Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Munira Wilson and Gideon Amos

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I am very pleased that we have proper time for debate today. I record my dismay that our last debate on this Bill was cut so short, when we had so many important amendments to consider. We spent more time walking through the voting Lobby than scrutinising the provisions of law that we are sent here to make.

I want to start by talking about children in care. As we have just heard, their relationships with siblings can be the most important connections they have. Too often, those relationships are being strained or damaged by a system that just does not support them effectively. To that end, I would also like to commend the work of the charities Become and the Family Rights Group, who have sought to keep siblings connected. It is for this reason that I warmly welcome the Government’s acceptance of Lords amendment 17.

The Minister said that it is a travesty that siblings have been separated. I gently say that it was her and her colleagues who made Labour MPs oppose the Lords amendment from my noble Friend Baroness Tyler in the last round of ping-pong. I am glad the Government have had a change of heart, accepted her approach and put forward their amendment in lieu. I congratulate and thank my noble Friend Baroness Tyler of Enfield. She has been championing this issue for many, many years and I recognise her tireless work. I also recognise the tireless work of the hon. Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell), who, as we have just heard, has also been working so hard on this issue.

The amendment addresses a critical oversight in our current regulations, ensuring that the bond between siblings is not severed simply because their care status differs. These relationships are often the only constant in a child’s life. Protecting them provides a vital anchor of stability amid the profound upheaval of new care arrangements.

Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 106 requires headteachers only to “have regard for” guidance on smartphones in schools, rather than mandating the existing guidance. Young people themselves say that they want a break from the stress of social media at school. We all know the impact that our phones have on our concentration and focus. If Ministers and other hon. Members in this House cannot resist the temptation to look at their smartphones during a debate like this, how on earth do they expect a 14-year-old to ignore a TikTok notification in a double science lesson? According to Health Professionals for Safer Screens, a quarter of children’s notifications go off during the day. I am deeply alarmed that our children’s educational attainment should be hindered by an issue that is so simple to solve. I appreciate the Minister’s comments about guidance and asking Ofsted to look at it. After they made the announcement that they would include the issue in Ofsted inspections, I met a group of headteachers from my constituency. They said to me, “This is yet another thing you are piling on to the Ofsted inspection. Please can you ask Ministers to just get on and make this law?”

Where schools have managed to ban phones during the school day, they have seen a real transformation in pupils, going from being glued to screens to chatting and playing Uno at break times. Headteachers report significant reductions in incidents of low-level disruptive behaviour and lower in-school truancy, and children and teachers are reporting being happier in school.

However, many headteachers are still battling to get their schools to that place. Our headteachers need proper support to do right by our children, where they are challenged by parents who want still to be able to reach their children even during the course of the school day, to ensure that children have a healthy and safe education free from distraction.

I ask the Minister, and the Secretary of State if she is listening, to make this guidance statutory. Will the Minister support schools with the tools and funding to manage this transition to ensure that every classroom is a space where children can focus, learn and thrive, smartphone free, unless they have a need for a device for medical reasons, for special educational needs or because they are young carers?

It is a strange irony that the Government demand endless evidence before reining in big tech yet refuse a single review of their branded school uniform policy. By rejecting Lords amendment 41B to review the effectiveness of the Government’s cap on the number of branded school uniform items, as opposed to the Liberal Democrat proposal of a price cap, Ministers are effectively asking the British public to trust that they have exactly the right answer. The amendment is a significant concession on what we have previously proposed. It merely asks for a review of the policy after 12 months. We have a shared goal on both sides of the House to tackle the cost of living for hard-pressed families, but Ministers seem to lack the humility to admit that there is a chance that their policy prescription to bring down the cost of uniforms may be wrong. The Schoolwear Association has said that 61% of its members may increase prices based on the item cap.

The Government were forced to U-turn on winter fuel allowance for pensioners and on welfare reform for those in receipt of benefits. Why will they not accept the offer of an off-ramp to potentially prevent another forced U-turn somewhere down the line? What do they fear about testing their policy in a year’s time, just in case the uniform suppliers hike their prices in response to this policy, as the industry has repeatedly warned and as a basic understanding of market forces would suggest? The Government cite their manifesto as though it were a shield against better Liberal Democrat ideas, but a manifesto commitment is only as good as its delivery. Parents want action that will actually lower their bills. If the Government are so sure they have got it right, they have nothing to fear from a 12-month review.

On the theme of supporting families, I shall speak to Lords amendment 38. I first offer my belated congratulations to the Government on accepting the merits of part of the Liberal Democrat position in their amendment. Having spent a year opposing our efforts to ban big tech from collecting the data of under-16s, it is heartening to see Ministers finally recognise that we can no longer allow social media giants to treat our children’s personal data as a commodity to be harvested for profit. It is also welcome that the Government have moved towards the Liberal Democrat position of age ratings for social media, by accepting that children of different ages will be affected by the online world in different ways. But the Government have still not gone far enough. Their amendment says only that they “may” make provisions to tackle these issues, not that they will.

