Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Soley on presenting this important Bill. It is undoubtedly timely and we are supportive of its aims.

As many noble Lords have said, elective home education is a right established under the Education Act 1996. In what I have no doubt are the clear majority of instances, this decision is right for the children involved and, supported by parents who have an understanding of the educational needs of their children and the ability to ensure that these needs are delivered, it is beneficial to them. In those cases, home schooling is appropriate and can be nurturing and such out-of-school settings do not present cause for concern.

The problem which has to be addressed, though, is that many children who are either never presented to school or subsequently withdrawn do not enjoy such a benign experience. Some parents, of course, are ideologically opposed to formal education and, indeed, to almost all forms of state intervention—intrusion, as they would describe it—in their lives. I endorse their right to hold such views but it is unrealistic and, in some cases, irresponsible to expect that the wishes of a minority of parents should be permitted to override issues of child safety and protection. The rights of parents need to be balanced with the rights of children.

As my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley said, the world as it was in 1996 is substantially different from the world as we know it today and the numbers in home education are now vastly increased, compared to then. To my mind, the issue of most concern is that, as we have heard, nobody knows how many children in England are being home educated. The reason is that there is no obligation on a parent or guardian to inform the local authority covering the area where they live that their child is being home schooled. If a child attends school and is subsequently withdrawn then the schools, including academies, must inform their local authority of that development. The same applies when a child enters the school roll. The reason for a child withdrawing need not be recorded, so it may simply be the case that the family has relocated. A parent or guardian may tell the school that their child is to be home educated; equally, they may not. This means that the information the school passes to their local authority is necessarily incomplete.

There is also evidence that some parents withdraw their children to avoid prosecutions for poor school attendance or their child being excluded. In addition, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, inadequate provision of special educational needs can be the reason. If it is, then that is a serious issue in its own right and must be addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, highlighted the needs of children with dyslexia. For that ever to be a reason for a parent to withdraw their child is surely in contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in relation to education.

We also know that head teachers are increasingly using pupil referral units as a safety valve to get rid of the most difficult children, often just before they take their GCSEs, with a view to improving their league position by getting low-achieving pupils off-rolled, as it is called. That emerged as recently as this week in evidence to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into alternative provision. All too often, parents then withdraw their children from the referral units and say that they are opting for elective home education. Again, nobody can say with any accuracy how often that amounts to doing anything more than keeping them at home, if they are indeed capable of doing even that. As an aside, the nutritional effects on those children qualifying for free school meals can well be imagined in such situations.

The educational status and safety of children should not be allocated to a category marked “Don’t know” by government. Child protection is too important an issue for that to be the case but under existing legislation, it is. I have given the Minister notice of a number of questions. The first that I want to ask is one that almost every noble Lord has raised today: why is no information collected centrally on the numbers of children in England whose parents or guardians claim that they are being educated at home?

Although no record exists of the number of home-educated children, the best estimate is almost certainly the most recent, and that was just last month, when the Association of Directors of Children’s Services issued a survey to all 152 local authorities in England to gain a better understanding of the volume of children and young people known to be home schooled. The survey also aimed to assess the support on offer to them and their families. The survey was responded to by 118 local authorities identifying a total of some 35,000 children and young people known to be home schooled in their localities on school census day, which was 5 October this year. Extrapolating those figures for the country as a whole suggests that at this time around 45,000 children and young people are assumed to be receiving home schooling throughout England, but as my noble friend Lord Soley said, the actual figure, including those children of whom local authorities have no knowledge, must be considerably greater. Thirty-seven per cent of local authorities responding to the ADCS survey reported that they were aware of children in their area whose parents or guardians claimed they were being home educated who were actually attending unregistered schools or so-called tuition centres. Serious concerns about the quality of education on offer and the safety and welfare of attendees were also reported.

