Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendments 208, 216, 217, 220 and 225 seem eminently appropriate for discussing between today and September. Amendment 222 again raises the need for a tribunal to deal with tricky cases. We need something effective, we need something fair and open, and that is what tribunals are. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 209 in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Storey and Lord Watson.

Amendment 209 would require local authorities to ensure that they have offered a young carer’s needs assessment if they are notified of a pupil who is a young carer being withdrawn from school. This is to ensure that withdrawing a young carer from school does not result in increases in their caring responsibilities to the extent that it prejudices their education.

I am vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Young Carers, an active APPG producing reports on the challenges facing young carers and enabling parliamentarians to meet young carers, virtually and physically, to hear at first hand the challenges that confront them. A recent report told us of the difficulties that they face when their responsibilities as carers are not recognised by school and others, and that too many young carers cannot thereby access the support they need.

By way of background to this amendment, there are more than 15,000 children caring for parents or siblings for more than 50 hours a week. That is more than the average working week—and of course, they have to squeeze in their education on top of that. One issue that young carer services have shared with the APPG is that there are cases where a young carer is caring for a parent—for example, with a severe mental illness—and is withdrawn from school. Not being in school then results in greater responsibilities falling on those young shoulders, and in even more isolation from the support that a school can give them.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in group 5. These amendments mainly concern the requirement to seek consent should a parent wish to withdraw their child from school in particular circumstances. Just to reiterate, we recognise that most home-educating families provide safe and suitable education in the best interests of their children. The consent measure applies only to specific groups of children—where there are child protection concerns or the child has a special school placement. We are confident that this is a proportionate response to help to ensure that these children’s needs are met and are protected.

With respect to the detail in the amendments, I turn first to Amendment 208, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would remove the requirement for a school to notify the local authority responsible for the child if that is different from the local authority where the school is located when a parent intends to withdraw the child to home educate. To be clear, schools will hold the child’s address; therefore, they will know which local authorities to notify. Working Together to Safeguard Children, the statutory safeguarding guidance, is clear that schools should be included in child protection activity and planning, and therefore should also be aware of which local authorities should be contacted. It is crucial that schools retain the responsibility to verify whether consent is needed for home education. Without this, children in scope of the consent process could be mistakenly removed from school rolls without permission, or the consent decision could be delayed.

Turning to Amendment 209, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, which has rightly received the most attention in this group of amendments and would require a carer’s needs assessment before the child is withdrawn from school, I commend the noble Lord on championing the needs of young carers. To be clear, I certainly do not demur from his overarching argument—and that of other noble Lords, such as my noble friend Lord Watson—that young carers are in need of specific attention, care and consideration from local authorities because of the enormously difficult position they find themselves in.

The local authority will have ample opportunity to fully consider the child’s circumstances as part of the consent decision-making process. In fact, that is the whole point of having that process. Of course, under Section 436C(2), which we touched on in, I think, the group before last, local authorities will also be able—be expected, in fact, I would suggest—in the case where a child is a young carer and is being educated at home, to record and keep relevant information about that child. If they were being home educated, the fact that they were a carer would be an important part of the information that a local authority should record about them, precisely in order to make sure that they are getting the support that they need.

The Children Act 1989 already provides robust safeguarding measures for young carers, who may be recognised as children in need, ensuring that their support needs are assessed by their local authority. Of course, we will ensure that our reforms to both education and children’s social care work for all disadvantaged children and young people, including young carers.

I think it was interesting that some people, in responding to this amendment, were arguing that being a young carer should not be a reason why a child could not be home educated, and others were arguing that it would be better for that child to remain in school, with support, and be able to learn without the relentless role, as I am sure it is, of being a carer. I think this suggests that there are probably differing circumstances for young carers, and it reinforces the general point that local authorities should take seriously their responsibilities to fully consider the needs of young carers and to ensure that their support needs are being assessed.

