Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Soley, on securing time for a Second Reading of his Private Member’s Bill. In doing so, I recognise the strength of the concerns that have prompted him to bring the Bill before the House. It is, I think, common ground that there has been a significant increase in the past few years in the number of children being educated at home by their parents. It is also the case that the reasons for parents making this choice are more varied. This raises questions about the adequacy of the current arrangements for ensuring that these children receive a suitable education.

Parents have a clear legal right under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 to educate their children otherwise than at school. For most of them, that means educating the child at home. With that, however, the certainty ends. Parents are under no obligation to register or inform the authorities of their choice; for their part, local authorities encounter difficulties in tracking children, although they have a duty to identify, so far as possible, children in their areas who may not be receiving a suitable education. Some local authorities operate voluntary registration schemes, but these will probably not include children of most concern. As a consequence, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned, central collection of numbers of home-educated children in England is hampered.

If a child is not receiving a suitable full-time education, there is a process which leads to a school attendance order, but reaching a conclusion about suitability is not simple. We recognise that for many families who educate at home conscientiously, these issues are not a concern. We also know that home education as a concept has strong support among those who see it as a viable alternative to school attendance. For other families however, home education is potentially carried out through attendance at unregistered schools or out-of-school settings. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, understandably expressed concern about these children. We have been working with a range of stakeholders across the sector to strengthen our understanding of unregulated settings, which vary considerably in their characteristics. We shall in due course publish a response to our previous consultation on out-of-school settings.

Ofsted did not include in last year’s report a figure for the number of children discovered in unregistered schools. Of the cases that Ofsted has investigated, nearly all settings have ceased to operate unlawfully. Ofsted is continuing to investigate a small number of these cases. The department has recently been pressed by many local authorities and local children’s safeguarding boards to review the current arrangements for oversight of home education. My noble friend Lord Baker is correct that the Wood review of local children’s safeguarding boards also urged that home education arrangements be reviewed. The initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, in bringing forward this Bill gives us a welcome opportunity to consider our position again.

Those noble Lords who have spoken already have illustrated some of the concerns, and we are persuaded that the changing landscape of home education gives sufficient cause to look at the possibility of reform. One of the challenges of home education is the lack of hard information, especially quantitative information, about what is happening on the ground. The efforts of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services in this area must be acknowledged, and I am glad that it has published the results of its latest survey, to which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred.

As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, the preliminary results of the latest survey suggest that the numbers of children educated at home vary considerably throughout the academic year. It also shows that most children educated at home have previously attended school; most local authorities reported that 80%, or often higher proportions of the total, had attended school at some point. Local authority staff are aware that a proportion of children now being educated at home have some form of additional need, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

What is needed initially is a concerted effort to make the existing legal arrangements work better in the interests of parents, of local authorities and most of all the children themselves. We are all too aware that the department’s current guidance dates back to 2007. That is because the law has not changed. However, the types of children moving in and out of home education have changed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, pointed out. We have been talking to local authorities about this, and their view is that revised guidance would be helpful. In particular, there is a need to ensure that, where there is genuine cause for concern about a child, local authorities are clear about the powers open to them. Parents need to be clear about their rights and, importantly, their responsibilities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and my noble friend Lord Baker spoke eloquently about the importance of the voice of the child in home education. This is a point on which I wholeheartedly agree. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has asked for more information on initial teacher training. I will respond to him in writing.

I note also the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, regarding the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. I am grateful that she has agreed to continue as chair of the department’s stake- holder group for GRT education following its recent re-establishment. The department recently held a conference with local authorities about GRT education, on which she will receive a full report. Home education was raised as a concern during that conference. We want to ensure that the right balance is struck. As the noble Baroness, Lady Richardson, said, all parents, including those in GRT families, have a right to educate at home, but it is important for the sake of children that local authorities should be enabled to work effectively. Another activity that we have recently undertaken is to co-ordinate the sharing of good practice between local authorities with significant populations of GRT children.

I was interested to hear that my noble friend Lord Lucas agrees that the Bill, however well motivated, goes too far in proposing a system that would bring thousands of home-educating families into an unnecessary system of regulation. What is needed is an improvement in the way local authorities can go about their task, which is identifying children who may not be receiving a suitable education.

On the other hand, I appreciate very much the concerns that have led the noble Baronesses, Lady Cavendish and Lady Morgan, to support the Bill today. As already outlined, we also acknowledge that by no means all children being educated at home are being educated well. Local authorities need to be able to act in such cases. We think they already have the tools for the job, but we want to hear the view of key participants in this debate. Accordingly, I can confirm to noble Lords today that we intend to publish a draft of revised guidance documents on elective home education for local authorities and for parents, and consult on them. It will be an opportunity for all stakeholders to put forward their views. We will carefully consider all responses and then publish the two guidance documents in their final form. I believe this will meet the point made by both the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and my noble friend Lord Lucas about the need for more research into this area. I hope it also answers the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, about how the Government’s thinking has moved on since January.

In closing, I want to say two things. The first is to thank the noble Lord for his work in bringing forward his Bill and allowing the House this opportunity to consider these important matters. Secondly, I reassure parents who educate children at home. We know many of them do this for positive reasons and they do it well. We want that to continue with a minimum of fuss and bureaucracy. However, it also appears increasingly likely that there are parents who are not doing this for positive reasons, may do it only because they see no alternative and would prefer not to be doing it for their children. It is time that we looked to their needs as well.