Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I am speaking in Committee, I declare various unremunerated positions in Gypsy, Traveller and Roma organisations. I wish just very briefly to comment on Amendment 322, on nomadic organisations. I should say that all the evidence I have seen, and many conversations, attest quite firmly to the fact that most Gypsies and Travellers, that small minority who lead a nomadic life, welcome registration and the offer of support from local authorities—although I shall have something to say about that later. This amendment does not correspond to the experience of Gypsies, Travellers, boaters or showmen. I just briefly add that it seems that most of these amendments are at odds with the reality of the situation of most children who are not in school, and with the intentions of the Bill, but I will not prolong the debate at the outset at this stage.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the chance to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and his eloquent and rather moving statement to the Committee about how he sees this. Echoing those important points, in the end this is about relationships, and about children and their needs and relationships. As the noble Lord said, with the Bill there is a real danger that this will be hugely disruptive for local authorities and parents, and in many ways could be a recipe for trouble to come if we get this wrong. But there are ways in which we can get this right and get proportionate reporting around the Bill. So there is a lot to get right here.

I will come back to various of those points later, but the simple point I wanted to make here was in relation to Amendment 238, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which is about the requirement to know which parents are educating, how and for how long. We will come back to that point in various ways in later groups. There are two key points here. One is about safeguarding, where there is an issue with at least one of the parents, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has an amendment on, and there is one about the division of time between parents educating, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has an amendment on.

This whole section needs to be rethought. What do we really need to know? We need to know which parents are taking responsibility, and where they are and how they can be contacted, but it seems that the rest of it is superfluous. I simply make those points in response to Amendment 238.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 234 in particular, to which I have put my name, and, more generally, endorse the views that my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, just set out.

I have just begun to engage with home education as a concept and as a community, and it is clear right from the start that the community is very well motivated and, indeed, deeply reflective about education in this country and how it works, and it has a lot of expertise into which government should be trying to tap and learn from rather than regiment and regulate. If it should turn out that the worst happens and my noble friend Lord Lucas is indeed forced to step back from advocating support for this sector, I am sure that I and other noble Lords will be very willing to pick this up and continue the discussion.

I thank the Minister and her team for all the communication that there has been over the summer, as there have been some very comprehensive communications and emails that have been very helpful and will be very useful today.

I want to make just one brief point today, which is relevant to Amendment 234 but also to all those in this group, which is the point about trust. Trust is the way home education works—trust and mutual understanding. In many ways, the Bill as drafted gives huge powers to the Government which appear to be based on a lack of trust and a determination to regulate. They are very detailed and prescriptive and will cause all sorts of practical difficulties, and are based on a misunderstanding about how much of home education actually works.

Now, it is true that some local authorities are not as positively motivated as others. It is certainly true that all are extremely overworked in this area. It is difficult to see what is gained by generating vast amounts of paper and reporting which go into a drawer and are not much looked at.

To conclude, if it is not too late, a rethink in this area would be helpful. There could be a pulling back of some of the prescriptiveness and a better understanding from government—centrally and locally. There could be more support for local authorities and a clearer direction from the Government to get the approach right. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this group concerns data protection and sharing. Obviously, we are dealing here with some very personal data. People want to be sure that it is handled right and not shared with the wrong people. Where families are in the process of breaking up or where abuse is concerned, it is particularly important that the data does not get to the wrong people. By and large, the amendments in this group for which I am responsible are self-explanatory. It would be most helpful for me first to listen to the Minister responding on where the Government find themselves. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words about Amendment 254A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, to which I have added my name. I want to spell out what I suspect noble Lords understand fully, which is that there are issues here. In certain cases, where perhaps one parent has been abusive to their child, partner or spouse, it is vital that addresses are not made available to that parent.

Perhaps I could just go back two or three steps and preface my remarks by saying, first, how much I appreciate the warm remarks on home education made by the Minister in opening. They set a much better tone than has tended to come through in this debate. Something else that I omitted to say at the beginning is that my thanks go to the Minister and her officials for the excellent meeting we had. It lasted much of the day and, frankly, they were very open and willing to discuss things; that was very helpful. I do not know how much movement we got out of it—we will see during the course of today—but it was helpful to have that meeting and to understand things clearly.

As all noble Lords have said, there is an issue of balance here between supporting the good people who are providing home education because it is best for their children, or for another good reason, and supporting the missing children who are abused or neglected or have missed out. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made an important intervention on this. We need to get that balance right.

We discussed with officials the issue dealt with in Amendment 254A. It was said that this could be picked up in regulations or whatever, but there needs to be something in the Bill to help parents who are specifically worried about safeguarding. This amendment is probably as simple as it gets in pointing out that where there is a concern about abuse, or an order standing against one parent, this should be handled by an authority in an appropriate fashion.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 267 in my name and in those of the noble Lord, Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, whom I thank for their support.

This amendment mandates local authorities not to keep the information they have on the register after the child has grown up, for two reasons. First, it is not necessary after the age of school education has passed. Secondly, many Gypsy, Traveller and Roma families have a well-founded mistrust of unnecessary scrutiny, targeting and intervention on the part of authorities. This amendment would allay their fears and ease liaison with the registering authority. It may be that discretion should be used in the case of SEND children, perhaps until the age of 25, but that is for discussion later. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will understand the need for this amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, I must apologise: I should have advised the Committee that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, alluded to, Amendment 237 is in an incorrect place on the Marshalled List—hence my calling Amendment 235A now.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, this is the point at which I will make one of the two main interventions that I propose to make today, on my Amendment 254B. Before I come to that, I will comment on two other amendments. I added my name to Amendment 239, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which would leave out the bit about the split between parents of how many hours are provided per week. This seems completely redundant information and is not necessary. I understand the point that the register should include some reference to the fact that parents are providing the education—it is not all being done through a private tutor—but it seems to me that the split is unconvincing.

When the Minister responded, essentially to this point, in an earlier group, she said something about wanting to know the number of hours of education taking place during the week. I may have misinterpreted but I think that is what was said, and it prompts me to ask a question of the noble Baroness. Does she have a number of hours per week that are expected to be covered by education? I should be interested to know if there is some number that the department has in mind.

The second amendment to which I have added my name, Amendment 260, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is about local authorities being able to ask for any other relevant information. That is too much of a catch-all; enough information is already provided. I should be keen to hear her arguments on this and hope that the Minister will accept them.

My main intervention is on Amendment 254B, which concerns the first point at which parents are asked to provide a lot of information about who is providing the education. My amendment picks up the point that this is a large set of possible providers. As written, it could include the occasional organised event. It could include regular visits to the Guides, which is an educational charity, I understand. It could include a rugby club and other such things—anything that has an educational component as the amendment is written. I should say in parentheses here that I have received one reference from a provider of home education, a wildlife trust in the Midlands—I will provide the name to the Minister—which has already written to the people for whom it provides home education, saying that it will put this on hold until the Bill’s impact is clear. Already this wildlife trust—I do not know what level of education it provides—has stopped providing education to home-educated children because of its fears of what the Bill might mean for it in terms of the amount of information the trust has to provide in future.

