Children: School Attendance

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to safeguard children who are not attending school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, it is very important that all children are properly safeguarded, and local authorities have a wide variety of powers in the Children Act to achieve this. Those powers apply to all children, whether attending school or not. In addition, local authorities are required by the Education Act 2002 to ensure that their education functions are exercised with a view to safeguarding children. My department issues statutory guidance relevant to these functions.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord. I am sure he agrees that the majority of parents who home-educate do an excellent job and work with their local authorities. I appreciate that the new Minister has barely got his feet under the desk, but could he assure us that he will work with us to put in place robust procedures which will ensure that all children are safeguarded and that children are not taught a narrow religious curriculum at home or indeed radicalised at home, so that we know that the millions of children who go missing from our school system will be safe?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I agree with the noble Lord. Much home education is very good, and we welcome the dedication of parents who take on that responsibility and do it well. However, we have concerns about unregistered schools. We have provided additional resources to Ofsted, including by creating a new team of dedicated inspectors to inspect suspected unregistered independent schools. They and the DfE have been taking action to make sure that these settings cease to operate unlawfully. We are also creating guidance for local authorities on how to tackle unsuitable out-of-school settings and unregistered independent schools, including on how to use their existing powers. We hope to publish this guidance as soon as possible.