Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Bailey]

I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman in extreme clarity on that point.

Secondly, the Bill’s children’s social care reforms will shift the system away from increasing reliance on residential provision, towards stronger early intervention and prevention. We want to keep families together as much as possible and, where children cannot remain at home, we want to support them to live with kinship carers or in foster families. Children’s social care has the power to transform the lives of some of our most vulnerable children, and children in care deserve a childhood filled with love, support and access to the opportunities that will set them up for a successful life, but the system is not delivering that ambition. Through the measures introduced by this legislation, we will champion family group decision making, fix the broken care market, create powers to introduce a profit cap for providers, and provide a staying close support package to address the cliff edge that young people face when they leave care.

Thirdly, it bears repeating that this is the biggest piece of safeguarding legislation in a generation, delivering robust action to keep children safe from harm. The Government have challenged themselves, and will continue to do so, to stop children falling through the gaps by ensuring legislation introducing an information sharing duty and provision for a single unique identifier, and ensuring that implementation is as watertight as possible.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I have come along to genuinely learn more about this and to ask a question about the single identifier raised by my constituent Catherine. She points out that the General Medical Council, in particular, has advised against using the NHS number to supply an effective identifier and that it should not be used outside the Department of Health and Social Care. Does the Minister recognise people’s concerns about a possible loss of data? Does she accept that we do not want to be introducing a form of digital ID that might persist after the children become adults?

[Olivia Bailey]

I take everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said on board. I will come to the topics he raises in more detail in my speech.

The Government will also introduce new multi-agency child protection teams in every local area to make sure that agencies work together to protect children from harm as quickly as possible. We will also require local authorities to maintain registers of children not in school in their areas, such as home educated children and children missing education. Parents of home educated children will have a duty to provide information about them. That will help to ensure that local authorities can identify all children not in school living in their areas so that they can fulfil their existing duties to ensure that those children are receiving a safe, suitable education.

The Bill also introduces provisions requiring local authority consent for the most vulnerable children, or those with the highest needs, to be home educated. That includes those subject to child protection inquiries or plans and those enrolled in special schools. Home education can mean that children sometimes slip under the radar of services that are there to support them, so it is essential for those children that an additional check is undertaken before they are removed from school. That will help to ensure that home education is in their best interests and that they receive a suitable education.