local clubs and national governing bodies—to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Its aim is to identify and remove barriers to participation in PE and school sport, particularly for less active children, including girls and pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. The point made by several noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about the need for this to be inclusive is very important. That is why we have recently announced a one-year grant of up to £300,000 to a consortium led by the Youth Sport Trust to deliver Inclusion 2028, a programme which upskills teachers to deliver high-quality, inclusive PE, school sport and physical activity to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. This will be an important theme of the national approach as well.
Since the announcement on the school sport partnership network was made, the Department for Education, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health and Social Care—here I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that, given the broader consequences, this needs to be a cross-government responsibility—have been working with the sector to co-design the partnerships, meeting with a range of organisations, including educational organisations and national governing bodies of sport, to discuss the key principles they would like to see in a new model.
Furthermore, the Department for Education is conducting market engagement events from 24 September to explore the procurement of a national delivery partner to design, implement and manage this new network from summer 2026. Procuring a national delivery partner reflects a significant investment in this approach. The market-testing phase will help shape the scope and scale of delivery, ensuring that any funding allocated is aligned with the ambition and impact we expect from a national partner. The intention is for the national partner leading the PE and school support partnerships network to distribute a significant budget each year to pay for targeted provision in local areas. The total funding for this will be confirmed as part of the department’s business planning.
In addition, we are working with experts to develop a new enrichment framework by the end of the year, highlighting best practice and considering how standardised benchmarks and tools can support schools. This will provide advice for schools on how to plan a high-quality strategic enrichment offer and how to make use of specific programmes to increase access to sport and arts.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
I make just two points that I am sure that the Minister will recognise. Many in the Committee this afternoon have been campaigning exceptionally hard for improved opportunities for young people in sport and recreation, irrespective of who has been in government. One of the great aspects of this House has been frequent cross-party support for making sure that we try to improve the provision of sport and recreation. I do not think it is a party-political point. I remember that, soon after the turn of the century, possibly the most important influence on Tony Blair’s decision to move forward with the bid for the Games was a debate in this Chamber which had completely cross-party support. One needs to be a little bit cautious before saying, “Why didn’t we speak out before?” Many of us have been speaking out like this for decades.
My second point is that I acknowledge—and I am grateful to the Minister for raising the fact—that the Prime Minister has indeed come forward with a whole range of initiatives on access to high-quality PE and sport for children, equal access, two hours of sport a week and a national network to build strong partnerships with clubs. We are just putting into an amendment what the Prime Minister himself said in June, to make sure that it is actually done. It has not been done by successive Prime Ministers—I must admit, of both political persuasions—but not least by Gordon Brown. There were fine words, but it was never put into practice. Will the Minister be the first to support me in coming back at Third Reading with everything that the Prime Minister said when he met the Lionesses, as clear mandates, so that we can enshrine it in legislation and make sure it happens for the young people of this country?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
In the previous paragraphs, I outlined not only what the Prime Minister had identified but the action the Government are already taking to deliver on the objective that the Prime Minister set down, so I do not think it is necessary to enshrine that in the Bill, because, as I identified, it is already happening. I am not going to rise to the noble Lord’s point about—I shall not even say that I am not going to rise to it, otherwise I will do so.
On the noble Lord’s point about staffing, it is encouraging that PE initial teacher training places are all taken up this year. Obviously, that is important in ensuring that there is a pipeline of good teachers in this area, but there is more to do on quality, especially in primary schools. The PE and school sport partnerships will bring together the support available to schools and therefore to teachers. By making sure that PE has a central place in the curriculum, in the light of our curriculum and assessment review, we can cement its place in schools’ priorities. That will of course mean a greater focus from both leaders in schools and staff.
As I was saying, the development of the PE and school sport partnerships and enrichment framework relates to Amendment 502H in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. The Government are already delivering the co-ordinated action for which the noble Lord rightly calls, both through the PE and school sport partnerships and the enrichment framework. This has established a strategic framework, guided by evidence and collaborating with national governing bodies of sport and other key organisations, to raise the quality and standards of PE and school sport for all pupils across the country.
Amendment 492, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and Amendment 502J, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, call for a curriculum review to investigate how PE, sport and physical activity provision in schools can deliver relevant outcomes for pupils. The partnerships to which I have already alluded will seek to support schools in providing opportunities in and out of the curriculum for children to work towards meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation of being active for an average of 60 minutes a day.
Of course, we already have under way a curriculum review of the type called for by noble Lords and by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. In 2024, this Government launched an independent curriculum and assessment review, which is looking at all national curriculum subjects including physical education. It seeks to deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative. The review is considering subject-specific issues including physical education. Subject and sport stakeholders have had the chance to feed into the review on PE and have highlighted many of the issues that noble Lords highlighted in this debate. The interim report was published in March 2025 and highlighted the reduction in PE time, especially at key stage 4. The final report will be published in the autumn with the Government’s response, and I am sure that noble Lords will allow that independent curriculum review to present its recommendations.
I hope that noble Lords are reassured that we have considered all the issues raised in the debate today. The ongoing independent curriculum and assessment review, the PE and school sport partnerships, and the enrichment framework are already starting work to tackle the issues raised. In the light of this, I hope that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
The noble Baroness rightly referred to the curriculum review that Becky Francis is undertaking, to be published at some stage. What approach are the Minister and the department taking to ensure that all the excellent work that Becky Francis is taking forward will be reflected in the Bill and that there are no inconsistencies or gaps in this legislation as a result of the timing difference between the Bill’s passage and the publication of the review?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I was referencing the amendments calling for a curriculum review and pointing out that there already was a curriculum review. Many of the points raised in the amendments, particularly the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, were about the approach to the curriculum; for example, ensuring that, at a primary level, we are developing the physical skills of children and promoting physical activity, and then, at secondary level, continuing that important work while also delivering a focus on competition and particular types of sports. Becky Francis’s review is independent, but from both the interim report and the evidence that has been provided and is under consideration, I know that is the type of approach being taken in the curriculum and assessment review.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this excellent debate.
I am not normally tempted to dive into the subject of swimming, but the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has tempted me to do so. It is always worth reminding ourselves—particularly, as he said, in an island nation—that swimming is the only sport that can save your life. That underscores the critical significance of physical activity, literacy, fluency and education in the example of learning to become a competent swimmer.
This Government, like any Government, want growth, and they face a very clear choice with these amendments. One of the key elements of growth is investment. There could barely be a better area to invest in than physical activity and physical well-being. The choice for any Government is to invest and reap all the social, economic and psychological benefits on the individual, community and country levels or to pay for the consequences through the NHS, the prison service and many other areas administered by government. These issues will certainly return on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Holmes of Richmond
“Education technology: guiding principles(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for the regulation of education technology deployed in schools in England.(2) The regulations made under subsection (1) must ensure that education technology used in schools in England—(a) is inclusive by design,(b) is accessible to all,(c) is transparent with regard to its training data and, where applicable, its algorithmic make-up,(d) is labelled clearly if it uses artificial intelligence,(e) does not sell or provide data to third parties, and(f) does not store personal data at a location other than that of the school in which it is being used.(3) A statutory instrument that contains regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 494. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who signed my amendment; I will give positive support to her amendment in this group.
Educational technology—edtech—offers extraordinary opportunities for learners right through the school and education experience. In effect, it enables personalised education—for every young person to have a classroom assistant alongside them in technology form. It is an extraordinary upside and transformational, but only if we get right the framework, the construction and the underpinning principles that guide it. If we human-lead with these technologies, we will give ourselves the best opportunity to succeed and to empower all children and young people to succeed in their education journey. If we have a principles-based, outcomes-focused and inputs-understood approach, we enable, we empower and we have a clear understanding of what we require from these edtech solutions.
I turn now to the amendment. All edtech must be inclusive by design; accessible; transparent about the make-up of the technology; labelled, if AI is in the mix; and absolutely crystal clear as to how the data is used, where it is stored and how none of that data—children’s data—gets sold on to any third parties.
The opportunities are extraordinary. It is at least a touch unfortunate that so much of technology in school is being described and seen through the lens of smartphones. It is understandable, because of some of the catastrophic downsides and outcomes we have seen as a consequence, but there is nothing inevitable about that. Edtech, positively deployed, human-led, with human principles and values at its heart, and with the right oversight and approach to data, could enable such a powerful learning experience, primarily for young people and children but also for teachers, classroom assistants and the whole school community.
Amendment 494 is about pulling on the power that we have through procurement. We can achieve so much by understanding how we look at the values and underpinning principles that we put into how we procure. This amendment echoes many of the under- pinnings of Amendment 493 in understanding that, if we can get a procurement standard in place, then many of the potential problems and difficulties are dealt with before they even come into being, because of that standard being so well set before any consideration has been given to making a purchase of any edtech.
I look forward to other contributions from noble Lords and the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, in speaking to my Amendments 502K, 502YI and 502YH, I also register my support for Amendments 493 and 494 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and, more broadly, to associate myself with everything he has just said. Amendment 502YI calls for a code of practice for education data. I tabled a similar amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill earlier this year and was given an assurance from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who gave me
“a firm commitment … that the Government will use powers under the Data Protection Act 2018 to require the ICO to publish a new code of practice addressing edtech issues”.—[Official Report, 28/1/25; col. 148.]
A letter I received from the department in anticipation of today’s debate suggested that the Government are “reviewing and considering”. I ask the Minister whether we are reviewing and considering the firm commitment that was made nine months ago.
We have been discussing data protection in schools since 2017 and we have had multiple promises from both department and regulator that have yet to bear fruit. Yet the Government are pressing ahead to introduce new data-hungry technology in our schools. The uses of pupils’ data are well evidenced and egregious. Some of it has ended up on adult sites and gambling sites, which is an abuse of children’s privacy.
Pupils are, first and foremost, children. They are not critical sources of data for commercial enterprise. It is beyond time to act. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment so that this Bill is the one that finally sets out the scope and timescale for a data regime that delivers children the protection they deserve when they are at school.
I turn to Amendment 502K. I wish to be very clear that I, too, welcome the potential of technology to contribute to learning and well-being at schools, but while the Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson has heralded a
“new technological era to modernise our education system”,
there is as yet no corresponding binding commitment to ensure that the technology being introduced at pace actually works. The Education Endowment Foundation has said that gains are often very small and has warned that edtech may be a “gap-widener” for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. A 2023 DfE survey found that fewer than half of teachers thought that technology improved pupil attainment, and UNESCO referred to the use of edtech as a “tragedy”, and the results from the huge global investment in edtech during the pandemic as “far from clear”.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I was very happy to add my name to the noble Baroness’s on the majority of these amendments. She has outlined the compelling need to do something in these interrelated areas sooner rather than later. I will not bore your Lordships but rather try and illustrate one or two examples of what is going on in real time.
I will start with Copilot, a tool that most of us will be at least faintly familiar with—or will at least have heard of—and which is integrated into the Microsoft package that we use in Parliament. At the time that research was started by a group of organisations, including the 5Rights Foundation founded by the noble Baroness, Microsoft, which owns Copilot, stated publicly that Copilot was intended for users 18 and above, such as all your Lordships. However, in May 2025, the company announced without warning that Copilot would become available to users aged 13 and above. This shift raises important questions, none of which was answered at the time by Microsoft. The user age change proceeded without any published child rights impact assessment—which takes us back to an earlier group that we discussed—or documentation of any child participation in this decision. Using it in this way, without any child-focused safeguards, is unlikely to be in the best interests of the child, but currently there seems to be no satisfactory way to hold Microsoft to account for this.
A second example is Vimeo, a popular video channel that some of your Lordships may be aware of. In a particular case where a child used Vimeo and some of its video capability to do his homework, a detailed look at what Vimeo had done with his homework demonstrated that 92 different commercial companies had gained access to this child’s data. Not very satisfactory.
