Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee debated school attendance flexibility, home education oversight, the regulation of unregistered alternative provision, and whether yeshivas and other religious settings should be brought within the independent educational institutions framework under Clause 36.
L(Amendment 426B is simple: factory shutdowns often don't coincide with school holidays, particularly in the north, and children should be able to take that time with their parents without attendance penalties. Amendment 499 is self-explanatory — all attendance information should be complete, accurate and consistently available to parents.My Lords, this is a simple amendment. I will preface my remarks by saying that, obviously, it is important that a child is in school as often as possible because when they are not in school, they are not learning. Equally, it is important that they have quality time with their parents. The opportunity to be with their mum, their dad, with both parents, is hugely important, and they learn so much from that opportunity. As a very young teacher in Prescot, I was conscious that three large factories closed down for a period so that the factory workers could have a holiday. It often did not coincide with school holidays. As a school, we were relaxed about that because, again, we thought it important that children should be with their parents. That practice is very limited now. There are not many factories nationwide, but there are some, particularly in the north, that close down for a set period. I hope the amendment is clear that we take cognisance of that in terms of attendance issues. On Amendment 499, there is not much to say; it speaks for itself. It is correct that all the available attendance information should be complete, accurate and consistent, and that it should always be available to parents. I beg to move Amendment 426B.
Every child is entitled to an excellent education, but not every child should receive the same one. The Bill doesn't fully recognise this — particularly for disabled children and those with special educational needs, for whom getting an EHCP is already time-consuming and prohibitively expensive. Amendment 499 asks the Secretary of State to produce a 'support-first' attendance code of practice that understands these particular circumstances and doesn't presume that school is the only place for excellent provision.My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and to give a nod to his amendment. I rise to speak to my Amendment 499 in this group, the purpose of which is incredibly clear: every child is entitled to an excellent education, but that does not mean that every child should receive the same education. The great joy of being born human is that we are born with rich, bright, beautiful diversity from the moment of entering this human world. The difficulty with the Bill as set out is that it does not fully appreciate this fact or the difficulties parents have in achieving that excellence of provision for their children. In no sense is that a criticism of anybody in the system. Teachers do tremendous work, day in, day out, often in the most pressing, difficult of circumstances. This amendment is all about recognising the particularity of individual provision—not least for children and young people who may be disabled or have special educational needs—the difficulty for parents in trying to get an EHCP, and the often prohibitive cost involved, even if they can go through that time-consuming and terribly intense process. The amendment simply asks the Secretary of State to produce a focused, “support-first” attendance code of practice that understands the particularities of those circumstances and that does not have an almost forced presumption that school is necessarily the best and only place for excellent educational provision. As I say, the amendment speaks to children, young people and parents across the piece, but it is often children who are disabled, who have special educational needs, and the parents of those children, who find themselves at the sharpest end of this current situation. That is why Amendment 499 suggests a support-focused, support-first attendance code of practice. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Practice on attendance is wildly inconsistent across the country — one local authority issued 270 notices in a single year to just 320 home-educated children, a 75% chance of a notice and a 35% chance of a school attendance order. That's not safeguarding; it's a postcode lottery. The current approach defaults to enforcement rather than understanding the underlying reasons for absence, and fining families — Hampshire netted £1.6 million over three years — erodes trust and ultimately fails to secure a child's right to education.My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 499, tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would require the Secretary of State to issue a statutory attendance code of practice. I believe this is a modest proposal, yet one that could transform how attendance is enforced and supported across England. First, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for stepping in for me last week, when I was unable to be here due to a family wedding. My own attendance record that day did not pass without comment. In fact, when the Whips discovered that the wedding was taking place on the Tuesday, business seemed to be swiftly and suspiciously rescheduled from Monday to Tuesday. In any case, I was unable to attend, but I am grateful none the less both to colleagues and to the staff of the House for their patience with me. My amendments have been submitted in large numbers, and some were received with humour, others less so, but they all make in their different ways the same point. At their heart lies concern about the overreach of this Bill and the heavy burden it will place on families and already overstretched local authority staff and systems. Talking about attendance, practice across the country is wildly inconsistent, at present. One parent reported that, in their local authority, they have a 75% chance of being issued with a notice to satisfy, and a 35% chance of receiving a school attendance order. That authority issued 270 notices in a single year to just 320 home-educated children. In other areas, parents face nothing like this. This does not seem like safeguarding to me; it is a postcode lottery, and it is indefensible. The current approach, regrettably, often defaults to enforcement and sanctions, rather than genuinely seeking to understand and address the underlying reason for unattendance. Over the summer, it was reported that Hampshire County Council had netted £1.6 million in revenue by fining families over the past three years. Government data shows that almost h…
The data systems built by the Department for Education can already analyse attendance in near real-time — by factory shutdown, tube strike or bad weather — so Amendment 426B isn't needed. The evidence is clear: even apparently small amounts of missed school have a disproportionate impact on GCSE results. On Amendment 499, a considerable amount of diversity is already accommodated within schools, including through EHC plans, and the department has published extensive guidance and practical help. A separate code of practice would be unnecessary.My Lords, as the Committee knows, school attendance every day is critical for the success of pupils. During Covid, the previous Government introduced the collection of attendance data at a pupil level twice a day— initially on a voluntary basis for all schools in England and now on a mandatory basis. We have among the best attendance data in the world, which allows every school in the country to understand the patterns of attendance and absence within their own pupil cohort and compared to the other schools in their local authority. I thank the Government for continuing the work that we started in this area and commend the officials who are responsible for producing such accessible and practical help for schools. I argue that the systems that have been built within the Department for Education and that are being used more and more by schools mean that they can already analyse the impact on attendance not just of a factory shutdown but—perhaps more relevant for today—of a tube strike, bad weather or many other factors, and pretty much in real time. Therefore, I am not sure that Amendment 426B is needed. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was suggesting that there should be more flexibility for school attendance, but I do not agree with him. The evidence that the department has produced is clear on the impact of missing even apparently small amounts of time on, for example, GCSE results, and we need to respect that evidence. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Holmes for setting out the purpose of his Amendment 499. He will forgive that I did not quite understand it in the way that he had presented it. My understanding, which perhaps the Minister will confirm, is that a considerable amount of diversity is already accommodated within schools. I have certainly visited schools where children are able to take time out of the classroom, particularly those with an education, health and care plan—very often that plan sets out the details of the flexibility that…
Absence is moving in the right direction — children are attending over 3.1 million more days this year compared to last, and over 100,000 fewer children are persistently absent — but around one in five pupils is still missing 10% or more of school. Schools and local authorities are best placed to address area-specific factors like factory shutdowns; term dates and inset days already give them considerable flexibility. On Amendment 499, the 'Working Together to Improve School Attendance' statutory guidance, published in 2022 and updated in August 2024, already takes a 'support-first' approach and is widely embedded — a separate code of practice would duplicate it and risk confusion.My Lords, this Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity by supporting every child to achieve and thrive at school. We know the impact that any absence can have on a pupil. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right that even small bits of absence, particularly when added up over a child’s career, can disproportionately impact on that child’s achievement and, of course, create disruption in the classroom for other pupils. That is why I am very pleased that, thanks to the efforts of the sector, absence is moving in the right direction; children are attending over 3.1 million more days this year compared to last and over 100,000 fewer children are persistently absent. However, this still leaves around one in five pupils currently missing 10% or more of school, which is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, says, there has been considerable focus on this which, as she also says, builds on the work done by the last Government. In fact, she in particular has worked on developing the sort of data to enable comparison and monitoring of progress. In addition, the department has developed an attendance toolkit, alongside the data tools, to help support schools identify the drivers of absence and adopt effective practice to improve attendance for all children, including the most vulnerable. We have launched an attendance and behaviour programme, with strong schools offering support to others to improve their practice. We have held 12 conferences, attended by around 3,000 leaders from secondary schools, trusts and local authorities to help drive that change. Amendment 426B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, seeks to create a duty on the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the effects of factory shutdowns on school attendance. We acknowledge, as the noble Lord says, that school attendance rates in particular locations can be influenced by a variety of external factors. However, schools and local authorities are best placed to identify t…
- Amendment 426D would require local authorities to report annually to the Secretary of State on three metrics — number of home educators, complaints received, and school attendance orders issued — and reward the top 10% of authorities (those with fewest complaints and orders relative to their home-educating population) to share their best practice with those in the bottom 10%. This is not about penalising weaker authorities; it's about equipping them to learn from authorities like Salford, Portsmouth and Cambridge, which show that partnership with families produces better outcomes. Amendment 426E makes clear that no parent should face criminal prosecution or sanction under the Bill if that legal action would harm their child's welfare or cause greater harm to their education than if it were not pursued — grounded in the Children Act 1989, the Education Act 1996 and the ECHR.
