Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, on his excellent and inspiring maiden speech, and I greatly look forward to that from the noble Lord, Lord Biggar. As ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in an academy in Hackney. I am an unpaid trustee of the Elephant Group education charity, a kinship carer of twin 13 year-olds and a parent of two teenagers. I am also a hereditary Peer and this could well be my last major piece of legislation in your Lordships’ House. So, as you might say, I am quite invested in this Bill.

What a Bill it is: 137 pages, 67 clauses and four minutes to talk about it. As everyone has said, it is a Bill of two halves. On well-being, there are many things to like—the Bill needs a lot of amendments, but basically there is a lot to like. Sadly, it misses out on the ending of the defence of reasonable punishment—what better place to put that in than a Bill that talks about children’s well-being? The evidence from Wales is pretty conclusive on that one.

However, if we are to describe the “schools” part as a curate’s egg, if I were the curate, I would just eat the toast. Head teachers should be the best people to make decisions about their schools, whether they are academies or maintained. The Bill does not deal with the lack of respect of parents for schools. It decreases innovation. It takes away the autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit that has made the outstanding academies flourish, such as the UTCs already mentioned, which provide practical technical education alongside industry to get students into skilled work.

At the school where I teach, Mossbourne Community Academy, students can choose public speaking, film and media, and yoga among other mainstream subjects. How are these trailblazing schools going to continue to innovate if they have to follow slavishly the rigid and, dare I say it, rather uninspiring national curriculum? I know that charities such as Tender are worried about the lack of a national PSHE strategy, and we wait to see what the review has to say about that.

On school uniform, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, will be pleased to know that, in our school, you can buy an almost-new blazer for a tenner that could potentially last a child their entire school career. The average mark-up on school uniforms is 7%, according to the Schoolwear Association. If the school uniform cap is to be on sports kit as well, then a school sports shirt will be considerably cheaper than a Premiership football shirt and will not have to be changed once a year or need to have an away shirt as well. I taught a 14 year-old girl who was pregnant, and you would never have known she was because of the blazer. Children, especially girls, change shape throughout their school time, something that a blazer hides very effectively. School uniforms can also be used, as we have heard recently, instead of suits for children to go to university interviews, thereby driving up social mobility.

We are going to be very busy in Committee, and I am afraid noble Lords have not heard the last of me.