Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, having been in this House for 30-plus years, no—you listen to the Minister, understand what they are saying, and perhaps that requires some further questioning. On the business of interrupting the Minister in the middle of her speech when you have not heard the full speech, I agree that it is relatively modern but it is clear that Committee is a conversation, and the place where that is restricted is on Report. I do not intend to be long but want to ask a short question. This is what Committee is. It is not, “Before the Minister sits down” but the basic process of Committee. I will take the advice of the clerks over lunch.

I make the point here: the noble Baroness is saying that she will put things in guidance. This is a good illustration of wanting to understand the limitations of the guidance. Can guidance definitively define a term in the Bill, such as “receiving education”, which is not defined in the Bill, in a way that is legally protected? Can guidance go against those terms? The Bill clearly says that everything must be recorded. The noble Baroness is saying, “No, only some stuff needs to be recorded”. Is there power in guidance to do that? Otherwise, the structure of the Bill needs adjustment. Also, I encourage her, if she does not want to go the whole way that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, does, at least to make it clear, probably in guidance, that doing this in an annual report is an option. Otherwise, the Bill is saying that it should be done within 15 days.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a good debate, as my noble friend recorded in her remarks, and it has now gone on for over one and a half hours. I have always been a supporter of registration, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was wise to remind us of the large absenteeism of children who are not receiving any education at all.

I make a request of the Minister on only two points. First, after the productive discussions we have had with her officials, and indeed with her colleague Stephen Morgan—I hope we have persuaded her and her officials of the important amendments that the Government could make following those discussions. I put in the request therefore to see the drafts of those amendments before we go to Report. It would be helpful and enable us to know what to do on Report.

My second comment arises out of Amendment 251 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and Amendment 254 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. We heard the replies of the Minister on those amendments. The reason for me drawing attention to them is that they were both valuable and should be given close consideration. The Minister replied that we can clear it all up in provided statutory guidance. I have always been rather nervous about leaving things to the guidance notes after the Bill because the terms of the Bill are those that the nation has to follow. One is worried about what statutory guidance will say and how it will change the application of the Bill. But that said, I withdraw my amendment and thank all noble Lords for the now over one and a half hours of debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this is another group that would be best served by my listening to what the Minister has to say: there are a lot of detailed bits and pieces in here. I would like to give the Minister comfort that, where I have put down an amendment such as Amendment 348 and the Member’s explanatory statement says

“to facilitate debate of school attendance orders”,

that is what I mean—I do not mean to wipe them out of the Bill. Sometimes her replies sound as if the civil servants regard me as Attila the Hun bearing down on them. No, it is just because of earlier comments made from the Bench opposite that they would like to have an amendment to debate and to stick to that amendment, so I have tabled amendments to enable us to debate, with no other malevolent intention towards the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, since I joined the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in Amendment 348, I feel I should stand in repentance again, because this is a bad case of overreach and I regret it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Lucas

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness comes to reply to this amendment, can she assure us that her new committee will look at the question that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, raised as to whether the House of Lords already has the powers to do this? As the Convenor of the Cross Benches said, we all agree to the terms of the Writ of Summons. There is a very strong argument that that inherently gives this House the power, through its Standing Orders, to achieve what this amendment sets out to achieve. It is clear that this question has never been settled or established. The noble Baroness’s committee would be an ideal forum to do that, and I very much hope that it will.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am puzzled by the intervention just now by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. For some time now, if a Member of this House has been posted abroad or for some other reason is unable to attend the House regularly, they apply for a leave of absence. It is as simple as that.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Hacking and Lord Lucas

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend was a most distinguished Secretary of State for Education, and I am very grateful to her for intervening in this debate. To answer her questions directly, she said that she was focusing only on new Section 436C(1), which is indeed the subsection that I particularly drew to your Lordships’ attention in covering paragraph (e). I have to disagree with my noble friend saying that it is okay; I do not think it is okay at all.

My noble friend asked what the onward obligation is to provide further information when, let us say, an extra teacher or the like is brought in. The answer according to the Bill is that there is a duty to inform the register every time, within 15 days, so that is the onward responsibility.

My noble friend is quite right that new Section 436C(2) refers to the local authority, not the parents. I pointed it out because there is an enormous number of requirements on the local authority in the registration process; they actually number 27. That is an illustration of how complicated the Bill has become and how unworkable it is in its present state.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has said, as the Minister will know from my numerous amendments later in the Bill, which I look forward to discussing with officials.

I have three amendments in this group. Amendment 204 inquires after the process in subsection (3) describing condition A. I hope that the Minister can describe today what the Government’s reasoning is in making this change. When it comes to what the process is going to be and whether there is the capability in system to do it, I am happy to leave that to discussions with officials.

Amendment 210 questions the meaning of “without undue delay”. If the hereditary Peers Bill was amended to say that we were leaving without undue delay, I would regard that as a plus. Such phrases in the mouths of government tend to mean quite a long time. I would have thought that in these circumstances, where the education of a child is concerned, something tighter might be advisable.

Amendment 221 says that, if this is what it looks like, the parent really needs access to a tribunal. If a local authority is on song and doing things quickly and it all goes smoothly and fairly, fine, but there are a lot of local authorities—my noble friend Lord Wei named the most notoriously worst of them—where this is not the case, often just temporarily because of staff changes or short-staffing. In those circumstances, the parent needs some recourse, because it is the child that matters.