A third example is the problem that data protection officers—each school nominates one—as you might imagine, are struggling to try and understand and keep up with this blizzard of new technology and new tools. There are more and more sophisticated ways of, in theory, giving children a good education, underwritten by hideously long and complex terms and conditions, which I suspect even an artificial intelligence tool would have a problem making any sense of.
An example would be perhaps one of our best known technology companies, Google. It has a very successful edtech business called Google Classroom. Google, as is its wont, packages different Google products together in the same package. Within Google Classroom, you have Google Maps, which I am sure most of your Lordships are familiar with and will use occasionally. Let us assume you are doing a geography project using Google Classroom and, as part of that, you decide to go into Google Maps to use its capability. The minute the child clicks on Google Maps, he or she loses the data protection provided by Google Classroom, which allows Google Maps to harvest all of their data.
That is a real life current example of what is happening in plain sight. Data protection officers are not going to be aware of that, neither are headmasters, students or parents. It seems compelling that the people who should be most aware of that are the Government, the Information Commissioner and the bodies which are there to protect children and guide schools through this extraordinarily difficult complex morass of these competing technologies which, quite rightly to some extent, the Government are encouraging schools to take advantage of. But beware of what you encourage without understanding exactly what it is you are recommending.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, when it comes to technology, I think I have a slightly different relationship to it, although the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, may even go beyond me for this. We need it to operate in the modern world. I have said before several times on this Bill that I am dyslexic. I cannot produce a one-page document that is in a readable form in any sort of format unless I use voice dictation. The relationship with technology changes.
If you want to make people independent and they are, in this case, dyslexic—dyspraxics might use the same technology in a slightly different way—you must make sure information is available to them and they can function with it. Having said that, the second part of this is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, that there should be safeguards within it. These things actually go hand in glove. You should have something that allows people to function in the modern world. When you are independent and interacting with a computer, you have to put the correct information in for the computer to function; you have to actually know what you are doing. A balance needs to be achieved.
There is a move to use systems which are built into computers, as opposed to bolt-on bits for educational support. In certain cases, which the Minister is aware of, schools decide to use the free bit of tech as opposed to purchasing it. But the free bit of tech is there to advertise; otherwise it would not be there. There must be a commercial advantage for somebody to provide you with a free bit of tech.
The balancing structure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, puts forward here is essential to allow those like me who need this technology to carry on using it. We are talking about schoolchildren here, but there will be no shortage of people who will need it in the future and we are identifying more and more all the time. I hope we can strike a balance and make sure we get further forward into it.
The same is true—I am sure we are going to hear about smartphones being the devil’s work—for smart- phones, as it is the information on the smartphone we are talking about. If you can ban social media sites on smartphones and you can block them, they merely become a platform you can fill with other technology.
This is as the Minister gets an answer by using her smartphone. I hope we will get a more balanced approach to this, because it is not all bad, and not all good, it just needs to be used correctly, and using safeguards is something we have not really got our heads around. I am sure most of the commercial companies did not come in with this as their first priority, they just came in as commercial companies. The fact that they said they were platforms and did not need to worry about this is now coming back to bite them. However, I hope there is a balanced approach and a sensible way that we can get the best out of technology.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I have listened to a number of Lords speak movingly and wisely about the risks, concerns and things we need to guard against in the use of technology. I want to talk about the risk to learning itself. I have forgotten their name, but somebody recently wrote an excellent piece that illustrated this very vividly.
We all understand that when we send our children to school and when we teach them, the point is not simply for them to have a thing they can say they have done; it is the process that they go through that really embeds it and enables them to use that knowledge and those skills in future.
We have all seen it in the kinds of problems that have arisen with coursework. If a coursework essay or a homework assignment is produced for a child or university student by AI, then that child or student has not done the thinking, they have not learned what the assignment was set for, and the education will not achieve its purpose. There is a real risk at the moment that a lot of education in a lot of places is being quite significantly undermined because young people do not recognise that they are harming themselves by taking the shortcuts. Perhaps we have all been a little bit slow to recognise this risk.
There is a helpful distinction to be made here. I recently read a piece which distinguished between cognitive offloading and cognitive bypasses. The use of assistive technology, such as that which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has referred to on occasion, might be described as cognitive offloading, where the point is to help the child with the additional challenges they are experiencing without losing the point of the lesson or what they are meant to be learning.
If we get to the point where the technology becomes a way of simply bypassing the learning, we are actually destroying education. The enthusiasm for technology—which has understandably invigorated us all; there are clearly tremendous opportunities—and the incredible energy and power of the tech firms, which of course concentrate immense efforts on Ministers to bring their products and services into schools, mean that there is a massive job for government to do to find that balance and to really understand the risks, not just around data and to children’s well-being but to education.
Lord Tarassenko (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendments 493, 494, 502K and 502YI, as someone with an interest in the use of educational technologies, including AI, both in schools and universities. I declare my interest as chair of the Maths Horizons project, funded by XTX Markets, which earlier this year reviewed the maths curriculum in England from five to 18, and briefly investigated the use of edtech to support the teaching of the subject.
I speak as a supporter of the deployment of educational technology in the classroom as I believe it can and should have a positive impact on the education of children, and not just in maths. But this must be done within a framework which protects children from its misuse. We must balance innovation in education through edtech with appropriate regulation. The regulations listed in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 493 would support the adoption of edtech in our schools rather than hinder it.
In this context, what has happened with chatbots based on large language models is a salutary example of the early release of AI products without proper safeguards, especially with respect to their use by children. Tragically, this week the parents of the American teenager who recently took his own life after repeatedly sharing his intentions with ChatGPT told a Senate judiciary sub-committee investigating chatbot dangers:
“What began as a homework helper gradually turned itself into a confidant and then a suicide coach”.
Ironically, we are now told that OpenAI is building a ChatGPT for teenagers and plans to use age-prediction technology to help bar children under 18 from the standard version. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in a blog this week just before the Senate hearings—and then coming to this country—that AI chatbots are
“a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection”.
The risks associated with the use of edtech may not be on the same scale, but they are nevertheless real. In many cases, edtech products used in schools rely extensively on the collection of children’s data, allowing it to be used for commercial and profiling purposes. The recent report from the 5Rights Foundation and the LSE, which has already been mentioned, highlights that some popular classroom AI apps track users with cookies from adult websites and may provide inaccurate and unhelpful information. Most worryingly, a popular app used for educational purposes in the UK generates emulated empathy through sentiment analysis and so increases the likelihood of children forming an emotional attachment to the app. I therefore support Amendments 493, 494 and 502K, which together would ensure that edtech products provide children with the higher standard of protection afforded by the ICO’s age-appropriate design code.
In addition to the safeguards introduced by these amendments, there is a need for research to establish whether educational technologies deliver better educational outcomes for children. Most edtech products lack independent evidence that they lead to improved outcomes. Indeed, some studies have shown that edtech products can promote repetitive or distracting experiences with minimal, if any, learning values. By contrast, there is a growing body of evidence on the positive side that edtech can effectively support vocabulary acquisition, grammar learning, and the development of reading and writing skills for students for whom English is the second language, particularly when these tools are used to complement a teacher’s instruction.
To establish a causal relationship between the use of an edtech tool and a specific learning outcome, we need to design randomised control trials—the gold standard for demonstrating the efficacy of interventions in the social or medical sciences. Longitudinal data will then be needed to track student usage, time on task and completion rates. Crucially, the trial must have enough participants to detect a meaningful effect if one exists. This is unlikely to be possible using the data from a single school, so data from several schools will need to be anonymised and then aggregated to obtain a statistically meaningful result.
I am satisfied that Amendments 502K and 502YI would allow this methodological approach to be followed. Indeed, subsection (4)(c) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 502K would ensure that the code of practice enabled the development of standards to certify evidence-based edtech products and support the testing of novel products. This would provide UK- based companies with the opportunity to innovate in edtech within an appropriate regulatory environment.
As English is the lingua franca of the digital world, there is the opportunity for the UK to become a leader in edtech innovation and certification, for the benefit of children not only in the UK but in many other countries. These amendments should be seen by the Department for Education not as an attempt to overregulate the edtech sector but instead as a mechanism for the promotion of existing evidence-based apps and the development of a new generation of products, some of which may be AI-facilitated, using—no pun intended—best-in-class trial methodology.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I too support Amendments 493 and 494 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes, and Amendments 502K and 502YI in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I am not an educationalist and this is my first contribution on the Bill. I spend my time in this House focused mainly on digital issues, hence my interest in these amendments.
Like others today, I will start by being really clear that I am not anti-technology in education—quite the opposite. I see the huge potential that digital technology can bring in all sectors of our lives. It is also particularly clear today, as our Prime Minister is signing the tech prosperity deal. We should be open-eyed that technology brings the opportunity for prosperity; I am not anti it at all. But it is also really clear that technology, not just digital but all technologies for evermore, need guardrails, and those guardrails cannot be self-imposed.
Among those of us who have worked on child safety online for the past 10 or 15 years, many on this side of the House began firmly believing that self-regulation was the answer. I am afraid that we been proven absolutely wrong. There is no doubt that self-regulation in social media has been a disaster, and I fear that we are doing exactly the same in digital technology in education. Companies operating in this space need guardrails in order to develop the products that really will make a positive difference and to help us all mitigate the downsides that these technologies inherently have.
I am not a lover of adding regulation, so in each example of adding regulation in the digital space I ask myself a simple question: is this additional regulation an example of the red flag Act 1865? For those that do not know, that was the wonderful piece of legislation that required a man—it had to be a man—with a red flag to walk in front of every non-horse-drawn vehicle. This was clearly a very bad piece of legislation that was repealed—it took 30 years, but it was repealed. So question number one is: is this piece of additional digital regulation a red flag Act that will prevent the benefit of the technology, or is it in danger of being a seat belt?
The seat belt was patented in 1885 but it became mandatory to wear one in the back seat of a car, where children tend to sit, only in 1991. So, during that century, was the world better off and was car development so much faster because there were not mandatory seat belts on the back seat, or was it just that more children died? We have to ask ourselves, with every piece of regulation in the digital world: are we in danger of creating a red flag that is slowing down the development of the technology, or are we in danger of believing that regulation will slow down economic growth while instead being culpable of doing harm for decades or even centuries?
The problem with this Bill, and these amendments, is that many of us have debated the issue many times before. The age-appropriate design code came into being in the Data Protection Act 2018 and came to life in 2020. It expressly excludes technology in schools. I find it incomprehensible that, five years later, we are having to argue that it is wrong that children’s data in school is less protected than it is at home. The Minister has referenced previously that many of us have spoken on this topic before or have a track record in this. The Government, when they were not the Government, very clearly supported expanding regulation into edtech. I hope that the Minister will hear the cross-party support for these amendments and work with us to put in statute the appropriate protection for the use of children’s data and technology when they are in education.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, my Amendment 502YQ is mainly to probe the Government’s intention in relation to their own use of data regarding this Bill. This amendment addresses an issue that has surfaced repeatedly in our many debates: the scope of data collection about children in education. We have heard a lot today about the role of technology providers, but I want to turn the focus to how we are collecting data within the education system in government.