Turning to Amendments 216 and 217—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness leaves Amendment 209, will she say something, or perhaps write to me, about the delay in getting a needs assessment for young carers?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Sorry, yes, I remember that the noble Lord asked about that. I will write to him on the broader issue of the speed with which young carers are getting their assessments. I will follow that up separately.

Amendments 216 and 217, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to remove or amend the requirement for local authorities to notify any other parent of the child of their home education consent decision. In law, all parents have responsibility for their child’s education, and it is therefore necessary that all parents are notified, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Amendment 216 would remove this. Including exceptional circumstances provides safeguards where a parent does not have to be notified: for example, in cases of domestic abuse. Of course, children must be protected from domestic abuse. Amendment 217, however, states that

“exceptional circumstances will always apply where domestic abuse is alleged or established”.

We are concerned that this could have unintended consequences, including a parent making an accusation of domestic abuse to prevent the other being informed of the consent decision. Again, sadly, local authorities are quite used to the way they need to behave and the care they need to take in circumstances of allegations of domestic abuse. However, we will provide further detail regarding what “exceptional circumstances” means in this context in statutory guidance. As I have said previously, we will engage with stakeholders when updating that guidance.

I turn to Amendments 218 and 381 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. Amendment 218 would require local authority staff to have at least two years of personal home education experience of their own children before making consent decisions. Amendment 381 would require at least one person with direct home education experience on safeguarding panels for decisions related to home-educated children. I think it is possible to be an experienced practitioner without specific lived experience; however, that can make a good, important and interesting contribution. I am not sure that the noble Lord’s experience about men not being able to work with women giving birth would be recognised by the large number of male obstetricians operating around the country, but that just proves that, while lived experience and, most certainly—

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

For all those reasons, I am hoping and assuming that the Government have taken all these messages on board. We are looking forward to hearing that said, even though the Bill may not be the right vehicle in which to implant a lot of this. Whatever the Government’s intent, it would be helpful to know how this will work, in conjunction with important pieces of legislation such as this, to improve the status quo, which is criminal.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 486 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and shall add a brief footnote to what he has just said.

At Second Reading, I mentioned that when I was in the other place I went round a primary school in Andover, in one of the less well-off parts of the town. The year 1 teacher, who had been there for 20 years, told me that within a few weeks at the beginning of term she could tell which children were likely to end up in trouble—and, because she was also a magistrate in the youth court, she told me she was nearly always right. There will be many other teachers like her who are able to identify at an early stage which children and families need support.

That is why, as other speakers have said, the Department for Education’s budget should be front-loaded, as all the evidence is that this produces the greatest return on investment—not just for the child but for society as a whole. Research by the IFS published only last month, and early research by the IPPR and the New Economics Foundation all confirm that putting things right upstream reduces problems later—problems which are more serious because they have a wider social impact and are more expensive to correct. My noble friend Lady Cash made the point eloquently in her speech. I recall in 2010 canvassing for my noble friend in north Kensington—I am sorry I did not knock on nearly enough doors, as otherwise her parliamentary career might have started a little earlier. In line with the Government’s policy on the NHS, we should put resources into prevention, rather than treatment.

As earlier speakers have said, the previous Labour Government recognised this with Sure Start. There was some tension between those who wanted a universal service—a centre attended by children and families from all backgrounds, so that there was good integration—and those who wanted the service to be more targeted. There was some sort of compromise, in that Sure Start was focused on the more deprived areas but was universal. This resulted in the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, then leading on the policy in the No. 10 Policy Unit, receiving a leaflet inviting him to take his children to an aromatherapy session at his local Sure Start centre.

All the evaluations of Sure Start were positive. It significantly improved the educational achievement of children from nought to four, with benefits lasting until GCSE, at age 16. Children with access to Sure Start performed significantly better in assessments at age seven, 11 and 16, and needed fewer EHCPs at secondary school. It substantially reduced hospitalisations and decreased absences from school. The benefits were stronger for those in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, for boys and for children from ethnic-minority backgrounds. To my mind, this means that future initiatives should be prioritised and targeted, rather than universal. Indeed, the analysis I have referred to indicated that Sure Start was disproportionately used by middle-class families instead of targeting specific families who needed the support.

