Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

I am determined to use my time in this place to do all I can to help give every child the best possible start in life. No child should be left behind, and if we are going to achieve that, voting for this Bill is a good place to start.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

There are good elements in this Bill. In line with Professor Jay’s recommendation, I agree that the House must urgently make it a duty to report abuse. As new clause 50 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) sets out, we also want a new authority established to deliver national and local inquiries into rape gang culture and the like. I fully support breakfast clubs, especially following the invention of free school meals—a few years ago—by a Liberal Government.

These are good measures because they put the interests of the child at the centre of everything, and the Bill goes wrong where it puts ideology ahead of the interests of the child and loses sight of those interests. I do not support adding taxes to education, which is outside the scope of the Bill, and I am concerned about the effects on academies as well.

Any conflation of children being educated other than at a traditional school with safeguarding concerns is not borne out by the evidence. It is also an ideological position that is an insult to the parents and families of the 110,000 children—our constituents up and down the country—who are doing a great job in ensuring that their children are educated, whether they are home tutored or educated otherwise. In fact, according to local authority data published in academic research that has been submitted to the Education Committee, only 11% of section 47 child protection inquiries into home-educated children result in a child protection plan. That rises to 26%—more than double—for the average of all predominantly school-educated children. Child for child, those educated at home are the safest and least in need of protection, so the overwhelming weight of new bureaucracy and legislation tackling home education as a sector is not justified. My hon. Friend’s new clause 48 is therefore quite right, because we should remove the burdensome and highly intrusive sanctions on such families.

Unless amendment 221 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) is agreed to, the Bill will enable grandparents reading to their grandchildren at weekends or in the evenings on a regular basis to be served with a notice, demanding a response on pain of a monetary penalty, by a council officer who chooses to issue one. These powers are really extreme and extraordinary. Instead, we should be supporting the interests of the child.

We should be supporting home-educated children and allowing them to sit exams without charging them hundreds and hundreds of pounds for the privilege. New clause 53, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, would do exactly that. Without such a provision, can Ministers conceive of anything in the Bill that supports home-educated children? There is plenty to regulate them, control them and expose them to rigorous inspection, but there is not a single clause in the whole Bill that supports children being educated at home. Why the parsimonious Treasury cannot be persuaded to simply allow them to sit exams without paying hundreds of pounds is beyond me. Forgive me, but I cannot fathom why a Government would not want to provide for children to sit examinations.

In Somerset, our council has much a much better and proportionate approach, and it has developed a protocol in partnership with home-educated families. I am worried that that constructive approach will be swept away by the more confrontational approach that this Bill ushers in. At worst, there is the prospect of a disabled child being forced back to school by a local authority officer when they have good reason to be frightened of going back to that school, which really cannot be right.

Turning to my Taunton and Wellington constituency, I pay tribute to state schools such as those my children attended, and the independent ones in Somerset, where, as I have said, the local authority has a more constructive and positive approach to working with schools and families. I particularly pay tribute to the pupils at West Monkton primary school, who have written to me about their amazing plastics pollution campaign. I completely support their bid to ban single-use plastics, which they have written to me about. For those schools and the 5,254 children with an education, health and care plan who cannot get a school place, such as the family who came to my surgery on Friday, may I urge the Government to do more to help families with children with special educational needs? It is crazy that the system is preventing them from attending school when they want to. We need more projects like the great special educational needs centre being developed at Hatch Beauchamp school, which I visited recently. We need to be driven by the interests of the child, not ideology.

Finally, until the Government address the fact that £2 out of every £3 of council tax in places like Somerset is going on care—a national responsibility, in my opinion—then local services, schools and communities will see less and less investment. Social care funding must be tackled. It affects the whole of local government finance, including schools. That is not good for our environment, not good for jobs and not good for the growth of our economy.