My amendment would ensure that personal data may be collected, retained or processed only where it is strictly necessary to protect a child from significant harm, as defined in Section 31 of the Children Act 1989. Why is this needed? The Bill as drafted gives wide latitude to local authorities and the Secretary of State to demand data on children not in school—an area that I really care about—as well as potentially on others. In particular, the data demanded of children not in school—we have already heard about the amount of data that is already collected on children in school—is off the scale. We are told that this is for safeguarding, but safeguarding has a very specific meaning in law. It is not a licence for limitless information gathering; it is a duty to act when a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
Clause 31, for instance, invites local authorities to gather information far beyond what is necessary. Names, addresses and dates of birth are sufficient to identify a child and discharge oversight duties. However, the Bill’s wording allows for much more, including details of parental and children’s beliefs, educational philosophy, supplementary providers and even protected characteristics. This, to me, is mission creep, not proportionate oversight. As the department has itself acknowledged in past consultations, the bare minimum of data suffices to track children and ensure that no one falls through the net. To demand more because it might be helpful is not lawful data processing. Data protection law is clear: collection must be limited to what is necessary for the purpose. Helpful is not enough.
The risks of excessive data collection are not theoretical. Families have already seen sensitive information stored indefinitely, cross-referenced with other records and sometimes shared with agencies in ways that they did not consent to or even know about. One military family with whom I have interacted recounted how their local authority repeatedly contacted the father’s workplace about his children, despite clear instructions not to do so. Another home-educating mother described how, after deregistering a child with special needs, she was followed in public after being wrongly referred to social services. These are not safeguards; they are intrusions to undermine trust.
We must also remember that not all parents in the system are confident or well resourced. Some are vulnerable, fleeing domestic abuse or suffering with SEND bureaucracy. For them, intrusive data demands feel less like protection and more like surveillance. If the state is perceived as hostile, families may retreat from engagement altogether, making genuine safeguarding harder, not easier. That is why my amendment would tie permissible data collection to the Section 31 threshold of “significant harm”, which is already the bedrock of child protection law. It is the line that our courts have drawn between parental primacy and state intervention. Aligning data powers with that line ensures consistency, legality and proportionality.
Proposed new subsection (2) in my amendment would ensure proportionality by limiting data to what was essential for the specific risk identified. If the concern is neglect then collect information relating to neglect; if the concern is radicalisation, focus on that. Do not use safeguarding as a pretext for wide-ranging dossiers on families’ private lives. Proposed new subsection (3) would close off another danger: profiling. We should not be gathering data to build long-term behavioural profiles of children or to monitor families against vague benchmarks of compliance. That is not safeguarding; it is social engineering by stealth. Proposed new subsection (4) would require the Secretary of State to publish clear guidance within six months, so that local authorities, schools and parents know the limits of permissible data collection. That guidance should provide clarity, consistency and accountability.
Some might worry that the amendments would tie the hand of professionals. On the contrary, they would free them to focus on what matters. Instead of drowning in forms and files and data, they could concentrate on children at genuine risk. Excessive data is not neutral; it diverts time, money and attention from where it is most needed.
International law supports this approach. In MM v the UK in 2012 the European Court of Human Rights held that the retention of excessive personal data without clear necessity breached Article 8, while in Ali v the UK in 2015 the court stressed that decisions must be informed by accurate, relevant and proportionate information. We cannot claim compliance with Article 8 if we allow the indefinite harvesting of families’ and children’s private details “just in case”.
The amendment is not only for home educators, though their experience has highlighted this problem in the Bill. It would protect every family in the education system. It would ensure that schools are not turned into data collection points for the state and that local authorities are not saddled with the impossible burden of storing, processing and protecting sensitive information that they do not always need. Above all, it would protect children from being profiled, stigmatised, or surveyed in ways that bear no relation to genuine safeguarding.
In passing the Bill, we must not create a database state by accident. We must legislate with care, remembering that data is not neutral—it is power. It is the new oil, in fact. Used well, it can protect; used badly, it can harm. Amendment 502YQ would ensure that that power was exercised with clear limits, tied to the statutory threshold of significant harm. That is fair, proportionate and faithful to the principles of our child protection law. I commend it to the House.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, Covid was certainly the rocket fuel for the growth of educational technology in our schools, which is now accepted as part of the school learning landscape. The UK’s education tech sector is the largest in Europe, spending, as we already heard, an estimated £900 million a year. However, there are real concerns that these amendments seek to address, which is why we will be supporting Amendments 493, 494, 502K, 502YH and 502YI.
The edtech sector is exempt from the Online Safety Act, and adherence to GDPR is inconsistent, to say the least. Large multiuse platforms such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams can enhance teaching and school management, but the absence of clear statutory standards leaves children’s education and school cybersecurity often at risk. We surely need a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights, protect the data and prevent the commercial exploitation of children. We sleepwalked into the development of social media. Now that we see the harm that has been caused, we rush to try to do something about it. There is a strong case for developing a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights and support schools in making informed and sustainable choices.
I want to respond to what I thought was a very thoughtful contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. It made me think that six years ago I had a Private Member’s Bill on essay mills and contract cheating. That is now all for naught, because there are other ways of cheating, and AI helps that considerably.
I had an intern who one day said to me, “Lord Storey, here’s a speech for you”. I said, “Ooh, let me have a look”. I read the speech and thought, “Wow, this is great. I’ll use this”. He told me that it was AI generated. “Really?”, I said. I wondered whether in five or 10 years your Lordships’ House might be a very different place for speeches. Might we all succumb to using not our own thoughts and experiences but AI to generate speeches? Would anybody know in five or 10 years’ time, when the technology will be absolutely spot on?
I want to deal briefly with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Amendment 502YU concerns reception baseline assessments. The Minister will recall that I raised this in an Oral Question. There is something a little perverse about the youngest children—five year-olds—doing their assessments on a screen. I have a degree of sympathy for the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I hope the Minister can shed some light on it.
Regarding the other two amendments, I know that SEND exceptions are mentioned, but as my noble friend Lord Addington said in his hugely important contribution, it is not either/or. We have to think through these amendments carefully, as there are other issues, not just special educational needs, that we need to be aware of. We do not want to agree something that creates problems for the future.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this is yet another important group of amendments, which seeks to bring, frankly, some common-sense principles to the use of edtech, children’s data and screens. Amendments 493 and 494, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, seek to introduce what would in effect be quality standards for the use of edtech in schools. There are existing standards and guidance for schools in relation to hardware and data, but I was unable to find any specifically in relation to edtech, so it feels as though my noble friend has identified a real gap.
Similarly, Amendment 502K, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would introduce a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech. I suggest that, in all these amendments, we need to be very clear that any standards or principles focus not just on some of the data and related safety issues that we have talked about; we must make sure that they are absolutely based on the latest research in cognitive science and the best understanding of pedagogy, so that they deliver learning. We need them to be safe—that is necessary but not sufficient—and effective.
Last year, a thorough report by the Education Select Committee on the impacts of screen time on educational well-being found that the proliferation of edtech platforms made their overall benefit hard to quantify. It pointed out that only 7% of edtech providers had conducted randomised controlled trials on their products. The report noted that there are more than half a million apps claiming to be educational but, as yet, no quality standards for assessing educational content. The report judged as poor the evidence base for assessing which, if any, of these apps are most effective.
Amendment 493 includes a requirement for transparency in relation to the use of training data, AI and third-party use of data. It shares the spirit of Amendment 502YI, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which would introduce a code of practice in relation to the processing of data in connection with the provision of education to children—an area where the introduction of AI could expand how children’s data is shared and used. Understanding how our children’s data is used is extremely important, as we have heard from noble Lords across the Committee, but it is important that we can use it. One of the biggest data sources that could move the needle on, for example, AI marking systems for formative assessment, is held in our national exam scripts. We need to be very intentional about the areas that we focus on.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We have had a good debate on this group, which concerns education technology and device-based assessment. I thank noble Lords for raising the important issues of digital and technology standards for schools, particularly around inclusion, procurement and use of effective education technology in schools. I strongly agree with noble Lords that technology must be safe for children to use and effective to support learning, teaching and the work of teachers—who remain central and fundamental to children’s learning. I am sure that there are important lessons and developments about pedagogy that it is crucial to engage with, given the context of edtech.
Amendment 493 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and Amendments 502K, 502YI and 502YH, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, seek to regulate educational technology deployed in schools in England. We share many of the objectives set out by noble Lords to ensure quality and safety. This is a very fast-moving area and we are in the process of developing standards and ways to ensure the accountability and the certainty that those standards are being delivered. The Department for Education has set non-statutory digital and technology standards for schools. These help schools and colleges make more informed decisions about technology, supporting safer, more cost-efficient practices and new learning opportunities for students. Earlier this year, the department consulted on the future of these standards and in July published a government response to the consultation confirming our ambition for all schools to meet the standards by 2030.
The proposals set out in our response to the consultation explore accountability options for technology standards, considering appropriate accountability levels and reviewing standards where they may be cost prohibitive. More broadly, we recognise the importance of supporting schools to choose effective technology that is safe for pupils to use and meets educational need. This is why we set out in the response that we will continue to support schools and colleges with technology standards with a support service to plan their technology.
I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that, while it is important to develop a series of standards in this area and to revise them, that does not make life easy for schools. The intention behind the support service to plan their technology is that it will act as a self-assessment guide, so that schools can be much clearer about what they need to do and how to meet the standards. This will be supported by a multi-million pound investment in schools’ digital and connectivity infrastructure.
I have a specific point on Amendment 493. We think this would create significant legal and operational barriers for schools in England, as it is more restrictive than the current data protection framework, including the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We think that requiring schools to hold all data on site would be a retrograde step that would not support greater security, which I think is the intention. It would have significant financial and environmental impacts for schools.
Amendment 494, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seeks to create a new procurement standard for education technology for schools in England. This is a significant development aimed at ensuring that schools adopt consistent, secure and value-driven approaches when procuring digital tools and services. Our digital and technology standards already include specific requirements which ensure compliance with safeguarding obligations. We also support schools to choose effective technology that meets their needs and safeguarding obligations, through the service plan technology for schools, which I have just spoken about.
Amendment 502YH, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, seeks to establish a duty on the Secretary of State to set out the minimum standards for filtering and monitoring technologies and certification by an accredited scheme sanctioned by the Department for Education. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her previous engagement with me on this topic. I know that my officials are keen to continue their regular conversations with the noble Baroness and to continue working closely with her on this agenda in order to make progress.
The statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, makes it clear that schools and colleges should ensure that appropriate filtering and monitoring systems are in place and that their effectiveness is regularly reviewed. In addition, the department’s digital and technology standards include a filtering and monitoring standard with technical requirements that filtering and monitoring systems should meet, which is to support schools to meet the statutory duties expected of them in keeping children safe in education.
Technology is moving fast, and ensuring that systems keep pace is a challenge that we recognise. In January, we published our Generative AI: Product Safety Expectations framework, which states that generative AI products must effectively and reliably prevent access to harmful and inappropriate content by users and maintain robust activity-logging procedures.
However, I share the noble Baroness’s concerns and those of other noble Lords. We know that a minority of providers do not meet the department’s standards, and we are actively working on options to increase provider compliance and reduce the burden on schools themselves to identify systems that meet the standards. There are several ways that we might achieve this, such as by establishing a certification scheme for filtering and monitoring products under the UK Accreditation Service framework. We will take the time to do a full assessment of the impacts and benefits of any new requirements to avoid the risk of creating burdens on the sector and limiting supplier diversity.
We must also make sure that we are supporting schools to meet the standards. We consulted schools in March to understand the challenges they face in meeting the filtering and monitoring standards, and while 98% of respondents stated that they were fully or partially meeting the standards, we continue to work through identified barriers to understand priorities for further support.
I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness about the depth of knowledge necessary to make that assertion and the shift of requirement from schools being expected to make that judgment through to a much clearer certification scheme, putting the emphasis on the certification of the product, as opposed to the requirement for schools to ensure that they are meeting the standards.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
I just want to raise the question of timing. The Government, as the Minister says, are putting a huge amount of money into digital infrastructure and, as later amendments that she will turn to say, putting assessment online and so on. I am trying to understand why it takes decades to get the rules in place, and why we have not yet learned that we need to put them in place as we put the infra- structure in.
