Home School Education Registration and Support Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Hereford Excerpts

Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Hereford]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I have not done home education myself. My only experience was standing over my own sons for long hours encouraging a more focused approach to their GCSE revision. This only affirmed my admiration for those who actively choose to home educate their children.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for placing the welfare of children at the heart of the Bill. There is some resistance to the idea of compulsory registration in the home-education community, as set out in new Section 436B. There is also disquiet about the content of the proposed register, as set out in new Sections 436C and 436D, which is seen as an example of state overreach. While I support the overall thrust of the noble Lord’s Bill, I hope that further work will be done to clarify the limits of the information recorded and the provision of safeguards to protect parental rights. The proposals for registration and support in the Bill should allow a better collaborative approach between home educators and education professionals.

The Church of England’s approach to home education has been threefold: first, to ensure that people who say that pupils are being home-educated actually are home-educating them; secondly, to ensure that children are safe; and, thirdly, to ensure that schools are not using it as an excuse to off-roll “difficult” children in order to protect their exam results and place in the league tables. There is concern that children are being kept away from school because of their anxieties and poor SEND provision. ITV News research last year showed that over half of children with special educational needs and disabilities—58%—have had to take time out of school because their needs could not be met. Of those children, 36% spent between a month and a year out of school, while 7% spent more than a year out. Is the significant increase in the numbers of children being home-educated, as indicated in the Library briefing on the Bill, indicative of a collapse of parental faith in the SEND system, rather than an active choice?

In a number of rural areas, schools are under threat of closure from local authorities. We have current examples of Church schools in North Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight. In areas where public transport is poor and unpredictable, and parents are disenchanted with public education due to the closure of a much-loved school where their child is settled and happy, is there a risk that they will choose to home-educate instead of sending their child to a distant and unfamiliar school? Are we confident in the support available to those parents to farm and work in the rural economy and to provide their children with a good education?

The key to the success of the Bill’s proposals in new Section 436G will lie in consistent local authority support and nationally agreed culturally sensitive guidelines for such support. It will be especially important that those liaising with families understand the unique needs of those on the autistic spectrum—for example, in their interactions with them. Currently, home educators report a range of experiences of local authorities, from the collaborative to the hostile—it is a bit of a postcode lottery. As more and more schools academise, there is a danger that local authority provision may wither on the vine and the aspirations of the Bill will be disappointed. The preservation of that support will be crucial to ensuring the best outcome for all children in elective home education.