Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Penn Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 183CA and 183CB in this group. Before I do so, I will add my support to Amendment 177, from my noble friends Lord Nash and Lady Barran, and Amendment 458.
It is odd that, while we are legislating in this Bill for the provision of breakfast clubs, of which I have previously said I am a fan, legislating for the use of social media by teenagers and the use of mobile phones in school seems to be a step too far for a Bill that is focused on children’s well-being. That is despite the wealth of evidence, to which my noble friend just alluded, about how disruptive phones can be to children’s well-being and learning.
It is not good enough to say that 90% of secondary schools report having a policy in place to ban the use of phones in the school day—which, by the way, means that one in 10 allows access to phones in the school day. What matters is how effective those policies are, and the evidence shows that, in too many cases, they are not effective enough. Around 80% of secondary schools surveyed by the Children’s Commissioner allow children to keep their phones on them in the school day, with the expectation that it is not seen or heard. However, the evidence shows that that is not working. The National Behaviour Survey in 2022-23 found that 36% of secondary school teachers reported phones being used without permission in at least some of their lessons in the past week, while 59% of pupils reported the same.
When the previous Government introduced guidance on mobile phones in schools, they said that they would keep the approach under review and move to introduce statutory guidance if the situation had not improved. A key milestone for assessing that was the publication of this year’s National Behaviour Survey. When I asked the Minister in January when she expected it to be published, she said that it would be in the spring. I may have missed it—I do not think that I have—but could she update the Committee on when we can expect the results of the latest behaviour survey?
My amendments, in a sense, follow on from my noble friends’ Amendment 177, which I support, but they specifically focus on the advice and guidance for parents, teachers and carers of preschool-age children. To be clear, unlike many who have participated in this Bill so far, I am no expert in this area; I am working hard to ensure that I am across, and understand as best I can, the evidence in this area. However, to some extent, that is the point of my amendments: if you are a parent, childcare professional or teacher of preschool children, there is no clear summary of the available evidence and no clear advice on the best approach to children’s use of screens and technology in their early years, yet such screens and technology are ubiquitous.
A good starting point for both amendments would be the Chief Medical Officer’s advice provided for in Amendment 177, which crucially specifies that it should differentiate by age. I could not find any public guidance from the Government or Ofcom that really reflects that. In fact, much of the guidance that is available is inappropriate for very young children and may give parents a misleading understanding of how they can best navigate this tricky area for preschoolers.
In my experience—I declare my interest as a mum of two preschool children—there is nothing mentioned by your GP, by your health visitor or at children’s centres: so many of those important touch points in the early years of a family. The same absence of advice or guidance extends to early years childcare and education settings too. I could find no reference in the early years standards framework to the appropriate and safe use of screens in early years settings, and that surprised me. My amendments simply seek to fill these gaps to provide proper guidance to parents and early years settings. So I would be keen to hear from the Minister about what work the Government are doing in these areas.
Within the Government’s opportunity mission, they have set themselves a milestone of
“75% of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage assessment by 2028”—
an increase from 67.7% currently. With screens so ubiquitous in children’s and parents’ lives, and excessive screen use shown to impact on so many of the early learning goals, including communication and language, physical development and social and emotional development, this must be an essential part of the Government’s plans here.
Research shows that significant proportions of younger children have access to smart devices, including phones, and spend significant time online. Ofcom’s Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2025 shows alarming trends, not just on the scale of use but on the pace of change. One in five three to five year-olds have their own mobile phone, extending to 85% of their age group using any device to go online. More than half use messaging sites or apps and half use livestreaming. The proportion of parents of three to five year-olds who say that their child uses social media apps or sites has significantly increased in recent years, from around a quarter in 2021 and 2022, rising to three in 10 in 2023, and almost four in 10 this year. Over a third of parents of three to five year-olds whose child uses social media use it on their children’s behalf, and over four in 10 say that they use sites and apps together with their child. However, two in 10 of these parents indicate that their child uses these apps independently.
