Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Purpose(1) The purpose of this Act is to— (a) improve the safety and wellbeing of children;(b) improve the regulation of children’s homes, fostering agencies and other settings where looked after children are accommodated;(c) improve safety and standards and remove barriers to opportunity in schools in England and Wales;(d) make provision regarding children not in school.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 in my name seeks to clarify the purposes of the Bill. While the Government’s intentions, to improve children’s safety, well-being and education, have widespread support, I tabled this amendment because I believe there is currently an unbridgeable gap between these aims and several of the provisions within the Bill.

I must express profound concerns regarding both parts of the Bill. There is a troubling pattern throughout it of an unclear definition of the problem it seeks to solve, insufficient evidence for the proposed solutions, a lack of successful piloting to give us confidence these changes will achieve their intended outcomes, no clear implementation plan, insufficient resources to implement and important gaps in areas including children’s well-being, special educational needs and disabilities, smartphones, social media and more. So, our job across this House, as the scrutinising Chamber, is to do just that, and to ensure that the Bill leaves this House stronger and in a state where we can all feel confident that it will work in practice and not just on paper.

In recent weeks, I have spoken to a number of directors of children’s services and practitioners, who have all, unprompted, raised serious concerns about Part 1, particularly around the reforms to family help, children in need and child protection. The most alarming concerns came yesterday from Professor Eileen Munro, author of the 2011 review into child protection, who stated in a letter in the Times:

“The government's proposed reforms of children’s social care risk dismantling a system that has steadily improved, without clear evidence that the replacement will work. While the ambition to expand early help is welcome — indeed, my own review called for this — the plan lacks realism, rigour and a clear safety framework”.


She continued:

“These reforms radically restructure a complex system of professionals and safeguarding arrangements. Yet the Department for Education is altering or removing key processes without asking why they exist or how they interact with other checks and balances. What looks tidy on paper (neatly divided ‘pillars’ of reform) may create dangerous, unpredictable consequences in practice as they interact”.


These are concerns from one of the greatest experts on child protection in the country, and we should take them very seriously. Her letter closes with the hope that, as this Bill passes through your Lordships’ House,

“the government will use this opportunity to listen, pause and revise its plan”.

I hope that, when she responds, the Minister, who has great and much-respected experience in this area, will be able to offer some encouragement, in contrast to the tone of the Government’s response in the Times yesterday. As Professor Munro wrote yesterday:

“Reforms must strengthen child protection, not weaken it”.


So why are the professor and other senior leaders in the sector so worried? In simple terms, I believe it is because these early clauses have not been properly tested. Indeed, there are reports that the initial pathfinder sites are encountering significant implementation problems that need to be resolved before a wider rollout. Surely the Government should publish the evaluation first and then adapt their approach depending on what it shows. I would be grateful if the Minister can confirm when that evaluation will be published.

Equally concerning is the inadequate funding to implement these extensive changes, particularly in relation to children’s social care. The £290 million allocated for one year falls dramatically short of the £2 billion-plus estimated by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care as necessary to make early help effective. Without proper resources, we risk creating a system that cannot deliver on its promises.

More broadly, Part 1 is quietly unambitious. It fails to offer a vision of how to expand the reach of well- tested approaches, such as family group decision-making, or to present a convincing approach to grow capacity to support looked-after children in their communities and avoid unnecessary placements in children’s homes or, worse, in unregistered provision. I cannot overstate our collective responsibility, as a House, to address these issues thoroughly and carefully in the interests of those children. This is not a matter for party politics; we have a duty to get this right, or children will be harmed.

As was evident at Second Reading, there are also serious concerns about Part 2. The proposed changes to academy freedoms are both puzzling and troubling. Among the most egregious is the delay in introducing effective interventions for schools to be judged in special measures or inadequate, which was described by the Children’s Commissioner as something that will leave children

“spending longer in failing schools”.

The Bill removes trusts’ discretion to use their professional judgment regarding curriculum and teacher pay and conditions. The new power of the Secretary of State to intervene when they judge that a trust is likely to breach its funding agreement and direct the remedy. The Bill’s own impact assessment says that the limitations on pupil admission numbers will

“limit the ability of popular schools to grow”.

For decades, parents have voted with their feet when it comes to schools, and this will erode parental choice and drive down standards.

Regarding home education, the proposed register misses both ends of the spectrum. At one end, the scheme, as drafted, will not adequately protect the most vulnerable children. At the other, it is unnecessarily intrusive, requiring disproportionate detail from parents who pose minimal risk to their children. Most critically, it fails to address the needs of parents who never intended to home educate but feel they have no choice due to inadequate provision for their child with special educational needs. We will be putting forward amendments to address these shortcomings.

The Bill presents a critical opportunity to shape the next decade of school improvement in England. On these Benches, we would support an effort that builds on what has been learned from the academisation journey thus far. The first phase of academisation addressed entrenched underperformance in a small number of schools. The second phase saw some multi-academy trusts use their autonomy to innovate and raise standards. Now, we need to scale the best practice of the most effective trusts and the most effective local authority schools to deliver better outcomes for pupils, more opportunities for staff, greater choice for parents and a more resilient school system.

Surely, we need a system where the lowest performing trusts and local authorities feel the same level of oversight that is currently felt by the headteacher of an under- performing school. This means evaluating not just results but the value that responsible bodies add. Thought needs to be given where another body could improve outcomes for pupils to what the mechanisms might be that could facilitate that change so that autonomy and accountability are aligned and the interests of children are kept paramount.

There is a tremendous opportunity to bring forward measures in the Bill that will deliver for children, staff and parents. I hope the Minister will consider concerns expressed across the House, and indeed outside it, in the spirit in which they are offered and be open to amending the Bill to achieve much more. If we do not make these changes, or at least give them the chance for honest and detailed consideration, we face four unacceptable risks.

The first is we end up with a rather ineffective, overly bureaucratic regulatory regime for residential care and independent fostering agencies. The second is we get a set of rules in relation to home education that neither keep the vulnerable few safe nor respect the rights of the majority. But it is the most serious risks that need spelling out. In relation to our schools, we face at best stagnation and at worst a steady decline in standards. In relation to children’s social care, we face an increase in the number of children suffering avoidable harm. I know this is not what the Government, and particularly neither of the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today, want to see happen—they do not want that anymore than the coalition Government wanted to create some of the problems we see today in relation to the SEN system when we passed the Children and Families Act. Introducing major structural reform, in this case in both children’s social care and schools, without proper preparation, evidence and funding is irresponsible and puts the cart before the horse at a time when we already have wholesale reform in our local authorities, integrated care boards, curriculum, inspection regime and more.

I absolutely commit to both Ministers to engage in the Bill in the most constructive spirit possible, and I hope that they feel the amendments in my name are practical and constructive. I also owe both of the Ministers my honesty in setting out the degree of concern, even though, standing here right now, warm words might feel easier to say. The stakes—the safety, well-being and the future of our children—could not be higher.

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I hope that, in outlining the purposes of the Bill, I have satisfied noble Lords that Amendment 1 is neither required nor, in fact, would achieve anything. The Bill does not need an amendment to clarify its purpose—that is clear from the content of the legislation and the accompanying documents. It is clear from the ambition and the action of this Government. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment so that we can progress to considering the detail of the Bill and the important amendments tabled by noble Lords.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this amendment. It feels curious that the Minister started her remarks by questioning my integrity in tabling the amendment, suggesting that it is a delaying tactic. I think I raised extremely serious concerns that are being put forward. She does not need to believe me, but I respectfully suggest that she should listen to those with the greatest expertise in this area. I said, and I commit to this again, that I will approach this Bill in absolute good faith and, particularly regarding Part 1, there should be nothing political in it. I hope we can build a bridge to make positive change in the Bill.

I would also just like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that we did not in any sense intend to overturn any of the powers held by the Senedd. I am sure, if the purpose clause had intended to remove the devolution of education powers in Wales, that would have deserved at least one bullet point in the amendment.

This debate was also a reminder of the expertise in this House. I would like to mention a few of the points that were made and invite the Government to think about drafting their own purpose clause if they do not like my drafting. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, made a very important point about the need to focus on outcomes. If we do not know where we are going, we definitely will not get there. I know the Minister set out the aims, but very valid concerns were raised.

My noble friend, Lord Young of Cookham, echoed my concerns about the capacity to implement these changes at a time of significant other restructuring across local authorities—health and others. There were practical solutions with a real call for focus from the noble Lady, Baroness Cass, and she spoke of the important inclusion of public health in children’s well-being. There were also calls on where not to focus, including from my noble friend Lord Agnew. My noble friend Lord Lucas and others made the point about the helpfulness of some sort of public-facing language at the beginning of the Bill.

I say again that there are experts on both parts of the Bill who are flagging serious concerns. I do not question for one second the Government’s good intentions in this Bill; I question the ability to achieve that without some reflection. I was interested to learn that the evaluation of the pathfinders is due to be published in spring 2025. I guess we are on special government time, as we are in May.

As I close my remarks, I hope that the Government will adopt the constructive tone they have suggested they will as we get into individual amendments, and perhaps they will look again at Hansard to see some of the very valid points that would help us all achieve the goals of this Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

2: Clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 7 to 10 and insert—
“(1) When a local authority starts formal child protection proceedings in relation to a child, the authority must offer a family group decision-making meeting to the child’s parents or any other person with parental responsibility for the child.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require the offer of a family group decision making meeting when formal child protection proceedings are initiated and / or when the child protection plan is failing to protect the child instead of before the local authority makes an application for a care and supervision order as the trigger for offering the meeting.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 2, 15, and 16, which concern the mandatory implementation of family group decision-making processes. While I broadly support the intention behind these provisions, there are several important issues which need to be considered carefully if we are to achieve the best outcomes for vulnerable children.

First, I will place this proposal in context. As the Minister knows, most local authorities already implement some form of family group conferencing—in old language—or “decision-making” processes in the Bill. That is set out in the statutory guidance to the Children Act 1989, which says that, where there are court orders and in pre-proceedings, children’s services should consider making a referral for a family group conference

“if they believe there is a possibility the child may not be able to remain with their parents … unless this would be a risk to the child”.

I want to understand why the Government think this needs to be mandatory, perhaps rather than other approaches. Is there a specific problem that the Government want to solve by doing that?

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I cannot answer that today, but I certainly undertake to write to noble Lords on that important point and that juxtaposition in relationship.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. It is a privilege to have the experience of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others around the House on this. In response to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on our drafting, I feel I need to make a general plea for noble Lords to listen to the intent of what we are trying to do rather than focus on the specific wording. We were not intending to change the spirit of the Bill on pre- proceedings.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We recognise that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is an important thread, but that does not necessarily mean that it can be used as a trump card on every future occasion, which I am sure my noble friend would not choose to do. I think I clearly said that the rights and voice of the child have to be absolutely at the heart not only of the Bill but of the way in which it is implemented throughout children’s social care.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I just wonder whether the Minister was referring to my Amendment 17, rather than my Amendment 19, in her response. She talked about not making an assumption that a child would need a child protection plan if they were going into kinship care, which is linked more to Amendment 17. Amendment 19 is about the plan not being dropped for a child under five who is already on a child protection plan and goes into care proceedings. I am very happy for her to pick that up in another group, if we are allowed, but I wonder whether there has been some confusion.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
“(1A) A family group decision-making meeting must be offered by the relevant local authority when a family is going through private law proceedings.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to reduce the conflict in private law proceedings by offering a family group decision making meeting, allow other family members to support the child as well as to identify where there are significant safeguarding risks to the child/children. It seeks to strengthen the intention that mediation and reconciliation out of court are better for the child.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 4, 6 and 17, which are in my name. They present a more ambitious use of family group decision-making processes. I am keen to understand whether the Government have considered these at all and, if so, why on balance they were excluded from the Bill. If they have not considered them, perhaps there is room to reconsider. For many children, being able to live with another family member, even if they still require support, is a better outcome that going into stranger foster care or a children’s home. This group aims to test the Government’s appetite to expand the scope of family group decision-making further.

Amendment 4 would extend family group decision-making process to private law cases, which is something the noble Lord, Lord Meston, questioned in his earlier remarks. I think the Minister will be aware that this was raised as a recommendation in evidence in the Public Bill Committee in the other place by the chief executive of Cafcass. Two-thirds of Cafcass cases are private law proceedings. The Minister knows just how acrimonious these can be; indeed, we heard about that from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. That includes, of course, cases of domestic violence and abuse.

My amendment would move these cases into scope. I understand that this would extend the scope of family group decision-making significantly and there are resourcing implications, but I would like to understand the Government’s logic in using this approach with some cases with material safeguarding concerns but not others that share many of the same characteristics about the risks posed to children. We know that, tragically, a number of child deaths have happened after family proceedings rather than proceedings in public law or child protection.

I have not put down a specific amendment on this point, but, in a similar spirit, I wondered what consideration the Government have given to a situation where a Section 7 welfare report is requested by the court. As the Minister will know, a Section 7 report is a court-order document, prepared under Section 7 of the Children Act 1989, and is ordered when parents cannot agree on arrangements for their children’s care, usually only if there are any aspects of the children’s welfare that require further investigation. My question is: could this also be an area where family group decision-making might apply? If the Government have not considered these options, can the Minister, as a minimum, commit to considering them and working out the practical implications? This is exactly the kind of situation where the wider family could help but where the involvement of child protection professionals is needed.

I am optimistic—although my optimism might be waning—that the Minister might look favourably on my Amendment 6, because it makes so much sense for children. It addresses another current gap, when a child is reunited with their parents after a period of being in care. Reunification is the most common way for children to leave care, with 27% of those leaving care returning home in 2022-23. However, the number of children who then re-enter the care system is far too high, with 12% of those children re-entering within three months and more than a third within six years. Of course, we all want reunification to have the best chance of success. The statistics on those breakdowns are pretty stark, but the human cost for those children is far starker.

Finally, my Amendment 17, which I think the noble Baroness was starting to talk about on an earlier group—but maybe not—seeks to give a continuing role to the local authority in safeguarding a child in kinship care. With this amendment, I seek to probe what safeguards are in place around kinship care. So, if I have understood correctly, if the public law outline for care proceedings has started or the child has been made subject to a child protection plan—both of which would be the case when a family group decision-making process starts, as per this legislation—the significant harm threshold has been met. New carers may not be able to address all the risks that a child faces; they may well be the right place for that child to be, but they might need additional support.

For example, from my work prior to coming into your Lordships’ House, I know of a number of cases where a child’s parents coerced the kinship carer into allowing them to have unsupervised contact with their children—which we can all understand, on a human level, may be very hard to resist. I appreciate that this is a very delicate balance that needs to be struck, but this amendment aims to give the local authority the ability, where needed, to create something like a kinship protection plan, rather than a child protection plan, until it is confident that the arrangements are safe and in the child’s best interests, or until a child arrangement order or special guardianship order is made by the family court. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on these amendments, which would significantly improve the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, unusually, I entirely disagree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has put forward by way of an amendment. It is not just overambitious—in my view, it is plainly wrong, for two reasons.

Although there is—thank goodness—a minority of almost insoluble family cases, there are other ways in which to deal with mediation. Some of the work, although not all of them do, and I do not think that a local authority should interfere in private law cases. Perhaps more importantly, there is a brilliant system started by the then Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, and the present President of the Family Division; I think it is called Pathfinder, but I am not entirely sure. It has been rolled out in four places. When a family starts contentious divorce proceedings, all those involved with the family—the local authority specifically, Cafcass, the police, local health people and anybody else who may be involved with the family—meet to decide whether it is a domestic abuse case, in which case it goes through a longer channel, or a case in which the parties are behaving properly but cannot agree.

In the majority of cases, as the President of the Family Division has told me—he also gave evidence to one of the Select Committees in the House of Commons on this, perhaps the Home Affairs Committee—he or other family judges get rid of the case within two hours; they are completed. It would be unnecessary and unsuitable to have a family meeting of the sort proposed. There are real dangers to it in the other cases, particularly since there are other systems. So unusually, as I very often agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on this occasion I think that she is wrong and very much hope that the Government take no notice of her amendment.

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Given those explanations and assurances, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able not to press her amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their comments on this group. Obviously, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, have day-to-day experience of this area. This amendment was raised in Committee in the other place, and I will read briefly from the oral evidence given by the chief executive of Cafcass:

“We see 140,000 children through proceedings every year. The Bill tends to focus on those who are in public law proceedings. Two thirds of the children we work with are in private law proceedings, where there are family disputes about who children spend their time with and where they live. Very often, those children are in families where conflict is very intense. There are risks to them; there is domestic abuse. The Bill is silent on children in private law proceedings, and I think there is an opportunity for that to be different”.


This is a real concern. Maybe there are different ways of approaching it, but the concern about harm to a minority of children in private law proceedings is a valid one.

On Amendment 6, my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park put it extremely well when she said that this is a relatively small and discrete group. The work has been done on what it would cost to offer this. I hear what the Minister said, and I probably often said similar things when I was on the other side of the House. However, the fact that it is not mandated in a world where resources are understandably tight risks it not happening. If we really are going to focus on such things in the Bill, this is a small group, and this amendment could make a real difference to the stability of their return home. I hope the Minister might think on it a little bit more.

To be clear about Amendment 17, we were not assuming that the local authority would need to have a child protection plan for a child in kinship care, but, again, in real life we hear that it is difficult for the local authority to get right the balance between keeping eyes on the child to make sure that everything is okay, and supporting the family without being overly intrusive and behaving like the heavy hand of the state. It is a real issue that practitioners are worried about, so I hope that, together with colleagues in the department, the Minister will consider it some more. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Earl of Effingham]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
“(1A) The family group decision-making meeting, or meetings, must follow an evidence based approach including the appointment of an independent and suitably trained coordinator, including in relation to domestic abuse.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that family group decision-making meetings follow an evidence based approach.

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[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, we should pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in his promotion of family hubs. They are places where families can be offered a range of services and integrated support and information. In my assessment, they have transformed the picture of family law and family practice. They are increasingly widespread and have an important role in the modern functioning of childcare. To that extent, I support the noble Lord’s amendments.

I have a boring technical legal point. A hub is a place, not a person, which uses volunteers and community workers, as well as professionals. If the noble Lord’s Amendment 21 were to be accepted, we would need some clarity on who exactly, under the legislation, would have responsibility on behalf of the hub.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, before addressing the amendments in my name in this group, I echo the appreciation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for my noble friend Lord Farmer’s tireless work on family hubs. It is fantastic to hear that they are making a real difference on the ground.

My Amendment 26 seeks to find a way through the difficulty in the degree of statutory involvement—the noble Lord, Lord Meston, is not going to like my language—of education and childcare agencies in safeguarding. It requires the Secretary of State to produce a report to Parliament two years after the implementation of the clause which sets out the impact on the resources and costs for education and childcare agencies from their new duties. It could look more widely at the impact on safeguarding and whether there is a need to follow the recommendations of many of the children’s charities and the Children’s Commissioner in making it a full statutory safeguarding partner.

Page 34 of the Government’s impact assessment is studiously vague. It talks about

“possible costs and time implications on LAs to set up new infrastructure”

and

“time implications on some education leaders to engage with systems that they may not have previously been involved in”.

I am not sure how these impact assessments get written, but this feels like it is bordering on the naive. Of course, there will be direct costs for schools and childcare agencies, in both time and money, and we need to understand the extent of them. My amendment seeks to achieve this.

We need to know what this approach will mean in practice for education and childcare agencies, which already have considerable safeguarding duties. Presumably, they will need to put in additional processes and checks; if this is just making the status quo statutory, I do not really understand why it is necessary. Perhaps the Minister could explain in her closing remarks.

My Amendments 27 and 28 are probing amendments, again trying to find out the Government’s thinking on how this will work in practice. The hesitation on the part of the Government in this area, which I think is reasonable, reflects the difficulty in implementation, given the number of organisations involved in education and childcare. My amendment suggests that it would help to have a single point of contact both within the local authority and within the education and childcare sector. Can the Minister confirm whether the assumption is that education and childcare providers can all contact the LADO in their local authority with any safeguarding concerns, and is she confident that the LADOs around the country will have capacity for this? Similarly, is the local authority expected to contact every organisation directly, or is there a role for a single point of contact who could perhaps advise on general queries?

Finally, I have given notice that I intend to oppose the proposition that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill. To be clear, unlike some of my other clause stand part notices, this is purely probing. The policy summary produced by the DfE states:

“These arrangements enable education and childcare agencies to have representation”—


this is my emphasis, not that of the policy summary—

“at both the operational and strategic decision-making levels of these safeguarding arrangements”.

The summary continues:

“Practically, this may look like including the breadth of education settings: from early years and childcare to schools including academies, independent schools, alternative provision and further education in operational safeguarding boards, and”—


again, this is my emphasis—

“having representation for their views at executive boards so that they can influence decisions being made about safeguarding in their local area”.

Interestingly, there is no mention of special schools in that list. I am not clear why, because I would have thought that safeguarding would be a particular priority. I think we all have a sense of what this looks like at an operational level, but the policy summary talks about involvement at a strategic level. Will the Minister explain who is going to be able to represent all agencies in an area, what representation of their views at executive boards will look like in real life, and how this will be resourced? Clause 2 is an area where there is broad support for the Government’s approach, but we need more clarity on how they intend to implement these duties and how they will be funded.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has done us a favour by bringing the education organisation into this. It has the most contact, and it is a logical point. I cannot fault him on that. I also had a great deal of fellow feeling when he described his experience of watching the appropriate amendment being concocted. The idea of sitting there looking puppy-like and saying, “Please, this is what I’m trying to say. Will you help?” is something I think we can all empathise with at some point in the Bill.

It sounds eminently sensible that, where you are seeing a young person outside the family and very regularly, that fits the logic and the approach here. As for family hubs, yes, they are good things—they remind me a bit of Sure Start but, hey, that is history. If we are going through the other technical amendments brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—who, let us face it, we all know knows her way around the system and the department—it would be interesting to see the technical answers to those, because it will definitely colour the way this discussion takes place in later stages.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 32 and 35, which relate to children with disabilities, because these children are, sadly, more at risk and so need our protection. Also, before I begin, could I just say that my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie is sorry that she cannot be here today—frankly, as am I, as she is exceptionally knowledgeable in this area and so I hope she will approve of the following arguments, particularly in relation to children with cerebral palsy, who I will talk about today?

While there are many different forms of ability and disability in children, if policy, systems and practice can get things right for children with cerebral palsy—the most common cause of physical disability in childhood—then the benefits will be felt by children with other conditions too.

Evidence gathered by the APPG for its report Best Practice in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), Teaching, and Learning for Children with Cerebral Palsy found that many parents of children with cerebral palsy lack confidence in their local authority’s ability to make suitable arrangements for their child. Some even view their local authorities as being obstructive, inconsistent and unaccountable. Provision inevitably tends to reflect what local authorities are able to provide, rather than what the child concerned requires to have the best chances in life.

Much of this stems from the reality that when it comes to issues relating to children with profound disabilities, local authorities are not always the people who have the relevant condition-specific knowledge, nor the experience of the lifelong trajectory of a condition, to be able to make the right assessments of potential and be suitably ambitious for the child.

Section 17 of the Children Act, as referred to in Amendment 35, outlines the local authority’s duty to assess children who are “in need”, and this definition includes children with disabilities, who may require a paediatric developmental assessment to fully understand their needs.

Amendments 32 and 35, when taken together, would provide an acknowledgement of the necessity for a member of the specialist health team involved in the provision of care for the child—someone who understands the condition and has the sector experience to understand what is possible—to be involved in the multi-disciplinary child protection teams, to ensure that these teams are assessing all the possible options.

The persons referred to in new subsection (3) relating to the provision of health who are to be involved in the multi-disciplinary child protection teams are only defined in new subsection (4)(c) as

“a registered health professional, nominated by an integrated care board for an area any part of which falls within the area of the local authority, with experience in the provision of healthcare in relation to children”.

Therefore, the health professional, nominated by the board, could be the same person who represents the health board for all the MDCPT assessments. The text does not specify that they have to know anything about the child, the health prognosis of the condition, the services and interventions that might be best for the child or whether they are—or are not—available in any one particular local authority area, nor be able to form a qualified view of the potential of the child, based on specialist experience of children with disabilities.

In Scotland, children with profound disabilities have a nominated “lead health professional” who is responsible for co-ordinating relevant, cross-sector, multi-disciplinary services and liaising with parents to take responsibility for ensuring that the needs of the child are met. Sometimes these needs, as the Committee might imagine, can be quite specific and technical; for example, when dealing with specialist resources for communication, assistive technology and mobility needs, particularly for children with complex disabilities. This lead health professional, who has practical knowledge of the individual child’s circumstances and health condition, would therefore always be included in a multi-disciplinary team discussion. It would not be left just to a representative of the health board, or a generic paediatric clinician.

Only recently, in her letter to the Times, Professor Eileen Munro warned against shifting child protection responsibilities to less-qualified staff. I therefore urge the Minister to accept—or at least to think about—these amendments, which outline the importance of including a member of the children’s disability team, someone who knows the condition or conditions, and not just a generic professional who ticks the boxes specified in the current text referring to the persons referred to in new subsection (3)(a).

Guaranteeing the right representation on these teams will go a long way to ensuring that assessments are likely to be safer, that children at risk have swift access to the resources they require and, where local areas lack appropriate provision and/or expertise, that there is a voice of knowledge to ensure there is no fear of commissioning, a voice that can work with other specialist providers in the best interests of the child.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 36. I am also delighted to support my noble friend Lady O’Neill on her amendments, as well as those of my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, who was so ably represented by my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton today. All these amendments seek to clarify some of the operational issues with the proposed multi-agency child protection teams.

I do not want to steal from the Minister’s remarks, but she might remind the Committee that the context for introducing these teams came from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which the previous Government commissioned and was led by the honourable Member for Whitehaven and Workington. Following a key recommendation from his review, we established 10 pathfinder sites to pilot and test out these teams, alongside a number of wider reforms to early help, targeted family help and support for children in need, as defined under the Children Act. We support the spirit and direction in which this draft legislation is going, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, pointed out, we have concerns about how it will be operationalised in practice.

Noble Lords may be aware that, in a former life before joining your Lordships’ House, I was involved in the establishment of multi-agency teams all around the country to address high-risk cases of domestic abuse, which were known as multi-agency risk assessment conferences—MARACs. We did that in every local authority in the country. At the end, those teams were managing about 60,000 adult cases a year and over 100,000 children. They involved statutory and non-statutory agencies. For better or worse, I am very familiar with the issues that are important when operationalising this kind of work.

The detail is important. Who attends these teams? Is it the same person? How senior are they? Is it the caseworker or a representative covering all cases? As my noble friend Lady O’Neill and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, asked, who is accountable for the work? How can we share information legally? How does information sharing translate into action planning? How do you involve the family? These and many other issues are so important to get right, and we will explore them in more detail in the debates on the other amendments to Clause 3.

My Amendment 36 simply seeks to understand how the Government expect the new statutory multi-agency child protection teams will interact with existing multi-agency work, particularly the multi-agency safeguarding hubs—the MASH teams. There are so many acronyms in this world; I saw that the department has even snuck in a new one: MASA. Who knew what MASA was? Nevertheless, it is in the documentation. The MASH teams, which are now pretty much universal around the country, are not statutory. Some are great, but some are less so. How does this team interact with the multi-agency risk assessment conferences for high-risk domestic abuse or the multi-agency public protection arrangements for high-risk perpetrators? In a world where resources are tight, we need to avoid duplication.

Equally, however, we know that non-statutory agencies—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, who is in her place, knows this extremely well from her work outside the House—at the very least bring different information to multi-agency work. Frequently, they are really trusted and can build relationships with families that can be harder for statutory agencies, with the powers that they hold. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how she expects the multi-agency child protection teams to work in practice with the MASHs, the MARACs, the MAPPAs and any other organisation that has an acronym beginning with an “M”.

I will pick up on the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady O’Neill. My key question about Amendments 29 and 31 is: can the Minister say how she expects that the involvement of partners, both statutory and non-statutory, will be funded? What we hear from the pathfinders is that it is very difficult to get other agencies outside the local authorities to participate in the teams, and that some of the extra funding the pathfinders have been given has gone to funding police officers to attend a multi-agency child protection team, which in my world feels like a very odd thing for the local authority to do. I assume that the Minister does not believe that that is a sustainable model, let alone for non-statutory agencies, where, all too often, we rely on their good will and do not acknowledge the pressures on their budgets.

I am also very interested to hear the Minister’s reply in relation to Amendments 39 and 40, which deal with cases across local authority borders. She will know that, for vulnerable families, that happens all too often—one parent lives in one local authority and the other parent lives in another; the family are moved from temporary housing in one local authority to temporary housing in another; or a child lives in one local authority but is being groomed by a gang in another. I think I am right in saying that a contributing factor in the tragic case of Sara Sharif was that she moved local authorities but the understanding of the degree of harm she faced did not move with her.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

30: Clause 3, page 3, line 27, leave out from beginning to end of line 11 on page 4
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to confirm that Local Authorities can use their discretion in how the MACPTs are implemented operationally in their areas.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 30 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley, and to Amendment 37 in my name. Amendment 30 goes to the heart of one of the three major concerns expressed to me by several directors of children’s services. I wonder whether, with the Minister’s permission, we could park what feels like a false argument that is developing about whether directors of children’s services support the aims of these reforms. I think they are all supportive; certainly all those I spoke to—I cannot speak for others—were supportive of the aims. The concerns that we are trying to flag are that they are worried about implementation. I worry that the Minister is not seeing the whole picture, which may be something that she wants to explore further outside the Chamber.

It is not just about those private conversations. Perhaps in gentler terms, the Local Government Association and the ADCS have highlighted concerns about the degree of discretion that local authorities will have in how they implement the new multi-agency child protection arrangements. My amendment would remove some of the prescription in the Bill around membership.

Also, I commend to all your Lordships who are interested in this area the department’s cunningly titled Families First Partnership Programme Guide, because it very firmly states that it is not guidance but—trust me—when you read it and it keeps saying that it is going to set “delivery expectations”, it feels a lot like guidance. That document is prescriptive. In closing the previous group, the Minister talked about flexibility, learning and so on, but that programme guide does not feel very flexible. It says that you must have lead child protection practitioner roles and that, in many cases, independent chairs of child protection case conferences will be removed. It gives an overview of the reform across the whole system.

I can speak only personally, and it may be that I woke up a bit late to some of the problems with Clause 3, but this is whole-system reform. The Minister rightly referred to the document published in November; there is also this document, which was published in March, and there have been a number of others. The Committee needs to think about it in the round, even if only parts of it are in the Bill. The programme guide gives a very tight timescale for directors of children’s services to implement these changes and it is very clear in its expectations about how the additional funding should be spent. I am sure that the Minister is advised to talk about flexibility but, if I were a director of children’s services, it would not feel very flexible from reading the document.

The concerns we have heard would, I hope, be addressed by my amendment, but the spirit of my amendment goes wider in its aim to align autonomy and accountability. Local authorities will ultimately be held responsible for the effectiveness of the multi-agency child protection teams—in part, for some of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who is no longer in his place, expressed in his remarks earlier. With that responsibility, surely more discretion over implementation should be permitted. Could the Minister address that point in her closing remarks?

As I mentioned, the worries I have heard come from some of the details that are set out in what I am now going to call the FFPPG—only those in this Committee will know what that means—which risk disrupting the finely balanced approach that currently exists in the best local authorities between early help and targeted support, under Sections 17 and 47. They also risk adding cost, with the need for additional lead child protection social workers for the separate multi-agency child protection arrangements—where are those social workers going to come from, and how will they be funded? They risk losing the critical fresh pair of eyes that an independent child protection case conference chair currently provides. It is obviously important, as we have seen in many cases, to have that independence, from someone who is experienced and can think again about the risks that remain to a child. Those families in child protection arrangements will now have two social workers, with all the resource and case management implications that brings, and indeed the risk that the family play one social worker off against another.

As my noble friend Lady Berridge said, rather than focusing on the cultural and organisational issues that make all the difference in the quality of social work, the Government seem to be focusing on process. There is a risk of adding complexity, and there is no question that it adds cost. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why. It has been said, but it deserves saying again, that there are real concerns that there is not a sufficient evidence base for this. I will cover that a bit more in the following group.

Amendment 37, in my name, would require the Secretary of State to produce a report on the impact of the multi-agency child protection teams. This would work well if, first, the Government publish the evaluation of the pathfinder sites—the Minister has committed that that will happen—and, secondly, address any practical issues arising. As she said, and I agree completely, the whole point of a pathfinder is to find out what works in practice and what does not. The timeline in the programme guide says March 2025 for 12 months; local authorities are expected to have implemented the changes needed in their teams to start these reforms by spring next year. I do not know how we can address practical issues and expect local authorities to do that transformation work with no further visibility on funding at the same time.

Thirdly, it would make sense that the Government agree with some version of my Amendment 30, so that there is some discretion for a director of children’s services in, say, Cumbria to implement these arrangements slightly differently from one in, say, Hackney. There will be variation in approach, and it is responsible and, I would argue, useful for the Secretary of State to report on this, so that we reinforce a culture of learning across the sector and support local authorities to evolve the model based on effective practice. I look forward to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We have come on to more understandable consideration of how the teams will work in practice, particularly with respect to local authority responsibility. Multi-agency child protection teams will be effective only if they are truly multi-agency. There is an understandable concern here about the significance of the role of local authorities, but it is probably also worth remembering, as we discussed on Tuesday, that safeguarding partners—local authorities, health and police—have joint and equal responsibilities for safeguarding in legislation. Through the multi-agency child protection teams, we are trying to ensure that day to day, in operational terms, with respect to individual children and cases, there is a practical way for those responsibilities, and the information that those agencies may have, to be brought together in that full picture about the child.

I spoke earlier about the findings from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel on child protection. To tackle the issues it identified, we need, as I have suggested, multi-agency experts in a room together, sharing information and bringing their different perspectives to decisions that protect children. It is important that we ensure the right people are deployed to those teams so that expert, swift and decisive action is taken to protect children, and we recognise the importance of safeguarding partners reporting on the impact of their arrangements to make sure that is happening. We need to base that, as has been the argument on other parts of the Bill, on the best possible evidence, which is both the professional work that constituted the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and, as others have mentioned, the independent review by my honourable friend Josh MacAlister.

Of course, we also need the evaluation that noble Lords have talked about. It will come in more than one stage. There will be evaluation of the process and some of the practicalities of setting up the process that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, referenced, and, later, of the impact of the teams.

Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks local discretion in multi-agency team membership and organisation. Requiring safeguarding partners to nominate a minimum team reflects partners’ collective duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. They will also have, as I outlined in the previous group, flexibility to add other agencies or individuals, reflecting local needs and to tackle local harms. We know from Families First pathfinders that these teams are already making a real difference. In Ofsted’s recent inspection of children’s services, Dorset, one of the pathfinders, received an “outstanding” judgment. The report noted that when children are at risk of significant harm, strategy meetings are well attended by partner agencies and that effective information-sharing and analysis of risk lead to children receiving the right intervention and support. It is right that we celebrate the success of and learning from pathfinders and, as I suggested previously, learn from where things have been more challenging. On the resourcing, as I said on Tuesday, this transformation journey is being supported from our £500 million Families First Partnership Programme funding.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, made a couple of specific points. On whether this is doing away with an independent chair, one of the main purposes of multi-agency child protection teams is to have a fresh pair of eyes coming in at the point of the Section 47 inquiry. The new lead child protection practitioner role will work—in fact, is working in pathfinders—in a very similar way to the current independent chairs. I take her point about the need for a fresh view and independence, but that is built into the design of the teams.

On whether this would mean children having more than one social worker, children and families will stay rooted in family help throughout. Multi-agency child protection teams will lead the child protection functions, working with and wrapping support around children, families and the family help lead practitioner. The multi-agency child protection team brings expertise and a fresh focus on significant harm. The lead child protection practitioner will be an experienced social worker but will not be the case lead. In other words, the important ongoing relationship, which I know children feel strongly about, with a person they can understand, work with and gain a relationship with, will remain in place, but additional expertise will be brought to this from the multi-agency child protection team.

On Amendment 37, which would place in the Bill a requirement for the Secretary of State to report annually on the team’s impact and activities, I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that it is essential that we understand how multi-agency teams are leading to better outcomes for children and that that learning be shared across the system. That being said, safeguarding partners already have a statutory responsibility to publish annual reports on their multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. This will include reporting on multi-agency child protection teams once the teams come into force. Statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, already sets out the information that should be included in yearly reports, and that will include evidence of impact. Guidance will be updated to include the reporting requirements for these new multi-agency teams. There will be, at the level at which it really matters, a responsibility to account for and report on the nature and success of the multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

On that basis, and with those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank warmly all those who contributed to this short debate, in particular my noble friend Lady O’Neill for her practical examples of how it works on the ground and the very reasonable concerns she and colleagues have about these reforms. If I am honest, I was worried when I listened to the Minister about the amount of confirmation bias in her remarks that this will work exactly as we all wish. If that turns out to be the case, I will be the first to admit that I am wrong, but most big, complicated reforms such as this do not go exactly as planned: some things go well, and others do not. I hope the Government will keep an open mind on this.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose Clause 3 standing part of the Bill and I fully support Amendment 33 in the name of my noble friend Lady O’Neill. I thank my noble friend Lady Berridge for her support and for her very practical suggestion that the Minister meets those practitioners and experts. I hope very much that when the Minister winds up she will be able to say that she will have such a meeting.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am more than happy to clarify for the benefit of the Committee. I have spoken personally to three directors of children’s services and one deputy director, and I have encouraged some of my colleagues to talk to their local director of children’s services. I stress that I was surprised at their response. I did not ring up and ask them to tell me about all the problems with the Bill; I rang up and explained that I would be responding on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. I always prefer to talk to someone who is directly affected before I give my views, which may or may not be on message. It was an unprompted response. It is for them to decide if they wish to speak privately to Ministers, rather than for me to say at the Dispatch Box who they are. If the noble Lord has spoken to others who say something different, I am sure it is helpful for the Minister to hear that too.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Actually, I have spoken to only one director and I would not wish to comment on what they said, because it would perhaps give the wrong impression.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, rightly said that our child protection procedures are the envy of the world. She is right to say that, but it does not mean that we are complacent about the fact that we have good child protection procedures. You have to constantly look at any policies or systems and change and improve them. I am always impressed that children are at the heart of everything we do. When we had the Question on media literacy, and I rather cheekily asked what the Government’s number one priority was, the Minister rightly said that it was child protection. That is symptomatic of how we as a House react. We cannot stand still but, when we make detailed changes, we have to be sure that they are right. We should pilot them, perhaps learn from the pilot, and then use that to change and adapt, and we have to make the resources available.

I am particularly concerned about qualifications—they are the hallmark of safety. You would not want a plumber without any plumbing qualifications to come to your house, nor would you want an electrician without qualifications to look at the wiring. So it is in child safety, where we must make sure that the people around the table are qualified to give judgments and opinions to protect children.

As somebody who has said that he is not an expert by any means in this area, I hope that, when the Minister replies, she might simply spell out for me why she wants to make those changes and why she has not taken the advice of somebody who clearly is an expert and knows what they are talking about, and who has—probably through frustration—had to write a letter to the Times.

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I understand the issues that have been raised about implementation. I hope I have provided some assurance about the continued engagement of our teams with experts and practitioners as we develop the detail of the implementation and the regulations, and the ability for this House to scrutinise those as well. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Can I just clarify a few points that the noble Baroness made in her remarks? She gave the example of Warwickshire reducing the number of children on child protection plans, but of course the number of children on child protection plans nationally fell last year by 1.7% and has fallen by 3.1% since 2020, and that is despite the increase in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Clearly, we welcome the progress in Warwickshire and anywhere in the country that is achieving that, but I think the impression that she gave was that this was an unusual occurrence, and it is just important to acknowledge that that is a national trend.

Secondly, the regulations the Minister refers to are obviously extremely important in terms of implementation. I can remember other Governments publishing draft regulations during the passage of a Bill so that the House had clarity on their intentions. I wonder whether she would be very kind and take that back to the department and see if that is an option in this and potentially other areas of the Bill.

I am not sure whether I followed the Minister’s comments about the duplication of caseworkers, but page 13 of the department’s guidance appears to suggest that, in Section 47 cases, both the family help lead practitioner and the lead child protection practitioner will be involved. I am sorry to be picky about the money, and of course she is right on the £500 million, but, again, her department’s own documentation states that £253.5 million of that is mainstreamed funding originally for the Supporting Families programme. Again, this is just to be clear about what is new money and what it is for.

Finally, I wonder whether the Minister might pick up on my noble friend Lady Berridge’s suggestion about a meeting. She talked about the general engagement the department rightly has, but can she comment on whether she feels able to accept that invitation?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said that she did not want to undermine the good work happening in Warwickshire by pointing out a general downturn in the number of child protection plans. Good, because, as I suggested earlier, we should celebrate where there has been good work, which in Warwickshire they certainly attributed to the changes they had made.

On the point about draft regulations, there is a tension here, because on the one hand people are asking us to continue to engage on the detail of how this is going to be implemented, yet also to have the regulations alongside the Bill. I will reflect on this and come back to her. On the point about duplication, I have explained it twice, but, clearly, I have not explained it well enough. So I will undertake to write to noble Lords about the operational details, and particularly the role of the family help lead practitioner and the lead practitioner for child protection, and the operational detail that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, was talking about.

On the point about new money, I think I have been pretty clear about what is new money; I said it explicitly. On the meeting, my point was that there will be a whole range of meetings and engagement; I did not say I would not have a meeting. My honourable friend the Minister with responsibility for children’s social care has met many practitioners, experts and DCSs as this process has gone on. I suspect that, between us, we will be able to continue meeting people in the way suggested.

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[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, this is really a probing amendment. I am the first to admit that this is not an area in which I have deep expertise, but my questioning comes from the angle of the impact on schools and is on how much time and cost would be involved.

I understand that Clause 3(4) amends Section 16J of the Children Act 2004 to require safeguarding partners—local authorities, police and health—to ensure that multi-agency child protection teams are adequately staffed. This includes representation from education. Schools themselves are not made statutory partners, but safeguarding partners must secure the participation and representation of education and childcare agencies at both operational and strategic levels in local safeguarding arrangements.

I also understand that the legislation does not impose new direct financial obligations on individual schools. The duty to ensure that teams are sufficiently staffed falls on the safeguarding partners, not the schools themselves. However, I presume that schools will incur some indirect costs related to staff time for participating in safeguarding arrangements, meetings and training. How will this change from the current arrangements? What additional obligations are likely to occur?

I listened carefully to the Minister’s point on the new money for implementation—£270 million. I respect the fact that she cannot give any clarity on long-term funding until the spending review in a few weeks’ time, so I do not have an issue with that. However, if we take that money—£270 million—and assume that even half goes to schools, when of course it will be a fraction of that, it is only £6,000 a school. I will come on to this in a minute.

I understand that the Government are planning to provide guidance to support implementation and that safeguarding partners are expected to tailor arrangements to local needs, which may help manage additional burdens on schools. When will that information be available? This is important because of the need for schools to budget. Unforeseen burdens are particularly likely in schools in areas of high deprivation, which are seeing the backwash of so much suffering of vulnerable children. The point, of which I hope the Minister will be mindful, is that we have only 1,265 hours a year of directed time for our teaching cohort, so every hour doing something other than teaching is salami-slicing away our ability to provide good education. Something has to give.

The other area I am puzzled by—this, again, is my ignorance—is these pilots that have been running. I have been trying to find some feedback on these pilots but have not been able to find anything. The Commons Select Committee raised this issue of a lack of clarity, so can any be provided? My noble friend Lady Barran said that some of these pilots had received extra money to juice them up and get more participation, which is great, but will that be rolled out more widely?

I am very worried about this because, as noble Lords know, we are facing something of a financial bloodbath in the school sector. If we have to start hiring supply teachers to enable ordinary teachers to be released to go to safeguarding meetings, these costs will hit us. Can the Minister give us a timeline on the implications for schools and assure us that schools will have sufficient time between the publishing of the guidance and the setting of their budgets? For example, we really need to set our budgets in April to go live in September, because that tends to be when teacher recruitment goes on, as people resign and are appointed. I hope the Minister will understand where I am coming from. I acknowledge that I have a lot less knowledge of this sector, but I am worried about the backwash into the school sector. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton’s amendment. The example that he gave of teachers and teaching assistants, as cited in his Amendment 34, could obviously be replicated for many other agencies, with a valuable contribution to make to multi-agency child protection teams and wider safeguarding activities, including local drug and alcohol services, mental health services, domestic abuse services, housing associations and more. The key point here is that practitioners need to feel confident about how to engage in the process and how any information they share will be used, confident that it will not put anyone at risk and, as my noble friend so ably put it, confident that they have the time in their working day to be able to participate responsibly. From my own experience, I know we make assumptions at our peril about how confident even statutory agencies are in some of these areas, so any programme that promotes safe and effective partnership work is to be commended.

My Amendment 38 seeks to understand what capacity the Government think will be needed on the ground and what guidance they plan to give for this. The Bill says in Clause 3, page 3, lines 16 to 21:

“Arrangements … must include the establishment of one or more multi-agency child protection teams … for the purpose of providing support to the local authority in connection with the discharge of its duties under section 47 of the Children Act 1989”.


In Clause 3, page 3, lines 27 to 31, it says:

“A multi-agency child protection team is to consist of … at least one of each of the persons mentioned in subsection (4), and … such other persons as the local authority considers appropriate after consulting the other safeguarding partners”.


My cracked-record question is this: what does this mean in real life?

I am sure that the answer to this is no, but, as written, it could mean that Birmingham has one team and Rutland has one team. I am sure the Minister will reassure me that that is not the plan. Even smaller local authorities, particularly rural local authorities, have multiple child protection teams already, so adding one more will not be that useful to them if they have multiple existing teams that need that multi-agency engagement.

When I led the charity SafeLives and we did the rollout of multi-agency risk assessment conferences around the country, we gave estimates to every area based on evidence of realistic case loads, resource requirements and so forth—and we had rather less influence than the Government do. My challenge to the Minister is: if a small charity can do that, surely the Government can do something similar or work with the ADCS or the LGA to develop appropriate clarity and guidance. I would be very grateful if the Minister could explain the Government’s plans.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having read both these amendments, I think it is reasonable to ask the Government what resources are required. When it comes to teachers, we have often dealt with the question of what is required and, if it is a new skill, how they will acquire it. Having enough awareness to call in an expert is another thing we have often talked about in other fields—I certainly have on special educational needs.

If you do not have that training in place, it is a matter of where you go to get that support. Asking for that is one of the things we should do here. I hope the Minister will give us a reply that at least starts to push us towards looking to where these resources are and, more importantly for the people on the ground, where they can look to for support and help, or be trained to do so. Without that linkage, people who are only now being brought into this process on an official basis will fail if they do not know what they are doing.

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[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this group, but I want to add my support to my fellow Norfolk Peer and noble friend Lord Agnew and ask the Minister a question. We have talked about local authority resources and the pressure that local authorities are under. Norfolk County Council is the strategic authority and its competences include education, special needs, vulnerable children, et cetera. Its budget is under a great deal of pressure, as the Minister will know. Norfolk County Council said recently that it has to find another £40 million of savings.

As we move towards unitary government, there are plans to bring in unitary government across Norfolk, which basically means getting rid of the districts and maybe replacing them with one unitary council, which would be Norfolk County Council, plus all the other competences. However, if we move to more than one unitary authority in a large county such as Norfolk, and maybe in counties such as Suffolk as well, and have possibly one or two unitaries replacing the county and the districts, what will happen in terms of the dissipation of resources going into this type of work with vulnerable children? Would they be spread between one or more authorities? What are going to be the consequences in terms of replication of services and cost pressures on those authorities, at a time when budgets are very tight anyway?

The other question I have follows on from the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. If resources are not going to be made available, what possibilities are there going to be for teachers and TAs to get that extra training outside their local authority? If they want to enhance their career or widen their experience on their own initiative because there is nothing available for them in terms of provision within the authority, what can they do and who can they turn to to get that extra training?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think there is a misunderstanding about my noble friend Lord Agnew’s remarks. My understanding is that he said that schools have got very good at safeguarding, but there are new responsibilities on schools in this Bill and he asked whether additional training would be required and where the resource would be, rather than saying, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, seemed to infer, that this was a new thing. My noble friend knows extremely well that it is not a new thing.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In previous groups, I have spoken at some length about the purpose and functions of these new multi-agency child protection teams and how they will be delivered as part of the existing joint and equal duty on safeguarding partners to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in their area.

On Amendment 34, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for his contribution on ensuring that teachers and teaching assistants have the right training to work effectively in child protection. Statutory guidance is clear that teaching staff should receive safeguarding training at induction and at least annually thereafter. My noble friend Lady Bousted was very clear about that position. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was also very passionate about the need for schools to be involved in this issue, which is precisely why on Tuesday we debated the clause about education and childcare settings being key safeguarding partners, and the improved emphasis on that in this legislation.

However, despite having this assurance, I decided in the spirit of the previous discussion that we were having that I would consult an expert about whether this is in fact the case. I consulted a teacher very close to me about the sort of training that he is receiving. He told me, “Every year, we receive statutory update training at the beginning of the year. This can take most of one of our inset days and requires us to read the updates for KCSIE”—Keeping Children Safe in Education—“guidance. Then we get update training through the year, every couple of weeks in briefing, and then about once a half-term in an after-school CPD”. He is an excellent teacher, although as his mother I am completely biased, and he is in a very good school. I think this makes the point about the current position in terms of training for teachers and teaching assistants.

There is a reasonable point to be made about the education partners. Although they already have a responsibility for safeguarding, they will now also have a more explicit role in the multi-agency child protection teams. I hope I can reassure noble Lords by saying that the statutory guidance is also clear that the statutory safeguarding partners, which include the other partners that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, referred to, should support practitioners that work with children, including through creating a learning culture where practitioners stay up to date on best practice. We are clear and confident that the education practitioner in the multi-agency child protection teams will be able to operate as a crucial link to and from education and childcare settings, ensuring that school staff are supported to work effectively with vulnerable children and the child protection teams.

The pathfinder areas have developed multi-agency workforce development plans and delivered comprehensive multi-agency training that has provided opportunities not just to ensure that practitioners have the knowledge and skills they need to deliver effective child protection but to align on shared values and build these vital cross-agency relationships. Training typically covers the reforms, safeguarding responsibilities, local practice frameworks and how different roles fit together across the system. There is both an opportunity within schools and an improved opportunity, from the role of the education practitioner in the multi-agency child protection teams, to ensure that that expertise is there.

I turn now to Amendment 38, which relates to sufficient resource and delegated functions. I spoke on this in the previous group. In fact, we have, understandably, talked about it in several groups so far in Committee. I will briefly revisit the key points. The new teams will be delivered as part of the existing joint and equal duty on safeguarding partners. I have previously mentioned the flexibility in the new measures, which enables teams to operate along police and health footprints, balanced with a sharp focus on multi-agency child protection delivery, where agencies are clear about their responsibilities and accountabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, answered her own question. Of course it would not be the case that you would have the same number of multi-agency child protection teams in an authority such as Birmingham as you would have in Rutland; that would not be logical.

I am not sure that I would characterise this system as simply adding another child protection team alongside the current ones, as I think the noble Baroness said. As I said in my explanations on the previous group in particular, the intention is very much that these teams will be the place where agencies will be able to work together in the consideration of child protection cases and issues. They are quite distinct from the child protection teams that might currently exist.

In terms of resources, safeguarding partners already agree and dedicate resources as part of their local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, and the Government have provided £500 million to support the rollout of the Families First Partnership Programme, of which multi-agency child protection teams are a part, as I said previously.

I do not want to be churlish about this, but I am not sure I would have rolled up to this Committee at this point to focus particularly on how difficult school and local government funding is if I had spent the last 14 years supporting the last Government. Nevertheless, it is an important point that we ensure that there is sufficient funding, which is why this Government have already increased, in real terms, funding going to both schools and local government.

On the group before last, we responded to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, about the consequences and the process of local government reorganisation. I think I gave some reassurance on that, provided to me by my noble friend Lady Taylor.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

41: Clause 4, page 6, line 11, leave out from beginning to end of line 19 on page 7
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment which seeks to question the effectiveness of the drafting of 16LA

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 41, I shall speak to Amendments 45 and 46 in my name. I look forward the speech of my noble friend Lady Spielman, on her Amendment 69, and take this opportunity, on behalf of the Committee, to wish her a very happy birthday.

As I set out in an earlier group, I hope that my prior experience in setting up information-sharing fora at scale in relation to high-risk domestic abuse will be useful as the Committee debates these important changes.

My Amendment 41, as well as Amendment 42, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, would remove the duty to share information in relation to safeguarding welfare for the agencies referred to in new subsection (4), which include the statutory safeguarding partners—police, local authorities and health, education and childcare agencies, and any person who is doing work for either group. That could refer to, for example, an independent chair in a serious case review. Can the Minister be clear about who is intended to be covered by new paragraph (c)?

My concerns about this part of the Bill are that it feels, when you read it, as if it is taking information-sharing in isolation. It seems to imagine a world where a relevant partner—let us say a school or a child-minding agency—has information that it is concerned about a child, which it passes on to the local authority, and then that is it. I know that that is not the Government’s intention, but I am trying to make sure that the Bill does what the Government intend it to do.

In practice, you need information-sharing protocols, and a place where you can discuss the information that you have shared. The Minister earlier referred to Annie Hudson’s comments about people being in the same place. You also need to be together to agree what actions to take in relation to that information. I cannot see how any of that works in the Bill. The Minister may say that it is not for the Government to prescribe these things, but we have a lot here in regulation and guidance, and it would be helpful if the Minister could elaborate and say exactly what the guidance will cover.

My other worry is that, in real life, you often do not know the significance of the information that you hold until you join it together with information from other agencies. We used to say at SafeLives, “You don’t know what you don’t know”. When the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, was the Minister, I remember taking one of her colleagues from the Home Office to visit one of these multi-agency meetings, which I thought would almost certainly be the kiss of death for our future relationship with the Home Office, but we survived. There was a case of sharing information, which I remember very vividly, where the police officer said that they knew about the case, they had attended the address seven times, the woman was always drunk and, on the final occasion, they fined her for wasting police time. As we went around the table, it came to the representative from the A&E team, a nurse, who looked at the police officer as only nurses can and asked him to run through the dates of those attendances, which he did. She said that they had had an attendance on every one of those nights for that woman, she had several broken bones and they had an attendance from the child the next day who had, they were told, fallen off his bike. We do not need miles of domestic abuse training to know that neither party could probably put those things together until they had heard the other side.

Even on a simpler level, any of your Lordships who have been involved in this work will know that in the same family you can have one child who is causing all sorts of trouble in school and is visibly disturbed, and a sibling who wants to stay for every after-school club and is the most immaculately behaved. I know that a Bill cannot address all those permutations, but we just need reassurance that the Government have thought this through in practice.

It is also frequently not responsible to share information if nothing is going to happen with it. We are not just offloading risk from what we know on to another agency. The balancing considerations in the data protection legislation are there for a reason and we should respect people’s privacy unless we think that, by sharing information, we will make them safer.

It is important to have a full picture of a child’s life when considering safeguarding concerns. I wonder how this works where, say, the school shares a low-level concern with health because it is the most relevant statutory agency but, in the same case, the police share different information with the local authority. That is not clear to me. I know who, in theory, should hold the full picture, but in practice how does the local authority social work team hold the whole picture? Crucially, how is that picture kept up to date? Similarly, where is the duty for the lead safeguarding agencies to share back with wider organisations what action they have taken based on the information that was shared? Those organisations need to know how they can help, what they can do that would make a child safer and, indeed, what they could do that might increase risk to a child.

It is also not clear to me from the Bill what the threshold is for sharing. The duty in new Section 16LA(1)(a) and (b) states that a person to whom the section applies—in this case, all the 400-plus schools, nurseries and childminders in a typical local authority that my noble friend Lady Spielman referred to on Tuesday—will have a duty to share information that is

“relevant to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the child”.

That is obviously incredibly broad and would require a lot of resource if it is followed to the letter. Again, when I look at the impact assessment, I cannot see how that has been fully accounted for. If the Minister could elaborate, that would be very helpful.

I also think that agencies will need guidance about when to disclose information, as the law obviously allows them to do this today, and this does not change those duties. Even statutory partners such as the police benefit from guidance, and we need to strike a balance between hypervigilance, on one hand, and information dumping—sharing everything and risk aversion—on the other.

It is also not clear to me from the Bill whether education and childcare agencies should seek consent, presumably from the parent rather than the child, before sharing information, and where public interest overrides consent. In practice, as the Minister knows, there is a blurry line when sharing information about a child. Say the child came into school unwashed, in unwashed clothes, for the fourth day in a row. That might be something specific about the child that is legal to share, but it implicitly shares information about the parents, where the balancing considerations might play out differently.

In a world where agencies trust one another, this becomes a two-way street. The local authority makes a request of a nursery for information, for example, but can the nursery make a request of the local authority? More specifically, how do the Government think that subject access requests will be handled? I think of my grandson’s former childminder, who was wonderful. How do we expect those mom-and-pop or mom-and-mom organisations to deal with this, both administratively and in human terms?

My noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 49 raises the point about retaining public trust in the process, including by clarifying the need to maintain records of processing disclosures made under this new section. I could go on, but I do not think I need to. Inserting new Section 16LA is the right thing to do, but getting it right in practice is fiendishly difficult. Moving from a world where education and childcare agencies can and do share information with statutory agencies about the safeguarding and welfare of children to a world where they have a duty to do so, without having tested this in practice, may throw up all sorts of unintended consequences, so I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure me. I think it would be unfair to expect her to address each of those points in detail, but will she consider them, comment on those that she can and perhaps find out from the department whether there have been any pilots of this approach? If there have been any in the Families First Partnership areas, how is that going?

I turn to my other amendments. As noble Lords will know, the Public Bill Office here has done a beyond superhuman job in tabling a huge number of amendments. I am ashamed to say that some came from me at a very late hour, and I am hugely grateful, but I think that my Amendments 45 and 46 overlap; we do not need them both.

These amendments link to some of the points that we raised on Clause 3. I am thinking about cases in which information unexpectedly emerges about significant risk, either to another sibling or to an adult in the family or extended family, which is, if I can sneak it back in, why I prefer Amendment 45 over Amendment 46. The former, in relation to a sibling, is easier to deal with. Domestic abuse is an obvious concern, and I know that the Minister shares my concerns about that. Our actions must be prioritised to safeguard the child, but that could in turn increase risk to the victim, which ironically could then make things worse for the child. The victim discloses domestic abuse to the childminder, who then reports it to the local authority and the police. The police turn up and, as we know, in many cases no further action is taken, and that perhaps silences the victim from seeking help. I know the Minister is familiar with the fact that we cannot legislate for every human behaviour, but I am just thinking through the risks, both to the victim and to the child, in such a case.

I will give another true case from many years ago. An abusive father was the carer for his mother, and adult services were unaware of the concerns about his behaviour despite the fact that his mother kept falling out of bed and injuring herself. Within this approach, I wonder how those wider information-sharing gaps will be bridged. My amendment is probing, but I want reassurance that the Government have thought these things through. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and the contributions of other noble Lords.

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We will work with sector representatives to ensure that standards work focuses on the biggest information challenges that they face. We will draw, for example, on the Cabinet Office examples that the noble Baroness identified. We need to develop and test these standards prior to their implementation, and assess the most appropriate method to introduce them, but I hope that that gives the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, and others some certainty and assurance that we are making progress on this. With all the explanation that I have given, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed response, and I look forward to her letter on some of the even more detailed points that I think deserve clarification. It was reassuring to hear her confirmation that there will be user testing going on, as she said. I wish her and colleagues in the department good luck with the consent guidance, because it is hard. If you are in a nursery and you are worried that a child is being neglected, getting consent from the parent is not a comfortable conversation, but not telling them and them finding out could put the child at greater risk. It always was hard and does not get any easier.

On my noble friend Lady Spielman’s amendment on open data standards, it was good to hear the Minister’s response that work is going on in that area. Maybe in future debates we can get clarity about some sense of timing. Going back to the earlier debates on Clause 3, one of the biggest blocks to multi-agency work is just how slow it is to get data out of different systems to be able to share it. Can the Government do anything to smooth that along? I thought the experience of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe was extremely helpful in that regard.

We have at least two examples—there may be more—of doing these big data transformation projects quickly when we need to. The first was the linking of primary and secondary healthcare data—not schools—during the pandemic, so that we could predict ICU bed capacity needs. The second is, as the Minister knows, my favourite: attendance data. That has been a game-changer and, happily, we are seeing attendance start to improve. I am glad to hear that the department is taking that seriously.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

44: Clause 4, page 6, line 30, at end insert—
“(3A) Where the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information, this decision must be recorded.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require that decisions made not to disclose information must be recorded.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendments 44, 47 and 48 all relate to the recording of information-sharing decisions, and they cover the two obvious situations: one where information is shared and one where it is not shared because the relevant person considers that sharing it would be more detrimental to the child than not sharing it. These amendments seek to clarify what the expectations are on all agencies, from the smallest childminder to the largest college, in terms of recording their decisions and the reasons for those decisions.

Keeping good records is obviously essential but it takes time and requires secure storage and access rights. Good record-keeping can improve safeguarding situations; for example, where there are changes of staff or somebody is on holiday and a new or temporary member of staff may not know the history of the case. Similarly, an agency may decide not to share information at one point and then decide at a subsequent point that it is in the best interests of the child’s safety and welfare to do so.

I would like to press the Minister on cases where the decision is made not to share information because of the fear that it would be detrimental to the child’s safety. As discussed earlier, we do not know what we do not know. So one piece of information might not seem overly worrying but, when pieced together with others, as we have discussed, the picture changes. Also, we need confidence that practitioners are considering these decisions with care. No one expects perfection in these areas but, rather, defensible not defensive decision-making.

Will the Minister comment in this regard on subsections (5) and (6), which I assume will be clarified in regulations? Having a clear decision-making process, to record as simply as possible the decision taken and the reasons for it, will improve the quality of decision-making. In a serious case incident, by which I mean when a child is killed or seriously harmed, it will be vital, so I ask again: how is this going to work in practice? I can see that, if you are a strong local authority, a strong trust or a large college, this might be close to business as usual, but what about the single small primary school head who has to deal with this, along with 55 other responsibilities, or the nursery or the childminder? I look forward to the Minister’s remarks. I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments in group six, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Amendments 44, 47 and 48 seek to require practitioners to keep records of decisions made when processing information under the new information-sharing duty. I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that documenting such decisions is important for the reasons that she outlined. This principle is already embedded in the non-statutory guidance Information Sharing: Guidance for Practitioners and Managers, as well as in the Information Commissioner’s Office’s A 10 Step Guide to Sharing Information to Safeguard Children, both of which promote clear and proportionate record keeping.

In relation to the points that the noble Baroness made about smaller organisations having to carry this out, I shall read an extract from the non-statutory guidance that I think is helpful. It includes the advice:

“Record the reasons for your information sharing decision, irrespective of whether or not you decide to share information. When another practitioner or organisation requests information from you, and you decide not to share it, be prepared to explain why you chose not to do so. Be willing to reconsider your decision if the requestor shares new information that might cause you to regard information you hold in a new light. When recording any decision, clearly set out the rationale and be prepared to explain your reasons if you are asked”.


Furthermore, data protection legislation includes key principles such as lawfulness, transparency and, crucially, accountability, which require organisations to demonstrate compliance with data protection obligations.

Our plan is, as the noble Baroness surmised, to introduce statutory guidance covering matters such as appropriate record keeping. Agencies must have regard to the guidance in discharging the duty, which further strengthens the position of recording decisions. We think this strikes the right balance by ensuring that audit trails are in place, as she outlined, without placing unnecessary administrative burdens on practitioners who are already, as she said, working under significant pressure. I hope that has reassured the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I did read an extract from the non-statutory guidance that already exists, Information Sharing: Advice for Practitioners Providing Safeguarding Services for Children, Young People, Parents and Carers. As I also said, there is the Information Commissioner’s Office’s A 10 Step Guide to Sharing Information to Safeguard Children. I am sure they are 10 straightforward steps.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Only 10 steps. I am reassured that the Minister has considered this carefully. I think my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe is right to probe gently in relation to the smallest organisations, where familiarity with this degree of responsibility may be less great and it could cause some anxiety. So, in addition to the guidance, there might need to be some support for those organisations—but I am sure the Minister will consider that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 44 withdrawn.

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Finally, it is important to remember that particularly vulnerable children, such as newly arriving asylum seekers, will have no number and not be on a database. For them, local networks of relationships could literally be their saving grace. I trust that the Minister will address these important issues in her remarks. In the interim, I support Amendment 50, 54, 62 and 63.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 59, ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Cash, and Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer. The points made by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough about some of the risks with the consistent identifier are incredibly important to get right. Nearly all of us in this House support the introduction of a consistent identifier, but the points about data protection, privacy and malicious use that he raised, as well as a potential extension of scope, need to be resolved before it can be implemented safely at scale.

My thinking behind probing Amendment 59 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lucas was to ask the Minister—if she can bear it at this stage of the afternoon—to run through again how we think this will work in practice for the smallest organisations. In the last group, she set out clearly the non-statutory guidance around balancing considerations and recording information. It sounds straightforward when read out like that, but, as we know, it is more complicated in real life. We are expecting those very small organisations to input and hold data on a consistent identifier in a way that is secure.

I do not think previous speakers raised the risk of data hacking. We recently had concerns over the cyberattack on the legal aid database, where personal, sensitive information was stolen by the cyberhackers. Clearly, this is not the kind of thing that should happen with children’s data. What thought have the Minister and her team given to that?

Can the Minister also confirm whether the use of the single unique identifier has been tested with all types of practitioner? I think she mentioned the pilot in Wigan, but does that include the smallest practitioners as well as the largest, and what practical implementation lessons can be learned from that?

Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer—who cannot be in his place today—which was very well introduced by my noble friend Lord Jackson, is a small but important amendment. Noble Lords have referred to the terrible death of Victoria Climbié. I remember reading the report many years ago; if I remember rightly, eight different files were held on her, partly because she had lived in two local authorities and partly because her name kept being spelled differently, which was one of the reasons why the risk of harm to her was missed. That is an argument in favour of a consistent identifier, but information can still be inputted incorrectly, including numbers—we will have a debate soon on dyscalculia. It is a very serious issue, as is the point, which I had not thought of but should have done, about how malicious information that is shared and recorded could ever be removed. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting and thought-provoking debate on an important topic: namely, how we use a unique identifier in the interests of safeguarding our children. Noble Lords have quite rightly raised some crucial questions for the Minister to answer, particularly relating to privacy and aiming to clarify His Majesty’s Government’s purpose in this clause.

We hope that the Minister will be able to shed further light on both the specific and broader issues. I believe Amendment 56, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, and Amendment 63, in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer, are both important as they seek to outline what should be in future regulations. We are interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on these, and seek to clarify if the Government would consider publishing draft regulations during the passage of the Bill.

Similarly, Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer highlights the crucial issue of accurate and secure data collection, as well as the recording and storage of that data. I appreciate that technology has moved on, but many noble Lords will remember the child benefit data loss in 2007, the cyberattack and theft of data from the Legal Aid Agency only last week and the current disruptions from a cyberattack that one of our major high street retailers is facing. This is a real and present danger, which is only going to increase. The loose nature of the clause creates veritable and justifiable concerns.

On more specific issues, we are particularly interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on Amendment 54 in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer. Can she please give the Committee an example of a similar set of identifiers that is of general application? We also look forward to the Minister’s response to Amendment 59, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran, which would, if accepted, allow this project to move forward on a much lower risk and much more affordable basis.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

51: Clause 4, page 7, leave out lines 21 to 27 and insert—
“(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision relating to the consistent identifier.(2) For the purposes of this section the NHS number is the consistent identifier.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that the single use identifier is described on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my remarks on this group have shrunk somewhat, thanks to the Minister’s earlier reply, so this is really an opportunity for her to confirm and clarify some of her earlier comments in relation to the use of the NHS number, which is addressed through my Amendment 51, which I think shares the aims of Amendment 52, which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, presented in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, earlier.

The context for considering this group of amendments is the long debate that has run for many years about whether there should be a consistent identifier for children and, if so, what that number should be. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, has campaigned on this very actively over many years, so I am sure she is here with us in spirit.

I was very reassured to hear the Minister say that there would not be a database and therefore that we do not have to worry about some of the concerns surrounding ContactPoint and other similar projects today. As your Lordships’ House knows, the Children’s Commissioner and leading children’s charities all support this move and believe that a consistent identifier

“will enable a child to be identified with more confidence”

across the multiplicity of information management systems that we know exist and therefore allow information

“to be shared more efficiently and securely when consent has been received or a safeguarding decision has been made to do so”.

Rightly, the assumption in their statement is that is that information can be shared only with consent—or, to be fair, if a safeguarding decision has been made to do so, which implies that there is no consent. So obviously, this will apply in both cases.

My amendment would do two things. First, it would put in the Bill that the consistent identifier would be a child’s NHS number. Many commentators on the Bill have said that it is important to do this rather than leaving it to regulations, and we need to be clear that the Government are not tempted by another major IT adventure in this area. Secondly, it would allow the Secretary of State by regulations to make provision relating to the consistent identifier. Our intention is to get clarity in the Bill that it is the NHS number, but then give the Secretary of State the flexibility she needs to keep the approach up to date. I know that the Minister has said—I do not want to put words into her mouth—that the Government are exploring using the NHS number, and it looks like the front-runner. Those are definitely not the words she used. I wonder whether she could elaborate a little, to the extent that she feels able, on whether it is really the NHS number or whether anything else is realistically in contention. Therefore, if that pilot was not successful, how much time and money would this set us back?

In debates on earlier groups, other noble Lords mentioned the limitations of the NHS number. Of course, there are children who do not have one, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but the Minister has already given a constructive way through that, and there are also adoptive children. I know there are real concerns that adoptive children should have a single NHS number that does not change. I felt there was a hopeful hint behind her words, but maybe she can expand on that. I think there have been cases where changing numbers and not having that history of a child’s health has not been in the best interests of the child.

It would also be good to hear the Minister’s reflections on the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Jackson about families who might be driven away from registering with a GP because of concerns about how their data might be used, thus preventing access to basic healthcare for their children. How real a risk does she believe that to be? Either way, we think that those risks just pale in comparison with those of another new IT project and a number created purely for these purposes. If I have understood correctly that the NHS number is the front-runner, could she expand a little more on the Wigan pilot? Is it the only pilot that the Government are intending to run? How long will it run for? Will there be others? Will they be evaluated? Can she give us any hint on a timeline? I assume there will be no wider rollout until that work is complete. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group and strongly congratulate the Government on having picked up the concept of a unique child identifier. I was part of the group, with the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, when we did not get there on previous legislation, and we were told that one reason was that the Department for Education could not see how it could do that and link with health, so seeing the Department for Education involved is particularly cheering.

I will make a case quite strongly for the NHS number rather than anything else, partly because I think we need to learn lessons from other number systems. If we look just at hospital records, different hospitals have different numbers and then there is the NHS number, and that has resulted in all kinds of clinical muddles and potential errors. The other thing is that children move around. People do not stay in the same area all the time, and the NHS number moves with them. If they have one number and move to a new area and register with a GP, for example, and then go to register with a school, if there have been major concerns then eventually those case notes will come through and people will become aware.

Going back to my previous experience, sometimes we found that the families with the highest risk had multiple addresses, out of town and in different cities. The other advantage is that, although we have devolved healthcare systems, we have a unique NHS number so, if people move between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, that number will persist. That is not a central database; it is simply saying that the number is there.

Children’s names change and their “known as” also changes. They may be known as another name but the number, a little like their genetic make-up, is fixed, which is really helpful. It will also avoid problems of lots of children having the same name, which is when muddles happen. I am from Wales, and we have a lot of people called David Jones and David Evans, and quite a few called David Williams, let alone Siân and Ceri. They are great names but, if you are trying to differentiate between them, you have to be really careful.

The final reason why I think this is particularly important is about transition and children who have learning difficulties and neurodiversity. Transition is an extremely difficult time for children. In those late teens, hormones are kicking in all over the place and all kinds of things are happening. Their relationships with the people who have been their carers through childhood change, and they can be at particular risk during those times, particularly during puberty if they have real learning difficulties.

I really hope that the pilot with the NHS number continues. When the Minister responds, it will be very helpful to know what kinds of numbers are being evaluated in those pilot areas—I hope there are more than one—so that the studies are sufficiently powered to be valid. Where have the objections come from? Who has not complied with being engaged? There may be some education needed to remove any sense of threat, because it will make safeguarding easier for people who have responsibility for children.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am pretty certain that officials will have already consulted with the royal college, but, if they have not, I give the noble Baroness an undertaking that they will.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I again thank the Minister for her reply. I am not sure I heard exactly whether there will be more than one pilot or quite what the timeline was, but, at this hour on a Thursday evening, I will not press her on that. I trust her to update the House when she is able to say more.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her intervention. It is a reminder that we are so fortunate to be surrounded by such experts, and such patient and persistent ones—in a good way. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 51 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are very supportive of Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Of course, there is detail to be worked out, although we have already heard some encouraging ways through about how to use this anonymised data in practice. Clearly, if it could be aggregated and anonymised in whatever cut—so to speak—that would help us interrogate it and get some answers to some of the systemic issues that exist in child safeguarding and welfare.

We are interested in both parts of the noble Lord’s amendment: namely, research and commissioning. Having a better understanding of the patterns of safeguarding issues, which children are most likely to be affected and what works would be invaluable for practitioners and policymakers alike. As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, understanding what does not work and where the glitches are in the system is equally valuable. The more transparency we have on these issues, the better the commissioning of services will be. This made me think back to my noble friend Lady Spielman’s Amendment 69 on open data standards, and I know the Minister said that work is going on in that regard. If that was successful, it could be shared for some of the same purposes as Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. I wonder whether that might be another way through, if the Government are unable to accept his amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to what has been said about Amendment 61, I say briefly that it is very sensible, providing that the data can be kept safe. That is the caveat. If the Minister could address that point, that would inform the Committee as to where we can go with this.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for putting this amendment down. We can talk in parliamentary language, but it is when we hear the example that my noble friend Lady Benjamin told us about that we know the appalling effects that child abuse has on children and young people. They often carry that for the rest of their lives, and they carry it in silence. Somebody said, and I think it is absolutely right, that this is about changing the culture, where the responsibility is not to sort of pretend “I’m title-tattling” or “I’m not sure” or “It’s a friend of mine” or “I shouldn’t say this”; if you suspect that child abuse is happening, you have to do something about it.

Recently, we have heard about all the problems that the Church of England has faced, and we have heard various clergy say, “Well, I didn’t think it was that important”, or “I did do so and so”. If we had had this in law, those prominent clergy would have had a responsibility in law to speak out and those abuses over many decades of young people, not at school but in various holiday camps, I understand, would not have taken place.

We think that, by ticking the box on CRB checks, or now on the data-barring service, it is all sorted in schools. It is not. When we come to the schools part of the Bill and look at unregistered schools—particularly, I have to say, religious unregistered schools—it is worth noting that examples have come to light of children who have been abused in unregistered settings. Again, people will say, “I don’t think this has really happened; I’d better not blow the whistle on this”, but it is the case, and various Members of this House know that.

This is a very important amendment. I do not care which Bill it comes in, but we need to make sure that it passes into law.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Walmsley, made a predictably powerful case for the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse and highlighted its terrible scale, impact and extent. I do not disagree with them when they say that the system is currently failing the victims. My noble friend Lord Moynihan also gave very powerful examples from the world of sport.

In my experience, this is one of the most difficult areas in which both to legislate and to implement legislation effectively. We know from a range of terrible cases, including, of course, the rape gang scandals of recent years, that even when a disclosure is made—whether by a child or when a professional makes the disclosure directly to the police or local authority—it is not always listened to. We also know from international research that mandatory reporting has led to enormous increases in recorded incidents. That may be an important contributor to the culture change that, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, rightly identified, is so badly needed; but there is still, of course, an enormous gap between recorded incidents and the prosecution of the offenders concerned.

I have a couple of concerns about the amendment. One is volunteers, who play an important role, and the amendment perhaps affecting their willingness to take on voluntary and unpaid activity. Perhaps most importantly, we should think through the issues where there are suspicions rather than disclosures. As we have heard, the majority of child sexual abuse happens within families. We need to think through how suspicion is handled in practice, and the implications of children being taken into care while allegations are made against a parent or step-parent, or a sibling or step-sibling. I am not saying that, where abuse has happened, that is not important to do, but we need—and the Government need—to think through very carefully the implications and the disruption and fracturing of important relationships in children’s lives.