Then in 2010—mea culpa—I was a member of the coalition Government who abolished the ring-fence for Sure Start. While there were reasons for cutting public expenditure and reviewing how Sure Start operated, in retrospect it was a short-sighted decision, leading to the closure of many centres and the merging of others.

Fast forward to the introduction of family hubs and Start for Life in 2022-23: like Sure Start, these draw together services in education, public health, parental needs and benefits advice. Although they are for children aged nought to 19, they are not actually all within a centre. Family hubs targeting a much wider range than Sure Start risk diluting the early offer of support, which I believe to be crucial. Of course, family hubs are less generously funded than Sure Start was. Family hubs also place more priority on virtual services and signposting, rather than on in-person community hubs.

What this amendment would do is invite the Government to look at what has happened over the past 20 years, review all the available research, both here and overseas, and come up with an early years strategy. My personal preference would be for one focused on the under-fives—getting them up to speed for primary school and identifying and supporting the families and children that need help, rather than a wholly universal service.

I do not know if noble Lords have read what Jenni Russell wrote in today’s Times. She said:

“One of its starkest examples is the recent collapse in the proportion of children who are ready for school at the age of four”—


a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell—

“Some arrive still in nappies, a third can’t listen to simple instructions, a quarter can’t use the toilet alone. In a survey in January half of parents said school-readiness wasn’t their responsibility”.


Those are the families that should be targeted. I know it is difficult to find money for under-fives because there is strong demand from primary schools, secondary schools, and higher and further education, but, as and when the economy improves, that is where the focus should be.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has been in the news this week. She also wrote a report for the coalition Government, Working with Troubled Families. She spoke about her report at an ADCS conference in July 2013, saying,

“we can tackle the problems families have better if we get to children with problems aged 4 rather than as excluded children in pupil referral units at age 11”.

My teacher in Andover would wholly agree with that.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Young of Cookham, though not because I believe my Government are not doing a great deal about early years—I am sure my noble friend the Minister will be armed with information about what the department is doing and planning—but because I want to be confident that there is a strategy, as mentioned by other noble Lords, which is comprehensive, publicly understood, consulted upon and bought into. I have to say that, right now, I am not absolutely sure that is the case.

I would like to thank organisations for their briefs on this. I want to mention two organisations I talked about in my Second Reading contribution, when I also mentioned the fact that early years were not mentioned in this Bill. The first is Roots of Empathy, which is an international charity based in Canada. I am a trustee of its UK branch. The second is Speech and Language UK, with which I have an association and for which I worked, many years ago, when it was called I CAN. I was delighted when the education team, when in opposition said—I quote our manifesto:

“Developing early communication skills is another key foundation for life, with serious knock-on consequences when development is delayed. Labour will fund evidence-based early-language interventions in primary schools, so that every child can find their voice”.


I would also like to thank the Parent-Infant Foundation, which has produced excellent work for this debate.

Roots of Empathy is a leader in the empathy movement in Canada, which I think has a certain irony, given what the United States leadership has had to say about Canada recently and the fact that that Government seem to find empathy something which is to be disparaged rather than celebrated. It is about developing empathy and emotional literacy in children. The mission is to build caring, peaceful, civil societies through the development of empathy in children and adults. The vision is to change the world, child by child.

The Roots of Empathy programme was created in 1996 by educator and acclaimed social entrepreneur Mary Gordon to break intergenerational cycles of violence and poor parenting. We have Roots of Empathy in some of our schools here in the UK; the programme is in Wales, south London and Scotland. I urge the Minister to visit these schools, with her colleagues, and see how these programmes work.

As the programme has been running since 1996, the scientific evidence about the effects of encouraging empathy among our youngest children shows that it bears fruit as they get older, particularly for boys. I urge the Government to look at Roots of Empathy as something which is certainly in line with our values and certainly delivers. I am very happy to help facilitate visits to the classrooms where this happens.

