Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust and a trustee of the Knowledge Schools Foundation Trust. It is a great privilege to follow the excellent maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and my noble friend Lord Biggar.

The education reforms that the Government are seeking to reverse in the second part of this Bill have been a great success. It has been a natural experiment, because education is a devolved area of policy. The way to measure the success of the educational reforms, dating back at least to 2000 and beyond, is to compare the performance of schools in England, where the reforms have been embedded, with those of Scotland and Wales, where they have not. I will not repeat the PISA data that has been cited by numerous people on this side of the House, but it shows very clearly that the education reforms embedded in the English state school system have been a success.

Given how successful they have been, I am astonished that the party opposite, and indeed the Lib Dems, do not want to share some credit for it. As several noble Lords have pointed out, the education reforms that began with the creation of city technology colleges by my noble friend Lord Baker, as created by the Education Reform Act 1988, were continued by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which created city academies, and built on by the Academies Act of the coalition Government, as my noble friend Lord Hill pointed out.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said earlier that he hoped all sides could work together in this House. But that is precisely what has been happening for the last 37 years, and it is his party that has decided to abandon this cross-party consensus, not mine. The part of the education reform programme I care most about is free schools, having helped to set up four of them. In a nakedly ideological act, the Government have pulled the plug on the programme, in spite of its success. The English secondary school where children make the most progress is the Michaela Community School, a free school. The sixth form that gets the best A-level results in the country is not Winchester or Eton but a free school, King’s Maths School, where the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is the chair of governors. The secondary school I helped to set up, the West London Free School, was named last year by the Sunday Times as the best comprehensive in London.

I note that my noble friend Lord Harris, who has done more to transform the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds than anyone else I can think of, says his trust’s funding for 2025-26 has increased by only 1.3%, which will not cover the pay award of 2.8% that the Government has agreed with the teaching unions. Incidentally, the teaching unions have said that they want more. They are not satisfied with that and are threatening industrial action if they do not get more, even though it was agreed. I hope the noble Baronesses, Lady Bousted and Lady Blower, will urge their former colleagues to show some restraint. I want to tell my noble friend Lord Harris that, in the case of my trust, our funding has gone up by only 1.1%, not 1.3%, and the CEO of my trust tells me that the only way it will be able to remain solvent in 2025-26 is by making between 8% and 10% of the staff redundant.

It is not just our academy chains that are in this predicament. A survey by Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash published last week in Schools Week, found that one-third of primaries and 40% of secondaries in England will be forced to make redundancies in 2025-26 due to funding shortfalls. I regret to say that the staff most at risk of being made redundant across the sector are specialist SEND support staff. So much for this Government wanting to do more for children with SEND, and so much for wanting to find 6,500 more teachers. Incidentally, what became of the £1.7 billion that the Government’s VAT raid on independent schools was supposed to raise for state schools? I hope that the Minister can tell us what has happened to that in her closing remarks.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said earlier that we should remember what has worked and replicate that. This Government should be replicating those reforms—dating back to the 1980s—that have worked, not trying to take us back to the 1970s. For the sake of our children, I urge the Government to be guided by evidence, not ideology.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am in favour of Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. That may surprise my colleagues on the Front Bench—to some extent, it surprises me—but I will speak from personal, recently lived experience.

My son is in year 9 at an academy in London. In the Easter break, he moved from one academy to another, so we had to have a complete change of uniform in that period. It was interesting to compare the two schools, because one required considerably more for its badged uniform than the other. The school he originally attended needed a jersey, a blazer, a tie, two PE shirts, two pairs of PE shorts, a house t-shirt, two pairs of monogrammed sports socks, a rugby shirt and a football shirt. The school he has moved to requires just a jersey, a blazer, a tie, one PE shirt, one pair of PE shorts, a rugby shirt and a football shirt.

I accept the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, made on her amendment—which was originally brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—about encouraging young people to be as active as they can in sport. Being active in school may, on many occasions, lead to being active in clubs and societies outwith school; that is self-evident. However, I do not believe that having the school badge on what they wear really makes any difference. I am therefore not in favour of necessitating sports gear being badged.

If boys and girls represent their school, when they play against another school they clearly need to have a jersey with the school badge on it and with proper school colours. But if they are just playing rugby and football, they can do what I did at school: there was a blue top and a white top, which were interchangeable depending on what team you were in that week in preparation for matches at the weekend, and then you got the school top for the actual match on Saturday. Unless you are actually representing the school, you do not need anything with the school’s name on the breast—that would be unnecessary. I do not believe that that will disincentivise people getting involved in sport. PE is compulsory anyway, and it is very much the job of PE teachers and parents to encourage children to be physically active; whether they are wearing a red or a blue top with the school badge on it will not really make much difference.

I take issue with one point that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, made. He said that a blazer can last the whole of a child’s career. I take it that he is not including both primary and secondary schools. Even in secondary school, there are five years between year 7 and year 11. My son turned 14 last month and he is five inches taller than he was this time last year, so the blazer he wore then certainly would not go anywhere near meeting his needs now. It is not impossible, but it would be unusual for a child not to gain much height or girth between joining and leaving a school. I think that most children will probably require three blazers for those five years.