I note that, through the Crime and Policing Bill, the Government plan to introduce mandatory reporting where there is a disclosure or where abuse has been observed. I have some sympathy with that as a starting point, but I hope very much that we can keep a lens on this terrible issue. My noble friend Lord Moynihan says that he has been working on this issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for over 20 years. I have the greatest respect for their tenacity and patience on such a difficult subject.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I rise slightly nervously to respond to this debate, which follows and covers a number of very important and thorny issues. But one of the reasons I am anxious—I double-checked, hence my looking at my telephone— is I felt that, at points, the Committee was talking about slightly different things.

I accept absolutely the very valid point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that in every terrible serious case review of child death at the hands of their parents the issue has started with a single hit, but she would also accept that, thank goodness, those are very much the exception rather than the rule, and that the overwhelming majority of parents who may or may not smack or use physical discipline towards their child do not end up anywhere near those kinds of tragedies.

The reason I pulled out my phone was just to check that I had understood correctly. The reasonable chastisement defence applies only in cases of common assault and battery since the Review of Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 and the implementation of that review in October 2007. With the leave of the Committee, I will read a couple of sentences from the advice produced by the department in October 2007:

“Therefore any injury sustained by a child which is serious enough to warrant a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm cannot be considered to be as the result of reasonable punishment. Section 58 and the amended Charging Standard mean that for any injury to a child caused by a parent or person acting in loco parentis which amounts to more than a temporary reddening of the skin, and where the injury is more that transient and trifling, the defence of reasonable punishment is not available”.


So, I am sorry for whatever having to listen to my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough has done to the brain of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, but I think my noble friend made a very fair point. Noble Lords and parents around the country may or may not agree, but this advice is absolutely clear that where chastisement amounts to more than a temporary reddening of the skin, or where the injury is more than transient or trifling, the defence is not available. It is fair to ask—and it would be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who I know has thought about this long and hard—that we understand what difference this is going to make to the kinds of cases that have been cited in the Committee this afternoon.

My other concern is about non-physical chastisement. I spent the first six years of my time in your Lordships’ House never mentioning domestic abuse, and I do not think I have stopped talking about it since we started the Bill. We know that in many abusive relationships—and this applies to children as well as adults—you do not need to use physical violence; coercion and fear and control are incredibly harmful. Figures were cited about the harm of physical violence, and I do not question those for a second, but I wonder where the law then goes. If we were to adopt the noble Baroness’s amendment, which obviously has significant support in both Houses, where do we then go in dealing with what, I would argue, is perhaps much more toxic and damaging for a child’s mental health and their physical health, given what we know about the links between the two in terms of emotional abuse and psychological harm to children? I look forward to noble Lords’ comments on that.

We also need to address—as ever, I am surrounded by people who know much more about this than I do—the reality that, if a parent is accused of smacking, hitting or slapping a child, not the kind of severe physical violence that was cited but the violence that would fit under the defence of reasonable chastisement, they may enter a slow, stressful and ultimately quite harmful criminal justice process, during which time they may be prevented from having contact with their child and that child might be removed into care. We need to balance the impact of the kind of chastisement as set out in Section 58 with the kind of harm that that process would bring to children. In no way do I endorse violence—

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will excuse me for picking up one point that she has just made. The law, as it stands, is extremely confusing and unhelpful to parents. For example, she talked about reddening of the skin. I do not know about the noble Baroness, but if I was going to hit a child, I would not know what level of pressure was going to raise a red mark on that child’s skin and which would not. How can a parent possibly know? So, the law is confusing and unhelpful. It is certainly discriminatory; as has been mentioned, you cannot as easily tell when a bruise is arising on a skin of colour as on a paler skin. Those are just a couple of examples where the law is confusing and it needs clarifying.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure that I entirely agree with the noble Baroness on the spirit of the law. It talks about “trifling”—where the chastisement is of a trivial nature—and, while different parents might interpret that in a different way, the kinds of abuse that were cited in the debate that we have just listened to were not trifling; there was no question that they were trifling.

I will turn now to Amendment 173 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, which seeks to introduce a national strategy to address neglect of children. As we heard the noble Baroness explain—from her own professional experience, she brings great expertise on this matter—neglect is too common a feature in too many children’s lives. I commend her for bringing this to the attention of the Committee, and I would support her assertion that many practitioners lack confidence in how to respond to neglect. The approach set out in the amendment is practical in terms of sharing best practice and supporting both professionals and parents to understand and address neglect. My question to the noble Baroness, and potentially to the Minister, is whether it is wise to try to separate neglect from abuse, since we know that in most cases they will coexist, and therefore I imagine one would want practitioners to go in with their eyes open to both.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are putting children at the heart of everything we do. This is evident in the far-reaching child protection and safeguarding measures in the Bill.

The amendments in this group were tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Tyler. They relate to the defence of reasonable punishment and what the Government are doing about neglect.

I will speak first to Amendments 67 and 505, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on removing the defence of reasonable punishment in legislation, which has been the basis of most of the contributions in this group. Let me be completely clear: the Government do not condone violence or abuse of children, and there are laws in place to protect children from this. Violence against children is not only unacceptable but illegal. The Crown Prosecution Service guidance referenced during the course of this debate is very clear that only the mildest form of physical punishment can be used to justify discipline. Child protection agencies and the police treat allegations of abuse very seriously; they will investigate and take appropriate action, including prosecution, where there is evidence of an offence having been committed. Local authorities, police and healthcare professionals have a clear duty to act immediately to protect children if they are concerned that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, identified terrible cases that we must all take note of. Much of Part 1 of the Bill aims to address precisely these types of cases. But it is important to emphasise that cases where children have been abused or murdered by their parents—children, in fact, who experienced abuse far short of the terrible cases she identified—even in cases where their parents claimed to have been legally disciplining them, would not be covered by the reasonable punishment defence. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong. I am not convinced that it really was simply a reasonable punishment that led to the terrible outcomes in those cases; I think it was something far more profound, dangerous and worthy of attention—in fact, attention would be legally required.

We have heard that other countries have made these changes. We are looking closely at changes in Scotland and Wales and continue to build our evidence base, but we do not want to take this important decision yet. Wales will publish its report at the end of the year, looking at the impact that the change in legislation has had.

It is important that, in making any decisions, we consider all voices, including those of the child, trusted stakeholders and those who might be disproportionately affected by removing the defence. I certainly accept some of the examples used by noble Lords about the support that there is for removing this defence. I do not think it is quite as straightforward and completely categorically clear as some noble Lords have suggested.

Most parents want what is best for their children and they should be supported. It is right that we protect all children who are at risk of harm, but it is also right that we do not intervene in family life when children are safe, loved and well supported. This is why I agree with noble Lords who identified the need to find more positive ways to parent. I do not think that most parents who resorted at some point or another to a smack feel that that is the most positive way they could parent their children.

That is why we are rolling out national reforms to multi-agency family help and child protection—backed, as we have said previously, by over £500 million of funding—and, importantly, providing parenting support in 75 local authorities through family hubs. Parenting is difficult. Any of us who has done it understands the challenges of choosing the right ways to promote the positive development of our children. The recent publication of our practice guide for parenting services for parents of zero to 10 year-olds is a positive way to help parents identify how to do that very difficult job most effectively.

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[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to Amendment 172, to which I added my name. My noble friend Lord Meston and my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss have said it far better than I possibly could. I know the amazing work of Pause and I commend its work to the Committee. I have full faith that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will say anything that is missing.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 169 and 172 in my name and to comment on the other amendments in this group. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Farmer for their support on Amendment 169, and the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Meston, for their support on Amendment 172. As has been noted, they seek to do similar things.

Amendment 169 is a narrower version, focusing on support for mothers who have had a baby removed into care at birth. Like the noble Lord, Lord Meston, I prefer Amendment 172, which is broader and would create an obligation for local authorities to offer an evidence-based programme, such as the Pause programme, to mothers who have had a child removed from their care and who, as we have heard, very often immediately get pregnant again. From a human point of view, one can absolutely understand why, after all the attention that they may have received from children’s services prior to the child being removed and then the deafening silence that surrounds them once the child is gone. Very often, that void is filled by another pregnancy. I prefer Amendment 172 because it is a real issue and is broader, but the evidence for Amendment 169 is crystal clear. Almost half of newborns subject to care proceedings are born to mothers who had previously had a child—an older sibling to the newborn—removed through those proceedings. The near inevitability of that seems very powerful.

I am not sure whether it is on my register of interest, but I did a period of volunteering for Pause before I joined your Lordships’ House, so I have seen the quality of its work first hand. Since 2013, over 2,000 women have completed the Pause programme who, prior to working with Pause, collectively had had more than 6,200 children removed from their care—that is just over three children per woman. This is not a competition for how many children a woman has had removed, but Pause was founded by a social worker, Sophie Humphreys, and a district judge, Nick Crichton, after they worked together on a case where a 14th child was removed from the same woman. It is grounded very much in the experience of women.

I suggest to the Minister that this amendment is similar in spirit to Clause 1, which puts family group decision-making processes on a statutory footing, in the sense that some local authorities offer these programmes and some do not. The delivery is inconsistent and patchy and, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, the funding for it is not always available. Also in the spirit of the Bill, which seeks to support those in the care system, we know that 40% of women who have taken part in the Pause programmes were themselves in care.

The Minister will know that the DfE’s own evaluation of this work saw significantly improved outcomes for mothers, reduced rates of infant care entry and very significant savings to children’s social care, with the department’s evaluation suggesting that every £1 spent on the Pause programme resulted in a saving to children’s social care of £4.50 over four years and £7.61—that seems remarkably accurate—over 18 years. I am not sure whether that is the net present value of £7.61, but anyway—that is a 7:1 return. From the point of view of the mother and the children, and from the financial perspective, these amendments deserve the Minister’s serious attention.

More broadly, this group has been focused on the important subject of support for families, both at a relatively early stage and at crisis points, such as when a child is removed into care. The purpose behind Amendment 68, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Farmer, is to ensure that there is universal provision of family support services. There is no question that such services are valued by the families who use them and can make a great difference to the lives of children and to their parents. We support the spirit of the amendment, which keeps universal services separate from those that are voluntary but targeted to more vulnerable families, as the noble Baroness knows from our earlier debates on Clause 3.

Amendments 68A and 68B seek to introduce the concept of earned autonomy for family support services, which is again something that we are very sympathetic to. I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Farmer for his extensive work in this area, particularly in relation to family hubs. I look forward to hearing what the Minister might say about the expansion of family hubs, which the Government have described as

“a non-stigmatising gateway to targeted whole-family support”.

In normal-speak, I think that is a good thing.

Amendment 167, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, would require local authorities to report annually on early intervention services for children and families in their area. As the noble Baroness acknowledged, local authorities have annual reporting requirements, including in relation to their multi-agency safeguarding work. As I understand it, this amendment would make that more explicit in relation to early help. I just wondered whether this would not naturally fit as an update to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, as opposed to being in the Bill.

It is hard to argue with the spirit of Amendment 171, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I was sad to hear of her loss and that of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I am sure that, across the Committee, we are very grateful to those charities that offer great support to children, and their families, who have been bereaved. When I was in the department, I remember meeting the team at the Ruth Strauss Foundation—indeed, I went on to recommend it to extended family members, who benefited from its support. In some cases, when perhaps a parent has cancer, the death can be anticipated and support can happen pre bereavement as well as post bereavement, if the family wishes, but in other cases, such as cases of domestic homicide, the child in effect loses both parents—one parent has been killed and the other parent is in prison. Effective support in all these cases is to be encouraged. If accepted, this amendment would make the task of finding the right support so much easier for bereaved or soon-to-be-bereaved children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for highlighting in this debate very important issues aimed at ensuring that children and families can get the support that they need at the right time. That is an enormously important theme of the Government’s reforms to children’s social care. In doing that, we are already taking forward recommendations from the independent review of children’s social care, mentioned by several people today, particularly the aim to rebalance the children’s social care system towards earlier intervention and supporting more children to stay safely with their families.

I shall speak first to Amendment 68, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, which raises the important issue of family support services. I appreciate the noble Lords’ intention with this amendment and confirm that the Government are already investing in the provision of family support nationally. I also accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that there is a need to ensure that there is that investment. The noble Baroness outlined the fall in investment since 2010; for example, in the Sure Start programme. It took me back to one of the very last interventions that I made in the other place before I came starkly up against the electorate in 2010. I expressed concern that a different Government might not continue to support the development of family support services and Sure Start in a way in which that Government had. There was heckling and jeering, as tends to be more the case at the other end of the building than here, but I am afraid that what we saw in the intervening years was a reduction in support for precisely the sort of services that noble Lords today are, quite rightly, pushing the Government to ensure that we both develop and fund. That is why, as we have frequently referenced—I do so again—that this Government have provided over £500 million to local authorities to roll out the national Families First Partnership programme, which aims to prioritise earlier intervention and ensure that families can access the right support sooner.

To turn to some of the more detailed points, I note the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, regarding earned autonomy status for local authorities to not follow prescriptive criteria in determining the services to be delivered. This is a challenge: how do we enable local authorities to have the autonomy to build and link the services in a way that makes sense to them in their circumstances, while also ensuring that additional investment placed into preventive services is spent on that? I have considerable sympathy for the idea that there needs to be that flexibility. That is why the Government are not mandating the delivery of specific family support services by any local authorities through the programme. They all have flexibility to respond to need in their areas, taking account of available resources, and they are supported in thinking about what might be appropriate and what would work best by reference, for example, to the programme guide that the Government have issued and the work of foundations that are developing information about what is most effective and working well. It is of course important, as I say, that we are clear that the additional money allocated for this work is spent on it. Grant funding is therefore ring-fenced to ensure that it is spent on a range of preventive services. Within that ring-fence, there should be—and there is—flexibility for local authorities to think about the nature and combination of the services that they are providing.

Before I move on, I want to respond to the point that the noble Lord made not only about flexibility, as we have talked about, but about combining funding pots. It is an important point. While local authorities funded through the family hubs and Start for Life programme have the flexibility, as I have said, to tailor services to meet programme expectations and address local needs, combining funding is also an important bit of that flexibility. Many local authorities are combining funding with other funding sources to enhance support for families. It is important that they are enabled to do that, notwithstanding the accountability point that I have made.

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We are also already investing in services that support families through pregnancy and early childhood, including family hubs and Start for Life programmes. The work of Pause certainly sounds enormously important in leading the way in this area. It is clear that it is doing important work to improve the lives of women who have had or are at risk of having children removed from their care. My ministerial colleague Janet Daby met Pause earlier this year and the department is keen to continue working with Pause to support the work it is doing and to learn more broadly how we can support women in these situations and, of course, their babies as well. I think the ability to use family group decision-making in these cases may well also be something that could support much better outcomes than we are seeing at the moment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to go back and talk to her ministerial colleagues about this again. She is absolutely right that some of the effective targeted help and Section 17 types of help that she was talking about, set out in the Families First pathfinders, can be useful to some families, but these cases where a woman has already had multiple removals do not typically fit into that bracket; they go straight to care proceedings. The case load, if I remember rightly, is that each full-time Pause practitioner works with three women, so it is super-intensive and I think is complementary to this. I would just be grateful if she did not close the door on that as an option, particularly as I know that her noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, previously put this down as an amendment—I feel strengthened in that knowledge.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have been persuaded in the course of this debate about the significance of this issue. I had some experience in previous work that I did in children’s social care about this, so I will certainly undertake to go back and talk to my colleagues about some more specificity around the particular requirements in these cases. Perhaps I can return to the noble Baroness with a bit more detail about that.

Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to establish a duty on local authorities to improve access to bereavement support services for children. Like others, I recognise and respect the noble Baroness for talking about her own experience of bereavement, as we also heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, identifying the enormous pressure that falls on families and particularly other children at the point at which they are bereaved. It is for this reason that the Government continue to consider how to improve access to existing bereavement support. There is a cross-government bereavement group, chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care and attended by officials from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office, continuing to look at how we can improve access to support.

Following discussion by this group of opportunities to improve signposting of support—and as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, I would have appreciated being signposted to some support outside the family—we have recently added links to bereavement support specifically for children and young people on GOV.UK. Schools increasingly talk to their pupils about mental health and where to access further support, both as part of the curriculum and through their wider pastoral duties. The relationships and sex education statutory guidance specifies that teachers should be aware of common adverse childhood experiences, including bereavement. I hope that, bringing those things together, we are enabling an improvement in the support that we provide for children who have suffered bereavement. I hope that this, along with the continued investment in services for children and family support, reassures noble Lords that we are taking action on that.

In all these areas, I hope that I have provided, after a useful and important debate, some reassurance about the acceptance by the Government of all the issues identified during the course of the debate, but also about the action that the Government are taking to commit to and invest in improving outcomes for children and their families through effective support services. I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press these amendments, but I will certainly come back on the specific points and reflect on the case made in what I think has been a very important and helpful group of amendments.

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[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to oppose Amendment 69AB, well-intentioned though it clearly is. I have several levels of concerns about the imposition of yet another duty. I believe that the expectations for looked-after children are generally well understood—whether they are actually carried out in practice is another matter. This particular amendment has some obvious holes. For example, there are kinds of intimacy in normal, healthy parent-child relationships that absolutely would not be appropriate between local authority staff and children.

More generally, there has been a proliferation of duties in legislation in recent years. For example, I became chair of Ofqual 14 years ago. After a particular duty was raised in my first board meeting, I asked my legal director for a session to talk me through all the duties that applied. To my astonishment, I discovered that we already had 28 duties, with a handful more in the pipeline; I am sure it is a lot more since then.

This imposition of duties as the go-to solution has several problems. First, it creates problems of overload. Normal human beings simply cannot hold so many different duties in their thinking simultaneously. Secondly, they get imposed in isolation. They are usually added without reference to previous duties, with which they often overlap but sometimes push in different directions. How do you reconcile them? They can lead to skimping. If duties that have been imposed need resource but are not funded, you can end up with everything being done less well—not only the thing that the duty is aimed at but all the other functions—which reduces the quality at the receiving end. It takes away the ability of public services to prioritise intelligently. It can divert resource away from the main purpose that the duty is intended to protect and towards the kinds of activities that demonstrate compliance with the activity.

Finally, if there is a surplus of duties and an impossibility of giving full effect to them all, a sort of cynicism builds up that can corrupt an organisation’s culture. When everybody knows that they are really only paying lip service to an enormous list, people stop believing in the ability of the organisation to fulfil its real purposes.

Tempting as it is to think that another duty is the great solution that will protect children from all the awful harms that have been talked about today—they are a great salve to all our consciences—we need to resist and make sure that we get to the essence of the things that will do the most to help children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this group of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, again reminded the Committee that vulnerable children in the care of a local authority do not always receive the care that they deserve. We should never lose sight that that should be our goal. My noble friend Lady Spielman put it very well in her remarks and I will pick up on what she said. Local authorities understand their duties in this area. The noble Lord himself cited some of the legislation and guidance on the spirit of their responsibilities. The question, as ever, is around implementation, and I share my noble friend’s concerns about adding yet another duty to local authorities.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to the single amendment in this group, Amendment 69AB, in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie. I reflect the concern that has been expressed about the care and support that some of the most vulnerable children receive. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, acknowledged that too many children have been let down over the years, and I believe that this Bill is a real opportunity to set things on a more constructive path.

I recognise that the amendment has been tabled to add a legislative requirement to ensure that the nature and level of parental care that families strive to provide for their own children is provided by local authorities for looked-after children. A local authority is a corporate parent in two senses: first, it has corporate parenting duties; and, secondly, it stands in the parents’ shoes, having parental responsibility for the children in its care.

As I said, I wholeheartedly agree with the amendment’s goal, and we want to ensure that our looked-after children received the highest possible quality support. However, existing legislative and regulatory frameworks mean that local authorities should already care for looked-after children as good parents would. Sections 22 and 22A of the Children Act 1989 already set out the duties owed by a local authority to any child who is looked after by it. These include duties to provide accommodation for the child, to safeguard and promote their welfare, to promote their educational achievement and to help them access a range of services. I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, is giving me a look, but I did check that that is indeed the case.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

73: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of unregistered status for approved kinship carersNotwithstanding the provisions of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 (S.I. 2010/959) and the Children Act 1989, no placement of a child with a kinship carer that is approved by the Director of Children’s Services, shall be considered an unregistered placement.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would allow local authorities to place a child with a kinship carer without needing to meet the fostering placement standards, where it is judged by the local authority to be in the best interests of the child, as a registered placement, including for the purposes of Ofsted inspection.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 73, 74, 75, 76 and 76A in my name, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for adding his name to these amendments. I apologise to those waiting for the regret Motion, but my speaking notes are quite lengthy on this group, because it is quite complicated and important. These amendments all seek to update the approach to the approval of kinship carers, which currently broadly mirrors that for stranger foster carers—I apologise if that is the wrong term. These amendments have been prompted by conversations I have had with leaders in local authorities and the family justice system. I put on record my thanks to the charity Kinship for its advice and explanation of the current position of kinship carers.

My amendments aim to recognise that placing a child with someone other than their birth parents requires balancing a number of risks and safeguards. Kinship carers have the obvious strength of a long-standing, usually lifelong, relationship with a child in the way that a stranger foster carer, however compassionate, does not. However, they may not meet the full standards required by a foster panel in order to be formally approved as the permanent home for a child.

Currently, there is no ability to balance these considerations. In a world where the Government understandably want to see an increase in the use of kinship care, including through family group conferencing, this could be unhelpful at best and potentially damaging for the child at worst.

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[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate noble Lords’ concerns about ensuring that children grow up in safe, stable and loving homes within their family network. I reaffirm that the Government are firmly committed to enabling children to remain safely with their family whenever it is in their best interest, and, alongside that, to removing unnecessary barriers that may prevent this from happening. I recognise the assessment of the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, of the contribution of kinship carers, which adds to our debates earlier in Committee.

I turn to amendments relating to the removal of unregistered status and requirements under fostering regulations for kinship carers: Amendments 73, 75 and 76A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. We agree with the noble Baroness that we must tackle the barriers that currently make it harder for people to become kinship carers. We fully appreciate that that process of becoming a formal kinship carer can feel intrusive or burdensome at times, and we recognise that there is room for improvement in how these assessments are carried out. It is vital that they are conducted in a way that is supportive, respectful and sensitive to the unique circumstances of kinship families. At the same time, these assessments play a crucial role in ensuring that children are placed in safe, stable and nurturing environments. They also help local authorities identify the right support for carers so that they are not left to manage alone. Getting this balance right is essential.

Whenever a child can no longer live safely at home with their parents or anyone else with parental responsibility, the local authority has an obligation to complete a robust safeguarding assessment. The approach to doing this is set out in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011. Removing these assessments, as suggested by Amendments 73 and 75, risks undermining the assurance of the safety and well-being of children moving into kinship care arrangements.

However—to address some of the concerns that have been raised—the kinship care statutory guidance makes it clear that fostering panels should not make negative recommendations solely based on prospective kinship foster carers not meeting the fostering national minimum standards during the assessment. If the placement aligns with the child’s best interests, the prospective kinship foster carer should still be considered for approval to foster the child and then supported by the fostering service to attain the standards. Statutory guidance recognises that the assessment of kinship foster carers may differ from that of mainstream foster carers. Local authorities are permitted to adopt a tailored approach in presenting assessment reports for kinship carers, taking into account the unique dynamics of family relationships, safeguarding considerations, accommodation suitability and any relevant criminal history. Additionally, fostering panels reviewing kinship care applications are expected to include members with specific expertise in kinship care to ensure informed decision-making.

Regarding Amendment 76A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, specifically, the requirement for temporary kinship foster carers to be fully assessed as a foster carer is not a barrier but an important safeguard. It ensures that the placement is not only safe in the short term but sustainable and well supported in the long term. Under Regulation 24 of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, local authorities may grant temporary approval for a connected person to care for a looked-after child for up to 16 weeks, where it is necessary to place the child urgently and the carer has not yet been fully assessed. This provision allows for flexibility in emergencies, but it is time-limited by law to protect the child’s welfare.

Temporary approvals are intended to facilitate urgent placements but must be followed by a full assessment to ensure that the child’s needs are met and the carer is properly supported. This includes a thorough evaluation of the carer’s capacity to meet the child’s needs in the long term; ensuring that the carer receives the same entitlements as mainstream foster carers, including financial support, training and an allocated social worker; and establishing a clear and stable care plan for meeting the future needs of the child. Removing this requirement unnecessarily increases the chances of a breakdown in the kinship placement. This is because it removes important safeguard checks for children placed with a kinship foster carer and removes an opportunity for the services to build a clear understanding of the kinship foster carer’s strengths for tailoring the right support—resources that are vital to enable carers to provide safe and effective care.

It is important to recognise that kinship foster care is not the only route to kinship care. Many children are successfully supported through other legal arrangements, such as special guardianship orders or child arrangements orders, which can offer greater stability and permanence outside the care system. These routes can be less stigmatising and more empowering for families, and we are committed to ensuring that all kinship carers, regardless of legal status, receive the support that they need.

On this basis, and reflecting on the comments that have been made, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I must say that I was a bit more optimistic about the noble Baroness’s response because none of these amendments would cost the Government any money. They simply seek to improve the system that, as we have heard from practitioners and others—including my noble friend Lady O’Neill, who deals with this on a daily basis—is not working as well as it could. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, rightly raised in his remarks the position of the Law Commission review. There is no reason that one could not sunset these clauses if, in however many years’ time, the Law Commission comes forward with a more coherent plan.

Forgive me if I missed it, but I was not sure that I heard responses to my Amendments 74 and 76. Maybe the noble Baroness and I can both look at Hansard and double-check.

On Amendments 73, 75 and 76A, the noble Baroness said that these need to feel like supportive assessments for foster carers. The point really is about finding the balance between the familiarity and security of someone you have known all your life versus any shortcomings that they might have personally, where they live, or any of the points I raised earlier.

In reality, we know that directors of children’s services are having to make choices today to leave children with a kinship carer where they judge that the fostering panel would not exercise the discretion that the noble Baroness outlined, thereby putting themselves in a pretty impossible position vis-à-vis Ofsted. No director of children’s services wants to be in that position.

In relation to Amendment 75, we need to take great care over approval, but the point of Amendment 75 is that the family group decision-making process has already agreed that the kinship family or the member of the child’s extended family is suitable to care for them. The question is why we have to do that twice.

I will go away and reread what the noble Baroness said about temporary placements—I think that that may have been more reassuring. I did not pick up, and forgive me if I missed them, her remarks on the other two amendments, particularly Amendment 74, but we can follow that up separately.

The only other thing I would challenge, with respect—I know that the noble Baroness has enormous experience from her previous roles—is that I do not think one can describe either a child arrangements order or a special guardianship order as more secure and more stable, certainly in relation to parental responsibility. They are not as secure or stable as other alternatives.

We all want the same thing. I thought that these amendments were a simple, constructive way of taking steps forward on some of the things that have been flagged as the most problematic from the point of view of practitioners and leaders. I hope that the noble Baroness will go away and reflect on that. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 73 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I just want to say a few words, especially in support of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I remember that 14 years ago this issue was discussed during consideration of the Children and Families Bill. We all sort of huffed and puffed and said, yes, this is really important, but nothing came of it. I just wish we had seized that opportunity then. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, rightly said, we do not want to make this a missed opportunity. Some young people are ready to leave, but many are not. If you look at the figures for young people who are not in care and not fostered—I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned 24 year-olds—sometimes we see people in their 30s still living at their parents’ home. What happens in those families should be reflected right throughout our society. Sometimes young people are not emotionally ready. We heard of “pack the bag and go”, but I can tell of the opposite: foster parents, at their own cost and in their own time, being prepared to keep on their foster children for several years afterwards. That is amazing.

I turn to the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Having each local authority publish what its national care offer should be seems such an obvious thing to do. I just hope that the Government will seize this opportunity and do that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 85, 89, 92 and 93 in my name. Clause 7 introduces new requirements for local authorities in England to assess whether certain care leavers aged under 25 need Staying Close support; and when such support is deemed necessary, the local authority must provide it. This provision builds on the Staying Close pilot scheme, which gives care leavers safe and secure accommodation along with a trusted adult relationship for emotional and practical support. I am very grateful to the charity Become for sharing its expertise in this area with me. As the Minister knows, each year thousands of young people face what we might describe as a care cliff edge. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, vividly described, when they leave the system, they are expected to leave home at around 18—often abruptly but, I hope, not always as abruptly as in the case she described—losing vital relationships and support when they most need help transitioning to adulthood.

Research by Become shows that

“the transition from care to ‘independent living’ is often poorly planned and managed, and many young people feel unsupported”.

Evidence from the Staying Close pilots demonstrates

“improved outcomes for care-experienced young people … including better ‘independent living’ skills, increased happiness, better stability, increased participation in … education and employment; and a reduced risk of homelessness”,

and that extending Staying Close support to age 25 will benefit thousands of young people leaving care. We warmly welcome that.

However, we have concerns about the drafting of Clause 7, which could limit its impact. First, Clause 7(2) requires local authorities to assess whether Staying Close support serves the young person’s welfare, but without providing specified assessment criteria. We worry that this could lead to the rationing of support or a postcode lottery. Our Amendment 85 seeks to address that by explicitly setting out the factors the local authority must have due regard to, including the

“wishes and preferences … accommodation requirements … emotional and practical support needs … and existing support network”

of the young person. Our ever-optimistic Amendment 92 would give the local authority flexibility to offer additional support where it is judged to be appropriate.

The current wording defines Staying Close support merely as providing advice and information or making representations to help with accommodation and services. The Minister will know that “making representations” does not always translate into a service. That narrow definition does not reflect the comprehensive support that was offered in the pilots, so our worry is that it will not achieve the same positive outcomes that the pilot did.

Our Amendment 89 aims to strengthen the voice of young people and ensure that a record of their wishes is kept. The Bill does not reference young people’s wishes and preferences. We believe, and I know that the Minister agrees and has been a great leader in this, that young people’s input is vital when determining support.

Lastly, our Amendment 93 gives a strong legal entitlement to an opt-out for all care leavers, ensuring young people’s preferences guide decisions about their support and create consistent assessment criteria. I very much hope the Minister agrees that these are reasonable and practical amendments that the Government could turn into their own.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, very generously pointed out the response of the previous Government and put the case for extended Staying Put support extremely ably. I am sympathetic to the spirit of his amendments; indeed, he or another noble Lord mentioned that, when asked, 75% of children said that they would like to go on living with their foster parents beyond the current limitations. I look forward to what the Minister has to say on that. I am also sympathetic to my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 94. Having clarity and good performance-management data should always lead to better outcomes.

I feel rather mealy-mouthed not to be more enthusiastic about the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 164. I absolutely do not want to sound preachy, but I worry. Of course it is extremely important that information is accessible and easily accessible, but, as we often discuss in your Lordships’ House, some of that comes from the culture and the attitude to young people in care and the relationships that we have with them. I suppose my only hesitation is that information without relationships does not get us much further, but I know that all noble Lords know that.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, in responding to these amendments, I start by re-emphasising that we all know that care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society and that many have not received the care and support that we would want and expect for them. We are committed to ensuring that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong, loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training. The ongoing work and the measures in Clause 7 are geared to improving outcomes for those eligible and will help address any cliff edge of support they may face when leaving care.

On Amendments 84, 86 to 88, 90 and 91 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson, I thank him for highlighting the issues and for going through the background so thoroughly, but also for highlighting the very positive measures that were announced in the spending review yesterday. We look forward to further detail on how this will feed through into supporting some of the most vulnerable children in our society.

These amendments together would require local authorities to provide former relevant children under the age of 25 with Staying Put support where their welfare requires it. They seek to probe why the Bill makes provision for Staying Close support to be offered to eligible care leavers up to the age of 25 when the Children Act 1989 puts duties on local authorities to support former relevant children and their former foster parents to maintain a Staying Put arrangement until the former relevant child reaches the age of 21.

I acknowledge the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett; of course, it would not be appropriate to comment on an individual case but I am sure that many of us in this Chamber could put our minds to similar extremely stressful and difficult examples that are based on the real experience of some young people. That is exactly why we have the Bill before us and what we are trying to achieve with it.

We fully recognise the importance of these duties and remain strongly committed to the Staying Put arrangements. But, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, as well as my noble friend Lord Watson, we believe at this moment that it is essential that we prioritise filling the gaps that exist in current support, in particular for young people transitioning into independent living, including those who may have been in residential care, who often have the most complex needs. It is difficult to have to prioritise and focus, but this is the place we are in at the moment.

We are doing this very positive work through the introduction of Clause 7, where all former relevant children under the age of 25, including those in or who have left a Staying Put arrangement, will be provided with Staying Close support where their welfare requires it. Staying Close support includes support to find and keep suitable accommodation, and support to access wraparound services.

On Amendments 85, 92 and 93, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I start by reassuring her that we agree with the sentiment of the amendments and that Clause 7 is already very much in that spirit. We are very keen, of course, to make sure that everything we do links and aligns with the different opportunities: for example, how we can bring pathway plans into the mix and make sure that there is a seamless direction of travel. There will be more to discuss on this as we go forward, as I understand she acknowledges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lady Tyler, and to Amendment 130. We have heard that 67% of care leavers are anxious about money, according to the study by the charity Money Ready. Given that the second Oral Question today was on financial education post-16, it seems appropriate to talk about this in considering this amendment.

Some 80% of care leavers want more help managing their finances. Rent eviction and homelessness are the consequences of poor financial literacy. In 2024, a report from the Become charity revealed that 4,300 young care leavers aged between 18 and 20 end up homeless. This represents an increase of 54% in the last five years. The Staying Put charity has helped, but most still leave care on or before their 18th birthday.

In contrast, 55% of female and 59% of male 20 year-olds still live at home, and 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. Most young people move out when they feel ready, when they have the financial capacity and literacy to live away from home. In contrast, care leavers need to be ready to leave home at a much younger age and do so usually with very tight financial budgets. There is no home to go back to if the money runs out.

It is easy for care leavers to miss out on financial education to help prevent issues that come up with independent living for the first time. Not only is there little information about financial management; the avenues available for reaching support to apply for grants and loans mean that many struggle to access these resources.

Because of the nature of the job market and house prices, 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. The cost of living is keeping people at home; care leavers should have this support too. The expansion of the Staying Put scheme is supported by charities, and evidence from the charity Become shows that this would be a core way of mitigating against homelessness among care leavers.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that this was a wide-ranging group. As I was thinking about it, I thought that what pulls it together is that it is a kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of the amendments in it are the basic planks at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid; one of those planks is of course healthcare.

My Amendments 96 and 107A try to address some of the evidence, which noble Lords will be well aware of, that shows that care leavers face much more negative physical and mental health outcomes than their peers. These disparities stem from the trauma they have suffered, adverse childhood experiences and, sadly, in some cases, the inability of their carers to meet their healthcare needs.

In the general population, children and young people visit specialist clinics more frequently than adults, if they need them, and their growth and development necessitate regular adjustments to medication and treatments. In young adulthood, health needs typically stabilise. We expect adults to manage their own healthcare, work with GPs and other medical systems, and self-manage long-term health conditions. Parents in supportive family settings will guide their children, and maybe even grandchildren, through this transition, but care leavers do not have that support. They often struggle to recognise that they need help, they do not know how to seek it, and it can often be very difficult to navigate complex healthcare systems. As a result, care-experienced people have a very poor uptake of physical and mental health support but very great physical and mental health needs. These clear and practical points were raised with me by the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, to which I am extremely grateful for its briefing and advice, and for the time it has taken talking me through these issues.

My Amendment 96 would require local areas to set out clearly the transition arrangements for health and primary care for care leavers. It does not feel like it should be too much to expect this to be available. As importantly, my Amendment 107A would automatically schedule an extended GP appointment for care leavers who wish to use it; that is the simplest way to bridge this gap and empower them to talk about their health needs, and understand what local services are available to them and how to access them easily. Through this, they would receive support in navigating health systems—from booking appointments and requesting repeat prescriptions, to recognising when they need help. It seems a very small ask, and I hope the Minister will say yes.

There is a coherence to the other amendments in this group. They are the planks that all of us all too easily take for granted, such as having confidence in and transparency about how money works, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, so ably argued. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, cited the interesting example of the appetite for financial education of care leavers who are part of the universal basic income pilot.

I put the case for health and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, put the case for Staying Put—it was such a good idea that we have had it twice—and possibly the national offer. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham highlighted very simple human requests about how the housing system works for care leavers. The idea that a young person aged between 21 and 25 who has been through the care system has to yet again prove they are vulnerable is frankly shocking. I hope the Minister can say something encouraging about that.

We have a combination of the specific elements that would make a difference to care leavers’ lives: the reporting data that my noble friend Lord Lucas raised; the financial aspects highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Bird; and, crucially, as I mentioned on an earlier group, the importance of relationships, ably explained by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott on behalf of my noble friend Lord Farmer. I remember listening to the honourable Member for Whitehaven and Workington talking about this issue, and I think he said that every child is one or two relationships away from success or failure. Actually, in the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, of children going into gangs, they are seeking relationships. We would all do the same if we had no choice, but we want strong, positive relationships such as lifelong links has been proven to create, so I very much hope that, when the noble Baroness comes to sum up, she will come with good news.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I like the description of the hierarchy of needs and I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I jump around a bit as well in my summing up. It has been a very rich set of contributions to an incredibly important part of the work that has been undertaken in bringing the Bill before your Lordships.

The first four amendments in this group seek to amend Clause 8, which will require local authorities to publish information on the support available to care leavers as they transition to independent living as part of their local offer for care leavers, set out in Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. The remaining amendments seek to extend support for care leavers to address the poor outcomes they experience across so many aspects of their lives. Improving support for care leavers is something the Government are committed to doing through the measures in this Bill on Staying Close, local offer, corporate parenting and other programmes such as the care leaver covenant, and also by other initiatives that seek to work across government.

The fact that the Government have set up the care leaver ministerial board, chaired by Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson and for MHCLG Angela Rayner, shows absolutely top-level commitment to bringing all the relevant departments together so that they can most properly address the issues that have been raised here. It is probably beyond our ability through this Bill to address all the very important issues that have been raised and spoken to so eloquently from across the Committee.

Of course, the basic principle is that we want to ensure that young people are leaving care with stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong loving relationships, engaged in education, employment and training. In response to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that is exactly the reason this board has been set up: to bring everything together to address the complex needs of the young people we are addressing.

I assure noble Lords that we are funding a number of family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. These help looked-after children and care leavers to identify and connect with important people in their lives and create safe, stable, loving relationships. The family-finding, befriending and mentoring programme is being evaluated, and this will help to inform decisions about the future of the programme. From personal experience, the school that two of my grandchildren go to works on the restorative practice model. If noble Lords have not come across it before, I suggest having a look at how it works and how young people can learn at the youngest age how to form relationships and how to express their needs in a coherent and structured way, which can then inform all the complex issues that they will reach going through their lives.

--- Later in debate ---

Turning again to Staying Put—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness moves on, I am not clear about something. The specific recommendation from the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals is to have this extended GP appointment. The noble Baroness has now amended my amendment to make sure that it is at a convenient time. I just was not clear whether she said it would take time to produce the statutory guidance that will underpin all the corporate parenting responsibilities. However, as regards putting something—I am going to get the terminology wrong, so forgive me—into the kind of agreement with general practitioners, so that part of their contract is to offer this extended appointment as children young people leave local authority care, I was not clear whether the noble Baroness thought that was a realistic option, with the tweak of it being at a convenient time.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for picking me up on that commitment. This is quite a detailed ask, but it is absolutely realistic that this is a new departure going forward and there will need to be consultation and everyone coming together to make sure that the statutory guidance is deliverable and works. However, I am happy to write to the noble Baroness with more specific detail on that area as we move forward.

Amendment 130, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, seeks to extend the provision of Staying Put to age 25. We have discussed this at great length and I am no clearer as to why this is in this group of amendments rather than one of the others. So, without repeating the arguments, I will just say that the rationale is that we cannot commit off the top of our heads to effecting fostering arrangements without recognising that there will be a knock-on impact of change on the whole area of the foster care market, as it were. Any changes in this area are sensitive and have to be taken in the round.

However, the most important thing that we have to address is that too many young people who have come through the route into independent living from residential care, for example—who often, as I said earlier, have the most complex needs—will be a priority area in terms of addressing the support that they do not have because they have not entered the foster care route. So, we are keeping an eye on all of this through the introduction of statutory Staying Close duties, making sure that all former relevant children under the age of 25, including those who are still in a Staying Put arrangement, as well as those who have left it, will be provided with Staying Close support where their welfare requires it.

Amendment 153, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, would require public bodies, when carrying out equality assessments, to consider the needs of people who are or have been in local authority care. We know that looked-after children and care leavers face stigma and discrimination and we are determined to tackle this. There has been effective and passionate campaigning, with many local authorities taking positive action as a result.

Amendment 183A, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, seeks to enable care leavers to claim the higher over-25 rate of universal credit. Although he is not in his place, his amendment is an opportunity to revisit this: I was at the Dispatch Box at Second Reading of his PMB on this subject. Just to emphasise what we have already said, the Government recognise the considerable challenges that care leavers face and remain committed to supporting them. However, we do not believe that this amendment is necessary.

The Government have recently announced the first sustained increase to the universal credit standard allowance, and, while under-25s receive a slightly lower rate, additional elements are available, including for housing costs, to help them to live independently, and towards their living costs. They may also be eligible for universal credit elements, including for children, childcare costs and disability. Under-35s who are single and renting in the private rented sector and claim either housing benefit or universal credit can receive help towards their rental costs via the shared accommodation rate of the local housing allowance. Single care leavers under 25 may qualify for the one-bedroom local housing allowance. Discretionary housing payments administered by local authorities can be paid to those entitled to housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit.

The Government have extended the household support fund by a further year, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. I would emphasise the work that the DWP is doing in this area: its objective to help care leavers into long-term employment is the key to supporting their independent living. This is why we are focusing on providing access to the right skills and opportunities for sustained employment and career progression. Therefore, with all of those considerations, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

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[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I lend my support to Amendment 143, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I have added my name. This amendment, on the need for a foster care strategy, was, if I may say so, powerfully brought to life by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I thank him for that. The noble Lord, Lord Young, put it very well when he talked about the gap that exists, saying that we had strategies for other aspects of children’s social care but not for fostering. It is a gap that it would be useful to fill, in the same way that the amendment I brought last time suggested a strategy for neglect.

As we have heard, urgent action is needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis in foster care. Nationwide, it has been calculated that we have a shortfall of some 6,000 foster carers across the UK, with 5,000 more needed in England. Certainly, more foster carers are continuing to leave than are joining up. Various surveys have shown that the three key reasons for this have been inadequate financial remuneration, lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect for their role. I think that last one is really sad. I did notice in the 2024 State of the Nations’ Foster Care report that the number of foster carers who said they would recommend fostering to others has decreased. Indeed, fewer than half of foster carers said that they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it. It is for those reasons that we need a national strategy to lay out how fostering will be more sustainable in the long term, not least to meet the needs of some of the children who the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was talking about.

I also support Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which would be an important part of raising the whole status of fostering.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the context for my Amendments 134 and 178 is, as we have heard in this short debate, that we face a very severe shortage of foster carers. As other noble Lords have said, this Bill feels like a huge missed opportunity to try to address this problem. Honestly, I do not really understand why the Government have not chosen to do more to address it—but perhaps the amendments in this group will offer the way.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned that there is currently a shortage of 5,000 foster carers in England; that is 33 foster carers per local authority. It just does not feel like an insuperable problem to find 33 homes across the country in each local authority—though, absolutely rightly, my noble friend Lady Spielman spoke of the very high prevalence of complex needs in children who go into foster care.

This speaks to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others about a strategy, which would also address the recommendation in the MacAlister review that we need more flexible models of fostering. As we have heard, of just over 160,000 families who expressed an interest in becoming foster carers in 2020-21, only just over 2,000 were approved—a conversion rate of 1.3%. I understand that many applicants apply to multiple agencies and so get counted twice. There may be timing issues for potential carers, and there are structural challenges, including pay and the need for training, and difficulties in the application process, as we have heard. This is the most significant area for the roughly 83,000 children in care. Over 56,000 of them are in foster care, half of them with independent agencies and half in local authority foster care. That is a very big and important number, and it feels fundamental to address it.

It sits at the heart of what we might call the children’s homes problem of cost and profits, which we will debate in subsequent groups. If we had more foster carers, the pressure would come off children’s homes, prices would adjust and we would be in a much better situation, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, put so convincingly, because the wraparound of foster care—the fact that there is a family and relationships—leads to vastly better outcomes for the child. For all those reasons, this is an important group, and I hope that Amendment 143 is one that the Minister takes very seriously.

My amendments are much simpler. Amendment 134 would give more flexibility to allow young children over the age of three to share a room. My intention is that this would apply to primary-aged children, although re-reading my amendment I think that my drafting skills have come through yet again. Having talked to directors of children’s services in London and other areas with high housing costs, I know that the number of potential foster carers with several spare rooms is very limited. I am aware that some organisations in the sector see this as a safeguarding risk, but I argue that we are already trusting the foster carer to care for a very vulnerable child. Within that, we should trust their judgment about the sleeping arrangements of the children in their home. Sadly, safeguarding risks are not confined to what happens in a child’s bedroom. This amendment could potentially add several hundred more places, at little or no cost, in areas with the greatest pressure to place children locally, and would avoid children being placed very far from home—as we have heard about several times today—their roots and their communities.

This is not the only way to expand capacity. Another would be to invest in initiatives such as the Greater Manchester Room Makers scheme and roll it out more widely. It provides funding for foster carers to renovate existing rooms or build extensions to allow them to care for more children.

My Amendment 178 seeks to clarify the delegated authority that foster carers have for the children in their care. This was tabled in the other place by the honourable Member for North Herefordshire and received a positive response from the Minister. I seek further confirmation from the Minister here that the Government still intend to consult on this point. Perhaps she could update the House on the likely timeline for the consultation and for the secondary legislation to be amended.

Thinking more broadly, and returning to Amendment 143, it would help the House if the Minister could share other ideas the Government are working on to improve recruitment and retention. I spoke recently to the organisation Now Foster, which is developing “weekenders”—that might not be the right term—which offer regular weekend placements for children who might be either in kinship or foster care, giving much needed rest and space to both parties, and a consistency and stability for the child or young person that can extend beyond the age of 18. Crucially, it also gives foster carers a chance for a more modest but still substantial commitment, rather than taking in a child full time with everything that entails. This idea—again, this came up in the MacAlister review—of having different options and different models of fostering is long overdue for more work.

My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham talked about the importance of a support network for foster carers. I visited an amazing group of foster carers—some brand new and about to receive their first child, some who had been fostering for over 20 years—who are part of an employee co-operative, Capstone Foster Care, in Peasedown St John in Somerset. Again and again they spoke eloquently about the impact of that network on their ability to foster and to offer love and care to very vulnerable children.

They also talked—this ties in with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson—about the need for a really positive recruitment campaign. Most people hear about fostering only when there is a case of severe neglect or worse. But across the House we have heard examples of many noble Lords who have either been foster carers or who recognise the extraordinary and life-changing work that foster carers do. We need that message to get outside this Chamber and out to people who might consider this and see it as a respected and important profession. We need more innovation in this area to unlock the potential in our communities to provide this kind of support for children who need it, and to improve retention.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a well-informed debate on the amendments in group 5 concerning foster care, particularly informed by those who have had personal experience. The noble Lord, Lord Young, gave his experience of being a foster carer and I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made a very important contribution on what it feels like to be a child in the system and the lifelong impacts that has.

I think there has been a consensus once again that foster carers offer crucial support to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. They provide love, stability and compassion to children and young people when they need it most. We very much share the concerns raised in this House about the falling numbers of fostering households—a fall of 9% since 2020—and the effect this has on children. Perhaps it was the late night I had had, but I felt marginally grumpy about the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that because there is not more about fostering in this legislation, somehow or another that means that this Government are not committed to righting the decline we have seen over recent years. Therefore, I will take the opportunity to spell out exactly what the Government have been doing. There is a tendency in this House, which is understandable because we are legislators, to think that things happen only if they are put into legislation. I hope I can demonstrate that there is plenty happening on fostering due to the actions of and investment put in by this Government.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

That is good, because I was about to say—although I think he called it a battle plan, not a battle strategy—that the Government will set out our plans for foster care in due course, bringing together the range of activities that is already happening and taking on board the need to go further in the way that noble Lords have rightly pushed us to today.

Amendment 105, introduced by my noble friend Lord Watson, is on the introduction of a national foster care register. As he outlined, fostering services currently maintain local registers of foster carers alongside records relating to prospective foster carers. A national foster care register would insert central government into the systems and processes of foster care oversight, which are currently deployed locally. But as he said, and as I think my honourable friend in the other place outlined in Committee there, we are considering the possible benefits and costs of a national register of foster carers as part of our wider reforms.

There are a range of proposals for such a register. It will require some careful consideration. Specifically, I am sure we all recognise the need to ensure that a national foster care register would also meet local needs and avoid unforeseen negative consequences, and that it would overcome some of the risks surrounding the security of sensitive data, as well as imposing additional bureaucracy on the sector. But we want to engage with fostering stakeholders on this issue to determine next steps, and we can see some of the advantages of the national register that my noble friend outlined.

Amendment 134, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is on the sharing of bedrooms for foster children to enable foster carers to look after more children in their home. She identified that one of the pushes for this comes back to one of the fundamental issues that we will discuss on upcoming clauses and which lies very much at the heart of the Government’s reforms: the insufficiency of high-quality places, fostering or otherwise, for the children who need them. I completely understand the belief that changing standards in this way might enable us to increase capacity.

I have already identified that the Government will invest money, for example, in allowing extensions and other ways that foster carers might alter their homes to provide more space and capacity for children. But it is also the case that our national minimum standards already allow foster children aged three or over to share a bedroom, subject to conditions being met, which are in place to safeguard and protect children. That means that fostered children, such as siblings, can share a bedroom where it is in the best interests of the child, provided that each child has their own area of the room.

We can update those national minimum standards at any time. We do not require a change to Section 23 of the Care Standards Act, as suggested in this amendment, to do so. The language in this amendment would change the tone of the national minimum standards. I am not averse to the point that is being made here; we just need to be careful about the balance that we are setting. It would shift the default position to present room sharing both as appropriate and, in fact, standard practice, rather than the current tone, where room sharing should be considered where it is not possible for each child to have their own room.

I think we all agree that children in foster care deserve to be treated as a good parent would treat their own children and to have the opportunity for as full an experience of family life and childhood as possible. I know that there are many good parents who will have children who share bedrooms, especially at a younger age, but I also know that for many children, fostered or otherwise, and for many parents, the gold standard would for them to have their own room. If we add to that the fact that children often enter foster care after experiencing neglect or abuse, including sexual abuse, and may have a greater need for their own personal space and for privacy, we can see the need to be careful about shifting the position to promoting sharing.

We recognise that room sharing in foster care may be suitable, as I have said, particularly for siblings, and we think it is right that flexibilities are already in place, but we are reluctant to suggest that room sharing should be promoted as standard practice. Importantly, we have seen no evidence from children and young people themselves to suggest that they want room sharing to become standard practice in foster care.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Minister mentioned that the Government are putting funding into extensions and so forth. Will she write with details of how many additional places that funding is expected to secure? I do not mean precisely, but just to give a sense.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I am happy to do that. Of course, that is just one part of the sufficiency work that the Government are doing and that other elements of the Bill aim to make progress on, but I will write specifically on that project.

Amendment 178 on delegated authority for foster carers, which is also tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Barran, would give foster carers more autonomy and flexibility. All foster carers should have delegated authority in relation to day-to-day parenting of the child in their care, such as routine decisions about health, hygiene, education and leisure activities. That is so that they can support the child in having a normal upbringing, full of the experiences and opportunities that any other child would have. Under the current system of delegated authority, if something is not listed on the child’s placement plan then the foster carer does not have delegated authority and they must check with their social worker before decisions can be made. Foster carers can only take decisions that are in line with the child’s agreed placement plan and the law governing parental responsibility. This amendment would change that current system of delegated authority.

I have considerable sympathy with the idea that if we are asking people to take on the crucial role of caring for children on a day-to-day basis and making them part of their families then they also need the authority to be able to do that in the rounded way that any parent would expect to have. That is why we have begun conversations with foster carers and fostering services about proposed changes to ensure that all foster carers should have delegated authority by default in relation to the day-to-day parenting of the child in their care. We think that reforming this policy area would benefit from a period of consultation with stakeholders to ensure that any change to delegated authority best reflects the interests of all parties but, following a consultation, we are committed to implementing necessary amendments to secondary legislation. We do not believe that we would need changes to primary legislation in order to do that. Delegated authority is outlined in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. I hope that provides some assurance to the noble Baroness that, in that area, we very much see the case being made and want to make progress.

With all the assurances and further information that I provided, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

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[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, have said, on the basis of my experience as an adoption judge.

First, in respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said about the variability—as it has now emerged—of regional adoption agencies, I suggest that that is something the Government should be reviewing carefully. Secondly, I want to emphasise the point he made about the sheer awfulness of disrupted and failed adoptions, particularly in cases where so many hopes have been pinned on the adoption and so much trouble has apparently been made in preparing the child and the adopters.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to add my name to Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I commend him and his colleagues in the other place, particularly the honourable Member for Twickenham, on their concerted efforts to bring attention to this important fund, which provides support to about 20,000 very vulnerable children who have suffered great trauma. The anecdote that the noble Lord gave of the family he met brought this issue to life very vividly. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, all of whom have brought great experience, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his remarks, his expertise and the work of the APPG that he co-chairs.

I will not go into detail on the rather unusual set of announcements that the Government made about the fund, first on 1 April and then very shortly afterwards on 22 April, when it was announced that the fair access limit, or funding per child, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, explained, be cut from £5,000 to £3,000 per child per year, and that the £2,500 limit for specialist assessment—which, as I understand it, was in addition to the £5,000—had been abolished. The remaining fund now has to cover both the assessment, judged by the department, I assume, to cost up to £2,500 per child, and the therapy. If we give the department the benefit of the doubt and say that the assessment cost around £1,500, then, being very generous, that leaves about six sessions of funded therapy per year, which for these children is simply insufficient. I am not suggesting that those are the real numbers; they are just my back-of-the-envelope estimates to give the Committee a sense of what is happening here.

Hence the importance of this amendment, which focuses on the per-child funding level and seeks to bring some clarity to the amounts needed. In her Written Ministerial Statement, the Minister said that the ASGF—that is a new acronym for me—

“will still enable those eligible to access a significant package of therapeutic support, tailored to meet their individual needs”.

Can the Minister give the Committee some examples of what the department considers to be a significant package of therapeutic support that could be funded from £3,000, including the assessments?

The issue of therapeutic support is, of course, broader than just this fund. On my visit to Capstone Foster Care, I learned of the difficulty of receiving funding for therapeutic work and the bureaucracy involved in retaining it. This feels so short-sighted as local authorities search for a sound placement—defined in the sector, as I understand it, as a standard placement that does not have additional therapeutic support funding attached to it—which then, perhaps predictably, breaks down and potentially needs to be substituted with a placement in a children’s home at many times the cost.

This is at a time when we hear that funding from integrated care boards for safeguarding work will be cut by around 50% and that the threshold for health involvement is simply too high to be useful. The cuts to the fund will result in a loss of adopters and special guardians, who find—as we heard very powerfully from noble Lords who spoke earlier—that without this support they simply cannot take on these responsibilities. The very late announcement has led to a backlog and will require almost half of applicants to reapply, as their original application does not meet the new threshold.

I wondered what estimate or cost-benefit analysis—and I appreciate that the human cost is far more important than the financial one—the department has done on the savings from the cuts to the fund set against the cost of potential breakdowns. If the Minister does not have those figures with her, perhaps she could write to me with them. As other noble Lords have said, this decision feels like an error, and I hope that the Minister will urge her ministerial colleagues to accept these amendments.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Since we are forming a set for Amendment 117, I will stand up now, having attached my name to it, and will focus chiefly on that amendment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has stolen my starting line with her final line: nothing about us without us. I first used that phrase in a debate on rather similar amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. I think that your Lordships’ House and the country are increasingly coming to realise that we have to listen to children far more.

In this context, I will cite an interesting case from the past week, where a 14 year-old who had been tricked by his parents into going to Ghana took his parents to court. The Court of Appeal ruled that he should have the right to come back to Britain, as he wanted to do. That is an interesting court case that shows how, generally, our legal system is starting to listen more and more to children. It is important that our legislation does so and that that is in the Bill.

This raises issues that I will come back to on a later group, but the basic point about the regional care co-operatives is that they will take decision-making further away from local authorities. People have been studying this, and the care review evidence group, for example, said that

“care will need to be taken that these structural reforms do not dilute local accountability mechanisms”.

Making sure that children are actually heard in the making of regulations is in some way a counterbalance to the risk that quite a lot of experts have identified in taking this approach.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 116A, 117A and 119ZA in my name. As we have heard, the proposals to create regional care co-operatives came from the independent review into children’s social care. In principle, we support them. However, we are aware that a number of regions are already using informal co-operation agreements, so I question whether we need more legislation to make this happen. Maybe the Minister can comment on this when she sums up. The Secretary of State is taking the power to direct areas to create one of three models of co-operation, but it is important that we understand how this will work in practice, because, presumably, if areas are not adopting this approach voluntarily, there would be significant barriers and potentially good reasons for doing so. Can the Minister clarify those few points when she closes?

The Local Government Association has stated its support for the narrower requirements of a regional care co-operative, as being used by the pathfinder areas —namely, on

“strategic planning and placements for children with more complex needs”.

However, the Bill states in proposed new Section 22J(3)(c) that regional care co-operatives will be responsible for commissioning

“the provision of accommodation for children being looked after by the local authority”.

There is a real worry about mission creep and confusion over responsibilities, which I have tried to address through my Amendment 119ZA, as has my noble friend Lady Cash through her Amendment 117B.

Will the Minister comment on the concern expressed by organisations such as Barnardo’s that this model will squeeze out some of the smaller providers, increasing even further the dependence on independent providers in the private sector, many of whom, as we know, have a combination of very high profitability and high debts?

Can the Minister confirm the start date for the pathfinders, and when there will be publicly available evidence from them, either via the evaluation or from any other data? Does the department have an idea that it can publicly share of the likely size of each of the areas? The two pilot sites, Greater Manchester and the south-east, are both very large, with about 3 million people within them. Is that the size the Government expect to be typical?

Amendment 116A would remove a power equivalent to a Henry VIII power from the Bill. Clause 10(2) defines strategic accommodation functions as

“(a) assessing current and future requirements for the accommodation of children being looked after by the local authority,


(b) developing and publishing strategies for meeting those requirements,


(c) commissioning the provision of accommodation for children being looked after by the local authority,


(d) recruiting prospective local authority foster parents and supporting local authority foster parents,


(e) developing, or facilitating the development of, new provision for the accommodation of children being looked after by the local authority, and


(f) any other functions relating to a local authority’s duties under section 22A, 22C or 22G that are specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.


New Section 22J(3)(f) gives the Secretary of State a power akin to a Henry VIII power to add to the above list of strategic accommodation functions by regulations. In justifying the power, the department goes on to say:

“The Department has sought to achieve the right balance between confining the scope of the delegated powers through primary provisions and leaving necessary matters of detail to regulations. This is the first time the Secretary of State has sought to bring local authorities together to collaborate in the delivery of their strategic accommodation functions. Regional co-operation arrangements (known as Regional Care Co-operatives) … are currently being tested via pathfinders … in two local authority regions. When the pathfinders are evaluated, the Secretary of State may need to prescribe additional functions. There may also be a need for additional functions to be specified in the future depending on the needs of a particular area and to keep pace with the changing children’s social care placements market. The power has been limited to one which enables additional functions to be added to the list in the future. It does not enable the Secretary of State to amend or remove any of the functions already listed in the clause and so it is not a Henry VIII power”.


My amendment is a probing amendment, as this feels like another example of the Government introducing legislation before they are quite ready. Why not wait until the pathfinders are evaluated to be clear what additional strategic functions might be needed? Maybe the Minister can inform the House if the department is aware of any gaps in the current strategic powers that have been identified in areas using this approach already. It would be good to understand whether the Government have in mind any particular powers that might be needed, or whether this is a belt and braces, “just in case” kind of power, without having anything particular in mind.

My Amendment 117A seeks to ensure that Ofsted inspects regional care co-operatives. It is obviously important that we have an independent assessment of their effectiveness and impact and whether they are achieving the Government’s goals—and, perhaps even more importantly, the needs of children. There may be other ways of achieving this and, if so, it would be helpful to understand what those are.

More specifically, my amendment aims to bring a spotlight on the use of unregistered provision. My understanding of the regional care co-operative approach is that it will anticipate and commission capacity in a more effective, and cost-effective, way. One outcome of this would be a drop in or complete removal of the use of unregistered provision, something I know local authorities are keen to see, as are noble many Lords across the House.

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

My Lords, before I turn to the amendments in the first group, I want to be clear, as many noble Lords have recognised, that the measures in Clause 10, together with those that we will come to later in Clauses 12 to 18, are part of an overarching, broad-ranging strategy to fix the market for placements for looked-after children.

The review conducted by my honourable friend Josh MacAlister, which several noble Lords have quite rightly referenced, and the report from the Competition and Markets Authority were explicit that the placement market is dysfunctional and that some private providers are making excessive profits from placements for our most vulnerable children. We are now taking concerted action to address this, including through measures in the Bill, but also through a wide range of non-legislative measures, to deliver a broader range of providers in the market so that local authorities have more options when finding the right place for children in their care. These must be the right homes in the right parts of the country, so that children do not have to move miles from their communities and support networks, as many noble Lords have referenced in this debate. These homes must be delivered at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer by providers no longer making excessive profits. A failure to address the dysfunction in the system has led to many of the issues that noble Lords are rightly identifying today, which they hope and expect us to respond to—not only, I suspect, in these clauses relating to regional care co-operatives but more broadly in the action that we are taking to fix that dysfunctional market.

Amendments 108 to 116 in the name of my noble friend Lady Longfield seek to amend the definition of local authorities’ strategic accommodation functions as defined by this clause to ensure that it meets the current and future needs of looked-after children. This and my noble friend’s contribution exactly get to the crux of the problems we are trying to solve here. She is correct, as I have already suggested, about the issues raised by the lack of sufficiency caused by the current placement market for children. Children being too far away from home; too big cost pressures; inappropriate placements: those are all things that this provision and the other elements of our strategy are aimed at addressing.

Amendment 119ZA from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, sets out the principles that local authorities that have formed a regional care co-operative, following a direction from the Secretary of State, would have to adhere to when commissioning accommodation for looked-after children. She is right that the provisions in this clause relate to the direction powers for the Secretary of State in circumstances either where local authorities have refused to take part in regional arrangements or perhaps where regional arrangements have been set up and local authorities might not have managed to be part of any of those arrangements. I certainly think it is already the case that authorities are trying to bring themselves together into regional arrangements, precisely to be able to solve some of the issues that we have outlined.

The Government completely agree that there must be sufficient accommodation for all children who are looked after by their local authority and that in future this accommodation must meet their needs and provide appropriate support. It should allow them to live as close to home as possible, where that is in their interests. That is precisely the reason for trying to ensure that the market operates more effectively.

But it is also the case that there are existing legal requirements on local authorities to the effect of some of the understandable calls that have been made in these amendments and by other noble Lords. Local authorities already have a general statutory duty under Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 to take such steps, as far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure that there is sufficient accommodation within their area to meet the needs of looked-after children. They are also under a duty, via Sections 22 and 22C of the same Act, to provide accommodation that meets the needs of looked-after children by ensuring it is consistent with the child’s welfare and has due consideration to the child’s age and understanding, as well as their wishes and feelings. Finally, they have a statutory duty under Section 22C(8)(a) and (9) of the 1989 Act to ensure they provide accommodation that allows children to live near their home, unless it is inconsistent with the child’s welfare or not reasonably practicable. Those duties will all remain.

The problem is not that there is no legal recognition of these issues and the need for them to be taken into consideration in providing sufficient accommodation and placements for children. It is that the market has prevented local authorities being able to fulfil their statutory requirements. That is why regional care co-operatives, which in the legislation are called “regional co-operation arrangements”, will assist local authorities in meeting these duties, including by analysing what accommodation is needed for children across the region, publishing sufficiency strategies, recruiting and supporting foster parents and commissioning care places, as recommended by both the review conducted by Josh MacAlister and the report from the Competition and Markets Authority. They will support local authorities to carry out their strategic accommodation functions but, as I have suggested, these functions are not new and are already in law, including the duty to take steps, as reasonably practicable, to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children. Any decision-making responsibility for where individual children are placed, however, will continue to rest with local authorities.

Amendment 116A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would prevent the Secretary of State adding to a local authority’s strategic accommodation functions for regional care co-operatives. I would like to reassure the noble Baroness of the safeguards in place regarding the power to add to the list of strategic accommodation functions to be exercised through regional care co-operatives. I slightly lost track of whether she was accusing the Government of currently having a Henry VIII power within the legislation— I will go back and check.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I was aware that my remarks may not have been clear that, in the department’s own memorandum, it describes this power as being akin to a Henry VIII power.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I will certainly take advice and look carefully at that, but I assure the Committee that the appropriate committee, the name of which escapes me, has of course looked in detail at the delegated provisions within the legislation and we will be responding to the committee and covering off any issues that might be of the sort of concern that the noble Baroness raises.

I hope to provide some further reassurance on that. First, the scope of regulations is limited to those local authority functions covered by specific sections of the Children Act 1989, namely Section 22A, the duty to accommodate looked-after children; Section 22C, how looked-after children should be accommodated by the local authority; and Section 22G, the duty to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that all these amendments would enhance the life chances and life opportunities of looked-after children, and they should be seriously considered.

In the 21st century, the words “unregistered” or “unregulated” should never enter into our dialogue or vocabulary. It is not acceptable for our schools or our children; whether it is an unregulated school or an unregulated home, it should not exist. I wish that I had signed the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and I apologise for not doing so. The noble Lord is absolutely right to call it scandalous. Noble Lords should have a look at the BBC “Panorama” programme from two or three years ago that looked at looked-after children in unregulated schools. Never mind caravans—some of them were being housed in barges. Imagine that in the winter. Unregulated provision is never inspected, and anything can go on in them. The children are not safe—we should not allow it to happen. Of course, Ofsted does not inspect them either. We owe it to our children to give them something better than that. I agree with my noble friend Lady Tyler that we cannot do that overnight, but we can make a stand and say that we are not going to have children in unregistered provision and we will phase it out. That would be a testimony to the current Government.

On Amendment 129 from my noble friend Lady Tyler, to which I added my name, everything that she says almost ties in with that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson; they are very similar on what they say.

I turn to Amendment 119 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I think that the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Bennett, are looking at a stereotypical view of boarding schools. I would like to take them both to Liverpool College, which was an independent school and is now an academy, and where the local authority buys in places for looked-after children. The children get accommodation of high quality, but they also get adults who properly look after them, and they get sport and they get clubs and activities as well as outdoor pursuits. What is more, they go to the school and get fantastic results. I agree that not every boarding school would be suitable, but if it is a choice between being on a barge or in a caravan or some other dump, as some of the unregistered schools are, a boarding school would be a better prospect.

I had not thought about the link between schools, GPs and looked-after children moving into a particular area. Presumably, in a digital age, when we are about to move to a new registration system, probably linked to NHS numbers, there is a real opportunity for us to be very joined up. When children move into those areas, the doctor and the school will be notified, and it can only benefit the child as well.

I like the idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, of a national plan to ensure that there are sufficient places for children and we are not in the same position that we are in currently. We cannot wave a magic wand and expect this to happen overnight, but all of us in this Chamber want the same thing—we want the best possible opportunities for children, including registered schools and proper provision properly inspected. As we have said time and again, we also want the children to be as close to their locality and their family and friends as possible.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate on a range of specific amendments, all of which either seek to improve the residential care provision for children and young people or, in the case of Amendment 165, require notification if a child is placed in temporary accommodation. This group has been named the “Why wouldn’t we?” group.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

119A: Clause 11, page 16, line 19, after “local authority”, insert “or who has an EHCP and is in receipt of residential care”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to include children with EHCPs in residential care and allow residential schools to use deprivation of liberty in specific settings for specific children rather than moving them to a residential home.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 11 epitomises both the responsibility and the privilege that we all share as lawmakers in ensuring that the law works as well as possible for children who are extraordinarily vulnerable through no fault of their own. I put on record my gratitude to the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and the Nuffield Foundation for their expertise and meticulous work in this area, and to Homes2Inspire, the Shaw Trust and Somerset County Council for allowing me to visit a home where up to two children deprived of their liberty can live, so that I could understand these issues better.

Children deprived of their liberty face severe and immediate risks from their own actions or the actions of others. They typically face six different types of restrictions and are under constant supervision, and two thirds experience restraint. The majority live on their own. Currently, under Section 25 of the Children Act 1989, children in care can be placed in registered secure accommodation. When this is not possible, local authorities can apply to the High Court for a deprivation of liberty order through their inherent jurisdiction. This often leads to crisis-driven placements in unsuitable settings, does not address the harmful effects of restraint and isolation and is clearly intended as a measure of last resort.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Storey: the House of Lords was at its best with the expertise that was shared generously by your Lordships. I also thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I believe she addressed —or is going to come back on—the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, regarding the use of handcuffs, as well as the specific gaps in relation to children who are not looked after, which was raised by my noble friend Lady Berridge. I think she also gave a very positive response to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in relation to his amendments. So it is so far, so good.

In relation to my amendments, there were some genuinely positive and helpful responses. In relation to Amendments 119A and 119B, there was a category of response. I understand—the Minister is obviously telling the truth—that these duties already exist, whether it be in relation to children receiving education or therapeutic support, or, indeed, that they are in registered accommodation; but the Minister knows as well as I do that that is not working in real life.

It may be that the problem is a difficult one to solve, but it still needs to be solved. These children are not typically getting an education; although I would agree with her that, if they are nearer their community, they have a better chance of doing so. We know that these children have frequently been in unregistered accommodation and that, as I said in my remarks, they often do not meet the criteria for CAMHS to provide therapeutic support.

I also felt something distinctly promising about her tone in relation to my Amendment 134C, so I live in hope.

There are two amendments that I want to touch on briefly. In the case of Amendment 124, I believe the Minister said that she agreed on the need for clear safeguards, and that the same powers would be available to the Secretary of State as exist today for children in secure accommodation, but those powers will be set out in regulations. That was the bit where, if I have understood correctly, I stopped feeling comfortable because, obviously, regulations can be reversed, and I cannot see why you would not want the same safeguards for these children on the face of legislation as for those in secure accommodation. But I will read what she said and, if I have misunderstood, she is welcome to intervene on me.

Similarly, in relation to my Amendment 132 regarding the independent reviewing officer, the Minister said that those powers already exist, but my amendment would explicitly extend and strengthen those powers. I would be grateful if she could perhaps reflect on that in her comments in relation to Amendment 132. We need proper scrutiny and oversight, we need proper therapy and care for these children, and they need to be in the right accommodation. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 119A withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

The care sector is slightly different, for the reasons people have mentioned. But what are we going to do—nationalise it for nothing? Are we going to become a communist country? Are we going to pay for it, and if so, where will that money come from? Anyway, even if you deal with the ownership issue—obviously, I do not agree with the idea of nationalisation—threatening people who operate them with fines just does not seem reasonable. That is why I support the amendments on limiting fines and not applying them to natural persons, as opposed to corporations.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 140A, in my name, and propose that Clause 14 do not stand part of the Bill.

Before I turn to my own amendments, I add my support to my noble friend Lady Sanderson’s Amendment 134A. As we have heard, it would bring much needed transparency to the children’s homes market and help to level the playing field for smaller and larger providers. Of course, this transparency would help the negotiating position of local authorities and regional care co-operatives in future. I thank my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley for making it real and giving us very practical examples.

Equally, the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, made important points about the level of profit in the area of supported accommodation. As I understand it from the CMA report, it has some of the highest margins in the sector and today provides about two-thirds or three-quarters as many places as children’s homes do, at just over 6,000, or 7% of the market for looked-after children.

Amendment 141, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, seeks, as we heard, to extend the profit cap to independent special schools. As the noble Lord understands extremely well, this is a very complex area, and one has to be careful, given the range of provision. Some of these homes offer short-term respite to foster carers, for example, so any changes would need to be thought through carefully to avoid unintended consequences.

Along with others, and not just on my Benches, including the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, I cannot support Amendment 174, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Our starting point is that there needs to be greater capacity to limit price increases and ensure a choice of suitable care. We were very clear when we were in government that we do not condone profiteering in this market, but we have concerns about how the transition in Wales will work to a market where there are no for-profit providers. Obviously, the problem of very high pricing will only be exacerbated, as my noble friend Lord Nash just explained, if sufficient new capacity is not created quickly or even if capacity is withdrawn. Such an approach cannot be considered in England until the Government have invested in new, not-for-profit or social enterprise capacity, whether that be in the local authority or in the voluntary sector, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, very ably outlined.

I confess that it is slightly curious to be in a position of challenging the Government’s attempts to regulate and limit the profits of some actors in this industry, which have rightly drawn criticism from the CMA, local authority leaders and indeed many in your Lordships’ House. My amendments to this clause and the others in this area are definitely not about defending a group of companies that can well defend themselves; I am simply trying to test the viability and impact of the Government’s proposals. It is important, because there is such a level of frustration with the behaviour of some of the actors in this sector that we risk having a confirmation bias that anything we change it to will be better. We need to test these proposals and be confident that the solution the Government propose will work.

As we have discussed at numerous points in Committee, there is a fundamental problem with the lack of residential care capacity, whether that be in relation to fostering, children’s homes or supported accommodation. The Competition and Markets Authority described the current shortfall as a “fundamental failure” in market functioning, imposing, in its words,

“severe limitations on the ability of the 206 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, who purchase placements, to engage effectively with the market”.

We need a clear plan to address this shortage. My fundamental concern is that the measures in Clauses 12 to 18 will not have the desired impact that the Government seek—and that, across your Lordships’ House, we all seek. Amendment 140A is simply an example of why I do not think the plan for a financial oversight regime as presented in the Bill has been properly road-tested and that we can have confidence in its impact.

New Section 30ZI, to be inserted by the Bill, gives the Secretary of State the power to arrange for an independent business review by an external qualified person. You would assume that, in such cases, almost the first thing that they would look at, if it existed, would be the recovery and resolution plan set out at new Section 30ZG, but it is not even mentioned. There is a list of things that they should look at, but the recovery and resolution plan is not mentioned. It would be fundamental for them to look at that plan, given that it covers, according to the Government, the

“nature and extent of any risk to the financial sustainability of the person … the action the person proposes to take”

to address this, as well as

“impacts on local authorities, and children”.

That makes me lose confidence that this has been properly thought through. I hope that the Minister can either add it to the list of things that independent business reviewers will look at, or, more importantly, reassure me and the Committee that this area has been properly considered.

My opposition to Clause 14 standing part of the Bill is probing. The proposed financial oversight scheme for children’s social care represents part of the regulatory response to the market failures identified by the CMA. As with many parts of the Bill, much of this scheme will be set out in regulation. The scheme requires information from parent undertakings, but, as the Minister knows, private equity structures are notoriously complex and opaque. I wonder whether she is concerned whether providers might restructure to minimise oversight burden—how will the Government mitigate this? I am not clear how the scheme will address jurisdictional limitations on enforcement for offshore-based organisations. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that, or write to me if the answer is particularly technical or it is not at her fingertips. It is reasonable to question whether the DfE has or will acquire the specialised financial and private equity expertise needed to analyse complex corporate structures and financing arrangements effectively—I think this fly in the Chamber has been sent in by a private equity firm.

Similarly, is the Minister confident that local authorities have the capability to respond to advance warning notices? Is she concerned that the act of alerting local authorities about the financial fragility of a provider could lead to them withdrawing placements, leading to the financial collapse that the scheme seeks to avoid? I would be grateful if she could set out how the Government think that the contingency planning will work. I wonder whether the Government have had conversations with providers about how they expect to create realistic plans, given the prevailing market conditions. Surely existing supply shortages will make rapid replacement extremely difficult, and emergency placement costs are already unsustainable.

There are a lot of questions about the impact that this will have on the shape of the market. Will it actually result in more concentration in the market, because the 40 largest providers will have gained the confidence of local authorities? Could it result in financial pressures on smaller providers where there is less transparency?

