Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 722377 relating to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your authority, Ms Barker. As Chair of the Petitions Committee, it is a privilege to open these petitions debates. I do find it extraordinarily encouraging that so many members of the public are actively engaging with the Government and, in this case, engaging with legislation that is passing through Parliament.

The e-petition was created by Michelle Zaher, who is in the Public Gallery. Prior to the debate, I had the pleasure of speaking to Michelle to understand the motivations behind the creation of this petition. She explained to me that she believes that the implementation of the Bill falls far short of addressing the real problems in the education system, and that instead it tightens controls on parents and educators without consultation.

There are a plethora of reasons why signatories of the petition believe the Bill needs to be withdrawn, but the primary concern that came out of my conversations in preparation for this debate was the lack of consultation with key stakeholders in the Bill’s development. The Bill has the opportunity to embed children’s wellbeing at the heart of our education system and to create lasting safeguards and opportunities that no amount of voluntary guidance could match. However, those who signed the petition believe that the Bill does not do that, and that it should be withdrawn before it goes any further. We are here to debate their concerns.

Before we start the debate, I note that we still await the White Paper for the schools section of the Bill, so we approach the debate on the legislation without the full picture before us. I shall begin by outlining what the Bill aims to do. To put it simply, the Bill is set to prioritise children’s needs and raise standards for every child across the whole of England. It introduces mandatory participation in education, safeguarding, clear information sharing and multi-agency child protection teams. In an ambition to tackle inequality, the Government have included measures to support kinship carers and care leavers, and to provide free breakfast clubs in primary schools.

Crucially, the Bill seeks to remove unnecessary barriers in our schools by limiting branded uniform items, standardising teacher pay and conditions across academies, and establishing registers to safeguard children not in school.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for outlining the Government’s supposed intention for the Bill, but is he aware that Amanda Spielman, the former Ofsted chief inspector, said that this Bill was “very likely” to have a detrimental effect on children’s education?

[Jamie Stone]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That point was made in the consultation I had before this debate.

To continue, the Bill proposes wellbeing co-ordinators, structured mental health assessments and greater collaboration with community health services to embed wellbeing alongside literacy and numeracy as part of what every school must nurture. These are noble aims. Heaven knows, if a child is struggling mentally, they are not going to learn very much about trigonometry, are they?

We must approach the issues that campaigners have with the Bill. Previous Governments have spent decades giving academies and trusts more and more control, only for this Government to take it away again. Sometimes the best way to support wellbeing is to give schools freedom, not more top-down rules. In some instances, an attempt to standardise pay would mean giving our teachers in academies pay cuts. School groups have emphasised to me that the importance of local decision making cannot be underestimated.

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but I am sure that the Minister has clarified that the standardised pay across the sector should be a floor, not a ceiling. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is his understanding too?

[Jamie Stone]

It will be interesting to see what the Minister says on that. Perhaps there is a little bit of misunderstanding on that issue. Let us leave it at that.

Teachers, parents and local authorities often know best what their children need—far more than we in Westminster ever could. They understand their communities and deserve to be trusted and, I believe, properly consulted.

The Bill also reaches into the world of home education, with measures such as a national register of children not in school, requirements for local authority consent to home school in certain cases and powers for councils to intervene if a home environment is deemed unsuitable.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the way he is introducing this petition. I am sure he is aware of the case of my murdered constituent, Sara Sharif from Woking, who was abused, tortured and murdered. The safeguarding report that came out last month highlighted the failings in the home schooling system and the fact that a register is needed. Does he agree that parents should lose the right to home school in the event of child safeguarding concerns?

[Jamie Stone]

In proceeding with a Bill of this nature, that precise point has to be taken into account and weighed in the balance, because it is a matter of getting it right. That is precisely the reason behind the petition. I stress that many people think that we are not getting it right at this stage, but improvements can be made.

It is a fact that more families than ever are turning to home schooling. Some do it because the nearest school is miles away or parents deem it to be teaching to an inadequate standard; others because their child thrives better with one-on-one attention and teaching, perhaps for special needs that a standard classroom cannot accommodate. Campaigners for home education—some of whom I heard from in preparation for the debate—fear that the Bill amounts to an attack on their parental rights.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I apologise in advance, Ms Barker, for the fact that I cannot stay for the full debate because I have been assigned to a Delegated Legislation Committee. I want to echo the concerns of my constituents, many of whom are home educators, about the legislation. Will the hon. Member join me in calling on the Government to put firmer safeguards on data security in the Bill, provide clear protections in the legislation for parental responsibility to decide what education is in their child’s best interests and ensure that the Bill does not try to force home educators to fit into school-style timetables?

[Jamie Stone]

I am sure that is a wise intervention. I should imagine that we can all take heed of it, including the Minister.

The parents I mentioned previously argue that legislation for the regular registration of what learning has taken place in the home limits a diverse community where learning might be child-led one day and structured the next—all tailored to individual family needs. Those parents also spoke to me about their unease concerning the reach of new information-sharing duties and the requirement for child registers and unique identifiers. They fear overreach, diminished family autonomy and the erosion of parental rights, particularly where home education is concerned.

I should also add that I have been approached by religious groups that have serious concerns about the Bill as currently drafted. They believe that it fails to recognise the vital structure of education in stricter religious communities. In the case of Jewish children who attend yeshiva alongside homeschooling, for instance, the Bill seeks to pigeonhole the method of schooling that a yeshiva provides within two categories that do not apply to it. It has been argued that the lack of proper consultation with affected groups means that under the current proposals, yeshiva schools would be forced to close their doors.

The sheer scope of the Bill means that there are numerous factors about both wellbeing and schools that require thorough discussion. There is a substantial array of groups with specific grievances about particular clauses in the Bill. I hope that there will be sufficient space in the debate this evening and in the days, weeks and months ahead for those cases to be heard and considered properly. I see that a good number of colleagues have joined us for the debate, for which I am grateful as Chair of the Petitions Committee. I will conclude my remarks to allow everyone to participate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, it has been a good debate, although perhaps a little sparkier than I had first anticipated. As Chairman of the Petitions Committee, I must remain resolutely impartial in these matters. If we say that the overall impression of the Bill at this stage has some way to go, it is like the proverbial curate’s egg—good in parts.

I particularly thank Michelle Zaher, who must take considerable satisfaction from the fact that the petition that she launched, with all the many people who support her, has achieved such a far-ranging and broad debate. The petitioners can take pleasure from how it has worked. That is how it works in the Petitions Committee: the petition has instigated a response from the Government. That is how we deal with petitions in this place. Ms Barker, thank you for chairing this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 722377 relating to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.