Many of the debates we have had about keeping children safe online focus on teenagers, which is not surprising given that the legal age for accessing social media is 13—it is older for some apps currently—and many of the observed harms are particularly acute in teenage years, as we have heard. But what constitutes appropriate use of devices and an appropriate amount of screen time will vary wildly for a two year-old compared to a 12 year-old, and we must reflect this.
So, more specifically, can the Minister say whether my understanding is correct that there is currently no guidance for preschool settings in the early years standards framework on the safe and appropriate use of screens, and if that is the case, do the Government have any plans to introduce such guidance? Can she also say what plans there are not just to produce guidance based on the best available evidence specifically for parents of preschool children, but on how they plan to disseminate this? For example, are there any plans to integrate guidance into the Start for Life campaign, or to provide tips and information for new parents through the health visiting programme?
I end by emphasising that this is not about judging parents or telling them what to do. I use screens and my kids use screens—both of us, sometimes or often, too much. It is not about moral panic either. It is about recognising that the ubiquity and nature of screens in our lives has changed. If we equip parents, caregivers and teachers with clearer information and tools, we can help them navigate this ever-changing environment with more confidence and support. It is important that the Government recognise this, particularly for early years development. I look forward to hearing their plans in this area.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, as this is my first substantive contribution in Committee, I declare my education interests as chair of E-ACT multi-academy trust, of STEM Learning, of Century-Tech and of COBIS. I also own half of Suklaa Ltd, which has a number of education clients.
Amendment 458A in my name is an amendment to Amendment 458 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I am seeking to add an exemption for educational purposes to the exemptions from the policy of smartphone bans in schools proposed by her amendment. I have read Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation, Christine Rosen’s Extinction of Experience and Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop’s excellent Disengaged Teen. I know that our children are losing out on the vital developmental impact of unstructured outdoor play, thanks to the distractions of technology.
We are all losing the multisensory benefits of engaging with real-life experiences because we are too busy on our phones, including in this Chamber, and we are losing empathy as a result. The overconsumption of violent online content is increasing the bystander effect that distinguishes us as communities of people.
Our children are increasingly disengaged from learning, partly due to boring content at school and partly due to diminishing attention spans, thanks to too much time scrolling short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. I am only too aware that social media is addictive by design and is the main culprit in this complex set of problems. Multiple systemic reviews and surveys confirm that excessive smartphone use is associated with poor sleep quality, increased depression and anxiety and lower life satisfaction among teens, something that this country has a particular problem with and that cannot be solely blamed on phones and social media.
This month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a large study tracking more than 4,000 adolescents and finding that the smartphone risk to youth mental health is primarily linked to the addictive use of smartphones, social media or video games. Those who reported compulsive use were two or three times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts or self-harm by the age of 14, compared with their peers. The study found that it was the addictive behaviour that was the strong predictor, not the amount of screen time per se.
I therefore have some sympathy with Amendment 177 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I compliment him on the way he introduced his amendment—echoing, almost word for word at times, the speech he made on the very first group of amendments in this Committee. However, I am unpersuaded that Chief Medical Officers are the right people to lead on this. I am concerned that Ofcom may not be as rigorous as I had understood when we passed the Online Safety Act in enforcing the terms and conditions of platforms relating to their minimum age limits. It may well be that this House should look to another opportunity in the next Session to toughen Ofcom’s responsibilities and duties in this regard, once we have seen a little more of the impact of the Act as Ofcom is implementing it. Amendment 183CA from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, seems quite sensible, and I think Amendment 183CB should be pursued by the DfE, but in close partnership with Ofcom as the regulator.
Amendment 458 clearly has merit. Most schools have adopted such policies to ban or control smartphones following the previous Government’s guidance. At E-ACT we are now piloting the use of signal-blocking pouches that pupils are required to store their phones in during the school day. The early findings are that this has had a really positive impact on the schools concerned in terms of learning and behaviour. I am told by a friend who is a parent of children at Westminster School, over the road, that it is using geofencing technology so that when pupils enter the location, phones’ functionality is changed to turn off social media but to retain their use for emergency broadcasting, due to the security risk related to their proximity to Parliament.