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

135: Clause 12, page 17, line 34, leave out “Improvement plan notice” and insert “Requirement for inspection”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 135 to 138C in my name. Clause 12 introduces the provider oversight scheme, which, according to the department’s policy summary, creates the ability for Ofsted to act at scale and pace when there is poor quality in multiple settings and agencies owned by a single provider group. It will require providers of two or more homes or agencies to implement an improvement plan where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the registration of two or more of their establishments or agencies should be cancelled.

We support in principle the approach of giving Ofsted the power to intervene at a group rather than an individual home level. However, I have three main concerns about the clause. My overarching concern is that this approach may not be effective in getting providers to meet the required standards. Rather, I fear that it risks turning into a letter-writing competition between Ofsted and the providers. I am thinking of a similar approach to independent schools that do not meet the independent school standards, frequently in relation to the teaching of RSHE. These schools face sanctions, and they are required to improve and present a plan for meeting the standards. But during my time in the department, despite the best efforts of officials, the names on the fairly long list barely changed. I appreciate that the context and the reasons for non-compliance are different, but I hope the Minister can convince me that this regime will be more effective.

Secondly, the policy note talks about required standards not being met. Surely there is a spectrum of standards breaches: some that will require the cancellation of the registration, as the Bill is drafted, and some that will require an improvement plan. While I understand that Clause 12 is intended to sit alongside the existing regulatory regime for individual homes, it is unclear how they will mesh together. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that.

My Amendments 135 and 136 would require an immediate inspection where the breaches of standards indicate concerns about the safety of children. My Amendment 137 would encourage Regulation 44 visitors to make an unannounced visit to establish whether there are lower-level breaches. If these are established, the visitor could make a recommendation to Ofsted about what they have seen—which, of course, it is not obliged to accept. The idea I am trying to get across is that having immediate eyes and boots on the ground, so to speak, is essential where there are serious safeguarding concerns.

I remember a case from when I was in the department where two homes of a particular children’s home group were judged to be inadequate. I requested that all the other homes in the group should be immediately inspected, and that happened. The Minister may say that these amendments are not needed, but it would help to have on record the Government’s explanation of how they expect this to work in practice.

Thirdly, my Amendments 138A to 138C would require the department to communicate with local authorities that might be commissioning a provider, where there are concerns, to make sure that these are shared. I appreciate that this might be difficult in reality. But as we just discussed, there is a similar provision in the financial oversight regime, so I assume this is something the department has considered.

Finally, I have a number of specific questions that sit behind my Amendment 138, which might form the basis of some tidying-up government amendments on Report. I do not expect the Minister to have the answer to every one of these; if she would like to write to me, that is absolutely fine.

On page 18, line 8, how is “reasonably suspects” defined? Is that from a recent inspection—and if so, how recent—or is it from wider intelligence? Secondly, how is an individual with

“a significant role in the management of the parent undertaking”

defined? Is that a director? Do they have to be registered at Companies House? What happens if it is an offshore holding company?

In new Section 23A(7) on page 19, line 3, can the Minister confirm that the Bill is correct where it says:

“The period mentioned in subsection (4)(d) must not be less than … 28 days”?


Should it not say that it must not be more than 28 days? I read this about eight times and am still not clear on what it means. The point is: do we not want to receive improvement plans as promptly as possible?

Should new subsection (8) not clarify that the CIECSS—or Ofsted to its friends—can withdraw an improvement notice only if it has strong evidence that it is no longer needed? What evidence does the Minister expect Ofsted to require before it withdraws an improvement notice? In new Section 23B(2), on line 22, should it not be clear that Ofsted must inform the parent undertaking and any subsidiaries within 28 days, and should this not be mirrored for all the stages of the process?

Can the Minister confirm whether the timeline for the communications listed in Clause 12 will be set out in regulations? At the moment, it is not clear what the maximum time periods are for each stage of the improvement notice process, including for Ofsted to inform and respond to the provider. It would be useful for this to be as clear as possible.

In new Section 23B(5), I wondered whether a step is missing from the processes set out in the Bill. Surely the parent undertaking needs to inform the chief inspector when the plan has been fully implemented within an agreed timescale, which is currently not stated, and then the chief inspector should arrange for an inspection or take whatever appropriate action to confirm that that is the case. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

As always. That was the point that I was making. For all the reasons given, I would kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her very detailed reply and for her commitment to write; that is much appreciated.

To respond to the Minister’s remarks, the reason for tabling Amendments 135, 136 and 137 is that the improvement plan is for the parent company or parent undertaking, but it is for when there are concerns about two or more of their establishments or agencies, in the language of the Bill. I understood that to mean, given the severity—that Ofsted suspects that there are grounds for cancelling the undertakings registration—there could within that be concerns about the safety of children in those homes. So the spirit of Amendments 135, 136 and 137 was that we should have really experienced people, either inspectors or Regulation 44 visitors, going in, not to inspect the parent—I am sorry if my amendments were unclear in that regard—but to inspect the subsidiary undertakings. Maybe when the Minister comes to write, she could just reflect on that point.

In the reference to Regulation 44, the amendment should have stated that

“Ofsted may issue an improvement plan notice”,

not

“the local authority may issue an improvement plan notice”.

Of course, the Minister is absolutely right—the local authority cannot issue an improvement plan notice. But again, it was just trying to get at the idea that, if there was a variation in the levels of concern and the level of breach, for a lower-level breach, a Regulation 44 visitor could advise Ofsted. There is an urgency, if it is thought that an undertakings registration should be cancelled, which will not be met by the improvement plan approach on its own.

In relation to the Minister’s remarks about Amendments 138A, 138B and 138C, I think the answer is that, if the process works reasonably quickly, the proportionality that she set out is completely reasonable. If it gets bogged down, and it comes down to, “We sent you a plan, Ofsted doesn’t think the plan is fit for purpose”, and it goes back and forth and back and forth, we would not get the speed that might be needed to prevent other local authorities commissioning a provider when there are grave concerns, as set out in the Bill. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 135 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

138D: Clause 13, page 22, line 11, after “person” insert “(except natural persons)”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to limit the financial penalties that can be imposed upon the operators of children’s homes to exclude natural persons.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 13, as we have heard, introduces monetary penalties for non-compliance with an improvement plan or for running an unregistered children’s home or fostering agency. My Amendments 138D, 138E and 139A seek to exclude natural persons from the power to impose financial penalties on individuals involved in the management of these organisations. As my noble friend Lord Nash said earlier, there is a reasonable concern that this will result in a dearth of people who are prepared to take such a risk, particularly as the financial penalty regime is being set out in regulations and could therefore be altered at any point. Having said that, given that the fines, as I understand it, are currently unlimited, perhaps that is not the greatest worry, but obviously if that concern were to materialise, it would have an impact on provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

There is a deafening silence. I turn to group six and the amendments, all in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which concern Clause 13: Amendments 138D, 138E and 139A. They seek to exclude natural persons from the provisions relating to the issue of monetary penalties. Clause 13, as drafted, gives Ofsted an additional power to issue monetary penalties to providers that have breached requirements set out in, or under, the Care Standards Act, including operating a children’s home without registering with Ofsted, which they could also prosecute as a criminal offence.

Ofsted will also be able to issue a monetary penalty to provider groups for failure to comply with new requirements set out in Clause 12 of the Bill. This measure will ensure Ofsted has a full range of enforcement powers so that it can act proportionately and at pace, which will act as a deterrent. This includes individuals who operate children’s homes, other establishments or agencies. It is difficult to see why a natural person running a children’s home, other establishment or agency should not be subject to the same enforcement powers as a partnership or organisation when they have breached the law, and where Ofsted could prosecute that natural person for the relevant breach.

Furthermore, based on data from Companies House, these amendments would result in Ofsted being unable to fine 10 individuals who currently operate children’s homes if they breached the law, compared with the 2,738 companies that operate children’s homes. Ofsted have told me directly that it strongly opposes any amendment that would exclude natural persons and limit who financial penalties can be imposed on for illegally operating children’s homes without being registered. Individuals will—and do—gain financially from illegally operating children’s homes without being registered, and should not be excluded from the potential consequences of doing so. All the discussions in Committee have been about protecting children and making sure that they are safe. We have to make sure that, in this area, in spite of the comments made by the noble Baroness, children and their safety are at the forefront of our minds. It is also worth noting that it is common in legislation for natural persons to be subject to financial penalties in the same way as operations and companies.

For example, the Tenant Fees Act 2019 enables fines to be imposed on landlords, who may be natural persons, for breaching the ban on letting fees being charged, and the Data Protection Act 2018 enables the Information Commissioner to impose fines on persons, including natural persons, who have failed to comply with various notices issued by the ICO.

I have already stated the reasons for the need and intent of these additional powers. However, I add that the clause ensures that Ofsted has an alternative to prosecution where that is currently the only enforcement action. Ofsted will not be able to impose a monetary penalty on a person for the same conduct where criminal proceedings have been brought against them in relation to that same conduct. Further, and importantly, to act as a deterrent and to ensure transparency for the public, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power by regulations to require Ofsted to publish details about the monetary penalties it has issued. Ofsted must also notify local authorities when a monetary penalty has been issued, as it is currently required to do in relation to other enforcement action it takes. A monetary penalty may be used by Ofsted as grounds for cancellation of registration.

I assume it will come as no surprise to the noble Baroness that I will have to write to her on the financial assessment and the other questions she raised on the specific requirements in place. I am more than happy to do that, and to share it with any interested parties. Therefore, for the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendments and that the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister, and I will keep my remarks brief. It was very helpful of her to set out the examples of where natural persons are fined, as in data protection and with landlord and tenant. I did not quite follow, but I think she said there were 10 people who might escape this, which seemed like a small number in the totality. I suppose I would still argue that criminal proceedings could be brought, even if they could not be fined, but it was helpful to get those examples and I look forward to her letter. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 138D withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 142A to 142C, 504A and 505A are in my name. I will not speak to Amendment 142 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and I thank her for giving me advance notice of her intentions. I will also probe the merits of Clause 15 standing part of the Bill.

Amendment 142A mirrors my earlier Amendments 138D, 138E and 139A, which would have excluded natural persons with a role in the management of a business from receiving personal financial penalties. I have reread the Minister’s remarks in Hansard from our debate on Tuesday, and I confess I am still not entirely clear about the status of a natural person who is registered at Companies House. The Minister said earlier that the figure of 10 operators out of over 2,700 was based on Companies House data. Forgive my ignorance, but I do not know what legal status an organisation registered with Companies House has if it is not a company. If it is a company, I am not sure what the status of a natural person is.

The reason for these amendments is simple, as I set out before. It is based on a concern that, without these amendments, the Bill will limit the number of people who are prepared to take senior management responsibility in such providers and will lead to providers exiting the sector. I may have misunderstood what is meant by “an operator”—namely, that it is the owner of a business rather than the senior management—but perhaps the Minister could clarify both those points when she sums up.

Amendments 142B and 142C would limit the maximum fine for a provider to 10% of its turnover and, if imposed on a natural person, to £100,000. We have heard that margins in the children’s home sector average 22%, although in the LGA-commissioned report this figure is taken from, the range of margins is very wide. If we took 10% of a company’s turnover and accepted an average margin of 22%, that would be almost 50% of its profits, which surely is a very strong incentive to avoid being fined. Can the Minister set out what level of fine the Government expect to impose and what the criteria will be for different levels of financial penalty?

Amendments 504A and 505A would delay the commencement of Clause 15 until the Secretary of State has published a report that sets out the current levels of capacity in independent children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and, perhaps, based on the Minister’s remarks on Tuesday, supported accommodation. Again, I wonder whether she could confirm that last point.

The report would also need to have an impact assessment on the number of available placements in relevant homes or agencies. I am definitely not an expert on regulatory impact assessments, I confess, but the Government’s own regulatory impact assessment has, to my amateur eyes, clear gaps; hence the need for my Amendments 504A and 505A.

In the section of the document titled “Expected impacts on businesses”, it states:

“It is not possible for the department to monetise the impact of any future profit cap at this stage. This is because the impact will depend on both the level at which any future cap is set and the market conditions—including profit levels, supply and demand and diversity of provision—at the time that a cap were introduced. Attempting to include straw man figures at this stage—far in advance of any decision about whether or not to introduce a profit cap—would be unhelpful and would have the potential to adversely impact the market by driving providers to make incorrect assumptions about the future level of any future cap based on such figures”.


My amendments would bridge this gap by requiring the publication of an impact assessment when the Government are clear on what their approach to a profit cap will be and by capturing the baseline data on capacity so that the impact of a future cap can be analysed and understood.

My reason for questioning the approach to capping profits as set out in Clause 15 is based partly on the concerns expressed by the Competition and Markets Authority. It was very clear in its report that

“taking measures that directly limit prices and profits, would further reduce the incentives of private providers to invest in creating new capacity (or even to maintain some current capacity)”.

I wonder what assessment the Government made of this risk which led them to ignore the CMA’s advice. Can the Minister set out what impact the department believes this measure will have on investment in sector? What do the latest figures show?

More broadly, there is an important point of principle here. As David Rowland, the director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, wrote in a blog published by the London School of Economics in December 2024, if the Government decide that one sector has excessive profiteering and will cap the level of profit in that sector,

“there is no good reason for it not to be extended to other areas as well”.

I wonder what other areas the Government might be considering. David Rowland’s work has highlighted other areas where companies are profiting from—I quote the right honourable Secretary of State for Education—the trauma and abuse of

“some of the most vulnerable children in our country””.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 27.]

This includes in the management of sexual assault referral centres which serve children, where he cites one business as generating 25% margins after tax—much higher than the 22% margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation generated by the average children’s home. Might this be an area in which the Government are considering profit caps?

It would also be helpful if the Minister could confirm what operating margin, as opposed to EBITDA margin, the Government think is acceptable for operators of children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and supported accommodation. What is the figure for operating margins today? The figures in the LGA-commissioned report that the Government reference in their regulatory impact assessment are for earnings before interest, depreciation, amortisation and tax, and date from 2023. They are for around the 20 largest providers only. Why have the Government not done their own analysis of profitability across the sector, rather than relying on an external document that is two years old and looks at only part of the sector?

On Tuesday, after I gave my back-of-the-envelope figure of, from memory, £500 million or £600 million, the Minister quoted the sector as having a combined EBITDA of £310 million. But this figure from the Government’s own report, which is taken from the LGA’s analysis, covers just the 19 largest providers of children’s homes. The report goes on to say that the top 22 providers own 40% of children’s homes. That, of course, will not necessarily equate to 40% of profit, but it seems clear that £310 million is not the right number. The Minister should set the record straight at some point—if not now, then in a letter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

I have already indicated my intention to withdraw my amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply.

On the point of principle—why you would put a profit cap on one area of the economy where you think there is profiteering on the back of vulnerable children, but not on another—the Minister said that there was no intention to extend this; indeed, she said that she hoped it would not be used. I certainly agree with that, but I do not really understand why, where children have been sexually assaulted or raped and companies are making far higher profit margins than the ones we are talking about here, the Government would choose to apply a profit cap on one and not the other. That does not feel very coherent to me.

I also felt that the Minister was slightly selective in the quotes she chose to identify from the Competition and Markets Authority report. The CMA was clear that it thought that a profit cap was not a good idea. I would also like to clarify something for the record. I think the Minister suggested that I said that current margins were driving supply. I said that current margins, according to the recent data, are uneven and actually falling, so I did not suggest that they were driving supply.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness cited analysis that expressed a concern that by capping profits, you would somehow or other reduce supply in the market. I was simply making the point that the converse—that is, excessive profits—has not driven supply in the market.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand that, and I stand by what I said. There is a risk that this will result in an exiting of capacity, and that the reverse of what the Government rightly want to happen will happen: that in some areas that will put even more pressure on capacity and price. I do not accept that you can say on the one hand that these margins are unacceptable, but, on the other, you cannot say what is acceptable.

What we are seeing is a failure of commissioning. One of my amendments in an earlier group—I think it was Amendment 119ZA, but I may be wrong—sought to align the interests of children and those of operators. The commissioning model we have today is not working, and that needs to be fundamentally addressed. Maybe the Government could reconsider their response. We have examples in defence and pharmaceuticals of commissioners setting what is an acceptable margin, and providers bidding or not bidding based on that margin. I do not understand why the Government cannot say what an acceptable margin would be.

I accept that the Minister’s response to my Amendments 504A and 505A goes at least some way towards what I was aiming for. I was more troubled by her response on natural persons. I thought we were talking about 10 sole traders, but we are now talking about finance directors in businesses, so I think that my concerns are entirely valid.

On financial penalties, my recollection, which may be wrong, is that we have a limit on fines in the Online Safety Act. The Minister will correct me if it is in regulations but, if it is in that Act, I do not see why it cannot be in this Bill too. That matters because we need local authorities, charities, social enterprises or the private sector to add capacity in those areas and, without certainty, they could be forgiven for hesitating.

A striking omission in the Minister’s remarks—perhaps she could respond in writing on this—concerns what was said at the Dispatch Box on Tuesday about the level of profitability in the sector. I think I am right in saying that the figure was for 19 businesses and not the whole sector. I repeat: the financial regime that the department wants to introduce is very sophisticated, and I do not think it fair to send a Minister to the Dispatch Box with out-of-date and incorrect data.

Amendment 142 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Debate on whether Clause 19 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this stand part notice is to probe, and therefore understand, what changes the Government intend to make to the regulation of agency social workers and how those changes will work in practice.

I am very well aware of the concerns about social worker recruitment, but I was in fact slightly surprised when preparing for this debate to find that, as of 30 September 2024, there were 34,300 children and family social workers in total, which I gather is the peak since data started to be collected in 2017; and 6,500 agency social workers, which is the lowest since data collection started. Vacancies fell by 6.9% year on year, there was a drop in staff turnover of 13.8% and the average caseload fell to 15.4%. The vacancy rate is still high at 17%, but down from 22% in 2022, and 76% of vacancies were filled by agency social workers. Retention has improved, with the number leaving to work in an agency falling by 38%, while the number of social workers leaving the profession entirely fell by 5.3%. So I know the situation on the ground is extremely difficult, but I think it is helpful to have a bit of context.

As I understand it, in terms of the current regulatory environment, agency children and family social workers are covered by the Agency Rules: Statutory guidance for Local Authorities on the Use of Agency Child and Family Social Workers of September 2024. As I understand it, this has the same aims as the proposed regulations: to control costs, improve quality, reduce turnover and ensure that governance is retained by local authorities. Two main requirements are planned to be implemented this year: first, there must be data collection by local authorities on the number of agency workers, with the first submission having happened in April and May 2025; and, secondly, that local authorities must submit plans on locally agreed price caps by this October. The main thrust of Clause 19, therefore, is to make regulations for what is already covered in statutory guidance.

The department’s policy summary says that the Government intend to regulate

“a broader cohort of agency workers than child and family social workers including, but not limited to, social workers”—

forgive me for being slow, but it is not the clearest explanation. The summary goes on to state:

“The regulations are likely to include similar provision to the current statutory guidance which currently applies to social workers only, but to a wider cohort of workers”.


Sir Humphrey would be proud.

In the other place, the Minister for School Standards said on 28 January that this could include

“agency workers delivering targeted early intervention or family help”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 28/1/25; col. 234.]

I therefore ask: are the Government’s plans restricted to these two groups only, and if not, who else will be covered? How many of those workers are there nationally? And what is the current cost of agency workers in the different categories to local authorities? The proposal to expand the replacement regulations to a wider cohort is not defined anywhere in the Bill or the accompanying policy summary, so it would help to understand the Government’s intentions better.

Can the Minister also explain how the regulations will differ in terms of local discretion from the current statutory guidance? I am unclear on this, but perhaps suspicious that it might result in a more directive approach from the department and less discretion for local authorities themselves. Can she confirm that there will be exceptions to the specific requirements detailed in the regulations, for example for payments above the national rate if there is a local staffing crisis?

The Minister knows that the use of agency workers varies greatly across the country, but the powers in this clause are wide-ranging and—yet again—are going to be set out in regulations. The powers in new Section 32A(4)(b) and (c) appear to be very broad indeed, including about how social workers will be managed and the terms on which they may be supplied, including the amounts that may be paid under such arrangements. This would allow the Secretary of State to set payment rates from Whitehall. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can explain to the Committee why this is a good idea.

The fundamental problem underlying this clause is, as we debated in the area of children’s homes and foster placements, a shortage of capacity. No local authority is using agency workers other than because it has no choice but to do so. The previous Government had taken steps to address this with the Step Up to Social Work scheme and the creation of social work apprenticeships. Can the Minister update the House on the progress of these? I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, gave the background in terms of the statistics and figures, which make for quite a salutary understanding. Agency workers are, as we know, three times more likely to leave a case mid-assessment compared with permanent staff, which obviously would increase risks to children. Let us remember that local authorities spend £500 million annually on agency social workers—on average 60% to 70% more per worker than on permanent staff. Inconsistencies of local policies allow agency staff to move frequently between councils, undermining safeguarding and continuity and, of course, causing resource churn—what a phrase, “resource churn”.

Some rural and high-need areas rely on agency workers due to staff shortages, with poorly defined regulation risks shrinking this vital stopgap workforce. Do we ensure that the training, supervision and caseload standards for agency workers are the same as those of permanent staff? I worry considerably that we see permanent local authority staff taking early redundancy payments and then reappearing as agency workers. In some cases—I do not know whether this is the case with social workers; my research has not shown me that yet—they are then reappointed by other local authorities. That surely cannot be right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to raise that, but—I hope she will not take this the wrong way—the figures that she cited are as much the responsibility of the previous Government as they are figures that the present Government have had to inherit. Towards the end, she mentioned some of the initiatives that her Government had started; I do not know whether the Minister has a briefing on them, but it would be interesting to know whether they have at all been helpful.

One thing I cannot understand—well, I can understand it—is that many public services face a shortage of public service workers. It is not just social workers; it is right across the board—teachers spring to mind. Yet at the same time our universities face shortages of students wanting to come to university. Surely, that is a way of sorting that out. Why do people not want to go into social work? I know why; you know why. Why do people not want to go into teaching? I know why; you know why. That is the answer to the problem: we want to make people want to be teachers and social workers, and we want our higher education and further education sectors to be geared up to that. The Government’s mantra, which we all agree with, is, “Training, training, training”, but training is no use if people are not prepared to take it up. This is a classic example of the problem we face.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, through the introduction of a regulation-making power, Clause 19 allow the Government to take stronger action to alleviate the significant affordability and stability challenges that have arisen from the increase in the use and cost of agency workers in local authority children’s social care in England. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, identified some of the progress being made in the staffing of children’s social care. I can confirm that the current level of agency use in the sector stands at 16.2%, a small fall on the previous year, but she is also right, of course, that this varies considerably from authority to authority.

What I would say about that 16.2% is that, in essence, more than one in eight of the people who are working in children’s social care do not have the long-term association with their employers that we would expect to see in any service where we were able to provide the training, the stability and the certainty about future costs that we would want. It is considerably higher than in similar sectors, whether in the health service or in education.

Agency work continues to be a considerable issue within children’s social care. That is not to say that there is not excellent work being carried out by individual agency social workers—I know from my previous experience in Sandwell Children’s Trust that there are many excellent agency workers. Nevertheless, the cost and stability issues that I have outlined remain serious for local authorities and those providing children’s social care. This clause ensures that while agency workers will remain an important part of local authority children’s social care, they will not become a long-term replacement for a permanent, stable workforce. It will allow the Secretary of State to introduce regulations on the use of agency workers in English local authority children’s social care services.

I accept that progress has been made since the introduction by the last Government of the statutory guidance relating to local authority children’s social care services, but that was limited specifically to social workers. We want to extend the framework beyond social workers to the wider local authority children’s social care workforce, including workers such as those delivering early intervention or family help.

A new phenomenon has come into the workforce, and particularly agency provision within children’s social care: that of project teams, where agencies provide not just individual workers but teams to respond to particular challenges. In doing that, partly through the associated management costs and partly through the range of different workers, there are even larger uplifts in the amount of money charged to local authorities. I have seen from personal experience that it is not unusual for social workers and other staff in those teams to be earning £50 an hour or upwards. We may well think that people who are doing this important work are worth £50 an hour, but that is a considerable and, some might argue, unaffordable premium over social workers and other workers who are employed on a permanent basis with teams.

There is a broader range of workers that we should cover here, and a requirement to strengthen some of the principles in the statutory guidance, both by widening it and by this legislative provision. We will of course work in partnership with stakeholders across the system, including agencies, to ensure that the proposals implemented are proportionate and effective. They will make clear to local authorities, the recruitment sector and agency workers what they should expect from one another, and the consistency that this brings to the market will benefit all parties. If we are able by doing this to reduce local authority spend on agency workers, that will allow local authorities to invest more in services supporting children and families and enhance the offer to permanent employees.

I take the broader point that one important way of solving this problem of agency workers is to ensure that those permanently employed, either as social workers or doing other work in children’s social care, get the rewards that they deserve, receive the training that they need in order to get the career satisfaction and progression that they would want, and are employed by local authorities and children’s trusts in ways that value them and provide them with the resources they need. All those things are important, and the Government are addressing them all, but that does not remove the requirement that we believe exists for a stronger ability to make regulations covering children’s social workers and to broaden the scope of those regulations, which is what this clause enables us to do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response and her explanation. I think I understand now the scope that the Government intend in terms of the wider social care workforce, although I did not hear her give the Government’s estimate of the number of agency workers involved in that area and the cost to local authorities. Maybe if the department has that data, it could write to us and put a copy of the letter in the Library.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, rightly raised the issue of social workers retiring and then reappearing, magically, as agency social workers, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, highlighted the impact of that in a court setting, with the obvious cost to the local authority and the disruption and lack of continuity. Given that this builds very much on the statutory guidance that we prepared when in government, we hope that this works really well for the Government in achieving greater affordability and continuity of staff.

I guess we are in a world where the working environment has changed, and social workers can now do a couple of days a week of agency work and work from home the rest of the time. Those are challenges that I am sure the Government are wrestling with, and we wish them every success in so doing.

Clause 19 agreed.

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[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I am grateful to be able to respond, as this is Committee. With the child protection authority, the question is about what scope that will have. If it is to have an inspectorate function, which is what was recommended by IICSA, will it have a role to inspect out of school settings? That is the way that, I would say, it comes within the scope of the amendment. But I accept it is a probing amendment. We need to make sure that we put the DfE and Home Office together to keep children safe .

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, on his powerful speech. I listened to his maiden speech, and this is the second time I have heard him speak. I see that he will be an important addition to the expertise in your Lordships’ House.

In relation to his Amendment 159, I am slightly puzzled and look forward to the Minister’s response. As the noble Lord said, the Government have accepted the recommendations of IICSA to create a child protection authority and this will initially, as I understand it, form part of the child safeguarding practice review panel. My noble friend Lady Berridge made good points about out of school settings although, in general, I worry about the extent of regulation that might fall on very small organisations and the impact that might have. I remember thinking about this when in office. One of the organisations we met with said there were no incentives in the system today to encourage organisations to do the right thing; there are just penalties if you get it wrong. Maybe that is a constructive path for the Government to consider.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

It is wonderful to be surrounded by so many supportive people, including someone in the Official Opposition, who has just told me it should be the other way round.

What I originally said should have been the other way round. You have only to look at the NHS to see that: when we had clear targets in the NHS, we could see the progress that was being made or not being made. As soon as we did away with targets, we did not know how successful or unsuccessful we were. I support this amendment because it says, “If we are going to deal with child poverty, we need to say what we want to achieve and the targets we want to set”, and we can monitor them and know whether we are successful or unsuccessful. I apologise for misleading the Committee.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by stressing that reducing child poverty is a goal that we clearly share across the House, and tackling the challenge of child poverty must be a priority for every Government. This Government have been very clear on that point.

Understandably, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, reflects his desire to drive forward real progress on this issue, and he brings extraordinary experience from his own life. My remarks and caution about the noble Lord’s amendments are in the spirit of honesty and respect to the noble Lord and in no way diminish the aims of his amendment but raise, I hope, reasonable questions about the approach.

As the noble Lord said—I have never heard the phrase used like this before, but I thought the concept of inherited poverty was very helpful—we know that child poverty stems from a number of different interconnected factors, including employment patterns, housing costs, structure of families, educational opportunities and regional economic conditions. My overriding concern is that having binding central targets risks oversimplifying this very complex challenge and could overlook local interventions that genuinely improve children’s lives. The challenges and underlying causes of a child living in poverty in Hackney or in Jaywick are significantly different, despite them being only about 50 miles apart. In fact, I would argue that, for a child growing up in poverty, the differences between Bristol and Weston-super-Mare, which are on each other’s doorstep, are also very great.

We have seen repeatedly how targets can distort behaviour and priorities. When governments and local authorities face binding targets, there is a risk that they are driven to pursue interventions that improve statistics rather than outcomes. This can lead to short-term fixes that artificially move families just above the poverty threshold without addressing the underlying causes; somewhere back to the empty stable and bolted horse that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, referred to. However, I absolutely recognise the reality behind the call that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made to make particularly deep poverty more comfortable—a slightly curious concept, but I think we all understand exactly what she means.

Child poverty, as noble Lords know, manifests differently across England—from rural communities that face challenges with transport and access to employment, to urban areas grappling with housing costs and concentrated deprivation. What works in Manchester would be inappropriate for rural Devon, and I would argue that local authorities, combined authorities and community organisations are perhaps often better placed to understand and respond to their specific poverty challenges than central government.

Setting binding targets risks creating a hierarchy of government priorities which may not reflect emerging needs or, indeed, changing subjects. Such targets risk us focusing on specific areas rather than the underlying causes of child poverty. So again, I do not agree with the approach set out in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, but I do agree with his ambition; and I also agree with the call of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for action as well as words.

As I said in opening, I know that the Government are very focused on reducing child poverty, and I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, may I just ask her why she thinks that all the charities working in the field and with local authorities, as well as academics, are calling for legally binding targets, if they would have the effect she says and would not help to address the systemic causes of poverty?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, I respect their opinions, but there is plenty of evidence—and the noble Baroness will know this in other contexts, not necessarily about child poverty—where targets have distorted behaviour, not always delivering on the aspiration of those who recommended them at the time.

Before I sit down, I would like to put on record a clarification about my closing remarks earlier on the first group that we debated today. I remain very concerned about the lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date dataset and analysis of the financial position of independent providers won from the Government, but I was wrong to say, in the earlier debate on Tuesday evening, that the figure the Minister quoted regarding the profits of the independent children’s home sector was for the whole sector. When I reread Hansard, possibly for the third time, it was clear that she had stated that it was for the largest 20 providers. In fact, the figure was for the 19 largest providers, but none the less I apologise to the Committee, to the Minister and to officials.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I inject one further thought that she might agree with? While the sentiments adduced in this debate are entirely right, and the concern is absolutely an important concern, does she agree that, in that discussion of centrally imposed targets versus the removal of targets, looking at the particular circumstances is profoundly important? The targets were removed after what those of us who do financial services call the global financial crash, when GDP declined considerably—in fact, we are still seeing the effects of what happened in 2008—but, because child poverty is relative, a decline in GDP has a material impact on whether child poverty goes up or down. I wonder whether that should be part of the consideration of where the targets fit. My own view is that some targets are important, but it is more important to get GDP going, which I think is the Government’s intent in this case, so relative child poverty of itself becomes less of a problem.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very helpful point, and I absolutely agree with it.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

Very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Hampton in saying that education is fundamental here. You do not resolve poverty unless a child is put through education successfully. Therefore, my plea is that the main message from this debate should be that local authorities should prioritise promoting education for children in poverty. That is actually the way to a successful resolution of this problem.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I entirely agree with what has been said. You cannot imagine how it must be for a child or young person to suddenly arrive here on their own and not have any knowledge of how they progress or what to do.

Liverpool used to be a centre for children who were just sent to the UK, although I think there were a number of places. I remember vividly a boy who arrived in Liverpool at the age of seven. The local authority, which happened to be Knowsley, immediately found foster parents for him. His life was completely changed; he came to my school not speaking a word of English, but when he did his key stage 2 SATs in maths, he got fantastic results. The sad thing was, of course, that at the age of 18 he had to be sent back home.

I do not understand the difference between a local authority dealing with this problem and organising foster parents and providing a guardian. There must be something so that young people who arrive in this country through no fault of their own are supported.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, would amend the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and, as I understand it, would complement the role of the independent child trafficking advocate in these cases with the right to an independent guardian. It would also expand their remit to include children who are separated from those with parental responsibility or the equivalent in their home country.

As the noble Baroness knows, probably better than anyone else in the Committee, there is existing statutory guidance for unaccompanied migrant children and child victims of modern slavery dating from 2017. It is clear that, in common with all looked-after children, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are entitled to independent advocacy support. The guidance stresses that this might particularly be the case for this group of children.

The Refugee Council has a very helpful flow chart on its website showing the asylum process and clearly highlighting the role of independent advice at two stages in the application process. As we heard from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the independent child trafficking advocates have only partially been implemented. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about full implementation.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for sharing the recent research from the LSE and the University of Bedfordshire with me. As she described very emotively, this paints a picture of real inconsistency in the response that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children receive. It makes a number of recommendations, including this one. However, as the noble Baroness knows, implementing independent legal guardians would require significant investment in training, establishing oversight and case management systems—although I acknowledge her cost-benefit point. I presume that there would also need to be some form of proper accountability and oversight of these guardians.

There is a case for making the existing law work as it was intended before amending it and introducing an alternative. I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s deep and long-standing concern and work in relation to the welfare and rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but there are profound questions to be asked about her amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 166 was tabled by my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and compliment her, as always, on the eloquent and moving way she described the plight of so many children and young people coming into this country. I know that she is a very passionate advocate in her own right and speaks to many people across the piece.

Specifically on the amendment, although other issues have been brought into the discussions today, it seeks to provide support, via independent child guardians, to all separated children. That would be in addition to trafficked and exploited children. It would also initiate the support on consideration of a referral, rather than when an initial decision has been made that a child has been potentially exploited. This amendment also sets out limited functions for the independent guardians but, crucially, it removes the ability to amend these functions through regulations or statutory guidance.

Currently, the existing independent child trafficking guardianship service is a specialist provision for trafficked and exploited children, operating in two-thirds of local authorities across England and Wales. We are moving forward towards a national contract, planned for tender in the summer of 2025, building on the work from the Modern Slavery Act and from the very first authorities that were brought into scope in 2017. As we have heard, this is currently funded by the Home Office but delivered by Barnardo’s. It is important to note that we will look at best practice all the way through the piece as we move forward. Modern slavery engagement forums are absolutely critical in this, and I will go on to speak about the Minister’s role as well.

As my noble friend Lady Lister is aware, the needs of trafficked and exploited children are complex, ever evolving and ever changing. Defining functions directly in the Bill would reduce the flexibility for the Secretary of State to adapt the role through the statutory guidance or regulations as it needs to evolve. We would not wish to limit the functions of guardians in this way and would instead continue to provide the detail for their role in statutory guidance or regulations. We believe that this is the best way we can move on and acknowledge changes in circumstances as we move forward.

I recognise my noble friend’s intentions in extending the independent guardian provision to all separated children, and I acknowledge the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in this space as well. This would significantly expand the scope and, unfortunately therefore, strain resources, which could delay support for exploited or trafficked children who need urgent help. Separated children will not necessarily be trafficked, and there is a risk that this provision will overlap with the existing support, causing confusion or duplication in some places, as well as providing unsuitable services for some separated children.

The arrangement for unaccompanied asylum seeker children is, as we know, that they are looked after by local authorities in keeping with the arrangements for all children in the United Kingdom. Unaccompanied asylum seeker children are provided with a professional social worker and will also have an independent reviewing officer to oversee their care arrangements. They are also entitled to legal assistance in pursuing their asylum claim. These arrangements ensure that children are provided with independent support and advice; the addition of a guardian to this framework, as I have said before, could risk adding another level of complexity to existing arrangements. Instead, we have worked to provide additional support specifically to vulnerable children who may have been trafficked. We therefore do not consider that expanding or bringing forward the point at which support is initiated would be in the best interests of meeting the needs of exploited and trafficked children.

That is not to say that we do not recognise the work that needs to continue. I am pleased to say that Jess Phillips, the Minister for Safeguarding, has regular meetings with the ICTG service. She holds round tables, bringing everyone together to make sure that we can bring the role of advocates into this mix and continue the essential conversations.

I completely recognise the need for stable relationships, as outlined by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. We can only imagine the disruption, upheaval and separation, and the impact that that has on these very vulnerable young people. The importance of this is that the child will have access to an advocate. Unlike the social worker and IRO, the advocate is not required to have a prescribed social work qualification; their primary purpose is to represent fully the views and wishes of the child. As part of this function, they can assist the child in obtaining legal advice in the same way as the social worker and IRO—and, indeed, the foster carer, where that is appropriate.

I understand the need to continue the conversations. I hope that my noble friend will recognise that those conversations will continue. I completely acknowledge that there is no room for complacency at all in this very important area of work. With those reassurances, I hope that my noble friend will feel content to withdraw this amendment.

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So the evidence is mixed, but I suggest to your Lordships that, when we leave Committee, we look really carefully at what we want to do. Whatever we want to do, it has to work. There is a part of me which agrees with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that maybe we need to gather the evidence and be sure that we go on the right path.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have had the privilege this afternoon of listening to some very powerful and well-informed speeches, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I shall speak to Amendment 458 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and to Amendment 177, which I was very pleased to co-sign with my noble friend Lord Nash. I note the widespread support evidenced by the popularity of my noble friend Lady Penn’s Amendments 183CA and 183CB, which prevented me from adding my name to those as well, which is testament to the cross-party recognition of this important issue.

Noble Lords across the House have witnessed first-hand the dedication of teachers, parents and school leaders, who work tirelessly to create environments where our children can thrive. Today, I speak to an issue that threatens to undermine their best efforts. Amendment 458 would require schools to implement comprehensive smartphone bans during the school day, with carefully considered practical flexibilities for children who need smartphones to access their medical devices—for example, for diabetes—for boarding or residential schools and for sixth forms. This is not about a blanket prohibition without thought; it is about creating the conditions that are necessary for our children to succeed academically, socially and emotionally.

I note Amendment 458A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, and would be delighted to talk to him after this debate in a bit more detail, but I also note the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Spielman about the benefits of using a school-owned device in these cases, and actually did not hear any examples that could not be done on a desktop or a tablet.

There is genuine urgency to address the profound impacts of smartphones on the health and well-being of our children. I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the evidence is mixed. I think one needs to look very carefully, and I thank my noble friend Lady Jenkin for this advice when I sent her an article suggesting that the evidence was mixed. She pointed out who had funded the researchers who were writing the article. We have to be scrupulously careful about both the scale of the sample size in some of these studies and who is funding them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, it is crucial to take both the personal and professional experience into account when designing policy. The desire for change, including, perhaps most importantly, as we have heard this afternoon, from children themselves, is very clear. We have to reset the social norms around smartphone use among young people before we lose another generation to screens.

The Government have argued that existing guidance on phone use in schools is sufficient, pointing to the fact that every school has a policy. But speaking as someone who was part of the previous Government that created many drafts of that guidance—as the Minister can imagine—perhaps we are uniquely positioned to acknowledge that, while it may have been the right place to start, it has proven insufficient. Good intentions without enforcement mechanisms do not protect our children from the sophisticated algorithms designed to capture their attention. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, we need to move with speed and clarity. Some have questioned—

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

That point has been raised by a number of Members, so perhaps I might ask the Minister, because I am genuinely unclear what the thinking is. I know it is not that no harm happens to children using smartphones outside of school. You do not know who is in the bedroom with them; you do not know who they are talking to. I think that is our starting point. I am not clear from those who are supporting this amendment whether they are saying at least they will have those hours a day when they will not be subject to smartphones or social media. I do not know whether that is sufficient, or whether there are further plans in those Members’ minds as to how to cope with the rest of the week. My view is that that is where most of the damage happens: outside school, not inside school.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that a smartphone amendment on its own is not sufficient. As the Minister said a couple of times on previous days in Committee, I will be coming to that later. I will try to address the noble Baroness’s points. If I have not done so by the end of my speech, I ask her to please intervene again.

Some have questioned why we favour freedom and discretion for school leaders in areas such as curriculum and staffing yet seek to mandate action on smartphones. The answer lies in a couple of areas. The first is about accountability. When school leaders make decisions about teacher pay, qualifications or curriculum, they are held accountable through Ofsted inspections, public examination results and parental choice. The consequences of their decisions are measurable and visible. Smartphone policies operate in an entirely different landscape. Here, schools face external actors: powerful social media companies with business models that are predicated on capturing and monetising our children’s attention. These companies employ teams of neuroscientists and behavioural psychologists to create algorithms designed specifically to keep our children scrolling, clicking and consuming content that ranges from the merely distracting to the genuinely harmful. We can all think of cases that, tragically, have been fatal.

The facts surrounding smartphone usage among children paint a sobering picture. A quarter of the UK’s three and four year-olds now own a smartphone—these are toddlers whose cognitive development is being shaped by screens before they can properly read. This figure rises to four in five children by the end of primary school. We are witnessing the digitisation of childhood itself. The emerging evidence linking smartphones and social media to the explosion in mental health problems among young people cannot be ignored. Research demonstrates that the average 12 year-old spends 21 hours a week on their smartphone, which is equivalent to a part-time job. One in four children and young people uses their devices in ways that are consistent with behavioural addiction.

Beyond mere time-wasting, smartphones fundamentally disrupt sleep patterns and concentration, as we have heard from a number of noble Lords. Applications are deliberately designed for addiction, through sophisticated dopamine triggers, as my noble friend Lord Bethell said. This pattern appears consistently across western nations, with research showing that earlier smartphone acquisition correlates strongly with poorer adult mental health outcomes, particularly affecting girls.

The academic evidence is equally compelling. The OECD data reveals that two-thirds of 15 year-olds, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, report phone distractions during their mathematics lessons, with distracted students performing three-quarters of a year behind their peers. Even brief non-academic phone use can require 20 minutes for students to refocus on learning. We are not talking about minor inconveniences. We are witnessing a systematic undermining of educational achievement.

Experimental research has moved beyond correlation to establish causation. Studies where students are randomly assigned different conditions—one of which I will send to my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Knight—prove that simply having a smartphone in one’s bag, jacket or desk reduces attention capacity and cognitive performance. Students with device access during lessons achieve measurably poorer results because the very presence of these devices is profoundly distracting.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I do not disagree with a word that the noble Baroness has said about these weapons of mass distraction. I am not saying that young people should be able to carry them around—I was advocating the use of lockable pouches. However, is it not possible that there are some circumstances where a teacher, for legitimate educational reasons, would want those pouches to be unlocked and for phones to be used? If that were to happen, is it right that it would be illegal?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not a teacher and probably never will be, sadly—although probably happily for children. My answer to the noble Lord is what was behind my offer to sit down and talk to him. When I talked to teachers prior to this debate about the noble Lord’s amendment, they reacted a little as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, did or suggested that much of this could be done on existing school devices. If there are gaps in that, of course I am very happy to listen to the noble Lord’s expertise. I will press on, or I will be growled at by the Front Bench for going over time.

--- Later in debate ---

I noted that the Education Select Committee is concerned about the ability of parents to be able to contact their children on their travel to and from school. We have already heard about some of the exemptions that are necessary for children who have to use their phones to access assistive technology or deal with health conditions such as diabetes. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, introduced those exemptions into her legislation, but a piece of legislation that enables the exemptions necessary for all the different circumstances that schools and pupils might need for the way in which they use mobile phones rapidly becomes—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Presumably, all the countries that have introduced mobile phone bans in schools have found ways around this. It cannot be beyond the wit of the Government to find a way through this.

I also wondered whether the Minister was going to comment—perhaps she will come on to this—on the power of the social media companies. In her remarks so far, she has come up with what were, in a former life, perfectly respectable and effective solutions, such as that parents should set boundaries with their children. But we, as parents or grandparents, are now competing with social media companies that have a great deal of power and expertise to disrupt all those good 20th century-type responses.

Lastly, I wonder whether she feels that the figures she gave on schools adopting phone restrictions tie in with the evidence from Teacher Tapp about the level of disruption in lessons that my noble friend referred to.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On the point about regulation, the reason why I started by referring to the Online Safety Act was precisely to identify the need that was manifest in a piece of legislation that came through this House before my time but which presumably some noble Lords around the Chamber were engaged in and which was precisely about how to regulate the use of social media for children and young people. That legislation did not happen in the last century; it is literally only just on the statute books. I was making the case that it is important, and that it is right for the Government to ensure that it is working properly as a first priority.

The issue of how we support schools to be able to have within them the type of calm behaviour that they need is, of course, absolutely crucial. In response to the question about when we will publish the survey on behaviour, it will be later this year. To come back to the point I made at the beginning, although I very much doubt that the only factor influencing behaviour within schools is mobile phones, everything that head teachers might need to put in place the restrictions on mobile phones that will, along with the other necessary things, enable them to have strong behaviour policies and practice, is, rightly, available to them in order for them to be able to ensure that that is happening.

Lastly, I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I have already said that I see the point of the exemption he has proposed. However, my point is that you have two routes here: the legislative route, which has already begun to be unravelled by the inclusion of a whole range of exemptions; or a positive set of guidelines for head teachers to use to design and develop, in consultation with parents, their staff and the young people in their schools, the appropriate policies for safeguarding children, protecting behaviour and delivering what individual schools need. At this point, the Government believe that the latter is the most appropriate way forward to ensure that children have the protection from mobile phones they need and in a way that recognises the flexibility that will be necessary.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have had another excellent debate and I too thank everyone who has spoken. It is a pleasure to speak on this group because it is, as we have heard, so important to give children the best possible start in life and to prepare them for school. Other speakers, led by my noble friends Lord Farmer and Lady Cash, have already set out the case very effectively for supporting babies, very young children and their parents.

Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, talk about her experience of canvassing—when the door opened and a cloud of smoke came out, revealing a young mother and baby—reminded me of being involved 21 years ago in a piece of research on domestic abuse called Safety in Numbers. We looked at the cases of 2,500 women and their 3,600 children, all of whom were living with very severe levels of domestic abuse. Half the children in that sample were under five, and the average length of relationship before those women had got help was five years, so half those children had lived with severe domestic abuse from the womb. That was my equivalent of the door opening and the smoke billowing out.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

183C: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“Court ordered reportsAny court ordered report produced for the purposes of either private or public law cases in family court proceedings under the Children Act 1989 must be done by a qualified social worker.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that all court ordered reports are produced by qualified social workers, for example those under Section 7 of the Children Act 1989.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendment 183C, which is in my name.

Last year, the revised Working Together guidance removed the requirement for Section 17 assessments—or children-in-need assessments—to be done by a qualified social worker. At the time, although the change was welcomed by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and others, some groups, including Ofsted and the British Association of Social Workers, expressed concerns about the change. This was, in part, because they felt that these practitioners—including family support workers, domestic abuse workers and youth workers—already held high caseloads, and, in part, because they do not typically have the necessary qualifications to do this to the required standard needed by the courts, given the gravity of the decisions taken that are based on these reports.

My Amendment 183C is very simple: it seeks to probe, and get on record, confirmation from the Government that only qualified social workers will be able to prepare reports ordered by the courts. There is real concern that this should be the case, and the new arrangements, which are being brought in to merge targeted help and child-in-need provision, could lead to a change in approach.

A court-ordered report for private law proceedings would not generally meet the threshold for child protection and is therefore likely to be held in the team, which includes non-social work qualified practitioners. As the court will order an assessment, I argue that there should be—and my amendment seeks to probe whether there will be—parity with other private law reports and assessments ordered by Cafcass, which are undertaken by qualified social workers. This work is of course highly contested and complicated, so can the Minister confirm that these concerns are unfounded? I beg to move.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I do not question the proposition that substantive court reports should be done by qualified practitioners. Such reports are valuable, and often essential, to the court, providing information, analysis, assessments and recommendations—and not just to the court but to the parties who are thereby helped to settle their differences without a full contested hearing.

Until I heard the noble Baroness’s introduction, I wondered at the nature or extent of the problem that prompted her amendment. Most final reports nowadays—and I mean final reports—are well written, well researched and well reasoned. Substantive reports are prepared by the allocated Cafcass officer—or social worker, in my experience—and social workers often state their academic and professional qualifications. Sometimes, the worker has to be a substitute or a trainee, but in those circumstances the report will be checked and countersigned by a team leader. So, although I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, I do not believe there is problem.

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For those reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I put on record how much I welcome the noble Baroness’s last comments about a round table, and meeting and talking to a range of directors of children’s services. It is reassuring and the right thing to do, and it builds our confidence in the Government’s commitment to get this very important area of policy right. I appreciate that enormously, because I know that ministerial diaries do not have a great deal of slack in them.

On this amendment, just to be clear, I appreciate the noble Baroness’s clarification regarding child protection. However, I was not worried there was a risk of someone who was not a qualified social worker writing a report in those cases, and I was not talking about independent social workers, nor about particular experts, such as the example the noble Baroness gave of someone with specific medical expertise. I was thinking more about the situation of merged targeted help and child in need teams writing reports when Cafcass is not writing the Section 7 report. In that situation you might have, for example, a youth worker or someone who does not have the expertise and training preparing court reports—I am not saying they could not have it, but traditionally they have not had that expertise.

I will reread Hansard, but I think what I heard was that they will be able to write those reports but under supervision from a social worker. If I have misunderstood and they will not be able to, maybe the noble Baroness could set the record straight now, or maybe she would like to go away, double check and write me a very short letter. I would appreciate that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 183C withdrawn.

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[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I too support the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, on this. She was asked whether this affects the child’s well-being, since the money does not go to them. Of course it affects their well-being.

I can tell your Lordships of a family that I know. I know that hard cases make bad law, but theirs is pretty typical. The husband disappeared. There were four children at home. Those children have survived only because of the determination and hard work of the mother. If she was not the strong character that she is, those children’s well-being would be a lot worse than it is now. There is no question that it affects the children’s well-being. I quite agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, that it is a disgrace. If anything can be done to improve the situation, whether it is the noble Baroness’s amendment or something else, I will be right behind it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady Stedman-Scott, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have made an incredibly strong case for the importance of this amendment. As my noble friend Lady Coffey said, the Lords Public Services Committee has a live inquiry into this very important topic.

The statistics are stark, as we heard, with over a million children covered by child maintenance agreements but enforcement still not being effective enough and too many parents making no payments at all, paying irregularly or paying insufficient amounts. When I was running the domestic abuse charity SafeLives, non-payment of child maintenance was incredibly frequent and caused huge problems in the lives of children and their mothers. As other noble Lords have said, at its simplest, non-payment exacerbates either the risk of poverty or the actual poverty that so many single-parent families face. In cases of domestic abuse, non-payment was often used as a means of coercion and control over a mother and her child, raising the risk of harm to them both. The anxiety that this creates, and the pressure that this puts on a mother, directly impact the well-being of her child.

We also saw the longer-term impact, in physical and mental health problems for the child. The Institute for Public Policy Research has found that child maintenance currently lifts around 140,000 children out of poverty across the UK. Conversely, when payments are not made, the impact is devastating. Finally, we know that child maintenance is not just a private matter between separated parents but a fundamental determinant of a child’s well-being and future life chances. When maintenance payments fail, society bears the cost through increased demand on public services, educational support and healthcare interventions.

As my noble friend so simply and clearly put it, there are two pieces of legislation on the statute books that need to be commenced. I hope very much that the Minister will confirm that the Government plan to do that and that we can make progress on unlocking the £700 million that belongs to our children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am not surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, managed to persuade those in a position to be persuaded that this amendment should have the opportunity to be discussed this evening. There is something refreshing about the idea of the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Stedman-Scott, rightly pursuing people who owe money for their children and who have that responsibility. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lady Sherlock and the current Secretary of State will be equally relentless in making sure that families are paying for the children for whom they have responsibility, and that is quite right.

I know from what the noble Baroness said that the intention of this amendment is to probe and push on the progress being made with each of the pieces of legislation that she talked about. I hope to provide some reassurance on that.

First, the powers within Section 34 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act enable debt owed to parents or the Secretary of State to be transferred to other parties, including debt collection agencies. This power was introduced as an option to deal with the £3.8 billion debt burden that had accrued under the former Child Support Agency. A proportion of that debt was owed directly to the Secretary of State, and I am assured that the issue of Child Support Agency debt has now been resolved. The Child Maintenance Service has strong and effective enforcement powers, including imposing prison sentences for non-payment.

On the specific point about debt collection agencies, there is no evidence that using debt collection agencies would actually secure more child maintenance than current enforcement powers. In fact, a previous trial absolutely demonstrated that, so there is no evidence that commencing this power would have a positive impact on children’s well-being.

Secondly, the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 introduced powers that, once commenced, would enable an administrative liability order to be made against a parent with outstanding child maintenance arrears. As the noble Baroness says, this introduces savings in court costs and time. I am pleased to confirm that progress is being made to implement the necessary legislation to bring this power into force as soon as possible. The Government are working with His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service and the Scottish Government to establish a process for implementing ALOs, and plan to introduce regulations to Parliament by the end of this year.

The Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 recognised that direct pay may not always be appropriate for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Act intended to provide them greater protection when using the Child Maintenance Service, by allowing them to move to the collect and pay service but only where there is evidence of domestic abuse. The Government recognise that removing opportunities to use the Child Maintenance Service to inflict economic abuse will benefit the well-being of children. However, many victims and survivors would be unable to provide that necessary evidence as required by the Act. For those who could, there are risks that providing evidence of their experience of abuse and reliving events could lead to further trauma.

That is why the Government today published our response to the consultation, Child Maintenance: Improving the Collection and Transfer of Payments. It sets out plans for reforms to introduce a service that protects all parents from financial abuse and, importantly, includes no requirement for victims and survivors to provide evidence of their circumstances. These reforms, therefore, go further than the provisions contained in the 2023 Act to protect victims and survivors of domestic abuse. They will have a positive impact on children and their well-being, as more child maintenance liabilities will be enforced, leading to more money going to children, which I know is the objective of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in moving this amendment.

I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance for the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment, although she has already identified that she has other ways to put pressure on the Government to ensure progress, and I have no doubt that she will continue to do so.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I do not think that the amendment says that it should not be qualified practitioners who carry out the assessments. We already know, in general terms, that 85% of young offenders have special needs. It is important for their future journey that the type of special need is identified by a qualified practitioner.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As drafted, the amendment explicitly suggests what my noble friend referred to. Proposed new subsection (2)(b) says that the strategy must set out

“the accredited training police officers and legal representatives of the children must complete to support the child’s wellbeing and to aid recognition of SEND and neurodivergence”.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I am grateful for that clarification. Maybe this could be picked up on Report, but it is hugely important. As my noble friend Lord Addington said, there is a young offenders centre in Wavertree where qualified staff assess pupils and provide for their needs.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to this amendment, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I thought, from the original groupings, that we were also going to talk about Amendment 502T, but I gather that is no longer the case, so the Committee will be relieved to hear that my speech will be even shorter.

Like my noble friend Lady Spielman, I do not support the noble Lord’s amendment, although I accept absolutely that it is a real sign that a child or young person has been failed by both their family and the services designed to support them if they end up in police custody. But the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s guidance regarding the treatment of children in police custody is clear. It already states that children should not be held overnight in police cells, suggesting that time will typically be very limited in police custody. It is also clear on the role of the local authority where there are concerns about the child’s welfare, and the child’s right to have an appropriate adult present to explain their rights and help them understand the situation.

In practical terms, even if we could magically find an educational psychologist to go to the police station, I question whether that really is a good time to assess a child for special educational needs and disabilities, since it is a particularly stressful situation. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said, very specialist skills are required for this. To reiterate, there is no high-quality definition of special educational needs and disabilities and no clinical definition. My noble friend already said that there is no clinical definition for neurodivergence. Currently, definitions of SEND vary from school to school and within different forms of SEND. This confusion would open the door to misinterpretations. For example, a child could have ADHD, but that does not mean that they are incapable of making decisions. With respect to the noble Lord, who is not in his place, I suggest it would be very hard to make the amendment work in practice.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 183CD is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for stepping into the gap so that we could have a brief discussion on it. I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is not here because he has a lot of experience of, and a background in, this field. It would have been helpful to have heard from him. I will move to the end of the comments I was going to make to reassure him: there are no plans to set up a separate system.

I echo the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. On screening for special educational needs, disabilities and neurodiversity, it is important to bear in mind that police custody is primarily a place of safety and investigation. Normally, a child would be there for a very short time. There is a high likelihood of a very stressful situation and an unfamiliar environment. For those reasons, we do not believe that police custody is likely to be an appropriate setting to assess special educational needs and disabilities, or neurodivergence.

The amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy intended to protect and promote the well-being of children in police custody, with a particular focus on provisions relating to children with special educational needs and disabilities and children who are neurodivergent. The Government’s manifesto was clear that particular care must be taken when the police are investigating children. Children should be detained in custody only when absolutely necessary, and where there are opportunities to divert children away from custody they should always be considered. It is, as we have heard, particularly important where the child has special educational needs and disabilities or is neurodivergent.

More broadly, the Government’s young futures programme is about intervening earlier to ensure that children and young people who are facing poorer outcomes and are vulnerable to being drawn into crime are identified and offered support in a more systematic way. Effectively identifying the right young people early enough and ensuring that they are accessing evidence-based support is what prevention partnerships will aim to do.

The rights and entitlements of children in police custody are clearly set out in a statutory code of practice, code C to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Under code C, all children in police custody must be provided with an appropriate adult whose role is to safeguard their welfare, rights and effective participation. When a child is detained in custody, the custody officer must notify a parent or guardian as soon as practicable, explaining the reasons for the child’s detention and where they are detained.

In addition, all detainees, including children, have access to health care professionals while in custody. These professionals play a critical role in identifying vulnerabilities and ensuring appropriate care. Interestingly, as we have heard, different police forces are looking at different ways they can train their police officers. Distraction tools such as books, colouring books, puzzles and foam balls have been provided for some police custody suites by organisations such as the Children’s Society and UK autism charities. These help a child to settle while they are in custody. We are of course always looking for examples of good practice.

I am also aware of the work under way in some violence reduction units, such as London and Cleveland, which provide custody navigators for young people in police custody involved in or at risk of serious violence. Custody navigators offer support to those young people at a time of crisis, or at a so-called reachable moment—a moment when otherwise hard-to-reach demographics are away from their usual environment and are potentially more willing to engage with offers of support. Even though we have explored the issue of the appropriateness of some of this work in those settings, it is important to recognise that police officers and legal representatives need to undergo training that equips them for working with vulnerable suspects such as children who are neuro-divergent.

The College of Policing has also published an extensive neurodiversity glossary of terms, intended for all police officers, staff and volunteers, to raise awareness and enhance understanding of neurodiversity. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has a dedicated neurodiversity portfolio chaired by ACC Matt Welsted of West Midlands Police, who has established a neurodiversity working group. Its work includes supporting police officers to design and deliver a service to be proud of, relating to neurodivergent victims, witnesses, suspects and residents. We are all aware that there have been distressing examples where such manifestations have not been recognised; everything is now being done to recognise them.

In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and ask him to consider withdrawing the amendment that he has moved on the noble Lord’s behalf.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I think there are two things on which all in this Chamber can agree. First, school uniforms are important. I think the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Mohammed was that they give confidence to learning, and I think they give a sense of identity to young people. That is the first thing that we can all agree on.

Secondly, we can all agree that we have to ensure that school uniforms are affordable and that parents of children from poorer families do not feel discriminated against. I want to give two practical experiences. I should declare an interest as a governor of the King’s Leadership Academy, Wavertree.

My first practical example is that, when I was a deputy head teacher, the school governors did not believe in a school uniform. That was not a particularly good decision, because young people from well-off families would wear the latest trainers and show off the latest T-shirts, designer gear and so on.

My second example is my own daughter. She went to King David High School and had a very simple uniform of a sweatshirt, a polo shirt and a grey skirt. A new head came along, who was anxious to make the school stand out, and the uniform changed to a kilt, a blue blouse, a V-neck pullover with the school colours in the V-neck, a blazer with a badge and a tie. The cost went through the roof, so that was clearly stupid.

If you want to deal with this issue, the current proposals from the Government are a bit of a dog’s dinner—or Eton mess might be a better phrase. I just do not see how it is going to work. My first question to the Minister is: what about the poor old book bag? In my school, infants carry their little, green, nylon, £3.20 book bags and it means so much to those children; they encourage them to value books and to read. That would be included as one of the branded items and presumably would go. Primary and infant heads would have to decide whether the book bag is going on the altar of correctness in terms of uniform.

My second concern is that this is just not workable. If a school decides that it wants other branded items, it can write to parents and say, “This is the law of the land but, if you want additional branded items, it is up to you”. Is the Minister going to enforce this and say to parents, “No, you cannot have this additional item”? Of course they are not.

Sport was mentioned. You see teams playing in the dominant school colour. Let us say that it is red; they will play their football, rugby, hockey, lacrosse matches or whatever wearing red. What happens if they turn up for a match and both schools have the same colour red? They have to notify teams beforehand which colour to wear, which is absolutely nonsensical. If you want pride in schools, you will also want pride in sport. I do not see this happening at all.

If you really want to deal with this issue, two things should happen. My noble friend Lord Mohammed talked about the Sheffield situation. I think that it was either the Macmillan Government or the Wilson Government that brought in school uniform grants, by which every local authority could provide money for families in poorer circumstances. This was not just in Sheffield; in Liverpool, Birmingham or elsewhere, this happened. But my noble friend’s two points are absolutely right: it is not about trying to limit the number of items, but about trying to get the costs correct. If the Government were serious about this, they would reduce VAT on clothing and they might look at an acceptable level of expenditure.

The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, was right to talk about the “magic three”. Imagine the Government saying, “We want to do something about this but how can we do it?” The civil servants and Government would get together and say, “We don’t want to go back to grants because the budget would go through the roof. We want to keep VAT; if we go down that route, there will be requests for other items to be excluded. I have an idea: why not limit the number of items that can be branded?” That is not the way it works; it will just not happen in the future.

This is totally different, but I am reminded of when in the Blair Government there was talk of school assemblies. The Government of the day said that every school had to have a collective act of worship every day and that it had to be mainly Christian. You go into schools today and that does not happen because it is totally unworkable, as people come from different circumstances and faiths. I am giving that example to the Minister to show that legislation has to work—and collective worship did not work in schools. That is the point I am trying to make.

If this is carried, it just will not happen. If we really want to make a saving for children and families, we have to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 195A, 195B, 198 and 199, and Amendment 199ZA, from my noble friend Lady Sater, which I have signed. We all recognise that the Government committed in their manifesto to bringing down the cost of school uniform by limiting the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools require. I wonder whether those who wrote the manifesto might now, having listened to this debate, wish that they had phrased it slightly differently and just stopped at committing to bringing down the cost of school uniforms full stop.

The amendments in this group, as we have heard, all seek to find ways to give schools more discretion and flexibility in the uniform they require pupils to wear, particularly regarding branded items, while meeting the Government’s goal of keeping costs as low as possible. As we have heard, Amendments 202A and 202B seek to limit the environmental damage from branded uniforms.

We have heard, very eloquently, from across the Committee, about the value of uniform, the sense of community it brings, the safety it provides for children travelling to and from school, the fact that it saves parents money and encourages participation in sport, and—a new one to add to my list that appeals to me a lot—the subtle rebellion point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton.

The Government’s approach raises a number of questions, particularly given the recent Private Member’s Bill, now an Act, passed under the last Government and sponsored in this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, who is not in her place, and the fact that, as my noble friend Lord Agnew said, the current guidance states:

“Schools should keep the use of branded items to a minimum … ensure that second-hand uniforms are available”


and avoid using items that are available only from a single supplier. The guidance is very clear:

“Parents should not have to think about the cost of a school uniform when choosing which school(s) to apply for. Therefore, schools need to ensure that their uniforms are affordable”.


A real merit of the current guidance is that it talks about the cost of the total uniform and not just the branded items, because that is what parents pay for. As we have heard, the cost of branded items has fallen significantly in real terms in recent years.

Furthermore, the definition of “school uniform” in the Bill is very broad. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made the case for the nylon school bag—I have several of my children’s in cupboards at home, fondly full of school reports. It also includes any clothing required for extracurricular activity, including items without a logo but which are only available from “particular suppliers” and have a “distinctive characteristic” such as its “colour, design” or “fabric”. We know from the Answer to a Written Question that, based on the department’s Cost of School Uniforms Survey 2023, which surveyed parents, an estimated one-third of primary schools and seven in 10 secondary schools will have to remove compulsory branded items from their uniforms to comply with the proposed legislation. The impact of the Government’s changes will be felt far and wide but not, it appears, in reduced costs to parents, which is rightly the Government’s objective. Given all the recent legislation and guidance, it is hard to see how this is the best use of time for school leaders, governors and trustees.

Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, would achieve two goals. First, like the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, it approaches the issue from the perspective of cost, rather than being prescriptive about the number of branded items a school is allowed to require its pupils to wear. Secondly, it addresses the issue of responsibility for the cost of school uniform and makes it absolutely clear that this should rest with the members in an academy trust and the local authority for a maintained school, rather than with the Secretary of State. Both these points are important; cost is at the heart of the issue, but so too is the need to keep responsibilities clear and delegated to the responsible bodies, rather than centralised. It is extraordinary to imagine that the Secretary of State has any time to worry about book bags and ties. That is why, although I agree with the principle behind Amendment 195, I believe that my noble friend’s amendment is stronger as it captures both points.

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

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments in group one. Just to be clear, the Government believe that uniforms have an important role to play in our schools, for many of the reasons that noble Lords have outlined, but we are committed to cutting the cost of school uniforms for families. This is why we have chosen to support families by limiting in this Bill the number of branded items that schools can require pupils to have. This will enable parents to buy more items from a range of retailers, including high street retailers, allowing them the flexibility to make spending decisions that suit their circumstances.

On Amendment 195 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, we want to ensure that any action we take provides schools and parents with clarity and offers parents choice in how to manage the costs of school uniforms. Ensuring that parents can buy more items from a range of retailers gives them that flexibility. The argument has been made that a cost cap is simpler than the Government’s proposals. I cannot see that argument. A cost cap would mean that schools would have to review uniform policies annually, as the noble Lord said, to ensure that they remained within the cap. It could mean schools changing their uniforms more frequently, thereby increasing overall costs and restricting choice for parents. A cost cap would be complex for schools and suppliers to administer, and the need to meet a particular price for items could also increase a school’s reliance on specific suppliers, whereas a competitive market benefits all parties, allowing parents to take advantage of lower prices, better-quality goods and services, new and innovative products, and greater choice.

Responding to the points made about the school uniform grant, we recognise that parents are struggling with the cost of uniforms—that is why we are bringing forward these provisions—and that in England some local authorities provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms in cases of financial hardship. We are facing difficult choices about how we best support families. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, in a rather dismissive comment about government officials, which has been a bit of a regrettable theme this afternoon, suggested that it was somehow unreasonable of the Government to be considering the cost of the proposals they are bringing forward. A national grant, even if targeted to those most in need, would be a considerable commitment in the current financial climate, so, rather than subsidising expensive uniforms through a grant, this Government have chosen to reduce the cost of uniforms for all parents through these provisions.

On Amendments 195A and 195B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as previously mentioned, it is a key priority of these provisions that we provide clarity on what the measure means for parents. These amendments could create confusion for parents about whether a given branded item of uniform would be captured within the statutory limit, depending on how it was acquired. There is also a risk that schools may subsequently attempt to charge parents for expensive replacements if branded items provided for free are lost or damaged. Furthermore, allowing schools to set different uniform policies depending on the school’s ability to provide or source branded items for free could also risk increasing inequalities between schools and pupils.

Amendments 196 and 197 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, seek to increase the number of items that secondary and middle schools can require from three to five, or six if one of those items is a tie. We believe that the limits in the measure that the Government are bringing forward provide the best balance between reducing costs for parents and ensuring that schools, parents and pupils can continue to experience the benefits that allowing a small number of branded items can bring, while ensuring that schools retain the flexibility needed to set uniform policies that work for them. Increasing these limits would significantly limit the impact of this measure, depriving many parents of the opportunity to enjoy greater choice in where to buy their child’s uniform and the flexibility to make spending decisions that suit their circumstances.

Amendment 197A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, is, as written, as opposed to some of the points the noble Lord made, which I will come to, unnecessary as the measure does not restrict the ability of schools to offer branded items for sale or to provide or loan branded uniform items, such as competition kit, as long as these items are optional. This is an important point, because there has been some suggestion that it would not be possible for schools to offer branded items or to provide or loan branded items. It would be, but they would have to be optional. If wearing the item is optional for participation in the activity, it is not counted in the limit of branded items.

We also do not want to place an undue burden on schools by suggesting—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sorry, perhaps the Minister is about to come to this: that is what normally happens when I stand up. I think my noble friend was saying that in the CCF, you have to wear the CCF uniform. Similarly, if you are representing the school in a sports competition, I am not sure it is really optional. But maybe the Minister is about to clarify that.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On the sports competition, I think it is wholly possible to envisage that the school would provide a set of branded uniform for the school sports team, while not suggesting that it was compulsory to wear it. Of course, I understand all the arguments for wanting to have a clear identity for the school while you are doing sports. On the point about cadets, which I was specifically coming to—sorry, I will make one other point before I come to cadets. There is a challenge. We do not want to place an undue burden on schools by suggesting that they should routinely be supplying additional, expensive, branded uniform items to their pupils at no cost.

The point about cadets is important. We do not intend the legislation to prevent cadets, and we will consider how to make that clear. Our view is that the legislation does not do that, but we understand the point being made and we will ensure that that is made clear, because of the benefits of students being able to take part in cadets in the way in which the noble Lord outlined.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Just to be clear on this, I heard the Minister say that, in the case of cadets, where wearing a uniform is required and it is given for free, the Government will clarify that that is acceptable. She also said that she does not want to place undue burdens on schools, understandably, but, in a sports competition, whether pupils wear the kit that is provided for free is going to be optional. That feels unworkable and very inconsistent.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

What I said was that this measure does not prevent schools providing or loaning branded uniform items, such as competition kit, but, if that were to be compulsory, that of course would need to be included in the three branded items. As long as those items are optional, I do not think it is too difficult to envisage that schools might be able to make that work.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point; I am sure that the Minister is listening and learning. Again, I hope that, between Committee and Report, we can be sure that what we legislate for will be workable, clear and as unbureaucratic as it can be.

Finally, I will deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made at the very beginning made about flexi-learning. I have some slight experience with that, because, as I think I have mentioned before in your Lordships’ House, I had a pupil who was school-phobic; he literally would not come into school. His mum was a nurse and did not have the opportunity to home-educate, so we home-educated for her. Gradually, by that home education—which, I suppose, was a type of flexi-learning—we were able to bring the boy back into school.

I hope that, at the end of debating these many amendments, the most important thing will be that we ensure that we know where every child is, that every child is learning and that every child is safe.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the clarity she brought with her earlier remarks. She set out the objectives of the Government and her commitment, on behalf of colleagues in the department, to work with Peers across the House—it looks as though that will be in August—to explore their concerns and, where possible, to address them. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for the constructive tone of his opening remarks.

The principle of having a register for children not in school has long held cross-party support and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, described, there are very different groups of children who are educated at home. What the debate has started to explore is that, in our eagerness to safeguard vulnerable children, which we must try to do well, and to support those children who have struggled in mainstream school, we must also make every effort not to stigmatise, or to treat with suspicion, parents who make a positive choice to home-educate their children.

This group and many of the others which follow highlight the complexity of creating a home-schooling register and the multiplicity of details that need to be considered. I note that Amendments 202C, 227, 227A and 286 and the opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill are all probing, and I look forward to the Minister’s clarifications. I thought, unsurprisingly, that my noble friend Lord Frost made some very valid points on the risk of duplication of supervision and safeguarding in relation to children who are flexi-schooled.

On the individual amendments, there are two in this group which we support: Amendment 226 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and Amendment 279 in the name of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew. With regard to children missing education and Amendment 226, most people would be surprised if it was not already a duty to inform the court if proceedings relating to the welfare of the child were under way and that child was not in school. It seems to me highly relevant information for the court to take into consideration, since there is a lot more risk attached to a child who is classified as missing education as opposed to a child who is electively home-educated. I am not sure about the practicality of consistent arrangements to address persistent non-attendance or irregular attendance, as the noble Lord’s amendment sets out, but I absolutely support the spirit of his amendment that the family courts should be made aware of the child’s situation and the risks that accompany it.

Amendment 279 in the names of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew raised the important point of what a local authority can do if it has concerns that a child is not receiving a suitable education or, indeed, any real education at all. I hope that the Government have thought about this and have a plan for it. There is a great deal of detail in new Section 436C in Clause 31 of the Bill, but nothing about the actual education that a child receives, just the time spent and with whom.

On Amendment 233A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I remember very well the meeting with a group of home-educators—in fact, I look below Bar and there they are again, in the same place as last time; it is like Groundhog Day. The amendment would remove new Section 436C, which defines in detail the content and process for maintaining the proposed children not in school registers. While I agree with the noble Lord that the drafting appears unnecessarily detailed and potentially intrusive, it is important to have clarity about what will be recorded and how it will be kept up to date.

I also cannot support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill, although I appreciate that this was designed to give the House a chance to explore the principles that the Government intend to follow, which we have heard from the Minister. My noble friend will remember that, in the 2022 Schools Bill, we were very clear that a register for children not in school was necessary. I think the current Government have improved on our original proposal in one way, with the increased focus on safeguarding in Clause 30—although, as I said in relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I regret the extent of detail that is required in the Bill. Of course, we will probe in subsequent groups the balance between the clear right of parents to educate their children at home and the right of a child to receive a suitable education, but the principle of a local authority register for children not in school has very broad support.

My understanding is that the remaining amendments in this group are also all probing amendments. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments relates to the purpose and scope of children not in school registers. As the first group in consideration of these clauses, it has, rightly, raised some broad issues of principle as well, so I will speak for slightly longer than I will, I hope, on subsequent groups to put some of the important principles on the record and, I hope, to begin to allay some of the concerns expressed.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for the important points he raised. I want to address the principal points, as I say, before turning to other noble Lords’ amendments in this grouping. During today’s debate, we will hear much about parents’ rights, so I want to be clear up front again that parents already have and will continue to have a right to home-educate their children, in line with their preferences, values or religious beliefs. On some of the specific points that the noble Lord raised, we will give further consideration in Clause 36 to the nature of the places in which children are educated and whether they should be further inspected and regulated.

The noble Lord is right that we are attempting here to make sure that we know where children are and that they are seen. It is not about preventing them being educated elsewhere than in schools or necessarily seeing that as a risk. It is important that we do not, as some noble Lords have suggested, view the register as a statement that there is something illegitimate in the choices made by many parents to educate their children. It is about ensuring that every child, however, is seen. It is also important that we do not lose sight of parents’ responsibilities and children’s rights. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Nash, made this point very well. Parental rights are not absolute. They must be able to be evidence to local authorities that education is suitable. That is the existing position and the Bill does not change it. Children not in school registers will help ensure that children’s right to a safe, suitable education is protected. It is the Government’s ambition that no child falls through the gaps in this respect. The information that we are asking parents to provide for the registers is underpinned by that very singular goal.

To be absolutely clear, the registers are not intended to drive a wedge between local authorities and parents. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords that positive engagement between parents and local authorities is essential. I also recognise the concerns of noble Lords that we are careful about the burdens and the process for gathering and recording information for the register. This is an area where looking at it in more detail with officials in my department may well help provide some assurance to noble Lords.

Information recorded on registers and shared with the department could increase transparency and accountability; for example, by improving our understanding of reasons for home education and local authority practices. Why people choose to home-educate and accountability for local authorities are both important.

I understand that data protection is a concern for many and we take it very seriously, including our data protection obligations. We are committed to high standards of information security, privacy and transparency. All data will be processed only for a specific purpose, which in this case is regarding a child’s education, welfare or safeguarding. Local authorities will also be subject to the UK GDPR as the domain data controllers. We will talk in more detail about the nature of the information collected and its use in some later groups.

I will now move on to address in more detail other points that have been raised by noble Lords, beginning with Amendment 226, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. Tackling persistent absence and ensuring that we can trace and support children who are identified as missing school due to persistent absence is a very important part of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. I thank the noble Lord for raising this important issue. However, it is not necessary to set up a new system to track and trace these children. Schools are already required to return the information outlined in the noble Lord’s amendment to their local authority. Schools are also required to share information on attendance with the Secretary of State through the school census and the department’s daily attendance data collection. As outlined in the department’s statutory guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance, local authorities are expected to use this information to identify attendance problems and to take appropriate action. Expectations include facilitating support for families where that is required, such as in the family courts.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has said, as the Minister will know from my numerous amendments later in the Bill, which I look forward to discussing with officials.

