Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Debate
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Baroness Smith of Malvern
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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging debate. As we begin, it is probably worth while identifying that the amendments fall into three related but distinct areas: the use of and regulation of social media, the impacts of screen time, and the proposals for the use of mobile phones in schools. I will respond to the specifics of the amendments. There were times during the debate when, while I recognise the linkages between them, those issues were conflated, which will not necessarily help us to develop clear policy.
In starting, I wholeheartedly agree with noble Lords that parenting is hard. It was before mobile phones, but the point about the ubiquity of screens made by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, makes this even more significant. We are talking about long-standing issues for young people around behaviour, cognitive development, bullying, lack of exercise, mental health, extremism and radicalisation, and crime. I accept some of the arguments about that, but I say in response to my noble friend Lady Morris that, if I remember rightly, these were all issues we were exercised about when we were in the now Department for Education before the era of mobile phones.
That is to say not that this is not a serious issue, but that there is rarely one easy solution to these problems. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friends Lord Knight and Lady Morris that straightforward bans are rarely the solution. I emphasise in responding to these amendments that we need a multifaceted policy response, and that is what the Government are pursuing. We will continue to do what is needed to keep children safe online and when using devices with screens.
We recently published our response to the Education Select Committee report on screen time, which further sets out the Government’s positions on these issues. It is not in fact true that the Government are not doing anything on this whole range of areas—and that goes for the previous Government as well as this one.
Amendment 177 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, would require the Government to introduce regulations about social media access for under-16 year-olds and to commission advice for parents. I am surprised that we have had just one mention of the Online Safety Act in this debate. That Act is the first step in delivering a more positive, safer online environment for children where they are protected from online harms. As of March this year, the Act’s illegal content duties are in force, meaning that children are already protected from illegal content and criminal activity. Additionally, as of April, Ofcom published its draft child safety codes, which have been laid before Parliament. Subject to passing parliamentary scrutiny, they are expected to be in force next month. Services will shortly be required to put in place measures to mitigate risks they have identified, in order to protect children from harm once the codes are in force.
This is not to say—my noble friend Lord Knight was the one person who mentioned the Act—that there will not be a need for us to scrutinise this carefully in the future and to take further action. But it is right that we focus on what this House and the other House considered during the passage of the Online Safety Act, as a first step.
There has also been important debate about where the evidence leads us. There is certainly an enormous amount of evidence in this area but, overall, the scientific evidence on the impacts of social media and screen time on children and young people is mixed, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, says. There is no clear scientific consensus on a negative impact from screen time and social media use on the mental health and neurological or functional development of children and young people. There is a large amount of discussion in this area whereby correlation is confused with causality, but that brings upon government a responsibility to build the evidence base, which is what we are doing. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is commissioning a systematic review to understand the impact of smartphones and social media on children’s well-being, which is being led by the University of Cambridge and a wider consortium of experts and academics. The Government will publish the results of that in due course.
We are also monitoring and learning from wider developments internationally, including in Australia, to share evidence and learn from each other’s experiences. In supporting parents, we have also funded further guidance and support including through Parent Zone. Further research exploring the relationship between social media and child health and how it might be mediated is welcomed, and departmental policies—and the whole Government—will remain agile in light of this emerging evidence base.
We recognise that screen time needs to be proportionate. We do not want screen time to displace beneficial opportunities to socialise face to face and to take part in physical activities. The section of the UK Chief Medical Officer’s report on advice for parents and carers encouraged them to agree with children and young people boundaries, both in and outside school, around online behaviours and time spent using screens.
Amendments 183CA and 183CB, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, seek to update the early years foundation stage statutory framework and ensure the delivery of a public information campaign on the use of screens by children aged nought to five. I have considerable sympathy with what the noble Baroness was saying. It is clear, both for parents of young children and for providers of early years education, that the right framework, proper information and access for both providers and parents is important.
Once more, the Government are not standing by but taking action. The early years foundation stage statutory framework, which was updated last year, has a requirement for safeguarding policies to include how mobile phones, cameras and other electronic devices with imaging and sharing capabilities are used in the setting. It signposts guidance that covers the risks that children in early years settings could be exposed to by using those devices. In September 2025, we will introduce changes to the safeguarding requirements of the early years foundation stage. These were consulted on in 2025, and the changes include a requirement for designated safeguarding leads to have training covering how to ensure internet safety. The safety of our youngest children is our utmost priority, and we continually monitor and review early years safeguarding requirements and guidance.
