Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee (day 12) ranged across six amendment groups: embedding the UNCRC in ministerial duties, an apprenticeship guarantee for school leavers, a new First-tier Tribunal right of appeal for school complaints, PE and physical well-being standards, education technology and children's data, post-legislative review mechanisms, and a statutory duty to keep schools open during civil emergencies.
B(Amendment 469 would require Ministers to publish a child-rights impact assessment before any legislation, policy or budgetary action affecting children. Amendment 470 goes further, imposing a general duty on Ministers to consider, protect and promote children's rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child — the UNCRC. Together they are a stepping stone toward the full incorporation Scotland has already achieved. The NSPCC, UNICEF UK and the Children's Rights Alliance all back them.My Lords, having worked on these amendments with my noble friend Lady Lister, and in her unavoidable absence from the Chamber today, I shall move Amendment 469, speak to Amendment 470 and also mention Amendment 502F. Amendment 469 introduces a duty routinely to prepare and make publicly available an assessment of the expected impact of any proposed legislation, policy, budgetary action or other matter that will have an impact on children. Amendment 470 provides for a more general duty, requiring Ministers to consider, protect and promote children’s rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Together, these amendments probe all options in the round. Amendment 502F, which is broader in scope, is complementary, but a clear duty to have regard to the UN CRC is preferable to the somewhat vaguer qualification “the desirability of”. Amendments 469 and 470 had input from the NSPCC as part of the Children’s Charities Coalition, the Children’s Rights Alliance and UNICEF UK. They would place a clear duty on Ministers to have due regard to the UN CRC, although those bodies ultimately aim for full and direct incorporation of the UN convention in law, as in Scotland. Three years ago, the British Academy published a report Reframing Childhood. It was the outcome of a wide-ranging programme chaired by my noble friend Lady Lister. Three themes emerged, each of relevance to this Bill. The first was “being and becoming”; this drew attention to the importance of childhood as a state of being of great significance to the child. The final theme was “children’s voices and participation”, and the second was “children’s rights” as articulated in the UN convention. This is missing from the Bill. The Secretary of State has argued that the Bill represents the importance of understanding and promoting child-centred policy. Key to this is children’s rights. They help us value children as children, particularly those in the most marginalised groups. A children’s rights app…
Amendment 502F would require every public authority exercising functions under this Bill to have regard to children's rights in the UNCRC. The key distinction from Amendments 469 and 470 is that it binds public bodies, not just Ministers, and uses "have regard to" — far short of the outcome duties in the Human Rights Act 1998. If that standard is too burdensome, what is the point of the UK remaining a party to the convention for 35 years?My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 502F in my name. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, who is unable to be here today, for lending her name to it, and Mr James Maurici KC for assisting us with its drafting. The amendment is like Amendment 470, albeit differently worded, in seeking to give domestic legal effect in a somewhat different way, in the context of functions by public authorities under the Bill, to the rights of children contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the noble Baroness has just outlined, the purpose of the UNCRC is that children’s rights need specific consideration due to the special care and protection often needed by children and young people. The UK has been a party to the convention for three and a half decades. It was signed by the Thatcher Government in 1990. Around that time my noble friend Lady Bottomley, then Minister for Health, said in the other place that the UK played a leading role in drafting it. Despite that, the convention has not yet been incorporated in our domestic law in England. The UN committee with oversight of the convention, as we have just heard, has recommended that it should be, so that the rights are enforceable. In 2011, Wales became the first country in the UK to make the convention part of its domestic law by the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, and that legislation has been judged to be a success so far in Wales. Scotland has more recently followed suit through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. England, however, lags behind, and this amendment would go some way to addressing that. The amendment would not give effect to the UNCRC generally in English law—that would be outside the Bill’s scope and would in any case require further consideration—but would apply to the exercise of any functions by public authorities under the Bill. The proposed duty is modelled on Section…
Amendment 502G targets a different convention: Article 2 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR, already incorporated by the Human Rights Act 1998, which requires the state to respect parental religious and philosophical convictions in education. Part 2 of this Bill gives local authorities sweeping new powers to monitor, register and regulate the independent sector; those powers must not conflict with that existing obligation.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502G in this group. This amendment would ensure that Part 2 of the Bill complies with Article 2 in Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the United Kingdom not only signed and ratified but incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. My amendment is based on the wording of the second sentence of Article 2 of Protocol 1, which provides: “In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”. Part 2 of the Bill directly engages this article, since the Government will be, in the words of the ECHR, “assuming many new functions in relation to teaching and education”. For example, local authorities will be given sweeping new powers to monitor, register and regulate the independent sector. The Secretary of State will be empowered to regulate proprietors of independent schools, arrange inspections, prescribe standards and suspend registration. He or she will be able to make regulations using Henry VIII powers so as to dictate which educational institutions are covered, and to mandate the national curriculum for academies using yet more Henry VIII powers to regulate the contents of the four key stages, as well as attainment and assessment targets. We are well within the Article 2, Protocol 1 envelope. I know that this Government take their ECHR obligations very seriously. Without my amendment, these new powers in the Bill would impede the right of parents to ensure an education for their children which accords with their own religious and philosophical convictions. Why is that? It is because Article 2 is about parents having the right to choose which education and teaching is right for their children. As the Strasbourg court said in a Danish case, Article 2 of Protocol 1 aims “at safeguarding the possibility of plura…
England has fallen out of step with both Wales — which imposed a duty to have regard to the UNCRC in 2011 — and Scotland, which fully incorporated it by statute last year. Amendment 470 aligns us with Wales; Amendment 502F extends the duty to all public bodies. Full incorporation is what we ultimately need, even if this Bill cannot deliver it.My Lords, I support Amendments 469 and 470 and have added my name to Amendment 502F. However, I suggest that altogether more forthright and comprehensive embedding of the UNCRC into English law is now both appropriate and overdue, even if that cannot be fully achieved under this Bill. That convention was signed by the United Kingdom, among many others, as long ago as 1991. It commands widespread respect. Since then, England has fallen out of step with Wales, where, as we have been told, a measure in 2011 placed an express duty on Ministers to have regard to the rights and obligations in the convention. England is yet more out of step with Scotland, where the convention was fully and directly incorporated into law by statute last year. Amendment 470 would align England with Wales, but not yet with Scotland. Amendment 502F would impose a duty on public authorities, not just on Ministers, yet both fall short of unqualified incorporation. The convention provides a wide-ranging and valuable list of rights which should be an invaluable checklist for any public authority. Even if some may criticise parts of it as idealistic and aspirational, the convention both sets and raises standards, and specific articles of the convention supplement current gaps in practice and procedure and enhance accountability. Without going into too much detail, significantly, it was the first international convention expressly to recognise and underpin a child’s right to identity, as set out in Articles 7 and 8. This is not unimportant for migrant and unaccompanied children, or in the complexities of modern parental relationships. Article 12 is widely recognised as important in requiring proper consideration of the views of a child on all matters affecting that child. Any family law practitioner can see the potential general and specific influence of many of the other articles. For example, Article 10.2 could influence disputes over child relocation. More broadly, several topics and problems dis…
As a former Children's Commissioner, I know from working with commissioners across Europe that countries which have taken the step toward UNCRC incorporation — even just a duty to have regard — treat it as a powerful declaration about how they view themselves. This Bill already puts children more centrally in policy; Amendments 469 and 470 are the logical next step.My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 469 and 470, and I thank my noble friend for making such a strong and clear case for why they are important. As a former Children’s Commissioner who worked very much within the framework of the UNCRC as the legal person required to promote and support children’s rights, the Committee will not be surprised to hear me speaking up for these amendments. As part of that role, I met children’s commissioners and Governments from around Europe and the rest of the world. They were at different stages of having regard to the UNCRC, but it was very clear from all my conversations with those who had taken the step towards incorporation—senior members of Government and others working in the public sector and wider society—that this was an important declaration for their country and for how they viewed themselves. I am proud of the work that this Bill, as well as the wider work of government, is putting forward to make children a much more central commitment in decision-making. These amendments would offer a next, important step. However, the discussion around this can often become quite legalistic and technical, which sometimes distracts. We need to get to the heart of what this is about: making sure that we have a consistent focus on how we, as a nation, put our children first. We know that what happens in childhood will have an impact throughout the whole of life—and that impacts at the heart of who we are as a nation. Children do not fit neatly into government departments; no one at the Cabinet table exclusively represents the best interests of children. Children do not vote, so they often get missed out in key moments of decision-making, and, as we know, they are most likely to fall through the gaps. In short, it is very easy for children to be overlooked and to fall between the departments and decision-makers who are making policies. Children’s rights impact assessments can strengthen that move. They may sound technical and bu…
Amendment 502YP would require the Secretary of State, when issuing guidance and reviewing parental appeals, to act in a way that is substantively fair, proportionate and consistent with the best interests of the child, while also weighing burdens on families. Home-educating families I have spoken to find the gap between the Bill's stated light-touch approach and its practical operation — data requests, attendance orders triggered by administrative suspicion — deeply troubling.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502YP, which stands in my name. This amendment goes to the heart of how government power is exercised in the Bill. It would require the Secretary of State, when issuing guidance and reviewing parental appeals, to act in a manner that is substantively fair, proportionate and consistent with the best interests of the child while also taking into account the burdens that they might impose on families and parents. Why is such a provision necessary? It is not enough for Ministers to draft guidance that looks acceptable on paper or to frame decisions in language that appears compatible with human rights law. What matters is how these powers operate in practice and how they impact parents and children, and other stakeholders in their daily lives. Too often, many innocent families that I have spoken with experience the gap between theory and practice. They are told that regulations are light-touch, yet find themselves deluged with data requests, threatened with attendance orders or subject to investigatory processes that are often triggered not by evidence of harm but by mere administrative suspicion. From my work with home-educating families, I have heard repeatedly of parents treated as problems to be managed rather than partners in their child’s learning and well-being. That is not safeguarding; it is coercion disguised as oversight. I understand that the guidance-led approach and strategy that the Government have taken is a means to try to block loopholes both now and into the future, but I urge the Minister and the department to think about the costs that this Henry VIII-led approach impose. For many families who find themselves on the wrong side of an investigation—and let us remember that the majority of investigations never lead to a conviction —it imposes huge court fees and requires them to set aside years of their lives to fight for their rights. It puts costs on to ordinary citizens. This amendment seeks to ensure that courts,…
In the Cleveland inquiry I found that even five and six-year-olds gave astonishingly accurate accounts of what had happened to them and said clearly what they wanted done — and they were not being heard. Children are people, not packages. These two amendments put part of the UNCRC on the statute book; it is odd that English law has not embraced it as fully as Scotland and Wales already have.My Lords, I support Amendments 469 and 470, particularly the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, who has such experience. I should like to concentrate briefly on listening to the child. In 1987-88, I chaired the statutory inquiry into the Cleveland child abuse. I heard, with my assessors, a lot of videos of children being interviewed. It was extraordinary how even very young children of five or six were able to give astonishingly accurate accounts of what had happened to them and what they wanted done. The older children were explaining not only how they had been interviewed but how they wanted their voices to be heard, and they were not being heard. In my recommendations, I pointed out that children were people and not packages. That idea, that children are people entitled to be heard, does not mean that they are entitled to have what they want done—it may not be appropriate—but it is crucial to hear what they want done. It seems to me that these two amendments put on the statute book part of the very important United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been referred to frequently today. It is a bit odd that we have not embraced it fully in English law, though it is embraced in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is very odd indeed. What really matters it that what children want should be heard. They should be listened to, and what they need and want should be evaluated. That is why these two amendments are so important.
Across the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Victims and Prisoners Bill and the Online Safety Bill, a cross-party group of us has had to fight repeatedly to inject recognition of children's rights into legislation that arrived here having had minimal scrutiny. If the best interests of the child were embedded as a standard requirement in drafting from the outset, we would not need to have these battles at Committee stage every time.My Lords, at Second Reading, I said that a great sorrow for me and many others is that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, is not with us, because she would have been intimately involved in the Bill. In particular, she would have put her full weight behind these two amendments. She was a clarion call for the voice of the child to be heard. During the last five or six years in your Lordships’ House, we have had a succession of Bills—I include the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Victims and Prisoners Bill and the Online Safety Bill. In each case, a group of us across the Chamber has fought repeatedly to try to inject into the Bill as much as possible a recognition of the rights of children, and that children are not—and should not be treated in the same way as—adults. In each case, this has been necessary because it has become abundantly clear that this was not foremost in the minds of those drafting the Bill at that time. If that was embedded in the system, so that what is in the best interests of the child was automatically a major part of thinking behind drafting any part of a Bill, what a wonderful advance that would be. I have been involved for many years with a charity called Coram, particularly the part of it called Coram Life Education, the largest provider of health education in primary schools across the United Kingdom. One thing that we teach children, starting at age five and through to 11, is the meaning of mutual respect. Mutual respect is about respecting children of different ethnicities, faiths, backgrounds and beliefs, and doing so in a considered and thoughtful way.
Imagine if every Bill arriving in this House carried a statement on its face: "This complies with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child." What a step forward that would be. Children's voices are the gold standard of truth — the UNCRC is the framework for hearing them.My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this rich and terribly important debate, having attached my name to Amendments 469 and 470, which are also signed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. They have broad cross-party support, and we have heard much more support from all corners of the Committee. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Russell, even though he pre-empted—
I oppose Amendments 469 and 470. They rest on a misconception: that children have no rights in the UK except those set down in supranational conventions. We have a long and positive history of protecting children's rights in our own law. These amendments would impose a vast administrative burden — mandatory child-rights impact assessments for every ministerial decision, including operational ones. Scotland and Wales are held up as models, yet it is genuinely hard to find evidence that children there are doing measurably better than in England.My Lords, I oppose Amendments 469 and 470. I recognise that they are proposed with the very best of intentions and at first blush sound wonderful, yet it is blindingly obvious that they would be likely to do more harm than good in practice. They embody a fundamental misconception that children have no real rights in the UK except to the extent that they are specified in supranational charters and conventions. This is simply not the case. We have a long and generally positive history of acknowledging and protecting human rights, including those of children, and recognising the ways in which children need to be treated differently from adults. We do an enormous amount to give children a voice. I will turn to the negatives. First, the amendments would create a vast and costly administrative burden for very little additional value. The amendments specify that children’s rights impact assessments would have to be published for every single ministerial decision, including operational decisions. Scotland and Wales have been repeatedly cited as models to follow, yet it is genuinely hard to find ways in which children in Scotland and Wales are doing better than children in England and easy to find ways in which they are doing worse. I am afraid that the educational comparative studies, on record for all to see, show very big gaps. The impact of lockdowns was no less harsh for children in Wales and Scotland. All countries have experienced a spike in persistent absence post-lockdown. Whereas the latest persistent absence figure in England is 23%, when I looked it up a couple of months ago, in Wales it was 31% and in Scotland it was 37%. I may have got those two the wrong way around but one is 31% and one is 37%. It is not obvious that those two nations provide a clear example of why we should adopt this approach.