The timing of interventions, particularly for young children, has to be included in any strategy. High-quality learning in early education and childcare is a crucial opportunity to transform life chances. If it is too late, it is unaffordable and unavailable. The funding of early language interventions in the Labour Party manifesto specified only primary schools, but it is recognised that the commitment to improving communication skills has to be earlier than primary schools. It has to be part of early years, because too many children arrive at primary school not ready to learn and without the speaking skills that they need to be able to learn.

Language at two years old predicts reading, maths and writing when children start school. By the end of the reception year, approximately 20% of children in England are not at the expected level of learning for communication and language and 30% are not at the expected level for literacy. This is a major challenge. That is why I support this intervention and a discussion about early years, what our strategy is and how it will work.

I was a great fan and supporter of Sure Start—of course I was. We are introducing this amendment to ensure that the vital process for early intervention, relational support and family support is not left to chance or short-term policy cycles, as I am afraid it has been in the past. As many noble Lords across the Committee have said, it is based on experience. It took 10 years to quantify the benefits that resulted from the Sure Start programme, by which time its infrastructure had largely been dismantled. So what we need now is a strategy that will outlive all Governments and serve all our children.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 165. In the spirit of brevity pioneered by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I also support Amendment 118 in his name and Amendment 144 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Russell of Liverpool. As a teacher, I can only quote the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton: they are so sensible that you are surprised they are not law already.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hampton, on Amendment 165. It replicates an amendment tabled in the other place that got strong support. The background is that, sadly, more and more homeless people are being accepted under the homelessness legislation and placed in temporary accommodation. By the nature of that legislation, most of those people are families and they will have children. A child in temporary accommodation is obviously in a less advantageous position than a child coming from a stable background. So we need to do all we can to make sure that child gets access to the services that he or she is entitled to before—hopefully, not after too long—they are placed in suitable long-term accommodation.

The amendment simply requires the local authority to notify the GP and the school of the child’s circumstances. As my noble friend Lady Sanderson said, this should be good practice and Manchester does it. If I were the head of a primary school, I would want to know which of my pupils were in temporary accommodation. If I were a GP, I would also want to know which of my child patients were in temporary accommodation. A GP is meant to treat the patient as well as the illness. There are real risks of a child being off-rolled by a school because the head simply did not know that they were in temporary accommodation, they had decided to stay at the same school from which they were moved and the bus just takes longer to get there. Likewise, if they are not registered with a GP, they may miss out on prescriptions and all the other universal services that they are entitled to. So this simply seeks the establishment, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, of a formal notification protocol.

After the debate—again, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, referred to this—there was a meeting with the Ministers concerned. Looking at the record of that meeting, it does not seem to me that there were any game-changers that meant that this could not happen. Yes, there are some technical issues that need addressing—perhaps some change to the technology used by local authorities so that these things are done automatically rather than manually, as is the case at the moment—but given that the title of the Bill includes the words “Children’s Wellbeing”, it seems to me that this is something the Minister could smile on and perhaps agree to, with, if necessary, changes on Report.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the excellent and compelling amendments in this group. In particular, I support Amendments 96 and 107A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, will remember that I spoke at Second Reading of her commendable Private Member’s Bill on mental health professionals, which I think was about 18 months ago. I raised the particular issue of children with complex needs—specifically children mainly in mainstream schooling who are diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. For a number of years in the other place, I supported Tourettes Action in its research, profile-raising and fundraising. For full transparency, my brother is a professor of cognitive neuropsychology, specialising in human movement studies, which includes Tourette’s.

I do not wish to detain your Lordships’ House in discussing Tourette’s, but I want to make the point that one of the key issues that affects children who have Tourette’s is a lack of collaboration and consistency across schooling, primary care and hospital settings. In other words, often children behave badly in school and are excluded because they are not diagnosed with Tourette’s and do not get the clinical care that they need. That work between the two parts of the state is not happening, and there is a similar issue for children with complex needs in the care system.

