Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, a Bill that has at its heart the aim of improving children’s well-being can only be welcomed, and its good intentions are clear. I support most of the measures in the Bill, particularly in Part 1, but I have some qualms about Part 2, not least that it will fail to generate the improvements to opportunities that should be its driving force.

Let me start with the moves to safeguard children and young people who spend time in social care. Currently, the outcomes for far too many of these youngsters are desperately poor and the only qualifications they end up with are a criminal record. There are initiatives to improve the outcomes, and I welcome them, particularly the provisions in Clause 7 for staying close where necessary. Those who, for one reason or another, do not have any family to rely on need to know that there is someone watching and caring. However, that need goes far beyond what is covered in the Bill.

Equally, the Bill boasts the concept of family group decision-making, and makes it a right in most cases that, before crucial decisions are taken about the future care arrangements for a child, parents or other family members should be offered a meeting. Ensuring that that offer reaches the right people will not be easy. All too often, it becomes clear too late that abused children were in situations that excluded any contact with members of an extended family, including grandparents. Sadly, often, children at risk are kept in near isolation from those who might be concerned about them. I would like to be sure that every effort would be made to offer to those people the chance to be directly involved; only then might they become aware of what has been happening. Indeed, it might be the first opportunity a child has to confide in someone they can trust.

In Scotland, the idea of every child having an appointed guardian from outside the family was mooted. It has been adopted to a certain extent. Such is the dysfunctionality in some parts of our society that I wonder whether the idea should be considered here. I know of schools in parts of Kent, for instance, where the number of children on the at risk register is significantly more than 50%. Whatever the failings of Kids Company, it did demonstrate that many children simply have nowhere to go and no one to turn to, even on Christmas Day. If guardianship is a step too far for this Bill, let us at least explore how we can make family involvement more than a box-ticking exercise.

Moving on to Part 2, I share concerns about trying to restrict the freedom of academies, but, while an excellent core education is essential for all children, they need so much more than the ability to read and understand maths if they are truly to thrive. The provision of music and the arts in some of our schools is pitiful. Inevitably, there will be pressure for the national curriculum review, currently under way, to consider this, but I think we need to go beyond that. Not only are the arts crucial to all children’s well-being, but this is one area in which those from underprivileged backgrounds, whether or not they are in the care system, are particularly disadvantaged. Sport and outdoor activity is another area where they tend to miss out and which is entirely absent from the Bill. How much better would the lives of those in care be if they spent at least part of their weekend occupied in physical team games or doing ballet? It would be life-enhancing, as would be the opportunity to visit galleries and museums and watch drama.

If we are really to look after the well-being of all children, we need to think more broadly than the Bill goes so far.