Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with a couple of things the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said, including that we have the great and the good of education gathered in this House today. There are many here who have been involved in education, and in the current education system’s construction, for a long time, and I look forward to hearing what they have to say. I have worked against some of them and I have worked successfully with others; they may have cursed me or praised me, but we have striven forward.

Part 1 of the Bill reads like the Government dealing with the hardy perennials of the care system. There is much in there that has already provided us with debate after debate, many of which were quite depressing. I thank the Government for bringing this forward so that we can all have a look at them. There are many issues which we have heard about in an untold number of debates, and they have not gone that well. The way that the Government choose to implement the passing on of information might be one of the most interesting issues, because often mistakes have arisen due to a lack of co-ordination. I look forward to seeing how we can advance and check that, as far as we can by debate, to make sure it is going to work properly. This is not an easy topic, as most people involved in it would accept. There may not be perfect answers, but improvement is certainly possible. We should have had a cohesive look at this, together, a while ago, so I thank the Government for bringing it forward.

Many of my noble friends, including my noble friend Lady Tyler, are going to weigh in on a lot of the Bill. Looking round at these Benches, I see others who I cannot imagine will be quiet. We have discussed this a lot, and I hope we can have an open mind, given the experience here in the House, as we go through the Bill.

I will be spending more of my time and consideration on Part 2 of the Bill. Before I go into that, I will say something about a matter that is not included. Anybody who has been in this House for any length of time would be very surprised if I do not mention special educational needs in a speech on education. Let us face it, at the moment, that area is a hideous mess. The primary beneficiaries of the system are lawyers and those who give expensive diagnoses. That is the definition of failure. My honourable friends in another place moved amendments on this matter; we should look at those again, and possibly propose more. We have got to see if, through the Bill, we can at least set the grounds for easier intervention.

We must look across the education system, at all its aspects. Academisation has not helped, as a school can now be a failing school because of low academic standards. I start with a declaration of interests. I am dyslexic and I am president of the British Dyslexia Association, and I am chairman of a firm for assisted tech, some of which is used in education. If we do not make it easy for structure and help to be given to schools, we are always going to have problems in this area. To a dyslexic, the emphasis on passing English felt, at times, almost like a personal assault. Pupils have to learn synthetic phonics—if I have got that right—but a bad short-term memory can mean that you sometimes get it wrong. The system does not work well for those with a bad short-term memory, but that is the way teachers are supposed to teach. A greater degree of flexibility in teaching methods, which will be a great strength, is important. If we can get guidance on the way that the national curriculum and the special educational needs structure is envisaged as changing under the Bill, I will be very grateful.

The system is almost certainly a contributing factor to the high number of pupils not in school. We will talk a lot about home education in the Bill, and the biggest group of home-educated pupils I first met were those whose special educational needs provisions were not being met. Those parents, often reluctantly, took their children out of school. It has now become a more acceptable way forward, but I remember papers on off-rolling, and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, getting passionate about the fact that it was breaking the spirit of academies. If the system is one in which your career, your school and your status can be destroyed by not having the correct pass rates, I might think about getting rid of undiagnosed or improperly diagnosed dyslexics and other neurodiverse groups if I was in that situation. A better identification process would be massively helpful, and we must make sure there is space for it.

Whatever the strengths of academies, they have to work with local authorities. We must look at moving this forward and getting it right. Academies are now the dominant group. Acceptance that we do not need wholesale change was reached when the previous Government decided that they would not go for compulsory academisation, as there were local authority schools that were doing a good job. The consensus now is that the converted academies—those that were forced to change—are the weakest group, if I remember correctly, although there is not too much in it. I welcome the fact that we are going to get them working together on matters such as the allocation of school places.

On school uniforms, specifying a few items is a little silly. Why not put a maximum budget on what you can charge for school uniforms? Encouraging second-hand school uniforms might be one solution.

When it comes to the much-vaunted breakfast clubs, I can say only this: the bus is occasionally late. In rural areas, making sure that the bus gets to school on time will be a challenge. How the Government propose to interfere with local transport systems will be an interesting discussion. We think that the extra calories should be given at lunchtime. There might be a compromise solution, such as school brunch—though I fear that sounds like a daytime TV programme. We applaud making sure that people are properly fed, but we think this is a difficult way to do it.

There is not much to say about the rest of the Bill, other than on the joys of Clause 63. Henry VIII has raised his head again. The last time we had a big education Bill, when the previous Government were in charge, the Henry VIII powers were up front; this time, they are tucked away at the back. If I am wrong about this, I look forward to the Minister telling me why I am wrong. Changes can be made by regulation, but we know how difficult it is to change regulations because we cannot amend them, only reject them all—and we are told it is a constitutional crisis every time we try to get rid of an order. Can the Minister explain how this will work, so that it will not be a case of the Secretary of State saying, “Thou wilt change”, with virtually no element of parliamentary oversight? I look forward to working through the Bill. There is no shortage of expertise to dig down into it. I hope we will come to a better conclusion.

I will make one final point—as I see the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, looking at me. Would it not be a good idea if we could find one little section in the Bill that encourages outside bodies such as sports clubs to enhance the activity of school sport, with same being done for drama and music? It would be a nice idea if we took the opportunity to correct that bit of the education system, because we all know—and it is proven—that if you do it only at school, you stop when you leave school. Maybe we can change that in this Bill.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I, instead, speak in support of Amendment 6. As we have heard, reunification is the most common way for children to leave care but, sadly, the number of children who re-enter the system remains far too high, as many reunifications break down due to lack of support. There is currently no strategy by which to support reunifying families, and 78% of local authorities admit that the support that they provide is inadequate.

A breakdown in reunification not only is tragic for the children and families involved but costs the Government around £320 million annually. Action for Children estimates that the cost of providing family decision-making support to meet the costs of all reunifying families across England would result in significant cost savings of a potential £250 million.

On the basis that this is accepted and viewed as a positive step among professionals, should be in the best interests of care for children leaving school and, finally, has the potential to provide cost savings to the Government, which could be recycled into the system, I hope that the Minister will look favourably on including in the Bill a duty to offer family group decision-making during reunification.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this was a very reasonable sounding amendment, then the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, took a sledgehammer to it. Will the Minister give us a little guidance on the Government’s thinking on this? When people with experience on both sides are talking it is best that we hear the whole thing, but I will be very interested in what the Government say because if the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—probably our biggest expert in the Chamber—says there is something wrong, I would be very inclined to listen to her. But, as I said, it was a reasonable sounding discussion that brought it forward.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I have already expressed my views on Amendment 4, but I think I need to emphasise, particularly as my noble and learned friend has just made the same point, that I think it is unrealistic and unnecessary for private law cases. Many disputes resolved in private law cases are minor and concern perfectly manageable—I will not say “trivial”—problems over contact arrangements and so forth. That cannot justify a family group meeting.

In any event, as my noble and learned friend has said, the existing mechanisms are already well tuned to dealing with disputes. Cafcass gets involved at an early stage; there is what is called a safeguarding report; and if the dispute does not go away, Cafcass produces a Section 7 report. Along the way, there is a dispute resolution hearing in front of the judge, and noble Lords can take it from me that the judge applies a fair amount of pressure to resolve the matter and to explore the realities of settling the case, which quite often involves exploring what can be done with the wider family. Of course, the wider family may have the time and the resources that the parents lack and help sort it out, but it does not really need a meeting; it just needs someone getting the parties in a room in the court with the Cafcass officer to sort out the practical realities of where things are going. I wish to emphasise that I do not think that Amendment 4 will assist.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, before addressing the amendments in my name in this group, I echo the appreciation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for my noble friend Lord Farmer’s tireless work on family hubs. It is fantastic to hear that they are making a real difference on the ground.

My Amendment 26 seeks to find a way through the difficulty in the degree of statutory involvement—the noble Lord, Lord Meston, is not going to like my language—of education and childcare agencies in safeguarding. It requires the Secretary of State to produce a report to Parliament two years after the implementation of the clause which sets out the impact on the resources and costs for education and childcare agencies from their new duties. It could look more widely at the impact on safeguarding and whether there is a need to follow the recommendations of many of the children’s charities and the Children’s Commissioner in making it a full statutory safeguarding partner.

Page 34 of the Government’s impact assessment is studiously vague. It talks about

“possible costs and time implications on LAs to set up new infrastructure”

and

“time implications on some education leaders to engage with systems that they may not have previously been involved in”.

I am not sure how these impact assessments get written, but this feels like it is bordering on the naive. Of course, there will be direct costs for schools and childcare agencies, in both time and money, and we need to understand the extent of them. My amendment seeks to achieve this.

We need to know what this approach will mean in practice for education and childcare agencies, which already have considerable safeguarding duties. Presumably, they will need to put in additional processes and checks; if this is just making the status quo statutory, I do not really understand why it is necessary. Perhaps the Minister could explain in her closing remarks.

My Amendments 27 and 28 are probing amendments, again trying to find out the Government’s thinking on how this will work in practice. The hesitation on the part of the Government in this area, which I think is reasonable, reflects the difficulty in implementation, given the number of organisations involved in education and childcare. My amendment suggests that it would help to have a single point of contact both within the local authority and within the education and childcare sector. Can the Minister confirm whether the assumption is that education and childcare providers can all contact the LADO in their local authority with any safeguarding concerns, and is she confident that the LADOs around the country will have capacity for this? Similarly, is the local authority expected to contact every organisation directly, or is there a role for a single point of contact who could perhaps advise on general queries?

Finally, I have given notice that I intend to oppose the proposition that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill. To be clear, unlike some of my other clause stand part notices, this is purely probing. The policy summary produced by the DfE states:

“These arrangements enable education and childcare agencies to have representation”—


this is my emphasis, not that of the policy summary—

“at both the operational and strategic decision-making levels of these safeguarding arrangements”.

The summary continues:

“Practically, this may look like including the breadth of education settings: from early years and childcare to schools including academies, independent schools, alternative provision and further education in operational safeguarding boards, and”—


again, this is my emphasis—

“having representation for their views at executive boards so that they can influence decisions being made about safeguarding in their local area”.

Interestingly, there is no mention of special schools in that list. I am not clear why, because I would have thought that safeguarding would be a particular priority. I think we all have a sense of what this looks like at an operational level, but the policy summary talks about involvement at a strategic level. Will the Minister explain who is going to be able to represent all agencies in an area, what representation of their views at executive boards will look like in real life, and how this will be resourced? Clause 2 is an area where there is broad support for the Government’s approach, but we need more clarity on how they intend to implement these duties and how they will be funded.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has done us a favour by bringing the education organisation into this. It has the most contact, and it is a logical point. I cannot fault him on that. I also had a great deal of fellow feeling when he described his experience of watching the appropriate amendment being concocted. The idea of sitting there looking puppy-like and saying, “Please, this is what I’m trying to say. Will you help?” is something I think we can all empathise with at some point in the Bill.

It sounds eminently sensible that, where you are seeing a young person outside the family and very regularly, that fits the logic and the approach here. As for family hubs, yes, they are good things—they remind me a bit of Sure Start but, hey, that is history. If we are going through the other technical amendments brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—who, let us face it, we all know knows her way around the system and the department—it would be interesting to see the technical answers to those, because it will definitely colour the way this discussion takes place in later stages.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to the noble Baroness introduce these amendments, I think they are quite interesting. Let us see what the answer is.

The one that really attracts my attention is Amendment 37: how are you going to assess how the teams have worked? The point that the noble Baroness made was reasonable—that you might want different types of implementation teams in different areas—but if you are doing something new, how do you assess where it has or has not been successful? If the Minister could point out where in the Government’s process that is going to happen—if it is—I would be very interested to hear that. If it is convincing, I hope we can put this to bed and move on.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendment 30, which builds on the previous conversation in seeking to confirm that local authorities can use their discretion in how the multi-agency child protection teams are implemented operationally in their areas.

In addition to the contributions previously made about the pilots and having the information about those pilots, I want to add two very good reasons why it is imperative to ensure that local decision-making will become effective: how there could be confusion over legal accountability, and how the Bill could weaken local authority leadership.

The statutory responsibility for safeguarding will still rest with the local authorities, as has previously been said, not with the partnerships or multi-agency teams. If all functions are located within a multi-agency team, it may become unclear who is ultimately accountable, especially in the case of a serious case review or legal proceedings. As was referred to previously, current DfE guidance, through Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, emphasises that, although functions can be delegated, accountability cannot be transferred.

I have previously referred to the issue of budgets from other partners, especially police and health, and how that might impact their involvement, but we also need to consider the fact that not all agencies are coterminous. In my area, our police, under the leadership of the Mayor of London, are a tri-borough relationship. The NHS is a six-borough relationship. I quite often get notices from the police identifying a child in Lewisham, and I have to ask my team whether there is a connection to Bexley. There is a potential confusion there and, of course, with that confusion comes the ownership. This could create issues in determining not least the ownership but also the cost implications.

The other risk is weakened local authority leadership. Overconsolidation into multi-agency spaces could disempower directors of children services or the lead members, who are the statutory leads for safeguarding. There is a risk of fragmenting the governance. For those reasons it seems sensible to trust the local authority to use its discretion in how the multi-agency child protection teams are implemented locally in their own area. I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton’s amendment. The example that he gave of teachers and teaching assistants, as cited in his Amendment 34, could obviously be replicated for many other agencies, with a valuable contribution to make to multi-agency child protection teams and wider safeguarding activities, including local drug and alcohol services, mental health services, domestic abuse services, housing associations and more. The key point here is that practitioners need to feel confident about how to engage in the process and how any information they share will be used, confident that it will not put anyone at risk and, as my noble friend so ably put it, confident that they have the time in their working day to be able to participate responsibly. From my own experience, I know we make assumptions at our peril about how confident even statutory agencies are in some of these areas, so any programme that promotes safe and effective partnership work is to be commended.

My Amendment 38 seeks to understand what capacity the Government think will be needed on the ground and what guidance they plan to give for this. The Bill says in Clause 3, page 3, lines 16 to 21:

“Arrangements … must include the establishment of one or more multi-agency child protection teams … for the purpose of providing support to the local authority in connection with the discharge of its duties under section 47 of the Children Act 1989”.


In Clause 3, page 3, lines 27 to 31, it says:

“A multi-agency child protection team is to consist of … at least one of each of the persons mentioned in subsection (4), and … such other persons as the local authority considers appropriate after consulting the other safeguarding partners”.


My cracked-record question is this: what does this mean in real life?

I am sure that the answer to this is no, but, as written, it could mean that Birmingham has one team and Rutland has one team. I am sure the Minister will reassure me that that is not the plan. Even smaller local authorities, particularly rural local authorities, have multiple child protection teams already, so adding one more will not be that useful to them if they have multiple existing teams that need that multi-agency engagement.

When I led the charity SafeLives and we did the rollout of multi-agency risk assessment conferences around the country, we gave estimates to every area based on evidence of realistic case loads, resource requirements and so forth—and we had rather less influence than the Government do. My challenge to the Minister is: if a small charity can do that, surely the Government can do something similar or work with the ADCS or the LGA to develop appropriate clarity and guidance. I would be very grateful if the Minister could explain the Government’s plans.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having read both these amendments, I think it is reasonable to ask the Government what resources are required. When it comes to teachers, we have often dealt with the question of what is required and, if it is a new skill, how they will acquire it. Having enough awareness to call in an expert is another thing we have often talked about in other fields—I certainly have on special educational needs.

If you do not have that training in place, it is a matter of where you go to get that support. Asking for that is one of the things we should do here. I hope the Minister will give us a reply that at least starts to push us towards looking to where these resources are and, more importantly for the people on the ground, where they can look to for support and help, or be trained to do so. Without that linkage, people who are only now being brought into this process on an official basis will fail if they do not know what they are doing.

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak to this amendment, but I have to say that the idea that schools have not been at the centre of child protection and safeguarding over the last 20 years is just ludicrous. Under the last Government, the central grant to local authorities decreased by 40%. Real-terms school funding decreased by 9%. In that period, schools became the fourth emergency service as children’s social work, child protection and all the safeguarding systems around the child were absolutely decimated by austerity.

Schools have become extremely good at identifying children in need of safeguarding and protection. They have become extremely good at providing information, support and training to their staff, and they did this very well at a time when the last Government were reducing real-terms support to schools. They have had to become experts in child safeguarding and child protection because the other services that should have been there to work with schools simply were not. Multi-agency professional teams, legally responsible for working with schools to support them to protect children, will strengthen child safeguarding and child protection. CPD, or professional development, is always helpful, but the idea that schools need extensive CPD on this, that they have not been doing this, and that it will be a new thing to them is, frankly, ridiculous.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I advise noble Lords that, if Amendment 50 were agreed to, Amendments 51 to 64 could not be called because of pre-emption.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, these are probably the sorts of things that we should be doing in Committee. The noble Baroness introduced these amendments very well but I did, I am afraid—having known him for a long time—see the hand of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in them. It is definitely his style, as all those who have known him for a long time would say. These are definitely the sorts of questions that we need answered, about the practicality of what is going to happen. All systems will have their flaws, but this is about having the structure to cope with those flaws. Getting that through would be very valuable.

To give fair warning, I will not move my amendment on the NHS number identifier later on.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I support Amendment 50, as well as the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, who gives his apologies to your Lordships’ Committee, as he is unable to be here to speak to his own amendments. I do so in the spirit of my noble friend Lady Cash, because these are probing amendments by and large, from a position of broad support for the objectives that the Government have laid down in this part of the Bill. Nevertheless, they are amendments that seek clarity in respect of the proposals that the Government are putting forward.

We need more information about the Government’s intention in adding new Section 16LB to the Children Act 2004. Such scrutiny is essential given that it would enable the Government to set in train a process that will be achieved through regulations—secondary legislation —but nevertheless is very far reaching and potentially re-establishes a regime that, as we have heard previously, was abolished in 2010 by the coalition Government for reasons that I will come on to.

It is hard to disagree with the logic that a single unique identifier would prevent children getting lost in systems that are meant to keep them safe, for example, if they are known by different names or their names are not spelled correctly, as happened in the tragic case of Victoria Climbié. I absolutely concur with my noble friend: the name Maria Colwell and other tragic cases hang over someone like me, who served on a social services committee, and many social workers and other professionals over many years. Ensuring that children do not slip through the net or disappear without services knowing where they have gone is paramount, as so many appalling national scandals involving dead or desperately abused children have shown.

It is appropriate that we look at the history and genesis of ContactPoint. It is important to be mindful of the need for qualitative data, not just quantitative data collection; there is a difference. Hence in 2003, in his report about the death of Victoria Climbié, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, recommended the establishment of a new national children’s database for all children under the age of 16. While scrutinising this report six months later, the Health Select Committee in the other place expressed reservations, saying:

“We believe that establishing a national database for children along the lines envisaged by the Laming Report would represent a major practical and technical challenge that should not be underestimated”.


The committee was instinctively open to the concept, likely for the same reasons that many are advocating for it today: if good data can save children’s lives, it of course needs further exploration. The committee went on to say that the implementation difficulties should not be a deterrent and endorsed the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for a feasibility study to explore the value and practicality of setting up a national database for children.