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 426D and 426E tabled in my name. These amendments, though modest in scope, address two fundamental issues in the way that our system interacts with families who choose to home-educate or educate otherwise: the sharing of best practice across local authorities and safeguarding children from harm that may arise when legal action is pursued without due regard for their welfare and education. Amendment 426D would require all local authorities to provide an annual report to the Secretary of State setting out three simple but highly revealing metrics: “the total number of home educators in their area … the number of complaints they have received from home educators … and … the number of School Attendance Orders they have issued”. These figures are important because they shed light on how local authorities are engaging with families. They provide a means of comparison, showing where relationships are constructive and where perhaps mistrust and conflict are more frequent. This amendment goes further: it would introduce a mechanism to reward local authorities that demonstrate strong positive performance under these measures—specifically, those in the top 10%—and whose complaints and attendance orders are low relative to the number of families. They would receive funding and support to share their best practice with authorities that find themselves in the bottom 10%. This is not about penalising weaker authorities but about equipping them to learn from others, improve their systems of engagement and, ultimately, foster more trusting relationships with home educators. While I have mainly focused in Committee on the problems that arise when local authorities overreach, it is important to recognise that there are many examples of thoughtful and constructive engagement which deserve to be commended. Parents have spoken warmly of meetings in which their children have felt valued. One child enjoyed showing his work after initial he…
The department has an important role to play in helping local authorities improve their relationship with the home-educating community — celebrating achievements, drawing out best practice and making a good example of it. Home education departments in local authorities tend to be small, isolated and under pressure from the safeguarding side; that leadership from the centre matters. On Amendment 426E, we should be looking at the child first and the parent second — that was very much the spirit I heard in the Secretary of State's speech at the Children's Commissioner's report launch.My Lords, I support the thrust of both my noble friend’s amendments. The Department for Education has an important role to play in helping local authorities drive up the quality of their relationship with and service for the home-educating community. The department can provide leadership on this by giving local authorities the feeling that the Government understand what they are doing, and that is the direction that the Government wish to take. That needs to be transmitted. Doing it in a way which celebrates the achievements of local authorities, and draws out the best of what is happening and makes a good example of that, is a motivating and constructive way to do this. I hope that the Government will take this direction. Local authority home-educating departments tend to be small, a bit isolated and stuck at the back end of safeguarding, and subject to all the pressures that come from that activity. The department has an important role to play in helping get things right. On my noble friend’s second amendment, as the Government will know from my previous amendments, this is a direction I very much support. We should be looking at the child first and punishing the parent second. I listened to the Secretary of State’s speech at the launch of the Children’s Commissioner’s recent report, and that was very much the spirit that I heard then. I hope it will be reflected in the Government’s answer today.
- Good practice between home educators and local authorities should absolutely be shared, but asking the Secretary of State to produce a formal annual report would require exactly the kind of centralised form-filling that so many other amendments in this Committee have criticised. On Amendment 426E, schools are already incredibly sensitive to the needs of neurodiverse children and pull out all the stops to support them — and this amendment risks creating problems for the attendance policies that both the previous and current governments have carefully developed.
My Lords, on Amendment 426D, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right. It is important that good practice is shared between home educators and local authorities, and that the quality of home education is the best it can possibly be, and local authorities have a huge role to play in ensuring that happens. We already know—many noble Lords have mentioned particular examples—the sterling work local authorities have done with home educators. I have a slight problem with the idea of the Secretary of State doing an annual report. We have seen dozens of other amendments decrying the fact that more information is required, but to put this annual report together would require doing exactly that—asking for all that form-filling and more information to come to the centre. There might be good practice where local authorities might wish to do a report—the amendment suggests an annual report—on the work that is going on with home educators and which could be shared with other home educators. To me, to put it in a formal way and say that the Secretary of State will produce an annual report is bureaucracy gone mad. I am, in a sense, surprised by the second amendment. Schools are incredibly sensitive to the needs of children, particularly, as has been mentioned, those with neuro- diverse issues such as autism. They pull out all the stops to support those children. This amendment might create problems for the attendance policies of local authorities—policies that have been developed by the previous Government and this Government. We should recognise the work that goes on currently. Despite concerns, I can tell noble Lords that, in all the dealings I have had with schools, head teachers and teachers, they are more than sensitive to the needs of those pupils.
Who would actually make the judgment under Amendment 426E as to whether legal action would harm a child's welfare or their education? Schools have generally been good at making those assessments, but the relationship between schools and local authorities can be problematic, and I'm not clear who would bear that responsibility.My Lords, briefly, I have a query about proposed new subsection (2) to be inserted by Amendment 426E. I am wondering who would make the judgment around whether legal action would be required if it were to “harm … a child’s welfare, or … on balance, … greater harm … a child’s education than if the legal action was not pursued”. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In my experience, schools have been very good at making the assessments and dealing with young people’s difficulties. The difficulty sometimes is in the relationship between the school and the authorities—I find that that can be problematic. I am not clear about supporting the amendment because of that proposed subsection, as I am not sure who would make that judgment. Who would make the judgment as to whether the child or young person is doing that deliberately, or whether it is due to their mental health state or some other reason? I am keen to know who would make that judgment.
