Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 250 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, whose support I greatly value. This amendment would oblige schools to ask for and record why the child is to receive home-education. This is not done at present and the Department for Education lists the reasons as “unknown” in 42% of cases. The current census estimates that 111,700 children are being home-educated, a 20% rise since last year—hardly an endorsement of what has been going on in some schools. The reasons must be collected to get a better understanding of why children abandon the advantages of school and where feasible, deal with them. We know there are many reasons, some of which, like the bullying which so many Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children endure, must be more effectively and specifically tackled; among those reasons, regrettably, is the desire of some schools to ensure their exam pass rates reach a certain level, thus neglecting the children who most need their education to work. I hope my noble friend the Minister can accept this amendment.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will contribute very briefly to this debate. I thought that the amendments by the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Crisp, showed the difficulty of the Bill in that very different groups of young people are being referred to and both sets of needs need to be met. Therein is the difficulty of getting the legislation right. I very much took the point about children with caring responsibilities and hope that we can take this opportunity to improve that; it is something about which I have been concerned for a while.