Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord O'Donnell Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Donnell (CB)]

My Lords, this is a really important occasion for the House of Lords, and for the world to see that the House cares about children’s well-being. We have such great speakers in this debate. We have had some brilliant introductions but, in my experience, policies fail when you are not clear about the outcomes. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton, nodding—she was very clear on outcomes. The noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, asked what problem the Bill is trying to face. We heard a number of former Secretaries of State, across all parties, talk about the improvements we have had. We have had significant improvement in exam results. What is the area that we have failed in? What is our problem? The same evidence base—PISA—shows that our well-being results for children are abysmal; we are bottom of Europe. That is the problem we are trying to solve—let us be clear that it is all about children’s well-being.

If this were the children’s maths Bill, we would have a number of ideas about how we improve maths teaching and all the rest of it. Then we would have national testing to see who had done it and who had not. That is the doughnut: a brilliant Bill, wonderful on the outside, but with a very large hole in the middle—which is that there is no national testing, so we will not know what works. Noble Lords have great ideas; some may work and some will not—I am not an educational expert. I have been looking at all the material for quite a long time, and my charity—I declare an interest as honorary president—has looked at the impact of various things. It is mentioned in the impact statement for this Bill, so it is doing some relevant stuff. Basically, we need raw data and a national programme.

The Bill provides a real opportunity to embed physical activity at the heart of school life by introducing statutory measures. If we do, we can inspire the next generation to be more resilient and thrive mentally, socially and physically. If we do not, we are guilty of failing to grasp an opportunity to change young lives by giving them the resilience that comes from being physically and mentally strong. I look forward to discussing this further in Committee.