Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I am sure that today Labour MPs will cheer what they see as the final demise of the Gove-Gibb reforms, but the Bill before us reverses far further back than that. If this Bill passes in anything close to its current form, it will be as if Lord Adonis was never the Schools Minister and Lord Blunkett had never sat in the Secretary of State’s place. It will be as if Tony Blair had never been Prime Minister, and had never made central to his pledge to the British people in 1997 those famous three words: “Education, education, education.”

To be clear, there are things in this Bill that we agree with. There are things that were in our Bill. There are things that build on the work that we were doing on Staying Close, on virtual school heads, on kinship care and more. Of course, there are also things in the Bill that are designed to be eye-catching initiatives—something that the Government learned from New Labour—such as the retail offer, to use the jargon, on breakfast clubs. There are already thousands of breakfast clubs in our country. By the way, we would like to know what will happen to breakfast clubs at secondary school, where they would make more of an impact on attendance than in primary school. There are also the provisions on uniform. We have had statutory guidance on uniform for a long time, so I have no idea why it is necessary to write it into law. The principal aim seems to be to outlaw primary schools requiring the wearing of a tie. The biggest part of this Bill—read the detail—is about attacking school and trust autonomy and giving power back to Whitehall and the local education authority.

Colleagues on both sides of the House know there has been a dramatic transformation in educational attainment in this country. We now have the best primary school readers in the western world, and we have seen dramatic improvements in secondary school maths, reading and science. Children eligible for free school meals are now 50% more likely to go to university than they were in 2010. Why has that happened? In one word: teachers. It is teachers who have made that happen. But there are also brilliant, dedicated teachers in Wales and Scotland, where those improvements have not happened. The most effective teachers exist in an ecosystem, and what has really created the potential for these improvements is that brilliant teachers have been supported by our reforms.

Those reforms have always had two sides. First, there has been a relentless focus on standards and quality, with a knowledge-rich curriculum and proven methods such as synthetic phonics and maths mastery. Schools have been learning from schools, with a hub system across the country and, critically, within academy trusts, which are the key vehicle for school improvement.

We have always known that this focus has to go hand in hand with diversity and choice. Parents must be able to select what is best for their children, and we believe there is a role for big schools, small schools, co-ed schools, mixed schools, denominational schools and so on. Of course, academies and free schools have enabled that diversity to increase further.

To have effective school choice, there has to be capacity in the system. There have to be more places than there are children, which is why we have added more than 1 million new places since 2010, following the Labour party’s unbelievable decision to cut 100,000 places in its last years in government.

Finally, to have diversity and choice, parents need clear information. The key Progress 8 metric is so much better than what came before, the five-plus C-plus at GCSE measure or contextual value added. Combined with clear Ofsted judgments, this has enabled parents to understand quickly and easily what is going on in different schools.

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I could make some points about Progress 8, but that is not why I am intervening.

Just yesterday, my local news website reported that Dr Brown, the award-winning founding headteacher of the award-winning Maple Hayes Hall school for dyslexia in Lichfield, used his 90th birthday message to say that the obsessive focus on synthetic phonics is holding back pupils. That is not me saying that; it comes from the award-winning headteacher of an award-winning school.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting the House know that the new Labour party still rejects synthetic phonics, which has the most remarkable depth of evidence behind it, in favour of its fashionable, progressive policies. This is why I say that all the progress achieved by our reforms is at imminent risk. Labour has already stopped new free schools, and now there will be far fewer academy conversions. Even existing academies are about to see their freedoms eroded.

What is the practical benefit of all these erosions? Take the qualified teacher status requirement. Schools are not going around en masse recruiting teachers without qualifications, but there can be times when it is right for a school to employ a teacher from the independent sector or another country. What will this requirement achieve?

Or take the statutory pay and conditions framework. I know of no evidence that academy groups are undercutting pay and conditions—if any Labour Member does, they should please intervene. Some academy groups pay more, and what does that mean? It means they are investing.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman needs to understand that it is about pay and conditions, not just pay, and it needs to be national if we are to recruit and retain teachers. The previous Government failed on every single measure to retain and recruit qualified teachers.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to Labour colleagues for their interventions, and for telling this House and the country what they need to know. All these successful schools and trusts have been doing exactly that. They have brought new talent into the profession, and they have helped to improve retention, but no, they are not the right people to make that decision, are they? No, Labour MPs and Labour Ministers should be making that decision for them.

The vast majority of schools follow the national curriculum, but some innovate. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with adding something on top of the national curriculum? In any case, every school is statutorily required to deliver a balanced and broadly focused curriculum, and they are checked on that by Ofsted.

Finally, there is the power for councils to prevent good, popular schools from expanding. What could that possibly achieve, except creating more disappointed families, children and parents? The one thing these four measures will achieve is ticking one more union demand.

This Bill cannot be seen in isolation. Look at the Government’s broader proposals: scrapping the Latin excellence programme; scrapping the expansion of the cadets programme in state schools; making Ofsted judgments less transparent; and taxing independent sector education for the first time in our country’s history, and almost uniquely in the world, in a way that will fill more of the most popular state schools and make it harder for families to get their child into the state school of their choice.

Potentially the biggest thing of all is the curriculum review. This Bill says that schools must follow the national curriculum, before the new national curriculum is set out. It pre-empts the review. We do not know what will be in the review, and we have to keep an open mind and see what comes forward, but I remind colleagues that the Government are not forced to adopt what the independent reviewers come up with, nor are they obliged to stop where the independent reviewers do.

In this country, since the start of the national curriculum, we have always taken the approach of not specifying exactly what kids will learn in sensitive subjects such as history, English literature and religious education. People often misunderstand this, but it is not a list of the things pupils learn in school. Having a broad framework has helped to guard against the politicisation, or the over-politicisation, of education. It would be very dangerous if, instead, Ministers came up with a more prescriptive approach to the national curriculum, especially if this Bill removes the safety valve of schools being able to deviate somewhat.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I am listening with interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s points about the national curriculum, which we know academies currently do not have to follow. I note that 42% of schools across the country no longer enter any pupils for GCSE music, and the figure is 41% for drama and 84% for dance. Does he think that is a factor in this debate?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman should have added the GCSE numbers to the numbers for technical and vocational qualifications, otherwise it is misleading. We all want kids to study the subjects they wish to study, and the subjects from which they will benefit. I am not sure how what the hon. Gentleman says negates what I just said, which is how we normally debate.

The curriculum review is also an assessment review, and we have heard much less about what that means. We know that the Labour party had form on this when it was last in government, with its target-rich—I might say target-obsessed—approach to achieving five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, including English and maths. On the face of it, that is a perfectly good target, but when I was on the Education Committee back in 2012, when it was chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), we had an inquiry on grade inflation. I counted 11 different ways in which the figures were massaged, such that it looked like things were getting better every year but, when the OECD numbers came out, we were tumbling down the international table. It was naive, because what gets measured gets mangled, and I worry that is about to happen all over again. It does children no favours.

Also on international rankings, at the end of Labour’s last term in Government, we were the only country in the developed world where the literacy and numeracy of young adults was poorer than that of the generation about to retire. At least in the new Labour era, Labour Members believed they were pursuing academic excellence, but I am afraid that has now gone out of fashion. The progressive phrases we hear from Labour Members sound good—“accessibility”, “relevance”, “modernity”—but though they are beguiling, those things rarely actually help the children they are thought to help.

The pursuit of true excellence in state education is not elitist. It is the opposite of elitist; it levels the playing field, and it means that people from all backgrounds can be up with those elites. Whatever attacks Labour makes on the independent sector, or to try to take down top-performing state schools, the advantage and the privilege will always lie with children, wherever they are, whose parents are actively involved and engaged. They will always do well. It was not they who needed our reforms—it was everyone else. Under this Bill, it will be everyone else who suffers.

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[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

Actually, the Bill will ensure that every child growing up in this country will have the best possible start in life, and will break down the barriers to opportunity. Like the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), I went to a comprehensive, and I believe that comprehensive, state-run education should be excellent—that is why I support the Bill.

Every teacher I spoke to before the election was cheesed off with what was happening in education. They were so depressed about what they were doing—that is one of the reasons I got involved in this. Every teacher I have spoken to who has read the Bill supports it. Surely we should be listening to them.

Colleagues have mentioned mental health. The Government will bring a mental health worker into every school. That is not in this Bill, because it is a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care, but it will transform that area.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman just said that the Government would bring a mental health worker into every school. Could he repeat that, for the avoidance of doubt?

[Dr Opher]

That is our manifesto commitment.

One reason I am here is that, under the last Tory Government, a child in my constituency had to wait six months for treatment following a suicide attempt at school, and that is simply not acceptable. On the review of the curriculum, every teacher I have spoken to has said that we need to improve the arts and music, which would in itself improve wellbeing.

Rather less controversially, I will concentrate on clause 22 and the provision of free breakfast clubs. I have been a GP for the past 30 years, and I understand that health and education are inextricably linked—we cannot learn when we are hungry. Free breakfast clubs will ensure that every child, irrespective of their background, has the foundation they need to start the day. There is strong evidence that obesity is a massive problem harming the wellbeing of our children. Some 10% of children entering reception are obese, and in year 6, 22% are obese. Free breakfast clubs will reduce those numbers.

In Stroud, we have been working really closely with local primary schools to get nutritious local food into the school diet, not relying on national companies to do so. We have a commitment to try to procure 50% of that food from the local agricultural community; I am very proud of that, and keen to encourage it. Another point about breakfast clubs is that it is really important that children eat together—that is what we used to do at our primary school. It fosters a feeling of wellbeing, and the Long Table in Stroud is an organisation that encourages that.

We need to be careful of the food industry lobby, which is incredibly powerful and has been providing free food for breakfast clubs. All I would say is that there is no such thing as a free breakfast. Companies are trying to promote their own products, and we must be very wary of them.

There is quite a lot of evidence that free school meals reduce obesity, and I would support their universal roll-out, not just in Wales and London. In London, there has been a reduction in obesity levels as well as improvements in learning, so let us work towards that when conditions allow. In the interim, we should go for auto-enrolment for free school meals, which would improve funding for schools and enable about 400,000 children to receive those meals.

I conclude by commending the Government for committing to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive. The Bill is a bold step towards addressing inequalities and improving the lives of the next generation. By introducing free breakfast clubs, this Government are not only tackling hunger but investing in health and education. As such, I urge my hon. Friends not to get waylaid by the political things that are going on around this Bill. It is an excellent Bill, and we need to support it.

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[Graham Stuart]

No one can be against the principle of breakfast clubs and efforts to make sure that families do not have excessive charges imposed on them by schools, although we need to look at the specifics. That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I ask the hon. Gentleman, and indeed other Labour Members, to reflect on the speech made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). I chaired the Education Committee from 2010 to 2015, and she and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), who is on the Front Bench, were distinguished members of that Committee.

[Damian Hinds]

And me!

[Graham Stuart]

As was my right hon. Friend, of course.

I do not think that anyone with whom I have been in this House over the last 20 years has a more personal and visceral record of fighting for change in their constituency than the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. Colleagues should consider that before they go into Committee and have the opportunity to reflect on the changes in this legislation, because she knows of what she speaks. She has been heroic in championing the improvement in education in her area, and she has delivered it.

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[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Giving children the very best start in life—a safe start where they have every opportunity to achieve their full potential—is vital. This Bill supports that. It introduces more robust measures to help keep children safe and it raises standards and opportunities in schools, so that children receive a high-quality, holistic education. It covers a huge number of areas—more than I could meaningly address in the short time I have available—so I will focus on the national curriculum.

Introduced in 1988 by Kenneth Baker, the national curriculum is one of a handful of significant and progressive education reforms of the 1980s. Opposition Members should be more proud of it. It provides the statutory standard for school subjects, lesson content and attainment levels for state schools in England. However, it is not compulsory for academies. That made sense when academies were introduced in the early noughties, because in communities where there were significant levels of unmet need and low aspiration, it allowed school leaders the freedom to devise programmes of learning that helped to address the acute and embedded challenges that young people in those communities faced, after the decline and lack of investment in schools during the ’80s and early ’90s.

By May 2010, when the last Labour Government left office, there were 203 of those academies. Now, there are over 10,000, following a significant expansion of the programme. I support the concept of academies—

[Damian Hinds]

Ah!

[Jonathan Davies]

I do support the concept of academies; they are a great legacy of the previous Government. But because those schools do not have to follow the national curriculum, some are gaming the system by not teaching a full, holistic programme of subjects. There has been a massive decline—over 50%—in the number of arts entries at GCSE since 2010. Some schools offer no art subjects at all at GCSE level. That matters for our economy and the UK’s standing around the world, and for who we are as individuals, how we understand the world and how we interact with each other. I welcome the Bill’s measures to provide a more holistic education to children.

I also want to speak briefly about breakfast clubs. They will be very welcome in Derbyshire, because Derbyshire county council increased the cost of school dinners by £1 last year—£150 a year—on top of what they already cost for parents. That will help with the cost of living crisis. But I ask that the Minister make sure that, as we implement this legislation—providing it goes through—we have the right checks and balances in place to ensure that local authorities such as Derbyshire, where Ofsted found serious issues with SEND, are fulfilling their statutory obligations to ensure that children who rely on home-to-school transport can access breakfast clubs.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Q Before I was elected, I ran a domestic abuse and mental health charity, so I can definitely speak to the value of the mandate, even in a local authority setting, which was excellent. Anne, are the other measures in the Bill proportionate to the aim of driving local integration and making sure that the child is at the centre of all decision making?

Anne Longfield: There are a number of other interventions that we could include that would strengthen children’s participation and children’s being at the centre of their communities. One of those is around children’s play. We know that children’s access to play has reduced dramatically over recent years. Play is the thing that children say they want: it is at the top of their list. We were very worried about access to play and the dominance of social media in children’s lives. Wales introduced a play sufficiency duty in 2010. It was not a huge cost. It meant that local authorities had to plan for play and respond to play. That kind of strategy would be, for a first stage, a very cost-effective way of reflecting children’s needs in the community.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q We talked earlier about the measurement of wellbeing. There are surveys of children’s wellbeing by various organisations now: the Office of the Children’s Commissioner—your old office, Anne—does something, the King’s Trust does something, UNICEF has done an international survey and so on. What would the output of the surveys you envisage be used for?

Could you also say a word or two about the mental health of children and young people survey, wave 4 of which was most recently published by the NHS and the future of which is uncertain? Would you like to see that series of surveying and reporting carried on?

Dr Homden: Yes, we would. It is incredibly important that we are able to account for the implementation and for whether the Bill actually helps us to improve children’s wellbeing. It is also extremely important that that happens systematically across local services and in any area in which we can respond and adapt services to meet the needs of children. Generally, we feel that it is extremely important that wellbeing measurement is advanced and made more systematic and consistent.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of this session. I thank our witnesses.

Examination of Witnesses

Andy Smith and Ruth Stanier gave evidence.

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[Damian Hinds]

Q I want to ask about elective home education, but first, very quickly, we are going to legislate in this Bill for the provision of breakfast at primary schools. Has either of your organisations received any guarantees about the future of existing support for breakfast clubs in secondary schools, or the future of the holiday activities and food programme?

Ruth Stanier: We very much welcome the provisions in this Bill around breakfast clubs. We think it is incredibly important that—

[Damian Hinds]

Forgive me, but that is a different question. We know what the legislation proposes for primary school breakfast, but my question was about whether you have heard anything—whether you have had any guarantees—about the future of existing support for breakfast clubs in secondary schools in underprivileged areas, or for the holiday activities and food programme.

Ruth Stanier: On the first of those issues, I am not aware of any such guarantees or representations. I can see the point you are making, which is important. In respect of holiday activities, I have seen recent media coverage that seems potentially positive. Clearly, we very much want that support to remain in place.

Andy Smith: My view would be similar to Ruth’s. The evidence and the impact of HAF are so tangible. We absolutely strongly support that continuing for the most vulnerable children.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Turning to elective home education, as Munira Wilson said, there is a great deal of detail in the Bill about information that will be required of parents—for example, the allocation of individual parents’ time dedicated to the education of that child, and so on. Andy, I think you rather diplomatically said that perhaps we needed some reflection on the text. I wondered if you might reflect out loud, and say if you think it goes into an unnecessary level of detail that might be considered rather onerous for parents who are home educating—sometimes in very difficult circumstances—and indeed for your colleagues in local government. Have you made an estimate of how much cost would come with this system?

Andy Smith: We have not made a estimate about how much cost would come with the system. Clearly, there would need to be a new burdens assessment on any changes, because you cannot do these reforms on the cheap. It is really important to make that point.

From previous surveys that we have done with local authorities on elective home education, it is evident that over the last 10 to 12 years, the capacity has been hollowed out. You are often talking about not even a full-time post. In my authority, for example, we have less than one full-time equivalent worker on EHE, who goes out and knocks on doors and tries to talk to parents. If you superimpose the changes envisaged by the Bill, that provision would be significantly insufficient. This is much more than an administrative task. Some councils have an admin-like role that undertakes this function.

Notwithstanding whether there is currently too much detail, if we think about the practical things around visits, understanding the offer, trying to understand what is happening to children and building up that picture, there would need to be sufficient capacity to get sufficient workers in post across places to do that, and they would need be sufficiently trained. That is probably more important in terms of the line of sight on the child than having a huge amount of information and detail about mums and dads and carers.

[Damian Hinds]

Q A question that often comes up with electively home-educating parents is about the support that is or is not available to them in their efforts. The Bill does make provision for support to those parents, but on page 55, it says:

“The advice and information to be provided is whatever the local authority considers fit”.

You mentioned a moment ago that there would be some benefit in having more consistency across the country. Would you give a few thoughts on what you think “fit” is in terms of that support? In particular, a question that often comes up from parents is about entry into examinations.

Andy Smith: What constitutes a good elective home education offer will be very different depending on the parent and on the context, and depending sometimes on the rationale around why parents decided to implement EHE for their child. There should be some consistency around what those expectations are. We know that parents provide some fantastic enriched opportunities for their children through EHE and they are able to also sit exams, and there will be some learning from that.

The challenge in this space is that we are not starting with a level playing field. We have moved from a context where we were maybe 10 or 15 years ago, where you had parents who were EHE because of philosophical reasons around that being important for children and for their particular lifestyle. We are now often talking about kids who are not in school because they have been sidelined or discriminated against, because they are SEND or because they are being bullied. There needs to be some expectation and understanding around their starting points as well as what a good offer looks like.

We need to work that through based on the research. We need to try to co-produce that with parents. We need to do that in a way that we think will be broad enough not to tie parents down, but to ensure some consistency, particularly in terms of what the local authority role is and understanding the impact of that.

Ruth Stanier: I want to stress that if it were to be mandatory for councils to pay for exam fees, because clearly there is a case for that, it obviously would need to be funded.

[The Chair]

We still have six keen people wanting to come in, so can we have brief single questions and answers, please?

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[Amanda Martin]

Q What is the importance in the Bill of providing a clear legal basis for sharing information with the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children?

Paul Whiteman: We absolutely support that. A statutory duty for schools and educators to be consulted in that respect is necessary, and it will widen the voices within that. After all, it is in schools that children are most present and visible, and teachers and school leaders already play a role in noticing changes and issues.

Julie McCulloch: We feel the same way. I would simply add that it is a growing set of responsibilities on schools—burden is not the right word, because schools absolutely need to do it. We are hearing a lot about the pressures on designated safeguarding leads in schools. While we also welcome schools’ having a statutory role here, we need to recognise that schools will need support and sufficient resources to deliver that.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I did some rough calculations, and I think 3.1% of full-time equivalent teachers do not have QTS. In 2010, which happens to be the year the data series started, it was 3.2%. On pay and conditions, no one seems to have come forward with any widespread evidence of schools paying less than what might be this floor condition. In your estimation, what problem are the Government trying to solve with these two measures?

Paul Whiteman: I think you are asking the wrong people. I do not know what is in the minds of Government.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Paul, you like to speculate—come on.

Paul Whiteman: Damian, you know me too well. I cannot answer what was in the minds of Government. Broadly speaking, as I have said, I think it is a legitimate expectation of parents that a teacher in front of their child is qualified to teach them. On the push from both your Government and this Government for standards to be the voice of parents, and in talking about doing this for the expectations of parents, I think that gets alongside that ambition, so it is welcome.

On the pay flexibilities, the debate is louder than it needs to be because of the point that you made—we have not really deviated much from the STCPD. The whole point of having an independent pay review body to establish what the floors should be has worked in that regard but we need it to offer more, and obviously we would always say that. Where I would phrase it slightly differently, on the question of whether we would ask for an amendment for a floor and not a ceiling, is I would talk about a core rather than a floor. There should be a core of terms and conditions that means a teacher or school leader is agile within the system and portable. We do not want people being stuck and unable to move because the terms and conditions vary so widely. That would work against our ambition of delivering the very best education system and getting the best teachers in front of children.

Julie McCulloch: I would not disagree with anything there. Core is a better term and it suggests not a minimum but a core entitlement, and I think that is right. On pay and conditions, yes. We hear from our members that some of them have exercised some upward flexibilities and they are keen to able to continue to do that, and to recognise the context in which they are operating. They are keen to maintain that while keeping that core. QTS is a very small number, but where that number exists, there might be reasons for it. It is important to recognise the balance between wanting a fully qualified professional and some of the nuance there.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I think a lot of people see the measures in the Bill on flexibilities for schools, on academies and on the national curriculum as quite a dramatic change, or a dramatic undoing of reforms made to the school system over the course of multiple Governments over the last couple of decades. Paul, you said in your opening remarks that this is not “a revolution”. My question is: come the revolution, what should we expect to see in Labour’s next Bill?

Paul Whiteman: As a trade union that is politically independent and speaks to all of you, I have no insight into what might be in Labour’s next Bill.

[The Chair]

I think that is not a terribly serious question, Damian. Darren, let us get on with it.

[Damian Hinds]

It is a serious question.

[The Chair]

It is not part of the Bill, and we have to stick to this Bill.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Martin]

Q So, to answer my question, you are giving evidence as the commissioner.

Dame Rachel de Souza: Always. I would not come to Parliament and do anything else.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q Dame Rachel, can you talk a little about the register of children not in school? What is the irreducible core of what we need to know and what information should be gathered in those cases?

Dame Rachel de Souza: We have always been worried, and successive Governments have felt that maybe there was a need for this—I think you, Damian, did the first consultation on it a long while back—and there has been a debate going on about whether we should have a register of children not in school. I am delighted to see it in this Bill.

The number of children missing from education is getting worse. We know that post-lockdown, there was a massive rise in children persistently absent and severely absent, and a massive number of children missing from education. I have made it my business to look into who those children are; I did that in 2021. We have three pots of children: children with special educational needs who went off in 2019 and have not come back; children with mental health/anxiety concerns; and children who really have just gone, who are at risk of CSE. We really need a register.

We have another problem, which I have investigated. I looked at last year’s roll and compared it with this year’s roll, and we found at least 13,000 children who we could not account for, plus another 10,000 who were CME. They had gone to be home-educated, because they did not feel that their needs were being met in school and they felt that they were driven to that. We absolutely need a home register.

[The Chair]

We will have one final, brief question—hopefully with a brief answer—from Darren Paffey.

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[Catherine Atkinson]

I am very pleased to hear it.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Q Thank you for being with us today, Sir Martyn. When your HMIs find academies or academy trusts significantly deviating from the national curriculum, what are the usual reasons and in what ways do they deviate?

Sir Martyn Oliver: Actually, the education inspection framework that we currently use significantly reduced the deviation of academies because it set out the need to carry out a broad and balanced curriculum. That was interesting, because it was not what was set out in the articles of the individual academies and those freedoms, so Ofsted has been in tension with those articles for quite some time.

The Bill puts everyone on the same footing. I think that there is good in that, but speaking as HMCI, as a previous chief executive of one of the largest trusts, as a headteacher and as a teacher for 30 years, I would always want to give headteachers the flexibility to do what is right for their children, as long as it ultimately delivers the broad and balanced education that you would expect all children to receive.

[Damian Hinds]

Q When they do deviate, what do the reasons tend to be?

Sir Martyn Oliver: The most typical reason is a focus on the core standards of English and mathematics. We often see that, but I am afraid that in some cases it goes beyond improving core standards: there are some that hot-house to the exclusion of being broad and balanced. It is important that a headteacher always retains a broad overview of a child to make sure that children get the core standards for their future, but also a well-rounded education in total.

[Damian Hinds]

Q What would be the impact, in the framework and in the inspection outcome, if the school were not following a broad and balanced curriculum?

Lee Owston: That would currently come under our quality-of-education judgment. It would not be seen as good if we could not, through the evidence we collect, determine a broad and balanced curriculum for all children.

Sir Martyn Oliver: I am about to consult on a measure that will allow more nuance and better identify that.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Finally, on the different subject of elective home education, quite a lot of detail is proposed in the Bill about the way the register of children not in school will work, including some requirements on the registration of providers of education to those individuals, whether that be online education or some other form of tutoring. How much consultation has there has been with Ofsted about the drawing up of those provisions?

Sir Martyn Oliver: We have been involved in that for quite some time, even with previous Governments, whether it was about online education or all these aspects. I think that all our intelligence, for years, has carried forward into this Bill.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Q I want to talk about unregulated schools and the register of children not in school. I have seen evidence outside the Committee that shows that there are serious concerns about poor education in unregulated settings, as well as abuse and neglect. If you have any comments about what the problem is that the Bill is trying to solve, I and other members of the Committee would like to hear them. How will the new powers relating to unregulated schools allow you to protect children at risk of harm, specifically? Will they be an improvement on the current powers that you have?

Sir Martyn Oliver: To answer your last question first, absolutely: it is a significant improvement on our powers. Since 2016, we have carried out almost 1,400 criminal investigations into almost 1,300 unique unregistered settings. Not all investigations lead to an on-site inspection. We have carried out almost 900 on-site inspections and issued 200 warnings, meaning that in over one fifth of on-site inspections, we were able to secure sufficient evidence that a crime was being committed, despite our limited powers at that point and under the current legislation. We have worked with the Crown Prosecution Service to successfully prosecute seven cases, including a total of 21 individual convictions.

The new powers will significantly improve our ability to do that, and the speed at which we can do it. It is very difficult to carry out those investigations. It is incredibly resource-reliant and takes significant time—regularly between 12 and 24 months—if we can get it to that position. The changes will help to address those loopholes in the law, but we think that there are some areas for improvement. As I have said, the need to get a warrant in all cases will be incredibly bureaucratic and expensive for Ofsted. Obviously we want to do it with care—we do not want to break into people’s homes and inspect them—but on commercial premises we think that there is a more proportionate response, which will reduce bureaucracy, reduce the cost to Ofsted and allow us to focus on keeping children safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Q I want to come back to breakfasts, if I may. I think this is a question for Mark. The Bill legislates for universal breakfast provision at primary school, but is silent on what happens at secondary school. We do not know what will happen. The Government have been asked, including by Government Back Benchers, to extend the provision to secondary school. They have made the point, which is not an unreasonable point, that you have to make choices in a resource-constrained world, and their choice is to go universal at primary, but with quite a small per child, per day cash allowance. Recognising the resource-constrained world, would you make that choice if you were in the same position, or would you say it was better to target according to how deprived an area is—not by individual child, but by area—regardless of the age of the child?

Mark Russell: That is a very good question. I understand why the Government have taken the decision they have; I really do. Particularly in a primary school, you want to be as universal as possible.

[Damian Hinds]

It would be the whole school, as it is now under the school breakfast programme.

Mark Russell: Yes. With limited resources, I would probably have targeted it more at those most in need and included secondary school children in that mix. We will continue talking to the Government about secondary school children; I am deeply concerned about them as well.

[Damian Hinds]

Q This is probably for Lynn or Katharine. In terms of trying to address mental health issues as they arise early on, before they become a crisis, following the change in Government, are you aware of any change in the approach towards mental health support in schools through mental health support teams for clusters of schools?

Lynn Perry: I have not yet seen any change on the ground. We deliver a number of mental health support teams in schools. We consider them to be an effective way to reach children and young people at an early stage, and to intervene before they reach crisis point. There are often relationships of trust. Quite frequently, people know their children very well within the school context and can manage that supported and enabled engagement with provision in schools. I have not seen anything that has translated into a direct change in practice at this juncture, but we think it is a really important area of work. We think that there is potential to do more in that space, by looking at what might be described as an MHST+ type model.

[The Chair]

Finally, Darren Paffey. We have about 90 seconds left.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lizzi Collinge]

Q May I clarify? In certain circumstances, yes, you would like to have schools with 100% place selection?

Paul Barber: We are talking about oversubscription criteria, which only kick in when there are insufficient places to satisfy parental demand. In those cases, we would wish to continue to give priority to Catholic families.

Nigel Genders: Again, Paul has identified a difference in policy area between the two Churches in this space. My answer is the same as previously: that would not be the case for the Church of England. We are much more interested in some of the other parts of the previous consultation, which have not come through yet—around special schools and the designation of special schools with religious designation. The Church of England would love to be able to provide special schools in those circumstances. In the provision of new schools, whether voluntary-aided free schools or voluntary controlled, we would not be looking to do 100%.

Paul Barber: We would also welcome having more. We already have special schools, but we would like to have more.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I would like to go back to the curriculum—

[The Chair]

Order. Is that relevant to the Bill? As long as you relate it directly to the Bill—

[Damian Hinds]

I promise you, Mr Betts, that it will be relevant to the Bill. As Nigel I think rather charitably said, his schools would be “asked” to sign up to something without knowing what the something is—but I do not think they are going to be asked, Nigel; I think they are going to be told. You also said that we hope—I include myself in that “we”—that it will be a broad framework, which will allow everyone to do their distinctive thing, as they do today. That is a hope, but we do not know. For example, there is a movement to rebrand religious education as “world views”—does that make you nervous?

Nigel Genders: I am in danger of getting into the curriculum discussion, rather than the—

[Damian Hinds]

Q To keep us both in order—

[The Chair]

Order. You will emphasise that this must relate to the Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

I will, absolutely. Do you feel any nervousness or concern about the removal of the safety valve that says academy schools can deviate from the national curriculum?

Nigel Genders: With all the discussion about the curriculum and the national curriculum, RE is part of the core curriculum; it is not in the national curriculum at the moment. Levelling the playing field up or whichever way you want to do it, there is a requirement to teach a breadth of RE within that curriculum as a core subject, but it is not defined in the national curriculum. We are happy with that position but, either way, the important thing is that we enable a broad, rich and holistic curriculum to develop—for the reason of behaviour that Neil mentioned as much as anything. We want children to enjoy coming to school, and the curriculum is a fundamental part of that.

Paul Barber: Maintained schools have to follow the national curriculum, and over half of ours are maintained schools currently. We have a very rich religious education curriculum. Recently, we published a curriculum directory, which I can share with the Committee if interested. Our position on RE is also well set out in our evidence to the curriculum and assessment review—again, we can give copies to the Committee if that would be helpful.

[Damian Hinds]

Q RE is not the only sensitive subject; there is also English literature, history or RSHE. My question had a religious bent to it, but it was really about taking away that safety valve and that ability of academy trusts to say, “We are not going to follow precisely what has been set out.”

Nigel Genders: I think our point is that we would like to see that flexibility within the national curriculum available to everybody. I am very much in favour of levelling up, as long as the curriculum gives the space to do that.

[Damian Hinds]

Q We have just talked a little about the admissions arrangements for VA and VC schools. You have also alluded to the fact that rolls are falling in many places—they are falling initially mostly in primary, but that will feed through. Are you concerned about the more directive nature of what will be available to councils and the position that that would put your schools in, particularly voluntary aided schools? On the question of new schools, as you rightly pointed out, Paul, it has always been possible to open a VA school—it is not a very well-known fact that some VA schools have opened. With this Bill, do you think it is more or less likely that in the near future you will be able to open more Catholic schools?

Paul Barber: From what I can see, I do not think it is any more or less likely. In terms of the directive power, my understanding is that the position in VA schools remains the same, and that it is academies that will have a direction-making power similar to that which already applies to voluntary aided schools.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Forgive me—we are very short on time. I was talking about a council’s ability to stop a popular school expanding, for example. You both mentioned earlier that you have some really quite popular schools, and now the council will have much more an ability not to let that happen.

Paul Barber: Sorry; I misunderstood. You are talking about the restrictions on schools unilaterally changing their published admission number. Our position on that is that it is because of this relationship between admissions and the planning of school places, which must be planned in some way. Our diocese has a long track record of decades of working with its local authorities and with the diocese in the Church of England to work out what is required in the future, and looking forward for places and planning that. Having some kind of regulation of schools’ published admissions numbers is quite helpful in ensuring that that works smoothly, because if you plan it and three schools then arbitrarily decide to increase their published admission number, that creates some real problems locally with place planning.

Nigel Genders: We would agree with that. Not to rehearse all that Paul has just said, but a further point is that when it comes to resourcing local authorities to carry out their role in the allocation and direction of schools to take particular pupils, we are really keen to see that done in a way that makes fairness the arbitrating factor to ensure that there is a real fairness of approach. The collaboration between maintained and academy and diocese and local authority very much needs to happen, and we would welcome that.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q I have a very specific question on small rural primary schools attempting to deliver breakfast clubs, potentially with a very small number of staff. What is your understanding of whether the time spent doing breakfast clubs will count as directed time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

Q How do you think the curriculum provisions in the Bill might impact university technical colleges, which are by definition much more specialist in their offering?