Having taken legal advice and being told by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that Amendment 502F would have no adverse impact, I add my support to Amendments 469, 470 and 502F. As a teacher, I think education in this country has gradually come to recognise that children have rights — and we do listen to them much more now than we once did.My Lords, I am standing up to make a speech absolutely on the fly now. I have taken some legal advice and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, says there would be no adverse impact from this. So I add my support to Amendments 469, 470 and 502F. As a teacher, I think the history of education in this country is that it has gradually dawned on us that children have rights. If I may give a bit of hope to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I think we do listen to children much more now. The noble Lord, Lord Banner, touched on the idea that we are very good at setting up conventions—we are extremely diligent signatories and very good penholders—but we are not usually very good at following our own advice. The Children’s Charity Coalition has said that the Bill currently lacks explicit measures to ensure that children’s rights are systematically considered in law and policy-making. That is a lot of children’s charities that think that. We have heard from Team Cross Bench, which I thought put some extraordinary power behind these amendments, but perhaps I may quote my legal adviser, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on this one: these are appropriate and overdue.
Paragraph 1.6 of the Ministerial Code already obliges Ministers to comply with international agreements the UK has ratified — so the obligation to have regard to the UNCRC is already there in practice. My concern, shared with the former Chief Inspector, is whether wholesale incorporation into domestic law adds real value or simply creates costly bureaucratic obligations for uncertain benefit.My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate. I have not particularly participated in this Bill, but I am always interested when noble Lords seek to incorporate various treaties we have signed into domestic law. The reason I say that is because of my experience in a variety of ways of having been a Minister. Paragraph 1.6 of the Ministerial Code, which is not a new obligation on Ministers, states that Ministers have to comply with the international agreements into which Governments and previous Governments have entered and which have usually been ratified by Parliament. The need to think about these sorts of issues, particularly around children, is already embedded into how policy framework strategies are deployed. “From the mouths of children” is in the Psalms and in the Gospels. That element of truth comes through: it is absolutely vital that children’s voices are heard. This is why things such as the Children Act 1989 was really important, about aspects of that. However, I am really concerned, and I share the concerns that my noble friend Lady Spielman expressed, about whether these need to be incorporated as a whole into domestic law. Only a handful of other countries have done this: Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Spain and, to some extent, or to the full extent of its devolved powers, the Scottish Parliament has decided to do the same—although noble Lords may be aware of the rulings after there was a referral to the Supreme Court which removed certain aspects of that legislation, partly because it counteracted the primacy of this Parliament in legislation and other matters. However, as regards thinking through, I fully respect the long connection with education of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. Both my parents are teachers. I do not have children, so I do not have the same experiences there, but I am aware, from when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, of absolutely how much, just from the DNA, in effect, of being normal human beings, we would consider…
- During 14 years of the previous Government, Bills arrived here repeatedly with the needs and rights of children manifestly not foremost in the minds of those who drafted them. The noble Baroness says Ministers are already bound; if that is so, why did we have to fight for children's rights clause by clause, Bill by Bill, for six years?
I will just swiftly respond to the noble Baroness. During the 14 years that her party was in office—I witnessed this first hand, because I am a retread, as I got re-elected back in in 2014—there was a series of Bills, some of which I mentioned I have been involved with, where children are directly involved and affected. Repeatedly, those Bills arrive here after—as per usual—minimal scrutiny down the Corridor, by design. It is manifestly clear that the detailed needs, requirements and rights of children have not systematically been thought through and embedded in the legislation, which is why we have had to go through lengthy debates to try to tease that out. I am proud to say that, in the majority of cases, faced with strong cross-party arguments in favour, the Front Bench of the noble Baroness’s party, repeatedly in different Bills, acceded to the strength of those arguments and amended the legislation to put children’s rights in there. Whatever the Ministerial Code may say, unfortunately that was not filtering its way down into the way that Bills were being drafted. Your Lordships’ House did its work very well, but what some of us are hoping and asking for is a situation where that requirement becomes less frequent and is abnormal rather than, I am afraid, substantively normal.
- Just to be clear on Amendment 502G: the wording I am using is already in the European Convention — it is incorporated into our law by the Human Rights Act 1998. I am not trying to import something new; I am pointing out that Part 2 of this Bill, which expands state powers over education, must be read against an obligation that already exists.
I quickly respond to a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, made. The wording in my amendment is not my wording; it is already in the convention. I am not trying to incorporate it into our law, because it is already incorporated. That ship has sailed, really. All I am doing is pointing out its relevance to a Bill that I perceive as seeking to restrict parental choice in various ways. To pick up on one point that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, made, I entirely respect what he said about the importance of being aware that parents may make wrong choices. The assumption built into this provision of the convention is that they are entitled to make what they consider to be good choices. Otherwise, you would take away all rights of parents altogether, if you make the assumption that they are not. On children’s rights in respect of schools, it is their parents who have chosen to send them there. That was the parental choice.
- The analogy with the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998 is not apt: that Act imposes duties of outcome. Amendments 469 and 470 require only "have regard to" — a world apart. And if that standard is too burdensome, the question answers itself: what is the purpose of the UK's 35 years of UNCRC membership?
My Lords, I want to come back on two points. First, I suggest that the analogy with the ECHR and the Human Rights Act is not a good one, because the Human Rights Act imposes duties of outcome. It requires adherence to the convention. The amendments before the Committee require “regard to”, which is a world apart from duties of outcome. Secondly, on administrative burdens, I pose this question: if it is too burdensome even to have regard to the convention, what is the point of us being a member of it?
"Children should be seen and not heard" filtered through society for far too long. The importance of hearing children's voices — whether in care, in schools or in the legislative process — is why these amendments matter. I support Amendments 469 and 470.This has been an important debate on these amendments. I want to start by saying that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is not able to be present. Her husband is not at all well. She added her name to Amendments 469 and 470. I am going to keep my comments brief. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, is right: I can almost see Baroness Massey on my shoulders. When I first arrived here, although she was of a different party, she immediately collared me, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and gave me a briefing on children’s rights. That was the first time I met Doreen Massey. At some stage, when we come to our senses on this, her importance on this issue will come to mind. I also wanted to mention the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about the importance of the child being heard. For far too long, we had the old adage that children should be seen and not heard. Sadly, that filters through the whole of society in all sorts of ways. It is not just parents and public bodies. I remember my wife being heartbroken when a black boy in her secondary school was fostered by white parents. At the time it was quite rightly thought to be the case that culturally it is better if foster parents have the same heritage as the child. The boy, who was 12 or 13, was adamant that he wanted to stay with his white foster parents. Nobody listened to that boy. Nobody in the local authority, in the school or in social services listened to that boy. If we say we want to hear the voice of the child, it is a nice phrase to use, but we have to make it work in practice and it has to filter through the whole of what we do. On the convention on human rights, I just do not understand this, and I would like a detailed letter from the Minister. It is 12 years since my noble friend Lady Walmsley and Baroness Massey talked to me about this. Why can we not follow Wales and Scotland? Let us do an impact assessment. Do we just not want to do it? Well, then let us have the…
The Opposition understand the spirit of these amendments, but the UK already committed to the UNCRC in 1990 and its progress is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Conservative Government did not support child-rights impact assessments or making "regard to" the UNCRC a statutory duty when in office, and we do not support them in opposition.My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and other noble Lords who proposed the amendments in this group. This is a very technical area, and we have heard much expert opinion from my noble friend Lord Banner, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and, crucially in our opinion, the former Chief Inspector of Education my noble friend Lady Spielman, and my noble friend Lady Coffey. It is important to flag that, although His Majesty’s loyal Opposition completely understand the spirit of noble Lords’ amendments, we are not in a position to support them. The UK has already signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1990 and 1991 respectively, and it came into force in January 1992. As such, the UK is already bound by international law to implement the agreement, and our progress is being monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. But several of the recommendations in the last report from the committee, including on child rights assessments and education, are ones we did not support when we were in government and still do not support in opposition. Amendment 469 would bring an additional child rights assessment into all legislation, as recommended by the committee in its 2023 report. We simply do not believe that this is required; in fact, instead of enhancing a child’s education, it would further slow our ability to legislate and implement effectively. The wider recommendations in the report are also not proposals with which we concur, including, for example, the recommendation to end academic selection and testing measures to reduce levels of stress on pupils. This has the potential to do real harm, particularly to disadvantaged pupils. We believe that the huge opportunity before us is not to layer on new statutory duties or reporting mechanisms. To the contrary, it is to ensure that the education system we strive for is one that builds on the suc…
The Government are committed to the UNCRC in law and in practice. We engage regularly with an expert advisory group including the Children's Rights Alliance, Coram and Barnardo's, and convene regular meetings with all the major children's charities. We will continue to engage closely with advocates for children's rights — and I will come to a bit more detail on how we consult children directly.My Lords, the amendments in group 1, as we have heard in a very good and well-informed debate, relate to duties on Ministers and public bodies in respect of children’s rights and parents’ rights to educate children in accordance with their faith. Let me be clear in responding to this group that the Government are committed to safeguarding children’s rights, both in law and in practice, and firmly uphold the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I am grateful to noble Lords for their views on these important matters and for the opportunity, as I say, to hear from experts in this Committee. We have listened carefully to the arguments for these amendments and will continue to engage closely with all those advocating for the rights of children. We regularly meet, for example, with an expert advisory group to hear directly from key stakeholders in this area, including the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, Coram, Barnardo’s and several others. This group will in fact be meeting again in the department next week. Additionally, we convene regular meetings with all the major children’s charities. These fora provide Ministers and officials with excellent and important opportunities to hear first-hand from the experts on these issues and to help us advance our shared goal of putting children’s rights at the very centre of policy-making.
- Does the Minister meet groups of children?
May I just ask the Minister: does she meet groups of children?
- Yes, most certainly we do. The Government have engaged a very large number of children through the development of the youth strategy, led across DCMS, DfE and the Department of Health. We convene children and young people directly on the specifics of legislation, and Ministers engage with them regularly on the issues that matter.
I have barely got started, but yes, most certainly we do, and I will come to a bit more detail on that in a moment. As we have discussed at various points during the course of the Bill’s passage, there are a whole range of ways in which the Government engage with children, both on the specifics of legislation but also more broadly. For example, a very wide-ranging engagement has been led by colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, along with DfE and the Department of Health, on the development of this Government’s youth strategy, and a very large number of children have been engaged. I was just about to say that my honourable friend and former Minister, Janet Daby, engaged readily with these key stakeholders and asserted—as do I and as, I am sure, my new colleague Josh MacAlister does—the fundamental importance of children’s rights to this Government. In parallel, we are also carefully considering the issues and amendments on the rights and voice of the child that were raised on Part 1 earlier in Committee, to ensure that children’s rights are protected throughout the Bill. Amendment 469, in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister and introduced by my noble friend Lady Blower, would place a duty on Ministers to prepare and publish a child rights impact assessment concerning all relevant legislative, policy and budget developments in the Act that will impact children’s well-being, social care or education, prior to the decision being taken. On children’s rights assessments and more broadly on the UNCRC, this Government have put children at the heart of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity through our plan for change. Ministers already consider the impact of our children’s rights responsibilities in all new policies and legislation, and of course through this landmark Bill we are delivering the most significant reforms—for example, to child protection—in a generation. By improving safeguarding, strengthening social care and ensuring that…
- The key point in this debate, raised by several noble Lords, is the need to balance parental choice with children's rights — these can conflict, and when they do we need a clear legal framework for how to resolve that. Rights-respecting schools, where children learn to advocate for themselves and understand what the UNCRC means, show that embedding those rights changes culture, not just law. I will not press to a Division today, but this is not the last word on the matter.
My Lords, it is both a pleasure and somewhat of a challenge to respond to this extremely good and wide-ranging debate. I am extremely grateful for the mentions of our late noble friend Lady Massey, whose absence from this debate we feel quite deeply. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, even those with whom I disagree—I do not think I have ever before been described as being motivated by an elitist desire to thwart democracy when seeking to advocate for children’s rights. However, the contributions were all extremely interesting. I am very pleased to have had the support of my noble friend Lady Longfield, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. In particular, I would like to mention the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who spoke about the need—this is really important—to balance parental choice and children’s rights. This may not occur often, but it may occur and we need to pay attention to that balance. He also mentioned the extremely worthy rights-respecting schools in which children can begin to advocate for themselves and understand what children’s rights really mean. The need for children’s voices in the care system to be heard was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and that is important. I will not be tempted into a discussion about academic selection, even though it is a matter on which I could say a very great deal. I am pleased with the remarks of my noble friend the Minister, who said from the Dispatch Box that she is fully committed to children’s rights. I am sure that we will continue to discuss the question of a children’s rights impact assessment and the ultimate possible incorporation of the convention. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
By age 18, one in three young people in this country has left all education or training — nearly two in three of those who do not go to university. They are either NEET or in dead-end jobs without training, heading for low pay and low productivity. The main cause is a shortage of apprenticeships: the Government's own matching scheme places only one in three applicants. A previous Labour Government passed the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to guarantee places for every 16 to 18-year-old who qualifies — the coalition repealed it almost immediately. This amendment would restore that guarantee and change everything for those young people.My Lords, this amendment aims to remedy one of the greatest injustices in our whole education system: the acute shortage of apprenticeships for young people not going to university. If you qualify for university and want it, you can expect to find a place. However, if you qualify for an apprenticeship and want it, you have no such luck. On the Government’s matching scheme for apprenticeships, only one in three people applying finds a place. There is a more shocking fact, from which all thoughts about post-school education should start: by age 18, one in three of all our young people has ceased to receive any education or training. That one in three is of course nearly two in three of the people not going to university. That is how we are treating them—they are either NEET or in a dead-end job without training, heading for low productivity and low pay. The main reason for that is the shortage of apprenticeships. This situation is a disaster for the economy—it is the major reason for our low economic growth—and it is a disaster for our young people. It is the prime duty of the state to give everybody a proper start in life and we are simply failing: we are not doing it. We have talked about this problem for years, but the scale of apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers today is no better than it was in 2009. However, in that year, the previous Labour Government took a major step to remedy the situation. They passed the apprenticeships Act 2009, which obliged the Government to ensure that there were enough places for all 16 to 18 year-old qualified applicants for apprenticeships up to level 3. That would have changed everything, but, unfortunately, it was almost immediately repealed by the coalition Government.