I will read the debate very carefully, and I respect the generous way in which the Minister answered, but I sit here as someone who has been fighting for nearly a decade for something that is still being promised some time before 2030. I am finding it very difficult to put that together with the idea that we are now making a huge investment in edtech, that this is going to be central to children’s lives and that the Government will be responsible for the outcomes. Many noble Lords across the House have said that we want edtech and learning, and to be part of this movement, but look at what is happening around the edges. It is being treated like a commercial market, not a pedagogical outcome, a safety outcome or, indeed, an inclusive one, as the noble Lord was referring to.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I hope that the noble Baroness will carefully read what I said. I was certainly not saying that. In my response, I have gone further in explaining the work that the department is doing to meet many of the concerns that she outlined than we have done previously. I am most certainly not saying that it will be done to the 2030 timetable. I understand her concern around regulation and accountability, and I have given some considerable steers, at the very least, about the direction in which that work is going—it is not to a 2030 timetable. Turning to—
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
Before the Minister moves on, I have a follow-up question. It is very encouraging to hear the work that seems to be ongoing in the ICO. What is the Minister’s view on why it would not be appropriate to put the requirement for a code of conduct on the statute book for education in the same way that it is in the Age Appropriate Design code for all other children’s data? Just to be clear, I value the fact that the Minister has been so open about the ongoing work, but those of us who have worked in this space for so long worry that things can change and that, without legal underpinning, codes can then disappear.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I understand that concern. Perhaps we can first make progress on the code, as I have outlined we are. I will write to the noble Baroness about this. I understand that this place is about putting things into legislation, but that does not mean that activity is not happening. The proof of the pudding may well be in the production of the code.
Baroness Barran (Con)
When the Minister sends that letter, will she kindly clarify both the data protection and the child safety angles that she talked about, for which the Information Commissioner’s Office would have responsibility? Will she also explain how the pedagogical elements will be included, to make sure that these are both safe and effective from a learning point of view?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, I will do that.
Amendment 502YS, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to confer a right for parents to elect for their child to receive, complete and submit homework tasks otherwise than by means of a computer or a personal electronic device. The noble Baroness made important points about the totality of the way in which children might be expected to do their homework and the challenges for those children who might not have access to technology to do that.
I would be surprised if there were schools that were expecting children to do all their homework using devices. Nevertheless, it is still important to maintain the principle—rightly set down by the previous Government, particularly by Damian Hinds as Secretary of State—that decisions over the volume and form of homework are made by schools themselves, working in collaboration with staff, pupils, parents and governors. I am not sure that it would be appropriate for the department to limit the autonomy of schools to set their own policies on homework. But it is right that schools should consider providing alternative options for pupils to complete homework where device access is limited. They should consider the implications for handwriting and for the other ways of learning and completing work, which the noble Baroness was right to identify.
We understand the concerns around the potential harms of unmonitored and unlimited personal screen use, but it is helpful in this debate to consider the distinction between personal and educational screen time—they should not necessarily be conflated. It is a question not of screen use per se but of what children and young people are using the screens for and what activities that supports and—importantly, I agree—replaces.
Effective use of technology can improve education access and outcomes and reduce staff workload. We trust teachers and leaders to use these tools appropriately, which includes their use to complete homework. Beyond that, as we have discussed previously, it is also important to recognise that assistive technology can go a long way to supporting children with particular needs—a point frequently and rightly made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.
I turn now to Amendments 502YT and 502YU tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Amendment 502YT seeks to ensure that secondary education exams are completed by hand rather than with a digital device, subject to specific exceptions. We are currently working closely with Ofqual to review evidence and develop policy on any potential future use of on-screen exams. There are already a small number of exams that are offered digitally—for example, A-level music technology; British Sign Language GCSE, which would be impossible to do unless it was done digitally; and some functional skills exams, which by nature of the point at which they are taken need to be done digitally—but Ofqual’s chief regulator has said publicly that any further introduction of on-screen exams should be treated with “extreme caution” and must be fair, proportionate and manageable. We agree with that.
However, it would not be appropriate to fix a policy position into legislation before the opportunities, risks and implications of on-screen exams have been fully considered in detail. Ofqual is responsible for regulating qualifications and examinations, and we expect that any changes to Ofqual’s regulatory framework would be subject to full public consultation in due course.
Amendment 502YU seeks to ensure that the reception baseline assessment is not administered using digital devices, subject to specific exceptions. It might be helpful for me to explain to noble Lords how this assessment works in reality. I think there is a general consensus that it is important for us to be able to assess the development of children at the beginning of their time in school. That is the point of the reception baseline assessment.
It is carried out with pupils individually. It takes between 15 and 20 minutes. Roughly half of it is carried out with a teacher sitting next to a single pupil, using the screen in a way that paper would not allow them to do—for example, to point at things and move them into different orders. The overall assessment retains the use of verbal responses. It retains the use of toys for questions in the other half of the assessment, which does not use a screen.
It brings benefits, including reduced workload for teachers and better support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities using, for example, the assessment’s built-in accessibility settings. In relation to one of the points made by the noble Baroness, there is no expectation that a pupil has experience of screen use. The teacher can input the answers for the pupil if need be, because it is, in essence, a person-to-person assessment being carried out.
The new version, which was introduced in September 2025, had been trialled extensively with pupils and schools since 2018 and has been well received. A paper- based version continues to be available in circumstances where that is more suitable for the child. I hope that provides some reassurance to noble Lords. As the noble Lord said, I have responded to questions about this on more than one occasion. If we were to withdraw at this point something that has been trialled over a considerable period, with the trial having started under the previous Government, it would be difficult if not unfeasible to deliver a replacement in time to carry out this really important baseline assessment.
For all those reasons, I hope that I have provided some reassurance about the nature and development of this assessment. There are much broader conversations that it is obviously appropriate for us to have about the use of screens in early years settings and in schools, some of which we have had in earlier amendments and which I am sure we will continue to have, but I genuinely believe that, for this particular usage, removing it would be disproportionate, even given the concerns that noble Lords have expressed.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I thank all those who participated in this important debate. Edtech has such profound possibilities for all learners, be they in school, home learning environments or any environment where education is taking place. In that, it is obviously crucial to be cognisant of the risks attendant.
As I said earlier, if we take a principles-based, outcomes-focused, inputs-understood approach and we human-lead on these technologies, we can feel confident that we are putting technologies in place in education that will enable and empower children and young people but also teachers and the whole school, home learning and education environments. This matter could barely be more up to the minute, with technologies already deployed widely across all learning environments. For this reason, and with the great good fortune of this Bill now being in your Lordships’ House, we will certainly return to these matters on Report. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Norton of Louth
“Review of the Act(1) The Secretary of State must—(a) carry out a review of the operation and effect of this Act,(b) set out the conclusions of the review in a report,(c) publish the report, and(d) lay a copy of the report before Parliament.(2) The report must be published before the end of the period of five years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.(3) The report must, in particular—(a) assess the extent to which the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act have been achieved, and(b) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved more effectively in any other way.(4) In carrying out the review, the Secretary of State must publish an invitation for interested parties to make submissions on the operation of the Act.”
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, on my count, almost 20 amendments have been tabled to the Bill requiring the Secretary of State within six or 12 months of the Act being passed to promulgate some regulations or undertake a review of a particular provision of the Act. My amendment is more comprehensive and adopts a longer timeframe. It would require the Secretary of State within five years of the passage of the Act to undertake a review of its operation and effect. The wording is the same as that of an amendment I tabled to the Employment Rights Bill and has the same justification.
Post-legislative scrutiny is essential for ensuring that the law we enact meets the various criteria of good law. We cannot know that it does without undertaking a thorough review and, in effect, completing a legislative feedback loop. There is no point in enacting legislation that then fails to deliver what it is intended to deliver and for us to proceed, in essence, in ignorance of its effects.
The case for post-legislative review has been accepted by government since 2008, with a commitment to reviewing most Acts three to five years after enactment. Ministers have variously reiterated that commitment. However, not all departments are rigorous in complying with it. The Government have also introduced a get-out clause saying that there may not be a review if, following correspondence with the chair of the relevant departmental Select Committee, it is agreed that a review may not be necessary. As I pointed out when the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, reported this, it is not clear how a chair will know that a review is not necessary without undertaking some initial review. It is also not clear why this House is excluded from the process.
As I argued on the Employment Rights Bill, there is a case for putting on the face of a measure provision for post-legislative scrutiny where
“the Bill is large, is complex, makes substantial changes to the law, is contested and has not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny”.—[Official Report, 24/6/25; col. 223.]
This Bill is clearly substantial, both in length and content, and it makes a major change to educational law in this country—it has been characterised by my noble friend Lord Lucas as striking
“at the heart of the relationship between parents and the Government”.—[Official Report, 20/5/25; col. 173.]
It has clearly engendered strong opinions; we have had extensive debate, with 12 days in Committee, as to its likely effects. It has also been introduced without pre-legislative scrutiny.
Making provision in the Bill for post-legislative scrutiny would enable all the claims made as to the effects of the Bill to be tested. Including such a provision would also help reassure critics of the Bill that there will be such a review. That may help the process of getting the Bill through.
The Minister may say that the amendment is unnecessary given that the Bill will qualify automatically for review three to five years after enactment. Making a clear commitment at the Dispatch Box, putting on the official record that the Bill will be subject to post-legislative review, is obviously valuable; we got such a commitment on the Employment Rights Bill. However, as I pointed out in debate on that Bill, the wording of my amendment derives from the Government’s own amendment to the then Football Governance Bill. The Government, to their credit, accepted the argument for putting provision for post-legislative scrutiny in that Bill and brought forward their own amendment. The grounds for doing so apply in the case of this Bill.
As I say, it would be welcome to have a commitment at the Dispatch Box that there will be post-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, but it will be even better to enshrine it in the Bill. Putting it in the Bill will demonstrate that the Government are confident that they will deliver on what it is intended to deliver. If the Minister resists the amendment, it will be helpful to hear from her how she distinguishes this Bill from the Football Governance Bill in terms of the merits of putting post-legislative scrutiny in the Bill. Does she or does she not accept that good law is a public good? I beg to move.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 502YN and 502YR, which stand in my name. These amendments are bound by a common theme: that the powers we create in this Bill must be effective, proportionate and accountable, not only in ordinary times but in moments of crisis, when authoritarian temptations grow stronger.
Amendment 502YN would establish an annual review of all measures introduced by the Bill. Each year, the Secretary of State would be required to test whether those measures are achieving their stated purpose, and whether they are doing so without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on parents, children, schools, providers, local authorities or the department itself. Where a measure fails, it should be amended or repealed. If no action is taken, within two years it must lapse. This is about accountability cutting both ways. Families, schools and community groups—huge numbers of stakeholders—are being asked in this Bill to account for children’s education. It is only fair that the Government should account for the laws they pass.
We have been warned many times in these debates about the dangers of excessive bureaucracy and mission creep. Clause 31, the proposed register of children not in school, illustrates this risk. In principle, such a register may help identify who is being educated outside mainstream settings. In practice, the Bill demands far more data than is needed. In Portsmouth, more than 70% of home-educated children have already been served notices or orders annually, compared with a national average closer to 1%. That is not proportional oversight; it is overreach.