Leora Cruddas: That is a question that we have raised. We hope that the curriculum and assessment review will address that issue, but it is also for the Government to address it, because the review will look at the high level of curriculum and assessment, whereas it is the Government who have laid the legislation. We have raised that as a specific issue, and we have also raised the issue about special schools and what it means for them.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Good afternoon. Leora, how central a role would you say that academy trusts have played in school improvement in this country? Is there any reason to believe that the same results could not have been achieved with just some support to the school as previously structured?

Leora Cruddas: I am an advocate for academy trusts, because of the clarity of accountability arrangements, the strong strategic governance, and the powerful, purposeful partnership between schools in a single legal entity. If a school is part of an academy trust and it is perhaps not improving or the quality of education is not as strong as it could be, and a conversation is had with that school, the school cannot walk away. The accountability for school improvement—the partnership mindset—is hardwired into the trust sector.

For the last 20 years, spanning all political Administrat-ions, trusts have been building their school improvement capacity. Again, I would cite Northern Education Trust, which has an incredibly strong model of school improvement, and that is how it has turned around failing schools in the way that it has. The school improvement capacity sits in the trust sector.

That is not to cast aspersions on local authorities—I was a director of education in local government for most of my professional life—but over time, as local authority settlements have decreased and local authorities have reduced their school improvement capacity, so we have seen the rise of school improvement capacity in the trust sector. That is not true everywhere—Camden Learning, for example, has a very powerful model of school improvement—but overall, we see that the capacity for school improvement is in the trust sector.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I wanted to turn to Northern, actually, and to Jane. One of the things that you are famous for at Northern is your work on attendance. I wonder if you might say a word about the role that breakfast clubs play in that, and whether that is restricted only to primary schools.

Jane Wilson: We have breakfast clubs in our primary schools and our secondary schools that children can attend. Most of those are free or charge a very small amount for the food and care that the children receive. It is an offer that we have across the trust. In terms of attendance, it enables children, often from very disadvantaged backgrounds, to have a very settled start to the day and receive care and attention before the school day starts. It means that once the school day does start, learning can become the priority. So they play a fundamental role in improving attendance in our academies, particularly for those disadvantaged children—and we serve communities of real disadvantage. We have roughly twice as many disadvantaged students as the number seen nationally across our trust.

[Damian Hinds]

Q Finally—

[The Chair]

Briefly, because other Members want to come in.

[Damian Hinds]

Very briefly, Rebecca, what role does uniform play in identity for your school and the sense of belonging?

Rebecca Leek: I think that uniform does play a role. It is sometimes a really useful mechanism to improve a school—to sort it out—as well. I do have some further things to say about uniform, if there is time and anyone wants to ask me about it.

[Damian Hinds]

Q How do you keep it affordable and make sure it is not a barrier?

Rebecca Leek: School uniform is generally very affordable. You are asking a primary school, so we do not have blazers, but certainly it is very affordable. It has never been an issue. We also give away free uniform. I think there are problems in the Bill with the uniform wording.

[Darren Paffey]

Q I want to pick up on the previous point about the curriculum floor. I wonder whether the panel agree that the opportunities of a broad, balanced curriculum that is modern, engaging and offered regardless of the badge and branding over the school door should be available to young people everywhere. Would you consider that a good thing, or would you consider the Bill—as I think Rebecca described it—a reactive, retrograde step?

Rebecca Leek: I do believe that a broad entitlement for children is really important. What I am concerned about is that, first, we do not know what will be in the national curriculum and, secondly, schools sometimes need a little bit of flexibility to maybe not do a couple of subjects because they are addressing something that has happened within their school community over a couple of years or months or a term.

I had a school in south Essex in a trust that I led where we needed to reduce the curriculum for a little while. It was post covid. You may say, “Well, that was covid,” but we do not what is coming. I needed to work with some children in key stage 2 on a slightly narrower curriculum to really help them with their maths and English so that they would be able to access secondary school. That is what we decided to do, and it was an academy school, so I had the freedom to address that. I think that it was a moral duty for me to make sure that they got those core skills, so that they would be able to access a broad and balanced curriculum in the secondary.

I am just very worried about there being these kind of concrete bricks. If there is permissiveness and agility within it, then that is fine. I do agree with the concept of an entitlement for children to a broad and balanced curriculum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine Atkinson]

Q How do you think the Bill will help to stop children falling through the net? How can it help to support families, in the cost of living crisis, with the costs associated with school?

Catherine McKinnell: Those are two quite big issues. Do you want to start on cost savings, Stephen?

Stephen Morgan: As we have heard today, too many children are growing up in poverty in our country, and that is why it is important that the ministerial taskforce concludes later this year and decides what actions can be taken forward. As of 2023, one in four children were in absolute poverty, and that is why I am so pleased with the many measures that will make a big difference to children’s lives up and down the country. Take breakfast clubs, which we know are good for attainment, behaviour and attendance: they will put £450 per child, per year, back in the pockets of parents, but also bring real benefits to children. More broadly, the commitments around uniform limits will make a real difference, as we have heard today, and will save the average parent £50. A series of measures in the Bill will make a real difference in the cost of living challenges that parents up and down the country are facing. Thank you for the question.

Catherine McKinnell: On keeping children safe, I know that this is an area that you have spent a lot of time working in and have spoken about. The register of children not in school will be an important step, and has had cross-party support in this House for some time. We will also have the single unique identifier, which will be a way of making sure that information about a child does not fall through the gaps, and that children do not fall through the safety gap.

There is also a whole raft of changes that aim to ensure that multi-agency working is embedded in our approach to safeguarding, as well as measures to try to keep children within the family unit, wherever that is possible, and strengthen the approach to kinship care. We have put funding in place to support local kinship care arrangements and are trialling better information being available. There is a range of measures, and clearly this is a big priority for us in the Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

Q I am conscious that we are short of time. This Bill is really like two Bills, with the children and social care section and the schools section. Were there discussions about making it two separate Bills? You could have pressed on at all speed with the social care material, which has been around for quite a long time—some of it was in the 2022 Act. That would have enabled you to have a Green Paper, a White Paper and pre-legislative scrutiny, and perhaps to address more of the questions up front.

Catherine McKinnell: I appreciate the premise of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I appreciate that he is very experienced in this place and that he has had the experience of being in government for quite some time, and having the opportunity to do all those things and make the necessary changes. We wanted to move as fast as we could to make the impact that children need to see, particularly in safeguarding. We also wanted to make the long thought-through changes to our school system to support our opportunity mission and break down those barriers to ensure that every child has every opportunity to succeed. Admittedly, we are not going to lose any time in making the changes that we want to see, and we have the opportunity in the parliamentary time allocated to us.

[Damian Hinds]

Ah.

Catherine McKinnell: It is very important that we use it. We are a Government on a mission, and we have a lot of things to do.

[Amanda Martin]

Q How will the Bill support local partnerships? We heard from Sir Jon Coles, the Church of England, the Catholic Education Service and others about collaboration. How will the Bill support local partnerships to work together more effectively to prevent children from falling behind?

Catherine McKinnell: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is very much at the heart of what we want to achieve through our changes to schools. We want to ensure that every child has a good school place; that every parent can be confident that their child will be taught by a qualified teacher within their local mainstream school wherever possible, being educated with their peers; that no vulnerable child falls through the cracks; and that we know where they are if they are not in school. We are making important changes on admissions to ensure that all the schools in a local area collaborate with their local authority on place planning, so that we can really deliver on that vision.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I rise to speak to amendment 49 regarding family group decision making at the point of family reunification.

Reunification—the process of returning a child in care to their family—is the most common route by which children leave care, accounting for 27% of all children who left care in 2023. It is also one of the most sensitive and significant transitions a child can experience. When done well, it can offer children stability, security and permanence at home with their family, but too often the reunifications fail. In fact, one in three children who return home then re-enter the care system, so thousands of children are enduring yet more displacement, disrupted attachments, instability and broken trust.

The human cost of those failed reunifications is immeasurable, but the financial cost is also stark. Failed reunifications cost the public purse £370 million annually—money that would be better spent supporting families in the first place. Research tells us that too many reunifications break down because families do not receive the support that they need to make that process successful, tut there is no national strategy for supporting reunifications. Support across the country is inconsistent, and alarmingly, 78% of authorities report that the support that they offer is inadequate—the authorities report that themselves.

Amendment 49 provides a clear, practical, evidence-based solution—effectively a mirror to the Government’s clause 1. The amendment would require local authorities to offer family group decision making no later than one month after the discharge of a care order for the purpose of family reunification. Of course, in practice, it is envisaged that the family group decision-making process would be offered before the child returns home to support that return.

As the Committee has already heard and discussed, family group decision making is a powerful tool. It brings families together to identify solutions, develop a plan and build a network of support around the child. It can empower families to take ownership of the challenges that they face, and foster collaborative work with professionals that promotes the safety and wellbeing of the child while also amplifying the child’s voice. My argument is that that is as important towards the end of a care process as it is at the beginning.

Family group decision making is well established and recognised as best practice by professionals. We already have clear evidence on its effectiveness, and we are awaiting more, as the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said. However, the lack of a statutory duty to offer it has led to patchy practice across the country. One third of local authorities do not offer family group decision making at all during reunification. Amendment 49 addresses that gap. It would ensure that every family in England has the opportunity to benefit from that approach. The requirement in the amendment is to offer it; it does not impose any sort of time limit.

Some Members might worry about the practicalities or cost of introducing the duty, but as I have already explained, the breakdown of family reunification is an incredibly costly process, both financially and for the child’s welfare. The amendment is a financial cost-saving measure as well as a child-centred one. Research shows that providing support to meet a family’s needs during reunification costs just £7,857 per child. By contrast, the cost of a single reunification breakdown is £105,000. Amendment 49 would be

The amendment is practical and allows for professional judgment, recognising that every family is different. Where a meeting is not in a child’s best interests, the local authority would be exempt from the duty to make the offer, and that flexibility ensures that the needs of children always come first. The amendment also complements existing provisions in the Bill. It effectively mirrors the duty to offer family group decision making before care proceedings, and therefore offers a coherent support framework at both ends of the care process—effectively bookending it. It brings much-needed consistency to a fragmented system.

With more children in care than ever before, as we have noted, and with children’s services under immense strain, the amendment represents a real opportunity. By embedding family group decision making we can enable more families to stay together, reduce the number of children returning to care, which is an incredibly damaging process, and relieve pressure on an overstretched system, all while delivering better outcomes for those children. This is about fairness, consistency, investing in what works and ensuring that all reunifying families, not just some, are given the help they need. It is about recognising the importance of successful reunification within the care process. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on the proposal and the other questions raised this morning.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Of course I agree with and entirely support the spirit of what the Government are doing. It forms part of the strand of development intended in the “Stable Homes, Built on Love” strategy; across the House, we share similar motivations on all these matters.

On the comments from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire on reunification and amendment 49, I do not think an amendment to a Bill is the moment to introduce such a thing, but I am sure that in their continuing work, Ministers and officials will look at how the reunification process can be improved for all the reasons that she rightly gave.

I have a couple of questions on the inclusion of children in meetings, which is relevant to clause stand part and to amendment 36. My first question is: what guidance will accompany the new provisions? In some cases it will be obvious that a child should not be present, but beyond that it is perhaps difficult to generalise. Of course we trust professional judgment, but I wonder about the extent to which further guidance may be useful. I am thinking particularly of children with learning disabilities, who sometimes feel that things are done that affect their lives in a big way and they have less of a say than other children, because somebody has made that judgment when perhaps they did not need to. Secondly—this is a minor point in the grand scheme of things—I wonder why the legislation and the explanatory notes do not say that a child may be present for part of the meeting. It may be appropriate to have part of it with the child and part of it without them.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister. [Interruption.] I call Tom Hayes. It is helpful for the Chair if you rise in your place if you intend to speak.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

I have already talked about our general support for clause 3, as well as some of the issues around the geography, content and cast lists of the teams, which brings me on to funding. On Tuesday, we asked the Local Government Association about the new burdens doctrine and whether there would be clarity on funding for these new requirements. The Government do not plan to commence this clause until 2027, so will local authorities be appropriately resourced to meet these demands? In its summary of the Bill, the Department for Education says:

“Later commencement allows more time to secure funding and resources and workforces will have more time to engage and prepare for change.”

Do the Government know roughly how much extra funding will be required? As Ruth Stanier from the LGA said in her evidence to us on Tuesday,

“the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 13, Q21.]

We are talking about those multi-agency units here. What are the Minister’s rough estimates of what will be required, and at roughly what point will that be agreed? Again, the DFE notes on the Bill say that it will be

“set out in regulations how the multi-agency child protection teams will carry out their day-to-day activities.”

That will be extremely specific; for example, it says:

“The new provisions will include a power for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations requirements for the practitioners who are nominated to be part of the multiagency child protection teams. This might include examples of the types of ‘minimum qualifications or experience’ that they will need, which have not been included in the legislation as this will require discussion with the relevant work forces, including police, health and education, to understand what would be relevant”.

The big question is: how much will this roughly cost, and when will the Government agree that with local government, so that we can fulfil the requirements of the new burdens doctrine?

I would like to turn to amendment 19. I have come to believe very strongly, in public services, in the importance of setting up self-improving dynamics whenever that is possible. The Japanese talk about the principle of “kaizen”, or continuous improvement, and really that is the spirit of our amendment. Everybody supports the idea of the new multi-agency meetings, and we are all supportive of the principle of trying to make that happen really well. We do not want just a meeting, or that the letter of the law is followed, but the spirit of it is. We really want to do this as well as we can, and that is what our amendment is about.

There are very different ways of making these things work, and they work in very different places already. There is lots of scope to learn from each other at the local level, and central Government have scope to learn from them all. The amendment is self-explanatory, so I will not go through it, but it is basically looking for a report on all the different aspects of the ways in which this clause plays out on the ground. I am keen to press it to a vote, and I hope it is one that the Government might accept, at least in some form.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is very good to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I think everybody agrees with the principle of this clause, and there is undeniable valuable in having all the relevant agencies working together. I am afraid it is invariably a conclusion of reviews that, when things go badly wrong, part of the issue is that working together has not functioned as well as it could. The Bill does not invent multi-agency working—that is not a new thing—but it does write something very specific into primary legislation, and that is welcome.

Amendment 19 is good and important and requires reporting back on the work and impact of multi-agency teams. What we need to focus on is actual practice. It is one thing to set out that so-and-so must talk to somebody else—no one would argue with that—but as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said, there is quite some variety in the way these things happen. Will there be more guidance in terms of operations to stress the importance of following process and procedure, but also recognising the centrality of professional curiosity and taking ownership of problems through to their solution?

I am keen to understand better from the Government the extent to which what the clause proposes is different from multi-agency safeguarding hubs, commonly known by their acronym, MASH. Is it the same, or is it for a subset of higher level cases? Are we drawing a distinction between safeguarding and child protection?

MASHs themselves have worked in quite different ways. I said that these things are not new—I remember that in 2012, when I was on the Education Committee, we did an inquiry in this area. We visited a couple of different MASHs and had a couple of local authorities, one from Devon and one from Leeds, at a Committee hearing. One of those authorities had a MASH; the other had actively decided not to because it felt that there were better ways of achieving some of the same aims. That highlighted the importance of what is done operationally and what is done in practice. We were frequently told about the advantages of physical colocation —simply being in the same room facing each other across the desk—but that does not guarantee that people will work as well together as they could. Relationships are incredibly important, and so is the willingness to appropriately share information, and these days that can arguably be done without colocation in ways that it could not in the past.

As far as I can make out, the clause does not adopt the principle from what we used to call the troubled families programme, which is now the supporting families programme, of having a designated key worker for each family. Can the Government say why that is, or if it is their intention that that should be the case? More generally, it would be interesting to hear how this programme works with the supporting families programme—probably still better known to many as the troubled families programme.

The creation of that programme straddled the previous change in Government: it started in pilot and research form before 2010 and came into being fully after 2010. Louise Casey is now Baroness Casey of Blackstock and still very involved in incredibly important work. Some of the work of that programme is on the key upstream stage where, sadly, we sometimes end up in child protection territory. Some of the common features identified in Baroness Casey’s report, “Listening to Troubled Families” —abuse, institutional care, violence, mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and so on—are incredibly prevalent in this group.

I hope the Government can say more about how the multi-agency child protection teams and the supporting families programme would work together, particularly since that programme, which used to be in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is coming or has come—I do not know if it already has—into the Department for Education, so there are great opportunities for good working with children’s services.

[Neil O’Brien]

My right hon. Friend asks a really good question, and I intervene to sharpen that further. He asks whether the new teams are displacing or replacing the MASHs. Does the Government think that the MASHs that exist now will still be running alongside these new teams, or does the one turn into the other?

On the point about continuity of knowledge, which is so important in these cases as often the same family is in trouble for a long time, is it the Government’s expectation that it would be quite normal for people who are currently on one of the MASHs to find themselves on the new teams as well, or is this a new thing? I am just trying to understand the intent.

[Damian Hinds]

I think amendment 19 has a lot of value and I hope it will be agreed.

I want to ask about resourcing. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has rightly asked about cash resourcing—how much there will be—and there is of course the new burdens principle to follow, but I want to ask about staff availability. It is one thing to legislate for people to do a certain thing, but if it is very difficult to hire those people, that is obviously an impediment. To what extent and, if it is possible to quantify, by how much, does this programme create a new human resource requirement? How many more person days per year are we talking about?

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

It is an honour to have you in the chair today, Sir Edward. Clause 3 requires the establishment of multi-agency child protection teams in every local authority area.

I welcome the focus of amendment 19, laid in the names of the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, on monitoring the impact of the effectiveness of these multi-agency child protection teams and on continuous improvement, as the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston put it so well. It is essential that we know how the multi-agency teams are leading to better outcomes for children and that we share that learning right across the system.

It may be reassuring to know that safeguarding partners already have a statutory responsibility to publish annual reports on their multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. Once clause 3 comes into force, that responsibility will include reporting on the multi-agency child protection teams.

We are already funding 10 local areas to implement multi-agency child protection teams. From April, we are investing more than £500 million to roll out family help and multi-agency child protection teams nationally. The evaluation of the 10 pathfinders and the national roll-out of the families first partnership programme will inform the operational detail, including reporting, which will then be set out in regulations and updated statutory guidance.

On the question about how the teams will work, local authorities are currently not required to have a multi-agency safeguarding hub. This new duty will impose a specific form of child protection arrangement. The emerging evidence from the 10 local area pathfinders shows that where there is an effective multi-agency safeguarding hub, local areas can build on that existing multi-agency infrastructure and achieve closer multi-agency working relationships, which then creates that multi-agency child protection team.

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked about the supporting families programme. That has moved to the Department for Education, and the multi-agency child protection teams will be based on best practice from supporting families. Where there has been good work done in recent years, we are very much building on that and taking it to the next step, to make sure that, as far as we can possibly legislate for, no child is left behind.

The teams will bring together the right people with the right skills, so that support is formed around the child. That is also to ensure that the team can address many types of harm to children, whether that is through criminal gangs or sexual exploitation or otherwise. These new multi-agency child protection teams will build on the expertise and knowledge of local authorities and police forces to make sure that they work on a base of geography and local knowledge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I hope that the Minister does not mind me intervening to ask this question, but I genuinely am not clear on it from reading the legislation and the explanatory notes. Is the multi-agency child protection team replacing or in addition to any multi-agency safeguarding hub that exists today?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The multi-agency child protection teams will be based on those models. We have used robust evidence including the supporting families and strengthening families programmes. It very much follows the recommendations from the child safeguarding practice review panel to make sure that we have a multi-agency child protection unit in every local authority to address a lack of joint working across agencies.

We are already testing this approach with the 10 new pathfinders and working to make sure that safeguarding partners in all areas have a consistent approach nationally. Where we have seen this working well in practice, we will build on that. This clause will ensure that is delivered in every local authority and for every child.

[Damian Hinds]

For clarity, could there be a local authority in which there is both a multi-agency safeguarding hub and a multi-agency child protection team?

[Catherine McKinnell]

This will build on the work of those teams to make sure that it is rolled out nationally and that every local authority has a multi-agency team that can deliver on those—[Interruption.] Does the right hon. Gentleman mind if I just finish answering?

[Damian Hinds]

I am really sorry. I am genuinely not trying to be difficult, but I do not quite understand. I think we all agree, and absolutely support the hon. Lady in what she says, that of course this should build on the existing best practice in a MASH and everything that has been learnt from supporting troubled families. I am trying to understand whether it will make existing MASHs—although they do not happen everywhere and work differently sometimes—a bit more consistent and give them a new name? Alternatively, is it taking whatever the MASH does—which might be looking out for safeguarding review cases for a broader group of children—perhaps at a slightly lower level, and then adding something new called a multi-agency child protection team, which will exist in parallel? Will it replace an existing MASH or become subsumed into it?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I think what the right hon. Gentleman is potentially getting at is how the multi-agency child protection teams will work alongside the MASH teams. To some extent, this is moving existing resource around. This will be in addition to the MASH teams. We recognise that it will require some additional resource, so there will be £500 million coming from April 2025 for the family first partnership programme. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly raised, we need to ensure we have good, qualified, people working in these roles, which is really important to get right. As I said, building on the good work, we are putting in additional safeguards for children through these provisions. We are making sure that, while we have the good work of MASHs happening, we can have a consistent approach to child protection on a national scale by ensuring that we have multi-agency child protection teams working together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

To improve the safeguarding and welfare of children and to stop families and children from falling through the cracks of public services, clause 4 seeks to address long-standing issues that hinder information sharing.

Current legislation permits information sharing to safeguard and protect the wellbeing of children, but user research has identified that practitioners often feel confident only where there are serious child protection concerns. As a result, information is often held by different agencies, and practitioners are left unaware of crucial data that could provide evidence for the whole picture of a child’s wellbeing, health and safety. That gap in knowledge can make it difficult for professionals to support families, and make it harder for families to be aware of their entitlements and to access the support that they need.

The clause gives professionals a clear legal basis to request and share information with other relevant professionals for the purposes of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of a child. It also enables the Secretary of State, by regulations, to specify a consistent identifier for children. Agencies specified in regulations will be required to use the number when recording or sharing information about a child for the purposes of safeguarding or the promotion of welfare. The measures aim to ensure that practitioners share relevant information confidently and consistently.

As I mentioned, the Department will pilot the implementation of the consistent identifier and introduce it nationally at a later point. We will test its ability to facilitate the linking of data across datasets. The changes made by the clause aim to ensure that information about a child and their family is shared effectively and that risk is correctly identified and understood.

In response to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, I should say that information sharing is a two-way duty. The duty, along with the consistent identifier, will help to bring together multiple pieces of information so that practitioners can make informed decisions. As I said, it is standard practice to record decision making, regardless of whether information is shared, and we will ensure that that is covered in the guidance.

We are committed to implementing the consistent identifier as soon as possible, but we recognise that it has to be delivered proportionately and where it will have an impact. Before mandating its use by certain agencies, we need to explore information governance, privacy, technology choices, and the associated costs of its implementation and use. We are committed to starting pilot activity from April 2025, subject to the passage of the Bill, and will provide further timings once the pilot findings are known.

In response to the hon. Member for Twickenham, I should say that a disabled child would likely be considered a child in need, and so would benefit from the information-sharing duty and a single unique identifier. We need to ensure that systems can talk together, and that is why we are piloting: so that we can see the full cost of the measure and how it can be put in place so that it is as effective as possible in supporting children.

On the basis of today’s debate, the reassurances and the significant difference that the measure will make to the safeguarding of children, I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Damian Hinds]

I rise in support of the clause, for all the compelling reasons that the Minister gave in her rationale. We talked earlier about the value of multi-agency working, and the sharing of information is fundamental to that. As she outlined, there have been too many cases in which the heart of the problem was the lack of a way of identifying that two agencies were talking about the same child. The unique identifier will help to address that. These are never things that we are likely to disagree about on party political lines.

However, the clause raises some big questions, which I hope the Minister will take in the spirit in which I mean them. The first may sound like a semantic question, but I think it is important. It relates to the phrase “Duty to share” on page 6, line 19. The word “share” can mean different things, and its common English usage has probably changed somewhat over the past 20 years or so. “Share” used commonly to mean something held in common between two parties, but more recently—this has a lot to do with social media and the internet—it has come to mean “pass something on to a wider group”. Those are different things. I think that we are using the word “share” in the title of the proposed new section more in the sense of disclosure than of holding in common, but I would be grateful for some clarification. Although it is a semantic question, this will be primary legislation created by Parliament and precision is therefore important.

What is the link or overlap with mandatory reporting? Is what we are talking about today exactly the same as mandatory reporting or something different? The existing statutory guidance on safeguarding says:

“Anyone who has concerns about a child’s welfare should consider whether a referral needs to be made to Children’s Social Care and should do so immediately if there is a concern that the child is suffering significant harm or is likely to do so.”

It is not a legislative requirement, therefore, to report abuse, but there is the expectation that people who work with children will do so, unless there are truly exceptional circumstances. Of course, people in particular roles also have additional codes of conduct set by their professional regulatory body.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse of 2022 put forward the mandatory duty—which, to be clear, I support—and in 2023 the previous Government committed to introduce a mandatory duty to report sexual abuse for those working or volunteering with children, although the Criminal Justice Bill then fell with the Dissolution of Parliament before the election. Historically, people have identified problems with the concept of a mandatory duty to report sexual abuse—the same principle applies more generally to neglect and other forms of child abuse—and it has not only been people in government; for a very long time one leading children’s charity had a stance against mandatory reporting, citing the possible effect on the relationship between a child and a trusted adult and on the child’s willingness to open up to that adult, given what doing so might trigger. I am sure that the Government have been through the issue in a great deal of detail, as it is a serious and difficult area, so I wonder whether the Minister might say a little more on that point.

The matter of the practicalities of sharing information takes us back to the semantic question. It is stated in lines 24 and 25 on page 6 of the Bill that the proposed new section applies where a person

“considers that the information is relevant to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the child.”

There is a question about whether we are talking about disclosing a particular piece of information that is directly and specifically relevant to an individual child—an incident, or an observation made by a social worker or teacher with eyes on that child—or whether we are talking about data more generally. For example, do we mean that if there is a particular indicator in a dataset that is relevant to the question of safeguarding for all children in the local authority area, then the entire dataset should be shared with other agencies?

Assuming it is the former, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has already said, lines 11 to 15 on page 7 suggest that there could be a difficulty in terms of the balance. That part of the text states:

“A duty under this section to disclose information does not operate to require or authorise a disclosure of information which would contravene the data protection legislation”,

but we all know that often when people say, “Such and such wasn’t shared with another agency”, the reason given is data protection. I do not necessarily have the answer to how the Government should do this, but to the extent that it is possible, it would be helpful if they could create some clarity so that that balance could be understood.

My hon. Friend also referred to lines 31-33 on page 6, which mention that

“the duty imposed by subsection (2) does not apply if the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information.”

That is very difficult for any individual. From the point of view of being inside one agency—in this case a school—making a judgment without knowing what the police or social workers may know is very difficult. But it is helpful that the provision gives the legal basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

We have not tabled an amendment to clause 6, as this is another area where the Government are building on the direction of travel set under the last Government. The role of the virtual school head was already extended on a non-statutory basis from September 2021 to include strategic oversight of the educational outcomes of children with a social worker in a local authority’s area; through this Bill, it is now being extended again to champion the education of children, including children in kinship care.

Educational outcomes for children in need and children in care are still far too low, despite the efforts of successive Governments over the last 40 years to improve them. About one in five children in need and looked-after children achieve grade 4 and above in English and Maths GCSEs, compared with 65% of all children. That is a huge gap.

As the Minister knows, local authorities have an existing duty to monitor child in need or section 17 plans, which I believe is about twice a year. Will the Minister clarify whether the Bill gives us an opportunity to escalate that monitoring? Does it extend to children in kinship care, where a child is falling behind or where their attendance drops sharply? Have the Government considered extending priority school admissions for children in kinship care and making them eligible for pupil premium plus?

I have a question about how a single person can discharge this duty in any local authority, let alone a large one—thinking of dried Birmingham, Kent, Leeds or somewhere like that. What is the Government’s expectation of what the person responsible for delivering this work will be able to do?

[Damian Hinds]

The clause extends the role in legislation of virtual school heads to children in need, previously looked-after children and children in kinship care. The virtual school and virtual school heads concepts are not new. The concept was first piloted in 2006 in Liverpool. It was the Children and Families Act 2014, which we both remember well, Sir Edward, that required all local authorities to administer pupil premium plus.

The Oxford University report on the virtual school heads concept noted that there had been improvements in outcomes at key stage 2 and key stage 4 for looked-after children and a marked decrease in permanent exclusions. However, as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, rightly said, there is still a yawning gap in attainment and all manner of life outcomes for this group of children.

Previously, looked-after children were added to the virtual school head cohort in 2018. There was a pilot to include children in need in 2021. From 2023-24 onwards, pupil premium plus was extended to age 16-plus. Once again, this is a policy area where there is no difference between us; the current Government’s work builds on previous Governments’ work, and we welcome that. We also note the successes of the virtual school heads concept.

My question is about the danger of dilution. In terms of orders of magnitude, there are 80,000 or 85,000 children in care—looked-after children, but there are 400,000 children in need, so that is a big increase in number. I note that paragraph 4 of proposed section 23ZZA(4) of the 1989 ACT introduced by clause 6 puts a strategic duty on to virtual school heads; it is not about individual children. The bigger number of children there is, with that dilution effect, there is a risk that some of the benefits of the virtual school heads program reduce. We can counter that, to a degree, by upping the resource. My real question is therefore about what resource will be behind this measure, to make sure that the maximum effect can be felt from virtual school heads.

As we talked about earlier on multi-agency working, it is actual practice that matters. People have been working in different ways, and we can learn from what works in different places, but what work will there be to propagate the best and most effective practice between places across the country?

[Munira Wilson]

I very much welcome clause 6 and the extension of the virtual school head oversight role to children in kinship care. However, I was perplexed to see that the category of children this clause applies to is a subcategory of the definition we have just looked at in the previous clause.

I am not quite sure why virtual school heads are not available to all children in kinship care, but only to those subject to a special guardianship or child arrangement order, as set out in proposed new section 23ZZZA(4)(d), on page 11, lines 29 to 35. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that. Having just passed a definition of kinship care, it seems that we are immediately undermining it by extending provision of educational support only to a subset of the group that we have just agreed qualify as children in kinship care.

We see the same with allowances in the roll-out of the pilot; again, it is very much a subset, and I think that undermines the value of having just agreed in law a definition of children in kinship care. We know that there are higher levels of special educational needs among children in kinship care compared with the wider population. It is really important that the group of children eligible for this support is drawn as widely as possible. I also very much welcome the shadow Minister’s comment that he would like to see pupil premium plus and priority admissions extended to children in kinship care. I hope that means he will support new clause 28 and 29, when we get to them towards the end of Committee.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Sixth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O’Brien]

I rise to speak to amendment 25 and clause 14. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham for what she said about our amendment. I completely agree that, ideally, we would have what we are asking for on a regular basis, but just to be clear, the requirement on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament details and analysis of available placements is in amendment 25 because we want to keep the focus firmly on supply and capacity, which I think we agree are the ultimate drivers of the problem we are addressing.

As we said in response to the oral statement to the House by the Secretary of State, we welcome the continuing focus on issues that we identified, and we set up the market intervention advisory group to look at that when we were in government. The heart of the problem, however, as I think we all recognise, is the lack of supply of high-quality places in residential, kinship and foster care for looked-after children. Demand for such places outstrips supply, and that is what is causing the high cost of placements.

It is striking that in its 2022 report, the Competition and Markets Authority did not recommend a profit cap because, in its words,

“The central problem facing the market…is the lack of sufficient capacity.”

The CMA concluded that taking measures to limit the profitability of providers would

“risk increasing the capacity shortfall.”

So if we do not take action to increase capacity first, ironically, we risk simply driving up prices and exacerbating the shortage of places.

Likewise, the review commissioned by the last Government and carried out by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) found that profit caps would not work as it would be,

“relatively easy for providers to reallocate income and expenditure to maintain profit levels”,

a point already alluded to by the hon. Member for Twickenham. The capacity problem rests on the availability of places and the demand for those places. We spoke previously about the need to do much more to grow fostering to reduce demand. Our amendment is designed to ensure that that capacity issue remains at the front of everybody’s mind at both the national and the local levels, so that at neither level do we fall into thinking that we can fix this without primarily fixing supply.

I understand the argument that it cannot hurt to have the power in the clause, which is the reason why we will not vote against it, but it is unlikely to change things very much compared with increasing supply. In fairness, the Bill’s policy notes state that the profit cap power

“is intended only to be used as a last resort should other measures not have the expected impact”.

