Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and Baroness Barran

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and to the tireless campaigning of my colleague and noble friend Lady Benjamin, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, who I do not see in her place at the moment.

This issue has been long in the waiting. For many years, we have heard about the impact that social media is having on our young people, and today I am a bit sad that, having taken us so far, the rug has been pulled from under the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, not by colleagues here but by colleagues down the Corridor. We are almost there, but there are still issues to be resolved. As was said earlier when we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, there may well be industry insiders smiling, thinking that they have dodged it for the time being.

Talking of time, I listened very carefully to the Minister when she said that it is not about whether we take action but about what sort and how quickly. I hope she will address that when she gets up to speak, because I have genuine concerns about those timelines and what will happen if, in the consultation, the public say, “We want this Government to act quicker”. Will they be able, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, to go back to the three-six-three timescale and do things more quickly? That is what the public want. If things slip to 21 months, we will almost be in the general election period. I hope the Minister reflects on that.

I would also like the Minister to answer the question that my noble friend Lady Benjamin asked about Ofcom licensing these tech platforms, just as it does for radio and TV. If we are going to involve Ofcom more, we also need to look at giving it more teeth because, at the moment, it is not able to govern as we expect. Clearly, I support my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s attempts to test the opinion of the House. I really hope that noble Lords and noble Baronesses from across the Chamber will support him, because we are almost there but not quite. I do not want us all to get so close to achieving what we desire and then to pull away.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I start where the Minister started, by acknowledging the work of my noble friend Lord Nash, who has led an incredibly effective campaign, which has been driven not by any political motives but by three things: first, wanting to do right by all children; secondly, having listened to the pain and the passion, as many of us have, of those parents who have lost their children, those who are worrying about their children and those whose children have been deeply harmed by social media; thirdly, by the weight of evidence from not just those parents but health professionals, police and law enforcement, and teachers.

Parents around the country are celebrating the Government’s decision to commit to act with the focus, as my noble friend said, on harmful and addictive features and algorithms and the ability to meet strangers online. It is my noble friend, his team and his co-signatories who are behind that change, and we are all really grateful to them for that.

But, as we have heard this afternoon, the work to get this right is only just beginning. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, wants to get things a bit more right this afternoon with his Motion A1, but these issues were debated yesterday, and now is not the time to revisit them. But the Government will benefit—whether they want to or not—from the expertise in this House, as we have heard; from my noble friend’s drive and focus; and from the experience and insight of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron; from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones; and, sadly for not much longer, from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, who will be much missed on these issues.

I also acknowledge the courage of those Labour Peers who have supported my noble friend’s campaign, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, but also the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who have all spoken out. We all know in this House how difficult that is to do. When we think about the impact that this change, if well implemented, will have on our children in future, we are all reminded of the extraordinary privilege that we hold to sit here and be part of shaping that change.

This has been a long Bill. I think there were around 700 amendments in Committee stage and many more thereafter. I could not have played my part in that without the wonderful campaigners, including, of course, the bereaved parents—especially Ellen Roome, who has been extraordinarily generous with her time—the experts and all the charities who have supported me on everything, including children deprived of their liberty, children who are not in school, free school policies, and, of course, social media and smartphones. I cannot thank them all enough. They brought to life the reality of the policy choices that the Government are making.

I would like to pause a moment and remind the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that, when he talks about the Conservatives bailing out at the last minute, it was the Liberal Democrats who bailed out all of 24 hours ago at the very last minute on a situation that would have clarified today the position of smartphones in schools and those schools that have “not seen, not heard” policies. Ironically, we are going to have to wait roughly 21 months as a result of their decision to move from supporting and signing an amendment to, as the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, said yesterday, preparing to vote against us on it. I ask the noble Lord perhaps to reflect on that.

But the Government have made a commitment that children should have no access to smartphones. When I met the Minister in the other place yesterday, she reassured me that the head teacher who spoke on the radio just after our debate last week and said that putting this guidance on a statutory footing would make no difference in her school, because they had had a ban since 2023 and children had phones switched off in their pockets and in their bags, would think again and would understand that was no longer appropriate. Given the evidence from many people at the Education Select Committee this morning, I press the Minister to confirm that she agrees with her colleague in the other place that that school will no longer think that policy is acceptable. The Government have committed to addressing this no later than September 2027, for which I am genuinely grateful, but my guess is we will need to address it sooner than that.

In closing, I am grateful for the steadfast support of the co-signatories to my very many amendments across the Bill, including my noble friends Lady O’Neill, Lady Spielman, Lord Agnew and, of course, Lord Nash. I would particularly like to call out the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who has been the most stalwart of stalwarts and has supported our proceedings with his own charm, expertise and insight from start to finish, which is quite a marathon. I have had fantastic and skilled and long-suffering support from the Public Bill Office and from an amazing team of special advisers and researchers in Annabelle Eyre, Henry Mitson, Dan Cohen and, for part of the Bill, Beatrice Hughes.