- I don't recognise the Dickensian school world described in these amendments — schools across the country are delivering tremendous education and joy to children. The principle of sharing best practice between local authorities on home education is excellent, but requiring the Secretary of State to produce an annual report is disproportionate given local conditions vary so widely. Amendment 426E would cut across many other areas of legislation and the principles underpinning our criminal justice system in ways that aren't realistic — the courts already consider child welfare in sentencing decisions.
My Lords, I preface my remarks on these amendments by saying that I do not recognise the Dickensian school world that my noble friend describes. I would encourage him to visit any of the schools that I have visited, led by the noble Lords, Lord Nash, Lord Knight and Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Agnew. In case anyone is thinking that I think only about academies, at my school of joy, Stanley Road Primary School in Oldham, the children are bursting with pride at what they achieve, in a clearly very deprived community. I acknowledge and thank all those involved in delivering education and joy to our children across our schools. My noble friend’s Amendment 426D seeks to create a mechanism for sharing best practice between local authorities on home education. The principle of sharing best practice is, of course, an excellent one, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, when he says that it is perhaps disproportionate for the Secretary of State to require this report. There is nothing preventing local authorities trying to learn from one another already. Local conditions vary considerably on, for example, the availability of special schools between local authorities. The conclusions that could be drawn from the data that my noble friend suggests should be analysed could be misleading. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on Amendment 426E and the care that schools take to support children. There is a wider point here. It could be argued that a lot of particularly criminal prosecutions of a child’s parents could result in harm to the child, particularly if the child’s principal carer is sent to prison, and that is something that the courts already consider. My noble friend’s amendment would cut across many other areas of legislation and some of the principles that underpin our criminal justice system in a way that is not realistic. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify both these points when she comments.
- There is excellent work happening in schools across the country. But to be clear: the home education register provisions are not about preventing home education — England is already one of the most permissive regimes in any country for parents choosing to educate at home. They are about ensuring that claimed home education is genuinely suitable and that children don't fall through the gaps.
My Lords, I strongly associate myself with the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about the excellent work happening in schools around the country and the enormous pride, enjoyment and achievement that children experience in those schools. However, I would add that, in last week’s lengthy debates—and in those before the Recess—on the provisions in the Bill on children not in school registers, the Government were very clear that there is a right for parents in this country to educate children at home. In fact, as we discussed, we are probably one of the most permissive regimes of any country in allowing you to educate your child at home. What children not in school registers are about is ensuring that the education is suitable and children do not fall through gaps by virtue of claiming a suitable home education when that is not what is being delivered.
- The data request in Amendment 426D asks only for information local authorities already hold — at most an hour's work, once a year — compared to the huge bureaucratic demands the Bill proposes to place on over 100,000 families, potentially requiring many hours or weeks to document every provider. On Amendment 426E, we are not talking about mainstream schooling for the majority: we are talking about extreme cases where children have been home-educated all their lives and where a local authority can treat a parent's refusal to repeatedly re-share recently submitted information as evidence of unsuitable education. There is a gap, and by the time the courts enforce child-welfare principles, months or years of family stress have already harmed that child's education. I'll reflect on the Minister's response and may return to this on Report.
I am grateful to the Minister for her response and look forward to this letter. I am also grateful to the department for the correspondence that I and other noble Peers received relating to our questions. I just want to reflect on some of the contributions. First, to clarify, the request for information from local authorities is asking them to provide data that they already have. Even though it might seem a little bureaucratic, I do not think it would require much more than a few minutes, or an hour or so, probably once a year. This is to be balanced with the tremendous bureaucratic demands that will be placed on over 100,000 families, for all the information pertaining to the education of their child, all the providers, which, in many cases will take many hours, days or weeks even, based on testimony I have received from families. So, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask for a set of data to be provided, to share good practice and highlight where there are areas for improvement on the local authority side, given the disproportionate bureaucratic demands, proposed in this Bill, to be placed on parents. On Amendment 426E, I want to also clarify that we are not talking about mainstream schooling for the majority of pupils or schools in this country. When I talk about some of the distress, the suicides or attempted suicides of children who are forced back into school through some of our measures, we are talking about extreme cases in this country, where it is inappropriate for that child to be sent to a school. Perhaps they have been home educated all their life. Perhaps, as I have testimony of, the parents who have been busy home educating have been repeatedly asked by the local authority for information—even recently and then asked again. They have said, “We can’t share any more. We need to educate our child”. That very statement that they cannot share the information that they shared very recently is interpreted as the child not receiving a suitable education by…
- Local authorities placing children in unregistered alternative provision is a complete dereliction of duty — these children need quality provision almost by definition. Amendment 427B gives the Government additional scope to deal with unregistered illegal schools that evade detection by splitting into separate parts. My other amendments address the challenge the Bill poses to the Haredi community: yeshivas, as currently understood under the Bill, would be outlawed, primarily because registering as schools would bind them to curriculum and moral-teaching requirements that the community believes conflict with the Torah.
