Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 66, having spoken on the noble Baroness’s Private Member’s Bill. I also gave evidence to the independent inquiry. If I remember correctly, I believe that the Government’s position at that time was that this recommendation from IICSA was under consideration, so I am grateful to see that it is being taken forward, as well as the recommendation for a child protection agency, which is the subject matter of a later amendment.

I wish to make two brief points. First, it is important to remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, that disciplinary processes already exist in some settings, such as large institutions, but many of the organisations outlined in proposed new Schedule 1A are probably more appropriately called out-of-school settings, which are often not even incorporated charities. Even if they are a charity, the only obligations and duties are those of the trustees and they can be stand-alone charities that are not part of any wider network. It is important to put this mandatory reporting obligation on those involved in an increasing number of charities, which do excellent work but sometimes stand in a very vulnerable governance situation.

My second point, which is connected to that, is that there have been previous discussions in your Lordships’ House, I think with the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, on a suggestion that has been floated over the years of some kind of confessional exemption in the context of religious institutions. I think the days when we could nail down which religious institutions those are—maybe some synagogues, a few nonconformist churches and the Catholic Church—are long gone. I hope we can hit this on the head: how can we have any confessional-type exemption if we have such a wide variety of institutions nowadays?

Increasingly within the Christian community, although the Catholic Church is seeing a resurgence, young people are going to independent churches that may not be a member of any network. I do not see how practically that can work nowadays. I would hate for any confusion around that to halt an important amendment that is way overdue.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, when I was a vicar in Tulse Hill in the early 1980s, five young women came to see me. Four had been abused by their fathers. The youngest was eight at the time it happened. Working with them, listening to them, finding help that would restore who they truly were was a very long journey, but I am glad to say that all of them have now taken on professions that I did not think were possible. One of them has had the courage to report her father, who is now doing a quite a long sentence. I come originally from Uganda. I never imagined that a father could abuse an eight year-old girl. I just thought in terms of culture that that was just outrageous, but I listened, and we had to find a way of helping them.

Most abuse of young children happens in the home by family or friends. We need to work hard to make the message quite clear. I am reminded of those wonderful words by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard; noble Lords have heard him speak about the Soham murders. He did an inquiry into the Soham murders. One of his wonderful phrases in that report, which has sustained me in my work dealing with people who have been abused, was that we will never succeed in preventing child sexual abuse, but we can make it very difficult for abusers to do it.

For me, mandatory reporting is an important reality. When I appeared before IICSA, I was asked a question, and I said mandatory reporting must happen, because the only way that we are going to make it difficult for those who want to carry out their heinous crimes is if they know that it will not remain hidden. As most of it is in the home—at least in my experience—we have got to find a message that can remind a perpetrator of that, even though they may be behind closed doors in an apparently loving home where people’s lives have been blighted. I support Amendment 66. I hope the Minister will say something that can capture the imagination of this nation. We must not look at just the big organisations, but at what happens in the home.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for putting this amendment down. We can talk in parliamentary language, but it is when we hear the example that my noble friend Lady Benjamin told us about that we know the appalling effects that child abuse has on children and young people. They often carry that for the rest of their lives, and they carry it in silence. Somebody said, and I think it is absolutely right, that this is about changing the culture, where the responsibility is not to sort of pretend “I’m title-tattling” or “I’m not sure” or “It’s a friend of mine” or “I shouldn’t say this”; if you suspect that child abuse is happening, you have to do something about it.

Recently, we have heard about all the problems that the Church of England has faced, and we have heard various clergy say, “Well, I didn’t think it was that important”, or “I did do so and so”. If we had had this in law, those prominent clergy would have had a responsibility in law to speak out and those abuses over many decades of young people, not at school but in various holiday camps, I understand, would not have taken place.

We think that, by ticking the box on CRB checks, or now on the data-barring service, it is all sorted in schools. It is not. When we come to the schools part of the Bill and look at unregistered schools—particularly, I have to say, religious unregistered schools—it is worth noting that examples have come to light of children who have been abused in unregistered settings. Again, people will say, “I don’t think this has really happened; I’d better not blow the whistle on this”, but it is the case, and various Members of this House know that.

This is a very important amendment. I do not care which Bill it comes in, but we need to make sure that it passes into law.