The “help for early years providers” internet safety guidance was updated in January 2025, following a discussion with the digital standards for early years action group. The guidance highlights both the benefits and challenges of device usage, that devices should be used in settings as a tool to support children’s learning and development, and that sedentary screen time should be avoided.
There are several further resources that parents and providers can turn to, and I very much take the point about ensuring that information for parents is as clear and accessible as possible. That is why we recently updated the Better Health Start for Life website, which provides trusted advice to care providers of children aged nought to five and support for parents. The World Health Organization also provides guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under five years of age, with recommendations on limiting screen time. The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, made the very reasonable challenge that we need to keep ensuring that that information is accessible to parents and to those delivering early years provision. I undertake to continue discussions with the department about how we can ensure that not only now but in the future.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way. Presumably, all the countries that have introduced mobile phone bans in schools have found ways around this. It cannot be beyond the wit of the Government to find a way through this.
I also wondered whether the Minister was going to comment—perhaps she will come on to this—on the power of the social media companies. In her remarks so far, she has come up with what were, in a former life, perfectly respectable and effective solutions, such as that parents should set boundaries with their children. But we, as parents or grandparents, are now competing with social media companies that have a great deal of power and expertise to disrupt all those good 20th century-type responses.
Lastly, I wonder whether she feels that the figures she gave on schools adopting phone restrictions tie in with the evidence from Teacher Tapp about the level of disruption in lessons that my noble friend referred to.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
On the point about regulation, the reason why I started by referring to the Online Safety Act was precisely to identify the need that was manifest in a piece of legislation that came through this House before my time but which presumably some noble Lords around the Chamber were engaged in and which was precisely about how to regulate the use of social media for children and young people. That legislation did not happen in the last century; it is literally only just on the statute books. I was making the case that it is important, and that it is right for the Government to ensure that it is working properly as a first priority.
The issue of how we support schools to be able to have within them the type of calm behaviour that they need is, of course, absolutely crucial. In response to the question about when we will publish the survey on behaviour, it will be later this year. To come back to the point I made at the beginning, although I very much doubt that the only factor influencing behaviour within schools is mobile phones, everything that head teachers might need to put in place the restrictions on mobile phones that will, along with the other necessary things, enable them to have strong behaviour policies and practice, is, rightly, available to them in order for them to be able to ensure that that is happening.
Lastly, I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I have already said that I see the point of the exemption he has proposed. However, my point is that you have two routes here: the legislative route, which has already begun to be unravelled by the inclusion of a whole range of exemptions; or a positive set of guidelines for head teachers to use to design and develop, in consultation with parents, their staff and the young people in their schools, the appropriate policies for safeguarding children, protecting behaviour and delivering what individual schools need. At this point, the Government believe that the latter is the most appropriate way forward to ensure that children have the protection from mobile phones they need and in a way that recognises the flexibility that will be necessary.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
Will the Minister give way? We had a debate a few months ago on this very subject and I visited the Fulham Boys School, which is a large all-male school with about 1,200 students, to speak at some length to the headmaster. That school has had a ban on phones for about 10 years. The issue is not about having a ban in school but, as the headmaster said very clearly, what happens outside the school. It does not matter what policies you have in place; they will not solve what young people are doing outside of school time. He said the biggest problem he has had in trying to tackle this issue has not been with the pupils themselves but the parents, some of whom are very challenging and regard it as an infringement of civil liberties that anybody should tell them what their children should or should not do.