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group. This amendment concerns the practice of local authorities placing children in unregistered alternative provision. In my view, that should not happen. These children need quality provision, almost by definition. That they should be placed in unregistered provision by the state seems to me a complete dereliction of duty. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has a rather more subtle and nuanced approach to this; I very much look forward to listening to it. Amendment 427B suggests to the Minister that the Government should tighten up on, or give themselves additional scope to deal with, unregistered illegal schools that seek to disguise themselves by splitting into separate parts. This is merely a technical issue that the Government should address. The other amendments in this group address the challenge that the Bill presents to the Haredi community. Obviously, the same principles that I am addressing here will apply to other religious communities where they provide substantial education for their children, but I am focusing on Haredi because I have been talking extensively to them—though I claim no authority to speak for them and no deep knowledge of their life. The Haredi are a venerable and peaceful community. They are contributors to commercial life and to the common good, though they keep themselves apart in many ways. It is part of the British way, as I understand it, to respect religions. The Haredi community, as with other religious communities, has cultural values that differ from those of wider society, such as treating sexuality as a private, more intimate, subject and having both specific gender roles and a stronger community structure. However, in my experience of the way in which this country is organised, we allow space for these differences and do not attempt to eradicate them, although we set boundaries and should be confident in doing so. There have been religions wher…
Amendment 427C, tabled by the Bishop of Manchester, offers a balanced route through the tension between freedom and regulation in religious education. The Church of England welcomes strengthened oversight, but the Bill as drafted poses three problems for religious bodies: compulsory state registration would significantly extend the state's role in civil society; extra bureaucratic burdens risk a chilling effect on volunteer-run settings who fear exceeding the part-time threshold; and hard cases like yeshivas don't fit neatly into any of the Bill's categories. The amendment would allow such settings to operate outside the registration requirement provided they limit themselves to religious education, the local authority has been notified that adequate out-of-school education is provided separately, and the institution demonstrates the required safeguarding measures to the local authority.My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and to associate myself with his remarks. I speak to Amendment 427C on behalf of my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, in whose name the amendment stands. He very much regrets his inability to attend today’s Committee debate. His amendment offers a reasonable and practical solution to the finely balanced tension between freedom and regulation in education provided by religious bodies. As things stand, the Bill recognises two types of full-time education: education undertaken in either a school or an independent educational institution. The latter would need to be registered according to the 2008 Act and the requirement to register would apply to education that is more than “part time”. The need to include education provided by religious bodies in national mechanisms for oversight is well understood by all. The Church of England, for example, has taken enormous strides forward in both safeguarding training and safeguarding processes in local parishes that welcomed an average of 95,000 children each week in 2023. We welcome the Government’s goal to strengthen educational oversight across the nation but, in relation to education provided by religious bodies, there are three issues with the Bill as it stands. First, as the National Society for Education wrote in its response to the Government on safeguarding in out-of-school settings: “Compulsory state registration for religious activity involving children would significantly extend the role of the state in civil society and represents a considerable and major change to the nature of religious freedom”. Freedom of religion and belief is a precious human liberty and legislators should think very carefully about the unintended consequences, as well as the intended ones, before enacting regulations that might inadvertently threaten that freedom and inhibit religious diversity. The possibility of unintended consequences brings me t…
I speak as a matter of obligation, not conscience. I am the Lord of Stamford Hill, home to the last remnant of European Hasidic Jewry — a community that survived in this country alone, after 3.5 million of their number were murdered by the Nazis and the Bolsheviks suppressed their yeshivas as illegal. It is a ridiculous situation that I have to defend the Secretary of State from the accusation of being a Bolshevik, but the community's historical memory makes this legislation feel existential. The 1944 Act's accommodation was wise: yeshiva boys are technically home-schooled, and they spend long hours studying the Talmud in supervised settings. That arrangement worked. We should find a way to preserve it.My Lords, I first thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for tabling this amendment. I respect his gentleness and his nobility—it is very much appreciated. I begin with just a couple of remarks. I very rarely speak in the House and, when I got here, I was given very sage advice that the more you speak, the less people listen. I therefore beg the attention of the Committee in this case, as it is a matter of great importance to me. It may come as a surprise to my fellow Labour Peers but, in the 14 years that I have been here, I have never once voted against the party. Party loyalty is a crucial part of our constitutional system. I therefore just say that this is a very important matter to me. It is not a matter of conscience—Clement Attlee used to say to Ministers who publicly rebelled, “I thought that conscience was supposed to be a still, small voice”—but a matter of obligation. I am the Lord of Stoke Newington and of Stamford Hill. Stoke Newington does not really matter in this case, because people there do not care, but Stamford Hill is the centre of the last remnant of European Hasidic Jewry. Their origins mainly lie around 17th-century Ukraine but also Poland. Of the 6 million who were murdered by the Nazis, 3.5 million were Hasidic Jews. They were absolutely devastated by that. They are a very strange bunch—very mystic, spiritual and absolutely not involved in Zionism or things like that. Those who live in Israel refuse to serve in the Israeli army. They are non-violent, and very committed to exile and a kind of redemption through prayer. For those here who are Muslim, I would say that they are very close to the Sufi tendency. For those who are Christian, I would say that they are probably closest to the Amish. In the film “Witness” with Harrison Ford, there is actually that mistaken identity moment with the child. I was brought up close to them but not of them. Obviously, my story is different. At the age of 14, I became a socialist and an a…
I support Amendment 427C overall. I'd encourage officials to engage with its thrust even if this wording isn't quite right. What attracts me to it is that the local authority is involved in both registration and safeguarding assurance — we are not going back to 1944, when we knew far less. Many communities want both to comply with the law and to have their practices respected, and I hope discussions before Report can find a way through.My Lords, I want to speak briefly in overall support of Amendment 427C, which has just been so well moved and spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman. I support the thrust of the Bill and what the Government are doing in these sections. I suppose, in a way, my remarks are directed not just towards the Minister but to her officials who will be listening. I would encourage them to engage with the thrust of this clause: if this is not necessarily the right wording, then something along these lines. Those of us who have had the privilege of serving as Ministers in the Department for Education—I was going to say “served time”, but I do not quite mean that—know that these are difficult issues and have become more complicated. While we have heard a particular focus on a particular religious group, I know from previous conversations, in relation to both yeshivas and other religious institutions, that there is always a reason why there should be an exception, yet we also know that there will be those who seek to subvert any exception for the wrong reasons and it is the young people who will lose out. What attracts me to this particular amendment is the fact that the local authority would be involved in terms not only of registration but of safeguarding assurance. I have some concern: we do not want to go back to 1944, when the world was very different—we are in 2025 and we know a lot more about different institutions—but, overall, as we know and have heard set out so powerfully, there are many communities who want both to comply with the law and to have their practices and customs respected. I hope that, even if it is not with this amendment, discussions behind the scenes before we get to the next stage of the Bill can find a way through so that these provisions are able to go through with the support of the whole House.