[Sarah Smith]

It is a privilege to stand again in support of the Bill. If we are to improve our school system for the benefit of all children, regardless of their background or educational needs, their welfare and interests need to be at the heart of any reform. Opposition Members’ suggestions that that cannot be done without sacrificing standards in education could not be further from the truth. It is because the Government are ambitious for all children that the commitment to excellence in education is the driving force behind the measures in the Bill. Labour knows that when standards in schools drop, it is working-class children and those whose attainment levels may already be lower on paper but who are no less impressive due to overcoming additional learning challenges, who will suffer.

The Bill represents a cultural shift in how Government approach educational reform through delivering change in the sector through partnership and child-centred policy. The prioritisation of a child’s wellbeing and a focus on inclusion are not woolly concepts, but the bedrock of stability that will enable all children to thrive educationally.

It is not contentious to say that we currently have a fragmented school system that is letting down far too many children. That needs to change. Children need to feel like they belong in their school. Every setting, regardless of type, must be given the freedom to drive up standards in a way that meets the needs of its pupils and communities. The Bill goes back to the original purpose of academies, which was to share best practice and encourage collaboration in the best interests of our children. Allowing councils to open new schools will ensure not just that more school places are available, but that the places are the best ones for local families and where they are needed. This is a very positive step forward. A focus on school structures alone will not help families, children or teachers.

I support the roll-out of breakfast clubs, which will lead to every child having access to a healthy meal to start the day. As the impact assessment states, clubs will help to boost children’s attendance, attainment, behaviour, wellbeing and their readiness to learn. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for highlighting, through amendment 2, the need for any provision to take into consideration the needs of all children, particularly those with special educational and disability needs. Inclusion is at the heart of this policy, so adjustments will need to be made to provide the food, transport and staffing for pupils in both mainstream and specialist provision. I also support new clause 1 and the auto-enrolment of children for free school meals. The two amendments support the Government’s mission to tackle child poverty.

Unfortunately, special schools fall behind mainstream ones in the offer to parents and pupils outside the conventional school day. Recently, a school close to Hyndburn and Haslingden that serves many of my parents and families has shortened the school day by a whole hour against the wishes of parents. In all honesty, I found the reasoning quite unconvincing. It will cause chaos for families and it would not have been tolerated in a mainstream school. We must do better with SEND schools to ensure that their children get the same school standards and excellent provision that the Government are working to achieve.

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Sadly, there are too many cases where children who are classed as home-educated are actually attending the illegal settings that I set out earlier, or are simply not receiving any education at all. In the worst cases, like that of Sara Sharif, we have seen children removed from school in order to prevent detection of abuse. It is only with this Bill that that can be tackled. The introduction of registers for children not in school is crucial in ensuring that children do not fall through the net.

[Gideon Amos]

Does the hon. Lady accept that, in the tragic case of Sara Sharif, which my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) has been pursuing, the murder happened in the school holidays and Sara was already known to social services? There is not much evidence that the parents said they were going to home-educate in the first place. Given all those facts, does the hon. Lady accept that there is actually no correlation in the data between home-educated children and children who are ultimately judged to need a care plan?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I acknowledge the complexity of that case and that the absolutely unacceptable failings before Sara’s death were abject across many organisations. However, she was removed from school partly so that her parents could prevent the detection of the abuse. I have recognised, and will continue to recognise, that that obviously does not speak to the vast majority of people who home-educate their children. However, as parliamentarians, we have a duty to protect the most vulnerable, and sometimes that includes regulating the majority, who are decent, honest people.

I want to reassure parents that the new regulations, such as registers for children not in school and the capacity to compel school attendance in certain cases, are not aimed at limiting home education as a whole or about policing how people choose to educate.

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I am also concerned about the excessive reporting requirements for the register—other than the reference to ice creams. While basic information is useful for future planning, proposed new section 463C(1)(e) goes much further, requiring the details of all individuals involved and a full list of all activities. That not only places an unrealistic burden on families, but is impractical for local authorities to manage. If we break down what is being asked for, it would mean that parents must report a neighbour who teaches their child to cook or sew and a local farmer who introduces their children to the environment through hands-on experiences, as well as swimming lessons, museum visits and even regular nature outings with other home-educating families.

