Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Some critics claim that the strictly Orthodox community fails to teach basic skills. Yet these charges come from anti-faith lobbyists, not educational charities. Engagement with a Bill about child welfare should teach us to listen to small minority voices and not only to those who are most powerful and vocal. Humanists UK is entitled to its views, but Orthodox Jews are entitled to their faith. In reality, much work is under way to strengthen home-schooling standards and resources. I therefore urge the Minister to accept this amendment, so that yeshivas are recognised for what they are: faith spaces operating alongside home education and not unfaithfully forced into a category in which they do not belong, even if they are, to quote, “too Jewish”.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I was going to speak in support of Amendment 451, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but perhaps he is going to introduce it when he winds up for his Front Bench. What I have to say is probably relevant to the wider aspects of this debate. I declare that I am a patron of Humanists UK.

I have listened to children speaking about the unregistered schools that they went to, of all faiths. Of course this is only about some schools. Nevertheless, I was very struck by what they had to say about the paucity of the curriculum, often about the enforced dogma of what was taught, sometimes about abuse and sometimes about a very anti-social and anti-democratic ethos. Of course this does not at all represent all faith schools, but those children themselves were not alone.

In short, we need to get a grip on unregistered schools, especially in the case of children for whom education has not been working well, as in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I very much look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s explanation of how we navigate this real problem in the free and diverse society we live in, as we must—we must navigate it. Unregistered schools are not all good—on the contrary.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, the concern of those who have spoken against Amendment 427C in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, is, if I have understood right, around whether these pupils are being safeguarded. Proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) says

“where the institution demonstrates to the Local Authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures”.

That is important. If it did not say that, I would be joining those who do not want this amendment.

The noble Lord said that it is wrong to call these schools and to think that they are providing education, and that the education being provided is in home-schooling. In terms of safeguarding, the amendment is very clear: the local authority must be satisfied that safeguarding measures are in place. Therefore, for me, the arguments fall away because the drift of them was about whether there is sufficient safeguarding for these pupils.

Because the amendment is quite sensitive, I was not going to speak to it or support it. Having heard the arguments, I am persuaded that proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) answers the question. Therefore, I am bound to support this amendment.