Again, all these amendments are excellent, but the specific advantage of my noble friend’s amendments is that they would impose an imperative on the education sector, and specifically the health sector—primary care, hospitals and other clinical settings—to focus on those children leaving care with specific and very important pressing needs.

There are a wide variety of issues that affect young people in that situation, including housing—the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham have focused on those issues—but the advantage of these two amendments is that they would put a focus on primary care in the Bill. Yes, young people are worried about education, skills, training and housing, but probably the most important thing is their health.

On that basis, putting this in the Bill would be a positive move that would encourage different social care agencies and the people who write the statements for those children and young people, such as teachers and so on, to start thinking about what their healthcare pathway will be in addition to other pathways, such as housing, education and skills. For that reason, I support these amendments. I hope that the Minister will look kindly upon all the amendments, but those two in particular.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 100 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which would insert a new clause aimed at giving all care leavers up to the age of 25 priority status in homelessness legislation. To that extent, it is a subsection of the much broader debate about how we look after care leavers.

The amendment would end a current anomaly in the law, whereby care leavers up to the age of 21 are entitled to priority under the homelessness legislation, if they present as homeless to their local authority, but not those between the age of 21 and 25. It is supported by a range of charities, not least Barnardo’s.

All young people need a safe and stable home in which to start their adult life—and, if you do not have that, it is difficult to access education, employment and health services. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, care leavers are more likely to be homeless than non-care leavers. Research by the charity Become shows that they are nine times more likely to become homeless, and that threat does not stop at the age of 21. Again as we heard from the noble Baroness, the numbers of young care leavers presenting as homeless has gone up by 50%.

We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, earlier that non-care leavers are staying at home much longer; the average age at which they leave is now 24, up from 21 a decade ago. Over the years, the legislation has been gradually catching up with that trend, beginning I think with the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, which recognised that the state or local authorities need to support children beyond the age of 18. Again as we heard earlier, care leavers do not have the same safety net of family to fall back on.

There is a lot in the Bill which I welcome to support care leavers, in particular a recent amendment disapplying intentionality for care leavers, meaning that local authorities, when they have a corporate parenting duty, no longer view care-experienced people under 25 as being intentionally homeless. But the Bill needs to go a little bit further. Under the current legislation, all young care leavers under the age of 21 who present as homeless are deemed to be in priority need, which means that local authorities have an obligation to accommodate them. However, there is no such automatic protection for care leavers between the ages of 21 and 25. Under the current homelessness legislation, they are required to prove that they are vulnerable—something that is not defined in legislation. This means that they have go around getting letters from their GP, for which they may have to pay, and getting other letters from psychiatric services, to prove that they are vulnerable and their corporate parent is under an obligation to support them.

There is also a problem with children who are placed out of area. They are not apparently automatically eligible for the usual care support in the local authority in which they are now living, even if they have been living there for many years, whereas local care leavers have that entitlement. That seems to be an anomaly that the Minister might like to comment on.

Finally, the amendment would bring the homelessness legislation into line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which obliges local authorities to continue to provide support up to the age of 25. It will not be a panacea for all the problems facing care leavers, but it will be an important step towards ensuring that, when the worst happens, help is available for a young person who may have few other places they can turn to for help. So I encourage the Government to accept the amendment.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I support two amendments in this group, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, Amendment 99, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, Amendment 100, both of which I have put my name to.

With more than 80,000 children in care, the highest figure on record, this Bill represents an opportunity to strengthen support for all care leavers. One in three care leavers becomes homeless in the first two years after leaving care. Many become drug users and end up with a criminal record.

Some of the most affected care-experienced children are those from diverse backgrounds, who suffer double discrimination. Research by Barnardo’s found that nearly one in 10 black children in care has received a custodial sentence by the time they turn 18. When many finally leave care, they find themselves in prison or with a criminal record, which makes it difficult to find a home or employment, or develop a secure, happy life and any hope of a prosperous existence. They find themselves being part of a gang, which becomes a family substitute but leads to even more disaster.

