Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this group seeks to ensure that the most intrusive elements of the Bill, particularly the new register of children not in school and associated powers, are subjected to robust rolling checks and ultimately remain only if they demonstrably work. Amendment 274 from my noble friend Lord Wei would introduce a simple safeguard whereby the register will expire two years after its creation. This would make sure that the system does grow beyond its original purpose without a clear review.

The troubled families programme is an example of a programme that was sold as an early intervention, but which had very little effect and continued long after people knew it was not doing anything useful. Similarly, Prevent, introduced as a targeted strategy to counter radicalisation, was quietly broadened over time into schools, nurseries and local authorities. The UN special rapporteur described it as the systematic surveillance of Muslim families and their children under the guise of safeguarding. These systems do tend to drift, so having the ability to curtail the register, or at least a requirement to review it, would seem a sensible safeguard.

Amendment 330 calls for a two-year pilot scheme before the register is rolled out. We know from experience that local authorities are highly variable in their understanding, and we receive reports of wildly inconsistent demands. If we run this as a pilot, we will get a clear understanding of how the system is going to work before we have to try it nationally on a whole series of overstretched local authorities, some of which will be mid-reorganisation and not in a position to take on something new.

Amendment 320 proposes that every two years the Secretary of State must review the operation of Sections 436B to 436G and lay their findings before Parliament. If we are not going to actively renew these, as previously proposed, we should at least be sure that we review them.

Amendment 329 proposes an independent review board made up of home educators and education law experts. One reason why SEND tribunals overturn 95% of local authority decisions is that independent panels exist to scrutinise flawed local reasoning. If we do not have independent review, we will allow this new system, which we all wish to succeed, to decay unnoticed. The volume of complaints we have heard from families who say that their council simply does not understand autonomous learning, or that they keep applying a rigid “home at school” template and deem everything else unsuitable, demands some expert oversight. The document from Bristol shared with the Government would be an example of that. This board would ensure that decisions are not made solely by people who may have little real grasp of the varied pedagogies embraced by the home education community. Amendment 388, in another group, would give home-educated children a direct annual panel to advise the Secretary of State, as we have discussed.

These amendments are also about preserving the proper balance between state oversight and family privacy. We have heard families voice profound fears about how soft safeguarding powers have become heavy handed. In one county, a local authority insisted on seeing the family’s daughter alone to discuss why she was not in school, despite clear evidence of school-related trauma. The family reported that it felt more like an interrogation than support. Another council threated a school attendance order within weeks of deregistration, purely because it had no familiarity with unschooling approaches. My noble friend feels that these proposals would not harm the Bill but would strengthen it. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

Rather foolishly in retrospect, I have added my name to several amendments proposed by Front-Bench Members of the parties opposite, and I therefore have to speak first on them, rather than just say that I agree. On this occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has proposed a new clause reviewing the impact on home-educators and the reduction of unnecessary reporting after the event. It also includes an assessment of the administrative and reporting requirements placed on local authorities as part of its proposed terms of reference.

Particularly in the light of this morning’s discussions, when we looked a great deal at the impact on home-educators but also on unprepared local authorities, and the expectation that local authorities should up their game considerably as a result of a number of measures in the Bill, it will be even more important to undertake a review such as this. The Minister has suggested that regulation will provide considerable flexibility. Some of us, including me, have been arguing that some of that flexibility needs to be put in the Bill and that there needs to be parameters around it. But even if there is flexibility, it will be interesting to see whether that actually works in practice. I am very much a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey.

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

I will make a quick intervention, if I may, just to counter the claim that the troubled families programme achieved nothing. The evidence does not tell us that, so it is important not to allow us to think that.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this is an area where we have had substantial conversations with the Government so, again, I would prefer to start by listening to the Minister. I beg to move.

[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.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Let me organise my notes—you are keen for things to move quickly and then they move just that bit too quickly.

The importance of out-of-school education providers to home-educating families has been raised several times already. I recognise again the important part these settings play, providing enriching activities and education to a vast array of children. I hope that these providers will recognise that the measures included in the Bill give no reason to cease this valuable work—notwithstanding that I recognise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about the concerns of organisations as we clarify the intentions here. We will continue, therefore, to engage with the sector on the implementation of children not in school registers, so it is confident in what the registers mean for it.

The amendments in this group concern the duty on certain out-of-school education providers to give information for children not in school registers. Amendment 288, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the duty. This is a vital element of the measures that will aid the identification of children who should be on registers but are not. It is essential for enabling local authorities to cross-reference information on their registers to ensure accuracy. We know that many out-of-school education providers share our ambition to secure the best possible outcomes for these children and will gladly support the registers on that basis.

