Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord Storey

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I am moving this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield. Her flight was delayed by 24 hours, so I am afraid noble Lords have got me instead. In moving Amendment 28 I will speak also to Amendment 97.

For far too long, child neglect has been absent from the conversation about supporting families and reducing the number of children in care. The consequences of neglect are devastating. It can impact on a child’s physical and mental health, hinder their development and disrupt their ability to form secure relationships. With a shift towards a greater focus on multi-agency family support across local authorities through the Families First initiative, now is the opportune time to take a strategic approach to tackling child neglect. NSPCC data over the past five years has consistently shown neglect to be the number one reason for people contacting its helpline.

Professionals continue to speak of a lack of national focus on tackling neglect, which has left many children without the right support. Resources and early help services —which have been at an all-time low while economic pressures have been at an all-time high—are receiving a welcome boost through measures in the Bill. But the new focus on support must go hand in hand with a greater focus on tackling neglect.

Persistently high levels of neglect, and those circumstances remaining unnoticed or unaddressed, reflect reduced early health services for families and uncertainty among the public about when services need to be involved in a child’s life. They are also impacted by rising child poverty levels. As they take steps to address embedded issues in children’s social care and implement their new child poverty strategy, the Government have a rare opportunity to ensure that neglect is a fundamental part of the discussion.

It is also important to note that many parents living in poverty make astonishing sacrifices to ensure that their children are not adversely impacted by material hardship. We must be clear that not all children living in poverty experience neglect, and neither does neglect happen only in families experiencing poverty; it is present in affluent households, too. However, emerging evidence does draw out links between poverty and all forms of harm.

Such a national strategy would make a real and tangible difference to the lives of children. Neglect often overlaps substantially with other forms of child maltreatment and can be present in other forms of abuse that are taking place. The Government must therefore wake up to the profoundly urgent crisis of child neglect and commit to a national child neglect strategy that gives children and families in England vital support before irreversible harm is done.

That is why early help is so crucial. Children need early, effective and holistic support to address these vulnerabilities, recover from harm and achieve positive outcomes. I was pleased to hear the Minister recognise in Committee that neglect is an enormously difficult and important area of work for children’s social care, and probably one where professionals and others need even more support to be able to identify it and take mitigating action.

The Government clearly agree that equipping professionals to identify concerns about neglect early, enabling parents to reach out for support in a non-stigmatising way, and ensuring that there are available resources to respond effectively to neglect, are vital to reducing the devastating impact that neglect can have on children.

While we are optimistic that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will address some of these urgent concerns through measures such as the new multi-agency child protection teams, stronger information-sharing duties and consistent child identifiers, the reality is that, without the local services and expertise in place, neglect will continue to lack the national and local attention it so urgently needs. That is why a national child neglect strategy is essential.

Finally, the Minister noted in her response to the earlier version of this amendment in Committee:

“Protection from all forms of abuse, including neglect, is a key priority for the Government”.—[Official Report, 9/6/25; col. 1122.]


Neglect is often the earliest sign of child maltreatment. If the Government are serious about prioritising protection against all forms of harm and supporting families as early as possible, preventing and tackling neglect through a dedicated strategy must be a central plank of their response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I return to the issue of the defence of reasonable punishment. My Amendment 97 asks the Government to look carefully at the report from Wales, following three years of implementation of their legislation. In response to my amendment in Committee, the Government repeated the statement that they were waiting for evidence from Wales. My amendment seeks only to make sure that this happens; it does not force the Government to take a decision but asks them to inform Parliament of their assessment of the Welsh findings and the implications for England.

I am grateful to the Minister for having met me after the Committee stage of the Bill. The evidence has increased that physical punishment harms children’s health and well-being and does not improve behaviour. That includes nearly 70 studies reviewed in the Lancet and evidence from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. No positive outcomes have been shown and there is a higher risk of later physical abuse, with clear links to behavioural problems and mental health difficulties.

This amendment is supported by 24 leading organisations in child health and child protection, social care and human rights. While we delay, children continue to be inappropriately physically punished. Contacts to the NSPCC adult and child helplines have shown an increase, not decrease, in concerns over physical punishment in recent years. Polling has shown that those with professional safeguarding responsibilities overwhelmingly support the approach taken in Wales and Scotland. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child committee has repeatedly recommended that the UK repeal the defence of reasonable punishment when a child has had physical abuse.

The Wales report shows that the legislative changes are progressing well. The Minister for Children and Social Care, Dawn Bowden MS, described the review as evidence that the law is working and making significant progress in protecting children’s rights. The report concludes that Wales has made a clear rights-based shift away from physical punishment. There is strong interagency collaboration and a focus on prevention and education. Most referrals come from professionals, indicating that the system in Wales operates through normal safeguarding channels. Therefore, many professionals reported no increase in workload as the law aligns with their duties, finding that the law has clarified and strengthened their ability to protect children and have better conversations with parents. It has helped educate and support parents in managing behaviours differently.

There is no evidence that such legislation interferes with children in loving, supportive families, nor that any trusted stakeholders are disproportionately affected by removing the defence of reasonable punishment when they make decisions. Wales’s highly successful out- of-court parenting support scheme has had 365 individuals referred by the police between 2022 and 2024; 265 reported positive outcomes in increased parental confidence for children’s behaviour. Fewer than five cases were considered by the Crown Prosecution Service, and there have been zero convictions.

Some 95% of parents and 91% of the public know that physical chastisement is illegal in Wales. Such changes provide children with equal protection from assault. Aggressive physical chastisement leads the child to becoming more aggressive themselves over time and developing poorer quality parent-child relationships in later life, as well as showing emotional and behavioural difficulties in school and a variety of negative health and development consequences. Importantly, there is no evidence that physical punishment relates to any positive developmental outcome.

As we see in this group of amendments, the Government are investing in schemes to protect children at risk of abuse and to prevent them falling through the cracks in services. All these investments must be evaluated. The evidence from three years’ evaluation in Wales should not be ignored. We do not accept hitting adults—that is assault. Yet at the moment, hitting children in England in the name of discipline is viewed as acceptable, even though the relative force between the hand that hits and the small body of a child involves a greater risk of causing physical as well as emotional damage.

The three-year report is now before us. The amendment simply asks the Government to fulfil their promise to review the implications of these findings for children in England in order to provide equal protection from assault.