That brings me to another other point about blazers. I am not convinced by the idea that just buying a blazer from a supermarket, and then getting a badge sewn on it, is of any great benefit in tackling the problem of less well-off parents facing the burden of the costs of sending a child—or, in most cases, children—to school. These blazers are not of such good quality. It is well known that blazers bought in a supermarket will not be the same quality as those purchased in bulk by a supplier for a school, which can therefore sell them at a reasonable price because they are bought in bulk.

Incidentally, I checked up on that in relation to my own son. The blazer that we had to buy for him two months ago cost £34; on Amazon, the alternative without a badge was £31. So there was very little difference in price, but the difference in quality—in terms of having to replace the uniform—is important. While I very much support what the Government are trying to do here, I believe that five items, as well as a tie, is perfectly reasonable. This should be given further consideration by my noble friend the Minister and her colleagues in government.

Finally, I am very much committed to children wearing a school uniform. At the moment, we see many children from other countries in and around Parliament, who are clearly on school visits, not wearing school uniforms. In many countries, having a school uniform is unknown. That is unfortunate, because there is undoubtedly the issue of peer pressure, which, incidentally, is not dealt with by some uniform swap system. In many cases, a child wearing a recycled uniform will probably have it pointed out to them by—let us say—not too well-meaning friends, and it may well be obvious. If a child does not wear a uniform, other kinds of peer pressure very much exist, as the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, said in his introduction. That is why uniform is so important.

A uniform school uniform, as opposed to various brands of uniform, is worth having and retaining for a school’s identity, while at the same time not being overdemanding on parents. As I said, I speak from my own recent experience, which, to some extent, surprised me; I thought that all schools had more or less the same requirements, but they do not. However, requiring just three items, as well as a tie, risks parents buying items that are not exactly the same colour or style as that worn by the boy or girl sitting next to their child in class. For that reason, Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is worthy of support.

Amendment 202, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, covers school uniform swaps. In theory, that is a good idea, but it could exacerbate the problems of peer pressure rather than overcoming them.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust. Before I speak to my amendment, I offer my support to all the uniform amendments proposed so far by noble Lords. Schools need a bit more flexibility around uniforms than is allowed for by the Bill.

My amendment, much like Amendments 195A and 199ZA, would caveat the ban on schools being allowed to mandate three items of a branded uniform, excluding branded items that have been provided or lent to pupils free of charge. Why? One reason, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Sater, is that some schools have sport kit sponsors which provide more than three branded items free of charge.

The more important reason is that this prohibition would throw up an obstacle to the expansion of the Combined Cadet Force programme in state schools, which the Government have said they are in favour of. My reading of Clause 29 is that the prohibition would apply to CCF troops, because it says:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)”—


the limit on the number of branded items a pupil is required to have—

“a pupil is required to have a branded item of school uniform for use during a … year if the pupil is required to have it … to participate in any lesson, club, activity or event facilitated by the school during that year”.

A school-based combined cadet force would be an activity facilitated by the school.

I was surprised to see this clause appear as written, because an article in the UK Defence Journal published on 29 May 2025 began:

“The Ministry of Defence has welcomed the findings of a recent academic study highlighting the positive impact of school-based Cadet Forces, and confirmed plans to expand Combined Cadet Forces (CCFs) in state schools as part of a broader effort to improve youth development and opportunity”.


When responding to a Parliamentary Question, from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, on 28 May, shortly after this report was published, the Minister of State for Defence, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, affirmed the Government’s support for the report’s recommendation that school-based cadet forces be expanded:

“We very much welcome the excellent research by the University of Northampton on the impact and value of school-based Cadet Forces in the UK, a study commissioned by the Ministry of Defence”.


He went on to describe the report as

“compelling reading for anyone interested in the development of young people”,

noting that it contained

“many useful insights … for school leaders to help support their efforts to seek wider opportunities for all their pupils”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I have listened with interest to what the noble Lord said, as I always do. I prefer the politics of his father, the author of the 1945 Labour manifesto, rather more than his own, but that is something else.

The point he is making about the Combined Cadet Force is interesting. Earlier, I mentioned my son; he is in the air cadets, not associated with a school. The Combined Cadet Force should be available in schools, but it would not be compulsory. It would surely be something that boys or girls would opt in to. Only in a situation where the school made it mandatory that all children join the Combined Cadet Force would the argument he is advancing have any weight.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

As I read it, the clause does not just limit the prohibition to items mandated by the school for every pupil. If those are mandatory for an activity facilitated by the school, I believe this prohibition would still apply. That is my reading of the clause, but perhaps the Minister will correct me on that point when she responds.

To sum up, I welcome the Government’s intention here, which is to avoid schools placing excessive financial burdens on low-income families, but making an exception for items given or lent to pupils would not impose any additional burdens on those families, so I cannot see how the Government could possibly oppose my amendment or the other similar amendments hoping to achieve the same purpose.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled two amendments in this group. The first, Amendment 202, follows on in a complementary manner to the amendment moved so excellently by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, because it addresses the cost issue of uniforms by asking for the mandating of second-hand uniforms in schools.