As the Minister said in reference to the earlier group of amendments, there is an urgent need to improve understanding across agencies and departments of the needs of children in care and care-experienced young people, as well as providing training on how to better address these needs. For example, the Department for Education could extend corporate parenting principles to all bodies involved with care-experienced young people.

As we have heard, many young people can depend on their parents to support them long after they leave school or university, both financially and with a roof over their head. But support for care leavers across the country is piecemeal—a postcode lottery. Ashley John-Baptiste’s book, Looked After: A Childhood in Care, which I highly recommend, illustrates graphically just how difficult it is for young people to navigate their life after leaving care without support, especially if they want to go to university. It is potluck and almost an impossible task. Therefore, we should be doing more to ensure that care leavers are supported into adulthood, which I why I support Amendment 99 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

Through Amendment 100, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, seeks to increase protection for care leavers facing homelessness. I welcome this amendment and fully support it. We need to support care leavers and give them the opportunity to forge a happy, secure and hopeful life. It is our duty to do this and I hope that the Minister will agree with me and other Peers, and support these amendments.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, introducing a national register for foster carers would produce many benefits. Overall, it would enhance their status. One resulting effect would be to attract more volunteers, thus beginning to reduce the shortage of foster carers across England, which currently stands at around 5,000. That in turn would improve the matching process by which children in care are placed with foster families, and increase the portability of foster carers. All those benefits would raise the level of safeguarding of children in the care system.

Last year the Commons Education Committee inquiry into children’s social care recommended that the creation of a national register of foster carers should be considered by the then Minister for Children. The inquiry was interrupted by the general election, but the new committee has reactivated it and is still considering these issues. It has been reported that the Government are considering the merits of a national register, which would certainly be appropriate because both the Scottish and Welsh Governments are consulting on the creation of such a register. Perhaps my noble friend can clarify the current thinking on this.

A register would safeguard children by keeping a central record of foster carers who have had their approval terminated for safeguarding reasons, ensuring that they are not reapproved by another service and then able to care for another child. Currently, services cannot always know this, particularly if potential foster carers are transferring between independents and local authority services. The introduction of a register would go hand in hand with an accredited pre-approval and post-approval training framework and robust national standards of practice, improving the overall quality of care for children.

The number of children in care in England who are moved outwith their local authority area is an issue that we have heard mentioned by noble Lords in several of the debates today. It increased from 41% in 2020 to 45% last year. A register would allow services to make matches more quickly at a local level, which would ultimately reduce out-of-area placements. That could be done by the new regional care co-operatives, which we are going to debate in the seventh group today and which will lead on regional placement commissioning, for which the Bill already makes provision. With a register in place, local authority fostering services could be given access to information on the number of fostering households with vacancies for children in their local area, including those with independent fostering providers, as well as in neighbouring local authorities.

This amendment would require the Government to establish a national register for foster carers. Linked to the regional care co-operatives, that would help to better safeguard children and, as I have said, improve the status of foster carers through formal recognition of their role, allowing services to match children to foster care placements more quickly at the local level.

I hope my noble friend will acknowledge that the register would bring the beneficial outcomes that I have outlined and overall assist in making a significant dent in that shortfall of foster carers, which results in too many young people being denied the option of improving their life chances by being able to find a loving foster family to embrace and nurture them. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 143 seeks to promote the idea of a national foster care strategy. I declare an interest in that a very long time ago my wife and I were registered as foster parents in the London Borough of Lambeth—nothing on the heroic scale of the Timpson family, of whom we heard earlier. It principally involved looking after the children of a single mother while she went into hospital to have her baby; somebody needed to look after her children before she was discharged. The regime in those days was much more relaxed than it is today.

Since then, the relatively informal system has evolved into a much more structured and regulated part of the child welfare system, particularly following the Children Act 1989. There is now a much stronger emphasis on the physical and psychological stability of a child, and more awareness of the risks of inappropriate placements.