I have three amendments in this group. Amendment 204 inquires after the process in subsection (3) describing condition A. I hope that the Minister can describe today what the Government’s reasoning is in making this change. When it comes to what the process is going to be and whether there is the capability in system to do it, I am happy to leave that to discussions with officials.

Amendment 210 questions the meaning of “without undue delay”. If the hereditary Peers Bill was amended to say that we were leaving without undue delay, I would regard that as a plus. Such phrases in the mouths of government tend to mean quite a long time. I would have thought that in these circumstances, where the education of a child is concerned, something tighter might be advisable.

Amendment 221 says that, if this is what it looks like, the parent really needs access to a tribunal. If a local authority is on song and doing things quickly and it all goes smoothly and fairly, fine, but there are a lot of local authorities—my noble friend Lord Wei named the most notoriously worst of them—where this is not the case, often just temporarily because of staff changes or short-staffing. In those circumstances, the parent needs some recourse, because it is the child that matters.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 204 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lucas would narrow the scope of local authority powers to withhold consent to home education, in this case to exclude children in special schools. The driver of this—I looked at the Explanatory Notes but could not see anything that explains why special schools are all included—is that we seem to be treating parents of children with special needs in the same way as parents where there is an active investigation from children’s services and that feels disproportionate. There is also a risk of a conflict of interest where home education could be discouraged if the costs of providing therapeutic support to a child might be higher in that setting than in a special school, even if that was in the child’s best interests.

My Amendment 219 is a sort of common-sense amendment on an issue that I hope the Minister can clarify at the Dispatch Box. It seeks clarification that, if a local authority was to refuse consent to a parent to educate their child at home, it would need to provide the parents or carers with a statement explaining the reasons why, including the costs and benefits to the child. I assume that this would be good practice anyway, but if the noble Baroness can confirm that, that would be helpful.

I am sympathetic to the clarity that Amendment 210 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas would bring in terms of timings, but I think that Amendment 215A would be unduly onerous for local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, expressed concerns about the complexity of Clause 30. I am with him in that I think there is work to be done on Clause 30. He also focused on Clause 31 in his remarks, but I will cover those points in the next group.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry; I missed my turn to jump up. I wanted to make two remarks. First, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has drawn the big picture of a range of issues that concern us all and I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we can hopefully work through those in meetings or in Committee in a bit of detail. There are many points to come back to on that.

The one that I want to pick up on is Amendment 221, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others, on the right of appeal. It goes back to a point that I made earlier: the relationship between local authorities and home-educating parents is the vital one in all of this. In the end, we are providing the legislative framework within which that will operate. At a time when there is clearly a lot of suspicion, confusion and so on, a right of appeal will help to deal with that situation. It seems common sense to have a right of appeal to a tribunal.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 206. My concern here is that Section 47 has a very broad class of orders. Some are extremely serious and some, frankly, are irrelevant to whether someone should be concerned about a child being home educated. The amendment is to get some sense, which I am very happy to leave to further discussions, of how one deals, for instance, with spurious complaints from a former abusive parent who just wants to mess up the other parent’s life.

The overall statistics show that home-educated children are twice as likely to be referred to children’s social services, yet are much less likely to have a child protection plan result from that referral. There is a prejudice towards referring children who are home educated or whose parents are thinking of home educating them. We need to understand that in order to provide some circumstances that allow officials in local authorities to feel comfortable about taking informed professional decisions, rather than feeling vulnerable doing anything other than refusing. I look forward to discussing this at a later opportunity. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 207. Ever the optimist, I hope the Government will take it seriously and bring it back on Report with a “g” in front of it.

The amendment has two parts: the first extends the right of a local authority to withhold consent to home education for a child or their family who is in receipt of services under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989; the second extends this to children who have ever been classified as a child in need of protection under Section 47 of the Act. To be clear, both parts would give local authorities just the discretion to withhold consent on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, I am not proposing a blanket refusal, but, as drafted, the Government’s position is not altogether clear, although I suspect that the noble Baroness will tell me that my drafting is not altogether clear either.

All children who are in special schools would now be within scope, as we debated in the earlier group, of the local authority’s right to withhold consent, but not those under Section 17 where there are safeguarding or neglect concerns. That just feels the wrong way round in terms of priorities. I appreciate that my drafting could focus more narrowly on those children defined under Section 17 of the Act to focus on safeguarding and neglect, but it is curious not to focus on those children. Unlike my noble friends, I do not think it is easy to get either Section 47 or Section 17 status and I worry that the bar is too high with just the current Section 47.

On the inclusion of children who have ever been subject to a Section 47 child protection plan, we talked earlier about the tragic case of Sara Sharif. The Minister in the other place said that

“we cannot say for sure what might have made a difference, but we will learn lessons from the future … local child safeguarding practice review”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 30/1/25; col. 297.]

I think I am right in saying that Sara Sharif had been put on the child protection register at birth. She came off the register and, as we know, was removed from school and died, tragically. Without the changes in my amendment, the one thing we can be sure of is that the proposed law as drafted would not have made any difference to her.

I know that both Ministers on the Front Bench want to get this right; I am just trying to state the reality that if a child has ever been considered to be vulnerable enough to be subject not to a Section 47 investigation but to a child protection plan at any point in their short life then that is a massive red flag that needs to be removed before consenting for them to be educated at home. I respect the probing Amendments 205 and 206 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, but I support the Government’s approach to giving local authorities the power to withhold consent in cases involving child protection.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

I want to underline the points made by my noble friend Lord Lucas on Amendments 205 and 206, which I have also put my name to. Section 47 is obviously a very difficult area for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, just underlined, and it obviously needs to be taken seriously. At the same time, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said, a debate needs to be had about where we are drawing the borderline, whether there are areas where Section 47 need not be an automatic barrier to home education, whether there needs to be a further process, or whether the process is different in some cases compared with to others. At the moment, it is a very broad and straightforward yes or no test. As we know, as has been said and no doubt will be said again, there is evidence that this Section 47 process can be hijacked in certain circumstances and in certain kinds of relationships just to disrupt, cause trouble or make life more difficult, so we have to be sensitive to that.

I certainly think that, again, it is something perhaps better explored in these famous August discussions than necessarily in the detail now, but it is important not to take a completely black and white view on this. I will not labour the point, but I also think it underlines the need to have a proper appeal process and tribunal to take the sensitivities of the particular cases properly into account.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In group 4, we have an interesting combination of some amendments suggesting that the Government are going too far in their proposals around the hurdle for having to seek consent to home-educate and others suggesting that they are not going far enough. I will try to find a way through the centre of this, because what they all have in common is seeking to explore the rationale for the local authority to have to provide consent before a parent can withdraw a child from school to home-educate—in this case, where the child is subject to a child protection inquiry

I turn to Amendments 205 and 206. Just to be clear, the Government believe that the consent measure with respect to Section 47 inquiries provides an important but proportionate safety net for children subject to child protection inquiries and plans. To clarify something that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said and to reiterate this, the consent provisions are not an automatic bar to these parents home-educating. It could well be the case that, notwithstanding the fact that a child was subject to Section 47 inquiries or even under a child protection plan, the local authority felt it was appropriate for, or was willing to give consent for, that child to be home-educated. To reiterate what I said, it is a requirement for the local authority to consider the circumstances of that child, given that they have come under the auspices of children’s social care through Section 47 of the Children Act. Our view is that this should be done as part of its wider decision-making on whether a child needs protection and the planning that follows that.

There is some suggestion, which I really disagree with, that local authorities would find it easy to jump to a Section 47 inquiry simply to prevent a parent being able to home-educate their child. There are a lot of consequences to undertaking a Section 47 inquiry. I would find it hard to understand why a local authority would be so keen to prevent a parent home-educating if there were no reasons to stop them or want to get itself into the burdens around a Section 47 inquiry if it did not think it was important to do that. Of course, it is not just what a local authority believes about the circumstances of a child. For a child to be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry, they will have already hit a threshold of actual or likely significant harm. That is a high threshold. An inquiry should certainly not be initiated purely because a parent has decided to home-educate.

I note the understandable concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about how this measure could be used in an abusive relationship, where false or malicious allegations regarding the safety of a child, for example, might be made to continue to control or harass an individual. The sad reality, of course, is that it is not only with respect to issues about home education that that might happen. It could happen, and does happen, in many circumstances where local authorities are making decisions about children. For that reason, we are confident that this would not be something unusual or unheard of for local authorities, and that they do have robust policies and processes in place to consider information and evidence about child protection concerns, including recognising and handling malicious allegations. Perhaps the noble Lord could be provided with some more examples of how local authorities would handle this type of circumstance, to provide some reassurance. Given that a child will be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry only where there is actual or likely significant harm, it is reasonable that checks should be undertaken before such a child can be removed from school for home education.

Amendment 207, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, focuses on bringing all children receiving support and services under Section 17 of the Children Act, known as “children in need”, and any child who has ever been the subject of a child protection plan in the past into the scope of the consent measure. We share her commitment to ensuring that all children are protected from harm, and recognise that, while home education is not an inherent safeguarding risk, it can of course mean that some children could slip under the radar. However, we believe that this amendment would be disproportionate. “Children in need” is a very broad group of children and many will receive services which are nothing to do with safeguarding concerns or particular educational needs.

I think the noble Baroness was suggesting that there might be ways in which it would be possible to have a definition that looked at different elements of Section 17 concerns, and perhaps I can come back to her on that point. I think one of her reasons for suggesting it is that she understands, of course, that, for example, all children with disabilities are automatically included under Section 17. We certainly would not want to suggest here that any child with disabilities whose parents wanted to home-educate them would necessarily need to seek consent. I also draw her attention to the deliverability of a measure that includes both children in need and children subject to child protection activity in the consent measure.

In the year to the end of March 2024, there were 399,500 children in need, compared with 224,520 child protection inquiries and 49,900 children on child protection plans. As noble Lords can see, it would be both disproportionate and overly burdensome on local authorities to make a consent decision for every parent who wished to withdraw their child from school for home education where that child is receiving help under Section 17: it would be roughly a doubling of the potential number of children who might need it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

From memory, are there not 400-and-something thousand children with an EHCP who will be within the kind of consent framework? Obviously, the vast majority of the 400,000 children who are under Section 17 are not going to be home-educated. I take the noble Baroness’s point; I am just trying to say that we have one group that is in and another group, where we suspect potential abuse or neglect, that is out. That just feels like an odd split.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I recognise that point. On the special school point, it is not sufficient to have an EHCP to need consent to withdraw your child to home-educate; it is if they are in a special school. The rationale there is that you are changing their schooling and removing them, by definition, from something that contains very specific levels of support, otherwise it would not be a special school. It is the consideration of that impact that is the reasoning behind the special school intention here.

So we are confident that the consent measure, as drafted, is focused on the right groups of children and that it is proportionate. I hope that I have demonstrated the proportionality of this measure and that it is part of a wider set of activities that we have discussed previously on the Bill, about strengthening requirements to protect children at the earliest opportunity. I hope therefore that noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Even more briefly, I did not hear the Minister’s response in relation to children who have been on a child protection plan. Could she be very kind and write to me, in the interests of time, because that is also extremely important?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I recognise that. There are still questions about burden there, but I understand the noble Baroness’s point, and particularly her reference to the Sara Sharif case. On that case, we are still awaiting the detailed review from the safeguarding panel in order to be able to determine the causes there, but I understand her point and will write to her about that specific group of children.

On that basis, I hope noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not move their amendments.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend said about young carers. We ought to be much better at collecting information on what is going on with young carers. The whole business of collecting information is getting easier with AI. The government AI team is a sight to be seen. I have not, in government, come across such an enthusiastic and effective team. I very much hope that the Department for Education will make contact and make use of the blockers. When you are faced with a difficult problem and need to find a way of collecting data that does not put a burden on the organisations that are having to do that data collection, and it is diverse and complicated, AI is a really good approach. I urge the Government to help look after young carers by taking that step.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, there is a large number of probing amendments in this group and, in the interests of making progress, I will not comment on most of them. I am very sympathetic to the intent behind Amendment 209 in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I would hope very much that a child who is a young carer would be supported to stay in school, given the obvious risk that their education would suffer and conflict with the care needs of their parent if at home, but I have no further comments on the other amendments in this group.

[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—

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the idea that the best interests of the child would be judged by the state is one that is reasonable under certain circumstances. It comes back to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Does it have enough resources to do this? Does it have the structure? If the Minister could tell us, now or in a letter, what criteria, what resources, will be put forward, everybody would be a little bit more comfortable with what is happening here. But I am afraid that the fact of the matter on special educational needs is that it is the parent who often struggles to get the help they need. We all know why—we have all been through the system and we understand it—I just want to know the process by which we get there. If we get one that sounds reasonable, I am happier.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, have made a powerful case for the point of principle that underpins this group of amendments. I confess to agreeing with them only in part. The point of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that there may be a muddle in the drafting, may be a fair one because of the discussion we had earlier on my Amendment 204 about the automatic inclusion of children in special schools within the framework of local authority consent. So I am sympathetic to the points my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, make on children in special schools and the idea that the state knows what is best for them.

Where I am not sympathetic—I respect their opinion and I think they have a point—it is because, on balance, when a child is subject to a child protection plan or a child protection investigation, we have already established that it is either confirmed that the child is at risk of significant harm or there are serious concerns that the child could be at risk of serious harm. Whether the “best interest” is the best way of framing it, I do not know, but I think that at that point and for that group of children—

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

The amendment I have proposed uses almost the same words as those the noble Baroness has just used: rather than using the phrase “in the child’s best interest”, why not refer to being at risk, and abuse, as found by the tribunal? It seems much clearer to do it that way, and I wonder whether she would agree.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right and I am grateful to him for again drawing my attention and that of the Committee to his drafting. I guess one would then need to consider the group of children in special schools, because I would be surprised if the noble Lord’s drafting applied to so many of them.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

At the heart of this group of amendments is the concern about the use and definition of the expression “best interest of the child”.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others suggested that the use of the “best interests” ground in Clause 30 is a fundamental change to parents’ rights. I reiterate the quite narrow scope of the use of “best interests” in this clause. Remember that what we are dealing with here is not the fundamental decision about whether a parent has the right to remove their child from a school to educate them at home. They have that right, unless some very specific circumstances are met—when they may still have the right, but we introduce a process for the local authority to consent to whether it is appropriate for that to happen. I do not think I need to run through once again that narrow category of children and circumstances where, as we are proposing here, the local authority should be enabled at least to consider the issue of whether, in those circumstances, it is appropriate for the child to be removed from school.

I know that some noble Lords do not believe that there should be any need for consent and therefore do not believe that the criteria that the Government have chosen of Section 47 inquiries, child protection plans or special schools are appropriate. I accept that but, if you do have a consent system—and there is quite a lot of support for the idea that an additional stage is appropriate for children in these circumstances—you then need to decide the criteria for the local authority’s decision-making. New subsection (6)(b) makes it clear what those criteria should be in these very specific circumstances.

It does not feel unreasonable to me that those criteria should be what the local authority believes to be the best interests of the child. We can assume that the parents believe in the best interests of their child, but in these very specific circumstances, because of the nature of the children, we think the child’s rights might override the view of their parents.

So the first criterion is what is in the child’s best interests; the second is whether or not there are suitable arrangements made for the child to receive education, other than at school. I understand that some noble Lords do not believe that those are the right criteria, but I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that this is somehow a fundamental change in the rights of parents. We recognise that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart and tirelessly advocate for them, often in difficult circumstances. That should be the basis on which parents are able to make decisions, in most circumstances, about whether or not their children are removed from school to be educated otherwise.

However, there are situations where a child could receive a suitable education at home but it is not in their best interests to do so—for example, if there are concerns that the child is being exposed to domestic abuse or extremism. In those cases, the school can act as a protective factor that enables issues to be escalated quickly.

I hope that my argument about the reason for the choice of those criteria also covers the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He recommends that a local authority should automatically refuse consent for any child where the local authority has concluded that they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm following a child protection inquiry, but child protection is complex and practitioners must gather a range of information and evidence from multiagency partners and others who work with the child and their family, and children can experience harm from both inside and outside the home. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to prohibit all such children from being removed from school for home education.

The consent measure rightly requires the local authority to consider the individual circumstances of each child. It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the consent measure is not preventing parents in these circumstances from home-educating; it is simply saying that the local authority should consider whether that is appropriate and use the two criteria that have been set out in the Bill.

Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei—

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[Lord Wei (Con)]

I can fully appreciate that, given the scope here, if there was a safeguarding concern then one might want to pursue the route the Minister is talking about as the officer in question is trying to make that decision. However, the way that this is worded, even if the parents or family subject to Section 47 have found a way to provide suitable education, gives the officer the room to say, “I am concerned about the safety of the child”, when it is more that they do not like the education being provided.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think I might speak for others in the Committee in saying that this level of detail could be better dealt with face to face with officials, which would allow us to do another group before the House rises.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to raise the threshold for the local authority to refuse consent to home-educate. This would mean that, if a parent was concerned that their child was being harmed by attending their current school, the local authority would be unable to refuse consent unless it provided evidence of a standard sufficient to satisfy a court that withdrawal would result in greater harm.

Let me be clear that parents’ concerns regarding bullying or their child’s mental health are serious, and these issues should be discussed with the school and local authority. I can quite understand why parents might want to remove their child from school in those circumstances.

However, it is important to remember that the requirement for local authorities to consent to home education relates to a specific set of children who are subject to a child protection plan or inquiry or who are in a special school. This measure is intended to ensure that the local authority takes a considered, proportionate and informed decision for these groups. Eligible children should not be withdrawn from school for home education if it is not in their best interests or if education outside school is not going to be suitable. I want to be clear that local authorities must evidence their decision-making, but requiring it to the degree that the amendment suggests is totally impractical. Local authorities are well placed to make this best interests and suitability judgment. They possess the required information and have access to multi-agency expertise as part of their child protection and education duties, and parents’ views will be taken into account by local authorities as part of their decision-making process.

Amendment 215, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure that a refusal to grant consent to home-educate is taken against the background of the characteristics of the school that the child might attend. Just to be clear, the consent process is not intended to keep children in a specific school or to keep children in a school that is not right for them. Parents remain free to remove their child from one school to attend a different school that they believe can better support their child’s needs, for example. I hope that assures the noble Lord that there is no intention that a child could or should be forced to remain in a specific school, so the need to compare different schools is unnecessary. I hope noble Lords feel that I have provided sufficient assurance and that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on all these amendments, but particularly on his Amendment 423. At an earlier stage in these proceedings, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, who is no longer in his place on the Benches, was very critical of home-schooling, alleging that there were poor results in home-schooling. Anything that home-schoolers can do in order to show the success of their home-schooling is to be encouraged. For that reason, I particularly support Amendment 423.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, all the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei seek to find exemptions to the basic principle that there should be a register of children not in school; therefore, I cannot support these. First, the point of the register is to ensure that the local authority knows which children are not in school, and these amendments would undermine that. Secondly, and importantly, it allows home-educating parents to access support where they need it. I hope we might spend a bit more time on that in future groups. Finally, these amendments make an assumption that, in these conditions, it may be preferable to educate the child at home, and this could well be right, but, in my opinion, it remains reasonable and proportionate to record which children are not in school.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I have to correct myself, because I have said, on behalf of home-schooling mothers, that we favour the registry. I said that two years ago and during the Schools Bill of 2022. I did not comprehend that these amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, are anti-register. I therefore cannot remain loyal to what I have just said in support of them, because I think the register is important, but Amendment 423 still stands good and I continue to support it.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am so sorry to intervene on my noble friend again but, having introduced the group, he had a chance to make the points he needs to make. I think now is the time to hear from the Minister.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hacking for the clarification that he has just made, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for a very clear explanation of why she is not supporting these amendments. As a former lead member for children’s services for the second-largest metropolitan authority in the country, I find it very difficult to recognise some of the comments that have been made tonight, and I emphasise the dedication and hard work of so many people whose primary, indeed sole objective is to make sure that all children in this country are safe from harm. It is so important to reference that as we go through.

I am not sure how many more times Ministers need to stress that there is total recognition of how many parents are out there working extremely hard to provide a suitable education when educating their children otherwise than at school. We have heard examples of the successes of so many of them, and we recognise that many of those children are thriving.

I emphasise that parents have no reason to fear the prospect of having to include key information on local authority children not in school registers. This information is vital to help local authorities discharge existing responsibilities and ensure that the education children receive is suitable and safe. As we have heard, without the registers, too many children and young people are at risk of falling through the gaps.

I will respond briefly to the amendments in this group, which are all tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. They suggests exemptions for why a child’s information should not be included on a local authority’s children not in school register.

Amendment 254 seeks to ensure that, if a child does not fit the eligibility criteria, their parents would not be required to provide any information. This is unnecessary. If a child is not eligible to be registered, their parents would not be under the duty to provide information.

Amendments 230, 323, 324 and 326 seek to limit which children must be registered on a local authority children not in school register. A key objective of the registers is to aid local authorities in their existing duty to identify, as far as it is possible to do so, all children in their areas who are not registered pupils in school and are not receiving a suitable education. These amendments would prevent this.

Amendment 230 would exempt children if the parent is able to provide a sworn affidavit from an experienced home educator that the home education being provided is suitable, if the parent has arranged for the child to sit at least three national qualifications, or if the child is enrolled in certain educational provision. None of these proposed reasons for exemption would give a local authority enough assurance that the education being provided is suitable for an individual child.

Amendment 323 would exempt children who are temporarily residing in the UK with a permanent residence elsewhere. Where a child is living in the local authority’s area, even if only for a short time, the local authority has education and safeguarding duties towards the child.

I am particularly disappointed to see Amendments 324 and 326, where the noble Lord suggests exempting asylum-seeking families and families affected by war, natural disaster or economic collapse from registers. These are some of the very children who registers will most benefit. Where local authorities are aware of these children, they can offer support to ensure that their education continues undisrupted. The registers would simply not work if the exemptions that the noble Lord proposes were to apply.

Amendment 325 would enable children aged 14 or over to be exempt from being included on the register if they register as self-directed learners. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 is clear: it is the responsibility of the parents to secure a suitable education for their child. Parents, not children, must remain accountable for this. As we have heard, most parents are fulfilling this duty, but registers will be a crucial tool in identifying where this is not the case so that these children can be supported into suitable education.

Finally in this group, Amendment 423 seeks to allow parents to discharge their duty to provide suitable education when their child is providing services, mentoring or trade-related activities. The Government’s guidance on home education for local authorities and parents sets out that a parent must provide their child with a full-time, efficient, suitable education. Parents therefore have the flexibility to educate their child in whatever manner they deem best for their child, provided it is suitable. This may be able to be achieved through school-type work or through practical education, such as the noble Lord mentioned, depending on the needs of the child. For the reasons I have outlined, namely that exemption of any eligible child for inclusion in the registers would mean that children who may be in receipt of unsuitable education fall through the gaps, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, all the amendments in this group in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, ably presented by my noble friend Lord Lucas, seek exemptions from or exceptions to the basic principle that there should be a register of children not in school. Rightly, my noble friend stressed the importance of the relationship between the local authority and home-educating parents. As other noble Lords pointed out, the Government need to take great care in this legislation so that the requirements set out in the Bill do not inadvertently damage that relationship and potential trust.

Having said that, I cannot support these amendments and their aim to find exemptions. First, at its simplest, the point of the register is to ensure that a local authority knows which children are not in school and, obviously, the amendments would undermine that. Secondly, one of the key points of the register, as I understand it, is that it would allow home-educating parents who need support from the local authority to access that support. Again, excluding these children would prevent that. Finally, these amendments assume that in these conditions it may indeed be preferable to educate the child at home. Even if this is the case in the majority, if not the vast majority, of cases, it remains reasonable and proportionate to record that that child is not in school.

With regard to Amendments 234 and 238, my noble friend Lord Lucas raised the important point of principle that the information collected should be proportionate, which, in simple terms, means that the local authority needs to actually use that information, as my noble friend said in his opening remarks, rather than just record it. The Government’s proposals for the information collected go a lot further than the legislation we brought forward in 2022. I share the doubts of my noble friend Lord Lucas and other noble Lords as to whether it is all necessary.

Going back to the point about the relationship between the local authority and parents, a good test for this legislation, and one I tried to use when we debated the 2022 Bill, is that the legislation needs to feel fair to parents. There is a risk that the amount of information and detail being requested could feel unfair and damage that relationship with the local authority, which is so important. I hope very much that when the noble Baroness closes, she will be able to reassure the Committee that that is not the case.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Wei, Lord Lucas and Lord Crisp, my noble friend Lord Hacking and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for taking time over the summer to meet my officials. Having the opportunity to discuss in detail with noble Lords how the provisions for children not in school are intended to work in practice was extremely beneficial and instructive. I am giving careful consideration to some of the finer details of the provisions with which noble Lords have indicated that they are not wholly satisfied.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that in government we have worked well and closely with home educators, who are rightly challenging on many of the issues that noble Lords have raised in the debate. Just to be completely clear, we know that the home education community is diverse and varied. Home education can take place in all walks of life, in cities or the countryside, and be delivered by those with professional teaching experience and those without. It often delivers an excellent education to children, but it is important that the registers work as intended. They should not encroach on the ability to home-educate.

I have said previously in these debates and will continue to say that we wholly recognise the right of parents to educate their children outside schools. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, it must be possible for local authorities to identify all children not in school to ensure that they are receiving a full-time, suitable education. That oversight should be underpinned by local authorities engaging positively with home educators. That is why the Bill also places a new duty on local authorities to provide advice and information when requested to do so by parents. The registers should give us a clearer picture of not only how and where children are being educated but also how local authorities engage with and support children not in school and their families. This information will support the department to identify best practice and consider how it can potentially be replicated across authorities to build strong, trusting relationships with parents.

I recognise the point made by several noble Lords that it is important that we ensure that these relationships are maintained and built on the basis of trust and a sense that what is being asked for by the Government is reasonable. We will, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, use this information to support and direct local authorities to ensure that that is happening, not, as I know some people fear, to prevent parents from home-educating, but to make sure that that relationship is based on a recognition of the best interests of children and of the right of parents to educate their children at home as long as they are providing a suitable education in doing that. The department will and has stepped in where local authority practice is wrong or overbearing.

Speaking in particular on the amendments in group one, these amendments seek to limit which children must be registered on local authority children not in school registers and to reduce the mandatory information that is requested from parents for the registers. This group seeks to do that on account of evidence provided by the parents or the circumstances of the child or parents. I will respond first to all the amendments dealing with which children should be included on registers: Amendments 231, 232, 233, 318, 321 and 322. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, a key objective of the registers is to aid local authorities in their existing duty to identify, as far as possible, all children in their areas who are not registered pupils in school and who are not receiving a suitable full-time education. Exempting eligible children from inclusion increases the risk of a local authority failing to identify a child who may be receiving an unsuitable education.

While I do not agree with the amendments, I appreciate the intention behind them, but I am afraid that the logic does not track even in terms of the arguments made by noble Lords. For example, to exempt children of parents with formal teaching qualifications from registration, as per Amendment 233, or children of parents who have submitted a portfolio annually demonstrating suitable education, as per Amendment 231, the local authority would need to know of the children and to record details of their parents, which might be even more cumbersome than the requirements that this legislation is asking for.

Amendments 318 and 322 seek to exempt children from rural areas, unless safeguarding concerns are present, or children from nomadic families as long as education is provided. This would still require the local authority having knowledge of these children in order to make these assessments. A registration system is the obvious solution to collect an appropriate level of information about a child’s circumstances, as my noble friend Lady Whitaker identified.

Amendment 231 seeks exemption for inclusion in the registers should the parent have previously demonstrated suitable education through an annual portfolio, while Amendment 232 seeks exemption if the parent has previously home-educated a child who progressed to university, employment or vocational training. Just because a parent has previously demonstrated suitable education, has previously home-educated a child who progressed to further or higher education, or holds certain qualifications, it does not necessarily follow that the child will receive a suitable education indefinitely or at all. Furthermore, exempting children on the basis of one measure of ability, such as achieving the status of a chess grandmaster, as per Amendment 321, offers little reassurance that the child is in suitable education overall or is safe.

I turn now to the amendments in this grouping concerning the mandatory information that is requested from parents to be held on local authority registers: Amendments 234 and 238. We will, in our debates on later groups, talk further about the nature of this information. The information required of parents is necessary to build an accurate understanding of who is involved in a child’s education and where this education is taking place. Let me be absolutely clear: the only information required to be held on registers is information which is easily available to parents and obtainable by local authorities and which is considered necessary for ascertaining suitability of education and safety of the child. This includes basic information such as the child’s name, date of birth and address, as well as high-level details of education provided by the parent and others. We will go into this in more detail but, to be absolutely clear in relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, of course this would not require daily, weekly or even monthly reports from parents. That is absolutely not the intention here. We do not believe that this basic information is overly burdensome for parents to provide or for local authorities to request and maintain.

Amendment 234, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would mean that parents would not be under a duty to provide information for registers. We know that many local authorities already maintain registers and that some parents voluntarily provide information for these, but the status quo is not good enough. It is currently too easy for children to slip under the radar. If a child has never attended a school or has recently moved to a new local authority area, for example, the local authority may be unaware that the child is in its area and not attending school. We need to be certain that local authorities are aware of all children not in school in their areas so that they can identify which children are missing education and are therefore in need of support. A parental duty to give information is the only way to achieve this. This requirement is proportionate and brings the process in England and Wales to the same level as that in the majority of other countries. In some cases, it would in fact be much less intrusive and much more supportive of home education than in many other countries.

I hope that noble Lords will permit me a brief digression to clarify a point of confusion—I know that this has been raised by and is concerning parents—regarding the consequence for parents failing to provide information for registers. If a parent does not supply the required information, they are not subject to a fine. Instead, the consequence of failing to provide information is that the local authority may, at its discretion, issue a notice requiring the parent to satisfy the local authority that their child is receiving a suitable education.

As is the case now, should the parent fail to do this and it is expedient for the child to attend school, the local authority must then issue a school attendance order, requiring the child to attend school. If the parent breaches that order and cannot prove in court that the child is being suitably educated, only then will they be found guilty of an offence and could be subject to a fine imposed at the magistrates’ court’s discretion. Again, it is important to reiterate that the school attendance order process that would be used here is an existing process and that the fines for breaching an order are completely avoidable through compliance. With this in mind, the number of families ultimately subject to a fine for breaching an order will be low compared to the overall number of orders issued.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 254A, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his comments. As a society, we can be proud that, over the years, we have carefully and proportionately brought in safeguarding procedures which really make a difference to the lives of children and young people. We know that, by and large, our children are safe. Occasionally, we find a gap in the regulations or in the provision, and we come together to try to sort that out.

In a sense, safeguarding information can be shared with parents. This amendment comes out of conversations with a number of organisations that have given thought to how, in some cases, this can be harmful for the child. If there is a safeguarding concern, details can be shared with both parents, but my amendment questions whether it is appropriate if it risks further harm to the child. In a sense, this is a probing amendment, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say as it will impact my thoughts when we come to Report.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this group, which, in common with some of the earlier groups, seeks to probe the Government’s position on some important, albeit quite technical issues. These include the right to privacy and family life, as covered in Amendments 235 and 297; the handling of data breaches, covered in Amendments 268, 275 and 375; and data removal, covered in Amendments 267 and 273. Throughout, the House is looking for reassurance and clarity from the Minister as to how these issues will be handled. Amendments 265, 272, 328, Clause 33 stand part and Amendment 504 all relate to data protection. Again, the points about relationships and trust, and families having absolute clarity as to how their data will be protected, who will have access to it and what will be public, are obviously important.

Finally, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, Amendments 236, 236A, 254A—in the noble Lord’s name—266 and 305 relate to the delicate and difficult issues about sharing information in cases where abuse of a child by a parent has either been alleged or confirmed. Again, the more clarity the Minister can bring, the more helpful it would be for the House.

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Let us take what works from these amendments and make sure that we come back with a system that is good for our children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks brief and focus on my own amendments in this group as I know that we have a very ambitious target to complete today; that noble Lords came in early to do this; and that we have had a well-informed debate already. My Amendments 239, 243, 249 and 260 were supported and elegantly introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, with support from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp.

Amendment 239 would remove the requirement to specify the time spent by each parent educating their child, which was described by your Lordships as potentially redundant information.

Amendment 243 would set a minimum threshold of six hours weekly to avoid parents having to record every piano lesson and burdening local authorities with a volume of information that they cannot realistically assess. It has many similarities to Amendment 254B. I would not quibble with the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, as his amendment was very well drafted, but the spirits of the two amendments have much in common.

Amendment 249 would exclude weekend and holiday activities so that we bring home-educated children into line with those at school, where we would not dream of asking how they spend their weekends and holidays. Again, we do not want every visit to the Royal Institution —however fascinating—or every swimming lesson being shared with the local authority.

Finally, Amendment 260—the “scoop it all up” amendment, as my noble friend Lady Berridge described it—seeks to remove the ability of the Secretary of State to require any additional information that they see fit to be included in the register. This is an important point of principle because it leaves the door completely open for a future Secretary of State to behave in a way that many of your Lordships might consider unreasonable and unfair. It is excessive—belt and braces—and the Minister may want to reconsider it.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a good debate on this group—interestingly, with some rather different perspectives on the nature of the extent to which information should be included on the register. Let me deal with the range of points, I hope, as reassuringly and informatively as I can.

Amendment 235A was introduced by my noble friend Lord Hacking, although it seems that it had several parents—I will try to respond to the principles of it—and Amendment 239 is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. These amendments would mean that registers would be required to contain the names and addresses of only the parents who are taking responsibility for the education of the child, rather than details of all parents of the child. Parents would also not need to provide information on how much time their child spends receiving education from each parent.

As I said in relation to Amendment 238 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the reason why both parents’ details are needed is because, by law, each parent has an equal responsibility for securing a suitable education for their child. This remains the case even if a parent is not providing the education themselves and is instead securing other providers to do so. Although I understand the intention behind these amendments, I worry that they would result in local authorities being unable to obtain necessary information.

My noble friend Lord Hacking gave a harrowing example in relation to access to information on the registers. I had hoped that my comments in our debate on the previous group had given some assurances around the control of and requirements for confidentiality around the register, which will provide some reassurance on that. Additionally, I am concerned that Amendment 239 would make it more difficult for local authorities to identify children who may not be receiving a suitable full-time education. Without having the time that a parent spends educating their child on the registers, how are local authorities to know whether the six hours that a child spends at a supplementary school each week is just part of their education or their whole education?

In relation to Amendment 235A, what if no parent claims responsibility for the education of the child? Unfortunately, we must face the reality that some children in England and Wales are receiving no education at all from their parents or from anybody else. Where this is the case, how can local authorities even begin to intervene if they are missing basic information, such as an up-to-date address for both parents?

Amendments 240, 241 and 247, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to restrict or remove completely the requirement on parents to provide information on the amount of time their child spends receiving education from individuals other than the parent. I will come back in a moment to the point about hours and time, raised—appropriately—by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and my noble friend Lady Morris. But it is important that local authorities understand whether other persons are involved in the education of the child. This, alongside information on for how much time a child is educated by their parent, will support the authority to establish whether education is full-time or not and to fulfil their existing duty to identify children missing education. This is an important point, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, also brought to our attention.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand the point my noble friend makes. When children’s parents ask for their child to be taken off the roll of a school, which of course is absolutely their right, and the school should do that, it should also, as my noble friend says, reflect on the reasons why the parents are wanting to home educate that child. More broadly, in policy terms, I think we all need to reflect on the points made by my noble friend and others about where the reason is less a positive decision about home education and more a concern about provision for children with special educational needs or otherwise. I think my noble friend is aware that the department already collects information on reasons for home education, but, as she has highlighted, there are gaps in the data. That is why the Bill already allows for this information to be prescribed for inclusion.

For example, recording whether a child is a young carer could be prescribed under new Section 436C(2)(m) of the Education Act,

“any other information about the child’s characteristics, circumstances, needs or interactions with a local authority”.

If prescribed, local authorities will need to record this information if they have it or can reasonably obtain it. We will consult on the content of these regulations, and they will be subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure. I hope that this will help to ensure that the information prescribed for inclusion in local authority registers is appropriate and useful. However, it is necessary that the information outlined in the noble Lord’s and my noble friend’s amendments remains voluntary for parents to provide. For some parents, the reason they have chosen to home-educate is deeply personal. Requiring it could cause parents to try to avoid registration altogether, making it more difficult for local authorities to identify and support those children who need it.

Amendments 260 and 261 in some ways reverse the argument being made in the previous two amendments, a point also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. These amendments aim to restrict any further information being prescribed for inclusion or recording by local authorities on their registers other than that which is set out in the Bill. To be clear, the purpose of these powers is to ensure that local authorities can include useful information in their registers that has not been explicitly mentioned in primary legislation or prescribed through regulations. It will allow that information to be recorded. We do not want local authorities prevented from making their registers a productive tool due to a lack of flexibility but, just to reiterate once again—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Very briefly, in new Section 436C(3) local authorities already have the power in legislation to include,

“any other information the local authority considers appropriate”.

My Amendment 260 limits the power of the Secretary of State to expand it in any way that the Secretary of State sees appropriate.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I will come back to the noble Baroness about whether that provides the flexibility I am arguing potentially needs to be in the Bill. The fear is that, as several noble Lords have argued, there are arguments for the inclusion of information that could be very helpful in identifying whether a child is receiving a suitable education, and, furthermore, what support it is possible to provide and should be provided for those children. We would not want to reduce the usefulness of the registers due to that lack of flexibility.

The point I was going to come on to, which I think is important, is that I must stress that parents are under no obligation to provide any further information, even if local authorities ask for it. I think there has been concern by some parents about the extent to which they will be expected to provide that information. That is not the case; it is, as several noble Lords have rightly argued, simply about how we can ensure that these registers are effective and useful while being as unburdensome as possible. That is what we are all striving to achieve here. I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments at this point.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, this is probably not an interest that I have to declare under the rules of the House, but it is relevant. I am a trustee of the Atlas Foundation, which helps a couple of groups to do with rugby, and which regards itself as benefitting children through rugby. Rugby is a nice sport, with lots of structure and authority figures, and such groups reliably reach young people who are in danger of offending and so on. Will these groups be taken down by this?

This will not be the cuddly end of home education. It will concern people not in school because they do not like school and have rejected it, who might technically be regarded as home-educated. What is their status? Are they affected? Is this going to put an administrative burden on groups which are run by amateurs—by people who do their own tax returns, such as the secretaries of organisations? Will we put this burden on them? A little clarification and common sense might help. If some of your client base comes from this area, what is your status?

Placing another administrative burden on organisations which, if they are run on a charitable basis, do not want to spend their money on admin but rather on the help they provide, might put more pressure on them. I do not think it was the Government’s intention, but making sure this does not catch those organisations is very important.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is a large group of very detailed amendments which seek to clarify the responsibilities that the Bill will place on providers and how they are expected to fulfil those responsibilities in practice.

The amendments, which are mainly in the names of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, highlight the variety that exists in the range of approaches that are used to educate children at home. I know that the Minister’s earlier commitment that officials would work through these points with my noble friends and other noble Lords over the summer was very much appreciated by them, and I hope that any outstanding uncertainty can be clarified when the Minister makes her closing remarks.

Amendments 291 and 293, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, are probing amendments and have, at least in part, been addressed by the Minister earlier today. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and I accept her point that the concept of weekends and holidays might not apply to some home-educated children, so I do not think there is any need for the Minister to cover that point again when she responds.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

306: Clause 31, page 60, line 43, at end insert—
“(9) The Secretary of State must publish annually the GCSE results of children listed on the register.(10) The Secretary of State must ensure that the GCSE results of children on the register are included for each set of outcome data published by the Government.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to record outcome data for children on the register as a subsection of each set of performance data published by the Department for Education.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 306 in my name, which would require the Department for Education to publish the aggregate GCSE results of those children registered as being educated at home. I stress “aggregate”, because I think there was some confusion when this amendment was debated in the other place as to whether we were seeking to publish the individual GCSE results of individual children, which is not the aim of this amendment.

The aim is to give some relevant insight from this data, including what percentage of children who are electively home-educated end up sitting public exams, what those results are and what percentage are not sitting public exams. Our amendment would see these results being published separately from those relating to schools, so that the data would not be confused. I suppose I am puzzled as to why the Government would not want to publish this information.

I will touch briefly on the other amendments in this group. Amendment 317 is very much in the same spirit as my Amendment 306, in the names of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei. It seeks similar data, in relation not just to electively home-educated children but to those looked after by the local authority, those in a PRU or in special education otherwise than at school. I wonder whether the Minister thinks this would be useful or whether some of the numbers involved would be so small as perhaps to be potentially misleading.

Amendment 316, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Storey, probes the provision of financial support for electively home-educated children sitting public exams, and the Minister will know that there are real issues in practice about these children being able to sit public exams, and finance is one part of that. I appreciate the pressure on local authority budgets, but of course these are, effectively, children who have saved the state money, and I for one would be keen to see as many as possible sit public exams. I beg to move.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response to Amendment 317. I understand her reluctance to publish information as if home educators were a school, but I urge her to think how useful it would be to have that information for understanding what is happening in home education.

It is one of the long-running criticisms of home education that there is no information as to how these children are doing—you say they are doing well, but you cannot show me any information as to that. It would be really useful in understanding, as the noble Baroness has said, whether an internationally liberal approach to home education is justified. Even if it is only for the Government’s own policy formation, I very much hope they will make sure that they can put together the sort of information I have detailed in this amendment, so that they can understand the effects of policies as they are at the moment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, I thank the Minister for her response. I absolutely support the sentiment just expressed by my noble friend Lord Lucas about the importance of understanding the outcomes for children who are home-educated.

In relation to my Amendment 306, the reasons that the Minister gave for not aggregating and publishing, or even aggregating and not publishing, their GCSE results was—as I wrote down—that, first, it was hard to do and, secondly, it would not produce the results that we expect. It feels curious to me that someone could not put a box on the form—that a child could tick, to say that they were home-educated—that could be aggregated.

On the expected results, the whole point, or part of the point, was to understand how many home-educated children were taking public exams and how many were not. I think that would be a useful bit of information. So I do not accept the argument that it would not produce the results that we expect; we do not have an expectation because we do not know what they are. More widely, when there were very small numbers of children who were home-educated, it was perhaps—

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Just to be clear, I do not know whether I said that they would not produce the results that we expect. If I did, that was not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that in terms of the ability to have a statistical analysis of the quality of home education, the different nature of home education and the range, quite rightly, of decisions made by parents—many of whom might decide that exams are not the appropriate route for their children—would mean that we would not be able to formulate from that data the common view of performance that the noble Baroness is suggesting would be the objective.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. What I wrote down is “not producing the results we expect”. We can check in Hansard whether that is what she actually said. I suppose the point I was trying to make is that this is a kind of entry point question. It is not going to give us a sophisticated analysis but it gives us some perspective. If we tried to estimate by taking a straw poll of Members of the House what percentage of home-educated children do GCSEs, we might get very varying results, so even just knowing that might be valuable.

On the other amendments in this group, the Minister was clear that parents are fully responsible, including on the financial implications of home education, but it was good to hear her reiterate the support duty, including on access to previous exam papers. How that support duty is communicated to parents will obviously be of great importance. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 306 withdrawn.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend Lady Garden was beaten by the rapid progress that has been made by recent standards, so I shall just draw the House’s attention to her amendment, which says that if someone does not have English as a first language, they should receive some help in understanding the requirements, and that that should be appropriate to them when they are dealing with this field. It is not a big thing, but it is important to get it and the Government’s response on the record.

Looking down this very eclectic list of amendments, I come to one from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about sports education, and I wonder if there is some way of linking in there. One of our challenges is how much we should help people with sporting education. Physical fitness is an important part of that; it is a great way of asserting degrees of confidence in certain groups of people, and we could put the arts down here as well. Are the Government looking at ways in which certain aspects that cannot be provided in a small setting might be done by the education establishment? Is any thought going into this? We have sport on the list, and we could easily put something like the performing arts down too.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, three main themes run through this group of amendments. The first relates to the practical support offered to home-educating parents who request it. Amendments 309 and 310 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, have merit in that they seek clarity about what support can be expected from a local authority, although in practice I imagine that the term “appropriate support” might be hard to guarantee.

As we have just heard, other amendments focus on very specific elements of support, such as Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, which would offer support in a language that parents understand, or Amendment 313 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, regarding the provision of the same support for electively home-educated children as is available to children in schools. It would be very helpful for the Government to set out what the basic support offer from local authorities will look like and how it will be funded. I hope very much that the Minister will cover this when she responds.

The second principle that emerges from this group is about the relationship between electively home-educating families and the local authority, which I know my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei have been particularly concerned about. This is set out most comprehensively in Amendment 314 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. It is helpful to see the spirit of engagement that electively home-educating families would like to have with local authorities. I am not quite sure—perhaps the Minister has an answer—how you legislate for relationships. Having clarity about the Government’s expectations in this area, alongside what the basic support offer will be, could create a degree of transparency, which is a good platform from which to build good relationships.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I am sorry that I raised this issue in the debate on an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I was not aware of this situation until this morning, and I was dumbfounded. We have rightly made our schools very safe places for our children, and safeguarding is one of the key things that Ofsted inspections look at. As we have heard, the Sutton Trust says that about 30% of children aged between 11 and 16 have private tutoring, either in person or online.

Imagine a situation where a teacher in a school has been dismissed from their position after being arrested for a serious child sex offence, and might even have gone to prison if found guilty. They could do private tutoring if they were employed by a parent, with no safeguarding taking place. That surely cannot be right. This is not about criminalising parents who employ them—I do not think parents would be aware—but about making sure that, on Report, perhaps after conversations have been had with the Minister, this final loophole is sorted once and for all.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has made a very clear case that providers of online and in-person tuition services should be subject to the same safeguarding checks as those providing tuition in person, particularly in relation to the gap in the current legislation that he outlined. I agree completely on the importance of safety for children who receive private tuition and that those barred from teaching should not be able legally to offer their services directly to parents.

However, I have a slight hair shirt in relation to this issue, because I think that parents are ultimately responsible for checking out the tuition services that their children receive. Having a DBS check can contribute important information, but it is by no means sufficient. We know that the vast majority of sex offenders do not get reported to the police or end up with a criminal record, and their behaviour would not appear on a DBS check. There is a balance to be struck—in no way diluting the responsibility of parents while closing the loophole as the noble Lord suggests.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The noble Baroness might not be aware that not all agencies that employ tutors carry out checks.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I was aware of that, but my point on having clarity that parents need to think very carefully about who their child spends time with still stands.

[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.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

Truth be known, I struggle with the whole issue of attendance orders. Of course we want as many of our children as possible to be regular attenders at school or an education setting. When they are not at school, they are not learning—apparently. However, there are all sorts of reasons—I have two relevant amendments, I think in this group, which highlight particular groups of children—for this. The issue of bullying in schools has been raised. That can have a huge effect on children, making them literally petrified to go to school. It becomes a vicious circle then, with the local authority taking action and issuing attendance orders. There are also children with special educational needs. I had a pupil who had an absolute phobia of school attendance—I almost could not believe it. His mother, a hospital nurse, had to drag him to school every day. The whole thing was a constant battle. We have to think very carefully about this. There are certain groups of people for whom waving the stick of an attendance order is not the right approach. We have to look at other ways of increasing school attendance, and we have to be mindful of the situation they are in.

I always believed that parents who took their children on holiday during school time were wrong to do so. However, I reflected that the quality time they may have with their parents—often, perhaps more importantly, their dad—was hugely beneficial for them as a family, and that they learned so much as well. I hope we think this through very carefully before we enact it on Report.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group includes a series of amendments, including several from my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, on the Government’s proposed approach to school attendance orders.

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition believe it is important that local authorities are able to hold parents to account who are either not ensuring that their child attends school daily or not providing a suitable education at home. I appreciate some of the concerns that this could be seen as punitive by some families. Equally, if exceptions were introduced into the legislation, I worry that it would create a different risk, with inconsistent practice which is perceived to be unfair and could well be challenged in the courts.

I think, if I may say so, that the amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred are actually in the next group. I appreciate that, with so many amendments today, it is hard to keep track.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, since I joined the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in Amendment 348, I feel I should stand in repentance again, because this is a bad case of overreach and I regret it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is the briefest of brief debates, so I think the Committee hangs on the Minister’s every word at this point. The group contains a large number of probing amendments, and my concern about the majority of them is that, again, they would introduce too great an element of variability in the application of school attendance orders, with the concomitant risk of perceived inconsistency and unfairness that I mentioned on the earlier group. I will not repeat those arguments. Suffice it to say that the data published by the department shows considerable disparity in the use of notices and school attendance orders, even between neighbouring local authorities such as Portsmouth and Southampton or East and West Sussex. There is a genuine issue that needs to be resolved in terms of bringing clarity to the criteria and the use of school attendance orders.

I also understand why several noble Lords have sought to lessen the penalties on those parents who fail to comply with the terms of school attendance orders, but I do not agree that it is appropriate, given the negative impact on children of missing out on a suitable education. Rather, I think we should support the Government to offer the most streamlined response so that decisions are taken transparently, consistently and speedily. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I should fit in Amendment 368—I apologise; I thought the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was going to speak again—which is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am again grateful. It recognises that higher fines, and especially imprisonment of the often lone parent, in fact betray the interests of the child. The Government do not collect information on the protected characteristics of those who are subject to these penalties, so they cannot assess their impact.

All the cases I saw when I was a magistrate were of people in poverty, and we know that Gypsies and Travellers have the lowest rate of economic activity of any ethnic group—47%, as opposed to 63% for England and Wales overall. A Prison Advice and Care Trust survey of 2023, apart from confirming the poverty I have alluded to, points to a range of research showing increased risky behaviour among prisoners’ children, poorer mental health outcomes and the potential lifelong negative impact of parental imprisonment. When a mother goes to prison, 95% of children have to leave home. This amendment would serve the interests of the child, which should of course be paramount, and I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept it.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I will weigh in just on Amendment 417. Home-educating families having a flexible school term calendar will mean they benefit financially for holidays because, as we know, during school holidays, holidays shoot up in price. Would it not be nice if all schools had the luxury of cheap holidays for their children? Maybe the Government could look at the eminently sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on holidays, and see whether in some way holiday companies could be equitable with all school families and not hike up their prices during the holiday period.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group again covers a large number of very technical amendments. Some of them appear to me to be at the more speculative rather than the probing end of the spectrum. They highlight a number of issues in relation to home-educating families and home visits, but the majority of these suggestions, as put in these amendments, would be very challenging for any Government to justify in terms of the potential resources that would be required to implement them.

My noble friend Lord Lucas rightly raised the issues around home visits and the pressure that they put on families. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that local authorities understand that too and would use those powers when necessary, and always in the best interests of the child. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the voice of the child is key in creating a supportive, responsive and effective safeguarding and educational environment. I believe that the best way for a local authority to ensure that a child’s education is both suitable and safe is to meet with the child in the child’s home. We want to ensure that local authorities are able to capture and appropriately consider the views of children, so advice on how to conduct these visits sensitively, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, rightly suggested is required, will be a key focus of our statutory guidance.

In terms of the ask on parents, we have aimed for this to be proportionate and at the right intervals. The purpose is to minimise the duration any child is in receipt of unsuitable education. The compulsory information is what is required for a local authority to undertake existing responsibilities related to education suitability and safeguarding. It is not intended to be disruptive to the parents, who will still be able to focus on providing a suitable education for their child.

The amendments in this group seek to make changes to the ability of a local authority to request to visit the home and to limit the potential impact on home-educating families. They also seek to make provision concerning how home educators may engage with and would like to be treated by national and local government.

I am going to suggest that the amendments brought by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, beginning with Amendment 406, might be suitable for me to write to noble Lords about. Several of them fall within the category defined by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as being at the “speculative end” of the spectrum. I hope I would be able to either reassure noble Lords or identify why they would not be suitable to be carried forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes a broader point with respect to Amendment 417 about holidays, and I am sure this is something that we cannot solve here this evening, but I recognise the concerns that parents have.

I will deal with the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Amendment 353 seeks to remove the local authority’s power to request to visit a child at home to determine whether a school attendance order should be served. I hope I have already identified the approach that we will expect local authorities to take with respect to visits. This ability to request to visit the child at home allows the local authority to see the environment in which home education is being provided and to meet the child. Without this, local authorities may not be able to form a comprehensive view of whether the home environment is conducive to the child’s education. Parents will be able to refuse such a request, but, if they do, the local authority must consider this refusal to be a relevant factor when determining whether to issue a school attendance order.

Amendments 354 and 355 would require a local authority to obtain a court order to request to visit a child at home and to consider a child’s reaction to persons in authority when determining whether to serve a school attendance order. A court order would be unnecessary as the local authority would only be making a request, which parents have a right to refuse. On the point about sensitivity, though, I can assure noble Lords that our statutory guidance will provide further steers to help local authorities sensitively conduct visits, and we will consider whether additional support is needed, such as training for local authority staff.

I hope that I have assured noble Lords that the ability to request a visit is an important opportunity for the local authority, but that these visits will be carried out sensitively, and, if necessary, we will provide further statutory guidance on how that should happen. I will respond to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, in writing to noble Lords.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments relate to children, particularly those with education, health and care plans, and the use of school attendance orders. If I understood correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, argued through amendments in earlier groups and Amendments 359A and 366A in this group that these children should be excluded from the school attendance order regime. I outlined my concerns, which remain the same, about introducing inconsistency into a system where we already have incredible variability in how school attendance orders are used.

I have spoken to families who have a child with an education, health and care plan who are considering educating them at home. They have expressed concerns that the local authority can be particularly resistant to that because of the financial costs, which are sometimes related to the physical and medical therapies—health therapies—that a child might need. It would help if the Minister could comment on those fears. Equally, a child in receipt of an EHCP clearly has more complicated educational needs and it is entirely reasonable that the local authority should consider that carefully and ensure that the parents are able to deliver on their wish to support their child at home.

I confess I am unclear what material difference Amendment 360 would make to the Bill, but maybe the Minister will shed light.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, as I said previously, the school attendance order process is an existing process that is absolutely essential to provide children in unsuitable education a route to suitable education through regular attendance at a school.

In speaking to the amendments in group 15, I turn to Amendments 360 and 361, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. They seek to require a local authority to review rather than amend an education, health and care plan where the authority is required to serve a school attendance order in respect of a child and the plan does not specify the name of a school. If a local authority is serving a school attendance order, it has determined that the child is not receiving a suitable education and that the situation must be resolved. In this situation, it is right that the education, health and care plan be amended to name a school and that the school attendance order reflect this. This will enable the child to be enrolled in that school without delay.

The noble Lord may be concerned that parents will not have the opportunity to influence the school named in the order and the education, health and care plan. I reassure him that local authorities will still be required to follow the processes outlined in Regulation 22 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. These regulations require that local authorities send parents a notice outlining the changes to the plan. Additionally, the child’s parents can request a review of the plan at any point if they believe that the school is not meeting their child’s needs.

Amendment 366, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would remove the right to refer questions on school attendance orders in Wales to Welsh Ministers and delete the clause preserving the existing education, health and care plan framework. Parents must have a right to appeal a local authority decision to refuse to revoke a school attendance order, regardless of whether that local authority is in England or Wales. The mirror provisions in the Bill reflect our commitment to making the process as consistent as possible for families in both nations.

As previously mentioned, parents of children on education, health and care plans already have recourse to have the school on a school attendance order amended. The amendment would mean that duplicate processes would run concurrently, potentially resulting in confusion for local authorities, parents and schools.

I turn now to Amendments 359A and 366A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. All children deserve a suitable education. School attendance orders therefore need to apply to all children. It would not be practical to remove that option from local authorities for particular children, limiting the available courses of action to secure a child’s education. A local authority should ensure that the school named in an order is right for the needs of the child in question.

We recognise, as I said earlier, that some pupils will be impacted by issues such as emotionally based school avoidance. Our guidance is clear that schools should work with the child and their family to remove barriers to attendance and build strong and trusting relationships. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I move formally to enable debate.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise that my final remarks will be slightly negative in tone, but I cannot support this amendment. It is not appropriate to have such a measure in primary legislation. I do not agree with my noble friend’s definition of authoritarian rule, nor with his prioritisation, if we were in a time of genuine national emergency.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as the Committee knows, school attendance every day is critical for the success of pupils. During Covid, the previous Government introduced the collection of attendance data at a pupil level twice a day— initially on a voluntary basis for all schools in England and now on a mandatory basis. We have among the best attendance data in the world, which allows every school in the country to understand the patterns of attendance and absence within their own pupil cohort and compared to the other schools in their local authority. I thank the Government for continuing the work that we started in this area and commend the officials who are responsible for producing such accessible and practical help for schools.

I argue that the systems that have been built within the Department for Education and that are being used more and more by schools mean that they can already analyse the impact on attendance not just of a factory shutdown but—perhaps more relevant for today—of a tube strike, bad weather or many other factors, and pretty much in real time. Therefore, I am not sure that Amendment 426B is needed. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was suggesting that there should be more flexibility for school attendance, but I do not agree with him. The evidence that the department has produced is clear on the impact of missing even apparently small amounts of time on, for example, GCSE results, and we need to respect that evidence.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Holmes for setting out the purpose of his Amendment 499. He will forgive that I did not quite understand it in the way that he had presented it. My understanding, which perhaps the Minister will confirm, is that a considerable amount of diversity is already accommodated within schools. I have certainly visited schools where children are able to take time out of the classroom, particularly those with an education, health and care plan—very often that plan sets out the details of the flexibility that they require.

More broadly, there is extensive guidance and practical help to local authorities, admissions authorities and all the other groups referred to in this amendment. The department has been particularly proactive in this area and has encouraged those schools that are succeeding in turning the tide on attendance to share their insights with those that are struggling. Very often, it is about those positive actions that they take, such as putting on more after-school clubs, for example, or calling parents, when a child has had a particularly good series of days of attendance, with a message of congratulations. I absolutely understand and respect my noble friend’s concern about this issue, but respectfully suggest that his amendment is not needed.

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

My Lords, this Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity by supporting every child to achieve and thrive at school. We know the impact that any absence can have on a pupil. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right that even small bits of absence, particularly when added up over a child’s career, can disproportionately impact on that child’s achievement and, of course, create disruption in the classroom for other pupils.

That is why I am very pleased that, thanks to the efforts of the sector, absence is moving in the right direction; children are attending over 3.1 million more days this year compared to last and over 100,000 fewer children are persistently absent. However, this still leaves around one in five pupils currently missing 10% or more of school, which is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, says, there has been considerable focus on this which, as she also says, builds on the work done by the last Government. In fact, she in particular has worked on developing the sort of data to enable comparison and monitoring of progress.

In addition, the department has developed an attendance toolkit, alongside the data tools, to help support schools identify the drivers of absence and adopt effective practice to improve attendance for all children, including the most vulnerable. We have launched an attendance and behaviour programme, with strong schools offering support to others to improve their practice. We have held 12 conferences, attended by around 3,000 leaders from secondary schools, trusts and local authorities to help drive that change.

Amendment 426B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, seeks to create a duty on the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the effects of factory shutdowns on school attendance. We acknowledge, as the noble Lord says, that school attendance rates in particular locations can be influenced by a variety of external factors. However, schools and local authorities are best placed to identify those area-specific issues and take steps to mitigate them. In general, the school year is structured to provide plenty of time for holidays and family time outside term time, but schools and local authorities also have considerable flexibility to plan term dates and can hold inset days and other occasional days at times of the year suited to the specific needs of families in their area.

Amendment 499 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, seeks to require the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice on attendance. I accept his point about the need to recognise the different needs of children in our schools, which we have talked about in various other groups in Committee. On his call for a standardised approach setting out the requirements and roles of those outlined in the amendment, there is already statutory guidance which sets out in detail those roles and responsibilities for all the institutions and persons listed in the amendment in relation to improving school attendance.

The department published the Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance in 2022 following a full consultation and it was updated in August 2024. This guidance takes a “support first” approach to improving school attendance and is now widely known by the sector following extensive work by the department to promote and embed its contents and share best practice from around the country. It will be updated as needed in future. Introducing a separate code of practice, as this amendment proposes, would duplicate this statutory guidance that we already have in place, risking confusion and waste. I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

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[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, briefly, I have a query about proposed new subsection (2) to be inserted by Amendment 426E. I am wondering who would make the judgment around whether legal action would be required if it were to

“harm … a child’s welfare, or … on balance, … greater harm … a child’s education than if the legal action was not pursued”.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In my experience, schools have been very good at making the assessments and dealing with young people’s difficulties. The difficulty sometimes is in the relationship between the school and the authorities—I find that that can be problematic.

I am not clear about supporting the amendment because of that proposed subsection, as I am not sure who would make that judgment. Who would make the judgment as to whether the child or young person is doing that deliberately, or whether it is due to their mental health state or some other reason? I am keen to know who would make that judgment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks on these amendments by saying that I do not recognise the Dickensian school world that my noble friend describes. I would encourage him to visit any of the schools that I have visited, led by the noble Lords, Lord Nash, Lord Knight and Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Agnew. In case anyone is thinking that I think only about academies, at my school of joy, Stanley Road Primary School in Oldham, the children are bursting with pride at what they achieve, in a clearly very deprived community. I acknowledge and thank all those involved in delivering education and joy to our children across our schools.

My noble friend’s Amendment 426D seeks to create a mechanism for sharing best practice between local authorities on home education. The principle of sharing best practice is, of course, an excellent one, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, when he says that it is perhaps disproportionate for the Secretary of State to require this report. There is nothing preventing local authorities trying to learn from one another already. Local conditions vary considerably on, for example, the availability of special schools between local authorities. The conclusions that could be drawn from the data that my noble friend suggests should be analysed could be misleading.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on Amendment 426E and the care that schools take to support children. There is a wider point here. It could be argued that a lot of particularly criminal prosecutions of a child’s parents could result in harm to the child, particularly if the child’s principal carer is sent to prison, and that is something that the courts already consider. My noble friend’s amendment would cut across many other areas of legislation and some of the principles that underpin our criminal justice system in a way that is not realistic. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify both these points when she comments.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly associate myself with the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about the excellent work happening in schools around the country and the enormous pride, enjoyment and achievement that children experience in those schools. However, I would add that, in last week’s lengthy debates—and in those before the Recess—on the provisions in the Bill on children not in school registers, the Government were very clear that there is a right for parents in this country to educate children at home. In fact, as we discussed, we are probably one of the most permissive regimes of any country in allowing you to educate your child at home. What children not in school registers are about is ensuring that the education is suitable and children do not fall through gaps by virtue of claiming a suitable home education when that is not what is being delivered.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I raise it only because it is a shocking condemnation of a schooling situation where young people cannot be themselves or have a proper education. I respect different religions and their rights; as I say, my daughter goes to a Jewish school where there are Hebrew lessons, the children are taken out at various times and there is a whole range of different faiths. The children’s faiths are respected and there are opportunities for them to develop learning and an understanding of their faith. That is all good and positive.

I do not have an issue with any particular faith bringing up children and young people in that faith, but I do want to see those children and young people have schooling that is registered and/or inspected. That is all we should ask for as a society. Anything that does not carry on the tradition of this country—one of the most successful multicultural and multifaith nations in the world—or develop what we believe in, we need to legislate against.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will keep my comments brief. We have had an excellent debate and these Benches support the aims of this clause: to ensure that children learn in settings, where they provide all or the majority of a child’s education, that are safe and regulated. I have a couple of technical points of clarification that might win the prize today for the most boring question asked of the Minister. I confess that I have read and reread the Bill and the policy notes and still do not quite follow it.

Section 92 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, which this clause amends, includes institutions that offer part-time education within the definition of an independent educational institution. I am unclear what the status of those institutions will be in future and why they do not form part of the revised definition. If the Minister wants to write, that would be fine. I am sure there is a simple and obvious answer that I have missed.

The regulation-making powers in this clause, if I have understood them correctly, are much wider than those in the 2008 Act. New Sections 92(3)(c) and 92(3)(d) seem to give the Secretary of State unlimited flexibility to redefine full-time education without proper scrutiny in Parliament. I suspect the Minister will tell me that it will use the affirmative procedure, but all of us know that that is very restricted scrutiny.

I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Lucas has raised unregistered alternative provision, which benefits from neither safeguarding nor educational oversight, in his Amendment 427. It is extraordinary, as other noble Lords have reflected, that, rather like unregulated provision, we put very vulnerable children and young people in unregistered provision without any safeguards available. I agree with him that we would ideally have no unregistered provision but, at a minimum—this also applies to Amendment 451 from the noble Lord, Lord Storey—we would have some safeguarding regulation of those settings, even if children were going there for a short period. There is always the infamous “Dave the car mechanic” with whom some children apparently spend time. We should at least have appropriate safeguarding checks and I am interested in what the Minister thinks about that.

I now turn to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, all of whom have raised issues that can arise for children whose parents choose an educational path that aligns with their religious tradition. The Minister and the whole House have heard both sides of the argument very clearly today and the valid concerns that have been raised by faith groups about the impact of the Government’s legislation on their communities. Those were eloquently put in particular by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman—who I promise we will still listen to however much he speaks.

I close by aligning myself with my noble friend Lady Morgan of Coates. We want to retain what I think the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, described as the “precious” tolerance that many of us, including my own family, have benefited from this country welcoming us with, but also to ensure that the rights of every child are upheld. I hope very much that the Minister will put her not inconsiderable abilities to the task.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that she is right—those questions were very boring, but I am sure that they were none the less important. I will write to her to respond to those specific points. The rest of the debate, however, was not boring, and was also important. I hope that I will be able to respond to the wide range of issues that have been raised and the conflicting positions that are part of what we need to wrestle with in taking this legislation forward.

This group of amendments impact Clause 36 and concern which settings are and are not brought into the system of regulation found in Part 4, Chapter 1 of the Education and Skills Act 2008. It might therefore be helpful if I first outline the intent of Clause 36. As I say, the clause concerns the settings regulated by that framework. Among other things, regulated settings are required to register with the Secretary of State and be subject to regular inspection against prescribed standards. At present, that framework applies to independent schools.

Clause 36 expands this framework further. Under this clause, settings will be required to register with the Secretary of State if they provide full-time education to five or more children of compulsory school age or one or more such children with an EHCP or one who is looked after by a local authority. This change will bring more settings that provide a full-time education into this well-established and effective regime. Typically, the settings impacted by this change will be those that operate during, but not necessarily only during, the school day, and we will produce guidance to help those potentially impacted by this change understand what is expected of them.

For understandable reasons, a significant part of this debate has focused on the issue of Haredi children and yeshivas. I will respond to that, but in doing so, I reiterate the point that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is just wrong in suggesting that this legislation is aimed at yeshivas. As I have said, this measure is about ensuring that, where settings are providing a full-time education to children, they are registered and subject to regular inspection and meet certain standards. I accept that there has been concern among the community, and I will respond to that now.

Let me be clear that this measure does not presuppose an inherent problem with a child being educated at a yeshiva or the quality of home education. It is about ensuring the suitability of settings that provide full-time education to children. On the basis of how we define “full-time” and “engagement”, we intend to produce guidance to assist people in understanding whether the education setting they run needs to register with the Secretary of State. It is likely that this guidance will be similar to our existing approach and therefore the starting point will be that settings operating during the day for more than 18 hours per week will be regulated. I say in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, that I very much doubt that she attended Sunday school for 18 hours per week.

I emphasise that in expecting institutions operating for those hours to register, there is no requirement in the Independent School Standards, or in standards akin to those that we will bring forward for these institutions, for a setting to provide a wholly secular education. There is no requirement for them to deliver the national curriculum, for example. In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, there is considerable flexibility provided around the curriculum. These standards are well-established minimum standards which already apply to many registered settings that do not consider themselves to classically be schools. The regulatory regime gives Ministers flexibility to decide on which standards apply to different types of regulated setting. We will carefully consider options on the standards that will be used to regulate settings. In doing so, I assure noble Lords that there has been considerable engagement with the Haredi community up to this point—I have met with the Yeshiva Liaison Committee and my officials have ongoing engagement with the community. My former colleague Stephen Morgan met the yeshiva community on these issues and we undertake to continue that engagement as we clarify the nature of the regulations and the extent of those that will be included within it.

It is right that full-time educational settings are registered and subject to regular inspection. This will lead to children who currently attend these settings learning in a regulated and safe setting which is subject to regular inspection. For that reason, we believe that Clause 36 should form part of the Bill and is an important improvement on the current situation, as has been recognised by several noble Lords in this debate.

There are several amendments which seek to further change the application of this regulatory framework. Both Amendments 427A and 427C seek to exempt settings which provide religious instruction. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, via Amendment 427A, appears to wish any setting which provides any form of religious instruction in addition to education elsewhere to be exempt from the regime in the 2008 Act. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, in introducing Amendment 427C, seeks to exempt settings which provide only religious instruction or guidance to children of compulsory school age, provided certain other conditions are met.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and others, that in this country we are rightly tolerant of faith education. I remember the arguments that my noble friend Lady Morris had in defending that principle when we served in the previous Government in the Department for Education. We should be proud as a country of the many faith schools that operate. That principle has been supported by successive Governments, and in each of those Governments we have seen support for the development of new faith schools as well as for the protection of those that existed. I hope no noble Lords believe that this is in some way an attack on the ability to deliver a religious education, either within a school setting or as a freedom for parents as part of their right to home-educate their child. This provision is about full-time education, not about the religious approach of the institution.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

427BA: Clause 36, page 80, line 18 leave out line 18 and insert—
“(d) an Academy, University Technical College or studio school;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to include academies, University Technical Colleges and studio schools as excepted institutions for the purposes of the new section 92 in the Education and Skills Act 2008.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I had better start with an apology to the Whips: my comments are a bit detailed, but they are quite detailed amendments—but I am still pleased to introduce them.

We on these Benches support the aims of this clause to ensure that children learn in safe and regulated settings, that illegal schools either register or are closed down, and that institutions that do not meet the independent school standards are required to do so in an effective way. However, we have two sets of concerns that I shall try to set out. First, they lie with the apparent wish of the Secretary of State to regulate academies in multiple different ways: through the funding agreement that the former Minister argued in Committee in the other place, in relation to Clause 36, was sufficient; through the new powers in Clause 49, which we have yet to debate; and now through the additional powers in Clause 37.

Secondly, our worries reflect the fact that the details of the revised standards will be set out in regulations. Effectively, independent schools are flying blind as to what these new obligations will be. Under Section 94 of the 2008 Act, the Secretary of State was authorised to make regulations prescribing standards in relation to specific matters. These regulations have always bound proprietors of academies, as they are independent schools.

Clause 36 introduces additional subsections into Section 94 of the 2008 Act, and these include a standard

“by reference to whether or not the proprietor of an independent educational institution has regard to guidance issued, or a document published, by the Secretary of State from time to time”.

So, until we see the regulations that are proposed to be published in relation to that standard, we cannot see what the consequence of this change would be. Will the noble Baroness clarify what new obligations, if any, the proprietor of an academy would have to comply with, as distinct from “have regard to”, in new guidance given by the DfE? It would be helpful if the Government could be clear about the changes to the current burdens on the proprietors of academies. My Amendment 429A would remove these types of schools from the standard-setting powers in Clause 37.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

444A: Clause 49, page 113, leave out lines 21 to 33 and insert—
“(1) Where the proprietor of an Academy—(a) has breached a relevant duty, or(b) otherwise has acted unreasonably with respect to the performance of a relevant duty, the proprietor must take such steps as are necessary to remedy the breach or unreasonable action and secure the proper performance of the relevant duty.(2) Where the proprietor of an Academy has acted unreasonably with respect to the exercise of a relevant power, the proprietor must take such steps as are necessary to ensure the reasonable exercise of the relevant power. (2A) The proprietor must remedy any breach identified under subsection (1) or (2) within such reasonable period as the circumstances require, having regard to—(a) the nature and seriousness of the breach;(b) the impact or likely impact on pupils' education or welfare;(c) the complexity of the remedial action required;(d) any other relevant circumstances.(2B) Where the Secretary of State is reasonably satisfied that the proprietor of an Academy has breached a relevant duty or otherwise has acted unreasonably with respect to the performance of a relevant duty the Secretary of State may serve notice on the proprietor of an Academy specifying—(a) the breach that has been identified;(b) the relevant duty or power in question;(c) the period within which the proprietor must remedy the breach.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to prevent Clause 49 from granting the Secretary of State the power to (1) issue a direction to an Academy that is “likely” to have breached a relevant duty, and (2) prescribe exactly how any breach should be remedied. Instead, it seeks to give Academies discretion in how they remedy an actual breach of a relevant duty.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we return. I rise to speak to the amendments to Clause 49, including my intention that Clause 49 should not stand part of the Bill. It is of course reasonable for the Secretary of State to direct academies to comply with their legal duties, but this clause goes much further than that; indeed, it cuts across the academy funding agreements that have served the sector well to date.

Once again, in a familiar pattern, we start with the question of why this clause is needed. Where is the evidence of non-performance of relevant duties on the part of academies or of unreasonable behaviour in relation to either their duties or their powers? Once again, it brings academies into line with local authority-maintained schools, despite the fact that there are already significant powers within both the funding agreements and the academy trust handbook to address any breaches. Once again, we find the Secretary of State at risk of micromanaging, rather than delegating responsibility to the trusts that run over half our schools. Once again, we have to ask ourselves: even if it is not the intention of this Secretary of State to interfere in minor matters in our schools, how might a future Secretary of State use these powers?

Finally, we realised when reading the policy notes that the penalty for non-compliance is, first, a notice to improve and then a termination warning notice—the identical powers that exist today—or, in the words of the then Minister for School Standards arguing in favour of this clause in committee in the other place,

“using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 4/2/25; col. 383.]

But we end up with the same sledgehammer to crack what looks like quite a small nut.

You could argue that this clause at best creates another layer of bureaucracy and at worst is a micromanager’s charter. A close reading of the policy notes just leaves one asking “Why?” yet again. Not only is the Secretary of State taking powers to require a trust that is at risk of not complying with the new policy on the number of branded items of uniform to do so, but it also allows her to state how that should happen. Perhaps the Secretary of State will decide that the trust should remove a branded book bag, or maybe a tie, but I find it hard to see how this can be a good use of anyone’s time, let alone the Secretary of State’s. So I have a series of amendments that seek to bring back common sense to the Secretary of State’s interventions in these minor breaches, clarity of responsibility, and a reminder that the Secretary of State has considerable powers in the funding agreement, if needed.

My Amendment 444A on page 113 of the Bill aims to bring some proportionality to the power. It makes it clear that the proprietor must remedy any breach identified under subsections (1) or (2) within a reasonable period. In judging what is meant by a reasonable period, it refers to the nature and seriousness of the breach, the impact or likely impact on pupils’ education or welfare, the complexity of the remedial action required and any other relevant circumstances. My new subsection (2B) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can specify the time period within which a breach or unreasonable behaviour must be addressed, but not the method of doing so. Without this clarification, there is a real potential for the power to be used, ironically, in an unreasonable way.

My Amendment 444B removes the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene in the case of a likely breach. It is close to farcical to think of the time, resource and legal advice that would be taken to prepare the letter to a trust with an offending book bag or tie. The writers of “The Thick of It” might use this for a future episode.

Amendment 444C makes it clear that the powers within the funding agreement should be used to address breaches. Amendment 4445—sorry, we have not got into the thousands yet, although we might by the end of this Bill. Amendment 445 again ensures that any directions from the Secretary of State are limited to statutory duties, funding agreements or charity law where there is a breach or unreasonable behaviour in relation to a relevant duty.

My Amendment 445ZA has the same effect in relation to a situation where the proprietor has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably in relation to the performance of a relevant power. I apologise that the explanatory statement on that amendment was inaccurate and referred to a duty rather than a power.

Amendments 445ZC and 445ZD again seek to limit the power of the Secretary of State to a notice rather than a direction, so that the decision about how to address a breach rests with the proprietor. Surely this is a more practical approach than the one set out in the Bill, and clearly the issue needs to be rectified to the Secretary of State’s satisfaction.

We also believe it is important to have visibility on the way these new powers are used, so our Amendment 445ZB requires the Secretary of State to make a statement to Parliament when the powers are used, explaining the issues arising and the actions taken. I appreciate that currently a notice to improve and termination warning notices are published by the department, but they are really only visible to those of us who read the daily emails from the DfE closely.