Economic growth is the heart of the country's problems and skills are what drive it in the medium term. The vocational educational system that serves the 50% of school leavers who don't go to university compares badly with our competitors'. An apprenticeship guarantee is a golden opportunity to make a step change. At minimum, the Government should commit to a timetable and sign up to the objective — even if the money is not there right now, tweak the levy to give it a greater youth focus.My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 483, which I have put my name to. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, has set out the arguments very eloquently. I would merely like to add the perspective of a former Treasury official. Economic growth, or the lack of it, lies at the heart of the country’s problems. Without it, we simply will not be able to afford the costs of an ageing population. The Government will be forced to raise taxes even more than they already have and public services will deteriorate further, alienating an already alienated electorate. There is little the Government can do to promote growth in the short term. As an open economy, Britain is likely to grow only as fast as global demand permits, and we all know the effect of increased protectionism, but the Government can do something about the medium and long term. We all know what drives growth: good infrastructure, competition, innovation, and a sensible tax system—but, above all, skills. Successive Governments have done a good job on education. Attainment in schools has improved and there has been a dramatic expansion in university education over the last 50 years, which, for the most part, has been reflected in the living standards of graduates. However, that still leaves 50% of school leavers who do not go to university who are poorly served by a vocational educational system that compares badly with our competitors’. Technical and further education has never been prioritised sufficiently, and I can understand why. The media, the Government and the Civil Service are all dominated by graduates. Technical education is not sexy. The lags in the impact of any reform are long and variable. The plain fact is that there are not many votes in it, but sometimes Governments can do the right thing for future generations. I welcome recent announcements by the Government of a youth guarantee and the extra support for skills in the spending review, but they need to go further. An apprenticeship guaran…
We have always talked about education as if it is only academic education — the insistence that polytechnics become universities showed how deeply embedded that attitude is. Technical education at levels 2 and 3 has never been prioritised enough. Even if the money is not there, it is important to make the statement that this matters and that the Treasury will get it back — because the economics of investing in skills for those who need it most are simply right.My Lords, this is a rather crucial amendment. The reason is that we are a nation that is inclined to talk about education as if it is always academic education. If I have criticisms of previous Governments—and I have of those from both sides—they are that we have emphasised education as if it is the only way, rather than part of a grouping of educational opportunities. We are also rather inclined to not support technical education, and the comparison with our competitors is notable and historically of very long standing. I recently read a report about such education by a committee of the House that remarked that Prussia was much better at it than we were. The Committee will immediately see how long ago that report was produced. Curiously, we have always found this a difficulty in the way that we think about things and in many of the changes that we have made, such as the insistence that polytechnics should become universities, as if that somehow improved the circumstances and that there was something less good about having something that was aimed specifically at talking about the issues that we are discussing. We have to change the atmosphere. I much approved of the comments just made by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, about what the Government could do if they did not have the money. However, there is quite a lot of money in that fund, which seems to have gone back to the Treasury rather than being used in quite the way one would have hoped. However, if they do not have the money, it is very important to make the statement that this is important, and that it is part of the way in which we help those who need it but who, once having had it, will be making a real contribution. This is why I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Layard, that the Treasury will get the money back. There is a real truth in this. We need it; we have not had it. I am not blaming any particular Government for this, because, after all, this was a pretty late decision of that…
There is a specific funding anomaly that must be addressed. When a 16 to 18-year-old fails to get an apprenticeship and stays in full-time education, that is paid for automatically under the open-ended commitment to fund education until 18. But apprenticeships for that same age group have to come out of the levy — which is rapidly running dry. At a minimum, move funding for 16 to 18 apprenticeships into the mainstream education and training budget where it belongs.My Lords, I would like to add one very specific but pertinent comment to the debate at this point. Obviously, we are not going redesign the whole of apprenticeships here on the Floor of the House, but I strongly support the emphasis that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has placed on 16 to 18 year-olds, and bring to your Lordships’ attention a very strange anomaly in the way we approach this. When a young person fails to get an apprenticeship and remains in full-time education of some sort, this is paid for automatically as part of the open-ended commitment to pay for classroom-based education, even if it is also vocational or technical education, until somebody is 18 or 19. But apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds have to come out of the levy—of which there is going to be very little money left next year, by the way, but that is a whole other discussion. At the very least, in the short term, the Government could commit to moving the funding for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds into a different budget, into the perfectly correct national commitment to fund young people’s education and training until the age of 18.
- The unspent apprenticeship levy returns to the Treasury rather than being recycled into apprenticeships — that is perverse. And because employers see their money at risk of being clawed back, they divert it to high-level, master's-style courses for existing employees rather than level 2 and 3 apprenticeships for young people starting out. Liverpool City Council returned £1 million over two years that could easily have funded dozens of level 3 apprenticeships.
Briefly, I want to reinforce what has been said. What is unspent of the apprenticeship levy gets returned to the Treasury, not to be spent on education or apprenticeships, which is bizarre. It is a double whammy, because businesses, seeing that their money has not been spent and is likely to go back to the Treasury, suddenly start putting staff on high-level courses, equivalent—
In our last year in government the amount returned to the Treasury was only £11 million — essentially everything was spent. The levy-diversion problem is real, but let's be accurate about the scale.This is risky, because I am doing this from memory. I appreciate that in earlier years, significant amounts of money were returned to the Treasury, but in the last year we were in government, it was £11 million—so basically absolutely everything was spent. I say that in relation to my noble friend Lord Deben’s remarks, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Storey, will put that in context.
- The trend was improving — agreed on that.
The noble Baroness is right—the amount that was not spent or did not go to the Treasury was coming down.
- T-levels were introduced to give young people technical education in a controlled environment rather than sending them out to work at 16. They required a ministerial direction and faced resistance from civil servants, but they address a real gap. The apprenticeship levy should be focused on young people at levels 2 and 3; the way the system has drifted toward funding high-level qualifications for existing employees must be corrected.
My Lords, the issue of apprenticeships is really relevant to improving the life opportunities of young people. I respect what the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has done in tabling this amendment, which is supported by many distinguished people. Noble Lords should recognise that the introduction of T-levels was intended to provide education in a more controlled atmosphere, as opposed to young people —children—going out to work, legally of course. T-levels—which, by the way, required a ministerial direction issued by my right honourable friend Damian Hinds because they were against the advice of civil servants—are a good way of trying to make sure that young people get that opportunity without necessarily having to be forced into the world of work. I may be overinterpreting the noble Lord’s amendment. The other issue employers face is the balance between how you treat children in your workforce and how you treat adults. In my experience at the Department for Work and Pensions, that was a key difficulty in considering how to encourage young people into work. I note that the amendment is very specific, referring to the ages of between 16 and 18. On my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment, which would promote provision of places up to level 7, thought is being given to how young people can then qualify as solicitors and the like by embarking on this path. However, I somewhat agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey: schemes were developed that effectively skewed away from the entry roles that we still need young people to get into. Regrettably, due to the Employment Rights Bill, we are seeing fewer and fewer such opportunities for young people. It is a real worry that, despite the Government’s best intentions, we will see NEETs going up rather than down. I support the sentiment of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I fear it will be difficult fully to put into practice exactly what he wants, but I encourage the Government to continue to do whatever they can to make…
- As a design technology teacher, an officer of the APPG on apprenticeships, and a member of the Social Mobility Policy Committee, I welcome the defence industrial strategy's new apprenticeship clearing system — BAE Systems was heavily behind it. We have seen Skills England start. The critical question now is how all the new infrastructure connects to schools and to young people who are trying to find a way in.
My Lords, I rise to speak as a design technology teacher, a veteran of the IfATE Act, an officer of the APPG on apprenticeships and a member of the House of Lords Social Mobility Policy Committee. I think we all agree that apprenticeships are vital to this country. It is rather sad that this subject seems to have led to a general exit from the Chamber, but I think that is more because it is lunchtime. I welcome the defence industrial strategy and its new apprenticeship and graduate clearing system, which I know BAE Systems was heavily behind. We have seen Skills England start, and we hope upon hope that it is the answer. This is an incredibly important and nuanced subject, and I am afraid I do not think these amendments are the answer.
- The noble Lord, Lord Layard, has painted an accurate and bleak picture. The real priority is getting young people to levels 2 and 3; the levy has increasingly been diverted to higher levels and to existing employees. Amendment 483A, which I move for Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure the levy is reoriented to that youth focus.
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the value of high-quality apprenticeships at all levels, with a focus on levels 2 and 3, and Amendment 483 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and Amendment 483A, which I have moved on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lucas. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, predictably, gave a very insightful and expert analysis of the issues, particularly for young people who are not going to university, and painted, sadly, an accurate but rather bleak picture. I would agree with him rather than the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, but I think there would be votes in it. The noble Lord said that it would be very popular across the country to take action on this. Anyway, that is not perhaps for this Committee to worry so much about. I feel that, as I make my remarks, I have former colleagues sitting on each shoulder: Gillian Keegan, the first member of the Cabinet who had previously been an apprentice; and Rob Halfon who saw apprenticeships as a key part of what he described as the “ladder of opportunity”. That is exactly the kind of image and vision that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, set out. The previous Government did a huge amount of work to raise the quality of apprenticeships and to expand them from some of the more traditional areas into financial services and others to better mirror our very heavily service-based economy and, crucially, to support important areas of the public sector where we have significant workforce shortages. That is in part where level 7 apprenticeships came in. I know that one point that my noble friend Lord Lucas would have made, had he been here, was that level 7 apprenticeships also contributed to that parity of esteem and the sense that apprenticeships could have the same prestige as a degree qualification. I absolutely recognise the urgency to address the high level of youth unemployment, particularly after recent figures that show how much it has risen in the past year, and to give all young people a sense of real…
This Government absolutely understand the importance of apprenticeships and the scandal of reduced opportunities for young people, and are fully engaged in discussions on how to address it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Layard, for his continued expertise and passion on this issue.My Lords, I start by noting that, although there are a smaller number of noble Lords in the Chamber, the quality of the contributions has nevertheless been truly significant. I thank my noble friend Lord Layard for bringing this to the Chamber and for continuing to share his enormous expertise and passion in this area, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson. I emphasise that this Government absolutely understand the importance of apprenticeships and the scandal of reduced opportunities for young people and are fully engaged in discussions on how to address this and move forward.
- The central theme of this debate is that we have taken our eye off young people at the lower levels of skill. Degree apprenticeships and level 4 and 5 qualifications can be funded through student loans and other routes; the first, overriding claim on the levy must be restored to young people working toward levels 2 and 3. I will withdraw Amendment 483 in the light of the Minister's commitment to meet and take this forward.
My Lords, I am most grateful to everyone who spoke in this excellent debate. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, got us off to a good start on the economics, which is, of course, a central part of this—but economics can appear to look just at the whole economy rather than at the fates of individuals. Ultimately, of course, the economy is about the fates of individuals and especially the fates of these young people who are headed for lives of such poverty and also, in many cases, inactivity, at a cost then to the rest of us. I am very grateful for what I think was the main theme, which came out of almost all the contributions—from the noble Lords, Lord Deben, Lord Storey, Lord Hampton and Lord Addington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran, Lady Wolf and Lady Coffey. It is that we have taken our eye off the needs of these young people at the lower levels of skill. How do we get people to levels 2 and 3 as the top priority for the use of the levy money? What has been happening, as we know, is that the levy money has been increasingly diverted, I would say, to supporting older people—often existing employees—and to higher levels of qualification. That would be all right if it were not being diverted from the needs of young people, whom employers have increasingly been turning their backs on. That is what we have to reverse, and it requires a major policy decision by the Government and the setting up of a major administrative structure to reverse this whole trend. I think it is encouraging that the survey by the CIPD showed that employers are up for this if some leadership and support is given to make it come about. We are worried that the levy is being diverted. We should revert to the principle that its main purpose is to get people up to levels 2 and 3—when it comes to levels 4 and above, there are many other potential sources of funding. There is obviously the student loan. It is not so obvious that essentially the taxpayer, through the levy, is funding higher-level…
The principle behind Amendments 485, 487, 488 and 489 is simple: the laws this Parliament passes are not mere suggestions for schools. When schools break them, there must be accountability. My amendments create a right of appeal for parents who have made a complaint that has not been upheld, with access to the First-tier Tribunal. I also support Amendment 502YM in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, which would create a central complaints system — it complements my amendments neatly.My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 485, 487, 488 and 489. Before I do, I warmly concur with and support Amendment 502YM in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman, which I believe is clear, sensible and complementary to my amendments. The principle behind my amendments is simple, and it goes to the heart of the rule of law. The laws that this Parliament passes are not mere suggestions for our schools; they are the rules that must operate, and they must be properly followed. That requires accountability when those laws are broken.
- The current complaints system is complex and gives satisfaction to no one. Complaining to government is typically a fourth-line action after escalating through the classroom teacher, the headteacher, and the school's own process. By the time a parent reaches stage four, they are exhausted and often no closer to a resolution. A central system would be clearer, faster and fairer — for schools as well as parents.
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 502YM. I will echo some of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Jackson in relation to his amendment. I believe that my amendment complements the comprehensive final-stage procedure he outlined neatly. Anyone who works in education knows how problematic dealing with complaints is becoming. Of course it is right that public bodies should have a complaints procedure, as is required by law. Of course dissatisfied parents should be able to complain to or about a school, and schools failing in their responsibilities should rectify their errors and omissions promptly. But the current system is complex and, in the main, giving satisfaction to no one. I remind noble Lords that complaining to government is, typically, a fourth-line action after a series of stages. The first stage is attempting to resolve the issue with the staff member most directly involved, such as a classroom teacher; the second is escalating the issue or making a complaint to the head teacher or another school leader; the third is making a complaint to school governors; and the fourth is escalating a complaint to the local authority or the academy trust. Yet the number of complaints to government has grown enormously in recent years, although there is not much evidence of a corresponding deterioration in the service offered by schools to children and parents. It seems likely that it is at least partly down to a higher propensity to be dissatisfied in a more fractious world. Furthermore, the use of AI enables parents to generate extremely lengthy complaints, which are time consuming to read, investigate and respond to. Safeguarding will often be invoked to ensure that a complaint is prioritised. The various provisions in law relating to the consideration of complaints by national education bodies generally require that local routes have been exhausted. The expectation was that escalation to national bodies was a last resort for when serious concerns are ignored…
- I understand where these amendments come from. Education has become a very profitable business for lawyers — special educational needs, school admissions, and now complaints. The question is whether a First-tier Tribunal route makes things better or accelerates the litigious culture further. I look forward to the Minister's reply.
I understand where these amendments are coming from. Personally, I have not formed a complete view about this. I understand what the noble Baroness is saying and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply, because there is an issue here and this is about how we handle that issue. Education has become a successful business for the lawyers, to be quite honest. Dare I say, you only have to look at special educational needs, which lawyers and solicitors have made a lot of money out of. I declare an interest as my daughter is a solicitor. One also sees solicitors involved in school admission procedures. In some cases, that is a natural route to take, and I wonder about complaints—never mind the bureaucracy involved—if lawyers get involved in that side as well.
- Most schools follow the law — and the volume of complaints is rising considerably, increasingly aided by tools such as ChatGPT. What worries me is that the school is sometimes excluded from the process entirely, with complaints made simultaneously to the DfE, Ofsted and the TRA. Teachers are having to cope with what amount to vexatious complaints promoted via WhatsApp groups. The system must be simplified — the Secretary of State has expressed that wish herself — but we should be careful not to open the floodgates to litigation.