However, my intervention here concerns the information that the parent or parents need to provide. In our useful discussions with officials, they made it clear that they would put in regulations something that implied that there was a certain amount of time beyond which one-off events would not count, and that events that happened once a week but were only three hours long, or primarily social and recreational, would be taken into account. That is fine in regulations but you need some parameters in the Bill to state:

“The requirement to provide the information set out in subsection (1)(e) only applies to providers which are providing regular education sessions amounting to 10 hours or more a week, which are not primarily social or recreational in nature, and”—


importantly, a point that we have not discussed at all—

“where the information has not already been provided to the authority in other formats, such as an annual report.”

Let me pick up that point about duplication. I am as keen as anyone to weed out fake or failing home-educating parents or arrangements. However, this register is not the way to do it. Form-filling will not catch the diversity of a child’s needs and of educational methods. It is the match between the two that is so vital, particularly as we know that more than half of those who are home educated have special needs of different sorts. This really is not one size fits all, yet the Bill seems to be treating it as though it is. Nor, I believe, will inspection of a child’s work and timetable, without the wider context of a parent’s own assessment of their child’s needs, be an effective method of doing so. The Bill misses out the most important evidence of all: the reality of that particular child and their circumstances. That is why the attempt to use the register to make any meaningful assessment of the quality of education provided is fundamentally flawed. There is an existing alternative.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a good debate on this group—interestingly, with some rather different perspectives on the nature of the extent to which information should be included on the register. Let me deal with the range of points, I hope, as reassuringly and informatively as I can.

Amendment 235A was introduced by my noble friend Lord Hacking, although it seems that it had several parents—I will try to respond to the principles of it—and Amendment 239 is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. These amendments would mean that registers would be required to contain the names and addresses of only the parents who are taking responsibility for the education of the child, rather than details of all parents of the child. Parents would also not need to provide information on how much time their child spends receiving education from each parent.

As I said in relation to Amendment 238 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the reason why both parents’ details are needed is because, by law, each parent has an equal responsibility for securing a suitable education for their child. This remains the case even if a parent is not providing the education themselves and is instead securing other providers to do so. Although I understand the intention behind these amendments, I worry that they would result in local authorities being unable to obtain necessary information.

My noble friend Lord Hacking gave a harrowing example in relation to access to information on the registers. I had hoped that my comments in our debate on the previous group had given some assurances around the control of and requirements for confidentiality around the register, which will provide some reassurance on that. Additionally, I am concerned that Amendment 239 would make it more difficult for local authorities to identify children who may not be receiving a suitable full-time education. Without having the time that a parent spends educating their child on the registers, how are local authorities to know whether the six hours that a child spends at a supplementary school each week is just part of their education or their whole education?

In relation to Amendment 235A, what if no parent claims responsibility for the education of the child? Unfortunately, we must face the reality that some children in England and Wales are receiving no education at all from their parents or from anybody else. Where this is the case, how can local authorities even begin to intervene if they are missing basic information, such as an up-to-date address for both parents?

Amendments 240, 241 and 247, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to restrict or remove completely the requirement on parents to provide information on the amount of time their child spends receiving education from individuals other than the parent. I will come back in a moment to the point about hours and time, raised—appropriately—by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and my noble friend Lady Morris. But it is important that local authorities understand whether other persons are involved in the education of the child. This, alongside information on for how much time a child is educated by their parent, will support the authority to establish whether education is full-time or not and to fulfil their existing duty to identify children missing education. This is an important point, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, also brought to our attention.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

Will the Minister answer my supplementary question about whether the department or she have in mind a number of hours that make up full-time education that they are trying to get to through this process?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I said I will come to that—I am coming to it. I will also answer the other point about the annual report.

Once again, on this, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords for taking the time to meet my officials and to outline in detail their concerns about the nature of the information that we are requesting. I understand the concern not to limit the wide range of activities that effective home education may well involve, the range of different organisations that might be contributing to it and the burdens that might be placed. I reassure noble Lords that I am reflecting on the points raised.

Amendment 253, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to define what constitutes education for the purposes of for which activities parents must provide information on the registers. I anticipate that the noble Lord tabled this amendment to reduce parental burden, but it will actually do the reverse. It would bring a broad list of activities into scope of the duty to provide information, as any activity that results in the child learning would be classed as education. It is not the policy intention that registers will need to contain information on such a wide range of activities. The accepted definition of “education” is that it should contain elements of supervision and instruction that work towards defined objectives. This is supported by case law.

I recognise that noble Lords are concerned about the burden that the duty to provide information on a child’s education provision places on parents and local authorities. We will ensure that those burdens are kept as low as possible. Parents will not be required to give details on non-educational activities, for example, and we will outline this in detail in statutory guidance and, obviously, consult on the details.

Amendments 243 and 249, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and Amendment 254B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, seek to place limitations on the providers that parents must provide information on. They set a threshold so that parents need to provide information only on organisations that offer more than six or 10 hours of education a week, that educate their child during the school day, or that are one-off or largely social and recreational activities. Although I appreciate that these amendments seek to reduce burdens on parents, the exemptions would potentially leave large gaps in the overall picture of a child’s education. This is particularly true if a child is attending multiple providers or does not follow the school timetable. In relation to Amendment 254B, as I mentioned, we will make it clear in statutory guidance that parents will not be expected to give details of non-educational activities for the register.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this group seeks to ensure that the most intrusive elements of the Bill, particularly the new register of children not in school and associated powers, are subjected to robust rolling checks and ultimately remain only if they demonstrably work. Amendment 274 from my noble friend Lord Wei would introduce a simple safeguard whereby the register will expire two years after its creation. This would make sure that the system does grow beyond its original purpose without a clear review.

The troubled families programme is an example of a programme that was sold as an early intervention, but which had very little effect and continued long after people knew it was not doing anything useful. Similarly, Prevent, introduced as a targeted strategy to counter radicalisation, was quietly broadened over time into schools, nurseries and local authorities. The UN special rapporteur described it as the systematic surveillance of Muslim families and their children under the guise of safeguarding. These systems do tend to drift, so having the ability to curtail the register, or at least a requirement to review it, would seem a sensible safeguard.

Amendment 330 calls for a two-year pilot scheme before the register is rolled out. We know from experience that local authorities are highly variable in their understanding, and we receive reports of wildly inconsistent demands. If we run this as a pilot, we will get a clear understanding of how the system is going to work before we have to try it nationally on a whole series of overstretched local authorities, some of which will be mid-reorganisation and not in a position to take on something new.

Amendment 320 proposes that every two years the Secretary of State must review the operation of Sections 436B to 436G and lay their findings before Parliament. If we are not going to actively renew these, as previously proposed, we should at least be sure that we review them.