It will not surprise the noble Baroness to hear me say that on these Benches we think that Clause 49 should not stand part of the Bill. It is not needed, it is disproportionate and it is drafted in a way that does not align to the purpose set out in the policy notes. My amendments offer the Government some ways to improve that alignment but, honestly, I think it is best removed altogether.

At a time when the Prime Minister is rightly talking about the focus on delivery, surely clauses such as this, which absorb precious ministerial and official time for little impact, should be dropped so the department can focus on much more pressing issues, such as special education needs and disabilities. I hope the Minister will think again and I beg to move the amendment standing in my name in this group.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to amendments 444A to C, 445 and 445ZA to ZD, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran, which seek to rein in the sweeping new powers currently set out in Clause 49 for the Secretary of State to intervene in academy operations. As my noble friend said, of course the Secretary of State should have the ability to ensure that academies comply with their statutory duties, but the powers currently included in Clause 49 are so broad that they will undermine trust in school leaders, significantly reduce academy autonomy and create a top-down bureaucracy with potentially over-restrictive government insight.

The clause as currently drafted, for instance, allows for the Secretary of State to give directions they consider appropriate to academies if they are deemed to have acted unreasonably or to be proposing to act unreasonably. To my mind, the effect appears to be that a trust could be punished for actions it has not yet taken, with a central direction initiated simply on the basis of speculation from a Secretary of State. I may have misunderstood but, if this is the case, it surely cannot be right.

In this context, the use of the word “unreasonably” is a further cause for concern. It is a vague and subjective standard, left undefined in Clause 49 as it stands, and it seems to open the door to overreach and potential political interference in individual schools and trusts from Whitehall. Without clear guardrails, it would enable Ministers to meddle in decisions that surely must properly belong to academy trustees and head teachers.

As my noble friend has just said in her opening remarks, the drafting of the clause runs the risk of creating a micromanager’s charter. And the problem does not end there. The powers granted under Clause 49 are not only overly broad; they are also unchecked and have no independent review or appeal mechanisms built in—something which Amendment 445A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, would specifically address.

The group of amendments tabled by my noble friend, along with the amendment in the name of he noble Lord, Lord Knight, would bring some much-needed balance into Clause 49 by restoring proportionality and fairness into the process while maintaining the Secretary of State’s powers to ensure that trusts do not breach their statutory duties, funding agreements or charity law. I hope the Minister will think again about the breadth of powers that the Government are proposing.

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

My Lords, I turn to the amendments in this group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Before I get into the detail of the clause and the amendments, I say to her that we believe that she may have been reading from an old version of the policy notes, because they were updated when they came to the House of Lords, and the policy notes are therefore correct in relation to the items that she was talking about. If she wants to check whether that is the case and drop me a line, I would be more than happy to follow that up if it is not the case.

This group covers the clause relating to ensuring effective oversight and accountability of academy trusts. Clause 49 introduces a power for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to an academy trust where it is failing to comply with its legal duties or acting unreasonably when exercising these powers. Currently, when a trust is in breach of a legal duty, the Secretary of State can only issue a termination warning notice, which may be disproportionate for significant but isolated breaches. This measure will allow the Secretary of State to direct academy trusts to ensure that they meet their legal responsibilities and to address instances of unreasonable conduct where necessary.

It offers a clear and proportionate route to ensure compliance. If a trust does not respond to a direction, the Secretary of State may apply to the courts to ensure the matter is resolved, reflecting similar powers already in place for maintained schools. This will be used, where appropriate, to help implement key provisions in the Bill, such as those relating to curriculum, admissions and uniform, if necessary.

Most academy trusts perform well and meet their legal obligations. However, where they fall short, the Government must be able to act in a targeted and proportionate way. Clause 49 allows for early engagement, proportionate intervention and enforcement through the courts only when necessary.

Amendment 445ZB, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, proposes a statutory requirement for an annual statement to Parliament on the use of this power. The Government are of course fully in favour of transparency but already publish directions and other notices on GOV.UK in a timely and detailed manner. I put on record the Government’s commitment to maintaining this approach to transparency. An annual report would duplicate this process and add no further value, while adding an unnecessary administrative burden.

Amendments 444A, 445ZC and 445ZD, all in the name of the noble Baroness, propose replacing the Secretary of State’s direction-making power with a notice procedure. These amendments replace the Government’s clear and authoritative direction-making power with a more convoluted system of self-policing duties and a notice procedure. In practice, it risks delaying intervention.

Effective oversight cannot rely on academy trusts policing themselves. The Secretary of State must retain the ability to act swiftly and decisively when serious concerns arise, particularly where trusts fail to meet their legal obligations or act unreasonably when exercising those duties. The notice procedure is very similar to the power as drafted, except it does not include the ability to issue a direction in cases of unreasonable exercise of a power. Therefore, the clause as drafted is more effective than the proposed notice procedure. When the Secretary of State writes to a trust before she decides to issue a direction, it will outline the breach, the rationale for intervention and the suggested actions to remedy the breach, and will seek representations.

Finally in this group, Amendments 445, 444B, 444C and 445ZA tabled by noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to limit the scope of Clause 49. These amendments propose to restrict the Secretary of State’s ability to issue directions to cases where a specific legal duty has been breached. In doing so, they would remove the ability to intervene where a trust acts, or proposes to act, unreasonably in the exercise of its powers, even if no explicit duty has been contravened. This would narrow the intended reach of the clause.

The Government’s intention is to ensure that a proportionate intervention is possible not only when there is a clear breach of duty but also when a trust’s conduct in the use of its powers is manifestly unreasonable. However, I have heard concerns raised by noble Lords about this clause—particularly the concerns that these amendments seek to address with regard to the broad scope of the clause. I am considering potential solutions that would preserve our ability to intervene effectively while respecting the autonomy of trusts, and I look forward to bringing a solution back on Report that addresses these concerns.

On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have had two rays of sunshine in one day; we should celebrate, at this late hour. We now know how to wear the Minister down. We will be starting at 9 am next week. In all seriousness, as the Minister can hear, I am extremely grateful; it is not just tiredness. There are some issues with this clause, so I will not belabour those but will just welcome very much her closing remarks.

I thank my noble friends Lady Evans, Lady Spielman and Lord Leigh for their contributions. I offer, as my noble friend Lord Leigh did, my thanks to the Leigh Academies Trust for taking on part of what was a very troubled school on the Isle of Sheppey, which is a particularly challenging community. We wish the trust and the pupils every success.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

445B: Clause 50, page 114, leave out lines 18 to 39, and insert—
“(a) in subsection (A1), at the end insert “unless the Secretary of State determines that no suitable sponsor is available”;(b) after subsection (A1) insert—“(A2) Where the Secretary of State determines that no suitable sponsor is available, the Secretary of State must, within 14 days, publish a plan to secure appropriate governance and leadership of the school and to secure its rapid improvement.(A3) A plan published under subsection (A2) must include—(a) the parties with responsibility for the school and its improvement,(b) the parties who will take action to improve provision in the school,(c) the resources that will be provided to the relevant parties, including who will provide the resources and when the resources will be provided, and(d) the intended outcomes of the plan, with the relevant timetables for the outcomes.(A4) The Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on—(a) the number of times the Secretary of State has published a plan under subsection (A2),(b) the resources which have been provided as part of any plans, and(c) the outcomes of any plans.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to retain the existing requirement to make an academy order unless the Secretary of State determines there is no suitable sponsor available.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am optimistic for a hat trick from the Minister. Clause 50 is one of the clauses that leave me most worried about the Bill because it risks directly damaging the education that children receive. Again, that is obviously not what Ministers intend, but it appears to ignore the impact on the school performance of sponsored academies—to be clear, not every single sponsored academy, but I know that the Minister will agree that, overall, the evidence shows a really important impact on the lives of children in those schools.

To be clear, I do not think that anyone on my Benches thinks that autonomy is a magic bullet to solve the problems of any school, whether or not it is failing. The key is how that autonomy is used. Some MATs have used their autonomy to focus on developing really great and deep expertise in turning around struggling schools, supporting staff and transforming outcomes for pupils. Others have focused on developing great curricula. There are lots of other examples; of course, there are also examples of professional generosity in the maintained sector, too.

There are now 2,796 sponsored academies in England —more than 23% of our secondary schools. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Sewell earlier, trusts have led to extraordinary turnarounds in some of the most difficult schools in our country; I pay tribute to everyone involved in that critical work. However, Clause 50 changes that. No longer will a failing maintained school automatically join a strong MAT. In her Written Ministerial Statement, published yesterday, the Secretary of State wrote:

“Subject to the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, structural intervention through issuing of academy orders will continue to be the default approach for schools in special measures, because no child should be left in a school that does not have the capacity to improve”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/9/25; col. 29WS.]


I am genuinely confused by that because I do not feel that that is what the Bill says, as it removes the section in the Academies Act 2010 that facilitated this intervention. I hope that the Minister can explain that and reassure me.

The Government have argued that we should intervene earlier in schools that are struggling. Nobody would disagree with that; we were already doing that in the department when I was in office. Of course, if that works, it is the best outcome for children.

The other argument that the Government have put forward is that directive academy orders are too slow. I think that, if the Minister has time to dig into the detail, she will agree with me that the ones that are slow are really complicated. They may need significant financial help, which the department is struggling to find down the back of any education-shaped sofa; that might be in relation to capital or to revenue. There may be very complex governance issues, or—as in one case that I can remember, which was very slow—there may be crippling PFI contracts in place.

However, even that does not stop immediate help being put in. The Minister will be familiar with a number of cases where that has happened, often with trusts taking significant risk and commitment of resources without any guarantee that they will end up being the sponsor for the school. They do it because it is the right thing to do.

My Amendment 445B aims to address the Government’s concern about delays while still keeping the urgency that is necessary to address the weaknesses in a particular school. It says that, if

“no suitable sponsor is available, the Secretary of State must, within 14 days, publish a plan to secure appropriate governance and leadership of the school and to secure its rapid improvement”.

This would bring about the clarity and transparency that will be crucial in retaining the confidence of parents, pupils and staff. I think that that aligns with the Secretary of State’s Statement yesterday but, if it does not, I hope that the Minister can explain where the gap is.

My Amendment 446A aims to address a problem that is likely to emerge as a result of the Government’s approach—namely, an increase in the number of judicial reviews of academy orders. Schools will want to understand why they are not being given more support or more time to turn around. However valid any individual case might be, the outcome will be a slowing down and reduction in the use of academy orders, leaving pupils in failing schools for longer.

My Amendment 446B aims to reintroduce the automatic academisation of maintained schools that have received from Ofsted a significant improvement judgment, or whatever the latest language is—however the department and the chief inspector judge that to be framed—and where the RISE teams believe that a school is “significantly underperforming”.

The Bill fails to address another problem: the schools that, under the previous Ofsted framework, were repeatedly graded as requiring improvement, some as many as seven times or more. None of us in this Committee would want our child to attend or work in a school that is so stuck in a rut of underperformance. I know that the decision to intervene in the so-called 2RI+ schools—to use the secret language of school intervention—was not universally welcomed, including by my noble friend Lady Spielman, and she and I debated this many times in her previous role. The aim was to send a strong signal about the priority we put on addressing underperformance in a timely and effective way. Sadly, the Secretary of State reversed this approach very early on in her tenure.

I ask the Minister to reconsider whether this clause should stand part of the Bill, particularly given the Secretary of State’s comments yesterday. Where is the evidence that the department’s proposed approach will be more effective? Children in failing schools need urgent action, as the Secretary of State herself has said. Sometimes the leadership of that school does not want to become part of a trust, but, ultimately, we need to be clear that the interest of the pupils must always come first. I beg to move the amendment in my name.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 447 and 447ZB, which appear in my name. I must begin by apologising to the Committee and the Minister for failing to introduce my amendments in the group before the break. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for picking up the slack. My only explanation is that it has been a long 24 hours.

This Bill, as currently drafted, sits in an awkward position. On the long-term disastrous policy of academisation—too often forced academisation and rarely resisted successfully by local and school communities —the Bill makes half a U-turn. It ends the presumption that all new schools must be an academy and removes the duty to force schools into multi-academy trusts. As the National Education Union has said, this a welcome shift in policy. But this is not a full U-turn but a half U-turn. It leaves far too many schools stuck, pointed awkwardly at 90 degrees across the flow of history, like a vehicle on a traffic island with fast-moving lorries approaching from both directions.

The Bill does not provide the option for schools and their communities that are unhappy in their current situation to leave multi-academy trusts and join the local authority system or other groups that are better suited to their needs. Making that provision would provide the chance of escape and allow schools to get out of the iron grip of dangerous and failed ideology into the empowered position of local choice and decision-making—the kind of devolution that the Government say they are in favour of.

This is an area of policy that the Green Party, as on so many others, has been leading ever since it resisted from the start the disastrous push to free schools and academies that has fragmented our systems and seen enormous sums flowing into fat cat executive pay—something we may come to in the next group—and big supply profits hoovered up by multinational companies on the contractor bandwagon. These two amendments take two possible approaches to dealing with this and starting to untangle the mess.

Currently, schools in multi-academy trusts lack separate legal entities. Leaving it to the MAT board to decide which powers, if any, it chooses to delegate to each academy is a profoundly unequal relationship. Amendment 447 does not seek to directly prescribe how to get out of this undeniably complex situation; rather, it would create a new clause in the Bill directing the Secretary of State to set out, within 12 months of the Act passing, a report with proposals for converting academy chains, individual academies and free schools into maintained schools under local authority control.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn now to the amendments in group 10, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Bennett, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett. Although my noble friend is not here, I will respond to that amendment, given that it was addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman.

We have heard much today about the positive impact that high-quality trusts have made on the educational outcomes of children. This Government acknowledge these achievements—in fact, I have done so on every occasion that I have had the opportunity to, as has my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, as quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh.

What we are concerned about is how we can ensure improvement. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was right when he said that what we need here is a range of appropriate methods in order to ensure the quickest possible improvement. That is what the Government are aiming to do here. While many academies and trusts have driven improvement throughout the system, academisation is not necessarily a panacea. In fact, even when sponsored academies are excluded, pupil attainment in multi-academy trusts and maintained schools is similar.

Furthermore, the process of converting these schools can in itself be slow. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to say that that is because, in many cases, it is very complex. Nevertheless, that may well be a period in which the improvement that we would all want to see has not been able to be pushed. Around 40% of maintained schools identified for conversion take over a year to become academies—time during which pupils continue to experience underperformance. It is for those reasons that Clause 50 has been included in the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister spoke about 40% of schools identified for “conversion”. I just wonder, for the sake of Hansard, whether she meant “sponsorship”. Conversion is a choice to become an academy, and if there is a delay, my experience is that that might be situated somewhere in Sanctuary Buildings’ capacity, whereas sponsorship is when a school has failed. Maybe she would like to clarify that in writing.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I will clarify that in writing. I maintain the point, which the noble Baroness herself conceded, that often the conversion process, whatever prompted it in the first place, is not as speedy as we would want in order to drive improvement. Clause 50 has been included in the Bill so that the swiftest action can be taken to improve schools causing concerns.

For maintained schools that lack the capacity to improve—currently two-thirds of the total of schools that fail their Ofsted inspections—we intend, as has been highlighted during the debate today, to continue to issue academy orders, because they need a fresh start. Where Ofsted has determined that a school has the capacity to improve, from September 2026 we will rapidly deploy RISE teams—our school improvement support—as the first intervention rather than defaulting to structural change.

I will address the opposition from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to Clause 50 standing part of the Bill. Clause 50 replaces the current duty on the Secretary of State to issue an academy order for any maintained school judged to be in a statutory category of concern by Ofsted with a discretionary power. This represents, as I have suggested, a deliberate and considered shift in our approach. It reflects the Government’s commitment to a more flexible and swift approach to school improvement. As Rebecca Boomer-Clark of Lift Schools recently put it, structures do not raise standards, people do. Strong schools working together in strong partnerships will continue to make the difference. Clause 50 gives effect to this shift. It enables a more responsive approach, one that prioritises timely support through RISE, while retaining the option of structural change if a school does not show significant improvement after 18 months of targeted support.

Amendment 446, in the name of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, seeks to introduce a statutory presumption of structural intervention, through either structural change or merger when a school is in special measures, but would give the Secretary of State discretion to act differently if that is their judgement. As I am sure my noble friend would recognise, Clause 50 already provides the Secretary of State with the wide-ranging flexibility to intervene as they think best, specifically on merging schools. The Secretary of State already has the power to require a maintained school to take steps to join a federation, which is similar in effect to a merger. We do not believe that my noble friend’s amendment is required.

Amendments 445B, 446A and 446B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to retain or reintroduce a statutory duty to issue academy orders, albeit with varying conditions or constraints. Each of these amendments would, in different ways, undermine the core purpose of Clause 50, which is to provide the Secretary of State with the flexibility to determine the most appropriate intervention for each school based on its unique circumstances.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I also said that the proposals run contrary to our policy. I would not want the noble Baroness to run away with anything that is unlikely to happen—so no.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very reassured by the Minister’s final remarks. I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was in the Chamber when I tried to respond to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted. It is important to set aside one’s ideology and look at the results, and at the people who are leading those results, in our schools all around the country and celebrate them

I thank my noble friends Lady Spielman and Lord Leigh for their reinforcement and support for my amendments. I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lady Spielman that we need a system with clarity which, in her words, is brisk, well-implemented and with minimum delay. That is important and, I think, what the Minister hopes will happen.

I appreciate the clarity that the Minister brought in relation to Ofsted judgments which say that the school in question lacks the capacity to improve. It will be interesting to hear my noble friend Lady Spielman’s reflections on that and whether that puts great pressure on Ofsted inspectors to avoid that judgment. But that is for another day and another time.

The Minister makes a fair point about the 2RI+ power and the fact that those decisions—which I have to say I feel quite proud of—were not judicially reviewed. The context is perhaps a little different, but the Minister has brought helpful clarity to the Government’s intention. Until we see the proof of the pudding, we will remain concerned. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 445B withdrawn.

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[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly, because we had much the same debate in the Employment Rights Bill. In the Employment Rights Bill debate on this subject, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, explained the Government’s position. I made the point that, in my experience, when people—particularly young people—are in disciplinary procedures and meetings, their preferred choice of person to accompany them is invariably a parent, for obvious reasons. I tried to table an amendment to suggest that relatives, whether or not they are professionally qualified, should be allowed to accompany people in such circumstances. That got lost in the heat of the Employment Rights Bill, but I invite the Minister to consider whether a relative might be included as a professionally qualified person for this purpose.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to Amendment 448 in my name and to support Amendment 448A in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Hampton, to which I have added my name.

Amendment 448 would extend to maintained schools the freedoms that academies enjoy in relation to their staff’s pay and conditions. I cannot see a strong reason not to do this. Again, this is about trusting school leaders to make the right judgments for their team. My amendment is clear that the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document should act as a floor and not a ceiling in relation to teacher pay. I acknowledge and thank the Government for the important amendment they tabled in the other place that established this final point in relation to academies.

Amendment 448A has already been ably and nobly spoken to by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe. As other noble Lords have said, the amendment aims at the fundamental fairness that all teachers have the right to be accompanied by a certified companion. Teachers who are members of a trade union should feel well served by the representation that they pay for, and that is something that we welcome. It is also fair and reasonable to say that there would be some teachers who would choose not to join a union for a whole range of reasons, including disagreeing with strike action or a union’s political objectives. The Minister will be very familiar with some of the recent demands from unions—we heard some of them tonight, including abolishing Ofsted and returning academies to local authority control. It is fair to say that some people could reasonably disagree with these. This amendment seeks to ensure that teachers who, for whatever reason, are not union members can be accompanied by a trained and certified professional companion.

The amendment would tidy up the existing situation where trained companions from organisations such as Edapt are routinely admitted to hearings in schools but lack a legal right to do so, and on occasion are refused by employers. This amendment would provide a mechanism to regularise the good practice that is already seen in the sector and ensure that it is spread equally.

The amendment has another spin-off benefit. The Minister will be aware—I think my noble friend Lord Nash talked about this—that schools are seeing an increasing number of complaints being generated by AI. Complaints might be generated using an LLM, but they cannot be resolved in the same way. It is therefore important to ensure that workplace hearings are efficient and effective and keep pace with that very regrettable trend.

I cannot support Amendment 447A—I see that the Minister is smiling in surprise. In the good tradition set by my noble friend Lord Agnew, I also spent some time writing to chairs about CEO and senior leadership team pay. I disagree with the Minister that this should be resolved through the STRB.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Finally, I come to the question of off-rolling. I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Addington. We had never really heard the phrase off-rolling until we started developing academies. It cannot be right that schools choose to take pupils off their roll, not because they were permanently excluded or temporarily excluded, but because they had special needs and the school decided it could not cope. Maybe they had learning difficulties and the school decided it could not cope. Maybe it decided it could not cope because the pupils had behavioural difficulties. That is not a way to have schooling in our society. Since this matter has been raised, academies have realised that it is an issue and off-rolling has become less prevalent. I am absolutely delighted about that, but there is no harm in making sure that this practice goes once and for all.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group and the next one cover a range of issues in relation to admissions. My sense is that most of the amendments in this group are not really needed in practice, but the Minister will no doubt clarify.

In relation to Amendment 449 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, as my noble friend made clear, each individual school publishes its admissions policy on its website. I accept his point that local authorities no longer publish as many comprehensive booklets as perhaps they once did. It is reasonable to expect that parents should be able to look at different websites and the admissions policies of the schools that they are interested in sending their children to.

Turning to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, my understanding is that under the fair access protocol, children in need of a school place will be found one. While I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s concerns about the groups of children she described, I am not sure it is helpful that we should place a priority on one group of children over another, but rather that we see the right to education as fundamental for every child.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering’s Amendment 455 relates to admissions policies for children living in rural areas. My noble friend raised some valid points about the financial pressures that rural schools, and in particular very small rural schools, face, but I am just not sure that it would be appropriate for an analysis of those policies to be done in the department.

I turn to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. The noble Lord raises a valid point. There is a change in policy happening around the future ability of maintained free schools—although they will not be free schools in the sense that many of us understand—to be available, and that is different from what exists today for academies. So it is entirely fair of the noble Lord to probe the Government’s thinking on this.

As we heard, Amendment 457 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on school admissions policies, including an analysis of the proportion of places allocated based on faith-related criteria. Of course, as I said earlier, schools already publish their admissions policy, but I do not think they publish the outcomes in relation to faith-related criteria. Again, I am slightly puzzled about the value of doing this nationally as, obviously, parents typically look at schools in a pretty narrow geographic area close to where they live.

Finally, in relation to Amendment 475, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that off-rolling is not acceptable. In 2019, Ofsted defined off-rolling as

“the practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without using a permanent exclusion, when the removal is primarily in the best interests of the school, rather than the best interests of the pupil. This includes pressuring a parent to remove their child from the school roll”.

That aspect is clearly in the sights of the inspectorate, so I do not think that the noble Lord’s amendment is needed. The noble Lord also raised much wider issues around attendance, which go far beyond that definition of off-rolling, and I think that the new inspection framework from Ofsted, with its emphasis on inclusion, might serve to reassure the noble Lord that that continues to be in the sights of those who are responsible for holding our schools to account.

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

My Lords, the amendments in this first group cover admissions and related issues in relation to these clauses. This package of measures will help to ensure that decisions on place planning and admissions support the needs of communities and families while also supporting local authorities to deliver their statutory functions.

I turn first to Amendment 449 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 457 from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, which seek to ensure that admissions information is available to all parents. They would require the Secretary of State to publish information about schools admissions arrangements, including any faith-based arrangements. I hope to provide some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Admissions authorities are already required by the statutory school admissions code to publish their admissions arrangements on their school’s website, including the proportion of places that will be prioritised for pupils of faith, and ensure that parents can easily understand how admissions arrangements will be satisfied.

Admissions authorities must also provide information to enable local authorities to publish an annual admissions prospectus for parents. The code requires local authorities to publish this information for all schools via a composite prospectus. We believe that the existing approach is proportionate, reflects the diversity of admission arrangements and local circumstances and is not overly burdensome on schools or local authorities, while enabling parents to access the information they need about their local schools.

Amendment 455, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, seeks to insert a new clause to require a review of rural schools’ admissions policies. The admissions system already contains mechanisms to ensure that admissions policies meet local needs, including the policies of rural schools. Admissions authorities must consult locally before making changes, and anyone who considers a school’s admissions policy to be unfair or unlawful can object to the Schools Adjudicator.

Furthermore, our school travel policy ensures that no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. Local authorities must arrange free travel for children attending their nearest suitable school who could not walk there because of the distance or their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems, or due to route safety. The Government have also set out a plan to deliver better bus services and drive opportunity to underserved regions.

The noble Baroness talked in particular about the issue of the rural services delivery grant. In relation to that, the Government are committed to tackling the issues that matter to rural communities. We are allocating funding through improved needs formulae in 2025-26 to target funding where it is needed the most, investing in the priority services that people rely on the most. Places with significant rural populations will receive on average an almost 6% increase in their core spending power this financial year—a real-terms increase—and no council will see a reduction.

The rural services delivery grant does not properly account for need. In fact, many predominantly rural councils receive nothing from it. That is clearly not right. The Government consulted on proposals to repurpose this funding in the usual way, in the provisional 2025-26 settlement, but the Government are nevertheless keen to hear from councils about how best to consider the impact of rurality on the cost of services as part of the longer-term consultation on local authority funding reform, which was published in June.

Amendment 456 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson seeks to apply the 50% faith admissions cap to new state-funded schools designated as having a faith character. We greatly value the contribution that faith schools make to our schools system and support the ability of faith schools to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. This can support parents wishing to have their child educated in line with their religious beliefs; it is for the admissions authorities of individual schools to decide whether to adopt such arrangements.

Many faith schools are oversubscribed, which suggests that parents value and want these schools. We also understand that the ability of faith schools to prioritise children of faith when they are oversubscribed—and of course it is only at the point at which a school is oversubscribed that these admissions criteria would bite—is important and, at the risk of disappointing my noble friends and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, we do not intend to change that approach at this time.

Removing the legal presumption that all new schools should be academies, which is what has brought about this issue, is intended to give local authorities the flexibility to make the best decisions to meet the needs of their communities. Decision-makers will carefully consider proposals from all groups and commission the right new schools to meet need and to ensure every child has the opportunity to achieve—

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[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s amendments to Clause 56 and my noble friend Lord Agnew’s Amendment 454. I have heard much around the Committee this afternoon that is extremely important, but I think there are some wider points to make.

There are many romantic expectations of school admissions—that there is a perfect world in which every child will go to the school that they and their parents choose, in which every mainstream school can provide well for every child no matter how extreme their needs, and in which no child will ever cause harm to any other child or adult in a school. In this perfect world, the romantics expect children to be distributed perfectly evenly between schools on any measure by which we choose to analyse the population. But this is a dream, and chasing dreams rarely improves children’s experiences in the real world. Sadly, it is entirely possible that the extended powers to direct admissions will backfire, especially with policy pressure on local authorities to keep even the worst behaved children in mainstream schools irrespective of the consequences.

Consider a child for whom an LA is trying to find a managed move. If several schools decline to accept the child, it may mean that they are all shirking their responsibilities, or it may mean that they have correctly assessed that the child’s needs are too great for that school or any mainstream school to manage the child safely. One shocking case I saw as chief inspector related to a girl who was raped by a boy who had come to her school on a managed move and, worse, the receiving school had not been informed by either the LA or the sending school of the boy’s known history of serious sexual misconduct. No school should be levered into putting other children at risk in this way.

If the LA directs the child to one of its own schools, it still has direct responsibility for the child, but if it can direct the child to an academy, it has offloaded the problem, at least in part. There is an obvious incentive for local authorities to use this power to offload the most difficult children and leave academies to shoulder a disproportionate responsibility for the most difficult and even dangerous children, and to inflict the greatest risk on the other children and staff in those academies.

Let us also consider the point that, while a decision will relate to a single child, good schools also have to consider how many children with behavioural problems they can manage and support properly without destroying the very strengths that make them able to work effectively with such children. I have seen already how difficult this is for local authorities in the context of SEND. Local authorities control EHCPs, which name a school to which that child should be admitted. In theory, it is parents who choose that school, but in practice, local authorities have significant influence over those parent choices, and some local authorities have perhaps on occasion found it convenient to encourage parents to choose academies rather than maintained schools, or at the very least to not discourage them from doing so.

As a result, some popular and successful academies have at times found themselves facing real difficulties. I know of cases where local authorities expected a school to fill more than one-third of its year 7 places with children requiring intensive individual support, many of them for behavioural problems. This would have turned those schools into de facto special schools without the wider infrastructure and support that we expect of special schools.

It is in fact extraordinarily difficult for local authorities to be impartial between mainstream schools and academies. For this reason, I strongly support my noble friend’s Amendment 452ZA, requiring local authorities to act impartially between maintained schools and academies. It will still be difficult in practice, but the principle should be explicit in the Act.

Similarly, my noble friend’s Amendment 453A to Clause 56 and Amendments 457A and 457B seek to ensure that changes to school admission numbers are made in the interests of children and parents, rather than the administrative convenience of the local authority. Again, these decisions will always be hard and will never please everyone, but it is right and important that children’s needs are explicitly put first: otherwise, it is sadly all too certain that, with the shrinking birth cohort, some excellent schools will see their admissions restricted while mediocre schools carry on. My noble friend Lord Agnew’s Amendment 454 gives some protection to this principle. I hope the Government will see how unfortunate this would be and will take steps to guard against it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 53 covers the role of schools in general and academies in particular in relation to pupil place planning. As we know, in the vast majority of cases, academies co-operate and fulfil their role in helping the local authority to meet its sufficiency duties, as the Bill says, so far as is reasonable. Clause 54 gives the local authority new powers to direct admission of individual pupils, despite the fact that those powers already exist for the Secretary of State to use within the funding agreement for all academies.

The policy notes say, slightly quaintly:

“Schools and local authorities’ interests may not always be aligned, and they are not expected to agree on all admissions and place planning matters. However, it is expected that they will behave reasonably and collaboratively, for example, considering the other party’s views, being willing to meet and discuss differences, and sharing information in a timely manner”.


All this is fine, but presumably the point of the clause is to get quicker decisions and to address a problem of academies apparently unreasonably refusing to accept these pupils. But where is the evidence that that is true? In the academic year 2023-24, there were just under 11,000 exclusions. Looking at the data on the department’s website for exclusions and suspensions, including repeat suspensions, one sees incredible differences, in the rates of permanent exclusion in particular, even in neighbouring local authorities. This is true for local authorities where almost all the secondaries are academies and for those where there are predominantly maintained schools.

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Debate on whether Clause 57 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have seen some of the most significant improvements in outcomes for pupils in our free schools, with schools such as Michaela and Ark Greenwich in London, Eden girls and boys, part of the Star academy trust in Birmingham, and the Mercia School in Sheffield, to name but a few, achieving remarkable results. I know that my noble friends Lord Harris, Lord Nash and Lord Agnew are very likely to add to that list of exceptional free schools that they have been part of creating.

Free schools have been a mechanism for the injection of new ideas, new energy and improving models of education into the state system. Free schools respond to parental and community demand; they provide parents with choice over their child’s education and they have driven up standards. Free schools are usually part of a strong multi-academy trust that has a track record of delivering high-quality education and the back-office capacity needed to support smooth and financially sustainable operations across HR, finance, IT, premises and more. Local authorities do not have and never have had the same capacity and ability to provide tailored support to schools.

The reason for the change in policy in the Bill to allow local authorities to open free schools in future is given in the policy summary, which says that the measure better aligns

“local authorities’ responsibility for securing sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools”.

Again, to loop back to the previous group, on which the Minister did not commit to write—I am sure that her officials noted my request for data—can she share the evidence that there really is a gap in their ability to secure sufficient school places and cite any instances where a local authority has been unable to meet its sufficiency duty as a result of a lack of applications from suitable trusts to establish a new free school? Certainly, during my time in office, there were always multiple applications for new presumption free schools, both mainstream and special schools.

My worry is that this is an example of bureaucratic tidiness being prioritised over outcomes for children. The English system is not tidy: we have voluntary-aided schools, voluntary-controlled schools, foundation schools and many other models. On paper, it might look messy, but we have still been able to rise significantly up the global league tables because we focused relentlessly on outcomes over bureaucracy. This clause feels like we are putting a bureaucrat’s diagrams first—even, I add before the Minister growls at me too much, a bureaucrat with a big heart and a lifelong commitment to children. All of this will change—and to the detriment of pupils.

It will also create higher costs for the Government. In an interview with Schools Week in April, Rachael Wardell, the new president of the ADCS, said, on the range of new responsibilities that councils will be given in the Bill, that

“part of our ongoing dialogue with government is going to be about, if you want us to do these things, then we’re going to need to be resourced accordingly”.

Can the Minister give an estimate of the additional funding needed for local authorities to fulfil their new duties, including in relation to free schools?

This proposed change creates a fundamental conflict of interest for the local authority. It will both invite proposals for a new free school when one is needed and be able to propose one itself, and it will then decide which proposal to approve. That is hardly a system designed to build confidence. We are told that, where it puts forward its own proposal, the Secretary of State, through the work of the regional directors, will be the decision-maker; however, this introduces an additional layer of work and, dare I say it, bureaucracy in a system that is currently working reasonably well. Organisations such as the New Schools Network have been critical in supporting trusts, establishing free schools and building capacity in the sector. We therefore think that the change in policy created by Clause 57 is a fundamental mistake and unnecessary, and I hope that the Minister will think again.

My Amendment 480 seeks to unblock the pipeline of free schools, which have been put on hold since the election. I think that 44 free schools are on hold, including some that bring high-quality 16-to-19 education to areas of very high deprivation, such as those with a high percentage of white, working-class boys, which the Secretary of State has recently focused on. Surely this is a way to demonstrate that focus and unlock those applications now.

The Government have, so far, spent twice as long reviewing the free schools pipeline as it took to open the first 24 free schools in 2010. The time between that election and the opening of free schools was 142 days; in contrast, the time between this Government’s announcement of the review in October 2024 and today has been about 288 days. Overall, it feels like the whole programme has been delayed, and I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that this is not the case and put some numbers on how many places will open in the next three years, in both special and mainstream schools.

Finally, I express my support for Amendment 481, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, which would bring greater transparency to the accounts of maintained schools. I am sure that my noble friend, like me, is tired of being told that there is not enough transparency around academies, even though there is actually no financial visibility for maintained schools. I beg to move.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I will address my Amendment 481. This group is a bit of a mixed bag, but I think that my amendment is relevant and important, as it seeks to level the playing field by ensuring that there is a high level of financial governance for local authority schools compared to academies. Yet again, the credit must go to a previous Labour Government for setting out such strong foundations to underpin the governance of academies; comparing academies and local authority schools is like light and day.

I have a reputation for being something of a martinet when it comes to the disciplined management of school finances. Various people have made fun of me over the years, which does not trouble me in the least, because every pound I have saved from wasteful and poor management in schools is then available to go to the front line in improving the education of children. The Minister might even want to call me a bureaucrat, because I have been so assiduous in that part of the system. I would love to see the overall schools budget at a much higher level, but that will not happen given the parlous state of our country’s finances. We therefore have to work with what we have.

In the meantime, the level of accountability and visibility of LAs’ oversight of their own schools is murky at best. An academy trust has to complete a full external audit of its finances within four months of the close of the academic year—that is, between 31 August and 31 December. The accounts have to be filed with Companies House on that date. At that point, the full record of the trust’s financial affairs is available for public scrutiny for the year ending only four months earlier. You can get that information on any trust in England with about four clicks of a button. There is a red list in the DfE—I hope the Minister has seen it —of any trust that misses this deadline. When I was there, any trust more than a month late was immediately placed on a risk register. If schools’ managers or trustees cannot get the money right, how can they ever get the education right? It really is that simple.

But what visibility is there for local authority schools? There is virtually nothing that is easily accessed. Even as the Minister for the school system, I found it an endless battle to get this sort of information. Although LAs would complain frequently about not having enough money, they were rarely forthcoming about how they were spending what they had. This is a very unacceptable state of affairs. If we look at some key categories of oversight and compare the levels of transparency, I hope noble Lords will see why this very unbalanced situation needs correcting.

First, there is the accountable body. For academies, it is the board of trustees and the members sitting above that. The DfE Academy Trust Handbook sets the rules. These board members and the members themselves are on every academy’s website. For local authorities, they are their own accountable body—and try talking to that person.

Secondly, there are audited annual accounts, which I have already explained. But there are no requirements for anything similar for local authority schools. It is even worse that the average frequency of an internal local authority audit of its own schools is about every three years, and it is virtually impossible to see a copy of those reports. I failed consistently when I was in the department.

Thirdly, there is internal auditing. For trusts of a certain size, this is another annual requirement. For noble Lords not familiar with the term, an internal audit is not exactly as it says on the tin. An internal audit is conducted by external specialists but looks at different areas of schools’ operation beyond straight finances, such as deep dives into cyber vulnerability, payroll, the condition of the school estate and so on. There is no such requirement for local authorities.

Fourthly, there are financial returns. Academies are required to submit annual accounts to the DfE and indeed a three-year budget forecast. They also need to demonstrate compliance with their chart of accounts. For local authorities, again there is no standard national chart of accounts, and they are not required to submit three-year forecasts.

Fifthly, there are monthly management accounts. Academies are required to ensure that the chair of the board of trustees sees these at least four times a year. My noble friend Lady Barran actually reduced it. I had it at six, but she was right; my bureaucratic obsession probably had got the better of me. But this is not required for chairs of governors in local authority schools.

Sixthly, there is related-party transaction reporting. Academies have to comply with specific rules, such as needing independent authorisation from the DfE for larger sums. It was £20,000, but my noble friend—she might correct me—lifted it to £50,000. Again, there is nothing like that for local authority schools.

Seventhly, there is the publication of salaries. Academies have to disclose all salaries above £100,000, but local authority schools do not. This is required only for LA officers at LA level. Estimates I have seen indicate that there are over 1,000 staff in local authority schools across England who exceed that threshold, so any defence that it is not a material number of people in receipt of public money does not wash.

Eighthly, there is website reporting. Academies are required to publish their audited accounts on their website. There is no requirement for local authorities to publish their school accounts.

Ninthly, there is the accounting officer. Academies have to appoint an accounting officer with—I stress—personal responsibility for accurate and timely reporting. No such thing exists in local authority schools.

Given that LAs are facing an unprecedented financial squeeze, with some virtually bankrupt, such as Birmingham, there should be no excuse for them not to up their game. The costs—which will of course be the reflexive defence for not doing anything—would be trivial against the improvement in the spending going on inside the LA schools and would be recouped many times over the cost of the audit fee.

Every time I have taken over a local authority school, we have eliminated hundreds of thousands of pounds of wasteful expenditure, which is then focused on teaching. In every secondary school inside my trust, because of the very tight financial management, we have been able to extend the school day by three hours a week. If a child spends the full five years of his or her education in one of those schools, it is the equivalent of receiving another year’s education. That is what is at stake here. Norfolk is not a well-funded local authority; it is about middle ranking. We are not getting any handouts. It just shows you that, if there was more rigour in the system, it would make an enormous difference to the children in our country.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness and the need for trusts to have certainty about their projects as soon as possible. We will provide an update on next steps to trusts and local authorities in due course, and I am sure that others in the department have heard the reasonable points made by the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am slightly surprised by the Minister’s response to this group. On the changes proposed by Clause 57, she repeated the point set out in the policy summary document about the importance of local authorities being able to meet their sufficiency duty, but she did not give us any examples or data to suggest that there had been instances where they were unable to meet their sufficiency duty because of a lack of suitable applications. Therefore, if I may, I will repeat my earlier request that the Minister write to me setting out exactly how often that has happened, maybe over the last five years, year by year, so we can get a picture of what this problem really is.

The Minister gave the House no reflection on the capacity of local authorities to deliver new free schools, no reflection on the conflicts of interest inherent in this policy and no real recognition of the contribution of free schools, which, as we heard particularly from my noble friend Lord Harris, have done really great and important work, particularly in narrowing disadvantage gaps. As my noble friend Lord Nash said in relation to the importance of the Latin Excellence programme, these schools have often been pioneers in raising the aspirations of children through the curriculum they offer. As we debated, and as I quoted in the debate last week on the curriculum, this is about opening doors for children—not moving the destination closer to them but building the bridge so they can get to that destination.

On my noble friend Lord Agnew’s Amendment 481, it is good that the Minister has the figure on the cost. I am sure my noble friend could negotiate that down given half a chance, but the real point is the one he made: that his trust has been able to unlock funding that gives three more hours a week to the children in that trust, or one year more of education. The Government’s accepting invisibility and probable financial inefficiency in local authority schools does the children in those schools a real disservice.

Clause 57 agreed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

459: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty for schools to report acts of violence against staff to the police(1) Where an act which meets the conditions set out in subsection (2) takes place which involves the use or threat of force against a member of a school’s staff, the school must report the incident to the police.(2) An act must be reported to the police where—(a) it is directed towards a member of school staff or their property, and(b) it takes place—(i) on school property, or(ii) because of the victim’s status as a member of a school’s staff.(3) The provisions of this section do not require or imply a duty on the police to take specific actions in response to such reports.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause seeks to create a duty for all schools to report acts or threats of violence against their staff to the police. It would not create a requirement for the police to charge the perpetrator.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments as it seeks to understand the Government’s attitude to behaviour in our schools and, in particular, how to balance the rights of children who have been excluded or have committed acts of violence with the rights of other pupils in the classroom, as well as how best to address bullying in schools.

Amendment 459 aims to bring clarity about acts of violence or threats of violence towards school staff. Pupils should understand that any such act would be referred to the police. We have made it clear that this is not intended to criminalise children, but we believe it would help to reset expectations on behaviour and give the police and children’s services important information about those pupils. I recognise, of course, that schools know their pupils very well and are able to exercise their professional judgment; but even with that, we are concerned that there might be pressure on the Government to move to a position such as we have seen in Scotland to reduce the use of exclusions and suspensions.

Noble Lords will be aware of the disastrous impact of the Scottish Government’s policies in this area, which have led to violent assaults by pupils on teachers with no power remaining to exclude them. More recently, the Mayor of London has launched an inclusion charter to reduce suspensions, and at an event hosted by the Children’s Commissioner last week, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, suggested that he would like to see all pupil referral units abolished.

Head teachers need and deserve reassurance that they will be backed to exclude or suspend when necessary, and the presumption will always be that the rate of these strategies should not be considered too high unless there is good reason to think otherwise. The correct rate of exclusion is “when necessary”; it is not “as low as we can make it”. Amendment 502YYA seeks to clarify this. We are concerned about the impact of councils pursuing zero-exclusion policies, either directly or indirectly, by asking schools to sign up to reduction charters or similar. Such policies create an implicit expectation that head teachers should not exclude, which, frankly, would be disastrous for pupils and staff who have to face the impact of these decisions.

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We are also introducing a duty on all safeguarding partners to ensure that education and childcare settings are properly represented at strategic and operational levels. I hope that, following this wide-ranging and important debate, noble Lords will feel reassured that the Government have in place positive measures to address the range of serious and important issues highlighted by this group of amendments and recognise how important it is that our teachers can carry out their jobs safely and that our children can benefit from safe and calm classrooms in which to learn. For the reasons outlined, I urge noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. I felt much happier listening to that reply than to her earlier one. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said, it is important that head teachers know the Government have got their back in terms of managing very difficult situations with such dedication day in, day out. The Minister’s comments about the importance of safe, calm classrooms, her focus on the guidance that already exists in relation to suspensions and exclusions and her reassurance about the discretion that head teachers have on behaviour and permanent exclusions when they are necessary—and that the Government protect the rights of head teachers to do that—are important for them to hear, and I am grateful to her for making that very clear.

I am sure everyone in this Committee would echo her sentiment about early intervention strategies. That was picked up by my noble friend Lady Spielman. I warmed very much to the contrast she drew between the current focus on following process versus the opportunity to think about a plan for the future for each child who sadly finds himself in that position.

On Amendment 502YF in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Nash, I think I heard the Minister say that those children already qualify under Section 17 as children in need, and I agree with her. I wonder whether it would be helpful if, where that is not happening in practice, we bring those examples to the department for it to consider because clearly that is both the letter and the spirit of the law, and we all want to see that happening in practice.

I will skate over my minor fallout with my noble friend, as I hope I can call him, Lord Hampton. Things have been going so well and to fall over at 7 pm on Day 11 seems unfortunate, but there we go. I hope we can recover before Day 12 is out.

Briefly on the amendments regarding bullying in schools raised quite rightly by the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Storey, I very much share their concern about the impact of bullying, but I argue that this is all about having a strong school culture where bullying and other forms of poor behaviour are not accepted. I worry that if you make an individual person responsible for it, rather than it being something that every member of staff upholds, that might not work as effectively as noble Lords would wish.

On information and data on bullying, I was relieved to hear that the behaviour survey will continue to be published. I am hoping that means it will have the same questions as in previous years, to allow for comparability. The noble Baroness might want to put that as a “PS” on one of the many letters she is going to write to me. The survey gives detailed information, and we also know from the response of the charity Parentkind that, in parental complaints, bullying peer behaviour, safety, safeguarding, behaviour and discipline —it is all very overlapping—are the top areas.

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is happy with and reassured by the Minister’s comments on seclusion rooms. Of course, we are able to offer the Minister the simplest way to reduce bullying in schools, which is for the Government to accept our ban on smartphones in schools. I say this with a smile, but in all seriousness, we know that this is the source of much bullying nowadays and it continues not just in school but out of school. [Interruption.] I am not sure what the noble Baroness is muttering, but if the Government do not want to listen to me then maybe they will listen to Esther Ghey, the mother of Brianna Ghey, who has recently bravely launched a campaign against smartphones in schools, highlighting the terrible bullying and impact they had on Brianna. With that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

May I just refer to my Amendment 502YF? I heard what the Minister said about the general duty under the Children Act, but I am still concerned about the black hole I spoke about. This is all part of improving the liaising between schools and local authorities on how we provide for these children. I will reflect on that, but I am still concerned. As far as my noble friend’s point about smartphones in schools and bullying goes, of course, bullying does happen outside school, when they still have those smartphones. It happens on social media, and that is why I am pleased to see the National Education Union and others pushing for increasing the age restriction in respect of social media to 16. As I say, I commend them in that endeavour.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support Amendment 502W from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. We need a much better standard and a much better quantity of data in this area. We need to start with some clear understanding and definitions of the terms we are using. There seems to have been a lot of drift and expansion in definitions, and we need to get back to something that is clear, commonly defined and commonly understood.

Then we really need to understand what works for these children. We need to track what we are doing and when and why it works. This is a really complex area, so we will not get the answer out of small studies and small amounts of data. We need to track every child who has been fingered as SEND, and then we will get enough data to start seeing some patterns. Perhaps we can add other categories, such as young carers and those who are in care, where there are known difficulties with their education that are not associated with SEND but which may well share some common characteristics. If we get better at data, we will really start to understand how to do better by the children and work the cost down at the same time, and that is important.

I am with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in the spirit of some of the other things that he is doing but I hope that, if this amendment ever came to be enacted, there would be alongside it a recognition of the interests of the other children in class.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard some thoughtful speeches on the issues facing pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in general and neurodivergence in particular. There is no doubt that this is a pressing issue for parents, pupils, staff and of course local authorities, whose budgets are being severely impacted by the costs associated with education, health and care plans, or EHCPs. As all noble Lords are aware, the Government have committed to publishing a new White Paper on SEND and have been working with an expert group ably led by Tom Rees, the CEO of Ormiston Academies Trust. That is an incredibly important task, and we on these Benches hope very much that the Government can show a positive way forward that addresses some of the problems that beset the current system. I think the plans for that report mean that Amendment 498 is not needed.

I understand the criticism of the Children and Families Act 2014, which introduced the current system. However, all who were involved with that legislation, including some noble Lords who have been in the House today, had the best interests of children with special educational needs and disabilities at the forefront of their minds. Whatever the Government propose, I hope that they will take the time to pilot it and avoid the problems of implementation and the unintended consequences that the current approach has found.

I hope also that we can move away from blanket terms such as “SEND” or “neurodivergent”, as they cover such an incredibly wide spectrum. With that in mind, I am cautious about some of the amendments in this group, including Amendment 491 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would include mentors for all children with SEND, and the implications of Amendment 502S.

Given my earlier amendments on exclusions, it will not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that I do not agree with subsection (2) in his Amendment 502Q, which would make a presumption against permanent exclusion or fixed-term exclusion, for the reasons that I set out earlier. Similarly, I disagree with Amendment 502T in the noble Lord’s name, which would put a duty on schools to support reintegration for pupils who had been in custody without any balancing consideration about the impact on the other pupils in the classroom.

Again, I am not convinced that Amendment 502R, in the name of the noble Lord Carlile, or Amendment 502U, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, are needed. There is already extensive content in the early years and core initial teacher training curricula following updates undertaken by the previous Government in relation to these issues. When I talk to experts on inclusive teaching, they are clear that for pupils who are able to attend mainstream school, the same approaches of very high-quality teaching apply to them too. I agree absolutely with my noble friend Lady Spielman when she says that the core way that we all learn is much bigger than many of us appreciate.

The SEND review of 2022 put it very clearly that:

“High-quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to children who have or may have SEN”.


I think there is a big gap in our understanding of the impact of different interventions. Some commentators have called for the creation of something a bit like NICE, which we have for pharmaceuticals, for SEND interventions. I have been sent examples of the kinds of requirements that are put on schools for children with education, health and care plans. Those I saw ranged between nine and 44 separate requirements, many of them not based on any academic evidence of their effectiveness, but all of them creating a great workload for schools. That is something that I hope the Government are going to grip in this review and address.

I have a lot of sympathy for Amendment 502V, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, as I spent a lot of time trying to understand the flows of funding for EHCPs, as have many much more august organisations such as the IFS and the National Audit Office. It remains very difficult to get clarity on how the system works from a financial point of view. Given the sums of money involved, it surely would make sense to be able to do this.

Amendment 502W in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, builds on Amendment 502V and aims for cross-sector reporting. I hope that with the new single unique identifier some of that will become much more possible. It will certainly reveal some valuable data. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on these amendments.

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Finally, this issue of well-being is so important. I found the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, inspiring. It made me think. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is right: we celebrate, or we used to celebrate, how we have climbed up the PISA tables for maths and English, or literacy and numeracy. But there is no mention of the fact that we have declined in terms of children’s well-being, which seems wrong to me. I hope that the pitch that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, gave the Minister about how this would be a brave career move for her resonated with her and we might see some movement on this.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments focuses on the important issue of the mental well-being of pupils and the roles that schools could play in that. This obviously needs to be seen in the context of an adolescent mental health service which is currently struggling to keep up with demand, and where waiting lists are all too often extremely long, particularly with the rise in reports of poor mental health since Covid.

However, schools already have extensive guidance from the department on how to support both pupils and staff with mental well-being, and there is a mental health hub of resources. The previous Government introduced and began the rollout of mental health leads in our schools, and my understanding is the current Government have continued with this. So I am really not convinced that more duties and standards and guidance, as proposed in Amendments 462, 500 and 479, are the answer, although I accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, regarding the range of qualifications one might want to have on a team.

We have also heard that we have some major red flags in relation to children’s mental health and well-being with the use of smartphones and social media and the extraordinary amount of time that children and young people typically spend on their screens. Once again, I urge the Government to address these root causes of isolation, loneliness and disconnection in our society, especially for young people, rather than introducing yet more guidance.

I am sympathetic to the spirit of Amendments 502B and 502Y in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Willis, respectively. Many schools are able to offer a forest school in primary, but this is something that school leaders need to decide on.

As the Minister mentioned, we introduced the National Education Nature Park when we were in office, with an emphasis on schools in areas with few or no green spaces, and I was pleased when I looked at the National Education Nature Park website last night that more than 3,000 schools have signed up to the scheme. That will give those children the opportunity not only to spend more time in nature but to gather a range of relevant skills, including data capture and analysis.

Amendment 472, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, would establish a national children’s well-being measurement programme. We heard the noble Lord make a powerful case for such an approach, although I note the concerns raised by my noble friend Lady Spielman and the suggestion that indirect measures might achieve some of the same ends. A lot of questions are put to pupils in the national behaviour survey regarding well-being, including about happiness, how worthwhile a pupil’s life feels, levels of anxiety, loneliness, bullying and more, and I think there is a case for looking at the range of data that is collected. If it does not meet some of the objectives that the noble Lord set out, perhaps we could dispense with some of the data collection and replace it with something more useful.

I was very struck when in office by the approach that is taken in Indonesia—the Committee cannot laugh at me at this hour—in relation to surveys of pupil well-being, which are completely built into its equivalent of an Ofsted framework. It is able to identify very quickly schools where pupils’ well-being is significantly better or worse than the average, which allows it to learn from the best and address the weaknesses of the poorest.

I am not going to speak to Amendment 496 unless someone tells me I should because I do not think that that amendment was introduced.

Finally, my noble friend Lady Berridge and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, reminded us of the tragic case of Benedict Blythe. Whether or not we are parents, we can all recognise the heartbreak of the death of a child, particularly where that death is avoidable. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, rightly pointed out the much wider and more prevalent issue of anxiety for parents of children at risk of an anaphylactic shock. I express my thanks to all the organisations in this area which have contributed to improving the response of schools to managing the safety of pupils with an allergy, particularly the Benedict Blythe Foundation for its work on the schools’ allergy code and the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation for its work on the allergy school. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the concerns raised in that amendment.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people to help pupils achieve and thrive in education. We also agree that all children and young people should have the opportunity to understand and connect with the natural world, and recognise the importance of supporting pupils with allergies.

On Amendment 462 on the dedicated mental health practitioner, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, this Government have announced that we will expand mental health support teams from 52% coverage of pupils and learners at the start of April 2025 to 100% by 2029-30. This will ensure that all schools have access to NHS-trained and -supported mental health practitioners. Additionally, funding of £13 million has been agreed to pilot enhancements to this service to support those with more serious needs; for instance, young people who have experienced trauma or those with neurodiversity or eating disorders. We will look at the experience of those pilots and how they could be extended.

The issue, as other noble Lords have identified, rests particularly in the numbers of mental health staff available to deal with the most acute needs of young people. This amendment would not add to the provision of mental health professionals, although the Government have committed to increase their number by 8,500, but switch responsibility from the NHS to schools. Schools provide a range of pastoral support, including counselling, but managing mental health professionals is not their job. Mental health support teams benefit from being recruited, trained, clinically supervised and having outcomes monitored by the NHS, and there is good evidence of their effectiveness.

Amendment 472, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, seeks to establish a national children’s well-being measurement programme. The Government are strongly committed to supporting all children and young people to achieve and thrive. To help us do this, we need to understand how our children and young people are feeling. There is immense value in schools measuring, understanding and taking action on the factors which influence whether their pupils attend, achieve and thrive. Around 60% of schools already conduct some type of well-being measurement voluntarily.

We agree with the noble Lord that measurement should remain voluntary for schools. However, we do not agree that a centrally administered survey, costing millions of pounds a year over this spending review, is necessarily the right way forward. We believe in measurement, but for schools to choose to measure, it is important that the tool they use is relevant to them and they can be assured that results will not be used for accountability in an overly simplistic way.

Therefore, we recognise the need for there to be consistency of that measurement. That is why the Government have already initiated a programme of work with similar aims, with measurement experts and providers, including from the Our Wellbeing, Our Voice campaign, and with the education sector. This will involve setting standardised questions for schools to ask pupils, including about their well-being, enabling benchmarking between schools.

We will go further and provide non-statutory guidance, including tools and resources, to support schools to measure in a more consistent and evidence-based way and, importantly, to act on the findings with partners to improve outcomes for children. We are confident that the adoption of a standard set of questions across the sector and publication of operational guidance will better enable schools to share data with one another and other local partners, to facilitate local benchmarking and joined-up community action.

I hear the noble Lord’s point about national collection, and in the longer term, we will also explore whether and how this data could be collected centrally to inform national policy. In the meantime, to further amplify the voices of young people, we have committed to publishing an annual data release containing collated national survey data on pupils’ experiences in school, including their sense of belonging, enjoyment and safety.

Amendment 479, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, would require statutory guidance for schools on whole-school approaches to mental health and well-being. The Government already provide guidance, supporting schools to put in place whole-school approaches. While itself not statutory, this supports a range of statutory duties in relation to teaching, safeguarding, behaviour and special educational needs and disabilities, which are key to identifying need, and working with external services to meet that need. These existing statutory duties, the support already available to schools and the work that we are committed to on the framework, measurement and annual data collection, which I have just set out in response to Amendment 472, taken together, will provide a sound basis for all schools to put in place whole-school approaches and secure the support that their pupils need. I will write to the noble Lord about the specific point relating to the training grant and the Government’s approach to providing additional support for schools to do this.

I turn to Amendment 500, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would require newly published standards for schools in England on physical and mental well-being; this point was referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Schools already have specific requirements to teach about physical and mental well-being, which are set out in the physical education national curriculum and the statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education. Ofsted inspects the delivery of these requirements. This approach allows schools to develop their own approaches to supporting physical and mental well-being that reflect the very different circumstances of their pupils. Centrally set delivery targets could not reflect this difference.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, responding to the noble Baroness about vaccination, I think it is important that we put facts on the record. She suggested that vaccination of children was primarily to protect other age groups—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

She said flu vaccination.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Yes, flu vaccination—I have just been looking at the Health Security Agency website about the vaccination of children against flu, and it says:

“Flu can be an extremely unpleasant illness in children, with those under the age of 5 being more likely to be hospitalised due to flu than any other age group. Vaccinating children helps protect them in the first instance, so that they can stay in school”.


I think it is important, given the debate around vaccination, that that is put on the record.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

483A: Leave out “3” and insert “7”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to broaden the discussion to include higher levels of apprenticeship.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I formally move the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas and I will speak to it in my closing remarks.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

I think we have yet to have a full discussion on Amendment 483, as well as Amendment 483A, so perhaps we could proceed to that discussion.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

Briefly, I want to reinforce what has been said. What is unspent of the apprenticeship levy gets returned to the Treasury, not to be spent on education or apprenticeships, which is bizarre. It is a double whammy, because businesses, seeing that their money has not been spent and is likely to go back to the Treasury, suddenly start putting staff on high-level courses, equivalent—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

This is risky, because I am doing this from memory. I appreciate that in earlier years, significant amounts of money were returned to the Treasury, but in the last year we were in government, it was £11 million—so basically absolutely everything was spent. I say that in relation to my noble friend Lord Deben’s remarks, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Storey, will put that in context.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The noble Baroness is right—the amount that was not spent or did not go to the Treasury was coming down.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

No. To be clear, of the many millions of pounds that were raised through the apprenticeship levy, the amount that was not spent on apprenticeships and was returned to the Treasury was £11 million in the last year that we were in government, as I remember it.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The point I was also going to make was that companies and businesses that had not spent the levy and did not want to see it returned to the Treasury were using it not for level 3 apprenticeships but for high-level master’s-type apprenticeships. That surely cannot be the right thing to do; it is not in the spirit of apprenticeships.

I was quite shocked that, in my city of Liverpool, Liverpool City Council, which had an apprenticeship scheme over a two-year period, returned £1 million of money to the Treasury. That money could easily have been spent on level 3 apprenticeships. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, gave us all the statistics at the beginning. We need to ensure that there is money for level 3 apprenticeships, because the original hope of apprenticeships was that they would go to the young people who desperately needed to have this opportunity.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I shall try to make a few remarks in summing up. Apprenticeships really feel like they should be an answer but are proving to be extremely difficult to get into operation. Employers, especially SMEs, find it difficult to give the work, but they are where you would expect to find most of those apprenticeships, especially at the introductory level. Most people have said, “Yes, it’s a problem”. T-levels have been brought in but, if I remember correctly, you have to work with an employer while doing them, and that has proved difficult in the past.

The reason why they are proving so difficult is that it is a bit of a mess. We have boards and so on for careers guidance, and things locally and nationally. We clearly need more emphasis on making sure that people know where these opportunities are, how they will be supported and how they will get through. There is a general duty proposed in the Bill, but something inside me says that, as written, it is an invitation to Henry VIII powers—possibly Henry IX and X as well. The fact remains that we have not got this right. There have been some valiant efforts, but we have not managed to bring the people who want and would benefit from an apprenticeship to those who will give one to them. That is the problem.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, we will get a better idea of how this will work. The levy has, shall we say, had its problems—that would be a generous way of putting it. The Minister has an opportunity to tell us how the Government are going to develop this. It should be remembered that many of the people in the client base have not been that successful academically —I think just about everybody would agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben—and the fact is that schools are judged by GCSEs and A-levels. That is the path forward and everything else is a secondary option. That seems to be the culture; Governments have tried to change it, but I do not think they have succeeded. What are the Government going to do to get these more practical-based operations in?

It would be remiss of me if I did not say that we need to look at the English and maths qualifications. I refer to this again as somebody with dyscalculia and 14 fails in functional skills in an apprenticeship. We did some work on this. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, is not here because we managed to get some consideration on English when the original Bill was brought forward; both he and I bear the scars of that process. I thank him for taking on his own Civil Service and Government to get it. Any Minister who is prepared to show that degree of courage will always get my support.

I hope we can get an idea of how we are going to address the problems, which have certainly been accepted, associated with getting people into apprenticeships. On the question of the things that should be attractive to those who have not been great successes in conventional education, or according to normal cultural expectations, what are we going to do? We need to act, not only for the nation’s general economy, but for the people who are the clients.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on the value of high-quality apprenticeships at all levels, with a focus on levels 2 and 3, and Amendment 483 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and Amendment 483A, which I have moved on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lucas.

The noble Lord, Lord Layard, predictably, gave a very insightful and expert analysis of the issues, particularly for young people who are not going to university, and painted, sadly, an accurate but rather bleak picture. I would agree with him rather than the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, but I think there would be votes in it. The noble Lord said that it would be very popular across the country to take action on this. Anyway, that is not perhaps for this Committee to worry so much about.

I feel that, as I make my remarks, I have former colleagues sitting on each shoulder: Gillian Keegan, the first member of the Cabinet who had previously been an apprentice; and Rob Halfon who saw apprenticeships as a key part of what he described as the “ladder of opportunity”. That is exactly the kind of image and vision that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, set out.

The previous Government did a huge amount of work to raise the quality of apprenticeships and to expand them from some of the more traditional areas into financial services and others to better mirror our very heavily service-based economy and, crucially, to support important areas of the public sector where we have significant workforce shortages. That is in part where level 7 apprenticeships came in. I know that one point that my noble friend Lord Lucas would have made, had he been here, was that level 7 apprenticeships also contributed to that parity of esteem and the sense that apprenticeships could have the same prestige as a degree qualification.

I absolutely recognise the urgency to address the high level of youth unemployment, particularly after recent figures that show how much it has risen in the past year, and to give all young people a sense of real opportunity, which an apprenticeship can bring. We have been concerned at some of the changes that the Government have introduced so far, shortening the length of apprenticeships and removing the funding for apprenticeships at level 7.

I would argue—maybe it is easier from this side of the Dispatch Box—that this should be an area of “both and”. Level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships clearly fulfil a different role in the economy from those at levels 4, 5, 6 and 7, but they are no less important. One is not more important than the other. When we were in office, we were particularly concerned about levels 4 and 5. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply to the noble Lord’s amendments. I hope that she can reassure the House that the Government are committed to continuing with the employer-created standards rather than the frameworks that the previous Government introduced and that further moves will be made to secure the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises in the use of apprenticeships.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is no longer in her place, made an important point about how to fund an expanded apprenticeship offer at levels 2 and 3. I also very much recognise the comments made by my noble friend Lady Coffey in relation to T-levels. My reflection on that is that these changes take a great deal of time to embed. I do not think that in visiting schools I have met someone who has not been thrilled to be doing a T-level. I visited many schools where children wanted good, high-quality technical and vocational options and were not even aware that T-levels exist. At the very least, the Government will need to do these things in parallel. I hope very much that we will hear a positive response from the Minister.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 483A (to Amendment 483) withdrawn.

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I also know from experience that for parents with serious complaints—we have heard some examples of those—the current system is not fit for purpose. Public bodies, departments of education or local education departments cannot just think that they will go away or that bureaucracy is taking over. It is equally damaging for the schools themselves if a parent makes a complaint, if it is very minor and has been blown out of proportion. Sometimes they involve other parents and other issues, and they can be very distressing for the school and cause real worry to the teacher, head teacher or governing body concerned. I am interested to hear what the Minister says, because it is something that we need to think very carefully about.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group focuses on the thorny issue of complaints. The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough would introduce a new right of appeal for parents who have made a complaint that has not been upheld to a maintained school, academy or non- maintained special school.

At the risk of stating the obvious, most schools follow the law; they follow guidance and non-statutory guidance. I remember one teacher saying to me, “We live our lives by the bell. Of course we follow the rules”, but I accept the examples that my noble friend cited. We know that the volume of complaints is rising considerably, sadly assisted by tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said on her amendment, to which I was pleased to add my name, a complaint can be made to the Department for Education, Ofsted and the TRA, as well as to the school itself. Most worryingly, the school is sometimes excluded and complaints are made to all the other agencies but not to the school.

I am grateful to the charity Parentkind for its research into complaints, which shows that the vast majority of parents are happy with their child’s school, but also that 38% of the 2,000 parents in the sample interviewed had filed a formal complaint in the last year. Head teachers report separately from the Parentkind research that, on average, they are dealing with five complaints a week.

As my noble friend Lord Jackson explained, his amendment would support parents who are not satisfied with the school’s response to a complaint and provide a different mechanism to enforce their legal duties. I find it troubling that this amendment is needed, particularly the second element, as there are significant safeguards to ensure that schools meet their legal duties. I would have hoped that the existing system, which allows a complaint to be referred to a panel chaired by an independent member, would be sufficient. However, I think the Committee will agree that my noble friend has raised some extremely worrying examples including—and this might be insulting to snails—about the pace of the response received from the department.

I turn to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman. As she set out, it aims to simplify and streamline the complaints process. We are trying to address the current problems in the system whereby parents can make complaints to multiple places, which leads to confusion, frustration on the part of parents, delays and extra work and stress for school leaders. I know that is something that the Secretary of State is very alive to and has promised to come back with ideas on in the schools White Paper, which is coming very soon, I think—but perhaps I put the “very” in.

Our amendment would ensure that complaints are dealt with by only one party at a time, and that it is the most appropriate one. The Minister will be aware of cases where tremendous pressure is placed on the leadership of schools, including on some occasions when false and vindictive allegations are made. I remember visiting a school where a parent had alleged that over half of the members of staff had behaved inappropriately towards their child. Each complaint was made to multiple organisations and had to be dealt with individually, which took a huge toll on school leaders and their colleagues. Indeed, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has said:

“We are hearing more often from school leaders who have seen a significant increase in complaints, including a big rise in those that are clearly vexatious or baseless. This can harm their wellbeing, and cause unnecessary stress and workload”.


He also agrees that:

“Too often complaints are escalated unnecessarily, including sometimes to multiple agencies at the same time”.


I hope that I am safe in saying that I do not think that either my noble friend or I are wedded to the particular approach that we have in our amendment, but we are wedded to supporting schools and parents so that complaints can be dealt with swiftly and clearly, with a minimum of stress and expense, human or financial, to all involved. I look forward to hearing from the Minister the Government’s plans in this area.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions and for raising this very important area around parental complaints and appeals and the introduction of a central school complaints system. The Government completely understand the concern on this matter. As I shall go on to mention, the increase in the number of complaints is quite staggering, when you see the statistics laid out.

Amendments 485, 487 and 488, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, would allow parents and carers of children in maintained schools, independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. Amendment 489, also tabled by the noble Lord, would allow for regulations to amend secondary legislation on the rules and procedures of the First-tier Tribunal. I note the detailed examples that the noble Lord highlighted to us.

Amendment 502YM, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, would introduce a central complaints system to handle all school-related complaints in England, and for these complaints to be held in a central database accessible to the Department for Education and Ofsted. I hope we have made it very clear throughout the passage of the Bill, and I repeat it, that the Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards, so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive. This area fits into the discussion of these amendments.

When parents and carers believe schools are not delivering the standards expected of them, they of course have the right to raise complaints with schools—that is of the utmost importance. All schools are required to have a complaints policy in place that is promoted and effectively implemented. However, we believe that the introduction of an additional level of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal would create increased burden on a school system that is already under enormous pressure, as we have heard, from the increasing number of parent and carer complaints.

Importantly, the existing system already allows for the escalation of complaints where parents and carers believe complaints have not been handled compliantly or a school has not adhered to education law. When non-compliance is identified, the Secretary of State for Education has powers to intervene in a way that is proportionate and necessary to bring resolution to the parent’s or carer’s complaint.

We have accepted and acknowledged the issues and concerns being raised, by both schools and parents and carers, about the current school complaints system, both the pressure it places on schools—we have heard some good examples of that—and the frustration it can cause for parents and carers. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, highlighted, the increase in parent and carer complaints is a growing concern across the sector. That is why we are working through the Improving Education Together group, bringing together colleagues from across the sector to improve the school complaints system. Our aim is to reduce the burden on schools and leaders, while also maintaining parents’ rights to raise concerns, including by exploring ways to reduce unnecessary duplication. We want to create a better and clearer system for parents and to improve the relationship between schools and families.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, highlighted the work that Parentkind has done in this space. I am very pleased to inform the Chamber that the Secretary of State went to the launch of its latest publication on this subject on Tuesday—when, ironically, we were in the Chamber. That was a very important step forward. She set out that we are resetting relationships between schools and parents, so that trust levels are high and any issues are resolved informally before becoming complaints.

The other pressure that I need to draw attention to, and why we are very concerned about introducing additional burdens, is from SEND-related tribunals. The number of appeals has risen by over 40% in the past year alone. I think that it is well known that we are working with the Ministry of Justice to bring more capacity into that system. That will be addressed in the SEND reform review that will be published later in the autumn.

The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, raises an important point about AI. I had not thought of it in that way, but of course people are finding new applications all the time, just putting their few words into ChatGPT or whatever and coming out with a whole document built on that. I want to reassure her that the department is fully aware of this situation and is looking at ways to support schools in this space, including revision of the department’s guidance to schools on this very important matter.

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Moving forward, our whole intention is to make sure that we reduce burdens on schools in a constructive way for everyone involved. We must make sure that we protect First-tier Tribunals and the important work that they do. On this basis, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness say now, or write to me and put the letter in the Library, clarifying whether, in relation to simplification of the complaints system, which obviously the Secretary of State has said she would like to do and which is at the heart of the amendment in my name and in that of my noble friend Lady Spielman, that requires a change in primary legislation or whether it can be done in secondary legislation? If it requires primary legislation, I am sure that colleagues in the department would be able to craft some kind of commencement clause—I am not sure quite what sort of clause it would be—that would allow that to happen without us having to wait several years for more legislation.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point, and these will all be matters that are being considered as the Secretary of State takes this important work forward. I can get a written note and put it in the Library to outline the way forward and where we are at this moment.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, Covid was certainly the rocket fuel for the growth of educational technology in our schools, which is now accepted as part of the school learning landscape. The UK’s education tech sector is the largest in Europe, spending, as we already heard, an estimated £900 million a year. However, there are real concerns that these amendments seek to address, which is why we will be supporting Amendments 493, 494, 502K, 502YH and 502YI.

The edtech sector is exempt from the Online Safety Act, and adherence to GDPR is inconsistent, to say the least. Large multiuse platforms such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams can enhance teaching and school management, but the absence of clear statutory standards leaves children’s education and school cybersecurity often at risk. We surely need a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights, protect the data and prevent the commercial exploitation of children. We sleepwalked into the development of social media. Now that we see the harm that has been caused, we rush to try to do something about it. There is a strong case for developing a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights and support schools in making informed and sustainable choices.

I want to respond to what I thought was a very thoughtful contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. It made me think that six years ago I had a Private Member’s Bill on essay mills and contract cheating. That is now all for naught, because there are other ways of cheating, and AI helps that considerably.

I had an intern who one day said to me, “Lord Storey, here’s a speech for you”. I said, “Ooh, let me have a look”. I read the speech and thought, “Wow, this is great. I’ll use this”. He told me that it was AI generated. “Really?”, I said. I wondered whether in five or 10 years your Lordships’ House might be a very different place for speeches. Might we all succumb to using not our own thoughts and experiences but AI to generate speeches? Would anybody know in five or 10 years’ time, when the technology will be absolutely spot on?

I want to deal briefly with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Amendment 502YU concerns reception baseline assessments. The Minister will recall that I raised this in an Oral Question. There is something a little perverse about the youngest children—five year-olds—doing their assessments on a screen. I have a degree of sympathy for the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I hope the Minister can shed some light on it.

Regarding the other two amendments, I know that SEND exceptions are mentioned, but as my noble friend Lord Addington said in his hugely important contribution, it is not either/or. We have to think through these amendments carefully, as there are other issues, not just special educational needs, that we need to be aware of. We do not want to agree something that creates problems for the future.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is yet another important group of amendments, which seeks to bring, frankly, some common-sense principles to the use of edtech, children’s data and screens. Amendments 493 and 494, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, seek to introduce what would in effect be quality standards for the use of edtech in schools. There are existing standards and guidance for schools in relation to hardware and data, but I was unable to find any specifically in relation to edtech, so it feels as though my noble friend has identified a real gap.

Similarly, Amendment 502K, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would introduce a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech. I suggest that, in all these amendments, we need to be very clear that any standards or principles focus not just on some of the data and related safety issues that we have talked about; we must make sure that they are absolutely based on the latest research in cognitive science and the best understanding of pedagogy, so that they deliver learning. We need them to be safe—that is necessary but not sufficient—and effective.

Last year, a thorough report by the Education Select Committee on the impacts of screen time on educational well-being found that the proliferation of edtech platforms made their overall benefit hard to quantify. It pointed out that only 7% of edtech providers had conducted randomised controlled trials on their products. The report noted that there are more than half a million apps claiming to be educational but, as yet, no quality standards for assessing educational content. The report judged as poor the evidence base for assessing which, if any, of these apps are most effective.

Amendment 493 includes a requirement for transparency in relation to the use of training data, AI and third-party use of data. It shares the spirit of Amendment 502YI, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which would introduce a code of practice in relation to the processing of data in connection with the provision of education to children—an area where the introduction of AI could expand how children’s data is shared and used. Understanding how our children’s data is used is extremely important, as we have heard from noble Lords across the Committee, but it is important that we can use it. One of the biggest data sources that could move the needle on, for example, AI marking systems for formative assessment, is held in our national exam scripts. We need to be very intentional about the areas that we focus on.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand that concern. Perhaps we can first make progress on the code, as I have outlined we are. I will write to the noble Baroness about this. I understand that this place is about putting things into legislation, but that does not mean that activity is not happening. The proof of the pudding may well be in the production of the code.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

When the Minister sends that letter, will she kindly clarify both the data protection and the child safety angles that she talked about, for which the Information Commissioner’s Office would have responsibility? Will she also explain how the pedagogical elements will be included, to make sure that these are both safe and effective from a learning point of view?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I will do that.

Amendment 502YS, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to confer a right for parents to elect for their child to receive, complete and submit homework tasks otherwise than by means of a computer or a personal electronic device. The noble Baroness made important points about the totality of the way in which children might be expected to do their homework and the challenges for those children who might not have access to technology to do that.

I would be surprised if there were schools that were expecting children to do all their homework using devices. Nevertheless, it is still important to maintain the principle—rightly set down by the previous Government, particularly by Damian Hinds as Secretary of State—that decisions over the volume and form of homework are made by schools themselves, working in collaboration with staff, pupils, parents and governors. I am not sure that it would be appropriate for the department to limit the autonomy of schools to set their own policies on homework. But it is right that schools should consider providing alternative options for pupils to complete homework where device access is limited. They should consider the implications for handwriting and for the other ways of learning and completing work, which the noble Baroness was right to identify.

We understand the concerns around the potential harms of unmonitored and unlimited personal screen use, but it is helpful in this debate to consider the distinction between personal and educational screen time—they should not necessarily be conflated. It is a question not of screen use per se but of what children and young people are using the screens for and what activities that supports and—importantly, I agree—replaces.