The hon. Member for Twickenham talked about it being a backstop. My only worry is we should not even rely on it as a backstop. As the previous independent review and the CMA highlight, it would not be easy to use. One reason is that it would inevitably have to be backward-looking. The Government’s policy notes state:

“We are aware that the administration of the profit cap will be a retrospective look back at whether or not the profit cap has been breached in a past period. It will therefore not necessarily prevent breaches in itself, but it will allow action to be taken retrospectively if such breaches have occurred and act as a disincentive for further breaches.”

We will be looking backwards at a sector where there are a lot of complicated financial arrangements, and because we are looking backwards, people will have time to do all kinds of things to make sure that they look like they are complying, for the reasons I have mentioned.

As Ministers take this measure through the other place and consider implementation, I strongly recommend that, if they regulate for fines, they set up an absolutely iron-clad mechanism to ensure that those fines are paid. I was very disturbed to learn from an answer to a parliamentary question the other day that the Home Office has no idea what proportion of the fines imposed for illegal working are actually paid. In that sector, people just move on—they set up a new company, or get their brother to start a new thing. They just move on, and they do not pay the fine. It is widely known that we do not even know how many people are paying those fines. Obviously, we need to prevent that from happening in this sector, where there is equal scope to move on, to set up new things and collapse the old, and so escape fines. I am sure Ministers are seized of that risk; I just wanted to emphasise what they need to do when regulations are made.

Another way out that Ministers might want to try to close off is that some in the sector adopt offshore models of provision. Might the Government want to use this rare legislative moment to discourage, either in primary legislation or by giving themselves the power to regulate, the commissioning of places with providers that are domiciled offshore? They might want to take that power now, but even if they fix it, there will continue to be so many opportunities to fudge and to manage profits with interest and debt.

I do not mean to labour this because, as I listen to some people in the debate, including Ministers, I hear that they understand the difficulties, but then I hear from some other people, and they think, “Oh, we can just control prices to get out of this, without addressing the underlying real problem about supply.” When I was at the Treasury, one reason we were really keen on the work we were leading on through the OECD on base erosion and profit shifting was that we were faced with the endless generation of new tax wheezes and profit-shifting arrangements. They all had these exotic names—the Dutch sandwich, the green jersey and the double Irish; people were constantly generating new ways of moving profits around.

I want to bring that to life a bit by asking some questions. How would profit be defined for the purposes of the cap? The policy summary talks about

“(on average) profits of 19.4% on fostering, 22.6% on children’s homes and 35.5% on supported accommodation.”

I went back to look at the 2022 CMA report from which those numbers are drawn, but it just talks about margins, so I was not clear on whether we were talking about pre-tax, post-tax, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. I am keen to understand what measure of profit we are using.

What analysis have the Department done to think about the capital needs of the sector over the next five years? It will need large sums, which may make profit capping harder. Fundamentally, there is a big question about what level of profit the Department for Education deems to be acceptable. In in her articulate and thoughtful remarks, the hon. Member for Twickenham mentioned one provider that had a very high rate and another that she said was more acceptable. That is the heart of the issue: given the powers that are being taken, do Ministers at this stage have some rough barometer of what they would regard as unacceptable profits?

Alongside this debate, even as we as we speak, the consultation is running. Obviously, in an ideal world it would have been much better to have had the results of that consultation before the debate and before we moved to legislate. To say we are being asked to sign a blank cheque is an overstatement; I am less worried about it than that. Obviously, though, it would have been much better to have the results of the consultation. What is the timescale of the consultation and when will we have some results from it? Is the Minister already able to share any findings?

I am labouring the point slightly, but I want the Minister’s reaction to the issue, which I am trying to raise in different ways, of the difficulty of capping profits in this kind of industry with these kinds of players so that the concerns that caused the CMA and the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington not to recommend profit caps do not come to bear in practice.

A fundamental question is what the evidence is that, on a like-for-like basis, private sector providers are more expensive than either charities or local authority provision in this area. The numbers may exist, but I have not seen them. If the margins are so high, why are more providers not entering the market? It is a strange thing: there is not enough supply, but we think profits are too high. What is the barrier to entry? It may be that all those questions are addressed in the impact assessment, which is one reason that it is frustrating that we still do not have it.

The DFE says that it is trying to do other things to tackle excess profits. In its policy summary notes to the Bill, it said:

“Until these other measures have had time to be implemented and have effect, we will not know whether regulatory action in the form of a profit cap is necessary.”

That is totally sensible; I completely agree. What are the Minister’s thoughts on timing for making a decision on that? We have a consultation now. The Ministers are trying to do other things to tackle excess profits now; once implemented, they will take time to have an effect, if they are going to have an effect. In what year will we potentially make a decision on the profit cap? As I started to make the mental Gantt chart, I wondered whether this was a decision for the end of this Parliament or the next. I just want a sense of what Ministers think about the timing for making that decision.

Page 53 of the policy summary notes says:

“The level of any future profit cap would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point that we make a decision that a cap is needed.”

That line is a bit mysterious. This may be obvious, but it is not obvious to me—what does that mean in practice? I could not work out which way round it was: would there be no profit capping if supply was too limited, as there would be no scope to do it, or would profit capping come in if supply was limited and prices higher than Ministers wanted? I was not sure in which direction the arrows ran between market conditions and the decision on having a profit cap.

We are not against the clause standing part of the Bill. We are obviously keen on our amendment, and indeed the improvement to it suggested by the hon. Member for Twickenham, but, as an amendment, it is what it is. But all of this is just an aim. We think there are massive limits to how usable this power will be in practice and we do not want it to become a distraction from fixing the main issue, which is supply. To use an example from housing policy, which is apt, given the Chair’s former Select Committee role, the places around the world that have tried to rely on rent controls to fix housing problems generally fail. The people who focus on supply generally do much better. That is the spirit behind our amendment and our questions to the Minister.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I rise briefly to echo some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and to ask a couple of questions. I have total sympathy with what Ministers are trying to do here. Having spent a bit of time at the DFE, I know the pain of seeing the amounts of money going out from local authorities for some very expensive placements.

The thing I always found vexing, and still do to this day, is exactly the thing the shadow Minister mentioned. If there are fat margins to be had, ordinarily, in a Schumpeterian world, people come into that—again, I hesitate to use the word—market. The insurmountable barriers stopping that from happening were never clear to me. It was not just that additional supply was not coming in to bring down unit costs, but that, on occasion, there was no place to be found. It is very important that we understand the underlying economics of this, bearing in mind, as ever, that we are talking primarily about the care of children.

The profit made by an entity cannot be limited, ultimately, because that is the residual left at the end of the year between revenue and cost. All one can do is either to choose not to use an entity that makes a profit of more than a certain amount, or seek some form of clawback. I note from the Bill that it is the latter approach that Ministers wish to take, as in proposed new section 30ZM. Do they seek to use this power as a fine—a penalty—for having a profit above whatever is deemed the appropriate level, or in proportion to it? In other words, do they seek to claw back the entirety of the surplus—the profit made—in excess of what is deemed a fair return?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I am not at all opposed to the clause, but I am curious to know what prompted it. What outside world events made us rethink the regulations? I heard what the Minister said about consulting young people, but I am struggling slightly to picture that conversation, where the kid goes, “You know, what we really need is a change in the employer licensing regulations.” But fair enough.

The changes are in some ways liberalising by increasing the latest hour from 7 o’clock to 8 and allowing Sunday working, but in other ways they are restricting. I am interested in what is behind that. There are risks to guard against in the employment of children, but the employment of children is not in itself an ill to be mitigated. There are many benefits to the child in having that opportunity. In fact, the biggest gripe we hear from employers about young people—it happens again and again—is about what some call soft skills, or employability skills or workplace skills. Whatever we want to call it, those are skills that people develop at work. Many times over the years, whenever I have had a group of leaders and industry together, I have gone round the room and literally asked, “How old were you when you first did a day of paid work?” The most typical, most common answer is 14—some say 15, and for some it is younger. It is important that we learn from that.

In the last 25 years, there has been a sharp decline in the number of under-16s and under-18s doing paid work. That is partly because of the decline in certain job types—there are not many paper rounds or milk rounds any more—and partly because of social attitudes. When we had public exams in the lower sixth and upper sixth for most children, that probably had an impact for the slightly older age groups. One of the reasons that employers find it daunting to employ children is that they are often unclear about what the regulations are, but they have a sense that there are risks, including reputational risks and so on.

The explanatory notes state:

“The Secretary of State will have a power to make regulations in relation to child employment which will replace the power local authorities currently have to make bylaws. The regulations may prohibit the employment of a child in certain types of work, make provision in relation to child employment permits, authorise the employment of 13-year-old children and set out the number of hours children can work per day or week, their entitlement to breaks and leave and to specify other conditions of employment”.

It is quite a list.

Today, to be clear, children can work part time from the age of 14. In some council areas, the minimum is 13. Are the Government now saying that the minimum age will become 13 throughout the country? What limits do they envisage in ordinary times for additional regulation? There is rightly already plenty of regulation about the employment of anybody and further regulation about the employment of people who are below 18. What additional regulation do the Government envisage?

The Government will say that there will be secondary legislation under the affirmative procedure and that it will all be fine, but we know how secondary legislation works—often in this very room—under the affirmative procedure. Often people do not know about it very far in advance. A Committee of Members of Parliament comes here and debates the secondary legislation—I was going to say that the MPs vote on it, but often they do not—the legislation cannot be amended, and then it moves on. Given that we are talking about the primary legislation, it would be helpful to get on the record what the Government are thinking about doing in this area.

As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister rightly said, having a standardised system of permits nationally is okay in principle. Indeed, benefits may well come from that, but it goes somewhat against the direction of travel from a Government who are introducing devolution in local government and changing the levels at which responsibility is held. The danger with a national system for something like this is that we could lose some of that local knowledge and variability, for example, in rural areas of the country with heavy agricultural sectors. Employment can be different there. In seaside towns with more seasonal employment, that might affect the employment of children. Can the Minister give us some reassurance that there will not be scope creep, for example through the introduction of further regulations for the employment of children in the family business or activities such as babysitting? Can she also assure us that the minimum age exemptions with a performance licence for the creative industries—theatre, film and television—will not be lost?

[Munira Wilson]

I do not have a philosophical problem with this clause either. I was slightly surprised to find it when I was reading the Bill and to hear where it came from, but I understand what the Government are attempting to do.

Before press releases start going out suggesting that the Lib Dems want to promote child labour, I will preface my next question with some feedback from the National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment. It has raised some concerns that the later hour set out in the legislation does not fully address the employment of young people in televised and live sporting events. That is particularly the case where we now have the benefit of floodlights and roofs—I think of the late matches on centre court at Wimbledon, when we have ball boys and ball girls from the local area working there. I understand that there is a different licensing regime if children are participating in sport, but this measure would apply to some of the children working at those sporting events. What consideration have Ministers given to those sorts of situations? Have they spoken to the National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment?

For organisations with particular shift and working patterns—for example, those involving non-performance roles in theatres, including in lighting or backstage—the National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment suggests allowing hours later than 8 pm on a Friday or Saturday for older teenagers, provided that the next day is not a school day. I am not necessarily suggesting that that is the right thing to do, but that is a suggestion made by that organisation given its needs. It would be good to get some clarification on when the current byelaws for child employment will cease and when regulations from the Secretary of State will replace them.

Importantly, what consideration has been given to safeguarding and DBS checks of employers where young people are working? The right hon. Member for East Hampshire touched on that. We have self-employed young people offering their services as tutors, babysitters and gardeners. I understand that some of them are offering their services through apps and things nowadays, and they are presumably not touched by these regulations, so what consideration have Ministers given to children in those sorts of services?

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fifth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The question about securing and keeping accommodation is incredibly important for care leavers; it is closely linked to what the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire was saying about financial capacity. What are the Minister’s thoughts on what the default position should be for care leavers in receipt of universal credit? Should there be automatic rent payments from universal credit, or should it be for the individual to manage? Obviously that can change in individual cases, but what should be the default and what discussions has she had with the Department for Work and Pensions?

[Catherine McKinnell]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, we work on a cross-Government basis. We have regular conversations with colleagues in various Departments to ensure that the offer we provide to care leavers will give them the best chance to live independently and that the approach of other Departments to these matters complements and co-operates with what this legislation is intended to achieve.

The right hon. Gentleman raises a specific and quite technical question that relates to the work of the Department for Work and Pensions. As I will come on to, we are working hard to re-establish the ministerial working group to support these young people. I am certain that this matter can be carefully considered as part of that work, so I will take it away and feed it on to colleagues. Given the importance of the clause and the changes it will bring to how local authorities work with children leaving care or young people under the age of 25 who have been in care, I urge the Committee to support it.

I turn to new clause 40, tabled by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, who I believe is not present today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am happy to respond to new clause 40, which would require the Secretary of State to publish a national offer for care leavers, mirroring the requirement on local authorities to publish their local offer. There are already examples of additional support provided for care leavers from central Government that complement the support provided by local authorities. Care leavers may, for example, be entitled to a £3,000 bursary if they start an apprenticeship and may be entitled to the higher one-bedroom rate of housing support from universal credit.

We have re-established the care leaver ministerial board, now co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Education and the Deputy Prime Minister. It comprises Ministers from 11 other Departments to consider what further help could be provided to improve outcomes for this vulnerable group of young people.

[Damian Hinds]

I wonder whether that reconstituted group will pay particular attention to the role of enlightened employers. Bearing in mind the immense breadth of unique life experiences that many people with care experience bring to a business—it will benefit the young person as well as the business—will employers take an extra chance on a care leaver and give them that opportunity? Being in work and having a regular wage opens up so much else in life.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point and advocates powerfully for this vulnerable group of young people. There will indeed be representation on the ministerial group from various Government Departments, including the Minister for business—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

This is a good and sensible clause, and the Opposition support its inclusion in the Bill. I would note that although all these clauses are good, they come with an administrative cost.

We have already discussed the importance of ensuring that the measures are properly funded, but I want to press the Minister for a few more insights on clause 8. There is a list of details about the local offer—that it must be published, must anticipate the needs of care leavers—and it refers to how they will co-operate with housing authorities and provide accommodation for those under 25. This is all good stuff.

The discussion that we have just had prefigured the question that I wanted to ask, which is about co-operation with national bodies. The clause is quite focused on co-operation between local bodies and drawing up a clear offer. That is a good thing—although, obviously, some of those housing associations are quite national bodies these days.

In the “Keeping children safe, helping families thrive” policy paper published a while back, the Government set out an intention to extend corporate parenting responsibilities to Government Departments and other public bodies, with a list of corporate parents named in legislation following agreement from other Government Departments. When we were in government, we also said that we intended to legislate to extend corporate parenting responsibilities more broadly, so I wondered about that connection up to the national level. We have already had one excellent and very canny policy idea from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire about setting the default for care leavers when it comes to how their housing payments are made. The Minister raised a good point about bursaries and making sure that care leavers are clear about what is available to them on that front. However, there is a whole host of other opportunities to write in to some of these—

[Damian Hinds]

Will my hon. Friend also comment on the particular situation of those young people from care who go on to university? Of course, come the holidays the vast majority of people in higher education go home, but the situation is very different for those who have been in care. Some enlightened universities—including the University of Winchester, in my own county—do very good work in this regard, but will he expand a little on how those young people in higher education can be supported with the offer?

[Neil O’Brien]

That excellent point is another example of exactly what we are talking about. In one sense, I regret not having an amendment that would insert a specific paragraph about the local offer from national organisations. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that the Minister is very interested in this question and is pursuing it. Anyway, there may even be scope to write that into the Bill as it goes through the Lords.

The DFE’s explanatory notes for the Bill say that, although the housing and children’s services departments are encouraged in guidance—in part 7 of the Children Act 1989, I think—to work together to achieve the common aim of planning and providing appropriate accommodation and support for care leavers, that is not happening consistently in practice; the Minister alluded to that.

My question to the Minister is: what do we know from current practice about where that does not happen and why not? It seems obvious, and something that every well-intentioned social worker—every person who works with care leavers—would want to do. What does the good model of effective provision of that support look like? Are there local authorities that are the best cases of that?

Other than providing the administrative and legislative hook for better gripping of this issue, I do not know whether the Minister has a specific plan to do anything else to try to achieve it more consistently—given that, of all the different things that one wants to join up for the care leaver, the provision of a safe place to live and a stable housing arrangements is probably No.1. Is anything more being done? Does the Minister have thoughts about how that can be done best and where it is done best? Where it has not been done as well as we would hope, why is that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I will ask the Minister a couple of questions about clause 9 that I hope he will address when he responds. We support its intent, but I want to understand what safeguards or guidance will be put in place to ensure that children in care in areas where these regional co-operatives are active do not inadvertently end up far away from their families.

We already know that about a fifth of children in care are placed over 20 miles away from their families and almost half are living outside their local authority area. In some cases, it is important that a child is moved reasonably far away for safeguarding reasons, but often that is not the case. I know from having spoken to care-experienced young people and to the Become Charity, which has done quite a lot of research into the impact of children being moved far away from home, that that can affect their mental health, that they can feel isolated and lonely having moved away from family and friends, and that it can cause stigma in the school or college environment. I want to understand how the Minister intends to ensure that young people are not moved further away than they need to be when these regional co-operatives are in place.

[Damian Hinds]

Again, as hon. Members have said, we support this approach and it is the approach that we were taking. It is also true that when everybody agrees on something, it is usually the point of most danger for making bad law. It is important to have these Committee proceedings and proper scrutiny.

I was personally never keen on the name of regional co-operatives, although I do not think the word “co-operative” actually appears in the Bill. We can, of course, have co-operation without having a co-operative. This legislation is actually about regional co-operation arrangements.

There are three different types of potential co-operation arrangement: first, for strategic accommodation functions to be carried out jointly between two different local authorities; secondly, for one to carry out the duties on behalf of all; and thirdly, for a corporate body, effectively a separate organisation, to be created to do that. I imagine that Government Members will have different views depending on which of those three forms the arrangements take. Will the Minister say which of those he expects to be most common? As well as the pilots, there have no doubt already been formal and informal conversations with local authority leaders in children’s services in many different areas.

I am keen to know how this arrangement is different from some arrangements that may already take place. For example, the tri-borough children’s services arrangement in London—I will try and get this right—between Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham. Presumably, some of those functions are administered in common there, so how will this be different?

[Neil O’Brien]

I probably should have asked the Minister about scale. In the two pilots, we have Greater Manchester, which is just under 3 million people, and the south-east, which is roughly 3 million people. I do not know what the Government’s expectations about scale are and whether they would continue to support something like the tri-borough arrangement, which is obviously much smaller.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a very apt point. Where we end up on that continuum of scale depends on what we are going after most. Of course, we want all those things. For purchasing power, a bigger scale is better, but for close and easy working relationships, a smaller scale is sometimes better. When we are talking about children, and the placement of vulnerable children, that may well push us towards the smaller end of the scale.

Perhaps it is possible to perform different functions at different levels, with some functions still being performed by the individual local authority. Even then, as my hon. Friend often rightly says, there is an enormous difference in scale between London local authorities, which are actually quite small even though they are in our largest city, and Birmingham, which is one enormous authority. It might be argued that doing some things at a sub-local authority level makes sense in a very large local authority area, but as I say, it might be possible to do some things as the single local authority, some things at a larger level, and some things—presumably principally in terms of purchasing leverage—on a wider scale again.

If regional co-operation arrangements are not materially different in practice from something that already exists in co-operation between local authorities, even if that is on a smaller scale than what is envisaged, is legislation actually necessary? If it is not, we probably should not legislate. I would like to understand a bit more about the legislative basis that is currently missing.

Finally, the Bill sets out that the Secretary of State may add to the definition of the strategic accommodation functions that we have listed in proposed new section 22J(3) of Children Act 1989. What type of additional functions does the Minister have in mind?

[Tom Hayes]

I rise to speak in favour of regional co-operation arrangements, primarily because of what we have seen in two important reviews or evaluations. The recent independent review of children’s social care that I referred to highlighted a system at breaking point, as we also heard from the Minister. The insight from that report was that how we find, match, build, and run foster homes and residential care for children in care radically needs to change. When the Competition and Markets Authority looked at this area, it also identified major problems, such as profiteering, weak oversight and poor planning by councils—the verdict on the system is damning.

The independent review recommended that a co-operative model should sit at the centre of bringing about change. The values of our movement could provide the loving homes that children in care need. I particularly support this clause because this feels like a very Labour Government Bill—one that has at its heart the co-operative model that is obviously such a big part of our labour movement.

My hope is that regional care co-operatives could gain economies of scale and harness the collective buying power of independent local authorities to improve services for looked-after children. There are obvious benefits to using a co-operative model to solve those problems—the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity apply directly to how these regional care co-operatives would be run. In a social care market that has been described as broken by the Minister and by those reports, it is critical to bring the co-operative model more into what we provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

The shadow Minister is absolutely correct. We want to work collaboratively with local authorities in rolling this out. We will not force local authorities to do so. I thank him for enabling me to make that clear.

Question put.

[Damian Hinds]

Forgive me, Mr Stringer; I know that the Minister has finished, but may I speak again, with leave?

[The Chair]

I have put the Question. I am sorry, but you have missed the opportunity.

Question agreed to.

Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty

--- Later in debate ---

Let me recap for the Minister’s benefit. There is the suggestion that the requirement for the Secretary of State to give approval for children aged 13 or under be made clear; there is the suggestion from CAFCASS that we specify in the Bill that review be more frequent for younger children; there is the question about automatically having a child protection plan in place for when the child leaves the deprivation; and then, from the Children’s Commissioner, there is a call for action on the large proportion of children on deprivation of liberty orders who are currently being placed into illegal settings. Effectively, those are the four questions that the expert community is putting to us.

[Damian Hinds]

Clause 10 will amend the Children Act 1989 such that local authorities can authorise deprivation of liberty of children other than only in a secure children’s home, and will change the term “restricting liberty” to “depriving of liberty”.

In the secure children’s home sector, a distinction is often made between what are called justice beds and welfare beds. There are also children detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 on secure mental health wards and in psychiatric intensive care units, or on non-secure wards. I am assuming that we are talking today only about what are known as welfare beds—I say “beds”, but normally the entire facility is either one or the other.

To speak on justice beds briefly, there has been a big fall in this country since 2010 in the number of children who are locked up in the criminal justice system: the numbers are down from about 2,000 in 2010 to only around 500 now. That has partly been because of a fall in crime, and in the particular types of crime for which young people used to be locked up, but it is also because of the good work of youth offending teams. Most of those children are older and would typically be in a young offenders institution when aged 15 to 17, or indeed, 18 to 21. The very small group of children who are in the secure children’s home sector are a very difficult and troubled cohort of youngsters with complex pasts. I take a moment to pay tribute to the staff; it is an extraordinary career decision to go into that line of work, and they do it with amazing dedication.

The welfare bed part of the secure children’s home sector is where somebody has had their liberty restricted not because of something they have done, but because of something they might do—because of the danger or threat they pose either to themselves or others. It is an enormous decision to take to deprive anybody of liberty on those grounds, but particularly a child. As with those children who are in the criminal justice part of the secure children’s home sector, these are typically extremely troubled children.

On the change in clause 10 to allow local authorities to house those children somewhere other than a secure children’s home, the obvious question to the Minister is “Why that, rather than ensuring that a secure children’s home is properly catering to the needs of that cohort of children?” I am not saying that it is the wrong decision, by the way, but I am interested to know, and it is good to have it on record, why it is a better decision to say, “Let’s take some or all of these children and house them in a different type of facility.” What have the Minister and the Secretary of State in mind for the alternative accommodation that would be set out in regulations? For the benefit of the Committee, and again for the record, it might also be helpful to define what is different. The Minister might clarify the definition of a secure children’s home and explain what it is that we need to deviate from.

My other question is about the change in phraseology. We are talking about moving from the restricting of liberty to the depriving of liberty. I understand from the explanatory notes that this tries to reflect the reality, but it is a legitimate question whether it is a strictly necessary change to make and what the reasoning is. Even when we do deprive people of liberty, we do not deprive them of all their liberty. There are degrees of restriction. We have this as a feature in the criminal justice system, and though this is a different cohort of children, some of the same principles may apply. We may be able to get a lot of the benefit we are looking for from restricting someone’s liberty rather than entirely depriving them of it. I wonder if the Minister might say a word about that distinction and about whether the Government have received representations on the change in wording.

[Ian Sollom]

My understanding is that this change follows a trend of children being deprived of their liberty outside the statutory route by being housed in unsuitable accommodation not registered with Ofsted, often far from home and family. That has been partly addressed in the questions from the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston.

The success of this provision will depend on the regulations. What actually makes a setting capable of being used for the deprivation of liberty? Will there be a requirement with respect to education in that setting? Will they need to be registered with Ofsted? It is not entirely clear. When will regulations relating to this provision be brought forward? Is it the intention that they will mirror the scheme for the secure accommodation?

The law around the deprivation of liberty is incredibly complex. Without proper legal advice and representation, it is very hard for families to understand what is going on and what options they have. It is not clear yet what legal aid will be available to families or the child themselves when an application is made under the new route. Can the Minister clarify what will be available with respect to legal aid, or put a timetable on when we will get that clarification?

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Seventh sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Stringer. We live in a country where, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, three in 10 children are growing up in poverty, and I know from talking to school leaders up and down the country that one of the biggest challenges that teachers face in the classroom is poverty outside the classroom. I do not think that anybody could disagree with the intent of ensuring that children are well fed and ready to learn and start the school day, but I have questions regarding how the provisions of the Bill will be delivered. Some have already been touched on by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston.

First, on practicalities, in our oral evidence session, Nigel Genders, the education officer for the Church of England, said that 65% of small rural primaries are Church of England schools. I asked him about the practicalities of delivering this scheme, and he said:

“there will be particular challenges in small schools in terms of staffing, managing the site,”

and pointed out that there are economies of scale for the large trusts, but not when

“a school…has 40 or 50 children, one member of staff and probably a site manager.”––[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 66, Q142.]

How is that going to be delivered? I appreciate that there will be pilot schemes, but that is a big question that needs to be answered. Others have raised similar concerns about resourcing.

Secondly, although it remains to be seen how the pilots work out, given the immense financial pressure that so many schools find themselves under, I cannot stress strongly enough to Ministers how important it is that sufficient money is provided to deliver this programme. We cannot have “efficiencies” being found elsewhere—in terms of teaching staff and other activities that the children would normally get—to fund this. When the Mayor of London rolled out free school meals to all primaries, which I strongly supported, I laid down the same challenge to him. Sadly, the universal infant free school meal funding under the previous Government was very seldom uprated, and I know that schools in my constituencies were trying to trying to find money from other pots to fund it. Proper Funding is absolutely critical. In fact, the Association of School and College Leaders said in its written evidence that many of its members “remain to be convinced” that the money being allocated will be sufficient.

My third concern also relates to some of the oral evidence that we heard last week: when we have such scarce resources, as we are told every single day by the Chancellor and Ministers across Government, why are we not targeting our resources at those most in need? Kate Anstey, from the Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“take-up of breakfast clubs or different schemes is around 40%, whereas the vast majority of children are in school for lunchtime.”––[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 98, Q217.]

As a London MP, I can tell hon. Members that children in temporary accommodation are often placed extremely far away from where they are at school. In the case of Twickenham, they are often placed in Croydon or Slough—all over the place—so they are spending 90 minutes, and sometimes longer, getting to school. Many often miss the start of the school day because of transport issues. They are the most needy and vulnerable children, and the chances of them actually being in school to get that breakfast are slim, so as ASCL did, I question whether this provision

“will actually attract those children who would most benefit from it.”

That is why, as the Minister is aware because I have tabled a new clause to speak to this, the Liberal Democrats’ long-standing policy is that we should actually be extending free school meals and providing a hot, healthy meal at lunch time, when children are definitely going to be in school, to all the poorest children in both primary and secondary schools.

I suspect we will touch on this issue when we discuss the next clause, but I will mention now that I was slightly alarmed that proposed new section 551B(5) of the Education Act 1996 says that the food will

“take such form as the appropriate authority thinks fit.”

I recognise that there are school food standards, but I am a bit worried that that might just be a piece of toast and perhaps, if children are lucky, a bit of fruit. Can we ensure that there is strong guidance on the nutritional value of what is being provided?

Finally, on the subject of 30 minutes being the minimum amount of free time, if lots of schools only offer the minimum, and lots of parents have an hour-long commute to work, or even longer than that, 30 minutes will not meet that childcare need. I am worried about the interaction with paid-for breakfast clubs if a parent is having to drop off at 7.30 am, but the free breakfast club does not start until 8 o’clock. Does that mean they get that last 30 minutes for free, but they pay for the first bit? How will that work logistically?

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome what the Minister said about protecting the existing programme in secondary schools for a further year. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston is quite right that schools and families will want to know about much more than just next year, but I appreciate that the expectation is that the certainty will come in the spending review. I hope the same will also be true for the holiday activities and food programme.

Of course, breakfast clubs in school is not a new idea. There are, as the Minister said, 2,694 schools in the national school breakfast club programme, serving about 350,000 pupils. That programme is targeted according to the deprivation of an area, with eligibility at the whole-school level in those areas, and provides a 75% subsidy for the food and delivery costs.

There are many more breakfast clubs than that, however; it is estimated that the great majority of schools have some form of breakfast club. Many clubs, of course, have a modest charge, but if a child attending that breakfast club is helping a parent on a low income to be able to work, typically, that breakfast club provision, like wraparound care provision, would be eligible for reimbursement at up to 85% as a legitimate childcare cost under universal credit. That 85% is a higher rate than was ever available under the previous tax credits system. Some schools also use pupil premium to support breakfast clubs, and there are also other voluntary-sector and sponsored programmes.

From a policy perspective, overall, there are two big objectives to a breakfast club. The first is, of course, to help families with the cost of living, and the other is about attendance. Attendance is an issue in primary and secondary school, but we must remember that it is more of an issue in secondary school, and it is more of an issue the lower people are on the income scale. That is why the national school breakfast club programme runs in secondary as well as primary schools, and why it is targeted in the way that it is.

I also want to ask a couple of questions, as the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston just did, about how the timings work and about the minimum of 30 minutes. The many schools—perhaps 85% of them—that already have a breakfast club quite often have it for longer than 30 minutes. What should they do? Should they charge for the bit that is not the 30 minutes but have 30 minutes that are free? That is perhaps not in the spirit of what we mean by a universally free service. If they have a paid 45-minute breakfast, would they also have to offer an option to just come for the 30 minutes and have that for free?

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, especially if the hon. Lady has the answer.

[Amanda Martin]

I want to comment more from my own experience, because I used to be a pre-school chair. When the free hours came in for pre-school, they did not cover the full time that the child would be there, so mechanisms were put in place where some elements of the time were free and some elements were not. That sort of arrangement for operating such a system has been around in the sector for quite a while.

[Damian Hinds]

It has, and it has also been very controversial in many cases for pre-school provision, as the hon. Lady will know.

I also want to ask about the costs and reimbursements, which amendments 26 and 27 speak to. The Government, before they were in government and probably since, talked a lot about saving families £400 a year. In my rough maths, if we take £400 and divide it by 190 school days—[Interruption.] Oh, it is £450. Well, I am not able to adjust my maths live, so the answer will be slightly more than the number I give now. My maths gave me £2.10 a day. That seems to be somewhat different from the figures that schools are actually being reimbursed in the pilot programme, so I hope for some clarity on this point.

The details of the early-adopter programme talk about an initial set-up cost of £500, a lump sum of £1,099 to cover April to July and then a basic rate being provided per pupil. There is a different rate depending on whether the child is what is called FSM6—eligible for free school meals previously—if I have read the details correctly. I am not clear why the unit cost of a breakfast would be different between those two groups of children, but perhaps the Minister could fill me in.

Even at the higher rates—the FSM6 rates—there seems to be quite a gap between that and £2.10, or the Minister’s slightly higher figure, when it is £450 divided by 190 days. Obviously, part of that may be made up of savings from bulk purchasing and so on, but it still seems quite a gap, if I have understood the numbers correctly. I hope the Minister can help me to understand.

[Patrick Spencer]

When I was a governor of a primary school, I found that an unintended consequence of underfunded breakfast clubs was parents accruing ludicrous amounts of debt. There are no circumstances in which the school would have turned away the child, but that does not bode well for a policy that is about supporting parents who are hard up. If parents are forced to pay for the breakfast club and accrue huge amounts of debt, we know that is very bad for their mental health and for their general wellbeing. I do not know whether the Minister has anything to say on that point, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree.

[Damian Hinds]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important point. My worry is that, in a couple of years’ time, when Members sitting on both sides of this Committee Room get emails about the funding pressures on schools—because, spoiler alert, there will still be funding pressures on schools—breakfast clubs will be one of the factors contributing to those pressures, if this programme is not fully funded or almost fully funded. I wonder whether the Minister will say on the record that it is his expectation that this programme will, like the national school breakfast club programme, cover at least 75% of the actual cost of provision.

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their interventions. Members will appreciate that future funding decisions are subject to the spending review, but they can have the assurance from me today of the commitment that we have already made with regard to secondary school inclusion in the national school breakfast club programme and, indeed, my recently announced confirmation of more than £200 million for the holiday activities and food programme for the next financial year.