The Government’s amendment also remains silent on the predatory nature of addictive design. By ignoring the infinite scroll and the psychological triggers engineered to hijack a child’s attention, the Government fail to recognise that this amendment will leave parents, families, children and indeed the Government fighting against big tech with one arm tied behind their back. The recent US court cases against Meta and YouTube confirm what we already knew. Those apps are designed to keep our children hooked.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work on this issue. She is right that age classifications that tackle the social media companies, rather than going after children and their rights, are what matters. Recent research by PISA—the programme for international student assessment—on seven internet activities by 15-year-olds in 47 countries found conclusive evidence that life satisfaction is lower at higher rates of social media use by 15-year-olds. Does that not make acting on this issue now even more urgent?

[Munira Wilson]

I could not agree more. There is a plethora of evidence out there showing that we have to act, and we have to act now. I simply cannot understand why the Government are not committing to doing something soon.

Going back to the US court cases, one document revealed that Meta executives claimed:

“If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”

That is my 11-year-old daughter that Meta is talking about. Another internal memo showed that 11-year-olds were four times more likely to keep coming back to Instagram compared with competing apps, despite the platform requiring users to be at least 13 years old.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Munira Wilson and Gideon Amos

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson]

Absolutely, and I am very sorry to hear about that case. The last Government did not deal with RAAC in our school buildings, and it was as a result of work that my colleagues and I did, along with Labour Members, to expose some of the shocking extent of it that we finally started to get some traction on the issue.

The Liberal Democrat-led coalition administration in Durham county council introduced auto-enrolment for free school meals in September last year. An extra 2,500 children have been signed up, and there has been an extra £3 million in pupil premium funding for the county. Just imagine the impact that that model could have nationally. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to expand free school meals and introduce auto-enrolment.

I was disappointed to see no mention of mental health in a “wellbeing Bill.” This was an opportunity to tackle the mental health crisis that we are seeing among our children, and it is crucial that we do not allow that opportunity to slide away. Given that, on average, six children in every classroom have a mental health condition, the Government could have seized the chance to ensure that every school in the country, whether primary or secondary, has a statutory and fully funded duty to provide a dedicated mental health professional. As the Bill progresses, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I will seek to do just that, and I am sure that we can count on support from across the House.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent and balanced case for protecting children. Many children with mental health problems and autism are educated at home because there is no realistic alternative. Does she agree that the Secretary of State should be encouraged to ensure that the support given to home-educating families under clause 25 includes free access to examinations, which can cost hundreds of pounds? Children are struggling to benefit from a good home education because of the cost. Does my hon. Friend support that idea?

[Munira Wilson]

I am happy to support that. In fact, when the previous Administration introduced the schools Bill, which they then decided to bin, the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords tabled an amendment that did just that, and I am sure that we will seek to do the same this time around to help the families who choose to home-educate.

Although this Bill sets out some important reforms to our schools system, the Liberal Democrats would like to see greater ambition. The attainment gap has widened significantly in recent years, and it is unacceptable that outcomes for less affluent and more vulnerable students are getting worse. We believe that one piece of the puzzle would be a tutoring guarantee for every disadvantaged pupil who needs support. When implemented correctly, tutoring has proved its worth time and again. Seven in 10 parents whose children receive tutoring at school say that it has raised their child’s attainment. We know that it also boosts young people’s confidence, and tutoring can help tackle persistent absence, which is a huge issue in our schools. I hope the Secretary of State agrees that a tutoring guarantee, introduced via this Bill, would be a powerful tool in narrowing the attainment gap and ensuring that every child gets the high-quality education they deserve.

Let me reiterate that this is a Bill that we must get right. Now is not the time to play politics. Now is the time to work to keep our children safe, to give them the chance to flourish. That is our task across this House, and it is the mission that my party will pursue as the Bill progresses.

VAT: Independent Schools

Debate between Munira Wilson and Gideon Amos

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that thousands of children do not have EHCPs? My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) referred to the deluge that would surely come to local authorities in the form of applications for EHCPs. That will be just when, because of the legacy of the Conservative Government, local authorities are on their knees and cannot cope with the level of demand. That will further disadvantage the already most disadvantaged children.

[Munira Wilson]

I think many of us—certainly on this side of the House—would recognise the point my hon. Friend makes, and many have already made it. I suspect that quite a few people on the Government Benches would also recognise that this policy will be a real challenge, because Members from all parts of this House have been turning out in vast numbers at any debate on special educational needs to discuss the major crisis in our state school provision for SEND pupils. The system is broken, and it will have further pressures still.

I come back to the point I was making on partnership working. The sort of exemplary work I was talking about benefits children in the state and independent sectors, and we want to see it become the norm in every part of the country. I fear that it will be one of the first things to suffer when schools are forced to make cutbacks under the Government’s policy. Let us remember that most independent schools are no Eton or Winchester; 40% of them have fewer than 100 pupils. Those small schools, often in rural places, will struggle to absorb this extra cost.