Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Spielman and Lord Sentamu

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 198 and will touch on Amendment 230 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Listening to noble Lords around the House, I find it surprising that they consistently believe that inspection, for which I was responsible for seven years, does not place a heavy emphasis on inclusion. Certainly throughout my time it did. The current framework has increased that focus almost to the point of giving up on looking at education, for which one learning walk and the results are about the extent of the coverage. Inclusion is and has long been taken extraordinarily seriously.

There are two issues that I want to touch on. The first is that however much we might want to believe that every child’s special needs can be coped with, there are times when those special needs consist of problems that inflict real harm on other children. The most awful parental complaints that came across my desk were about children who had been seriously assaulted and harmed, on occasion raped, by another child who had been admitted by a school either conscientiously trying to include a child for whom the local authority was desperate to find a place or that had been directed to take a child. That is agonising to learn about. We have to acknowledge that the interests of other children need to be considered when placing the most difficult children. That is important for children most of all but, of course, it is important for staff as well. If people are trying to work outside their capacity, schools tend to deteriorate, and that is not good for anybody.

Linked to that, I want to make a point about off-rolling, which has been touched on. In my time we put more of an emphasis on looking for signs and pursuing that—inquiring into it—where we found it. One of the things we discovered is that it is extraordinarily hard to characterise definitively whether an individual case is a case of off-rolling. There is typically quite a long history, a deterioration of the relationship between the child and the school. It is not a clean and tidy yes or no. Getting to a point where you could definitively say what the extent was would be extremely labour-intensive. The issue, in my view, is not a lack of regulation to prevent this—inspection is perfectly capable of disincentivising it—but we have to acknowledge that it needs a lot of resource that simply does not exist in Ofsted or anywhere else to dig into individual cases and establish the extent and the remedies.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak on Amendments 198, 199 and 230. I will give some historical background. The word “education” is derived from two Latin root words. The first is “educare”, which means to impart knowledge. For too long, some schools have seen themselves as imparting knowledge. They have emphasised too much that first root of the word, “educare”.

The other Latin root word is “educere”, which means to draw out knowledge. The best schools often do both. They impart knowledge but they also realise that a person is not a blank sheet of paper on whom you simply impart knowledge and do not draw out the best that is in them. In most schools that do both, the pupils all thrive.

That being the case, I think we have gone through a short-term revolution. Her Majesty’s inspectors, as they were then, saw themselves as helping the school to do better. Then Ofsted arrived and seemed to give simple judgments on the school, sometimes on very narrow elements. If the school failed one of its elements, it was totally judged to be a failing school.

I declare an interest here. The Archbishop Thurstan School in Hull had been there for many centuries. It was not performing as it should be and, therefore, there was a decision by the Secretary of State that it should be rebuilt. The council agreed to have it rebuilt and that it should be given a name that would be canvassed for in Hull. To my surprise, the pupils, staff and council decided that it should be called the Archbishop Sentamu Academy. That was the beginning of academisation.

We were very fortunate that the Labour Government, who lost the election in 2010, had agreed to provide the money. I was told by John Prescott, “Be quick, make sure that you get this money, because the new Government may not want this to happen”. Anyway, we got the £45 million and the place was rebuilt; the place was thriving. Students in Hull were thriving and doing excellent work for the first time, going to university for the first time. Four of them went to the University of Liverpool to read maths, which had never been dreamed of.

So the school was doing well but, as it went on, there was a problem in one of the departments and there was an Ofsted inspection, which said, “The school has failed”. If a school fails, the schools commissioner has a job to do: the school has to be brokered and brought into a much larger group, and that is what happened. What shocked me was that Ofsted would not then visit that school for three years. I said, “As a parent, if I had a child in that school and you judged it to be failing, I would like to know whether it had improved by the following year”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I too support the amendment. We have relied through history on a presumption that schools will stay open, even in adverse circumstances such as epidemics or bombardments. But once we closed schools for Covid, we set children adrift because there was nothing in law to balance their interests against those of adults. Children stayed locked up for months, learning little even when schools made great efforts to provide online learning.

I shall not repeat what others have said, but the story of the continuing harm to children—their academic progress, social development, health and happiness—is still unfolding. Ofsted did some of the earliest work on this in autumn 2020, when my inspectors made a series of fact-finding visits to schools and published monthly reports on the impact of Covid on schools and children. They reported that children were lonely, bored and miserable—the advance warnings of the lasting problems that we now see. I spoke about this publicly a number of times, but the tide of emotion was too strong for people to hear.