The shadow Minister made a number of points regarding schools currently on the national school breakfast club programme. Funding was confirmed in the previous Budget, which will ensure that that programme continues to at least March 2026. Subject to the will of Parliament, schools with children from reception to year 6 will transition from the existing programme to the new offer of free breakfast clubs lasting at least 30 minutes. The timing of the national roll-out will be confirmed in due course. Schools moving from the national school breakfast club programme to the new offer will be supported in that transition. Further details on the programme will follow after the conclusion of the spending review.

The shadow Minister asked a number of questions about when the duty will commence. Legislating breakfast club provision in this Bill will give schools the certainty that they need for the future. The national roll-out and commencement of this duty will be determined in 2025 after the spending review. National roll-out will also be informed by the assessment of the early-adopter phase of the roll-out, which will help us to test and learn how best we can support schools to implement their duty and overcome the barriers that they might encounter. As the Committee will know, we must go through the appropriate spending review process before committing to a date for national roll-out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

I rise to speak to amendment 87, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends.

My party and I strongly support the objective of clause 23—to bring down or minimise the cost of school uniform for hard-pressed families up and down the country. We know that the cost of uniform causes a lot of hardship: it impacts school attendance when children do not have the right items of uniform, and we heard during our oral evidence sessions and have seen in some of the written evidence that children are regularly sent home from school if they do not have the right uniform, which I personally find outrageous considering the current attendance crisis. The intent behind this clause is absolutely right; my concern is how the Government have gone about it.

I have two concerns. The first is that, if a number of items are set out in legislation—three or four, depending on whether it is primary or secondary—there is nothing to stop the overinflation of the prices of those items. We could end up in a situation in which, for the sake of argument, three items cost £100 each. There is nothing to stop that happening, so I do not think the provision will necessarily rein in the cost of branded items for families. Secondly, it grates with me as a liberal to have such detailed prescription in legislation about how schools operate and the decisions that school leaders take on the number of items that can be branded.

Amendment 87 sets a cap on cost rather on the number of items, and that would be reviewed and updated through secondary legislation every year to keep it in line with inflation. Schools that want to have more branded items but cannot fit it within the cost cap could sell branded logos that can be sewn on to basic uniform items bought in supermarkets, such as plain jumpers and shirts and so on. I have to say, as a parent of small children, I do not fancy the idea of doing lots of sewing, but I am sure there are more innovative ways to iron on logos and suchlike.

The Association of School and College Leaders expressed the concern on behalf of their members in their written evidence that driving down the number of items and being so prescriptive might have the opposite effect, particularly with PE kit. Children, particularly teenagers subject to peer pressure, might compete to wear more expensive sporting items.

Setting a cap in monetary terms rather than on the number of items, addresses the two issues of overinflation and of over-prescription in legislation. It also has the benefit of being an effective market intervention, because it helps to drive down the costs of suppliers competing for school contracts for schools that want to be able to provide more branded items. That is a much more sensible way of approaching the issue and tackling a problem that we are united in wanting to tackle.

New clause 35 concerns a simple matter of fairness. I cannot understand why the zero rate of VAT applies only on clothing for children up to the age of 14 and that parents have to pay VAT on school uniform for children who are larger or who are over 14. Dare I say it—this is one of the few benefits of Brexit.

[Damian Hinds]

Press release!

[Munira Wilson]

Press release—there we go! This is a rare benefit of Brexit: we have the freedom to apply a zero rate of VAT on school uniform up to the age of 16. It is a basic issue of fairness. If the Government want to drive down the cost of uniform, this is a simple thing for them to address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

We all share the objective of trying to keep costs down and reduce costs where possible. That is why we have guidance to schools on school uniform costs and why that guidance became statutory guidance. It is utterly extraordinary to talk about writing this level of detail about uniform policy into primary legislation.

In our previous days’ discussions on the Bill, we have said we will come back to all manner of really important things in delegated legislation, which can be more easily updated. For some reason, this measure needs to be written into an Act of Parliament.

[Amanda Martin]

The previous Government did take steps on uniform, but they are obviously not working, because parents are paying extortionate amounts of money for uniform. We need to look at what is going wrong. This is a way to help support parents.

[Damian Hinds]

If the Chair will indulge me, I will just read a brief extract of the statutory guidance:

“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 uniform is affordable.

In considering cost, schools will need to think about the total cost of school uniforms, taking into account all items of uniform or clothing parents will need to provide…

Schools should keep the use of branded items to a minimum.

Single supplier contracts should be avoided unless regular tendering competitions are run…This contract should be retendered at least every 5 years.

Schools should ensure that second-hand uniforms are available for parents to acquire”—

and that information needs to be readily available, and schools should

“engage with parents and pupils when they are developing their school uniform policy.”

[Matt Bishop]

I wonder about the word “minimum”. What is minimum? Is it 10 items, five items, 20 items?

[Damian Hinds]

What the guidance is saying to a headteacher is, “We trust you to be able to make judgements.” By the way, the Department gives guidance to schools on all manner of things, within which schools then make judgements on what is right, but it is statutory guidance, which means they have to have regard to every element in it.

I think it sounds like pretty good guidance. It is comprehensive. Unlike the clause that will become part of an Act of Parliament, it does not just focus on one aspect of cost. It talks about all the aspects.

[Amanda Martin]

The provision would not be in the Bill if the guidance was working. I have already made this comment. What tracking and monitoring has been done of the statutory guidance? It is obviously not working. We hear from parents who are being charged £100 for a blazer, or a rugby top, which has been mentioned—some of those are £50.

[Damian Hinds]

With deep respect, and I absolutely acknowledge the experience that the hon. Lady brings to the subject, there is nothing in the Bill to stop someone being charged £100 for a blazer. That is my point. It homes in on one aspect of the cost of kitting out a child to go to school and ignores the others.

I think the advice is good, and I wonder what makes the Government think that they can come up with a better formulation than trusting individual schools to make that decision—why they think they can come up with something that is going to work for 22,000 schools.

The hon. Lady says it obviously is not working. In the most recent school uniform survey done by the DFE in 2023, parents and carers were significantly more likely—twice as likely—to report that their school facilitated purchase of second-hand uniform. It had been 32% of parents, but now it is up to 65%.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston covered how the text as laid out in the Bill uses the word “branded”, but that includes not only where there is a school name or logo but if

“as a result of its colour, design, fabric or other distinctive characteristic, it is only available from particular suppliers.”

It covers rather more items than the lay reader might expect when talking about branded items.

There will be a maximum of three branded items in primary school, and four in secondary school if the fourth is a tie. What have the Government got against ties in primary schools? I put down a written parliamentary question on that, and I got an answer back that explained that the vast majority of primary schools do not have a tie. That is true—but some do. Why is it that Ministers sitting in Sanctuary Buildings think that because most do not have a tie, no one should be allowed to have a tie in year 6?

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston already asked, and it is also in the amendment in his name, why the Bill specifies one cannot have more than three branded items, rather than require the purchase of more than three. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North outlined a case where the school might decide that a good use of its funds is to provide an item. It might not be sports gear—it might be a book bag—but as currently drafted, the school would not be allowed to do that.

The clause includes the phrase “during a school year”. That is peculiar wording. I do not know of any school that requires the use of uniform outside of the school year, so what is the purpose of that —what is it getting at? I presume that it means that there cannot be a summer uniform and a winter uniform, and not that it means one cannot replace an item part way through the year. First, it would be helpful to know that for sure, and secondly, it highlights again the craziness of writing that level of detail into an Act of Parliament. Schools are already obliged in the statutory guidance to ensure that uniform cost should not be a factor in school choice. Why not trust them to work out how best to do that, rather than have that level of prescription?

The hon. Member for Twickenham also made the point that the cost of uniform is not only about the number of items, but a mix of what the uniform is, the supplier price, the negotiation with suppliers, and the availability of second-hand uniform. Some schools will provide free uniform through a uniform exchange in certain cases. If I had to pick, I would contend that the bigger factor is the availability of second-hand uniform, rather than having one extra item. As I said earlier, many schools now provide that.

I also ask for clarity about optional items. For example, with a woolly hat, a school may say, “You do not have to have a woolly hat, but if you do, it should be a school woolly hat.” I am not clear whether that would be captured by the regulations. On the question of grandfathering, are we saying that from the moment that the Bill becomes an Act, the rules take effect whatever year in school someone is currently in, or are we saying that it applies to new entrants to key stage 1, key stage 2, year 7 or a middle school? If not, does that mean that a pupil already in school could say, “You can’t enforce your existing uniform policy on me”?

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Vicky Foxcroft.)

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eighth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

Amendment 46 is very similar to amendment 33, in the name of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, in that it removes subsection (3) and condition A, and for much the same reasons. We are extremely concerned that a parent wanting to remove their child with special educational needs and disabilities from a special school will be subject to this extra bureaucracy.

We know that we have a SEND crisis. There are so many parents, even when their child is in a special school, who feel that the school is not meeting their child’s educational needs and that their child is better served through a home education. I would point out that the local authority does not always have the best information on children in special schools. They will be turning to the schools themselves for a view, maybe more so than to the parents. There may be a bit of iniquity there.

I would like to question the Minister on the circumstances in which the local authority can refuse permission. Condition A implies almost an equivalence between children with special educational needs and children where there are safeguarding concerns, which seems quite a parallel to draw in legislation. The other question I have is about the timescale for the decision making. We know that local authorities can get bogged down in their processes. How does the Minister plan to ensure that authorities are not taking a long time to grant permission to parents to take their children out of special needs schools when they feel that school is not meeting their child’s needs?

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a very long-standing right in England for a parent to choose to send their child to school or to educate at home. It is a right that the vast majority of parents never take up, but which nevertheless could be considered a fundamental parent’s right. The condition is always that the child must be receiving a suitable education. That phrase, “a suitable education”, has never been defined in law, and on occasion that creates some tensions. School should be right for the vast majority of children. A school system is designed to apply to the vast majority of children. The Bill is right to introduce a register of children not in school. That was also our policy when in government, but I think the balance is wrong between the detail of information required of parents and the support on offer.

Although the number of children in elective home education has been growing, the data collection is relatively new and has been mandatory only since autumn 2024, so some of that growth—as the DFE statisticians themselves say—will be because of that effect. It had been rising even before covid, and then there was a distinct covid effect, which we can see in the numbers. There are multiple reasons why children might be out of school and being educated at home—because of their special needs, perhaps because they have been bullied badly at school, or for various mental health reasons.

Some parents make the most enormous sacrifices in their lives to provide a suitable education for their child. I was reminded by someone who came to my surgery the other day that they are not all in terrible circumstances. This mother said to me, “There’s nothing wrong with our life at all. We do this because we think it’s the right thing for our family.” It is her right, too.

As a society, we have a moral imperative to know that children are safe. That is where exceptions to rights kick in. There is a really important distinction to be made here. Sometimes, people talk about a growth in elective home education as being a safeguarding concern. It is not. There is nothing about educating a child at home that is intrinsically a safeguarding concern, but it is also the case that if a neglective parent had the opportunity to take a child out of school, they might abuse that. That does in no way besmirch or call into question the overall concept of elective home education or the parents doing it.

Like those colleagues who have just spoken, I am worried about condition A in subsection (3)—that a child attending a special school would need the same permission as a family under investigation. From our surgeries, when we meet parents who are educating at home, it quite often concerns a child who was at a special school. It strikes me as very peculiar to say that we should group together a child, because they have special educational needs or a disability, with those families that are a subject of concern.

I hope the Minister can help with me this, because I might have just missed it, or might be being thick, but I am a bit confused about the terminology in the Bill, which refers in multiple places to education “otherwise than at school”. Ordinarily, that has a different meaning from elective home education. Education otherwise than at school, commonly known by its acronym of EOTAS, is different. Elective home education is parent-led; it is a voluntary choice that can be made by any parent for their child, and then it is left to them. They will then have, at least today, minimal support from the local authority.

EOTAS is different. It is something legally mandated but available for children with special educational needs or disabilities. It is agreed with the local authority. The local authority is then responsible for providing support. One often talks about an EOTAS package that is put around the child, which may involve some tutoring, some online stuff and various other things. Often, the child has an education, health and care plan in place. Again, I ask forgiveness if I have just misread this, but when we talk about applying to take a child into education otherwise than at school, I just do not understand how that works. Perhaps the Minister can help me.

For further clarification, subsection (8)(b) talks about notifying

“any other parent of the child…unless exceptional circumstances apply”.

I wonder if it might be helpful to define a little more what those exceptional circumstances are, because one can imagine difficulties where there is an abusive relationship, and the nature of that abusive relationship may not be known to the authorities at the time. There may be an incarcerated parent or various other conditions.

Finally, for clarification, subsection (10)(b) says that, by way of an appeal mechanism,

“the parent may refer the question to the Secretary of State”

That is quite a thing for a regular parent to take on. No doubt the intent is some sort of mechanism to appeal, not personally to the Secretary of State, but to a representative of the Department for Education. Will the Minister say a word about what that mechanism is and how it will be accessed?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East for his thoughtful contribution, speaking from the heart on why the measures in this landmark Bill are so important.

Amendments 33 and 46 seek to amend the clause to remove the requirement for parents to obtain local authority consent to home educate should the child attend a special school arranged by the local authority. It is necessary to have that requirement. It provides a check to ensure that home education is in the best interests of the child, and that there are no education suitability issues resulting from no longer attending a special school.

A similar requirement has existed in secondary legislation for many years. I consider it appropriate for such a requirement to be in primary legislation to ensure consistency as part of the new package of consent requirements. I do not consider that children in those circumstances are necessarily at greater risk, but they will have a higher level of need when it comes to ensuring a suitable education. Therefore, no longer attending a special school may impact educational provision and is vital to ensure that it is in the best interests of the child to be home educated, and that suitable arrangements have been made for their education before the child comes off roll. Therefore, for the reasons I have out- lined, I ask the hon. Members kindly to withdraw their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I join colleagues in finding troubling the level of detail to be required of home-educating parents. The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston would make sensible adjustments to that, for example by deleting the requirement to show the split between how many hours are done by parent 1 and how many by parent 2. The Government could also amend the frequency of reporting to something more reasonable—or, handily, there is a piece of text ready and waiting, because a private Member’s Bill last year from my then hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley contained the text for a proposed new section 436C.

Proposed new section 436E concerns providers. Did Ministers consider approaching this measure in a completely different way? They could have said that the onus should be on the provider to say who they are and to demonstrate their bona fides, with Disclosure and Barring Service checks and so on, as part of a light-touch registration regime. I am not necessarily advocating such a scheme, but what other models were thought about?

On proposed new section 436G, Ministers will know that a gripe of home-educating parents is that a lot is asked of them but little is offered back. Might it be sensible to change the wording? Instead of the support being

“whatever the local authority considers fit”,

it could be something like “whatever the local authority considers fit, having regard to guidance that it may receive from the Department for Education,” or from Ofsted or whoever it might be.

[Neil O’Brien]

I will just register this point again for Ministers to consider. A lot of people are surprised to learn that although a school will pay for a child to enter GCSEs and the like, home educators do not enjoy that benefit. If we want to make it easier for people to home school their children properly, rather than their children just being out of school, we need to address that long-standing issue. I wonder whether Ministers will consider that point?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me to my final point. Apart from the cost issue, there is the simple question of access and of children being able to sit the GCSE. As there is a vast amount of detail involved, it would be helpful to say that local authorities should ensure that entry to examination centres is possible for those children.

[Stephen Morgan]

Amendments 62, 63 and 64, in the names of the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, and amendment 86, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Twickenham and for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, would remove requirements for parents to provide certain information for children not in school registers.

Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 makes it clear that it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children

“receive efficient full-time education suitable”

for them. We know that many parents work hard to do so, including parents who home educate. However, some children not in school are not receiving a full-time education that allows them to achieve and thrive. Where that is the case, it is essential that local authorities can identify and support them. This is a fundamental objective of the children not in school register.

Information on the amount of time that a child receives education from their parents, combined with information on where the child receives education other than with their parent, is a crucial part of building the picture of home-educated children’s circumstances. Amendment 62 would mean that that picture could not be built.

Often, the circumstances will differ greatly from child to child; for example, home-educated children do not have set hours in the same way as children at school. Amendments 63 and 64 would potentially create loopholes in the registration system through their attempts to set a time threshold or to exempt weekends and holidays from the parental duty to provide information about out-of-school education providers.

Six hours per week at a provider could represent a large proportion of a child’s learning, especially for children with additional needs that limit their ability to engage with teaching for prolonged periods. Equally, children who could spend five hours per week or the whole weekend in an unsafe setting and home-educated children would not have the protective factor of attending a properly registered school for the other five days of the week.

The amendments would mean that parents are not required to inform their local authority that their child was receiving education in such settings, by virtue of the provision falling below an arbitrary time threshold or taking place on the wrong day of the week, such as at the weekend. There is too much potential for unregistered independent schools to exploit this to avoid detection.

Amendment 86 seeks to remove the requirement that the names and addresses of a child’s parents are provided for registers when a safeguarding concern is identified by either parent. To build a full picture of the circumstances of a child’s home education, it is necessary to include the name and address of each parent.

We know that there will be safeguarding concerns around some parents that mean that they are not or should not be allowed to be involved in the child’s education or have contact with the child, such as where there have been instances of domestic violence. The duty requires only that parents provide information that they know. Parents would not be required to seek out an estranged partner to provide their address if they do not know it, and the data held on the registers will be subject to data protection law, with the requisite restrictions on access and disclosure of personal and identifying information. For the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.

Amendment 65, tabled by the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, would require that where the Secretary of State wants further information about children to be included in children not in school registers, regulations subject to the affirmative procedure have to be made. The Bill already provides for the affirmative procedure in proposed new section 436C, within clause 25, so I ask the hon. Members not to press the amendment.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Morgan]

The Government take very seriously the protection of children and young people, particularly when they are receiving their education. We know that teachers are the single most important in-school factor in a child’s education. We also know that the overwhelming majority of those teachers are highly competent and never engage in any form of serious misconduct, but the reality is that some teachers do commit serious misconduct and it is vital that, when this occurs, it is dealt with fairly and transparently. That is why we have robust arrangements in place for regulating the teaching profession.

The overriding aims of the teacher misconduct regime are to protect children and young people, to help to maintain public confidence in the teaching profession and to uphold proper standards of conduct. This reflects the expectations placed on teachers throughout their career, both inside and outside school, as set out in the published teacher standards.

The current teacher misconduct regime was established in 2012. Since then, we have made a number of changes to the processes and procedures to take account of relevant case law and High Court judgments, including changes to the publicly available teacher misconduct advice, which sets out the factors to be considered by professional conduct panels when dealing with cases of teacher misconduct. We have also amended the funding agreements of further education colleges, special post-16 institutions and independent training providers, so that, like schools and sixth-form colleges, they do not employ prohibited teachers.

There is, however, more that we need to do to ensure that children and young people are protected, and the only way we can do this is by making the amendments proposed in the clause. The clause allows the Secretary of State to consider whether it is appropriate to investigate serious misconduct that occurred when the person was not employed in teaching work, but we will ensure that cases are taken forward only when there is a clear rationale for doing so and when a range of factors, including public interest, the seriousness of the misconduct and any mitigation presented by the individual, have been considered. The clause will also extend the teacher misconduct regime beyond schools and sixth-form colleges to cover further education colleges, special post-16 institutions, independent training providers, online education providers and independent educational institutions. This will ensure that children under the age of 19 are protected when accessing their education.

Finally, the clause enables the Secretary of State to consider referrals of serious misconduct irrespective of where they come from. Existing legislation does not allow the Teaching Regulation Agency to consider referrals from departmental officials when serious misconduct comes to their attention during the performance of their day-to-day duties. The clause ensures that cases may be referred to the Teaching Regulation Agency promptly, without the need to wait for a third party to make a referral or where it is unclear whether someone else has made or will make the referral. We are also clear that this should be a fair and transparent process, and we will provide training for staff to help them to understand more about the types of circumstances in which they should consider making a referral. Collectively, and most importantly, the clause will ensure the protection and safeguarding of more children and young people. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

First, I will ask the Minister a bit about process. The questions we ask in Parliament are often rhetorical; we do not expect answers to them from Ministers, and nor do we get them, but this is the Committee stage of a Bill’s passage, known as line-by-line scrutiny, where quite often he questions we put are questions about facts or the intent of the legislation. I have asked a number of questions at different points in this Committee stage that have not been answered, but nor has the Minister necessarily been saying, “I will write to the hon. Member in response.” Does he intend to do that, or, if any questions have been left hanging, are we required to put down a written parliamentary question to which the Minister will respond?

For the avoidance of doubt, what I am about to say is not in the category of question that requires a factual response or note of intent. The misconduct regime covered in the clause is clearly exceptionally important for the protection of children, public confidence and maintaining the very highest reputation of the profession. I welcome what is new in the clause, because it is right and proportionate that we should be able to take action regardless of when the incident took place and whether the individual was a teacher in the profession at that time. I also welcome online education and independent educational settings being brought into scope, as well as the ability to investigate a suspicion or an incident regardless of how it came to light.

I want to ask the Minister about something related to the regulatory regime. It would not technically require primary legislation, but there are quite a lot of things in the Bill that do not require primary legislation to be effected. I am referring to the matter of vexatious complaints. In the world we live in, particularly with the influence and prevalence of social media, we have heard teachers express the feeling that sometimes, in a small minority of cases, complaints may be made against a teacher neither for the right reasons, nor because of a genuine safeguarding concern. Of course there should not be barriers blocking people from any background raising concerns; the ability to do so should be available to everybody. Equally, however, there is a concern sometimes that when seeking to remove barriers, we risk going too far the other way.

We must ensure that there is a process to go through so that all genuine concerns and complaints do come through, but that we do not end up with an excessive volume of vexatious complaints. These are, I am afraid, sometimes fuelled by social media.

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Let me state on the record that I have not met a single teacher who has not received some form of vexatious complaint at one point in their career. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will speak to this issue when he responds.

The Bill expands the scope for potential dismissal. Dismissal processes are incredibly cumbersome and costly for schools, so will the Minister speak to what provision he will make for schools to be reimbursed for what they are going through? The Bill also expands the capacity to look back into the previous career of someone who has started up a school. Would bankruptcy, for instance, prevent someone from being considered worthy of running a school? Will the Minister therefore also speak to whether a perfectly reasonable business experience might cause the Secretary of State to intervene?

[Stephen Morgan]

I appreciate the questions and contributions from the Opposition on this important clause. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire is right to ensure that he gets responses to all the questions that he raises, and I know from my own postbag that he does not shy from submitting written parliamentary questions, so I am sure he will find that route or any other appropriate route. He has asked a number of detailed questions and I am very keen that we are scrutinised in the way that we are taking this Bill forward, so if there is anything we have not responded to, obviously I shall be delighted to do so.

[Damian Hinds]

To give a few examples, I have asked about the distinction between elective home education and education otherwise than at school, what happens with optional uniform items, and what happens in schools that already have a breakfast club that lasts longer than 30 minutes. None of these were meant to be difficult or rhetorical questions, designed to catch the Minister out; they are genuine questions, and I do not think any were answered on the floor of the Committee. My question is, therefore, will Ministers write in general, or do we need to put down further questions if we want to get answers?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention —his questions are on the public record, and we will do our best to respond to each of the points. My colleague may also wish to respond.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I rise to seek clarity on how the Committee is conducting itself. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleague, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, have said a number of times that they realise that they are asking a large number of questions and do not expect answers to all of them—

[Damian Hinds]

Not now.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Excuse me. I am speaking. We would be more than happy to answer all of the questions that are being asked, but it may be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman and his colleague were more clear about what questions that do require specific answers have not been answered while we are discussing the specific clause. We would be more than happy to furnish them with responses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston talked about bottom lines and evidence. At the moment, the attainment gap between those who achieve and those who do not is widening across our country. For a number of years, and since the previous Government—the right hon. Member for East Hampshire was in fact—

[Damian Hinds]

Will the hon. Lady give way, on a point of fact?

[Amanda Martin]

Not at the moment, no. The gap is widening.

[Damian Hinds]

No, it is not.

[Amanda Martin]

The attainment gap has widened.

[Damian Hinds]

Does the hon. Lady know what the attainment gap was at key stage 2 and key stage 4 in 2010, and how it compares with right now?

[Amanda Martin]

The right hon. Member was a Secretary of State, and under his leadership the teachers’ recruitment crisis was worse than it had ever been. Recruitment targets for core subjects such as maths, physics and modern languages were missed, and retention rates were poor. That was when we were allowing people with qualified teachers status and without it. It is not a bottom line for what we want our children to have: it should be a right for every single child, wherever they are in the country, to be taught by a qualified teacher, or somebody on the route to qualified teacher status. Just because we had not achieved it under the last Government, that does not mean we should not have ambition for our children to achieve it under this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Paffey]

I fully agree that it is deeply concerning that qualified teacher status is so unimportant to them. However, it is unsurprising that the profession is in the state it is and feeling utterly undervalued after the last 14 years. I simply do not understand why qualified teacher status in all schools is such a low priority for some.

The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston mentioned that is the prerogative of good headteachers to have that freedom. Would he therefore logically suggest that it is the freedom of every hospital director to decide whether someone is suitably qualified to carry out surgery, or would they ask for an independent agreed common framework of training and qualification for surgeons? I suspect, and hope, it would be that. The response, as I have said, to the recruitment and the shortage issue is not to lower our ambitions.

I think back to the evidence session in which we heard from Sir Martyn Oliver—His Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted—who actually said that appointing a non-qualified teacher to role was a “deficit decision”. Those were his words, not mine. He said that it would not be his first choice, no matter how well it worked, and that non-QTS staff should supplement fully qualified staff, not replace them. I ask the Opposition to reflect on that.

This proportionate, reassuring measure is restoring common sense. It is once again restoring the value of teaching as a profession, alongside the other measures that have been taken on teacher pay, teacher prestige and investment in schools, although those were certainly not taken in recent years.

[Damian Hinds]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen. I enjoyed his speech and I think he made several very good points, a number of which the Opposition would agree with. We certainly agree with the importance of the foundation of qualified teacher status, and a lot of work rightly went into reforming the core content and framework of initial teacher training, as well as the early career framework. Those are incredibly important foundations for a successful career in teaching.

With the present Government’s plan to recruit just 6,500 teachers over the next five years, which is a material slow-down compared with the Parliament just ended, it should be more straightforward to hit those recruitment targets, but I do not think this discussion is really about the numbers that we can recruit into the teaching profession. It is about getting the right people, which the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen also said. It is not about obsessing over having the structures but getting the right people, and this is about getting the right people in front of children in school settings. By the way, presuming we are not just talking about academics, that also applies to sport, music and art.

[Patrick Spencer]

Can my right hon. Friend answer me this question? Which is better, an English graduate, with QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school, or a maths graduate, without QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school?

[Damian Hinds]

I think this is where the whole House comes together. The best of all worlds is to have someone who is both a subject specialist, with their own excellent academic record, and QTS, and who is also a really inspirational practitioner. Of course, those three things come together on many occasions, but sometimes there are choices that have to be made.

[Darren Paffey]

Very briefly, does the right hon. Gentleman not agree therefore that the right people we are talking about are not just those who quite rightly often have a stellar career in another area of subject expertise? Would they not be right for children and for schools if they wanted not only to bring that expertise but to do everything they can to be best prepared to direct the curriculum, outcome and chances of those children by being qualified?

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, and for many people that is the right thing to do. There are mid-career and later-career programmes for coming into teaching and I want people to do those more and more. Sometimes, however, people come from abroad, and it could be from a country with which we do not necessarily have mutual recognition, or they might come from the independent sector, so they might have taught for many years and be an outstanding practitioner. The hon. Gentleman also said if he went to the mechanic, he would not want someone who is just fascinated by engines, and I understand that entirely. However, if someone wanted to learn football, and they had the opportunity to learn from a professional footballer, although not as the only PE teacher—

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

rose—

[Amanda Martin]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

Look at this! How do I choose? I will go to the hon. Member for Portsmouth North.

[Amanda Martin]

And a cracking football team, I will add. Absolutely, those sportsmen and sportswomen can inspire, but actually many of those at the elite of their game would not understand the difficulties for those children who may not be as good at that sport, so therefore it is about their learning of pedagogy and differentiation. They could absolutely enhance learning, but actually becoming a teacher would need a qualified teacher status. If someone is really committed and wants to give something back, they can spend a year of their time on a PGCE to get that on-the-job training. We should not be racing to the bottom with our kids.

[Damian Hinds]

I am very happy to let that comment sit there. Of course, the hon. Lady is right: there are many things that come from a PGCE, but being a top-five footballer may not be one of them. For that kid, having in their school, with other PE teachers, someone with personal experience playing at a high or high-ish level might really bring something. That does not negate the hon. Lady’s point, but I think it stands on its own.

[Ellie Chowns]

As the parent of a former footballer, I know that the Football Association does not let people coach football, even Saturday league, without being a qualified coach, so the right hon. Member’s analogy falls down.

[Damian Hinds]

She makes my point for me.

[Ellie Chowns]

No, I am making my point, which is that it is entirely reasonable to require that people who are in an educational role are either qualified to take that role or undergoing the process of qualification. If somebody wants to be a teacher and wants to contribute to educating our young people, I see no reason why they would not want to make sure that they have the skills to do that. [Interruption.] I let the right hon. Gentleman finish his sentences.

[Damian Hinds]

I think the hon. Lady makes my point for me: it is possible to train children to play football without a PGCE.

[Ellie Chowns]

When coaching young people playing football at Saturday clubs, the Football Association is the relevant regulatory body. When teaching in a school, the relevant regulatory body is that which gives qualified teacher status.

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, but that does not change the fact that individuals, perhaps including the hon. Lady’s son—I do not know her son; I do not know his circumstances or his school career—may be perfectly capable of helping kids learn how to play football without having a PGCE, and it happens—

[Ellie Chowns]

rose—

[Lizzi Collinge]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

Colleagues and friends, forgive me; it happens all the time in clubs and in schools. It happens in after-school football clubs and before-school football clubs. If the club starts five minutes after half-past 3 or finishes five minutes before half-past 3, I am not quite sure I understand how that individual’s ability to help kids to learn how to play football is materially affected.

[Lizzi Collinge]

rose—

[Catherine McKinnell]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I did not realise we were going to spend today talking about football.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I think it might be helpful to clarify—although I am surprised it needs to be clarified for a former Secretary of State for Education—that the current exemptions for qualified teacher status, which he will be well aware of, already apply to maintained schools and they will continue to apply as part of the extension of the same requirements to the academy system. He will be well aware of the exemptions, and he will be well aware that what he is saying is not correct.

[Damian Hinds]

No, no, no; he may be well aware of many things, but he is certainly not well aware that what he is saying is not correct. He is totally aware that what he just said is correct: that people who do not have a PGCE or QTS may still form a valuable and useful part of the staff at a school to help kids to learn in a variety of disciplines, including non-academic ones such as sport and art.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I am starting to attract a little bit too much attention from Sir Edward, who I think may be becoming impatient with me for the length of my speech, but I will give way one last time.

[Lizzi Collinge]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his patience with our multiple interventions. However, I believe they are very necessary. Does he agree that the experiences of hundreds of thousands of parents during covid lockdowns, when schools were closed, show very clearly that having professional knowledge and experience in the workplace is no substitution for being a teacher? As someone who home-schooled a two-year-old and a six-year-old, trust me when I say that that experience gave me even more respect for the qualified teachers of this world. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a fundamental difference between subject-matter expertise and the ability to teach?

[Damian Hinds]

I agree with the hon. Lady 100%, just as I agreed with what the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen said entirely. Of course, there is not just a material difference between not being a qualified teacher and being a qualified teacher. It is like night and day, and what teachers learn about pedagogy and the experience they get during that time cannot be replicated on an online course or by reading books. She is right, too, that during covid millions of people up and down the country quite rightly developed, renewed or enhanced their respect for the teaching profession and for what teaching is capable of doing.

[Neil O’Brien]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I did say, “One last time,” but I cannot refuse my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

To finish the point, sometimes there are reasons. Sometimes people want to give back; but by making it harder for them to go to state schools, it is state schools that will miss out—not independent schools or others.

[Damian Hinds]

The points that the hon. Members for Southampton Itchen and for Morecambe and Lunesdale made lead me to—you will be pleased to know, Sir Edward—the concluding section of my remarks, which is to pose the same question that all Opposition Members have posed: why? What is driving this? As with so many other aspects of the Bill—we heard about in the evidence sessions on day one—what is the problem we are trying to solve?

So I did a little research. I wondered—after 14 dark years of Conservatives in government, people being able to recruit teachers willy-nilly, a race to the bottom, blah, blah, blah—how huge the proportion had become of the teaching workforce without qualified status, which is something that Government Members, I and all of us know has such huge value, but which can also be complemented by people with other types of expertise and experience, who may help to augment those brilliant teachers with their qualified teacher status. What do you suppose the proportion was, Sir Edward?

[The Chair]

I don’t know, you tell me.

[Damian Hinds]

I am at liberty to reveal that, after those 14 years, the proportion of the teaching workforce without qualified teacher status was 3.1%. [Interruption.] Then I thought—like the hon. Member for Lewisham North, the Whip—that it might have been from a low base and that there must have been huge growth in those 14 years. So I looked back to see what the proportion was in 2010. Last year, it was 3.1%. Can you guess what it was in 2010, Sir Edward?