In 2004, as we heard, trailblazer pilots were conducted to assess the feasibility of implementing a children’s information index. Nine local authorities piloted a range of IT applications and a government study of the indexes concluded that implementation was operationally and technically feasible. By 2009, the Children’s Information Sharing Index had been renamed ContactPoint, with the aim of all local authority ContactPoint management teams having access to the database by autumn 2009. In old money, the estimated development and set-up cost of ContactPoint was £224 million and the estimated maintenance cost in 2009-10 was just under £44 million; most of this latter sum was for local staff to operate, maintain and ensure the security of ContactPoint.

Some giving evidence to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee in the Commons—and arguing strenuously for the SUI—were among those running ContactPoint back then and benefiting from those sizeable contracts. In their defence, they saw this as part of a bigger package and emphasised the need for early intervention in communities and strong relationships with families. The Children’s Charities Coalition said that,

“to really shift the dial we need further investment in early intervention and early help across our communities, and much greater focus on embedding that consistently and universally”.

It also called for further clarification on how the single unique identifier will be effectively applied.

Returning to the ContactPoint database, which was, as I said, abolished by the incoming Government in 2010, it was designed to contain names, ages, addresses and information of all children aged under 18, as well as information about their parents, schools and medical records. Respected organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust quantified the scale and financial cost of data collection, the methods used to maintain and secure the data, and the treatment of critical issues such as consent, as part of a wider study. Its researchers found that children are among “the most at risk” from what they called Britain’s “database state”, with three of the largest databases set up to support and protect children failing to achieve their aims.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are very supportive of Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Of course, there is detail to be worked out, although we have already heard some encouraging ways through about how to use this anonymised data in practice. Clearly, if it could be aggregated and anonymised in whatever cut—so to speak—that would help us interrogate it and get some answers to some of the systemic issues that exist in child safeguarding and welfare.

We are interested in both parts of the noble Lord’s amendment: namely, research and commissioning. Having a better understanding of the patterns of safeguarding issues, which children are most likely to be affected and what works would be invaluable for practitioners and policymakers alike. As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, understanding what does not work and where the glitches are in the system is equally valuable. The more transparency we have on these issues, the better the commissioning of services will be. This made me think back to my noble friend Lady Spielman’s Amendment 69 on open data standards, and I know the Minister said that work is going on in that regard. If that was successful, it could be shared for some of the same purposes as Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. I wonder whether that might be another way through, if the Government are unable to accept his amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to what has been said about Amendment 61, I say briefly that it is very sensible, providing that the data can be kept safe. That is the caveat. If the Minister could address that point, that would inform the Committee as to where we can go with this.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I hope I can provide some reassurance to noble Lords about this. Amendment 61 seeks to ensure that the consistent identifier could be used for research purposes. I understand the concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton—and I commend him for his persistence in sitting this long to move his amendment—that the provision may appear to limit the use of the consistent identifier for research, which many stakeholders, and many noble Lords today, have rightly highlighted as a potential benefit. However, to be clear, these measures make provision for the Secretary of State to specify which agencies must use the consistent identifier and in what circumstances. Importantly, this does not prevent a consistent identifier being used for research purposes, provided that any such use is authorised in accordance with data protection and other relevant legislation.

We recognise the role of data in improving outcomes for babies, children and young people. As I say, this legislation is about when the consistent identifier must be used, rather than when it can be used, as regulations will mandate the number and the organisations required to use it. The consistent identifier could be used for research purposes, if this is authorised in accordance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act. We are aware of concerns around this, and officials are discussing this with key organisations. I hope that provides some assurance about the possibility of using the consistent identifier.

We have, in this legislation, deliberately prioritised use of the consistent identifier to facilitate the exercise of safeguarding and welfare functions directly. That is the basis on which we are testing its implementation and benefits through our pilot programme. If additional benefits, such as those for research, are realised, we will be in a strong position to explore how this could be facilitated. For the reasons I have outlined, and with some of the reassurance that I have provided, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment, having achieved his objective.

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My understanding is that there are, in fact, now only a few unaccredited centres. If that is correct, it is a sign of the success of the accredited centres and the support they have had from the courts. Of course, centres are not the answer to every case, and more informal arrangements using suitable family members or friends to supervise or help may sometimes be safe and workable. The expertise of accredited centres should be recognised and supported.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak incredibly briefly. My noble friend has supported this and, having listened to the debate, I am absolutely convinced that she is right. I hope the Government will give a positive answer.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a valuable discussion, and I thank all noble Lords for their insightful and knowledgeable contributions. Child contact centres do indeed play an integral role in allowing parents to see their child in a safe environment for both parties involved. They allow parents not only to see their children, which is precious, but can act as a service to reconnect following significant time with no contact. Wherever safe and possible, parents should be able to see their children, and child contact centres allow this to happen.

Amendment 65 seeks to introduce regulations on child contact centres to ensure that they are accredited as regards safeguarding and prevention of domestic abuse. Child contact centres appear to be mostly under the umbrella organisation, the National Association of Child Contact Centres. This is a charitable organisation and, while these regulations appear sensible, we are concerned about the ongoing cost of implementation and structure. It would require inspections to take place, which would be a further financial burden, requiring additional staff to ensure compliance with these standards. We know that charities are already under pressure from increased national insurance contributions.

Of course, we respect the views of the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh, Lady Finlay and Lady Burt, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and we absolutely agree that these child centres should operate as a safe and enjoyable place for children to play, but we believe that this amendment has the potential to act as a regulatory burden on those very charities that are providing the service.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton on Amendment 134A. Noble Lords will not be surprised to know I shall be championing local authorities around the cost of children’s homes.

I want to give noble Lords a bit of a reality check, and to do so I am going to reference two examples. The first is about supported living for care leavers aged 21 to 25. They are nearly adults, need very little support and are very nearly independent. A semi-detached house is created that can take up to five young people with very little supervision. The cost for one young person in that provision is actually £500 per week. That is nearly as much as any landlord would get to rent out that property for a month: £2,000 a month. If you have got five young people in there, that is one hell of a profit margin. You can see why people go down that route and why we are having to grapple with the costs.

The second case is about a property that had been sought and used as secure accommodation with 24/7 support. It was another council that placed it in our borough. It was worth it getting the property and having 24/7 support for secure accommodation. Obviously, it had made the decision that either it could not afford to get that accommodation through normal routes or that this was good value. We first knew about it when we read police reports saying this young person, who is in 24/7 secure accommodation with two people, had gone missing. I was jumping up and down saying, “We’ve got a young child gone missing”. But it was not our child—we did not even know this young person was in our borough. That is expensive accommodation.

Earlier on, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said that you would know if people were placed in your borough—but you do not. I am sure the Minister will have something to say about that. In addition to the knowledge that this young person is placed in your borough, the cost of 24/7 care and accommodation for one person in your borough is phenomenal. Local authorities are not perfect, but we are grappling with some of these things on a daily basis, which push the costs up, and some of this transparency might deal with it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, for missing her first few seconds. When someone said, “I want a quick word with you”, I should have jumped around them as opposed to trying to politely brush them off.

All these amendments are looking at financial control. It is probably overdue, but it is extremely difficult. It is a case of transparency. We need something in here, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has just pointed out, the Government are actually dealing with it on a last-minute, we-must-do-something basis. Having some control over that is an extremely sensible idea, but they will not get rid of the fact that it will have to be done through emergency contingencies or whatever. It is still going to happen that way. We are trying to extract from the Government the limitations of what they are proposing and to get it more on the record.

On my own amendment—I probably should have slightly reworded it—of all the things accused of costing too much, special educational needs spending is probably right up there, and often it is the private sector. It depends on what you are dealing with, because there is not a right sum of money for that.

I am on a committee looking at the Autism Act at the moment. I just went to see a school that had one full-time member of staff for every two pupils and TAs on top of that, because it is needed. Usually, the private support comes in to support somebody who has struggled in the education system—it may not be autism and it may not be that severe, but they are usually playing catch up and repair, to put it bluntly. So, they are going to have high staffing needs and it is going to vary from person to person. I would hope that this transparency may be a defensive thing from people who are providing a service that is needed.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, listening to the noble Baroness introduce these amendments, I am remembering how many times, as a Minister, she batted me back with a question. As I interpret these amendments—if I have got it wrong, I am sure I will be told—they basically ask how this will work. Where are the levels of intervention when something does not work? How do we get through? It was a long and complicated series of questions, but that is what Committee is for. If we could get an idea of the answers, if the Minister has them or can tell us where we can find them, I think we would all feel a little more comfortable before the next stage.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are all in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Just taking the amendments as they are, the majority of residential settings are owned by provider groups—organisations that own the providers that run settings. The legislation refers to provider groups as “parent undertakings”. Provider groups have influence over how a setting is run, yet they are not accountable in legislation for the quality of the settings they own.

Clause 12 is intended to complement Ofsted’s existing powers. It will allow Ofsted to take action at scale and pace to improve the quality of care when it reasonably suspects that two or more of the provider group settings are not meeting regulatory requirements. In answer to the noble Baroness’s question, together with Clause 13, which provides additional enforcement powers for Ofsted, it is part of this Government’s strategy to ensure the safety and well-being of vulnerable children in care.

Amendments 135 and 136 seek to give Ofsted the power to inspect provider groups. Inspection is not necessary at provider group level. Given the existing robust regime for the inspection of settings, the inspection of provider groups would not give Ofsted any additional information that it does not already have to ensure quality of care and the safeguarding of children’s settings, which is obviously the purpose of what we intend to do here.

The inspection of provider groups would add substantial burden to the public purse and would not result in improvements to the quality of care for children, as inspections would focus on provider group policies rather than on the lived experience of children. Additionally, they would not be effective in holding provider groups to account without establishing a burdensome inspection system. Given that there are over 400 provider groups, I think we understand the scale of the additional work that we are talking about.

The clause gives Ofsted the power to serve an improvement plan notice on a provider group to improve quality in two or more of its settings. This is vital, as it will ensure the quickest and most effective action to secure change at scale. Clause 13, which we will come to shortly, gives Ofsted powers to take action against the provider groups when they do not improve the quality of their settings. This amendment would not impose any requirements on the provider groups that Ofsted could enforce against.

Amendment 137 seeks to empower Ofsted to use the services of an independent person, as provided for by Regulation 44 of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations, to carry out an unannounced visit to a children’s home for administrative breaches or minor concerns about the quality of care being provided. The amendment proposes that, after an independent person has inspected the children’s homes or home, the local authority may issue an improvement plan notice based on the findings.

Under current regulations, the registered person of a children’s home must ensure that an independent person visits the home at least once each month, and this visit may be unannounced. The independent person should have the skills and understanding necessary to form an impartial judgment about the quality of the home’s care. They must produce a report about their visit which sets out their opinion on whether children are effectively safeguarded and whether the home effectively promotes children’s well-being.

Ofsted, the placing authorities and the registered provider, registered manager and responsible individual must be given a copy of the report. The local authority where the home is located must also be given the report if it requests it. Ofsted uses these reports to inform whether further activity or inspection is necessary. They may be used to inform Ofsted decision-making around improvement plan notices to ensure its effective role as the regulator. Ofsted must be the only body responsible for issuing improvement plan notices. Giving local authorities the power to issue an improvement plan notice would mean duplication and would offer no protection additional to what is already in place.

Amendment 138 seeks to probe how an improvement plan might work in practice. Provider oversight has been designed to enable Ofsted to address poor-quality care at scale and at pace. For example, where Ofsted inspects two children’s homes and believes quality is being impacted by the provider group’s policies or management, it could reasonably suspect that those issues were in all homes owned by the provider group. It would be able to use the new powers to ensure that the provider group drove up standards in all its homes.

The provider group would be required to develop and implement an improvement plan to address the issues identified by Ofsted as being of concern. This plan will be approved by Ofsted, if it is satisfied that it will be effective in addressing the concerns. Ofsted can fine the provider group if it fails to submit or implement the improvement plan. When Ofsted is satisfied that improvements have been made, it will consider the plan completed. This will result in improvement in multiple settings simultaneously, which could not be achieved through inspection of provider groups, as would happen if Amendments 135 and 136 were adopted.

Finally, Amendments 138A, 138B and 138C seek to require Ofsted to notify the relevant local authority when an improvement plan notice has been served, cancelled or appealed. Ofsted is currently required to notify all local authorities where certain enforcement actions such as suspension or cancellation of registration are taken. Clause 13 amends these requirements to include a requirement for Ofsted to notify all local authorities where a provider group is issued with a monetary penalty for failing to prepare or implement an improvement plan. This is a more proportionate balance for ensuring local authorities are aware of problems arising and ensuring that children’s accommodation is not unnecessarily disrupted. Not only would additional notifications, as required by these amendments, require significant extra resources both from Ofsted and from local authorities, but the notifications would prove unnecessary where issues were resolved or successfully challenged.

It is important to stress that provider oversight will not be the only tool in Ofsted’s toolbox to tackle poor-quality care where it finds it; it will continue to have its existing powers to work with individual homes, including suspending or cancelling their registration, if it has serious concerns.

I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has asked some detailed questions, as it is her right to do. I am sure that she will understand that I do not have all the answers at my fingertips and that she will give me the space to look specifically at the issues that she has raised. I shall write to her and make sure the responses are shared with Members in the usual way.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Could we make sure that we are all copied in?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

As always. That was the point that I was making. For all the reasons given, I would kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

I raise these points because of the concerns I raised in earlier groups about the capacity and skills within the department to deliver the work included in Clauses 14 and 15 in particular. It is not a promising start to equip the Minister with facts that look to be partial and out of date.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness’s speech makes me think that looking at what “excessive profit” means, or at least what the Government think about it, would not be a bad idea, because we are agreed that these services are often gone to because the state cannot or will not provide them. What we consider to be reasonable to pay for them is something the whole Committee should be concerned about. I am sure—or at least I hope—that the Government have given this some deep thought, and finding out in a little more detail what that will be will help consideration on this and forthcoming business. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, as I said in Committee on Tuesday, in 2022 the Competition and Markets Authority found the children’s social care placement market to be dysfunctional. It found that the largest private providers were making profit margins significantly above what would be expected in a well-functioning market. Most significantly, notwithstanding the profit levels that are being made, we know that there are still insufficient high-quality placements for children who desperately need them. To that extent, the profit levels being made are not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, suggested, driving the sort of supply that we want to see.

The amendments in this group cover Clauses 15, 16 and 17, which implement important legislative elements of our children’s social care placement market reforms: the new profit-capping powers and their associated financial penalties. Introducing profit-capping powers will ensure that we have further powers to curb profiteering if the wider package of measures that I outlined on Tuesday, which we expect to rein in excessive profit-making, do not have their intended effect. This is a power to have in place if other elements of the programme do not work.

I turn to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on whether Clause 15 should stand part of the Bill. Having outlined the broad intention of the profit cap, I want to be clear that, although some private providers are clearly doing brilliant work, we want to ensure that all providers deliver high-quality placements at sustainable cost. As I say, we know that this is not always happening.

The Competition and Markets Authority found the market to be dysfunctional and estimated that the largest private children’s social care placement providers were making profit margins of between 19% and 36%—well above what would be expected in a well-functioning market. As I have said previously, excess profits have not led to sufficient supply in this market. Furthermore, making these levels of profit from providing placements for some of our most vulnerable children is unacceptable and must end.

This clause provides important backstop powers to ensure that the Government can take action, if needed, to end profiteering. It also sends a clear signal to providers that the Government will not hesitate to take regulatory action to restrict this unacceptable behaviour if profit-making is not reined in. It is not the Government’s intention to extend these powers to any other sectors at this point, although I can confirm that the provisions would cover supported accommodation, along with the other elements noble Lords have already outlined.

To be frank, I hope that it does not become necessary to use these powers. I hope that people see the writing on the wall that there is an impact from the other elements of the Government’s plans, and that we see profits delivered at a more reasonable level and, more importantly, placement sufficiency improving. However, if it became necessary to use these powers, the clause already includes important safeguards through restrictions on the powers to ensure that they are used appropriately. Of course, if they were to be used, the point at which that was determined would be dependent on market conditions and profit levels at that particular point.

Regulations may be made only if the Secretary of State is satisfied that they are necessary on value-for-money grounds. The Secretary of State must also have regard to the welfare of looked-after children and the interests of local authorities and providers, including the opportunity to make a profit. Crucially, this clause also requires the Secretary of State to consult before making regulations. This will be particularly important to ensure that all interests are considered in determining issues, such as how a cap would be calculated and the level at which it would be set. That would be the point at which the particular nature of profit levels—which the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, asked about—would be considered in detail. In addition, Clause 15 also provides for regulations to be made that set out important details about the administration of any future profit cap by providing for annual returns from registered providers and the ability to request supplementary information. I hope that noble Lords can see from the discussions we have had on this Bill—notwithstanding other areas—just how important these powers are to ensuring that the Government can take proportionate action, if needed, to restrict profit-making in the market.

Amendments 504A and 505A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to require the Secretary of State to publish a report that would clarify the supply and capacity of independent children’s homes and independent fostering agencies, and the expected impact of the profit cap on the number of available placements, before Clause 15 is commenced. To reiterate, if the profit cap was to be commenced, this would be at a later stage, at which there may well be a different set of market conditions. We intend to use the powers in Clause 15 only if profiteering is not brought under control through the wider package of measures that we have set out.

The consultation requirement in this clause is particularly important because it will outline the details of the proposed cap itself and require the Government to respond and publish that response. This will set out our rationale, including on the matters in the noble Baroness’s amendment, if we judge that a cap is needed. In addition, the Explanatory Memorandum to the regulations will set out the policy rationale. In effect, that already fulfils the aim of these amendments to require a report to be published. In response to the noble Baroness’s question, the regulations will, of course, be made by virtue of the affirmative resolution procedure, so there will be the opportunity to cover these matters in debate and address their potential impact. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness that a report on the impact and design of the profit cap would be necessary before it could be implemented.

I turn to Amendment 142A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which seeks to limit the ability of the Secretary of State to impose financial penalties. I understand her specific questions. We expect the vast majority of any penalties issued to fall on corporate structures of one form or another. First, however, as we said on Tuesday, an individual might run a provider within scope—for example, a children’s home—as a sole trader. It would seem strange and surprising if that sole trader were making profits that would be likely to breach a cap, but it would be a bit bizarre if that were way to avoid a profit cap, were it to be necessary to introduce one.

Secondly, even within a corporate structure, there might be an individual who is personally culpable for a breach under the requirements of Clauses 14 and 15. The ability to issue a financial penalty in those circumstances might act as a strong deterrent—the finance director, for example. Of course, the Government do not intend to issue financial penalties that would be disproportionate or unfair on an individual. Indeed, Clause 17 sets out a number of factors that must be considered in determining the amount of a penalty. These include the impact of that penalty on the person in question, the nature and seriousness of the offence, and any past breaches and mitigating or aggravating factors.