I am sure the Minister will say that there is already statutory guidance encouraging schools to provide secondary sales of school uniforms, but her own department did a survey in 2023 and found that some 65% of parents said that their schools provided second-hand sales. That is a significant minority of schools that are not providing it.

It has been estimated that more than 1.4 million quality items of school uniform are lost every year, which is a loss to parents in savings, a cost to us all when local authorities have to deal with the disposal of those uniforms and a cost to the environment in dealing with the plastics and the carbon that comes from disposing of those garments.

In this amendment, I call for the mandating of schools to provide second-hand uniforms. If the Minister is not able to agree to that at the end of noble Lords’ remarks, I hope that in the refresh of the upcoming sustainability and climate change strategy she might think about the issue of uniforms, which was not in the previous strategy. Clearly, looking at the affordability of uniforms and sustainability could a be a win-win for parents and for the environment.

My second amendment, Amendment 202A, deals with a slightly different issue: the health impacts of school clothing on young people and the inclusion of forever chemicals, PFAS, in much of the clothing that young people are wearing. They are called forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment. There is now emerging evidence of significant negative health impacts in terms of cancer, impacts on fertility and, crucially for young people, neuro development. These PFAS are mainly picked up by people through the skin. For young people, this is a really important issue.

PFAS are added by the manufacturers to give a stain-resilient quality or make clothes ironing-free. But these stain-resistant surfaces do not last—they will be kept on an item of clothing for a maximum of 10 to 20 washes before they are washed away—so there is a limited benefit for a long-term potential health impact on our young people. For this reason, both France and Denmark have got rid of PFAS in clothing. My amendment would insist that the Government stop allowing PFAS to be used in school clothing because of the impact on the welfare of our children.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Acton]

502M: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to keep schools open for in person attendance(1) So far as reasonably possible, public authorities must ensure that, during the period of any civil emergency, schools are kept open for in person attendance by children and young people.(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision about how public authorities should discharge the duty under subsection (1), including provision specifying—(a) steps that a public authority may or must take to comply with the duty, and(b) actions that a public authority is prohibited from taking.(3) Regulations made under subsection (2) must be made by statutory instrument.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.(5) A power to make regulations under this section includes the power to make—(a) consequential, incidental, supplementary, transitional or saving provision;(b) different provision for different purposes.(6) A public authority must not, in response to a civil emergency, take or facilitate any action (including making regulations, issuing directions, issuing orders, giving guidance, or making recommendations) that—(a) results in, or encourages, the closure of schools, or(b) otherwise prevents or restricts lawful attendance at such institutions or premises by children and young people,unless the requirements of subsection (7) are met.(7) Before taking any action of the kind described in subsection (6), the public authority must first, unless the urgency of the civil emergency precludes this—(a) request the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people who will be affected by the action,(b) provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for the proposed action, and(c) have due regard to the Children’s Commissioner’s advice in determining whether to proceed with the action.(8) If any action of the kind described in subsection (6) is taken prior to seeking the advice of the Children’s Commissioner due to urgency—(a) as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 7 days of taking the action, the public authority must provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for that action;(b) the Children’s Commissioner must then promptly, and in any event within 14 days of the action having been taken, provide the public authority with its advice in relation to the impact of that action on children and young people;(c) the public authority, having due regard to the Commissioner’s advice, shall determine whether the action continues to be justified or whether it should be revoked.(9) If action of the kind described in subsection (6) continues beyond 14 days, and in relation to each such period of 14 days thereafter, the Secretary of State must—(a) lay before Parliament a copy of the Children’s Commissioner’s advice, and (b) seek approval from the House of Commons for the continuation of the action.(10) If the House of Commons does not approve continuation under subsection (9)(b) within 14 days of the advice of the Children’s Commissioner being laid before Parliament under subsection 9(a), the relevant action automatically lapses, and any measures (including regulations, directions, orders, guidance, or recommendations made in support of or continuance of the relevant action) become legally void.(11) Where under any of the above provisions the advice of the Children’s Commissioner is sought, the Children’s Commissioner shall set out in writing his or her advice on the following matters—(a) the foreseeable impacts of any closures of schools on the affected children and young people,(b) any reasonable actions that could be taken to mitigate those impacts,(c) whether the anticipated benefits for those children of the closures identified by the public authority appear to him or her to outweigh the foreseeable impacts of closures for those children, and(d) any other matters which appear to him or her to be relevant.(12) The Children’s Commissioner is entitled to require the public authority or the Secretary of State to provide such further information, assistance, and resources as he or she considers necessary in order to set out his or her advice on a particular action and the public authority or the Secretary of State, as the case may be, shall provide such information, assistance or resources as soon as reasonably practicable.(13) For the purposes of this section—“children” means persons under the age of 18;“civil emergency” shall include any emergency situation which could constitute an emergency for the purposes of section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 or which has otherwise been identified as a risk in the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment. For the avoidance of doubt an emergency need not be the subject of measures taken under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to be a civil emergency for the purposes of this Act.“closure” in relation to schools, means any action to discourage, restrict or prevent in person attendance at those institutions or premises by children and young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend, or any sub-group or class of such children or young people;“open for in person attendance” in relation to schools, means being open for the attendance by all of the children who would ordinarily, and but for the occurrence of a civil emergency, be entitled to attend those institutions or premises, during their normal hours of operation;“open for in person attendance” does not include the provision of online learning or other remote learning services nor the keeping of such institutions or premises open for physical attendance only for a sub-group or class of those children or young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend;“public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998” save that a court or tribunal is not included for these purposes.”Member's explanatory statement
The purpose of the amendment is to enact a statutory duty to keep schools open for in person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves, and continues every two weeks to approve, any closures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 502M would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves any closures and continues to approve them every two weeks.

