Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 243C standing in my name and those of my noble friends in sport, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I thank them for supporting this amendment.

My amendment follows up on an amendment previously brought forward so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Moynihan in Committee, which attracted cross-party support. I am delighted that he has rejoined our Front Bench, with responsibility for energy and net zero. We will miss him from debates on sport policy. I will do my best to match his energy.

We have an ambition across the House to raise educational outcomes and improve children’s well-being. The school curriculum is currently under review, and that makes this a particularly timely moment. My amendment is offered in a constructive spirit, as was my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s, as a way of supporting the Government’s wider aims by ensuring that physical education and school sport are considered in a coherent and strategic way.

This amendment asks the Secretary of State to publish within 12 months

“a national strategy for physical education and sport in schools”,

and to review and report on it annually to Parliament. It does not advise how schools should deliver provision. Instead, it brings together existing priorities such as daily physical activity, teacher training and inclusion for disabled pupils into a single framework, with clear outcomes and accountability. To be clear, it is intended to assist and not constrain government policy.

The evidence shows that regular physical activity and engagement in school sport not only improves health and well-being but supports concentration, behaviour, attendance and attainment in literacy and numeracy, with benefits that extend into later life. Many schools are already doing great work in this area, often under significant pressure. To make this work more effective, teachers need the right resources, training and support.

While the Bill has children’s well-being in its name, it has not addressed how schools could properly use physical education, sport and physical activity to support this and improve educational outcomes. This amendment seeks to offer a fully integrated national strategy to address that gap and monitor and evaluate the best way of doing it. Data, evaluation and analysis are so important to this endeavour.

It is a strong belief, which I know is shared across this Chamber, that physical education is not merely a subject; it is a cornerstone in the development of young people, fostering health, resilience, teamwork and confidence. When embedded effectively, it can also contribute to wider educational goals, supporting behaviour, attendance and attainment across the curriculum. This amendment also encourages collaboration between education, health, sport and the voluntary sector, and provides a framework to align existing efforts in this space behind a shared national vision. It identifies the leadership role of the Minister in bringing that collaboration together and ensuring consistency of approach.

Back in 2021, I was a member of the taskforce established by the Association of Physical Education. We published a report, which issued a clear call to government to put physical education at the heart of school life. If the Government are serious, as I believe they are, about improving well-being in schools and giving every child an opportunity to thrive, this amendment would offer a constructive opportunity to consider how a national strategy for physical education and school sport could help deliver those ambitions. I therefore hope that the Minister will see this amendment in that spirit and give it careful and positive consideration.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for not being here at the beginning of this group. I have a member of staff who lives a normal life, and I quite rightly agreed that she should go home. As a consequence and because there is no Braille on the annunciator, I was a bit late getting in, so I will be incredibly brief.

I support Amendment 206, to which I have added my name. In the light of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will ensure that, now, the Department for Education gives its full and comprehensive support to the proper teaching of democracy and citizenship all the way through the curriculum, which the Government committed to in their response to the review; and that we engage with every school in the country to ensure that young people are equipped for the future, not least for the traumas and difficulties they now face.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak on my Amendments 231 and then 232. Amendment 231 may be familiar to the House, as it reflects the substance of the Bill I previously brought forward on this subject, which is on spiritual, moral, social and cultural education in assemblies.

The amendment is simple in intent: it would remove the legal duty on schools without a religious character to provide daily collective worship that is wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character. This would not prevent any school holding acts of collective worship if it wishes to do so, and, despite some misunderstandings, it does not ban prayers, Christmas carols or the marking of religious festivals. It simply ends the mandatory requirement of Christian worship in schools that are non-faith schools by designation.

This is about freedom of choice and respect for the diversity of our society. When the 2021 census shows that over a third of the population of England and Wales now have no religious character, it cannot be justified that schools are still legally obliged to provide daily Christian worship.

This is not a matter of abstract principle; there is clear evidence from the profession itself that reform is wanted. A 2024 Teacher Tapp poll of senior school leaders found that around seven in 10 oppose the legal requirement for daily collective worship, with only a small minority in favour of the current law. Likewise, in its submission to the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s call for evidence, the NAHT argued that the current legal requirement for daily broadly Christian worship should be removed because it is “too prescriptive and narrow”, while emphasising the value of inclusive assemblies that reflect the diversity of the school community.

It is sometimes said that families who object can simply withdraw their children. It is true that parents have a statutory right to withdraw a child from collective worship, but in practice that can be a poor substitute for an inclusive approach. It may mean that children are separated from their peers, miss shared parts of school life or sit apart while others take part. It is notable that, in JR87, the Supreme Court considered precisely this point in the context of religious education and collective worship in Northern Ireland, recognising that reliance on withdrawal can place

“an undue burden on parents”

and risks stigmatising the child—hardly the hallmarks of a meaningful and equal choice.

Of course, I recognise that many noble Lords hold sincere views about the value of Christian worship in schools, and I respect those convictions. That is precisely why this amendment is carefully drawn. It would not change the position of schools with a religious character but would simply ensure that non-faith schools are not compelled by law to provide worship that does not reflect the views and beliefs of many of the families that they serve. In place of a daily worship requirement, schools would still provide regular assemblies that support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development in a way that is inclusive of pupils of all faiths and none, mirroring the approach set out in proposals previously considered by this House.

Maintaining a blanket duty of daily Christian worship in schools without a religious character is increasingly out of step with the country we serve and insufficiently respectful of families with no religion. This amendment would provide more genuine choice, not less, and allow non-faith schools to be properly inclusive community schools for every child.

Amendment 232 proposes a new clause for the inclusion of non-religious beliefs in religious education. It would put it beyond doubt in statute that religious education must include teaching about non-religious beliefs, such as humanism, across all key stages. At the outset, I acknowledge that we are in the midst of the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review. The review is highly relevant because it concludes that

“RE’s importance is not currently reflected in its standing in the curriculum”.

It recommends that RE should be moved

“to the national curriculum in due course”,

with a staged process involving

“faith bodies, secular groups and experts from the teaching and wider education sector, to develop a draft RE curriculum”.

I welcome this direction of travel.

The review is also clear about why reform is needed, stating that RE is currently

“a basic rather than national curriculum subject”,

with content that is “not nationally defined” and local support arrangements that are “complex and fraying”, producing “uneven provision”. However, “in due course” is doing a lot of work here. Unless and until those recommendations are implemented, we will still have the present patchwork of locally agreed syllabuses and widely varying practice. It is in that context that Amendment 232 is needed. It is a modest, clarifying amendment that ensures that, whatever the structure of RE, pupils must learn about non-religious beliefs as well as religions.