Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.