The real problem is what happens outside the school. The school can have as many policies as it likes, but until and unless we find a way of influencing what happens outside the school—which, as I said, means getting to the young people, because they know themselves some of the harm being done, and perhaps through them getting to the parents to make them realise how their children feel—we will not start to tackle the psychology behind some of the problems we are confronted with.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I do note that I was coming to the end of my comments at 18 minutes—just so the Whips know I was sticking to the rules. The noble Lord tempts me to say that that was exactly the point I made at the beginning: there has been conflation in this debate of the use of mobile phones in schools, the impact of screen time across children’s lives—I can quite understand people’s concerns about that—and, as I have said, the need for us, at a very early stage in children’s lives, to be clear with them about the appropriate use of screens, which is probably practically none, and clear in the information that we provide to parents. The Government are taking action on all those areas, alongside gathering appropriate evidence. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Bethell (Con)
The Minister is quite right to point out that the Online Safety Act did not get much of a mention: maybe it is some kind of PTSD, because some of us did hard yards during that difficult passage. One of the most difficult things was the debate on age verification for porn, which started with all the same arguments we have just heard: it is not technically possible; maybe children can learn by watching pornography; the moral rules around telling children what to do are not crystal clear; the science of whether porn is good for children is not cast in stone, and does not have the longitudinal studies that we need to make decisions on it. All that was heard.
At the end of next month, Ofcom will finally bring in a deadline so that all websites that carry a risk of children seeing porn will have to put in age-verification software. Who in this Chamber now genuinely thinks that was a bad decision? Yet it was fought tooth and nail from that Bench by the previous Government, who had to be dragged to that decision by rebellion in the Commons and a four corners of the Chamber effort here.
The Minister faces a similar storm brewing on social media use by under-16s. Could she, with her multidimensional approach to this problem, help us understand the metrics she will use to judge whether it is right to revisit this issue? How many hours a day do children have to spend on social media? How many predators have to get through? How many grooming gangs have to recruit children in order to abuse them? What metrics will she apply to reviewing this decision?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Well, the noble Lord added considerably to his speech there. I did not use some of the arguments that he suggested were used in this Chamber about porn. I was not in this House so I do not know what arguments and debates went on. Nor did I suggest that there are not considerable issues around young people’s use of social media and the amount of their screen time. The noble Lord is very clear that he believes there should be a complete ban on social media for young people aged under 16. I do not know whether that carries a majority in this House, to be honest. Given that, it is important to demonstrate, as I attempted to do, the action that the Government are already taking to address all those issues, whether it is screen time, the impact of social media on young people, or mobile phones in schools. The Government are taking action on all of them, without necessarily thinking that there is one single silver bullet of a ban that can solve all those problems.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I will be brief. I really appreciate what the Minister said on early years. I think it goes a bit beyond safeguarding, but I will look really carefully at what she said. On the evidence point, she referred to the Children’s Commissioner’s work on the policies, but we need to know the effect of those policies. That is where the national behaviour study comes in. The Minister previously told me it was due in spring, but she said it would be later this year. It would be great to understand why there is a delay, if there is one. Could she be more specific about when we will see that study of what is going on in our schools? I will be happy for her to write.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
First, I said more than safeguarding; I hope she can go back and look at the record to see that. I was pretty sympathetic to the points she made, and I said much more than safeguarding. I share her frustration about when the survey will be published. That is all I can say about it.
Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords for their contributions. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Bethell for his contribution. I am just so sorry that we will perhaps not see him around this place for very much longer.
On the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran concerning the possession and use of smartphones in schools, as my noble friend Lady Penn said, it may be that 90% of schools have a policy, but, unless smartphones are physically not allowed in schools, bans will be ineffective. Teachers are reporting that children are going to the loo far more often; I see the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who is a teacher, nodding. Some schools use pouches, but the evidence is clear. As my noble friend Lady Barran said, if my smartphone is there, I will concentrate far less than if it is out of the room. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Agnew said, children are very ingenious. I am told there are ingenious methods of opening and closing these pouches by using magnets and various other methods.
On what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said about the consequences for any school or person who did not follow a ban if we passed this amendment to ban smartphones in schools, I do not think for a moment that we are talking about a criminal offence. Surely a duty would do.
I am highly sceptical about what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said about allowing smartphones in schools to teach their safe use. Children know far more about how to use these things than adults. They do not need to see a phone to be told what not to watch. Unless they cannot access social media, pornography or whatever because of age verification, they will watch it. That is what kids do.