The effects ripple outward. Children suffer when teachers, social workers and SEND staff are forced to spend more time filling in forms than supporting them, and parents are treated with suspicion, not because of evidence of harm but because they made a lawful choice to educate differently. Schools themselves may be dragged down by compliance checks that drain morale and resources. Providers and tutors may be chilled by one size fits all rules designed for large institutions but applied indiscriminately. Community groups and charities—often the lifeline for struggling families and children—will find scarce volunteer time consumed by licensing and paperwork.
We have seen where such unchecked bureaucracy leads. The contact point database was launched with the best of intentions to safeguard children. It collapsed under its own weight: disproportionate, unworkable and ultimately abandoned. Scotland’s named person scheme likewise promised protection but in practice extended excessive authority and intrusive data collection before being struck down. These are cautionary tales of what happens when there is no obligation to review and no sunset clause to cut away what does not work.
Yet the risks are not only of inefficiency; there is something deeper. Bureaucracy when excessive is not neutral. It becomes a means of control. It erodes freedom, not by open coercion but by endless demands that exhaust and intimidate until families, schools and communities yield.
That is why Amendment 502YR is so important: it recognises that powers created in good faith can one day be misused. It would require that, within six months of Royal Assent, the Secretary of State ensures that a mechanism is ready so that, in any national emergency or period of authoritarian governance, the courts, not Ministers, retain the final authority to uphold the primacy of parental rights in their children’s education.
We cannot ignore the geopolitical context. Across Europe and beyond, we see the rise of extremes on both left and right. Authoritarian Governments rarely declare themselves at the outset; they grow by increments, often beginning with education. They use registers and guidance powers, not to support families but to control them. They impose ideological curricula, marginalise communities of faith and stifle innovation and dissent in the classroom. Disturbingly, elements of this Bill draw inspiration, whether knowingly or not, from an unlikely and troubling source. The original departmental human rights justification cited to justify state intervention in home education here arose from a case in Germany where a home-educating parent was prosecuted under laws dating back to the 1930s. These laws, introduced under Hitler’s regime, continue today to ban home education outright in Germany. It is sobering that our own debates now echo arguments first made to defend a system designed not to protect children but to eliminate educational pluralism—one that our own national wartime Government in the 1940s sought to fight by giving parents the ultimate say over their children’s education.
We must not follow that path. We must not allow powers framed as safeguards to evolve into machinery that stifles freedom. This is not to deny the state its proper role in protecting children. Safeguarding is vital, but safeguarding fails when systems chase compliance instead of risk: when form filling replaces human judgment, when bureaucracy itself becomes the end rather than the means. In such a climate, children most in need are overlooked while families acting responsibly, and schools, are burdened and alienated.
The two amendments before us are modest disciplines against such outcomes. The first creates a feedback loop: Parliament learns from the real-world impact of its laws and corrects course where necessary. The second ensures that, when times grow dark, there is a constitutional anchor, that courts can guard against authoritarian misuse, ensuring that parental primacy in education is never extinguished by bureaucratic or dictatorial creep.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, if my Amendment 505C appears something of an outlier, it is only because it is. It would have been more appropriate for it to have been introduced in Part 1 of the Bill, but I have to be honest and say that, at the time, I was unaware of it as an issue. Being even more honest, I have to say that, had I been following the progress of the Mental Health Bill, I might well have been. I acknowledge the assistance of the clerks in the Public Bill Office for finding me a peg on which to hang this, and also the assistance of JUSTICE, the law reform charity, for briefings and context.
Whatever the view of noble Lords on the contracting out of vital public services, I am confident enough to say that nobody on any side of your Lordships’ House wants people to be treated less decently and with fewer human rights because a service is being provided by an outside contractor rather than directly. The Human Rights Act is an essential tool for individuals to hold public bodies to account. It requires public authorities to act in compatibility with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, and this definition of a public authority has been narrowly interpreted by the courts. In a 2008 case, it was found that a private care home was not a public authority, despite the plaintiff’s placement being funded entirely by that local authority.
The years since then have of course seen a large expansion of core government services contracted out to the private sector, leading to an accountability gap in our human rights legislation. In the care sector, more than 80% of children’s homes are now run by private companies. That is an increase of 20% since 2010, and the figure continues to rise.
In 2014, an attempt was made to fill that accountability gap for care provision with the Care Act of that year. The then coalition Government made it clear that
“it wishes all providers of publicly arranged care services to consider themselves bound by the Human Rights Act, including private providers under contracts with local authorities”.
But a 2024 case demonstrated that this was not sufficient. A man with chronic and treatment-resistant schizophrenia, whose care and treatment had been funded by a combination of Manchester City Council and an NHS trust, sadly died. His family brought a claim against the private nursing home provider and the trust, arguing that his death had resulted from the private provider’s breaches of the Human Rights Act. However, the High Court struck out the human rights aspect of the claim, ruling that the man’s circumstances fell outside the scope of the provisions of Section 73 of the Care Act 2014.
That ruling highlights significant wider concerns for commissioned children’s health and social care services—although they are not covered by Section 73 of the Care Act because, as things stand, a private provider does not have human rights obligations to children in their publicly funded care. This is particularly important given the scale of outsourcing in the children’s social care market. Some 90% of children’s social care services shut down by Ofsted for not meeting standards to protect children, or where there was evidence of harm, are operated by private organisations.
Since four out of five children’s homes are operated by for-profit companies, there are reasons to be concerned about how well children’s human rights are protected in that social care sector. Children’s care settings provide services to some of the most vulnerable children in our society, and the Children’s Commissioner said in highlighting this last year:
“Children in care have the most prescribed rights in law, and yet these rights are often the least reflected in their experience. … We cannot meet children’s rights unless our public services are of sufficient quality to provide what children need”.
In January, when the Bill had its Second Reading in another place, the Minister of State said that the Bill would
“stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in our services”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/25; col. 953.]
The Human Rights Act is a crucial safeguard for individuals up and down this country on a day-to-day basis, especially for those with vulnerabilities who rely on the state. As the Care Quality Commission set out in 2023, a focus on human rights
“ensures people receive good care and helps us fulfil our duties and purpose by meeting our legal obligations”.
However, people do fall through the cracks, and not just young people. The uncertainty in the law means that private providers may have no direct statutory obligation to act compatibly with children’s ECHR rights and that children—and, by definition, their families—may have no direct remedy against private providers for human rights violations. The Bill is an important opportunity to extend human rights protections to all those in commissioned children’s care, irrespective of who the provider is.
It is not sufficient to say that it may be possible for a claim to be brought against a local authority. Why should parents be required to do that? The Joint Committee on Human Rights dealt with this during the passage of the Care Act 2014, making it clear that:
“The inadequacy of such indirect protection has long been a matter of consensus in debates and reports about this issue”.
It has also been a cross-party position for many years that those in publicly funded care deserve full human rights protections and that providers must be directly accountable for breaching human rights, as was demonstrated by the cross-party support for changing the law through the Mental Health Bill earlier this year. During Report of that Bill in your Lordships’ House, when my noble friend Lady Keeley proposed an amendment on adult mental health care and treatment, the Minister—my noble friend Lady Blake—said that the Government were
“particularly conscious of the references to children’s services”,
and that it was
“an issue that we have, of course, been discussing with the DfE”.—[Official Report, 2/4/25; col. 337.]
My noble friend pledged to take the matter forward, and she did so very effectively, because it resulted in what is now Clause 52 of that Bill, which amends the Human Rights Act 1998 and states,
“A registered care provider is to be regarded for the purposes of section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998 as exercising a function of a public nature in providing any of the services mentioned in subsection (2) (to the extent that it would not otherwise be so regarded)”.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is, as I said, an important opportunity to ensure that all private providers of children’s services commissioned by local authorities, whether in social care, education or disability-related services, are treated as public authorities under the Human Rights Act. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will signify that the Government intend to follow the lead of her Ministerial colleagues on the Mental Health Bill when this Bill reaches Report. If she is unwilling or unable to do so, I hope that she will arrange for the statement called for in Amendment 505C to be published.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments would introduce a number of reviews of the Bill. Those in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei also seek to limit the new powers in the Bill in relation to elective home-educated children.
Amendment 502C from my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth would introduce a review of the Act after five years, and my noble friend made an extremely articulate and clear case for this. I think my noble friend said that there were already over 20 examples of amendments seeking reviews of different parts of the Bill. Although concerns about Part 2—which we have debated more recently—are certainly uppermost in my mind, those of us with long memories will remember some of the concerns about the pace of and evidence base for the reforms to children’s social care in Part 1.
My noble friend set out some criteria for post-legislative scrutiny: it should be a substantial Bill—I think that, on day 12, we can agree this is a substantial Bill; it should introduce major changes; it has unquestionably been controversial; and it did not have pre-legislative scrutiny. I thought almost the strongest point is that this would allow the Government to demonstrate their confidence that the Bill will deliver on the changes that the Government seek and the impact that the Government desire, so I hope very much that the noble Baroness will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment.
Amendment 505C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, again very ably presented, highlights concerns about the responsibilities of private providers of children’s social care in relation to children’s human rights. Again, it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s response to this. For my part, I suppose I would prefer the Government’s focus to be on the quality of care that children receive when they are in local authority care, in a children’s home or, potentially, in foster care, as in this case. They already have considerable rights enshrined in legislation, as the noble Lord said; what we need is for the culture in those organisations to make sure that children receive the care that they so very rightly deserve.
Lord Addington (LD)
Just before the Minister replies, I shall very briefly say that the principle of reviewing legislation is one that I think we have all agreed to and no Government have ever found terribly convenient. I hope that we can get something going and some commitment by the Government that they will look at what happens here, or some structure for reviewing what happens, because the unforeseen is something which no degree of planning now can ever adjust.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The amendments in this group cover a wide range of issues, including review of the Act, disapplication and commencement.
I will begin with Amendment 502YR tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which seeks to protect a parent’s right to determine their child’s education in the event of a national emergency or an authoritarian Government, by placing judicial oversight above executive restrictions. This amendment would actually be ineffective as, quite rightly, Parliament is sovereign. Any law passed by a current Parliament can be changed or repealed by a future Parliament. Provided the education a child receives is both safe and suitable, existing legislation makes clear that most parents have the right to determine the form of education that best meets their child’s needs. We have of course discussed this at length in Committee and the Bill does not change it.
Turning to Amendment 502C, on reviewing the Act, I start by commending the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to post-legislative scrutiny, which, as he identified, has been government policy since 2008 and part of the process for legislative progress through this House. I remember the discussions around putting it into that position in my last period of time in Parliament. I supported it then; I still support it now. In the interim period between 2010 and 2024, among the range of things that I was able to do, I was very pleased to be able to advise foreign Parliaments about the significance of post-legislative scrutiny, drawing on precisely the work of the noble Lord and the experiences of this Parliament in putting those into operation.
Alongside that amendment, we have Amendment 502YN, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which concerns a review of the operation of the Bill’s measures. This Government agree on the importance of having an appropriate mechanism for the proper evaluation of the impact of legislation, ensuring that it meets the goals that it sets out to deliver, especially given the size and wide-ranging ambitions of this Bill in particular. I assure noble Lords that the Bill will be subject to post-legislative scrutiny in the usual way without this amendment. We fully expect that this evaluation will be carried out within the first five years of the legislation coming into force.
Lord Wei (Con)
I thank the Minister. On my understanding, having spoken to those who know about the workings of the Regulatory Policy Committee, which the Minister said greenlit the Bill, in the last few years it has not been allowed to ask for submissions, on receiving a draft Bill, to scrutinise whether that Bill fits within the kind of good regulatory framework that we all would like to see. So the information that it had to greenlight this Bill was very limited indeed. If you cannot ask people what they think of the Bill, obviously any information you have is very limited and you can only go on what you have been given, which is further ammunition for the point that the Bill needs a lot of scrutiny, because it did not really have any before it was brought before this House.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The Regulatory Policy Committee had the benefit of our published regulatory impact assessment to review. Wider comments about the efficacy of the Regulatory Policy Committee are for the noble Lord to make to the Regulatory Policy Committee, rather than using it as a stick to beat this particular Bill. Frankly, as we are coming to the end—nearly—of day 12 of Committee on this Bill, the idea that it has not had sufficient scrutiny is laughable, given the time and care that was also spent in the other place, which has been massively exceeded by the time and care that has been spent by noble Lords in this House during the course of this Committee.