My Lords, this group focuses on the thorny issue of complaints. The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough would introduce a new right of appeal for parents who have made a complaint that has not been upheld to a maintained school, academy or non- maintained special school. At the risk of stating the obvious, most schools follow the law; they follow guidance and non-statutory guidance. I remember one teacher saying to me, “We live our lives by the bell. Of course we follow the rules”, but I accept the examples that my noble friend cited. We know that the volume of complaints is rising considerably, sadly assisted by tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said on her amendment, to which I was pleased to add my name, a complaint can be made to the Department for Education, Ofsted and the TRA, as well as to the school itself. Most worryingly, the school is sometimes excluded and complaints are made to all the other agencies but not to the school. I am grateful to the charity Parentkind for its research into complaints, which shows that the vast majority of parents are happy with their child’s school, but also that 38% of the 2,000 parents in the sample interviewed had filed a formal complaint in the last year. Head teachers report separately from the Parentkind research that, on average, they are dealing with five complaints a week. As my noble friend Lord Jackson explained, his amendment would support parents who are not satisfied with the school’s response to a complaint and provide a different mechanism to enforce their legal duties. I find it troubling that this amendment is needed, particularly the second element, as there are significant safeguards to ensure that schools meet their legal duties. I would have hoped that the existing system, which allows a complaint to be referred to a panel chaired by an independent member, would be sufficient. However, I think the Committee will agre…
- The number of complaints is indeed staggering. The Government completely understand the concern. On Amendments 485, 487 and 488, the Government are committed to working toward a simpler, more accessible complaints system, but introducing a new right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal at this stage would have significant resource and cost implications that need careful consideration. On Amendment 502YM, we agree there is a problem and are looking actively at how to make the system fairer — I commit to writing with further detail.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions and for raising this very important area around parental complaints and appeals and the introduction of a central school complaints system. The Government completely understand the concern on this matter. As I shall go on to mention, the increase in the number of complaints is quite staggering, when you see the statistics laid out. Amendments 485, 487 and 488, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, would allow parents and carers of children in maintained schools, independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. Amendment 489, also tabled by the noble Lord, would allow for regulations to amend secondary legislation on the rules and procedures of the First-tier Tribunal. I note the detailed examples that the noble Lord highlighted to us. Amendment 502YM, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, would introduce a central complaints system to handle all school-related complaints in England, and for these complaints to be held in a central database accessible to the Department for Education and Ofsted. I hope we have made it very clear throughout the passage of the Bill, and I repeat it, that the Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards, so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive. This area fits into the discussion of these amendments. When parents and carers believe schools are not delivering the standards expected of them, they of course have the right to raise complaints with schools—that is of the utmost importance. All schools are required to have a complaints policy in place that is promoted and effectively implemented. However, we believe that the introduction of an additional level of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal would create increased burden on a school system that is already under enormous pressure, as we have heard, from the increasing number of parent and carer complaint…
- Can the Minister say now — or write to me and place the letter in the Library — whether simplifying the complaints system, which the Secretary of State has committed to, requires primary legislation or can be done in secondary legislation? If it requires primary legislation, could a commencement clause be crafted so we do not have to wait years for the next available Bill?
Can the noble Baroness say now, or write to me and put the letter in the Library, clarifying whether, in relation to simplification of the complaints system, which obviously the Secretary of State has said she would like to do and which is at the heart of the amendment in my name and in that of my noble friend Lady Spielman, that requires a change in primary legislation or whether it can be done in secondary legislation? If it requires primary legislation, I am sure that colleagues in the department would be able to craft some kind of commencement clause—I am not sure quite what sort of clause it would be—that would allow that to happen without us having to wait several years for more legislation.
- That is a very important point and it is exactly the kind of detail the Secretary of State will need to work through. I will write with a note setting out where the process stands and what, if any, legislative vehicle is needed.
The noble Baroness raises a very important point, and these will all be matters that are being considered as the Secretary of State takes this important work forward. I can get a written note and put it in the Library to outline the way forward and where we are at this moment.
- The heart of this debate is one clear question: should the laws Parliament passes be enforceable in schools? Those worried about a litigation culture should look at the evidence — the current system of bureaucratic brick walls gives parents no recourse and teachers no protection against the same vexatious complainants cycling through the system repeatedly. I am grateful to the Minister for a considered response and I will reflect carefully before Report.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her well thought through and considered response. It ranged wider than I expected, but just for the avoidance of doubt, of course I deprecate any unreasonable or vexatious complaints against teachers from parents that might veer into anti-social behaviour of the type she mentioned in terms of WhatsApp groups. I am happy to put that on record. This has been a very thoughtful and important debate and I am grateful to noble Lords who took part, not least the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Spielman, who both brought great expertise and experience to the debate—the noble Lord from his time on Liverpool City Council and my noble friend from her leadership of Ofsted. At its heart, this debate has revolved around a single clear question: do we believe that the laws passed in Parliament should be enforceable in schools? People are worried about a litigation culture, yet the evidence demonstrates that the current system of bureaucratic brick walls and institutional inertia is the true source of conflict and frustration. We have heard concerns about costs, but I ask again, what is the price of the status quo? What is the cost of a department that fails in its duty, and of parental trust in schools evaporating? This accountability vacuum does not remain empty for long: it is filled by an entire ecosystem of unaccountable third-party advisers and activists. This is not, I suggest, a failure of individual teachers but a systemic failure. In the absence of clear enforcement, the law becomes muted and professionals are left rudderless. Into this void step commercial subscription services. I will give one final example in this debate. The Key is an organisation ironically first established by the Department for Education before it was privatised. When the previous Government consulted on draft guidelines for schools on gender-questioning children, The Key actively counselled schools that it would be unlawful to follow that guidan…
We have a physical and mental well-being crisis. Amendment 492 would require schools to incorporate the Chief Medical Officer's weekly and daily physical activity guidelines into the school programme — this is not about competitive sport; it is about the basics: moving every day. Childhood obesity and inactivity cost taxpayers billions and are breaking the NHS. This is an investment that pays for itself many times over.My Lords, in moving Amendment 492 in my name I give more than a positive nod to the other amendments in this group. For Amendment 492 I also thank my friends the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Sater, and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for co-signing this amendment. I commend them for all the work they do in this area. We have a physical and mental well-being crisis in this country. In previous sessions on the Bill, we have rightly discussed the mental well-being crisis. My Amendment 492 goes to the heart of the physical well-being crisis. It is costing the taxpayer in the billions, it is breaking the NHS, and at a community and—crucially—individual level, it is an absolute tragedy, which can, should and must be avoided. My Amendment 492 simply suggests that the Government should look at a means of incorporating the Chief Medical Officer’s advice on weekly and daily physical activity into the school programme. Be in no doubt, I am not talking here about competitive sport. I am not talking even about games. I am talking about physical literacy and physical fluency: moving, dancing and being in this great physical form of our human selves which we are born with. I look forward to the Minister’s response. It is a very simple amendment, but it could make a profound difference to so many people’s lives. I beg to move.
PE is not merely a subject; it is a cornerstone of young people's development — health, resilience, teamwork, confidence. Despite the PE and sport premium, school programmes remain inconsistent and underresourced. The curriculum must be rigorously structured from foundational movement skills in key stage 1 through to games, athletics and leadership at secondary. My Amendment 502J sets out the framework to achieve that.My Lords, I support Amendment 492 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes, which he very eloquently summarised for the Committee. I will also couple it with my Amendment 502J. First, I will reflect on some of the key issues behind the need to improve physical education programmes of study in the UK school curriculum. To me, physical education is not merely a subject; it is a cornerstone in the development of young people, fostering health, resilience, teamwork and confidence. Yet despite the considerable investment in PE and sport premium funding, programmes of study across UK schools remain inconsistent, underresourced and insufficiently ambitious. It is imperative that we take decisive action to ensure that every child has access to high-quality, inspiring physical education. First, the curriculum must be rigorously structured yet flexible, ensuring progressive development from foundational movement skills in key stage 1 to more complex games, athletics and leadership opportunities in key stage 4. This structure should be underpinned by clear learning outcomes, encompassing not only physical competence but personal, social and cognitive development. Secondly, teacher training must be enhanced and continuous. Too many schools rely on external coaches or undertrained staff, which undermines sustainability and consistency. Ongoing professional development, supported by national standards and mentoring, will equip teachers to deliver high-quality, inclusive PE lessons that inspire pupils across the ability spectrum. Thirdly, inclusive practices must be central. The curriculum must accommodate disabled pupils, those less confident in sport and the unrepresented groups, ensuring that all children can participate meaningfully. Adapted activities, peer mentoring and differentiated assessment can facilitate this inclusivity, and inclusivity is essential. Fourthly and finally, the curriculum should embrace innovation and breadth, incorporating non-traditional sports, dan…
The Lords Select Committee report on sport, health and well-being in 2023 called for a long-term cross-government plan, for PE to be made a core subject, for better teacher training, and for wider access to school sport to tackle inequality. Amendment 502H would create precisely that national strategy.My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 492, 502H and 502J, to which I have added my name. Amendment 502H calls for a national strategy for physical education and sport in schools. I was fortunate to work alongside colleagues with significant experience in sport on the House of Lords’ national plan for sport, health and well-being Select Committee in 2023. This amendment is strongly underpinned by many of the recommendations from that committee. The report called for a long-term cross-government plan to embed physical activity and well-being into our educational system, for PE to be made a core subject, for teacher training to be improved, and for access to school sport to be widened to tackle the inequalities in participation. The committee also recommended that we gather better data through a national physical activity observatory. These are all the kinds of reforms that a national strategy as proposed in this amendment would deliver. At present, fewer than half of children meet the Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines. According to the latest Sport England’s Active Lives children and young people survey, only 45% of children meet the target during school hours and 56% meet it outside of school, with levels varying significantly across different demographic groups. This is one of the main reasons why we need a national strategy. The amendment comes with a list of recommendations, but it is not an exclusive one. The scope needs to be broad enough to obtain the right data and evidence to be able to create effective guidance and consistent delivery for all schools so that we can reach all children and better support their physical and mental development. Without a coherent national strategy, we risk leaving physical education fragmented and underresourced. This amendment provides a clear framework to embed sport and physical activity as essential to children’s education, well-being and lifelong healthy lifestyle, through a truly holistic approach that su…
Physical activity is not an optional extra for young people; it is crucial to their health, learning and life chances. One-third of British children aged five to nine are projected to be overweight or obese by 2050. According to the Chief Medical Officer, children aged five to 18 need 60 minutes of moderate activity every day — currently only 47% of children meet that target. These amendments are urgently needed.My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I declare my interest as a board member of the London Marathon Foundation. The amendments in this group call for a curriculum review and a national strategy to embed physical activity and sport firmly within the school day. They are timely and urgently needed because the evidence is overwhelming that physical activity is not an optional extra for young people; it is crucial to their health, learning and life chances. The statistics tell a worrying story. One-third of British children aged five to nine are projected to be overweight or obese by 2050. As we have heard, according to the Chief Medical Officer, children and young people aged five to 18 should be active for at least 60 minutes a day, yet around 2 million children manage fewer than 30 minutes of daily activity, including walking. We are also seeing a worrying trend of young people’s mental health deteriorating alongside their physical health. These are not just numbers. They represent millions of young people whose physical and emotional well-being is compromised before their adulthood begins. Sport and daily physical activity are among the most powerful tools we have to reverse these trends. Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health, brings muscle and bone strength and helps to maintain a healthy weight, but its benefits go far beyond the body. Evidence consistently shows that physically active children perform better academically, have higher levels of concentration and better behaviour in class, and can develop social and emotional skills such as teamwork, resilience and respect. Sport is also a proven protector of mental health, reducing anxiety and depression, along with fostering friendships and a sense of belonging. Yet, despite the acknowledged importance and benefits of having young people engage in physical activity, as my noble friend Lord Moynihan highlighted, Britain has 7,000 fewer PE teachers now than at the time of the 2012 Olympics. T…
- I look back to primary schools with two timetabled PE lessons a week covering gym, games and swimming — children leaving school able to swim 20 metres, thriving after-school competitions. All of that has been eroded. The EBacc has narrowed the curriculum, damaging sport along with the creative arts. This is not something that can be laid at the door of the present Government alone — but they have the chance to reverse it.
My Lords, where did it all go wrong? I can look back to those halcyon days where, in primary schools, there were two lessons of PE a week timetabled, and PE covered a whole range of activities, from gym work to games and swimming—children regularly left school being able to swim 20 metres —and after-school sports competitions. In secondary schools, sport was thriving. As we have heard, that was beneficial for the well-being of children and young people and important for their health, with regards to obesity, and for teamwork, working together and understanding each other. This is not something that can be laid just at the hands of the present Government. In fact, the present Government, in a former iteration, did a great deal of work on sport. People will think that I am a member of his fan club, but the Blair Government brought in some of the most radical proposals on sport that this country has ever seen. Whether it was a mixture of Covid, the recession or whatever, it all suddenly—
The narrowing of the curriculum was a direct result of austerity, teacher pay falling 12% in real terms, and chronic underfunding — all initiated under the coalition and continued until 2024. Children deserve a rich, balanced curriculum, but that becomes far harder when they are taught by unqualified teachers because the teacher supply crisis has been allowed to become acute.I am sorry, but I have to interject here to say that the narrowing of the curriculum and the teacher supply crisis was a direct result of austerity, teacher pay falling by 12% in real terms and chronic underfunding of schools, all of which were initiated during the coalition and continued until 2024. Children absolutely deserve a rich and balanced curriculum, but that becomes much more difficult if they are not being taught by teachers qualified in the subject area but by unqualified teachers. The teacher supply crisis started and became acute during the previous Government. When we have this debate, we cannot ignore the practical consequences of chronic underfunding, chronic undermining of the profession and, from the start of the coalition, a policy of attacking teachers and leaders as being responsible for falling school standards. There was also a deliberate narrowing of the curriculum through the EBacc to a range of academic subjects, which has meant a precipitous decline in arts and drama and a shorting of the experience that children get in physical education. I am sorry, but I must put all that on the record. My friend the noble Lord is rightly asking these questions but he is coming up with a different set of conclusions.
- I don't recognise that dystopian view. The primary school my children attended and the school where I now teach are full for before-school, lunchtime and after-school activities. My daughter's girls team just won the under-15 Hackney cup.
My Lords, before the noble Lord continues, I do not recognise, luckily, the dystopian view that he has given. The primary school that both my children were at and the school where I now teach are full for before-school, lunchtime and after-school activities. I put on record in this Chamber that my daughter’s girls team won the under-15 Hackney cup.