On my noble friend Lady Penn’s amendment, which I support, I will make this point. Heads of primary schools have recently been alerted—I used that word advisedly, because none of them can tell me they were aware of any specific notification on this—to the fact that the reception baseline assessment, the RBA, will now require four year-olds to be tested using touch-screen devices, which, of course, they will have to familiarise themselves with before they take the tests. If we bring these screens into schools—
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Does the noble Lord accept that that assessment—the procurement, analysis and evaluation of which started back in 2019—will be carried out alongside teachers, with the ability for teachers to use other methods with children where necessary? This is not something that children will use on their own, on screen.
Lord Nash (Con)
I understand that entirely. I understand that there will be two devices, on one of which the teacher will have to log the responses. The pupil will sometimes use a hard copy, but they will have to touch a screen for some of the tests. So we will be bringing these devices into primary schools, which will accept their existence for these ages. Goodness knows where this might go in primary schools without the kinds of amendments my noble friend Lady Penn is proposing.
The Government have entered into a £20 million contract with Made Tech Group plc to develop the relevant technology for the reception baseline assessment. The contract specifically states that
“the RBA will be the first service launched to schools in a wider suite of digital assessment tools”.
In other words, this is the thin end of the wedge. I hope the Government will reconsider this. I note what the Minister said about hoping that there is very little of this sort of thing in the early years.
I heard the Minister’s response to my Amendment 177. I listened carefully, and I am afraid that clauses and phrases such as “The Government will do what is needed to keep children safe online”, “Online Safety Act”, “scientific evidence mixed”, “correlation and causality”, “build the evidence base”, “publish results in due course”, “recommendations on limiting screen time” and “advice on sleep” do not fill me with any hope. All this sounds to me like statisticians wanting 100 years of evidence before they say the case is proven. The time is now. How much more evidence do we need? How much more damage do we need to see before we act?
I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said about Ofcom, but social media companies are perfectly capable of implementing highly effective age limits if they want to. I am glad he was listening so carefully to what I said and noted some similarity between what I said today and what I said in the purpose clause debate, but I hope that when he checks Hansard he will see that there was quite a lot of new material there.
Concerning my Amendment 177 on banning social media before 16, there are clearly very strong feelings about this across the Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said. This is becoming a real issue for working families across the country, and I have no doubt that if it is not dealt with before the next election, it will be a big issue on the doorstep, as my noble friend Lord Bethell said. It is no secret that there is support for this not only in this House but across the Benches in the other place, including from a number of honourable Labour Members demonstrated by, for instance, Josh MacAlister’s Bill and other interventions. I urge the Minister to convene a meeting across the political spectrum to discuss how we can take this matter forward, and I ask her now, as a first step, whether she will kindly meet me very soon to discuss how we can take this forward. We may—indeed, we almost certainly will—look to bring this back on Report, but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, we have had a good discussion on this third group of amendments about the important issue of ensuring that children get the very best start in life. This Government’s opportunity mission is a bold and necessary commitment to break the link between a child’s background and their future success. It begins where it matters most: in the early years.
We have heard quite a lot of discussion, along with some reminiscing and nostalgia, about the last Labour Government’s Sure Start scheme. Without rehearsing the reasons why we no longer have Sure Start, having once had it has at least demonstrated, through the evaluation that several noble Lords referenced, the considerable success of that model. Also, the process of setting up Sure Start under the last Labour Government at least provides us with some hope of and a road map to getting back its very important contributions—even if we do not, in the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, completely reinstate it.
Amendment 183B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, seeks to publish a national strategy. As the noble Baroness said, this is a probing amendment and I hope I am going to be able to be encouraging about the national strategy. This Government firmly believe that children’s early years are crucial to their development, health and life chances. That is why we have set an ambition for a record proportion of children starting school to be ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure progress through 75% of children by 2028 reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment at the end of reception. This is not just a statistic or a target—it is around 45,000 more children who will start school ready to learn, thrive and succeed. This measure has seen little progress in years, so it is ambitious—but as noble Lords across the Committee have said, it is ambitious because it needs to be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, suggested that nobody so far had mentioned the expansion of access to childcare, so I am going to mention it. The Government are already delivering on this commitment through the expansion of access to childcare with 30 funded hours for working parents from September, and we will be investing an additional £1.6 billion per year by 2028-29 to continue the expansion of government-funded childcare for working parents, boosting children’s life chances and work choices for their parents. Alongside that, we are creating 6,000 new nursery places in schools across the country, in the first wave of 300 school-based nurseries backed by £37 million. At the spending review, we announced almost £370 million of further funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries.