Lord Wei (Con)
Just to clarify, the words I used were, “before it was brought before this House”. The reason it has had so many days of scrutiny is because it was not drafted in a way that was appropriate. We have spent so much time on it. We cannot believe how many nights and days we have all had to work on this. If we could have Bills in future that had a bit more effort put into their drafting by policymakers and others, we could use the time of this House really well. I am not in any way criticising or saying that the work of this House is wasted. In fact, it has been very necessary to get us to where we are today.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that noble Lords have spent considerable hours on this—some more than others, I think it is fair to say.
Amendment 505C, tabled by my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie, seeks assurances, via a published statement, on how the Human Rights Act 1998 applies to private providers of publicly funded children’s social care services. The amendment seeks a pause in the commencement of Clauses 12 to 18 of the Bill until such a statement is made. These clauses cover measures relating to provider and financial oversight, profit caps, Ofsted and Secretary of State powers to impose monetary penalties, and information sharing between Ofsted and the Secretary of State.
I thank my noble friend for bringing important human rights considerations to our attention. Protecting the human rights of all children is of paramount importance, and the Bill is delivering a number of important measures to stop vulnerable children falling through cracks in services. I completely understand the reasoning behind my noble friend’s amendment and would like to provide the Committee with reassurances on the robustness and broad applicability of the human rights legal framework, including for children’s social care services.
Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 makes it unlawful for public authorities to act incompatibly with the European Convention on Human Rights, and this duty extends to private providers when they are performing functions of a public nature. There is no statutory definition of “functions of a public nature”, but relevant factors considered by the courts include the extent to which the body, in carrying out the relevant function, is publicly funded, exercising statutory powers, taking the place of central government or local authorities, or providing a public service. This broad-scope approach is intentional to ensure that a wide range of services can be captured, as appropriate.
Any statement that the Government make, as proposed by my noble friend, would not be legally binding. Whether a provider is carrying out functions of a public nature and is therefore in scope of the Human Rights Act is for the courts to determine, based on the facts in each specific case. However, to be clear, the Government’s position is that, were a court required to decide whether the private provision of core children’s social care services—services that local authorities are legally required to provide—falls in scope of the Human Rights Act 1998, we believe that the court would conclude that they were indeed performing a function of a public nature and would therefore be in scope.
My noble friend has identified the distinction between the approach taken here and that taken in the Mental Health Bill. As he said, the DHSC is making it explicit in that Bill that certain mental health services are deemed to be exercising a public function for the purposes of the Human Rights Act, but those amendments are being made following case law that identified a gap in the application of the HRA to the private provision of the services in question—some of which my noble friend referenced, I think.
No such gap has been identified through case law in relation to private provision of children’s social care services. Therefore, our view is that no clarification of the law is necessary for these services and, as I have emphasised, we continue to be of the view that the private provision of core children’s social care services would be considered to be within scope of the Human Rights Act. I suspect that, in pushing me, my noble friend might say, “Why don’t we take a belt-and-braces approach here, anyway?” The issue is that attempting to provide further specificity around certain services risks other services being unintentionally excluded by virtue of their omission. This is the way, as I understand it, that lawyers tend to work.
I emphasise again that we are content that the Human Rights Act as drafted is flexible enough to capture those functions that need to be within scope of the Human Rights Act 1998. We believe that would be upheld in any case with respect to children’s social care services. It is also important to remember that children’s social care is a highly regulated sector, subject to inspection and accountability processes aimed at keeping children safe and promoting their best interests. The local authority arranging or funding the relevant service would also always be within scope of the Human Rights Act in the exercise of its functions as a core public authority.
On this basis, I hope my noble friend might be reassured. We do not consider it necessary or appropriate to delay the commencement of other important Bill measures that are designed to ensure children in relevant settings are protected. We are confident in the existing legal framework and hope that we have provided the necessary reassurances and statements here today to reassure him. I hope, given my responses, that noble Lords would feel able to not press their amendments.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that very full response to Amendment 505C. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot say at this stage whether I accept the reassurance. I would like the opportunity to discuss it with her before Report, perhaps with some legal support on those points. She and her team have clearly gone into it deeply, and I appreciate that.
In closing, my noble friend talked about the extent to which this Bill has been subjected to scrutiny in Committee. I have been here 22 years now, and do not remember any Bill having had 12 days in Committee. I checked and we started this Committee on 20 May, fully four months ago, so I do not think anybody can say it has not had proper scrutiny. I would just like to draw an analogy. My noble friend mentioned earlier that she ran a 10K at the weekend, I imagine that must have felt like a walk in the park compared to steering this Bill through. I thank her and her other ministerial colleagues and Whips for the way in which they have approached it.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am more than happy to meet my noble friend and to bring those legal minds with me that I hope will enable him to be reassured. Given that this is the last group that I will be responding to today, I also thank him for what he has said about this Committee stage. It has been lengthy, but usually carried out in a respectful, amicable and constructive way. For that, I particularly thank the opposition Front Benches and, obviously, my excellent Whip and co-responder my noble friend Lady Blake. I agree with my noble friend that I do not think anybody could say that we have not done our jobs as legislators in this place in well and truly giving this a good going over, and I thank all those who have been involved in that.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, given that, as the Minister said, she is just bringing to a conclusion her 12 days in Committee on the Bill, I was rather hoping that she may be a little demob happy and put aside her brief and accept the amendment.
I naturally welcome the commitment that the Bill will be reviewed within five years. For the reasons I developed, I believe that putting the commitment in the Bill is the preferable option. As I trust was clear from what I said, I do not believe putting such a provision in the Bill should apply to all or even most Bills, but only those that meet the criteria I detailed. Providing for such a scrutiny imposes a valuable discipline in drafting the measure, stimulating Ministers to think about the criteria by which one would know whether an Act had actually achieved what it was intended to achieve. That is not always clear. It would also demonstrate the Government’s confidence in the Bill to achieve its purpose.
The arguments for doing this, as I said, are the same as those accepted by the Government on the Football Governance Act. This is an important issue, not least for the health of the statute book. We rather miss the significance of such provisions, along with commencement orders, by sticking them at the end of Bills. I think we need to look at that again, but that is a matter I will pursue on another day. Given the importance of ensuring good law, I may return to the issue on Report, but for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Young of Acton
“Duty to keep schools open for in person attendance(1) So far as reasonably possible, public authorities must ensure that, during the period of any civil emergency, schools are kept open for in person attendance by children and young people.(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision about how public authorities should discharge the duty under subsection (1), including provision specifying—(a) steps that a public authority may or must take to comply with the duty, and(b) actions that a public authority is prohibited from taking.(3) Regulations made under subsection (2) must be made by statutory instrument.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.(5) A power to make regulations under this section includes the power to make—(a) consequential, incidental, supplementary, transitional or saving provision;(b) different provision for different purposes.(6) A public authority must not, in response to a civil emergency, take or facilitate any action (including making regulations, issuing directions, issuing orders, giving guidance, or making recommendations) that—(a) results in, or encourages, the closure of schools, or(b) otherwise prevents or restricts lawful attendance at such institutions or premises by children and young people,unless the requirements of subsection (7) are met.(7) Before taking any action of the kind described in subsection (6), the public authority must first, unless the urgency of the civil emergency precludes this—(a) request the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people who will be affected by the action,(b) provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for the proposed action, and(c) have due regard to the Children’s Commissioner’s advice in determining whether to proceed with the action.(8) If any action of the kind described in subsection (6) is taken prior to seeking the advice of the Children’s Commissioner due to urgency—(a) as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 7 days of taking the action, the public authority must provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for that action;(b) the Children’s Commissioner must then promptly, and in any event within 14 days of the action having been taken, provide the public authority with its advice in relation to the impact of that action on children and young people;(c) the public authority, having due regard to the Commissioner’s advice, shall determine whether the action continues to be justified or whether it should be revoked.(9) If action of the kind described in subsection (6) continues beyond 14 days, and in relation to each such period of 14 days thereafter, the Secretary of State must—(a) lay before Parliament a copy of the Children’s Commissioner’s advice, and (b) seek approval from the House of Commons for the continuation of the action.(10) If the House of Commons does not approve continuation under subsection (9)(b) within 14 days of the advice of the Children’s Commissioner being laid before Parliament under subsection 9(a), the relevant action automatically lapses, and any measures (including regulations, directions, orders, guidance, or recommendations made in support of or continuance of the relevant action) become legally void.(11) Where under any of the above provisions the advice of the Children’s Commissioner is sought, the Children’s Commissioner shall set out in writing his or her advice on the following matters—(a) the foreseeable impacts of any closures of schools on the affected children and young people,(b) any reasonable actions that could be taken to mitigate those impacts,(c) whether the anticipated benefits for those children of the closures identified by the public authority appear to him or her to outweigh the foreseeable impacts of closures for those children, and(d) any other matters which appear to him or her to be relevant.(12) The Children’s Commissioner is entitled to require the public authority or the Secretary of State to provide such further information, assistance, and resources as he or she considers necessary in order to set out his or her advice on a particular action and the public authority or the Secretary of State, as the case may be, shall provide such information, assistance or resources as soon as reasonably practicable.(13) For the purposes of this section—“children” means persons under the age of 18;“civil emergency” shall include any emergency situation which could constitute an emergency for the purposes of section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 or which has otherwise been identified as a risk in the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment. For the avoidance of doubt an emergency need not be the subject of measures taken under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to be a civil emergency for the purposes of this Act.“closure” in relation to schools, means any action to discourage, restrict or prevent in person attendance at those institutions or premises by children and young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend, or any sub-group or class of such children or young people;“open for in person attendance” in relation to schools, means being open for the attendance by all of the children who would ordinarily, and but for the occurrence of a civil emergency, be entitled to attend those institutions or premises, during their normal hours of operation;“open for in person attendance” does not include the provision of online learning or other remote learning services nor the keeping of such institutions or premises open for physical attendance only for a sub-group or class of those children or young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend;“public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998” save that a court or tribunal is not included for these purposes.”Member's explanatory statement
The purpose of the amendment is to enact a statutory duty to keep schools open for in person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves, and continues every two weeks to approve, any closures.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 502M would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves any closures and continues to approve them every two weeks.
We await the conclusions of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, but it is now widely accepted that it was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic. The evidence that it had a catastrophic impact on children is overwhelming. I am thinking of the research published by Ofsted in April 2022, when my noble friend Lady Spielman was at its head, which was based on inspection evidence that highlighted delays in children’s speech and language progress and a negative impact on children’s personal, social and emotional development. I am thinking of research published by the IFS, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Social Mobility Commission detailing the persistent and highly damaging impacts of school closures, exacerbating inequalities and reversing progress previously made to narrow the attainment gap.
I am thinking of the work done by the Centre for Social Justice showing that some children who were told to stay at home during the pandemic never reacquired the habit of attending school, with severe absences—defined as missing at least 50% of lessons—tripling compared to pre-pandemic levels. In the summer term of 2024, 172,938 English schoolchildren were severely absent. Incredibly, the number of persistently absent children—defined as missing at least 10% of lessons—climbed to 1.6 million last summer.
