Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee (Day 11) ranged across school admissions, the free-schools pipeline, managed moves, exclusions and bullying, SEND attainment, children's well-being measurement, allergy safety, and curriculum transparency including collective worship and gender-questioning guidance.
L(The system for giving parents accessible admissions information has broken down. East Sussex publishes full details for only four of its twenty-odd secondary schools — the rest just say "Contact school". Local authorities used to publish a proper annual booklet; that no longer happens. If the forthcoming school profiles will carry comprehensive, machine-readable admissions data on a government website, we may have solved this. If not, we must act.My Lords, my hope is that this amendment has been rendered unnecessary by the Government’s plan for school profiles, so I will speak to the principles of it rather than the details. For parents, admissions information is of great importance. If they are looking around for a school for their child, they need an understanding of which schools they have a chance of getting them into. The admission rules and outcomes from those rules are vital information for parents. Local authorities used to publish a booklet every year setting out exactly that—what the rules were and what the outcomes had been—but the more that academy schools have grown, the less that has become the practice. I ran off the booklet for East Sussex—where I live—senior schools. Out of the 20 or so schools available at secondary level, full admissions information is available only for four of them. The others just say, “Contact school”. Although there is supposed to be a system whereby schools provide local authorities with the information they can put in their schools booklets, this is no longer happening. East Sussex is by no means an outlier. This is common. The system for providing parents with easily accessible schools admissions information has broken down. If, as part of the forthcoming school profiles, we are to have proper school information available on the government website and if, as with the other excellent information that they provide on that website, it will be available in electronic form in bulk, then we have solved this problem. I hope that is the answer. If not, we must do something to get back to the position we all thought we were in. I beg to move.
Refugee, asylum-seeking and resettlement children — accompanied or not — are among the most disadvantaged pupils in the system. My amendments would give any child in the asylum process or with refugee status the same priority access to a school place as an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. This is a modest ask and unlikely to open floodgates.My Lords, I have not had much input into the Bill, which colleagues with much greater knowledge of the issues than me have covered so ably, but I have tabled two amendments in this group, Amendments 452A and 452B. Refugee and asylum-seeking children and those on resettlement schemes may be among the most disadvantaged in our society. They may be accompanied, but the adult or adults with them may be as traumatised as the children. I should like any child in the asylum process or with refugee status, irrespective of whether they fall under the category of unaccompanied asylum-seeking child, to be treated as worthy of special treatment. This is unlikely to open the floodgates, but it would help some very needy children who otherwise would fall outside the criteria. I hope the Minister will be able to look kindly on these modest amendments.
Rural schools were hit by a double whammy: first the rural services delivery grant ended, then the dedicated rural transport grant was removed. In North Yorkshire that has been felt acutely. My amendment asks the Government to review within six months whether rural admissions policies have been damaged by cuts to home-to-school transport funding — including an honest look at which schools face closure as a result.My Lords, this is only the second intervention I have made in this very important Bill. I draw the attention of the Minister, the department and, indeed, the House to the plight and funding of rural schools. One of the first actions that the incoming Government undertook was to end the rural services delivery grant, which had greatly benefited rural areas and allowed many outlying villages and farms to access the schools for their children. This has had an immense impact on counties such as the very rural and isolated North Yorkshire. When I was in the other place, a group of about 100 MPs felt that they represented deprived areas of local education funding, for the simple reasons that we lost what was initially an element of the funding for rural and sparsely populated areas and that the grants seem to change every single year. In addition to the loss of the rural services delivery grant, the Government took away the grant that was dedicated to rural schools’ transport funding, so there was a sort of double whammy, a double effect, from this first action from the Government. In the year up to the end of the financial year 2023-24, I understand that the rural services grant totalled over £100 million, and the Government saw fit to redirect that money from what are called “more deprived areas”. On my Amendment 455, I want to point out the lack of understanding of how changes to this funding really impact individual rural schools—which face the risk of closure—and the parents and their children, who are trying to access what I believe are very good schools. I understand that the thinking of the Government is to transfer resources from rural to urban areas, so in this amendment I ask them to review within six months of the passing of the Bill their rural school admissions policies, to include an assessment of whether admissions policies in those areas have been affected by the availability of home-to-school transport.