School is just one part of the continuum — the link to community grass-roots clubs is what sustains physical activity beyond the school gate. School sports partnerships were supposed to save that link but were cancelled just when the Olympic legacy might have embedded them for good. We need to restore that connection.My Lords, my noble friend has covered what happens in school, but that is just one area of activity. If it is done properly, school is merely part of a greater continuum that goes out into the community. The school sports partnerships were going to save the breakdown in the traditional links between small clubs, grass-roots sports and school, but they were not there for long enough for us to know whether they would. Many of us in both bits of the coalition Government thought that it was one of the weirdest things possible that they were kept going until the Olympics and then cancelled afterwards when we might have got some benefit. I got a small nod from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—a bigger one now—which says, “That’s exactly what we thought at the time”. We also knew from that and from looking at studies that a big sporting event is great for tourism and volunteering but does not make any difference to grass-roots sport unless you back it up with something—with your inspiration. Schools have to work with the grass roots. In the amendments, we have the start of that structure, which we can go forward with. It is not just in this Bill or with this department. If we are going to lose lots of playing fields in the planning Bill, it does not matter what you do because you will not be playing anywhere else—probably not even at schools. We have to have something that goes forward. These amendments start to look slightly broader.
- One of the most important things Sport England does is act as statutory consultee for playing fields. The Government are consulting on whether to remove that role. Does anyone see who else would perform it? Without that statutory protection, playing fields — essential to the communities this House is trying to serve — will disappear.
My noble friend in sport mentioned playing fields. One of the most important roles that Sport England plays is that it is the statutory consultee for playing fields in this country. It was exceptionally worrying when, just a few months ago, the Government announced that they were putting out to consultation whether Sport England should continue that role. Does my noble friend in sport see anybody else performing that role? Will it not be even more damaging to playing fields in this country, which are so important to the public at large, if there is nobody among all the statutory consultees whose job it is to ensure their survival?
- Yes, yes and yes — we must protect that role. I moved an amendment to the Planning Bill to that effect. I am asking this Minister to ensure her colleagues in other departments talk to each other: physical activity leads to better exam results; schools provide the initial smorgasbord of finding the right sport for each child's physique, culture and temperament, and government must protect the infrastructure that makes that possible.
The answer is yes, yes and yes. I hope that the Minister will make sure that her colleagues in other departments take this on board. I moved an amendment on the planning Bill seeking to ensure that this duty is still there. I know that I am asking the Minister to part the Red Sea and take the salt out at the same time, but I am hoping for two parts of government to talk to each other on this. We want people to remain active for all the reasons that we have stated. Physical activity leads to better exam results, which we seem to forget. If schools are to provide the initial smorgasbord of finding the right form of physical activity for individuals’ physique, culture and temperament, then I hope that the Government talk across departments in support of these amendments. I would like to hear from the Minister that they are having a coherent look at this and that they will lead other departments to do something solid. The Department for Education is best placed. We could ask the Department of Health but it would get buried there. If a lead department takes this on, there is a chance of achieving some of these aims. These amendments, or ones like them, are essential to making sure that we have a duty saying, “This is what you should be doing”.
- NHS England research found that 15% of children aged two to 15 are obese — a figure that has remained stubbornly high for years. The Chief Medical Officer's recommendation for 60 minutes of daily moderate activity is clear; the question is why we are not delivering it systematically in schools. If schools started each morning with physical activity, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, suggests, the impact on learning and well-being would be transformational.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for raising the critically important issue of sport and physical education in schools, which I personally feel particularly strongly about. If schools were to follow the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and perform physical exercise in the morning before classes, it would be transformational. School sport has no greater champion in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Moynihan, an Olympic silver medallist and former chairman of the British Olympic Association who has been leading the charge for greater provision of physical education and sport across our schools for many years. In September last year, NHS England published research that found the truly frightening statistic that 15% of children aged between two and 15 in England are obese. Although that figure is a slight decrease from 16% in 2019, the fact that childhood obesity has remained stubbornly high should be a huge concern for everyone: parents, teachers, the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions. This issue affects us all in some way or other.
- I agree with the vast majority of what has been said — but several of those who identified the decline in school sport were supporters of or part of the Government that caused it, and I want that on the record. There is good news: this Government are reviewing the curriculum and establishing a new national approach to PE and school sport, with a particular commitment to swimming and physical literacy. The Prime Minister has personally set out the ambition; the work to deliver it is already under way, and we do not believe it needs to be put in primary legislation to happen.
Well, I start by saying that I actually agree with the vast majority of the points made by noble Lords opposite, but I just have to say that we in this House are not disinterested observers of the activities of Governments. Several of the noble Lords opposite who rightly identified the decline in school sports, the reduction in teachers and the narrowing of the curriculum were supporters of or part of the Government who were responsible for it. I just want to put that on the record as we start this. Having said that, there is good news. This Government are reviewing the curriculum and establishing a new national approach to PE and school sport. We value PE and sport as a great opportunity to improve not only the health but—
- Many in this Committee have campaigned for improved sport and recreation irrespective of which party was in government — cross-party support for this has always been one of the strengths of this House. Could the Minister confirm that the curriculum review Becky Francis is leading will be timed so there are no gaps or inconsistencies with the Bill as it passes?
I make just two points that I am sure that the Minister will recognise. Many in the Committee this afternoon have been campaigning exceptionally hard for improved opportunities for young people in sport and recreation, irrespective of who has been in government. One of the great aspects of this House has been frequent cross-party support for making sure that we try to improve the provision of sport and recreation. I do not think it is a party-political point. I remember that, soon after the turn of the century, possibly the most important influence on Tony Blair’s decision to move forward with the bid for the Games was a debate in this Chamber which had completely cross-party support. One needs to be a little bit cautious before saying, “Why didn’t we speak out before?” Many of us have been speaking out like this for decades. My second point is that I acknowledge—and I am grateful to the Minister for raising the fact—that the Prime Minister has indeed come forward with a whole range of initiatives on access to high-quality PE and sport for children, equal access, two hours of sport a week and a national network to build strong partnerships with clubs. We are just putting into an amendment what the Prime Minister himself said in June, to make sure that it is actually done. It has not been done by successive Prime Ministers—I must admit, of both political persuasions—but not least by Gordon Brown. There were fine words, but it was never put into practice. Will the Minister be the first to support me in coming back at Third Reading with everything that the Prime Minister said when he met the Lionesses, as clear mandates, so that we can enshrine it in legislation and make sure it happens for the young people of this country?
- What approach are the Minister and the department taking to ensure that the excellent work Becky Francis is taking forward will be reflected in the Bill, and that there are no inconsistencies or gaps as a result of the timing difference between this legislation and publication of the review?
The noble Baroness rightly referred to the curriculum review that Becky Francis is undertaking, to be published at some stage. What approach are the Minister and the department taking to ensure that all the excellent work that Becky Francis is taking forward will be reflected in the Bill and that there are no inconsistencies or gaps in this legislation as a result of the timing difference between the Bill’s passage and the publication of the review?
- Becky Francis's review is independent, but the interim report and the evidence under consideration are consistent with developing physical skills progressively from primary through to competition and sport at secondary. I am satisfied that what the review will recommend and what the Bill does are complementary, and I will continue to monitor that as the review is finalised.
I was referencing the amendments calling for a curriculum review and pointing out that there already was a curriculum review. Many of the points raised in the amendments, particularly the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, were about the approach to the curriculum; for example, ensuring that, at a primary level, we are developing the physical skills of children and promoting physical activity, and then, at secondary level, continuing that important work while also delivering a focus on competition and particular types of sports. Becky Francis’s review is independent, but from both the interim report and the evidence that has been provided and is under consideration, I know that is the type of approach being taken in the curriculum and assessment review.
- Swimming is the only sport that can save your life — that alone underscores the critical importance of physical literacy in schools, particularly in an island nation. Any Government that wants growth faces a clear choice with these amendments: invest in physical activity and reap the social, economic and psychological benefits, or pay for the consequences through the NHS and other services. I will withdraw Amendment 492 today, but we will return to this.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this excellent debate. I am not normally tempted to dive into the subject of swimming, but the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has tempted me to do so. It is always worth reminding ourselves—particularly, as he said, in an island nation—that swimming is the only sport that can save your life. That underscores the critical significance of physical activity, literacy, fluency and education in the example of learning to become a competent swimmer. This Government, like any Government, want growth, and they face a very clear choice with these amendments. One of the key elements of growth is investment. There could barely be a better area to invest in than physical activity and physical well-being. The choice for any Government is to invest and reap all the social, economic and psychological benefits on the individual, community and country levels or to pay for the consequences through the NHS, the prison service and many other areas administered by government. These issues will certainly return on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
- Educational technology, done right, can give every child their own classroom assistant — personalised, adaptive, always available. But the framework, construction and underpinning principles must be right first. If we human-lead these technologies, the upside is extraordinary. Amendment 493 and Amendment 494 would establish quality standards and efficacy requirements for edtech in schools.
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 494. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who signed my amendment; I will give positive support to her amendment in this group. Educational technology—edtech—offers extraordinary opportunities for learners right through the school and education experience. In effect, it enables personalised education—for every young person to have a classroom assistant alongside them in technology form. It is an extraordinary upside and transformational, but only if we get right the framework, the construction and the underpinning principles that guide it. If we human-lead with these technologies, we will give ourselves the best opportunity to succeed and to empower all children and young people to succeed in their education journey. If we have a principles-based, outcomes-focused and inputs-understood approach, we enable, we empower and we have a clear understanding of what we require from these edtech solutions. I turn now to the amendment. All edtech must be inclusive by design; accessible; transparent about the make-up of the technology; labelled, if AI is in the mix; and absolutely crystal clear as to how the data is used, where it is stored and how none of that data—children’s data—gets sold on to any third parties. The opportunities are extraordinary. It is at least a touch unfortunate that so much of technology in school is being described and seen through the lens of smartphones. It is understandable, because of some of the catastrophic downsides and outcomes we have seen as a consequence, but there is nothing inevitable about that. Edtech, positively deployed, human-led, with human principles and values at its heart, and with the right oversight and approach to data, could enable such a powerful learning experience, primarily for young people and children but also for teachers, classroom assistants and the whole school community. Amendment 494 is about pulling on the power that we have through procurement. We can achie…
During the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the Minister Lord Vallance gave me a firm commitment that the Government would use powers under the Data Protection Act 2018 to require the ICO to publish a new code of practice addressing edtech. A letter I received since then suggests that commitment may be limited to addressing one part of the problem and not the full scope. Amendment 502YI would put a proper edtech data code on the statute book. After nearly a decade fighting for this, the Government must stop promising codes and start delivering them — before, not after, deploying the digital infrastructure.My Lords, in speaking to my Amendments 502K, 502YI and 502YH, I also register my support for Amendments 493 and 494 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and, more broadly, to associate myself with everything he has just said. Amendment 502YI calls for a code of practice for education data. I tabled a similar amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill earlier this year and was given an assurance from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who gave me “a firm commitment … that the Government will use powers under the Data Protection Act 2018 to require the ICO to publish a new code of practice addressing edtech issues”.—[Official Report, 28/1/25; col. 148.] A letter I received from the department in anticipation of today’s debate suggested that the Government are “reviewing and considering”. I ask the Minister whether we are reviewing and considering the firm commitment that was made nine months ago. We have been discussing data protection in schools since 2017 and we have had multiple promises from both department and regulator that have yet to bear fruit. Yet the Government are pressing ahead to introduce new data-hungry technology in our schools. The uses of pupils’ data are well evidenced and egregious. Some of it has ended up on adult sites and gambling sites, which is an abuse of children’s privacy. Pupils are, first and foremost, children. They are not critical sources of data for commercial enterprise. It is beyond time to act. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment so that this Bill is the one that finally sets out the scope and timescale for a data regime that delivers children the protection they deserve when they are at school. I turn to Amendment 502K. I wish to be very clear that I, too, welcome the potential of technology to contribute to learning and well-being at schools, but while the Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson has heralded a “new technological era to modernise our education system”, there is as yet no corresponding bindi…
- Copilot — integrated into Microsoft software we use in Parliament — was, at the time research was started, publicly described by Microsoft as adhering to child-safe standards. The research found significant gaps between that claim and the product's actual behaviour. Schools are being asked to use these platforms at scale with no statutory framework to ensure they are safe or effective. These amendments provide the minimum framework necessary.
My Lords, I was very happy to add my name to the noble Baroness’s on the majority of these amendments. She has outlined the compelling need to do something in these interrelated areas sooner rather than later. I will not bore your Lordships but rather try and illustrate one or two examples of what is going on in real time. I will start with Copilot, a tool that most of us will be at least faintly familiar with—or will at least have heard of—and which is integrated into the Microsoft package that we use in Parliament. At the time that research was started by a group of organisations, including the 5Rights Foundation founded by the noble Baroness, Microsoft, which owns Copilot, stated publicly that Copilot was intended for users 18 and above, such as all your Lordships. However, in May 2025, the company announced without warning that Copilot would become available to users aged 13 and above. This shift raises important questions, none of which was answered at the time by Microsoft. The user age change proceeded without any published child rights impact assessment—which takes us back to an earlier group that we discussed—or documentation of any child participation in this decision. Using it in this way, without any child-focused safeguards, is unlikely to be in the best interests of the child, but currently there seems to be no satisfactory way to hold Microsoft to account for this. A second example is Vimeo, a popular video channel that some of your Lordships may be aware of. In a particular case where a child used Vimeo and some of its video capability to do his homework, a detailed look at what Vimeo had done with his homework demonstrated that 92 different commercial companies had gained access to this child’s data. Not very satisfactory. A third example is the problem that data protection officers—each school nominates one—as you might imagine, are struggling to try and understand and keep up with this blizzard of new technology and new tools. There are more and m…
- As a dyslexic peer, I cannot produce a readable document without voice dictation — technology is not optional for people like me; it is independence. But the second part of the question matters equally: the data these tools collect about children must be governed. The accessibility benefit and the data risk must both be addressed by a proper code.
My Lords, when it comes to technology, I think I have a slightly different relationship to it, although the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, may even go beyond me for this. We need it to operate in the modern world. I have said before several times on this Bill that I am dyslexic. I cannot produce a one-page document that is in a readable form in any sort of format unless I use voice dictation. The relationship with technology changes. If you want to make people independent and they are, in this case, dyslexic—dyspraxics might use the same technology in a slightly different way—you must make sure information is available to them and they can function with it. Having said that, the second part of this is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, that there should be safeguards within it. These things actually go hand in glove. You should have something that allows people to function in the modern world. When you are independent and interacting with a computer, you have to put the correct information in for the computer to function; you have to actually know what you are doing. A balance needs to be achieved. There is a move to use systems which are built into computers, as opposed to bolt-on bits for educational support. In certain cases, which the Minister is aware of, schools decide to use the free bit of tech as opposed to purchasing it. But the free bit of tech is there to advertise; otherwise it would not be there. There must be a commercial advantage for somebody to provide you with a free bit of tech. The balancing structure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, puts forward here is essential to allow those like me who need this technology to carry on using it. We are talking about schoolchildren here, but there will be no shortage of people who will need it in the future and we are identifying more and more all the time. I hope we can strike a balance and make sure we get further forward into it. The same is true—I am sure we are going to hear about smartphones being the…
- The risk to learning itself is under-discussed. When coursework or homework can be completed by an AI tool, the process of learning — the struggle that embeds knowledge and skill — is bypassed. Children end up with a product they did not produce and cannot reproduce. Efficacy standards for edtech must include whether the technology actually develops the child's own capabilities.