Finally, I turn to Amendments 142B and 142C, which seek to restrict the financial penalty that may be imposed for breaches. While the Bill does not limit the financial penalty that can be issued for a breach of the requirements, I hope I have reassured noble Lords that, importantly, we will set the maximum amount in regulations, after we have engaged in full consultation with interested parties to determine the most appropriate maximum for any financial penalties. That will allow us to adjust the maximum amount over time, as necessary, and regulations made will be subject to the affirmative procedure. That will afford Parliament the opportunity to debate and scrutinise the Government’s proposals, and the Government to provide timely answers at that point to issues such as profit levels and operating arrangements, which the noble Baroness identified. Of course, even if a maximum amount is set, that does not necessarily mean that a provider would automatically be fined the maximum amount. As set out in Clause 17, there will be discretion when determining an appropriate amount for any financial penalty.

I hope that that provides more clarification of some of the meanings in this clause, that it responds appropriately to the amendments the noble Baroness has tabled, and that she feels able to withdraw her amendment.

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[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their valuable contributions thus far. Amendment 146B in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester seeks to strengthen the duty on the local authority to ensure that it has due regard to that very duty to either remove or minimise the disadvantages faced by looked-after children. In applying this language, the local authority has a stronger legal duty to support the looked-after children in its area. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln for putting the case so well.

Amendment 147A, also in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, builds on the previous amendment in the right reverend Prelate’s name, and would require local authorities not only to be aware of the disadvantages that looked-after children in their area face but also to take steps to avoid and reduce these disadvantages. It is vitally important that local authorities fully support the looked-after children in their area and that they take all the steps and precautions possible to prevent looked-after children from being harmed in any way by the policies they introduce. These amendments seem entirely sensible, and we thank the right reverend Prelate for bringing these issues to the Committee.

Amendment 151 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, which I have signed, seeks to add Jobcentre Plus to the list of relevant authorities in Schedule 1. This amendment seeks to ensure that the future career opportunities of looked-after children are considered as a priority, which is most appropriate. There are an alarming number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, and this amendment seeks to quite rightly place importance on finding young people who were previously looked-after children appropriate career development opportunities.

I hope all noble Lords would agree that giving disadvantaged young people the best career advice possible and helping them on that route-to-employment journey is absolutely essential. Whether it be assisting with writing CVs and cover letters, preparing for interviews, gaining work experience and job trialling, providing guidance and support for individuals looking to start their own businesses or providing detailed knowledge of the local labour markets to help employers find the right candidates, these are essential foundation stones to help our young workforce.

Our Amendment 152A addresses the concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House, which included the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Finlay and Lady Ramsey, regarding Clause 24:

“we recommend that the guidance is made subject to parliamentary scrutiny, with the draft negative procedure offering an appropriate level of scrutiny”.

His Majesty’s Government’s Amendments 148 to 150 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, are technical amendments and seek only to clarify the reference to integrated care boards and NHS foundation trusts, and His Majesty’s Official Opposition will not seek to oppose them.

We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on these important amendments and trust that His Majesty’s Government will see fit to acknowledge and incorporate into the Bill these positive amendments.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments go to one of the most important points about just how important the parent is in a child’s upbringing. Many years ago I came across a piece of black humour that never seems to stop giving: the first thing that a disabled child, or a child with special educational needs, must do to be a success is to choose their parents correctly. Without that back-up, you are asking a lot of any system. Making sure that all the systems take that seriously is key.

The situation has got better and there has been progress, but we are not there yet. The statistics—which we all have in front of us and have all talked about—prove that. Still, people who lack that strong body of support tend to fail, and often quite dramatically. Success—even moderate success—within that group is celebrated, so it is important that we go forward with this work.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott—who is my friend—and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, were right to table an amendment saying that jobcentres should be brought into this. That would expand the web of support and make sure it goes wide and goes through. If people do not have the central drive, we will need a wider net to pick them up when they slip. I hope that the Government will give us some positive response to this approach, because it is needed. They have gone far; go a little further.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 151. My friend—the noble Lord, Lord Addington—has done my job for me, but I will not be done out of my few moments to speak.

I am absolutely thrilled that the Bill seeks to strengthen the support provided to looked-after children and care leavers. I seek to add Jobcentre Plus to the list of organisations classified as a relevant authority. Currently, the authorities listed—I will not name every single one—include central government, education, health and youth justice. On a previous amendment I gave something of a statistic sandwich, but let me remind noble Lords of those figures. As at May 2025, there were 923,000 NEETs, and 41% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were deemed to be NEET. Some 66% of young people in Feltham young offender institution, and 25% of the adult prison population, have been in care. That is frightening.

Ultimately, the Bill seeks to improve outcomes for looked-after children and care leavers, but the one organisation that is missing is Jobcentre Plus. I have known that organisation for—I do not want to give away my age—35 to 40 years. I know people who have worked there for 25 years; they ring me and tell me about all the things they are doing or are struggling with. Jobcentre Plus has an excellent network of staff and of third-sector and other organisations that, collectively, can wrap these people up in their arms and make sure that we improve outcomes for young people. The rationale for its existence is sustainable employment—which is critical to care leavers and looked-after children—and jobcentres are already delivering services aligned with the Bill’s aspiration.

Recently I went to visit the Margate task force. It is in a room not much smaller than this wonderful Chamber, but it has Jobcentre Plus, the police, immigration and social services in there—you name it, it is there. The youngsters and the people at most risk of getting themselves into trouble are known to them all, and when there is a problem they can sort it. I cannot speak highly enough of the potential for them to be added to this list.

Formal inclusion of jobcentres would ensure accountability and consistency in the quest. Their role has the potential to improve outcomes for all young people, particularly those who are in care and looked after, and help them make a good transition to the world of work, giving them the best start in life. I spent yesterday talking to another organisation about how, if we started this thing in schools, if we got hold of them and started early, we could prevent a lot of this happening—but you have heard all that from me before, so I will not go on again.

I urge the Minister to include jobcentres and their network of excellent delivery partners in the list of relevant authorities. I look forward to her reply and live in hope that she will do this or, if not, help us understand why.

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[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the very compassionate comments that ran through their suggestions.

By way of background, the new corporate parenting measures in the Bill will, for the first time, impose a duty on a number of public bodies to be alert to matters that affect the well-being of looked-after children and care leavers. This means that every Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, schools, colleges, NHS England, integrated care boards, NHS trusts and foundation trusts, Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and the Youth Justice Board will be named as corporate parents and therefore will be required to take the needs and circumstances of looked-after children and care leavers into account when designing policies and delivering services that affect them.

There were powerful comments from all sides, which I hope to address in some more detail. But I start by emphasising that I believe all of us in the public sector or in a position to drive change have a responsibility and, indeed, a moral obligation to do this, levelling the playing field for looked-after children and care leavers, who, as we have heard, are among the most vulnerable groups in our society, have suffered the worst outcomes across a range of measures and deserve this attention to detail, care and understanding, which, quite frankly, is not presently evident in all areas.

We have had lots of figures, but I will add some more: some 26% of the homeless population are care experienced, around one-quarter of the adult prison population have been in care as a child and—as we have heard, but this is a slightly different take on it—care leavers aged 19 to 21 are more than three times more likely than their peers to be not in education, employment or training. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln referenced Terry Galloway, and it was my privilege to come into contact with Terry through my previous role before I came into this House. I do not think I have ever met anyone who is quite so determined, persistent and absolutely dedicated on behalf of other young people across the whole of the country, so I pay tribute to him from us all.

Government Amendments 148 to 150 in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith are minor and technical amendments simply to improve the drafting of the list of corporate parents in Schedule 1. Amendments 148 and 149 add clarity to the definition of integrated care boards and NHS foundation trusts. Amendment 150 clarifies that the reference to NHS trusts in the list of corporate parents applies only to NHS trusts in England.

Clause 21 sets out the responsibilities to be introduced for corporate parents, and the duty aims to drive a widespread culture change across the public sector, which will involve adapting services; increasing awareness of matters that adversely affect looked-after children and care leavers; importantly, tackling stigma and discrimination; and improving all aspects of their lives.

Clause 23 introduces a duty for new corporate parents and local authorities in England to work collaboratively when performing their respective corporate parenting duties. This would prevent silo working—we are all well aware of how damaging people working in their narrow fields can be, particularly in this very important area—and highlight where duplication of effort sometimes gets in the way and how we can make sure that the conversations happen between all relevant people, to help deliver targeted and timely support. Running through all this is a constant reminder of the importance of listening to young people themselves and making sure that their influence is heard and acted upon. We have experience at local authority level of making departments work with responsibility, picking up the corporate parenting responsibilities. That experience will help inform the work of the national institutions to show that it is not only the right thing to do but is empowering in its own right and changes behaviours in a very constructive and positive way.

I turn to Amendment 151, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott—I want to continue to bring noble Lords together in their mutual admiration, and I would hate to get in the way of this. The amendment seeks to add Jobcentre Plus to the list of relevant authorities to which the corporate parenting duty applies. Of course, I recognise the passion for this area of work and, importantly, for the personnel who deliver the services. We know that the statistics are far from where they need to be, which is why this Government are absolutely determined to work in this space to make sure that the opportunities we create are available for all. That has to be a basic understanding. While agreeing with the noble Baroness that Jobcentre Plus plays the crucial role in supporting care leavers in making that difficult transition to parenthood, whether through training or a whole range of different skills, I am pleased to be able to reassure her that her amendment is not necessary, as Jobcentre Plus is part of the Department for Work and Pensions and therefore is already in scope of the measures by virtue of the inclusion of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. We have several other examples of good practice in this space—

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having an overall duty and having an access point to make sure that it happens are very often different—I mean, it just happens in government. If the Minister could write to us, telling us how the Government propose to implement that, it would remove certain anxieties on this.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I will consider whether that is necessary when I get to the end of my speaking notes.

To continue, the corporate parenting responsibilities will also apply to bodies that exercise functions on behalf of the Secretary of State, such as the Prison and Probation Service. Of course, there should be real overlap between the different services in this regard. This will be explained in statutory guidance. So that it can be rolled out properly, it is absolutely crucial that, as it is written, the statutory guidance is co-produced and everyone has an opportunity to put money in.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 187 in my name, and I am supportive of others in this group, particularly those in the names of my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to promote and support a mixed model of breakfast provision, already mentioned by my noble friend, which would better meet the Government’s objectives, in the view of Magic Breakfast, which has years of experience of school breakfast provision, and to which I am grateful for its support.

I have long been a supporter of free school breakfasts, particularly for children living in poverty, for whom the provision of breakfast can make so much difference to their well-being and their ability to benefit from their schooling. I was therefore delighted that the Government had included them for primary school children in the bill. However, I am persuaded by Magic Breakfast’s argument in favour of a more flexible approach that would embrace other forms of provision as well as breakfast clubs—“breakfast clubs plus”, if you like. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill state that the duty it places on schools is a minimum. The official guidance for the early adopter scheme makes it clear that schools are encouraged to go beyond the minimum standards. This amendment would signal that more clearly and would support schools in going beyond the minimum.

Magic Breakfast very much supports the breakfast club model as a minimum standard, but suggests that, because its inflexibility means that it can limit access to food in ways we already heard about, it is not the best model on its own for tackling hunger and child poverty, which I know the Secretary of State cares passionately about. The two other models that could play a valuable role are classroom-based and nurture-group provision. Classroom provision is delivered within the main learning environment, either straight before the start of the school day or as part of a soft start to the day. The latter can support the development of soft skills and ensure that all pupils are adequately fed and ready to start learning.

Nurture groups are commonly used in both mainstream and specialist settings to provide a small-group environment, particularly for pupils with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. Many Magic Breakfast partner schools deliver such provision in a variety of ways, enabling them to take a more person-centred approach to the needs of pupils. The amendment will support both these models but would leave it open to the Secretary of State to promote other models that go beyond the delivery of food.

Magic Breakfast sums up the amendment as encouraging a “place-based approach” to breakfast policy-making. It believes that such an approach has been a key driver behind the scale of take-up of breakfasts in its partner schools. On average, this is 375% higher than among non-Magic Breakfast schools. It suggests that the reason is that alternative models do not require access to childcare or necessarily being at school early. Not every pupil at risk of hunger is able to access before-school provision due to factors beyond their, and often their parents’, control.

This is particularly true of those with SEND, an issue that was raised a number of times in the Commons and by my noble friend Lord Watson. A mixed model is better able to respond to difficulties that SEND pupils might have with transport, specialist medication and eating needs and large-group provision. It can offer the kind of pupil-centred provision that is needed. It is no accident that only 16% of special schools partnered with Magic Breakfast operate a breakfast club-only model. I am sure many noble Lords have received the open letter signed by leading charities on this matter.

According to Magic Breakfast, the breakfast club model is particularly expensive. In 2021, analysis by the Education Endowment Foundation found mixed models make more efficient use of staffing and that, on average, a mixed model approach was up to 75% cheaper than a pure breakfast club model. I would have thought that that would be music to the ears of the Government.

In conclusion, the Government’s laudable objectives with regard to education, hunger and child poverty would be better met by adopting the mixed-model approach put forward in this amendment. If my noble friend the Minister does not feel able to accept this, or an alternative, amendment, I would urge her in her response to first explicitly recognise the case for schools delivering school breakfast in a way that has regard for the varied needs of their pupils and that is focused on alleviating hunger and, secondly, to commit to encouraging mixed models of provision in national guidance.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I would like to say a few words about my amendment, which is about a slightly different area but attached to the same part of the Bill.

School activity has taken rather a pounding of late. If you link sport, arts, music, culture, youth clubs and so on only to a school, so they happen only in a school setting, they stop when school stops. If you make it just about education—sport is a very good example of this—dropout ages are 16, 18 and 21, because that is when you leave your educational institution. I hope that here we would have an opportunity to get the voluntary sector back talking to and helping young people.

On the amendments I tabled, subsection (2A) in Amendment 185 is at least as important, because it means providing voluntary activity in schools so they can identify with and get in contact with these groups outside. The groups outside want to make contact. Their survival and the survival of their activity depends on getting new people in, and they are giving something positive back. Anybody who has had any experience with anything from an am-dram group to a rugby team knows there is a social network that is interdependent and builds up a sense of community and purpose, and helps that group and those people in it, effectively providing almost a family group at times. It is a place where you can find jobs, structure, help, support and purpose; it is all there.

Apart from a diatribe that amateur sport will save the world, it is a fact that we are going to very solid, well-established ground here. I do not think anybody is going to disagree that these things are beneficial. We talk about the health aspect and the need for a good diet, but it is possible to put on weight on healthy food if you do not move. Let us look at how we can expand education not just through the education establishment. We should look to people who are doing positive things on a voluntary basis and helping you get out there.

Just to cast an eye on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that we are about to discuss, this is another good amendment. I know the noble Lord well, and I have no doubt that he will have more to say on it. He refers to me as his “friend in sport”, and I am glad to carry on that one. Basically, if we do not encourage these formal lines back into our education system—unfortunately we have broken, or at least damaged, the informal ones—we are going to lose this contact with somewhere where you go on to do something positive. I look forward to the Minister’s answer, and to her answer on the amendments led by my noble friend Lady Walmsley.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, while we are still on breakfast clubs, I hope I can jump in to speak to Amendment 184, which relates to the additional costs of breakfast clubs in primary schools, combined with the quality of food expected. The amendment is tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, who is sorry that he cannot be in the Committee right now. Like others in this group, this is, to a certain extent, a probing amendment to understand how much the Government understand about the whole-of-service costs that this part of the Bill will impose on schools and how they plan to meet them, based on conversations with those currently involved in making breakfast clubs work.

I support breakfast clubs. I have previously declared an interest as a mum whose daughter goes to breakfast clubs, and I am a big fan of their provision. For me, they provide hugely valuable additional childcare that allows me and my partner to meet our work commitments, but I also recognise the role that they play in ensuring that no child starts school hungry and unable to learn.

Turning to the practical implications, let us assume that a breakfast club in a primary school is taken up by 50% of the children in that school. A two-form entry school would require oversight by seven members of staff, and a school with a single form would require four members of staff. This does not include the catering element. That ratio is set out in regulations, so it is not advisory. A single-form entry primary school is highly unlikely to have sufficient unused non-teaching staff resource to handle the new obligation without drawing on directed teacher time.

That brings us back to the vital concept of the hard cap on directed time. If, for example, a teacher now has to be diverted for an hour a day to support and supervise a breakfast club, that is around 170 hours a year out of 1,265. Some 15% of the time, they will no longer be available for other duties—most significantly teaching. How are the Government going to account for this?

To the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I say that I completely acknowledge the additional money that has been put into schools through last week’s spending review settlement, and previously, but, when we take into account increased eligibility for free school meals—which is welcome—increased SEND costs, teacher pay awards and increased national insurance costs, my understanding is that there is currently no additional funding to meet the costs of a national rollout of breakfast clubs. That is a question that remains unanswered. The same applies to non-teaching staff: more hours will be required, so how will it be paid for?

Currently, schools can charge parents for early delivery of children before the academic day begins. As I have said, this enables working parents to drop their children off on their way to work, and it works well. I pay £3 for 45 minutes, including breakfast. This will rise to £4 pounds in September, but with provision extending to an hour. For me, it is fantastic value. Many schools deliver this provision for free or at a lower cost for children in receipt of free school meals, with the costs covered by the pupil premium income that a school receives.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

To me, it seems like an inevitability that our Government will one day introduce such a restriction, and I would lay good money that it will be before the end of this Parliament. I urge the Minister to get on the right side of history, put something on the table that can take this idea forward and put Britain’s children first, while maintaining our position as a global technology leader.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, there seem to be two issues here. One is social media and the other is the smartphone, and the two of them are accessed via each other. However, we should remember what a smartphone is: it is a platform for using technology.

The reason I raise this is that—and this is in my declaration of interests—I am someone who believes in and uses assistive technology, and one of the easiest ways to get that is, increasingly, through your smartphone. As a dyslexic, I access literature, often with complicated local accents in it, via technology. Initially, it was an abridged book on tape. You can use it that way, so there is potential here. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talked about caveats, but there is the potential to benefit people, including in the education environment.

It is one of the oddities that we refer to our phone as something which is a tool. It is a tool for much of the deaf community because they text. Texting is easy when somebody has not been in an environment where they have been taught to write properly, because that is what happens in the deaf community. They become addicted to text speak. Let us be a little more selective about this.

I salute the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for starting this debate and starting it so well. But remember, do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Make sure this is something you can use as a platform. There will be other ways, and there may be ways around this, but I just say that everything has a price, and this is one. Please remember it. You might be excluding groups that we will be talking about in this Bill and future ones, who use it as something to support learning. I felt I had to say that to throw it into the argument, because it is an important thing to bear in mind.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, in the amendments they have proposed. I also agree very much with the comments made by others, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, who made some important points, especially about the risk of overloading schools. My noble friend Lady Shephard made some very important points about safeguarding. When, as chief inspector, I reported on sexual harassment and abuse in schools, it was notable how much of that we found to be linked to smartphone use.