With hindsight, the existence of a formal duty and a mechanism to ensure that the available evidence, such as the reports I mentioned, is considered and weighed up against the representations of the adults who work in schools, health sector representatives, and so on might have helped to focus minds. I believe that there is an opportunity here for the Minister to get ahead of potential recommendations from the Covid inquiry.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry if I sound like a dinosaur, but I will. Hindsight is always a harsh, cruel science. It makes us think, “If only we did not do this”. The evidence is very clear; as the inquiry went on, the lessons to be drawn have not yet been concluded, and the nation needs to take those lessons into its lifeblood.

We are talking about legislating for an assurance that if a huge pandemic breaks out—or, let us say, a war—we need to go to Parliament every two weeks to consult. But perhaps Parliament will be permanently shut. I would not want us to reach a stage where we have not fully learned all the lessons. I have grandchildren who, because their parents were working, were seen as those who needed to be supported at school during the pandemic. Even then, there were infections, and shutting down schools looked like protecting children. When something like Covid happens, our first look is to the vulnerable, such as children and other vulnerable people. I would find it difficult to support a measure which thinks that Parliament will always provide security.

Do you remember the Second World War? For their own protection, pupils had to be taken out of areas where the bombs were dropping pretty fast, so let us learn the lessons. We may return to this proposal, but for the time being let us support what the Bill as drafted is doing.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Spielman and Lord Sentamu

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I too support the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on her amendment. In the Church of England, we had trouble with giving and passing information—having ways of doing certain things. What most people have been looking for is practical outworking of these policies. As the noble Baroness said, people could give information, but more is needed than just that: they need to be empathetic and to step into the child’s shoes in order to say what needs to happen practically for that child. The passing of information is important, but there are other consequences. If the children being safeguarded feel that the system has still not caught up in its internal ways of working, we are going to fail those children yet again.

The Government are on to a good thing, but can they, through this amendment, recognise what needs to happen? At the end of the day, a lot of children, particularly those in care, need far greater attention and more resources. It will be helpful if the Minister, when she responds, explains the practical outworking of this. What are the expectations and how will we know that they have been delivered?

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak only very briefly. I express my most sincere thanks to the Minister for Amendment 21, concerning an information standard. It directly reflects an amendment that I proposed in Committee, which, in turn, drew on the work of Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein in his capacity as adviser to the social care review steering group. I am delighted to see that provision and glad that the Government are taking the opportunity to introduce that power.

I express my support for the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, above all else that concerning the explicit use of the NHS number. Information sharing is hard. In the thematic and joint inspections we carried out at Ofsted—the joint targeted area inspections and the area SEND inspections—time and again information sharing came up as a theme. Whether we like it or not, data protection legislation has not made it easier to do that, so everything the Government can do to make it as straightforward and uncomplicated as possible in the situations where it is needed is deeply welcome. Therefore, I support the amendments, and Amendment 23 in particular.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Spielman and Lord Sentamu

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, the concern of those who have spoken against Amendment 427C in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, is, if I have understood right, around whether these pupils are being safeguarded. Proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) says

“where the institution demonstrates to the Local Authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures”.

That is important. If it did not say that, I would be joining those who do not want this amendment.

The noble Lord said that it is wrong to call these schools and to think that they are providing education, and that the education being provided is in home-schooling. In terms of safeguarding, the amendment is very clear: the local authority must be satisfied that safeguarding measures are in place. Therefore, for me, the arguments fall away because the drift of them was about whether there is sufficient safeguarding for these pupils.

Because the amendment is quite sensitive, I was not going to speak to it or support it. Having heard the arguments, I am persuaded that proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) answers the question. Therefore, I am bound to support this amendment.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak to this group of amendments on the poorly understood world of unregistered provision, including the types of religious institution that have had a lot of discussion already, as well as looking more broadly. I support two of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas—Amendments 427 and 427B.

Clause 36 is a constructive attempt to put sensible controls in place around the oversight of educational provision for children outside schools and colleges. It creates a wider category of independent education institution to supplement the narrower concept of an independent school. This is a complicated and messy landscape. I could draw out at least four strands—there are probably others—and they overlap. There are the alternative provisions, most often for children with severe behavioural problems. There is a huge patchwork of provision there. Some of it is registered and inspected, so it has a level of quality control, but much of the weakest is not, and there are no neat cut-offs.