Amendment 329 proposes an independent review board made up of home educators and education law experts. One reason why SEND tribunals overturn 95% of local authority decisions is that independent panels exist to scrutinise flawed local reasoning. If we do not have independent review, we will allow this new system, which we all wish to succeed, to decay unnoticed. The volume of complaints we have heard from families who say that their council simply does not understand autonomous learning, or that they keep applying a rigid “home at school” template and deem everything else unsuitable, demands some expert oversight. The document from Bristol shared with the Government would be an example of that. This board would ensure that decisions are not made solely by people who may have little real grasp of the varied pedagogies embraced by the home education community. Amendment 388, in another group, would give home-educated children a direct annual panel to advise the Secretary of State, as we have discussed.

These amendments are also about preserving the proper balance between state oversight and family privacy. We have heard families voice profound fears about how soft safeguarding powers have become heavy handed. In one county, a local authority insisted on seeing the family’s daughter alone to discuss why she was not in school, despite clear evidence of school-related trauma. The family reported that it felt more like an interrogation than support. Another council threated a school attendance order within weeks of deregistration, purely because it had no familiarity with unschooling approaches. My noble friend feels that these proposals would not harm the Bill but would strengthen it. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

Rather foolishly in retrospect, I have added my name to several amendments proposed by Front-Bench Members of the parties opposite, and I therefore have to speak first on them, rather than just say that I agree. On this occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has proposed a new clause reviewing the impact on home-educators and the reduction of unnecessary reporting after the event. It also includes an assessment of the administrative and reporting requirements placed on local authorities as part of its proposed terms of reference.

Particularly in the light of this morning’s discussions, when we looked a great deal at the impact on home-educators but also on unprepared local authorities, and the expectation that local authorities should up their game considerably as a result of a number of measures in the Bill, it will be even more important to undertake a review such as this. The Minister has suggested that regulation will provide considerable flexibility. Some of us, including me, have been arguing that some of that flexibility needs to be put in the Bill and that there needs to be parameters around it. But even if there is flexibility, it will be interesting to see whether that actually works in practice. I am very much a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey.

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

I will make a quick intervention, if I may, just to counter the claim that the troubled families programme achieved nothing. The evidence does not tell us that, so it is important not to allow us to think that.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this is an area where we have had substantial conversations with the Government so, again, I would prefer to start by listening to the Minister. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 288A is in my name. In a way, it is the counterpart to the amendment we debated this morning under which parents would have to provide information about providers. This is about the information that the providers need to provide. There are two points in it. I have used the same format as the earlier amendment to say

“a person or organisation is providing regular out-of-school education to a child not registered in school, for more than 10 hours in a week”

and used the words

“is not primarily social or recreational”

and

“takes place without any parent of the child being”

there. I will dwell for a moment on those two points: “regular” and “not primarily social or recreational”.

The point about “regular”, as we have touched on but not fully discussed, is that this should not apply to one-off or occasional items, some of which will come up at short notice and cannot therefore be included in the register because the parents did not know about them in time to give notice. It would be extremely useful to have this in the Bill and not just in guidance. As I argued earlier, we need some parameters around what will come out in regulation. The word “regular” is not a particularly difficult one for the Government to include and would clarify that this refers only to people who are providing regular activities—maybe a definition of regular would be needed.

The other point on which I want to dwell a little more is saying that these activities are “not primarily social or recreational”. The Minister will correct me, but I think that at some point she said that it was not expected that activities that are not educational should be included in the register. The trouble is that a lot of activities—such as rugby training or swimming lessons, where they are carried out by a school—are educational, or could be, and, for example, the Girl Guides is an educational charity. It would be easy enough to label these organisations and activities as educational, which is why I am trying to turn it the other way up and say that activities that should not be registered are those which are primarily social or recreational. That is a fairly simple judgment to make and it would allay quite a lot of fears, including, perhaps, the example I used this morning—although it may be regarded as more educational than social and recreational—of the Wildlife Trusts. It has already stood down its activities because of concerns about the data that it will have to provide on all the children that use its services as part of its home education programme, which has been going on for some time.

In looking at this, I ask the Minister to reflect a bit more on those two descriptions: “regular” and “not primarily social or recreational”, as opposed to the “not educational” aspect.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, this is probably not an interest that I have to declare under the rules of the House, but it is relevant. I am a trustee of the Atlas Foundation, which helps a couple of groups to do with rugby, and which regards itself as benefitting children through rugby. Rugby is a nice sport, with lots of structure and authority figures, and such groups reliably reach young people who are in danger of offending and so on. Will these groups be taken down by this?

This will not be the cuddly end of home education. It will concern people not in school because they do not like school and have rejected it, who might technically be regarded as home-educated. What is their status? Are they affected? Is this going to put an administrative burden on groups which are run by amateurs—by people who do their own tax returns, such as the secretaries of organisations? Will we put this burden on them? A little clarification and common sense might help. If some of your client base comes from this area, what is your status?

Placing another administrative burden on organisations which, if they are run on a charitable basis, do not want to spend their money on admin but rather on the help they provide, might put more pressure on them. I do not think it was the Government’s intention, but making sure this does not catch those organisations is very important.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Let me organise my notes—you are keen for things to move quickly and then they move just that bit too quickly.

The importance of out-of-school education providers to home-educating families has been raised several times already. I recognise again the important part these settings play, providing enriching activities and education to a vast array of children. I hope that these providers will recognise that the measures included in the Bill give no reason to cease this valuable work—notwithstanding that I recognise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about the concerns of organisations as we clarify the intentions here. We will continue, therefore, to engage with the sector on the implementation of children not in school registers, so it is confident in what the registers mean for it.

The amendments in this group concern the duty on certain out-of-school education providers to give information for children not in school registers. Amendment 288, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the duty. This is a vital element of the measures that will aid the identification of children who should be on registers but are not. It is essential for enabling local authorities to cross-reference information on their registers to ensure accuracy. We know that many out-of-school education providers share our ambition to secure the best possible outcomes for these children and will gladly support the registers on that basis.

Amendment 290, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the word “structured” from the definition of out-of-school education. Actually, the impact of this amendment would be to potentially bring many more providers into scope of the duty, such as informal or ad hoc educational arrangements. It is important that the duty remains proportionate. I know that proportionality is an ambition shared by many noble Lords in this House and has been an important theme of the debates today.

This is not to say that informal or ad hoc educational arrangements are invalid. We know that some home-educators follow child-led approaches to learning, in which, under the direction of their parent, children learn from a wide range of people they encounter in their daily lives. Parents can record this as time spent in education for the purposes of the registers, but local authorities will not have the power to seek information from those individuals.

It is also important to note that the provider duty applies only where education is provided without any parent of the child being actively involved in their tuition or supervision. This means that groups of home-educating parents who meet up with their children are unlikely to be captured by the duty. The duty also applies only when an individual is providing the education; therefore, creators of platforms for e-learning, for example, would not be required to give information on children who access their websites.

Amendments 288A, 291, 292 and 293, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would limit the Secretary of State’s power to set a threshold at which local-level authorities can request information from out-of-school education providers, or otherwise exempt providers from the duty to give information; for example, by removing the requirement in respect of education they provide on weekends or during school holidays to home-educated children—I will not return to that again; I have taken out the relevant paragraph.