We await the conclusions of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, but it is now widely accepted that it was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic. The evidence that it had a catastrophic impact on children is overwhelming. I am thinking of the research published by Ofsted in April 2022, when my noble friend Lady Spielman was at its head, which was based on inspection evidence that highlighted delays in children’s speech and language progress and a negative impact on children’s personal, social and emotional development. I am thinking of research published by the IFS, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Social Mobility Commission detailing the persistent and highly damaging impacts of school closures, exacerbating inequalities and reversing progress previously made to narrow the attainment gap.

I am thinking of the work done by the Centre for Social Justice showing that some children who were told to stay at home during the pandemic never reacquired the habit of attending school, with severe absences—defined as missing at least 50% of lessons—tripling compared to pre-pandemic levels. In the summer term of 2024, 172,938 English schoolchildren were severely absent. Incredibly, the number of persistently absent children—defined as missing at least 10% of lessons—climbed to 1.6 million last summer.

I am thinking of the data accumulated from children and young people now about the deterioration in children’s mental health since the school closures. Some 1.3 million schoolchildren were referred to mental health support services in the school year 2023-24—a 71% increase on the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.

Some will argue that these costs, while undoubtedly high, were outweighed by the benefits in terms of infections averted and lives saved, but children were at negligible risk from Covid-19. According to the ONS, between March 2020 and October 2022 in England and Wales, 88 deaths of children under the age of 18 were registered as being due to Covid-19. That is 0.05% of the total number of Covid deaths in the same period. To put that figure in perspective, between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022, 644 children died from accidents.

In any event, closing schools did not make children less likely to become infected. A study published by the Public Health Agency of Sweden in 2020 found that infection rates were no higher among schoolchildren in Sweden, which closed sixth forms but no other schools, than they were in Finland, which closed all schools.

What about adults? Did closing schools protect them? We are in the realm of counterfactuals here, but if we look at Sweden again, the evidence is that, no, keeping schools open did not mean that more people were at risk of becoming infected and dying from Covid-19. According to the ONS, Sweden’s overall excess mortality between March 2020 and July 2022 was negative —namely, lower than the pre-pandemic average—and far lower than in the UK, where schools were closed. In fact, Sweden’s excess mortality was the lowest of all European countries, except Norway. Incidentally, Norway did close schools, but the Prime Minister at the time apologised for doing so.

The costs of closing schools were almost incalculable and the benefits non-existent. It was a catastrophic error. Nevertheless, this amendment does not rule out ever closing schools again during future public health or civil emergencies. All it does is make it a statutory requirement, before schools are closed, to seek the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people affected by it and to have due regard for the Children’s Commissioner’s advice. It also makes it necessary to secure the approval of Parliament, with such approval needing to be renewed every two weeks if schools are to remain closed.

It was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic and we should take whatever steps we can to avoid making it again. I beg to move.

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend in supporting the amendment, which is in his name and mine. I am conscious of the hour, so I shall be brief in endorsing the point that my noble friend made. This is a modest amendment in that it seeks only to place a duty on Ministers to do something that we surely would all wish them to do anyway. It is crucial because it seeks to make the huge error of closing schools during the Covid pandemic far less likely to be repeated.

Many of us thought, at the time, that it was a mistake to engage in protracted school closures and that it would be immensely damaging. The excellent work of UsForThem, run by the splendid Molly Kingsley, helped to highlight the problems that were going to be caused. These harms were always going to be significant, but the evidence since the end of the Covid restrictions, as my noble friend pointed out, suggests that our fears five years ago were actually a gross underestimate of the damage that would be done to children and young people.

The repeated lockdowns and school closures constituted, in my view, the biggest public policy disaster in modern history. The fact that the interests of children and young people were treated so lightly is a disgrace. The damage to mental health, to education and to levels of school attendance have all been, and continue to be, profound. The lessons from Sweden, Florida and those few places around the world that took a more measured and intelligent approach is proof that many of our restrictions delivered little if any benefit while doing immense damage.

This amendment would ensure that, should there be pressure to repeat school closures in a future emergency, the government response would have to be transparent and that the criteria used to decide on school closure and opening would have to be clear and available to the public and to Parliament. It would ensure that Parliament would have a role in making those decisions in a way that Parliament was denied during the Covid period. I urge the Government and the Committee to accept it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Brady for an excellent speech in support of Amendment 502M, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Barran for their words of support.