I turn to the amendment. Most children grow up in their own home with two parents, one parent, or a parent and a partner, and most of the challenges that confront a family can be met within the normal support mechanism of families, friends, the local authority and heroic voluntary organisations. But at times children have to be taken into care by the local authority. In March 2024 there were 83,630 children in care in England, up from 80,000 in 2020. For those children, there is a range of options: for a very few it will be adoption, but for most it will be kinship care, fostering or children’s homes, and we had a good debate about kinship care and the role of local authorities as a constant theme.

Schools: Mobile Phones

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their position on the use of mobile phones in schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, we know that using mobile phones in schools can lead to online bullying, distraction and classroom disruption, which can lead to lost learning time. The Government’s Mobile Phones in Schools guidance supports schools on how to develop, implement and maintain a policy that prohibits the use of mobile phones throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, break time and lunchtime. Head teachers are rightly responsible for the implementation of guidance within their schools.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. I understand the tension between a clear national policy on the one hand and an element of local discretion on the other, but I was struck by the reply of the noble Baroness’s ministerial colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, in a recent debate on this subject in your Lordships’ House, in which she said that

“last year, around a third of pupils reported that most of their lessons were disrupted in some way by a mobile phone”.—[Official Report, 28/11/24; col. 895.]

Is that not just unacceptable? Should the Government not consult on some stricter options, one of which would include a ban on mobile phones in primary schools and, in secondary schools, making them inaccessible during school hours, except where they are needed for medical reasons?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, it is clearly unacceptable if lessons are being disrupted. That is, in many ways, a broader issue than whether mobile phones are being used and goes to the behaviour policies that every school has a responsibility to have and to develop with their parents. I think it is important that we look at the way in which schools are already taking action to limit mobile phones. Actually, schools are moving towards developing many of the things that the noble Lord has suggested should be in place. This comes back to the point he raised about whether we believe that, with clear national guidance, including examples of how phones should be controlled in schools, we should nevertheless allow a determination at school level by head teachers of how that is actually implemented. I think that the balance is broadly right at the moment, although it is of course important that we keep this under review and that we encourage schools to do what is necessary to enable all classrooms to be purposeful and calm and for every child to be able to learn.

Free Schools and Academies

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Evans for initiating this debate, which has already produced some high-quality speeches. The contribution of my noble friend Lord Harris was one of the most compelling and persuasive that I have heard for a very long time. The Secretary of State should not just read it but watch it.

I looked at the list of speakers for this debate, saw the number of highly qualified noble Lords and paused before adding my name because, in 50 years in this building, I do not think I have ever spoken in an education debate. However, I have always taken an interest in education, as a local MP, as the parent of children who attended state schools and now once again as a governor in a multi-academy trust, as in the register. Much has changed since I was first a governor, in the 1960s. We had short meetings then, dominated by a head and a forceful lady from the Inner London Education Authority. We had slightly longer meetings in the 1980s when I was again a governor, because the fertile mind of my noble friend Lord Baker had introduced a fresh initiative, LMS—local management of schools—which we were getting our minds around. Now, as a trust member, I have taken a renewed interest in governance. I make no complaints that the entry requirements are now slightly higher. I had to have a DBS check and do online safety requirements for certificates on equality and diversity awareness, safeguarding and prevention, and NCSC security. I make no complaints about that at all.

However, some of the challenges facing the trust that I am on are the same as those for maintained schools. The 2.8% pay offer, not accepted by the unions, is currently unfunded, as indeed is the national insurance increase. Teacher recruitment and retention is a problem for all schools, but particularly for schools that are supporting children from more deprived backgrounds, as many multi-academy trusts are. They often have a higher number of children with SEND, needing more staff to support them, without clarity about how that will be funded. I welcome the steps taken by my noble friend Lady Barran when in government to rationalise the assessment of SEND and reduce delays. That needs to be built on.