[The Chair]

I’ve no idea.

[Damian Hinds]

It was 3.2%—so the proportion in fact shrank slightly over those 14 years. I therefore wonder what verdict Government Members, in their bid to avoid a race to the bottom, give on the Labour Government from 1997 to 2010, which left us with 3.2% of the teaching workforce not being qualified.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Does the right hon. Member have a breakdown of how many of that percentage are teachers in training?

[Damian Hinds]

I do—I am so glad the hon. Lady asked that, because I asked the same question that she rightly did. Presumably, most of the 3.2% were on a journey towards qualified teacher status. I have the spreadsheet on front of me: the proportion of full-time equivalent teachers without qualified teacher status who were not on a QTS route in 2010-11 was 85.6%.

[Amanda Martin]

Will the right hon. Gentleman take a question?

[Damian Hinds]

I thought I was doing the questions. My question is: what is the thing that has changed and got worse over this period, which the Government think they are going to address? What is driving the inclusion of these provisions in primary legislation? What problem are Ministers trying to solve?

[Amanda Martin]

I would like to understand whether the classes that are covered by teaching assistants and cover supervisors are included in the ratio of qualified or unqualified teachers, because things happen on a daily basis in our classrooms, and teachers are not always registered as the registered teacher—they might be covering a class or they might be a teaching assistant who has been asked to step up. I was asked why, and I was not able to answer at the beginning, but the Government still believe that the answer to the “Why?” question is that we need to ensure that all our children are taught by qualified teachers to get the best education. During the early 2010s, the gap across all school stages began to gradually close, but the attainment gap has since widened, with 10 years of progress wiped out—that is from a February 2024 Sutton Trust report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

Thank you, Sir Edward. I rise to speak to amendments in the names of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and the hon. Member for Twickenham, and to clause 40 stand part.

Turning first to amendment 73, I do appreciate that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has some concerns about clause 40. However, this amendment could deny new teachers high-quality training and induction, which is based on the evidence of what makes good teaching during the critical early years of their careers. Moreover, the amendment would apply to schools maintained by local authorities and special schools, which are already required to employ teachers who have or are working towards QTS—a system, I might add, that is working quite effectively. As well as ensuring subject knowledge, QTS ensures that teachers understand how children learn, can adapt their teaching to the needs of children in their class—particularly and including those with special educational needs—and can develop effective behaviour management techniques. It is remarkable that we are having to justify the importance of teacher training.

[Damian Hinds]

You’re not.

[Neil O’Brien]

Straw man.

[Catherine McKinnell]

It has been referred to as a bureaucratic hurdle a number of times during this debate, which I think those in the teaching profession will find remarkable, as well as parents, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North said.

Amendment 73 could also lead to some unqualified teachers either leaving the profession or moving to another school before the five-year deadline that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston suggests, rather than gaining the training and support to which all teachers should be entitled. That would risk having a negative impact on both the quality of teaching and the retention of teachers. We recognise that schools will still need some flexibility, so we are updating regulations to clarify that schools will still be able to recruit an unqualified teacher. Those teachers will have three terms to secure a place on an appropriate route to qualified teacher status, which will ensure that schools’ recruitment processes for teachers are not held up in any way.

[Damian Hinds]

Just to ask a factual question that I should know the answer to, are those regulations published?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Those are the regulations that are already in place for the maintained sector.

[Damian Hinds]

The Minister said she had updated them.

[Catherine McKinnell]

They will be updated to apply to the academies sector.

Turning to amendment 74, I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to ensure that the clause does not impact the working arrangements of unqualified teachers already working in academies. We agree that the requirement should not impact existing employment arrangements in academies, but we need to do that in a way that does not inadvertently affect the way that legislation already applies to local authority maintained schools and special schools.

We will, subject to the passage of the Bill, provide an exemption in regulations for any teacher who commences their employment with an academy school or trust prior to September 2026. Those teachers who move to another employer after that date will need to obtain qualified teacher status. We will set out an exemption in regulations for teachers who are employed to teach in a primary or secondary academy setting. That will mean that we are able to provide schools with reasonable time to prepare for any necessary changes to their recruitment procedures following changes to primary legislation.

On amendments 75 and 94, I recognise the challenges around teacher recruitment that we have inherited. However, the solution should not be to embed lower standards for shortage subjects in primary legislation. The amendments would create uncertainty for schools and teachers, as the teachers that schools employ could move in and out of the requirement to hold qualified teacher status depending on each year’s initial teacher training recruitment data. They would also change the requirements for qualified teacher status in local authority maintained schools and special schools, which are already required to employ teachers with qualified teacher status.

Under clause 40, schools will continue to be able to recruit teachers without qualified teacher status for any subject and then support those teachers to gain qualified teacher status through an appropriate route.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Munira Wilson]

He was a teacher before he became an MP. School leaders are raising concerns about their freedom to deviate being taken away. They feel that they need a degree of deviation where children have fallen behind, or for good geographical reasons, or because a particular cohort needs it. I have nothing against the national curriculum—it is a very good thing.

The hon. Gentleman brings me to new clauses 65 and 66. My worry is that imposing the provision on all schools in the middle of a curriculum review means that Members of Parliament are being asked to sign all schools up to something when we do not yet know what it looks like. That is why I ask, in new clause 66, for parliamentary approval and oversight of what the curriculum review brings forward. We have no idea what the review’s outcome will be or what the Government will propose. New clause 65 would ensure that we have flexibility.

The Minister says that new clause 65 adds too much complexity to what is already in place, but I come back to my earlier point: what we are not talking about is not yet in place. The provisions will come into force once the new curriculum is implemented as a result of the review. Through my two new clauses, I am proposing a basic core curriculum to which every child is entitled, and sufficient flexibility for school leaders to respond to the needs and issues in their communities. They are the experts. The hon. Member for St Helens North is an expert because he was a teacher, but in general Members of Parliament and Ministers—I say this with all due respect—are not education experts, as far as I am aware.

I do not think it is necessarily for Whitehall to decide every element of the curriculum. My aim in the amendment is to put into legislation a basic core curriculum, with flexibility around the edges and parliamentary approval. We do not know what is coming down the tracks, but we will ask schools to implement it, so I do not think it unreasonable to expect Parliament to give approval to what comes out of the review.

I have a specific question for Ministers—one that I put to Leora Cruddas from the Confederation of School Trusts. I asked her how she thought the curriculum provisions would apply to university technical colleges, which by their nature stray quite a lot from the curriculum. I visited a great UTC in Durham in the north-east—the Minister may have visited herself—and was interested to see how much it narrows the curriculum. People might think that that is a good or a bad thing, but young people with very specific skillsets and interests have flourished in some UTCs. Will this provision apply to UTCs?

Nigel Genders, who has been quoted already, raised the same point I did—that we are being asked to make these provisions when we do not know what the curriculum will be. I respectfully ask that Ministers seriously consider new clauses 65 and 66, particularly the parliamentary oversight aspect.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The national curriculum is a vital part of our school system, but its centrality does not mean there is never space for deviation from it. A couple of hours ago I was saying that initial teacher training and qualified teacher status is a fundamental foundation of our school system, with 97% of teachers in the state education system having qualified teacher status. It was 97% in 2024, and as it happens it was also 97% in 2010. Similarly, we know that the great majority of schools follow the national curriculum the great majority of the time.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I will if the hon. Member wants to correct what I said.

[Tom Hayes]

Can the right hon. Gentleman provide statistics on the extent to which the national curriculum is followed by academies? That feels to me to be more of a contested space.

[Damian Hinds]

That is a question for the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues on the Government Front Bench. He is at liberty to table a written parliamentary question, but I think he will find that it is not possible to get a numerical answer to that question. We did, though, discuss the matter with Ofsted in the evidence sessions—I think the hon. Gentleman was there—and it is a broadly known fact, as any educationalist will tell him, that the vast majority of schools follow the national curriculum for all sorts of good reasons, some of which I will come to.

It is not widely understood that the national curriculum has always been a relatively loose framework, including for maintained schools. That is the British tradition. There are other school systems in the world that are very much more centrally directed. Even for local authority and maintained schools it has always been, relatively speaking, quite a devolved system with relative autonomy. It is not possible, sitting in Sanctuary Buildings, to decide suddenly what children are going to learn. Occasionally we will hear a press story about how the Department or its Ministers have banned Steinbeck from schools in England, but that just is not possible to do. We had a row a couple of years ago about so-called decolonising the curriculum. We had people writing to us saying that our national curriculum glorifies the British empire and instils all these negative attitudes, and I said, “Where? Show me where in this document it does that. It doesn’t.” It does not specify things to study in nearly that much detail.

That brings me on to the Semmelweis question. I first posed the Semmelweis question more than 10 years ago when I was on the Education Committee, because I was curious to know who decides what children learn in schools. For anyone who wants to know what the Semmelweis question is, it is: “Who was Semmelweis?” From visiting schools I realised that everybody under the age of 18 was very familiar with Semmelweis, and young adults and anybody under the age of 25 or 30 knew who Semmelweis was, but nobody over the age of 40 had the first clue who he was.

Would colleagues like to know who Semmelweis was? He worked a hospital in Austria where there were two maternity wards, one of which was staffed by midwives and the other by surgeons. The midwives were women and the surgeons were men. Semmelweis detected, through statistical analysis, that the mortality rates in the two maternity wards were markedly different: the safety rate in the midwife-led ward was much better. This was relevant at the time I looked into it because of the hospital superbug. It is quite difficult to find out who, but somebody had decided that every child in Britain, or in England, should learn this story about Semmelweis, because that would promote hygiene in hospital settings.

Semmelweis is not on the national curriculum. Nowhere does it say in a document produced by the Department for Education that every child will learn that. So who does decide? For most subjects in key stages 1 to 3, it is a mix of what schools themselves decide and individual teachers decide. Historically, it would have been a lot about what was in the textbook, so textbook publishers play a role. In more modern times it is educational technology and platforms like Oak National Academy. Then for English and maths it is very much about what is in the year 6 assessments.

At key stage 4 and sixth form, as the hon. Member for Twickenham set out correctly, it is really the exam boards that decide what a pupil needs to know to get the GCSE or A-level, and it is the same for other qualifications. That in turn determines what children have to learn. That is not the national curriculum but what is called the specification. The specification for a GCSE is about as close as we can get to a definition of who decides what children will learn at school. Although that refers specifically to key stage 4 and above, it also affects what children learn in preparation in lower school and junior schools. The Minister quoted Jim Callaghan and said that things should not be decided in a “secret garden”. Well, that is the secret garden: the specification that determines what is studied at GCSE. It is not, currently, a detailed national curriculum.

Why is the looseness of the national curriculum important? Because the national curriculum is driven by politicians, and keeping the national curriculum loose has helped to keep politics at bay. That can sometimes be frustrating. There will be times when the Minister, like Ministers before her, will say, “My God, I am the Schools Minister—I should be able to determine what happens in schools.” That can be frustrating, but it is also helpful that Ministers cannot affect that directly. I would meet Education Ministers from other countries who said, “We’ve just changed the textbook,” and I would think, “God, I wish we could do that.” But we are a million miles away from saying that we have changed the textbook and every child in England is going to learn the same thing.

By the way, Ministers will still get a procession of people asking for this or that to be put on the curriculum. Spoiler alert: climate change and financial education are both already on the national curriculum, disguised in different subjects, but that will not stop people coming to lobby Ministers to do it for the first time. Ministers will get a lot more of those visits in future.

During the passage of the Education Reform Act 1988—Gerbil, as it was known—the national curriculum could have been made more prescriptive, but self-restraint on the part of the Government of the day, and of Governments since, has meant it has not been. The key point is that we cannot guarantee that self-restraint into the future.

In case colleagues think I am just talking about what children will learn in geography or science, I point out that there are sensitive subjects that a lot of people have an interest in. When we took evidence, I asked the Church of England and Catholic Education Service representatives about someone changing the definition of religious education. Colleagues will know that only one event in history is specified in the national curriculum, which is the holocaust, and no other. English literature is another sensitive subject. Boy, I can tell Ministers that relationships, sex and health education has its controversies—they will not be short of people banging down their door looking for changes there.

[Tom Hayes]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman; as a former Secretary of State, he has a lot of insight and experience, so I am enjoying and learning from what he is saying, but could he say a little about alignment with or deviation from the national curriculum, which is the point we are trying to address? I would appreciate hearing more about his point of view on that.

[Damian Hinds]

I do not know whether the hon. Member has a copy of my notes, but that is what I was just about to say.

I argued on Second Reading that the ability of academies—which are now the majority of secondary schools and a large number of primary schools in this country—even if most of the time hardly any use it, to deviate somewhat from the national curriculum is a safety valve against politicisation. I remind colleagues on the Labour Benches that their party is currently in government with a whacking great majority, but it is possible that it might not be forever. We all have an interest in guarding against over-politicisation.

As we have heard, and as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister rightly said, it can be an instrument of school improvement to ease off from some aspects of the national curriculum while refocussing on core subjects.

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that freedoms in respect of the curriculum have also been used to hide information from children—for example, to avoid giving a broad curriculum on personal, social, health and economic education and so avoid giving full sex education to children? Does he accept that freedoms have been used in ways that could negatively impact children?

[Damian Hinds]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues will necessarily thank her for making that intervention. That view is held by some. Sir Christopher would rightly admonish me were we to get into a whole debate about PSHE or RSHE, but it is true that the RSHE curriculum covers a range of things that, rightly, children must learn about as they prepare for the adult world, develop their sense of self and their place in society and, crucially, learn respect and kindness towards others, along with valuing all individuals. There is also a degree of flexibility within the curriculum, because at the end of the day there are 21,500 schools in the country, and there are schools with different character and different intakes. I am sure the hon. Lady is not trying to make my point for me, but if we make the national curriculum more rigid, we actually run into more problems, rather than solve them.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

You said that the more rigid you make the national curriculum, the more problems we will have, but we are not debating making the national curriculum more rigid. We are debating whether the national curriculum should apply to all schools. A minute ago, you said that the ability not to use the national curriculum is a safety valve against politicisation, but that goes against everything you said in the previous 10 minutes, which was all about the flexibilities that are inherent in the national curriculum, of which you gave some excellent examples.

[Ellie Chowns]

I am so sorry.

[Damian Hinds]

I do not think those things are in conflict. My point was that the national curriculum, as it was set up, is quite loose. It did not have to be, it does not have to be now and it does not have to be in five or 10 years. It can be written exactly as Ministers at the time wish to write it. Although the hon. Lady says we are not debating whether to make the national curriculum more rigid, actually we might be—we do not know. I will come to that in a moment.

I was saying—you will be pleased to know, Sir Christopher, that I do want to accelerate—that the flexibility can be an instrument for school improvement, either for entire year groups, for the entire school or, indeed, on a longer basis, for a nurture group or a group or individual who, for whatever reason, needs additional support. It also means that schools might specialise somewhat, and that they might innovate without having, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston rightly said, to overthink about whether they are complying exactly with this or that specification.

At a time when we are rightly concerned about attendance numbers, it has been suggested to me that making adherence to the national curriculum more specified, and possibly the curriculum itself being made more rigid, could be injurious to school attendance or inclusion in mainstream schooling if it makes more children feel rejected, uncomfortable or unhappy at school and so seek education either at home or in alternative settings.

The crucial point is that, whether schools have innovated with an academy trust curriculum, decided to deviate to support individual groups for a period of time, or specialised somewhat, they will all be judged by Ofsted on the simple requirement of having a broad and balanced curriculum. For most schools the easiest way to comply with having a broad and balanced curriculum is to follow the national curriculum—but there can be other ways. Again, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, I am left wondering what the problem the Government are trying to solve is.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

We keep coming back to “What is the problem?” That is the wrong question to ask. We are partly here to solve problems, but we are also here to reach further and be more ambitious, so the right hon. Gentleman should be asking, “What is the objective we are aiming for?” That would be a far more engaging question for him to ask.

[Damian Hinds]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to pose a great rhetorical question like that, he should have an answer ready. What is it? What is this thing that we are reaching for? I do not think any of us in this room is well qualified or well placed to say, “Where can we take this school?” The person best placed to decide that is the school leader. We would like to give some leeway and flexibility, within a system of all sorts of measurements, constraints and so on, for people to be able to innovate and do what is right for children.

[David Baines]

The right hon. Gentleman would have made a good teacher, because he has a very engaging style—although I would have been grateful for a curriculum so I knew what he was covering in the classroom.

Is the right hon. Gentleman in favour of a national curriculum? If he is not—I am really not sure—why did he not repeal it? If schools need greater flexibility, why did he not get rid of it when he was Education Secretary?

[Damian Hinds]

Bless the hon. Gentleman for saying I am engaging, but I am obviously not that engaging, because I spent the first three minutes explaining why the national curriculum is the core standard and why it is central to our school system. That does not mean, though, that we cannot have some deviation from it, just like—if I recall this, I might bring it back to mind—qualified teacher status, which is, of course, a central part of our teaching profession, but that does not mean there cannot be a little bit of deviation—it is about 3% and has been for the last decade and a half—from it.

[David Baines]

rose—

[Tom Hayes]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I will give way to the hon. Member for St Helens North as he was the nicest to me.

[David Baines]

The right hon. Gentleman just said that the national curriculum is a set of core standards; why should that not apply for all schools?

[Damian Hinds]

For all the reasons that I gave, it does apply. Ofsted requires a broad and balanced curriculum from every school, and the vast majority of the time the vast majority of schools say that that is the national curriculum, but some of them may innovate and deviate. They may need to do something different to support children or they may be in a school improvement phase. All those are good reasons. In a system where we trust school leaders and teachers to do what is right for the kids in front of them, those are all reasons to have some flexibility.

[Ellie Chowns]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the national curriculum is a floor, not a ceiling?

[Damian Hinds]

Sort of. It is not really a floor or a ceiling at the moment; it is a very loose framework that says, “These are the things at key stages 1 to 4 that one should cover.” It is not really a floor because it does not say, “You must learn these things. You may learn others.” It says, “These are the broad categories of things that you must learn.”

[Ellie Chowns]

“Use the scaffolding.”

[Damian Hinds]

Now we are on to modern methods of construction: scaffolding or a floor? I do not know. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East, then I promise I will move on.

[Tom Hayes]

I deeply thank the right hon. Member for taking so many interventions. What is the point of a national curriculum if some schools are not compelled to follow it?

[Damian Hinds]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has mentioned, it has long been the case that some schools have not had to follow the national curriculum. Even under the proposals in the Bill there will be some schools that will not have to follow it. One of the reasons why I have been banging on for so long, Sir Christopher, is because I have been through a lot of these points already and I am being asked to restate them. I have to ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me but, as I have set out, it is a broad framework, and there is nothing wrong with having a little bit of innovation within that.

I want to come to a close. There are serious people working on the curriculum review and I wish them well in their work. We must of course await the outcome, not prejudge it. So far we have heard only the good stuff—the things we are going to add. In politics, it is always easy to talk about adding things. We are adding more creativity, art and sport, and those are all things that I welcome. It is great to have those opportunities for young people. The difficulty may arrive when we ask, “What does that mean?” Does it mean a longer school day, which is one option? Or does it mean that something else has to go to make way for those things? I do not have the answer, but it is a relevant question.

To come back to the ceiling point—whether the national curriculum is a floor or a ceiling—it depends how much headroom is needed. In a very loose national curriculum, schools can innovate and so on, but in a heavily specified national curriculum, they cannot, because the floor is already close to the ceiling and there is not that much room to play with.

I do not know whether the hon. Member for North Herefordshire is on Professor Francis’s working group, or what will be in the review document, but there are three problems with insisting on 100% adherence to the national curriculum. First, we are being asked to agree to it before we have the outcome of the national curriculum review. Secondly, Ministers are not obliged to adopt that independent review; they may decide to do something slightly, or more than slightly, different. Thirdly, they are not obliged to stop there. I say “they”, but it is of course not only them. The Bill is going to be an Act of Parliament: we are not legislating for what happens between 2024 and 2029; in the absence of another piece of legislation to replace this one, we are legislating for all time. We cannot know who might come along in the future and decide to do something of which colleagues here might not approve.

We do not have large numbers of schools teaching unscientific facts, creationism and what have you. We do have Ofsted, which evaluates all schools on whether they follow a broad and balanced curriculum. We know that, the great majority of the time, the great majority of schools follow the national curriculum, but some innovate, and that can have some benefits. Like others, I am left asking Ministers, what problem are we trying to solve?

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I had a long speech prepared, but it does not include Keats, Semmelweis or Callaghan, so I will cut it short. Teachers want to be trusted to teach, to read their class and to choose what to teach, when to teach and how to teach it. My concern is that the Government are bringing all schools under the same framework and that that will allow them to fundamentally change what is taught in schools.

We have all read the news about the Becky Francis review trying to broaden the curriculum, dumb it down, dilute it and move it away from a knowledge-rich focus. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s intention to retain the national curriculum’s focus on knowledge, and the attainment of knowledge, as opposed to skills? I know she will say that the Francis review has not reported, but the Government have no statutory obligation to accept its recommendations. Will Ministers please confirm that they want to keep the national curriculum focused on knowledge and core knowledge subjects?

It is clear that the intention is for all schools to teach the national curriculum. Can the Minister assure me, and thousands of teachers who want to do the best for their students, that the curriculum will be kept broad to allow them to teach as they see fit, in the best interests of their students? Again, the Government do not have to follow the guidance from the Becky Francis review.

What has been proven over time is that the current framework works for academies. I will keep saying this in the Committee: academies have been proven to produce better results for children who come from a low-performing or failing state school—they have been proven to do much better for children in the long term. [Interruption.] They have; that is what the evidence says.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

All right. I have a lot of sympathy with amendments 88 and 89, and I agree that the drafting of the clause seems at odds with the explanatory notes. There is a potential overreach of the Secretary of State’s powers over schools, so I look forward to hearing what the Minister can say to temper what is in the Bill. I have no problem ideologically with what I think are the Ministers’ intentions; it is just that the drafting seems to allow a level of overreach and micromanagement from Whitehall, which I think we all wish to avoid.

[Damian Hinds]

Clause 43 will give the Secretary of State a power to direct specific actions to comply with duties, rather than just specifying what those duties are. That is what brings it into a different category. It is a much wider set of powers than we would find in a funding agreement. In principle, it appears to include the power to dictate how individual schools are run, which is not to say that the present Ministers would ever do so.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, is there a mechanism to challenge or appeal a decision made in that way? Secondly, has the Department assessed how much extra work will be involved for it as a result of handling more complaints?

I want to say a little about academies and maintained schools in general. There is no conflict. Defending academy freedoms and what academies can do does not mean pushing down on maintained schools. I have had children at both, and I have both in my constituency. In fact, East Hampshire is relatively unacademised: particularly at primary level, it has a relatively small number of schools that are academies. I love them all, because they are places where children learn, but none of that takes away from the fact that the freedoms and flexibilities afforded to academies are good things to have.

On the question of academic studies, as with grammar schools or various other debates, I could find an academic who could give us any answer we want. In fairness, causality is really hard to prove with these things. What I can tell the Minister, however, is that I have a graph. He may have seen it; if not, I will be happy to send him a copy. It is a U-shaped graph of the performance of schools in England relative to their peers in other countries; it relates to the PISA study, but there are equivalents for PIRLS and TIMSS.

The graph shows how remarkably school performance in England has improved over the past decade and a half. Nobody should ever claim that a single factor causes these things, but a fundamental vehicle for schools improvement in that time—alongside the hub network and established and proven methods such as maths mastery and phonics—was the ability for schools to convert to academies, and for academy trusts to spread good practice through our system.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I will turn first to amendment 77, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. We are committed to maintaining transparency in our decisions to intervene in academies and trusts. We already publish notices to improve and termination warning notices when they are issued to trusts. When a direction is issued, the Secretary of State will publish the direction unless there are good reasons not to do so. The direction will make clear the duty or power in relation to which it is made; it will also clearly state what the trust has to do to rectify the issue. We therefore do not consider it necessary to make a statement to the House of Commons about every direction. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Members not to press amendment 77.

Amendment 78 seeks to limit the legal duty limb of the direction-making power to when the Secretary of State considers that there has been a breach of a legal duty by a trust. As the regulator of academies, the Secretary of State must be able to ensure that trusts are complying with their legal duties; this includes performing those legal duties properly and not bending the rules. That is why it is important that the Secretary of State can intervene when trusts are performing their legal duties in an unreasonable way, just as we can issue a direction to governing bodies of maintained schools under existing powers when there is an unreasonable performance of a duty. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw amendment 78.

Amendment 79 seeks to limit the scope of the power to secure proper performance of academy trusts to breaches of their legal duties only. It also suggests that the Secretary of State may not be able to issue a direction, but should instead rely on the termination powers in funding agreements to enforce compliance with the duty. The legal duties and powers to maintain schools and academies originate from different sources. The duties and powers for maintained schools are contained primarily in legislation; in contrast, some academy duties and powers are sourced in legislation, but others are sourced in contract. This measure therefore needs to be drafted broadly to encompass a comparable range of powers and duties.

The purpose of the direction-making power is to give the Secretary of State a way of enforcing breaches of legal obligations where threatening to terminate a funding agreement and move an academy to another trust is not proportionate. The amendment would totally undermine that purpose and would leave us with essentially the same powers that we have now. I therefore respectfully ask hon. Members not to press amendment 79.

Amendments 88 and 89 seek to limit the scope of the Secretary of State’s power to issue directions. The Secretary of State must be able to hold trusts and their proprietors to account for fulfilling their duties and powers. Limiting the scope of compliance, as is proposed, would undermine that ability and would hinder effective oversight.

As I have said, the legal framework for academies is distinct from the framework for local authority-maintained schools. The duties and powers applicable to academies are not solely enshrined in legislation; they are also embedded in their funding agreements and articles of association. A power with a more broadly drafted scope is necessary to encompass a comparable range of powers and duties. The broader scope will ensure that the Secretary of State can address the unreasonable actions of academy proprietors comprehensively and effectively, without the need to terminate a trust’s funding agreement. Narrowing the scope of directions, as amendments 88 and 89 would, risks hindering the Secretary of State’s ability to enforce proprietors’ compliance with their duties and to exercise their powers as they should.

It is crucial that we maintain a robust and flexible approach to oversight, ensuring that all academies adhere to the highest standards of governance and accountability. Furthermore, it is important to note that any directions issued by the Secretary of State will be made in line with common-law principles of reasonableness and fairness. This will ensure that the directions are fair, balanced and appropriate to the circumstances, providing a safeguard against any potential misuse of power. For those reasons, I respectfully ask hon. Members not to press amendments 88 and 89.

I turn to clause 43. The majority of trusts are doing an excellent job, providing good-quality education to their children and fulfilling their legal obligations while doing so. However, when things go wrong and trusts are not fulfilling their obligations or are stretching the rules unreasonably, it can be hard for Government to intervene. The only intervention that we can currently take is threatening to remove academies from the trust, and that would disrupt the education of children. That is the only option, even when non-compliance is not even connected to education outcomes.

Clause 43 will allow the Secretary of State to issue a direction to a trust when things go wrong, identifying what needs to be done to remedy it. That will provide the trust with clarity about its responsibilities. In almost all cases, before deciding to issue a direction, the Secretary of State will write to the trust to let it know that she is minded to direct it to take action, providing an opportunity for it to make representations. When the trust does not comply with that direction, instead of disrupting the education of pupils for quite discrete matters we will seek an enforcement through a court order. That means that the Secretary of State can ensure that trusts are doing what they should be doing, without unnecessary disruption to pupils.

I shall now respond to some of the questions raised. This is not about micromanaging academies. Existing intervention powers, like termination warning notices, simply are not always suitable for isolated breaches of legal duties or unreasonable behaviour—they are like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. That is no way to run a system where what is often required is firm but much less drastic action. Terminating funding agreements can be incredibly disruptive for pupils, parents, staff and communities. The new measure offers a much more flexible, direct and commensurate way to ensure compliance. It will minimise disruption and maintain stability for trusts and their pupils.

With regard to the shadow Minister’s comments about the Confederation of Schools Trusts’ suggestions, I should say that I have absolute admiration for the work that the CST does and full respect for its views on these matters. However, the measure is drafted with the scope to cover a broad range of ways in which an academy trust might breach a legal duty, or exercise a power unreasonably, in a way that warrants intervention. By covering all duties and powers applicable to academy trusts, our drafting achieves that aim and makes the direction-making power as effective an intervention measure as possible.

We will issue guidance in due course detailing the circumstances in which we will issue a direction. We do not think it is necessary to limit the scope of the power to duties and powers in legislation, funding agreements and articles of association, as that would still result in a broad power.

On the question of appeals, we will issue a “minded to” letter first, as is already the case, so that the trust can respond to concerns. But when a trust is fulfilling a legal duty or exercising a legal power in an unreasonable way, the measure gives the Secretary of State the power to issue a direction to the trust, which will make it clear what is required from the trust. In cases of unreasonableness, we will issue a direction only when the behaviour of the trust is such that no reasonable trust could have acted in such a way, not simply when the Secretary of State disagrees with the action of the trust.

If a trust believes that the Secretary State has issued a direction mistakenly or unreasonably, the direction may be challenged by way of judicial review. Without this proposed direction-making power, the Secretary of State’s ability to take action in cases of unacceptable behaviour from trusts—for example, issues in relation to off-rolling—will be limited.

I turn to the comments of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire. As he will be aware, we are already regularly engaging with trusts as part of existing intervention processes. The amount of extra work for the Department is certainly a factor to consider, but it is difficult to quantify as it will vary on a case-by-case basis. Considering existing parallel powers for maintained schools has not led to an increase in work for the Department. Indeed, being able to take a more measured and proportionate approach, rather than a “sledgehammer to crack a nut” one, will hopefully be a more proportionate and measured response to any unreasonable behaviour by academy trusts.

[Damian Hinds]

For clarification, I meant that if a trust or a school had not followed its own complaints procedure and the DFE needed to intervene, that would result in an increase in the volume of parental complaints. The DFE does handle parental complaints, of course. I think that there would be an increase in the volume. My question was about the specific resourcing implications of that, particularly in a changed world with social media: when people get wind of these things, complaints could grow somewhat.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The right hon. Gentleman asks about a very specific example. I am happy to take it away. The issue of complaints is generally important. The Department is looking at where accountability and responsibility lies and how to make clear for parents where they can best direct their concerns. It is an important issue and one we are taking away.

In terms of the implementation of this power, I cannot see a significant impact, given that the provision is intended to create a much more reasonable approach when it comes to academies that are not fulfilling their legal duties. Currently the only options available are significant and disproportionate in many cases, and action might be required to deal with the case of a trust not complying with its legal obligations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady has put it very well. I was going to come to the detail of how the RISE teams will work, as I appreciate some questions have been raised. Fundamentally it needs to be understood that RISE will be a very different service from previous education improvement services that have been referenced. There will be more days, more money and better quality, because RISE will draw on the very best available school improvement capacity within the region, much of which lies within our academy trust leaders themselves.

[Damian Hinds]

I have a genuine question, as they say on Twitter. Quite a lot of teachers and school leaders have asked me, what is the difference between people joining a RISE team and national leaders in education?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Genuine delay of response, on the basis that I will come to that in my comments, but I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s interest.

Amendment 82—tabled jointly in the names of the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich—means that where the Secretary of State decides to issue an academy order to a school, the decision cannot be challenged by judicial review. The amendment looks to address the concerns that have been raised that repealing the duty to issue academy orders will lead to delays in school conversions and improvement, due to legal challenges against the Secretary of State’s decision.

I do not accept the challenge that repealing the duty to issue academy orders will lead to unacceptably high numbers of legal challenges. As part of our future intervention process, we will set out a robust and lawful policy which will set out the circumstances in which we will issue an academy order to a school in a category of concern, and that will help ensure that all decisions taken to intervene are in the best interest of the individual school and its circumstances. However, there should be the possibility, and ability, for those impacted by decisions to issue an academy order to challenge that decision where it might have got it wrong. I therefore respectfully ask that the Members withdraw that amendment.

I now turn to amendments 95 and 96, tabled by the hon. Member for Twickenham. Amendment 95 seeks to require the Secretary of State to invite expressions of interest from potential sponsor trusts prior to issuing an academy order to a failing school. It then requires the Secretary of State to assess the track record of potential sponsors identified as regards school improvement. Amendment 96 would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament, setting out the different mechanisms that can be used to secure school improvement, and guidance on the appropriate usage of those mechanisms, before measures can take effect. The Department already has an established practice on publishing clear policy and guidance on the methods used to support and intervene in schools. In particular, the support and intervention in school guidance makes clear the various intervention powers that may be used when a school is underperforming and the circumstances in which they may be used. In most cases, failing maintained schools subsequently converted to academies have shown improvements. The last published data shows that since 2010, 68% of previously maintained schools, now academies, improved to a “good” or “outstanding” in their latest Ofsted inspection. Conversely, that does show that 32% did not.

