Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for introducing what I hope will leave this House as an improved example of vital legislation for children. Every generation owes it to the next to give them better life chances than were experienced by their parents. Nowhere is this more important than in the area of special educational needs legislation and provision. I applaud the excellent speech made earlier in this debate on that issue by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

When she was opening this debate, the Minister cited some excellent reports that have appeared in recent times. I am about to add an additional report that was launched last week in this building by the Michael Sieff Foundation, with which I have worked for a number of years, on issues related to children’s justice. The launch was attended by two government Ministers.

The report seeks to show how to provide the best life for children with SEND and neurodivergence issues which, in many cases, bring them in front of the criminal justice system. In England and Wales, 80% of children cautioned or sentenced within the youth justice system are from the SEND cohort. That is a shocking figure, and it is carefully measured. Children with neuro-disabilities enter custody at higher rates, from an earlier age, receive longer custodial sentences, are associated with higher rates of reoffending, commit more violent crimes as adults, and spend many more years in prison. That can be resolved by attending to those children’s needs in the education system earlier in their life and keeping them out of criminal justice activity.

Each year, more than 100,000 children under 18 have encounters with the criminal justice system. Some of those encounters scar them for life, because the criminal justice system, try as it does, is not always very good at dealing with children due to a lack of training and of understanding of the issues that are being dealt with. The proportion of children remanded in custody is at a record high. The number of sentenced children in custody is now mercifully low, but a ridiculous number remain in custody on remand and then do not receive custodial sentences when they are finally dealt with.

Almost all children in the criminal justice system have special educational needs and/or neurodivergence. It exacerbates challenges in communication and social interaction and makes it very difficult for them to lead a good life when they leave custody. One of the issues is that information is so poorly shared. I did a report when Michael Gove—the noble Lord, Lord Gove, as he is about to be—was Secretary of State for Education on the Edlington case. The details do not matter, but what was revealed to me during the preparation of that report was that the communication between statutory agencies for children with special educational needs and home difficulties was almost non-existent.

I hope to table amendments in an effort to persuade the Government to incorporate some of the forms which are proposed in the CIF report if legislation is needed as part of the Bill. The provision in schools for children’s well-being generally must include avoiding involvement in the criminal justice system. We owe it to children to somehow persuade them that living by the rule of law is a component of a full and rewarding life.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 173 and the passionate speech on child neglect by my noble friend Lady Tyler. Neglect can affect a child right through into adulthood, and we need to address this by giving support to the protection of our children. I also support Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who spoke so powerfully, and in the name of other noble Lords. In doing so, I declare my interest as vice-president of Barnardo’s.

As we have heard, Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, together with over 20 other organisations, including UNICEF, have called for a complete ban on smacking. Almost 70 countries have banned smacking, leaving no ambiguity in the law: it is never okay to “reasonably punish” a child. It is time to join those countries and end physical punishment against children.

There is no evidence that smacking is effective or that it prevents bad behaviour or that it teaches positive behaviour. It can lead to mental health issues in later life and develop a pattern of behaviour of a child learning to use violence to solve problems, to get what they want or even to become a bully.

Smacking can damage parent-child relationships and lead to resentment and fear rather than respect. I have spoken to so many adults who tell me how much they hate their father because of the physical violence that they suffered as a child. It is not only fathers whom they hate but mothers who have inflicted violence on their children.

It is much better to talk a problem through with a child, reason with a child through role play and set good behavioural examples. The earlier that this starts, the better it is in the long term for a happy childhood experience. I wholeheartedly support this amendment.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Finlay.

They make laws slightly differently in Germany. When a law is made relating to something that affects children, for example, they sometimes insert something in their constitution. I note that in 2000, when the parental right to spank was rescinded in Germany, a new phrase was introduced into the German constitution:

“Children have a right to an upbringing free of violence. Corporal punishment, emotional harm and other humiliating measures are not permissible”.


That has happened, and similar steps have been taken in 75 countries to date where smacking is not permitted. Many of those countries are in Europe. Almost the whole of Europe forbids smacking. We stand out as an exception in the map of Europe where it is illustrated. Just as Germany, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are not worse places as a result of the banning of smacking, the same will be the situation in the whole of the United Kingdom when England follows Wales, Scotland and, hopefully, Northern Ireland.

Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 is predicated by opposition to smacking, not by encouragement of smacking. As has already been said, it was banned in schools but has been allowed to continue in certain very restricted circumstances in homes. As early as 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service issued a report in which it was opposed to banning smacking altogether but observed that the defence was being used in inappropriate situations and in the wrong kinds of cases. There is absolutely no evidence that the banning of smacking would have any dramatic effect on parents who, like the parents in the countries that I have named, have simply been told, “You can’t smack your children anymore”. I believe that people are ready for that in this country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in an extremely powerful speech, gave several examples of cases in which the terrible violence that eventually was used against children probably started with the first smack. It is quite wrong that we should allow that sort of situation to develop.

I listened with great care—my synapses were operating in overdrive—while the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was speaking. However, he is now a bit historical in this argument. I treat his points with respect, of course, but I prefer those that have been made by other noble Lords in this House. Between the noble Lord and the Royal College of Paediatrics, I prefer the royal college.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the case for Amendment 67 and the associated Amendment 505 has very powerfully been made. I add a couple of additional points that might perhaps inform the House and be useful. I note that more than 30 MPs in the other place supported a similar amendment and that there it was driven by the honourable Labour Member for Lowestoft and my honourable friend the Member for North Herefordshire. It is not that we are suddenly bringing this up in your Lordships’ House—there is strong support in the other place as well for government action here.

I moved an amendment along similar lines to end the defence of reasonable chastisement during the Domestic Abuse Bill. I was quite new to your Lordships’ House and learned along the way that many people had been working on this for decades longer than I had been. I heard from the then Conservative Government, “Oh, it’s not the time now; we’ve got to see what happens in Scotland and Wales”. I would very much like to think that we are not going to hear the same thing this evening, although I am not terribly optimistic.

Like others, I listened very closely to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I say a couple of things in direct response to the noble Lord. He cited Professor Larzelere, who would best be described as a “controversial” academic. I point noble Lords to an article responding to some of the work of Professor Larzelere in the journal Marriage & Family Review in 2017, “Researchers Deserve a Better Critique” by George W. Holden et al. The authors say that Professor Larzelere had profoundly misunderstood the description of positive parenting and was very misinformed about the whole academic field.

You could feel a visible sense of shock around the House when the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, suggested that smacking was harmless. That is a disturbing label to put when we know from the Royal College of Paediatrics that children who have experienced physical punishment are 2.6 times more likely to experience mental health issues. We know what a mental health crisis we have in our society. They are up to twice as likely to experience further forms of abuse, sometimes leading to the cases that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, presented to us so powerfully. The college makes a really important point that children who have experienced physical assault are more likely to believe that violence is accepted and encouraged in society. We want to protect the vulnerable children, but we are also addressing the question of what sort of society we are.

We have had a number of international comparisons, but I believe that Thailand is the most recent state to have banned physical abuse of children. I happen to know quite a bit about Thailand. I was technically a Thai civil servant in the 1990s when I was there as an Australian volunteer abroad. I follow Thai politics quite closely and know quite a lot about Thai society. This is a big step for Thailand to take. Thailand has had a great deal of political difficulties in recent years but has regarded protecting its children as so important that it has ensured that there is legal protection. It is interesting when you look at the government announcements around this that this is a need to support parents as well as to ensure the protection of children.

I have one final point to make and a question for the Minister. The NGO Article 39 sets out the historic background for the reasonable chastisement offence, which arises from a criminal case in 1860, R v Hopley, about a head teacher found guilty of the manslaughter of a 13 year-old child with learning difficulties. The head teacher had beaten the child with a stick for more than two hours. Looking at the judge’s words on which this whole “reasonable chastisement” is based, the judge said that a parent or schoolmaster

“may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child inflict moderate and reasonable corporal punishment”.

That is the origin of what has got us to where we are today and what we are trying to change with this amendment. It is a reflection of how out of date the current legal situation is.

Finally, my question to the Minister arises from the Article 39 briefing. We have all focused on parents, but the briefing says that the defence

“has also not been removed from part-time educational settings (including those operated by religious organisations), children’s health settings or supported accommodation for looked after children aged 16 and 17”.

Can the Minister—either now or I will understand if she wishes to write to me—set out whether that briefing is indeed correct and there is still that allowance of violence against children in other settings as well?

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments, but I really want to follow on from what the right reverend Prelate said about racism. Racism has been rife in schools from as far back as I can remember, but at that time social media was not there to inflame it further. Over recent years, it has become racism about not just colour but religion. The right reverend Prelate mentioned Islamophobia, but most underreported acts of bullying against faith are not Islamophobia.