In all these schools, children are benefiting from having a rest from their phones. Teachers benefit from the lessening of distraction and the absence of a back channel of conversation going on through lessons. In some other schools that have done this, there is even a reduction in playground fights because pupils are no longer able to film and share them online.
However, I am also working hard on issues related to media literacy, in part as a member of your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee. The issues relating to social media addiction are now being amplified by the ease of creating highly credible false content using generative AI. The algorithms will not only continue to be addictive but feed content that is misleading, upsetting and disturbing, as any of us can now create images, audio and video, at will, of anything that we can imagine. This needs a more sophisticated response than simply a ban. This needs education, in schools and for adult parents and grandparents. It was clear from the committee’s witnesses that just relying on a knowledge-rich teaching of media literacy will not work. If we just tell young people what is dangerous and harmful, what to look out for, we will fail. Children do not want this to be yet another thing that we tell them off about.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Well, the noble Lord added considerably to his speech there. I did not use some of the arguments that he suggested were used in this Chamber about porn. I was not in this House so I do not know what arguments and debates went on. Nor did I suggest that there are not considerable issues around young people’s use of social media and the amount of their screen time. The noble Lord is very clear that he believes there should be a complete ban on social media for young people aged under 16. I do not know whether that carries a majority in this House, to be honest. Given that, it is important to demonstrate, as I attempted to do, the action that the Government are already taking to address all those issues, whether it is screen time, the impact of social media on young people, or mobile phones in schools. The Government are taking action on all of them, without necessarily thinking that there is one single silver bullet of a ban that can solve all those problems.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I will be brief. I really appreciate what the Minister said on early years. I think it goes a bit beyond safeguarding, but I will look really carefully at what she said. On the evidence point, she referred to the Children’s Commissioner’s work on the policies, but we need to know the effect of those policies. That is where the national behaviour study comes in. The Minister previously told me it was due in spring, but she said it would be later this year. It would be great to understand why there is a delay, if there is one. Could she be more specific about when we will see that study of what is going on in our schools? I will be happy for her to write.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
First, I said more than safeguarding; I hope she can go back and look at the record to see that. I was pretty sympathetic to the points she made, and I said much more than safeguarding. I share her frustration about when the survey will be published. That is all I can say about it.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Penn Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I would like to say a few words about my amendment, which is about a slightly different area but attached to the same part of the Bill.
School activity has taken rather a pounding of late. If you link sport, arts, music, culture, youth clubs and so on only to a school, so they happen only in a school setting, they stop when school stops. If you make it just about education—sport is a very good example of this—dropout ages are 16, 18 and 21, because that is when you leave your educational institution. I hope that here we would have an opportunity to get the voluntary sector back talking to and helping young people.
On the amendments I tabled, subsection (2A) in Amendment 185 is at least as important, because it means providing voluntary activity in schools so they can identify with and get in contact with these groups outside. The groups outside want to make contact. Their survival and the survival of their activity depends on getting new people in, and they are giving something positive back. Anybody who has had any experience with anything from an am-dram group to a rugby team knows there is a social network that is interdependent and builds up a sense of community and purpose, and helps that group and those people in it, effectively providing almost a family group at times. It is a place where you can find jobs, structure, help, support and purpose; it is all there.
Apart from a diatribe that amateur sport will save the world, it is a fact that we are going to very solid, well-established ground here. I do not think anybody is going to disagree that these things are beneficial. We talk about the health aspect and the need for a good diet, but it is possible to put on weight on healthy food if you do not move. Let us look at how we can expand education not just through the education establishment. We should look to people who are doing positive things on a voluntary basis and helping you get out there.
Just to cast an eye on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that we are about to discuss, this is another good amendment. I know the noble Lord well, and I have no doubt that he will have more to say on it. He refers to me as his “friend in sport”, and I am glad to carry on that one. Basically, if we do not encourage these formal lines back into our education system—unfortunately we have broken, or at least damaged, the informal ones—we are going to lose this contact with somewhere where you go on to do something positive. I look forward to the Minister’s answer, and to her answer on the amendments led by my noble friend Lady Walmsley.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, while we are still on breakfast clubs, I hope I can jump in to speak to Amendment 184, which relates to the additional costs of breakfast clubs in primary schools, combined with the quality of food expected. The amendment is tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, who is sorry that he cannot be in the Committee right now. Like others in this group, this is, to a certain extent, a probing amendment to understand how much the Government understand about the whole-of-service costs that this part of the Bill will impose on schools and how they plan to meet them, based on conversations with those currently involved in making breakfast clubs work.