Effective use of technology can improve education access and outcomes and reduce staff workload. We trust teachers and leaders to use these tools appropriately, which includes their use to complete homework. Beyond that, as we have discussed previously, it is also important to recognise that assistive technology can go a long way to supporting children with particular needs—a point frequently and rightly made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

I turn now to Amendments 502YT and 502YU tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Amendment 502YT seeks to ensure that secondary education exams are completed by hand rather than with a digital device, subject to specific exceptions. We are currently working closely with Ofqual to review evidence and develop policy on any potential future use of on-screen exams. There are already a small number of exams that are offered digitally—for example, A-level music technology; British Sign Language GCSE, which would be impossible to do unless it was done digitally; and some functional skills exams, which by nature of the point at which they are taken need to be done digitally—but Ofqual’s chief regulator has said publicly that any further introduction of on-screen exams should be treated with “extreme caution” and must be fair, proportionate and manageable. We agree with that.

However, it would not be appropriate to fix a policy position into legislation before the opportunities, risks and implications of on-screen exams have been fully considered in detail. Ofqual is responsible for regulating qualifications and examinations, and we expect that any changes to Ofqual’s regulatory framework would be subject to full public consultation in due course.

Amendment 502YU seeks to ensure that the reception baseline assessment is not administered using digital devices, subject to specific exceptions. It might be helpful for me to explain to noble Lords how this assessment works in reality. I think there is a general consensus that it is important for us to be able to assess the development of children at the beginning of their time in school. That is the point of the reception baseline assessment.

It is carried out with pupils individually. It takes between 15 and 20 minutes. Roughly half of it is carried out with a teacher sitting next to a single pupil, using the screen in a way that paper would not allow them to do—for example, to point at things and move them into different orders. The overall assessment retains the use of verbal responses. It retains the use of toys for questions in the other half of the assessment, which does not use a screen.

It brings benefits, including reduced workload for teachers and better support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities using, for example, the assessment’s built-in accessibility settings. In relation to one of the points made by the noble Baroness, there is no expectation that a pupil has experience of screen use. The teacher can input the answers for the pupil if need be, because it is, in essence, a person-to-person assessment being carried out.

The new version, which was introduced in September 2025, had been trialled extensively with pupils and schools since 2018 and has been well received. A paper- based version continues to be available in circumstances where that is more suitable for the child. I hope that provides some reassurance to noble Lords. As the noble Lord said, I have responded to questions about this on more than one occasion. If we were to withdraw at this point something that has been trialled over a considerable period, with the trial having started under the previous Government, it would be difficult if not unfeasible to deliver a replacement in time to carry out this really important baseline assessment.

For all those reasons, I hope that I have provided some reassurance about the nature and development of this assessment. There are much broader conversations that it is obviously appropriate for us to have about the use of screens in early years settings and in schools, some of which we have had in earlier amendments and which I am sure we will continue to have, but I genuinely believe that, for this particular usage, removing it would be disproportionate, even given the concerns that noble Lords have expressed.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, if my Amendment 505C appears something of an outlier, it is only because it is. It would have been more appropriate for it to have been introduced in Part 1 of the Bill, but I have to be honest and say that, at the time, I was unaware of it as an issue. Being even more honest, I have to say that, had I been following the progress of the Mental Health Bill, I might well have been. I acknowledge the assistance of the clerks in the Public Bill Office for finding me a peg on which to hang this, and also the assistance of JUSTICE, the law reform charity, for briefings and context.

Whatever the view of noble Lords on the contracting out of vital public services, I am confident enough to say that nobody on any side of your Lordships’ House wants people to be treated less decently and with fewer human rights because a service is being provided by an outside contractor rather than directly. The Human Rights Act is an essential tool for individuals to hold public bodies to account. It requires public authorities to act in compatibility with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, and this definition of a public authority has been narrowly interpreted by the courts. In a 2008 case, it was found that a private care home was not a public authority, despite the plaintiff’s placement being funded entirely by that local authority.

The years since then have of course seen a large expansion of core government services contracted out to the private sector, leading to an accountability gap in our human rights legislation. In the care sector, more than 80% of children’s homes are now run by private companies. That is an increase of 20% since 2010, and the figure continues to rise.

In 2014, an attempt was made to fill that accountability gap for care provision with the Care Act of that year. The then coalition Government made it clear that

“it wishes all providers of publicly arranged care services to consider themselves bound by the Human Rights Act, including private providers under contracts with local authorities”.

But a 2024 case demonstrated that this was not sufficient. A man with chronic and treatment-resistant schizophrenia, whose care and treatment had been funded by a combination of Manchester City Council and an NHS trust, sadly died. His family brought a claim against the private nursing home provider and the trust, arguing that his death had resulted from the private provider’s breaches of the Human Rights Act. However, the High Court struck out the human rights aspect of the claim, ruling that the man’s circumstances fell outside the scope of the provisions of Section 73 of the Care Act 2014.

That ruling highlights significant wider concerns for commissioned children’s health and social care services—although they are not covered by Section 73 of the Care Act because, as things stand, a private provider does not have human rights obligations to children in their publicly funded care. This is particularly important given the scale of outsourcing in the children’s social care market. Some 90% of children’s social care services shut down by Ofsted for not meeting standards to protect children, or where there was evidence of harm, are operated by private organisations.

Since four out of five children’s homes are operated by for-profit companies, there are reasons to be concerned about how well children’s human rights are protected in that social care sector. Children’s care settings provide services to some of the most vulnerable children in our society, and the Children’s Commissioner said in highlighting this last year:

“Children in care have the most prescribed rights in law, and yet these rights are often the least reflected in their experience. … We cannot meet children’s rights unless our public services are of sufficient quality to provide what children need”.


In January, when the Bill had its Second Reading in another place, the Minister of State said that the Bill would

“stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in our services”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/25; col. 953.]

The Human Rights Act is a crucial safeguard for individuals up and down this country on a day-to-day basis, especially for those with vulnerabilities who rely on the state. As the Care Quality Commission set out in 2023, a focus on human rights

“ensures people receive good care and helps us fulfil our duties and purpose by meeting our legal obligations”.

However, people do fall through the cracks, and not just young people. The uncertainty in the law means that private providers may have no direct statutory obligation to act compatibly with children’s ECHR rights and that children—and, by definition, their families—may have no direct remedy against private providers for human rights violations. The Bill is an important opportunity to extend human rights protections to all those in commissioned children’s care, irrespective of who the provider is.

It is not sufficient to say that it may be possible for a claim to be brought against a local authority. Why should parents be required to do that? The Joint Committee on Human Rights dealt with this during the passage of the Care Act 2014, making it clear that:

“The inadequacy of such indirect protection has long been a matter of consensus in debates and reports about this issue”.


It has also been a cross-party position for many years that those in publicly funded care deserve full human rights protections and that providers must be directly accountable for breaching human rights, as was demonstrated by the cross-party support for changing the law through the Mental Health Bill earlier this year. During Report of that Bill in your Lordships’ House, when my noble friend Lady Keeley proposed an amendment on adult mental health care and treatment, the Minister—my noble friend Lady Blake—said that the Government were

“particularly conscious of the references to children’s services”,

and that it was

“an issue that we have, of course, been discussing with the DfE”.—[Official Report, 2/4/25; col. 337.]

My noble friend pledged to take the matter forward, and she did so very effectively, because it resulted in what is now Clause 52 of that Bill, which amends the Human Rights Act 1998 and states,

“A registered care provider is to be regarded for the purposes of section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998 as exercising a function of a public nature in providing any of the services mentioned in subsection (2) (to the extent that it would not otherwise be so regarded)”.


The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is, as I said, an important opportunity to ensure that all private providers of children’s services commissioned by local authorities, whether in social care, education or disability-related services, are treated as public authorities under the Human Rights Act. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will signify that the Government intend to follow the lead of her Ministerial colleagues on the Mental Health Bill when this Bill reaches Report. If she is unwilling or unable to do so, I hope that she will arrange for the statement called for in Amendment 505C to be published.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments would introduce a number of reviews of the Bill. Those in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei also seek to limit the new powers in the Bill in relation to elective home-educated children.

Amendment 502C from my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth would introduce a review of the Act after five years, and my noble friend made an extremely articulate and clear case for this. I think my noble friend said that there were already over 20 examples of amendments seeking reviews of different parts of the Bill. Although concerns about Part 2—which we have debated more recently—are certainly uppermost in my mind, those of us with long memories will remember some of the concerns about the pace of and evidence base for the reforms to children’s social care in Part 1.

My noble friend set out some criteria for post-legislative scrutiny: it should be a substantial Bill—I think that, on day 12, we can agree this is a substantial Bill; it should introduce major changes; it has unquestionably been controversial; and it did not have pre-legislative scrutiny. I thought almost the strongest point is that this would allow the Government to demonstrate their confidence that the Bill will deliver on the changes that the Government seek and the impact that the Government desire, so I hope very much that the noble Baroness will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment.

Amendment 505C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, again very ably presented, highlights concerns about the responsibilities of private providers of children’s social care in relation to children’s human rights. Again, it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s response to this. For my part, I suppose I would prefer the Government’s focus to be on the quality of care that children receive when they are in local authority care, in a children’s home or, potentially, in foster care, as in this case. They already have considerable rights enshrined in legislation, as the noble Lord said; what we need is for the culture in those organisations to make sure that children receive the care that they so very rightly deserve.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Just before the Minister replies, I shall very briefly say that the principle of reviewing legislation is one that I think we have all agreed to and no Government have ever found terribly convenient. I hope that we can get something going and some commitment by the Government that they will look at what happens here, or some structure for reviewing what happens, because the unforeseen is something which no degree of planning now can ever adjust.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

The hour is late, so I will be very brief. I make three observations. First, we react to situations; we do not prepare for them. Secondly, we then set up a particular programme or campaign but we do not embed it; we do it until people have lost interest or media attention has moved on to something else; thirdly, schools or parents often come up with something, following a particular event occurring in a school and it starting a campaign—it is a pity that this is not shared.

It is not quite the same, but I think of the example of EpiPens and defibrillators in schools. In Liverpool, a poor boy aged 11 had a cardiac arrest in the swimming pool and tragically died. His family and immediate friends started a campaign, the Oliver King Foundation, to get defibrillators into every school in Merseyside, and that happened. All these amendments are certainly worth consideration.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is a diverse group of amendments.

Amendment 502M, tabled by my noble friends Lord Young of Acton and Lord Brady of Altrincham, is on the duty to keep schools open in person during civil emergencies. I think that we can all agree on the importance of this principle. We saw vividly during Covid that schools are crucial centres of learning but also places of community, which form an important part of the foundation of childhood. I support the principle behind the amendment that schools should remain open and that closure should be considered only ever in the most extreme circumstances. I am slightly less clear, looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, whether the Children’s Commissioner is the right person to advise the Government, but it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

Amendment 502P, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, on the creation of a safe and resilient schools plan, rightly highlights the importance of ensuring that our school buildings are resilient to climate change and responsible when it comes to emissions—maybe a building cannot be responsible but those building it can be. The previous Government set out in our Sustainability and Climate Change: A Strategy for the Education and Children’s Services Systems in 2023 a commitment for all new school buildings to be net-zero in operation, designed for a 2 degree rise in average global temperatures and future-proofed for a 4 degree rise. I am slightly confused by the noble Baroness’s amendment because I assume that the Government will continue with those objectives. If that has changed, can the Minister clarify?

Future buildings are a huge challenge, not just in funding but in the capacity in the building industry to deliver—although maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is working her magic in construction and green skills.

Amendment 502YA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is on civil preparedness training for pupils. Again, I am not convinced that there is a need for this amendment. There is already guidance and online training materials about how to respond to terrorist and other major incidents and I am not sure that we need more than that. Schools are pretty well equipped already.

Finally, Amendment 502YB, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is on the review of climate adaptation in schools. It is not helpful to focus on just one aspect of school buildings, as opposed to many other aspects, including the safety and security of the construction materials that they are built with. We should trust local authorities and school trusts to fulfil their safety, suitability and climate resilience responsibilities.

The noble Baroness then went on, I think, to suggest—maybe I am being harsh at this late hour—that the Government should be more directive towards schools on relaxing school uniform. The idea that the Secretary of State will not only count how many ties we have in school but now instruct schools whether to loosen them is just going too far.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “meeting” insert “, or family group conference,”
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to understand why there is a difference in the terms used in the bill and the evaluation, and whether there is a different intent with the family group decision-making model.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, it is good to be back scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill after what seems like a long break. But noble Lords will remember that, while I think all sides of the House supported the approach of family group conferencing or a family group decision-making meeting, as described in the Bill, a number of points required clarification. I think those are still outstanding and I hope the Minister will be able to cover them in her response today.

Amendment 1 seeks to clarify what the Government really intend to implement. We have been told that the introduction of family group decision-making is based on the success of the pilot sites in the Families First for Children pathfinders, but the evaluation published in July is clear that family group conferencing, not family group decision-making meetings, was used in the pilot sites when children were on the cusp of care proceedings. Which approach is it and if it is not family group conferencing, what is the evidence base?

I suppose I am concerned that the Government are not actually committed to following the evidence-based family group conferencing model, but a slimmer or stripped-down version that we might call “FGC light”. The evaluation published in July did not have any outcome data and was largely a process evaluation, because of the stage the pilots are at.

Amendment 2 aims to press the Government for a commitment to no dilution of the model. The Bill talks about a meeting while the evaluation talks about the importance of careful preparation, including pre-meetings, and that being followed by funded support through the family network support package. Again, can the Minister be clear that the Government are proposing that the evidence-informed model is followed?

Turning to Amendment 3, we questioned in Committee whether it was necessary to have a duty to offer family group decision-making in statute at all, and in particular at the point of care proceedings, when there is already an expectation set out in the statutory guidance to the Children Act that this should be offered. Our amendments in Committee included a focus on using family group conferencing at different points in the safeguarding process, and it seems that the evaluation published in July agrees with this. On page 58, it recommends that:

“The timing of the offer of”


family group conferences

“needs to be explored in greater detail to establish clarity around the pros and cons of offering it at different phases in the family’s journey”.

Amendment 3 would require family group decision-making or family group conferencing to be offered at the point when a child who has been in care returns to their original family, something that occurs in over a quarter of cases. This is an obvious point at which additional support would be helpful and could avoid a second care placement, as happens all too frequently—in about a third of those cases. It does not take much imagination to appreciate how traumatic and damaging it is for children and their parents for that to happen.

Finally, Amendment 5, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who brings great personal experience to this topic, introduces the idea of a kinship support plan. As we will come to in a later group, we believe that the Government need to take action to increase the number of foster and kinship carers beyond what is already proposed. The idea of a kinship support plan is to increase the resilience of a kinship care placement by offering additional support, either from the local authority directly or from wider community resources. I wonder whether the Government are considering anything of this type, which would increase the chances of successful kinship placements.

These are cases where the threshold of significant harm will have been met, and therefore it is reasonable to offer additional support to carers and right-touch oversight of the safety and well-being of the child in their care. I beg to move.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for returning us to this important topic of family group conferences and for the refined amendments she has now presented, including Amendment 3, to which I have added my name. They would embed what is now established as good practice into legislation. I also welcome the noble Baroness’s request for clarification of what lies behind the differing terminology.

The Government, to their credit, recognise the important role of family group decision-making meetings. The arguments for such conferences are strong, enabling family members to be informed about local authorities’ concerns and proposals, including the wider family members, who may have been kept in the dark or given an incomplete version of the problems from just the parents’ perspective, perhaps coloured by a negative view of the local authority’s intentions. They are a good opportunity to maintain focus on the child or children while listening to and respecting the views of the family, particularly if the family has otherwise been marginalised.

As well as sharing information, conferences allow social workers to explore and assess what family members might have to offer, and what support might assist them to help divert cases away from legal proceedings. There is no doubt that family group conferences secure considerable financial savings for local authorities and for the courts. I emphasise the point that the noble Baroness has made: proper preparation for them is essential.

Ideally, such conferences should take place as early as possible, and at the pre-proceedings stage that we discussed in Committee. However, Amendment 3 would also require such a meeting to be offered when it is planned that the child will be returned to the care of family members. Again, that would be a good opportunity for informed discussion to clarify the expectations of the local authority for the future care of the child, and to discuss any difficulties that may have to be confronted. I hope, therefore, that the Government will use these amendments as an opportunity to build such points into the legal structure.

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Through the development of best practice support and resources on family group decision-making, families were clear that when children and their families’ voices are heard and plans are co-created and owned by families, the results are not just better plans but stronger, more resilient families. Requiring the creation of a separate kinship support plan risks distracting from or diluting the weight given to the family-led plan. Having responded to the comments made, I hope I have addressed the noble Baroness’s concerns and she feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the last point on Amendment 5, the noble Baroness talked about the local care offer. Is she able to say today whether she expects that, when the consultation happens and a template is developed for what that will look like, there will be a specific section on reunification? Obviously, that is a rather different context from the other situations.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that her comments are fed into the process and that they are listened to.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks; she also comes with huge expertise on this subject. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for not acknowledging his co-signature of Amendment 3.

I was reassured by what the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said on Amendments 1 and 2. I accept that there could be confusion if you use both terms. I was glad to hear her say that clear principles would be set out in the guidance—as was suggested by my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park—and that there would be no dilution of the models. I thank her very much for that.

I am encouraged by the noble Baroness’s last comments on Amendment 3. I think there is an inconsistency when she points to the recommendations in Working Together to Safeguard Children that there should be family group decision-making meetings at the point of reunification because, as I understand it, that is the same recommendation as there is for using those meetings at the point of care proceedings. The Government have chosen to put one on statute and not the other, but that is, ultimately, the Government’s prerogative. She is, of course, right to bring up the point about delay and avoidable delay, but the choice is between delay and stability. I hope that, where the delay is proportionate, stability really is prioritised in the interests of the child.

In my intervention I touched on the noble Baroness’s remarks on the local support offer. Obviously, I am disappointed that the Government did not accept my Amendments 3 and 5 in particular. I hope that, as they implement this new legislation, local authorities will use all their discretion and creativity to address the needs of specific children in the way that we all, across the House, hope. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

6: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Cessation of Child Protection PlansWhen proceedings are initiated or a care and supervision order is issued under section 31 of the Children Act 1989, if there is any cessation of child protection plans for children under five years old, that must be signed off by the relevant Director of Children’s Services or Head of Social Work Practice.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that the relevant Director of Children’s Services or Head of Social Work Practice is required to sign off any cessation of child protection plans for children under five years old once proceedings have been initiated or once a care and supervision order has been issued.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 6 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, who through no fault of her own is unable to be with us this afternoon, would require sign-off from the director of children’s services or head of social work practice when a child under five and previously on a child protection plan becomes subject to Section 31 care proceedings.

Last year there were about 18,600 children involved in care proceedings and about 16% of children in care are under five. Yet children in this age group are disproportionately represented in the most serious cases. Children under the age of one accounted for about 30% of serious incident notifications last year, and earlier triennial reviews found that about 65% of cases involved children under the age of five. If we pause to think about that, this age group appears roughly four times as often in serious incidents in which a child is killed or seriously harmed as it does in the care population. In this context, the amendment is a really modest and practical safeguard that could help prevent avoidable abuse and tragedy, and save very young lives. I very much hope the Minister will consider her position. My back of the envelope estimate is that a director of children’s services would, on average, have to look at 20 of these cases annually and, given the length of time of care proceedings, it is the least we should expect them to do.

On the wider group of amendments, on 17 December the Minister for Children and Families wrote to Peers following two very helpful round tables about Part 1 of the Bill. In that letter, he rightly emphasised

“the importance of local authorities operating within the right framework”

so that

“families receive intensive well evidenced help early, that children are protected through more expert and decisive multi-agency child protection and that children … leaving care benefit from enduring relationships that the care system has facilitated”.

He warned against overreliance on legislation, regulations and guidance, arguing that an

“ever growing stack of rules”

has, in the past, “failed to improve practice” and undermined professional judgment and accountability. That analysis is compelling, but unfortunately Clause 3 takes us in the opposite direction from the approach he advocates, and that is why the amendments in this group are needed.

There is, as yet, no robust evidence for the Government’s chosen model. I thank the department for the email it sent me yesterday, setting out in a bit more detail some of the evidence from the pathfinders, but they remain at a very early stage. The evaluation concentrates, as it says itself, on process and implementation rather than outcomes, and there were only 10 families interviewed for the evaluation, some of whom were unaware that they were part of these pathfinder sites. There is no counterfactual, no control group and no convincing data yet that shows better decision-making or earlier intervention. Moreover, at a recent Ofsted inspection one of the pilot sites recently moved from “good” to “requires improvement”, which underlines that this is not a magic wand. Wanting a model to succeed is not the same as demonstrating that it does, and Amendment 17 would therefore delay implementation of this clause until a proper evidence base is available, which is entirely consistent with the Minister’s own stated aims.

The list of those expressing concerns about these reforms is growing. In Committee, reference was made to the public concerns of Professor Eileen Munro, who is possibly the closest thing to a household name in social work in this country. Similar concerns have been raised by Professors June Thoburn and Ray Jones. A Community Care poll of social workers found that 78% of respondents agreed with research warning that combining the investigative and chairing role of lead social workers would undermine impartiality. The Children’s Minister argues for avoiding prescription, yet the Bill allows the Secretary of State to prescribe by regulation “support of any kind” to be delivered by the multi-agency child protection teams. If we all try to imagine a future Government whom each of us would least like to see in charge, it is not difficult to see how such a broad power could be misused, so Amendment 11 would remove it.

Despite the Minister’s concerns about overprescription, the pathfinders themselves have been heavily prescribed. Some of the evaluation documentation only underlines how little is known about the real-world impact of this approach. For example, appendix 4 asks evaluators to

“identify what impact a greater role for education has on services and what costs are associated with strengthening the role of education”.

This signals that the implications for a key partner are still unclear.

Indeed, funding issues were brought up in the email which the department kindly sent me, where it pointed out that the dedicated health roles in most areas within the multi-agency child protection team are funded by the local authority, as are a number of education roles. Police, on the other hand, have funded their posts, but this links to government Amendments 12 and 14, which, if I have understood them correctly, would allow special constables—unpaid volunteers—to act as the police representative at the multi-agency child protection team meetings. The Minister is shaking her head, so, if I have misunderstood, I look forward to being corrected, but I thought that was what her letter to your Lordships said.

It is critical that we do not have a dilution of skills, which leads me on to another point from the evaluation, which highlights a lack of confidence among so-called “alternatively qualified practitioners”, non-social workers who will now be working in early help and child-in-need teams in relation to risk assessment, and real concerns that they do not have the same expertise, both in risk assessment but also, crucially, in the identification of harm as qualified social workers.

Turning to Amendment 13, for which I am grateful to Professor Peter Green, co-chair of the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, and Dr Vanessa Impey, this would stipulate minimum qualification levels for staff, including health professionals, aligned with the intercollegiate document and Working Together. Safeguarding leads in health are deeply concerned about the Government’s decision to effectively halve the capacity of designated doctors and nurses whose specialist expertise underpins safe multi-agency practice. Working Together defines designated professionals as

“dedicated clinicians whose roles centre on providing clinical expertise and strategic advice to the system”.

To quote Professor Green,

“halving, or worse, this workforce is the same as halving the number of children’s heart surgeons in the NHS, and that is a loss that would be unimaginable in any other area of child health”.

So I hope that, when she comes to reply, the Minister will agree that the multi-agency child protection teams cannot function effectively if overall safeguarding standards fall because senior, highly experienced safeguarding professionals are lost from health services. When she comes to respond, can she set out clearly how, in the face of cuts of 50% or more to statutory safeguarding posts, there will not be a deterioration in safeguarding standards within health, and in multi-agency working? If the Government are willing to protect these posts, there will be no reason to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 13.

There is agreement with the Government’s underlying aims in Clause 3, but deep concern about the speed of implementation, the weakness of the evidence base, the dilution of expertise and the scale of concurrent change, especially for local authorities and integrated care boards. These amendments offer a measured way to secure the benefits of reform, while avoiding serious and avoidable risks to very vulnerable children. I hope the Government will pause and treat them with the seriousness they deserve. I beg to move.

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

My Lords, creating new multi-agency child protection teams through Clause 3 is not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, suggested, about saving money; it is about bringing together social workers, police, health and education colleagues with experience in child protection to take swift and effective action that protects children from harm at the earliest opportunity. I hope that I will be able to respond to the points raised in this short debate, as we did at length in Committee and have continued to do since then through engagement, which noble Lords have acknowledged, including, in my case, directly with directors of children’s services.

Government Amendments 12 and 14 broaden the range of police staff who can work in these teams to include police officers and other police staff experienced in child protection. The need for this amendment arose as we talked more closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing to make sure that we were providing the scope for the correct representatives from policing to be on these teams. We are confident that this will improve front-line operational capacity through the right people with the right skills working in the team. Regulations will be clear that individuals must have appropriate levels of experience, seniority, qualification and expertise. I will come back a little later in my remarks to how we will ensure that those appropriate levels are delivered.

Noble Lords have heard me speak before in Committee—in fact, at some length—about the Families First Partnership programme, where we are investing £2.4 billion over the next three years to change the way that we help, support and protect children. One element of that—introducing new multi-agency child protection teams—brings a sharp focus to better multi-agency working, information sharing and decision-making. I therefore welcome the opportunity to address amendments relating to these new teams, to clarify what we are learning through the national rollout and how this will inform the future legislative framework on day-to-day operations.

I turn first to Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on the important matter of child protection for very young children in legal proceedings. Of course, as the noble Baroness identified, these are children who are widely represented in the system and for whom we need special care. However, Amendment 6 would require specific senior sign-off for the decision to end a child protection plan when proceedings have been initiated or care or supervision orders are issued for children under five. As I have outlined before, these plans should end only through a child protection conference, when multi-agency practitioners are confident that a child is no longer suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, and not automatically when proceedings are initiated.

I know the noble Baroness is concerned that children in these circumstances may fall between teams or services deciding whether staying at home will keep them safe from harm. I want to reassure her, and other noble Lords, that I am confident that reforming the system of family help, with new multi-agency child protection teams wrapped around, is about exactly this: making sure the whole system holds the safety and well-being of children as the number one priority.

I will now speak to Amendments 11, 13, 15 and 16, also tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. These amendments focus on the operation and delivery of the new multi-agency child protection teams. Amendment 13 seeks to ensure that the new teams would operate within the existing statutory framework, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, and that these teams have sufficient access to health safeguarding expertise, specifically in relation to the NHS intercollegiate document, Safeguarding Children and Young People in Care: Competencies for Health Care Staff.

I reassure noble Lords that these teams, as part of the safeguarding partners, will absolutely be required, under the existing duties in Sections 16E, 16G and 16K, to comply with the expectations set out in the working together statutory guidance and local arrangements. We are working closely with health, police and local authority national leaders to ensure that practitioners in the teams have the skills, expertise and knowledge they need, or need access to, to deliver effective child protection interventions.

On the specific point about the police, I want to be clear that the intention of broadening the category, as we have done in the government amendments, would not suggest that a volunteer special constable would be suitable for one of these roles, but we could envisage police staff who would be appropriately qualified. In fact, as I have said, regulations will set out the requirements for the skills and qualifications, including police representatives.

The College of Policing’s professionalising public protection programme is developing resources to make sure that the police workforce has enough of the right professionals, with the right competences, qualifications and experience, to work in multi-agency child protection teams. There are good examples of police forces providing expert staff for child protection work: Thames Valley Police deploys experienced senior police representatives to its local multi-agency safeguarding hubs, including detective sergeant equivalents. They are decision-makers and offer expertise to support their police representatives at all levels. Thames Valley will take this approach to staffing multi-agency child protection teams as well.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be grateful for the Minister’s clarification. When I was speaking, she said that special constables would not be represented, and I think she has said that again just now. In the letter she sent to all Peers on 7 January, she said that, to Clause 3, the Government are laying two amendments to broaden which practitioners from the police can be deployed to multi-agency child protection teams so that it includes police, staff and special constables. Can the Minister explain that?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I regret that we included special constables. Given the criteria that will be set out in regulations for the level of expertise, experience and skills necessary to be part of these teams, I could not envisage a situation in which a volunteer special constable would be an appropriate part of these teams. I was about to reiterate that we are setting out in regulations the skills, knowledge and qualifications that all practitioners nominated in multi-agency child protection teams will need, and that these regulations will be subject to public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. In that way, we will be able to be clear about the types of people from those safeguarding partners who would be appropriate to be part of the teams.

Amendment 11 seeks clarity on the support that multi-agency child protection teams will provide to local authorities to keep children safe from harm. I have listened to requests to be more specific about what these teams will do in practice. That is why, last week, the department published a policy statement to give clarity about the scope of regulations for the operation of these teams. I hope noble Lords have had the chance to look at that. The statement makes it clear that the teams will deliver all statutory child protection functions, from strategy meetings to conferencing. The teams will lead investigations and make decisions about what needs to happen to keep children safe from harm and then hold agencies to account for delivering support. I hope the statement reassures noble Lords that we are working closely with multi-agency partners, and will continue to work with noble Lords and others, as we develop the regulations through public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny to make sure that these teams are the very best they can be.

Amendments 15 and 16 seek to allow the social worker and education practitioner in multi-agency child protection teams to operate on behalf of multiple local authorities, where teams are combined across local authority boundaries. As I clarified in Committee, local authority professionals in the teams must remain responsible for children in their area. This ensures that the local authority with statutory responsibility for the child continues to be accountable and that children do not fall between the cracks. Collaboration across areas and between practitioners will happen. In fact, Clause 4 creates a clear duty on all practitioners to share information to safeguard or promote the welfare of the child, regardless of local authority boundaries.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I know this is semantics, but the point that I made about pathfinders is important. The pathfinders are trying out different approaches within the criteria and the framework set for them. They are discovering, as we suggested at some length when we talked about examples in Committee, different ways of doing things. They are also ensuring that we are doing this on a basis that will have the right professionals in the right place so that children do not fall between gaps—and in fact will actively close the gaps that exist within the system now—and from which we will continue to learn. I will come to the point about timing in a moment, because that is important.

I was just coming to the point about the round table with pathfinder directors of children’s services and representatives from each of the regions that I held to discuss the opportunities and challenges in implementing these new teams. I reassure noble Lords that I said specifically to my team in setting up the round table that I was interested in hearing not only from people who thought that everything was going well but from those who might be more sceptical as well. I have to say that I heard overwhelmingly from pathfinders that, while changing the approach to child protection has been challenging, the benefits of multi-agency expertise and working are already evidenced in the decisions and outcomes for children. For example, areas shared positive examples of innovative whole-family work enabled by multi-agency collaboration, and noted that more empowering and transparent practice has given partners confidence in the approach.

I want to take a moment to reassure noble Lords that we recognise the scale of the ask here. This is a complex national system reform that requires leadership, co-operation and commitment from agencies, and that requires us—the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, is right—to learn from the pathfinders. By the way, I undertake to ensure as far as possible that, as we continue, we are able to provide some of the evidence that the noble Baroness identified.

That is why, through the families first partnership programme, we are working, for example, with three police force areas—the Met, Thames Valley and West Mercia—to identify how we can create multi-agency child protection teams that align with policing footprints. This work includes over 40 local authority areas working together to create effective delivery approaches, and we will bring into that work representatives from health and education as well.

Finally, on delay, it is not the intention—assuming this Bill passes through both Houses—that the multi-agency child protection teams will instantly need to spring into action. It is not even the case, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said, that we expect them to be fully in place during this calendar year. I want to reassure noble Lords that the provisions will not come into force before late 2027, following public consultation and further scrutiny of regulations by Parliament. We also have a comprehensive quarterly monitoring process to measure progress, impact and outcomes as the Families First Programme rolls out nationally and are working across sectors to share learning about what works. I just ask noble Lords not to slam the brakes on an important reform for which I think there has been considerable support, and on which work is already under way.

I turn to Amendments 250 and 251, on resourcing, funding and effective delivery of these teams. To be clear, as we were in Committee, safeguarding partners already have a joint and equal duty to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. The statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children is clear about the expectations on safeguarding partners in making these local arrangements. Guidance will be updated in line with the new regulations to clarify what this means for delivering multi-agency child protection teams. Therefore, resource and funding are already agreed locally, and this will be the same for multi-agency child protection teams.

Once again, we are learning from the pathfinders. For instance, some areas are funding new roles; others are using existing or seconded resources, and some are using agreements between agencies to pool resources for multi-agency child protection teams. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seemed to suggest that it was wrong for different approaches to be taken in different areas. That is precisely the type of flexibility and local recognition of responsibilities in the way teams have been set up that is important.

The Children Act 2004 means that safeguarding partners can already work with relevant agencies, such as probation and youth offending teams, to support their arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Clause 3 will supplement these local arrangements and allow safeguarding partners to choose from a sub-list set out in regulations, which relevant agencies will work most closely with to support the multi-agency child protection team functions, agreeing this locally through co-operation memorandums. We say more on this in the published policy statement.

In Committee, I outlined the £523 million of funding made available in 2025-26 for national rollout of our children’s social care reform. Since then, we have confirmed a further £2.4 billion over the next three years. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that this is a significant and important investment that shows our commitment to reforming the system, to reforming it right and to improving protection for children. I hope, therefore, with the reassurance and clarification that I provided, that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I wonder if the noble Baroness could clarify two things. I apologise if I missed the first, but she went through a series of expectations for qualifications for staff in the multi-agency child protection teams and I did not hear her confirm that those would align with the intercollegiate document, so I would be grateful if she could confirm that in relation to health staff. Also, I wrote down that she said “these teams”— I was not sure whether that was the multi-agency child protection teams, the early help teams or both—will not be implemented until the end of 2027, which feels later than was previously projected. I wonder if she could clarify that.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On the point about the NHS document on intercollegiate guidance, the point I was making was that we believe the provisions are already set out in the Working Together requirements. We will be able, of course, to set them out more fully in regulations; I am pretty confident about that. If I have gone beyond where I should have, I will make that clear.

When I referred to teams, I was in some ways shortening my speaking note. I think every time I did so, I was referring to multi-agency child protection teams. The point I was making was that many of those teams will already be set up and operating as part of the pathfinder process. But in recognition of the scale of the challenge, we are clear that we will take time to get the regulations right and continue the learning from the pathfinders, and to do that in a way that ensures we can all be confident that they will be successful. That is the reason for the timescale I set out.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much for that clarification, as I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I also acknowledge the Government’s financial commitment to this programme.

In relation to my Amendment 6, the Minister said that a child protection plan should end only when there is a multi-agency child protection case conference. One could argue that under the Government’s proposed system, where the same social worker will work with a family but also chair that conference, there is the need for fresh eyes to look at those cases of very young children who are at risk of not having adequate protection and are not nearly so visible to society as those over the age of five, because obviously they are not in school. I am not convinced by the arguments the Minister made.

I am amazed that the Minister regrets she put special constables in the letter. I can imagine she is feeling a bit irritated about that, but I think a lot of people who will have received the letter are not in the Chamber, so I hope she will write to clarify that special constables will not be eligible, because that looked like a cost-cutting measure, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, alluded to.

In relation to cross-border work, I agree that one should not in any way blur accountability, and Amendments 15 and 16 aimed to introduce some more flexibility. But as the Minister knows, families move around a lot, particularly in London, so having rigid boundaries will be unworkable and more flexibility will need to emerge in future.

Turning to Amendment 17, whether they are pathfinders or pilots is semantics. I hear and absolutely believe what the Minister says about the Government seeing increasing commitments from some local authorities, but she is also aware that some very senior, experienced and committed people who want to see the best for children also have specific concerns. This was before my time—I am not for a second suggesting I would have got it right—but those who were involved in the special educational needs reforms and who introduced the Children and Families Act did so in the same spirit: to address an urgent problem that needed an urgent solution. However, without proper piloting that has ended up in a place that nobody intended. The spirit of my Amendment 17, together with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is to avoid that happening again.

As I say, I am not convinced by the Minister’s explanation in relation to Amendment 6. We are talking about 65% of child deaths and serious harm occurring to that age group, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

17: Clause 3, page 6, line 6, at end insert—
“(6) The provisions of this section other than subsections (6) to (9), shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has—(a) published a report evaluating the impact of the Families First pathfinder areas on the key child protection objectives set out by the government, and(b) laid the report before Parliament.(7) The report under subsection (6)(a) must include clear evidence demonstrating the extent to which the pathfinder areas have achieved improvements in—(a) early identification of children at risk of harm,(b) effective intervention to prevent abuse and neglect,(c) coordination between statutory agencies and family support services, and(d) outcomes for children and families subject to safeguarding interventions.(8) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument specify the date on which subsections (1) to (5) of this section come into force, but only after the requirements in subsection (6) have been met. (9) Regulations under subsection (8) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to prevent Clause 3 from coming into force until the Secretary of State has published and laid before Parliament a report evaluating the impact of the Families First pathfinder areas on the government’s stated child protection objectives. This would ensure that the approach has been properly tested and evidenced before national roll-out.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Minister said that the rollout of the multi-agency child protection teams would not be complete until the end of 2027 and called on the House not to “slam the brakes on”. However, the Government set out in their documentation on this that the transformation stage would be complete by March 2026, and this has been described in many places as the most significant reforms to child protection in a generation.

On this side of the House, we do not want to slam on the brakes, but we do want confidence that it will make things better for children and achieve what the Government aim for. If I may say so, this gives the Government an opportunity to come back and potentially set out in more detail some of the milestones. Had we heard those today, I would not be pressing this amendment, but we did not, and so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I will Amendment 18, which is in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith. This group covers minor and technical government amendments relating to data protection. These remove Clause 62, and amend certain text in Clauses 4, 13, 18, 23, 26, 27, 34 and 45.

The original drafting sought to clarify that any duties or powers to process personal data are subject to data protection law. However, these references are now unnecessary, following the commencement of Section 106 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 on 20 August 2025. I reassure noble Lords that this absolutely does not remove any data protections; this is about refining drafting to reflect the latest legislative developments.

Section 106 of the 2025 Act introduced a general data protection override into the Data Protection Act 2018. This ensures that the UK’s data protection laws are not overridden by future legislation that imposes a duty or grants a power to process personal data, unless expressly provided otherwise. This does not remove any data protections; this is about refining drafting to reflect the latest legislative changes to the UK’s statute book. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s clarification of the reasons and the impact of these amendments, which seem entirely reasonable.

Amendment 18 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

19: Clause 4, page 7, line 14, at end insert—
“(9A) The safeguarding partners for a local authority area must ensure that arrangements made under section 16E include—(a) multi-agency arrangements for coordinating initial information sharing and assessment in relation to safeguarding concerns about children,(b) provision for concerns to be referred from the arrangements under paragraph (a) to a multi-agency child protection team established under section 16EA where the initial assessment indicates that enquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 may be required, and(c) processes to ensure continuity of information as cases are transferred from the arrangements under paragraph (a) to a multi-agency child protection team.(9B) Arrangements under subsection (9A)(a) must include provision for—(a) a designated point of contact for receiving safeguarding concerns and information requests from persons to whom subsection (4) applies,(b) timescales for sharing information and making multi-agency decisions about the appropriate level of response,(c) thresholds and criteria for determining when concerns should be referred to a multi-agency child protection team, and(d) secure systems and protocols for information sharing that comply with the data protection legislation.(9C) Guidance issued by the Secretary of State under subsection (6) must include provision about—(a) effective models for multi-agency arrangements to facilitate initial information sharing and assessment,(b) decision-making frameworks for determining when information indicates that section 47 enquiries may be required,(c) protocols for handover of information and coordination between initial multi-agency arrangements and multi-agency child protection teams, and(d) minimum standards for response times at each stage of multi-agency information sharing and assessment.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires safeguarding partners to establish practical multi-agency arrangements for initial information sharing before Section 47 thresholds can be determined. It aims to ensure cases transition smoothly to Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams when Section 47 enquiries are required.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as when we debated this in Committee, Clause 4 is drafted so that there is a one-way flow of information between someone with safeguarding duties to someone else with safeguarding duties. I am pretty confident that both Ministers do not believe that this is how it should work in practice. If this is to make a difference to the safety of children, we need to be clear that information needs to flow back and be shared in a multi-agency context, such as a MASH initially, and potentially later on in terms of child protection.

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I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support these amendments, which I will move. I hope that I have addressed the noble Baroness’s concerns and that she feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that response. She has been reassuring both on the care that is going to be taken over the statutory guidance for information sharing—I hope my amendment can contribute to that in some small way—and the development of an information sharing template. I am assuming that, by that, she means a multi-agency one. Similarly, the Government are obviously taking great care on the development of the single unique identifier. We wish them every success in working through that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

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[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in my time as a family magistrate, I have dealt with the issue of contact centres a number of times. I want to make a point that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, did not make: the problem with unregistered contact centres. When you are in court, it is not always obvious to the court making the decision whether the proposed contact centre is registered or unregistered. This of course is a potentially very serious problem. I have even been in court and been told that one of the parties had personally set up a contact centre as a way of gaming the system, if I can put it like that. So this is a real problem, and registration and training of course are the answer. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be as encouraging as possible.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, made a compelling case for the value of child contact centres in and of themselves and for the importance of having clear minimum standards, and achieving that through additional training and accreditation. I felt that the Minister gave a good answer in Committee on this specific case, when she highlighted the role of the National Association of Child Contact Centres. I do not in any way disagree with the aims of the amendment, but, having worked in a charity that did a lot of training and accreditation, my experience is that we can place too much weight on it and what it can achieve.

The point the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made about unregistered contact centres is extremely important. Anything the Minister can say that would ensure that courts and magistrates have absolute clarity about whether a centre is or is not registered would be critical. If we are going to go down this route, having simple links for contact centres with their local specialist services, whether they be specialist domestic abuse services, drug and alcohol services, or whatever the issue is, might be the simplest and most effective way of making sure that these centres are as safe as they can possibly be.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. It would require all providers of child contact centre services to be accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres to national standards set by the Secretary of State. In responding to this, I start by recognising, as all noble Lords have, the vital role played by the National Association of Child Contact Centres and the many dedicated child contact centres across England and Wales. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made clear, their work is fundamental to the family justice system, providing supervised or supported contact in a safe, neutral environment, allowing children to maintain a meaningful relationship with a non-resident parent. The commitment of staff and volunteers to safeguarding and creating a child-focused space is invaluable. I express my sincere appreciation for the work that they and the NACCC undertake.

I understand the motivation behind this amendment, but the Government do not believe that it is necessary and are already responding to some of the points made in this debate and in the debate in Committee. The NACCC already accredits the majority of centres in England and Wales, with research showing that unaccredited centres are uncommon. In preparing for this, I asked the obvious question: how many unaccredited child contact centres are there? Interestingly, the Cordis Bright research that the noble Baroness referred to found that there was only a small number of unaccredited contact centres, but the report did not provide a figure or estimate for the number of unaccredited contact centres. When those working in accredited child contact centres who took part in the research were asked about unaccredited contact centres, they indicated that such centres were few in number. This may well suggest that we have made progress, due to the efforts of the NACCC, in ensuring that many more child contact centres are accredited by it.

Following the meeting that noble Lords had with my noble friend Lady Levitt, which has been mentioned by several noble Lords, a range of work has been commissioned and is being taken forward by officials at the Ministry of Justice. One of those pieces of work is for officials to work with the NACCC to further understand how we can identify the number of unaccredited contact centres in England and Wales.

Also following from that meeting, other streams of work are taking place that will, I hope, provide reassurance to noble Lords on some of the specific issues that they have raised. These include, first, exploring the possibility of introducing a protocol or similar mechanism for mediators to ensure that they refer families only to accredited centres. Secondly, several noble Lords raised an important point about ensuring that those in child contact centres are suitably trained. Another piece of work is carrying out a further review of the mandatory training already in place for child contact centre staff and volunteers in order to ensure that it is as good as it can be. As I have already said, we are developing a more robust understanding of where any unaccredited centres are and of any concerns that may exist in relation to them.

While I completely understand that the amendment is well intentioned, I do not believe that mandatory accreditation is the best way to approach the issues that have been raised. The NACCC already provides effective leadership and oversight to the majority of centres. Further to this, the work the Ministry of Justice is now taking forward will provide additional reassurance in this space. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw this amendment, given the good work that is already being undertaken in relation to the points that noble Lords have raised.

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[Noble Lords]

No.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will respond briefly, given the hour. Amendment 28, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, concerns implementing a government child neglect strategy, and I absolutely understand his aim in advocating for this. It is right to raise issues concerning the neglect of children, but in my own experience, neglect almost always coexists with other forms of abuse or harm. I fear that focusing on one element of a child’s experience might lead professionals to overlook others that are frequently interlinked. There are real risks with that approach, so we on these Benches do not support the amendment.

I genuinely look forward to the Minister’s reply to Amendment 97 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. We had powerful speeches in favour of what has happened in Wales, and, I would argue, equally important speeches from my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lady Meyer, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. These reminded the House of the current law and raised important balancing points about some of the impacts of the Welsh legislation. I am sympathetic to the push by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for transparency and understanding the data as the Government navigate this very difficult area.

On a smacking ban, the only point that has not been raised this evening, and which worries me—I am sure that nobody would disagree with this—is that children also suffer terribly from psychological violence, emotional abuse or coercion from their parents. The point was made early in the debate about the importance of parenting programmes and positive support for parents. I hope that the Minister can talk about the Best Start in Life hubs, and say that the Government are finding routes, which we all want to see, to support parents without having to criminalise behaviour.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a good debate in this group on new clauses regarding a national child neglect strategy and the removal of the reasonable punishment review in Wales. I will also speak to three government amendments that will ensure that providers of regulated children’s social care settings or youth detention accommodation are held accountable for their role in the ill-treatment or wilful neglect of under-18s in their care. As we have heard in the debate, this group of amendments raises important issues around child safety and well-being—areas to which the Government are wholly committed.

Amendment 28, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a national child neglect strategy. Protecting children from all forms of abuse and neglect is a key priority for this Government. Neglect accounts for 50% of all child protection plans in England, and we know that it is often cumulative. Harm builds up over time if not addressed early. This is why, along with measures in this Bill and backed by over £2.4 billion of investment, our focus is on strengthening multi-agency family help and child protection through national reforms, and statutory guidance that explicitly references neglect as a safeguarding and child protection concern throughout. These practical steps will support practitioners to identify and respond effectively to children and families who need support, including where neglect is present.

We also know that poverty can increase the risk of neglect, although I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that being poor does not imply that you will neglect your children. It does, of course, make your life more difficult. That is why the recently published child poverty strategy prioritises early intervention and integrated support for families, addressing stressors such as parental mental health difficulties, parental substance misuse and domestic abuse—factors that often co-occur with neglect.

I acknowledge the strong case made on this topic by the Liberal Democrats, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, when we met to talk about it. The Government have heard a range of representations on this issue, and I can commit to the House that we will continue to work with key stakeholders—including the Government’s What Works Network, Foundations, and the national child safeguarding practice review panel—on specific matters relating to child neglect, helping to shape our understanding of this complex issue.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is obviously an important issue to us. Although we welcome the Bill’s placing on a statutory footing the extension of virtual school head support to a wider group of children in kinship care, the positive impact of this will be significantly limited due to a lack of accompanying facilities and funding to support the VSH in discharging this duty. In particular, the continued restriction of pupil premium plus funding to only those kinship children currently or previously looked after, in effect, removes one of the most useful tools available to virtual schools to improve educational attainment and progress for groups of vulnerable learners.

In the halcyon days of local government funding and finance, our corporate head of children in care was the director of education, a remarkable man called Colin Hilton. He worked in Knowsley, a borough that neighbours mine, and he came to Liverpool in his role as director. Because money was plentiful, he had a pot of money that he could spend on the children in care as the corporate parent. That was life-changing for those children: they could go on trips and visits, and they could do all sorts of things that they cannot do now because money is still quite tight in local government.

In trying to see how to unlock that opportunity for young children, we looked at the pupil premium in schools and how it has, again, given opportunities to children and young people that perhaps would not have been available otherwise—head teachers and other teachers have that money to use. If we have a virtual school, we have to ask: what is the difference between that and a physical school?

Responding to similar recommendations made by the Education Committee last year, the Government confirmed that they have no plans to extend the pupil premium plus eligibility, because

“there is limited evidence to support such a change and no national data on the number or location of children in informal arrangements”

However, they committed to

“exploring the feasibility of collecting this data through the school census to build a stronger evidence base for future policy development”.

The evidence suggests that the needs and experience of children in all forms of kinship care are more similar than they are different. There are broadly comparable levels of special needs children and other children’s social care groups that are less likely to receive support through an education, health and care plan. Current support continues to undermine the common need, even if it is extended only to those in receipt of VSH support—namely, not to all children in informal kinship care. This amendment would help to harmonise the existing patchwork of support for kinship care children, based on the type of arrangement and journey into kinship care.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on these Benches, we welcome government Amendment 29.

As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said about his Amendment 44, there is a gap where the Government have extended the role of virtual school heads but not extended pupil premium plus to children in kinship care. As a minimum movement on this, I wonder whether the Government would consider extending it to kinship children brought within the ambit of the virtual school head, so that children in care have consistent entitlements—that is currently not the case. I assume that the noble Lord will not press Amendment 45 in his name, so I will not speak to that.

I signed the noble Lord’s Amendment 48, on kinship care leave. As the Minister knows, employers are starting to move in this direction. I would be grateful if she could set out what the Government’s plans are here. If any of us were to care for a child of a member of our extended family, expecting comparable leave to be able to settle that child in, just as if one was adopting or fostering, seems only reasonable. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendment 48. As an ex-kinship carer, I know that there are times when it is incredibly stressful, such as when you are dealing with bereavements and all sorts of issues. You will be dealing children who have gone through this and might well have issues, all the way through to learning difficulties. It is incredibly difficult. If we want kinship carers, we need this kind of leave.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

31: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Requirements for kinship care approval: disapplicationIn regulation 26 of the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 (S.I. 2011/581), after paragraph (9) insert—“(10) This regulation does not apply to kinship carers.”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This removes the requirement for kinship carers who have been approved by the Director of Children’s Services, including after a Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) process, to be reassessed by the foster panel.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I open by thanking the Minister for those final remarks, particularly in relation to kinship leave and the school census.

The Government have acknowledged that the kinship rules need reviewing and updating. The amendments in my name and the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who brings real experience as a now ex-kinship carer to this debate, seek to do the following things.

First, they aim to recognise the advantages, from the perspective of a child, of being cared for by a member of one’s extended family by easing the regulatory framework. In a world where a kinship carer could be approved by a family group decision-making meeting or the family group decision-making process ultimately leads to the appointment of kinship carers if the original plan with birth parents breaks down, we believe it is not reasonable to then go through the whole mainstream foster carer approval process. That underpins my Amendment 31.

I made that point in Committee and the Minister in her response said that

“we recognise that there is room for improvement in how these assessments are carried out”.

She went on to say that in such cases

“the local authority has an obligation to complete a robust safeguarding assessment”.—[Official Report, 9/6/26; col. 1165.]

I would have thought that would have already happened when the family group decision-making meeting had been held. We are talking about cases that are about to go into care proceedings, so the risks would be well understood.

The Minister rightly pointed out that the guidance gives some small flexibility, but ultimately the kinship carer has to meet the minimum standards and, unless she can tell me otherwise, my understanding is that it is rare that this flexibility is used. Maybe that was acceptable in the past, but we are moving to a time where the use of kinship carers is rightly being actively encouraged by the Government, so numbers should increase and the Bill is an opportunity to streamline the process.

Alongside this, as we debated earlier, our Amendment 5, had it been accepted, would have provided a wider package of support, but I accept that the Government aim to achieve that in a different way.

The aim of Amendment 32 is to expedite the review currently being undertaken by the Law Commission. We all know that it could take many years to complete and for its recommendations to appear on the statute book. Amendment 32 would put pace on this and permit the introduction of regulations that would address the issues that have been identified as barriers to increasing the number of kinship foster carers. Following the changes made to the kinship care statutory guidance around the application of the national minimum standards to kinship foster carers in October 2024, surely it would make sense to review their impact, take further steps to ensure that fostering approval and assessment processes work well for this group, and consider their specific needs, strengths and circumstances.

Fourteen months on from the change, we argue that it would be sensible for the Government to review the impact to understand whether it has been effective in improving practice within local authority fostering and kinship teams. A review would also be able to identify whether greater numbers of family and friends have since been approved as kinship foster carers against expected benchmarks. The number and proportion of children who start to be looked after in kinship care each year—around 5,500—have remained stable in recent years. We would expect to see this increase following the change in guidance and an increasing policy and practice focus on prioritising kinship care options for children.

Last year, the Welsh Government proposed to amend their fostering regulations to create a separate kinship foster carer category, separate from mainstream foster carers. This intends to allow more discretion in the assessment and approval process for kinship foster carers, supporting panels and decision-makers to take a more flexible approach to suitability and to consider areas that are relevant only to a kinship care arrangement. In England, although Standard 30 of the fostering national minimum standards describes expectations around family and friends as kinship foster carers, it is clear that,

“where family and friends are approved as foster carers the other standards apply as they do for other foster carers”.

A review, as proposed by the amendment, would offer an opportunity to consider whether a different approach might be needed, including one that mirrors the Welsh Government’s proposal of a distinct kinship foster carer category, with a separate accompanying schedule of requirements. It is genuinely disappointing that there has not been more movement from the Government in this area. It would involve no cost and would address many of the issues that the Government have identified and that are certainly of concern to children’s services leads around the country. If the Government really want to see the number of successful kinship placements increase, they should expedite this review as quickly as possible. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by noting how much support the Government have given to the whole area of carers, as indeed did the previous Government. I look at my party and Ed Davey’s experience as a carer. I do not think you can imagine what it must be like for children who are in care. All the figures still suggest that there are real issues and real problems. I think we all get the Local Government Information Unit’s daily briefing. Yesterday, it reported a large survey of 100,000-plus children in care. One in four of them admitted to considering suicide, which is frightening.

Children in kinship care have all sorts of issues and problems, but we know that there is probably a much more stable situation and a more stable relationship. If that is successful, then we should be getting on with it. I hope that the Minister will say that in her reply. If this is a way of supporting those children even more and we can increase the numbers, let us not hang around; let us get on with it. I hope the Minister, in her reply, will tell us how quickly we are going to achieve that.

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[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I cannot give that exact information, other than to say that the consultation is starting, which means that it is going at pace. I understand the frustration and the need to get on with this. We all want to get on with this: it is an important piece in our overall ambition to make sure that we do the best for children and young people in this country.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for asking that question as it was the one I was going to start with, so that was perfect, and I thank the Minister again for her remarks. I absolutely accept her point that we need a holistic review of the kinship care regulatory and legal framework. With that, I accept that, on its own, Amendment 31 does not stand up. However, I am less convinced about the Minister’s pushback on the timing. Had she responded to the noble Lord by saying it would be within a particular time period, that would have given the House much more confidence.

The Minister rightly speaks about having a well-rounded, thorough and comprehensive review, but, as she knows far better than I do, local authorities are under massive strain financially and practically in terms of placing children in, as she said, horrifically expensive children’s homes. I think those were her words. It would take tiny numbers of additional kinship and foster carers in every local authority to tip that balance.

Set against the pressure of having a rounded and comprehensive review is also the pressure of timing. If we stepped back and thought, “Could we review in a really high-quality way the kinship regulations in a year?”, I think we would have volunteers around the House and we could do a pretty decent job. I would put my hand up to help with that. So I do intend to test the opinion of the House. What we are suggesting in Amendment 32 is a review similar to the one that the Government have commissioned from the Law Commission but with a 12-month timescale. Children and local authorities need that.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I have received information that we are hoping for completion by summer 2027, which is not quite a year but is not far off.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I appreciate that, but hoping is hoping. I seem to remember that, even when we were in government, one or two deadlines were not met, and even then we still have to find legislative time. It is important, for the reasons that I have set out, that we test the opinion of the House on that issue. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 31.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

32: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Kinship care report and regulations(1) The Secretary of State must, with 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, carry out a review assessing the effectiveness of the current pathways for approval of kinship carers.(2) The Secretary of State must lay a report setting out the findings of the review before Parliament.(3) Following the publication of the report required by subsection (1), the Secretary of State must introduce regulations regarding the approval of kinship carers.(4) These regulations must seek to—(a) improve the safety and wellbeing of children in kinship care,(b) reduce barriers to becoming to a kinship carer,(c) establish a requirement for a kinship support plan which is monitored by the local authority for a minimum period and until the arrangements for the child are judged to be safe and the welfare of the child is being promoted, and(d) reduce the burden for local authorities and the family courts.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to review and update the approval requirements for kinship carers.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Tyler for all the work she has done on this important topic. It shows the real power and strength of this House that, by talking to each other, listening and supporting, we can bring about real change, so I thank the Government for putting down these amendments. As my noble friend rightly said, there are so many young people living independently by themselves, and the most important thing is that they have an understanding of how finances work. I do not like the term “financial literacy”, but it is important. The national curriculum is going to bring that in for every young person, but for these young people it is even more important. So, I thank the Minister for getting to a place where we can all support and get behind this important issue.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, I welcome the amendments that the Government have tabled to Clause 8. I think they will meet the aims of our Amendment 35, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the additional support that the Government will offer to care leavers.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and Baronesses for their positive comments today; they are a measure of the fact that all of us in this Chamber want to put the needs of the most vulnerable people in our society at the centre of the Bill. I think the Government have clearly put across that we are strongly committed to improving support for care leavers, both through the measures in the Bill on Staying Close, local offer and corporate parenting and through our other programmes of work, such as the care leaver covenant and the care leavers interministerial board, all of which seek to ensure that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.

We want to support those in care and preparing to leave care before they reach adulthood, and to ensure that they have the same support as all young people. They will of course benefit from the wider changes that we are making for all young people in this space; we have had some fantastic discussions about the need for financial literacy for all young people in different places over the last few months.

I emphasise that in November the independent curriculum assessment review published its report, along with the Government’s response. As part of the review, we are taking forward recommendations that will help to deliver a high-quality curriculum for every young person. One key recommendation is to embed applied knowledge throughout the curriculum, including financial literacy. We have given a clear commitment in our response to the review to strengthen financial education through both the maths and the citizenship curriculum so that all young people and children have the skills they will need in adulthood. These commitments will benefit those children in care and preparing leave care.

Amendment 35, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, seeks to ensure that Staying Close support includes support to access services relating to financial support and literacy. Having said what I did about the review in general, I acknowledge that care leavers have particular and additional needs in this area. I fully endorse the noble Baroness’s intent with this amendment, recognising the importance of care leavers being properly informed of the financial support available to them as they transition to independence.

We have listened to concerns from both Houses about ensuring that care leavers receive the support they need from local authorities, particularly with financial management, and helping care leavers to develop the skills and knowledge that they require in this area. That is why we have tabled two government amendments to Clause 8. Amendment 39, in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith, adds services relating to financial literacy to the list of services in Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, meaning that local authorities will have to publish information about those services as part of their local offer for care leavers. Amendment 40, also in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith, amends Clause 8 to require each local authority to include information about the arrangements that it has in place for providing financial support to care leavers in its local offer. In bringing forward these amendments, I acknowledge the continued advocacy for care leavers to receive assistance with financial literacy and financial support that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, has provided in this area, and I thank her for that.

Most care leavers already receive a pathway plan before leaving care that should cover their financial capability, money management skills and strategies to develop these abilities. Adding these government amendments will ensure that care leavers are better aware of the services available to them, and it will increase local authorities’ accountability in supporting care leavers to receive the support they need. That further underscores how the Government have listened to the voices of children and young people because, as we have heard and as everyone engaged in this area acknowledges, when we listen to care leavers’ requests for support, the message that comes across loud and clear is that they want more support in understanding their finances. For that reason, we consider Clause 8 the most effective place for the amendment, ensuring a robust and consistent level of support for every care leaver, not only those accessing Staying Close.

Importantly, including the amendments in Clause 8 does not remove or dilute the support for care leavers receiving Staying Close. Financial literacy remains a key factor in helping young people to find and, importantly, keep accommodation and will continue to be considered as part of the overall assessment of their ability to maintain a tenancy. This will be reflected in the initial programme guidance we will be sharing with local authorities before April this year as the national rollout of the programme begins. This has been developed in collaboration with local authorities, stakeholders and people with care experience and will be updated after evaluation of local authority practice and ahead of the publication of final statutory guidance. I hope that this answers the questions that the noble Baroness asked in moving her amendment, that noble Lords are reassured, and that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I very much look forward to the Minister’s reply on this group of amendments. There are 80,000 children in care—12,000 more than a decade ago—all of whom have different needs and requirements, mature at different ages and experience different feelings. I do not think you can put an arbitrary date on when somebody has to leave. Nationally, young people increasingly stay with their family into their 30s and get all the support that a family gives them. A friend of mine and his wife, the Kellys, foster regularly. They had two foster boys; one came to the age to move on and just said, “I am not going—I am staying”. Malcolm, being the sort of person he is, said “Okay”. That child needed that. He needed that support from the family. I hope the Government will consider this carefully.

On the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, I do not understand what the problem is. Why can this information not be available? It seems to me good, solid practice for society generally and for people in care and care leavers. I do not understand why we cannot say yes. Will it cost more money? Do we think local authorities do not have the expertise to do this? I would be interested to know why the Minister thinks it cannot be agreed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a good debate on this group. I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and would be interested to know whether the Minister knows what the cost of this funding would be if it were extended in the way that the noble Lord’s review suggests. One could absolutely imagine a situation where proper funding for foster carers of young people in receipt of Staying Put support might relieve pressures elsewhere in the system.

I also look forward to the Minister’s response on Amendment 59, which, as we heard, would extend Staying Put support up to the age of 25. We agree with the principle underlying Amendment 95 that local areas should constantly be learning from one another about the best support for care leavers, but we are not convinced that it would be achieved by this approach.

I turn briefly to my modest Amendments 41 and 42. I reread the Minister’s argument in Committee that these amendments were not really necessary—a familiar term—as every care leaver should have a pathway plan that would cover accommodation, health and several other important aspects of their life. As she said, the pathway plan covers accommodation, yet the Government have chosen to put the publication of the local offer in relation to accommodation in the Bill, if I have understood correctly, so I am not quite clear about the resistance to minimum commitments in relation to healthcare. To be absolutely clear, my Amendment 41 would create a statutory duty for the health service to set out arrangements for those leaving care so they can be given additional considerations that they deserve as they enter adulthood. The Minister knows very well that children in care tend, through no fault of their own, to have much more complex health needs than those not in care. A lot of the specialist care available to children stops at 18. Taking the time to make sure they understand what support is available to them as adults is surely the minimum we might ask for.

That links to Amendment 42, which would make it explicit that care leavers under 25 need additional support from their GP. The noble Baroness will remember from Committee that the suggestion is that there should be an extended initial appointment offered to those young people as they transition from specialist support to universal systems. They do not have parents to support them through that and, as we all know, their needs are extended. It seems a tiny request that might make a great difference.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I will speak on Amendment 71 in my name. I am grateful to the Minister for her movement on this issue. In her letter to me of 7 October 2025, which was some time ago, she said:

“When used effectively, non-school alternative provision offers tailored support that meets individual needs and helps re-engage children in education, supporting future regular attendance in school. However, in some areas, inadequate oversight is putting already vulnerable children’s safety and the quality of their education at risk. Too often, children whose needs could be met in school are instead placed in unsafe, low-quality settings with no clear plan for returning to mainstream education”.


I do not understand why anything in our society is unregistered—whether a school, a care home or alternative provision. We should not allow that to happen, because we put the lives of people at risk.

Let us understand what alternative provision means. It means that a child or young person who has been permanently expelled or removed from school becomes the responsibility of the local authority. The local authority has to make provision for them. However, in many cases, schools have their own units on site, which is the best model by far. Where that provision is not available, local authorities have to find providers.

Remember that these children and young people are the most vulnerable. They often have special educational needs, are from difficult circumstances or suffer trauma or mental health problems. The Minister realises the issue and has come forward with some suggestions of how we might develop this. I am genuinely grateful for that. I hope that this will be another way that we can deal with this issue.

I will raise a number of issues with the Minister on which I hope she might be prepared either to write to me or to respond in her reply. Unregistered provision cannot be inspected by Ofsted, but we use the same criteria for registered provision that we use with maintained schools, academies and independent schools. This is a very different situation. These pupils require flexible timetables, smaller groups, therapeutic approaches, outreach work, incremental attendance and a curriculum that prioritises core skills, well-being and preparation. Often, inspections of alternative provision already highlight that applying mainstream criteria to alternative providers creates inconsistent judgments, perverse incentives and misunderstandings about what meaningful progress looks like for these pupils. Without adaptation, the strengthened regulatory framework in the Bill may unintentionally constrain innovation, reduce placement availability, push provision back into semi-regulated spaces or penalise alternative providers for not behaving like mainstream schools.

I am sure that the Government and the Minister want to get to grips with this issue, and I hope that their proposals actually deliver what we all want.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments focuses again on children in the care system. As we have heard expertly and eloquently expressed across the House, the focus on relationships is so important for those children, as is allowing them to sustain relationships with siblings and families where it is safe to do so, and not being moved too far from their home and network wherever possible. Obviously, this is most sensitive where siblings do not live together, either because they are not all in care or because they are in different care placements.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Russell. As he said, he has played a major role within Coram, the organisation which, as we sit here now, is celebrating the centenary of the Adoption of Children Act 1926. For noble Lords who do not know about this, the celebration is on the Terrace between now and 8 pm. If you get the opportunity, please go along and meet the many people who make such a large contribution to adoption within the UK. It is appropriate to mark the centenary appropriately.

That landmark legislation introduced, for the first time in England and Wales, a legal process by which the rights and responsibilities for a child could be transferred from birth parents to adoptive parents. Because of that, I find it unfortunate to say the least that on the centenary of that Act, the Bill we are discussing this evening features the word “adoption” only four times in 137 pages. I do not understand that. Three of those mentions are just mentions of adoption in other Acts of Parliament. Why that should be the case, I simply do not understand. A Bill with children’s well-being in its title surely should not ignore the key role played by adoptive parents in their children’s well-being. I made this point in Committee and I am not going to repeat what I said then, but those working with adoptive families who have suffered the cut in the adoption support fund to which the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Russell, have referred feel undervalued, despite the important job they do in keeping children out of care and residential homes.

We need to think again about how we approach adoption and give it the respect and resources it deserves. If any noble Lords choose to go down to the Terrace this evening, they will meet people who are very active and hardworking in that sector, who will tell you that they feel undervalued and under-supported. I hope that before long, that will change.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendments 46 and 47 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In Committee and again this evening, we covered in detail the distress caused to parents and children by the very late timing of the announcement in relation to the support fund and by the cut in the size of the grant. In particular, Amendment 46 gives the Government an opportunity to review how best to use this funding ahead of the grant period in March 2027. I am not aware of any compelling evidence that supports the earlier decision to cut the grant size and to reduce the funding for specialist assessments, but if that exists perhaps the Minister can share it today. Of course, we on these Benches are open to improving the way funds are distributed, but we are genuinely concerned by the lack of visibility on what will happen next year. I hope very much that the Government will address this tonight.

I have also retabled my Amendment 100, which would give foster carers clear delegated authority for the children in their care on practical day-to-day matters. Foster carers have been clear that they would value this and, crucially, it is one of the reasons why we see too many leaving the profession. I hope the Minister can be more encouraging today than she was in Committee on this important point.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I reply to this group of amendments, I assure noble Lords that I will try not to drench anybody during the course of my response—although I have now decided to set myself an ambition of juggling three bottles of water by the time we get to the end of Report.

Important issues are covered in this group. Amendments 46 and 47 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, concern funding for the adoption and special guardianship support fund and provide a further opportunity to debate these important issues. Around 3,000 children are adopted each year and more than 3,800 enter special guardianship. I salute all those who welcome these vulnerable, often traumatised children into their homes and hope that the centenary celebrations noble Lords have alluded to, taking place here this evening, enable a celebration of that contribution and, rightly, as we have heard in this debate, a challenge about how we can do our best to support those who undertake adoption and special guardianship in future.

Almost 57,000 children have received adoption and special guardianship support since 2015, and many of them more than once. Since April 2025, we have approved applications for nearly 16,000 children. However, it is important to remember that this is not the only source of funding. The Families First Partnership programme will total £2.4 billion over the next three years. That funding is available to both adoptive and kinship families and to the services that support them. We have already confirmed that adoption and special guardianship funding will be continued for 2026-27. Further details will be shared in due course through the usual funding announcements.

As several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Watson, have made clear, we need to think longer term about the future of adoption support, as we promised to Parliament in September that we would—and perhaps even more so as we celebrate the centenary of adoption. We will shortly set out plans to engage widely on this with the aim of understanding how best to support children and young people to thrive in their new families and get the support they need in the most effective way.

I turn to Amendment 100, tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and thank her for raising this important issue again. I would have to look back at the record, but I have a considerable amount of sympathy on this, which I hope I shared in Committee. Foster carers offer crucial support to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. They provide love, stability and compassion to children and young people when they need it most. They therefore need to have the ability and the responsibility to make the decisions that they think are suitable for children.

The Government are prioritising fostering. Through the fostering recruitment and retention programme, we have been supporting over 60% of local authorities across England in 10 regional clusters to recruit and support foster carers. We know that we need to build on this to further accelerate foster-care recruitment and retention and we will soon publish a comprehensive set of measures to achieve this with regional care co-operatives and fostering hubs at the heart of these plans.

In relation to the issue specifically covered by this amendment, which seeks to ensure that foster carers have, by default, delegated authority on day-to-day issues, except where an alternative decision-maker is listed on the child’s placement plan, our guidance already sets out that foster carers should be able to make day-to-day decisions about the children in their care. I accept that too often we hear that this does not happen in practice, meaning that children in care miss out on normal childhood experiences and feel as if they are treated differently from their peers. I agree with the spirit of this amendment, but it is not necessary to include this in this Bill. Local authorities should already delegate all day-to-day decisions, and we have clear guidance that sets this out. We will nevertheless be taking further action on this issue as the noble Baroness pushes us to do.

Our upcoming fostering publications will set out our plans for ensuring that foster carers can feel confident in making day-to-day decisions for the children in their care. Our publications will also set out plans to reform the fostering national minimum standards. These will also reflect our position on day-to-day decision-making and how fostering services can support carers to make these decisions. Any changes to the national minimum standards, including those concerning decision-making for foster carers, would benefit from a period of consultation with relevant stakeholders. I accept the noble Baroness’s point that it is important that we make progress in this area.

Given that commitment and our plans on the longer-term provision of adoption support, I hope that I have addressed the concerns of noble Lords and that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, feels able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

I give heartfelt thanks to the Minister from these Benches for moving this amendment. I have not dared count the number of amendments my noble friend has tabled, but this is a magnificent example of a Minister and a Government listening.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches warmly welcome the amendment and thank the Government for tabling it.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their thanks and contributions. Tabling and discussing this amendment has been an important first step. We are clear that, if it is agreed, as it appears it will be—this goes to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Young, raised about some of the technical areas where we need to ensure that this works effectively—we will continue to work across departments so that it has the impact that the Government desire: to strengthen information sharing so that educational institutions and health providers are aware where children living in temporary accommodation may require additional or different support.

As I said, alongside the legislation we will provide guidance for local authority housing officers and relevant education and health bodies to ensure that the duty is well understood by all relevant bodies. Where possible, we will update existing guidance to minimise burdens and support accessibility.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, it is worth saying that this is one part of the action that the Government are taking with respect to temporary accommodation. Through our homelessness strategy, published in December, we have set out a range of measures to support families with children in temporary accommodation, including protecting record levels of investment in tackling homelessness and rough sleeping, and eliminating the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families, other than very short-term use in emergencies, by the end of this Parliament. We have set an ambition to cut school days lost for children in temporary accommodation, with a stronger role for pastoral teams to work closely with families in that situation, including preventing unlawful removal from a school’s roll. We have made a clear pledge to prevent deaths caused by gaps in healthcare. To achieve that, there will be proactive health outreach to families in temporary accommodation, and a clinical code to improve data and prevent incidents. We will end the practice of discharging newborns into bed and breakfast, or other unsuitable housing, and work with the NHS on safe and robust pathways.

In response to another question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Young, there is no duty within this amendment to notify the Welsh, but we will look at how we can do that in regulations in the future, if needed. I wholly take his point, given that I come from that part of the country myself, about areas that are close to the border, where moves may be happening across the border.

I will write to noble Lords with an update on the timetable for the implementation of this very important step. I thank noble Lords for the welcome they have given it this evening.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

53: Clause 11, page 16, line 33, after “care” insert “, education”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that children deprived of their liberty have access to education.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we come to this important group, which covers children who are deprived of their liberty. Noble Lords will remember from our debate in Committee that the number of such children has risen by 11 times in only seven years to almost 1,300 in 2024. Most troublingly, the number of children under the age of 12 deprived of their liberty grew by more than 50% in the last quarter, and 97% of these children are already in care. They are deprived of their liberty, typically for an average of six months, and restraint of those children is permitted in two-thirds of cases. The amendments in my name, and those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Meston, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, offer a practical route to turning this tide. They would create greater integration of services, stronger accountability and a focus on recovery rather than containment.

Amendment 56 would place an explicit responsibility on local authorities and health partners to be jointly responsible for the funding of care for children who are deprived of their liberty or at risk of being so. The amendment would make clear, through government guidance, the expectation that agencies work together not only at the point of crisis but at an earlier stage.

Amendment 58 would require the Secretaries of State for Education and Health to lay a report before Parliament annually with transparent data showing how many children are deprived of their liberty, as well as their characteristics, circumstances and outcomes. This would bring crucial transparency to the system and show whether the Government’s initiatives are working.

Amendment 55 would ensure there is comprehensive guidance for placement and care planning in relation to the specific aims when applying for a deprivation of liberty order and, crucially, to how a child’s plan will support their recovery so that they spend the shortest possible time with their liberty removed. Currently, children are stuck in limbo for many months, and this amendment would address that.

Amendment 53 would ensure that children deprived of their liberty receive an education. Amendment 60 would strengthen the role of the independent reviewing officer to make sure that decisions are scrutinised robustly. Finally, Amendment 54 would ensure monthly reviews of every deprivation of liberty order by a director of children’s services or head of social work practice to ensure that it continues only where strictly necessary.

These proposals have not been developed in isolation. They seek to build on the important collaborative work led by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which has brought together representatives from child and adolescent mental health services, children’s social care, regional care co-operatives, NHS England and the Department for Education itself. I urge the Minister not to wait for another review or pilot. These children do not have lobbyists; they do not write to their MP; they do not have front-page advocates. They are, for the most part, invisible. Their lives are bound by locked doors and constant supervision. They cannot ask for change. We must therefore act for them.

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I hope that, by explaining the extent of the wider programme of work under way, I have reassured noble Lords that we are not waiting. We are already taking action, supported by the important work by Nuffield identified in the debate this evening. The existing requirements already in legislation should reassure noble Lords that improving the experiences and outcomes of this group of children is a priority for the Government. I hope this addresses noble Lords’ concerns and that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her very full reply and recognise the commitment of the Government and some of the initiatives that she raised.

I do not feel that her response to my Amendment 56 met its aims. She said that it could restrict pooled funding for the group of children to whom it might apply. She knows better than me that the Government can come back with a better version. Until we come to that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 53.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

56: Clause 11, page 17, line 25, at end insert—
“(8ZB) Where arrangements are made for the accommodation of a child under this section, health authorities specified in subjection (8ZC) must make joint funding arrangements under this section for the provision of that care.(8ZC) The authorities are—(a) NHS England,(b) any integrated care board, Local Health Board, Special Health Authority, National Health Service trust or NHS foundation trust,(c) the Secretary of State in relation to his or her functions under section 12 of the National Health Service Act 2006, and(d) any person authorised by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires joint funding arrangements to be made by relevant health providers for the accommodation of children under section 25 of the Children Act 1989. By mandating joint funding from NHS England, integrated care boards, and other specified health authorities, this amendment seeks to ensure that children receive more holistic and joined up support.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

63: Clause 12, page 18, line 3, at end insert—
“(1A) After section 16, insert—“16A Registration of parent undertakings(1) In making an application for registration under this Part, an agency or establishment which is a subsidiary undertaking must ensure that the application contains information about the parent undertaking.(2) If the application is granted under section 13 (grant or refusal of registration), the establishment or agency must ensure that information related to the parent undertaking is regularly updated.(3) The Secretary of State may, by regulations under section 16 (regulations about registration), make provision for the enforcement of the duty under subsection (2).(4) In this section, “parent undertaking” and “subsidiary undertaking” have the meanings given by section 1162 of the Companies Act 2006.””

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will remember from our debate in Committee that on this side of the House we had considerable practical reservations about the Government’s approach to regulating groups of children’s homes and foster care providers. These two amendments aim to improve the process that the Government plan to embark on.

