Register of Home-educated Children

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, many out-of-school settings offer a very valuable service, particularly to those who electively home educate, because they offer services to groups of children that parents alone potentially cannot offer. We have issued that voluntary code of practice. Many of those settings are charities so they have responsibilities to the Charity Commission as regulated bodies. We also have given £3 million to local authorities to examine ways in which they can boost local capacity to intervene when there is a safeguarding issue. Local authorities have a duty to safeguard every child in their area.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with noble Lords who have said that many parents are able to—and indeed do—successfully home educate their children. However, with respect, that is not the issue here. Is it not a scandal that an accurate figure for school-age children not being educated in school is not available? Local authorities are not required to keep a register and they cannot visit children at home against the wishes of the parents. The latest figure, published by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator in February last year, put it at around 60,000. That was before Covid closures, since when thousands of children have failed to return to school. I hear what the Minister says about the consultation but is it not now time for a compulsory register of home-schooled children, maintained by local authorities as a safeguarding measure? If she will not bring forward government legislation, will the Government commit to supporting a Private Member’s Bill such as the one introduced in 2017 by my noble friend Lord Soley?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the register, that is precisely the reason we are committed to a system of registration so that there is an accurate dataset. We have made it clear that if a child has been in school, the head teacher must have a specified reason for removing that child from the roll. In addition to the two groups of children—those on the roll and those who are being electively home educated—it is important to remember that when a head teacher does not have one of the specified grounds, it may relate to a child missing from education, which is a third group. Local authorities have specific, named people who co-ordinate. A lot of children will have dropped off the school roll in one area during Covid and we have a system to make sure that when they, we hope, appear on the school roll in another local authority that data is connected. Let us not forget that third group of particularly vulnerable children—those who are missing from education.