I agree with the sentiment behind these amendments. The Bill allows for regulations to set a threshold, and we are committed to setting it at a suitable level. I recognise the probing element of the amendments in this case; however, noble Lords’ varying suggestions on where the threshold should be set—for example, at six or 10 hours—exemplify why it should not be set in primary legislation. We will consult further to ensure the threshold balances the need for local authorities to collect necessary information without placing unreasonable burdens on providers. Noble Lords will also have the opportunity to debate the threshold when it is set in regulations through the affirmative procedure.

To reiterate, the intention behind the provider duty is to capture the providers involved in providing a home-educated child’s education, rather than organised activities that the child may be involved in for primarily recreational or social reasons—even if they are important for their development, such as the example of rugby raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

As I previously highlighted, the ability to prescribe a threshold, as well as the ability to make regulations to exempt types of providers from the duty, will help ensure that only those that are relevant are captured. It is our intention to exempt those organisations that have a drop-in, drop-out nature or happen irregularly. Examples of that include museums that offer workshops for children, as my noble friend Lady Morris stated this morning; public lectures that are open to any family or individual to book; and periods of work experience, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp has suggested. It is our intention to exempt those organisations and types of activities.

I know that some noble Lords are concerned that the provider duty introduces a disparity between school children and home-educated children, but we must remember that there is a huge level of oversight for where and what children are learning at school, which is bolstered by inspection frameworks, curriculum requirements and attendance data. What we are asking of out-of-school education providers in comparison is minimal. As part of the implementation, we will keep engaging with the sector to ensure continuity of provision for home-educated children; I recognise how important that is.

Amendments 294 and 299, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to remove the requirement for providers to confirm to local authorities whether they are providing out-of-school education to a child for more than the prescribed amount of time, and to remove the requirement to provide information on the amount of time they are doing so. Amendment 294 would require providers to give information on any child. This would not be proportionate. The legislation limits this to children to whom they are providing education above a prescribed threshold without their parents’ involvement.

In reference to Amendment 299, on understanding the number of hours children are attending such provision without their parents, we will support local authorities to identify children who are attending unregistered independent schools. Some children not in school are attending those illegal settings for long hours and are not receiving a safe or suitable education. It is crucial that the local authority has the information required to intervene in those circumstances.

Turning to Amendment 298, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which seeks to further clarify the information that providers are required to give local authorities on the total amount of time for which they provide education to children, we believe this amendment is unnecessary. The drafting is already clear that the total amount of time that the provider provides education to the child refers to the time when the child is receiving education from the provider. However, statutory guidance can be used to give further detail if necessary.

On Amendment 296, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would require providers in scope of the duty to provide only information that they already know to local authorities, providers should already hold the required information for health and safety and safeguarding purposes, and they will have to provide it only on request. Enabling providers to provide only the information that they know makes it too easy for unsuitable settings to just say “I don’t know” and to keep children hidden away from the services that are there to support them.

On Amendment 300, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would remove the provision in new Section 436E that the local authority must request information from a provider by sending or leaving a notice at the place where the education is provided, providers in scope of the duty need clarity on how information will be requested. I acknowledge that the noble Lord has tabled this amendment due to his concerns as to how the provision will work for virtual providers. The legislation already provides for a notice to be served electronically, and we can make this clear in statutory guidance.

On Amendments 301 and 302, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which seek to extend the period by when a provider must respond to a local authority’s request for information, it is essential that local authorities have the requested information as soon as possible so that they can ensure that their registers are accurate and identify children who should be registered but are not. The timeframe for providers to give the required information is at least 15 days, and a local authority has discretion to extend that—for example, to account for closures over holiday periods.

Amendments 303 and 304, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 295, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, set out reasons to exempt some out-of-school education providers from monetary penalties should they not provide requested information for a local authority’s register. A local authority does not have to impose a monetary penalty on providers should they fail to provide information or provide incorrect information. It would be unlikely that a local authority would issue a monetary penalty if a provider had made a minor mistake for the first time, for instance. We will look to make it clear in the statutory guidance that authorities can engage with providers to correct minor mistakes without having to resort to penalty notices. The process for providers to make representations against and appeal a monetary penalty is set out in the Bill. I think this is sufficient recourse for providers who disagree with their monetary penalty.

I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined and because of the explanations I have provided, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister made some excellent and very clear statements in response to my amendment, which are extremely useful. Will she consider putting any part of that in the Bill? It seemed to me that she was very clear and definitive, and that it was not beyond the wit of the department to come up with some clever form of words that would indicate what she stated without making it very difficult to introduce regulations later. Perhaps that is something the Minister would consider.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have stated it on the record here. I have also identified one of the problems with putting it in the Bill—I used the example of time limits, where, so far, we have had two different suggestions as to whether that should be six hours or 10 hours. The noble Lord knows this, but there are real difficulties and inflexibilities in placing that sort of detail in legislation. I would be more than happy to write to noble Lords, going over again the intention with respect to those regulations. I think I am right in saying that the regulations will also be subject to consideration by this House. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord. As much as I know that people love things to be in Bills, in this case I genuinely think that we can be clear about the intention and provide assurances without creating the inflexibility that placing something in the Bill would do.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 317 in this group, which would rather expand the range of reporting to other groups of children who are under the care of the state and not in a specific school. It is really important for the governance of education in this country that we understand how all our children are performing. I would expect a local authority to take an interest in the examinations of home-educated children and these other groups of children in Amendment 317 in their local area. I would expect the Department for Education also to be interested, not for year-to-year panicking but in a determination to understand what the difficulties and differences are and how, over time, to drive the results up. The basic starting point of that is to get the data out.

Particularly if you are reporting at a national level, you are not reporting anything that has any element of personal or identifiable data to it, but you are putting a bit of data down on the table to draw people’s attention to what the state of affairs is. That is a very important part of the way in which the state should have responsibility for what it is providing to our children.

Equally, I agree with those who are saying, particularly as we are bringing home education within the scope of the state so much more, that we should take responsibility for making sure that home-educated children find it easy to take crucial examinations. At the moment, it is extraordinarily difficult. They may have to travel hundreds of miles to find an examination centre and pay thousands of pounds to have access to an exam. The Prime Minister is borrowing a flat so that his child may have a quiet environment in which to study for his examinations, so one would hope that the Government realise that making it easy to take exams within a reasonable distance from home and without undue stress on the family’s finances is an objective we should have—particularly when, as my noble friend says, home-educated children are saving us so much money.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I support the proposal on GCSE results from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. It is very important, for the reasons she suggests. I have seen some interesting results from home-educated children, which show them performing well in these areas. The results would be interesting to see and may improve the score, as it were, for the country as a whole.

Secondly, I entirely support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I will say nothing more except that this is perhaps the biggest single practical obstacle in the current regime that home-educating parents have reported to me. I will leave it to the noble Lord to press that case.

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[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 309 and 310 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am grateful. I also support Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, on language accessibility, and Amendment 426C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on access to sport and recreation. I can see that the practical implications of that are a little complicated, but it would be really important for home-educated children to have the same encouragement for physical activity.