All I will say in reply to the Minister’s thoughtful response is that yes, of course the Government need to remain flexible in the face of emergencies. However, there need to be safeguards in place, particularly when taking such momentous decisions. The safeguard of requiring the approval of Parliament seems a fairly modest one. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Amendment 502M withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

I come back to where I started. Surely the Government should look, as a start, to keeping our children healthy by looking at what is in the uniforms and what they are made from. I hope the Government consider this seriously.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust, a multi-academy trust that I co-founded, which now has nine schools in it.

When I tabled this amendment in Committee, there was some confusion as to whether the cap on the number of branded items of school uniform proposed in the Bill applied to extracurricular activities. Are mandatory branded items for an activity that is not itself mandatory, such as being in a school sports team, outwith the cap or included in it, even if they have been lent or donated to the school free of charge? The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, believed that they were outwith the cap—and therefore Amendment 117, which would exempt items loaned or gifted to a school, would be unnecessary.

The Department for Education has now published draft statutory guidance on how schools should interpret the uniform clauses in the Bill, making it clear that branded items that are mandatory for extracurricular activities, even if they are provided to children free of charge, are included in the cap. It says:

“All loaned or gifted branded items will be captured within the limit if they are required to be worn. However, schools can continue to lend, give out or make available for sale additional branded items, as long as wearing those items is optional”.


That could not be clearer: if a school insists that children playing for a school team are required to wear a branded item so that their fellow team members can distinguish them from members of the opposing team, for instance, those items are included in the cap, which I remind noble Lords is three items for primary schools and four for secondary schools, including a school tie. That includes items loaned or gifted to the school.

At this point, I acknowledge that the Government have allowed some exceptions to this rule. When I spoke in Committee, I pointed out that the cap would make it impossible for schools to maintain a Combined Cadet Force, even though the uniform for those troops is provided free of charge by the Ministry of Defence.

The draft DfE guidance says:

“The uniform items for scouts or cadet forces are not captured by the limit”.


I am grateful to the Minister for that concession, but why not extend the exemption to all items lent or gifted to a school, given that they will not cost parents or carers anything? I understand why the Government want to reduce the financial burden on parents and carers by limiting the number of items of school uniform they are required to buy—although, in truth, I think that schools can be trusted to manage that themselves, and do manage it themselves, with due regard for the needs of low-income families.

For some reason, the Government believe that this is an area in which state intervention is required, but what possible reason do they have for including loaned or donated items in the cap? The only explanation I can think of is that it is a residue of the hostility to school uniforms that used to be fashionable among the left-wing intelligentsia in the 1960s and 1970s. I thought that this hostility was a thing of the past and that the argument for school uniforms had been comprehensively won. In case the Minister is unfamiliar with this argument, I refer her to the current DfE guidance, published on her department’s website, which eloquently makes the case for school uniforms:

“We strongly encourage schools to have a uniform, as it can play a key role in … promoting the ethos of a school … providing a sense of belonging and identity … setting an appropriate tone for education. By creating a common identity among all pupils regardless of background, a uniform can … act as a social leveller … reduce bullying and peer pressure to wear the latest fashions or other expensive clothes”.


All those arguments apply as much to branded items for team sports and other extra-curricular activities as they do to branded items of school uniform. I hope the Minister will recognise the wisdom of her own department on this matter and, if she does not trust schools to manage these issues fairly themselves, at least remove lent and gifted items from the cap.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and my noble friend Lord Young’s Amendment 117. It is clearly a better solution to have a monetary limit than a number—that just seems obvious. As for gifted items, I could not agree more with my noble friend. Are we really saying that if I manage to secure for my multi-academy trust some free gifted strip from a football club, I have to say to those people, as a charity, “I’m sorry, I know I’m a charity, but the Government have passed a law which requires me to say no, I can’t take your benefit in kind. I’m sorry”? It is potty, because I am clearly going to have at least three other items apart from a tie. It is clearly daft, and I very much look forward to the noble Baroness’s explanation as to why they are so insistent on this point.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Acton]