Amendment 290, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the word “structured” from the definition of out-of-school education. Actually, the impact of this amendment would be to potentially bring many more providers into scope of the duty, such as informal or ad hoc educational arrangements. It is important that the duty remains proportionate. I know that proportionality is an ambition shared by many noble Lords in this House and has been an important theme of the debates today.

This is not to say that informal or ad hoc educational arrangements are invalid. We know that some home-educators follow child-led approaches to learning, in which, under the direction of their parent, children learn from a wide range of people they encounter in their daily lives. Parents can record this as time spent in education for the purposes of the registers, but local authorities will not have the power to seek information from those individuals.

It is also important to note that the provider duty applies only where education is provided without any parent of the child being actively involved in their tuition or supervision. This means that groups of home-educating parents who meet up with their children are unlikely to be captured by the duty. The duty also applies only when an individual is providing the education; therefore, creators of platforms for e-learning, for example, would not be required to give information on children who access their websites.

Amendments 288A, 291, 292 and 293, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would limit the Secretary of State’s power to set a threshold at which local-level authorities can request information from out-of-school education providers, or otherwise exempt providers from the duty to give information; for example, by removing the requirement in respect of education they provide on weekends or during school holidays to home-educated children—I will not return to that again; I have taken out the relevant paragraph.

I agree with the sentiment behind these amendments. The Bill allows for regulations to set a threshold, and we are committed to setting it at a suitable level. I recognise the probing element of the amendments in this case; however, noble Lords’ varying suggestions on where the threshold should be set—for example, at six or 10 hours—exemplify why it should not be set in primary legislation. We will consult further to ensure the threshold balances the need for local authorities to collect necessary information without placing unreasonable burdens on providers. Noble Lords will also have the opportunity to debate the threshold when it is set in regulations through the affirmative procedure.

To reiterate, the intention behind the provider duty is to capture the providers involved in providing a home-educated child’s education, rather than organised activities that the child may be involved in for primarily recreational or social reasons—even if they are important for their development, such as the example of rugby raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

As I previously highlighted, the ability to prescribe a threshold, as well as the ability to make regulations to exempt types of providers from the duty, will help ensure that only those that are relevant are captured. It is our intention to exempt those organisations that have a drop-in, drop-out nature or happen irregularly. Examples of that include museums that offer workshops for children, as my noble friend Lady Morris stated this morning; public lectures that are open to any family or individual to book; and periods of work experience, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp has suggested. It is our intention to exempt those organisations and types of activities.

I know that some noble Lords are concerned that the provider duty introduces a disparity between school children and home-educated children, but we must remember that there is a huge level of oversight for where and what children are learning at school, which is bolstered by inspection frameworks, curriculum requirements and attendance data. What we are asking of out-of-school education providers in comparison is minimal. As part of the implementation, we will keep engaging with the sector to ensure continuity of provision for home-educated children; I recognise how important that is.

Amendments 294 and 299, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to remove the requirement for providers to confirm to local authorities whether they are providing out-of-school education to a child for more than the prescribed amount of time, and to remove the requirement to provide information on the amount of time they are doing so. Amendment 294 would require providers to give information on any child. This would not be proportionate. The legislation limits this to children to whom they are providing education above a prescribed threshold without their parents’ involvement.

In reference to Amendment 299, on understanding the number of hours children are attending such provision without their parents, we will support local authorities to identify children who are attending unregistered independent schools. Some children not in school are attending those illegal settings for long hours and are not receiving a safe or suitable education. It is crucial that the local authority has the information required to intervene in those circumstances.

Turning to Amendment 298, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which seeks to further clarify the information that providers are required to give local authorities on the total amount of time for which they provide education to children, we believe this amendment is unnecessary. The drafting is already clear that the total amount of time that the provider provides education to the child refers to the time when the child is receiving education from the provider. However, statutory guidance can be used to give further detail if necessary.

On Amendment 296, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would require providers in scope of the duty to provide only information that they already know to local authorities, providers should already hold the required information for health and safety and safeguarding purposes, and they will have to provide it only on request. Enabling providers to provide only the information that they know makes it too easy for unsuitable settings to just say “I don’t know” and to keep children hidden away from the services that are there to support them.

On Amendment 300, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would remove the provision in new Section 436E that the local authority must request information from a provider by sending or leaving a notice at the place where the education is provided, providers in scope of the duty need clarity on how information will be requested. I acknowledge that the noble Lord has tabled this amendment due to his concerns as to how the provision will work for virtual providers. The legislation already provides for a notice to be served electronically, and we can make this clear in statutory guidance.