I would like to clear up a bit of confusion, because I think we are not properly distinguishing between personal and school-controlled devices. I think the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was heading in this direction a moment ago in his remarks. Every school has many school-controlled devices—computers and sometimes tablets—and it is much easier to maintain the framework of safeguards around devices that are owned and controlled by schools than it is around personal devices.

These devices are suitable for teaching media literacy and many other things or in teaching children how to use technology. They can also very effectively provide technology. The dividing line here is between devices schools are able to control fairly fully and devices that essentially remain children’s property and in the children’s control, and where there will never be the level of supervision needed to make them safe—at least not in the foreseeable future.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

There is a great way of discovering that you have no dyscalculia or dyslexia—Japan did it. They just did not recognise the words.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

The noble Lord returns to a theme he has raised before.

To conclude, children have 13 precious years to gain the knowledge and the skills that will set them up for their adult lives. All children need to be ready to take advantage of that from day 1, including children who learn differently and therefore need different support from the very beginning.

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Moved by

[Lord Addington]

183CD: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“Early intervention and screening at first contact with the justice system(1) Within two years of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a strategy to protect and promote the wellbeing of children in police custody.(2) The strategy must set out—(a) steps which should be taken to ensure that all children taken into police custody are screened for SEND and neurodivergence using a nationally approved methodology,(b) the accredited training police officers and legal representatives of the children must complete to support the child’s wellbeing and to aid recognition of SEND and neurodivergence,(c) mandatory access to sources of wellbeing support during any police interview, and(d) minimum standards for the treatment and conditions of children detained in police custody.”

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, on the spur of the moment, having read through the amendment, I have decided that I would like to hear the Minister’s answer.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

I was hoping to speak to this amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I have to move it otherwise you cannot speak to it.

The linkage between the criminal justice system and those in it and special educational needs, neuro-divergence and many disabilities is something that a lot of us have known about for a long time. This amendment suggests that we get early recognition and assessment of such conditions upon first contact with the justice system. There are lots of schemes that suggest this will help. Indeed, the Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police have autism awareness badges that provide information so that the police can interact properly with people. It is becoming more and more apparent that, if you have problems with written work or communications, you are going to struggle with the criminal justice system. It is blindingly obvious when you give it a little thought.

We also know that, for people from certain economic backgrounds who might struggle with the education system, criminal activity becomes, to put it bluntly, more of an acceptable career path. I want nothing more, nothing less than to see that the Government are thinking about this and the approach to it. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I want to express some concerns about Amendment 183CD. Its intentions are clearly excellent, but there are nevertheless some real concerns to take note of here.

Diagnoses of special educational needs are made by educational psychologists and experienced clinicians. To ensure there is consistency in diagnosis and treatment, it is important that that continues to be the case. By contrast, “neurodivergence” is a term with no clinical definition or standard. In a world where stigma about mental health conditions has been reduced, or in some cases even reversed, it is, as we all know, increasingly common for teenagers and adults alike to assert their neurodivergence. Sometimes, that leads, in essence, to a claim, by or on behalf of the individual, that they should be able to self-identify into additional services or special treatment.

In the case of the criminal justice system, the hazards of that are obvious, and, if children, parents or their lawyers see an opportunity, they will have a strong incentive to take it, irrespective of whether they have a true diagnosis that warrants that treatment. So, although it is of course sensible for police to obtain information about a child’s diagnosed health or educational conditions that are relevant to their detention and treatment, and so to make proper inquiries, that is one thing, but to set up a parallel diagnostic system leaning on a concept that does not have a clinical definition is another, and is clearly wasteful and risky. Those concerns should affect any consideration that is given to this amendment.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. I agree that neurodivergence does not really have a case in law; as it is not my amendment, I can be as rude as I like about the drafting. I wanted to get the idea across of a divergence of approach across the police forces in the United Kingdom, as well as divergence between how seriously you take various conditions.

The police will be very aware of how you deal with somebody who has bad literacy, as virtually all the prison population—something like 70% or 80%—has bad literacy. With other conditions, such as autism, there is great concern; people with autism are greatly overrepresented in prisons as well. Perhaps you do not react to social signals, or you do not understand what is going on, or you are easily led. I have heard all these things said about people on the autism spectrum.

What I wanted to get over to the Minister, and I think I did, was the picture of a diverse situation. There are screening tools available suggesting how you should conduct an interview; how you go about that is important. The police have got this horribly wrong in cases in the past, which has meant wasting huge amounts of time and money and caused a lot of distress.

I thank the Minister for her answer. I will go away and consider whether I think it needs to be brought back; rather, I will consult the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and do that. This is a real problem. That is why I took the Committee’s time to move the amendment but, having heard the Minister’s answer, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 183CD withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I might just interject here. One of the things about home education is that the education of the child should come first. That education should allow them to function independently as an adult afterwards. If we do not lose sight of that, we stand a chance of some common sense emerging on this.

When somebody mentions “special educational needs”, I do not know whether it is me rising like a trout to a fly or running like a bull at a red flag, but I always look at this. The first people I ever experienced dealing with home education were doing so because special educational needs were not being met. The system is probably better than it was when they started, but we still know that there are a great many problems with it. If, for instance, you do not have the right teachers in a school or you cannot find the right school or one that you think has an acceptable plan, home education would certainly become more attractive. But do not forget that you still need a parent who is trained well enough to deliver that education. It is not an easy option. The fact is that some parents might think that they are well enough trained, but they get it wrong.

I do not think that anybody here or who works in education has lacked for people who have a miracle cure—dyslexia is the one I am most familiar with—and say, “I can teach anybody to read by picturing the word and associating it”. This totally misunderstands that short-term memory is one of the primary problems. The last time somebody said that to me, I said, “Inconsequential: give me a mental image for that”. It was about the politest way I could tell them, when expletives came more readily to mind, but schemes like this are going through.

I hope that we can get something here that says that education is the most important factor, because what happens to that child and the rights of the child must come first. If the state can find a way of delivering that, fine, because it has a duty to make sure that, after their education, that person can function as independently as possible, as an adult in the real world. I hope that we never lose sight of that.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, at this stage, at the beginning of the many amendments on home-schooling stretching ahead, I would like to thank the Minister for her opening remarks. They were very helpful and, as a consequence, I will not speak on all the amendments to which I have put my name, even though a lot of scrutiny is required to make sure that we get this right.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, points out that intervention in schools can be a protection. The Government’s thinking about the future of this and the future interaction would be well worth hearing.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In group 4, we have an interesting combination of some amendments suggesting that the Government are going too far in their proposals around the hurdle for having to seek consent to home-educate and others suggesting that they are not going far enough. I will try to find a way through the centre of this, because what they all have in common is seeking to explore the rationale for the local authority to have to provide consent before a parent can withdraw a child from school to home-educate—in this case, where the child is subject to a child protection inquiry

I turn to Amendments 205 and 206. Just to be clear, the Government believe that the consent measure with respect to Section 47 inquiries provides an important but proportionate safety net for children subject to child protection inquiries and plans. To clarify something that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said and to reiterate this, the consent provisions are not an automatic bar to these parents home-educating. It could well be the case that, notwithstanding the fact that a child was subject to Section 47 inquiries or even under a child protection plan, the local authority felt it was appropriate for, or was willing to give consent for, that child to be home-educated. To reiterate what I said, it is a requirement for the local authority to consider the circumstances of that child, given that they have come under the auspices of children’s social care through Section 47 of the Children Act. Our view is that this should be done as part of its wider decision-making on whether a child needs protection and the planning that follows that.

There is some suggestion, which I really disagree with, that local authorities would find it easy to jump to a Section 47 inquiry simply to prevent a parent being able to home-educate their child. There are a lot of consequences to undertaking a Section 47 inquiry. I would find it hard to understand why a local authority would be so keen to prevent a parent home-educating if there were no reasons to stop them or want to get itself into the burdens around a Section 47 inquiry if it did not think it was important to do that. Of course, it is not just what a local authority believes about the circumstances of a child. For a child to be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry, they will have already hit a threshold of actual or likely significant harm. That is a high threshold. An inquiry should certainly not be initiated purely because a parent has decided to home-educate.

I note the understandable concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about how this measure could be used in an abusive relationship, where false or malicious allegations regarding the safety of a child, for example, might be made to continue to control or harass an individual. The sad reality, of course, is that it is not only with respect to issues about home education that that might happen. It could happen, and does happen, in many circumstances where local authorities are making decisions about children. For that reason, we are confident that this would not be something unusual or unheard of for local authorities, and that they do have robust policies and processes in place to consider information and evidence about child protection concerns, including recognising and handling malicious allegations. Perhaps the noble Lord could be provided with some more examples of how local authorities would handle this type of circumstance, to provide some reassurance. Given that a child will be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry only where there is actual or likely significant harm, it is reasonable that checks should be undertaken before such a child can be removed from school for home education.

Amendment 207, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, focuses on bringing all children receiving support and services under Section 17 of the Children Act, known as “children in need”, and any child who has ever been the subject of a child protection plan in the past into the scope of the consent measure. We share her commitment to ensuring that all children are protected from harm, and recognise that, while home education is not an inherent safeguarding risk, it can of course mean that some children could slip under the radar. However, we believe that this amendment would be disproportionate. “Children in need” is a very broad group of children and many will receive services which are nothing to do with safeguarding concerns or particular educational needs.

I think the noble Baroness was suggesting that there might be ways in which it would be possible to have a definition that looked at different elements of Section 17 concerns, and perhaps I can come back to her on that point. I think one of her reasons for suggesting it is that she understands, of course, that, for example, all children with disabilities are automatically included under Section 17. We certainly would not want to suggest here that any child with disabilities whose parents wanted to home-educate them would necessarily need to seek consent. I also draw her attention to the deliverability of a measure that includes both children in need and children subject to child protection activity in the consent measure.

In the year to the end of March 2024, there were 399,500 children in need, compared with 224,520 child protection inquiries and 49,900 children on child protection plans. As noble Lords can see, it would be both disproportionate and overly burdensome on local authorities to make a consent decision for every parent who wished to withdraw their child from school for home education where that child is receiving help under Section 17: it would be roughly a doubling of the potential number of children who might need it.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to which I have added my name, and I thank him for introducing it so effectively. A young carer is defined as someone who is under the age of 18 and is looking after a family member or close friend. Often being forced to balance school and their social life with caring duties could seem an impossible task, which can take its toll on a young carer’s mental health. That said, on the other side of the coin, with the right level of support, many of the skills that they learn while caring are later transferable to adult life and the world of work.

All too often, however, young carers are invisible. If adults outside their family, particularly teachers and school support staff, are unaware of their caring responsibilities, it is unlikely that the help that they need will reach them, so it is important that we recognise young carers and learn how we can help them, because being a young carer is undoubtedly demanding. They assume adult responsibilities and worries while still a child and have to prepare for and get to school, study for exams and look after themselves.

During the pandemic, the Children’s Society launched the young carers count campaign, which highlighted the experiences of young carers and called for a child’s status as a carer to be included in the school census. The DfE acknowledged the value of that, because in 2022 it began to include young carers as a category in that census. Now that data is being recorded, a much clearer picture of the number of young carers across England and how they are impacted by their caring responsibilities is beginning to emerge. With proper resourcing, this should help significantly to improve the support that they receive.

The Children and Families Act 2014 amended the Children Act to make it easier for young carers to get an assessment of their needs and introduced whole-family approaches to assessment and support. Local authorities must offer an assessment where it “appears”—I am not quite sure what that means—that a child is involved in providing care. That legislation is aligned with similar provision in the Care Act 2014 that requires local authorities to consider the needs of young carers if, during the assessment of an adult with care needs, or of an adult carer, it appears that a child is providing or intends to provide care. In those circumstances, the authority must consider whether the care being provided by the child is excessive or inappropriate and how the child’s caring responsibilities affect their well-being, education and development.

Amendment 209 would add to Clause 30, which, of course, is concerned with children not in school. When a local authority is informed that a request has been made for a child to be removed from school, this amendment would require that a young carer’s needs assessment is undertaken. This would highlight cases where a child was being withdrawn to enable them to offer more support to a family member, likely at the expense of them attending school and thus continuing with their education. Increased caring responsibilities almost always mean that there is neither the time nor the facility for a child either to receive meaningful education from that relative or to self-educate, even where he or she was at least theoretically old enough to do so and the appropriate learning materials were made available. The starting point for any such assessment should always be that children are children first.

The young carer’s needs assessment must determine whether a young carer is giving what I described earlier as “excessive” care. Although a child might be undertaking relatively minor care tasks, the time that these take up and the demands that they make on the child could place significant limits on their life—for example, if the level of care interferes with school attendance or appears to be isolating the child in their home and preventing contact with their friends. For that reason, I hope that my noble friend will agree that a needs assessment is necessary to ensure that local authorities are aware of young carers’ needs and that their needs are being met, while preserving their access to education.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I can see why my noble friend Lord Storey added his name to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young. Any child taking on responsibilities like those described in that amendment is not having a childhood. In reality, they are getting through from day to day—they cannot be doing much more. School may be the only point where they will get some support and some normal life; enabling them to have that may be the only way that they can have a future.

If you spend your entire life looking after somebody else, and they inconveniently live for quite a long time, you could find yourself in middle age without an education or qualifications and having been de-social skilled—I do not know if that is a correct expression. Your life will have been taken over by another function. That should not be put on somebody that young. When she comes to respond, I hope that the Minister will say something positive, because this is something that we should deal with at the first opportunity.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 224, which I think is less contentious than the last issue that I raised in your Lordships’ House. The amendment is about deregistration from school when it is triggered by crises, or whatever. Taking your child to school is a voluntary arrangement at the point of enrolment, but parents get fined for unauthorised absence, even if they go into the sort of crisis that will eventually lead to them deregistering.

I do not know anything about education, despite being in education until I was 18, and then at university, but I have vested interest because three of my grandchildren were home-schooled. Two of them are now at Cambridge—one is doing history and the other politics—and the other one has made a comedy film about autism, which is a condition she has, and that is doing incredibly well. Those three children have been home-schooled and have reached a level that many children do not get to regardless, so I would argue that home-schooling can work extremely well. It is important to remember that, for some children, it is the answer. We want to avoid government overreach in these situations.

It seems obvious to me that, where a parent clearly no longer consents to the education arrangement with the school, it makes sense that they do not get fined. The fines do not get the children back to school, but they do add financial worries to the sense of stress. I understand why the Government reach for deterrence in order to give children the best education that they can, but sometimes school is not the right answer and I ask the Minister to consider whether financial penalties are useful in all these situations.

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I could go on. This is not a legal question but a moral one. If we legislate so that protective acts by parents are treated with automatic suspicion, while bureaucratic triggers are treated as irrefutable, we risk criminalising care and entrenching harm. Thousands of families, particularly those with disabled children or facing poverty or domestic violence, are depending on us to get this balance right. This amendment gives them the fair process that they deserve. It places the burden back where it belongs—on the state to justify overriding parents, not on parents to justify acting in their child’s best interests.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the idea that the best interests of the child would be judged by the state is one that is reasonable under certain circumstances. It comes back to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Does it have enough resources to do this? Does it have the structure? If the Minister could tell us, now or in a letter, what criteria, what resources, will be put forward, everybody would be a little bit more comfortable with what is happening here. But I am afraid that the fact of the matter on special educational needs is that it is the parent who often struggles to get the help they need. We all know why—we have all been through the system and we understand it—I just want to know the process by which we get there. If we get one that sounds reasonable, I am happier.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, have made a powerful case for the point of principle that underpins this group of amendments. I confess to agreeing with them only in part. The point of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that there may be a muddle in the drafting, may be a fair one because of the discussion we had earlier on my Amendment 204 about the automatic inclusion of children in special schools within the framework of local authority consent. So I am sympathetic to the points my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, make on children in special schools and the idea that the state knows what is best for them.

Where I am not sympathetic—I respect their opinion and I think they have a point—it is because, on balance, when a child is subject to a child protection plan or a child protection investigation, we have already established that it is either confirmed that the child is at risk of significant harm or there are serious concerns that the child could be at risk of serious harm. Whether the “best interest” is the best way of framing it, I do not know, but I think that at that point and for that group of children—

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I have to correct myself, because I have said, on behalf of home-schooling mothers, that we favour the registry. I said that two years ago and during the Schools Bill of 2022. I did not comprehend that these amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, are anti-register. I therefore cannot remain loyal to what I have just said in support of them, because I think the register is important, but Amendment 423 still stands good and I continue to support it.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, I find myself roughly in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on this one: a register should be there.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I want to clarify that, while I personally oppose the register totally, if there must be a register, I am proposing practical amendments. I believe the numbers shared earlier today were that the Government are going to have to get local authority officials to deal with more than 100,000 home-educating families. If they all have to be registered and a portion of them lead to various determinations and investigations, this will create a massive workload for already stretched local authority officers, who we know are struggling to catch the children we want to protect. My point in tabling these amendments is to create exemptions.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I should just say “ditto” to that, should I not? What the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said is hugely important, as is the response from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the words of my noble friend Lady Spielman. It is unclear how this set of amendments is going to work. It unclear whether they are proportionate. We would like to get a good understanding. We can see that there is a purpose and that they are important, but we have concerns about how the demands of this Bill fit with reality and are going to work in particular circumstances. I will not go into the detail of the amendments that I have in that space—I will wait for the Minister’s reply—but I will pick up on some of the points made by my noble friend Lord Wei on his amendments. Amendment 245 provides that, if a private tutor teaches online and never sees the child in their home, there should be no need for that tutor to supply a private address. There are other aspects. It appears that a company has to provide details of all the people it employs. What happens with online companies where you are not interfacing with anyone at any obvious location but are just interfacing with the software? It is really hard to read what you are supposed to produce and why it is reasonable to produce it.

Amendment 248 highlights the absurdity of trying to quantify every minute. Many parents rightly say that their children learn continuously through conversation, trips and hobbies, without rigid slots. Precise time-logging is trying to force home education into a classroom straitjacket.

Amendment 260 and, in particular, Amendment 261, which my noble friend Lord Frost has supported, seek to address what is breathtakingly open-ended stuff. What is required here and why? What is the underlying purpose being served? We have to be careful about going in for open-ended data collection. Those of us who have been here for a while will remember what happened after we passed RIPA, and the way in which local authorities started using it to find out parents who might be cheating when it came to saying what their address was in school applications. Anything that is collected under such a register does not just sit quietly in a database; it becomes available throughout government and will be swept up into the profiling systems used by the police and the security authorities.

We know from history and from the work of those such as Professor Eileen Munro that these systems tend to record deficits, not strengths, and to build up negative pictures of people. This results in children from black and other ethnic minorities being racially profiled as being bad. People worry about them and so something appears in the database, and then they are seen as a problem. That information will appear everywhere that the authorities look them up. We need to be really careful about how we allow information to be collected.