I would like to wish the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, a well-earned rest at the end of the Bill. I have some sense of how many hours and how many plates they have been spinning respectively. For my part, I am going to be stepping down from the Front Bench now that the Bill is completing its passage—anyone would think I was sad to go—but I genuinely look forward to working across the House on the special educational needs and disabilities legislation when it comes and more. Our role is making sure that legislation works in practice; I have tried to do this in this Bill, and I will try to do it in the future.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and Baroness Barran

Monday 20th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the time she gave last week. It enabled me to better understand where she and the Government are coming from and gave me the opportunity to highlight why I think school uniforms and their cost are important, hence my amendment. As your Lordships may recall, I benefited from a policy that David Blunkett—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—brought in. When my father lost his job in the steel industry in Sheffield, I was on free school meals. We were able to go to the local education authority and get some clothing for school. That lived experience is driving me to try to do the best for young people in Sheffield and across the country.

I absolutely do not doubt that the Government want to reduce the cost of school uniforms. Their measure is to reduce the number of items required, while mine asked for a cap on the cost. As noble Lords may have seen from the amendments we have now tabled, I have stopped asking for that, but I am saying to the Government that, at some point, 12 months from implementation, when they have that review, I hope they will be willing to at least re-look at the possibilities of a cap.

More important for me, going back to that lived experience, I want to keep pushing the Government to say how they will provide help and support. They are going to limit the cost of school uniforms by potentially limiting the numbers, but there is still a cost involved. I want the Government, as and when they can—once the economy picks up, I hope—to support every child who is on free school meals. I hope the Minister can comment on that when she gets up to respond.

On the amendments on the PAN, I will read out information I got this morning from the Confederation of School Trusts. It said: “We are grateful to the Government for the work they have done to bring forward this amendment, which goes some way towards addressing our concerns about the potential impact of this policy on the quality of educational provision in the area. We think the amendments need to go further. Specifically, we believe that schools adjudicators should be under a legal duty to consider”—and this is in bold—“other ways of achieving effective and efficient provision in the area if the local authority is seeking to reduce the PAN for high-performing schools. In order to make a good decision, the school adjudicator should therefore be required in law to consult the relevant DfE regional directors”.

Therefore, we still have concerns, given that the CST has been in touch with us and our colleagues down the Corridor to ask the Government to go further. I hope that, when the Minister gets up, she can give us the confidence that the CST wants.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge the work of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, in relation to school uniform and the focus that he has brought to this in the later stages of the Bill.

I will speak to my Motion C1. I recognise that the Government have moved on prioritising quality and parental preference—and it sounds as though they are going to move a bit further, if I followed what the Minister just said. However, we do not believe that the amendment as drafted resolves the issue at the heart of this. On this side of the House, we of course recognise the pressure on schools and local authorities from falling rolls in certain parts of the country. Our concern is that there is a fundamental conflict of interest for local authorities. The easiest thing for them to do is cut the published admission numbers of the larger and more popular schools, particularly if those schools are academies, as a way of addressing that problem.

The Minister described my amendment as a blanket exemption. There are an awful lot of blankets in the Chamber this afternoon, and I do not see how one could interpret it as such. My amendment covers both academies and maintained schools, and its starting point is that consideration must be given to effective and efficient provision in an area. I am not entirely clear why that is a blanket exemption. It would require the school adjudicator to consider the shape of local provision and to explicitly consider mergers and closures.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and Baroness Barran

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, it is very late, so I will not go through the five pages of my speech. However, I will speak to Amendments 102 and 103 in my name.

The arguments have been well rehearsed previously. I thank the Minister in the other place, Josh MacAlister, for meeting some of us to go through the issues. He is very clear on the so-called postcode lottery of child in need reports that are often produced for children. In some areas it is as high as 70%, and the research I did found that in other areas it is 20%. The Children’s Commissioner found that the lowest percentage of young people known to social care in some local authority areas was 3%.

As we have heard earlier and in previous debates in your Lordships’ House, that number cannot just be demographics. My suggestion and the Children’s Commissioner’s suggestion has been, and we continue to maintain this, that we need some national thresholds so that we do not have a big gap in the care that young people get, depending on where they live. A child in need report is quite crucial.

I understand that the Minister in the other place is very sympathetic to the issue but does not see this as a way forward. Late into this evening and night, I hope I can use my power of persuasion to convince the Minister in front of me to be willing to at least continue to talk and see whether we can find a way forward.

Amendment 102 is about establishing a child protection body that would work to improve child protection practice, advise government and the sector, and conduct inspections. This is an important issue, in addition to the one I raised earlier. I do not intend to speak any further, but I would welcome a response from the Minister. Given that we agree that there is a problem, would she now be willing at least to look at whether we can reinvestigate the national thresholds? I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I too will be brief. I was slightly surprised at the need for Amendment 102. If I have understood correctly, the Government have committed to establishing a child protection agency and are currently consulting on it. I absolutely understand that the noble Lord wants to raise this because, clearly, implementation will be crucial if we are to avoid blurring lines of accountability and creating a bureaucracy. But it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

We covered standards for children in need thresholds in Committee. On these Benches, we retain the view that we need flexibility in the system so that practitioners can use their professional judgment to look at the overall situation of a child and keep it under review. But I absolutely accept that there are real problems at what one might call the top end of Section 17, with an extraordinary number of children who are suffering child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation still being classified as “children in need” rather than “child protection”.