My Lords, I have listened to a number of Lords speak movingly and wisely about the risks, concerns and things we need to guard against in the use of technology. I want to talk about the risk to learning itself. I have forgotten their name, but somebody recently wrote an excellent piece that illustrated this very vividly. We all understand that when we send our children to school and when we teach them, the point is not simply for them to have a thing they can say they have done; it is the process that they go through that really embeds it and enables them to use that knowledge and those skills in future. We have all seen it in the kinds of problems that have arisen with coursework. If a coursework essay or a homework assignment is produced for a child or university student by AI, then that child or student has not done the thinking, they have not learned what the assignment was set for, and the education will not achieve its purpose. There is a real risk at the moment that a lot of education in a lot of places is being quite significantly undermined because young people do not recognise that they are harming themselves by taking the shortcuts. Perhaps we have all been a little bit slow to recognise this risk. There is a helpful distinction to be made here. I recently read a piece which distinguished between cognitive offloading and cognitive bypasses. The use of assistive technology, such as that which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has referred to on occasion, might be described as cognitive offloading, where the point is to help the child with the additional challenges they are experiencing without losing the point of the lesson or what they are meant to be learning. If we get to the point where the technology becomes a way of simply bypassing the learning, we are actually destroying education. The enthusiasm for technology—which has understandably invigorated us all; there are clearly tremendous opportunities—and the incredible energy and power of the tech firms…
As chair of the Maths Horizons project, I support these amendments as someone who has investigated edtech in schools and universities. Technology can and should have a positive impact on children's education — including in maths — but only within a framework that protects children from misuse. The framework must cover both data safety and pedagogical efficacy.My Lords, I support Amendments 493, 494, 502K and 502YI, as someone with an interest in the use of educational technologies, including AI, both in schools and universities. I declare my interest as chair of the Maths Horizons project, funded by XTX Markets, which earlier this year reviewed the maths curriculum in England from five to 18, and briefly investigated the use of edtech to support the teaching of the subject. I speak as a supporter of the deployment of educational technology in the classroom as I believe it can and should have a positive impact on the education of children, and not just in maths. But this must be done within a framework which protects children from its misuse. We must balance innovation in education through edtech with appropriate regulation. The regulations listed in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 493 would support the adoption of edtech in our schools rather than hinder it. In this context, what has happened with chatbots based on large language models is a salutary example of the early release of AI products without proper safeguards, especially with respect to their use by children. Tragically, this week the parents of the American teenager who recently took his own life after repeatedly sharing his intentions with ChatGPT told a Senate judiciary sub-committee investigating chatbot dangers: “What began as a homework helper gradually turned itself into a confidant and then a suicide coach”. Ironically, we are now told that OpenAI is building a ChatGPT for teenagers and plans to use age-prediction technology to help bar children under 18 from the standard version. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in a blog this week just before the Senate hearings—and then coming to this country—that AI chatbots are “a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection”. The risks associated with the use of edtech may not be on the same scale, but they are nevertheless real. In many cases, edtech pr…
I spend most of my time in this House on digital issues and this is my first contribution on the Bill. I am not anti-technology — quite the opposite. But today the Prime Minister is signing a tech prosperity deal and I want to be sure we are open-eyed about what technology brings as well as what it promises. The Age Appropriate Design Code set a global standard for children's data — why does education not have an equivalent statutory protection? That is the gap these amendments fill.My Lords, I too support Amendments 493 and 494 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes, and Amendments 502K and 502YI in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I am not an educationalist and this is my first contribution on the Bill. I spend my time in this House focused mainly on digital issues, hence my interest in these amendments. Like others today, I will start by being really clear that I am not anti-technology in education—quite the opposite. I see the huge potential that digital technology can bring in all sectors of our lives. It is also particularly clear today, as our Prime Minister is signing the tech prosperity deal. We should be open-eyed that technology brings the opportunity for prosperity; I am not anti it at all. But it is also really clear that technology, not just digital but all technologies for evermore, need guardrails, and those guardrails cannot be self-imposed. Among those of us who have worked on child safety online for the past 10 or 15 years, many on this side of the House began firmly believing that self-regulation was the answer. I am afraid that we been proven absolutely wrong. There is no doubt that self-regulation in social media has been a disaster, and I fear that we are doing exactly the same in digital technology in education. Companies operating in this space need guardrails in order to develop the products that really will make a positive difference and to help us all mitigate the downsides that these technologies inherently have. I am not a lover of adding regulation, so in each example of adding regulation in the digital space I ask myself a simple question: is this additional regulation an example of the red flag Act 1865? For those that do not know, that was the wonderful piece of legislation that required a man—it had to be a man—with a red flag to walk in front of every non-horse-drawn vehicle. This was clearly a very bad piece of legislation that was repealed—it took 30 years, but it was repealed. So question n…
- Amendment 502YQ probes the Government's own data collection under this Bill. Personal data about children should be collected, retained or processed only where it is strictly necessary to protect a child from significant harm, as defined by the Children Act 1989. The Bill as drafted gives sweeping data-collection powers to local authorities and the Secretary of State; without a proportionality limit, those powers will be exercised routinely on home-educating families who pose no risk.
My Lords, my Amendment 502YQ is mainly to probe the Government’s intention in relation to their own use of data regarding this Bill. This amendment addresses an issue that has surfaced repeatedly in our many debates: the scope of data collection about children in education. We have heard a lot today about the role of technology providers, but I want to turn the focus to how we are collecting data within the education system in government. My amendment would ensure that personal data may be collected, retained or processed only where it is strictly necessary to protect a child from significant harm, as defined in Section 31 of the Children Act 1989. Why is this needed? The Bill as drafted gives wide latitude to local authorities and the Secretary of State to demand data on children not in school—an area that I really care about—as well as potentially on others. In particular, the data demanded of children not in school—we have already heard about the amount of data that is already collected on children in school—is off the scale. We are told that this is for safeguarding, but safeguarding has a very specific meaning in law. It is not a licence for limitless information gathering; it is a duty to act when a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Clause 31, for instance, invites local authorities to gather information far beyond what is necessary. Names, addresses and dates of birth are sufficient to identify a child and discharge oversight duties. However, the Bill’s wording allows for much more, including details of parental and children’s beliefs, educational philosophy, supplementary providers and even protected characteristics. This, to me, is mission creep, not proportionate oversight. As the department has itself acknowledged in past consultations, the bare minimum of data suffices to track children and ensure that no one falls through the net. To demand more because it might be helpful is not lawful data processing. Data protection law is clea…
- Covid was rocket fuel for edtech — the UK's sector is now the largest in Europe, spending an estimated £900 million a year. But the edtech sector is exempt from the Online Safety Act, and GDPR compliance is inconsistent at best. Large platforms like Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams can enhance teaching, but without clear statutory standards on efficacy, safety and data protection, schools are procuring blindly. We support Amendments 493, 494, 502K, 502YH and 502YI.
My Lords, Covid was certainly the rocket fuel for the growth of educational technology in our schools, which is now accepted as part of the school learning landscape. The UK’s education tech sector is the largest in Europe, spending, as we already heard, an estimated £900 million a year. However, there are real concerns that these amendments seek to address, which is why we will be supporting Amendments 493, 494, 502K, 502YH and 502YI. The edtech sector is exempt from the Online Safety Act, and adherence to GDPR is inconsistent, to say the least. Large multiuse platforms such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams can enhance teaching and school management, but the absence of clear statutory standards leaves children’s education and school cybersecurity often at risk. We surely need a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights, protect the data and prevent the commercial exploitation of children. We sleepwalked into the development of social media. Now that we see the harm that has been caused, we rush to try to do something about it. There is a strong case for developing a regulated framework to safeguard children’s rights and support schools in making informed and sustainable choices. I want to respond to what I thought was a very thoughtful contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. It made me think that six years ago I had a Private Member’s Bill on essay mills and contract cheating. That is now all for naught, because there are other ways of cheating, and AI helps that considerably. I had an intern who one day said to me, “Lord Storey, here’s a speech for you”. I said, “Ooh, let me have a look”. I read the speech and thought, “Wow, this is great. I’ll use this”. He told me that it was AI generated. “Really?”, I said. I wondered whether in five or 10 years your Lordships’ House might be a very different place for speeches. Might we all succumb to using not our own thoughts and experiences but AI to generate speeches? Would anybody know in five o…
- Amendments 493 and 494 identify a real gap: there are hardware and data standards for schools, but nothing specifically governing edtech. Amendment 502K would introduce a code of practice on edtech efficacy. Both fill gaps that matter to schools trying to make procurement decisions that are safe and effective for children.
My Lords, this is yet another important group of amendments, which seeks to bring, frankly, some common-sense principles to the use of edtech, children’s data and screens. Amendments 493 and 494, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, seek to introduce what would in effect be quality standards for the use of edtech in schools. There are existing standards and guidance for schools in relation to hardware and data, but I was unable to find any specifically in relation to edtech, so it feels as though my noble friend has identified a real gap. Similarly, Amendment 502K, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would introduce a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech. I suggest that, in all these amendments, we need to be very clear that any standards or principles focus not just on some of the data and related safety issues that we have talked about; we must make sure that they are absolutely based on the latest research in cognitive science and the best understanding of pedagogy, so that they deliver learning. We need them to be safe—that is necessary but not sufficient—and effective. Last year, a thorough report by the Education Select Committee on the impacts of screen time on educational well-being found that the proliferation of edtech platforms made their overall benefit hard to quantify. It pointed out that only 7% of edtech providers had conducted randomised controlled trials on their products. The report noted that there are more than half a million apps claiming to be educational but, as yet, no quality standards for assessing educational content. The report judged as poor the evidence base for assessing which, if any, of these apps are most effective. Amendment 493 includes a requirement for transparency in relation to the use of training data, AI and third-party use of data. It shares the spirit of Amendment 502YI, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which would introduce a code of practice in relation to the processi…
- Technology must be safe and effective, and teachers must remain central to children's learning. The Government agree with that principle. Amendment 493 overlaps with work already under way — we are working with DSIT, the ICO and the sector to develop standards, and we are committed to an edtech code of practice. I am not saying that will be done to the 2030 timetable; I can give further steers about direction and pace, and I will write to noble Lords with the detail.
We have had a good debate on this group, which concerns education technology and device-based assessment. I thank noble Lords for raising the important issues of digital and technology standards for schools, particularly around inclusion, procurement and use of effective education technology in schools. I strongly agree with noble Lords that technology must be safe for children to use and effective to support learning, teaching and the work of teachers—who remain central and fundamental to children’s learning. I am sure that there are important lessons and developments about pedagogy that it is crucial to engage with, given the context of edtech. Amendment 493 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and Amendments 502K, 502YI and 502YH, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, seek to regulate educational technology deployed in schools in England. We share many of the objectives set out by noble Lords to ensure quality and safety. This is a very fast-moving area and we are in the process of developing standards and ways to ensure the accountability and the certainty that those standards are being delivered. The Department for Education has set non-statutory digital and technology standards for schools. These help schools and colleges make more informed decisions about technology, supporting safer, more cost-efficient practices and new learning opportunities for students. Earlier this year, the department consulted on the future of these standards and in July published a government response to the consultation confirming our ambition for all schools to meet the standards by 2030. The proposals set out in our response to the consultation explore accountability options for technology standards, considering appropriate accountability levels and reviewing standards where they may be cost prohibitive. More broadly, we recognise the importance of supporting schools to choose effective technology that is safe for pupils to use and meets educational need. This i…
- The Government are spending heavily on digital infrastructure and moving assessment online — why does it take decades to get the rules in place? I have been fighting for nearly a decade for a code that is still being promised for some time before 2030. Infrastructure is going in; rules must come first, not later.
I just want to raise the question of timing. The Government, as the Minister says, are putting a huge amount of money into digital infrastructure and, as later amendments that she will turn to say, putting assessment online and so on. I am trying to understand why it takes decades to get the rules in place, and why we have not yet learned that we need to put them in place as we put the infra- structure in. I will read the debate very carefully, and I respect the generous way in which the Minister answered, but I sit here as someone who has been fighting for nearly a decade for something that is still being promised some time before 2030. I am finding it very difficult to put that together with the idea that we are now making a huge investment in edtech, that this is going to be central to children’s lives and that the Government will be responsible for the outcomes. Many noble Lords across the House have said that we want edtech and learning, and to be part of this movement, but look at what is happening around the edges. It is being treated like a commercial market, not a pedagogical outcome, a safety outcome or, indeed, an inclusive one, as the noble Lord was referring to.
- I am not saying it will be done to the 2030 timetable — I said the opposite. The department is moving further and faster than before, and I have given more detail in this debate than previously. The code is coming; please read the Hansard carefully before drawing conclusions.
I hope that the noble Baroness will carefully read what I said. I was certainly not saying that. In my response, I have gone further in explaining the work that the department is doing to meet many of the concerns that she outlined than we have done previously. I am most certainly not saying that it will be done to the 2030 timetable. I understand her concern around regulation and accountability, and I have given some considerable steers, at the very least, about the direction in which that work is going—it is not to a 2030 timetable. Turning to—
- It is encouraging to hear that work is ongoing at the ICO. But why is a statutory requirement for an edtech code of conduct not appropriate, when the Age Appropriate Design Code provides precisely that statutory underpinning for all other children's data? Without legal underpinning, codes can disappear when the political weather changes.
Before the Minister moves on, I have a follow-up question. It is very encouraging to hear the work that seems to be ongoing in the ICO. What is the Minister’s view on why it would not be appropriate to put the requirement for a code of conduct on the statute book for education in the same way that it is in the Age Appropriate Design code for all other children’s data? Just to be clear, I value the fact that the Minister has been so open about the ongoing work, but those of us who have worked in this space for so long worry that things can change and that, without legal underpinning, codes can then disappear.
- Let's first make progress on the code as outlined; then we can have the debate about whether it needs to be on the statute book. I will write to the noble Baroness. Activity does not have to wait for legislation.
I understand that concern. Perhaps we can first make progress on the code, as I have outlined we are. I will write to the noble Baroness about this. I understand that this place is about putting things into legislation, but that does not mean that activity is not happening. The proof of the pudding may well be in the production of the code.
- When the Minister writes, will she also clarify both the data protection and child safety dimensions — for which the ICO would be responsible — and explain how the pedagogical elements will be addressed to ensure edtech is both safe and genuinely effective from a learning point of view?
When the Minister sends that letter, will she kindly clarify both the data protection and the child safety angles that she talked about, for which the Information Commissioner’s Office would have responsibility? Will she also explain how the pedagogical elements will be included, to make sure that these are both safe and effective from a learning point of view?
- Yes, I will address all of that in the letter.