I am thinking of the data accumulated from children and young people now about the deterioration in children’s mental health since the school closures. Some 1.3 million schoolchildren were referred to mental health support services in the school year 2023-24—a 71% increase on the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.
Some will argue that these costs, while undoubtedly high, were outweighed by the benefits in terms of infections averted and lives saved, but children were at negligible risk from Covid-19. According to the ONS, between March 2020 and October 2022 in England and Wales, 88 deaths of children under the age of 18 were registered as being due to Covid-19. That is 0.05% of the total number of Covid deaths in the same period. To put that figure in perspective, between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022, 644 children died from accidents.
In any event, closing schools did not make children less likely to become infected. A study published by the Public Health Agency of Sweden in 2020 found that infection rates were no higher among schoolchildren in Sweden, which closed sixth forms but no other schools, than they were in Finland, which closed all schools.
What about adults? Did closing schools protect them? We are in the realm of counterfactuals here, but if we look at Sweden again, the evidence is that, no, keeping schools open did not mean that more people were at risk of becoming infected and dying from Covid-19. According to the ONS, Sweden’s overall excess mortality between March 2020 and July 2022 was negative —namely, lower than the pre-pandemic average—and far lower than in the UK, where schools were closed. In fact, Sweden’s excess mortality was the lowest of all European countries, except Norway. Incidentally, Norway did close schools, but the Prime Minister at the time apologised for doing so.
The costs of closing schools were almost incalculable and the benefits non-existent. It was a catastrophic error. Nevertheless, this amendment does not rule out ever closing schools again during future public health or civil emergencies. All it does is make it a statutory requirement, before schools are closed, to seek the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people affected by it and to have due regard for the Children’s Commissioner’s advice. It also makes it necessary to secure the approval of Parliament, with such approval needing to be renewed every two weeks if schools are to remain closed.
It was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic and we should take whatever steps we can to avoid making it again. I beg to move.
Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)
My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend in supporting the amendment, which is in his name and mine. I am conscious of the hour, so I shall be brief in endorsing the point that my noble friend made. This is a modest amendment in that it seeks only to place a duty on Ministers to do something that we surely would all wish them to do anyway. It is crucial because it seeks to make the huge error of closing schools during the Covid pandemic far less likely to be repeated.
Many of us thought, at the time, that it was a mistake to engage in protracted school closures and that it would be immensely damaging. The excellent work of UsForThem, run by the splendid Molly Kingsley, helped to highlight the problems that were going to be caused. These harms were always going to be significant, but the evidence since the end of the Covid restrictions, as my noble friend pointed out, suggests that our fears five years ago were actually a gross underestimate of the damage that would be done to children and young people.
The repeated lockdowns and school closures constituted, in my view, the biggest public policy disaster in modern history. The fact that the interests of children and young people were treated so lightly is a disgrace. The damage to mental health, to education and to levels of school attendance have all been, and continue to be, profound. The lessons from Sweden, Florida and those few places around the world that took a more measured and intelligent approach is proof that many of our restrictions delivered little if any benefit while doing immense damage.
This amendment would ensure that, should there be pressure to repeat school closures in a future emergency, the government response would have to be transparent and that the criteria used to decide on school closure and opening would have to be clear and available to the public and to Parliament. It would ensure that Parliament would have a role in making those decisions in a way that Parliament was denied during the Covid period. I urge the Government and the Committee to accept it.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 502P and will give my support to Amendment 502YB, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. If the noble Lord, Lord Young, chooses to put his amendment to a vote later, I will support it; I thought that his introduction to it was very well argued.
I am deeply sympathetic to the Ministers handling this Bill, as schools are being asked to do so many different things. It is the widest brief imaginable—and I am coming up with something else at the end of the day and at the end of the Bill. My amendment is about adaptation and mitigation around flooding and heat risks. Just this summer, we have seen schools having to close because of excess heat. Near where I live in Somerset, the school in Tiverton is now flooding almost every year; the defence is very poor. Looking at all our green and sustainable amendments, my worry is that the Government are not taking seriously enough the issue of how we adapt to the coming weather threats. This amendment is a stitch in time for tomorrow.
Before the summer, I tabled Questions about how much information the department held about the amount of lost learning time due to flooding and heat stress. The document came back saying that, if no adaptation measures were implemented, it was predicted that, in 2050, eight days a year could be lost due to extreme heat levels. That is a lot. It is also quite a long way ahead, and therefore there is every possibility of the can being kicked down the road. That would be unwise, as so much in the climate change world is changing much faster than we anticipated, and things are already happening now.
That document said that, on the basis of the EA analysis, 20% and 34% respectively of primary and secondary school buildings were at high risk, and 37% and 59% of them were at medium risk of surface water flooding right now. So we are in a position where we know some, but not all, the impacts. We are indeed lacking a lot of knowledge about the impacts of heat and what is an okay temperature to expect school kids to learn in and teachers to teach in.
My amendment would require the Government to produce a “safe and resilient schools” plan that lays out how existing school buildings will be consistent with net-zero emissions and become resistant not just to climate change but to the flooding and overheating that are the by-products of climate change, which is obviously why we are pursuing net zero. Importantly, it would change existing government guidance, introduced by the previous Government to apply to new school buildings, so that they should be designed for a 2 degree rise—we are already at nearly 1.5 degrees—and future-proofed for a 4 degree rise in temperatures, while also being built to adapt to climate risks. These two things seem fairly simple and, I hope, doable. Given the current situation, which is evident from the Government’s own papers, I would find it really hard to accept that these are not real and expected risks that need to be addressed.
I quickly draw attention to a report on about 60 London schools that was carried out a couple of years ago at the behest of the mayor. It looked at what tailored actions they could take. Of the schools surveyed, 93% reported overheating as an issue that they had experienced in the last couple of summers; 78% said that overheating had a significant impact on learning; and 43% experienced this multiple times, or continuously through their summer term. It is great that something was done and that these schools now know what they need to do, but these measures have not actually been installed because, unfortunately, they cost money. This was just 60 schools out of the 30,000 in England. We need a nationwide plan. It is absolutely not the case that one size fits all. I am afraid that this is a case where difference is important.
We also need to realise that air conditioning can never be the future. You cannot use excessive heating in the winter and excessive air-con in the summer, because we cannot afford the energy. We are in an energy transition, and that is not a workable long-term solution. But you can do a lot, such as shading windows from the outside, having natural ventilation and having many more trees—which is a good thing in lots of other respects—planted around schools. It would be a capital investment into our publicly owned infrastructure and would make schools resilient. We also need to think about what the costs of inaction are: lost days at school.
I have three specific questions. Would it be possible to ask schools a list of questions about what their experiences have been of, say, this summer’s unnaturally warm weather? Could the Minister take on the responsibility for providing data on the department’s assessment of school plans to help schools transition? I know that we are asking a lot, but this is going to come and bite us very soon. Finally, has the department at any time considered moving exams away from the hottest moment of the year, because that is pretty tough for the kids?
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I have a probing amendment in this group, which came about because it struck me that we need to be prepared to think of the unthinkable. Sadly, there have been some tragedies in different schools in different places. There have been bus crashes and knifings. We know that defibrillators on sports fields have saved lives by having a programme that was rolled out. We know that autoinjectors of adrenaline, which are now in schools as a spare autoinjector, have been saving lives.
However, I am not sure that children really know how to cope with some of the life-threatening emergencies that can occur before emergency services arrive: particularly, how to manage if a child seems to be bleeding out from a severe injury—there are some very simple measures that can be taken—how to manage choking if someone is choking on a bolus of food in the dining room, and how to manage a chemical attack. I should say that my own grandsons attended the school—one is still at the school—where there was a chemical attack on a pupil in the street that hit the news. I was very struck many years ago when those same grandchildren were much younger and at nursery, where they were taught a very simple rhyme to shout if there was a fire: “Fire, fire. Do not hide. Run outside”. It was terribly simple. We chanted it in the home with them. It was an important lesson, because things can be incredibly dangerous and can happen very fast.
The purpose of my amendment is to probe the extent to which we are taking seriously some of the unthinkable things that could happen to our schoolchildren and making sure that they are prepared for responding in a way that does not further endanger them when there is serious danger in front of them. It is a probing amendment—I know that it is not well drafted—but I felt that when we are going through such enormously complicated legislation, putting so much onus on schools, we have to think about the unthinkable.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lord, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and to share in her concern about the need to prepare pupils in this age of shocks where we literally do not know what is around the corner. I have often spoken in your Lordships’ House about the need for first aid education in schools. This amendment is broader than that.
We need education that prepares people for life and not just for exams. I note that recently some basic questions about first aid have been introduced into the driving licence test, which shows that there is some recognition by the Government of the need to act in this space.
I shall speak chiefly to my Amendments 502YB and 502YK and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for her support for them. Amendment 502YB, which would require a review of climate adaptation in schools, very much fits with the noble Baroness’s Amendment 502P, but her amendment is focused largely on the physical fabric of schools while mine is focused to a large degree on how schools behave and are arranged. It is more of a behavioural kind of question.
I note that the UK Health Security Agency has published updated guidance about heat for schools and early years settings. That guidance allows schools to relax uniform policy in the heat. It suggests that students should wear loose, light-coloured clothing and sun hats with wide brims, stay in the shade as much as possible, and wear sunscreen with high sun protection factors, et cetera. It also says that teachers should encourage students to take off their blazers and jumpers. But all that is in terms of encouragement and suggestions.
I put it to the Minister and the Government more broadly that we are in a situation now, particularly when we have so many schools with an unreasoning and almost religious attachment to rigid uniform policies, where there should be rules that say that schools must act to keep pupils safe. I note that the National Education Union suggests that 26 degrees should be set as an appropriate point at which to identify additional measures—so let us make some rules about taking action to protect our children.
On the broader point about climate resilience, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, referred to a London study; I shall refer to a London programme that may have followed from that, Climate Resilient Schools. In 2022-23, the Mayor of London funded measures in 100 schools to make them more resilient, but when we look at the website, we can see that that programme has now ended. Surely, we need an ongoing programme to make our schools more climate resilient.
I come now to Amendment 502YK, about the prevention of the transmission of respiratory and other diseases in classrooms and schools generally. I was looking at Amendment 502YH in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which would introduce a new clause headed:
“Statutory standards of filtering and monitoring systems deployed in schools”.
I thought, “Oh, this might be similar”, but, no, that is an amendment about computer or digital viruses. We have just had a very long debate focusing on those digital safety issues, but, somehow, even despite the Covid pandemic, we have rather less focus on biological virus risks—mine is the only amendment that does that.
You might call this the Covid amendment, and certainly I speak in the context where it is very clear that Covid is not over; a new variant, Stratus, is spreading fast and raising levels of concern. That means that Covid is still spreading and that more and more people are not just becoming ill in the short term but, as we know, getting long Covid. The pulmonologist, Binita Kane, has recently started an NHS long Covid clinic and notes that there has been a refusal to acknowledge the problem of long Covid, and the continuing problem. If we look at the history of the world’s medical treatment of so-called chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, we see that there has been a refusal to acknowledge the issue of broader post-viral syndromes and the fact that people get ill for a long time.
There was a study out at the end of last year whose headline said that after two years 70% of the children who had shown the symptoms of long Covid were no longer displaying them. That means, of course, that 30% of the children who had been diagnosed a couple of years ago with long Covid still have it, and it is still affecting their lives. That is something that we cannot ignore about Covid—but, of course, this is not just a Covid amendment. Just because we have had a Covid pandemic, that will not have any impact on the continuing acute risks of a flu pandemic, something that the world has known much of in the past.