I do not see any practical provision that would allow anyone to know what is on the register or to correct what is on it. There must be some process for making it accurate when the local authority has added stuff of its own volition—it does not have to tell anyone that it has done so, and the information might be completely daft and inaccurate. There is no provision for how information should be assessed and removed. We need to look carefully at this. Dr Stephen Crossley’s work on the troubled families programme illustrates that this leads to intrusive interventions justified by mass data trawling and families being

“bullied to no good effect”,

with little evidence of positive outcomes.

In this area, we should legislate with humility about what the state can know and manage and about what is useful and practical. We should be careful about turning supportive families into defensive ones, educational flourishing into compliance anxiety, or safeguarding into a byword for intrusive bureaucracy.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this group is about gathering information, and I am struck by certain things. Are we collecting the right type of information? Are we ignoring other information?

I was particularly struck by the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, which seeks to include on the register why the child is being home-educated. That would be a useful addition, though I am fully aware that others are saying that we might get a sea of information that ignores the key reason. As somebody who comes at home-education from a special educational needs background, I am familiar with lots of people who have removed their children from school because the school simply did not have the capacity to teach them accurately; teachers are trained to teach those who more closely conform to the norm and these children’s learning patterns do not correlate with that.

The same will be true about the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, when she said that blocks of time sitting down and studying is what education is. This is the type of education that has failed that group. For instance, many schools say, “We are going to give them extra help”. If you do not give them the right help, for this group, because the learning patterns are different, it still will not work. There are lots of little things in here that I would like the Minister to start to clear up. Too much information and the wrong sort will not help.

Even then, there are certain other bits that probably should be there. Are we going to review this periodically? Are we trying to get a feel of it? If we do not do so, there is a danger that we overload. But the register should be there because every child—it comes back to this—is entitled to an education. As was movingly put and supported by my noble friend Lady Tyler, who is a carer, that child is entitled to some support. Carers are entitled to function as an adult in the outside world after they have finished their caring duties—indeed, if they ever finish them. If we do not get away from that, I should like to know a little more on how we are going to use this information. It is a difficult subject, and I do not envy the Minister when she comes to answer on this group, but it is one we are entitled to extract the information from.

There are lots of situations here where we need to get an approach more than we need to get the detail—something that says whether it will be flexible enough. Is it going to understand the types of situations involved? We have heard they are variable, and anybody who has looked at this knew they were variable. So I look forward to the Minister’s reply and do not envy her her task.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I have listened to Members talk on all these amendments, and it raised some thoughts in my mind, which I just want to mention before dealing with the amendments. One of the things that we will perhaps appreciate even more as a result of having a register is that, never mind home education, there are currently 100,000 children missing. They are not in home education or schools but are missing. I hope that when we have established—if we establish—a register for home-educated children, we will know the exact number of missing children and have a similar opportunity to work out how we do something about it. It is one of the highest levels in western Europe. That is my first thought.

My second thought is that we constantly hear from schools about the workload that teachers have to have, and maybe some of the discussions about what we are requiring of home educators in terms of the information from them would be music to teachers’ ears as well. In my days as a probationary teacher in my first school, I remember that the head did not require me to keep any records at all. He trusted me as a teacher. There was a single school syllabus and you just got on with it. After five years, I moved on to my second school. It was a huge culture shock because the head teacher demanded that we all had our record books and that we wrote down in great detail a paragraph for every subject from maths, literacy and numeracy right through to technology on what we were doing in that week. Perhaps this discussion also relates to issues for schools as well. Each of these amendments has important things to say. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, was absolutely right to ask, what in these amendments adds value and what adds little value?

Sometimes it is not in plain sight. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, dismissed Amendment 244 as more bureaucracy. I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, did not get up. His later Amendment 333ZA is about safeguarding. I do not think that many parents know that, currently, under UK law, an individual barred from working with children due to safeguarding risks or serious offences—including imprisonment—can legally offer one-to-one tuition to children when hired directly by the provider. So the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which seeks to avoid having to provide details of staff at, for example, online schools, is a mistake. We should know the details of individuals who are not parents and who come into schools to do tutoring. That is hugely important.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, on this I think it would be best if I listened to the Minister’s responses. I beg to move.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we are doing things in a slightly unconventional way today, but I agree that it is probably in order. These amendments come down to the use of information. I would hope that education policy follows information and knowledge. I am talking here about the groups of home educators who are doing it not because they like the idea but because they feel they have to because needs are not being met.

Earlier the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, spoke to an amendment specifying that you should find out certain things. Effectively, it is a reaction to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wei. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has tabled rather subtler amendments about the use and storage of information. I hope the Government can give us at least an assurance that they will be collating information to make sure that those who are home-educating because they feel they have no choice have an answer going forward. This will be very important in the Government’s long-awaited—and, I hope, not just aspirational—changes to special educational needs. We are a large group. I would hope that they are collecting this information, making sure they do something positive with it, then telling us how they manage and distribute it afterwards. That is an equally valid point.

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[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 288A is in my name. In a way, it is the counterpart to the amendment we debated this morning under which parents would have to provide information about providers. This is about the information that the providers need to provide. There are two points in it. I have used the same format as the earlier amendment to say

“a person or organisation is providing regular out-of-school education to a child not registered in school, for more than 10 hours in a week”

and used the words

“is not primarily social or recreational”

and

“takes place without any parent of the child being”

there. I will dwell for a moment on those two points: “regular” and “not primarily social or recreational”.

The point about “regular”, as we have touched on but not fully discussed, is that this should not apply to one-off or occasional items, some of which will come up at short notice and cannot therefore be included in the register because the parents did not know about them in time to give notice. It would be extremely useful to have this in the Bill and not just in guidance. As I argued earlier, we need some parameters around what will come out in regulation. The word “regular” is not a particularly difficult one for the Government to include and would clarify that this refers only to people who are providing regular activities—maybe a definition of regular would be needed.

The other point on which I want to dwell a little more is saying that these activities are “not primarily social or recreational”. The Minister will correct me, but I think that at some point she said that it was not expected that activities that are not educational should be included in the register. The trouble is that a lot of activities—such as rugby training or swimming lessons, where they are carried out by a school—are educational, or could be, and, for example, the Girl Guides is an educational charity. It would be easy enough to label these organisations and activities as educational, which is why I am trying to turn it the other way up and say that activities that should not be registered are those which are primarily social or recreational. That is a fairly simple judgment to make and it would allay quite a lot of fears, including, perhaps, the example I used this morning—although it may be regarded as more educational than social and recreational—of the Wildlife Trusts. It has already stood down its activities because of concerns about the data that it will have to provide on all the children that use its services as part of its home education programme, which has been going on for some time.

In looking at this, I ask the Minister to reflect a bit more on those two descriptions: “regular” and “not primarily social or recreational”, as opposed to the “not educational” aspect.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, this is probably not an interest that I have to declare under the rules of the House, but it is relevant. I am a trustee of the Atlas Foundation, which helps a couple of groups to do with rugby, and which regards itself as benefitting children through rugby. Rugby is a nice sport, with lots of structure and authority figures, and such groups reliably reach young people who are in danger of offending and so on. Will these groups be taken down by this?

This will not be the cuddly end of home education. It will concern people not in school because they do not like school and have rejected it, who might technically be regarded as home-educated. What is their status? Are they affected? Is this going to put an administrative burden on groups which are run by amateurs—by people who do their own tax returns, such as the secretaries of organisations? Will we put this burden on them? A little clarification and common sense might help. If some of your client base comes from this area, what is your status?

Placing another administrative burden on organisations which, if they are run on a charitable basis, do not want to spend their money on admin but rather on the help they provide, might put more pressure on them. I do not think it was the Government’s intention, but making sure this does not catch those organisations is very important.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is a large group of very detailed amendments which seek to clarify the responsibilities that the Bill will place on providers and how they are expected to fulfil those responsibilities in practice.

The amendments, which are mainly in the names of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, highlight the variety that exists in the range of approaches that are used to educate children at home. I know that the Minister’s earlier commitment that officials would work through these points with my noble friends and other noble Lords over the summer was very much appreciated by them, and I hope that any outstanding uncertainty can be clarified when the Minister makes her closing remarks.

Amendments 291 and 293, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, are probing amendments and have, at least in part, been addressed by the Minister earlier today. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and I accept her point that the concept of weekends and holidays might not apply to some home-educated children, so I do not think there is any need for the Minister to cover that point again when she responds.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. This is really the nub of things—how we can make support work.

I also support what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said. It is absolutely clear that some local authorities take any opportunity to tip home-educating parents into getting their children back into school. We want to be encouraging parents, at all times, to approach local authorities to say that they need some help—that is a perfectly ordinary thing to do. If you as a solicitor are sued by someone else, the first thing you would do is find another solicitor. Even if you are an expert, you go and ask for help. It should be regarded as ordinary. No one should take on something such as home education without looking all the possible sources of advice, because there will always be someone who has insights that go beyond your knowledge. Protecting against the misuse of that approach is important to making sure that we have a strong relationship between local authorities and parents.

My Amendment 311 would require local authorities to explicitly take account of the needs of the child and the educational preference of the parents. That is a very important part of the attitude; the local authority should understand the parents and work with them, not try to impose its own formula.

I will also speak to a number of amendments in this group tabled by my noble friend Lord Wei. Amendments 390, 401, 402, 407, 419 and 422 address the financial asymmetry borne by home-educating families. Every child educated at home saves the state around £7,500 a year. However, the entire burden of curriculum costs, exam fees, tutoring and lost parental income falls on the families themselves. Amendment 390 would introduce tax relief for education expenses, while Amendment 401 would grant rebates when families home-educate due to a lack of suitable school places.

Amendment 402 would adjust council tax to reflect that home-educating households are not drawing on local school budgets. Amendments 407 and 419 explore models for direct funding, whether through per-pupil allocations for individual families or co-operatives, which would bring a measure of parity to a system that otherwise risks confining high-quality home education to the affluent.

Amendment 422 recognises another imbalance: where the state compels parents to spend hours compiling reports or attending overnight meetings while simultaneously providing the labour of teaching, they should not do so entirely unpaid. Compensating that time, at least to the level of the minimum wage, is not only fair but respects the immense commitment that parents undertake on society’s behalf.

Amendment 396 presses the Government to fund independent research into home education practice. It is striking how much policy in this area proceeds on assumption and anecdote rather than robust data. What does successful autonomous learning look like across different family contexts? How do educational outcomes compare when we look beyond narrow test metrics to include well-being, creativity and lifelong resilience?

Speaking with my own voice now, that is something that I would very much support. As the Minister said, it is difficult to get a grip on how education is doing just from incomplete exam statistics. Doing some proper research would not only benefit the Government and their policies but enable the home education community to become a self-improving community and to do better by their own children, which is a huge motivation for them.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend Lady Garden was beaten by the rapid progress that has been made by recent standards, so I shall just draw the House’s attention to her amendment, which says that if someone does not have English as a first language, they should receive some help in understanding the requirements, and that that should be appropriate to them when they are dealing with this field. It is not a big thing, but it is important to get it and the Government’s response on the record.

Looking down this very eclectic list of amendments, I come to one from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about sports education, and I wonder if there is some way of linking in there. One of our challenges is how much we should help people with sporting education. Physical fitness is an important part of that; it is a great way of asserting degrees of confidence in certain groups of people, and we could put the arts down here as well. Are the Government looking at ways in which certain aspects that cannot be provided in a small setting might be done by the education establishment? Is any thought going into this? We have sport on the list, and we could easily put something like the performing arts down too.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, three main themes run through this group of amendments. The first relates to the practical support offered to home-educating parents who request it. Amendments 309 and 310 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, have merit in that they seek clarity about what support can be expected from a local authority, although in practice I imagine that the term “appropriate support” might be hard to guarantee.

As we have just heard, other amendments focus on very specific elements of support, such as Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, which would offer support in a language that parents understand, or Amendment 313 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, regarding the provision of the same support for electively home-educated children as is available to children in schools. It would be very helpful for the Government to set out what the basic support offer from local authorities will look like and how it will be funded. I hope very much that the Minister will cover this when she responds.

The second principle that emerges from this group is about the relationship between electively home-educating families and the local authority, which I know my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei have been particularly concerned about. This is set out most comprehensively in Amendment 314 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. It is helpful to see the spirit of engagement that electively home-educating families would like to have with local authorities. I am not quite sure—perhaps the Minister has an answer—how you legislate for relationships. Having clarity about the Government’s expectations in this area, alongside what the basic support offer will be, could create a degree of transparency, which is a good platform from which to build good relationships.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On those points, I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that the law is already clear. We have discussed during the course of the debate that parents have the right to educate their children using the methods, approaches and content they think best, provided that the education being received is suitable and safe. The point, though, is that local authorities must be able to assess that education to establish whether or not it is. The Bill does not give local authorities any additional powers to regulate the content of home education.

On the point about the nature of education, we believe that a child must be provided with a suitable education from the age of five. Of course, the point about home education is that it would be up to parents, assuming that that education is suitable, to determine what sort of education was being provided to a child of five.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, as we are in the closing straight. Can the Government confirm that they accept that flexibility of approach is something that will happen? If we look laterally—says the dyslexic—at special educational needs, that is often what is required there. Some of the problems come from the fact that there is a structure that one is supposed to be doing, but not everybody learns like that. Can the Government confirm that this is something which should be worked across the education system?

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

To get the current situation on the record, I looked around for evidence and found a quote that is helpful in our deliberations on this issue. The quote is:

“I have serious concerns about the proposal to change the pathway for turning around failing schools. I know from bitter personal experience that any change to the status of a school can become highly political. The current system, in which failing schools automatically become academies, provides clarity and de-politicisation, and ensures a rapid transition. I fear that making that process discretionary would result in a large increase in judicial reviews”—


as has been mentioned—

“pressure on councils and prolonged uncertainty, which is in nobody’s interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/25; col. 902.]

I think that encapsulates the situation quite neatly. It is from Siobhain McDonagh, speaking on 8 January 2025. It can be found in column 902 of the relevant Hansard; I am providing the reference since my earlier remarks were challenged. So I will put them on the record as well: they came from the Spectator on 5 February. I believe that Siobhain McDonagh summarised the situation very fairly.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, what draws me to say something here is Amendment 446. It is an interesting idea that is inspired by academies, if you like. When you have a successful maintained school and it is close, you take over and you have a nice successful model that is still in the maintained sector.

We have been saying, in effect, that we accept that academies are part of the landscape. The fact is that they are not the only successful part of the landscape, because a maintained school must have done reasonably well to remain a maintained school, so it has been successful. If we are interested in success—and not running up a political flag, whatever colour we choose—it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Let us also remember that some of the worst schools now will be academies because they have been failing and they come down, and some of the most successful ones are the ones that jumped ship because they had nice catchment areas and all was going well, so they became independent. That is one of the realities. So I hope that, when we look at how we improve schools that go wrong, we have other options because, if we dig into the academy system, we can find serial failure even there.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn now to the amendments in group 10, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Bennett, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett. Although my noble friend is not here, I will respond to that amendment, given that it was addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman.

We have heard much today about the positive impact that high-quality trusts have made on the educational outcomes of children. This Government acknowledge these achievements—in fact, I have done so on every occasion that I have had the opportunity to, as has my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, as quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh.

What we are concerned about is how we can ensure improvement. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was right when he said that what we need here is a range of appropriate methods in order to ensure the quickest possible improvement. That is what the Government are aiming to do here. While many academies and trusts have driven improvement throughout the system, academisation is not necessarily a panacea. In fact, even when sponsored academies are excluded, pupil attainment in multi-academy trusts and maintained schools is similar.

Furthermore, the process of converting these schools can in itself be slow. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to say that that is because, in many cases, it is very complex. Nevertheless, that may well be a period in which the improvement that we would all want to see has not been able to be pushed. Around 40% of maintained schools identified for conversion take over a year to become academies—time during which pupils continue to experience underperformance. It is for those reasons that Clause 50 has been included in the Bill.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to my own Amendment 457 and to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, both of which deal with the issue of faith- based selection in school admissions.

My Amendment 457 speaks to the missing data that the Schools Minister raised in Committee in the other place. The Department for Education currently does not collect data on how admissions policies are applied in schools, and therefore we do not know how many parents are missing out on their preferred school placements because of their religion or because they do not have a religion. Collecting data would shed light on what the impact of faith-selective admissions is for parents and pupils and whether such selection is contributing to or undermining parental choice.

Amendment 456 should, I hope, be uncontroversial. Since 2011, all new faith schools, as all new schools, had to be free schools, and have been subject in their funding agreements to a 50% cap on faith-based selection in admissions when oversubscribed. In this situation, Amendment 456 is a simple tidying-up exercise—that is how I read it anyway—extending a standing policy for free schools with a religious character to all new state-maintained schools with a religious character that could open under Clause 57.

The Government have not in any way suggested that they oppose the 50% cap in principle. Following a consultation on the cap that showed overwhelming support for it to continue, the Government have stated that they will maintain the cap for free schools with a religious character. If the Government are supportive of allowing new 100% faith-selective schools to open, I ask the Minister to state that clearly before the Committee.

I wish to be clear that neither of these amendments oppose the opening or continuing service of faith schools in this country, many of which provide exemplary education for their pupils. What the amendment seeks to do is ensure that faith schools cannot limit parental choice and pupil diversity by hand-selecting whom they wish to accept.

Using selection of faith leads to less inclusion. Church of England and minority religion schools, subject to a 50% cap, have higher ethnic diversity compared with those not subject to the cap. Faith schools compared with schools without a religious character in the same catchment area have been found to accept fewer children on free school meals, according to the Sutton Trust; fewer children in care, according to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator; and fewer children with additional learning needs, according to research from the London School of Economics. Amendment 456 and my Amendment 457 would promote fairness and parental choice in the schools admissions policy. I commend them both to the Committee.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to my amendment in this group and leave the summing up to my noble friend. I use the term “off-rolling” in this. It may be out of date and unfair, but the fact of the matter is that there has been an increase in the number of children not in school over recent years. A Commons report on the issue came out in 2020, but it has been exacerbated by the Covid situation. It is about time we had a real, in-depth dive into why more and more pupils are not within the mainstream system.

There has been some suggestion that the academy system wanting to get rid of bad pupils is to blame or that the greater emphasis on special educational needs has led to the thought that people might be more trouble for the school. I would like to know. I know that some of the academies—the better ones—have fought against this. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, getting extremely annoyed about the idea of that practice in a Committee stage debate on another Bill. If there are academies that are avoiding it or some that are falling to this, we should know. If academies are here to stay, under this Bill, whether we like it or not, because we have accepted them, can we find out whether there is a specific problem there or if it is something else? The increased number of people not in school is a problem that we have referred to throughout Committee, and it is about time we had a decent and in-depth look at it.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make very few remarks. I am an active humanist and I would like to identify my support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lord Watson. I hope that the Government will take heed of what these rather modest amendments propose. If there is something that needs to be discussed, I ask that my noble friend the Minister calls together those of us who are interested and committed to this to talk about it.