207: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to keep schools open for in person attendance(1) So far as reasonably possible, public authorities must ensure that, during the period of any civil emergency, schools are kept open for in person attendance by children and young people.(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision about how public authorities should discharge the duty under subsection (1), including provision specifying—(a) steps that a public authority may or must take to comply with the duty, and(b) actions that a public authority is prohibited from taking.(3) Regulations made under subsection (2) must be made by statutory instrument.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.(5) A power to make regulations under this section includes the power to make—(a) consequential, incidental, supplementary, transitional or saving provision;(b) different provision for different purposes.(6) A public authority must not, in response to a civil emergency, take or facilitate any action (including making regulations, issuing directions, issuing orders, giving guidance, or making recommendations) that—(a) results in, or encourages, the closure of schools, or(b) otherwise prevents or restricts lawful attendance at such institutions or premises by children and young people,unless the requirements of subsection (7) are met.(7) Before taking any action of the kind described in subsection (6), the public authority must first, unless the urgency of the civil emergency precludes this—(a) request the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people who will be affected by the action,(b) provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for the proposed action, and(c) have due regard to the Children’s Commissioner’s advice in determining whether to proceed with the action.(8) If any action of the kind described in subsection (6) is taken prior to seeking the advice of the Children’s Commissioner due to urgency—(a) as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within seven days of taking the action, the public authority must provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for that action;(b) the Children’s Commissioner must then promptly, and in any event within 14 days of the action having been taken, provide the public authority with its advice in relation to the impact of that action on children and young people;(c) the public authority, having due regard to the Commissioner’s advice, shall determine whether the action continues to be justified or whether it should be revoked.(9) If action of the kind described in subsection (6) continues beyond 14 days, and in relation to each such period of 14 days thereafter, the Secretary of State must—(a) lay before Parliament a copy of the Children’s Commissioner’s advice, and(b) seek approval from both Houses of Parliament for the continuation of the action.(10) If Parliament does not approve continuation under subsection (9)(b) within 14 days of the advice of the Children’s Commissioner being laid before Parliament under subsection 9(a), the relevant action automatically lapses, and any measures (including regulations, directions, orders, guidance, or recommendations made in support of or continuance of the relevant action) become legally void.(11) Where under any of the above provisions the advice of the Children’s Commissioner is sought, the Children’s Commissioner shall set out in writing his or her advice on the following matters—(a) the foreseeable impacts of any closures of schools on the affected children and young people,(b) any reasonable actions that could be taken to mitigate those impacts,(c) whether the anticipated benefits for those children of the closures identified by the public authority appear to him or her to outweigh the foreseeable impacts of closures for those children, and(d) any other matters which appear to him or her to be relevant.(12) The Children’s Commissioner is entitled to require the public authority or the Secretary of State to provide such further information, assistance, and resources as he or she considers necessary in order to set out his or her advice on a particular action and the public authority or the Secretary of State, as the case may be, shall provide such information, assistance or resources as soon as reasonably practicable.(13) For the purposes of this section—“children” means persons under the age of 18;“civil emergency” shall include any emergency situation which could constitute an emergency for the purposes of section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 or which has otherwise been identified as a risk in the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment. For the avoidance of doubt an emergency need not be the subject of measures taken under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to be a civil emergency for the purposes of this Act;“closure” in relation to schools, means any action to discourage, restrict or prevent in person attendance at those institutions or premises by children and young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend, or any sub-group or class of such children or young people;“open for in person attendance” in relation to schools, means being open for the attendance by all of the children who would ordinarily, and but for the occurrence of a civil emergency, be entitled to attend those institutions or premises, during their normal hours of operation;“open for in person attendance” does not include the provision of online learning or other remote learning services nor the keeping of such institutions or premises open for physical attendance only for a sub-group or class of those children or young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend;“public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 save that a court or tribunal is not included for these purposes.”Member's explanatory statement
The purpose of the amendment is to enact a statutory duty to keep schools open for in person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves, and continues every two weeks to approve, any closures.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust. Amendment 207 would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies for all pupils, not just vulnerable children and children of key workers, unless Parliament expressly approves any closures and continues to do so every two weeks.

We await the conclusion of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which is looking at the Government’s response to the pandemic’s impact on children and young people in module 8. I will come to some of the evidence submitted to the inquiry in due course. I think it is now widely accepted that closing schools during the pandemic for all children, save for a tiny handful, was a mistake. The evidence that it had a catastrophic impact on children is overwhelming.

I am thinking of the research and analysis published by Ofsted in April 2022, when my noble friend Lady Spielman was at its head, based on inspection evidence which highlighted delays in children’s speech and language progress and a negative impact on their personal, social and emotional development. I am thinking of research published by the IFS, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Social Mobility Commission which detailed the persistent and highly damaging impacts of school closures in exacerbating inequalities and reversing progress previously made in narrowing the attainment gap. I am thinking of the irrecoverable learning loss highlighted in a report by the University of Oxford in January 2023.

I am thinking of work done by the Centre for Social Justice which showed that some children who were told to stay at home during the pandemic never reacquired the habit of attending school, with severe absences—defined as missing at least 50% of lessons—tripling compared to pre-pandemic levels. This means that 172,938 English schoolchildren were severely absent in the summer of 2024. Incredibly, the number of persistently absent children—defined as missing at least 10% of lessons—climbed to 1.6 million last summer. I am thinking of the data accumulated by Children & Young People Now about the deterioration in children’s mental health since the school closures, with 1.3 million schoolchildren being referred to mental health support services in the school year 2023-24—a 71% increase on the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.

Some will argue that these costs, while undoubtedly high, were outweighed by the benefits of infections averted and lives saved, but children were at negligible risk from Covid-19. According to the ONS, in England and Wales, between March 2020 and October 2022, 88 deaths were registered as due to Covid-19 for children under the age of 18. That is 0.05% of the total number of Covid deaths in the same period. To put that figure in perspective, between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022, 644 children died from accidents.

In any event, closing schools did not make children any less likely to become infected. A study published by the Public Health Agency of Sweden in 2020 found that infection rates were no higher among schoolchildren in Sweden, which closed sixth forms but no other schools during the pandemic, than they were in Finland, which closed all schools.

