Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Marks of Hale Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, this amendment is a repeat of one that I tabled in Committee, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of Oxford spoke in my absence. I am deeply grateful to him, and to the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Marks of Hale, who have added their names to it on Report.

My concerns with the Bill in its current form relate to those noted in the equality impact assessment, which singled out and named the particular issues that might arise for the Haredi Jewish community. As a Lord spiritual, I see my role as including speaking out when members of another religious community’s beliefs and practices are at stake. Among several groups within Judaism, the practice for boys—it is just boys we are talking about here—during their teenage years after their bar mitzvahs, is a combination of home schooling alongside religious instruction, the latter being provided by a yeshiva. At present, yeshivas are not treated as educational institutions, but the Bill makes it likely that they will be in future.

We need to reflect that we are legislating at a time when, after 7 October 2023, Jewish communities here in the UK, and in many other parts of the world, feel particularly threatened and vulnerable. The steep rise in antisemitic crimes is making some people I know who have been long committed to Britain wonder whether they are still welcome and safe in the UK. New laws that threaten their long-standing traditions simply play into that fear. The Jewish community—I went to school among Jewish boys—is a precious and vital constituent of British life. I sincerely believe that we must make every possible effort to allay their fears.

In working on this amendment, I have become more aware than ever that there are different voices and practices, even among the ultra-Orthodox communities. I do not pretend to speak for all of them, but those I have met with have given me assurances. For example, they have no problem with the institutions that their boys attend being in scope for safeguarding oversight and inspection. I am assured that the theology of these groups means that those who study their faith at a yeshiva are not being radicalised and are not drawn to political extremism. Indeed, the very opposite is true: they are members of a deeply law-abiding community. Many who come through this combination of home schooling and religious instruction emerge as excellent citizens, well equipped to flourish in British society and to become entrepreneurs, business leaders and assets to our community.

I am grateful for the conversations that I and noble colleagues, including the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—it is good to see him looking fully recovered after his surgery before Christmas—have had with civil servants and Ministers since Committee. That has significantly cleared the ground and resolved a number of issues along the way. These conversations have explored considerable detail. Some were about when exactly boys are expected to attend a yeshiva, during what would otherwise be normal Monday to Friday school hours. Others were about what precisely an institution that comes under the regime set out in the Bill will be required to include in its teaching and work. I am grateful for the assurances we have received that there is no intention to require such bodies, which are not equipped for it, to comply with the national curriculum.

Some of the groups I have met or corresponded with are concerned that, if a carve-out is not in the Bill, there are risks that secondary legislation will not provide sufficient assurance. They fear that a future Secretary of State would be free to make regulations that would, in effect, outlaw their way of life. I have listened carefully to those concerns; I understand their fears—my amendment would allay them.

However, it is the very complexity of the issues that has led me to conclude that these matters may be better dealt with through a period of careful consultation with those affected, prior to regulations being laid. To that extent, I have several questions for the Minister—I sent them to her yesterday—that I hope she will be able to answer in responding to this debate. Subject to that, I expect to be able to withdraw my amendment, as I have come to think that getting the regulation right on these matters of detail may be the better way.

First, can she assure the House that there will be ample time for consultation ahead of any regulations being issued, and that the groups referred to in the equality impact statement—of whom I have spoken this evening—will be engaged with, listened to and heard?

Secondly, can she affirm that the Bill does not require the same regulations to be applied to all institutions that fall under its remit? What may be appropriate for an acting college might be very different for a yeshiva. If that is correct, can the Minister assure us that the avenue of bespoke arrangements for particular classes of institution will be fully and openly considered and explored?

Thirdly, can she confirm that regulations should be based more on the whole lifestyle of the children involved, rather than being narrowly focused on particular times of day and days of the week? These divisions do not always carry the same status in some of our minority communities. The boys I am speaking of are not allowed on social media or on the kind of devices that while away the time of many of our teenagers.

Finally, will she agree with me that due attention must be given in any regulations to the teachings of faith communities regarding sensitive matters, such as relationships and sex education, so that young people are equipped to live in a pluralist society, without being told that their faiths and beliefs are wrong or somehow not British? I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Hale (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 175A. The Government and the Secretary of State for Education in particular have rightly been vocal in confronting antisemitism in education, but that commitment must extend beyond condemning violence or bans towards Jews. The Government cannot condemn violence and bans against Jewish people and then ban or close down their faith institutions.

The Government make no secret of the fact that Clause 37 consciously seeks to close down or entirely alter yeshivas. In their analysis of the Bill since its launch, the only faith community they ever mention is the strictly Orthodox Jewish one. The Bill leaves no lawful space for long-established religious institutions, which provide only religious instruction and operate alongside registered home education.

Yeshivas are safe and safeguarded institutions. They are not schools. They do not provide academic education and cannot be turned into schools without destroying their religious purpose. They exist to inculcate a lived faith. That some noble Lords may raise an eyebrow at that purpose says more about the distance of our own society from faith traditions than about the yeshivas themselves.

Alongside attending yeshivas, these boys are home-schooled. That home education is serious and improving. I have seen their new communal platforms personally, and they are now in active use.

The amendment before the House is narrow and proportionate. It ensures the continued safeguarding of yeshivas; requires registered home education, regulated, of course, by the local authority; and prevents the misclassification of religious institutions. In short, it allows the Government to achieve their aims of maintaining child welfare and education while recognising the lawful set-up of the Haredi Jewish community.

Report is the final opportunity to correct this in primary legislation. To use biblical imagery, the Government’s heart and lips must be aligned. The Haredi Jewish community and its yeshivas must continue to flourish, their children safe and home-schooled. The amendment is the only way that this can happen.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak against Amendment 175A. It is tabled in the same way as it was in Committee, but I accept that it was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford rather than the right reverend Prelate Bishop of Manchester who spoke to it on that occasion. I do not want to rehearse all those arguments again. It was a good debate, so I will perhaps sum them up and express a few further points.

The Bill is not trying to abolish yeshivas; that is not the intent of the legislation. I join both speakers so far in saying that I cherish and welcome the fact that we are a country that values education for all children and allows people of all faiths to reflect that faith in their own education. I have, sometimes at my own political expense, defended the state system, which has Roman Catholic schools, Church of England schools and many other schools. Politically, there are many people who think that we ought to not have faith schools at all. I have always defended them, because that is an important tenet of a free society, and I value the contribution they make to our lives.

I feel the same about people of any faith. This is not about the Orthodox Jewish faith. The amendment could be used by people of any faith to start a school and have 10 hours a day of religious instruction and home education in the evening. That point is very clear.

However, I am opposed to the way some faiths are organising their education at the moment. Without rehearsing the arguments, it comes down quite simply to this: if a child, maybe under 11, is in a yeshiva or any other school—but the yeshiva has been the one that has been mentioned—from 8 am to 6 pm, I do not believe that they can be home educated effectively in the evening. I do not think that is what we are about. If we take faith out of that and think of the needs of the child, we cherish our differences, but we are only a cohesive society if we cherish the things that we hold together.

One of the “samenesses” of our society is that we believe in the right of a child to have a broad and balanced education. I do not see how, in this structure, with yeshiva from 8 am to 6 pm and only religious education, sometimes not in the English language, then home education from 6 pm onwards, we are delivering that to those children. It is as simple as that. I have met people who have been educated in the yeshiva movement. They would not describe it as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester described it. It is the same as any other school. There are people who like it, people who do not like it, people who say it has served them well, people who it has not served well. It is as simple as that. Let us not go down this line because we think it is one form of education that everybody cherishes and wants to preserve. There is as much of a difference of opinion in this as there is in anything else.