Home Schooling

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I personally agree very much with the noble Baroness but, in terms of what we are doing, this Government does not condone violence or abuse of children in any form, and there are laws in place to protect children from this. We are looking closely at what is happening in Wales and Scotland and will continue to build our evidence base but have no plans to legislate specifically for smacking at this stage, which I believe the noble Baroness was alluding to. We want to consider further evidence carefully ahead of deciding whether a change in law is required. We want to make sure that the voices of children, parents and trusted stakeholders are fundamentally at the heart of this discussion, and that will feed into any amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that part of the difficulties of this tragic case were the inadequacies of the social work supervision? Would she therefore support much more emphasis on the recruitment of adequate numbers of social workers with sufficient experience and on support for them thereafter in the very difficult work that they do?