What about adults? Did closing schools protect them? We are in the realm of counterfactuals here, but the evidence from Sweden is that no, keeping schools open did not mean that more people were at risk of becoming infected and dying from Covid. According to the ONS, Sweden’s overall excess mortality between March 2020 and July 2022 was negative—lower than the pre-pandemic average and far lower than in the UK, where schools were closed. In fact, Sweden’s excess mortality during the pandemic was the lowest of all European countries save Norway. Incidentally, Norway closed schools, but the Prime Minister at the time later apologised for doing so.

The costs of closing schools were almost incalculable and the benefits non-existent. It was a catastrophic error. Nevertheless, this amendment would not rule out ever closing schools again during future health, public health or civic emergencies. All it would do is make it a statutory requirement, before schools are closed, to seek the advice of the Children’s Commissioner for England on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people affected by it and to have due regard for that advice.

I note that in her evidence to module 8 of the Covid inquiry in the autumn of last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner at the time, said that keeping schools closed while other areas of society were open during the pandemic was “a terrible mistake”. She described the Government’s approach as showing an

“apparent lack of any serious recognition of the short-term and long-term harmful effects”

of school closures, particularly on disadvantaged pupils.

In addition, this amendment would make it necessary to secure the approval of Parliament if schools were to remain closed, with such approval needing to be renewed every two weeks. That would address one of the problems that Gavin Williamson, a former Education Secretary, raised in his evidence to the Covid inquiry last autumn—namely, that the decision to close schools in January 2021 was rushed and ill-thought-out. If, in future, Secretaries of State made similar mistakes, Parliament could correct those mistakes within two weeks.

Noble Lords may be inclined to forgive the various bodies involved in the decision to close schools during the pandemic because they had limited information about the risks that Covid-19 posed, and posed to children in particular. I am not so inclined. I believe we did know enough at the time about the negligible risk that coronavirus posed to children, and the authorities involved in the decision to close schools were given ample warning about the terrible harm that closing schools would do to children’s learning, social development and mental health, with a particular impact on disadvantaged children. Whatever our view of that mistake, I think we can now agree that it was a mistake. We should take whatever steps we can to avoid making it again. This amendment would be a vital first step. I beg to move.

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Young of Acton, who has made a compelling case. We should be ashamed, as a nation, of the way we allowed schools to close repeatedly and for protracted periods, and the almost casual way in which that was allowed to happen.

As my noble friend has set out, this amendment is hugely important but very moderate, in that it deliberately would not preclude the possibility of closing schools should it be deemed necessary but would require some process and mechanisms to be put in place that would require consultation and thought to be given. Should the closures be continued for more than a very short period, it would then require parliamentary approval to be given. My noble friend made a compelling case, so I do not need to speak for long.

I just make the final point that it is self-evident that the substance behind this amendment is more important than any of the other issues relating to schools that we have debated and deliberated upon—because none of those matters at all if schools are closed and children are not receiving an education or the social benefits of their time in school and all the other effects that my noble friend has enumerated.

I suspect that my noble friend will not be testing the will of the House on this so I really hope that the Minister, in responding, will give reassurance about the seriousness with which this is taken and that even without this as a statutory requirement, the Government will seek to observe that kind of process and ensure both proper consultation and parliamentary approval if these actions were ever to be contemplated again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I apologise, but my assumption was that all the departments working together would keep Parliament informed of the decision. However, I do not think we can pre-empt at this time how quickly decisions will need to be made. We just need to make sure that we do not create serious disadvantage by putting in legislation something that might undermine our ability to respond at pace and appropriately in circumstances that we perhaps cannot envisage now. With that, I hope that the noble Lord feels reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response, and I thank my noble friends Lord Brady and Lady Spielman for cosponsoring this amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for her excellent contribution.

I will make just one point in response to some of the points raised. It is important to learn one lesson from our response to the pandemic. That lesson is that we are pretty poor at learning lessons from previous pandemics. We had a pandemic preparedness strategy, and we prided ourselves on being better prepared for a pandemic than almost every other country. That pandemic preparedness strategy was based on the findings of public inquiries into previous pandemics and epidemics, and it was junked within two weeks in the febrile, panicky atmosphere and the heat of politics. The compelling desire to be seen to be doing something overrode the lessons we had supposedly learned from previous pandemics and epidemics. Sweden, on the other hand, which broadly speaking followed our pandemic preparedness strategy, did far better.

I am a little reassured by the words of the Minister about responding in a more intelligent, systematic, thoughtful way next time, but once the conclusions of the Covid-19 inquiry have been published, the Government need to give some thought to how those will be conveyed and how they will be meaningfully observed by a future Government, in the absence of legislating and giving Parliament the kind of role it should have before critical decisions affecting the most vulnerable people in our society are made. With that, I will of course withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 207 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, my Amendment 243 deals with climate mitigation and adaptation. It would make statutory existing government guidance that new school buildings must be both net zero in operation and adapted to 2 degrees of warming, and would require the Government to produce a safe and resilient schools plan, laying out how existing school buildings would meet these targets.