In the face of such evidence, it is surely incumbent upon the Department for Education to seek a change in the current legislation or, at the very least, a strengthening of the guidelines. Elective Home Education: Guidelines for Local Authorities is an interesting document, not least because it contains the names of the Minister of State for Schools and Learners, Mr Jim Knight, and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, Andrew Adonis. Whatever became of those august gentlemen, I wonder? The guidelines were issued in 2007, and they still apply unamended, so it is appropriate that Clause 2 calls for the guidance to be updated.

However, as I stated earlier, life today is not as it was 10 years ago. The intervening period has seen the spread of unregistered schools, many of them faith schools. Indeed, four months ago the extent of the problem with such establishments led the head of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, to call for new powers to protect children who are forced to study religious writings full-time in unregistered faith schools. Ms Spielman commented that, since January 2016, Ofsted inspectors had visited numerous establishments they believed should be registered as schools. She said:

“The fact that such places are able to operate, remain unregistered and avoid proper scrutiny leaves pupils at risk”.


I am aware that the Bill does not refer to unregistered schools, but surely it is impossible to separate them from the issue of home education. In total, Ofsted inspectors discovered 286 unregistered schools in England, with around 6,000 young people attending them. In many cases, it was claimed that pupils were being home educated but they were in fact attending those schools each day. Thus the Education Act 1996 is being exploited to enable children to attend those establishments and, for that reason, perhaps this Bill will be amended in Committee to more accurately reflect the extent of the problem.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, referred to Ofsted’s unregistered schools team. On 2 November, in an Answer to a Written Question from the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the Minister stated:

“The Government has had … no specific conversations about unregistered schools with the unregistered schools team. Nor have there been specific conversations between the unregistered schools team and the Children’s Commissioner or Chief Constables”.


In each of these cases, given Ofsted’s estimate of around 6,000 children being educated in unregistered schools, can the Minister explain to noble Lords why the Government reached the conclusion that such conversations are unnecessary? That seems remarkably complacent, given the scale of the problem that has been identified.

The British Association of Social Workers has real concerns over child safeguarding issues. In response to this Bill, the association has said that the vast majority of home-schooled children are cared for by well-meaning, affectionate and passionate parents. However, for the few who abuse their children, home schooling offers the perfect environment to keep that abuse and the children hidden. Surely that should alert the Government to the need for some form of intervention, yet it appears that they remain unconvinced. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in 2015 the Government commissioned Alan Wood to review the role and functions of local safeguarding children boards. His report included the recommendation that Keeping Children Safe in Education—that is the statutory guidance for schools and colleges for safeguarding children—should be reviewed to ensure that it covers child protection and safeguarding issues in respect of unregistered school settings, independent schools and home education. Will the Minister say why in their response to that report the Government made no reference whatever to the recommendation in respect of home education?

Furthering the impression that home education is not an issue to which the Government attach any great urgency is the fact that despite David Cameron, when he was Prime Minister, calling for evidence on proposals for the registration and inspection of out-of-school education settings, the deadline for which passed more than a year ago, the Government still have not published the results of that consultation. Why has such an inordinate delay been allowed to occur? Surely the figures presented to the Minister today demand that these consultations are produced as quickly as possible.

I suggest that the Government are guilty of dithering on an issue that is of growing importance—an issue which my noble friend Lord Soley’s Bill addresses in a meaningful manner. For the avoidance of doubt, we are supportive of elective home education and recognise that often it is a very effective means of developing children who do not respond well to a formal school setting. If those were the only children falling under the heading of elective home education, there would be no problem at all. However, for the reasons that many noble Lords have set out in this debate, that is far from being the case.

The UK is currently one of the least-regulated countries in terms of recording and inspecting home education, which is not a situation that, as legislators, we should regard as acceptable. As my noble friend Lady Morgan said, it is now up to the Minister to reflect, in his response, that this should not be seen as a partisan issue. It represents a serious gap in the protection provided to our children and that is a gap that must be filled. I look forward to working with my noble friend Lord Soley and noble Lords on all sides towards that aim as the Bill moves into Committee.