Secondly, we will work in partnership with the sector to drive up standards and improve the quality of early years provision. We recognise that early years professionals need more than just praise, although they are very praiseworthy; they need real, practical support. That means offering sustained professional development and working with providers to help spread evidence-based programmes as part of comprehensive plans to drive high-quality early education and care. Only by listening to the expertise and experience of those on the ground can we deliver this together.
Here, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, makes a really important point about the way in which we enable the early identification of those with specific learning difficulties in early years settings. On other occasions, I have talked from this Dispatch Box about some of the additional training and guidance that we are putting in place in early years provision to ensure that happens. I am sure the noble Baroness will quite rightly hold me to account for that in future years.
Improving reception year quality is also critical for setting children up for success in the rest of primary school. We genuinely hope and believe that the work we will put in place will enable children to arrive in school able to learn. As several noble Lords have pointed out, for some children it is not until they arrive at school that they have the structure and the support to enable them to have the skills and development necessary to be able to learn. That is why reception year is so critical. It is also why we have recently announced that for our RISE teams, one of the four universal service national priorities will be how we support reception years to improve. That will involve helping all schools to share best practice, to build partnerships and to drive improvement.
Thirdly, we are strengthening family services. Through family hubs and Start for Life programmes, we are building a joined-up system of support from pregnancy through early childhood. These hubs are already transforming lives in more than 500 communities, offering everything from parenting support to perinatal mental health care. At the spending review, the Chancellor committed to continuing to invest in and expand the family hubs programme.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, and other noble Lords on the importance of a national strategy. I assure noble Lords who have said it is important to talk not only about progress but about how this will be brought together into a strategy that the Government have already committed to publishing a best start in life strategy. We expect to do it this year, and hopefully sooner than the end of the year. All noble Lords made the point about the need to ensure that this is a coherent and wide-ranging strategy to deliver on the strong target set by the Government.
I do not want to pre-empt the contents of the strategy, but I assure Peers that it will build on our commitment to improve children’s early outcomes and next steps on early years reform. It will also give a view about both how delivery will be achieved and how it will be monitored, implemented and reported. Parliament will be able to hold the Government to account on that commitment and the implementation of that strategy.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady Stedman-Scott, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have made an incredibly strong case for the importance of this amendment. As my noble friend Lady Coffey said, the Lords Public Services Committee has a live inquiry into this very important topic.
The statistics are stark, as we heard, with over a million children covered by child maintenance agreements but enforcement still not being effective enough and too many parents making no payments at all, paying irregularly or paying insufficient amounts. When I was running the domestic abuse charity SafeLives, non-payment of child maintenance was incredibly frequent and caused huge problems in the lives of children and their mothers. As other noble Lords have said, at its simplest, non-payment exacerbates either the risk of poverty or the actual poverty that so many single-parent families face. In cases of domestic abuse, non-payment was often used as a means of coercion and control over a mother and her child, raising the risk of harm to them both. The anxiety that this creates, and the pressure that this puts on a mother, directly impact the well-being of her child.
We also saw the longer-term impact, in physical and mental health problems for the child. The Institute for Public Policy Research has found that child maintenance currently lifts around 140,000 children out of poverty across the UK. Conversely, when payments are not made, the impact is devastating. Finally, we know that child maintenance is not just a private matter between separated parents but a fundamental determinant of a child’s well-being and future life chances. When maintenance payments fail, society bears the cost through increased demand on public services, educational support and healthcare interventions.
As my noble friend so simply and clearly put it, there are two pieces of legislation on the statute books that need to be commenced. I hope very much that the Minister will confirm that the Government plan to do that and that we can make progress on unlocking the £700 million that belongs to our children.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am not surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, managed to persuade those in a position to be persuaded that this amendment should have the opportunity to be discussed this evening. There is something refreshing about the idea of the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Stedman-Scott, rightly pursuing people who owe money for their children and who have that responsibility. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lady Sherlock and the current Secretary of State will be equally relentless in making sure that families are paying for the children for whom they have responsibility, and that is quite right.