My amendments would alter the behaviour of the registering authority in that it would have to offer, not wait for the home education parent to request, support. This is, first, because parents in marginalised communities, remote from the digitalised world and in some cases low in literacy, may not know that support is available, and, secondly, because, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents may have learned to distrust public authorities because of the widely attested discrimination and prejudice they will have experienced.

Requiring local authorities to make the first move would enable the authority to identify more clearly what kind of support is needed and, further, find out what problems the child experienced in school so that these can be addressed. I hope my noble friend will accept these amendments.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 313 and 314 in my name. I originally thought I was going to speak for rather longer on this, but so much has already been covered, including the fact that I was looking here for some very positive statements from the Minister about home education generally. Such statements have been coming throughout this debate, which is extremely good.

I am also totally supportive of the fact that the Minister needs to send out some very firm messages about the people missing school. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, there are more than 100,000 home-educated children but also a missing 100,000 and we do not know where they are, so there is a balance to be drawn between both of those.

My two amendments try to pick up on the point about rebuilding trust in the system among home-education parents, and indeed perhaps among local authorities, which has been quite badly damaged by the original presentation of this Bill. As has been said already today, there is a common endeavour here to secure the education, welfare and future of children and young people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in the country. Those are the young people we are talking about. Throughout the Bill, we need to get the balance right between safeguarding and necessary bureaucracy, between parental and state responsibility, and between necessary assessment and support. I do not think that is being achieved at the moment.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak with a certain amount of repentance, because this amendment is too much of an overreach and I regret drafting it in that form. At earlier stages in the Bill, relating to Clause 31—this goes to my Amendment 233A—I found it necessary to seek to have taken out of the Bill provisions going over one, two or three pages. I proposed that for Clause 31 because there was far too much information being sought of parents and far too much of an obligation on local councils, which were being compelled to meet some 13 requirements as part of the process.

This is an overreach on my part, and I apologise. It is very important that the local council has full powers to issue school attendance orders. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I have mentioned, there is a great worry about the number of children—some 10,000 was the figure given—who are not having any education at all. Therefore, local authorities should be diligent about finding where these children are and issue the necessary number of school attendance orders.

I support Clause 32 until the top of page 66, where there is a requirement for the recipient of the school attendance order to provide the information within 15 days. That is a very tight timetable for ordinary citizens, who would not be at all familiar with receiving an attendance order, which, presumably, is rather a scary experience. I suggest it should be a longer period, but that is the only revision I am now seeking under this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I was going to speak to Amendment 365, which is about appeals against a local authority’s decision not to revoke an attendance order. However, in light of the discussion we had about appeals in an earlier session in July, I had intended to withdraw this amendment, so I will not speak to it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have several amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord Wei is concerned that we are not getting the balance right between the state and family, and I agree with him. It is the parents who have the primary responsibility for upbringing and the best interests of their child, and intervention by the state should be justified only in exceptional circumstances and must be proportionate. My noble friend feels that Clause 32, as drafted, risks tipping that balance the wrong way. Families already tell us that school attendance orders cause stress, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. One parent said they were forced to send their child to school against her will, where her needs were not going to be met. They said, “We felt trapped, unheard, threatened and fearful for our daughter’s safety”. Another described a child with severe anxiety and seizures who has thrived only when withdrawn from school.

For many, home education is not elective but a response to systemic failures. I am sure the Government are aware of that, and what a mess the SEND system is at the moment. Many of the parents who home educate are doing so in response to a less than ideal system. I know we tried to improve the system, and that this Government are going to have another go; it is not easy. We must expect a continued flow of parents who choose to look after their own child because the state is not doing a good enough job, and be humble enough to recognise that that deserves our support and not continual harassment.

Amendment 334 would change the duty on local authorities to serve a preliminary notice from “must” to “may”. In the context of all the other discretions that local authorities have, it would be sensible to allow them to see that issuing a notice in a particular set of circumstances would do more harm than good. It would allow them to focus on the child’s welfare and not force them down a rigid path.

Amendment 335 would require that all relevant support be offered before issuing such a notice. This goes back to an earlier amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. The first reaction of the local authority ought to be to ask if support is possible—can it help make this succeed?—as well as looking at whether school is a better option. It ought to come at this with support; families should not be threatened with orders without help being tried. The Square Peg campaign, supported by over 130 organisations, has called for a “support first” duty. One parent told us, “We asked for counselling and support, but what we got was a school attendance order. It only made my child’s anxiety worse”.

Amendment 338 asks in what circumstances a “best interest” test will be applied. Amendments 339 and 340 ask why just the existence of a Section 47 investigation is the trigger, rather than a consideration of whether that investigation has any relevance. Many Section 47 investigations are entirely unconnected to the suitability of a family for home education.

Amendment 341 looks at the question of how the local authority is in a position to judge best interests. What resources has the local authority got to enable it to do this? Why should the decision as to what a child’s best interests are be so hard for a parent to challenge? If it is not to be hard to challenge, what should the routes be?

Amendments 343, 344 and 345 are all concerned with the threat of a school attendance order not being a penalty for a minor infraction. I gather that the Government intend to put that in guidance, but it is important that parents understand that they are being judged by reasonable standards and are allowed to make ordinary mistakes—that they are walking a path and not a precipice.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 279 would allow local authorities to inspect the materials being used in the child’s home education and to see the child’s work. I also support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I strongly support the Government’s measures in relation to home education in this Bill, and in this respect I find myself in disagreement with a number of noble friends on these Benches with whom I generally share a common view of life. I was delighted to hear the Minister’s opening remarks on this group. I thought she put the situation exceptionally well.

As we have heard, the home education lobby is very concerned about these provisions, and I am sure it will be concerned about my amendment. However, the number of children apparently being educated at home has grown exponentially over the past 10 to 15 years, probably from 20,000 to 30,000 to somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, and that is without allowing for the 300,000 children estimated by the Education Policy Institute to be missing from education. My noble friend Lord Frost says that only 1.4% of home-educated children get a school attendance order, which is unsurprising as without a register local authorities just do not know who these children are. As for the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, about the majority of home-schoolers being university-educated people, that may well be the case for those home-educated children who are being suitably educated, but I believe there are many more children who are apparently being home-educated but who do not have that benefit.

Of course, many children are educated exceptionally well by their parents at home or in other settings, and I respect parents’ right to do that. These are not the parents who concern me, and nor should these parents be concerned about the provisions in the Bill or my amendment. If they are providing a suitable education, why should they be? But those of us who work in schools know that many children apparently being educated at home are not receiving a suitable education, or indeed any education at all. Many are active in gangs. Surely, we must be concerned about these children. Children have a right to be educated, and I invite the home education lobby to reflect on whether its objections to the Bill, and no doubt to my amendment, are a little selfish and lacking in public spirit in some respects. I understand what my noble friend Lord Lucas was saying about the importance of children being seen. I assume, therefore, that he supports going further than my amendment, because the whole point is that too many children are unseen.