People from my community endure it quietly. Where do they report it when, as often as not, it is the most misunderstood way of bullying? Parents say to me that children have told them that they will burn in hell and that, if they do not change their faith, this or that will happen. We have to find solutions that involve not just the teachers—they have more than enough to do already—but making sure, first, that what we say and do is reasonable. Secondly, families cannot abdicate from their duties in what happens in and out of school. They need to be part of the solution because, unfortunately, we have a lot of dysfunctional families— not by choice but, often, because of the economics of everything. We need to find ways for every child to go to school knowing that they will learn, like every other child, and not be fearful of going.

I grew up in a fearful atmosphere. That fearful atmosphere is back—even more now than ever before. It is amplified by social media. So I say, on my noble friend’s amendments, that yes of course the police have a duty; so do local authorities. They need to be the support mechanisms for the teachers, not standing on the sidelines waiting to offer help. They should be intrinsic in the integrated plans to make sure that we can respond to the needs of children who come with problems—not of their own making, mostly, but from their surroundings and their environment. We should not make excuses and say that it is acceptable and that everything should be on the teachers. It is not fair, and they are not well enough equipped.

As a child who went through a miserable time at school, I knew what bullying is like, dreading to go into school in case you are be beaten up by the next skinhead around the corner. I did not become a bully; I actually became resilient. We have to make sure that resilience is part of the teaching of our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 491 and 498, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, to which I have attached my name, and Amendments 502U and 502V in my name.

With regard to Amendment 491, we have already spoken about how disabled children are being left behind. I worry that we are wrapping some disabled children in cotton wool. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, talked in an earlier group about resilience. We have to do more to ensure that our disabled children in schools can build resilience. This is one way in which they can do that.

This amendment is not about physical activity, but disabled children are routinely excluded from physical activity in schools and physical activity is one way that they can build this resilience. There are myriad excuses—“Well, they are sent to the library”—which are often wrapped up in health and safety. It sometimes feels that we are writing off disabled children before they have been given a chance. Often their world is smaller: there is less opportunity and a lack of ambition that is placed upon them.

This is something that I would like all children to be offered. It is probably dependent on what His Majesty’s Government are thinking of on enrichment around the school day. I declare an interest here as chair of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and we are talking to the Government about what this enrichment would look like. I believe that providing mentoring will help. It is about not just grades but building skills for life.

Amendment 498 simply seeks a view of SEND provision and how it is funded. Amendment 502U links to amendments that I have in other groups, but this one sits better in this group. I do not think that we have got right the support that disabled children are getting in school, and we must think about what more we can do.

The organisation Contact a Family and the Independent Provider of Special Education Advice surveyed 2,000 families with children and young people who have SEND but do not have an EHCP to see how the process was working. The survey concluded that there was not enough SEND support in schools, which leads many families to seek an EHCP to secure support for their child’s needs. This does not feel like the right way that the system should be supporting disabled children. It leads to school avoidance, absenteeism, pupils being put on part-time timetables and exclusion, and therefore an ever decreasing circle of support and ambition. This amendment seeks to ensure better support.

I am keen that access to the curriculum for disabled children is not reliant on a single member of staff. I do not, in this group of amendments, seek to debate the role of TAs. It is about how we get the right support beyond that so that we do not limit children’s opportunities. I know that there will probably be some discussion of whether, under this amendment, their role should sit under the supervision of a qualified teacher.

Finally, on Amendment 502V, we need to know how much we spend on SEND provision. In a previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton—admittedly not talking about this—said how important it was to identify how every penny is spent in schools. We must have a better understanding of how SEND money is spent. I do not mean to place a lot of additional work on schools, but we need to know that we are getting value for money and, ultimately, that we have the right provision for disabled children to thrive.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 502Q, 502R, 502S, 502T and 502W in my name. Amendment 502R is supported strongly by my noble friend Lady Bull, who has expressed sincere regrets at not being able to be with us tonight because of a long-standing engagement.

These amendments seek to achieve co-ordination between criminal justice services and schools in relation to children with special educational needs. The amendments are the product of a review carried out by the Michael Sieff Foundation, chaired by Professor Cheryl Thomas KC of University College London, of which the membership included Sir Robert Buckland, the former Lord Chancellor. And I had a part in it too.