I tread carefully, but I can't support Amendment 427C. I've met young adults — some in their late teens, some up to 30 — who attended yeshivas, and they would not recognise the description given by Lord Glasman. Every child in this community, like every other, deserves safeguarding and a broad and balanced education. There are already registered Haredi schools where families can send their children and receive both religious and secular education. If you are in a building from 8 am to 6 pm, it is a school — whatever happens at home afterwards is not full-time education. The nature of registration and the consultation with the community is where the debate lies, and I urge the Minister to seek that understanding.My Lords, I oppose Amendment 427C and the gist of the speeches and comments that we have heard so far. In doing so, I tread with great care, because I realise the history, the sensitivities, and the passion and commitment of those people whose lives would be involved. I do not pretend to be part of that community or to criticise it in any way. I am very proud that our country welcomes people of all faiths. I have always been a defender of faith schools and served for a while on the board of Church of England schools. As a Minister, I argued—sometimes with great difficulty within my own party—for continuing with faith schools. That is the background I come from, but I cannot support this amendment. Over the past 12 months, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, I have had the privilege of meeting young adults, some up to the age of 30 and some in their late teens, who have been students at yeshivas and educated within the system, living within the community. To be honest, they would not recognise the description that the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, has just given. They would not describe their own education and their own lives in that way. So I think our starting point should be that, as with any school or any community, there is a risk to children if we do not protect them in an orderly way and in the way that we should. I am not opposed to this community being able to continue to educate in its own faith. Why would we not wish it to do that when we allow every other faith to do the same? But that is possible already. There are Haredi-registered schools where parents can send their children. It is not the case that if you close down the yeshivas, no one can have a school based on this faith. They can—and it is in the registered sector. What I have a problem with is the yeshiva. This is where I oppose Amendment 427C. My argument for doing so is very straightforward: if you are there at 8 am and you leave at 6 pm, it is a school. Whatever you do at home afte…
I admire much of what the Haredi community does, but I'm concerned about what is happening to some boys in these institutions. The charity Nahamu — run by proud Orthodox Jews — documents abuses taking place in north London yeshivas. We offered to visit two yeshivas and were refused. We've met young men who attended them: they showed resilience, but we were saddened by the obstacles they faced in accessing the education they were denied. These young people don't want to abandon their religion; they want to be both observant Jews and fully educated citizens.My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley has just said. Perhaps I can say to my noble friend Lord Glasman that I am Lady Blackstone of Stoke Newington, so we share part of our region in our titles. I am familiar with the Haredi community and have been for very many years, and I admire a great deal of what they do, but I am concerned about what is happening to some of the boys in this community. I share the concern based not only on the meetings that I have had, with my noble friend Lady Morris, with some of the young men who have been through these institutions, but also on the very good charity Nahamu, which is concerned about the abuses of children that are taking place in these yeshivas in north London and, I think, Manchester as well. The trustees of Nahamu are proud members of the Orthodox Jewish community and they are concerned about what is happening to fellow Jewish young men and boys. I think that we should respect that concern in considering how we approach the whole issue of these yeshivas. I will speak at greater length in the next group about what I and my noble friend Lady Morris think we should do to make sure that these young men get the education they deserve, which they are not at the moment, and that their experience is properly safeguarded.
Yeshivas are not schools and they cannot become schools. They are religious spaces operating alongside home-schooling — boys engage deeply with their heritage, develop their spiritual and ethical character, and absorb the Jewish rabbinic tradition. Inculcating a lived faith is fundamentally different from teaching geography or history, and must be an immersive experience. As one professor observed about supplementary documents that almost exclusively singled out this community: it's fine to be Jewish in the UK in 2025, as long as you're not too Jewish. That should not be. Yeshivas operate with robust safeguarding, health and safety, and flexible breaks that enable attendees to continue their home-schooling.My Lords, I rise to support and compliment the amendments to Clause 36 in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman. The amendments seek to ensure that institutions that provide only religious instruction alongside guaranteed out-of-school education are not wrongly categorised as independent educational institutions under this Bill. Education in this country has never been a one-size-fits-all, state-run system. Home-schooling remains every parent’s legal right. One community, however, has been singled out by Clause 36: the Haredi, or strictly Orthodox, Jewish community, whose boys attend yeshivas, which are supervised religious settings, alongside receiving home-schooling. As one professor remarked about the Bill’s intentions, which in its supplementary documents almost exclusively singled out that community, it is fine to be Jewish in the UK in 2025 as long as you are not too Jewish. That should not be. Yeshivas are not schools and they cannot become schools. They are religious spaces operating alongside home-schooling with a wholly different purpose. They are settings where young men engage deeply with their heritage, to develop their spiritual and ethical character and absorb the wisdom and traditions of the Jewish rabbinic corpus. Inculcating a lived faith is fundamentally different from teaching subjects like geography or history. Those subjects are generally limited to one or two sessions a week. Inculcating one’s children into a lived faith must be an immersive experience. That is what yeshivas are all about and why they are so central to our faith community. Yeshivas operate as supervised spaces with robust safeguarding and health and safety arrangements in place. They allow sufficient and flexible breaks to enable attendees to continue their home-schooling alongside yeshiva. Yeshivas are not illegal schools; they are not schools at all. They operate alongside home-schooling…
I've heard children from unregistered schools of all faiths describe curricula that were thin, dogma-enforced, sometimes abusive, and sometimes actively anti-democratic in ethos. That doesn't represent all faith schools, but we need to get a grip on unregistered schools — especially for children for whom education has not been working well.My Lords, I was going to speak in support of Amendment 451, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but perhaps he is going to introduce it when he winds up for his Front Bench. What I have to say is probably relevant to the wider aspects of this debate. I declare that I am a patron of Humanists UK. I have listened to children speaking about the unregistered schools that they went to, of all faiths. Of course this is only about some schools. Nevertheless, I was very struck by what they had to say about the paucity of the curriculum, often about the enforced dogma of what was taught, sometimes about abuse and sometimes about a very anti-social and anti-democratic ethos. Of course this does not at all represent all faith schools, but those children themselves were not alone. In short, we need to get a grip on unregistered schools, especially in the case of children for whom education has not been working well, as in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I very much look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s explanation of how we navigate this real problem in the free and diverse society we live in, as we must—we must navigate it. Unregistered schools are not all good—on the contrary.
The concern driving opposition to Amendment 427C has been whether these pupils are safeguarded. But proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) explicitly requires the institution to demonstrate to the local authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures. That answers the argument. I'm bound to support this amendment.My Lords, the concern of those who have spoken against Amendment 427C in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, is, if I have understood right, around whether these pupils are being safeguarded. Proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) says “where the institution demonstrates to the Local Authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures”. That is important. If it did not say that, I would be joining those who do not want this amendment. The noble Lord said that it is wrong to call these schools and to think that they are providing education, and that the education being provided is in home-schooling. In terms of safeguarding, the amendment is very clear: the local authority must be satisfied that safeguarding measures are in place. Therefore, for me, the arguments fall away because the drift of them was about whether there is sufficient safeguarding for these pupils. Because the amendment is quite sensitive, I was not going to speak to it or support it. Having heard the arguments, I am persuaded that proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) answers the question. Therefore, I am bound to support this amendment.