England is an outlier in relation to home education. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, talked about the relatively low number of children being home-educated. We have the highest proportion of children in home education and the lowest amount of regulation. No other European country has a higher rate of home education. The next highest is France, which mandates yearly inspections. The 2018 European Commission report into home education concluded that students’ progress is monitored and assessed everywhere in Europe except in the UK and in the Netherlands. I refer noble Lords to an excellent report by the Centre for Social Justice dated November 2022, entitled Out of Sight and Out of Mind. That report made a number of recommendations, including that local authorities need powers to conduct visits and see the child in person at least every six months, and that home-educated children should complete an annual light-touch progress assessment in English and maths. My amendment goes nowhere near as far as that.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has uncovered incidents of harm involving children reported to be in home education, including a number of children who have died. The panel concluded that such children were often invisible, were not in school and did not receive home visits. A 2021 report by FFT Education Datalab found that children with additional vulnerabilities are disproportionately likely to be out of the school system by the end of key stage 4, and it is estimated that about half these children are in home education. It found that a child who has been persistently absent from school is more than three times more likely to end up with no final destination than a child who has never been persistently absent, and a permanently excluded child is two and a half times more likely than the child who has never been permanently excluded.

Local authorities do not like serving school attendance orders because by the time the matter gets to court, the parents are lawyered up and, even when they are not providing a suitable education, may well be pretending to be doing so by producing documentation that they have only recently obtained. My proposal would cut through this dance. Unless a child who is home-educated is known to social services, how is a local authority to know whether they are receiving a suitable education?

While Sara Sharif had previously been under a CPP, she does not appear to have been at the time of moving into home education. On my noble friend Lord Wei’s point about scaremongering, we should certainly be concerned about children who are home-educated and suffer abuse or are murdered. I believe there are many more children, not in this category, who are apparently being educated at home but are actually not receiving any education at all. Sadly, in the last decade or so, the world has moved rapidly to this appalling state of affairs.

My amendment is consistent with the recommendations made by the Education Select Committee in its report Strengthening Home Education, although it does not go anywhere near as far as its recommendations of annual contact with the family and a minimum annual assessment of a child’s progress, particularly in relation to literacy and numeracy.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 202C from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and Amendment 226 from my noble friend Lord Meston. As this is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I would like to make two preliminary remarks. The first is to declare a personal interest, as I have a relative who is home-educating, and therefore I have learned at second hand some of the issues involved here. Secondly, that has also caused me to want to investigate more and to thank the many people both inside and outside this House who have provided me with information about the whole field of home education and how it relates to local authorities.

I am very grateful to the Minister for having a meeting with me early on in this process and to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for also having meetings with me to discuss these issues. I very much appreciate it, and I very much appreciate the fact that the Minister has offered to meet Peers. I am available in August, so we look forward to having further discussions and perhaps saving some time in Committee around some of the relatively minor details that need to be cleared up in the Bill.

I do not want to take up too much time; I will simply make three or four points and then speak to the amendments. If noble Lords want to see a real approach to personalised education, they can find that in some of the successful examples of elective home education perfectly attuned to the needs, capabilities and aspirations of the child. That happens at all levels of achievement.

However, and equally, I am concerned about the 39,000 missing children mentioned who may be at risk of abuse, may be running wild or are being brainwashed and separated from society in some form. There are a whole range of different sets of issues that we must think about here.

In characterising home education, I just want to pick up one other point that I do not think has been made by anyone: some parents choose to home-educate one of their children because of that child’s particular needs but have their other children in school. Indeed, many parents will home-educate their children for a period and then bring them back into school later on when they perhaps have moved up or managed to develop in a way that allows them to take advantage of whatever the provision is locally.

We must really recognise the poor state of some of our schools and some of the stories I have heard about what has been described to me as “in-school excluded”. These are children who perhaps have difficult behaviours or whatever, have an educational assistant and end up spending the time in the corridor with that assistant rather than being educated.

There is a whole range of issues that we need to tackle here. My approach to it is, like others—I am delighted to see this spirit in your Lordships’ Committee on this—to try to find practical ways forward to balance all the different issues. Central to that, in whatever we do, is to help to frame a positive relationship between home-educating parents and local authorities. In some cases, this is excellent but, in others, this is very fraught indeed. I will have a bit more to say on that later.

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[Lord Nash (Con)]

My amendment also says

“to see the child’s work”.

As those of us in schools know, seeing a child’s books is one of the best ways of finding out whether they are being properly taught. It may be that the home educators are educating their children in a particular way and you can see the materials that they are using to teach, but one needs to know whether the children are actually learning. The only way to know that is to see their work.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, and I very much understand the point that he is making. However, the issue is what happens to that material once it is inspected. How does the home education officer make a judgment on it? Most of them are not teachers—in fact, I suspect very few are. Do they go to an outside source, or do we set up some great panoply of mechanisms to decide whether those materials are appropriate?

At the moment, we have a different situation. The current position, as I understand it, is that, where authorities have cause for concern, Sections 437 to 443 of the Education Act 1996 provide for steps to be taken if it appears that there is very little or no education in place for a child, or if the local authority has no information about any education arrangements. I understand that in most, possibly all, local authority areas home-educating parents provide an annual report to the local authorities, rather than providing materials that will be judged in isolation.

I think that we should leave the law where it is. As I understand it, the attitude of the best local authority home education officers is that they build relationships; they are happy with most of the people, but can then concentrate on the problem areas—because there are problem areas—within the home education sphere. Imposing new duties such as this would add burden, bureaucracy and frustration to authorities and parents alike. We should concentrate on improving that relationship, not making it more burdensome.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Nash’s Amendment 279. It suggests a very mild tweak to the proposed legislation, largely because he is respectful of the majority of parents who do a good job in home education, which I completely agree with. However, I see at close quarters the impact of home education in deprived communities where the parents have limited education themselves and little interest in it. They are clearly unable to educate their own children and yet, when they are withdrawn from schools, there is nothing a school can do. These children are being thrown to the wolves and, as the Minister has said, the numbers are escalating.

My noble friend Lord Nash talks about a trend over the past 10 to 15 years but, according to the NSPCC, the number has increased by 186% in six years. In 14 local authorities, it has quadrupled in that time. These are not all middle-class, educated parents, but we have no idea who they are.

In 2021, the House of Commons Education Committee’s Strengthening Home Education report made a number of recommendations. Perhaps the most important was that the DfE should provide

“a set of clear criteria against which the suitability of education can be assessed, taking into account the full range of pedagogical approaches taken in EHE”—

elective home education—

“as well as the age, ability and aptitude of individual children, including where they may have SEND”.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, a government-sponsored group, produced a number of recommendations on home education in its May 2024 report, and many of these mirrored the report I have just mentioned. The report refers to 27 referrals received between August 2020 and October 2021, involving the deaths of six children and a further 35 suffering serious harm, including physical neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse. There are many other good recommendations, but, as they do not fit this specific amendment, I will not list them. I recommend these two reports to any Peer interested in this vexing subject.