I know from what the noble Baroness said that the intention of this amendment is to probe and push on the progress being made with each of the pieces of legislation that she talked about. I hope to provide some reassurance on that.
First, the powers within Section 34 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act enable debt owed to parents or the Secretary of State to be transferred to other parties, including debt collection agencies. This power was introduced as an option to deal with the £3.8 billion debt burden that had accrued under the former Child Support Agency. A proportion of that debt was owed directly to the Secretary of State, and I am assured that the issue of Child Support Agency debt has now been resolved. The Child Maintenance Service has strong and effective enforcement powers, including imposing prison sentences for non-payment.
On the specific point about debt collection agencies, there is no evidence that using debt collection agencies would actually secure more child maintenance than current enforcement powers. In fact, a previous trial absolutely demonstrated that, so there is no evidence that commencing this power would have a positive impact on children’s well-being.
Secondly, the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 introduced powers that, once commenced, would enable an administrative liability order to be made against a parent with outstanding child maintenance arrears. As the noble Baroness says, this introduces savings in court costs and time. I am pleased to confirm that progress is being made to implement the necessary legislation to bring this power into force as soon as possible. The Government are working with His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service and the Scottish Government to establish a process for implementing ALOs, and plan to introduce regulations to Parliament by the end of this year.
The Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 recognised that direct pay may not always be appropriate for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Act intended to provide them greater protection when using the Child Maintenance Service, by allowing them to move to the collect and pay service but only where there is evidence of domestic abuse. The Government recognise that removing opportunities to use the Child Maintenance Service to inflict economic abuse will benefit the well-being of children. However, many victims and survivors would be unable to provide that necessary evidence as required by the Act. For those who could, there are risks that providing evidence of their experience of abuse and reliving events could lead to further trauma.
That is why the Government today published our response to the consultation, Child Maintenance: Improving the Collection and Transfer of Payments. It sets out plans for reforms to introduce a service that protects all parents from financial abuse and, importantly, includes no requirement for victims and survivors to provide evidence of their circumstances. These reforms, therefore, go further than the provisions contained in the 2023 Act to protect victims and survivors of domestic abuse. They will have a positive impact on children and their well-being, as more child maintenance liabilities will be enforced, leading to more money going to children, which I know is the objective of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in moving this amendment.
I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance for the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment, although she has already identified that she has other ways to put pressure on the Government to ensure progress, and I have no doubt that she will continue to do so.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
In consideration of what the Minister has said, of which I am conscious of certain aspects, I am pleased, in particular, to hear that the Child Support (Enforcement) Act should come into effect by the end of the year. I will take up some of the other matters to which she referred directly with the responsible Minister. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 189 and 191 to 193 en bloc. I thank all noble Lords who have made such valuable contributions to this group thus far.
On the Thursday just past, we heard some excellent speeches in your Lordships’ House on the various issues relating to the provision of healthy, nutritious food in schools and the possibility of providing eligible children with free school meals and activities during the holidays. It is most opportune that we now have the ability constructively to challenge His Majesty’s Government around the base provision and right of those children eligible to take advantage of free school meals during term time.
Amendment 189 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Lister and Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seeks to require the Secretary of State to review free school meal eligibility and pupil premium registration. It is absolutely correct that schools and local authorities should have complete and full data, and that those pupils who are eligible for free school meals actually take them up. They are clearly the pupils most likely to need free school meal provision. If His Majesty’s Government would please listen to the eminently sensible suggestions from other noble Lords last week, including those in this Committee right now, those meals will consist of healthy, nutritious food, with fruit, vegetables and low sugar levels in both food and drink. Healthy nutritious food and free school meals for every pupil eligible will hugely aid the learning and development of children in the UK.
Both Amendment 191 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister, and Amendment 193 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Lister and Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seek to change the system of enrolment for free school meals so that there is auto-enrolment for all eligible families. It appears that difficulties can arise during the application process and, for some, the forms can be overly complicated, but it is crucial that eligible families are able to access this provision. We understand that changing the system in this way is far from straightforward, but some local authorities are investigating how to make such a system work, and our observation to the Minister is that this is surely worth fighting for. Ensuring that all pupils who should receive free school meals do indeed receive them would, we believe, be a top priority on every Bench of your Lordships’ House.