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In 2021, the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Taskforce published From Lament to Action, which set out recommendations to eradicate racism in the Church of England. Education surfaced as a priority area for action, with commitments to ensure racial justice featuring as a core element of curriculum, staff training and school assemblies. There is, of course, much more work to be done, but this amendment would enable us to make long overdue progress.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of comments. When children fail, it is usually the result of a cocktail of inputs. One of those is frequently special educational needs. If you do not believe it, just look at the prison population—a gross overrepresentation of virtually every single special educational need you can mention. We do not get this right or spot it early enough. There are several more groups that touch on this, and I hope that when the Minister starts to sum up, she will have in the back of her mind how this all fits together.

Often, both the victims and the perpetrators of bullying have special educational needs—somebody does not fit in, they look for somebody weaker, and so on. It is disruptive to a classroom, and it affects everybody else. If you get in early enough, along with the other considerations made here—and I fully endorse the comments made about racism and so on—it can bring the whole thing together. How are we doing that? How are we working it in? I would hope that the Minister has an answer.

I would also hope that it does not fall on the teacher in the classroom. We are asking them to do a superhuman task anyway. What support are we going to give? We are going to come to this again and again. We may not get the Government’s strategy on the special educational needs bit in full until later on. If we could get some idea of the thinking, it would help in future debates on the Bill, both at this stage and on Report.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 502E in my name. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just said. To judge by the numerous safeguarding and similar cases in which I have been involved as a lawyer, it is the failure to share information that causes huge damage and often leads to that cycle—the revolving door of children going in and out of school, which leads to many of them going into custody for crimes when they are not very old.

My Amendment 502E is an uncomplicated attempt to provide consistent standards and process in the way in which individual schools focus on bullying. I am grateful to the Anti-Bullying Alliance for providing me with information on this subject. The truth of the matter is that huge numbers of children are bullied, and we see it every day.

A few days ago, I was on a bus in north London at the time when children are just going home from school. There were three noisy, normal-looking 11 or 12 year-olds on the bus laughing and pointing through the window at something. I realised that they were pointing at another boy, on the pavement, who was actually the largest of the group. I deduced from what I saw that they had tricked that boy into getting off the bus at the wrong stop and then had got back on themselves. Off the bus went, and they were laughing at the disconsolate fourth boy as the bus passed him by. It was a small example of bullying, but what I saw was evidence—possibly, at least—of a much larger bullying issue relating to that fourth child.

It is a heartbreaking reality that over one in five children and young people report being bullied each year. That figure comes from the Office for National Statistics. It is a pervasive issue which not only disrupts their childhoods, mental health and education; its repercussions can persist well into adulthood. Many of us know people who have been affected by bullying, particularly at school, which they suffered from at a very young age.

There is plenty of evidence that children who are bullied are significantly more likely to suffer from mental health issues. I used to be the chair of a mental health charity called Addaction, now called We Are With You, which has to deal with many people who, among their multiple and often complex issues, suffered from bullying when they were young, either at school or possibly in the home. Children who are bullied often miss school, have a very poor sense of belonging and achieve poorer academic results. Parents learn that their children are being bullied, but they do not know how to deal with it because, in many schools, they are not given any real guidance on how to approach the school or what the school will do if their child is bullied.

The effects of bullying are even more pronounced among children with special educational needs—about whom we will soon be talking in another group—children in poverty, young carers, care-experienced young people and other at-risk groups. It really does not have to be this way. My suggestion is that something like my very straightforward Amendment 502E would at least ensure that schools have a consistent approach to these issues.

I respectfully suggest to the Minister that, in pursuance of their duties, head teachers of relevant schools in England should appoint a member of staff simply to be the school’s anti-bullying lead, just as they have leads in the sixth form and individual subject heads. The primary role of the anti-bullying lead should be to develop the school’s individual anti-bullying strategy, and that strategy should include details of the steps being taken by the school to prevent bullying in all its forms among pupils, including of course those with protected characteristics. There should be a standard way of recording incidences of bullying, just as there are standard and required ways of recording incidences of injury at school. Staff training on bullying should be available for all staff. I submit that this amendment is just common sense, and it would make a significant contribution to the way in which bullying is dealt with at school, to the advantage of children.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I was delighted to put my name to Amendment 490, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, because it took me back to thinking about my experience at school, which admittedly was a while ago. My parents used the work of Baroness Warnock to threaten to sue the Secretary of State for Wales over my right to go into mainstream education. Without that, I would not have had the career that I now have. The system that existed back then took a tiny percentage of disabled children and gave them a great education, but everyone else was left languishing in a special school system that did not even allow children to sit exams. At the school I nearly ended up in, I would have been able to sit three CSEs at most. So there was nothing around looking at the ambition of disabled children.

I had hoped that things would have moved on by now, but the reality is that disabled children in the UK still face a significant educational attainment gap compared to their non-disabled peers. Studies show that they are significantly behind in key exams and assessments and are less likely to achieve higher qualifications or degrees. The Education Policy Institute has research that shows that disabled children are some of the most educationally disadvantaged children in the English state school system. Around four in 10 children are identified as SEND at some point between the ages of five and 16. These children have been shown to have multiple grades lower than their peers. I find myself in a slightly interesting situation: I agree with some of what the noble Lord, Lord Gove, said about making sure that children are not absent, and I am certainly not seeking to expand the definition of “SEND”, but there has to be something in the middle of where we are now and where I came from through my educational experience. To me, it is about getting the right support to the children who need it.

Disability Rights UK has reported on the situation with the gap. There is a huge gap for disabled children, and it is even larger for children with an education, health and care plan. In 2019, children with an EHCP scored grades that were 3.4 places lower than a those of a non-disabled child, and by 2020 that gap had increased to 3.6 places lower. Whatever we are doing, it does not feel like we are able to educate and support disabled children in the best way that we can.

We already know that, when disabled people apply for jobs, they need at least a qualification higher than a non-disabled person. If the job requires a degree, a disabled person needs at least a master’s or a PhD to have a chance of getting it. If we do not get this right, we are not giving disabled people the chance to work, pay taxes or contribute to society.

Like other Members of your Lordships’ Committee, I feel that we need to understand where we are and what is required, whether through a royal commission or however it works out. This amendment fits with amendments I have tabled in other groups that talk about teacher training, because there is more that we need to do to make sure that teachers are in the best position to educate and teach everybody in the class. At the moment, that gap for disabled people is just too big.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will say just a few words, inspired particularly by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

We know that there is an attainment gap for those with disabilities, and we also know that bits of the education system do not help. The biggest one for me—and I remind the Committee yet again that I am president of the British Dyslexia Association—is English and maths, because guess what, the British Dyslexia Association also covers dyscalculia.

About three days ago, I sat down with a child who said that they had a brother with dyscalculia who had been made to sit English 14 times and still had not achieved a pass. What an incredible waste of time, because we have decided that English and maths are gatekeeper exams. People have a better target with English, because they seem to understand it a little better, but maths is a real problem. Getting some degree of flexibility and understanding and looking at the attainment gap and what causes it would be very helpful.

However, I must slightly disappoint my two, shall we say, noble colleagues on this—I do not think that I am allowed to call them noble friends, although I hope that they are friends—by saying that we would have to say, “identified special educational needs”, because we might know somebody who is blind or deaf, or who has impaired movement, which is pretty obvious. We know that, for instance, well over half of the dyslexics in the country are never identified. We do not know the situation for the others—dyspraxia, et cetera—and we are still very bad at identifying them.

Therefore, we could adjust this amendment to say that we should have a look at the attainment results of those who have been identified. That would give us an idea of how the system properly fails, because we know that there is a problem, we just have not addressed it. There is a problem that is running through here. When the Minister replies, I hope that she can start to address this, because we know that there is a problem here. We know that something is going on. If we have that information already, which we should if the problems are identified, we might be able to bring it forward, because addressing the problem itself would help.

Briefly on the other amendments, tutoring, if properly targeted, will help these people, especially if the tutors are trained to support. Also, for those in prison— I have worked in the prison sector, not extensively, but I have worked there—the fact that a child is disadvantaged or comes from an environment where everybody is expected to fail will probably work into the other two groups. As a dyslexic, I still say that the only time I have ever sat in a group of adults whose educational attainment was below mine was with a group of prisoners, and I am pretty badly dyslexic. How we address this problem, this idea and this culture is very important.

I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some idea of the general thinking of the Government. It is very important—if we are starting to address these deep-seated problems, which we have, in many cases, given lip service to in the past—to get support for which you do not have to fight and be a tiger parent to obtain. That is where we are coming from now.

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Moved by

[Lord Addington]

461: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Establishment of a national body for SEND(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, establish a national body for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in relation to children.(2) The functions of the national body for SEND will include, but not be limited to—(a) national coordination of SEND provision for children,(b) supporting the delivery of SEND support for children with very high needs, and(c) advising on funding needed by local authorities for SEND provision for children.(3) Any mechanism used by the national body for SEND in advising on funding under subsection (2)(c) should be based on current need and may disregard historic spend.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to establish a national body for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in relation to children.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for that compliment. We go back to special educational needs here, with a series of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. My amendment is the most general of them, on a general duty to have a look at special educational needs. Some of the specifics in the other amendments probably should be included in that general duty.

On teacher training, unless you have teachers who are increasingly better equipped to spot conditions and deal with them in the classroom, you are always going to fail because you will have late diagnosis—or no diagnosis for many conditions—or the wrong practice. I am trying to convince people here that getting extra help for special educational needs may be a bad thing if that help is from the system by which you have already failed. If you do not know what is required and are being told “You’ve already failed to do this”—English would be a classic one—you will just not pass. My experience with dyslexia, which I have mentioned once today, is of being given an extra 15 spelling tests, one every week. You fail them all; you carry on doing it, but you just will not pass.

This is because having special educational needs usually means that you process information differently. There can be extreme cases. I have already referred to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes—nobody expects somebody who is blind to copy off a blackboard. You would describe what it is. You have got to have a different system of working and different structures that go with it.

I could expand upon this for ages, but the hour is late and other noble Lords with more detailed amendments are waiting to speak. I beg leave to move my amendment and look forward to the rest of this debate.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I congratulate him on all the work that he continues to do in this area. I thank my friends, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for cosigning my Amendments 491 and 498. I will take them in reverse order, with Amendment 498 first.

Quite simply, it addresses the issue we discussed in the previous group: current SEND provision is not working. It is not working for the SENCOs, who try their utmost; it is not working for the teachers, who strain every sinew to educate all in their classrooms; it is not working for the parents; and, most importantly, it is not working for children with special educational needs or a disability. Yet it can, if we start from the provision of inclusive by design and set out an approach where the funding is identified and ascribed to that SEND provision. The department should and must reach out beyond its budgetary constraints, because the reality is that this is far more than an issue of education. For example, there is a clear causal relationship between the education attainment gap and the subsequent employment attainment gap for those with disabilities.

Other departments must also pull their weight in addressing this issue of special educational needs and disability provision. This is why in Amendment 491 I suggest a practical, reasonable and achievable measure to make a difference across government: to introduce a mentorship scheme for those young people with special educational needs or disabilities.

Before the question arises of distracting departmental officials from their incredibly important work, or of putting more pressure on already overstretched resources, I suggest to the Minister that this would be an ideal situation for an effective, practical and achievable public-private partnership. Imagine how local, regional, national and international businesses could get involved to help support and be part of the delivery of such a mentorship scheme for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Imagine the empowerment for those young people in hearing from adults in successful careers, professions, jobs, activities and third-sector work, across the piece, who have lived experience of being a disabled person and have come through, succeeded and achieved. That is not just mentorship; that is leadership and empowerment, enabling all those young people.

The scheme could be brought in with minimal, if any, disruption or resource pressures put on the department. The difference it would make for those children with special educational needs and disabilities could be profound, impacting their educational experience, setting them up for life and enabling them not only to positively be part of closing that education attainment gap but subsequently closing the employment attainment gap. Any Government should have this as one of their core provisions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am reassured by the amount of attention paid to this subject, and that we are getting through and into the Government’s head. We do not know yet whether the results we have will be delivered. Just to sum up some of the arguments, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, said that there are problems but there is overidentification or something, if I may paraphrase her. The fact of the matter is that we know that, for many of these hidden needs, these diverse educational problems—call them what you like—we do not identify most of them, and this means that you have somebody in an environment where the learning process is not one that they enjoy. It might be something such as delivering and receiving information, which is usually where the basic blocks are, but there are identified ways to deal with that now, most of which are quite cheap.

There is technology—I declare my interest as chairman of Microlink plc. Most of the technology you have is not specialist any more: a lot of it is on every computer already; it is about structuring how you get at it. It is also about identifying the structure and way in which you learn and making it acceptable in a mainstream classroom to be using it. Headphones are not regarded as a good thing in most classrooms, until you realise that they might be the way you are taking in information. Attitudes to technology will colour this. There is this great thing about no smartphones in school, but there is a wonderful platform to hold assistive technology going through them. Some suggest that these computers, screens and structures are bad things—no, they are not, if used correctly. The noble Earl shakes his head; they are not. We are going through this thing about how we use them, and how we go forward is the important bit here.

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the criminal justice system and special educational needs. He is right to draw attention to it, for this very simple reason: if you want to find what happens to somebody who does not address these needs, go into any prison and talk to them—any prison, for any of the groups. You will find a huge overrepresentation. Autism is greatly overrepresented in there: people who are manipulated or who react badly, with violence. There are so many complications here, but most of the solutions are comparatively simple, flexible, and made more easily available now than they were. I hope that, when we get this review, the Government will accept that they will probably save a great deal of money if they get this right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, was quite right about one thing: when we implemented the last system—and I was on that Bill—I think I managed to convince the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to save one tree in a burning forest. We managed to get a concession on dyslexic youngsters taking apprenticeships, where they did not have to do the exam in that way going forward. That was all, though. We have the rest of it coming through. It is very easy to make mistakes by making assumptions.

Yet again, I hope that the Minister takes back to her department the fact that we are dealing with a problem, which we have identified but are struggling to deal with because the structures are just wrong. Considerations outside special educational needs will bear an incredible weight. I refer back to fact that if you have to pass English and maths to get on to any course, and you are dyslexic, dyscalculic or dyspraxic, so you cannot write quickly, you have a problem. That is the sort of balance I will be looking for from this. It is not just about help; it is about structure. Having said all that, the hour is late, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 461 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. Of course, what he just said applies to any amendment that your Lordships’ House inserts into a government Bill.

The argument for Amendment 465 has already been powerfully made, but we are talking about a law that dates back to 1944. This is a 20th-century arrangement for the 21st century, which, as others have said, simply does not fit our society any more. A poll in 2024 said that 70% of school leaders wanted to get rid of the current legal arrangement.

On alternative moral, spiritual and cultural development, we hear from all sides of your Lordships’ House regular lamenting about how much cultural education we have lost from our current system and how little space there is to fit into the curriculum things such as cultural activities and cultural learning. This provision would be one way to create a little more space for something that is pretty well universally agreed as being essential.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will very briefly say a few words about this group.

On Amendment 463, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, may have taken up the baton from somebody else, but she did it pretty well—nobody has disagreed with her. It seems agreed that she is on very solid ground. The amendment is about useful information that people should have. I hope that the Government are at least friendly to the amendment.

On the two amendments tabled by my noble friend, I very much doubt that one assembly a week will change anybody’s religious views either way. Not making one point of view compulsory will probably not change religious views either way. The similarity in the values of religions—the fact that we should be nice to people seems to be common across the board—is something that we can probably convey elsewhere; it does not have to be put forward in this way. I do not think that it will make much difference. It would certainly bring it in line with a bigger chunk of the population. If people want spiritual activity somewhere else, it would be available.

I turn to the final amendment in the group. I hope that my noble friend will not hit me too much when I say that the provision should already be there. Any education about religion must include the contrary arguments, so I think this is really belt and braces. I am not getting snarled at by my noble friend, so I think I am not too far off in saying that. I hope that the Minister can confirm that Amendment 471 should be covered, at least partially, in all current religious education.

[The remainder of today’s proceedings will be published tomorrow.]

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak as a design technology teacher, a veteran of the IfATE Act, an officer of the APPG on apprenticeships and a member of the House of Lords Social Mobility Policy Committee.

I think we all agree that apprenticeships are vital to this country. It is rather sad that this subject seems to have led to a general exit from the Chamber, but I think that is more because it is lunchtime. I welcome the defence industrial strategy and its new apprenticeship and graduate clearing system, which I know BAE Systems was heavily behind. We have seen Skills England start, and we hope upon hope that it is the answer. This is an incredibly important and nuanced subject, and I am afraid I do not think these amendments are the answer.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I shall try to make a few remarks in summing up. Apprenticeships really feel like they should be an answer but are proving to be extremely difficult to get into operation. Employers, especially SMEs, find it difficult to give the work, but they are where you would expect to find most of those apprenticeships, especially at the introductory level. Most people have said, “Yes, it’s a problem”. T-levels have been brought in but, if I remember correctly, you have to work with an employer while doing them, and that has proved difficult in the past.

The reason why they are proving so difficult is that it is a bit of a mess. We have boards and so on for careers guidance, and things locally and nationally. We clearly need more emphasis on making sure that people know where these opportunities are, how they will be supported and how they will get through. There is a general duty proposed in the Bill, but something inside me says that, as written, it is an invitation to Henry VIII powers—possibly Henry IX and X as well. The fact remains that we have not got this right. There have been some valiant efforts, but we have not managed to bring the people who want and would benefit from an apprenticeship to those who will give one to them. That is the problem.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, we will get a better idea of how this will work. The levy has, shall we say, had its problems—that would be a generous way of putting it. The Minister has an opportunity to tell us how the Government are going to develop this. It should be remembered that many of the people in the client base have not been that successful academically —I think just about everybody would agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben—and the fact is that schools are judged by GCSEs and A-levels. That is the path forward and everything else is a secondary option. That seems to be the culture; Governments have tried to change it, but I do not think they have succeeded. What are the Government going to do to get these more practical-based operations in?

It would be remiss of me if I did not say that we need to look at the English and maths qualifications. I refer to this again as somebody with dyscalculia and 14 fails in functional skills in an apprenticeship. We did some work on this. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, is not here because we managed to get some consideration on English when the original Bill was brought forward; both he and I bear the scars of that process. I thank him for taking on his own Civil Service and Government to get it. Any Minister who is prepared to show that degree of courage will always get my support.

I hope we can get an idea of how we are going to address the problems, which have certainly been accepted, associated with getting people into apprenticeships. On the question of the things that should be attractive to those who have not been great successes in conventional education, or according to normal cultural expectations, what are we going to do? We need to act, not only for the nation’s general economy, but for the people who are the clients.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on the value of high-quality apprenticeships at all levels, with a focus on levels 2 and 3, and Amendment 483 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and Amendment 483A, which I have moved on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lucas.

The noble Lord, Lord Layard, predictably, gave a very insightful and expert analysis of the issues, particularly for young people who are not going to university, and painted, sadly, an accurate but rather bleak picture. I would agree with him rather than the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, but I think there would be votes in it. The noble Lord said that it would be very popular across the country to take action on this. Anyway, that is not perhaps for this Committee to worry so much about.