On Amendments 301 and 302, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which seek to extend the period by when a provider must respond to a local authority’s request for information, it is essential that local authorities have the requested information as soon as possible so that they can ensure that their registers are accurate and identify children who should be registered but are not. The timeframe for providers to give the required information is at least 15 days, and a local authority has discretion to extend that—for example, to account for closures over holiday periods.

Amendments 303 and 304, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 295, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, set out reasons to exempt some out-of-school education providers from monetary penalties should they not provide requested information for a local authority’s register. A local authority does not have to impose a monetary penalty on providers should they fail to provide information or provide incorrect information. It would be unlikely that a local authority would issue a monetary penalty if a provider had made a minor mistake for the first time, for instance. We will look to make it clear in the statutory guidance that authorities can engage with providers to correct minor mistakes without having to resort to penalty notices. The process for providers to make representations against and appeal a monetary penalty is set out in the Bill. I think this is sufficient recourse for providers who disagree with their monetary penalty.

I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined and because of the explanations I have provided, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister made some excellent and very clear statements in response to my amendment, which are extremely useful. Will she consider putting any part of that in the Bill? It seemed to me that she was very clear and definitive, and that it was not beyond the wit of the department to come up with some clever form of words that would indicate what she stated without making it very difficult to introduce regulations later. Perhaps that is something the Minister would consider.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have stated it on the record here. I have also identified one of the problems with putting it in the Bill—I used the example of time limits, where, so far, we have had two different suggestions as to whether that should be six hours or 10 hours. The noble Lord knows this, but there are real difficulties and inflexibilities in placing that sort of detail in legislation. I would be more than happy to write to noble Lords, going over again the intention with respect to those regulations. I think I am right in saying that the regulations will also be subject to consideration by this House. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord. As much as I know that people love things to be in Bills, in this case I genuinely think that we can be clear about the intention and provide assurances without creating the inflexibility that placing something in the Bill would do.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 317 in this group, which would rather expand the range of reporting to other groups of children who are under the care of the state and not in a specific school. It is really important for the governance of education in this country that we understand how all our children are performing. I would expect a local authority to take an interest in the examinations of home-educated children and these other groups of children in Amendment 317 in their local area. I would expect the Department for Education also to be interested, not for year-to-year panicking but in a determination to understand what the difficulties and differences are and how, over time, to drive the results up. The basic starting point of that is to get the data out.

Particularly if you are reporting at a national level, you are not reporting anything that has any element of personal or identifiable data to it, but you are putting a bit of data down on the table to draw people’s attention to what the state of affairs is. That is a very important part of the way in which the state should have responsibility for what it is providing to our children.

Equally, I agree with those who are saying, particularly as we are bringing home education within the scope of the state so much more, that we should take responsibility for making sure that home-educated children find it easy to take crucial examinations. At the moment, it is extraordinarily difficult. They may have to travel hundreds of miles to find an examination centre and pay thousands of pounds to have access to an exam. The Prime Minister is borrowing a flat so that his child may have a quiet environment in which to study for his examinations, so one would hope that the Government realise that making it easy to take exams within a reasonable distance from home and without undue stress on the family’s finances is an objective we should have—particularly when, as my noble friend says, home-educated children are saving us so much money.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I support the proposal on GCSE results from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. It is very important, for the reasons she suggests. I have seen some interesting results from home-educated children, which show them performing well in these areas. The results would be interesting to see and may improve the score, as it were, for the country as a whole.

Secondly, I entirely support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I will say nothing more except that this is perhaps the biggest single practical obstacle in the current regime that home-educating parents have reported to me. I will leave it to the noble Lord to press that case.

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[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 309 and 310 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am grateful. I also support Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, on language accessibility, and Amendment 426C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on access to sport and recreation. I can see that the practical implications of that are a little complicated, but it would be really important for home-educated children to have the same encouragement for physical activity.

My amendments would alter the behaviour of the registering authority in that it would have to offer, not wait for the home education parent to request, support. This is, first, because parents in marginalised communities, remote from the digitalised world and in some cases low in literacy, may not know that support is available, and, secondly, because, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents may have learned to distrust public authorities because of the widely attested discrimination and prejudice they will have experienced.

Requiring local authorities to make the first move would enable the authority to identify more clearly what kind of support is needed and, further, find out what problems the child experienced in school so that these can be addressed. I hope my noble friend will accept these amendments.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 313 and 314 in my name. I originally thought I was going to speak for rather longer on this, but so much has already been covered, including the fact that I was looking here for some very positive statements from the Minister about home education generally. Such statements have been coming throughout this debate, which is extremely good.