[Gideon Amos]

In that vein, does my hon. Friend accept that, as I mentioned, grandparents reading to their grandchildren could be considered as providing home education and should be inspected and reported on, and vital home education groups providing services free of charge could be driven out of business by the scale and weight of reporting they will have to provide?

[Vikki Slade]

I think a lot of people who do not know anything about home education miss the fact that there is a whole community of home educators, and home-educated children spend plenty of time with their peers, but they are just different peers—others who prefer to have their education outside a school environment—and there is a risk of such organisations being driven underground or lost altogether.

Under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, parents already have a duty to ensure that their child receives a suitable education, whether through school or otherwise, and local authorities can already conduct informal inquires and issue school attendance orders if they believe a child is not receiving an appropriate education, so this is simply overkill. A formal register would help to ensure accountability, but this is overreach. My amendment 221 proposes a more practical solution of requiring only those who provide more than six hours per week of education or activity to be included in the register. That strikes a reasonable balance by ensuring that key educators are identified without overwhelming families or local authorities.

While there are genuine safeguarding concerns, local authorities already have the power to intervene under section 47 of the Children Act 1989. The Victoria Climbié Foundation stated that the provision proposed in the Bill would have done nothing to help Sara Sharif because the local authority had already decided that the child was not at risk.

Future Skills Programmes: Universities

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ed Davey]

I am very happy to have that sign of support from the Government Benches already; we are making progress.

After the navigate and explore phases, the final stage of the future skills programme for third-year undergraduates is called apply. Students take stock of what they have learned with the nine skills, and refine and tailor their learning of future skills towards their careers. The apply stage of future skills is being piloted, tested and finalised with some students as we speak, with a full-year roll-out for all third-year Kingston students from September 2025.

I hope that that quite long description of Kingston University’s future skills helps the Minister and others to see that it is a well-thought through, properly researched and piloted programme, and it is happening. There is lot that Ministers and their officials can come and see for themselves, so I repeat my invite. If what I have said so far has not convinced the Minister—I find that hard to believe—here is another major argument. Big UK and international businesses, brands and organisations are coming to Kingston University because they love future skills.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the UK is to get the growth it needs from the new Tata Agratas gigafactory in Somerset, the University Centre Somerset in my constituency needs support from the Government to prepare the 4,000 new workers with the skills they need before they arrive?

[Ed Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is a real champion for his university and the students there.

My hon. Friend backs up my point that major businesses are loving the future skills programme at Kingston. The home-grown talent and skills are what employers actually need. I am talking about the likes of IBM, Adobe, Deloitte Digital, John Lewis, Formula 1, and Salutem Care and Education, to name but a few. Public sector managers are also coming to Kingston for the programme, from the NHS to the Met police and the Civil Aviation Authority. They are helping to shape the future skills curriculum, to innovate and to identify talent. I am sure that the Minister will be unsurprised at the excited interest in the AI element of future skills, where Kingston is linking digital competency with an understanding of the human aspects of exploiting AI—the added value of being a human, if you like.

Another reason why I would like the Minister to visit soon is that the idea from Kingston University is already exciting interest from around the world. I fear that if someone in the Department for Education does not run with it now—frankly, this year—it will be yet another example of a great British innovation that is developed here but exploited elsewhere, because there has been interest from Korea and Singapore already. Education and political leaders in Korea and Singapore are engaging. Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, ranked 15th globally, is conducting research through its prestigious Centre for Cross Economy. It is speaking to thousands of businesses in the same way that Kingston University did in the UK, but Nanyang has far more resources and it is working at speed. But Kingston University is smart: it is partnering with Nanyang to explore international and business skills from perspectives in the east. With Korea and Singapore at the cutting edge of digital and AI innovation, the partnerships that Kingston is building have huge potential. That is just another aspect of the present I am bringing to the Government today.

I should perhaps declare another constituency interest. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), who is in his place, I represent more British Koreans than any other Member. As trade Minister between 2010 and 2012, I helped to push the EU-Korea free trade agreement, which had a major impact on international trade discussions at the time. If only we could resurrect such trade moments now.