Clause 36 is a constructive attempt to put sensible controls around educational provision outside schools, but the landscape is complicated: alternative provision for children with severe behavioural problems, provision for children with school refusal, programmes for home-educated children, and outright illegal schools. AP needs to be seen as a mode of education, not just respite care — very few children who move into AP reintegrate into mainstream and take GCSEs there. I support Amendments 427 and 427B: illegal school operators have exploited the current law by splitting one institution into separate parts that each fall below the registration threshold, and that needs to be closed. An exemption for religious settings that provide only religious instruction is tempting, but I don't think it workable — at the point this country becomes a patchwork of self-segregated communities cut off from one another, there won't be much of a nation left. The better path is to carry on working to reconcile faith communities' desires with children's rights.My Lords, I want to speak to this group of amendments on the poorly understood world of unregistered provision, including the types of religious institution that have had a lot of discussion already, as well as looking more broadly. I support two of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas—Amendments 427 and 427B. Clause 36 is a constructive attempt to put sensible controls in place around the oversight of educational provision for children outside schools and colleges. It creates a wider category of independent education institution to supplement the narrower concept of an independent school. This is a complicated and messy landscape. I could draw out at least four strands—there are probably others—and they overlap. There are the alternative provisions, most often for children with severe behavioural problems. There is a huge patchwork of provision there. Some of it is registered and inspected, so it has a level of quality control, but much of the weakest is not, and there are no neat cut-offs. A school puts two children in a volunteer-run community garden for one afternoon a week. That would be best viewed as part of the school’s educational model, and the school would be accountable for the child’s experience. However, if those same children are at the garden four days a week and are barely attending school, it is unrealistic to ignore the fact that the gardens become the children’s main source of education —though it is clearly an incomplete education—and that school registrations become a fiction, perhaps to avoid recording an exclusion. It is often assumed that alternative provision is or should be a brief stint to prepare a child for reintegration into a mainstream school. However, the reality is that few children who move into alternative provision will successfully reintegrate. Hardly any such children take their GCSEs in a mainstream school. AP needs to be seen as a mode of education, not just as respite care. Then there is provision for childre…
Has there been any real engagement with the Haredi community before the Bill was drafted? It seems, from what we've heard today, that a bit of common sense and good will — people sitting around a table — could have reached a sensible solution without this amendment. The yeshivas need to stay open; the remaining safeguarding concerns can be addressed. I urge the Minister to come back on Report with wording that is more satisfactory to the department.I strongly support Amendment 427C and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who made the two opening speeches. All the speeches today have shone a light on what many people in the country are not aware of. I was a councillor in Hackney many years ago and I knew this community. What was most interesting to me in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, was that he was able to explain how much effort has gone into improving the whole question of safeguarding. That must be something that we are all concerned about in any school. For me, this is very clearly about the fact that the yeshivas are not schools. They are no more a school than the Sunday school that I went to for many years as a youngster. That was nothing to do with the church—it was a separate Sunday school, set up by some very nice people in the countryside, and I went every Sunday afternoon for many years. It was not a school in the sense of education; it was about religion and understanding the history of Christianity and all those kinds of things. I can see exactly what the yeshivas are doing. We might think that Governments cannot possibly be misled, but it seems that, under Clause 35 of the Bill, yeshivas will be regulated as if they are schools. That is wrong. We have heard about what goes on there. We know that it is a place for young men to engage with their heritage and build their spiritual and ethical character. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned some of the young men she had spoken to who were unhappy about what is happening. I am sure that if we went around many of our schools and spoke to young men about what was going on in their school, we would always find somebody who has a real problem, but that does not mean that there is anything wrong with what is happening overall. It seems to me—maybe the Minister can tell me I am wrong—that there has been very little engagement prior to the drafting of the Bill with the comm…
Freedom of religion or belief is not an absolute right, and this debate has sometimes treated it as if it cannot be curtailed. Importantly, the children being discussed also have that right — including the right to know, through a broad and balanced curriculum, about the world they're growing up in and about other faiths and belief systems. If Amendment 427C were accepted, would these institutions be classified as out-of-school settings? If so, there may even be good unintended consequences in bringing them under DBS checks and safeguarding responsibilities.My Lords, I had not anticipated speaking until the next group. I declare an interest as a senior research fellow at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, which is researching freedom of religion or belief in the UK. A number of Peers have entered into talking about this human right without, I think, fully appreciating its impact. In relation to the “institution”, as it is referred to in the amendment, if this amendment were accepted, can the Minister outline where it would sit with the other out-of-school settings work that is going on, because I think it would sit as an out-of-school setting? I do not think that they are charities, otherwise they would already have safeguarding responsibilities. Could there, in some respects, be good unintended consequences of the amendment, in that we take an out-of-school setting and bring it into the safeguarding world, with DBS checks, et cetera? Freedom of religion or belief is not an absolute right. It is sometimes put into a debate as if it cannot be curtailed. It is important to remember that the children to whom we have been referring also have the right to freedom of religion or belief. Parents have the right to bring up their children in the faith that they wish them to have, but that does not mean an immersive experience that does not allow a child to exercise their right to know, through a broad and balanced curriculum, about the world and nation that they are growing up in and about other faiths and humanist and other belief systems. This is a very difficult world—not just in the Jewish context but in the context of Christianity, other faiths and some atheistic traditions—in which to try to shield a child from knowledge so that they never choose a different type of Jewishness or a different religion for themselves. I hope that, whatever situation we end up in with regard to these schools, we bear in mind that these children have freedom of religion or belief and should have an education that enables them to exercise that rig…
- My Amendment 451 is simple: all alternative provision — whether for suspended or permanently excluded pupils — should be registered. Local authorities often place permanently excluded pupils, most of whom have special needs, into unregistered provision because it's much cheaper. Unregistered provision can mean no proper register, no qualified staff, and no inspection. That's no way to treat a young person. On the yeshiva debate: I want to see children educated in registered, inspected settings, whatever their faith — that is all a civilised multicultural society should ask.
My Lords, I was head of a Church of England primary school and my daughter went to a Jewish school. I am conscious that, in my home city of Liverpool, one-third of the schools are faith schools. I want to reflect on what various noble Lords have said, and I want to speak very carefully because I am still considering everything that has been said. I have found it, at times, quite challenging. Let me deal with an issue that I do not find challenging, which is my Amendment 451. Children who are suspended from school are the responsibility of the school, while pupils who are permanently excluded from school are the responsibility of the local authority. Secondary schools that have pupil referral units, called PRUs, are often able to put suspended students into the referral unit. I have visited many of them and been astounded and impressed by how they have supported students. Instances of expulsion—permanent exclusions, as we now say—are very limited. Let us remember that young people who are permanently excluded from school often have severe behavioural issues, which perhaps could have been picked up when they were younger and perhaps could have been supported in a different way. Many of them have severe behavioural problems. Many—quite a high percentage, I think, and certainly over 80%—have special needs. They are the very young people who should not be excluded from school; they should be in school but, clearly, schools have a right to teach, and pupils have a right to learn. When they are excluded from school, local authorities may put them into what we call alternative provision. There are two types of alternative provision. There is alternative provision that is registered, which means that it is inspected from time to time by Ofsted. I have visited two alternative providers and been incredibly impressed by what I have seen. Many local authorities choose to put permanently excluded pupils not into a registered provider but into an unregistered one. Why? Because it…
- I'm not sure the recollection being referred to is accurate — it would be best to consult before referencing something from many years ago.
I am not sure that the noble Lord is remembering the situation accurately, so it would be best in future to consult before referring to something that I think was many years ago. I say that with no disrespect to the noble Lord’s comments.