Yes, I will do that. Amendment 502YS, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to confer a right for parents to elect for their child to receive, complete and submit homework tasks otherwise than by means of a computer or a personal electronic device. The noble Baroness made important points about the totality of the way in which children might be expected to do their homework and the challenges for those children who might not have access to technology to do that. I would be surprised if there were schools that were expecting children to do all their homework using devices. Nevertheless, it is still important to maintain the principle—rightly set down by the previous Government, particularly by Damian Hinds as Secretary of State—that decisions over the volume and form of homework are made by schools themselves, working in collaboration with staff, pupils, parents and governors. I am not sure that it would be appropriate for the department to limit the autonomy of schools to set their own policies on homework. But it is right that schools should consider providing alternative options for pupils to complete homework where device access is limited. They should consider the implications for handwriting and for the other ways of learning and completing work, which the noble Baroness was right to identify. We understand the concerns around the potential harms of unmonitored and unlimited personal screen use, but it is helpful in this debate to consider the distinction between personal and educational screen time—they should not necessarily be conflated. It is a question not of screen use per se but of what children and young people are using the screens for and what activities that supports and—importantly, I agree—replaces. Effective use of technology can improve education access and outcomes and reduce staff workload. We trust teachers and leaders to use these tools appropriately, which includes their use to complete homework. Beyond that, as we have discussed…
- Edtech has profound possibilities for all learners — in school, at home, in any environment. The risks are real too, and the principles must be right: human-led, outcomes-focused, inputs-understood. This issue is as urgent as any in the Bill. I will withdraw Amendment 493 today but will return to it at Report.
My Lords, I thank all those who participated in this important debate. Edtech has such profound possibilities for all learners, be they in school, home learning environments or any environment where education is taking place. In that, it is obviously crucial to be cognisant of the risks attendant. As I said earlier, if we take a principles-based, outcomes-focused, inputs-understood approach and we human-lead on these technologies, we can feel confident that we are putting technologies in place in education that will enable and empower children and young people but also teachers and the whole school, home learning and education environments. This matter could barely be more up to the minute, with technologies already deployed widely across all learning environments. For this reason, and with the great good fortune of this Bill now being in your Lordships’ House, we will certainly return to these matters on Report. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Almost 20 amendments before the Committee require the Secretary of State to promulgate regulations or undertake a review within six or twelve months of the Act passing. Amendment 502C takes a more comprehensive approach: a single review of the Act's operation and effect within five years. Post-legislative scrutiny is essential. We cannot know whether legislation has achieved its purpose without completing the feedback loop. This Bill, given its breadth and the number of new powers it creates, is precisely the kind of measure that should carry that discipline in its text.My Lords, on my count, almost 20 amendments have been tabled to the Bill requiring the Secretary of State within six or 12 months of the Act being passed to promulgate some regulations or undertake a review of a particular provision of the Act. My amendment is more comprehensive and adopts a longer timeframe. It would require the Secretary of State within five years of the passage of the Act to undertake a review of its operation and effect. The wording is the same as that of an amendment I tabled to the Employment Rights Bill and has the same justification. Post-legislative scrutiny is essential for ensuring that the law we enact meets the various criteria of good law. We cannot know that it does without undertaking a thorough review and, in effect, completing a legislative feedback loop. There is no point in enacting legislation that then fails to deliver what it is intended to deliver and for us to proceed, in essence, in ignorance of its effects. The case for post-legislative review has been accepted by government since 2008, with a commitment to reviewing most Acts three to five years after enactment. Ministers have variously reiterated that commitment. However, not all departments are rigorous in complying with it. The Government have also introduced a get-out clause saying that there may not be a review if, following correspondence with the chair of the relevant departmental Select Committee, it is agreed that a review may not be necessary. As I pointed out when the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, reported this, it is not clear how a chair will know that a review is not necessary without undertaking some initial review. It is also not clear why this House is excluded from the process. As I argued on the Employment Rights Bill, there is a case for putting on the face of a measure provision for post-legislative scrutiny where “the Bill is large, is complex, makes substantial changes to the law, is contested and has not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny”.—…
- Amendments 502YN and 502YR share a common theme: the powers in this Bill must be accountable, not only in ordinary times but in moments of crisis when authoritarian temptations grow stronger. Amendment 502YN would require an annual review: are the measures achieving their stated purpose, and without imposing disproportionate burdens? Where a measure fails, it should be amended or repealed — and if no action is taken, it should lapse within two years. The families and schools being asked to account for their children's education deserve the same accountability directed back at the state.
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 502YN and 502YR, which stand in my name. These amendments are bound by a common theme: that the powers we create in this Bill must be effective, proportionate and accountable, not only in ordinary times but in moments of crisis, when authoritarian temptations grow stronger. Amendment 502YN would establish an annual review of all measures introduced by the Bill. Each year, the Secretary of State would be required to test whether those measures are achieving their stated purpose, and whether they are doing so without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on parents, children, schools, providers, local authorities or the department itself. Where a measure fails, it should be amended or repealed. If no action is taken, within two years it must lapse. This is about accountability cutting both ways. Families, schools and community groups—huge numbers of stakeholders—are being asked in this Bill to account for children’s education. It is only fair that the Government should account for the laws they pass. We have been warned many times in these debates about the dangers of excessive bureaucracy and mission creep. Clause 31, the proposed register of children not in school, illustrates this risk. In principle, such a register may help identify who is being educated outside mainstream settings. In practice, the Bill demands far more data than is needed. In Portsmouth, more than 70% of home-educated children have already been served notices or orders annually, compared with a national average closer to 1%. That is not proportional oversight; it is overreach. The effects ripple outward. Children suffer when teachers, social workers and SEND staff are forced to spend more time filling in forms than supporting them, and parents are treated with suspicion, not because of evidence of harm but because they made a lawful choice to educate differently. Schools themselves may be dragged down by compliance checks that drain morale and r…
Amendment 505C seeks a published statement from the Government on how the Human Rights Act 1998 applies to private providers of publicly funded children's social care services, with commencement of Clauses 12 to 18 paused until that statement is made. Whatever one thinks about outsourcing, nobody in this House wants children to have fewer human rights because a service is provided by a contractor rather than directly by the state — and the current law leaves that question uncomfortably open.My Lords, if my Amendment 505C appears something of an outlier, it is only because it is. It would have been more appropriate for it to have been introduced in Part 1 of the Bill, but I have to be honest and say that, at the time, I was unaware of it as an issue. Being even more honest, I have to say that, had I been following the progress of the Mental Health Bill, I might well have been. I acknowledge the assistance of the clerks in the Public Bill Office for finding me a peg on which to hang this, and also the assistance of JUSTICE, the law reform charity, for briefings and context. Whatever the view of noble Lords on the contracting out of vital public services, I am confident enough to say that nobody on any side of your Lordships’ House wants people to be treated less decently and with fewer human rights because a service is being provided by an outside contractor rather than directly. The Human Rights Act is an essential tool for individuals to hold public bodies to account. It requires public authorities to act in compatibility with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, and this definition of a public authority has been narrowly interpreted by the courts. In a 2008 case, it was found that a private care home was not a public authority, despite the plaintiff’s placement being funded entirely by that local authority. The years since then have of course seen a large expansion of core government services contracted out to the private sector, leading to an accountability gap in our human rights legislation. In the care sector, more than 80% of children’s homes are now run by private companies. That is an increase of 20% since 2010, and the figure continues to rise. In 2014, an attempt was made to fill that accountability gap for care provision with the Care Act of that year. The then coalition Government made it clear that “it wishes all providers of publicly arranged care services to consider themselves bound by the Human Rights Act, inc…
- Amendment 502C, on a five-year review, is an extremely clear and well-argued case from the noble Lord, Lord Norton. The breadth of powers in this Bill — and the record number of days this Committee has spent on it — make the case that post-legislative scrutiny should be built in. On Amendment 505C, the Human Rights Act 1998 question about private providers is genuinely complex and worth pressing at Report.
My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments would introduce a number of reviews of the Bill. Those in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei also seek to limit the new powers in the Bill in relation to elective home-educated children. Amendment 502C from my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth would introduce a review of the Act after five years, and my noble friend made an extremely articulate and clear case for this. I think my noble friend said that there were already over 20 examples of amendments seeking reviews of different parts of the Bill. Although concerns about Part 2—which we have debated more recently—are certainly uppermost in my mind, those of us with long memories will remember some of the concerns about the pace of and evidence base for the reforms to children’s social care in Part 1. My noble friend set out some criteria for post-legislative scrutiny: it should be a substantial Bill—I think that, on day 12, we can agree this is a substantial Bill; it should introduce major changes; it has unquestionably been controversial; and it did not have pre-legislative scrutiny. I thought almost the strongest point is that this would allow the Government to demonstrate their confidence that the Bill will deliver on the changes that the Government seek and the impact that the Government desire, so I hope very much that the noble Baroness will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment. Amendment 505C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, again very ably presented, highlights concerns about the responsibilities of private providers of children’s social care in relation to children’s human rights. Again, it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s response to this. For my part, I suppose I would prefer the Government’s focus to be on the quality of care that children receive when they are in local authority care, in a children’s home or, potentially, in foster care, as in this case. They already have considerable rights enshrined in le…
- All Governments agree in principle on reviewing legislation; none finds it convenient in practice. I hope we can get a firm structure for reviewing what this Act does in the real world, because the unforeseen consequences of legislation of this scale and complexity cannot be anticipated at the drafting stage.
Just before the Minister replies, I shall very briefly say that the principle of reviewing legislation is one that I think we have all agreed to and no Government have ever found terribly convenient. I hope that we can get something going and some commitment by the Government that they will look at what happens here, or some structure for reviewing what happens, because the unforeseen is something which no degree of planning now can ever adjust.
- On Amendment 502YR — placing judicial oversight above executive restrictions in a national emergency: Parliament is sovereign; any law can be changed or repealed. This amendment would be ineffective. On Amendment 502C: I commend the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and I am happy to give a firm commitment that this Act will be reviewed within five years. I resist putting that on the face of the Bill — the commitment is genuine without it. On Amendment 505C on the Human Rights Act 1998 and private providers of children's social care: Clauses 12 to 18 do not change which bodies are classified as public authorities for HRA purposes; private providers exercising public functions are already within the Act's scope.
The amendments in this group cover a wide range of issues, including review of the Act, disapplication and commencement. I will begin with Amendment 502YR tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which seeks to protect a parent’s right to determine their child’s education in the event of a national emergency or an authoritarian Government, by placing judicial oversight above executive restrictions. This amendment would actually be ineffective as, quite rightly, Parliament is sovereign. Any law passed by a current Parliament can be changed or repealed by a future Parliament. Provided the education a child receives is both safe and suitable, existing legislation makes clear that most parents have the right to determine the form of education that best meets their child’s needs. We have of course discussed this at length in Committee and the Bill does not change it. Turning to Amendment 502C, on reviewing the Act, I start by commending the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to post-legislative scrutiny, which, as he identified, has been government policy since 2008 and part of the process for legislative progress through this House. I remember the discussions around putting it into that position in my last period of time in Parliament. I supported it then; I still support it now. In the interim period between 2010 and 2024, among the range of things that I was able to do, I was very pleased to be able to advise foreign Parliaments about the significance of post-legislative scrutiny, drawing on precisely the work of the noble Lord and the experiences of this Parliament in putting those into operation. Alongside that amendment, we have Amendment 502YN, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which concerns a review of the operation of the Bill’s measures. This Government agree on the importance of having an appropriate mechanism for the proper evaluation of the impact of legislation, ensuring that it meets the goals that it sets out to deliver, especially given th…
- On my understanding, the Regulatory Policy Committee has not recently been allowed to seek submissions when reviewing a draft Bill — so the information on which it approved this Bill was very limited. That is further ammunition for the case that robust post-legislative review must be built into the Act.
I thank the Minister. On my understanding, having spoken to those who know about the workings of the Regulatory Policy Committee, which the Minister said greenlit the Bill, in the last few years it has not been allowed to ask for submissions, on receiving a draft Bill, to scrutinise whether that Bill fits within the kind of good regulatory framework that we all would like to see. So the information that it had to greenlight this Bill was very limited indeed. If you cannot ask people what they think of the Bill, obviously any information you have is very limited and you can only go on what you have been given, which is further ammunition for the point that the Bill needs a lot of scrutiny, because it did not really have any before it was brought before this House.
- The RPC had our published regulatory impact assessment to work from. Wider concerns about the RPC's processes are a matter for the RPC, not for this Bill. After twelve days in Committee — far exceeding the scrutiny given in the Commons — the idea that this Bill has not been adequately scrutinised is frankly laughable.
The Regulatory Policy Committee had the benefit of our published regulatory impact assessment to review. Wider comments about the efficacy of the Regulatory Policy Committee are for the noble Lord to make to the Regulatory Policy Committee, rather than using it as a stick to beat this particular Bill. Frankly, as we are coming to the end—nearly—of day 12 of Committee on this Bill, the idea that it has not had sufficient scrutiny is laughable, given the time and care that was also spent in the other place, which has been massively exceeded by the time and care that has been spent by noble Lords in this House during the course of this Committee.
- The reason it has had twelve days is precisely because it was not drafted as well as it should have been. I am not criticising the work of this House — it has been very necessary. But if Bills arrived better prepared, the House could use its time more effectively.
Just to clarify, the words I used were, “before it was brought before this House”. The reason it has had so many days of scrutiny is because it was not drafted in a way that was appropriate. We have spent so much time on it. We cannot believe how many nights and days we have all had to work on this. If we could have Bills in future that had a bit more effort put into their drafting by policymakers and others, we could use the time of this House really well. I am not in any way criticising or saying that the work of this House is wasted. In fact, it has been very necessary to get us to where we are today.
- I appreciate the very full response to Amendment 505C. I am not a lawyer and cannot yet say whether I accept the reassurance — I would like to discuss it with the Minister before Report, with some legal support on both sides. I agree that this Committee has been extraordinary: we started on 20 May, fully four months ago, and I have never in 22 years here seen a Bill have twelve days in Committee.
I thank my noble friend for that very full response to Amendment 505C. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot say at this stage whether I accept the reassurance. I would like the opportunity to discuss it with her before Report, perhaps with some legal support on those points. She and her team have clearly gone into it deeply, and I appreciate that. In closing, my noble friend talked about the extent to which this Bill has been subjected to scrutiny in Committee. I have been here 22 years now, and do not remember any Bill having had 12 days in Committee. I checked and we started this Committee on 20 May, fully four months ago, so I do not think anybody can say it has not had proper scrutiny. I would just like to draw an analogy. My noble friend mentioned earlier that she ran a 10K at the weekend, I imagine that must have felt like a walk in the park compared to steering this Bill through. I thank her and her other ministerial colleagues and Whips for the way in which they have approached it.
- I am more than happy to meet and to bring legal colleagues with me. This Committee stage has been lengthy, but it has been conducted with respect, amicability and constructive purpose — and I want to thank all noble Lords for that.