One issue is that the Government do not seem to know the scale of the problem—for instance, the department does not hold information about the amount of lost learning time due to flooding. We have done a bit of research on the impact of extreme weather recently. Storm Chandra in late January caused 80 schools to close or partially close in Devon, Dorset and Somerset. Over 400 schools closed in Northern Ireland on 27 January due to weather, and Storm Goretti caused at least 278 schools in northern Scotland to close. That adds up to hundreds of lost school days across the UK. Of course we expect some of this—we cannot get around the snow—but my point is that weather events are increasing, and we could risk losing a lot of learning days, not to mention the soggy books and school equipment that are left behind.

The UK has no statutory reporting system, and what data exists is only at the local authority level; it is primarily for parents, not for anything strategic. Can the Minister commit that the department will start to track this centrally so that we have some kind of usable data?

The wider issue is that we lack a plan for how to deal with what is coming down the road. Everyone knows that climate change is getting worse, and we need a climate adaptation plan for schools. It needs to come from central government, otherwise we risk creating a multitiered system, where some schools do better and some do not. Probably, almost inevitably, it will be the poorest schools that end up being closed when there is a bad flooding event.

We have a template to follow; a few years ago, the Mayor of London commissioned a report which tailored plans for 60 schools. Many of the solutions were very simple, such as flood doors, shading and ventilation windows, which could be deployed widely and cheaply. The London report found that 93% of schools in the capital reported overheating as an issue, 78% said that it had a significant impact on learning and 43% experienced it multiple times or continuously through the summer term. Yes, London is relatively dry or hot and there will be different issues, largely flooding, in areas like the West Country. But the climate science shows that we are getting hotter summers and wetter winters, and that will only increase.

I know that there will be costs but, as with all things connected to our changing weather system, it is much cheaper to act now than later. As a starting point, will the Minister consider asking schools about this as part of annual surveys, and commit that the department will assess any plans that schools have made and issue general overall guidance on what to do? On the basis of these bits of information, I suspect that it will become abundantly clear that what we need is a Department for Education led safe and resilient schools plan.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 243A, I declare my interests as the director of the Free Speech Union and a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust.

The amendment would stop safeguarding policies and procedures in schools being misused for political purposes, a prime example being the recent cancellation of a talk by the Labour MP Damien Egan at a secondary school in his Bristol constituency, on the grounds that allowing a vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel to speak posed a safeguarding risk to children. The Bristol branch of the National Education Union said on its Facebook page, after Mr Egan was no-platformed:

“We celebrate this cancellation as a win for safeguarding”.


In another Facebook post, the Bristol branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign also described Mr Egan’s ban as a win for safeguarding.

At the Free Speech Union, we have come across numerous examples of school safeguarding policies being weaponised by political activists to silence their opponents, whether visiting speakers or members of staff. For instance, the Free Speech Union recently took on the case of a teacher in Henley who was referred to the local authority designated officer—LADO, the official in charge of investigating safeguarding concerns—because he showed his A-level politics class some Trump campaign videos from the 2024 presidential election. The teacher was accused of causing his A-level students, aged 17 and 18, “emotional harm”. In one document, local officials in charge of child protection suggested that the showing of the Trump campaign videos could amount to a “hate crime”. Incidentally, he also showed the students in his A-level politics class some of Kamala Harris’s campaign videos, but those did not raise any safeguarding concerns.

In another Free Speech Union case, a teacher at a primary school in Tower Hamlets was sacked and referred to his local child protection board after telling off some Muslim boys for washing their feet in the sinks in the boys’ lavatories. I could go on.

Safeguarding policies and procedures were put in place to protect children from abusive parents and sexual predators, yet the weaponisation of these policies by political activists risks local authority designated officers and local safeguarding boards not taking genuine concerns seriously. That in turn endangers children’s safety. It is hard to think of a more cynical form of political activism—but, of course it has the desired effect. What MP who is sympathetic to Israel in its war with Hamas will risk arranging a visit to a school in his or her constituency knowing, ahead of time, that they could end up being no-platformed and branded a safeguarding risk to children?

Amendment 243A would put a stop to this mischief. It says:

“When making safeguarding assessments or investigating safeguarding complaints in relation to teachers, visitors or volunteers in schools and other educational settings, no account may be taken of the political views expressed or presented by the subject of that safeguarding assessment or complaint, provided those views are not … unworthy of respect in a democratic society … in conflict with the fundamental rights of others, or … affiliated with any political party, group or organisation which is proscribed for the purposes of the Terrorism Act 2000”.


We urgently need to stop this cynical weaponisation of policies and procedures that were put in place to protect children from predators and abusers, not unfashionable political opinions.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to signal my support for Amendment 243E, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I added my name in Committee, and I am very sorry that, sadly, I missed the deadline for adding it on Report. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, set out very clearly the purpose of this amendment and I do not want to repeat that. I just think it is very telling indeed that three times as many people apply for apprenticeships than the numbers who obtain them, and that is just because the places are not available. Just think how different that is from the university route, where nearly all applicants find a place. For me, it is fundamentally an issue of equity and parity of treatment for all young people.

We have seen the number of under-19s starting apprenticeships fall by more than a third since the apprenticeship levy was introduced. This amendment, as has been said, has been very carefully recrafted by the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Macpherson, into something which I hope very much goes with the grain of what the Government are trying to achieve. I therefore very much hope that we will hear something positive from the Minister on it.