Amendment 192, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister, seeks to expand free school meals to all children in state-funded primary schools. While we agree that it is vital for all students to be able to access a healthy, nutritious meal at school, we suggest that this scheme would be potentially expensive to implement and that there could be a more efficient and appropriate allocation of resources and funding within school budgets. That is not to say that providing free school lunches for all primary school children in state-funded schools is a bad idea—in a perfect world, of course, it is a great idea—but we suggest that a detailed analysis is required of how much it would cost. Is it realistic to have some contribution from parents, even if small? What impact would it have on the other elements of school life if the school and the local authority had to find the funding without additional resource from His Majesty’s Government? These are just some of the questions we seek answers for from the Minister, and we look forward to hearing His Majesty’s Government’s response.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to free school meals and follow on, of course, from the interesting debate that we had last week on wider issues relating to school food. Amendment 192, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, would extend the provision of free school meals to all pupils attending state-funded primary schools. The Government are clear about the benefits that children enjoy when they receive a free and nutritious lunch. They support attainment, because hungry children cannot concentrate and learn. By improving behaviour, nutritious and free meals also lead to better outcomes, meaning that children can get the best possible education and chance to succeed in work and life.
It is in recognition of these benefits that this Government have confirmed that all children in households receiving universal credit will be eligible to receive free meals from September 2026. This represents a significant expansion of support to over 500,000 children. The Government have chosen, though, to focus this on the most disadvantaged households, which we are backing with over £1 billion in funding. This is on top of the 3.4 million children who are already provided with free meals by the Government. Moreover, by widening access to free meals, and doing it in the way that this Government have chosen, we will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament, reversing the trend of rising child poverty that we inherited from the previous Government.
This is the priority that this Government have decided on. Of course, it goes alongside the rolling out of free breakfast clubs to every primary school pupil, which we had the opportunity to discuss last week, meaning, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, that significantly more children will have the benefit of both a free breakfast and a free lunch. Alongside that, as we have talked previously about, we are expanding government-funded childcare and legislating to cap the number of branded school uniform items. These are all serious developments in the Government’s plan to break the unfair link between background and opportunity.
Amendments 191 and 193, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Walmsley, seek, as we have heard, to ensure that all households meeting the eligibility criteria for free meals would automatically receive this without having to make a claim—something which is required under current provisions. The first and most important point is that the process of now linking free school meal entitlement to universal credit makes it far simpler and more likely that there will effectively be an automatic understanding of the eligibility for free school meals. We want to ensure that all families who need it are able to claim the support they are eligible to receive. That is why we provide an eligibility checking system to local authorities; this is an online portal that makes verifying eligibility for free meals quick and easy. We are rolling out improvements to this system, to allow parents and schools to review eligibility for free school meals independently, which will make it even easier for families to claim the support they are entitled to. These actions will support the take-up of free meals. However, we will keep under review the extent to which free meals, and all the benefits that come with them, are being taken up.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
The Minister twice mentioned monitoring the take-up. Do the Government know how many families should be claiming free school meals? That would surely help in understanding how close the Government are to reaching the goal that all noble Lords are asking for, which is free school meals for everyone who is eligible. What is that number? I do not need the answer now, but do the Government have that information, because presumably they should do?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My point was that linking free school meal entitlement to universal credit will make it much easier both for families to apply and for us to monitor the levels. However, I will respond to the noble Lord on his specific point.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and all noble Lords who have spoken in favour of this important group of amendments. I assure the Minister that, as I have said today and last week, I very much welcome the expansion of eligibility for free school meals.
On Amendment 189, it is important that when the Government come, as the Minister has promised they will, to monitor the uptake under the new eligibility rules, there is enough detail in there. My amendment mentions demographics, regional differences and cultural differences and so on. All that would give a good and useful set of information to help the Government to develop policy even further.
I am not going to go on any further about free school meals—I could go on all night. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, resisted it and so will I. I beg to withdraw the amendment.