I would like to quote some students who have been living the future skills programme, and then I have a few more asks of the Minister. First, Abdurrahman, a computer science student, said:

“Taking part in the Future Skills programme has helped me understand just how important and necessary these skills are for everyone to progress in their chosen career pathways. From simulating how to talk to employers in industry to prototyping a start-up company, it’s brought to life how to use these skills in an employment or business setting.”

Paulina, a forensic psychology student, said:

“Future Skills has been integrated so well into my different modules and all my different modules really highlight the importance of these skills. It has reignited the passion I came to university with, by enabling me to reflect on why I started my forensic psychology course and giving me a deeper insight into the career I want in the future.”

Two Kingston University students, Amber and Rahman, are in the Public Gallery listening to the debate. They would be pleased and excited to talk to the Minister, or indeed other hon. Members, about their experience of the future skills programme after the debate. This is a full-on lobbying exercise.

I will turn to my final asks of the Minister and Department. The main ask remains: please visit. Please engage soon. I invite the Minister to ask herself, “Is this a present? Is this an idea we can accept and get behind?” If she wants to get properly behind it, just a bit of cash would really help Kingston University to take it forward. So far, it has been funded by a combination of philanthropic support from the fabulous Mohn Westlake Foundation and the university itself. The Mohn Westlake Foundation has a commitment to making education accessible to the most disadvantaged students, and I put on record my thanks. I hope that is another reason why the Minister and the team at DFE will want to look at future skills at Kingston University: the role that it can play in social mobility, social justice and equal opportunity.

I have some final suggestions for things that the Minister might consider when the team visits Kingston University—I hope she noticed the “when”. First, is there a way for the Government to help even more businesses to engage with Kingston University on future skills, perhaps by using the apprenticeship levy or the existing UK Research and Innovation budget? Secondly, will the Government help Kingston University as it continues to evaluate this approach and secure a long-term evidence base that can be shared with other higher education institutions? I am talking about something like a small research and development grant, which might cost as little as £500,000 over the next five years. Thirdly, will the Minister consider making a small innovation grant to enable a pilot expansion of the future skills programme into a secondary school or, indeed, another university? This approach could be taken down into secondary education, and it must surely be tried in other universities. Kingston has already identified potential partners in secondary and tertiary education, so deploying this idea elsewhere really will not cost much. It would be great to trial it with others.

Fourthly, will the Minister request that the Office for Students fund some competitions to support others in higher education that might wish to consider developing and rolling out their own version of Kingston’s future skills?

Finally, perhaps after a visit to Kingston University, which I know is going to happen, will the Minister and her team join me in the House of Commons on 18 June, when Kingston University will be launching its research with Nanyang to leading UK and international businesses, policymakers, academics and students? [Interruption.] That is 18 June—I see that the Minister is writing that down. I am sure that the Minister will see this idea as a very special present, and I want her to enjoy it with some amazing students and businesses. I thank you, Sir Desmond, and the Minister; I hope that she is as excited by the future skills programme as I am.

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[Janet Daby]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. No one is too young to learn a skill. Skills should be learned throughout a child’s educational journey, and they should begin at home.

Higher technical qualifications and universities go hand in hand in developing essential skills for the future for learners from all backgrounds. HTQs have been introduced to champion the quality available at levels 4 and 5, with qualifications that have been independently approved as providing the skills that employers need in specific occupations. They are helping to open up new opportunities for young people and are enabling adults to get the benefit of a university education.

For example, Tarza undertook a level 5 HTQ in healthcare practice at Newcastle College university centre, and is now at the University of Sunderland completing her adult nursing bachelor’s. The HTQ at the university centre gave her the clinical skills she needed and allowed her to learn as a mature student, despite being out of education for so long beforehand. That is one example of many. The Government’s support for the future skills programmes at universities is a comprehensive and forward-thinking strategy designed to meet the evolving needs of the economy and society.

