Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Gilbert of Panteg Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gilbert of Panteg (Con)]

My Lords, most measures that come before your Lordships’ House are a curate’s egg: good can always be found. There is wide, cross-party support for many of the measures in this Bill that aim to improve child protection and safeguarding. Some of these measures, such as introducing a single, unique identifier, will be significant if they enable much more effective, timely and joined-up multi-agency work. I suspect there is much work to be done to get this right, and there is a wealth of experience in this House that the Government would be wise to draw on.

On the second half of the Bill, I share all the concerns of my noble friend Lord Effingham and other noble Lords across the House about the rolling back of academy freedoms. I appreciate that Tony Blair is not the flavour of the month on the Benches opposite. For me, the most important of his many achievements was heralding an era of education reform that abandoned dogma. The work of successive Education Secretaries of both parties, many of whom we have heard from today, in improving schools and driving standards is a real example of a long-term approach across Governments and decades. I hope the Government will take seriously and respond to the deep concerns that have been expressed today and take a more consultative approach going forward.

I want to focus on technology in schools, which we addressed in the data Bill when it was before this House. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes and others highlighted concerns about the use of so-called edtech in schools. I thank 5Rights and others for their briefing.

First, I want to make clear that I am not against tech in schools and its use by children and young people. I remember visiting Cambridge, when I chaired your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee, where we saw remarkable work by Google and others that had developed glasses with AI-assisted technology and cameras and a discreet earpiece. Designed for and worn by blind children, this remarkable technology gave real-time audio description and other audio prompts that enabled them to interact with others, know who was in the room, where they were and who was engaging with them. These children were, for the first time, in the same place as their friends and family. It was remarkable. We were all moved, and I think quite emotional, when we saw the profound good that this well-designed technology had brought, the way it had transformed young lives and the passion of those who created it.

At the heart of this tech was thoughtful, ethical design. It is thoughtful, ethical design that we should strive for in all technology. Product design, rather than a focus on content, should be at the heart of the way we regulate technology. Indeed, if we had insisted that hardware and applications were designed to be safe for children, we would not now be thinking about trying to ban phones in schools. Edtech covers a whole range of applications and hardware that support teaching and school management. It has been widely adopted in English schools.

Many people have grave concerns about some of the actual teaching applications themselves, fearing that at the same time as parents are battling to control screen time for their children, the opposite is happening in school, where learning is gamified, gratification is instant and rewards are constant. These concerns may be unfounded, but the extraction of children’s data and its use and the lack of real evidence about the efficacy of this technology is alarming. Does the Minister agree that there should be robust standards for these technologies? If she agrees that ethical design and data standards and a strong evidence base are vital, will the Government agree to introduce procurement standards for education technology that supports schools? Will the Government review and build an evidence base on the use of edtech, looking at the long-term impact on skills and well-being?

Finally, can the Minister update us on discussions the Government have had with the ICO regarding the commitment made during passage of the data Bill to require the Information Commissioner to produce a code of practice on children’s data and education? What are the Minister’s early thoughts on what that code might cover?