Children: Safeguarding

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have fairly limited visibility on this but I will write to the noble Earl with any up-to-date figures.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the recently departed HM Chief Inspector of Schools made determined efforts to uncover and root out illegal schools, and it is certainly to be hoped that his successor will not lose that focus. All schools which cater for five or more pupils full-time must be either maintained by a local authority or registered as an independent school. There is, however, a significant loophole in that schools which operate, for example, four days a week can claim not to be providing full-time education. The Labour Government’s Education and Skills Act 2008 provided a means of closing that loophole but this Government have refused to implement it and seem to be in denial about this as an issue. If that is not the case, can the Minister explain why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the Government’s response to the Wood review made no mention of any action on home education or unregistered school settings? When will the 2008 Act be fully implemented?

[Lord Nash]

We have just had a call for evidence on unregulated out-of-school settings and have had 18,000 responses. We are determined to regulate in this area but we need to tread carefully because many of these organisations are small, open for only a few hours a week and are staffed by volunteers. We do not want a cumbersome regime but one that works.