[Gideon Amos]

Where a major international investor is coming into the country—such as Tata, where 4,000 new employees will be needed—does the DFE support colleges and universities to set up the new apprenticeship and training programmes that they need in preparation for that massive international investment?

Apprenticeships

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Max Wilkinson]

I will move on to that, and the hon. Gentleman will find that there is a pleasing consensus between my party and his.

There are positive stories around, and I will highlight an example of good practice from Cheltenham. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre) mentioned Gloscol, which has one of the most influential, if not the most influential, cyber-clusters outside London. The 5,000 members in CyNam work closely with academia and the education sector to build the skills that drive growth. Gloucestershire college is helping to equip the cyber-security professionals of tomorrow with the skills they need via a range of digital and cyber apprenticeships, in both Cheltenham and Gloucester. Apprentices at Gloscol benefit from being at the heart of Cheltenham’s cyber-security community, close to GCHQ and the Golden Valley development, alongside experienced professionals based in co-working spaces on site. The cyber degree apprenticeship is endorsed by the National Cyber Security Centre and is offered in partnership with the University of the West of England. It gives young people a route into a huge growth sector, helps our economy to thrive locally and nationally, and makes our nation safer too. The college is also offering courses at its new £5.2 million sustainable construction centre. The hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) mentioned green skills earlier. We are equipping young people with the skills needed to deliver the built environment we need for the future.

Those are just two examples from Gloucestershire college, which is ably led by its visionary principal, Matthew Burgess. It is a local success story of which I and the hon. Member for Gloucester are rightly proud, and it shows that offering apprenticeships should be a much bigger priority for this country.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Another key development site, similar to the projects my hon. Friend has mentioned, is Tata’s Agratas gigafactory near Taunton. It is important that colleges can set up apprenticeships and skills training in advance of the factory being built. Does my hon. Friend support a request to the Minister to facilitate that?

[Max Wilkinson]

Of course. An alignment of skills with the jobs need for the future is key in the apprenticeship sector. Flawed policy in the past means that there has been a clear drop-off in new apprentices in recent years. Just over 736,000 apprentices participated in an apprenticeship in the last academic year, which is a slight decrease of 2.1% on the previous reporting period. Apprenticeship starts overall have fallen by 170,000 since 2015-16, when the Conservatives started governing alone. The deal on offer is clearly not as attractive as it once was.

We need to recognise that apprentices have the same rights as other employees, but experience a large pay disparity compared with other workers. The national minimum wage will be £11.44 for those aged 21 and over, but for a first-year apprentice, the rate is much lower. Young people are not immune from the cost of living crisis and the disparity between those two wages might be a disincentive. Have Ministers considered whether it is and whether it might be putting young people off from taking up apprenticeships?

The Liberal Democrats would scrap the apprentice rate and instead pay apprentices more fairly. We must also reform the apprenticeship levy, which many Members have mentioned today. Employers tell us that it simply does not work and the House of Commons Library briefing shows that there are large underspends every single year. The amount of money being put aside to train young people is simply not being spent. The Association of Employment and Learning Providers says that the money is being raised for skills but not spent on skills, at a time when Governments—this one and the last—say they are keen to encourage businesses to invest in skills.

The Lib Dems would replace the broken apprenticeship levy with a broader and more flexible skills and training levy. We are pleased to hear that the Government want to abolish the apprenticeship levy and replace it with a new growth and skills levy under Skills England. That is a positive step. However, it is clear that there is still work to be done in establishing the new levy and Skills England to oversee it. I would appreciate an update from the Minister on where things are with that policy.

There is also a concern that careers advice systems are not being properly set up to advise people of the many opportunities in apprenticeships. If we are going to fill the skills gaps that we have discussed, alignment of careers advice with those gaps will be key.

We Liberal Democrats believe that apprenticeships have a much bigger role to play. We welcome the Government’s plan for changing the system. If we get the reform right, we will help young people and employers, too. Central to that will be finally getting rid of the failed apprenticeship levy, properly valuing apprenticeships and learning from best practice like that in my constituency and that of my neighbour in Gloucester.