Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children they estimate will be included in the registers proposed under clause 48 of the Schools Bill [HL].

The proposed Children Not In School registers are intended to help with the identification of children being educated otherwise than at school and, in particular, those who are currently children missing education.

At present, there is no accurate picture of how many of these children there are at a local or national level. The introduction of the registers should, however, help to address this.

In the latest Association of Directors of Children's Services annual survey (in 2021), they estimated that approximately 81,000 children across all 152 local authorities in England were electively home-educated on school census day, 7 October 2021. The department would therefore anticipate, at least, similar numbers of children coming within scope of the registers.