Once it is decided that an academy order should be issued, the Department already has established processes in place to identify the best sponsor for each failing school. Using the high-quality trust framework, the Department identifies trusts with the expertise and track record in delivering high-quality and inclusive education and the capacity to rapidly transform the performance of the school. The Department will consider the individual school characteristics and the school’s improvement needs in order to match the school with the right trust. We will continue to ensure that we identify the best possible sponsor match for failing schools that receive academy orders to maximise the potential for school improvement. The Department already has these well-established practices, so I do not believe the amendments are necessary to achieve the outcome that they seek. I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Twickenham not to press them to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

Yes, I was going to come to that point, because it is welcome that the hon. Gentleman focused on school support staff. He is absolutely right that they are integral to any successful school. However, we do not intend to amend the provisions, because we are legislating for the school support staff negotiating body in the Employment Rights Bill, and we are creating a new system for support in 2025. Rather than try to amend the existing one, we are creating a new negotiating body for them. It makes sense that the outcomes from the new body will apply in same way to all state-funded schools in England.

The primary legislation does not commit us to a one-size-fits-all approach, and so there will be flexibilities for local circumstance to be able to flex above minimum agreement. Again, there will also be a floor but no ceiling for school support staff. We will continue to work with the sector, during and after the passage of the Bill, to ensure that the school support staff negotiating body meets the needs of all school types. The shadow Minister’s intervention and focus on school support staff is absolutely welcome.

In response to the specific question of why we need a separate order-making power, we have clarified the objective by tabling an amendment that requires all academy schools and alternative provision academies to pay their teachers at least the minimum level of pay set out in secondary legislation. Subsequent reforms to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document will ensure there is no ceiling on the maximum that maintained schools can pay for their teachers.

The amendment will also require academies to have regard to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document, ensuring an established starting point for all state schools while giving confidence that existing or future changes benefiting teachers and pupils can continue. Maintained schools will continue to follow the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document, but the Government are committed to making changes to the document following the Bill’s passage, to remove the ceiling and build in flexibility so that all schools can innovate to attract and retain the best talent.

We absolutely want to ensure that the freedoms that academies have enjoyed will continue. Indeed, they will be extended to maintained schools. In terms of examples used, such as the nine-day week—

[Damian Hinds]

Fortnight.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Fortnight. Indeed, as in the interesting example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North, it is right that schools are able to find new and innovative ways of ensuring that they retain and attract the teachers who we know will drive the high and rising standards that we want across our schools. I hope I have answered all the questions.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. Indeed, that is the case that we are making. That means having good and great schools, and that is the ultimate aim of all these provisions: to ensure that every child has a good local school in which they can achieve and thrive. There needs to be some way in which that is managed on a community-wide basis. I would be surprised if the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston were seriously objecting to that in principle.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I seek some clarity. The Minister seems to be saying, “Leave it up to the independent adjudicator. They will decide.” Is she saying that the Government will not issue guidance on the criteria on which an independent adjudicator should decide?

[Catherine McKinnell]

No, that is not what I said. I was responding to the specific question asked by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston.

These measures are being introduced to support local authorities with effective place planning. In answer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about how we know that this challenge needs action, a 2022 report commissioned by the Department for Education under the previous Government reported that

“unilateral decisions about PANs and admissions…was identified by 89% of LAs”

as a barrier to fulfilling their responsibilities for mainstream school place planning. Some 13% of local authorities reported that

“this occurred regularly, 41% occasionally, and 34% rarely”.

Local authorities were more likely to report that this barrier was more common when working with academies. Those are the findings of the Department’s own report, which was commissioned under the last Government.

To be clear, the measure is not about removing any and all surplus places from the school system, including where it is useful, for example, in ensuring parental choice and flexibility in the system to accommodate future demand for school places. This is about ensuring that the places on offer in an area adequately reflect the needs of that local community. Where there is large surplus capacity, that can have a detrimental impact on good schools. It could result in significant upheaval for children and damage local parental choice. This is about supporting local authorities to ensure that they have the right amount of school places in their local area. There is already a statutory obligation on that. This measure will support local authorities to achieve that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman has made his concerns known. I do not think he is making any new assertions. It might be helpful if I continue setting out why we do not accept the proposed amendments.

[Damian Hinds]

Just before she does, will the Minister give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Perhaps at the end if there are still questions I would be more than happy to address them.

[Damian Hinds]

It is a different but related question. There are falling rolls, initially in primary over the next few years, and then it will happen in secondary. There will be some difficult choices that someone will need to make. Sometimes that will mean varying the numbers in every school, but I am afraid that the scale of the change in some local authorities, particularly in urban areas and this city, is such that some schools may convert and become special schools, for which there is demand and need. Some may become early years settings. It might be the case—I hope it will not be, as it is always a difficult thing to do—that total education capacity has to reduce. Will it be the schools adjudicator who decides the school that closes?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Local authorities make decisions about place planning within their local area. There will be a duty on all schools within a local area to co-operate with the local authority on place planning and admissions. The clause and the Bill extend to academies the ability to object to the school adjudicator, which gives them the ability to present their case where there is a challenge. Clause 50, which I will come to shortly, includes a delegated power that enables the Government to make regulations that set out factors that the adjudicator must consider when setting the published admission number of the school after it has upheld an objection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Martin]

Will the Minister confirm that the power to set place numbers includes all schools in local authority areas? It is not just academies but maintained schools. There seems to have been an idea throughout the whole of this debate that maintained schools are somehow a lower echelon of education—

[Damian Hinds]

Who said that?

[Amanda Martin]

It seems to have been implied—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The focus here has been on where it goes wrong, but actually, in the vast majority of cases, local authorities are collaborating well, because fundamentally everybody has the same goal, which is to provide an education that enables children to achieve and thrive. That needs to be delivered for every child in a local area, and clearly that is what this legislation is intended to achieve.

Where local authorities need more places in an area, we and they would clearly encourage high-performing schools to work in collaboration with local authorities to meet that need. However, where admission authorities act unilaterally, without recognising the needs of or impact on their local communities, that can cause problems, not just for local authorities or neighbouring schools but, ultimately, for children and parents.

In some areas, local authorities struggle to fulfil their responsibility to ensure sufficient school places, because the published admission numbers set by individual admission authorities do not meet local needs, despite there being physical capacity in schools. In other areas, schools are increasing their admission number beyond what is needed, risking damage to the education that children receive at nearby schools by making it harder for school leaders to plan the best education for their children. In the worst-case scenario, it could lead to perfectly good schools becoming unviable and therefore reduce choice for parents.

Where agreement cannot be reached locally, and a local authority or another body or person brings an objection to a school’s published admission number to the schools adjudicator, the adjudicator must, as now, come to their own independent decision as to whether to uphold the objection, taking into account the views of all parties, the requirements of admissions law and the individual circumstances of the case. It is important to note that the measure does not enable local authorities to directly change the published admission number of any school for which it is not the admission authority. The adjudicator, not the local authority, is the decision maker and they will take an independent and impartial decision. The provisions of clause 50 ensure that where they uphold an objection to a school’s published admission number—

[Damian Hinds]

So it is not the local authority; it is the adjudicator. I am wondering, as we are talking about serving communities, where the line of democratic accountability is.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The right hon. Gentleman is perhaps questioning the very long-standing process—it has been in existence for quite some time—for the role of the adjudicator in making these decisions where it cannot be decided within a local authority area on a collaborative basis. Obviously, the ideal situation is that local authorities and all the schools within the area are able to co-operate and collaborate to ensure that any individual admission number is set at the right level for the local community, taking into account the broader context. There is clear democratic accountability in that. Where that process breaks down, the adjudicator is there to be an independent arbitrator. Those requirements are set out in law; the framework that they work to and the factors that they consider are set out in guidance that is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. It is clear and transparent, and the adjudicator is bound by the laws in that case.

--- Later in debate ---

We do not expect that the powers in the clause will be needed for most schools, because most published admission numbers are working effectively, but in the rare instances where a school’s published admission number is not working in the interests of the local community, where it risks undermining parents’ ability to access a local school where their child can achieve and thrive—

[Damian Hinds]

Will the Minister give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Does the right hon. Gentleman mind if I just finish? It may answer his question.

In the instances I just described, the powers in the clause provide a direct route for an independent decision, resulting in a clear outcome for parents, admission authorities and local authorities.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I do mean these questions genuinely, in the spirit of line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill and trying to ascertain unintended consequences, intent and so on. If the adjudicator now has responsibility for ensuring that the number of school places in an area is what is needed and is fair, does the adjudicator also have a say in allowing a school to open?

[Catherine McKinnell]

It is the local authority that has the responsibility to agree published admission numbers with the schools in its area.[Official Report, 3 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 4WC.] (Correction) Obviously, academies are their own admissions authority, and will set their own published admission number. The adjudicator becomes involved in the decision making where appeals are made to a school’s chosen published admission number. The adjudicator is then required to come to a decision, based on a very clear framework of factors to consider, as to whether the published admission number is fair in the context of the particular school and the local community. What was the right hon. Gentleman’s specific question?

[Damian Hinds]

Does the adjudicator also have a say in allowing a school to open?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I cannot envisage a scenario where an adjudicator would adjudicate on the opening of a new school. If it adjudicates on the published admission numbers of existing schools, I cannot foresee a scenario where there would be an appeal to the adjudicator for a school that does not exist.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I apologise, but I still do not see the relevance to how an adjudicator could open a new school. I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman after I have considered the issue further.

[Damian Hinds]

It may help if I say why I asked the question. The adjudicator will be worrying, “I need to make sure that a school over here isn’t creating unfairness or making another school unviable because there are too many school places in this area.” If someone else comes along and says, “I’m going to open a new one,” that will make the school even more unviable. Logically, if I am the adjudicator and the Government are tasking me with making sure that we are not making schools unviable, surely I should be able to veto a new school coming into the community.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that clarification. It is not that the adjudicator makes the decision about whether to open a new school, which is how the question was originally posed. The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the hypothetical outcome that the adjudicator’s involvement in a decision could result in—

[Damian Hinds]

No, I am asking directly: could the adjudicator stop a new school opening on the grounds that we have tasked the adjudicator with making sure that there is not excess capacity in an area, which might make one or more schools unviable? Logically, surely the adjudicator ought to be able to stop the problem getting even worse—in the eyes of Ministers—by refusing a new school opening.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I will have to take away that question, and I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman with a response. Obviously, the adjudicator currently has a role in certain cases—for example, where a local authority is involved in the foundation of a school. I will look at the specific example that he raises, and I am happy to write to him with a response.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to clause 51, because there are some points I wish to raise about this part of the Bill allowing new schools to have 100% faith selection.

Clause 51 allows new schools to be opened without ideological restrictions on their type; they could be academies, community schools or voluntary aided schools, which in my view is extremely welcome; but it also creates the ability to open new 100% faith-selective schools, which worries me. The current 50% cap on faith selection for academies was introduced by the Labour Government in 2007, and further embedded into free schools in 2010 by the coalition Government. The Education Act 2011 mandated that all new schools must be free schools, extending the cap’s reach. That 50% limit was supported by all three main parties.

A scheme of local authority competitions similar to the one proposed in the clause operated from 2007 to 2012, in which we saw 100% faith-selective schools open. For example, Cambridgeshire county council ran a competition for a new school in which a 100% selective Church of England school won out over a proposal for a school with no religious character; the resultant school opened in 2017 and is still 100% faith selective. Another 100% religiously selective school was approved in the Peterborough council area. This has happened when the legislation has allowed for it.

We heard in the first evidence session that the Catholic Education Service would seek, in areas of oversubscription, to use 100% faith selection. We heard from the Church of England that nationally its policy is to stick to 50%, but its structure means that dioceses can put forward proposals for new schools, and they are not bound by that national policy. Members might be sitting here thinking, “So what? What is the problem with 100% faith-selective schools?” The problem is that 100% faith-selective schools are less socioeconomically diverse than might be expected for their catchment area, and less socioeconomically diverse than schools that are subject to the 50% cap. Compared with their 50% selective peers, 100% faith-selective schools are also less ethnically diverse than would be expected. Faith selective schools remain less inclusive across multiple factors. In my view, 100% faith selective admissions only exacerbate inequalities in the school system.

The Sutton Trust found that faith schools are less inclusive of disadvantaged children. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator found that faith-selective schools are less inclusive of children in care. The London School of Economics found that faith-selective schools are less inclusive of children with special educational needs and disabilities. Faith-selective admissions also disproportionately favour wealthier families, because they are socioeconomically more selective than other types of school. Compared with other schools, faith-selective schools admit fewer children eligible for free school meals than would be expected for their catchment area.

Many faith-selective schools operate a system of scoring for religious attendance and volunteering. In my view, this activity is simply easier for those with more economic or social capital—those who do not work weekends, nights or shifts, and who have a professional background where one is very happy and comfortable going into a new environment; perhaps one went to church as a child. At least since the 1950s, data shows that church attendance is higher among wealthier people. This religious activity is less easy to take part in for those who work shifts or weekends and those who do not have the cultural or social capital to enter confidently a situation that is new or perhaps culturally alien. I am focusing on church attendance because the religious majority in our country is Christian, even though actual religious belief is low.

Faith-selective schools encourage and embed educational inequalities, and that is why I am concerned about lifting the 50% faith-selection cap. I merely ask Ministers to consider this.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment 48, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Twickenham. There are two main reasons people seek to limit school admissions on the basis of faith. The first is that some people do not like religion, organised religion, or the involvement of the state with organised religion. That is a matter of belief for some people. The second is that it is sometimes said that faith-based admission policies shut out others from good schools. There is sometimes a sense that it is academic or social selection by the back door. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale alluded to that. Some people—I am not saying this is the case with the hon. Lady—talk about the second issue when really they have in mind the first. One can be a proxy for the other.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

Before the hon. Lady corrects me, I did not say she was doing that.

[Lizzi Collinge]

I do not wish to correct the right hon. Gentleman. I believe he is correct that the two get confused. I have both of those beliefs.

[Damian Hinds]

I know! [Laughter.]

[Lizzi Collinge]

However I am very clear the evidence I am quoting is on the second of those. I would happily provide the right hon. Gentleman with the sources of evidence, should he like to peruse them.

[Damian Hinds]

I understand, acknowledge and respect what the hon. Lady says but, believe me, I do not need to see any more evidence on this subject, on which I have in my time perused large volumes. It is one of those issues—we talked the other day about another one—where the answer one wants can be found in the data.

Let us step back a moment. All liberal democracies permit freedom of religious belief, but the way it manifests is different in different countries. There can be an approach such as that in the United States or in France, where secularism in education is written into law or the constitution. We in this country have taken a different approach. We have always allowed denominational schools. In fact, we have not just “allowed” it; denominational schools and faith schools have always been a key part of the system. The biggest name in primary education in Britain is the Church of the England; the biggest name in secondary education in England is the Catholic Church.

It is not just in education that our country has this tradition. In international development, for example, the Government work closely with organisations such as Christian Aid, World Vision and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. In children’s services, the Children’s Society used to be called the Church of England Children’s Society, and Action for Children, formerly National Children’s Home, has its roots in Methodism.

Before there were state schools, there were faith schools, often attached to monasteries or cathedrals. The Education Act 1944 formalised this position, sometimes known as the dual system, whereby faith schools could be a full part of the state school system while retaining their religious character. There is a distinction between what are known as voluntary aided schools and voluntary controlled schools, and different degrees therefore of independence for those two. VA tends to be mostly associated with the Catholic Church, but there are lots of Anglican VA schools, and VA schools of five or six other religious denominations as well.

It is understood traditionally and generally, but not entirely correctly that with a VA school, the Church provides the land and the state provides the building, and that there is a sort of co-ownership—it is obviously minority ownership on the part of the religious organisation. In reality, over time that system was eroded and changed to a cash contribution in which, typically, 10% would come from the Church, which then became 5%. I think there were some cases in which it was 0%, but broadly that tended to be the situation. Sometimes Churches complain about that, saying, “Why should we have to contribute to this school, when any other school being created is fully funded by the state?” I think that is a good rule for two reasons. First, it is a privilege to be able to have a school that is fully state funded for pupils within a faith, but it is also a guarantee of independence. It means that no future Government can come along and say, “We are going to change all these schools into fully secular schools,” because they are part-owned—albeit a small part—by that religious faith.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the question of schools having a faith element, being run by a Church or by any faith group, is different from the question of whether, in their admissions policy, a school may discriminate against one child and in favour of another based on the professed faith of their parents? Does he agree that those are two separate issues?

[Damian Hinds]

They are different but related issues. For the avoidance of any confusion, when we talk about schools being “run” by a Church, there was a time when clerics ran schools, but things are not really done in that way today.

Some of the top-performing schools in the country are denominational schools with faith-based admissions. There are some very poor-performing faith schools and some brilliantly performing non-faith schools, and obviously it varies from year to year, but on average, faith schools tend to slightly outperform the average. The hon. Lady can correct me if I am wrong, but there is a feeling that this is where she and others get the idea that that is possible only if there was some unfairness in the intake of children the schools accept.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I suppose, having said that the hon. Lady can correct me, I cannot really stop her.

[Lizzi Collinge]

The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. It is not a belief that the profile of faith schools is different from other schools: it is true. If we look at the rates of free school meals and the wealth profile of parents and compare them with peers—if we compare apples with apples—the data shows that. Does he recognise that?

[Damian Hinds]

As I said earlier, there are all manner of datasets. I do not have my full Excel complement with me today, but I can trade with the hon. Lady and counter what she said with other statistics. In particular, anybody who suggests that the intake of a Catholic school is higher up the socioeconomic scale than the average does not know a whole lot about the demographics of the Catholic population in this country. We have a remarkable amount of ethnic diversity because of immigration patterns.

By the way, there is no such thing as 100% faith selection; that happens only if a school is oversubscribed. If a state-funded school has spare places, at the end of the day, it is obliged to let anybody come along. However, if a school is oversubscribed and we lose the faith admissions criterion, the nature of the school will change. That goes to the heart of the hon. Lady’s question. There is something intrinsic to having a faith designation and a faith ethos in a school. Some people—I accept that the hon. Lady is not one of them—believe that such things contribute to what happens to those children, their education and their wellbeing, and they are reflected even in that small average premium in terms of results.

Back in the days of the free schools and before them, as the hon. Lady mentioned, a 50% cap was put in place, known commonly as the 50% faith cap. That reflected the fact that with free schools there was a different situation, because now any group could come along and say, “We want to open a school.” It seemed a sensible safeguard to have a cap. However, all the way through it has remained legally possible—not a lot of people know this—to open a voluntary aided school. That proposition was tested in law in 2012, after the coalition Government came into office, with the St Richard Reynolds Catholic college in the constituency of the hon. Member for Twickenham. Once a VA school is opened, it can convert to an academy.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech. Amendment 48 does not seek to prevent faith schools from opening. It would simply apply the cap to any type of school—academy, maintained, voluntary aided or whatever.

For me, the main driver for that safeguard is social cohesion and ethnic diversity. We have talked a lot about Church schools, but there are other faiths that seek to set up schools in certain areas of the country where, without the cap in place, they would not get much racial diversity. That is worrying for community cohesion. I say that as somebody who has a strong personal faith. I send both my children to a Church of England school—mainly because it is in front of my house, so they can leave the house 30 seconds before the gate shuts—but I feel uncomfortable with its level of faith selection. As we heard in oral evidence from Nigel Genders, it is important that state-funded schools be for the whole community and be open to everyone.

[Damian Hinds]

That is a view. It is a perfectly legitimate view that some people hold, but it is not a view that I hold, nor is it a view that we have held historically in this country. Going back to 1944, to 1870 and even further, we have said that we believe in diversity of provision. That includes the Church of England and the Catholic Church, but it also includes other faiths. Some of the top-performing schools in the country are Jewish schools or Muslim schools.

[Munira Wilson]

I think the right hon. Gentleman thinks I am arguing that we should abolish faith schools. I have not made that argument. He is saying that this is not how we have done things in this country, but since the coalition and before, we have had a 50% faith cap. All the amendment seeks is clarity in legislation that that 50% faith cap will remain in place for any new school that opens. I realise that it was the Liberal Democrats who forced the Conservatives to put the cap in place for free schools, which is probably why the right hon. Gentleman will oppose me. For me, it is about social cohesion and about honouring the fact that we should serve all our communities. I am not opposing the establishment of new faith schools; I am just saying that they should have a cap of 50% on faith-based admissions.

[Damian Hinds]

I assure the hon. Lady that on this occasion I am not holding her Liberal Democrat party membership card against her. That is not the basis on which I am making these points.

The hon. Lady said that whatever type of school opens, it should have a 50% cap. By definition, there is no such thing as a VA school with a 50% cap, because being a voluntary aided school means having control over admissions in that way. It is not true that we have necessarily had the 50% cap all the way through; I point to the VA school that opened in her very constituency, and there have been others since then. The reason why only a small handful of VA schools have opened over the past couple of decades is that there was no money for it. To get money to open a school, it had to be a free school.

In 2018-19, the then Secretary of State, fine fellow that he was, created a small capital fund for the voluntary aided schools capital scheme. The reason related to patterns of immigration, particularly Polish and eastern European immigration. In the old days, it was Irish immigration—that is where I come from—but there have been many other waves from different places. As a result of eastern European immigration, there was a demand for Catholic schools in certain parts of the country. Those people, who had come to this country and made their lives here, and of whom there were now generations, were not able to access such schools in the way they could have in other parts of the country. Under that scheme, there were applications from five different faiths; at the time, one was approved and one put on hold. I contend that it is a good system that we have the cap for that tranche of schools—they are not going to be free schools—to retain those safeguards, but it is still possible to open a denominational school, of whichever faith, in circumstances in which there is great need in a particular area.

We talked earlier about local authority areas and their difference in size. Birmingham, which is one massive local authority area, is very different from an individual London borough. For the consideration of faith school applications, it ought to be possible to look over a wider area, because travel-to-school distances are much longer on average.

I want to check with the Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North, that the Government’s proposals will not preclude the opening of new voluntary aided schools. I am afraid I must conclude by saying that, for reasons that the hon. Member for Twickenham will understand and that have nothing to do with her party affiliation, I cannot support amendment 48.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I rise to support clause 51 and to question the nature of the amendments.

The block on new local authority-run schools could only have been introduced for ideological reasons. Its removal is hugely welcome. If one model were of substantially better quality than the other, there might be a basis for such a block, but the facts speak for themselves: that is not the case. There is now a statistically negligible difference between the number of good and outstanding academies and the number of good and outstanding schools of other models, including local authority schools. It is plain for all to see that they are as good as each other, so the argument no longer holds water that one model is worse than the other and that legislation is therefore needed to block it.

I fully relate to the experience mentioned by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, where the only option is a free school application that then gets shut down. In my Southampton constituency, we put forward an excellent bid—all the advice throughout the process deemed it excellent—for a free special school. We are all painfully aware of the need for extra places for those with special educational needs and disabilities. With a free school application as our only option, we dutifully engaged, only to have that option shut down to us in the end. That pushes the responsibility back on existing schools to expand, entirely at the cost of already cash-strapped local authorities.

The clause is a sensible restoration of parity of esteem between different school models. On the rationale for objections and scrutiny, I have to say that am left a little confused by the Opposition’s positions and arguments. They question the local authority’s being both the regulator and provider of schools. If they do not support that, what is their solution? Is it for the local authority to become redundant and have no role in planning, so we therefore have centralisation back to the Department for Education? Or is it that we continue to prohibit local authority schools from opening, thereby reducing the mixed economy and maintaining their free school presumption, which got us into this situation in the first place?

I am glad that we have clause 51 in the Bill. It is a strong response to a real need. It takes account of the reality of quality and democratic accountability in school place planning and the opening up of schools. It reflects the fact that we have excellent teachers in local authority maintained schools, every bit as much as in other models of school where they choose to work. It opens up opportunities for multiple bids from school providers. That reflects the position set out in the preceding clauses, which is that we want to get back to a position of collaboration, not unbridled competition, in the provision of education for our children.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

On clause 56, it is always possible that necessary changes to legislation might be identified through a Bill’s passage. As I said, it is therefore prudent to have a failsafe should anything have been missed. This power is limited and narrow: it can be used only to make amendments that are consequential on the Bill’s provisions, which will be voted on, and it is in line with usual practice.

Regulations made under the power that amend or repeal any provision in primary legislation will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We have carefully considered the power, and we believe that it is entirely justified in this case. It is needed to ensure that we are able to deal with the legislative consequences that may flow naturally from the main provisions and ensure that other legislation continues to work properly following the passage of the Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

Will the Minister allow me?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Well—yeah.

[Damian Hinds]

I have never been so warmly welcomed. [Laughter.] We talked a few sittings ago about the NHS number and the database of children, and there are a lot of wide-open questions about the scope of that. Is that all children? How will it be used? In turn, that could potentially affect a lot of other pieces of legislation.

Bearing in mind the massive controversies we have had in this country in the past over ID cards, privacy and so on, will the Minister write to the Committee setting out specifically what some of the issues in relation to that might be? We do not want find ourselves having agreed to do something that we did not realise we were agreeing to do.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I think I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the case. The inclusion of similar powers is common and well-precedented in legislation. Powers to make consequential amendments can be found in several other Government Bills, such as the Renters’ Rights Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, as well as in Acts presented under the previous Administration, such as the Health and Care Act 2022, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is fully supportive of.

I turn to new clause 10 and the contributions from hon. Members. I absolutely appreciate the case that is being made, which is why we are open-minded on the issue, but we do not intend to bring forward legislation imminently. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire spoke about the successful implementation in Wales. I am interested in how she knows that to be the case, because we are awaiting the publication of the impact assessment. We are very keen that legislation is evidence-based and has its intended effect. That is why we are waiting for the evidence that will come from Wales.

The hon. Member mentioned a number of international examples. I have an example from New Zealand, which removed the reasonable punishment defence in 2007. Data suggests that 13 cases were investigated between 2007 and 2009, with one prosecution. It is important that we look at how this measure works within the context of each country that it is applying it. Obviously, we will look very closely at the implementation in Wales—the impact it has and the difference it makes—and will also then look at how that will apply specifically within an England context before proceeding with legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Become, the charity for children in care and young care leavers, strongly welcomes the new clause, as does the YMCA, which supports around 1,000 care leavers a year with housing.

In its written evidence to the Committee, Become pointed to a freedom of information request that it submitted to all tier 1 local authorities in England last year, which showed real variation in whether they disapplied homelessness intentionality assessments for care leavers. Become provided examples of hearing from care-experienced young people who have been assessed as intentionally homeless for moving away to university, not keeping in touch with their personal advisers or turning down offers of accommodation that was not appropriate for them. That contradicts local authorities’ duties as corporate parents, and contributes to the disproportionate risk of homelessness that care-experienced young people are subject to.

I thank Become for its evidence, which provides powerful insight and an argument in support of the new clause. I hugely welcome it being added to the Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

Will the Minister confirm that the new clause will also apply to the small group of young people who are leaving the young justice system and returning to their home area?

[Darren Paffey]

Briefly, I warmly welcome the new clause. Colleagues will be aware of my interest in this area. From years of working alongside those who fall foul of laws and principles on paper that they never see, but that make a material difference to their lives and outcomes, I know that this will be a positive change. It builds on years of work, including not only the work of various charities already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North, but the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) and no doubt countless others, and will be warmly welcomed. I am excited to be able to report to those in my constituency on the work of this Government in making sure that care leavers have better outcomes. I look forward to working with Ministers in the future to work out how we can get from this point to other areas that will make a positive material difference to their lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I know my hon. Friend is a real champion of children and young people in his constituency, and of the Government’s ambitions on breakfast clubs. I hope that he will work closely with schools in his constituency as we roll out breakfast clubs in his patch and, indeed, across the country. He makes a number of really important points about the vital need to get the infrastructure in place for free school meals. We know that that is some of the learning from the work that the London Mayor has been doing.

[Damian Hinds]

I want to ask the Minister about two things. First, he talks about the disadvantage gap widening at the present time. Entirely coincidentally, I happen to have the numbers on key stage 2 and key stage 4. Of course, there are different ways that we can measure these things. I am looking at what is known as the “disadvantage gap index” for key stage 2 and key stage 4. I would be interested to know what definition he is using, from which he concludes that the Government inherited a widening disadvantage gap.

The second thing I want to ask him about is free school meal eligibility. We all absolutely recognise the value of free school meals. The Minister mentioned some of the extensions of eligibility that happened under the previous Government. The one that he did not mention was universal credit transitional protection. Even though unemployment came down from 8% to 4.5%, and the proportion of people in work but on low pay halved as a result of the increase to the national living wage, eligibility for free school meals went up, so the incoming Government have inherited one in three children being able to get a free school meal, as opposed to one in six when Labour were last in government. Notwithstanding this new clause, which the Government will not accept, what will they do to make sure that the same number of children as now can continue to get a free school meal?

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Morgan]

New clause 25 would introduce a requirement for the Government to publish a report within two years of passing of the Bill on the impact of removing VAT exemption on private school fees. The report would need to provide details of any private school closures, the number of pupils from private schools who have moved schools, the availability of state school places at local and national level, what percentage of children are offered a place at their parents’ first-choice school, and whether any admissions authorities have increased their published admissions numbers as a result of VAT policy.

Before proceeding any further, I would like to note that the issue of VAT on private school fees has been subject to extensive debate during the course of the Finance Bill and the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill. As the Government have noted on many occasions now, a thorough impact assessment of the removal of VAT exemption has been conducted. A comprehensive tax impact and information note was published alongside the autumn Budget and provides much of the information sought by the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. This policy, as Members will be aware, took effect from 1 January 2025.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does the Minister not accept that there is a fundamental difference between a projection of what is expected to happen and the reporting on what has actually happened? It is the latter that helps with future policy development by learning from experience.

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the right hon. Member for his interventions, and I ask him to be a bit more patient in the light of what I am going on to say. The Government’s impact assessment shows that we expect the number of private school closures to remain relatively low and that will be influenced by various factors, not just this VAT policy. Around 50 private schools, excluding independent special schools, close each year, and the Government estimate that 100 schools in total may close over the next three years in addition to the normal levels of turnover, after which closures will return to historical norms.

The Government also estimate that, in the long-term steady state, 35,000 pupils are expected to move from private schools to UK state schools. That represents less than 0.5% of all state school pupils and the resultant impact on the state education system, as a whole, is therefore expected to be very small. Differences in local circumstances will mean that the impact of this policy will vary between parts of the UK. The number of private school pupils who might seek state-funded places will vary by geographical location, and that will interact with other local place pressures.

In addition to the impact assessment, regular data is published by the Department for Education on pupil numbers and pupil moves. Data on the numbers of pupils in private schools is collected and published through the annual school census, and data on how many parents receive offers from their preferred schools in the normal admissions round is also collected from local authorities and published annually. We cannot definitively correlate pupil moves with the ending of the VAT exemption, as pupil numbers in schools fluctuate regularly for a number of reasons.

Moreover, admissions decisions must strictly be made in accordance with a school’s published admissions criteria only. We should therefore be cautious of measures that would require parents to state the reason why they are choosing to move their children to a different school, to avoid any impression that this information may be misused. School’s published admission numbers may be raised to respond to a wider local demand; in some cases and in some areas that may include, but will not necessarily limited to, increased numbers of pupils from the private sector. Where schools wish to raise their published admission number, they should do so in co-operation and collaboration with the local authority, and with a view to what is needed in the local area. Indeed, there are other measures in the Bill that stress the importance of co-operation on this issue.

Local authorities will consider pressures following the removal of the VAT exemption on school fees alongside other pressures as part of the normal place-planning cycle—this is business as usual. The Department for Education will be monitoring place demand and capacity using our normal processes and will be working with local authorities to meet any pressures. While I am grateful to Members for their interest in the issue of removing the VAT exemption on private schools, I hope that they are reassured that the Government have already addressed the impact of this policy and continue to monitor it.

[Damian Hinds]

I have been trying to exercise my best patience as the Minister entreated me to do. I think he is saying that it will never be possible to know, in reality, what the effect of this tax change is. Is that right?

[Stephen Morgan]

I know the right hon. Member will have been listening very carefully to what I said, and I made it very clear that there is a census published each year, which sets out those figures. We will work very closely with local authorities to understand the impact that the policy has.

The hon. Member for Twickenham made a number of points on children with SEND. The vast majority of pupils who have special educational needs are educated in mainstream schools—whether they are state-maintained or private—where their needs are met. Where parents have chosen to send their child to a private school but their special educational needs could be met in the state sector—such as in England where children do not have an EHCP—VAT will apply to fees. The Government do not support the new clause for the reasons that I have outlined, and I ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw it.

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[Damian Hinds]

There have now been four waves of updates from the children and young people’s mental ill health prevalence survey conducted by the NHS. That invaluable resource has provided annual data and enabled us to look at ourselves against other countries, although the data are not perfectly comparable. I gather that there is no current commitment to wave five. I know the Department of Health and Social Care said that it would keep an open mind, but will the Minister join me in strongly encouraging his colleagues at the Department to maintain that data series, because it is incredibly important?

[Stephen Morgan]

I will certainly take away that point. I know that the right hon. Member cares passionately about the wellbeing of children and young people, and I am happy to explore that further.