Some of the other challenges for the trust are different. I will mention just one. The trust I have joined, which has an outstanding chair and CEO, is expanding, with local schools wanting to join. However, the time it takes to go through the process of adding schools leads to unnecessary uncertainty and a diversion of effort. Taking on a single academy is less difficult, but taking on a maintained school can take up to 12 months, with the property services division of the local authority often responsible for delay. Anything that the regional directors at the DfE can do to minimise delays for trusts that want to expand would be enormously welcome.

I have seen the benefits of academies where a school in special measures joins the trust. The trust then has much more direct control over that school than an LEA would have, and it can share resources with that school for a time, turning it around. I have seen the rapid improvement that is needed with a school, with a focus, for example, on issues such as non-attendance, and with teachers and pupils from stronger schools helping out with weaker schools. The trust with which I am involved is geographically concentrated. That means we can help a small number of schools in a much more focused way than the broader-based LEA could.

I listened with some dismay to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I have found no evidence of the bad practices that they mentioned at the schools in my group.

My final point has not been mentioned so far. The success of the academy movement has meant that some LEAs have been left with but a handful of primary schools. That means they have been even less able to support the schools remaining in their control. This reinforces the imperative for academy rollout to be completed, rather than delayed as the Government are suggesting at the moment.

Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that those are the areas where need is very great. In our recent announcement of £15 million-worth of investment in the first 300 nurseries based in schools, we will be encouraging applications from those where there is a particular need. We will be using evidence of those applications to ensure that we are able to improve the provision in the areas that need it most.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

How confident is the Minister that she will be able to recruit the 35,000 additional staff that she needs to meet her target?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I outlined to the noble Lord, it is a very big challenge and one that we inherited from the previous Government. We have reinvigorated the recruitment campaign and are focusing on ensuring that we have those staff in place. Although it will be very difficult, we are committed to ensuring that, next September, we deliver that improved entitlement for childcare.

Schools: Absenteeism

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, tackling absence is at the heart of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. If children are not in school, it does not matter how effective or well supported teaching and learning is; they will not benefit. That is why we are committed to working with the sector to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school and rolling out breakfast clubs to every primary school.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful for that. Does the Minister agree that Covid weakened the contract between parents and schools? As a result, we have over 150,000 children missing on average every other day, double the number pre Covid, as well as 1.7 million missing on average every other Friday, again double the number pre Covid. Against the policies that she has just announced, will she agree to have targets to reduce absenteeism for those two categories?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

While we are ambitious for early years and childcare, we will need to consider the outcome of the spending review in thinking about where we can focus our resources. We intend to produce an early years strategy early next year, which will certainly build not only on what we have learnt in government and our work engaging with stakeholders and the dedicated staff in early years and childcare, but on Sir David’s recommendations.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that to deliver the programme, we will need another 35,000 people working in childcare by this time next year and 6,000 by the end of this year? How confident is she that she will find the necessary people?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right about the challenge for the workforce. That is why, last week, as he says, we published further information about the 75,000 additional staff that will be necessary. It will be a challenge, but we have already begun work, focusing on the Government’s childcare recruitment campaign, “Do Something Big”. We have also introduced a T-level in early years and childcare, and through Skills England we will be identifying the gaps and ensuring that the support is there for employers to develop staff in this area. But it will be a very big challenge to make sure that the places and people are there to deliver the entitlement by next September.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that grandparents quite often play a very important role in supporting their children and grandchildren. I will take away his exhortations about support for grandparents and perhaps return to that matter directly with him when I have found out more about it.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the questions about the workforce, the point has been made that it is about more than just giving an adequate salary for those in childcare; it is about recognition. The Minister referred in her reply to status and staff development. What steps are being taken to develop a proper career structure so that this field of education can compete with the rest of the education field in having a well-defined career structure for people to aim at?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right; it is of course about reward, but it is also about progression and recognition. We have worked hard already to try to reset our relationship with staff across the education system. Over the coming weeks and months, the Government will set out further plans for reform to ensure that the workforce feels supported and valued. We want a system that celebrates and supports early years carers and embeds it into our wider education system. Alongside the work I have already outlined on recruitment, recognition and status is something that we will want to return to in the early years strategy as we develop it.