Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, are seeking further clarification on His Majesty’s Government’s intentions about the use of data from the children not in school registers at a national level. These are indeed valid points to probe, although we might suggest caution around creating a transparency register as set out in Amendment 307, with the additional workload burden it may have on currently overstretched resources.

It is worth noting that there is already a register of information processing, often referred to as a record of processing activities: a document that outlines how an organisation handles personal data. It is a key requirement of data protection laws such as GDPR, and serves as an inventory of all processing activities to ensure transparency and accountability within data handling practices.

Amendment 308 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, sets out some of the purposes for which national data should be kept, including monitoring the overall number of children receiving elective home education or children missing education. We will listen with interest to the Government’s feedback on this amendment.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for stepping in and moving the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short but thoughtful debate. I will not take it personally.

Fundamentally, the Government believe that the department’s understanding of children not in school can be improved through the measures in this Bill. Although we currently have collected and published aggregate data on home education and children missing education from local authorities since 2022, our understanding of this cohort of children can be enhanced further through improved quality of data collected by the department. This data will help identify trends among the cohort of children and help determine future policy needs. I assure noble Lords that any data handled by the department will be dealt with in accordance with data protection law and GDPR principles.

I turn to the substance. Amendment 271 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would disallow data held on a local authority register from being stored on or shared with any other database that is held and managed by an organisation such as the Department for Education. We believe there is considerable value in the Secretary of State being able to receive data from local authority registers to improve oversight and understanding of this cohort on national and local levels. It will make it easier to identify when children have fallen through the gaps.

The information collected will be used for straightforward reasons, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Analysis to identify trends to feed into policy development, maintaining the integrity of the register and supporting safeguarding, education and welfare will allow us to identify why some children are moving out of mainstream education. The adoption of this amendment would therefore undermine our efforts, as outlined in the Bill.

Amendment 307 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would require certain public bodies that process data to create a transparency register. As we have heard, this would require those bodies to produce and maintain detailed records of all data processing including the form and publication of the record, retention period and disclosure circumstances. Transparency is an important principle, but current statutory accountability mechanisms and audit provisions already provide appropriate oversight. For example, as part of the department’s commitment to transparency, details of all organisations with which we have shared personal data are published quarterly on GOV.UK, alongside a short description of the project, which I hope the noble Lord considers to be an appropriate safeguard.

Amendment 308, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would, as written, make local authorities unable to share individual-level data with the Secretary of State unless it related to making a direction about a school attendance order. Other information concerning home-educated children or children missing education would be shared only at an aggregate level.

The data processed through children not in school registers is envisaged to have wider uses than just determining whether to issue a direction regarding a school attendance order. Allowing the Secretary of State access to individual-level data will provide for more robust data analysis and research and the join-up of functions aimed at promoting a child’s education or safeguarding. For example, the sharing of individual-level data will enable cross-referencing with departmental databases to locate children who have slipped under the radar due to relocation or changing educational provision.

The provision in the Bill for local authorities to share information from registers with Welsh Ministers could be used in a similar way to enable the location of children who have disappeared from registers due to moving from England to Wales or vice versa. This amendment would therefore undermine the purpose of the registration system, limiting the use of the data it could contain to statistics and exceptional cases concerning school attendance orders. For the reasons I have outlined, I kindly request that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, that was a full and helpful answer, for which I am grateful to the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, Amendments 274, 276 and 425 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seek to introduce different iterations of sunset clauses for the use of children not in school registers. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wei, when he reads Hansard, will understand it would be relatively challenging for His Majesty’s loyal Opposition to support such an approach, as our long-standing policy has been to introduce these registers.

We do, however, see merit in Amendment 331 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which seeks a review of reporting requirements and the impact on home educators. It is vital that we achieve workable and realistic reporting requirements as this Bill passes through your Lordships’ House in line with Amendment 260 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, debated earlier, which we very much hope will be accepted by His Majesty’s Government and which aims to avoid adding additional information requirements for the children not in school register. We look forward to the feedback from the Minister.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a useful and considered debate. I thank noble Lords for their participation. Local authorities have existing duties under the Education Act 1996 to identify children in their area who are not registered at school and not receiving a suitable education and to intervene in such cases. The ability of local authorities to fulfil these duties has been undermined by there not being an obligation on parents to inform the local authority that they are home-educating. Statutory children not in school registers, along with duties on parents and out-of-school education providers to provide information, will support local authorities to identify those children not receiving a suitable education and take action to address this.

