Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eighth sitting)

Ian Sollom 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?