Curriculum and Assessment Review

Debate between Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and Baroness Barran

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

They will get 20 minutes.

To take one example of curriculum change and how to spot misinformation, as Daisy Christodoulou wrote in her recent blog on the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, there is a risk that we end up with simple checklists that aim to identify misinformation but which, in practice, work only if the pupil has enough knowledge to assess it. Will the Government take the advice of experts in this area and pilot the changes to this element of the curriculum that they propose?

Will the Minister clarify the timing of the introduction of the new curriculum? As noble Lords may have worked out, it will be 2042 before there are 18 year-olds whose whole schooling has been shaped by this review. The elements that risk eroding quality will kick in very quickly; those that might improve it are far, far away. I hope the Minister can also reassure us that, as Professor Becky Francis herself said, the things that will influence outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in the short term—notably, attendance and behaviour—are also outside the curriculum.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I too begin by thanking Professor Becky Francis for her Curriculum and Assessment Review report. There is much in this final report that we on these Benches can welcome. Indeed, quite a few of the ideas bear a distinctly Liberal Democrat imprint: renewed emphasis on a broad and balanced curriculum; the recognition that every child must be offered both rigour and breadth; and the Government’s acceptance of the need for more digital, arts-based and citizenship education.

However, while the ambition is high, the risks are real, particularly for those children whose life chances depend on a system that works for all, not only for the privileged few. If we are serious about social mobility, these reforms must be equally serious about substance, delivery and equity.

I will speak a little more about social mobility and equality of opportunity—an issue close to my heart given my lived experience of the UK’s education system. The Francis review rightly emphasises that the national curriculum must be for every child, and that one of its purposes is

“to ensure that … all young people are not held back by background or circumstance”.

Yet the danger is that without an underpinning investment and workforce plan, these reforms will continue existing inequalities.

Let us consider triple science. The ambition to give more students access to deeper science study is admirable. However, I am not sure whether the Minister is aware that across England, a quarter of state schools have no specialist physics teacher. Without addressing the recruitment and retention crisis in science and other shortage subjects, we risk fundamentally disadvantaging children in less-resourced schools, many of whom are from more deprived backgrounds.

Similarly, while the arts and digital education are flagged in the final report, the parallel removal of bursaries for music teacher training is concerning. Rising teacher vacancies in music and creative subjects, and underinvestment in enrichment, threaten to drive a two-tier curriculum: one for those who attend well-resourced schools, another for everyone else.

I turn to the structure of performance measures and subject choices. The scrapping of the English baccalaureate is not in itself a problem; the problem lies in how its replacement may unintentionally narrow choice rather than broaden it. The new proposals around Progress 8 reform, with dedicated slots for science and breadth subjects, may incentivise schools to pick the cheapest route to satisfy buckets rather than ensuring rich subject access. Our schools will be under pressure to hit headline measures, which may lead schools to steer pupils away from the arts, languages and physical education.

If we are serious about social mobility, we cannot allow the curriculum for large numbers of children to become a bare-minimum choice which gives them fewer options than their more fortunate peers. A child in a deprived area should not be streamed into the narrowest option simply because the school’s performance indicators push them there.

Finally, I will touch on the issues of teacher supply, funding and implementation; they all require teachers, time, training and money. Without proper workforce planning, the ambitions of the final report will collapse under the weight of underresourced schools. The Government must clarify how the reforms are to be funded; how many additional teachers will be recruited in shortage areas; and how all schools, regardless of location, will be supported to deliver the new entitlement. If a child in Sheffield, or anywhere else outside a privileged postcode, is left behind because their school cannot deliver the new curriculum, the promise of a “world-class curriculum for all” becomes a hollow slogan.

Before I conclude, I would like to pose a number of questions to the Minister that I hope she will address in her response to your Lordships’ House. First, what workforce strategy does the Department for Education have in place specifically to deal with the specialist teacher shortages in subjects such as physics, music and languages, given that many schools in disadvantaged areas currently have none?

Also, what assessment has the department made of the impact of narrowing the curriculum on students from lower-income backgrounds? How will the reforms not widen the attainment gap? How will the Government monitor and evaluate whether the new curriculum and assessment changes improve both attainment and life chances for students from underrepresented groups, and will data be published by socioeconomic backgrounds, regions, disability status and other key equality indicators?

Can the Minister also explain why the Government have not progressed with all of the Francis review’s recommendations?

Finally, this report offers not just change but an opportunity to build an education system that is truly inclusive, ambitious and equitable. However, ambition must be matched by resources, rights must be matched by access and the reforms must be implemented with a resolve to ensure that no child is left behind. If we wish to talk of social mobility, we must mean it; if we wish to talk about opportunity, we must support it; and if we wish to talk of education for all, that must include children from communities such as mine in Sheffield, where aspiration is in abundance but where barriers remain real. The proposals are good, but only if we deliver them properly. I look forward to the Minister’s response.