- I raise it precisely because it's a shocking condemnation of a schooling situation where young people cannot be themselves or receive a proper education. I have no issue with any faith bringing up children in that faith — my daughter attends a Jewish school, there are Hebrew lessons, and it is all good and positive. But I do want to see every child in schooling that is registered and inspected. That's all we should ask for as one of the most successful multicultural and multifaith nations in the world.
I raise it only because it is a shocking condemnation of a schooling situation where young people cannot be themselves or have a proper education. I respect different religions and their rights; as I say, my daughter goes to a Jewish school where there are Hebrew lessons, the children are taken out at various times and there is a whole range of different faiths. The children’s faiths are respected and there are opportunities for them to develop learning and an understanding of their faith. That is all good and positive. I do not have an issue with any particular faith bringing up children and young people in that faith, but I do want to see those children and young people have schooling that is registered and/or inspected. That is all we should ask for as a society. Anything that does not carry on the tradition of this country—one of the most successful multicultural and multifaith nations in the world—or develop what we believe in, we need to legislate against.
- We support the aims of Clause 36: children must learn in settings that are safe and regulated. Two technical concerns though. First, Section 92 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 currently includes part-time institutions within the definition of an independent educational institution — I'm unclear what their status will be under the revised definition. Second, new subsections 92(3)(c) and (d) appear to give the Secretary of State unlimited flexibility to redefine 'full-time education' by regulation without meaningful parliamentary scrutiny. On unregistered provision: it's extraordinary that local authorities place very vulnerable children in unregistered alternative provision with no safeguarding oversight, and I'd like the Minister's view on whether safeguarding requirements could at least apply even for short placements.
My Lords, I will keep my comments brief. We have had an excellent debate and these Benches support the aims of this clause: to ensure that children learn in settings, where they provide all or the majority of a child’s education, that are safe and regulated. I have a couple of technical points of clarification that might win the prize today for the most boring question asked of the Minister. I confess that I have read and reread the Bill and the policy notes and still do not quite follow it. Section 92 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, which this clause amends, includes institutions that offer part-time education within the definition of an independent educational institution. I am unclear what the status of those institutions will be in future and why they do not form part of the revised definition. If the Minister wants to write, that would be fine. I am sure there is a simple and obvious answer that I have missed. The regulation-making powers in this clause, if I have understood them correctly, are much wider than those in the 2008 Act. New Sections 92(3)(c) and 92(3)(d) seem to give the Secretary of State unlimited flexibility to redefine full-time education without proper scrutiny in Parliament. I suspect the Minister will tell me that it will use the affirmative procedure, but all of us know that that is very restricted scrutiny. I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Lucas has raised unregistered alternative provision, which benefits from neither safeguarding nor educational oversight, in his Amendment 427. It is extraordinary, as other noble Lords have reflected, that, rather like unregulated provision, we put very vulnerable children and young people in unregistered provision without any safeguards available. I agree with him that we would ideally have no unregistered provision but, at a minimum—this also applies to Amendment 451 from the noble Lord, Lord Storey—we would have some safeguarding regulation of those settings, even if children were goi…
- Clause 36 is not aimed at yeshivas — it is about ensuring that settings providing full-time education to children are registered and regularly inspected. Our working definition of 'full-time' will follow our existing approach: settings operating during the day for more than 18 hours per week will need to register. There is no requirement in the Independent School Standards, or in the equivalent standards we will bring forward, for a setting to provide a wholly secular education or to deliver the national curriculum. We have already engaged substantially with the Haredi community — I've met the Yeshiva Liaison Committee — and that engagement will continue as we clarify which standards apply to which types of setting. I will write to Baroness Barran on her specific technical points on the regulation-making powers and the status of part-time institutions.
My Lords, first, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that she is right—those questions were very boring, but I am sure that they were none the less important. I will write to her to respond to those specific points. The rest of the debate, however, was not boring, and was also important. I hope that I will be able to respond to the wide range of issues that have been raised and the conflicting positions that are part of what we need to wrestle with in taking this legislation forward. This group of amendments impact Clause 36 and concern which settings are and are not brought into the system of regulation found in Part 4, Chapter 1 of the Education and Skills Act 2008. It might therefore be helpful if I first outline the intent of Clause 36. As I say, the clause concerns the settings regulated by that framework. Among other things, regulated settings are required to register with the Secretary of State and be subject to regular inspection against prescribed standards. At present, that framework applies to independent schools. Clause 36 expands this framework further. Under this clause, settings will be required to register with the Secretary of State if they provide full-time education to five or more children of compulsory school age or one or more such children with an EHCP or one who is looked after by a local authority. This change will bring more settings that provide a full-time education into this well-established and effective regime. Typically, the settings impacted by this change will be those that operate during, but not necessarily only during, the school day, and we will produce guidance to help those potentially impacted by this change understand what is expected of them. For understandable reasons, a significant part of this debate has focused on the issue of Haredi children and yeshivas. I will respond to that, but in doing so, I reiterate the point that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is just wrong in suggesting that this legislation is aimed at ye…
- We owe the Haredi community a clear way forward. Are the Government's preferred approach to register yeshivas as schools while setting regulations that don't require them to violate their religious principles — or to find a structure that takes yeshivas outside the definition of a school entirely, on the basis that the child's education is provided elsewhere through home education? The Bill as it stands just says 'destroy these communities', which I don't believe is what the Minister intends. What is the Government's opening offer?
I am very grateful to the Minister for that extensive reply. To pick up on some of the issues in the debate, I entirely understand what the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Blackstone, are saying. If children are not receiving their entitled education, we need to do something about that. That is part of the basic contract, as I understand it, between the state and any education system. The child has a right to an education, and if for whatever reason it is not being provided, that is not tolerable. It is surely important for the Government to indicate to the Haredi community and others which way forward they favour. I hope I am not leaping too far ahead in my understanding of where the Government want to go, but are they preferring to say that they would like to see yeshivas registered as schools but they will make sure that the regulations that apply to yeshivas do not require them to violate their religious principles in the way that they teach? In other words, is the accommodation to be within that element of what we might normally require a school to provide by way of education, so that yeshivas are schools but are allowed to teach in a way which is consistent with the Torah and with their belief? That is one way forward. The other way forward is that proposed by the right reverend Prelate and myself. I do not recognise the characterisation of the amendments in the Minister’s reply. We are specifically saying that settings should be exempt which do not provide education and which provide only religious instruction. In other words, the children’s education has to happen somewhere else; there has to be another space, another institution, which is providing that education. The religious space is not regarded as a school, because there is another space which is regarded as home education or a school. If there is somewhere else that is regarded as providing that child’s education, why should the yeshiva, or whatever, be regarded as a school too, beca…
- We support Clause 36's aims, but we have two concerns. First, the Secretary of State now appears to want to regulate academies through three different mechanisms simultaneously: the funding agreement, the new powers in Clause 37, and these additional powers in Clause 37 — that needs clarifying. Second, new subsections 92(3)(c) and (d) of the 2008 Act give the Secretary of State power to set standards 'by reference to guidance issued from time to time', which means independent schools are effectively flying blind as to what their new obligations will be. Amendment 429A would remove academies from these standard-setting powers.