Ventilation and air filtration are also good for pupil concentration. It is good for general health to have fresh air in the classroom, and we need to be able to look after the health of pupils. I have a direct question for the Minister—I shall understand if she wants to write to me on it later. In 2021, England spent £25 million on providing all state-funded schools and colleges with a portable CO2 monitor for every two classrooms. There was further funding in November 2022 for the remaining 50% of classrooms. The recommendation is that CO2 levels should be kept below 800 parts per million, with indoor air at 600 to 800 parts per million being a relatively good level of ventilation. Can the Minister tell me now or in the future how many of those monitors are still in use and what kind of results they are showing?
Lord Storey (LD)
The hour is late, so I will be very brief. I make three observations. First, we react to situations; we do not prepare for them. Secondly, we then set up a particular programme or campaign but we do not embed it; we do it until people have lost interest or media attention has moved on to something else; thirdly, schools or parents often come up with something, following a particular event occurring in a school and it starting a campaign—it is a pity that this is not shared.
It is not quite the same, but I think of the example of EpiPens and defibrillators in schools. In Liverpool, a poor boy aged 11 had a cardiac arrest in the swimming pool and tragically died. His family and immediate friends started a campaign, the Oliver King Foundation, to get defibrillators into every school in Merseyside, and that happened. All these amendments are certainly worth consideration.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this is a diverse group of amendments.
Amendment 502M, tabled by my noble friends Lord Young of Acton and Lord Brady of Altrincham, is on the duty to keep schools open in person during civil emergencies. I think that we can all agree on the importance of this principle. We saw vividly during Covid that schools are crucial centres of learning but also places of community, which form an important part of the foundation of childhood. I support the principle behind the amendment that schools should remain open and that closure should be considered only ever in the most extreme circumstances. I am slightly less clear, looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, whether the Children’s Commissioner is the right person to advise the Government, but it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
Amendment 502P, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, on the creation of a safe and resilient schools plan, rightly highlights the importance of ensuring that our school buildings are resilient to climate change and responsible when it comes to emissions—maybe a building cannot be responsible but those building it can be. The previous Government set out in our Sustainability and Climate Change: A Strategy for the Education and Children’s Services Systems in 2023 a commitment for all new school buildings to be net-zero in operation, designed for a 2 degree rise in average global temperatures and future-proofed for a 4 degree rise. I am slightly confused by the noble Baroness’s amendment because I assume that the Government will continue with those objectives. If that has changed, can the Minister clarify?
Future buildings are a huge challenge, not just in funding but in the capacity in the building industry to deliver—although maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is working her magic in construction and green skills.
Amendment 502YA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is on civil preparedness training for pupils. Again, I am not convinced that there is a need for this amendment. There is already guidance and online training materials about how to respond to terrorist and other major incidents and I am not sure that we need more than that. Schools are pretty well equipped already.
Finally, Amendment 502YB, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is on the review of climate adaptation in schools. It is not helpful to focus on just one aspect of school buildings, as opposed to many other aspects, including the safety and security of the construction materials that they are built with. We should trust local authorities and school trusts to fulfil their safety, suitability and climate resilience responsibilities.
The noble Baroness then went on, I think, to suggest—maybe I am being harsh at this late hour—that the Government should be more directive towards schools on relaxing school uniform. The idea that the Secretary of State will not only count how many ties we have in school but now instruct schools whether to loosen them is just going too far.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Before I start summing up, I just have a comment to make: if loosening ties is good enough for instructions in this Chamber, maybe schools should consider it. I am sorry; we are getting to the last group of amendments here.
These are all exceptionally important amendments that we need to consider. It is a rather strange grouping but there is a theme running through them. I will turn to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, first because his amendment led the group. The whole thrust of this is that it would require schools to remain open to all pupils during civil emergencies unless the other place decided otherwise. I stress that every emergency is different and unpredictable; that is the nature of the beast that we are talking about. We all learned the lesson—some of us were more involved than others—that planning is best when it is agile and takes a whole-system approach, and is responsive to the emergency faced. For example, I will never forget the chilling moment when I got a call from our director of education to say that a teacher had been murdered in one of our schools, all of the emotions that brought in, and the effect on all the children in the school and the staff, and the huge response required at the time.
I am acutely conscious of the impacts that closing schools has on children, and protecting children and young people in emergencies will always be a priority for the Government. I commend those school leaders who kept schools open during the pandemic—albeit for limited numbers of pupils, but the vast majority of schools were open during that time and we should remember that. They did extraordinary work to keep those settings open. They received very strong local support in, I have to say, often a very conflicting and chaotic environment where directives were not clear; there was an enormous amount of confusion during that whole period.
It would not be appropriate here to pre-empt the findings of the Covid inquiry into the decisions made by the previous Government. We must let the inquiry go into a real level of detail. It is of course timely that the children’s module is starting the week after next. We will all watch the evidence that is gathered through that process with great care and great insight. However, I want to raise the issue that, for those of us who had to deal with the directives, there was a question: why were zoos, theme parks and pubs opened before schools? That is the sort of question that we need to try to get an understanding of.
School leaders already manage complex legal duties. No one would close a school lightly. The Government publish guidance to help settings prepare and tailor their approach for different emergencies. For health emergencies, non-statutory guidance backed by public health advice generally works well, and the current framework enables this without new legislation. DfE would work with a range of experts if faced with such decisions at scale again, and we will consider the role that the Children’s Commissioner plays. I would be interested in hearing the views of the Children’s Commissioner at this present moment on whether her office actually has the resource to take on the responsibilities being suggested in the amendment.
Something that might be of interest is that Exercise Pegasus, the UK’s largest-ever pandemic preparedness simulation, started this week. It is a vital step in ensuring that our systems, people and plans are ready for the next pandemic, whenever it may come. DfE officials are participating fully in it, as is Minister Gould in the other place. A Written Ministerial Statement on Pegasus came out earlier in the week, and I recommend that we all look at the experience that has been gathered through that process. Additionally, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is looking carefully at legislation around future public health emergencies, drawing on those lessons and ensuring that we are never again in the position of unpreparedness that we faced in March 2020.
Amendment 502P, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, would require new schools to be built to deliver net zero carbon in operation and to be resilient to climate change, and would require action plans to be developed for all existing schools to reach net zero and be adapted to be resilient to the impacts of climate change. I confirm that the Department for Education already requires all centrally funded school building projects to be net-zero carbon in operation. New schools delivered by the department are designed to be climate resilient to a 2 degree rise in average global temperatures, as has been stated, and future-proofed for a rise of 4 degrees centigrade. They need to incorporate sustainable drainage systems and deliver a greening factor of at least 35% to promote biodiversity, and I confirm that this is ongoing.
The DfE sustainability strategy introduced an expectation for all schools to develop a climate adaptation plan, supported by a network of climate ambassadors who, through nine regional hubs, provide free expertise and support to nursery schools and colleges to develop and deliver impactful climate action plans. The DfE has partnered with Great British Energy to support schools in decarbonising their buildings through the installation of solar power and other energy-efficiency measures, such as installing LED lighting.
On the three questions posed by the noble Baroness, I think everyone knows that taking exams at the hottest time of year can be extraordinarily difficult. It is not always extremely hot at that time of year—as we all know, our climate is unpredictable at this time—but that is under consideration. I will have to get back to her on the other questions that she raised around data and information gathering.
Amendment 502YA is a very thoughtful amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who speaks with enormous experience and gave very appropriate examples. I think the way we feel about this is that teaching about emergencies has to be age appropriate. We must work sensitively to ensure that it extends to not overstating risks and helping pupils contextualise what they learn, without causing alarm. That is the very delicate balance we have to tread on this. Of course, there are particularly obvious safety measures we can help to get across, as the noble Baroness outlined. But there are areas in which we need to rely on schools. They are exceptionally well placed to know how to plan for emergencies and how to talk to pupils appropriately. There is guidance available to them, including from the department.
In addition, the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, commonly known as Martyn’s law, received Royal Assent this year, as we have heard. It will require certain premises, including educational settings, to prepare for potential events and be ready to keep people safe in the event of an attack. As such, we think it would be confusing and unnecessary to accept this amendment while Martyn’s law is being introduced within the next 24 months.
Amendment 502YB was proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and states that we need an initial 12-month and then biennial review of the level of preparedness of grant maintained schools and other schools for increasing extremes of climate, particularly high temperatures. Of course, in Australia wearing hats is compulsory, and I think kids having suncream is compulsory as well. Other parts of the world have moved ahead of us, and we need to learn from other experiences. We understand the concern expressed in this amendment, but we have to be very careful about adding to the burden of the sector around collecting the data she suggests and the review. I think we need to be very sensitive to this and make sure everything is done proportionately, while making sure children and young people are safe.
The considerations set out in the amendment should be included in settings’ climate action plans, to be dealt with at a local level. However, for the preparedness of buildings and grounds, we will potentially develop new methods of data collection in the future to help us understand the preparedness of school settings for managing climate change emergencies.
I do not think I need to say an enormous amount more about uniform provision. We issued guidance to support schools in developing and implementing uniform policies which states that schools should take a sensible approach to allow for exceptions to be made during extreme weather.
On the suitability of transport provision, we know some schools provide transport—minibuses, for example. We do not provide guidance or collect information on this transport. Health and safety on educational visits guidance sets out our advice on considerations necessary to plan, organise and risk assess educational visits.
For the level of emergency planning to protect pupil health and well-being, including regulations and rules about maximum temperatures in classrooms, the workplace regulations apply to schools and cover temperatures in indoor workplaces. This is supported by other legislation which requires schools to maintain their premises to ensure the health and safety and welfare of pupils. It is for individual schools to have policies in place for emergency response and safeguarding.
Finally, Amendment 502YK, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, looks at the rather vexed issue of ventilation and air cleaning in schools and reducing the transmission of respiratory diseases as well as other measures to reduce transmission of other diseases with annual reporting on progress. I agree that good ventilation is vitally important. The department already publishes guidance on ventilation which is consistent with expert advice given by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, SAGE, during the Covid-19 pandemic on ventilation requirements to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and by extension other airborne infections. I am sure all noble Lords will remember those shots of airborne particles circulating around a room without ventilation and the difference that opening windows and other factors made.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
I thank my noble friend Lord Brady for an excellent speech in support of Amendment 502M, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Barran for their words of support.
All I will say in reply to the Minister’s thoughtful response is that yes, of course the Government need to remain flexible in the face of emergencies. However, there need to be safeguards in place, particularly when taking such momentous decisions. The safeguard of requiring the approval of Parliament seems a fairly modest one. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Baroness Smith of Malvern
“(b) section (Employment of children in Scotland) extends to Scotland only.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for the clause inserted after clause 26 (by my amendment) to extend to Scotland.
Baroness Smith of Malvern
“(3) Subject to subsection (1), the following come into force, in relation to Wales, on such day as the Welsh Ministers may by regulations made by statutory instrument appoint—(a) section (Employment of children in England and Wales);(b) sections 30 to 35 and Schedule 2.(3A) Subject to subsection (1), section (Employment of children in Scotland) comes into force on such day as the Scottish Ministers may by regulations appoint.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for certain provision for Wales or Scotland to be brought into force by (respectively) the Welsh Ministers or Scottish Ministers.
Baroness Smith of Malvern
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 66 inserting new subsection (3A).
Baroness Smith of Malvern
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 66 inserting new subsection (3A).
(a) the provisions listed in subsection (3) in relation to Wales;(b) section (Employment of children in Scotland).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendments to clause 66 inserting new subsections (3), (3A) and (7A).
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 66 inserting new subsection (3).
“(7A) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make transitional or saving provision in connection with the coming into force of section (Employment of children in Scotland).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for the Scottish Ministers to make transitional and saving provision in connection with certain provision relating to Scotland.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 66 inserting new subsection (7A).