I am more than happy to meet my noble friend and to bring those legal minds with me that I hope will enable him to be reassured. Given that this is the last group that I will be responding to today, I also thank him for what he has said about this Committee stage. It has been lengthy, but usually carried out in a respectful, amicable and constructive way. For that, I particularly thank the opposition Front Benches and, obviously, my excellent Whip and co-responder my noble friend Lady Blake. I agree with my noble friend that I do not think anybody could say that we have not done our jobs as legislators in this place in well and truly giving this a good going over, and I thank all those who have been involved in that.
- I welcome the firm commitment to review within five years. Putting it on the face of the Bill is the preferable option — not for every Bill, but for one of this breadth, with this many new powers. A statutory review clause disciplines drafting, requires Ministers to define what success looks like, and demonstrates confidence that the Act will deliver what it promises. I will return to this at Report.
My Lords, given that, as the Minister said, she is just bringing to a conclusion her 12 days in Committee on the Bill, I was rather hoping that she may be a little demob happy and put aside her brief and accept the amendment. I naturally welcome the commitment that the Bill will be reviewed within five years. For the reasons I developed, I believe that putting the commitment in the Bill is the preferable option. As I trust was clear from what I said, I do not believe putting such a provision in the Bill should apply to all or even most Bills, but only those that meet the criteria I detailed. Providing for such a scrutiny imposes a valuable discipline in drafting the measure, stimulating Ministers to think about the criteria by which one would know whether an Act had actually achieved what it was intended to achieve. That is not always clear. It would also demonstrate the Government’s confidence in the Bill to achieve its purpose. The arguments for doing this, as I said, are the same as those accepted by the Government on the Football Governance Act. This is an important issue, not least for the health of the statute book. We rather miss the significance of such provisions, along with commencement orders, by sticking them at the end of Bills. I think we need to look at that again, but that is a matter I will pursue on another day. Given the importance of ensuring good law, I may return to the issue on Report, but for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 502M would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance during public health and civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves closures — and reapproves them every two weeks. Closing schools during Covid was a catastrophic mistake. Ofsted research documented delays in children's speech, language and personal development. The IFS, Education Endowment Foundation and Social Mobility Commission documented persistent and highly damaging impacts, especially on the poorest children. Parliament should be the safeguard against repeating that error.My Lords, Amendment 502M would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves any closures and continues to approve them every two weeks. We await the conclusions of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, but it is now widely accepted that it was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic. The evidence that it had a catastrophic impact on children is overwhelming. I am thinking of the research published by Ofsted in April 2022, when my noble friend Lady Spielman was at its head, which was based on inspection evidence that highlighted delays in children’s speech and language progress and a negative impact on children’s personal, social and emotional development. I am thinking of research published by the IFS, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Social Mobility Commission detailing the persistent and highly damaging impacts of school closures, exacerbating inequalities and reversing progress previously made to narrow the attainment gap. I am thinking of the work done by the Centre for Social Justice showing that some children who were told to stay at home during the pandemic never reacquired the habit of attending school, with severe absences—defined as missing at least 50% of lessons—tripling compared to pre-pandemic levels. In the summer term of 2024, 172,938 English schoolchildren were severely absent. Incredibly, the number of persistently absent children—defined as missing at least 10% of lessons—climbed to 1.6 million last summer. I am thinking of the data accumulated from children and young people now about the deterioration in children’s mental health since the school closures. Some 1.3 million schoolchildren were referred to mental health support services in the school year 2023-24—a 71% increase on the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19. Some will argue that these costs, while undoubtedly high, were outweighed by the benefits in terms of infections averted…
This is a modest amendment — it asks only that Ministers do what we would all wish them to do anyway. Many of us knew at the time that protracted school closures would be immensely damaging. The subsequent evidence shows that our fears five years ago were a gross underestimate. Requiring parliamentary approval is the minimum safeguard against any future Government making the same mistake.My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend in supporting the amendment, which is in his name and mine. I am conscious of the hour, so I shall be brief in endorsing the point that my noble friend made. This is a modest amendment in that it seeks only to place a duty on Ministers to do something that we surely would all wish them to do anyway. It is crucial because it seeks to make the huge error of closing schools during the Covid pandemic far less likely to be repeated. Many of us thought, at the time, that it was a mistake to engage in protracted school closures and that it would be immensely damaging. The excellent work of UsForThem, run by the splendid Molly Kingsley, helped to highlight the problems that were going to be caused. These harms were always going to be significant, but the evidence since the end of the Covid restrictions, as my noble friend pointed out, suggests that our fears five years ago were actually a gross underestimate of the damage that would be done to children and young people. The repeated lockdowns and school closures constituted, in my view, the biggest public policy disaster in modern history. The fact that the interests of children and young people were treated so lightly is a disgrace. The damage to mental health, to education and to levels of school attendance have all been, and continue to be, profound. The lessons from Sweden, Florida and those few places around the world that took a more measured and intelligent approach is proof that many of our restrictions delivered little if any benefit while doing immense damage. This amendment would ensure that, should there be pressure to repeat school closures in a future emergency, the government response would have to be transparent and that the criteria used to decide on school closure and opening would have to be clear and available to the public and to Parliament. It would ensure that Parliament would have a role in making those decisions in a way that Parliament was denie…
Amendment 502P requires schools to prepare adaptation and mitigation plans for flooding and heat risks. This summer we saw schools close because of excess heat; the school in Tiverton near where I live is flooding almost every year and the flood defences are inadequate. The climate emergency will close schools for different reasons than Covid — we need to plan for that systematically rather than reacting school by school.My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 502P and will give my support to Amendment 502YB, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. If the noble Lord, Lord Young, chooses to put his amendment to a vote later, I will support it; I thought that his introduction to it was very well argued. I am deeply sympathetic to the Ministers handling this Bill, as schools are being asked to do so many different things. It is the widest brief imaginable—and I am coming up with something else at the end of the day and at the end of the Bill. My amendment is about adaptation and mitigation around flooding and heat risks. Just this summer, we have seen schools having to close because of excess heat. Near where I live in Somerset, the school in Tiverton is now flooding almost every year; the defence is very poor. Looking at all our green and sustainable amendments, my worry is that the Government are not taking seriously enough the issue of how we adapt to the coming weather threats. This amendment is a stitch in time for tomorrow. Before the summer, I tabled Questions about how much information the department held about the amount of lost learning time due to flooding and heat stress. The document came back saying that, if no adaptation measures were implemented, it was predicted that, in 2050, eight days a year could be lost due to extreme heat levels. That is a lot. It is also quite a long way ahead, and therefore there is every possibility of the can being kicked down the road. That would be unwise, as so much in the climate change world is changing much faster than we anticipated, and things are already happening now. That document said that, on the basis of the EA analysis, 20% and 34% respectively of primary and secondary school buildings were at high risk, and 37% and 59% of them were at medium risk of surface water flooding right now. So we are in a position where we know some, but not all, the impacts. We are indeed lacking a lot of knowledge about the impacts of heat a…
My probing amendment asks whether schools should teach children how to cope with life-threatening emergencies before the emergency services arrive. Bus crashes, knifings, cardiac arrests on the sports field — defibrillators and adrenaline autoinjectors have already saved lives in schools because of systematic programmes. We need the same systematic approach to first aid and emergency response as part of what every child learns.My Lords, I have a probing amendment in this group, which came about because it struck me that we need to be prepared to think of the unthinkable. Sadly, there have been some tragedies in different schools in different places. There have been bus crashes and knifings. We know that defibrillators on sports fields have saved lives by having a programme that was rolled out. We know that autoinjectors of adrenaline, which are now in schools as a spare autoinjector, have been saving lives. However, I am not sure that children really know how to cope with some of the life-threatening emergencies that can occur before emergency services arrive: particularly, how to manage if a child seems to be bleeding out from a severe injury—there are some very simple measures that can be taken—how to manage choking if someone is choking on a bolus of food in the dining room, and how to manage a chemical attack. I should say that my own grandsons attended the school—one is still at the school—where there was a chemical attack on a pupil in the street that hit the news. I was very struck many years ago when those same grandchildren were much younger and at nursery, where they were taught a very simple rhyme to shout if there was a fire: “Fire, fire. Do not hide. Run outside”. It was terribly simple. We chanted it in the home with them. It was an important lesson, because things can be incredibly dangerous and can happen very fast. The purpose of my amendment is to probe the extent to which we are taking seriously some of the unthinkable things that could happen to our schoolchildren and making sure that they are prepared for responding in a way that does not further endanger them when there is serious danger in front of them. It is a probing amendment—I know that it is not well drafted—but I felt that when we are going through such enormously complicated legislation, putting so much onus on schools, we have to think about the unthinkable.
- We need education that prepares people for life, not just for exams. First aid questions have just been introduced into the driving licence test — there is some recognition of the gap. My amendments 502YB and 502YK call for a broader resilience and life-skills curriculum: in an age of shocks, we genuinely do not know what is around the corner.
My Lord, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and to share in her concern about the need to prepare pupils in this age of shocks where we literally do not know what is around the corner. I have often spoken in your Lordships’ House about the need for first aid education in schools. This amendment is broader than that. We need education that prepares people for life and not just for exams. I note that recently some basic questions about first aid have been introduced into the driving licence test, which shows that there is some recognition by the Government of the need to act in this space. I shall speak chiefly to my Amendments 502YB and 502YK and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for her support for them. Amendment 502YB, which would require a review of climate adaptation in schools, very much fits with the noble Baroness’s Amendment 502P, but her amendment is focused largely on the physical fabric of schools while mine is focused to a large degree on how schools behave and are arranged. It is more of a behavioural kind of question. I note that the UK Health Security Agency has published updated guidance about heat for schools and early years settings. That guidance allows schools to relax uniform policy in the heat. It suggests that students should wear loose, light-coloured clothing and sun hats with wide brims, stay in the shade as much as possible, and wear sunscreen with high sun protection factors, et cetera. It also says that teachers should encourage students to take off their blazers and jumpers. But all that is in terms of encouragement and suggestions. I put it to the Minister and the Government more broadly that we are in a situation now, particularly when we have so many schools with an unreasoning and almost religious attachment to rigid uniform policies, where there should be rules that say that schools must act to keep pupils safe. I note that the National Education Union suggests that 26 degrees should be set as an ap…
- Three observations: first, we react to situations rather than prepare for them; second, when we do set up a programme we do not embed it — we run it until media attention moves on; third, the lessons schools learn after tragedies are not shared. EpiPens and defibrillators spread through schools in Liverpool because one family refused to let their son's death be forgotten. We need a systematic approach, not tragedy-by-tragedy diffusion.
The hour is late, so I will be very brief. I make three observations. First, we react to situations; we do not prepare for them. Secondly, we then set up a particular programme or campaign but we do not embed it; we do it until people have lost interest or media attention has moved on to something else; thirdly, schools or parents often come up with something, following a particular event occurring in a school and it starting a campaign—it is a pity that this is not shared. It is not quite the same, but I think of the example of EpiPens and defibrillators in schools. In Liverpool, a poor boy aged 11 had a cardiac arrest in the swimming pool and tragically died. His family and immediate friends started a campaign, the Oliver King Foundation, to get defibrillators into every school in Merseyside, and that happened. All these amendments are certainly worth consideration.
- Schools are crucial centres of community as well as learning, and closures should be considered only in the most extreme circumstances. I support the principle behind Amendment 502M. The breadth of this final group — civil emergencies, climate adaptation, life-skills — reflects how wide the Bill's implications are for everything schools do.
My Lords, this is a diverse group of amendments. Amendment 502M, tabled by my noble friends Lord Young of Acton and Lord Brady of Altrincham, is on the duty to keep schools open in person during civil emergencies. I think that we can all agree on the importance of this principle. We saw vividly during Covid that schools are crucial centres of learning but also places of community, which form an important part of the foundation of childhood. I support the principle behind the amendment that schools should remain open and that closure should be considered only ever in the most extreme circumstances. I am slightly less clear, looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, whether the Children’s Commissioner is the right person to advise the Government, but it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say on that. Amendment 502P, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, on the creation of a safe and resilient schools plan, rightly highlights the importance of ensuring that our school buildings are resilient to climate change and responsible when it comes to emissions—maybe a building cannot be responsible but those building it can be. The previous Government set out in our Sustainability and Climate Change: A Strategy for the Education and Children’s Services Systems in 2023 a commitment for all new school buildings to be net-zero in operation, designed for a 2 degree rise in average global temperatures and future-proofed for a 4 degree rise. I am slightly confused by the noble Baroness’s amendment because I assume that the Government will continue with those objectives. If that has changed, can the Minister clarify? Future buildings are a huge challenge, not just in funding but in the capacity in the building industry to deliver—although maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is working her magic in construction and green skills. Amendment 502YA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is on civil preparedness trainin…
- Every emergency is different and unpredictable — that is the nature of what we are talking about. Effective emergency planning must be agile and take a whole-system approach. On Amendment 502M, I will never forget the moment during Covid when I realised schools would have to close: it was the hardest decision, and the damage to children's life chances — especially the most disadvantaged — is real. But requiring fortnightly parliamentary approval in every emergency would create an inflexibility that could itself put children at risk. On Amendment 502P, the Government are working across departments on climate adaptation for the school estate and I will write with detail. On the broader resilience and first aid amendments, I am sympathetic and will engage before Report.
Before I start summing up, I just have a comment to make: if loosening ties is good enough for instructions in this Chamber, maybe schools should consider it. I am sorry; we are getting to the last group of amendments here. These are all exceptionally important amendments that we need to consider. It is a rather strange grouping but there is a theme running through them. I will turn to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, first because his amendment led the group. The whole thrust of this is that it would require schools to remain open to all pupils during civil emergencies unless the other place decided otherwise. I stress that every emergency is different and unpredictable; that is the nature of the beast that we are talking about. We all learned the lesson—some of us were more involved than others—that planning is best when it is agile and takes a whole-system approach, and is responsive to the emergency faced. For example, I will never forget the chilling moment when I got a call from our director of education to say that a teacher had been murdered in one of our schools, all of the emotions that brought in, and the effect on all the children in the school and the staff, and the huge response required at the time. I am acutely conscious of the impacts that closing schools has on children, and protecting children and young people in emergencies will always be a priority for the Government. I commend those school leaders who kept schools open during the pandemic—albeit for limited numbers of pupils, but the vast majority of schools were open during that time and we should remember that. They did extraordinary work to keep those settings open. They received very strong local support in, I have to say, often a very conflicting and chaotic environment where directives were not clear; there was an enormous amount of confusion during that whole period. It would not be appropriate here to pre-empt the findings of the Covid inquiry into the decisions made by the previous…
- Yes, Governments need flexibility in emergencies — but there must also be safeguards when taking such momentous decisions. Requiring parliamentary approval is a modest safeguard. I withdraw the amendment today, but the principle stands.
I thank my noble friend Lord Brady for an excellent speech in support of Amendment 502M, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Barran for their words of support. All I will say in reply to the Minister’s thoughtful response is that yes, of course the Government need to remain flexible in the face of emergencies. However, there need to be safeguards in place, particularly when taking such momentous decisions. The safeguard of requiring the approval of Parliament seems a fairly modest one. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.