My Lords, I had better start with an apology to the Whips: my comments are a bit detailed, but they are quite detailed amendments—but I am still pleased to introduce them. We on these Benches support the aims of this clause to ensure that children learn in safe and regulated settings, that illegal schools either register or are closed down, and that institutions that do not meet the independent school standards are required to do so in an effective way. However, we have two sets of concerns that I shall try to set out. First, they lie with the apparent wish of the Secretary of State to regulate academies in multiple different ways: through the funding agreement that the former Minister argued in Committee in the other place, in relation to Clause 36, was sufficient; through the new powers in Clause 49, which we have yet to debate; and now through the additional powers in Clause 37. Secondly, our worries reflect the fact that the details of the revised standards will be set out in regulations. Effectively, independent schools are flying blind as to what these new obligations will be. Under Section 94 of the 2008 Act, the Secretary of State was authorised to make regulations prescribing standards in relation to specific matters. These regulations have always bound proprietors of academies, as they are independent schools. Clause 36 introduces additional subsections into Section 94 of the 2008 Act, and these include a standard “by reference to whether or not the proprietor of an independent educational institution has regard to guidance issued, or a document published, by the Secretary of State from time to time”. So, until we see the regulations that are proposed to be published in relation to that standard, we cannot see what the consequence of this change would be. Will the noble Baroness clarify what new obligations, if any, the proprietor of an academy would have to comply with, as distinct from “have regard to”, in new guidance given by the DfE? It would be helpf…
- Amendment 432A creates an offence for landlords, property owners and letting agents who knowingly facilitate the operation of an illegally unregistered educational institution — because it is often clear who owns the building even when it's unclear who operates it. This creates a disincentive to profit from unlawful activity that places children at risk. Amendment 434 grants His Majesty's inspectors the power to search premises without a warrant during investigations into suspected illegal schools: delay perpetuates harm, and disguised compliance must be prevented. Boys in yeshivas often attend from 7.30 am until late in the evening and on Sundays — the idea that secular education is being delivered at home is, in almost every case, entirely implausible. These young men showed resilience when we met them, but we were deeply saddened by the obstacles they faced. They want to be both observant Jews and fully educated citizens — a goal the whole Committee should affirm.
My Lords, Amendments 432A and 434 in my name concern enforcement provisions. They are critical elements of the Bill that seek to address the harm caused by unregistered educational settings. Let me begin by referring to the experience of a woman whom I shall call Dina, a mother in the Haredi community in Stamford Hill. Like other Haredi women, Dina received a broad and balanced education in a Haredi school. She wants the same for her son, but boys are expected to be protected from secular education, and Dina found herself with no genuine choice but to send her son to an unregistered educational establishment called a yeshiva. The curriculum that Dina’s son studied was exclusively religious, with no provision for any secular subjects, including important subjects such as English and mathematics. This was not parental choice in any meaningful sense; it was the result of communal pressure within a context that often leaves families with no real alternatives. These are the institutions that Clause 36 rightly seeks to bring within the scope of regulation. I accept that there are parents who genuinely choose to send their sons to yeshivas, but let us be clear: they are schools by any functional definition, and the Bill makes the necessary statutory clarification to ensure that they are treated as such for regulatory purposes. Once within the scope of regulation, they will be a viable option for parents who wish to make use of their services. However, boys in these environments often attend for very long hours, including Sundays. That secular education can be delivered at evenings and weekends in the home is, in almost every case, entirely implausible, so there is no adequate home education for boys who are attending these institutions, often from 7.30 am until late in the evening and on Sundays. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, whose name is also on the amendment, and I offered to visit two yeshivas, but the offer was rejected. There was therefore no transparency in that…
Amendment 429 accepts that the Secretary of State should be able to require independent schools to 'have regard' to guidance. But it should also be clear that no Secretary of State will use that power to limit a school's independence on admissions, curriculum or examinations — the three vital components of independence. Parliament should be able to bring forward motions on individual guidance documents if it wishes. Amendment 433 addresses a specific problem for independent special schools: a child admitted for one special need is often found to have additional needs, and under Clause 39 the school must make a material change application before responding. That is obviously impractical for a school that wants to help immediately. A two-term window to make the application would be a common-sense remedy.My amendments are different from those of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and narrow in scope. I refer to my Amendments 429 and 433, which relate to independent schools and which I have brought forward in close association with my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, who is, like me, a strong champion of independent schools. I declare my interest as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council, which gives expression at national level for the collective views of its 1,423 member schools, where around 80% of the pupils in the independent sector are educated. Indeed, I have a double interest to declare, since I am the current president of the Independent Schools Association, which is one of the council’s constituent bodies and has nearly 800 members, many of them small in size and cherished by the local communities they serve so well—particularly by making provision for a wide range of special needs. It is no secret that independent schools have their differences—deep differences—with the current Government, principally because of the imposition of VAT on school fees. However, I am glad to say that this Bill does not arouse deep anxiety among members of the Independent Schools Council. There is no clash of fundamentally opposed principles as over VAT. My two amendments seek to explore the possibilities of adjusting and modifying the Government’s proposals in a number of respects, rather than taking serious issue with them. I should add that the points in question have been the subject of careful discussion between Department for Education officials and senior staff of the Independent Schools Council. The essential aim of my probing amendments is to secure on the public record a firm indication of the Government’s response to issues that have been raised in those discussions without seeking to contest overall policy. Amendment 429, for example, accepts that the Secretary of State should have a power to require independent schools to “have regard”…
- I add my name to Amendments 432A and 434. Baroness Spielman described a situation where operators avoid Ofsted by refusing entry. Amendment 432A allows action against the building owner — who is usually identifiable — rather than the operator, who can evade. Amendment 434 gives Ofsted the power to search premises rather than be turned away and have to return with a warrant.
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 432A and 434. I spoke about this issue in our debate on the previous set of amendments; I do not wish to rehearse that but, briefly, I wish to link to what the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, said in her contribution to the previous debate. She described a situation in which people are not co-operating with Ofsted and the inspectorate to make sure that unregulated schools can be regulated. Amendment 432A would, as my noble friend Lady Blackstone said, mean that action can be taken in relation to the people who own the building, which is usually clear, rather than the people who run the building, as you can see how that might be evaded. Secondly, the other amendment would give Ofsted the power to search premises when it goes there, rather than being sent away and, presumably, having to get a warrant in order to go back and look round. I very much support those amendments and tag my comments on to those made in the previous debate.