Amendment 63 would simply require an agency or an establishment to provide information about its parent undertaking when it registered with Ofsted and to keep that information regularly updated. I assume that it would make it simpler for future regulation and enforcement if the identity of the parent undertaking was clear from the outset, given the complexity of the ownership structures of some of these groups.

My Amendment 64 aims to strengthen the effectiveness of the enforcement regime by giving it commercial teeth that would impact on these businesses. One would hope that preventing them expanding and restructuring financially or organisationally when they were subject to an improvement plan would lead to speedier compliance with the regulatory framework, as well as preventing a suboptimal group from expanding. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, in the absence of other comments I will turn to Amendments 63 and 64, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, in relation to the provider oversight scheme. The scheme will enable Ofsted to require provider groups to implement an improvement plan across multiple settings where Ofsted reasonably suspects standards are not being met. If the provider group does not adequately implement improvements, Ofsted will be able to issue it with a fine.

Amendment 63 seeks to ensure that, where an applicant for registration with Ofsted is a subsidiary undertaking, the applicant must provide information about its provider group. This information must then be kept updated and new powers would provide for enforcement of these requirements in regulations. I do not believe this amendment is necessary. There are existing powers in Sections 12 and 22 of the Care Standards Act 2000 which we intend to use to impose requirements on an applicant for registration, or a person already registered to carry on an establishment or agency, to provide information in relation to its parent undertaking—for example, contact details for service of relevant notices by email, and information about other subsidiaries under the same parent undertaking.

Amendment 64 seeks to ensure that, when a parent undertaking is required to implement an improvement plan, it is subject to financial and commercial restrictions, including the limitation on the acquisition of further subsidiaries, the opening of new establishments or agencies, and the organisational or financial restructuring of the parent undertaking while the improvement plan is being implemented. The measure as drafted allows for regulations to set out that a person is not a fit and proper person to carry on an establishment or agency where their parent undertaking—the provider group—has failed or is failing to comply with an improvement notice. This will allow Ofsted to refuse registration applications in respect of new settings that are under the ownership or control of the parent undertaking that has failed to comply with provider oversight requirements. The significant restrictions created by this amendment on parent undertakings which are implementing an improvement plan would not be proportionate, given that the purpose of this measure is to require the provider group to implement change quickly across all settings where concerns have been identified.

I turn to government Amendment 65. It is vital to the safeguarding of children that relevant authorities can quickly and efficiently issue notifications and documents where needed to persons carrying on or managing establishments and agencies and parent undertakings. This measure will amend Section 37 of the Care Standards Act 2000 so that Ofsted notices and documents under Part II of the Act can be served by email, giving the option to choose between delivering notifications by post, by hand or by email. This amendment aligns with our wider aims to deliver efficient technological services. It will bring coherence to communications across reforms and eliminate outdated, costly and time-consuming requirements of delivery only by hand or by post. This will reduce the risk of sensitive financial information being lost, and reduce delays to decisions that could impact the delivery of children’s social care services and to resolving concerns about the care that children receive. I hope I have addressed the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and that she will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her remarks. I perhaps accept them more in relation to my Amendment 63 than my Amendment 64, but time will tell how the Government’s plans work out. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 63 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to lend my support to all three of these amendments. I was very pleased to add my name to Amendments 99 and 101 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran.

Listening to the debate today, I think this group is dealing with some of the most heartbreaking events that children and families ever face. It has really been very harrowing just to listen to the circumstances that some of these families have found themselves in. I was profoundly moved by the way the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, introduced her amendment. It is a really important amendment, and I very much hope that the Government will be able to look sympathetically at it.

I will just say a few words in addition to what the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has said, particularly about Amendment 99. As we heard from the noble Lord, almost half of newborns in care proceedings are born to mothers who have already been through proceedings with another child, so far too many children are entering care from parents who have already had at least one child removed from their care.

As we have heard, without support—and that is what this amendment is all about: the support that we want to see local authorities offering after a child is removed—parents, particularly mothers, are often left struggling to cope with all the existing difficulties that led to the child removal in the first place, while facing the additional trauma, grief and stigma of losing a previous child. This leads to further child removals too many times. It is simply a heartbreaking, vicious cycle.

But with the right support, parents can stabilise, overcome that trauma and make lasting change. The reason I feel so passionately about this is that in my time as chair of Cafcass, I was privileged to visit various Pause projects, to talk to the people who were providing the support and to talk to the mothers about the difference that having that support had made and why they now felt they could turn their lives around so that they would not find themselves in a position like that of a mother I was talking to—I think I said this in Committee, so forgive me if I am repeating myself—who had had eight children removed and now it was about the ninth child. We just cannot allow these situations to perpetuate. It is not something that a decent and humane society can do.

At the moment only about half of local authority areas are providing any support at all. This amendment is so critical to ensure that support is available and that this incalculable human suffering that we have heard about can be alleviated. I very much look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the Minister, and I really hope we can make progress here.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I echo other noble Lords and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey- Thompson, for her very powerful and moving speech. Sadly, like other noble Lords, I know families who have been touched in similar ways. Both personally and professionally, I hope that the Government listen to the noble Baroness’s advice.

My Amendments 99 and 101 have support from more than 20 children’s charities and the Children’s Commissioner, and I am very grateful to the co-signatories to my amendment. In Committee the response from the Minister focused on early help and family support that the Government will require local areas to deliver as a way of meeting the needs of these women. But as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, although the funding is obviously very warmly welcomed, it does not address the issues for families who have children removed into care, because once a child is removed from a parent’s care, services and support follow the child.

There is no requirement or expectation that the support needs formally identified for the woman during the care proceedings process will be provided after the removal of a child. Without support to change their circumstances, parents are vulnerable to repeat the same traumatic cycle that led to their first, second or—as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said—eighth child being removed. I think the late Nick Crichton removed a 14th child from the same woman, which led to the work that has been referred to today. We know that almost half of newborns in care proceedings are born to families who have been through proceedings at least once.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I was going to speak to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, but certain Members are heckling me. I will just say how important this amendment is and that I hope the House will support it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, a good speech is a short speech.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, I have spent most of this debate rewriting my speech. I have tried hard to listen to what noble Lords have said. We have three options before us tonight: the Government option of a consultation; the Liberal Democrat option; and the option from my noble friend, Lord Nash, as it relates to social media.

Briefly, before I talk about the three options, I would like to say to my noble friend Lady Penn that, rather than being a warm-up act, she gave us a master class in how to present an amendment. She made a well-argued, practical case for her amendment, underlining the importance of shifting norms for very young children at the earliest possible stage and calling urgently for firm action, and timing on that action, from the Government. Like others, we look forward to the Minister’s reply.

To return to the group of amendments that deal with social media use, we have before us, as we have heard, an opportunity to end the harm that our children and grandchildren are experiencing as a result of the hours that they spend on there. I was going to talk about the merits of my noble friend Lord Nash’s amendment, but I think others have done that extremely ably.

I will therefore turn to the key differences between my noble friend’s amendment and that tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Between the fiercely critical comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about Ofcom struggling and critically undermining implementation and wider failures, and the comparison made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of Ofcom being to the tech companies as “Dixon of Dock Green” is to “Crocodile Dundee”, I think those noble Lords have done my job for me. The key element in the Liberal Democrat amendment is that we would give powers to Ofcom and the Children’s Commissioner to decide which apps are safe or not safe. Whether it is my noble friend Lady Harding, who may be in a slightly different place in this debate than I am, or many other noble Lords around the House, they have noted that Ofcom is struggling with the powers that it was given in the Online Safety Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Berger, put it extremely well. Do your Lordships want to give to a struggling organisation one of the most complicated jobs before us? I would suggest that we do not. It should of course advise the Children’s Commissioner and the Government, but it should not be responsible.

The second reason it should not be responsible is one of democracy. We have too many recent examples, of which your Lordships will be aware, where we have delegated incredibly important powers to unelected and relatively unaccountable officials, however competent they might be, and we should not do that again. Our democracy depends on our colleagues at the other end being given the chance to decide, and Parliament deciding, what is or is not appropriate for our children, taking advice from every expert that they can draw on, many of whom we have heard from this evening.

Thirdly—I was finding it hard to wait to the end to get to this point—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, should be not mentioned anywhere near this endless reference to a “blunt, blanket ban”. I was so grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, as I was about to read out proposed new subsection (5) of Amendment 94A from my noble friend and the noble Baroness. This would not be a blanket ban, and it is, if I may say so, irresponsible of noble Lords who kept asserting that and referring to it as such, even once my noble friend had clarified that it was not the case. Crucially, proposed new subsection (2)(b) would also give our Government time to learn both from some of the scientific work that is going on and from the Australian approach. Amendment 94B would add neither in terms of flexibility or future-proofing but would dilute democratic accountability, which we do at our peril.

Turning to the Government, I would say that now is the time for leadership on this issue. The proposed consultation and approach set out in yesterday’s Statement, with a government amendment at Third Reading, does not feel like leadership. We have heard tonight that we do not need another national conversation. The nation has spoken very clearly about its level of concern, and parents and children will not thank us for further delay. The Government argue that views are divided, and we have heard tonight that the children’s charities are split and bereaved parents are split. If we wait for consensus on this issue, the one thing I am confident of is that not a single one of us will still be in your Lordships’ House. As Martin Luther King wisely said,

“a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus”.

The Government need to get moulding, and fast, because we owe it to our children to act now to protect their childhood.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

98: After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause—
“Free milk entitlement: child minder agencies(1) The Secretary of State must, using powers under section 175 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (regulations, orders and schemes), amend regulation 18 of the Welfare Food Regulations 1996 (milk or dried milk for children in day care) to ensure that children provided with daycare by childminders registered with child minder agencies are entitled to free milk.(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations under subsection (1) within six months of the day on which this Act is passed.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very different topic from what we were discussing before the dinner break—we move to nursery milk. Only in your Lordships’ House could one say those words.

My Amendment 98 would bring childminders who are registered with a childminding agency into the scope of the free nursery milk scheme. As your Lordships know, the nursery milk scheme provides a free portion of milk every day to any child under the age of five attending a registered childcare setting; it is a long-standing initiative dating back to the 1940s. The legislation underpinning the scheme was written before childminder agencies—CMAs—came into existence, and a later drafting oversight meant that milk subsidies were not mentioned in the legislation that created CMAs in 2014. For a decade, childminders registered through CMAs have been unable to claim milk subsidies, while those registered directly with Ofsted can; that is despite the fact that all childminders are Ofsted regulated and operate under the same regulations.

The loophole has been widely acknowledged as a clear legislative oversight. Two successive Governments, including my own, have pledged to fix it, but sadly no action has been taken. As a result, more than 10,000 children are currently missing out on free milk. As CMA-registered childminders make up a growing share of the workforce, the number of children affected increases every year. A simple legislative update would close this loophole and restore parity across the early years sector. I hope that the Minister can do better and go further than previous Governments—including my own—and commit not only to addressing this but to giving the House a “no later than” date for doing so. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Absolutely, it will be. First, by virtue of the fact that it is now open to all those on universal credit without the £7,400 cut-off, it is much clearer to families, to those supporting them and to schools who is eligible. Secondly, as I said, the provisions that enable the sharing of information, and therefore eligibility checks, will now also be open to parents themselves, not just through local authorities.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her encouragement. I am not sure whether I wanted the accolade of being the anti-Thatcher milk donor, but I will take whatever she gives me.

I am encouraged by the Minister’s commitment. I managed to write down only “within six months” before the next thing she said—unfortunately, the ink in my pen ran out—so clearly parliamentary time will be available. I thought the Minister made encouraging remarks about the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but I feel that the noble Baroness might appreciate a few lines to expand on her final question. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 98 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

99: After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause—
“Post-removal support for parents to prevent further removals(1) Where a child—(a) is removed from the care of a parent further to any order made pursuant to—(i) section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (care and supervision orders),(ii) section 22 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (placement orders),(iii) section 46 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (adoption orders),(iv) section 14A of the Children Act 1989 (special guardianship orders), or(b) becomes a looked after child further to an arrangement or order made pursuant to—(i) section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (provision of accommodation for children: voluntary arrangements), or(ii) section 25 of the Children Act 1989 (secure accommodation orders),the local authority must provide support to the parent, where the parent is identified as being at risk of experiencing further child removals.(2) In discharging their duty under subsection (1), the local authority must ensure that the support provided—(a) follows an evidence-informed approach and aims to reduce the risk of further child removals, and(b) is in accordance with any guidance issued by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This clause aims to make sure that local authorities offer evidence-informed support to reduce the risk of parents who have one child removed having future children removed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure whether anyone can remember the first group at this late hour, but I will be testing the opinion of the House. The Minister said that legislators always turn to legislation as the answer. There are quite a few things in the Bill that do not need to be there, but I think this does need to be in legislation. She also said she felt that it would create a rigid model that could not evolve, but we worked hard on the language of the amendment to refer to an “evidence-informed approach” as opposed to “evidence-based”, which I am told means that it can evolve with the evidence. For those two reasons, and thinking about the desperate situation of women who have multiple children removed from their care, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[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”.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, each of these amendments would introduce a new clause, referring to the establishment of the child protection authority and consistent support for children in need, as we have heard. This group raises important issues about child safety, well-being and support. I assure the noble Lord that the Government are, as he outlined, completely committed to working in this area.

Amendment 102, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seeks to impose a binding timetable for the establishment of the child protection agency. Just by way of background, establishing a child protection authority was one of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. In a Statement to the House of Commons on 8 April 2025, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls announced that the Government will establish a child protection authority in England, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, alluded to.

On 11 December 2025, we published a consultation on the child protection authority, which sets out its proposed roles, responsibilities and powers. This will help to make the child protection system clearer and more unified and ensure that there is ongoing improvement through effective support for practitioners. The design and delivery of this authority require consultation, including with child protection experts and Victim Support, to ensure that it has the right constitution and powers. Given this, we do not think it is prudent to agree an arbitrary timeline, but we will work to publish the government response this summer, following which we will move to legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Given that I also had a Private Member’s Bill on home education, today is quite an important moment for the home education side. However, I also think that many of these amendments, to make sure that children are always safe, or as safe as we can possibly make them, should be included in the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I shall start, where the noble Lord, Lord Storey, finished in recognising the work of Lord Soley, who devoted many years to this issue. I hope somewhere, in his retirement, he is aware of what is happening here.

As we have discussed previously, there are at least three groups of families who educate their children at home: those who do so for philosophical reasons, where they make a positive choice; those who feel their children are struggling at school—many of whom, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Shephard, have special needs—and may not have chosen home education but believe it is in their best interests; and those whose children are faced with exclusion from school or other issues, where we are right to have concerns about their safety. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, whom I genuinely have huge respect for—I am grateful for the collaborative way he has worked on this Bill across the House—talked about serious case reviews, but two-thirds of serious case reviews are of children of preschool age, so we are not comparing apples with apples.

The Government have introduced some very serious, albeit belated, and positive amendments, partly in response to the recommendations from the review of the death of Sara Sharif. Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Storey, we welcome government Amendments 125 and 131 in particular, which would pilot holding a meeting with parents before removing a child from school and giving the option of a visit within 15 days of a child starting home education. But in principle, we support almost all the government amendments in this group.

However, government Amendments 120 and 131 leave material gaps, which I believe we have a duty to close. I was very fortunate to meet recently the authors of the Sara Sharif serious case review, Russell Wate and Jane Wonnacott, in their capacity as independent experts in this area. My revised amendments to Clauses 31 and 32 stem largely from that conversation and might have made a difference in her case but also in many others. The national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel report looked at the cases of 41 home-educated children, six of whom died and 35 of whom suffered serious harm. Of this group, half had never been to school and just over half had no agency involvement at the time. So, not all these children were visible.

We need to be able to talk about this group of children without in any way casting aspersions on the good intentions, commitment and efforts of parents who are bringing up their children by educating them at home who are not at risk. But we do need to learn lessons from these reviews. That is why we write them. And we have to have a proportionate approach to the risk those children face.

I am grateful to the other noble Lords who have signed my Amendment 121A, but I also point out to the House that it has the support of the Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza. Amendment 121A would tighten up the conditions that will give the local authority the ability to withhold consent for a child to be electively home-educated; in contrast, as we heard, the government amendment would be limited to a child who had been on a child protection register within the last five years. My amendment would include children who have ever been subject to care proceedings, whether or not they resulted in a care order.

As my noble friend Lady Spielman said—or perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Meston, or both—care proceedings are a serious move on the part of the state. In Sara’s case, two care orders were applied for in her short life; neither was successful. Amendment 121A would also include children who have ever been subject to child protection inquiries or placed on the child protection register. Again, in Sara’s case, she was only on a child protection plan at birth, so the Government’s amendment would have made no difference in her case.

Perhaps most importantly, the government amendments currently include children who are defined as a child in need under Section 17 of the Children Act. The Government have already included within Section 17 those children who are in a special school because of their special educational needs and disabilities, but they have expressly excluded children who under Section 17 are a child in need because of abuse or neglect. The department’s own data recently showed there are almost 30,000 children categorised as children in need who are suffering child sexual abuse and a further 12,000 who are sexually exploited. So, the bar for what is a child in need has moved up and up with the pressures that we have seen on the child protection system, and I really hope that the Minister, when she comes to reply, will address that point, because it makes me anxious, with my experience in child protection. These children are under much less scrutiny than the child who is on a plan. They are the more vulnerable children, and I think they need to be included in this group.

When I met with officials, they argued that the Government’s reforms would mean that all those children who are sexually exploited or sexually abused would now be on a child protection plan, but I would rather err on the side of caution and make sure that we capture them in this.

I entirely accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, regarding adoption; that was an oversight in the drafting of my amendment. But let us be clear: the consequence is that a child has to go to school; the consequence is not endless involvement of a local authority in a family’s life. The child goes to school—something which the vast majority of children in this country do.

My Amendment 131A has perhaps been slightly misunderstood. It

“would require the local authority to conduct a home visit where a child has ever been subject to care proceedings, named in a child protection plan”—

not, as was suggested, if there have been investigations that might be malicious—

“or is currently classified as a child in need”.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is right. For some children, home is a safe space, but for too many children, home is the exact opposite, and we need to walk over the threshold on behalf of those children.

I accept there have been concerns about my Amendment 121B, and I would not want to do anything that would put victims of domestic abuse at further risk. I hope the Government can come back with something that is workable there.

Anyone who has worked in child protection will know that the line between the child who dies or is seriously harmed and the child who survives is a very, very fine line; it might come down to the school or the neighbours or the bus driver or somebody noticing something and acting. So, what my amendments aim to do is to cast the net in a proportionate way that would drive professional curiosity on the part of local authority staff but allow us to identify those children who are at risk of suffering neglect or abuse if they are taken out of school and become invisible. I hope the Minister will be able to address those points.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I will focus on the detail of the amendments in this group, rather than on some of the broader arguments made by noble Lords. Both on Second Reading and in Committee, we have talked about home education issues at considerable length.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

121A: Clause 31, page 55, line 2, at end insert—
“(c) conducting or has ever initiated proceedings under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (care and supervision),(d) providing services to the child or their family under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 (provision of services for children in need, their families, and others),or has ever conducted enquiries or has ever taken action under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 (local authority’s duty to investigate).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure local authorities must consent to the withdrawal of a child from school if there are currently, or have ever been, enquiries, proceedings or action initiated in relation to the child under section 31 or 47 of the Children Act 1989 or the child is currently classified as a child in need under section 17 of that Act.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the two amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I hope I will be able to see the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, on YouTube. Was it a goose, did he say?

Our creative industries are hugely important to this country—we are world leaders—and children and young people play a huge part in their success. One of my ex-pupils, Josh Bolt, was a regular on “Last Tango in Halifax” and, sadly, “Benidorm”; I know that the schooling side worked for Josh.

We are so lucky to have in this House people who have real expertise in particular areas. Obviously, the noble Baroness brings it in relation to the performing arts sector, so we have to listen with great care to what she says. During the coalition, we promised a review— I think PACT was involved—and that decision in 2014 needs to be looked at again. If young people are acting or performing, we need to ensure that they are safeguarded and that their education is there. We also need to ensure that the system does not prohibit them making a valuable contribution, not least to their own career development. I hope the Minister will say some warm and wise words on those amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Minister always says warm and wise words—well, some of the time.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Blake is responding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Oh, well, all the time, then.

I will keep my remarks very brief. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and my noble friend Lord Parkinson made a convincing case that children involved in performances should get special consideration in this area. I am not sure whether this is something I have to declare on the register, but my husband appeared in a drinking chocolate advert. I am ashamed to say that I just messaged him and, rather like my noble friend Lord Parkinson, he remembers exactly how much he was paid: £17 a day for two days and £200 for repeat broadcasts. My noble friend made the point very vividly: this means a huge amount to the children involved.

On the amendments tabled my noble friend Lord Wei, he will not be surprised to hear me say that the principles underpinning a register were in the previous Government’s Schools Bill and in the current Government’s manifesto, and we should respect that. Having said that, his Amendment 157A, even if it does not need formally to be in legislation, would be a very constructive way forward. I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

I feel that this group is becoming something of a confessional. It is very interesting to hear noble Lords’ backgrounds. The thing I love about this House is that noble Lords can bring their personal experiences, which makes the debate so rich. I expected it from the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, but it is very interesting to have other experiences coming into the Chamber.

This is a very important group of amendments about making sure that the registration system works, that it captures the appropriate children and that it does not in any way undermine young people’s ambitions. That is a very good point.

Amendments 127 and 129, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, would exclude all child performers from inclusion in the children not in school registers. I thank the noble Baroness for her productive engagement with the department and my noble friend the Minister on these issues that she obviously cares very passionately about. I think that she agrees that home-educated child performers should remain in scope of the registers. For that reason, we cannot accept the noble Baroness’s amendment, which would exclude all child performers from the registers. However, I am pleased to confirm that the Government intend to exclude school-registered child performers from the scope of the registers and will consult on this position as part of our wider consultation on the content of the regulations. I hope that that gives her the reassurance that she has been seeking in her conversations with us.

Amendment 130, also tabled by the noble Baroness, seeks to place a duty on local authorities to ensure that any children taking part in a performance, and who are not captured on the children not in school register, are registered under the existing child performance regulations. I appreciate the noble Baroness’s desire to ensure that children can take part in performance opportunities while also ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, made a very good point about making sure that all children can take up these incredible offers when they come along.

I reassure the noble Baroness that existing legislation already requires children undertaking certain performances and related activities to be licensed with the relevant local authority. That would remain the case regardless of whether a child was also registered on a children not in school register and, as such, this amendment is not required. We recognise the need to review child performance regulations, and the Government are committed to doing so, as was agreed when the noble Baroness met my noble friend the Minister and officials last September. This review will take account of her concerns, and I am sure that she will look forward to further evidence of that work coming forward. Putting children at the heart of everything we do throughout this legislation is central to our ambition to support young people in this country.

Government Amendment 128 seeks to clarify that children who attend school on agreed part-time arrangements can be included in the children not in school registers where they are also receiving education outside of a school setting. This amendment is necessary to ensure local authorities have oversight of those children and can be confident that their overall education is suitable.

Government Amendment 156 clarifies that a local authority may ask an out-of-school education provider to confirm whether they are providing education to children, whether or not those children live in the authority’s area. That will help local authorities identify children who are not recorded on registers but who should be. Not having this clarification risks a loophole where registration is avoided simply by sending children to providers outside their home authority.

Government Amendment 157 also clarifies how the provider duty will work in practice. The amendment would clarify that providers subject to the duty need to give information only on children living in England and Wales. We recognise that there are providers that have significant online or international offerings that may be captured by the duty on out-of-school education providers. As the children not in school registers apply only to children in England and Wales, it would be inappropriate for local authorities to receive details of children outside of these countries.

Amendment 157A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to require the Secretary of State to publish annual anonymised statistics on the operation of the registers and school attendance orders. We already publish annual anonymised statistics on home-educated children and school attendance orders drawn from local authorities’ voluntary registers. I emphasise that, once the children not in school registers are implemented, the department intends to continue doing so; where this would not identify individuals, it will also publish the number of complaints and appeals, along with their outcomes.

Amendments 148C and 161B were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, added her name to the former; I do not want to leave her experience out of this. They would require the registers to be reviewed, their findings published, and for the registers to be re-approved by Parliament within a set timeframe. We will evaluate the impact of the registers following implementation and will communicate it to the House. It is unnecessary and inappropriate to create uncertainty for families and local authorities by placing sunset clauses in this legislation.

Amendment 161C, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to give parents an independent route of appeal to decisions made by a local authority under Sections 436B to 436G and to prevent local authority enforcement action where a parent has lodged an appeal, ombudsman complaint or judicial review, unless there is suspicion of harm to the child.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

131A: After subsection (8)(b), insert—
“(c) must request a visit if the local authority has ever taken any action under sections 31 or 47 of the Children Act 1989 or is currently taking action under section 17 of that Act, in relation to the child.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the local authority to conduct a home visit where a child has ever been subject to care proceedings, named in a child protection plan or is currently classified as a child in need.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I am not going to divide the House on Amendment 131A, although I feel I ought to, but I would be grateful if the Minister could agree to write to me, and put a copy in the Library, explaining what the purpose of Amendment 131 is, because my amendment would have brought absolute clarity as to which children and which homes would receive a home visit. She said that children to whom Section 47 applied would get a home visit anyway, but the implication was that those other groups of children would not. It would be helpful to know how the Government are planning to give clarity to local authorities. At a high level, what will the guidance say? Are there powers that the Government are taking within the Bill that would allow them to introduce something like my amendment in future if it appeared to be necessary? If she could commit to write, I would be very grateful.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am happy to commit to write and respond to those questions.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 131A (to Amendment 131) withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has just said, particularly the thanks to the Minister for the time and consideration of civil servants and the many excellent government amendments in this group that reflect that.

I too think that Amendment 135A and the versions of it tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, are really worth considering and, alongside them, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has said, Amendment 172A and other aspects of cyber security. This is a collection of information about children. We need to be very careful about it. I hope the Government will not allow local authorities to develop their own versions of software to do this but will do this centrally and to the highest standards.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my amendments in this group pull in two slightly different directions. If the Minister and her officials are confused, I apologise, but I will try to explain why.

The main thrust of my amendments, as the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Hacking, both said, is to try to simplify the amount of specific detail required to be held on the register in future. I too very much welcome the Government’s decision to simplify a lot of the information that was in the original draft of the Bill and to leave a bit more room for professional curiosity on the part of the home education team in the local authority. My Amendments 135A, 135B and 146A all point in this direction and give the Government different options—a pick-and-mix menu to achieve this end. Amendment 146B would make it clear that a local authority can request further information where it believes that a child might not be receiving a suitable education or that their welfare may be at risk.

In the other direction is my Amendment 143B— I hope the Minister will be able to address this specifically when she sums up—which would establish a duty to record information relating to care proceedings. I think that is missing from the current list, but the Minister will tell me whether I am right or wrong on that. This would include information relating not just to the child but to their siblings. We are all aware of cases where siblings or half-siblings are in care proceedings, perhaps if they are babies or under five, but an older child might not be. It feels highly relevant, if a child is going to be taken out of school, that the local authority has that level of concern about other children in the family. I hope the Minister feels able to accept that and perhaps bring back a government amendment at Third Reading.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have noted, the amendments in this group are all about how we reduce the burden on parents of providing information for children not in school registers while maintaining the purpose of those registers. As I said in the previous group, I have taken seriously noble Lords’ views that the provisions as drafted in the Bill were too onerous for parents. At the same time, it is important to remember that the system we are proposing is still incredibly light-touch relative to what is mandated in many other countries.

I turn to the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Hacking—134A, 139, 140 and 141—and Amendments 135A and 135B tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. These would remove certain information requirements or replace them with more limited alternatives. It is essential that local authorities have the information they need to assess whether a child’s education is suitable and full-time. I fully appreciate the intention behind these amendments, but reducing the scope of information would, in practice, make those assessments significantly harder. It is also vital that safeguarding information and other relevant information on registers be recorded consistently. Recent safeguarding and serious case reviews have shown how often opportunities to identify children suffering or at risk of significant harm are missed when information is fragmented or incomplete.

However, I hope I can provide some reassurance to my noble friend Lord Hacking about access for parents in the sort of circumstances he identified. There are no powers for parents to access information on their children. We have thought this through very carefully, particularly from the perspective of victims of domestic abuse and other forms of abuse. For example, we have considered whether the estranged parent could make a subject access request to acquire information. Local authorities are strictly required to have clear and well-defined processes to help staff handle such requests safely and lawfully. We do not believe, therefore, that the fear my noble friend outlined, which is a quite understandable fear, could legally exist. I hope that provides some reassurance.

On the detail, Amendments 134A and 135A would require only the names and home addresses of the parents directly providing the education. Yet, as I said in Committee, Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 places the duty of securing a suitable education on all parents. If these amendments were accepted, we could face situations where no parent is recorded at all, making it harder for local authorities to identify and support children missing education.

Amendment 135A would also limit information for inclusion to the primary type of education, while Amendment 139 would require information on other providers only where they deliver the child’s principal education. In practice, this would not work because where education is from multiple sources, for example a parent and a tutor, there is no clear way of determining which is primary.

Amendments 135B, 140 and 141 would remove the requirement to record time spent in education and information concerning education received from those other than the parents. Yet this information may be precisely what allows local authorities to understand a child’s overall educational picture. If, for instance, a child spends substantial time with a provider offering a very narrow curriculum, the authority must check that they are receiving a balanced education elsewhere as a core part of assessing suitability.

Amendment 146B tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, alongside Amendment 135A, seeks to clarify when further information may be requested. I appreciate the noble Baroness’s intention, but it would mean that the local authority may request further information only where it has reasonable cause to believe that a child may not be receiving a suitable education or their welfare may be at risk. Yet the purpose of the registers is to cover all children not in school and gather the information that enables authorities to form those very judgments. The information being sought might be exactly the information needed to make that judgment.

At this point I will respond to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on the group before last. On the point about annual reports, the high-level information required for registers is not intended to replace the more detailed informal inquiries that local authorities undertake—what the noble Lord refers to as the annual reporting system—to understand whether a child is receiving a suitable education. Should the amendment from the previous group be accepted, regulations could outline how the updates could be requested and statutory guidance would set out how these processes should align. On the point about whether parents ignore the annual request for meetings if the meeting has already happened, we will expect local authorities to adapt their systems in line with the new legislation. If there has recently been a meeting and the local authority is satisfied that the education is suitable, we would not expect it to request another soon afterwards. We will put this into statutory guidance.

Amendments 153A and 155A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would limit requests from local authorities for information, meetings or home visits, and prevent non-compliance being used as evidence of unsuitable education. The extensive package of government amendments to reduce the frequency of updates required from parents, which I will come to shortly, will address many of the noble Lord’s concerns. His amendments would also restrict home visits and meetings, when some parents welcome them as the easiest way to provide information. The suggestion that deregistration from school could be blocked by requiring a meeting is also misplaced. Children covered by new Sections 436B to 436G are already out of school and, if home-educated, already off the school roll. The amendments would give the Secretary of State new powers to penalise local authorities for breaching these limits. However, local authorities must already follow the law. The Education Act 1996 gives the Secretary of State sufficient powers to intervene when a local authority fails to comply.

Amendment 148E, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would prevent information on the registers being used to judge whether a child is at risk of harm or not receiving a suitable education. But local authorities must be able to use information on registers to make those assessments. Where information on registers indicates that a child may not be suitably educated or that safeguarding concerns exist and any informal inquiries have not resolved matters, authorities have a duty to act.

Amendment 146A tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would prevent the Government prescribing additional categories of information for recording in future, even where necessary to improve understanding of this cohort, inform local and national policy, or better target support, including, for example, information on exam entries or outcomes for home-educated children, in which many noble Lords have expressed interest. Indeed, the noble Baroness’s own Amendment 143B shows the value of being able to add future categories, namely the details of care and supervision order applications, where we can see the logic of her argument. We would be happy to consider prescribing this information when developing regulations, and we will publicly consult on this.

Amendments 148A, 148B and 148D tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, concern the protection and retention of data on the registers. I appreciate the concern for the protection of children’s data, which of course I share, but these amendments are unnecessary. The registers will be required to comply with all applicable data protection legislation, which requires data not to be kept longer than necessary. Furthermore, entries on registers will be deleted once a child ceases to be within scope.

Amendment 174A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would remove Clause 34. Clause 34 enables information to be disclosed when required or authorised by children not in school measures without it breaching any obligation of confidence. This is important for local authorities to fulfil their duties, including sharing information where it promotes or safeguards a child’s education or welfare. The department continues to engage with the Information Commissioner’s Office to identify and mitigate any data-sharing risks.

Amendments 172A and 247A by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would require the National Cyber Security Centre to certify and test the security arrangements for registers before implementation. As I said in Committee, this is unnecessary. Local authorities are already expected to comply with cyber-security standards, which are an integral part of their wider data protection obligations. There will also not be a single national register but over 150 local registers across England and Wales. The National Cyber Security Centre’s role is advisory, not regulatory, so not only would requiring it to test and certify each register inappropriately widen its remit but it would be a colossal resource demand and unnecessarily delay implementation of these much-needed registers.

Amendment 161D, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would require local authorities to give written reasons for all decisions relating to the registers and to offer parents opportunities to correct inaccuracies. Local authorities will exercise discretion across a range of decisions, from adding information to the registers to seeking further details from education providers or determining what support to offer. It would be inappropriate to require written reasons in every case, particularly where safeguarding is involved. However, for support duty decisions we will make it clear in statutory guidance that written reasons should be provided. As for correcting factual errors, UK GDPR already gives parents the right to have inaccurate data rectified.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I too thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for tabling this amendment again. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we had a fervent debate in Committee, where the case was made for the precious nature of Haredi traditions but also for the importance of avoiding a two-tier system of education; and that the reality for some young men was that they felt their experience at a yeshiva had been deeply damaging.

My noble friend Lord Lucas suggested that the department pick a time period to resolve these issues; that seems a very constructive suggestion. It feels as though this amendment has the elements in it for a way through this very long-running debate, given that it includes a commitment both to suitable out-of-school education and to safeguarding issues being addressed. I acknowledge the deep concerns that were expressed in Committee and I hope very much that the Minister finds a way through this, not least for the Haredi community, who are obviously deeply anxious about it.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As other noble Lords have done, I first thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for bringing forward Amendment 175A. Of course, this amendment was previously tabled in Committee and debated extensively then. For reasons of time, I will not repeat that debate.

However, I agree with my noble friend Lady Morris that support for this clause is absolutely not a failure to recognise the significance of faith-based education across a range of faiths in our country. My noble friend is right, and she has championed and supported this, even in the face of opposition. I assure the Haredi community that it is neither a denigration of their faith nor of the way in which they wish to express it in a plural England, where I very much hope they feel able to be, and remain, a full part of our community.

It may assist the House if I clarify the purpose and effect of Clause 37 and the Government’s general approach in this area. In so doing, I will attempt to answer the questions raised by the right reverend Prelate. Clause 37 starts from the position that, if a setting is providing full-time education to children of compulsory school age, it should be regulated and subject to oversight. I trust that there is broad support across the House for this principle. Clause 37 therefore extends to more settings the regulatory regime found in Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Education and Skills Act 2008.

I reiterate that it is categorically not the Government’s intention to close down yeshivas. This is the same ready-made, flexible and effective system of regulation that independent schools have been able to operate within for many years, including those with a primary faith ethos. Let me be clear: there is nothing in this clause that, in itself, requires impacted settings to become schools or to operate identically to other settings already regulated by this regime. What the clause does do, in broad terms, is subject impacted full-time settings to a regime of registration and the need to comply with prescribed standards and inspection against those standards. While people running educational settings should already have an idea of whether they provide a full-time education, based on an ordinary understanding of those words, the Government will produce guidance so that it is clear whether a setting is being brought into regulation by this measure.

In addition, the right reverend Prelate asked for confirmation that the regulatory regime found in the 2008 Act permits different standards to be prescribed for different types of setting. I can confirm that this is the case and that Ministers have not yet decided which standards would be prescribed. Any decision will only follow extensive engagement and consultation. This is likely to take a minimum of several months and will take into account all relevant views, including those concerning the appropriateness of teaching relationships and sex education in regulated settings.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has taken the words out of my mouth. This is an issue that I have felt strongly about for a number of years. I know from talking to Ofsted that one of the barriers has always been getting the evidence. I presume that the Minister has had detailed discussions with Ofsted and that, as a result, this wording fulfils what needs to be done. I hope the Minister will confirm that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for listening to the concerns that we raised on this side, both in the other place and in your Lordships’ House, about the scope of Clause 40. We feel that it is much improved and are grateful to the Government for listening.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Perhaps I could come back to my noble friend Lady Morris on the details of that particular question; I am sorry that I cannot respond to it now.

I welcome the welcome provided to the Government’s amendments in this group. I also reassure the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that we have had extensive discussions with Ofsted about the provisions we are proposing here to make sure they enable Ofsted to do what this Bill is strengthening its ability to do.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

190: Clause 46, page 112, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (i)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the ability of the TRA to investigate complaints before a teacher began their teaching career or after they have ended their teaching career.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the issue of complaints against teachers is changing considerably, particularly with the advent of social media and AI, which can be used to identify and draft lengthy complaints which schools have to respond to. I understand that up to one in five members of the teaching workforce are currently facing a complaint, rising to one in three of our head teachers. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, for signing Amendment 190 in my name and to the National Education Union for its support.

I am also grateful to the Minister for Schools, the honourable Member from Camden, for our conversation last week. The original draft of my speech said that I was very hopeful that, when the Minister came to close she would accept the amendment, but I have to say I was very disappointed by the reply that I received from the Minister for Schools today, in which—and I paraphrase —she said that she accepted the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and I had raised when we met her but she stressed it was not the Government’s intention to do any of those bad things; it was to address things such as teachers who take a year’s sabbatical and then come back and all of this would be addressed through regulations. I feel like a cracked record in saying that we cannot legislate just for this Government and this Minister’s intentions. We can absolutely imagine that this is the kind of area that could become very politicised in future.

Our basic argument is that our amendment would mean that complaints could not be brought in relation to a teacher’s behaviour before they began teaching and after they finished. The idea that you can bring a standard of professional conduct to someone when they are not acting in the profession is stretching things. Let us just imagine if Ministers were held to a Ministerial Code before and after their tenure; they obviously, I think we would agree, arguably wield greater power and influence, although I admit that at times it does not always feel like that.

The other thing is that our expectations, both of teachers and of standards in society, change over time, and judging historic behaviour against today’s professional standards risks unfair hindsight and inconsistency, particularly where the conduct was lawful or accepted at the time. Teachers arguably have some of the highest professional standards around. They are held to them 24/7, 365 days a year when they are a teacher, let alone before they even become one and after they leave.

From a safeguarding perspective, surely the DBS enhanced checks should be sufficient. They may not be perfect, but we need to have some line for where these different regimes begin and end.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments concerns three distinct areas, which I will take in turn. Amendments 190 and 191 concern the jurisdiction of the Teaching Regulation Agency. Amendment 190 would remove the ability of the TRA to investigate alleged misconduct that occurred before an individual began their teaching career.

I understand the concern here may also be that Clause 46 permits the TRA to investigate those who at any time have been employed or engaged in teaching work and hold those responsible for their conduct at any time in their life. Given that this includes me, I can wholly understand noble Lords’ concerns.

At present, the teacher misconduct regime limits the TRA’s jurisdiction only to those who are currently employed or engaged in teaching work, or who were so employed or engaged when the referral was made. There are problems with this—it cannot be right. Clause 46 addresses this by extending the TRA’s jurisdiction to those who have at any time been employed or engaged in teaching work. Noble Lords can imagine that there could be times when somebody has very recently resigned, possibly with the idea of avoiding a referral to come, and is not able to be investigated. So there are circumstances where it would be appropriate to change the ability of the TRA to investigate.

Given what noble Lords have said today, despite the assurances that my honourable friend Georgia Gould was able to provide to noble Lords during the meeting they held with her, I can understand noble Lords’ concerns. Therefore, the department is not in the position of wanting to implement Clause 46 without having undertaken considerable further consultation, having considered the points that noble Lords have raised. I hope I can give that assurance this evening, and I will find a way to come back to noble Lords with how we intend to do that and some of the safeguards around the sorts of issues that noble Lords have identified this evening.

While Amendment 190 seeks to narrow the TRA’s jurisdiction, Amendment 191, as the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, says, seeks to extend the TRA’s jurisdiction. I understand the concern here that holders of iQTS may work in a school in England but previously have committed misconduct in a foreign country and that, as such, the TRA’s jurisdiction should be expanded to cover all holders of iQTS.

There are problems with this amendment, which have been outlined in the correspondence we have had with my noble friend Lord Knight. I thank him, and the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, for the approach they are taking to what is a clearly worrying problem. We would not want there to be a limit on restricting the ability of those who have committed the types of behaviours the noble Baroness has outlined to work in schools in the UK. There have been some important developments in the ability of both international and UK schools to check a teacher’s record. Once again, noble Lords have made a strong case, and while we cannot accept Amendment 191 for the technical reasons that were outlined in the correspondence, I undertake to continue discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, my noble friend Lord Knight and the Safeguarding Alliance to try and find a way through, because I recognise that there is an issue here.

I turn to the proposed new clause in Amendment 191A of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, on opening up the right to accompaniment for school staff at disciplinary and grievance hearings. While I thank him and other noble Lords for their thoughts on this matter, I do not believe that this amendment is necessary. This issue, as others have said, was debated at some length during passage of the Employment Rights Bill. Following Third Reading, my noble friend Lord Collins set out the Government’s commitment to review in its entirety the functioning of Section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, which includes provisions on who can be a companion and the right to be accompanied. As part of the review, we will engage with relevant and interested stakeholders and following its conclusion, we will publish our findings in Parliament. This House accepted the Government’s concession on this matter, and the amendment was withdrawn. We will, as the noble Lord asks, consider the implications of the review outcomes for the school workforce. I hope he agrees with the Government that it would be entirely inappropriate for the Department for Education to act unilaterally on this matter for school staff until the full review has taken place and reported. I hope, therefore, that he will not press his amendment.

Turning to the group of amendments relating to parental complaints and appeals, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman and Lady Barran, for tabling these amendments again. Amendments 223, 224, and 225 would, respectively, allow parents and carers of children in maintained schools, independent schools including academies, and non-maintained special schools to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. Amendment 226 would allow for regulations to amend secondary legislation on the rules and procedures of the First-tier Tribunal. Amendment 243D seeks to introduce a central complaints system to handle school-related complaints in England, and for these complaints to be held in a central database accessible to the Department for Education and Ofsted.

My noble friend Lady Blake previously gave detail in Committee on the work we are doing to improve the school complaints system. I will not repeat that today, but I confirm that our aim remains to reduce the burden on schools and leaders, while also maintaining parents’ rights to raise concerns and have them properly considered. We will be providing more detail on this in the forthcoming schools White Paper, but on the role of the First-tier Tribunal, we still do not believe that introducing an additional layer of appeal to the general school complaints system is the right way to achieve our aim of reducing the burdens on schools. The First-tier Tribunal is already under significant pressure, and despite the investment of additional administrative and judicial resource, which has ensured the conclusion of more appeals, the rise in demand is nevertheless outstripping the increase in capacity at present. Expanding the remit of the tribunal would only lead to longer delays for families. We do not think it would be appropriate or proportionate to expand the First-tier Tribunal’s role to include general complaints about schools, but we recognise the concerns being raised in general. We are actively looking at how we can strengthen the independent element of the school complaints process, so that, where parents need to escalate their complaint, they are reassured that it is assessed fairly and objectively.

The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, talked about the work the department has been doing with the charity Parentkind. As she pointed out, we have worked with the charity to develop the Parent Guide to School Complaints, which was published on 20 January. We are also exploring potential digital options for improving the system. This work involves user research and testing with the sector—including with parents, teachers and headteachers—to ensure that we get this right and that it works for everyone involved. This type of work takes time, of course, but I hope this offers assurance to noble Lords that we are considering this as part of our package of reforms that we will set out in the schools White Paper.

I hope I have addressed noble Lords’ concerns in responding to the amendments. I invite them not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response. On Amendment 190, what I heard her say was that she would undertake not to implement Clause 46 without proper consultation. I urge her to look again with her colleagues at the wording of the clause, because while the Government’s intent is absolutely spot on, it is not what is said in the clause. If there is a way to do more, that would be even better.

I thank the Minister for her responses and for her openness to continue the conversation on Amendment 191. She almost repeated my noble friend’s words about simplification in the schools White Paper, so we look forward to seeing Amendment 243D back in new, official, government form. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 190.

Amendment 190 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, like others I really regret that we are debating these amendments so late, because they are very important. I will try to get to my key points.

I thank the Minister for Amendment 192 in relation to Clause 50; this addresses some of the concerns that we raised about its scope in Committee and again in the other place. The main substance of this group, as we have heard, is the lengthy, prize-winning Amendment 193, which would allow the Government to introduce mass inspection. We debated this in Committee. It is curious that the Bill has gone through all stages in the other place and only now are we seeing this on Report. Some of the gaps that it reveals are highlighted in the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and in my Amendments 193D and 193E. We can see that in the breadth of drafting of this amendment, with so much left to secondary legislation giving Secretary of State extremely broad powers—which suggested to me that it was an amendment that was drafted in haste rather than one that was on the shelf. Officials kindly invited me in to talk about the amendment before Christmas, and they argued the case for giving the Secretary of State maximum flexibility. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, said on an earlier group, we have talked about this ad nauseam, and the Government have acted to correct some of it, but this new clause goes in the wrong direction in relation to those powers.

If we think back to the introduction of the new school inspection regime, we see that there was a huge consultation and piloting of the approach, and now we are seeing it rolled out. All my Amendment 193D asks is that we mirror that and do exactly the same. I have suggested a focus in terms of the pilot, which would be to look at MATs that have groups of schools in the following categories. There would be one category where they are significantly underperforming and where there might be a case for intervention; and another would be where they would like to grow and take on other schools—quite rightly, the department would want reassurance that they had the skills to do that well. And then there would be a universal group—at this hour of the night, I cannot think of any other description—to see whether there is a case, at this point, for universal MAT inspection alongside school inspection. In a perfect world, one would have designed a new school inspection regime and a MAT inspection regime together to avoid some of the duplication to which other noble Lords have pointed.

When the Minister sums up, I would be grateful to know whether she can confirm that there is not a plan to inspect single academy trusts, and if there is, what the point of that would be, and that the Government plan to reawaken—or whatever you do to dormant legislation—the inspection of local authorities with regard to that school improvement function. If the Government want to look at school groupings, they should look at all school groupings rather than just one type.

I turn to my Amendment 194, and I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes for her support for it. I did an interview with Schools Week not so long ago—which probably only my children have read, or, in fact, not even my children have read. They asked me what element of the Bill I was most worried about, and I said that it was this clause, which will delay intervention in schools that Ofsted has found unable to meet the new standards and intervention is required.

When we debated this in Committee, the Minister talked about the length of time for intervention, but she knows that the very long cases—some of the same cases are probably still running—typically reflect one of two things, or possibly both. One is where you have rural schools in very remote areas, where there is no other school or trust nearby that could take on and support the school adequately. The second is where significant funding is required from the department, particularly in relation to buildings or to bridge budget deficits if the school role has fallen significantly, and a lot of arm wrestling goes on, which takes time.

The new RISE teams will not be able to address either type of case any faster than the previous system. My amendment would avoid delay and judicial review, and, most importantly, it would make sure that children were back in high performing schools as quickly as possible. I also agree completely with what my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes said about Amendment 197. With that, rather than having to test the opinion of the House, I hope that the Minister will come back with more positive and constructive responses.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, despite the lateness of the hour, we have had a good discussion on the issues raised in group 10.

I turn to the amendments that have been discussed during this debate. I will start with Amendments 193A and 193B, tabled in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and my noble friend Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and Amendment 193C, tabled by the right reverend Prelate. These relate to the inspection of trusts, including academies that have been designated

“as having a religious character”.

Amendments 193A and 193B propose additional requirements for Ofsted to share trust inspection reports—what the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend described as “important communication issues”. I recognise the importance of both informing the relevant religious authorities about trust-level inspections and ensuring robust oversight of trust leaders in relation to developing and maintaining the religious character of faith-based settings.

On Amendment 193A, I hope that I can provide some reassurance to the right reverend Prelate that there is already a duty on Ofsted to inform religious authorities in advance of a routine trust inspection. Our provisions already include a duty for Ofsted to share reports of routine inspections with the trust, and the Secretary of State has a power to share them with persons it deems appropriate. Ofsted has confirmed that it will always deem a religious authority that it has already informed about an inspection taking place as an appropriate person to receive a report. I can therefore assure noble Lords that religious authorities will always be sent the report by Ofsted.

On Amendment 193B, as religious authorities will always receive a full trust inspection report setting out that a trust is not performing to an acceptable standard, they do not need to be separately notified about a poor inspection outcome. I therefore hope that noble Lords recognise that Amendments 193A and 193B are not necessary.

Turning to Amendment 193C, the current framework for inspecting denominational education and worship is already a complex mixture of statutory and non-statutory provisions. Moving directly to a statutory framework for academy trusts at this stage risks adding further complexity to that element of the inspection. It is therefore important that we take the time necessary to develop any future approach carefully so that trust-level inspection of denominational matters aligns with existing arrangements of this nature for individual settings, and functions coherently with the wider inspection system.

As the right reverend Prelate has identified, officials have had discussions with officers from the Catholic Education Service and the Church of England Education Office. We are committed to working with the churches and other faiths to developing a non-statutory framework as an initial and constructive step, ahead of considering opportunities for potential legislation in the future. That work will include pilots, which have been developed with faith bodies and trusts to pilot inspection of collective worship and denominational education trusts with faith schools.

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Tabled by

[Baroness Barran]

193D: After inserted section 122H, insert—
“122HA Consultation prior to inspections under this Chapter(1) Prior to sections 122A to 122H coming into force, the Secretary of State must undertake a consultation on—(a) the proposed purpose, scope, frequency and framework of inspections of proprietors of academies, and(b) the impact of the proposed inspections of academy providers on the purpose, scope, frequency and framework of inspections of individual schools.(2) The consultation must include the following stakeholders—(a) His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills,(b) proprietors of academies,(c) organisations representing teachers and other school staff, and(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, including parent groups and other interested organisations.(3) The Secretary of State must publish an impact assessment that—(a) assesses the interaction between the proposed inspections of academy proprietors and existing inspections of individual schools under Chapter 1 of Part 8 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 (Ofsted inspections), and(b) sets out the likely resource and administrative implications for both the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills and academy trusts.122HB Pilot scheme of inspections(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made before the end of the relevant period, ensure that provisions under this Chapter have been trialled under a pilot scheme.(2) The pilot scheme must—(a) assess the effectiveness of multi-academy trusts;(b) take into account—(i) variations in multi-academy trusts models, and(ii) the level of centralisation in the structure of the multi-academy trust;(c) be informed by—(i) school-level inspections;(ii) financial information held by the Department for Education regarding the multi-academy trust.(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), the following proprietors of Academies should be included in the pilot scheme—(a) proprietors of academies whose schools are on average significantly under-performing, or which are not providing value for money;(b) proprietors of academies which are seeking to expand and enter into new partnerships with schools;(c) a number of proprietors of academies found by Ofsted to be achieving an acceptable level of performance, to establish the value of universal inspection.(4) The “relevant period” is the period of two years beginning with the day on which section 50 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 comes fully into force.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that new provisions on the inspection of multi-academy trusts are not commenced until the Secretary of State has carried out a consultation, consulted key stakeholders including Ofsted, published an impact assessment, and laid before Parliament both a report on that consultation and a statement of the purpose of inspections of multi academy trusts and of individual schools. It would also require The Secretary of State to conduct a pilot scheme of inspections.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think the Minister said nearly everything that we were hoping to hear. Perhaps she can also confirm in writing that the different purposes of MAT inspection and school inspection will be set out clearly in the Government’s guidance. I welcome her reassurance.

Amendment 193D (to Amendment 193) not moved.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

194: Clause 51, page 118, leave out lines 2 to 23, and insert—
“(a) in subsection (A1), at the end insert “unless the Secretary of State determines that no suitable sponsor is available”;(b) after subsection (A1) insert—“(A2) Where the Secretary of State determines that no suitable sponsor is available, the Secretary of State must, within 14 days, publish a plan to secure appropriate governance and leadership of the school and to secure its rapid improvement.(A3) A plan published under subsection (A2) must include—(a) the parties with responsibility for the school and its improvement,(b) the parties who will take action to improve provision in the school,(c) the resources that will be provided to the relevant parties, including who will provide the resources and when the resources will be provided, and(d) the intended outcomes of the plan, with the relevant timetables for the outcomes.(A4) The Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on—(a) the number of times the Secretary of State has published a plan under subsection (A2),(b) the resources which have been provided as part of any plans, and(c) the outcomes of any plans.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to retain the existing requirement to make an academy order unless the Secretary of State determines there is no suitable sponsor available.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Unfortunately, I was not convinced by the Minister’s response and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

198: After Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
“Reasonableness and safeguards in the exercise of local authority powers(1) In exercising powers under sections 54 to 56, a local authority must act reasonably and proportionately, having regard to—(a) the needs of the child,(b) the needs of other pupils at the school, and(c) the capacity of the school to meet the child’s needs safely and effectively.(2) An Academy may, within 10 school days of receiving a direction or proposed direction under sections 54 to 56, notify the local authority and the Secretary of State that it considers the direction to be unreasonable on one or more of the following grounds—(a) that the Academy cannot reasonably be expected, with the resources and specialist expertise available to it, to meet the child’s special educational needs or other significant additional needs;(b) that admitting the child would seriously prejudice the education or welfare of existing pupils or the safety of pupils or staff;(c) that suitable and reasonably accessible alternative provision is available which is better able to meet the child’s needs;(d) that the direction is otherwise irrational or disproportionate.(3) Where notice is given under subsection (2), the direction shall not take effect until—(a) the Secretary of State has confirmed, varied or set aside the direction, or(b) such other independent review body as may be prescribed by regulations has determined the matter.(4) Before confirming or varying a direction under subsection (3), the Secretary of State (or other prescribed body) must—(a) give the Academy proprietor and the local authority an opportunity to make written representations, and(b) have regard to any relevant code of practice or statutory guidance.(5) In this section “Academy” has the same meaning as in this Act.(6) In exercising functions under this section, the Secretary of State (or other prescribed body) must have particular regard to the importance of securing fair access for looked-after children, previously looked-after children, children who have been excluded from a previous school and children with an education, health and care plan.(7) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause provides safeguards for Academies where a local authority uses its powers under clauses 54 to 56 to direct an Academy to admit a particular child.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group contains some important amendments, including my Amendments 198 and 199.

Amendment 198 deals with the duty to co-operate that all schools are required to respect, which I raised in Committee. I questioned whether there really was a problem that needed solving—namely, that academies were routinely refusing to accept either children who had been permanently excluded from another school or looked-after children. The Minister responded in November; I am grateful to her officials for preparing the data for me. It showed that, across the whole of England, there were tiny numbers of cases where local authorities requested that the Secretary of State should direct the admission of a child. In only 24 cases last year, 28 the year before and 26 the year before that did the Secretary of State use those powers. That was for about half of the requests made. With 8.8 million children in this country, over half of them educated in academies, to be arguing about 25 children a year seems extraordinary.

The Government made the case that this would reduce delays, with the department taking 38 days to respond, but surely a much simpler approach would be for it to speed up its processes. Currently, the time taken to respond in similar cases with maintained schools is between 28 and 35 days, if one takes into account the time that the maintained school has to file an objection and the time for the schools adjudicator to respond. We are dancing on the heads of two microscopic pins, around time and the number of children, when all it would take is for the department to decide tomorrow to cut the time it takes to make these decisions.

More broadly, my Amendment 198 aims to pick up on points made in Committee by my noble friends Lord Agnew and Lady Spielman and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. We all accept the principles that underpin the duty to co-operate and the need for all schools to do so. However, as my noble friend Lady Spielman pointed out in Committee, there are cases where a school may not have the skills or capacity to address the needs of a certain child or children, particularly at a time when the system for children with SEND is under strain and mainstream schools are expected to accept pupils whose needs are severe and who would previously have attended a special school.

In Committee, the Minister pointed out that local authorities must ensure that decisions are made in the child’s best interests. My amendment would put in a balanced consideration of the child’s needs, the needs of other pupils and the capacity of the school to meet those needs. I wish—it is a faint wish at this late stage—that the Government would withdraw this unnecessary clause, but if they will not do so then perhaps they will accept my amendment. If the Minister will not accept it, can she explicitly set out in summing up how these very reasonable concerns which balance the rights of different groups of children will be addressed?

My Amendment 199 aims to prevent the schools adjudicator from requiring high-performing schools to reduce their PAN, or published admission numbers. There is a practical problem in some areas of falling pupil numbers—a projected drop of about 300,000 primary pupils by 2030, and 97,000 fewer secondary pupils—and this in turn is putting financial pressure on some schools. But the way to sort this out is not by requiring the most popular, highest-performing schools in an area to cut their PAN. It pays no regard to the interests of children nor to the rights of parents to choose a high-performing school for their child.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, some of the points the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, makes are important to consider. But let me remind the House that, over the years, Governments of various political persuasions have said how important it is that there is parental choice. They have encouraged parents to look at a school’s results, to read its prospectus, and to visit the school. Sometimes it is done by word of mouth. Sometimes those parents even look at how the children behave at the bus stop while they are waiting to go home of an evening.

I guarantee that nearly every single person sitting in this Chamber wanted the best possible school for their child. There were Members of different political parties who espoused strong views on this issue but, when it came to their own children, they often chose a school which was not in the local catchment area or was not the school the child was subscribed to go to. In some cases, they chose an independent or private school. The body politic has encouraged the notion of parental choice. We know that, as pupil numbers rise, this puts all sorts of pressures on schools and becomes very hard to deliver in all sorts of ways.

I am sorry to go on about Liverpool, but it is my home city and I learn lessons from it. I remember in the late 1960s and the 1970s, the then council decided to build two brand new state-of-the-art comprehensives: Paddington, in the inner city, and Netherley, in the north. They were built as 12-form entry schools. They had fantastic facilities: drama, you name it. The parents preferred the small secondary schools with three-form and four-form entry. Various Secretaries of State wrestled with this problem as the numbers dropped and dropped. I remember going to see Shirley Williams, then Secretary of State for Education, and saying, “Look, Paddington comprehensive is now only a two-form entry school. Why not make it into a tertiary college?” She said no, and I used to tease her about that decision. This is not an easy thing to do. We know that primary numbers are declining—the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, gave the figures. In Liverpool, we can already see that even so-called popular primary schools have spare capacity.

How do we sort this problem out? The answer is not to try to be the professor of admission numbers, chopping numbers off here and adding them there. Sadly, we have to do what we promised parents: we have to let them decide. The answer is not to say that we are going to make a particular school survive—as in the case of Paddington—by reducing the form entry, or, in some cases, closing a school so that children have to go to another particular school. That is not the answer at all.

I hate to say this—I never thought I would say this in my political career—but I think we have to let educational market forces take their course. If we believe in, and have promised parents, parental choice, we have to allow that. To say that we should cut the form entry—the PAN—of so-called popular schools is not the solution. Actually, there are academies that are not popular. Let us not think that all academy schools are going to gain from this. I know several academies—I will not name them—where numbers have dropped dramatically. Again, that is because of parental choice, and that is probably the right thing. So when it comes to this amendment, I will have to hold my nose but I think it is probably the right thing to do.

On Amendment 198, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris—as always—said what we on these Benches think. I say to my noble friend Lord Addington that I have never understood off-rolling. I can see children being taken off roll because their parents want to move or want to take them out of the school. I can see off-rolling when a pupil is permanently excluded from school. I can see off-rolling where a child has special educational needs which cannot be met at the school. But I cannot understand how schools were allowed to off-roll pupils for no particular reason at all. There are examples of where parents were given advice by schools which was not the right way to progress. I just think that off-rolling should not happen at all. In fact, I said to my noble friend Lord Addington, “Why do we need to review the practice? Isn’t the practice just not allowed, and we move on?” I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to respond briefly to a couple of the remarks that were made about the amendments in my name. In relation to Amendment 198, I thank my noble friend Lord Nash for adding his name but also for making the case that we need more special schools and more alternative provision. I hope the Minister will have something to say on that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said—I wrote it down—that we were giving schools reasons not to take a child. But the reason is the other children in the classroom. I was not trying to suggest that that is easy. I am just saying that there is one child who needs the right place, and we should do everything we can to make that happen, but there are 29 other children who also need to learn and to be able to study safely.

I turn to Amendment 199. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, put it well when he said that it feels like we are punishing successful schools. That is the worry. Again, going back to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, the new school that is improving is exactly the example that would be allowed to continue to grow. I think perhaps she misunderstood my remarks about that. In relation to a situation such as Camden, as she knows, first of all, my amendment would not apply. You would have to make an appropriate plan in exactly the way that she described, but we are talking about areas where you have schools performing at very different levels and it is the best schools that are forced to reduce their numbers. The noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, describes that as market forces gone to “ridiculous” levels. I just think it is about respecting parent choice, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said.

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

With respect to the amendments in the first group, let me be completely clear that this Government are committed to ensuring that all children, especially the most vulnerable, can access a school place where they can achieve and thrive. The whole range of measures in the Bill reflects this objective.

Amendment 198, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would introduce specific requirements for local authorities when using their powers to direct a school to admit a child. I agree with the noble Baroness that local authority decisions on directing the admission of a child should be reasonable, account for the needs of the child and ensure that schools can meet those needs. As noble Lords have argued, I accept that there is more that needs to be done to ensure that all schools can provide for the needs of children with special educational needs, and that sometimes it is more appropriate for those children to be educated elsewhere. We will address that challenge, which is wider than we are discussing today, in our forthcoming White Paper.

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Given those assurances, the explanation of the particular challenges that we face and the need for local authorities to be able to manage school places for the benefit of all children, high-quality schools and parental choice, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 198 in my name.

Amendment 198 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

199: Clause 57, page 122, line 21, at end insert—
“(5A) The adjudicator may not issue a direction under this section requiring the governing body of a maintained school or the proprietor of an Academy to reduce the school’s published admission number unless satisfied that—(a) the direction is necessary and proportionate to secure the efficient and effective use of education provision within the local authority area, and(b) the school—(i) is not operating at or above its current published admission number, and(ii) has not, within the period of three years preceding the direction, been assessed by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector as providing education that is of a high quality.(5B) For the purposes of subsection (5A)(b)(ii), a school shall be regarded as providing education of a high quality where—(a) the most recent inspection carried out under section 5 or section 8 of the Education Act 2005 (duty to inspect schools) concludes that the quality of education at the school is effective or better, or(b) any equivalent finding is made under an inspection framework that succeeds that in force at the passing of this Act.(5C) Before issuing a direction under this section requiring a reduction in a school’s published admission number, the adjudicator must consider whether the objective could more appropriately be achieved by means of changes to the pattern of provision in the area, including (where appropriate) the amalgamation or closure of schools, in accordance with any applicable statutory and departmental guidance on school organisation.(5D) In exercising functions under this section, the adjudicator must have regard to—(a) the desirability of giving effect to parental preferences for schools, and(b) the need to avoid measures that would unduly restrict access to schools that are providing high-quality education or that are in strong demand from parents.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to limit the circumstances in which the schools adjudicator may direct a maintained school or academy to reduce its published admission number and requires the adjudicator to consider alternative school organisation measures (including amalgamation or closure) before constraining the intake of popular or high quality schools.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I appreciate the noble Baroness’s concession of updating the admissions code but, unfortunately, as quickly as it can be updated it can also be re-updated, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister in her reply could tell us this? Presumably, some of these schools are not going ahead not just because of the demographics but because the birth rate is falling in that area and, going back to our previous discussion, it would be stupid to build new schools if we are seeing the birth rate decline.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I shall make the case that Clause 58 should not stand part of the Bill, as set out in my Amendment 203. I am bringing this back because, in Committee, the Minister gave what I think is the most cursory response that I received over the course of the Bill. She said:

“The current system allows local authorities to propose new schools only as a last resort or in very limited circumstances. Local authorities hold the statutory responsibility to secure sufficient school places in their area, and it is right that we give them greater ability to fulfil that duty effectively. These changes will enable consideration of any local offer that meets the needs of children and families”.—[Official Report, 16/9/25; col. 2114.]


I then wrote to the Minister to ask how often local authorities had been unable to meet these duties effectively. The reply stated:

“The department does not collect data on how many times local authorities run a process to open a new school, but as you know, some regions have many more academy trusts operating in them than others; and under the high-quality trust framework, some trusts are considered much stronger than others in terms of governance, finances and educational expertise”.


So, once again, the Government have no firm evidence that there is a problem that needs solving.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, in my view, all the amendments in this group are important and worth seriously considering. I will deal first with Amendment 206. Of course, one person’s twaddle is most people’s reality.

The Curriculum and Assessment Review is an important step along the road to what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, wants. It will actually strengthen the current citizenship curriculum. For the first time, it brings in citizenship at primary level as well. Now that we have the review, and the parts of it that have slightly altered civic and constitutional education, for example, I do not quite understand what the next stage is of populating that curriculum, particularly for citizenship and the points that the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment makes, such as democracy, the rule of law, freedom, respect for every person and respect for the environment.

All that is important, but the most important thing, in my view, as well as having it on the curriculum, is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, made. It is no good having a subject as important as citizenship unless you have quality teaching and staff who want to teach it, not just staff dragged in from the PE or the language department to do it. You need to have first-class materials to make that work.

On Amendment 208, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I do not understand how a student in a school has relationship and sex education, yet a 16 year-old in a college does not. It just does not make sense. I am sure the Minister will be able to tell us that this should change, because it is hugely important. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for tabling that amendment.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sater and Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for their important amendment. In a sense, we have gone backwards, because we used to have an hour of sport and PE on the curriculum. It was one of the initiatives introduced by the Blair Government. For some reason, it got lost or diluted. I just do not understand why. When did it suddenly fall off the cliff edge, and who was waving the banner saying we should stop this? We still must have an hour of sport and PE on our school curriculum.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for her amendments. I know some noble Lords will slightly wince at them but, with the exception of faith schools, what she is saying is happening in most of our secondary schools, and Ofsted is not reporting it. Most secondary schools that are non-faith schools are not carrying out a daily collective act of worship which is mainly Christian. It is just not happening. Maybe at some stage, whether we like it or not, we should face up to the reality of the situation.

My final question is to the Minister, on humanism. We have local SACREs, which decide what will be taught in schools in their locality. Could a SACRE minister say that humanism would be part of that religious education?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I have one substantive amendment in this group, Amendment 220, which is also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked why the guidance needs to be statutory. I think the answer is that the issues associated with children who are questioning their gender at a young age overlaps significantly with the safeguarding responsibilities of a school and therefore should be on a statutory footing.

As we discussed in Committee, the consultation on the draft guidance for schools for children questioning their gender identity closed in May 2024, and we are now approaching the two-year anniversary of this. I must say that it is laughable that the Government think they will respond in a matter of weeks to a consultation about whether to prevent under-16s from accessing harmful and addictive social media, but it takes nearly two years and we have no response from government on the gender questioning guidance, which was in draft and had been consulted on. The Government repeatedly say they need time to get it right; I just wondered whether the Minister could give us an indication of how much time, and how much time they think they will need to get the social media issue right. It feels like, if this is two years, that might be 10 years. The Government really need to get moving to publish the guidance to safeguard our children in these schools from this very contested and harmful ideology.

I thank my noble friend Lady Sater and her cosignatories for the extremely constructive Amendment 243C, delivered with exactly the same amount of energy as our noble friend Lord Moynihan. We read in the national press about potential cuts to funding for sport in schools. I wonder whether the Minister can reassure the House that that is not the case. Sport is—I reluctantly admit, as the least athletic person in your Lordships’ House—extremely important. As we have heard, sport builds not just physical fitness but teamwork, mental resilience and an ability to meet the two imposters of triumph and disaster on the field with equanimity. I hope the Minister will give this amendment the consideration it deserves.

My noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes made the case powerfully for bringing consistency to the provision of relationships and sex education and PSHE to pupils in FE colleges. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and I tussled over his amendment back in the Schools Bill in 2022, but he remains very persuasive on this subject. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Finally, I expressed our concerns about the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, in Committee. I am afraid our position has not changed.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group address themes that are central to pupils’ development and well-being, and the values that underpin life in Britain. The Government remain committed to supporting schools and colleges with clear expectations and guidance so that they can deliver high-quality teaching that reflects the diversity of young people’s experiences and prepares them for modern life.

Amendment 206, in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, seeks to introduce and define values of British citizenship. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and as the noble and right reverend Lord admitted, I have also had the benefit of discussing this before, particularly when he introduced his Private Member’s Bill. We had a good debate, which was longer than we are going to be able to have today, on this issue and on some of the questions raised by noble Lords about how we can ensure citizenship is not only on the national curriculum but delivered effectively.

Although I agree with the sentiment, I do not believe that primary legislation is the right way to secure effective implementation. Schools already embed important values through their statutory duty to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. They should remain free to tailor their approach, ensuring that values remain relevant to pupils’ lives.

However, we need to do more to give citizenship teaching the place it deserves on the curriculum. That is why, following the curriculum and assessment review, we will introduce new statutory citizenship teaching at primary level and an updated secondary programme of study. Consultation on that work will be under way soon, so noble Lords who have rightly engaged in the debate about the significance of citizenship teaching will be able to contribute to that.

On Amendment 208 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, as I said in Committee, we recognise the importance of supporting young people with high-quality teaching on healthy relationships. That is why personal, social, health and economic education, including sex and relationships, is taught in colleges. However, I recognise the gap in the nature of the requirement the noble Baroness identifies, particularly for further education colleges. We have begun to take action on that.

In response to calls from the further education sector, we commissioned a leading expert to create a well-evidenced range of resources to help colleges deliver high-impact relationships and sex education tutorials. I am grateful to Polly Harrow, our FE champion on this, for the work she is doing. The freely available toolkit provides high-quality lesson plans, materials and bespoke training to equip staff with the confidence needed to engage young people in conversations about misogyny, respect and consent, particularly given the context which many noble Lords have referenced this afternoon: the particular challenges for young people of this age, which I wholly accept and share their concern on.

I was particularly affected by the meeting I was able to have with Faustine Petron from the Make It Mandatory campaign, along with colleagues from the Sex Education Forum, End Violence Against Women and the Brook sexual health charity about the requirement to go further on this.

Although the Bill is not the best vehicle, as I have discussed with the noble Baroness, given this late stage in its progress and the absence of other further education measures, I intend to identify the most deliverable route to make relationships and sex education mandatory in further education. As the noble Baroness will know, I am not in a position to name Bills that may or may not be coming down the track, but she also referenced the possibility that somebody might choose this as a topic for a Private Member’s Bill. Were that to be the case, I would most certainly want to engage in supporting that making progress.

On Amendments 220 and 247 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we have been clear about our commitment to placing children’s well-being at the centre of guidance for schools on gender-questioning children. We are clear that the Cass review’s conclusions and principles—the review was of course published since the issuing of the draft guidance—need to be reflected in it and that schools can be confident in that.

We know that concerned professionals, parents and children would welcome clarity on how schools should respond to young people who are questioning their gender. We have been carefully considering all the evidence as well as responses from the public consultation. It is essential that we take the time to get this right and to consider the best way to support schools. We will confirm next steps in due course, but our approach is clear: an evidence-led approach, clarity for schools, and children’s well-being at the centre of it.

Turning to Amendment 231 in the name of the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, this Government are committed to collective worship in schools. Schools are already required to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural development within their curriculum and have flexibility to deliver non-religious assemblies. We plan to publish updated guidance later this year on collective worship in England to make expectations clear, including objective, pluralistic and critical delivery to give schools practical support.

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[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry if I sound like a dinosaur, but I will. Hindsight is always a harsh, cruel science. It makes us think, “If only we did not do this”. The evidence is very clear; as the inquiry went on, the lessons to be drawn have not yet been concluded, and the nation needs to take those lessons into its lifeblood.

We are talking about legislating for an assurance that if a huge pandemic breaks out—or, let us say, a war—we need to go to Parliament every two weeks to consult. But perhaps Parliament will be permanently shut. I would not want us to reach a stage where we have not fully learned all the lessons. I have grandchildren who, because their parents were working, were seen as those who needed to be supported at school during the pandemic. Even then, there were infections, and shutting down schools looked like protecting children. When something like Covid happens, our first look is to the vulnerable, such as children and other vulnerable people. I would find it difficult to support a measure which thinks that Parliament will always provide security.

Do you remember the Second World War? For their own protection, pupils had to be taken out of areas where the bombs were dropping pretty fast, so let us learn the lessons. We may return to this proposal, but for the time being let us support what the Bill as drafted is doing.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends have made a compelling human, practical and democratic case for the role of Parliament in expressly approving school closures in the event of a future pandemic or public health emergency. In practical terms, as we all know and have heard in this short debate, parents and teachers see every day the impacts on those young people who missed out on significant chunks of their education and their social development when schools were closed. My noble friend Lord Brady rightly pointed out the fundamental value of schools being open as unlocking all the other good things that we expect and trust them to deliver for our children.

I hope that, when the Minister comes to close, if she does not plan to accept these amendments, she gives a clear response as to how the issues that my noble friends have raised will be dealt with in future. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said, children at that point had no balancing voice to the decisions that were made, and that feels like something we do not want to have happen again.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all the contributors to this important debate. Amendment 207, which has been degrouped and stands alone for the reasons the noble Lord has outlined, would require schools to remain open to all pupils during civil emergencies unless Parliament decides otherwise. As the noble Lord stated during Committee, closing schools has significant impacts on children, as has been reinforced by the discussion here this evening. We all agree that continuity of education is vital for their learning and well-being.

We mentioned it in Committee, but I do not think it has been stressed enough in this debate that almost all schools remained open and allowed attendance in some cases to all pupils and in others to vulnerable children and to children of critical workers. I want to put on record here today our enormous thanks to the staff who worked under incredibly difficult circumstances, with changing guidance on this on a day-to-day basis, in putting the needs of those children first. There were very few total closures, and where they happened, they were usually short-term and for operational reasons. I am sure noble Lords will remember the coverage about deep-cleaning and all the other issues that came up on a daily basis.

We know now that children generally were not at risk from Covid-19 in terms of health. That does not mean that the staff were not, but children were not as vulnerable as was first feared. But that might not always be the case in future pandemics or other whole-system emergencies, and we need to keep that at the forefront of our minds as we discuss this important issue.

I reassure the Committee that the department is committed to learning from the Covid-19 pandemic inquiry. We learned from the last pandemic that planning is at its best when it is agile, takes a whole-system approach and is responsive to the situation. The department is continuing to build its capabilities to support education in all circumstances, including strengthening remote education.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

215: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition of smartphones during the school day(1) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, all schools in England must have a policy that prohibits the use and possession of smartphones by pupils during the school day.(2) Any policy implemented under subsection (1)—(a) may provide for exemptions from the policy, or for an alternative policy, for sixth form students, in so far as such exemptions or alternative policies do not negatively impact upon the wider policy,(b) may provide for exemptions for medical devices,(c) is to be implemented as the relevant school leader considers appropriate, and(d) may, where implemented by a boarding school or residential school, include appropriate guidance for the use of certain devices during other periods in which their pupils are on school premises, subject to such policies safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in accordance with relevant national standards.(3) For the purposes of this section—“smartphone” means a mobile telephone that is able to connect to the internet and whose main purpose is not the support of learning or study;“the school day” includes all time between the start of the first lesson period and the end of the final lesson period.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause requires schools to ban the use of smartphones during the school day.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The decision before us this evening in relation to Amendment 215 is whether we support the Government’s recent policy shift to tighten the guidance to schools about phones or whether we need to amend the Bill to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones in schools. On these Benches, we are absolutely clear that it is the latter. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Cass, who all bring exceptional expertise in this area, for adding their names to my amendment.

I will cover three points in my remarks. First, we need to be absolutely clear what we are trying to achieve with this amendment. As we heard in the debate on my noble friend Lord Nash’s Amendment 94A, on access to social media for under-16s, we need to reset our own and our children’s relationship with smartphones and social media, as smartphones are so often the gateway drug to social media. This is essential given everything we know about the impact of extensive screen time on a child’s ability to learn, to concentrate and to get a good night’s sleep, and on their mental health, as well as the harms that children are exposed to online. Resetting social norms is something our schools can play a crucial part in.