I support breakfast clubs. I have previously declared an interest as a mum whose daughter goes to breakfast clubs, and I am a big fan of their provision. For me, they provide hugely valuable additional childcare that allows me and my partner to meet our work commitments, but I also recognise the role that they play in ensuring that no child starts school hungry and unable to learn.
Turning to the practical implications, let us assume that a breakfast club in a primary school is taken up by 50% of the children in that school. A two-form entry school would require oversight by seven members of staff, and a school with a single form would require four members of staff. This does not include the catering element. That ratio is set out in regulations, so it is not advisory. A single-form entry primary school is highly unlikely to have sufficient unused non-teaching staff resource to handle the new obligation without drawing on directed teacher time.
That brings us back to the vital concept of the hard cap on directed time. If, for example, a teacher now has to be diverted for an hour a day to support and supervise a breakfast club, that is around 170 hours a year out of 1,265. Some 15% of the time, they will no longer be available for other duties—most significantly teaching. How are the Government going to account for this?
To the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I say that I completely acknowledge the additional money that has been put into schools through last week’s spending review settlement, and previously, but, when we take into account increased eligibility for free school meals—which is welcome—increased SEND costs, teacher pay awards and increased national insurance costs, my understanding is that there is currently no additional funding to meet the costs of a national rollout of breakfast clubs. That is a question that remains unanswered. The same applies to non-teaching staff: more hours will be required, so how will it be paid for?
Currently, schools can charge parents for early delivery of children before the academic day begins. As I have said, this enables working parents to drop their children off on their way to work, and it works well. I pay £3 for 45 minutes, including breakfast. This will rise to £4 pounds in September, but with provision extending to an hour. For me, it is fantastic value. Many schools deliver this provision for free or at a lower cost for children in receipt of free school meals, with the costs covered by the pupil premium income that a school receives.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I appreciate the detail that the Minister has gone into and that further information about the national rollout will happen in due course, but we have just had the comprehensive spending review, so can I ask whether the funding for the national rollout is included within the DfE’s settlement from the comprehensive spending review or whether there will be additional funding on top of that settlement to fund the national rollout? I am not asking how it will work but whether it is in the CSR settlement or whether there will be more, in addition, at a later point.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
What we have announced as part of the spending review settlement is separate to the funding for the national rollout, about which we will bring forward information.
On Amendment 505B tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, early adopters are key to ensuring that we get implementation right before national rollout. This learning will help develop our statutory guidance. More information will be made available, including on the exemptions process, to Parliament and in the public domain.
On that exemptions power, in relation to Amendments 186B and 186C, I understand that there may be extreme and, critically, individual circumstances that could prevent individual schools meeting their duties to provide breakfast clubs. The exemption power is designed to address this on a case-by-case basis. That is why schools would be expected to apply and to be able to demonstrate their exemption eligibility under one of the criteria set out in the legislation. Our expectation is that any school seeking an exemption will actively engage with its school community, the local authority and the department to ensure that it has done all it can to meet its breakfast club duty.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The point I made was that I and the Government disagree with my noble friend that there should be a sort of all-flowers-blooming approach to breakfast clubs. I set out the reason why the Government believe there should be a basic set of conditions and criteria for breakfast clubs. Of course, it is completely possible that schools may well then decide to put on other provision alongside the basic provision laid out in the criteria set out for breakfast clubs in legislation—this is one of the things that we will look at in the early adopters scheme—but the Government are not favouring the idea that there would be a variety of different routes. That is because of the points I made about this being about the provision not just of food but of the club and of the 30 minutes of childcare. Those things are quite an important basis of what is being delivered through the breakfast club programme.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I just have one more question for the Minister before we move on from breakfast clubs. I really appreciate what she said about the pathfinder schools being used to understand how, for example, the very clear provision that the Government want would work alongside existing provision or extended provision and to learn from that. Can the Minister commit to publishing the findings of those pathfinder schools and that initial work and laying those findings before the House before we consider the regulations that would come subsequent to this legislation, so that we can see and fully understand what has been learned and taken on from those initial 750 schools when moving to a national rollout?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I have already made clear that monitoring and evaluation are a fundamental part of the early adopters scheme. That will not only enable us to work out how to develop the scheme further in terms of a national rollout but allow noble Lords and others to analyse the extent to which the model is working and what some of the challenges may be around issues raised by noble Lords this afternoon.