We know that many good schools and local areas already measure pupil wellbeing to inform local action. The Department encourages that, with identifying need and monitoring impact being one principle of an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Although we do not currently have plans to introduce a standardised national wellbeing measurement programme, we continue to engage with schools to increase the understanding of wellbeing measurement approaches and impact.

It is not clear that the benefits of a national programme would outweigh the burdens on schools, or the reduction in their ability to select tools to suit their cohorts. We would also need to consider the potential effect of a national measure on school accountability. Should the case for a national measure be made, there is likely to be scope to introduce the kind of voluntary participation programme envisaged in the new clause without recourse to primary legislation. On that basis, I invite the hon. Member for Twickenham to withdraw the new clause.

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[Tom Hayes]

I understood the point that the hon. Member made in his speech, and I understand his clarification. I still struggle to see how the new clause fits in with what I regard as the Conservative party’s ideology around schooling and children’s wellbeing. It feels anomalous to ask headteachers and teachers to work within a ban, rather than trusting them to use the flexibility that the previous Government gave them.

One highlight of the Committee’s debate over the last few weeks has been the recognition that our teachers and headteachers know their students best. It is important that we give them all the trust and support that they deserve. I sympathise with what the hon. Member says about addictive apps, but for me it is not about banning, per se; it is about creating a viable and better alternative that gives children and teenagers much better things to do with their time.

[Damian Hinds]

I rise to speak in favour of the new clause. Unusually, I will start by saying what the new clause will not do, and the limits of the change it proposes.

The truth is that the vast majority of online harm does not happen at school. Banning phones or social media in school will not necessarily reduce the total amount of time that children spend online or address schools’ worries about kids being online, such as the concern about the increasing number of children who turn up to school having not slept sufficiently to be ready for the day. Nor does the new clause address the wider problems—not day to day, but more chronic—with attention span and eyesight. We have recently heard a lot about the greater prevalence of myopia.

Rules in this area are still important, however, and behaviour in school is crucial for teacher recruitment and, particularly, retention. Three big things have changed in schools in the last few years. The first is an attitudinal shift that came about around the time of covid, and that it will take us some years to understand. The other two are vapes and phones. It cannot be overstated how much those three things affect what happens in a school, the feel of the school and what teachers and headteachers report back.

The first thing that schoolchildren need for learning is to be able to concentrate. There is good reason to believe that even when a child is not using a phone, the fact that it is in their pocket—that it could buzz, vibrate or whatever at any point—can distract them. I think it is an important principle that the entire school day, including break time and lunch time, should be reserved for what school is about: learning, developing and being with friends. The question, as always, is whether we leave that to individual schools or have a national rule, and the hon. Member for Bournemouth East was right to speak about the tension between the two. I confess that that is a question I have personally had to grapple with on more than one occasion, and there is not a single, simple answer.

In the Bill, there are many national rules for things that arguably do not need a national rule, and that could be left to individual schools so that they can do what is best for their school community—from the precise number of school uniform items to the exact length of breakfast. The hon. Member is right that the Labour instinct is to say, “Let’s have a national rule on everything; we like consistency.” There is nothing wrong with consistency. He is also right that our instinct is to say, “Leave those rules to the schools wherever possible.” There are, however, times when an overriding national rule is beneficial and makes sense.

In 2019, when I was at the Department for Education, this question came up for me. At the time, we decided not to put a national rule in place. Politicians are always expected to have a firm and clear view on everything, and Ministers are expected to be absolutely certain about every decision they make, but it does not always work like that. Things can often be argued both ways. I was never 100% sure at the time that I was doing the right thing, but I thought I was. In 2024, we introduced non-statutory guidance on how the use of mobile phones should be prohibited throughout the school day, which, crucially, included breaks. We were also clear that there was the option to make the guidance statutory if necessary.

The world has continued to change since then. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Minister described, when it comes to mobile phone use and our worries about children, that change has not made things slightly less bad than they were before. Worries have only deepened and intensified.

[Tom Hayes]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

If the hon. Member has counter-examples, let us hear them.

[Tom Hayes]

That is not the point on which I am intervening. I was going to say that by using the language of mobile phone and smartphone interchangeably, we are confusing the debate. If our debate is confused, I am not sure how we can arrive at a certain policy.

I called for agreement with the Government around national rules. I want to clarify that I did not mean on everything, but only on the things in the Bill that I think need national rules. I agree with the right hon. Member that that is what provides consistency.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member is right about the difficulty with defining the term smartphone. People talk about a brick phone, a feature phone, a basic phone, a Nokia, a smartphone and an iPhone, but the truth is that there is no definition; smartphone is just a term. It originally came about when people did not want to use the brand name iPhone, because Samsung phones and other types of phone were available. It just means a smarter phone; it has more stuff on it. Some of the things that people worry about are not necessarily only available on smartphones. I looked recently at iMessage, and it is starting to look more like WhatsApp. Anything that can be used for a group chat has some of the issues that we find in schools that cover the teenage and sub-teenage years.

There are other things that people can get on a smartphone but not on a Nokia that are perfectly benign. Some parents are quite keen for their kids to be able to look at the weather. Some are keen to be able to use the tracking device to follow their child, or for their child to be able to use the mapping device to find their way home, so I agree with the hon. Member.

[Neil O'Brien]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Damian Hinds]

This is in danger of turning into a much longer speech than I anticipated.

[Neil O'Brien]

It is good to have this point of clarification. The clause uses the rather quaint phrase “mobile telephones” to capture everything, because the distinction between these devices is blurred. Among those who are interested in the smartphone issue, there is a separate debate about the use of dumbphones for things like walking to and from school, but there is no reason why even a dumbphone cannot cause massive distraction if it is out in class. A child could be texting somebody, for example, and, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the distinction between these things is blurred these days. That is why we have this catch-all term. It is clear, and it is possible to legislate on that basis, notwithstanding our other discussions outside the scope of this debate.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister for refocusing what I was saying, and he is absolutely right. Some of our worries in relation to children apply regardless of the piece of technology. Anything that demands our attention and is ever-present brings such risks.

[Tom Hayes]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? I promise that this will be my last intervention.

[Damian Hinds]

On that promise, I will give way.

[Tom Hayes]

I want to labour this point, as it were, because I understand entirely the point that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston made. It is important to do so, because there are parents and children who wish to retain the option of being in contact with each other for safeguarding or wellbeing reasons. Such parents typically draw the distinction between a mobile phone, which allows for SMS and voice calls; and a smartphone, which typically has addictive social media or games, or particular apps that might cause wider safeguarding concerns. That is why I am trying to draw the right hon. Gentleman into focusing on mobile phones—brick phones, Nokia phones or the ones that Snake can be played on—as opposed to more sophisticated phones.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says. I had my most recent constituency session with parents on the matter last Friday, and with some things, there is a bit of a grey area. Lots of parents say, “I don’t really mind so much about this”, but others do mind. With tracking technology, for example, some parents say that they really do not like being able to know where their child is. There is some variance, but the one imperative that is common to almost every parent is, “I want my child to be able to call me if they are in trouble, and I want to be able to call them on the way to and from school.” Parents want to hear from children if a club has been cancelled and they will be coming home at a different time, or if they are worried, or whatever it is. It is possible to do that on essentially any phone on the market, from the highest iPhone—I do not know what number they are up to these days—down to the most basic sub-Nokia brick phone.

There are other questions about functionality, and about what social media is. The Australians are having a bit of a debate about that at the moment, because to ban social media, they have to know what they are trying to ban. However, to address directly the point that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East made, much of this discussion relates to all manner of electronica that a child might have in their pocket or bag.

[Ellie Chowns]

Are we not getting a bit distracted? The new clause is about banning things from the start of the first lesson to the end of the last, not on the way to or from school when children might want to call their parents.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is quite right. I was only going to speak about this for three minutes or so, but the hon. Gentleman tempted me into other areas. On the promise that he was making one last intervention, I indulged him, and I am grateful to him.

In an earlier intervention on the Minister for School Standards, I mentioned the NHS mental health of children and young people survey, which shows us what has happened over time to children’s mental health. There is an inflection point and it comes, contrary to what most people believe, before the covid pandemic. That is the first critical data point to understand.

The second critical data point is that when we look beyond that study at other countries’ studies, we see that none of them are perfectly comparable, but studies in countries such as Germany, France and the United States follow basically the same pattern. There is an increase in the prevalence of mental ill health conditions in all the published data that I have seen for other countries. Whatever people say about domestic politics, whichever party was in Government here and whatever they did, that cannot explain what happens in France or the United States. The fact is that there is a global trend, or at least a trend in the western world, of an increasing prevalence of mental ill health conditions among children.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member assist me in identifying where the new clause makes it clear that it is only in relation to children, as opposed to anyone in our schools?

[Damian Hinds]

Can the hon. Member please explain what she means?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. Can we not have this back and forth across the Committee?

[Damian Hinds]

We can have the classic, “Oh, the wording is technically flawed” argument—which to be fair to the Government, they have not deployed in this Bill Committee yet. We hope the amendment will be subsumed into the Bill, but the Government would never say, “Oh, we’ll just take that amendment and put it in.” Whoever is in Government never says that; they say, “Right, we accept this point. Now we’ll work on the detailed wording”.

[Neil O’Brien]

To answer the question that the hon. Member for Derby North asked directly, subsection (2)(b) says the policy

“is to be implemented as the relevant school leader considers appropriate.”

I think this is—

[Catherine Atkinson]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

You cannot intervene on an intervention.

[The Chair]

Order. There is only one speaker at a time and there can be one intervention—I also say to the right hon. Member that there is only one Chair, so let us get it right.

[Damian Hinds]

I am very grateful—

[Catherine Atkinson]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

Go on.

[Catherine Atkinson]

Does the right hon. Member agree that when we are looking at proposed new clauses in Committee, it is absolutely fundamental that what is written is capable of making meaningful legislation?

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, of course; we are legislating, and that is the case. It is also the case that, in my experience in Committee, the Government side never just accept an amendment put forward by the Opposition or another opposition party—or indeed by their own Back Benchers. If that has ever happened in modern history, it has yet to come across my bows. What we do is we debate what we are trying to do. If the new clause—which was drafted with expert help from the House of Commons—was accepted by the Government, as I very much hope it will be, they would without doubt say, “Oh, well, you need to change this, that and the other, and we’d do it slightly differently.” They would then bring forward their own Government new clause, and we would then vote on that on Report. We can have an elongated discussion about this, but I would rather just get to the end of what I was going to say about banning mobile phones in schools, and then—I believe I am right in saying—the hon. Lady may also speak. That is probably the easiest way to do it.

The increasing mental ill health of children and young people should be a matter of very serious concern for all of us. We should remember that it is something that is mirrored in other countries as well. Now, it is entirely scientifically invalid to infer from a correlation of two things—the increasing prevalence of social media and electronica, and the increasing prevalence of mental ill health—that one caused the other. Even if we cannot find any other potential cause that would have affected all those countries in the same way over the same timeframe, it is still scientifically invalid to directly infer causality. Logic has its limits, and I know a few people who seriously contest the idea that the spread and use of, and the very high amounts of time devoted to, mobile phones and social media has been a significant causal factor in that.

There are lots of different ways that one might address that and there are lots of things going on. The Online Safety Act 2023 was a landmark piece of legislation, and how it now gets implemented by Ofcom is very important. There is also the private Member’s Bill from the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister)—I think he became a Parliamentary Private Secretary overnight, so we hope there is still a good future for that private Member’s Bill. That is one part of what is going on. I also mentioned Australia, where there is a ban of some type to come in.

The school phones ban also plays a part. To be clear, it is not a ban on children carrying a mobile phone of any sort, brand or functionality to and from home and school. Nor does it preclude children who need to use a phone because of special educational needs, medical conditions, monitoring requirements or some other reasons from carrying one. Those things can be determined locally by the school. It is not a panacea—far from it—but it will make a difference in schools.

It is often said that mobile phones are already banned in the vast majority of schools, so a ban is not needed and will not have any effect. That is true to an extent. There are virtually no schools without policy. Clearly no one is allowed to whip out a phone and make a call in the middle of a maths lesson—in fact, we never actually see teenagers use a phone to make a call—and there are going to be some rules to some extent. In the Internet Matters survey, 43% of schools reported having an “out of sight” policy. It is true that lots of schools allow phone use in breaks and at lunch—I know that because I visited a lot of schools where kids had been using their phones in breaks and at lunch.

There is sometimes a bit of a hierarchy in how people assess these bans. One gets a slightly different assessment of the situation from Ministers, headteachers, classroom teachers and kids. According to the Youth Endowment Fund survey, which is huge—I think it surveys 7,500 13 to 17-year-olds—53% of children said they used mobile phones in break times, and one in six said they used their phone in lessons.

Having a national policy does not solve everything—kids still break rules sometimes—but it does make it easier for everyone. As I say, it does not preclude carrying a phone to and from school, and it does not preclude children with whatever additional needs from carrying them, but it supports leaders and teachers in what they are doing. It also makes it clear to parents that they cannot contact children during the school day—they can, but they do so through the school office, just as would have been the case in the old days. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said, a national policy would set a firm norm.

More widely, the Government will have to return again and again to all the issues around online safety, social media use and the use of electronics, and they must study the mental health aspects in more detail. However, I suggest that, pending proof—the smoking example speaks to this—it is necessary to take a precautionary approach. When we put things in the hands of children, we tend not to say, “Let’s wait to see if it’s dangerous”; we test them first to make sure they are safe. I hope also that the Minister can speak with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care about the provision of more NHS guidance on safe and reasonable levels of mobile phone use for children’s early brain development.

I have gone on a long time, and much longer than I anticipated. I will stop there.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments.

We have spent a great deal of time in Committee hearing from Opposition Members about autonomy: headteachers’ autonomy, school autonomy, and school leaders knowing exactly what is best for their pupils and communities. Subsection (2)(b) of the new clause states that the policy

“is to be implemented as the relevant school leader considers appropriate”,

but that means that the school leader could choose not to ban mobile phones for anybody in their school; there are exemptions, and they could decide that that is what they need. But that was not what I was going to talk about.

The use of mobile phones in schools should be decided at school level. It should reflect school values, processes and procedures, and not be decided in a directive or legislation from Government. Deciding it at school level would allow for the reasonable use of phones and technology, and it would allow for a balanced approach to technology. It could involve the school community in a discussion about what the phones and technology are being used for—a simple ban would not do that—and could include conversations about digital wellness and promoting healthier relationships, both offline and online, and a healthy approach to using technology at school, in the workplace and in the wider world. If we banned kids from using phones in school, we probably should ban people in their offices and in meetings from using them, because they do not pay attention either. Given how often we look up and see people not even bothering, how on earth can children learn while using mobile phones and technology in a measured and supportive way?

I want to draw the Committee’s attention to the Birmingham study from February, which was mentioned previously. It found that banning smartphones in schools did not directly improve student academic performance or mental health. However, that research indicated that excessive phone use correlates with negative outcomes, yet there were no significant differences between the kids who had bans in their school and those who did not. It is about the wider picture, which has been talked about. I also draw the Committee’s attention to a survey conducted in November 2024 of over 1,000 teachers. One in five believed that a school-wide ban would not improve the relationships and attainment levels of children, and 41% agreed that they used smartphones as a teaching tool within their classrooms.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

New clause 8 is another important probing amendment, tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud, that places a duty on the Secretary of State to proactively identify all children eligible for free school meals in England, making the application process for free school meals opt out, rather than opt in. I note that the Minister, in his comments on new clause 5, mentioned that making things statutory made it terribly restrictive. On that basis, why would one ever make anything statutory?

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

School uniform guidance?

[Ellie Chowns]

This new clause seeks to address the very real problem that up to 250,000 children, or approximately 11% of those eligible for free school meals, even under the currently very restrictive eligibility criteria, miss out on them because it is an opt-in process. It is simply not okay that so many eligible children are missing out on free school meals. That is in addition to the roughly 900,000 children who are living in poverty, but still not qualifying for free school meals because the eligibility criteria are so tight. I believe that we may be coming on to discuss that a little later.

Early findings from areas with which the Fix Our Food research programme are working show that children from non-white communities, or lone-parent households, are more likely to not be registered for free school meals despite being eligible. Again, inequalities are reproducing themselves when it comes to people accessing their statutory rights. Charities working to address this totally unacceptable situation point to several reasons for the under-registration rate: parents may struggle to fill out complex forms; there may be language barriers for parents; there may be a lack of awareness of free school eligibility; and there may be stigma or embarrassment. The current system is regularly described by schools and local authorities as “cumbersome” and “financially and administratively inefficient”. Receiving statutory benefits should be easy and straightforward for people who are eligible.

There are obvious benefits to the child from getting a nutritious, filling lunch, which we have discussed already today and also on our last sitting day, including reduced food insecurity, improved nutrition and health, and increased attainment and lifetime earning potential, as I set out when I spoke to new clause 2. There are also important wider benefits to the child. Struggling families also miss out on other benefits that free school meal registration would give them access to, including the holiday activities and food programme and uniform grants.

There are also benefits to schools. If children are not registered for free school meals, schools miss out on much-needed pupil premium funding, worth £1,455 per pupil. There are also benefits to local authorities. The Fix Our Food research programme is supporting 66 local authorities to implement an opt-out, or right-to-object approach to free school meal registration. It is identifying and writing to families using existing datasets to inform them that their children will be automatically registered unless they opt out.

As I understand it, in many cases, this has resulted in children, who were previously missing out, becoming successfully registered, and opt-out rates are extremely low. However, only a few councils have successfully adopted this new process. In some cases, despite local authorities’ efforts, data sharing barriers have not been possible to overcome. Some have even been threatened with legal action. The local work still does not capture all eligible children, with families falling through the gaps, as access to datasets is patchy. Further, my understanding is that this process is resource-intensive. Again, it is administratively intensive, incurring onerous governance and administration at council and school level.

Meanwhile, the Greater London Authority has put resource into auto-enrolment. Although that is positive for children in London, the same level of support is not available for most children in the rest of England.

Free school meal auto-enrolment would register eligible families to receive free school meals using benefits data, unless families decide to opt out. This requires data sharing between the Department for Work and Pensions, which holds the data that identifies which children should be eligible for these schemes, and the Department for Education, which administers the scheme. I really hope that, as part of this important Bill,the Government will seriously consider how they can introduce auto-enrolment for free school meals to ensure that all those who are eligible are in receipt of their entitlement. This is a fantastic opportunity to do so now.

As a statutory scheme, funding for the meals for these children should already be available. There is just an administrative barrier that stops far too many children getting what they are entitled to. In the meantime, until this is established, I hope the Government will instigate collaborative working across local government so that we can agree to make progress on this issue.

In conclusion, I want to underscore the fact that we should see this as a first step towards expanding eligibility for free school meals to more children to ensure that no child misses out on a nutritious hot meal at school every day.

--- Later in debate ---

The Opposition have been grabbing at headlines to call for an inquiry to address the same questions already asked—

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. This is an incredibly serious issue, and we should not be introducing anything that might inadvertently mislead. The Government control the time of the House of Commons. This Bill should probably have been two Bills to begin with; there are two distinct subjects in part 1 and part 2, but, for some reason, they were put together. There was nothing to stop the Government, at any point, from separating out parts of the Bill and reintroducing them immediately into the House of Commons—they literally control the timetable. On the Order Paper today, there was a statement on the business of the House. The Government can change the time and change what is considered in the House of Commons as they choose.

[Catherine Atkinson]

Can the right hon. Gentleman imagine if the wrecking amendment—

[Damian Hinds]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I will not, because I am nearly finished—the right hon. Gentleman will then be able to speak about whatever he wants. Grabbing at headlines to call for an inquiry to address the same questions already asked in a national inquiry at the expense of a Bill that will protect children—

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

In the meantime, however, I am very happy to support a Bill—[Interruption.] Does the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) want to intervene?

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that what the Government committed to do was some research.

[Alistair Strathern]

I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that the Minister did not just commit to do some research; he committed to bring forward a statement on some really important aspects of online health on which the Government had not formally commented before. I gently suggest that if the Opposition are so clear—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 8 in my name, which has the support of many colleagues across the House and organisations including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner for England. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and for Woking (Mr Forster) for their comments in today’s debate.

New clause 8 would amend section 58 of the Children Act 2004 to remove the “reasonable punishment” defence that permits assault and battery on children by parents and carers. Children in Scotland and Wales already have the same protections as adults when it comes to being hit, but we find ourselves in the peculiar situation where a child growing up just over the border in England has fewer rights. Why should they? What is the difference between a child growing up in Berwick-upon-Tweed and a child in Bonnyrigg? Scotland and Wales are not alone: 67 countries around the world have already banned physical punishment—Tajikistan last year became the latest—and 27 others have also committed to a ban. There is a global recognition that children deserve better. Indeed, as part of the UK’s commitment to the 16th Sustainable Development Goal, we have already pledged to end all violence against children, and that includes physical punishment in the home. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated unequivocally that protection from physical punishment is a basic human right of a child.

Physical punishment is not punishment; it is abuse. We have a wealth of research to draw on from the last 30 years, and not a single reputable study has found that physical punishment positively impacts children’s development. There is no evidence to show that it improves behaviour in children. The reality is that physical punishment does not establish in a child’s mind a difference between right and wrong; it simply evokes fear—a fear of violence and pain. We know that children who are physically punished are at a far higher risk of experiencing maltreatment and abuse by parents, because over time parents may feel the need to escalate and inflict more and more pain to elicit the same response. A 16-year-old girl told Childline:

“When I was younger and misbehaved, my mum gave me a warning and put me on the naughty step. Then when I got to five to 12 years old, it was a tap or a little smack. But now it can be a proper smack, or there was one occasion where she pulled my hair and I fell to the floor and she continuously hit me. I don’t want to get mum in trouble, but I can’t carry on being afraid of her.”

Studies have also found that physical punishment leads to higher levels of aggression directed against parents by their children. Violence begets violence, and teaching children from a young age that violence is an acceptable way of channelling stress and frustration has consequences for all of us in society. It also has a pronounced impact on the children themselves. We know from research conducted by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that children who are physically punished are almost three times more likely to experience mental health problems than those who are not. We know that physical punishment of children is linked to substance misuse, antisocial behaviour and slower cognitive development. While the majority of parents do not use physical punishment and its use is declining, more than one in five 10-year-olds have still experienced it.

New clause 8 is not about criminalising parents. No one wants to stop a parent from protecting their child who is about to reach for a hot kettle or cross a busy road. Of the many countries that have introduced a ban, there has been no evidence that it has led to an increase in prosecutions. Instead, changing the law is about giving parents, children and professionals clarity, while improving the toolbox parents have to positively raise their child. New clause 8 removes the ambiguity created by the “reasonable punishment” defence and will allow children and adults to come forward more readily to report abuse. A clearer legal framework also makes it easier for professionals like social workers to do their jobs in the best interests of children.

New clause 8 will not, on its own, be able to stop cases like Sara Sharif’s, but it will certainly ensure that the threat of violence many children face will no longer be given the pretence of legal cover. We cannot afford to delay action. The NSPCC has seen a threefold increase in the number of child welfare calls mentioning physical punishment in the past couple of years. We need to act now to ban physical punishment, so we can ensure that children can grow up free from abuse and harm, something I know is a priority for this Government and is the purpose of the Bill in front of us.

Evidence from other countries shows us that bans work. In Germany, for example, the percentage of young people subjected to physical punishment fell from 30% to 3% after it introduced a ban in 2002. Given that 71% of adults believe that physical punishment is unacceptable, it seems to me that sooner or later we will have to change the law. My challenge with new clause 8 is: why not sooner? Why do we not commit to ending this abuse today? Children will not thank us for waiting. Future generations will not look kindly on our inaction, nor should they. We have the evidence, the power and the time. We have the ability to act and we should to protect all our children.

[Damian Hinds]

It is a pleasure to join in this important debate, as it has been to serve on the Bill Committee. I am very pleased that we have two days to debate the Bill on Report, because really it is two Bills, which are very different in character. In part 1, which we are debating today, there is a great deal on which I think all of us in the House agree. In fact, quite large parts of it were in the previous Government’s published Bill. It contains some important provisions covering children in care, special educational needs, child protection and so on.

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend speaks with huge levels of authority given his previous roles. He has just mentioned special educational needs. As a fellow Hampshire MP, would he agree that we in Hampshire benefit from excellent services for our local schools, particularly when it comes to special educational needs? However, demand has doubled in the past few years. Would he support my campaign to save the Henry Cort Community College in Fareham and Waterlooville, which is under threat of closure? If the college is to be closed, would it not be better diverted to special educational needs provision to serve the local community?

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend and near constituency neighbour makes a very important point, and I am sure she is running a very effective campaign. We look to the Government to come forward with what we know will be a large and broad special educational needs reform package. We do not yet know what will be in it or what the implications will be. Of course, we want all children to be wherever is right for them. For some children, that means being educated in a mainstream setting where they can benefit from that. However, we also know that for some children, it is right to be in special school. Having the full range of provision is therefore incredibly important.

There is a great deal in this Bill that I could speak about, and which we did speak about in Committee. However, in pursuit of brevity—as I know you would wish, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am going to limit myself today to talking about two aspects: one thing that is in the Bill, and another that is conspicuous by its absence. The thing that is in the Bill is a peculiar thing to raise on the Floor of the House of Commons, because it is something with which I have not yet heard anybody disagree, and on which there is no amendment to speak to —although, to remain orderly, Madam Deputy Speaker, I can speak with reference to Government amendment 114, which is right next to it in the legislation.

I speak neither in favour nor against the principle of what I am about to cover, but raise it for what is, I think, an important reason. In this House, it is sometimes precisely with measures on which there is no disagreement that the greatest dangers lie, because this House, with its oppositional layout, thrives on people finding holes in what is being proposed and objecting to them; when everybody is saying the same kind of thing, there is a real danger that things will get through without the proper attention.

I have not yet said what I am referring to, have I? I am referring to the provisions on unique identifiers. A couple of speakers have already mentioned the importance of these measures. The hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) was talking about a number of almost invariably serious case reviews identifying the problems that have occurred. A lot of that centres around the lack of proper data sharing, where different agencies both knew the same child, but did not join together what they knew about that child in order to be able to act in their best interest. Having what is, in the systems world, called an “index term”—a terrible way to refer to a child—or a unique identifier for every child, so that everybody knows when they are talking about the same child, is very important. The Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) spoke about the potential for this area to be genuinely transformational— I think that was the phrase she used. All of that is true.

Clause 4 allows for the creation of a single unique identifier for children and introduces new duties around data sharing. Here is my worry: sometimes when we legislate, something passes through without too much debate, and then, two or three years later, all sorts of other things start happening, and when we query why they are happening, people say, “Well, you lot voted for this. You passed a law about it. Perhaps these are some of the consequences.” I think something along those lines might have happened with GDPR, for example, and some of the things that we now see coming through on rules around children’s social media use and ages.

The creation of the single unique identifier is a massive change in the way we keep records on people in this country. With the potential to join up different databases, there are great positive implications for things like child safety, but there are other implications around privacy, data security and so on. It has been suggested that the NHS number would be the unique identifier used for each child, which, at first glance, seems an obvious and sensible thing to do. As a former Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that in the past, various projects have proposed using the national insurance number as a unique identifier for adults, which, at the time, also seemed like a sensible and clever thing to do. However, when it was prodded further, it turned out that the national insurance number database is not perfect, and I am afraid the NHS number database may not be, either—it just was not designed for this kind of purpose.

We are obviously not going to have a big debate on this issue today, although they may do in the other place when they talk about the Bill. However, over time, I think we will have to unpack what this whole new system may imply. For a start, is it talking about using the existing NHS database and the index term—the unique identifier for individuals—or is it talking about taking those numbers and putting them into a new database or system, which would have significant cost and time implications? If it is using the current NHS database, we need to think about the implications.

There has been a different debate going on about AI and the use of large amounts of data for academic research. What would be the implications of having this huge database with every child in the country potentially linked to all sorts of other databases, with details about them, for that kind of research? How secure would the system be? We can probably safely say that the system would not give the same number to two different children, but I am not 100% certain that we could say with total confidence that the same one child could not, at different times in their life, have different numbers, particularly with immigration and re-immigration, change in family structures and so on. What would that mean for the system?

More broadly, though, once we had this unique identifier and a national database of this sort, we could use it for quite a few things other than child protection. Some of those things might be considered by many of us in this House to be pro-social things that are worth pursuing. We have been having debates about age verification and the use of electronic devices and social media, for example; such a database would probably be the most reliable identity system for under-18s.

What about after age 18? If children have grown up with this database and with a number and identifier attached to them, that would not disappear just because they pass the age of majority. In theory, they could carry on having a linked database that potentially links up child protection sources, NHS sources, police national computer and so on—who knows what else could be joined up. We might then find that we have a system of national identity cards without having sought that in the first place.

[Helen Hayes]

The right hon. Gentleman is raising a number of technical considerations about the implementation of a project that is no doubt very ambitious. But does he not hear the cries from parents of children with SEND who are so weary of having to tell their story again and again to different parts of the system that are supposed to help them, and are currently being hampered in those efforts by exactly this want for information about a child being held in a single place? Does he not think that, ambitious though this project is, and important though the technical considerations are, it is worth delivering, and that it is worth giving parents the confidence that we in this House will scrutinise it and do that job? There are big gains to be had from pursuing this course of action.

[Damian Hinds]

I think the hon. Lady was here for the first two or three minutes of my speech—that is broadly what I said. In fact, I quoted her talking about the transformational potential of this measure and its importance. I do not want to go through it all again, but I said that when we all agree on something, there is sometimes a danger of unintended consequences. I then said that we may not talk about all this today—we do not have to do so today—but I think the Government will probably have to come back multiple times for Parliament to be able to consider all the much wider potential implications of creating such a database. I think, not for the first time in our in our lives, we are not a million miles away from one another.

The other thing that I want to talk about, in a less consensual tone, is what is glaring in its absence from the Bill: new clause 36 on mobile phones and social media, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). There are four parts to it: the first two state that the chief medical officer should be commissioned to issue a report, and the Government will conduct research on the effects of social media on children and young people. That was in the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which we discussed a couple of Fridays ago.

The third thing was in the wider package, as colleagues will remember, but the Government did not agree to it: a phone ban during the school day. That is point of contention, although I know that many hon. Members across the House, including in the Labour party, agree on it. There are limits to the approach. An argument that is always made when asking, “Why not ban mobile phones at school?” is, “What about out of school?” That is a good question, but it is not a reason not to do the first part. I readily admit that most online harm happens outside school. We know from research, including the recent study from the University of Birmingham, that a school ban does not necessarily reduce the total amount of time that young people spend online—it just displaces some of it. That does not necessarily improve things such as sleep, which is a big worry for teenagers, nor does it address wider issues of attention span, eyesight and so on.

Rules are still important, for the sake of both children and schools, but three things in recent years have changed the context for behaviour in schools. The first is a set of things that happened around covid—a sort of attitude shift that seems to have happened to a large extent throughout society. The other two things are vapes and phones. Of course, there is a universal ban on vapes at school. That does not mean that they never get through, but pupils are not allowed to vape in any state secondary school in this country. Phones are the other thing. We know—I say that because it applies to us as well—that if we have a phone in our pocket, even if we are not looking at the screen in front of us, it is still something of a distraction, because it could buzz at any time. In fact, we might be wondering if it will buzz when someone replies or comments on a post or whatever it might be.

The school day in its entirety should be devoted to school. That means not just lessons and learning things, although that is the primary aim, but being a child or young person, being with friends and growing up without those distractions.

[Tristan Osborne]

Did the right hon. Gentleman say that it was a “rite of passage” for young people as young as year 6 and 7 to have a mobile phone, and that it was in the gift of their parents to decide? Last year, did he not suggest that we should wait until the guidance given by Government is fully reviewed and understood before we go for an outright ban? Why has he changed his mind?

[Damian Hinds]

I do not know if the hon. Member has been reading misquotes.com again, but I did not say what he just suggested. I think he is probably referring to an interview from years ago in which I said that it has become something of a rite of passage that, between years 6 and 7, the great majority of children are given a mobile phone. That is true, and it is not at all what he just said that I said.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

On a point of fact—[Interruption.] I am reading from a mobile phone but, talking about quoting, they are important for research. On 19 February 2024, when the right hon. Gentleman was the Minister of State for Schools, a press release issued his Department said:

“Mobile phones are set to be prohibited in schools across England”.

On the right hon. Member’s website on 29 February, there was an article that said, “This latest article”—

by the right hon. Gentleman—

“for the Herald and Post follows the decision to ban mobile phones in schools”.

I raise that point because, previously, Conservative Members made the argument that they were already banning mobile phones in schools. Is it not the case that they were posturing then, just as they are posturing now?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member clearly did not consult the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), because he has made a slightly contradictory point. I was coming on to say that we did issue non-statutory guidance that mobile phones should be prohibited during school. That was the right thing to do. I do not know if this is further down whatever webpage the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) was looking at, but I said that we maintained the option of making that guidance statutory. That time has come to do that, because the guidance has not been sufficiently effective in its current form, but issuing the guidance was the right thing to do.