I feel that, as I make my remarks, I have former colleagues sitting on each shoulder: Gillian Keegan, the first member of the Cabinet who had previously been an apprentice; and Rob Halfon who saw apprenticeships as a key part of what he described as the “ladder of opportunity”. That is exactly the kind of image and vision that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, set out.

The previous Government did a huge amount of work to raise the quality of apprenticeships and to expand them from some of the more traditional areas into financial services and others to better mirror our very heavily service-based economy and, crucially, to support important areas of the public sector where we have significant workforce shortages. That is in part where level 7 apprenticeships came in. I know that one point that my noble friend Lord Lucas would have made, had he been here, was that level 7 apprenticeships also contributed to that parity of esteem and the sense that apprenticeships could have the same prestige as a degree qualification.

I absolutely recognise the urgency to address the high level of youth unemployment, particularly after recent figures that show how much it has risen in the past year, and to give all young people a sense of real opportunity, which an apprenticeship can bring. We have been concerned at some of the changes that the Government have introduced so far, shortening the length of apprenticeships and removing the funding for apprenticeships at level 7.

I would argue—maybe it is easier from this side of the Dispatch Box—that this should be an area of “both and”. Level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships clearly fulfil a different role in the economy from those at levels 4, 5, 6 and 7, but they are no less important. One is not more important than the other. When we were in office, we were particularly concerned about levels 4 and 5. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply to the noble Lord’s amendments. I hope that she can reassure the House that the Government are committed to continuing with the employer-created standards rather than the frameworks that the previous Government introduced and that further moves will be made to secure the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises in the use of apprenticeships.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is no longer in her place, made an important point about how to fund an expanded apprenticeship offer at levels 2 and 3. I also very much recognise the comments made by my noble friend Lady Coffey in relation to T-levels. My reflection on that is that these changes take a great deal of time to embed. I do not think that in visiting schools I have met someone who has not been thrilled to be doing a T-level. I visited many schools where children wanted good, high-quality technical and vocational options and were not even aware that T-levels exist. At the very least, the Government will need to do these things in parallel. I hope very much that we will hear a positive response from the Minister.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

Did I say agree? I am still recovering from the interventions. To be clear, I agree with everything that the noble Lord said and would support all four amendments. I thank noble Lords for introducing them.

Children and young people get so much from sport and physical education. It is not just about their well- being; believe it or not, it helps them in their other studies. One of the local head teachers in my area used to start the school day not by doing numeracy or literacy but a creative activity—either sport, drama, dance or something like that—because it got people energised and helped with their learning. Sport is important not just for the mind and body but for the well-being and development of the child as a whole.

I thank noble Lords who put down those amendments. I speak for my party when I say we very much support them.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend has covered what happens in school, but that is just one area of activity. If it is done properly, school is merely part of a greater continuum that goes out into the community. The school sports partnerships were going to save the breakdown in the traditional links between small clubs, grass-roots sports and school, but they were not there for long enough for us to know whether they would. Many of us in both bits of the coalition Government thought that it was one of the weirdest things possible that they were kept going until the Olympics and then cancelled afterwards when we might have got some benefit. I got a small nod from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—a bigger one now—which says, “That’s exactly what we thought at the time”.

We also knew from that and from looking at studies that a big sporting event is great for tourism and volunteering but does not make any difference to grass-roots sport unless you back it up with something—with your inspiration. Schools have to work with the grass roots. In the amendments, we have the start of that structure, which we can go forward with. It is not just in this Bill or with this department. If we are going to lose lots of playing fields in the planning Bill, it does not matter what you do because you will not be playing anywhere else—probably not even at schools. We have to have something that goes forward. These amendments start to look slightly broader.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My noble friend in sport mentioned playing fields. One of the most important roles that Sport England plays is that it is the statutory consultee for playing fields in this country. It was exceptionally worrying when, just a few months ago, the Government announced that they were putting out to consultation whether Sport England should continue that role. Does my noble friend in sport see anybody else performing that role? Will it not be even more damaging to playing fields in this country, which are so important to the public at large, if there is nobody among all the statutory consultees whose job it is to ensure their survival?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

The answer is yes, yes and yes. I hope that the Minister will make sure that her colleagues in other departments take this on board. I moved an amendment on the planning Bill seeking to ensure that this duty is still there. I know that I am asking the Minister to part the Red Sea and take the salt out at the same time, but I am hoping for two parts of government to talk to each other on this.

We want people to remain active for all the reasons that we have stated. Physical activity leads to better exam results, which we seem to forget. If schools are to provide the initial smorgasbord of finding the right form of physical activity for individuals’ physique, culture and temperament, then I hope that the Government talk across departments in support of these amendments. I would like to hear from the Minister that they are having a coherent look at this and that they will lead other departments to do something solid. The Department for Education is best placed. We could ask the Department of Health but it would get buried there. If a lead department takes this on, there is a chance of achieving some of these aims. These amendments, or ones like them, are essential to making sure that we have a duty saying, “This is what you should be doing”.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for raising the critically important issue of sport and physical education in schools, which I personally feel particularly strongly about. If schools were to follow the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and perform physical exercise in the morning before classes, it would be transformational. School sport has no greater champion in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Moynihan, an Olympic silver medallist and former chairman of the British Olympic Association who has been leading the charge for greater provision of physical education and sport across our schools for many years.

In September last year, NHS England published research that found the truly frightening statistic that 15% of children aged between two and 15 in England are obese. Although that figure is a slight decrease from 16% in 2019, the fact that childhood obesity has remained stubbornly high should be a huge concern for everyone: parents, teachers, the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions. This issue affects us all in some way or other.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Well, I start by saying that I actually agree with the vast majority of the points made by noble Lords opposite, but I just have to say that we in this House are not disinterested observers of the activities of Governments. Several of the noble Lords opposite who rightly identified the decline in school sports, the reduction in teachers and the narrowing of the curriculum were supporters of or part of the Government who were responsible for it. I just want to put that on the record as we start this.

Having said that, there is good news. This Government are reviewing the curriculum and establishing a new national approach to PE and school sport. We value PE and sport as a great opportunity to improve not only the health but—

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I have one more question. If we are doing this for PE in schools, is there going to be a specific link to activity outside school? A lot of the sports education is done by sports governing bodies and grass-roots clubs. I hope the noble Baroness can give me some reassurance that that will be done.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I know that I added a little bit to the beginning of my speech, but I am actually only three lines through, and I will come to precisely that point.

The amendments proposed align closely with the important practical work already under way by this Government to expand access to high-quality PE and school sport for every child. We remain committed to ensuring that all young people, regardless of background, have the opportunity to thrive through physical education, school sport and physical activity. I also agree with the points ably made by the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Moynihan, about the broader benefits of sport, physical activity and physical education. The impact on academic achievement, mental health, healthy weight and sleep: those are all important elements of the broader benefits that come from children being active and being supported to move in a wide range of ways—something I thought about carefully as I finished the Worcester 10K on Sunday morning.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was very happy to add my name to the noble Baroness’s on the majority of these amendments. She has outlined the compelling need to do something in these interrelated areas sooner rather than later. I will not bore your Lordships but rather try and illustrate one or two examples of what is going on in real time.

I will start with Copilot, a tool that most of us will be at least faintly familiar with—or will at least have heard of—and which is integrated into the Microsoft package that we use in Parliament. At the time that research was started by a group of organisations, including the 5Rights Foundation founded by the noble Baroness, Microsoft, which owns Copilot, stated publicly that Copilot was intended for users 18 and above, such as all your Lordships. However, in May 2025, the company announced without warning that Copilot would become available to users aged 13 and above. This shift raises important questions, none of which was answered at the time by Microsoft. The user age change proceeded without any published child rights impact assessment—which takes us back to an earlier group that we discussed—or documentation of any child participation in this decision. Using it in this way, without any child-focused safeguards, is unlikely to be in the best interests of the child, but currently there seems to be no satisfactory way to hold Microsoft to account for this.

A second example is Vimeo, a popular video channel that some of your Lordships may be aware of. In a particular case where a child used Vimeo and some of its video capability to do his homework, a detailed look at what Vimeo had done with his homework demonstrated that 92 different commercial companies had gained access to this child’s data. Not very satisfactory.

A third example is the problem that data protection officers—each school nominates one—as you might imagine, are struggling to try and understand and keep up with this blizzard of new technology and new tools. There are more and more sophisticated ways of, in theory, giving children a good education, underwritten by hideously long and complex terms and conditions, which I suspect even an artificial intelligence tool would have a problem making any sense of.

An example would be perhaps one of our best known technology companies, Google. It has a very successful edtech business called Google Classroom. Google, as is its wont, packages different Google products together in the same package. Within Google Classroom, you have Google Maps, which I am sure most of your Lordships are familiar with and will use occasionally. Let us assume you are doing a geography project using Google Classroom and, as part of that, you decide to go into Google Maps to use its capability. The minute the child clicks on Google Maps, he or she loses the data protection provided by Google Classroom, which allows Google Maps to harvest all of their data.

That is a real life current example of what is happening in plain sight. Data protection officers are not going to be aware of that, neither are headmasters, students or parents. It seems compelling that the people who should be most aware of that are the Government, the Information Commissioner and the bodies which are there to protect children and guide schools through this extraordinarily difficult complex morass of these competing technologies which, quite rightly to some extent, the Government are encouraging schools to take advantage of. But beware of what you encourage without understanding exactly what it is you are recommending.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when it comes to technology, I think I have a slightly different relationship to it, although the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, may even go beyond me for this. We need it to operate in the modern world. I have said before several times on this Bill that I am dyslexic. I cannot produce a one-page document that is in a readable form in any sort of format unless I use voice dictation. The relationship with technology changes.

If you want to make people independent and they are, in this case, dyslexic—dyspraxics might use the same technology in a slightly different way—you must make sure information is available to them and they can function with it. Having said that, the second part of this is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, that there should be safeguards within it. These things actually go hand in glove. You should have something that allows people to function in the modern world. When you are independent and interacting with a computer, you have to put the correct information in for the computer to function; you have to actually know what you are doing. A balance needs to be achieved.

There is a move to use systems which are built into computers, as opposed to bolt-on bits for educational support. In certain cases, which the Minister is aware of, schools decide to use the free bit of tech as opposed to purchasing it. But the free bit of tech is there to advertise; otherwise it would not be there. There must be a commercial advantage for somebody to provide you with a free bit of tech.

The balancing structure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, puts forward here is essential to allow those like me who need this technology to carry on using it. We are talking about schoolchildren here, but there will be no shortage of people who will need it in the future and we are identifying more and more all the time. I hope we can strike a balance and make sure we get further forward into it.

The same is true—I am sure we are going to hear about smartphones being the devil’s work—for smart- phones, as it is the information on the smartphone we are talking about. If you can ban social media sites on smartphones and you can block them, they merely become a platform you can fill with other technology.

This is as the Minister gets an answer by using her smartphone. I hope we will get a more balanced approach to this, because it is not all bad, and not all good, it just needs to be used correctly, and using safeguards is something we have not really got our heads around. I am sure most of the commercial companies did not come in with this as their first priority, they just came in as commercial companies. The fact that they said they were platforms and did not need to worry about this is now coming back to bite them. However, I hope there is a balanced approach and a sensible way that we can get the best out of technology.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments would introduce a number of reviews of the Bill. Those in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei also seek to limit the new powers in the Bill in relation to elective home-educated children.

Amendment 502C from my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth would introduce a review of the Act after five years, and my noble friend made an extremely articulate and clear case for this. I think my noble friend said that there were already over 20 examples of amendments seeking reviews of different parts of the Bill. Although concerns about Part 2—which we have debated more recently—are certainly uppermost in my mind, those of us with long memories will remember some of the concerns about the pace of and evidence base for the reforms to children’s social care in Part 1.

My noble friend set out some criteria for post-legislative scrutiny: it should be a substantial Bill—I think that, on day 12, we can agree this is a substantial Bill; it should introduce major changes; it has unquestionably been controversial; and it did not have pre-legislative scrutiny. I thought almost the strongest point is that this would allow the Government to demonstrate their confidence that the Bill will deliver on the changes that the Government seek and the impact that the Government desire, so I hope very much that the noble Baroness will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment.

Amendment 505C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, again very ably presented, highlights concerns about the responsibilities of private providers of children’s social care in relation to children’s human rights. Again, it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s response to this. For my part, I suppose I would prefer the Government’s focus to be on the quality of care that children receive when they are in local authority care, in a children’s home or, potentially, in foster care, as in this case. They already have considerable rights enshrined in legislation, as the noble Lord said; what we need is for the culture in those organisations to make sure that children receive the care that they so very rightly deserve.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Just before the Minister replies, I shall very briefly say that the principle of reviewing legislation is one that I think we have all agreed to and no Government have ever found terribly convenient. I hope that we can get something going and some commitment by the Government that they will look at what happens here, or some structure for reviewing what happens, because the unforeseen is something which no degree of planning now can ever adjust.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The amendments in this group cover a wide range of issues, including review of the Act, disapplication and commencement.

I will begin with Amendment 502YR tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which seeks to protect a parent’s right to determine their child’s education in the event of a national emergency or an authoritarian Government, by placing judicial oversight above executive restrictions. This amendment would actually be ineffective as, quite rightly, Parliament is sovereign. Any law passed by a current Parliament can be changed or repealed by a future Parliament. Provided the education a child receives is both safe and suitable, existing legislation makes clear that most parents have the right to determine the form of education that best meets their child’s needs. We have of course discussed this at length in Committee and the Bill does not change it.

Turning to Amendment 502C, on reviewing the Act, I start by commending the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to post-legislative scrutiny, which, as he identified, has been government policy since 2008 and part of the process for legislative progress through this House. I remember the discussions around putting it into that position in my last period of time in Parliament. I supported it then; I still support it now. In the interim period between 2010 and 2024, among the range of things that I was able to do, I was very pleased to be able to advise foreign Parliaments about the significance of post-legislative scrutiny, drawing on precisely the work of the noble Lord and the experiences of this Parliament in putting those into operation.

Alongside that amendment, we have Amendment 502YN, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which concerns a review of the operation of the Bill’s measures. This Government agree on the importance of having an appropriate mechanism for the proper evaluation of the impact of legislation, ensuring that it meets the goals that it sets out to deliver, especially given the size and wide-ranging ambitions of this Bill in particular. I assure noble Lords that the Bill will be subject to post-legislative scrutiny in the usual way without this amendment. We fully expect that this evaluation will be carried out within the first five years of the legislation coming into force.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I think I understand why government Amendment 12 has been tabled, but I am worried that it is imprecise, and I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary. The unique thing a police officer will bring to these teams is powers—power of arrest, power of entry and powers to seize evidence—but if the teams do not exercise those powers, it is not clear why they need the police at all.

More importantly, the person needs experience. The amendment talks about a member of the police staff—that is, somebody who is not a police officer—who has “experience”. I do not understand the imprecision and wonder whether the Government might try to find some way of making it more precise. Experience could mean one week or six years. There is an accreditation process for trained officers—perhaps the police might offer some form of accreditation measure before they put someone in this role.

I would like to see somebody with experience of going into people’s homes, dealing with situations where childcare is needed, sometimes arresting the parents, sometimes moving the child to another location and sometimes involving other agencies to make sure that the child is looked after in the future. The reality is that, on the whole, police staff will not have that experience.

The only argument I can see for the amendment is that you might have a police officer who is retired—so, has previous police experience—and has become a member of the police staff. If that were the case, I am not sure it is necessary. There is now a scheme of fire and rehire—most chief constables seem to be working on it. The basis is that someone retires from their constable post, takes their lump sum, abates their pension and carries on being paid as a constable. So, if the requirement is to have someone in the role who has police experience, I would see that as a reasonable reason for doing this.

My biggest concern—I say this against the police, who of course I love—is that the 43 forces might come to different conclusions about what “experience” means. Probably more worryingly, they might conclude that they want the cheapest option, which would by far be to put police staff into this area and not have to pay police officers. The Minister knows that I have concerns about whether the police should be members of these teams, but given that they are, it is probably best that they are police officers and not people whose experience we have an imprecise definition of, because police officers offer some judgment about the life situations that they deal with—and that other social services deal with—which might amplify their judgment in the cases that these teams will have to consider.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I stand here today as a rather inadequate replacement for my noble friend Lady Tyler, so I will be very brief. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, pointed out, in Amendment 6 we are talking about the most vulnerable group—certainly a group that does not have the added protection of, for instance, the school environment and people looking on. So, having greater attention paid to it self-evidently seems like something we should have. If the Government do not like the suggestion made by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, perhaps they can tell us where else they will get it, because it is very important.

The other amendments in this group go into a new area of government activity—new teams. We should explore in considerable depth the concerns that have been raised about how it will work and the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. The experience of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, dwarfs any that I have in this field. I hope the Minister answers those questions thoroughly and explains why she thinks her amendments are necessary—I have no doubt that she will do that, as she normally does.

Amendment 17 really attracted my attention. If you are going into a new area, why not first check to see how it is working? There is a general agreement about the approach, but let us make sure that it is done properly. As well as the other amendments in this group, the House should consider those two amendments very fully.

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[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have my name on this amendment and I am grateful to the Minister from the Ministry of Justice, who met a group of us to look at how the findings and recommendations from the Cordis Bright report could be met. I would like to add a tiny word to the way in which this amendment was so well introduced.

The report’s findings showed that contact centres provide an important service, as we have already heard, and enable thousands of parents to have contact with children safely. But it pointed out that there is scope to improve emotional safeguarding and the provision of domestic abuse training for contact centre staff, and the importance of a system-wide approach to safeguarding adults or children from the risk of domestic abuse and other harm. The report presented a series of evidence-led recommendations to support this.

The point of the amendment is to ensure that there are appropriate standards. This is about raising standards everywhere, because it keeps the child at the centre of what is happening and being recommended.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly join the support for this amendment. If somebody is doing something that is potentially difficult, training will be essential, so that they understand what their role is, do not make basic mistakes, et cetera. I would have thought that this is something that should be there, but those who tabled the amendment think it is not. The Government should think about what the response should be, because, if people with this degree of knowledge think there is a need for better training, there probably is.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in my time as a family magistrate, I have dealt with the issue of contact centres a number of times. I want to make a point that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, did not make: the problem with unregistered contact centres. When you are in court, it is not always obvious to the court making the decision whether the proposed contact centre is registered or unregistered. This of course is a potentially very serious problem. I have even been in court and been told that one of the parties had personally set up a contact centre as a way of gaming the system, if I can put it like that. So this is a real problem, and registration and training of course are the answer. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be as encouraging as possible.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 199, to which I have added my name. In this, I am channelling my inner Baroness Wolf of Dulwich—the noble Baroness sends her apologies that she cannot be in her place. This amendment attempts to rectify another example in the Bill in which a well-intentioned idea is turning out to be a mistake. It is a bit of an example of top-down government seemingly punishing a school for being successful. Whereas education is all about nurturing and helping improvement in those who are less successful, this is a cold logic to reduce empty places and surplus capacity.