On Amendments 274, 276 and 320, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, and moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, these amendments would require the Secretary of State to publish evidence on the impact and operation of children not in school registers within two years of their creation in order for them to remain in place. In relation to Amendment 320, of course we will periodically evaluate the impact of the registers on local authorities and parents, following their implementation, and bring forward any necessary adjustments to your Lordships’ House as appropriate. In response to Amendments 274 and 276, the central objective of the registers is to support local authorities to identify children not in school in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. This is not just a tool for safeguarding. We therefore do not agree with Amendments 274 and 276, which suggest that solely looking at safeguarding outcomes would be an accurate measure of the register’s success.

On Amendment 329, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which would require the Secretary of State to establish a board of home educators and educational experts to evaluate the impact of the registers, this amendment is unnecessary as we already intend to evaluate the impact of the registers. We have established a forum of home educators and other key stakeholders and are engaging with them on the registers. We will continue engagement post-implementation to evaluate the impact of the registers.

Amendment 330, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would require that the Secretary of State delay the national implementation of children not in school registers until a two-year pilot scheme has been completed. A pilot scheme before implementation is unnecessary. The Bill already provides for adjustments to be made to the operation of registers where needed, including via regulations.

Amendment 331, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of children not in school registers on parents and local authorities within six months of the Bill becoming law, and report the findings to Parliament. While we agree on the need for regular and transparent monitoring of the registers, six months is too soon to gather meaningful insights. We will begin analysing data from local authorities one year after the registers come into force and engage with parents and out-of-school education providers at appropriate intervals. This monitoring will demonstrate whether adjustments need to be made. Where this is the case, we will bring it to your Lordships’ House in the usual way.

Finally, Amendment 425, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to ensure that all laws concerning home education are reviewed and will automatically expire after five years unless reapproved by Parliament following a public consultation. We believe this would not be the most efficient use of parliamentary time and would only create uncertainty. Of course the impact of any legislation should be monitored and reviewed regularly. However, the timelines for evaluation should be tailored for each Act, statutory instrument and part of the Bill.

Therefore, for the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for those responses. I am delighted to hear that the forum of home educators is to continue. Will the Government consider producing an occasional communiqué from that forum? I would not expect complete openness but something so that we can all know what is going on. The noble Baroness said she will start reviewing one year after. That seems a sensible timeline to me, but will she also commit to a baseline so that we know where they have started from and not just where they are in a year’s time? Might she also make a slightly firmer commitment to report to Parliament on how it is going?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am happy to commit to write to the noble Lord and reflect on what he has said.

Amendment 274 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

May I say something? I was late to the debate, so I have no right to speak.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

No.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The Government say no. I just wanted to apologise.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Let the noble Baroness speak.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

She was not here.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was listening. I would just like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for speaking on my behalf so eloquently. I hope that he supports the rest of my amendments as well.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

Parents might not have the wherewithal to know how to go about checking and would assume—wrongly, obviously—that if they employed a tutor from an agency, that tutor would have been cleared. If the tutor was not from an agency but employed directly, parents would assume that, because they were a teacher, they would have had safeguarding checks.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for initiating such an important debate, which has already had an effect by ensuring that more Members of your Lordships’ House are aware of this issue. His amendment would prompt a review of current safeguarding practices in private tuition, including background checks on tutors, and of the impact of activities defined as

“Regulated activity relating to children”

on private tuition settings.

This is an important issue and the Government recognise it as such. That is why we have already acted to improve the safety of children in private tuition, along with the wider out-of-school settings sector. The Government have published safeguarding e-learning for tutors and other providers, as well as strengthened guidance to help local authorities to act where there are safeguarding concerns. We are also widening the scope of regulated activity to include those who work frequently with children in supervised roles. This change will mean that employers engaging tutors in supervised roles can check whether the person is on the children’s barred list because the DBS considers them to pose a risk of harm to children.

The Government are also taking action to ensure that all those working in regulated activity with children can access enhanced barred lists checks, whether that is a teacher in a school or a self-employed tutor offering private tuition. With these measures, we will reduce the risk of a barred person working with children. However, we recognise the need to understand what more can be done. That is why we have also published a call for evidence on safeguarding in out-of-school settings. It will gather much of the information this amendment seeks and will help inform any future action to further enhance the safety of the sector. The deadline for submissions is 21 September, and I hope that noble Lords will actively participate in this consultation.

I want to take this opportunity to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about online DBS checks. Anyone who regularly teaches, trains, instructs, supervises or cares for children unsupervised is considered to be working in a regulated activity. This includes the majority of private tutors, whether they operate in person or online. By engaging in regulated activity, these individuals are eligible for and able to access an enhanced DBS check, with a check of the barred list if working as part of a tutoring organisation or engaged through an agency. We are legislating to extend this access to those who are self-employed.

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House resumed.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, we seem to have gone awfully quickly. On that basis, may I ask that we adjourn during pleasure for five minutes in order for all participants in the next business to make their way to the Chamber? Therefore, the House will resume at 7.16 pm.