I am also totally supportive of the fact that the Minister needs to send out some very firm messages about the people missing school. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, there are more than 100,000 home-educated children but also a missing 100,000 and we do not know where they are, so there is a balance to be drawn between both of those.

My two amendments try to pick up on the point about rebuilding trust in the system among home-education parents, and indeed perhaps among local authorities, which has been quite badly damaged by the original presentation of this Bill. As has been said already today, there is a common endeavour here to secure the education, welfare and future of children and young people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in the country. Those are the young people we are talking about. Throughout the Bill, we need to get the balance right between safeguarding and necessary bureaucracy, between parental and state responsibility, and between necessary assessment and support. I do not think that is being achieved at the moment.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak with a certain amount of repentance, because this amendment is too much of an overreach and I regret drafting it in that form. At earlier stages in the Bill, relating to Clause 31—this goes to my Amendment 233A—I found it necessary to seek to have taken out of the Bill provisions going over one, two or three pages. I proposed that for Clause 31 because there was far too much information being sought of parents and far too much of an obligation on local councils, which were being compelled to meet some 13 requirements as part of the process.

This is an overreach on my part, and I apologise. It is very important that the local council has full powers to issue school attendance orders. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I have mentioned, there is a great worry about the number of children—some 10,000 was the figure given—who are not having any education at all. Therefore, local authorities should be diligent about finding where these children are and issue the necessary number of school attendance orders.

I support Clause 32 until the top of page 66, where there is a requirement for the recipient of the school attendance order to provide the information within 15 days. That is a very tight timetable for ordinary citizens, who would not be at all familiar with receiving an attendance order, which, presumably, is rather a scary experience. I suggest it should be a longer period, but that is the only revision I am now seeking under this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I was going to speak to Amendment 365, which is about appeals against a local authority’s decision not to revoke an attendance order. However, in light of the discussion we had about appeals in an earlier session in July, I had intended to withdraw this amendment, so I will not speak to it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have several amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord Wei is concerned that we are not getting the balance right between the state and family, and I agree with him. It is the parents who have the primary responsibility for upbringing and the best interests of their child, and intervention by the state should be justified only in exceptional circumstances and must be proportionate. My noble friend feels that Clause 32, as drafted, risks tipping that balance the wrong way. Families already tell us that school attendance orders cause stress, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. One parent said they were forced to send their child to school against her will, where her needs were not going to be met. They said, “We felt trapped, unheard, threatened and fearful for our daughter’s safety”. Another described a child with severe anxiety and seizures who has thrived only when withdrawn from school.

For many, home education is not elective but a response to systemic failures. I am sure the Government are aware of that, and what a mess the SEND system is at the moment. Many of the parents who home educate are doing so in response to a less than ideal system. I know we tried to improve the system, and that this Government are going to have another go; it is not easy. We must expect a continued flow of parents who choose to look after their own child because the state is not doing a good enough job, and be humble enough to recognise that that deserves our support and not continual harassment.

Amendment 334 would change the duty on local authorities to serve a preliminary notice from “must” to “may”. In the context of all the other discretions that local authorities have, it would be sensible to allow them to see that issuing a notice in a particular set of circumstances would do more harm than good. It would allow them to focus on the child’s welfare and not force them down a rigid path.

Amendment 335 would require that all relevant support be offered before issuing such a notice. This goes back to an earlier amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. The first reaction of the local authority ought to be to ask if support is possible—can it help make this succeed?—as well as looking at whether school is a better option. It ought to come at this with support; families should not be threatened with orders without help being tried. The Square Peg campaign, supported by over 130 organisations, has called for a “support first” duty. One parent told us, “We asked for counselling and support, but what we got was a school attendance order. It only made my child’s anxiety worse”.

Amendment 338 asks in what circumstances a “best interest” test will be applied. Amendments 339 and 340 ask why just the existence of a Section 47 investigation is the trigger, rather than a consideration of whether that investigation has any relevance. Many Section 47 investigations are entirely unconnected to the suitability of a family for home education.

Amendment 341 looks at the question of how the local authority is in a position to judge best interests. What resources has the local authority got to enable it to do this? Why should the decision as to what a child’s best interests are be so hard for a parent to challenge? If it is not to be hard to challenge, what should the routes be?

Amendments 343, 344 and 345 are all concerned with the threat of a school attendance order not being a penalty for a minor infraction. I gather that the Government intend to put that in guidance, but it is important that parents understand that they are being judged by reasonable standards and are allowed to make ordinary mistakes—that they are walking a path and not a precipice.