Home Schooling
Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Baroness Gohir
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question and for the work that he has done in this area. We look forward to working with your Lordships across the House to make sure that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill delivers. This is not party political. This is genuinely about how we keep children safe from harm. While I have the opportunity, not only are there many children who will not be having the Christmas—or the Hanukkah, for that matter—that we wish for everybody but there will be public servants who will be giving up time with their own families and will endeavour to keep others safe. We thank them for their service at this time of year, too.
Baroness Gohir (CB)
My Lords, there is a disproportionately high number of minority-ethnic children in home elective education. If we look at the numbers where ethnicity is known, they amount to about 30%. What are the Government doing to look at the contributing factors, including that the local schools do not meet their educational needs, including special educational needs?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, there are many different parts to this. To answer the noble Baroness’s question, reforming social care is critical to giving hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve, whichever ethnic minority they come from. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill follows the publication of Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive, which sets out the Government’s commitment to whole-system reform of children’s social care. Additionally, the Budget announced £44 million to support kinship and foster carers. This includes the largest ever national investment in kinship care. We have also just announced half a billion pounds for the next financial year in direct preventive services, to help fund local authorities to fulfil this work. If the noble Baroness would like to have a specific discussion about how we can make sure that this is getting to every community and no one is excluded from it, I look forward to meeting her.