Baroness Penn (Con)
To be really specific, will the outcomes of that monitoring and evaluation be made available before the regulations are laid to implement breakfast clubs nationally? That is my question. If the Minister’s answer is no, that is fine. Maybe she has been clear, but I would hope it would be yes—that is what I would like to know.
Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters
Baroness Penn Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that some good schemes are already in place but, to reiterate, none is universal or free. The breakfast club commitment that will be brought into law through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will come to this House soon, will ensure that there are no gaps because there will be universal provision across all state-funded schools with primary-age pupils. It will be co-ordinated by the DfE, supported in some of the ways I have outlined. That is how we will get coherence and opportunity for everybody. To be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, also pointed out the benefit of a universal scheme: it removes the stigma associated with schemes targeted specifically at some children.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as someone whose daughter has just started breakfast club this week for the first time, I absolutely recognise their value for children and parents. The Minister was helpfully clear that the key difference in the Government’s approach is that it is about universality and a free-to-use service. She was also clear that the intention is for the funding to cover food and childcare, but there is a bit of a tension in those two statements. The IFS has been clear that the funding available is sufficient to cover all pupils if it covers only food costs, but that it would cover only about 60% of pupils if it covered food and childcare costs. While I welcome the Minister’s clarity that the intention is to cover food and childcare, it seems that the Government are missing about 40% of the funding needed to do so on a universal basis.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We do not believe that that is the case. With the considerable additional money that will go into schools—£24,000 for an average school—we believe that it is possible to cover all the elements I outlined. However, part of the reason for having the early adopter scheme is to be able to look at how these 750 schools are delivering and the extent to which the resources are right for them to do so, and to use that to plan for how and what resources are necessary to roll that out nationally.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
There is enormous value in families being able to sit down and eat together. My personal experience is that breakfast is not necessarily the most likely time to bring fruitful conversation and calm family time. To reiterate my point, any family who wants to carry on having breakfast together as a family should of course be able to do so. The point is that, for those who want their children to have a smooth start to school, the opportunity to be part of the club for 30 minutes, and the chance to have their breakfast at school, this will be provided through the scheme.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I want to follow up the point made by noble friend Lady Coffey on the impact of the national insurance rise on childcare providers. The Minister recognised the impact that rise will have on childcare provision by saying that public sector providers will get an additional £25 million to help meet those costs. However, a lot of childcare provision is in the private sector. How are those providers meant to meet the additional costs when the rates that the Government are paying for the provision of additional free hours are not going to change?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We could have a broader debate about why it has been necessary for this Government to introduce an increase in national insurance contributions, but let us not do that today—everybody knows why, given the legacy that we had. I talked about support for the expansion of childcare and the additional £75 million that is being provided as part of the expansion grant. That will be available to private sector and other childcare providers, to support them in developing the necessary childcare.
Freedom of Speech in Universities
Baroness Penn Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I agree with my noble friend. Vice-chancellors say to me that theirs is a difficult job, made tougher by the previous Government’s failure to address the financial challenges that they faced and by their propensity to use universities and higher education as a political battleground, rather than supporting them in the way they need. The previous Government only made this worse, and we are determined not to go down that route.
Baroness Penn (Con)
Does the Minister think that seven Nobel Prize winners, one Fields medallist and 650 other academics are engaging in a culture war in calling for the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act in full?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
No, I do not, which is why I did not use that expression.