My noble friend’s amendment would provide a very light-touch review point. Bona fide parents would not be negatively affected. On the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, I say that the amendment is extremely light touch, but it would move the situation from what is currently a complete black hole to at least give us some indication of children’s well-being.

I want to finish with the case of Sara Sharif. Many noble Lords will know about it, but I will remind the Committee. A 10 year-old girl was withdrawn from her primary school in April 2023 under the pretext of home education. This occurred after teachers noticed bruising, which she had attempted to conceal beneath her hijab. The school referred their concerns to social services, but, after being taken out of school, she became invisible to safeguarding agencies. Neighbours reported hearing constant crying and screaming. She was murdered by her father and stepmother. They were convicted in December last year. The lack of school oversight allowed this to happen undetected. I respect the good work that most home-educating parents do, but it is for cases like hers that I support Amendment 279.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 204 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lucas would narrow the scope of local authority powers to withhold consent to home education, in this case to exclude children in special schools. The driver of this—I looked at the Explanatory Notes but could not see anything that explains why special schools are all included—is that we seem to be treating parents of children with special needs in the same way as parents where there is an active investigation from children’s services and that feels disproportionate. There is also a risk of a conflict of interest where home education could be discouraged if the costs of providing therapeutic support to a child might be higher in that setting than in a special school, even if that was in the child’s best interests.

My Amendment 219 is a sort of common-sense amendment on an issue that I hope the Minister can clarify at the Dispatch Box. It seeks clarification that, if a local authority was to refuse consent to a parent to educate their child at home, it would need to provide the parents or carers with a statement explaining the reasons why, including the costs and benefits to the child. I assume that this would be good practice anyway, but if the noble Baroness can confirm that, that would be helpful.

I am sympathetic to the clarity that Amendment 210 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas would bring in terms of timings, but I think that Amendment 215A would be unduly onerous for local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, expressed concerns about the complexity of Clause 30. I am with him in that I think there is work to be done on Clause 30. He also focused on Clause 31 in his remarks, but I will cover those points in the next group.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry; I missed my turn to jump up. I wanted to make two remarks. First, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has drawn the big picture of a range of issues that concern us all and I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we can hopefully work through those in meetings or in Committee in a bit of detail. There are many points to come back to on that.

The one that I want to pick up on is Amendment 221, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others, on the right of appeal. It goes back to a point that I made earlier: the relationship between local authorities and home-educating parents is the vital one in all of this. In the end, we are providing the legislative framework within which that will operate. At a time when there is clearly a lot of suspicion, confusion and so on, a right of appeal will help to deal with that situation. It seems common sense to have a right of appeal to a tribunal.

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In conclusion, these amendments are not an attack on oversight. They call for fairness and are rooted in law, supported by evidence and demanded by the lived experience of countless families who have chosen lawfully to educate their children outside school. They ensure that decisions are informed, protect against arbitrary power and provide avenues for justice when things go wrong. They do so not by weakening safeguarding but by strengthening it, by making it more trustworthy, more proportionate and more humane. I urge the Government to accept these amendments or to work with us to bring forward their own versions that reflect these principles. I urge noble Lords to support them.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, in part for the reasons given so eloquently by the supporters of the amendment, but also because it provides the opportunity for the child concerned to be home-educated if that is the right thing for them. It is not just about ensuring that being home-educated is in the child’s best interest, but about providing the opportunity for that to happen. This is an important, and presumably relatively small, concession in terms of numbers, because here we are talking only about people who are in special schools, although I know there is another amendment later. I hope that the Minister will consider this amendment favourably.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend said about young carers. We ought to be much better at collecting information on what is going on with young carers. The whole business of collecting information is getting easier with AI. The government AI team is a sight to be seen. I have not, in government, come across such an enthusiastic and effective team. I very much hope that the Department for Education will make contact and make use of the blockers. When you are faced with a difficult problem and need to find a way of collecting data that does not put a burden on the organisations that are having to do that data collection, and it is diverse and complicated, AI is a really good approach. I urge the Government to help look after young carers by taking that step.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 211 is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendment 215 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 211A, which is in my name. I very much agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. This is one of the biggest issues in the Bill. Why the words

“in the child’s best interests”

have appeared here and not elsewhere seems strange. They seem slightly out of place.

It may be that it is late in the evening, and I am going slightly brain-dead, but it seems that what is written in the Bill is internally contradictory. It says that the local authority

“must refuse consent if the local authority considers …that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school, or”—

going back to my education, I assume this is the law of excluded middle—

“that no suitable arrangements have been made for the education of the child otherwise than at school”.

If it is alternatives, then presumably new Section 434A(6)(b)(i) means that there are cases when suitable arrangements have been made for the education of the child otherwise than in school, but it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school. Unless I have that completely wrong, it seems that this is something of a muddle anyway in the presentation of this account.

The bigger point, rather than simply that, is the one the noble Lord makes about who decides what is in the best interests and what we mean by it. I have suggested in my amendment to leave out

“that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school”

and replace it with the actions mentioned further up the page in new subsection (4)(a) where the inquiries

“have led the local authority to conclude that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm (within the meaning of section 31(9) and (10) of—”

the Children Act 1989.

In other words, keep this about abuse and about child protection, and do not introduce the wider consideration of

“in the child’s best interest”,

whatever that means, as well as, as I said, the logical inconsistency of the framing that is down on paper.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, have made a powerful case for the point of principle that underpins this group of amendments. I confess to agreeing with them only in part. The point of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that there may be a muddle in the drafting, may be a fair one because of the discussion we had earlier on my Amendment 204 about the automatic inclusion of children in special schools within the framework of local authority consent. So I am sympathetic to the points my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, make on children in special schools and the idea that the state knows what is best for them.

Where I am not sympathetic—I respect their opinion and I think they have a point—it is because, on balance, when a child is subject to a child protection plan or a child protection investigation, we have already established that it is either confirmed that the child is at risk of significant harm or there are serious concerns that the child could be at risk of serious harm. Whether the “best interest” is the best way of framing it, I do not know, but I think that at that point and for that group of children—

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

The amendment I have proposed uses almost the same words as those the noble Baroness has just used: rather than using the phrase “in the child’s best interest”, why not refer to being at risk, and abuse, as found by the tribunal? It seems much clearer to do it that way, and I wonder whether she would agree.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right and I am grateful to him for again drawing my attention and that of the Committee to his drafting. I guess one would then need to consider the group of children in special schools, because I would be surprised if the noble Lord’s drafting applied to so many of them.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

At the heart of this group of amendments is the concern about the use and definition of the expression “best interest of the child”.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others suggested that the use of the “best interests” ground in Clause 30 is a fundamental change to parents’ rights. I reiterate the quite narrow scope of the use of “best interests” in this clause. Remember that what we are dealing with here is not the fundamental decision about whether a parent has the right to remove their child from a school to educate them at home. They have that right, unless some very specific circumstances are met—when they may still have the right, but we introduce a process for the local authority to consent to whether it is appropriate for that to happen. I do not think I need to run through once again that narrow category of children and circumstances where, as we are proposing here, the local authority should be enabled at least to consider the issue of whether, in those circumstances, it is appropriate for the child to be removed from school.

