Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, before I speak to the amendments in this group, I wish to ask the Minister a question about her contribution at the end of the previous group. She said that it was inappropriate for Peers to refer to the word “criminalisation” because it was wrong. I used it when I spoke because parents are already writing to me and to other Peers with their concerns. These are the words that they are already using. They are already alarmed and worried because Clause 50, under new Section 436Q, “Offence of failure to comply with school attendance order”, states:

“A person … convicted of an offence under this section in respect of the failure, may be found guilty of an offence under this section again if the failure continues”


and in new subsection (8):

“A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale, or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 51 weeks, or both.”


Can the Minister explain why that is not a criminal conviction? If that is the case, the word “criminalise”—for very few parents, we hope—would be right, and I think that is what the Government seek.

Amendment 97D from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, proposes the addition of gender and ethnicity to the register, and I support that. Her work with the Roma and Traveller community shows that we always need to remember the children of those communities, who often end up out of school through no fault of their own and are often the children having the toughest lives. We need to make sure that we can identify them to provide the support needed.

I have also signed my noble friend Lord Storey’s Amendment 102, which proposes that a register of children not in school should list the reason why they are not in school. I will not repeat the comments I made on the two previous groups, but would say that it is vital that those in authority—in local authorities and prosecuting authorities—are reminded at every turn why a child may not be in school. Without that reason listed on the register, it would be too easy to miss, and it may not be obvious to the key personnel who need to look at the register.

I now turn to data. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for proposing how we group some of our discussions on Part 3 but, inevitably, data seems to be running through every group. In both previous groups, other Peers spoke about data issues. I want to go back to the principle of why the Government want to publish this data.

I do not think any of us disagrees that it should be collected, but my concern is that the phrase I seem to recall being used on the day the Secretary of State launched the idea of attendance orders and the register was “similar to the electoral register”, but it does not exactly say in the Bill what will be published; nor does it say who will have access to this highly sensitive and personal data. I ask the Minister: is there any other form of public register in this country that lists the names and addresses of children or their parents? Is that information available? The Bill talks about how long the data needs to be held and, from what I can see, it will be held for long after children have left the school system. If data is held, it should be deleted once the child reaches 18, unless that is because the Government want to track their future lives. If that is the case, Parliament needs to know.

The Minister may be somewhat frustrated that noble Lords are proposing to increase the data collected, but we want to ensure that the collection is of the appropriate data best to help the children, as we have discussed on previous groups. I want reassurance on exactly what will be published. In my view, only pseudonymised data should be published, and that at local authority level. Otherwise, with a very small number of children on the register, it will be all too easy to backtrack and find out where they live. It is not appropriate for families’ private information to be published and, as I said on the previous group, a high percentage of children out of school have SEND, are on free school meals or are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

The Bill says in Clause 48, in new Section 436C(2):

“A register under section 436B may also contain any other information the local authority consider appropriate.”


New Section 436C(3) states:

“Regulations may, in relation to a register under section 436B, make provision about … (c) access to and publication of the register”.


We keep saying, on different parts of the Bill, that it is not ready to be enacted, is not going to work and is not fit for purpose. It seems completely inappropriate for the House to approve this part of the Bill without any notion of what personal information may be included or what will be published, or who will have access to that information. These are Henry VIII powers gone mad. As long as only the relevant staff, who will have to comply with GDPR, will see the raw data, a child’s personal information can be collected. Can the Minister reassure me that this is the case and, if it is not and is as printed in the Bill at the moment, can she please provide the House with a justification for why the Government are taking these very strong steps?