A school puts two children in a volunteer-run community garden for one afternoon a week. That would be best viewed as part of the school’s educational model, and the school would be accountable for the child’s experience. However, if those same children are at the garden four days a week and are barely attending school, it is unrealistic to ignore the fact that the gardens become the children’s main source of education —though it is clearly an incomplete education—and that school registrations become a fiction, perhaps to avoid recording an exclusion.

It is often assumed that alternative provision is or should be a brief stint to prepare a child for reintegration into a mainstream school. However, the reality is that few children who move into alternative provision will successfully reintegrate. Hardly any such children take their GCSEs in a mainstream school. AP needs to be seen as a mode of education, not just as respite care.

Then there is provision for children with psychological problems, such as school refusal. Again, unregistered provision is often born out of excellent local initiatives. If a child makes use of such a programme for a short period as part of a plan to help them acclimatise to a suitable school, direct oversight might be overkill. However, if it becomes a de facto permanent placement, it has become that child’s main place of education and it needs to work to the same standards as other schools.

As has been touched on, there are programmes for children who are home-educated, including sports, music, art and other worthwhile activities. Parents are entitled to home-educate, and sports, music and art are all part of a rounded education, but, if an organisation is running five different programmes, one each day, and a child attends all of them, the reality is that, at that point, the organisation is best viewed in the round as having the characteristics of a school—or at least an independent education institution—in taking responsibility when parents are not present for a large part of the week. It is hard to see why such an entity should sit outside the legal framework that protects children’s education and safeguarding.

Finally, I need to talk about illegal schools. It is depressing that they exist, and even more depressing that some of them operate knowingly and intentionally outside the law. Ofsted has a small budget to investigate suspected illegal schools and to warn those that are outside the law that they must register with the Department for Education. It has successfully prosecuted proprietors of such schools, at least one of them twice; I should day that I do not think any of those prosecutions related to a Jewish-affiliated institution. Current legislation just is not equipped to deal with bad-faith operators. It dates back to a time when it was almost unimaginable that a school that had omitted to register would not do so when it was pointed out.

It has been extraordinarily easy for operators to sidestep the law. There is a kind of artificial separation. An operator running multiple illegal institutions, teaching the same group of children in one location in the morning then bussing them to another location to be taught in the afternoon, may claim that they are separate institutions and that neither reaches the threshold to be considered as a school, but, clearly, the reality is that it is a single school. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 427B. There needs to be a sensible ability to take a holistic perspective so that avoidance does not readily happen.

We have had a lot of debate about institutions that rely on the fact that children are not being taught subjects such as English and mathematics, but only an exclusively religious programme, to say that they are not schools. It is a shocking fact that there are British citizens reaching adulthood without the most basic education that they need in order to play their full part in British society and the workplace, if they choose to do so, as adults. They may not choose that, but pre-emptively taking away their capacity to do so should concern us deeply. It seems unreasonable that an institution that is part of such a model should want to be outside the scope of any meaningful scrutiny. We know from IICSA and from many previous cases that, sadly, a strong religious affiliation is not a guarantee that children will be completely protected from the kinds of harm that adults can inflict on them.

It is worrying that so many people do not want to acknowledge or discuss this problem and its tensions. There is widespread hesitancy to venture into sensitive areas linked to faith or ethnicity; we have seen this where other issues have arisen recently. I can see the temptation of offering an opt-out, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas, yet I also know that the better path is to carry on working to try to find models that do a better job of reconciling the desires of a faith group and the important rights of children. I know that many of my colleagues, including my noble friends Lord Nash, Lord Agnew, Lady Morgan and Lady Barran, worked hard in their time in government to try to find those next steps and better accommodations. An opt-out is just not, in my view, sensible or workable. At the point when this country has become simply a patchwork of self-segregated communities, cut off from each another, there will not be much of a nation left.

I note that there is an evolving picture internationally around the same issues that we have been seeing in schools in England. As chief inspector, I talked to my counterparts in countries such as France and Sweden, which are seeing parallel trends. This is something that needs discussing, not just domestically but internationally. I believe that it is impossible—and, indeed, undesirable—to try to make tidy regulatory categories covering every kind of provision outside school. They quickly become obsolete, as would any micro-precise thresholds.

Overall, the extension of scope in Clause 36 is important and justified, but it is also important that the regulations that are made are clear and well understood, and that enforcement is adequately funded, with enough resource for Ofsted to carry on its investigatory work and for the DfE to act where it should. There has to be a high level of transparency about the work, to help stave off pre-emptive attempts to brand this difficult work as biased or unfair. We must carry on doing all that we can to make the intrinsically knotty subject matter here fully discussable.