In an ideal world, the number of children wanting to go to various local schools would fit neatly into the number of places in local schools, but it does not. That is, in part, because parents are now much more aware of the league tables, Ofsted inspections, academy specialisations and all sorts of online opinions. It also reduces the most important incentive for a school to succeed and improve—one that has been at the heart of Labour’s and successive Governments’ academies programme, which has itself been at the heart of 20 years of school improvement, and which threatens to be reversed by this.

If good and oversubscribed schools can expand, and unpopular schools are not filled up with unwilling attendees, all schools would have a strong incentive to be good. When school choice and academisation were introduced, there were predictions that we would end up with lots of sink schools and a significant number of children having an even worse education than before recruitment was freed up. This did not happen. There has been a steady decrease in the number of badly performing schools. Competition works, not by creating a monopoly but by incentivising and driving improvement.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 230 in this group is on off-rolling. Whatever the good points of academisation, there has been a strong suspicion—a fact, in some cases—that certain schools are off-rolling pupils who are seen to be a problem. The best of the academies are probably dealing with this. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, being impassioned as a Minister in saying that we must stop this. There is a strong suspicion that it goes on, possibly underneath, at a school level, when a teacher or headmaster is worried about personal development. Whether we like it or not, that strong suspicion exists, and there has been a rise in the number of exclusions going on.

When the Minister answers, I hope that she will tell us how this is being dealt with. If it is not being dealt with, it is a problem that we will have to get to grips with. I hope that there will be a coherent look at this, so we know exactly what the case is. There is a strong suspicion that special educational needs is a factor pushing this. I have known people going through this, where it has been assumed that every pupil in a pupil referral unit has at least one special educational need. The Minister has been engaged in these types of areas, and I hope that, when she comes to answer for the Government, she can tell us what the Government are going to do. If there is even a suspicion, we should find out the truth and look at it coherently.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I will talk to Amendments 198 and 199, to which I have added my name. Inclusion is very important but, at the moment, some children—too many, frankly—who should not be in maintained education are being admitted to maintained schools because of their parents’ wishes. Those parents are making decisions that are not in the best interests of their children. These are often inappropriate settings and it affects the education and resources available to other children in those settings. We need more special schools that are better located, so that children are not spending hours in taxis, and we need better alternative provision. I very much hope that the Government are seized of this issue and that they will allow more special and AP free schools.

On Amendment 199, I find it hard to think of circumstances where it would be a good idea to limit the size of a school that provides high-quality education. I can, however, think of many examples of where it would be a very bad idea. As my noble friend Lady Barran said, we are heading towards overcapacity in schools, and the best way for that situation to resolve itself is by letting the market and parents decide.

Local authorities are understandably reluctant to close schools and there are often many local, political or ward issues in play. We certainly do not want local authorities to reduce the PAN of schools on the basis of political issues overriding the interests of children or parents. I am aware of boroughs that have tried to resist the creation of new free schools based on a lack of demand in their location when, on further investigation, it became clear that many local pupils were actually going to schools in neighbouring boroughs or local authorities, because their local schools were performing so poorly. It is a complicated issue.

My academy trust specialises in taking on failing schools. We have just taken on another secondary school, thanks to terrific co-operation from the Department for Education and a certain amount of money, for which I am very grateful. This is another failing secondary school in Hertfordshire, with only 400 pupils on the roll but with a much higher PAN and substantial local demand. The school had previously had three required improvements in 15 years. As we have taken on a further four failing schools in Hertfordshire and turned them around, and have a very good relationship with the Hertfordshire local authority, I do not think this would be an issue in this location. But if we were in the future asked to take on a similarly failing school in an authority we did not know, the ability of the local authority to reduce the PAN might well deter us, and no doubt others. Reducing the PAN of a successful school to protect a school whose roll is falling is no answer. Students do best in schools which are full or nearly full, and have the resources to provide an adequate education.

Finally, in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, while I do not think off-rolling is as frequent as perhaps some people think, it would be better to know the answer and get the facts.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall very briefly add my support to Amendment 243C and, in doing so, declare my interest as a member of the board of the London Marathon Foundation. As we have heard, schools play a crucial role in the formation of lifelong activity habits, but they need to be properly supported, both to provide more opportunities within school and to ensure that what they offer meets the needs of the various interests of young people and children, to make sure that they fully engage with physical education. A national strategy would give schools the structure they need to guarantee consistently high-quality physical education, as well as help them build partnerships with community sports organisations, creating pathways that link school-based activity with accessible opportunities outside school.

In its recent submission to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s inquiry into community and school sport, London Marathon stressed the pressing need for national and local government, schools, governing bodies and charitable and commercial organisations to align behind tangible shared objectives to get children and young people active and, most importantly, keep them active. By mandating the publication of a national strategy for physical education and sports in schools, this amendment will be an important step to delivering just that.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I shall make a couple of brief comments on the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, introduced so well. I draw the House’s attention to proposed new subsection (2)(k). If you take part in physical activity only in educational establishments, you generally stop doing it when you leave, so getting in outside bodies to say that playing in a team at the weekend or in the evening is a reasonably normal thing to do means that you are much more likely to do it once you are outside that environment. It is something we have consistently found. It probably applies to other areas as well, but, if we are talking about a coherent sports strategy, that is one thing that the Government really must give more time and thought to.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak mainly to Amendment 206, but, as somebody who has taught more PSHE days than he cares to remember, I think I might make a few comments on this one. I have spoken many times about how I think we need to bring PSHE and citizenship much more into the regular curriculum on a weekly basis. To put my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth’s mind at ease, his amendment looked to me like a scheme that could work: it is very similar to what we teach. I think that, with all due respect to several House of Lords committees, the subtle differences are not going to filter their way down to schools. I think we need to teach this. We need to make sure it is important. Teachers are very good at interpreting this, schools are very good and the basic subtleties do not really matter to me, I am afraid.

In response to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, I would say, “Please can I join the school with an hour of sport a day?” And can we hurry up as well? My daughter is in year 10: she is locked in the bathroom, but she would be really keen to hear that. If we are trying to get kids back into school and we have nearly 1 million missing school, might this not be worth trying?

I actually rose to speak to Amendment 208, and will give one quote, from Tender. If noble Lords do not know it, Tender is an unbelievable expert charity that delivers RSE to young people, from primary schools all the way to sixth form. Its CEO, Susie McDonald, said: “We are all too aware that 16 to 19 year-olds are at the highest risk of abuse in their relationships. At this critical age, young people simply cannot be left without the vital education to keep themselves and others safe. We have all seen the horrifying results, from rising levels of coercive control to the murder of teenage girls by teenage boys. We know how to prevent it: with mandatory, high-quality relationship education, all the way to 18”.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

216: After subsection (2)(b), insert—
“(ba) may provide for exemptions for assistive technologies that are deemed necessary for a student’s education,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would add assistive technologies that are necessary for students' education, to the list of exemptions that can apply to the prohibition of smartphone use and possession.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

This is fairly straightforward. There is a bit of passion being stirred up and a nice pace, so let us not delay too long. The reason I am suggesting that we include smartphones as assistance to those with special educational needs is because smartphones fit in your pocket and are a great way of carrying technology with you.

Chris McCausland, who noble Lords have probably seen on “Strictly Come Dancing”, did a lovely little programme showing all the assistance you can get if you are blind that can be loaded on to your phone. I, as a dyslexic, have good voice-operated systems that I can carry with me everywhere and use because they are on my phone. It gives you personal independence. It means that you can operate these systems, and we have only just started to scratch the surface. If there is another personal device that does it, I am all ears. I do not know whether there is another one.

You can block social media so the phone itself can be used for other purposes. It is a plastic and metal box that carries technology; it is not the devil’s passport. If we use it correctly, we can change it so that it actually supports and gives independence to a person who otherwise has it restricted from them. I ask all noble Lords in this Chamber: do we want to give independence to those who have disabilities?

This amendment would not solve everything, but it would address certain things. It would make sure that pupils could interact with lessons more easily. If they are restricted to a computer in front of them, that may well be better, but, for instance, they will not be able to take notes quite as easily—as in my case—or communicate quite as easily. The Carers Trust has been in touch to say that it does not like the proposal and would like an exemption for some of the people it is dealing with. This is moving very fast—there might be other groups.

I appreciate what the noble Baroness is trying to do but let us not be too rigid and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Technology is a way of helping to give independence, allowing people to access education. Please accept the fact that an absolute ban has downsides—downsides we can avoid. I beg to move.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for a very moving speech there, but I will address his point directly.

This amendment does not object to a child having a basic phone for safety. My plucky 11 year-old son travels to and from school every day with a big rucksack and a violin on the Circle line and the Jubilee line, come rain or snow. It worries the hell out of me every time he leaves the house, and I am not happy until he is back home. That is why he has a Nokia dumb phone in his pocket, so he can call me if he needs to. I confess that he sometimes plays “Pong” on a black and white LED screen when he is bored, but that does not damage his frontal cortex or bring him into touch with predators. He does not have a smartphone with all its nasty algorithms. Until they invent such a box as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, quite reasonably described, that is what a smartphone contains.

I do not, for instance, allow my son to go to the local pub, the Westbourne, where he might be beaten up. For the same reason, I do not let him on Instagram, with all its bullying. I do not allow him to go to the Ministry of Sound—wonderful organisation though that is—because he will be confronting sexual predators. For the same reason, I do not let him on Snapchat. I do not give him methamphetamine—whizz—or Es, because they are addictive and would mess with his brain, as do TikTok and YouTube reels. I do not, for instance, allow him on X, where he might see internet filth. For the same reason, he is not allowed to go to Soho to watch peep shows.

Toxic digital platforms are designed for adults and are engineered for addiction, fraudsters and predators—and, I am afraid, they are screwing with too many of our children’s brains. A simple device that makes calls and sends texts poses none of these challenges. That is what children should have. That is why schools should be in a regulatory position to ban smartphones during school hours.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Bull) (CB)]

My Lords, I remind the House that the Question before the House is on Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so we must first deal with that before we return to Amendment 215.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as it appears that everybody wants to vote on this, I would like Amendment 215 to be in half-decent shape. I think it needs my amendment; therefore, I beg leave to press my amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Addington]

228: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause—
“Obligation to deliver the National Curriculum to a child with SENDIn exercising any duty to secure that the National Curriculum is taught to a pupil for whom special educational provision is made, the proprietor of a school must ensure that—(a) there are effective arrangements in place to identify, as early as reasonably practicable, pupils who may have special educational needs or disabilities,(b) for each such pupil, a written SEND support plan is prepared and regularly reviewed, setting out the adjustments, adaptations or disapplications from the National Curriculum, and any additional provision, reasonably required for that pupil to make progress, and(c) teachers and other staff have sufficient time, training and access to specialist advice to implement that plan, and to refine it in response to the pupil’s progress.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would make clear that, in relation to children with SEND, the duty to teach the National Curriculum must be exercised in a way which enables schools to identify needs early and to prepare and deliver a tailored SEND support plan. It is intended to give schools greater capacity and professional agency to adapt or depart from the National Curriculum where necessary, and to ensure staff have the time, training and support needed to act on children’s SEND needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the two amendments in this group were designed to, shall we say, spur the Government to tell us where we are with the developments on special educational needs. Basically, they are saying that we should have a structure you can teach all the way through. I do not think there is much point in saying any more, so I will ask but one question. Is the Minister, speaking on behalf of the Government, in a position to give us a date, preferably not in general terms of “soon”, “possibly” or “imminently”, but a date in time—possibly the number of weeks: let us start low and build up—when we will get the White Paper? When will we start to see what the Government think is appropriate? That is not too much to ask; it is already roughly half a year late. So, just that: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name to try to extract an answer from the Government.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, we thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his two amendments. The establishment of a national body is a factor that needs to be considered in the important and pressing issue of special education needs and disabilities. There is certainly the argument for a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence equivalent for SEND. But the most important point, in our view, is that, whatever the approach taken in the Government’s forthcoming White Paper, it is based upon firm evidence.

The same principle applies to the noble Lord’s other amendment, which would introduce an obligation to deliver the national curriculum to children with special education needs and disabilities. Whatever approach is taken, it must also align with the existing evidence base.

An incredibly diverse and wide-ranging list of requirements is put on schools for children with education, health and care plans. Although it may be possible to deliver the national curriculum in line with these—we note that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, allows for disapplications—if the Government were to accept this, we would suggest an extensive pilot scheme to undertake a full, top-down and bottom-up approach, ensuring rigorous testing before introduction.

We hope, in line with the request of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that the Minister will also be able to confirm that curriculum policy will feature in the coming White Paper—and please can we have a date?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Much as I try to satisfy Members in the House of Lords—for all the good it does me—no, you cannot have a date. Come on—everybody knows that you cannot have a date, even at one o’clock in the morning. But I will try to respond to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in his amendments.

Just to be clear, as a starting point, we share the noble Lord’s ambition for every child to have an education that meets their needs. We are determined to fix the SEND system and rebuild families’ trust by improving inclusivity and SEND expertise in schools, giving teachers the tools to identify and support needs early, and strengthening accountability for inclusion. The amendments the noble Lord has raised speak to the heart of our vision: an inclusive education system, built on strong leadership, evidence-based early intervention and high-quality teaching for every learner.

Amendment 228 seeks to place a new statutory duty on schools to adapt the national curriculum for individual pupils. We agree that children’s needs must be identified early and met well, but we fear that adding a new statutory requirement risks creating vague expectations around “sufficient” time and training, which could invite dispute rather than help schools.

Since Committee, we have continued constructive engagement with SEND organisations, including on identifying and supporting needs early and consistently, and on workforce development. We have recently announced £200 million to be invested over the course of this Parliament to upskill staff in every school, college and nursery, ensuring a skilled workforce for generations to come. This builds on at least £3 billion for high-needs capital between 2026-27 and 2029-30, to support children and young people with SEND or those who require alternative provision.

Amendment 229 proposes the establishment of a national body for SEND. We are aware of the challenges in the SEND system and how urgently we need to address them. However, as stated in Committee, we are concerned that a new body would simply create unnecessary bureaucracy. Our reforms will be set out in the forthcoming schools White Paper and will be underpinned by principles in line with the concerns the noble Lord has raised, and informed by continuing engagement with parents, teachers and experts, including through the recent national conversation on SEND. We are committed to supporting children with SEND through early identification, access to the right support at the right time, high-quality adaptive teaching and effective allocation of resources.

Noble Lords will not have too long to wait. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Well, it was worth a try. At least we did not hear that when the moon is full and the wind is high, we shall get a report, but it sounded almost like that. I look forward to this when it happens and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 228 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, we really must get to the Front Benches.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, to sum up this debate briefly, I have nothing new to add. I merely agree with certain noble Lords who have already spoken. As for the Government’s approach, Henry VII’s son is all over it, and that is never a good thing for a Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on that. The approach I and many on these Benches would have preferred is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, but what we are dealing with here is something that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has done with considerable success and skill: namely, seize the argument and throw it back to the Government to see what they are going to do. I suggest that the Government listen very hard to us. What they have proposed is not meeting it for this House. What we want to do is to get something effective in play. I hope the Government will listen. We will be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Nash, in the Division Lobby if he decides to come forward.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I shall say a few words on smartphones and Motion N1 in my name. I acknowledge that the Government have made efforts in their new guidance on mobile phones, but their approach does not go far enough to meet the needs of pupils, parents or teachers—hence the need for my amendment. I thank Generation Focus and Health Professionals for Safer Screens, who have helped many of us have the privilege of listening to a range of head teachers and educational psychologists who have been able to share their experience.

Their views are absolutely clear. First, they are calling for a statutory ban so that they can be clear with the minority of parents that smartphones have no place in school. Evidence from the University of Birmingham shows that head teachers are spending literally hundreds of hours that they do not have dealing with the implementation of individual school policies. Clearly, that is not a good use of their time.

Secondly, they want a clear focus on smartphones. I noted that the Minister referred to my amendment as the “mobile phone amendment”. Of course, that was the slip of the tongue, but it is important because it is the connection to the internet in general and to social media in particular that is causing such a huge problem in relation to safeguarding incidents and suspensions in our schools.

As I said on Report, smartphones are the gateway drug to social media. One head teacher reported in a round table that we held recently that prior to having a ban in their school for children in year 7—that is, children aged about 11—almost a quarter of all suspensions in the school were for children in year 7, and they were linked predominantly to smartphone use. That is unrecognisable from a few years ago, when it was an exception to suspend a pupil in year 7.

Thirdly, those schools which ban smartphones are seeing a delay in the age at which a child receives one. Brick phones and Balance Phones do not pose the same threats to attention, concentration and safety. This has implications not just at school but on the journey to and fro, and at home. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly raised concerns about children with special educational needs. The evidence from the medical profession is that it is precisely these children who are made most vulnerable by having a smartphone, and teachers are quite clear that it is not appropriate for a child’s special educational needs to be met with a personal device. I shared that with the noble Lord before this debate.

I am absolutely baffled by the Government’s resistance to my amendment. I am grateful to all noble Lords across the House who have supported it so far, and I hope that the Government will change their mind.

I turn to the amendments relating to social media and children. Some of your Lordships will have read the extraordinarily brave letter this morning from Ellen Roome, mother of Jools Sweeney, and other bereaved parents, many of whom are behind me in the Chamber tonight. Given the weakness of my tear ducts, which some of your Lordships have already witnessed, I will not attempt to read any of it out, but whatever noble Lords’ views, I commend it to them to read it. It is one of the most dignified and brave letters noble Lords will read.

On these Benches, we stand firmly behind my noble friend Lord Nash and his Motion G1. His Motion establishes unequivocally that there should be restrictions on harmful social media for children under 16. It leaves the details of implementation to secondary legislation and, of course, the results of the Government’s consultation could be put to good effect in informing these regulations. It places the onus on the social media companies to change their products to being safe for children to use rather than leaving everything to an already overwhelmed regulator to resolve.

I recognise and welcome the spirit in which Motion G2 is framed, building on the great expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the other now affectionately known “tech Lords”—not to be confused with the tech bros—and other noble Lords. This expertise has been forged over many years of working on these issues, showing the Government how they can improve on their current approach.

During the passage of the Bill, the House has shown great collaboration across all Benches and yet the Government appear unwilling to engage with any of us. The Minister has access to extraordinary legislative and sector expertise and to all the most expert stakeholders, who are coalescing around a proactive and effective approach. I urge her to use us.

My noble friend Lord Nash mentioned Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. In closing, I would like to pick out some other remarks that he made. In May last year, he said:

“Now is the time to apply the same creativity and innovation that built the social media ecosystem to the vital task of protecting kids online. And if we can’t do this effectively, we lose any credibility to oppose a ban. As both a tech CEO and a parent, I know that legal compliance is not the same as safety … Our industry has had years to mitigate these harms, but has time and again failed. The time for self-regulation has passed, and if tech companies don’t change, then the path should be obvious to lawmakers. We need a clear standard: no social media for teens under 16, backed by real enforcement, and accountability for mobile phone operating systems and the apps that run on them”.


This evening, that path is obvious. It points directly to supporting my noble friend’s amendment.