[Luke Murphy]

It was not just any website; it was the right hon. Member’s website, and it was a direct quote. My point—it was not necessarily to do with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne)—was that when the right hon. Gentleman was Minister of State for Schools, he described the move on his website as an outright ban. No if, no buts. It was described by the previous Government as an outright ban. It was posturing then, and it is posturing now.

[Damian Hinds]

No, it was not posturing then and it is not posturing now. We issued non-statutory guidance—

[Luke Murphy]

Which you described as a ban.

[Damian Hinds]

With respect, there are different levels. There is non-statutory guidance, statutory guidance and primary legislation. I first had to deal with this question in 2019. On that occasion, we decided not to issue a ban. We had a big discussion about it in a legislative Committee. I am not totally sure that it was the right approach to take at the time, but it seemed to be the view of headteachers in particular that there should be no ban. The hon. Member is right that when I was back in the Department for Education, we introduced non-statutory guidance, and I believe that the time has come to write that guidance into legislation. If he will give me a chance, I will say why.

Even if something should be banned, it is perfectly legitimate to ask: why not just let schools decide? Schools know their pupils better. I have made that argument myself many times over the years on many different things. Both the Labour party and the Conservatives find ourselves in the exceptionalism territory. Labour Members of Parliament say, “Don’t tell schools what to do. Leave it up to individual headteachers.” Have they read the rest of the Bill? It prescribes what schools must do in the most extraordinary detail. It takes away academy freedoms, specifies the exact length of breakfast, and says, “You may not have more than four items of branded school uniform. For secondary schools, that includes a tie. Primary schools may not have a tie.” It includes all manner of detailed specifications, except on this one issue.

To give the mirror image, it is true that we believe, in general, that we should leave things entirely up to schools, who know their children best, but this should be an exception. As that hon. Gentleman was just saying—[Interruption.] I was not being rude; I meant the hon. Member for Basingstoke, as opposed to this one, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford. In 2019, we decided not to issue that guidance, but in 2024 we did. It was clear at the time that there was an option to make the guidance statutory, if required.

Since then, the world has kept on changing. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) talked about the continued development, tragically, of mental ill health among children and young people. We had this debate when discussing a private Member’s Bill a couple of Fridays ago. Proving causality perfectly is incredibly difficult—we will probably never be able to do it. However, I do not know about colleagues, but I do not meet many people, particularly not teachers, who seriously doubt that there is a major causal link between the two things.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend, who has detailed experience in the Department, is speaking as eloquently as ever on this topic. Before we move on from the Government Members’ interventions, is he, like me, enjoying the slight irony of hearing them argue for consistency, when, on inheritance tax for farmers, the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, winter fuel, national insurance and so many other issues, consistency does not seem to be a priority?

[Damian Hinds]

As ever, my right hon. Friend makes a compelling point. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I am coming to a close.

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

The right hon. Member knows where I stand and my views on this issue. Will he outline what has changed since February 2024, when he said no to a ban on phones in schools, but reserved the right to issue statutory guidance—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I gently suggest to right hon. and hon. Members that we are meant to be debating the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on Report, and the amendments and new clauses.

[Damian Hinds]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker; indeed we are. In fairness to the hon. Lady, there is a connection, but it is important to say that we did not say no to a ban in 2024. We said that we would start with non-statutory guidance, with the option to make that guidance statutory.

Yes, children’s usage of mobile phones has continued. People say, “Phones are banned in all schools anyway.” That is true, and I doubt there is a school in the whole country that says, “Yeah, it’s okay, just whip out your phone in the middle of an English lesson.” Everybody has various restrictions. However, if we look at the survey data, we see that there is a bit of a hierarchy; we can listen to Ministers, headteachers, classroom teachers or kids. The further down that list we go, the more we hear people saying, “Phones are about, particularly in breaks and at lunch time.” That, to me, is part of the school day; this is not just about lesson time.

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

On Friday, I visited Kent college in my constituency, which has recently instituted a ban. Phones are collected in the morning and put into pouches, and at the end of the school day, the children can get them back. The school has found benefits for the collection of lost property, which is attached to the cages that have the phones in them. Is the right hon. Member aware of any cases where a school has instituted a ban, and it has been seen to have negative, rather than positive, outcomes?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member makes a powerful point very effectively. There will always be arguments about needing exceptions for this case and that, but we can have exceptions, and school headteachers are pretty good at knowing when they need to make an exception to a rule.

It would be helpful to have a national policy in this area. That would not preclude exceptions for children with a special educational need or young carers. Crucially, it would also not preclude children from having a phone as they go to and from school, where the school and the parents want that. Parents often think about that, for safety reasons. There are various ways of dealing with this, such as the pouches that the hon. Member mentioned, or lockers.

I have noticed a shift. A couple of years ago, some people argued against a ban on principle. Now, the only real argument that I hear—I do not say that this is a trivial point—is about the big cost of buying pouches or lockers. If that is what we are arguing about, that is material progress. It is time for us to stop talking about whether, and to start talking about how.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I, through you, wish all Members of the House a very happy St Patrick’s day? I rise to speak on new clause 14. What it proposes is not brain surgery, and it is not new or exciting, but it is an essential part of how we approach the enormous problem of children living in temporary accommodation miles away from their home, their home borough, their school and their doctor.

The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), who spoke for the Opposition, said that he thought we would look back at the issue of mobile phones in schools and think, “What were we thinking to allow that to happen?”. We should already be thinking, “How did we come to have tens of thousands of children in temporary accommodation, which is almost exclusively in a terrible state of repair, miles away from anybody who is watching them?”.

Many of the families we are talking about are not just homeless, but are the most vulnerable in our community. They include children with special needs, and children and families who experience great difficulty in their day-to-day lives. There are those who have disrupted families, those who move frequently, and those who just find things difficult. As of right now, there are 164,040 children living in temporary accommodation. On average, 54 children from homeless families are placed in temporary accommodation every day.

In London, the area that I understand best, one in every 21 children is living in temporary accommodation—that is at least one in every school class. In schools in central London, 50% or 60% of children could be living in temporary accommodation. That was certainly the case for Harris Peckham. Last year, an article in The Sunday Times identified it as having 60% of its children in temporary accommodation. That school, like all schools in the Harris Federation, tries to do its best for those large numbers. It has set up a drop-in centre in the school, to allow parents to take their children to school, spend the day in school, and go home with their children in the evening.

We constituency MPs probably understand a lot more clearly than most in our communities the impact of what is going on. In Merton, we have just under 700 families in temporary accommodation. That is probably the lowest number in London, but to me it is an extraordinary number that I worry about every day, every night, and at every advice surgery. Some 80% of those families are placed outside the borough. When they are placed somewhere outside the borough, the council is required to place only two notifications: one with the receiving borough and one with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—it does not have to inform the schools or the GP—and nothing happens, so all these boroughs are taking on families that they know nothing of.

Families often do not want their GP to know that they have moved, because they worry about being removed from their list. They worry that that would mean their children being removed from the children and adolescent mental health services list, which we know can be as long as 12 months, being removed from operation lists at local general hospitals, and generally being displaced along with being misplaced in accommodation. This also means—we probably consider this far less—that the health visitor does not know that a family with young children has moved into the area.

I have a great friend, Debbie Fawcett, a Queen’s nurse who is the homelessness health visitor to families in Merton. Part of her job is to regularly go to hostels, converted warehouses and converted office blocks in and around my constituency to find out where these children are. She gets no notifications; she simply walks round the blocks and gets the families she already knows to be her spies, in order to find out if families are moving in. She has been known to run into flats after delivery drivers to see if she could find a baby. These families are often placed in accommodation that is so small that the children cannot learn to walk. They are displaced from the support of grandparents, churches and other community groups. They desperately need Debbie’s help, but she does not know they are there.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

A number of measures in part 2 of this Bill are to be welcomed. However, after a decade of neglect by the Conservatives, I want to ask Ministers this: when our schools are crumbling, when we cannot find specialist teachers, when special needs provision is in crisis and when we have a huge persistent absence problem, why have the Government chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority education policy? The one strong message coming through from education leaders, including those who have no ideological axe to grind, is that the way that the Government have gone about part 2 of the Bill shows a lack of coherent vision for the school system, with no White Paper and no consultation with those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector.

I turn to some of the new clauses tabled in my name. With all the pressures on family finances, new clause 7 would ensure that free school meals were available to children from households earning less than £20,000 per year and automatically enrol eligible children into this provision. Liberal Democrats have long believed that this is an effective, targeted intervention that would help children in poverty at both primary and secondary school to concentrate, to learn and to thrive.

New clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to find out exactly how many children were eligible for, but not claiming, free school meals or were not registered for pupil premium funding. It beggars belief that, as spelled out in recent answers to parliamentary questions that I have submitted, the Government are flying blind on this issue, with the last proper study of uptake dating back to 2013. New clause 54 would require regular reviews of free school meal uptake.

As we discussed at length this morning in Westminster Hall, and as the Chair of the Education Committee pointed out, an estimated 230,000 eligible children are missing out on a free school meal. Where local authorities auto-enrol children into free school meals, it makes a real difference. In Liberal Democrat-led Durham, 2,500 additional children now benefit from a hot lunch, and their schools benefit from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding.

In Committee, the Minister confirmed the Government’s intention to improve uptake by looking at auto-enrolment and data sharing between Departments. However, his suggestion that locally led efforts were more likely to meet the needs of local communities risks patchy action across the country. We believe that this requires a national response, and we therefore strongly urge the Government to look at auto-enrolment as well as increasing the eligibility threshold, to ensure that we are feeding some of our poorest pupils, whether they are at primary or secondary school.

Staying on the theme of the cost of living pressures on families, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches strongly support the objective of bringing down the cost of school uniforms for hard-pressed families up and down the country. However, we remain concerned that the Bill as drafted, in setting a maximum number of branded uniform items, is highly prescriptive for schools and will not actually rein in the costs of those items. As the Chair of the Select Committee has just pointed out, there is nothing to prevent items costing £100 or more each. Furthermore, an answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled stated that, on average, girls’ uniforms cost £25 to £30 more than boys’ uniforms. If we want to tackle these inequalities, the best thing to do is to support our amendment 1.

I want to put on record my thanks to the Clerks, because we picked up a drafting error in our amendment 1. The online version is correct, but the printed version is incorrect. Our amendment 1 actually amends clause 24 and proposes a monetary cap, rather than a cap on the number of items. That would be reviewed and updated in line with inflation through secondary legislation every year. It would also drive down costs as suppliers would have to compete for school contracts.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member mentions answers to written parliamentary questions. Would she have been as surprised as I was to see the answer to a written PQ of mine saying that if a school specified that a badge be sewed on to an otherwise generic blazer, that badge would count as an item of branded uniform?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

It is important that we pay tribute to the work that David Laws did. As a key part of that coalition, he shaped the legislation that underpinned all the actions that followed, by the coalition and by Conservative Education Secretaries in majority Conservative Governments. We all need to recognise not only that education is a shared priority, but that all parties contributed to driving things forward and creating these structures over the years.

I have a degree of sympathy with the Government on an issue that they are trying to address. It has always been a legal conundrum that successive education Acts have place detailed, specific legal obligations on local authorities regarding the provision of school places in general, and the provision of education to individual children to whom they owe a duty, but there are times when that is in conflict with the fact that academy schools are their own admissions authorities. That is not new; it has been true of faith schools for many years.

Most of us in this House will have had casework arising from parents being frustrated about the difficulties in their relationship with their child’s school. However, a number of my hon. Friends have made the point that most of the measures in this Bill are not about relieving those issues that can be burdensome for families and children, but are about imposing much more centralised control over what goes on in the education system in England, where school standards have powered ahead of those that we see in other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly in Labour-run Wales.

The outset of my journey on this issue was in the dying days of the last Labour Government, when I was a member of, and then chair of, the National Employers’ Organisation for School Teachers. That body, as an employer, provides evidence to determine pay and conditions for school teachers. We might generally conjecture, as members of the public or as members of the political establishment, that that would be a fairly light-touch responsibility—that we would take a strategic interest in the workforce, and occasionally give advice and guidance. I was surprised to discover that we were to attend, with 17 unions, a weekly meeting with the then Secretary of State, Ed Balls, and his deputy Jim Knight, at the then Department for Children, Schools and Families, in which those unions would provide Ministers with a detailed list of their expectations for how every aspect of education policy would be micromanaged. Those regular weekly meetings came to an end with the election of the coalition Government, but I am aware that they have resumed since the election last year.

We have heard admissions from Ministers about how rarely they have engaged with school leaders, and have noted a great reluctance to say how often they engage with those who represent the union interests.

[Damian Hinds]

Intervene and tell us!

[David Simmonds]

I invite the Minister to say how often she has been meeting those school leaders.

We have also seen a move to re-establish the school support staff negotiating body. I had the privilege of chairing the employers’ side of that body. Its purpose was not only to give the teaching unions a voice on every aspect of education, but to support staff. One of the big challenges for the last Labour Government was the fact that the teaching unions hated the idea that school support staff would have that voice when it came to what went on in the classroom. It is, again, a cause for concern that the priority for the new Government is not to ask themselves, “How can we build on the progress that we have made with policies that we established and principles that we introduced?”, but to ask themselves, “How can we revert to giving control to those with a vested interest in how much money is spent, rather than those with a vested interest in the attainment of the children in all our schools?”

That is why it is so important for us to support new clause 38. In government, we should have taken the opportunity to

“extend freedoms over pay and conditions to…maintained schools”,

but the present Government, who say that they regard education as a priority, now have that opportunity. They have the opportunity to create a genuinely level playing field, so that, appropriately, the maintained schools that have been some of the main drivers of the progress in reading and mathematics among the youngest children, which is one of the proudest achievements of the past decade, can also secure teachers of the highest quality.

I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that the unions’ demand that no one should teach in a classroom without qualified teacher status will not apply to university technical colleges. We know that UTCs have sometimes struggled in the current educational landscape. UTC Heathrow in my constituency, for instance, introduced an educational offer for a group of young people who might otherwise find it difficult to gain access to the type of education that would give them the start in life that they need. That is an example of success and an opportunity on which we could build, but instead it is being overlooked and potentially undermined by measures on the national curriculum.

It is hard to understand how an aviation-focused UTC closely connected with Heathrow airport, providing employment opportunities and a chance to access apprenticeships, gain technical skills and learn about catering and retail, would be well served by our prohibiting the people who know about those matters from doing their work unless they have qualified teacher status. We must ensure that we retain that element of diversity and opportunity in our education system—that diversity of provision and style that was always intended to underpin academisation, but which is now at serious risk of being lost.

There is clearly a need to reconcile the legal impositions on local authorities—for example, the need to balance the local education budget, which is legally part of the council tax, though we are yet to see a solution that would not have an unacceptable impact on local residents, and the legal obligation on local authorities to provide places—with the lack of any legal obligation on the Government to ensure that those elements are properly funded. However, on the substance of the Bill, even with the very sound amendments that we are seeking to pass, it is, essentially, a shopping list of union demands. What the Minister describes as a mission is a mission without a purpose. There is no sense in the Bill of how we are to take forward the progress we have made, what we want to achieve for our disadvantaged children, what targets we might set and how we might go about meeting them, and how we might unleash the sense of aspiration that exists in so many of our communities.

People ask what developments we could be proud of when we left office. When we left office, youth unemployment was half what it had been under the last Labour Government, and there were 4 million more people in work than there were when they left office. Much of that is down to the brilliant progress that was made by so many of our schools in transforming education standards. This Government should hang their heads in shame, because all they can do is come forward with a shopping list of union demands and not for a moment put forward the needs of the children of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government have made it clear that one of our top priorities is investing the in next generation to break down the cycle of poverty that holds our nation’s progress back. The Bill clearly drives home Labour’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, and I will vote for it proudly, on behalf of all those children and families in Mansfield and across the country who will benefit from its measures.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to be called to speak in the debate. It has been an honour to be a member of the Bill Committee. Over many days, we considered the Bill in detail, providing line-by-line scrutiny. Today, there are many amendments before us, many of which I support, and there are important issues to discuss, including elective home education. My right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) made some excellent points, and the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) also made important points.

It is important that we discuss the breakfast club provision. In principle, schools providing breakfast to children is a good thing—why not?—but as we get closer to implementation, colleagues on the Labour Benches may find themselves getting more mail from headteachers in their constituencies, noting that the Government say that the pilot scheme will save parents £450 per child, but the amount of money that the Government are giving to schools goes down as low as £114 per child. That is clearly quite a gap for schools to make up, and we will see how they intend to do that.

We had some good debates on uniform in Committee. I gently say to Labour colleagues that if they think the changes in uniform will automatically result in the cost of sending children to school going down—because everybody will go to Asda and get unbranded clothing, so there will be no pester power or fashion competitions when it comes to sportswear, for example—next time they do a school visit, they should go to a PE lesson and look down at the children’s feet. If they cannot make it to a PE lesson, just wait for the end of the school day, stay at the school gate and look at the children’s bags. It is not automatically the case that not having uniform items for sport, for example, makes things cheaper. I also hope that at some point during the passage of this legislation, the Government will get rid of the bizarre anomaly by which they say it is all right to have a school tie as an additional logoed or branded item in a secondary school, but not in a primary school, for some reason.

There are also important new clauses for us to consider—on free school meal auto-enrolment, for example. We had that discussion this morning in Westminster Hall with the Minister for early education, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan). Historically, there have been barriers to auto-enrolment for free school meals to do with IT systems and the legal basis for such a measure. The IT system issues are melting away as technology improves, and I hope that the Government will look at that seriously.

If I were to comment on every clause with which I have an issue, or every amendment on which I have an opinion, I would stretch even your famed patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. Instead, I propose taking a step back. What we are debating is more than just the 84 pages of parts 2 and 3 of the Bill, or the 62 pages of amendments. This is really about the soul and direction of education in England. As other colleagues have mentioned, this new Government have a very solid base on which to build when it comes to attainment in England; we have the best primary school readers in the western world—yes, that bears repeating. Under the last Government, at secondary school, we went from 27th to 11th in mathematics, and from 25th to 13th in reading. Children on free school meals became 50% more likely to go to university. That is the record of the last 14 years. It is not the record of the 13 years before that, when we went down the international comparison tables.

There were stand-out reformers in new Labour, and I pay tribute to them, starting with Sir Tony Blair and his famous epizeuxis, “Education, education, education.” There was also the noble Lord Blunkett, Lord Adonis and others, but they were always swimming against the tide from the left of politics and the Labour party to push through reforms. We should not exaggerate how much was achieved by the end of the last Labour Government. There were a couple of hundred academies, as opposed to many thousands today.

What happened between 2010 and 2024 was not all about academies—far from it. It was really about brilliant teachers—that is always where it starts and finishes in education—in an ecosystem that valued high standards and high quality. Crucially, it was about the combination of autonomy and accountability for schools, a knowledge-rich curriculum, and proven methods, such as synthetic phonics and maths mastery. It was about schools learning from each other, both in the hub-and-spoke network across the country and in academy trusts, which became the primary vehicle for school improvement.

That improvement also needed diversity and parental choice, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, who is on my left—spatially—pointed out. That starts with clear information and knowing how children are doing at school. There was a time, for many decades in this country—going back way before the new Labour reforms, by the way—when nobody knew how many children were just being let down by schools. We took that provision of clear information further, of course—as did the Blair reforms—with clear Ofsted judgments that anybody could access readily, but also much longer judgments that could be read by anybody who could read.

We do not talk nearly enough about Progress 8—it is so much better than the measures that we used to have—either on raw GCSE attainment or the contextual value-added measures of the Labour years. We also knew that if we were to have choice, there needed to be spare capacity in the system. Remarkably, in spite of the fact that there was a known demographic need, in the years up to 2010, the previous Labour Government cut school places by a six-figure number; we added 1.2 million more. We also made the diversity of academies and free schools happen, and welcomed it.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has referred not only to the previous Government, but to the new Labour Government before that. Does he share my concern, and perhaps my confusion? I thought there was consensus on the huge benefits of academies, which were brought in by new Labour and advanced by the previous Conservative Government, but this Government seem to be ripping up that consensus through this Bill.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is certainly right that over the years, there have been many brilliant, far-sighted people in the Labour party who have overlooked their political tradition and said, “We must just do what is best for the children.” I do not think there has ever been a universally accepted consensus on academies; until very recently, there have been groups actively organising against schools becoming academies, with leading members of the Labour party involved in those movements. There has always been a strand, which turns out to be wider than we realised, of the Labour party that believes that unless there is control from the top, through councils, and unless schools are told what to do, the system is inconsistent. Some consistency in education is very important, but that is not the same as uniformity, and certainly not the same as top-down control.

It turns out that Government Ministers do not want transparency and choice. They do not want diversity. In particular, they seem to want to curtail the improvement in school performance that has been made possible through academy trusts. The Government have already stopped new free schools. This Bill can not only stop academies growing in size, but can stop them staying the same size, even if they are popular with parents.

We all know that the Bill erodes freedoms, starting with the qualified teacher status requirement. It is not as if schools are going around willy-nilly, recruiting people without qualifications off the streets. They are not putting cards up in Tesco saying, “Apply now to teach, no prior experience or qualifications required”—of course they are not. Equally, though, a headteacher who is trying to do the best for his or her school and its children might have a reason to bring in somebody from a profession. They might want to bring in somebody with a sports background, somebody from the private sector, or somebody from another country to help with their school’s language programme, but no, we do not trust headteachers to make those decisions. We have to write something into legislation to stop them doing that.

Turning to the national curriculum, again, it is not as if schools are going around willy-nilly saying, “We’re not going to teach children English, maths, geography and history. We’re just going to make it all up.” In fact, Ofsted-inspected schools—which all state schools are—cannot do that, because they are judged on having a broad and balanced curriculum. The quickest way to achieve that is to follow the national curriculum, but there are schools that want to innovate and to deviate somewhat from the national curriculum. We see no harm in that, so long as those schools maintain that breadth and balance.

It has been said by a few colleagues that it seems to put the cart before the horse to say that all schools must follow the national curriculum rigidly before we have the outcome of the review. Just a few hours ago, we had a publication connected to the review, but not the final report. It is beside the point, however, because whatever the review comes up with—on which we must wait and see—the Government are not obliged to adopt it and could adopt something else. Even if they do adopt it, this Government or any subsequent Government could decide to do something different. Having the ability for schools to deviate somewhat gives us a safety valve against the over-politicisation of schools and what is taught in the curriculum. It also gives some reassurance to faith schools and parents.

[Graham Stuart]

Has my right hon. Friend seen Tim Leunig’s article in Schools Week talking about Ofsted’s new report card system following the Labour manifesto commitment? One danger is that, if my right hon. Friend is right and we see a reduction in standards, the Bill could switch off the light that allows us to see that, because

“reliability and validity are in tension”,

as Tim Leunig puts it. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that Ofsted must ensure that it continues to put a bright and reliable light on the education system, so that we can see whether the policies in this Bill work?

[Damian Hinds]

I do, and my right hon. Friend gives me two valuable opportunities. The first is to pay tribute to the great Tim Leunig. We do not often talk about him in this House. He has friends here, and he is a perceptive thinker. I will look up his article.

The other opportunity that my right hon. Friend gives me is to highlight the discrepancy we can get when things appear to be getting better, when in fact they are not. That is what happened under the last Labour Government when, in spite of us falling down the international comparisons, they managed to find 11 different ways in the system to make it look like our GCSE results were improving year after year. We do not want that to happen again. There were those champions in the new Labour years who made these great reforms happen and would want to continue them now, so I say to those on the Government Benches: where are the champions today? Where are those in the modern Labour party who will say, “No, we will not be bound by ideology. We are going to do what is in the best interests of the children”? I hope there will be some of those champions in the other place.

To be fair, I was mildly encouraged this morning to hear the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when questioned on the radio about the fate of this Bill, appearing to be somewhat open-minded, shall we say, about what might happen. To be fair, I have even been slightly encouraged listening to the Secretary of State for Education in recent days and weeks. She has sounded like she might be a little bit open to rowing back from some of the worst excesses of this legislation. There is still time. There will be weeks of this legislation being considered in the other place, so I just ask the Government to please take that time to think carefully about the legacy they will be leaving and to turn those words into deeds.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Ministers for their contributions. It is an honour to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents and my former colleagues in the teaching profession on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Quality of teaching is the single biggest driver of standards in schools. The Bill will ensure that all teachers have or are working towards qualified teacher status. As a former teacher, I welcome that.

It is fair to say from the chuntering I have been doing from this Bench that I feel passionately about education. I find it difficult, listening to Opposition Members—I recognise that they generally care passionately about education, but sadly my experience of teaching under their Government was different from how they describe it. I once again ask the Minister to recognise that she is inheriting a workforce in the education system that is absolutely at rock bottom.

Let me stress, however—I want to make this clear to Conservative Members—that I put the wellbeing and education of children above any politics. When I talk about the education of young people, I talk not just about examinations but what is described in the teaching profession as the hidden curriculum: important life skills. Indeed, I became quite animated when a month ago, on this very spot, I spoke in a debate about the importance of financial education.

As I have said, for me a well-qualified teacher is one who still takes a joy in education that has not been sucked out of him by the endless barrage of comments in the press, and, I must add, a revolving door of Conservative Education Secretaries, although I should offer an olive branch to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—[Interruption.] I was about to say something nice about the right hon. Gentleman.

[Damian Hinds]

Carry on, then!

[Chris Vince]

I was going to say that he was probably one of the better ones.

I should also recognise, as should we all, that the young people who are going through the education system now have been impacted negatively by something even worse than a Conservative Government, namely the terrible pandemic. We know that they are less resilient. We also know that more and more young people are having to be carers for their parents and other family members and loved ones. Members will be aware that I am very passionate about this subject, and I thank the Minister and other Members for attending and contributing to my Westminster Hall debate on it last Thursday. On average, young carers are likely to miss more school than their peers, and I welcome the proposal in the Bill to record absences to ensure that no young people fall through the gaps, including those who are home educated.

I said earlier that I did not want to be too political about this. I went through the education process and became a teacher because of Sir Tony Blair’s remark about “education, education, education”. When he said that teaching was a valuable and noble profession, I thought, “He’s right: it is.” The former Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath did not put it in quite the same way when he said that most teachers were letting young people down.

I want to say something about reform, and to move away from the ideological politics of reform. Sometimes reform is good, sometimes it is bad, and sometimes good reform is bad because of the way in which it is implemented. As a former teacher, I can assure the House that telling a student that they are not doing a very good job does not make them do a better job. When we are considering reform in education, it is hugely important that we take educationists, teachers and support staff along with us, and that, I am afraid, is something that I do not think the last Government did. I believe that the Bill returns us to the original purpose of academies: to share best practice and encourage collaboration in the best interests of children.

I was told that I must talk about the amendments and new clauses, so let me briefly speak in support of Government amendment 156, which focuses on the importance of ensuring that every school is run by a “fit and proper person”, which I think we would all agree is a no-brainer. I also want to refer to—I cannot find the right page in my speech—

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Bailey]

I am in the middle of responding to the previous intervention; Members might just want to wait one moment. In all good faith, I have looked in great detail at the problem with why these policies in schools were not being enforced properly. It was a question of weak guidance, and the schools therefore not enforcing that guidance properly. Ofsted is now enforcing that, and teams of people are supporting schools to implement it. I have been clear that if the consultation says that a statutory ban is the silver bullet that will solve the problem, then of course we will do it, but in my honest view, we have already solved the problem of banning phones in schools.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Olivia Bailey]

I will make some progress.

This Bill is something that only a Labour Government—[Interruption.] I will give way because the right hon. Gentleman is looking so aggrieved.

[Damian Hinds]

I think I just heard the Minister say, “We have already solved this problem.” I do not know if any other colleagues heard that. She said that she has written to every headteacher in the country, and it is absolutely the right thing to be in contact with them. Has she heard back from any headteachers or headteacher representative bodies, who say that this ban would be so much more straightforward if it were written into law, because of the difficulties that arise with a minority of parents? Headteachers say how much easier it would be for their school and their authority in their school if this ban were written into law.

[Olivia Bailey]

It seems to me that the Conservatives have just had their fingers in their ears and have been ignoring the wide range of steps that this Government have taken to address this issue. [Interruption.] We have recently changed your weak guidance—

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Prinsley]

I agree that we must hold the tech companies to account; they are the ones in control of the situation.

The amendment proposes a higher standard—not simply “reasonable steps”, but highly effective age assurance, and that is meaningfully different. We have heard about movement internationally. France and Spain are taking similar steps, and others are following. We ought to be part of the broader shift in how Governments are approaching online safety for children. Also, this cannot just be about restrictions; of course, there is a role for education. Children need to understand the online environment that they are engaging with, particularly when it comes to the algorithms, data and content driven by artificial intelligence.

We have heard about the consultation, and I support it in principle, but the scale of the issue is already well evidenced. There is a question about what additional insights small trials would realistically add, given the body of research that already exists.

[Damian Hinds]

There are unanswered questions about definitions, what should be in and what should be out, and exactly where the boundary lines are. Parents sometimes talk about social media in a way that professionals might not; parents might exclude certain messaging apps, for example. There are questions to be resolved, but the Government consultation is not just about that; it is about the “whether”, as well as the “how”. By all means, let us consult to get those technical points right, so that the measures are bullet-proof and future-proof, but today is the day that we could say, like those other countries did, “We are doing this. We are going to protect our children—and yes, there is still work to be done on exactly how that will fall out.” Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Peter Prinsley]

I understand exactly what the hon. Member says.

My position is this: I support the Government, and I support the Bill, but I think the House should take very seriously what the Lords have asked us to consider. If the Government are not minded to accept the amendment as it stands, I believe there is a strong case for them to bring forward their own proposal to achieve the same outcome clearly and in a timely fashion. Ultimately, this is about setting the right boundaries for children in a digital world that is evolving quickly. There is a clear expectation, inside and outside this House, that we must act.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Patience is a virtue, and as we have made up time, the final Back-Bench speaker will get five minutes. I call Damian Hinds.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to have heard the last few speeches, which made very important points, but even with five minutes, time is still short for me. I will speak briefly about a couple of aspects of social media and mobile phones.

On social media, let us get on with it. We have had this issue come back from the Lords multiple times, and we can do this. There is a glaring logical flaw at the heart of the Government’s argument for not taking action—we have also heard it from a bunch of Labour MPs today—which is, “We can’t do this one thing, because there are some other things we could do as well.” That just does not hold water. All those other things—around gaming, other types of applications, chatbots, addictive features and so on—could be additive to a ban on social media for children under the age of 16. They would still, by the way, be very relevant to child safety. I remind the House that our duty to children extends to those aged up to 18, as per the Children Act 1989 and our commitments to the United Nations.

There are issues to resolve about a ban—exactly where the lines should be drawn; exactly what is in and what is out—and yes, of course, the Government have to consult on those issues, but they do not need to consult further on the principle of whether the country and the House of Commons want a ban on young people under the age of 16 accessing social media, a conclusion that so many other countries are also coming to.

On mobile phones, throughout the progress of the Bill, I have found a remarkable contrast. The Government said for so long that they would not ban phones in schools because there should be some discretion for headteachers, but they are going to tell them precisely how many items of branded school uniform they are allowed to specify, and will tell them that in secondary schools that could include a tie, but in primary schools, for some bizarre reason, it cannot.

I am pleased that the Government have partly seen the light. The Minister, whom we all like and respect, said last week that the problem had already been solved—and presumably it has now been re-solved, as the Government have come back to the issue—but I have to say that that is not what children say. What children tell us, both informally and when they are answering surveys about the actual use of mobile phones in schools, is how often lessons get interrupted, teachers are filmed, and bullying and other stuff happens at break times and lunchtimes. We need to act. Of course, there can be individual exceptions for those using assistive and adaptive technology, for young carers, and for others, but the one exception that we must not have is on the type of ban.

The critical question is about having a policy of “not seen, not heard”. Every school in the country, pretty much, already has at least that, but I am afraid that it is not effective as a ban. If you have this thing in your pocket, or in your bag at your foot, it is still there, and you feel its presence. If it vibrates, you might actually feel it, physically; but even if you do not, you feel that compulsion towards it. The only way to make a school truly free of the scourge of mobile phones is to have them away from the child. The “not seen, not heard” approach does not work.

The main argument for saying that we have to allow “not seen, not heard” is about cost. I understand that. Pouches, which a couple of colleagues have mentioned, do have a cost, but we do not have to do pouches. There are other ways of doing this. I mentioned the Petersfield school in my constituency, which has a phones-away-from-children ban, and which uses a simple device—a plastic box that can be purchased in most large-format Swedish retailers. That is locked away in a cupboard, along with a number of other boxes, until the end of the day. The biggest cost has been the foam inserts, with numbered slots in which each child puts their phone, but the sum total cost is very reasonable.

I want to answer the hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), who is no longer with us, so to speak. He asked why had we not taken this measure when we were in government. That is a perfectly reasonable question. There are two reasons: first, the issue has become more acute; and, secondly, the attitude of headteachers. It has changed. We have gone from headteachers and their representative bodies saying, “The best way for you to support me in this school is not to impose a national ban,” to them saying the exact opposite—that the best way to support schools and headteachers is to have a ban written into law.

[Caroline Voaden]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I think that would try Madam Deputy Speaker’s patience. Today is the day that we can take action on those two points.