I know that some noble Lords do not believe that there should be any need for consent and therefore do not believe that the criteria that the Government have chosen of Section 47 inquiries, child protection plans or special schools are appropriate. I accept that but, if you do have a consent system—and there is quite a lot of support for the idea that an additional stage is appropriate for children in these circumstances—you then need to decide the criteria for the local authority’s decision-making. New subsection (6)(b) makes it clear what those criteria should be in these very specific circumstances.

It does not feel unreasonable to me that those criteria should be what the local authority believes to be the best interests of the child. We can assume that the parents believe in the best interests of their child, but in these very specific circumstances, because of the nature of the children, we think the child’s rights might override the view of their parents.

So the first criterion is what is in the child’s best interests; the second is whether or not there are suitable arrangements made for the child to receive education, other than at school. I understand that some noble Lords do not believe that those are the right criteria, but I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that this is somehow a fundamental change in the rights of parents. We recognise that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart and tirelessly advocate for them, often in difficult circumstances. That should be the basis on which parents are able to make decisions, in most circumstances, about whether or not their children are removed from school to be educated otherwise.

However, there are situations where a child could receive a suitable education at home but it is not in their best interests to do so—for example, if there are concerns that the child is being exposed to domestic abuse or extremism. In those cases, the school can act as a protective factor that enables issues to be escalated quickly.

I hope that my argument about the reason for the choice of those criteria also covers the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He recommends that a local authority should automatically refuse consent for any child where the local authority has concluded that they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm following a child protection inquiry, but child protection is complex and practitioners must gather a range of information and evidence from multiagency partners and others who work with the child and their family, and children can experience harm from both inside and outside the home. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to prohibit all such children from being removed from school for home education.

The consent measure rightly requires the local authority to consider the individual circumstances of each child. It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the consent measure is not preventing parents in these circumstances from home-educating; it is simply saying that the local authority should consider whether that is appropriate and use the two criteria that have been set out in the Bill.

Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei—

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

I think I understand the Minister’s points, but could I just pick up the slightly pedantic point that I was making? If it is an “or”, it implies that suitable arrangements could be made for the education of the child otherwise than at school and that the local authority still considers that it would be in the child’s best interest to receive education by regular attendance at school. It is a slightly pedantic point and I am very happy to just register it rather than require an answer. As I say, I think it is the law of the excluded middle.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand the noble Lord’s point. If I am wrong on this then I will clarify afterwards, but you could envisage a situation where the problem was not the nature of the education being provided but whether, given the circumstances that the child found themselves in, it was in their best interests not to be in a school. The protective element of being in a school could be the most important point there.

Vocational Education and Training

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, and I echo her last points about investing for the future. I also congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, on securing this debate. I want to deal with one specific point, which is how this all relates to children excluded from school. Like him, I shall go slightly off target, as it were, and talk a little about primary as well as secondary schools.

The number of pupils excluded in the last year for which we have records, 2017-18, was 411,000 temporarily excluded from schools, but my real concern here is that nearly 8,000 pupils were permanently excluded. That is a slight rise, continuing the trend in recent years. Noble Lords will not be surprised to know that there were higher levels among pupils with special educational needs and some ethnic groups.

I recently visited two alternative providers for pupils excluded from school. Both were impressive. One was rural, taking about 30 children; the other was urban, with about 130 children. Both were providing for both primary and secondary children. At the country one, I saw an adult working one-to-one with primary school children who, in a sense, had not had a childhood. It was about play as much as education, I think: social skills, relating to adults, and opportunities to regress in ways that they needed to, but also to learn. At the urban one, the head teacher told me that the real issue with secondary-age pupils was to keep them coming back to the provider, not just disappearing—and when she said “disappearing”, I am afraid she meant it, becoming feral, as it were, in our society. “The real danger”, she said, “is that they mix with others here and become criminalised”. She talked to me about county lines drugs and prostitution.

Both heads were really impressive people. Both saw their work as building on strengths and helping children to succeed. Both told me about their successes, with children learning carpentry, joinery, making things and hairdressing—with one wanting to go on to become a midwife—and other practical skills. I was particularly struck by the head teacher at the urban alternative provider, who told me of a young girl she had met in the street who had recently been her in her care who said, “Miss, miss, I’m a taxpayer now”. What an extraordinary story of success. There cannot be many times in your Lordships’ House that one hears of anyone being delighted to be a taxpayer, but what a great success that was.

Both those head teachers were scathing about the number of children being excluded from school: far too many, they said, which was unnecessary and putting children at risk. The reason for those large numbers, they said—and it appears to be true—was a lot of head teachers wanting to remove some pupils from their school because of their effect on the school’s average on tests and exams. We are still waiting to hear from the Government what they will do to ensure that pupils excluded from schools are included in their results. Perhaps the Minister can let us know what is happening on that.

I also recognise the stress that a teacher must face if they have particularly disruptive pupils in their class. That must be very difficult to deal with. I know that schools cannot remake the past for those children. It is not their responsibility to deal with all those problems—many of them need other professional input as well—but they need to meet the children where they are. These are children excluded from schools, but one could see it the other way round: they are children rejecting school.

This is where I link back to vocational education and what schools do in their culture and norms and curricula. As has been said, are we squeezing out the technical subjects and putting a greater focus only on academic ones—a point that has been made powerfully by many speakers in the debate? Are we trying to squeeze children through too narrow a gate? Should we not be more like the heads of those alternative providers, finding their strengths and talents, nurturing them and thus building up confidence and self-esteem?

I note that getting an award such as a BTEC is associated with pupils having lower absence rates, lower rates of permanent exclusion and lower fixed exclusion rates. Pupils with special educational needs support taking a technical award in state-funded mainstream schools also have lower absence, permanent exclusion and fixed exclusion rates when compared with similar young people with educational support. These are powerful additional arguments for why we should be providing more vocational and technical education and training. It is also important that we focus on children with special educational needs to make sure that they are given these opportunities.

What could be done on vocational, or at least technical, education for primary school children, thus helping them to avoid setting out on a lifetime of social exclusion and quite possibly crime? I am reminded of the observation made by my noble friend Lord Bird. He said that the average seller of the Big Issue has had £1 million of taxpayers’ money spent on them. That is the case whether they have been in care for a few years, whether they have ended up in prison, whether they have addictions or ended up in mental and other hospitals. That is an enormous amount, so this is a massive issue for the whole of society. It is not just about not building up problems for the future; it is about lost opportunities for individuals in society. Of course, this is a systems issue with no single key; all organisations and policies need to work together. But I do believe that vocational and technical education, along with changing curricula at school in the way that has been so well described in the debate, is a substantial part of the solution.

Finally, I want to put three questions to the Minister. They go slightly off piste, so perhaps he might like to write to me on them. Do he and Her Majesty’s Government agree that too many children are permanently excluded from school? If so, what more should be done by schools and others? Thirdly, and most pertinent to this debate, how could the principles being applied in vocational education and training be applied in primary schools?