We should be in no doubt about the nature of the harms created by having smartphones in schools, and indeed on the bus, to and fro: photos taken without consent and then sexualised via a nudification app, and that are then traded online; exposure to live-streamed content, including children watching a live suicide on the bus home; and, of course, endless potential for distraction from learning. These harms do not happen with dumb phones; they are specific to smartphones.

The second point that it is important to stress tonight is that head teachers want a ban on smartphones. This sends a clear message about the harms smartphones can cause, it sends a clear message to parents and, crucially, it will result in consistency across our schools. The flexibility inherent in the new government guidance is portrayed positively as giving schools and communities discretion to adopt an approach that suits them best. But the reality for many school heads is that the exercise of that discretion is difficult, and it leaves schools facing off against pupils and parents. That seems to be why the “no see, no hear” policies have taken hold. It is a compromise to placate a vocal, emotional, and at times physically challenging minority of pupils and parents.

Thirdly, we do not believe that the Government’s approach of introducing stronger guidance will work, any more than the guidance we introduced when we were in government did. The entirely predictable result of leaving it to teachers to decide how they wish to tackle mobile phone misuse is that the pupils and schools that need help with behaviour and learning the most will be among those least well positioned to help themselves. By contrast, a statutory ban would provide all schools with a shield against pupil and parental complaints.

Guidance leaves heads exposed to parents who disagree, as it is their decision to make their school genuinely smartphone-free rather than down to legislation. Heads have reported that some parents can become very vocal and at times physically violent. It leaves heads having to spend considerable time and energy on deciding on a policy and then implementing it and convincing parents. As one head reported recently in the Times:

“I’m not exaggerating. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on this”.


When we were in government, we introduced guidance which set clear expectations about the use of phones in schools, but we were also clear that if it was not effective, we would consider moving to a full ban. In reality, after testing this approach in practice, only 11% of schools have effective bell-to-bell bans, so the time has come for legislation to support schools to implement a ban. My amendment would mean that smartphones specifically would not be allowed in schools except for limited exceptions for medical requirements, for sixth forms and for boarders in the evenings, for all the reasons that the House is well aware of. Of course, all phones need to be absent during the school day, but dumb phones or Balance Phones do not have the same addictive properties and do not create any of the problems that we have heard about from head teachers.

We do not support Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. It would allow smartphones into the classroom for children with special educational needs and disabilities and would undermine the whole approach. Of course, these children should have access to the assistive technology they need, but not via their personal smartphone.

The point of principle that noble Lords need to decide this evening is whether we want to leave the burden of trying to manage phone use in schools to head teachers or whether we want to take this opportunity to give children their childhood back and start to get smartphones out of their lives. We need to be ambitious. We need to be clear-sighted. This is a prize worth fighting for. I beg to move.

Amendment 216 (to Amendment 215)

Moved by

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The Government have moved in some directions, wanting schools to be the ones who deal with this. I know the policing is difficult, but we need to wait and see what is the outcome in places such as Australia, as the noble Lord said, and listen to the voice of Ian Russell, who has been campaigning longer than any of us because he lost his daughter, and not simply brush it aside because we have the right to pass legislation and go down this road. So I plead for us to wait and not simply tag it on to this Bill. I know it is to do with the well-being of children, and schools, but I suggest that this is not the place to do it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the House is probably keener to hear from the Minister than from me. I am grateful to noble Lords for their remarks. It was clarified that there are exceptions in the amendment around medical devices. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, of course, we want children with special educational needs to be independent and would be very happy to work with the noble Lord to look at that. But I agree completely with my noble friend Lady Spielman that we risk having one in three children in a classroom then being allowed to have a phone, which I know is not what the noble Lord wants either. With that, along with the rest of the House, I would like to hear from the Minister.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impact of mobile phones in schools, including the distraction from learning and the wider effects on children’s well-being. For this reason, we have always been clear that mobile phones have no place in schools.

It was clear from the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that schools can deliver this. Research from the Children’s Commissioner shows that the overwhelming majority of schools already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day. However, it is also clear that the old mobile phones in schools guidance inherited from the previous Government did not deliver the clarity or consistency that schools need to implement mobile phone-free schools.

Amendment 215 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, requires schools in England to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones during the school day. As I say, the vast majority of schools already have policies in place that restrict access to mobile phones. The problem, therefore, is one of clarifying the guidance and enforcing those policies. That is why we have acted to address both. On Monday 19 January we published strengthened guidance which is clear that all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default for the entire school day and pupils should not have access to their devices. That includes lessons, time between lessons, break times, lunchtime and in the loos. Not only does the strengthened guidance remove any ambiguity as to what effective prohibition of mobile phones looks like, but it includes practical, real-world case studies, demonstrating how schools are successfully implementing and sustaining these policies.

We know that schools need help. Where they do, they can get one-to-one support from the DfE’s attendance and behaviour hub lead schools, spread across all regions of the country, that are already effectively implementing mobile phone bans and have exemplary track records of supporting other schools to improve their practice. We have gone further: to reinforce the importance of effective implementation, Ofsted will, for the first time, check school mobile phone policy on every inspection, with schools expected to be mobile phone-free by default. It will check how effectively these policies are implemented when judging behaviour during inspections.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, questioned whether that would be effective, given the, in some cases, four-year gap between inspections. To be clear, Ofsted is one of the most powerful signals that the department gives to the sector on its priorities for teachers and leaders. While not all schools are inspected every year, the prioritisation of mobile phone policy in every inspection will improve policies across the system. From my time teaching, it is my experience—and I am sure it is the same for others across the House, including the former chief inspector—that Ofsted does not have to be on the premises to have an impact on what schools are doing.

We have already communicated these changes to the sector, but I make it clear that schools have our full support in taking this forward. This is a national reset on mobile phone use in schools, and we expect all school leaders, pupils and parents to follow this guidance. But this is not the end of the conversation, and we will continue to listen to the voices of parents, teachers and children on this issue.

I remind the House that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced that the Government will launch a short, sharp consultation on how to improve children’s relationship with social media and mobile phones. This will be a three-month consultation, with the Government reporting back in the summer. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Reid, as part of this the consultation will seek views on whether the mobile phones in schools guidance should be placed on a statutory footing, working through the evidence and bringing any proposals forward once these views have been taken into account.

Amendment 215 addresses the issue in a way that the Government cannot support. It is unclear what “possession” is meant to cover. If we define possession too tightly, we create problems for schools. On the radio this morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, was praising the use of, for example, sealed pouches as a way to prevent the use of phones but also promoting this amendment. Of course, many schools already use sensible, effective approaches such as sealed pouches, stopping pupils accessing their mobile phones throughout the school day, which is the intention of this policy, but an overly strict definition of possession could make those approaches non-compliant, and we should not undermine what already works.

Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is an amendment to Amendment 215, and requires schools to provide exemptions for pupils who use mobile phones as assistive technology. Our strengthened guidance is clear: exceptions to the mobile phone policy may be required for children with specific special educational needs, disabilities or medical conditions. That includes users of healthtech or assistive technology. For example, pupils with diabetes might use continuous glucose monitoring with a sensor linked to their mobile phone to monitor blood sugar levels. Where mobile phone use allows pupils to manage their medical condition effectively, our guidance ensures that these cases are protected. Where school leaders need to make additional exceptions to or flexibilities in their policies based on a child’s individual needs, we trust them to do so.

For these reasons, and given the wider action the Government are taking to improve children’s relationship with technology, mobile phones and social media, I hope—although I do not have a lot of hope—that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister says that phones have no place in schools and that the Government want a national reset. I say that we need our amendment. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

217: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause—
“Permanent exclusion: assessmentAfter being informed that a pupil has been permanently excluded from a school or academy, the local authority must carry out an assessment under paragraph 3 (assessment of children’s needs) of Schedule 2 of the Children Act 1989.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require the local authority to undertake an assessment of the needs of the child if they are permanently excluded from school.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments returns to the issue of balancing the rights of children who are excluded from school with those of other children and staff in the classroom. All three of my amendments were tabled in Committee. Before I speak to them, I want to acknowledge the very positive evaluation of the impact of the behaviour hubs programme that was just published, and I thank all those involved.

In Committee, the Minister referred to the statutory Working Together guidance, which says that the local authority and partners should identify problems and unmet needs, including for children facing multiple suspensions or permanent exclusion from school. She referred again to the changes that the Government are making to local authority children’s services with a greater proposed emphasis on early help. Of course, this is how all of us would hope that the system would work but, by definition, when a child is permanently excluded, that early intervention has not achieved its goals.

To take my amendments in reverse order, Amendment 219 would make it clear that there is a presumption against reinstatement in a mainstream school after a child has been permanently excluded twice. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said in Committee, there is good evidence that these children do not go on to thrive in mainstream and are more likely to have their needs met through high-quality alternative provision. We all know that there is not enough of this currently, but that is for a different debate. Perhaps the forthcoming schools White Paper will address it. However, can the Minister confirm whether the Government plan to make it clear in future updates of the suspension and exclusions guidance that if a child has twice been excluded from a mainstream school, there is a presumption against placing them in another one?

My Amendment 218 reflects the anxieties that many parents and head teachers have about having a child in their classroom who has committed serious violence or sexual assault. We heard several examples of this in Committee, and the Minister talked about how the Government would,

“trust head teachers to use their professional judgment based on the individual circumstances of the case when considering whether to exclude a pupil, and we will protect their right to do that”.—[Official Report, 16/9/25; col. 2132.]

However, in Clauses 54 to 56 the Government are strengthening the ability of local authorities to require academies to accept a particular child via a managed move, so we need the clarity that my amendment brings. Again, can the noble Baroness confirm whether that will be in the forthcoming guidance?

In these debates, we rightly focus on the excluded child, but we too rarely speak with equal clarity about the children who remain, those whose learning could be disrupted, whose classrooms become unsafe and whose trust in adult authority is eroded when serious behaviour is not addressed decisively. Exclusion decisions are not made in a vacuum; they are made in the context of 30 other pupils and the staff responsible for them. Any system that weakens the ability of head teachers to act risks failing not one child but many. This is about not giving up on children but recognising when repeated failure in mainstream indicates that a different setting is more likely to meet a child’s needs and keep other children safe.

Finally, Amendment 217 aims to ensure that children who are permanently excluded are guaranteed a proper assessment by the local authority. I understand that schools need to inform the local authority when they permanently exclude a child. Of course, in strong local authorities this results in an assessment, but it is not consistent. I know the Minister understands just how vulnerable a child who is permanently excluded can be, so I hope she will agree to make this assessment a requirement. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one year ago today, on 3 February 2025, 15 year-old Harvey Willgoose was tragically stabbed in the heart at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield. It happened in the school courtyard in the lunch break, and the perpetrator was Mohammed Umar Khan. An independent review has been commissioned by the school’s trust on what it calls “missed opportunities” and “too many red flags” about Mohammed Khan’s previous behaviour. Khan’s record showed around 130 incidents of concern relating to violence, anger issues and even carrying weapons, yet somehow teachers did not feel able to handle that. Allegedly—the trust is looking into this—some teachers said that they raised the alarm but were ignored or it was pushed away from them.

It is important that we note that teachers should never be frightened to intervene for whatever reason by asserting adult authority. One problem we have to address is making sure that we do not in any way send a message that teachers cannot have the tools that they need to deal with challenging behaviour in schools. It is therefore important that suspension and permanent exclusions are part of the tools that reinforce and deter serious misconduct across schools, signal that certain behaviours have severe consequences and allow boundaries to exist and be reinforced. That is beneficial to all pupils as well as staff. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that sometimes we forget those children who are sitting there and are victims of the misbehaving or violent child. It is for that reason that I have added my name to Amendment 217, which would require local authorities to undertake an assessment of the needs of any permanently excluded child. I am sure that one reason many head teachers are nervous about permanent exclusion is that they do not want that to be the end of the educational road for the child and they do not want the child to disappear. It is very important that we do not allow that to happen.

Amendment 218, which probes the Government’s willingness to introduce a presumption against the reinstatement of a child excluded for very serious matters, such as possession of a knife or other weapon, sexual assault or assault against a teacher, would be key in backing up teachers’ ability to be authoritative and feel safe when teaching. Pupils need to be relocated to an environment more suitable to their challenging behaviour and then they should be followed up because we do not want an argument to be used that permanently excluded, difficult, challenging children will end up in the wilderness with no possible options. These amendments cover that really well, and Amendment 217 aims to prevent that bleak outcome.

On Amendment 219, under which if pupils are excluded on two occasions it would not automatically be assumed that schools would have to take them back, I think that is important and I will be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about it, because it could prevent heightened risk to other staff or students. But I also think we should not presume that it is okay simply to move the problem to another mainstream school. It just feels lazy, like moving the deckchairs. More pupils are then put at risk in another school, but the problem is never tackled. They might actually need to be relocated to a more suitable environment.

I should say that, at one point, I taught for several years in a further education setting pupils from the age of 14 upwards who had been excluded from schools in the local area. They were, to say the least, challenging. Many of them had been violent in their classrooms, but many of them had literally just gone from pillar to post, pillar to post, with no particular regard to the issues they had. When they were actually in a special class—I am not saying it was special because I was teaching it—at least it meant that we could focus on the difficulties they had.

My final thought, having sat through a lot of the discussions, is that we need to be aware that the deterioration—and there has been a deterioration—of young people in schools does not come out of a vacuum. We have just heard the discussions and the tensions around mobile phones. We do have to think that sometimes our policies can make matters worse. In that instance, I think that the question that was asked earlier about how we are actually going to police and enforce any ban on mobile phones in schools was worth asking, because the teachers are going to have to police it. That could lead to a lot more tensions.

Also, to refer to an earlier amendment, suspensions and permanent exclusions rose sharply when schools reopened after the Covid lockdown period, with suspensions up by 21% and permanent exclusions up by 16%. Following on from the earlier amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Young, in relation to lockdowns, I think we should understand that that period really did damage young people and led to a decline in behaviour. We have to take some responsibility for that.

In general, I think that the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, are a really useful way for us to reconsider how we tackle this issue.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The amendments in group 8 relate to the school exclusion framework. We firmly believe that every pupil, no matter their background, deserves to learn in a safe, calm and orderly classroom. Supporting good behaviour in schools is essential to achieving this, and we will continue to back teachers and school leaders in maintaining high standards.

Amendment 217, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to require local authorities to assess the needs of children under the Children Act 1989 whenever a pupil is permanently excluded. Section 17 of the Act already places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need. Naming specific groups risks narrowing eligibility and limiting local flexibility.

The Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance makes clear local authorities and partners should identify emerging problems and unmet needs, including for children facing exclusion.  Our reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, supported by over £500 million this year, will embed education experience within multi-agency teams. We are introducing a duty on safeguarding partners to ensure education settings are represented at both strategic and operational levels.

Amendments 218 and 219, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to introduce a presumption against reinstating pupils who have been excluded twice and for extremely serious behaviour such as possession of a knife or offensive weapon, assaulting a teacher and sexual assault. To be absolutely clear, no child or teacher should ever feel unsafe at school. Safe, calm and orderly environments are central to the Bill and to our support for schools and teachers, and head teachers must retain the ability to use appropriate sanctions, including exclusions, to maintain safety and good behaviour.

Governing bodies play an essential role in reviewing exclusions and deciding on reinstatement on a case-by-case basis. A blanket presumption of reinstatement would remove their ability to judge whether an exclusion was lawful, reasonable and fair, and could risk limiting a child’s access to mainstream education and opportunities for successful reintegration. For this reason, we do not have plans to change the guidance in the way the noble Baroness asked about. School leaders should use early intervention and multi-agency assessments as soon as concerns arise, to identify needs early and avoid escalation.

The Government are delivering a strong package of behaviour support, including new attendance and behaviour hubs targeted at the schools most in need, and plan to consult on an internal suspension framework to help schools use these sanctions effectively, minimise lost learning and keep children engaged in their education. The Bill represents a major strengthening of safeguarding legislation, reinforcing the importance of safety, well-being and behaviour in schools. Importantly, it aligns with wider action to protect young people from harm, including banning dangerous weapons, tightening online knife sale controls and expanding programmes that prevent youth violence.

For all these reasons, we do not consider that removing governing boards’ discretion through a presumption against reinstatement is necessary or appropriate, and I hope the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for those remarks. They are slightly disappointing, and certainly the Government’s reforms are doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. I am not going to press my amendments, but it is with a heavy heart, particularly in relation to Amendment 217. This is not about narrowing the scope of Section 17 of the 1989 Act; it is about saying that these children are children in need, almost by definition, so let us make sure we look at it systematically. But I hope that the Government’s reforms will work the miracle that the Minister believes they will. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 217.

Amendment 217 withdrawn.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is a bit like the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, having the two doctors in the room and great passion. It reminds me a bit of this Chamber, actually: we can certainly go for it at times.

I normally shy away from edtech, but I thought, “No, come on, grow up, Storey, you need to look at this carefully”. I went into teacher mode, I am afraid. I have some general thoughts. All the amendments grapple with the tension between protecting children and preparing them for the digital world. We need to balance parental rights, children’s educational needs and teachers’ autonomy. Technology is neither inherently good nor bad, and implementation and context matter. Finally, there is the risk of one-size-fits-all solutions not accounting for diverse school context and pupils’ needs.

I turn first to Amendment 227:

“Register of software tools permitted in schools”.


There are positives, are there not? This would ensure minimum safety and privacy standards for educational software, protect children from inappropriate content or data harvesting, and address current inconsistencies in firewalls, as some schools overblock, preventing legitimate learning. What are the concerns? There is a risk of creating a bureaucratic bottleneck as innovation in edtech moves faster than government approval processes. It could stifle teachers’ ability to use emerging tools or respond to pedagogical needs. Whitelisting requirements could be too rigid. What about trial periods for new tools? And who decides what meets curriculum principles could become politically contentious.

Then I look at Amendments 234, 235 and 236 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Their intent is to reduce screen time for young children, which is particularly important for early years development and the reception baseline. They address equity concerns that not all families might have reliable devices or internet access at home. Handwriting skills and motor development remain important, especially for young children. The amendments reduce the potential for cheating or AI assistance in assessments. They give parents agency over the child’s screen exposure. From head teacher experience, I say that some parents are deeply concerned about excessive screen time and lack of control.

The concerns are that reducing screen time might disadvantage students who are more comfortable with digital tools. It could also limit the development of general computer skills and risk making education feel out of step with modern skills. It could create additional administrative burdens for schools, as managing two parallel systems could be impractical for certain subjects beyond just computing, and might inadvertently stigmatise children whose parents opt out. So it is over to the Minister to unravel the pros and the cons and tell us what we should do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I start by acknowledging, as I am sure others in the House felt while listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, her many years of battling—I am sure it feels like battling—on this important area. I hope I speak on behalf of all of us, and I think I do, in thanking her for her work in this field.

Every day we see more options to include edtech in our classrooms and different forms of technology and tools, and indeed in our homes for homework purposes. With that in mind, I express the support of these Benches for Amendments 238, 239 and 240 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I hope very much that we will get a firm date for the publication of a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech and on the use of children’s data. That is ever more pressing in a week when the Government have promised to roll out AI tutoring in schools. Of course, they are doing so with the best of intentions, but it creates an imperative to ensure that such tutoring is effective not just in engagement, where the evidence is pretty good, but, crucially, in learning, where the evidence is much less so. Indeed, a recent international study showed that the use of AI tutors resulted in improved homework grades but worse exam results when compared to those children who followed traditional approaches, suggesting that, without great care, edtech tools can be adopted that do not translate into long-term memory and deep learning.

The message we have really heard in all the speeches tonight is the need for pace from the Government, and I am sure the Minister has heard that. The noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, also made a powerful case for his Amendment 227 and the strength of using existing standards to try to accelerate things and come up with a plan as quickly as possible.

I have brought back the three amendments that I tabled in Committee. Amendment 234 would ensure that all public exams could be completed by hand, Amendment 235 would remove the use of devices from the reception baseline assessment, and Amendment 236 would give parents the right to opt out of device-based homework, with some limits to accommodate medical and other needs. These need to be seen in the context of an ever-growing use of devices, which includes not just the ability to complete homework but also, in the case of personal devices, the power to distract through social media in particular. Parents are clear that when children are expected to use a personal device for homework, that erodes their ability to make the case for a phone-free or device-free evening or weekend.

I understand that some schools have concerns about how this would work in practice, but I think the Overton window has shifted on this issue too in the less than six months since we last debated it. It seems like the Government are moving in the opposite direction with the introduction of AI tutors, but I hope the Minister will reassure the House that that is not the case. As one expert wrote recently:

“If exams go fully digital, handwriting instruction could quickly be marginalised, and note-taking by hand be swapped out for a digital device with AI aids by pragmatic teachers and tech-loving students”.


Similarly, he wrote:

“Homework already jumps to online apps with assistive supports and AI guidance. There is little thought or complaint about how our brain may respond differently to screen scrolling and that of the physical act of writing on the page”.


There is so much evidence about the importance of physical handwriting in learning, and we are concerned that the move to using ever more screen-based learning will impact on that.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As we turn to the amendments in group 11, which are, of course, on educational technology, I thank noble Lords for their focus during this debate on safety, effectiveness and fairness. The Government share these aims. We want schools and parents to have confidence in the tools being used and innovation that supports learning while protecting pupils’ data and well-being.

We are clear that technology used in our schools must support learning and children’s development. It must not expose children to harm, undermine trust or operate without appropriate safeguards. The question before the House is not whether action is required—action is already under way—but how we ensure that protections are robust and enforceable and can keep pace with rapid technological change.

I turn first to Amendment 227, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, and Amendment 238, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which seek to strengthen assurance that education technology is safe, effective and permitted for use in schools through the introduction of a statutory mechanism. At this point, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, for the work that he was talking about with DfE to develop important new qualifications, which we are grateful for and which the Government will certainly want to maximise the use of.

However, the amendments before us address that concern—the concern about whether tech is safe and effective—in a way that the Government do not believe is appropriate and cannot support, because they do it by treating safety and educational effectiveness as the same regulatory question when they are not. There is a clear distinction between product safety and pedagogical efficacy, and it is essential that we respond to each in the right way. If a tool is not safe, it should not be used in schools at all.

That is why we have already introduced robust safety standards for generative AI, which will set clear expectations for tech companies to follow. That said, providing clarity for schools is key, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for providing additional information on this point earlier this week. We are committed to going further, and we are therefore considering the benefits of consulting on a certification scheme to apply to generative AI tools in education.

Product safety cannot be achieved through a rushed government-compiled register but must be delivered through legally robust and independent certification. Educational effectiveness is different. Whether a tool improves learning is not a universal yes or no question, and it cannot be certified in the same way as safety. What works will vary by age group, subject, setting and approach, and it will evolve over time as the technology itself develops. Attempting to fix this through rigid certification risks undermining professional judgment and stifling innovation without delivering better outcomes for children.

That is why we are working with AI and education experts on new benchmarks for AI use in education, including tests to make sure that products meet national expectations for pedagogy. Our EdTech Evidence Board is developing a clear, publishable framework for assessing effectiveness, including expectations on pedagogy, evidence, outcomes, equity and inclusion, and clarity for schools.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, for clarifying the intent of his Amendment 227 by stating that he was looking for a minimum list of approved tools. I believe that our work on evidence will precisely support that aim.

We are also investing £23 million to expand the edtech test bed into a four-year programme to test technology and AI tools in real classroom settings with independent evaluation. This approach provides schools and colleges with confidence in what works without locking them into a static list. Our aim is to establish a credible pedagogical bar that is fair to suppliers, usable for schools and capable of evolving, rather than a rigid statutory regime that would quickly fall behind technological change.

Amendment 239, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, focuses on filtering and monitoring systems and seeks to increase confidence, through certification, that products used in schools are effective and appropriate. As I noted in Committee, schools are already expected to have filtering and monitoring systems in place through the Keeping Children Safe in Education framework. However, we agree that more can be done to provide clarity and confidence. I am therefore pleased to confirm that the Government will consult on a scheme to certify filtering and monitoring products used in schools, which would reinforce safety standards and allow schools to be confident that products are aligned with them. Alongside this, we have strengthened our guidance to make it clear that filtering solutions must be designed so that illegal blocklists cannot be disabled, overridden or altered. Consulting will allow us to develop a certification scheme that is proportionate and effective in education settings. We therefore do not feel that a statutory obligation is necessary at this stage.

Amendment 236, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, raises concerns about on-screen homework and proposes a parental right to exemption. We share the principle that no child should be disadvantaged due to a lack of access to devices, but we remain clear that decisions about homework are best made by schools in partnership with families and reflecting local circumstances. Many schools already work closely with parents to understand access issues and provide alternatives where needed. We do not have evidence to suggest that legislating in this way would be proportionate or beneficial.

There has been considerable debate about screen time, but it is important not to conflate personal and educational use. When applied well, education technology can improve outcomes and accessibility and help pupils, including neurodiverse children, to engage more confidently. The aim is not more screen time but better learning delivered safely. The Government’s recent announcement of £1.6 million for assistive technology lending libraries reflects this commitment to inclusion, particularly for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.

I turn to Amendment 235, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on the reception baseline assessment. We share the belief that assessment should be appropriate and fair. However, a blanket prohibition or rigid requirement in primary legislation would remove needed flexibility, including where digital approaches support accessibility while non-digital options still remain available. As we discussed at some length in Committee, the reception baseline assessment includes some digital elements, but it also uses verbal responses and small toys, with no expectation of prior screen use; a paper-based version remains available in exceptional cases. The revised version has been in development since 2018 and was trialled extensively with pupils during that time. It has been in general use since September, and we have received positive feedback from teachers on pupil engagement. For these reasons, a restrictive legislative approach is not necessary, and the proposed timescales would be impractical and expensive.

Amendment 234, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to ensure that secondary education exams are completed by hand rather than with a digital device, subject to specific exceptions. Ofqual is currently consulting on how on-screen exams should be regulated. It is proposing a highly controlled and limited introduction, with rigorous safeguards. The vast majority of exams would still be with pen and paper. Each exam board could submit proposals to introduce a maximum of two new on-screen specifications, but not in the highest-entry subjects. We have worked closely with Ofqual to consider the potential benefits and risks. Ofqual has also published the evidence base that has informed its consultation. Research shows that on-screen exams may deliver a range of potential benefits over the long term, including improving assessment validity, accessibility and efficiency. We therefore remain of the view that it is not appropriate to fix a highly restrictive policy position in legislation, but of course we encourage interested parties to respond to Ofqual’s consultation.

Finally, Amendment 240 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, seeks to require the Information Commissioner’s Office to produce an edtech code of practice for children’s data. We fully agree on the importance of strong protections for children’s data. At Second Reading of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology confirmed that the Information Commissioner would be required to publish codes of practice for AI and automated decision-making, followed by a dedicated edtech code, and this sequencing is deliberate. Developing the AI code first will inform the edtech code, providing greater clarity and coherence for organisations, schools and families. Accelerating the edtech code ahead of this work would risk duplication and confusion rather than strengthening protections.

I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on 16 December to confirm that regulations will be laid requiring the Information Commissioner to produce these codes, beginning with the AI code and followed by the edtech code. I am pleased that work on the AI code is already in progress. I am also aware that DSIT officials have been in touch with the noble Baroness to discuss the development of the regulations that will require the ICO to prepare the AI code, and we would welcome her support in getting those regulations right. We share the same aims, but we do not believe that legislating in the way proposed would deliver better outcomes for children or schools. The Government’s approach is proportionate, evidence-led and capable of adapting as technology evolves. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, she talked, in relation to my Amendment 236 and homework, about the Government’s concerns about equality of access to devices at home, but she did not address the point I raised about the increasing number of parents who want to have a screen-free evening at home, or screen-free weekends as a household. What would she say to those parents?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In those cases, I would expect every school thinking about its homework policy to have engaged with parents on the details of how that homework policy was going to work, but I think what was proposed by the noble Baroness in this amendment would limit the ability of schools to have those conversations and to make the decisions that were appropriate for them. It is on that basis that we are resisting it.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I strongly support Amendment 233, as I did in Committee, as well as the other amendments in this group. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who reflected what many of us have been saying: the children’s well-being Bill has been short on well-being. Earlier—much earlier, yesterday now—we were talking about sport, culture, PSHE and citizenship education. But we need to see what does and does not work if we are going to deliver some of the changes that are clearly so urgently needed.

I will refer to one survey: the National Parent Survey 2025, conducted by Parentkind, which found that unhappiness among children doubles between primary and secondary school. The parents said that the chief reason that their children were unhappy was that they were finding lessons uninteresting: the figure was 42%, which really is telling.

I return to the Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report 2025, already referred to, which of course was reporting on the opposite. One of its recommendations was:

“Introduce a national wellbeing measurement programme”.


It is just such an obvious thing for the Government to do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on these Benches, as is true across the House, of course we want our children to have the highest standards of mental health and well-being, and the data to support this, but, as in Committee, we do not support the specifics of these amendments.

On Amendment 233 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, presented this morning by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, we felt that the Minister’s response in Committee was a constructive way forward and substantially addressed the goals of the amendment, albeit perhaps not in the way that the signatories would prefer or advise. My reading of the Minister’s remarks was that the Government did commit to providing non-statutory guidance, including a standard set of questions and additional tools and resources to support implementation.

As in Committee, I am sympathetic to the gap in provision that Amendment 237 from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, seeks to address: in particular, the postcode lottery that she highlighted in her remarks this morning. I also recognise that it expressly prescribes the provision of qualified practitioners and implicitly prescribes that any interventions have a sound evidence base. As my noble friend Lady Spielman pointed out in Committee, too many interventions have been used in schools in relation to both mental health and well-being, which Amendment 242 from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, addresses, which have been shown subsequently to have caused more harm than good. That is clearly something we need to avoid.

I return to the point I made in Committee and that we have heard fervently debated on Report, including today: the single most powerful thing this Government can do to restore the mental health, well-being and sense of belonging of our children would be to keep smartphones out of school and prevent access to social media for the under-16s. Teachers, parents and their children will not thank this Government for being slow to act.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Well, as we approach nine hours of considering the 13 groups that we have got through today, I note—and I am not being churlish—that if everybody who stood up and said, “I will speak only briefly” spoke only briefly, we would have saved a reasonable amount of time.

However, let us move to the amendments. I start by assuring noble Lords that the Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people, helping pupils to achieve and thrive in education. Of course, we are focused on, and have already made considerable progress in, providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. With that in mind, I turn to the amendments.

Amendment 233, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, intends to establish a national children’s well-being measurement programme.  We welcome the added emphasis that the measurement should remain voluntary for schools. While we are committed to supporting more schools to do this effectively, legislation is not necessary.

As stated in Committee, the Government have already committed to publish non-statutory guidance helping schools to measure and act upon factors related to well-being. To do that, we are working with measurement experts, including from the Our Wellbeing Our Voice coalition, to establish standardised questions for schools to ask pupils about key modifiable factors that impact their engagement in school life and their well-being, including how this can inform their approach to promoting and supporting mental health. This will enable benchmarking, aggregation, and sharing of data and practice between schools and with partners. We are exploring whether and how this data could be collected centrally to inform national policy. In the meantime, we will continue to publish annually the data we collect centrally on pupils’ well-being and experiences in school.

Amendment 237, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, would require the Secretary of State to ensure access to professionally accredited counselling or equivalent therapeutic support in schools, alongside government commitments to expand mental health support teams. As we said in Committee, this Government will expand mental health support teams from 52% coverage of pupils and learners at the start of April 2025 to 100% by 2029. The noble Baroness makes an important point about ensuring that we provide support for pupils whose needs are too complex for low-intensity interventions but do not meet the threshold for specialist child and adolescent mental health services. That is why we will pilot enhancements to mental health support teams, developed with a range of experts, including from the counselling profession, to support more complex needs such as trauma, neurodivergence and disordered eating.

These teams already integrate with a school’s existing well-being offer, which can include counselling. However, while there is good evidence that CBT used by the teams can deliver lasting benefits, more research is needed into the effectiveness, implementation and cost efficiency of counselling in schools. Many pupils also benefit from other in-school support. It is important that schools continue to have the freedom to decide what pastoral support to offer their pupils based on need, making the best use of their funding.

Lastly, Amendment 242, tabled by my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie, seeks to require statutory guidance for schools on whole-school approaches to mental health and well-being. As I said in Committee, existing statutory duties provide schools with a strong foundation to adopt whole-school approaches and secure the support that their pupils need. Our pupil engagement framework, to be published this year and developed with Mission 44, with support from other key stakeholders, will provide schools with guidance on whole-school approaches to pupil engagement and, in turn, well-being. Together with our ongoing work on measurement as part of this framework and the expansion of mental health support teams to 100% of pupils and learners, the Government are building on existing support in a consistent and equitable way—key components of my noble friend’s amendment.

Having described the progress that the Government are already making on the range of concerns that noble Lords have outlined, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my gratitude to your Lordships’ House for the careful and constructive scrutiny of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This Bill brings forward once-in-a-generation and much-needed reforms to our children’s social care and education systems, and will deliver tangible changes for young people. It delivers on manifesto commitments, including free breakfast clubs in primary schools and limits on branded uniform items, as well as raising standards in every classroom, ensuring fair access to good local schools and strengthening support for the most vulnerable children.

The opportunity to bring about meaningful, lasting change in the lives of children and families through legislation of this kind is rare and it has been a privilege to take this Bill through. I am grateful to all Members who brought their significant expertise to debates, with contributions drawing on backgrounds in education, children’s social care, health, data and local government, which have enriched our discussions and strengthened the legislation. Over Second Reading, 12 days in Committee and 5 days on Report, many noble Lords have spoken powerfully on behalf of children, as well as parents, carers, teachers and professionals working on the front lines, and that perspective has played a key role in refining the legislation.

I thank all noble Lords with whom I have engaged inside and outside the Chamber. Over the course of the Bill’s passage through this House, the Government had over 60 engagements with Peers and many more with external bodies. Noble Lords, including the Opposition Front Benches, have been exceptionally generous with their time, expertise and scrutiny, and those contributions have been valuable. I express my thanks in particular to my noble friend Lady Blake for taking the Bill through this House alongside me. Her support, expertise and unwavering dedication to children’s social care and education have been evident at every stage. I am thankful also to my noble friends Lady Anderson and Lady Twycross for their support in Committee. I am also grateful to the officials who have supported me throughout its passage, including my private office, the Bill team and the policy, strategy and legal teams. I extend my gratitude to the Whips’ team, parliamentary business and legislation team, and Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. This Bill has been vast in scope and, with 875 amendments debated, logistically complex.

Finally, I thank the clerks, doorkeepers and staff of the House. This Bill has frequently been debated late at night or until the early hours of the morning, and I appreciate their work greatly. I am confident that this legislation will greatly improve the lives of children and young people, and I look forward to further consideration as it moves to the other place. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the Minister’s words in thanking all Members of the House who have been involved—some more than others—in the passage of this Bill and for the quality of scrutiny it received. I also thank the Ministers, their private offices and the Bill team for their time and engagement over the course of the Bill and the very detailed correspondence they sent us. I thank Beatrice Hughes and Dan Cohen in our research team for their support throughout the course of the Bill, which feels like quite a long time, and of course my noble friend the Earl of Effingham for his invaluable support.

However, if this Bill had been a weather forecast, I think it might have been for the west coast of Scotland in November. It has felt at times quite depressing, with a lot of rain and clouds, and only rare glimpses of sunshine. I say that because I fear that, in Part 1 of the Bill, the Government never really went to the root of the very real problem they were seeking to address. Conversely, in Part 2, we heard again and again the question of what problem the Government were actually trying to solve. The Minister talks about meaningful and lasting change. All of us in your Lordships’ House hope that she right, but I gently suggest that that is much more likely to be the case if the Government accept our amendments when it reaches the other place.

When we think about our debates on this Bill, Part 1, rather than trying fundamentally to address the shortage of foster and kinship carers in this country, focuses on reorganisation and regulation. Also, in Part 2, rather than learning from the successes of our free schools and academies and embedding those in the school system, the Government have sought to centralise and micromanage.

We had some glimpses of sunshine in the Bill. Certainly, working together across all Benches in this House has been an absolute privilege and a pleasure, and has unquestionably improved the Bill. For me, bright spots in Part 1 included tightening the involvement of health as a partner in the commissioning for children in receipt of a deprivation of liberty order, and in the role of the regional commissioning co-operatives. Another bright spot was requiring the Government to have clear evidence of impact before rolling out the multiagency child protection teams nationally.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to see that, in Motion K1, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has reduced the issue to being about only Section 31 and that she has provided a carve-out, as it were, for adoption. Imagine if you adopted a two year-old who had been in care and, 10 years later, you have to jump through another bureaucratic hoop, so I am very pleased to see that. I am sorry that the Government do not have that provision within their current approach.

When I raised this in an amendment—I think it was on Report—the Minister told me that in such a case, it would be a pure formality: that, in relation to an adopted child, the local authority would simply pass it through. In your Lordships’ House, we all know that what is a formality for the local authority can be a real worry and threat for the individuals involved. It is a threat of people passing judgment on them, and that is a really important point. However, this is not the only example of people who will be inappropriately caught within this amendment and within the Government’s current approach.

I want to give one example, which is known to both the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the Minister. It is of a young boy who was abused and raped by his father. With the permission of his mother, I will read out or paraphrase a short extract from an email she sent to the Government. At the time when the care plan was created for her son, she said, he

“had made detailed disclosures of serious sexual abuse”

to the mother, to four police officers, to two doctors and a social worker

“yet the police had still not arrested the perpetrator and the family court offered … no protection”.

Under those circumstances, she said, the chair of the initial child protection conference agreed with herself, a doctor, a nurse and a police liaison officer that he should be placed on a care plan

“until his rapist had been arrested. This was done, and, I suspect, helped to speed up the arrest”,

she said.

This seems to be yet another classic case of somebody who should not be subjected to the retraumatising of going through this process again, with the possibility of receiving a school attendance order. That mother has been protecting and looking after that child, and making decisions on the way forward for the child. Being second-guessed in this way seems to me totally inappropriate.

The Minister is presumably opposing Motion K1. I would like to ask her how the Government will deal with these two issues of adopted children. In the other example, as that mother said to me, the family is not the same family as it was when the child was taken into care. It seems to me that it should be easy enough to get some kind of carve-out to pick out the point that it is only when the same circumstances pertain rather than when the child is essentially living in a different family. What guarantees will the Minister give to ensure not only that adopted children are not affected by this policy but that others, such as in the example I have used, are not affected?

I turn to the other point of Motion K1, which is that it is about anyone who has ever been in care, for whatever reason. My background is in health, and we recognise that health screening is a good thing, but sometimes it can do more harm than good. There is a danger and a parallel here, and in some of the rest of this Bill. In our zeal to do the right thing, we are in danger of doing more damage than good. If we look at the large number of people who will have to be considered—and at the enormous resources, and at the trauma that the process may put people through—I suspect that may be the case.

Let me be clear: I am in favour of a simple register. In a society where too many children disappear or are indoctrinated or abused, it is right that we should be able to identify where children are. Of course there will be rogues, but we should not treat every parent as suspicious. A very experienced local education authority officer told me that, with regard to safeguarding, they normally react to an issue or a sign, and for home education experienced home education officers know the signs. However, he added, this Bill treats everyone as guilty until proven innocent, and it is in danger of doing more harm than good.

My point in raising these issues is to ask the Minister how she will deal with the particular points that I raised about adoption, and about other people who would be inappropriately treated as though they were still in care. In addition, I ask how she will set about making sure that in the next stage of this Bill—namely, the setting of regulations that carry these things through to their impact—the Government will address some of these points and make a truly proportionate response to safeguarding.

There are plenty of home educators who are very happy to help them in this and have great experience in doing so. The vast majority of home educators, as we know, are reluctant ones. I speak partly because a member of my family adopted two children some years ago and sent them to school, but has reluctantly taken them out to home-educate them, at great sacrifice to her and to her family. That is the case for very many home educators. In passing some of what we have passed here, we must be careful to tell them that we do not think that they are all criminals, and that this needs to be a proper and proportionate response.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments regarding Motion A and the commitment to strengthen statutory guidance, and for the publication of interim findings in relation to Motion B for the multi-agency child protection teams. To the noble Lord, Lord Meston, I say that there are multiple pathfinders, and the one to which he referred—the one he was worried that my amendment might delay—was a different pathfinder from the one to which my amendment referred. It is easy to be confused with so many paths going on.

I turn to my Motion K1, and again acknowledge that the Government have done the right thing by introducing a new power for local authorities to withhold consent to home-educate a child where there are significant safeguarding concerns. Noble Lords know that we spent time testing the limits of what these concerns might be, in Committee and on Report, to ensure that they are proportionate. That has been informed in part by the tragic death of Sara Sharif, whose father took her out of school.

As we heard, in response to our debates, the Government broadened their initial definition of children who are eligible. Then, on Report, we tested the appetite of the House for a much wider scope, but this was rejected in the other place. Last night we all received a letter from Ministers that covered the response to the Sara Sharif safeguarding practice review. I have read the letter several times. I find it extraordinary that, although I explained to the Minister on Monday that my amendment would simply cover children who had been in the care system, there is no mention of those children or my amendment anywhere in the letter—unless I missed it. Either officials and Ministers do not understand the significance of care proceedings, which I find very hard to believe—particularly of the Minister at the Dispatch Box today—or there is no political will to engage with this subject. I feel uncomfortable saying this in the House but, reading the letter, that is what it feels like. Either way, it is a very unfortunate oversight.

As the Minister knows, in the hierarchy of safeguarding, the greatest concern is for children who are in care or care proceedings, where the state judges that they cannot stay safely with their birth parents. These children are at greater risk than those on a child protection plan, but the Bill as currently drafted, and the Government’s rejection of my amendment to the Motion, leaves this specific gap. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said, you could have two children: one who was returned to their parents three years ago, having been in care, and another who came off a child protection plan three years ago. If the parents of both children want to take them out of school, the local authority cannot have a say on the first child, but it can on the second. I am guessing that the Minister does not feel entirely comfortable about that.

When the Minister says that almost all children will fall within existing proceedings, that is almost all children except Sara Sharif. Sara Sharif was on a child protection plan at birth, but she was never on a child protection plan again and there were two sets of failed care proceedings. She is precisely the child we should all be thinking about this evening.

I will finish by quoting the Secretary of State, who made a Statement on 13 November last year when the safeguarding practice review was published. She said:

“The whole country remembers with profound sadness the tragic murder of Sara Sharif by her father and stepmother in August 2023. Aged just 10 years old, the unimaginable cruelty of Sara’s death at the hands of those who should have been her first and brightest source of love and care shocked us all … The introduction of compulsory children not in school registers will empower local authorities to better identify children who need support and protection, as will the accompanying duties on parents of eligible children and out-of-school education providers”.


I emphasise the following:

“The measures will ensure that the most vulnerable children cannot be withdrawn from school until it is confirmed that doing so would be in their best interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/11/25; col. 31WS.]


Outside this place, people will judge us not by what we said but by what we did. Let us be crystal-clear: without my amendment, these measures will not ensure that the most vulnerable children cannot be withdrawn from school until it is confirmed that doing so would be in their best interests. When the next serious case review happens—and sadly it will—I hope the House will remember this debate and the chance we had to do the right thing tonight by supporting my amendment when we come to vote later.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I am exceptionally grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I recognise the commitment and contribution they have all made during the passage of the Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for not pursuing any of the points further, as he said.

To address the main points raised, as I said in my opening speech, I fully recognise the importance of what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve with Amendment 2 on the discharge of child protection plans. I hope I have provided reassurance that, although the statutory framework already requires robust multi-agency oversight of child protection plans, we will strengthen expectations for reasons to be recorded.

--- Later in debate ---

Extending the consent measures to children who are currently the subject of care or supervision proceedings is unnecessary. Risks to the child are managed through statutory care planning processes. The local authority will be involved with these families, and there should be either a child protection plan or a care plan in place to support the child day to day. These children would almost certainly either be caught by the Government’s proposed consent measure due to a child protection plan or be a looked-after child and, therefore, education provision would be a matter for the local authority to decide.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness acknowledge that in the case of Sara Sharif and many other children—she will be aware of the report into the 41 children who were home-educated and were either killed or seriously harmed—the current system clearly does not work and that this small but important loophole could be closed by my amendment? I would be grateful if she could confirm that that is this case.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, may I pick up on that point?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I cannot express my sadness enough about the issues that the noble Baroness raises, but I am seeking to reassure her and the House that the provisions we are bringing in will be sufficient as we move forward. That is the issue. I think the Minister she referred to from the conversation on Monday was the Minister in the other place, not me. I am sorry that she is not satisfied with the letter, but I know that he went into meticulous detail and I am confident that he responded.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sorry, but the meticulous detail in the letter did not refer anywhere to children in care or those who had been in care proceedings. It referred to my previous amendment and children who were classified as being in need. I will let the noble Baroness progress.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

Perhaps if I continue with my comments, the noble Baroness can intervene if appropriate.

I reassure all noble Lords that the child would almost certainly be caught by the Government’s proposed consent measure due to a child protection plan, or by being a looked-after child, and therefore education provision would be a matter for the local authority to decide. Family hubs also provide support through targeted multidisciplinary support for vulnerable children. However, I want to reassure noble Lords that, as we move into implementation of the policy, we will continue to engage with noble Lords. Should it become clear that the proposal to extend consent to children who are currently, or were historically, the subject of care or supervision orders or proceedings would strengthen the policy substantially and improve protection for this wider group of children, we would, of course, be open to considering how it could be delivered.

Where a care or supervision order is no longer in place, and the child was not subject to a current protection plan or had not been in the last five years, it would be appropriate to require consent. Children who have returned home after a care or supervision order are already supervised by the local authority, and where the child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm, child protection plans apply. The information-sharing duty included in the Bill will make sure agencies are talking to each other when there are concerns about a child, ensuring appropriate escalation. Using historic Section 31 orders as a blanket trigger could unfairly brand families long after risks have reduced.

The independent review into Sara’s death was clear that there were long-term, broader multi-agency failings that resulted in Sara not receiving the level of protection she needed. Extending the consent requirement to all children who are ever subject to supervision order proceedings was not actually a recommendation of the review. Instead, it highlighted the need for stronger multi-agency practice, information sharing, early identification of risk and better decision-making. Those are exactly the reforms that this Bill delivers. Of course, for further reassurance, we will include specific sign-off of child protection plans for children entering proceedings, in consultation with multi-agency child protection team regulations.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her contribution on the matter of evidence for multi-agency child protection teams. I hope she is now reassured and that I have set out how the findings from the independent Families First for Children pathfinder evaluation will be used and shared. We are also confident that there is strong evidence from evaluations on multi-agency safeguarding hubs, strengthening families and supporting families programmes and youth offending teams, which all demonstrate how effectively multi-agency working improves outcomes for children. Most importantly, I remind the House once more that the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, which means there is already adequate provision in place for parliamentary scrutiny ahead of the regulations coming into force.

On Motion K1, which would expand the home education consent requirement, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. The Government are committed to ensuring that every child receives a safe, suitable education. The Bill’s current requirements strike the right balance, extending them to all children who have ever been the subject of care or supervision proceedings. They would capture children already benefiting from appropriate checks and would not risk indefinitely stigmatising families who have made sustainable changes. I note the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, but, having worked with families in this space, I can say that this is an issue. Stigmatisation is a very real thing for many families.

I recognise, of course, concerns that the current consent requirement would not have prevented Sara Sharif being removed from school. However, the home education measures are one part of the system that safeguards children, and we have also made significant changes to reform and strengthen child protection in the Bill. The Bill strengthens the wider children’s social care system and the children not in school measures, which directly responds to some of the recommendations and adds targeted safeguards where children can become less visible. Of course, I recognise the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that home-educated parents very often have a great deal to offer from their experience in this area.

In closing, I urge noble Lords to resist Motion K1 and I commend Motion A.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I chaired a Select Committee on adoption some years ago and very much welcome this sibling amendment. It is absolutely excellent. I remember we met a number of children who were in care. One boy of 15, with four younger brothers and sisters, said to us, “No one tells me how my brothers and sisters are getting on—I brought them up”. This is excellent, and the Government are very much to be congratulated on it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, we very much welcome the Government’s amendment in relation to sibling contact and hope very much it makes a tangible difference in practice. I will speak briefly to my Motion F1, which relates to how we can provide the highest-quality care for the most vulnerable children: those who are deprived of their liberty. As we have already debated, this must involve the local authority and the integrated care board.

The Minister will be very familiar with the difficulty of getting health to the table, even if the door is often held wide open by the local authority. But of course the cost of them not being there is borne by children, whose cases end up being repeatedly delayed because of disputes between health and social care as to who is responsible, who are moved from placement to placement without any join-up, and who attend emergency services without up-to-date information about their needs. My amendment would go some way to addressing this.

However, I am encouraged by the Minister’s promise—which is what I wrote down in very large letters, anyway—that the integrated care board involvement would be “locked in from the outset”. If that is what the Government are going to do, and if the Government are going to create some innovation funding opportunities to see true integrated work between health and social care, then I am grateful to the Government and look forward to following how that develops in practice.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for all the contributions to this debate. I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for her comments, and also say that I am totally confident she will keep a good check on how this goes forward. I am very appreciative of her role.

The Government recognise the vital role of adopters and kinship carers and the need for timely, appropriate support. That is why we are continuing to fund the adoption and special guardianship support. The department is also consulting widely on the future of adoption support, with over 600 responses received already and consultation events planned after Easter. Therefore, with the ongoing work, we do not believe a further review is necessary.

I note all of the comments from around the Chamber recognising the importance of the work we have done in adding siblings to Section 34 of the Children Act. I am sure that makes the Government’s commitment absolutely clear and I very much welcome the support of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Meston. We are committed to best practice in helping children to see their siblings; it is a huge step forward for the experience of so many young people.

I put on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, for highlighting through his Amendment 19 the importance of health involvement in the creation of regional co-operation arrangements. Just to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I was very fortunate in having very good relationships with health colleagues, and I know through that the potential of when we get it right. I fully agree that integrated care boards need to move forward. The statutory mechanisms will be strengthened through the detailed guidance we will publish, alongside the expression of interest for the next wave of regional care co-operatives. I reiterate that this will require relevant ICBs to state their commitment as we go forward. I hope that gives noble Lords the reassurance they require. A financial incentive is an excellent way of moving forward. Therefore, we do not believe the amendment is required.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

People from different political parties have pointed out that we all know that consultations are a way of kicking the ball down the road and are not serious. Call me naive, but I am just saying that I thought they were.

It is very important, as we make the decisions about this, that this is not a competition about who cares most about children online. This is a discussion about how we deal with it, and that should not be so frenzied that we get into a situation where we are reckless democratically or we make decisions in a way that is informed not by evidence but by emotions and quite a highly charged atmosphere.

When the original amendment was tabled, it was very late in the Bill’s progress on Report in the Lords. More recently, there has been controversy about that. The way we make laws matters. There has been controversy, for example, about whether it was right to use the Crime and Policing Bill to push decriminalising late abortions, which I did not object to in principle. I have some sympathy with these very important law changes being tagged on to another Bill. We need to consider that the parliamentary process needs to allow scrutiny. Yet many of the same noble Lords who, for example, raised a justifiable critique on the decriminalisation of abortions seemed happy to bring forward another huge law change—the under-16 media ban—on Report on this Bill, so late that it curtailed proper scrutiny. I had a lot of sympathy with the Government—

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness has said a couple of times that my noble friend Lord Nash introduced his amendment on Report. It was tabled in Committee and on Report and it was debated at Second Reading. Maybe she would like to correct her remarks.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I had a lot of sympathy with the Government’s position on Report of trying to think about whether we could use consultation before embarking on drastic measures. I am just disappointed that the Government have brought forward at such a late stage these amendments that potentially give draconian powers to control the internet in general in the form of delegated powers. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, have explained why that is so dangerous.

Can the Government explain why they are asking us to legislate so comprehensively pre the completion of that consultation? If there is this rapid pilot of 60 children, about which I share the reservations of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, what is the point in us knowing that if we as legislators will not be able to deal with it? The Minister said that we would all get a chance to vote, but that is not what we want. We are being asked to hand over these major powers without any opportunity for meaningful debate about the outcomes of the consultation or the pilot.

The use of a statutory instrument means that there will be no chance to amend proposals or raise principles or practical concerns about unintended consequences. The Government’s “Delegated Legislation Toolkit” in their Guide to Making Legislation sets out the clear rule of thumb that

“the more significant a legal change, the stronger the presumption that it should be set out in primary legislation”.

I agree. It emphasises:

“Delegated powers are unlikely to be appropriate … because there has been insufficient time for … policy development”.


I worry about the rhetoric from all sides of “Think of the children”, “We have to do something”, “a sense of urgency” and so on. I have a great deal of sympathy for the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who I know has not rushed in here with little thought. Since I have been here, and long before that, she has been thinking about it.

I cannot help but feel that there is a huge amount of confusion even about what evidence there is. Every time I hear this evidence being cited and look at it myself, it is just not black and white. I do not want us to be rushed into making the wrong decision because, in all the evidence I have looked at, there is no correlation between screen time, social media—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, to sum up this debate briefly, I have nothing new to add. I merely agree with certain noble Lords who have already spoken. As for the Government’s approach, Henry VII’s son is all over it, and that is never a good thing for a Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on that. The approach I and many on these Benches would have preferred is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, but what we are dealing with here is something that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has done with considerable success and skill: namely, seize the argument and throw it back to the Government to see what they are going to do. I suggest that the Government listen very hard to us. What they have proposed is not meeting it for this House. What we want to do is to get something effective in play. I hope the Government will listen. We will be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Nash, in the Division Lobby if he decides to come forward.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I shall say a few words on smartphones and Motion N1 in my name. I acknowledge that the Government have made efforts in their new guidance on mobile phones, but their approach does not go far enough to meet the needs of pupils, parents or teachers—hence the need for my amendment. I thank Generation Focus and Health Professionals for Safer Screens, who have helped many of us have the privilege of listening to a range of head teachers and educational psychologists who have been able to share their experience.

Their views are absolutely clear. First, they are calling for a statutory ban so that they can be clear with the minority of parents that smartphones have no place in school. Evidence from the University of Birmingham shows that head teachers are spending literally hundreds of hours that they do not have dealing with the implementation of individual school policies. Clearly, that is not a good use of their time.

Secondly, they want a clear focus on smartphones. I noted that the Minister referred to my amendment as the “mobile phone amendment”. Of course, that was the slip of the tongue, but it is important because it is the connection to the internet in general and to social media in particular that is causing such a huge problem in relation to safeguarding incidents and suspensions in our schools.

As I said on Report, smartphones are the gateway drug to social media. One head teacher reported in a round table that we held recently that prior to having a ban in their school for children in year 7—that is, children aged about 11—almost a quarter of all suspensions in the school were for children in year 7, and they were linked predominantly to smartphone use. That is unrecognisable from a few years ago, when it was an exception to suspend a pupil in year 7.

Thirdly, those schools which ban smartphones are seeing a delay in the age at which a child receives one. Brick phones and Balance Phones do not pose the same threats to attention, concentration and safety. This has implications not just at school but on the journey to and fro, and at home. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly raised concerns about children with special educational needs. The evidence from the medical profession is that it is precisely these children who are made most vulnerable by having a smartphone, and teachers are quite clear that it is not appropriate for a child’s special educational needs to be met with a personal device. I shared that with the noble Lord before this debate.

I am absolutely baffled by the Government’s resistance to my amendment. I am grateful to all noble Lords across the House who have supported it so far, and I hope that the Government will change their mind.

I turn to the amendments relating to social media and children. Some of your Lordships will have read the extraordinarily brave letter this morning from Ellen Roome, mother of Jools Sweeney, and other bereaved parents, many of whom are behind me in the Chamber tonight. Given the weakness of my tear ducts, which some of your Lordships have already witnessed, I will not attempt to read any of it out, but whatever noble Lords’ views, I commend it to them to read it. It is one of the most dignified and brave letters noble Lords will read.

On these Benches, we stand firmly behind my noble friend Lord Nash and his Motion G1. His Motion establishes unequivocally that there should be restrictions on harmful social media for children under 16. It leaves the details of implementation to secondary legislation and, of course, the results of the Government’s consultation could be put to good effect in informing these regulations. It places the onus on the social media companies to change their products to being safe for children to use rather than leaving everything to an already overwhelmed regulator to resolve.

I recognise and welcome the spirit in which Motion G2 is framed, building on the great expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the other now affectionately known “tech Lords”—not to be confused with the tech bros—and other noble Lords. This expertise has been forged over many years of working on these issues, showing the Government how they can improve on their current approach.

During the passage of the Bill, the House has shown great collaboration across all Benches and yet the Government appear unwilling to engage with any of us. The Minister has access to extraordinary legislative and sector expertise and to all the most expert stakeholders, who are coalescing around a proactive and effective approach. I urge her to use us.

My noble friend Lord Nash mentioned Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. In closing, I would like to pick out some other remarks that he made. In May last year, he said:

“Now is the time to apply the same creativity and innovation that built the social media ecosystem to the vital task of protecting kids online. And if we can’t do this effectively, we lose any credibility to oppose a ban. As both a tech CEO and a parent, I know that legal compliance is not the same as safety … Our industry has had years to mitigate these harms, but has time and again failed. The time for self-regulation has passed, and if tech companies don’t change, then the path should be obvious to lawmakers. We need a clear standard: no social media for teens under 16, backed by real enforcement, and accountability for mobile phone operating systems and the apps that run on them”.


This evening, that path is obvious. It points directly to supporting my noble friend’s amendment.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the constructive and heartfelt contributions made in the House today. We have heard a wide range of views, and I reiterate my thanks to noble Lords who have engaged so closely with Ministers in recent weeks as we work through these complex questions. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, not only for the expertise that she brings but for her comment that all in this House share a commitment to children’s well-being online. It is this that motivates us all.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has set out the reasons behind Amendments 37 and 38 and why he wants to see swift action. I fully understand those intentions. To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I said that it is not if we act, but how. It is the intention of the Government to act. The question is how.

The noble Lord’s amendments would require us to act before the consultation is concluded and would commit the Government to a specific set of measures that may not ultimately represent the most effective or proportionate way to protect our children. That is why the Government cannot accept Amendments 37 and 38; it is not because we do not agree with the objectives but because legislating could risk unintended consequences. It would mean acting before listening to what the consultation tells us and to what parents and children need.

Some 20,000 parents have responded to the parent-specific survey. We are extremely keen to assess and hear what parents and children say. Additionally, these amendments are restricted to user-to-user services under the Online Safety Act. It is hugely important that we seek views across other services. We know that children use other mechanisms, such as AI chatbots and gaming, which are not consistently caught by the definition of user-to-user services.

I just want to say that we are taking the consultation extremely seriously, as we are the national conversation. Alongside the publication of the consultation, we announced that a parallel academic panel will be formed, and this panel of experts will assist in assessing the development of the evidence base, drawing on the international expertise that many noble Lords have mentioned today, for example from Australia, to advise us as we take these matters forward.

Many noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Nash, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville—have rightly pressed the question of pace and swiftness of action. The reason for the Government’s amendment in lieu is exactly that: to provide a clear and deliverable route to take forward what we want to do, informed by the results of the consultation. The consultation closes in May and we will respond by the summer to set out next steps. That means we can act within months, not years.

The use of those powers and the parliamentary scrutiny of them were mentioned by many noble Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Bellamy and Lord Carter, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we absolutely recognise the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and the expertise that parliamentarians in both Houses provide. Each of these powers will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which will ensure appropriate parliamentary scrutiny before we enact policy changes. We feel that the delegated powers the Bill proposes are justified and proportionate, and we have sought to provide as much detail as we can to support their scrutiny.

Lastly, on Amendment 106, on mobile phones in schools, our position is clear: mobile phones have no place in schools. We believe this is primarily an issue of enforcement, and that is why we have set out the strengthened guidance and why we are supporting with our network of attendance and behaviour hubs. We are backing head teachers to take the necessary action.

In closing, I urge noble Lords to support the Government’s amendment, which gives us power to take effective, evidence-based action, and to resist Amendments 37, 38 and 106. We share a goal: the question is simply how best to achieve it. Our amendment is the right one and I hope that noble Lords will join us in supporting it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

My Lords, I stand to support the Government in their attempt to create a situation where there is an adequate regulator for school admissions. At a time of greatly falling rolls, particularly in primary, this is especially important, and even more so when there is going to be a much broader curriculum as a result of the curriculum assessment review. It will be important that all schools can teach this broad curriculum. To do so, we need to have children in those schools. As I said in Committee, the problem with schools that simply expand is that very good schools can be left unable to operate.

I also have a question for the Liberal Democrats on the opposite Benches: in Committee, they supported the opposition to the local authorities having a say as an admissions adjudicator. The last Lib Dem election manifesto of 2024 promised parents and the public that local authorities would be given the power and resources to act as strategic education authorities for their area. This included responsibility for place planning, exclusions and administering admissions, including in-year admissions and SEND functions. I simply ask whether that is still the Lib Dems’ position. If it is, will they be supporting the Government’s position?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on these Benches we share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, about the rigidity of the Government’s approach to trying to control school uniform costs. Indeed, we would have been quite happy if he had wanted to bring back his previous amendment unchanged. We also warmly welcome the Government amendment in relation to children with allergies in school, and I echo the remarks made by others across the House to recognise the incredible work of the Benedict Blythe Foundation—in particular, Benedict’s mother Helen—that has culminated in this amendment today.

My Motion L1 simply supports the rights of parents and pupils to attend the school of their choice and get the best possible education in an area. We understand the financial pressures faced by schools that are dealing with falling rolls, but the way to address them is not by reducing choice, nor by cutting places in the most popular local schools. Furthermore, if the Government are to be successful in closing the disadvantage gap, which we all want to see, they will need these schools and should not be shrinking them.

In the letter that the Government sent to Peers last night, they set out the principles they intend to follow in the updated regulations and School Admissions Code. I accept that the Government have moved and have tried to clarify their position. It is a pity that this arrived so late and that there has been no time to discuss any of this with Ministers, despite having requested meetings since early February. I am very open to discussing further with Ministers but, as drafted, I do not think that the proposed wording is as watertight as the intent of my Motion. In particular, the language of “long-term sufficiency” seems to give more wriggle room than is needed. At this stage, it is also hard to see the point of the measures in the Bill, given the statement that we have just heard from the Government. The Bill’s own impact assessment is clear that it will limit the ability of good schools to grow. We are in a bit of a muddle of policy-making now, with a different position in the Bill, a different position in the letter, and a different position in the White Paper.

As long ago as the 2002 Labour Party conference, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair asked:

“Why shouldn’t there be a range of schools for parents to choose from? Why shouldn’t good schools expand or take over failing schools or form federations?”


This remains a relevant question today, more than 20 years on. I only wish that the Government would listen to the views of their former leader, whose reform laid such important foundations on which subsequent Governments have built, and which have contributed significantly to rising school standards. The fundamental principle that we have set out in earlier debates on school choice is a crucial one, and it should not be eroded.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank everyone for their contributions. I start by addressing the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed. To be clear, and as I said in my opening speech, we will of course monitor the effectiveness of the limit as we implement it. One of the concerns I and the Government have is that the cost cap effectively creates a target price, incentivising price rises for any school currently below the cap. Many schools could in fact brand more items, reducing savings for parents, and it would be more complex for parents and place unnecessary burdens on them. So I hope that the noble Lord will reconsider his position. I think a numeric limit is clearer and simpler, it will deliver savings more quickly—which is what the Children’s Society survey says is overwhelmingly backed by parents—and it is of course a commitment in our manifesto.

Lords Amendment 102 seeks to limit the circumstances in which the adjudicator can set a lower published admission number. We want a system that ensures that school admission numbers give all parents a choice of high-quality local school places. As the noble Baroness mentioned, we have committed to updating the statutory School Admissions Code to ensure that school standards and parental choice are central to any decision on PAN.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, acknowledged, we have been developing proposed changes to the code and associated regulations, considering stakeholders’ views and the important points raised by Members as the Bill has progressed. I note what the noble Baroness says about the timing of the publication, but our proposed framework, which was deposited in the House Library yesterday, contains at its heart new statutory principles to help ensure that requiring high-performing schools to reduce places will always be a last resort. We will conduct a full public consultation on the proposed changes, and the updated code and regulations must be laid before Parliament.

Finally, I turn to allergy safety. I am grateful for the contributions of noble Lords who have spoken in support of the Government’s amendment. I will repay the compliment by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her work on this. I will certainly pass her gratitude on to my noble friend Lady Smith and my honourable friend in the other place, and her acknowledgement of their work. I pay tribute to the people who have really made the difference: the campaigners who have worked so hard to ensure that this is implemented. Given the critical importance of allergy safety, we will seek to continue to work collaboratively, and we will continue to do so as we develop the regulations and prepare to implement the new duties.

To close, I urge noble Lords to support the Government’s amendment on allergies in schools, to support Motions H, J, L, and M, and to resist Motions H1 and L1.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 44B in lieu—

44B: Clause 30, page 51, line 23, at end insert “, or


(c) conducting proceedings under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (care and supervision) in respect of the child, or has ever initiated such proceedings in respect of the child (other than proceedings which resulted in the child’s subsequent adoption).””

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move Motion K1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has already spoken to Motion L. I beg to move.

Motion L1 (as an amendment to Motion L)

[Baroness Barran]

Moved by

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 102.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move Motion L1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has already spoken to Motion N. I beg to move.

Motion N1 (as an amendment to Motion N)

[Baroness Barran]

Moved by

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 106.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move Motion N1.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 20th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley in his Motion A1. We are united across this House and, indeed, across Parliament in our desire to protect children from the significant harms of the online world, but, as we consider these amendments in lieu, we are presented with three rather different legislative strategies.

The Government’s proposal in Motion A asks this House to grant sweeping, enduring Henry VIII powers to the Secretary of State, allowing them to amend or repeal primary legislation via secondary regulations. The Government’s amendments remain completely silent on the predatory nature of addictive design. By ignoring the psychological triggers engineered to hijack a child’s attention, the Government are fighting big tech with one arm tied behind their back, regulating, as we have heard today, the user rather than fixing the product.

I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and his tireless and principled campaigning in this area, and I welcome the fact that his Motion A2 attempts to rein in the Government’s executive overreach by applying a two-year sunset clause to these Henry VIII powers. I recognise that his amendments are no longer a blanket ban, but his core proposal remains a blunt instrument. Although well-intentioned, this approach is built entirely on exclusion. It risks creating a dangerous cliff edge for young people: rather than helping children to safely develop digital resilience, it would potentially suddenly expose them to the unfiltered internet the moment they turned 16.

Motion A1, by contrast, offers a far more precise, workable and future-proof alternative. Instead of handing unchecked powers to Ministers or trying to build an impossible wall around the internet, it places direct statutory duties on tech companies to clean up their platforms. As we have heard, that is essential. Under our Amendment 38Q, where any user is identified as being under 16, the platform must apply proportionate measures to limit the supply of addictive design features and prevent access to harmful content. As my honourable friend, Munira Wilson MP, stated in the Commons:

“This needs to be big tech’s seatbelt moment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/4/26; col. 920.]


Recent US court cases, which the noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned, have exposed internal documents showing that tech executives deliberately designed these platforms to keep children hooked. Motion A1 would dismantle this addictive architecture, preserve parliamentary sovereignty and spark a race to the top for safe, enriching online spaces. I urge the House to support that approach.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my noble friend’s Motion A2 and my Motion D1. My noble friend has once again laid out the arguments in favour of his Motion A2 most eloquently and elegantly and the Minister in her opening remarks talked about it being

“not whether but how and what action will be taken”

by the Government. Her right honourable friend the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and all Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today have at different times made a commitment to act. But that is not what we have in the Government’s amendment. Their amendment is not a commitment to act; my noble friend’s amendment is. I hope that the Ministers opposite will forgive me for pointing out that the only charities they ever quote are those which have caution about the approach that my noble friend is advocating. As he said, over 40 charities have signed the principles document that has been developed with them. Of course, that gives those of us on this side of the House reason for real concern as to why no other charities are ever quoted in interviews by the Government.

My noble friend’s amendment has several material advantages over the Government’s current approach. First is the simplicity in that the commitment to act is in the Bill. Your Lordships are very familiar with the risks posed by putting everything in secondary legislation, particularly secondary legislation with an enormous Henry VIII-shaped power. Secondly, it puts into effect the Prime Minister’s commitment but also allows the Government to use the consultation to shape the “how”—including on enforcement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, rightly pointed out, and in relation to breadth and scope—but it sets out very clearly at proposed subsection (4)(a)(i) to (iv) the principles that would be followed in relation to addictive behaviour, serious harm and exploitation, illegal content and loss of privacy; your Lordships, I know, will have read the amendment. Thirdly, with great simplicity, it also sunsets the Henry VIII powers, which I think we can welcome across the House.

--- Later in debate ---

This approach is robust, proportionate and effective. It ensures clarity and certainty going forward so that all schools can become mobile free. Given those assurances and the progress that the Government have made in both areas of this group, I hope that noble Lords will feel able as soon as possible to bring these issues to a conclusion as part of this Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, both the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and I raised the issue of smartphones as distinct from mobile phones. I understood the Minister to say that she would consider improving the guidance to make it clear that “not seen, not heard” was not in line with the spirit of the guidance. Will she also undertake to look at whether there is any refinement that could be considered in relation to smartphones?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, I will undertake to do that. I think it is interesting that that type of question is exactly the reason why the use of what will become statutory guidance is a more appropriate way of dealing with the nuances of this issue than the type of legislative ban on the face of the Bill that some people are arguing for. Because of that flexibility, I will undertake to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 102 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 102C to 102G.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

They should have known better. What we have heard this afternoon is that, at the 11th hour, the Government are focusing on trying to get an amendment right on published admission numbers. We have not seen that work yet and it is the 11th hour. As a result, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 106 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 106C to 106E.”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

We will not accept a timeline that gives platforms years to comply. If the Government want to avoid further deadlock, they must return with a package that incorporates a tight timeline, constraints on Henry VIII powers, the vital safety by design mechanisms proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and much greater assurance on enforcement by Ofcom. We must regulate the product, not the child. We must send a clear message to the Government today about the standard of legislation we expect.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment C1, but I will start with Amendments A1 and A2. The House may be relieved to hear that I am pretty much lost for words in responding to the Government’s position. In the face of overwhelming evidence of a need for urgency to act, most recently from court cases in the US, the Government have chosen the following route. First is to act within three years, which in practice could mean never, given the timing of a general election within that timeframe and another Government taking a different view. Secondly is to avoid putting, as my noble friend Lord Nash stressed, a clear age limit in the Bill in relation to accessing harmful social media. This is essential and entirely possible in relation to gambling and pornography, so I am unclear why the Minister says it is impossible in this case. Thirdly and finally is to omit reference to highly effective age assurance, which we know is the key element for effective implementation and is already working in relation to pornography and gambling.

Our confidence is also rattled because, as I said in an earlier round of ping-pong, the Government almost always quote the one notable charity in this area which has not signed up to the joint statement of principles for online safety signed by more than 40 other charities, and they rarely quote the evidence of health professionals, police and law enforcement bodies, and parents—including, sadly, the growing number of bereaved parents. The Minister talked again about the importance of the consultation and the fact that we have divided views on this issue, but we have divided views on just about every important issue and it is crucial that the Government take a lead on this, so I urge the House to follow the lead of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and give my noble friend’s amendment the support that it deserves.

Turning to Motion B, I recognise again that the Government really have moved in relation to this issue. The vital issues of quality of education and parental preference are now clearly set out.

On my Motion C1 on smartphones in schools, I am genuinely sorry that we are still in a position where we felt it was necessary to table another amendment to clarify the Government’s position. We welcome the progress that has been made in putting the guidance on a statutory footing and the refinement of the case studies included alongside the guidance.

As the Minister referred to, I am very grateful for the meeting I had earlier today with the honourable Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire, the Minister responsible for this policy area, who met me and my noble friend Lord Agnew earlier. I took away from that her undoubted personal commitment to see an end to the disruption and distraction caused particularly by smartphones in schools. She stated clearly in our meeting that she did not want children distracted by a smartphone vibrating in their pocket or in their book bag, and we agree with her entirely.

We welcome the comments that the Minister made just now on enforcement and the Government’s commitment to improve the guidance if it becomes apparent that the enforcement is not working. Although I would like to see it sooner—and I hope that when the Minister closes she can give us some timeframe in which the Government would commit to review that—I think the timing of the next behaviour survey would be a good moment to review it. Just to be clear, the 2024-25 behaviour survey showed that 17% of school leaders in secondaries believed that their mobile phone policies were rarely or never followed, and 34% of pupils in the same schools thought they were rarely or never followed. Or, putting it the other way around, 82% of school leaders in secondaries thought that their mobile phone policies were followed all or most of the time, compared with 38% of pupils in the same schools. Sadly, we know who is right in that regard.

Based on the Minister’s reassurance, particularly if she can give us some idea on timing, I will not test the opinion of the House today. I think the message from the Government is clear: they do not want to see “not seen, not heard” policies, particularly in relation to smartphones. To take one quote from a teenage witness in the judicial review of Montgomery and others against the Secretary of State for Education: “‘Not seen, not heard’ didn’t stop us using our smartphones at school, it just made us more discreet”. That was at an outstanding school where enforcement was claimed to be strong.

I appreciate that many noble Lords may feel that we are dancing on the head of one of the smallest pins ever manufactured, but we think this is so important because these policies outsource enforcement to chance; if a smartphone is not seen, effectively it does not exist. It creates huge amounts of work for school staff, with constant low-level boundary testing—pockets, toilets, corridors, under the desk and so forth. It is just not where we want our teachers spending their time, and we do not want children being exposed to harmful or upsetting content through the school day. Over a quarter said they were photographed against their wishes, and almost a third said they thought they would have got higher GCSE grades if they had not had smartphones in school. Educational psychologists are absolutely clear that for neurodivergent children the distraction is even more pronounced. Having a smartphone in their bag makes learning harder because it takes extra mental effort to ignore it, which can make it tougher to focus and push through when work becomes challenging.

We owe it to pupils and teachers to close the loophole in the Government’s position. I hope very much and trust that both Ministers involved will continue to push to do so. If it does not work, I hope that in short order we will see one or two sentences added to the guidance to, in the words of the Government, make it crystal-clear.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I have listened very carefully to my noble friend the Minister but have the greatest difficulty in understanding why you need a consultation period when dealing with those aged 16 and under. The restraint that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, seeks is to prevent them having access to pornography, which I have described in this House as vile pornography. He is proposing that from the moment the Bill comes into force, there will be a ban for under-16s. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can understand that I speak as a matter of conscience. It is why I support the noble Lord’s Motion.

I speak as a departing hereditary Peer. Regrettably, no time has been allocated for hereditary Peers to say farewell to this House. I am very sad about that, but that is the position. Would your Lordships be kind enough to listen to me, a departing hereditary Peer, saying a brief goodbye to this House?

I first entered this House 54 years ago, in 1972. The House then was very different. There were very few Peeresses—fewer than 10%—and those who were in the House nearly all wore hats. I had the very scary experience, when I was giving my maiden speech, of being attacked by the hatted Baroness Summerskill, who wrongfully attacked my maiden speech. It took me a long time to recover from that attack by the hatted Peeress.

The House in those days was much less proactive. I give a comparison. If you wanted to table an Oral Question, you would go to the Table Office and say, “Have you got a space for me on Thursday of next week?” The answer might be “No, but we can give you a space in 10 days’ time”.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
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.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate today and during the whole of the Bill’s passage. First, on the specifics, as I set out earlier, the Government hope that today we are able to reach an agreement on the Government’s Motion; it represents an effective compromise that recognises the shared desire across the Government and both Houses that we must act quickly to protect our children’s online well-being.

On that point, and perhaps taking up the challenge of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, as my honourable friend said yesterday in the Commons, and in fact as we have said throughout discussions on these issues, we have been clear that the status quo cannot continue. The Government were clear when they launched their consultation that this was not about whether we take action, but rather what we do. We are consulting on the mechanism and that is the right thing to do. But we are clear—and this is the result of some of the very important engagement that has gone on—that, under any outcome, we will impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16. As I said earlier, I can confirm that consideration of restrictions such as curfews will be in addition to these restrictions not instead of them. This is a reasonable approach for this House, and in fact for both Houses, to take—to recognise the importance of the consultation and to recognise the strength of feeling as represented in these two Houses about the need to take action.

I also hear some of the other comments around the need for enforcement. I am sure that some of the debate will continue, and that is probably for other days and possibly even other bits of legislation.