Clause 57 removes the presumption that all new schools must be free schools — and with it the 50% faith-admissions cap that has applied since 2011. Voluntary aided and foundation schools, which can be 100% religiously selective, will be permitted to open for the first time in fourteen years. That is not a neutral tidying exercise: 100% faith selection entrenches ethnic segregation, disadvantages pupils on free school meals and those in care, and narrows parental choice for the 53% of people who now have no religion. A Labour Government should not be reopening that door.Amendment 456 in my name would require new state schools opened after this Bill enters the statute book to have a limit on faith-based selection for admissions of 50% when the school is oversubscribed. This has been a requirement since 2011, but, as it stands, the Bill would end that requirement. We often hear amendments being dismissed by Ministers who warn of unintended consequences, but this appears to be an example of a Bill itself in danger of causing unintended consequences. The determination by a succession of Tory Governments, initially hand in hand with the Lib Dems, to undermine maintained schools while promoting academies and free schools vigorously has meant that, since 2011, all new schools had to be free schools. There was one benefit of that policy, because free schools are subject to the 50% faith-based cap on admissions as part of their funding agreement. Clause 57 would remove the presumption that all new schools should be free schools and would instead allow other types of schools to be opened. That includes voluntary aided or foundation schools, which can be 100% religiously selective. Those types of schools will be allowed to open for the first time since the cap was introduced 14 years ago. Was that an unintended consequence? If it was initially, it seems that the Government were not greatly concerned by it. When the issue was debated in another place, an amendment similar to Amendment 456 was voted down by the Government in Committee, and the same thing happened on Report. I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that, on deeper reflection, that is a position that she does not want to defend. I say that because a cap on faith-based admissions has been demonstrated to strengthen ethnic integration. Analysis of data on faith schools shows that religiously selective schools operating under the 50% cap were significantly more ethnically diverse than schools that were 100% religiously selective. We should bear in mind that, at a time when th…
The Department for Education does not collect data on how faith-based admissions criteria are actually applied, so we have no idea how many parents miss out. My amendment would require an annual report on that. And Amendment 456 is simply a tidying exercise: it extends to all new state schools the 50% cap that has always applied to free schools. If the Government support the cap in principle — and they say they do — they should have no objection to extending it. If they are quietly happy for 100% faith-selective schools to open, they should say so clearly.My Lords, I wish to speak to my own Amendment 457 and to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, both of which deal with the issue of faith- based selection in school admissions. My Amendment 457 speaks to the missing data that the Schools Minister raised in Committee in the other place. The Department for Education currently does not collect data on how admissions policies are applied in schools, and therefore we do not know how many parents are missing out on their preferred school placements because of their religion or because they do not have a religion. Collecting data would shed light on what the impact of faith-selective admissions is for parents and pupils and whether such selection is contributing to or undermining parental choice. Amendment 456 should, I hope, be uncontroversial. Since 2011, all new faith schools, as all new schools, had to be free schools, and have been subject in their funding agreements to a 50% cap on faith-based selection in admissions when oversubscribed. In this situation, Amendment 456 is a simple tidying-up exercise—that is how I read it anyway—extending a standing policy for free schools with a religious character to all new state-maintained schools with a religious character that could open under Clause 57. The Government have not in any way suggested that they oppose the 50% cap in principle. Following a consultation on the cap that showed overwhelming support for it to continue, the Government have stated that they will maintain the cap for free schools with a religious character. If the Government are supportive of allowing new 100% faith-selective schools to open, I ask the Minister to state that clearly before the Committee. I wish to be clear that neither of these amendments oppose the opening or continuing service of faith schools in this country, many of which provide exemplary education for their pupils. What the amendment seeks to do is ensure that faith schools cannot limit parental c…
We have 1.49 million persistently absent pupils and 171,000 severely absent. The "Who is Losing Learning?" report found that for every child permanently excluded, ten more are invisibly moved between schools or off-rolled. We accept academies are here to stay under this Bill — so can we at least find out whether off-rolling is disproportionately an academy problem, or something broader? We cannot fix it without knowing.My Lords, I will briefly speak to my amendment in this group and leave the summing up to my noble friend. I use the term “off-rolling” in this. It may be out of date and unfair, but the fact of the matter is that there has been an increase in the number of children not in school over recent years. A Commons report on the issue came out in 2020, but it has been exacerbated by the Covid situation. It is about time we had a real, in-depth dive into why more and more pupils are not within the mainstream system. There has been some suggestion that the academy system wanting to get rid of bad pupils is to blame or that the greater emphasis on special educational needs has led to the thought that people might be more trouble for the school. I would like to know. I know that some of the academies—the better ones—have fought against this. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, getting extremely annoyed about the idea of that practice in a Committee stage debate on another Bill. If there are academies that are avoiding it or some that are falling to this, we should know. If academies are here to stay, under this Bill, whether we like it or not, because we have accepted them, can we find out whether there is a specific problem there or if it is something else? The increased number of people not in school is a problem that we have referred to throughout Committee, and it is about time we had a decent and in-depth look at it.
As an active humanist I strongly support both the Watson and Burt amendments on faith admissions. These are modest proposals. Before Report, can the Minister bring together those of us committed to this to talk it through?My Lords, I will make very few remarks. I am an active humanist and I would like to identify my support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lord Watson. I hope that the Government will take heed of what these rather modest amendments propose. If there is something that needs to be discussed, I ask that my noble friend the Minister calls together those of us who are interested and committed to this to talk about it.
The 50% cap was introduced by Tony Blair precisely because, in a multifaith society, children benefit from mixing with children of different faiths at school — you only have to look at Northern Ireland to see where full segregation leads. In my own city the four Anglican secondaries are oversubscribed, and suddenly the local churches fill up at application time because a vicar's reference is required. That is not parental choice; it is gaming. Faith schools do good educational work, but faith-based admissions raises real questions about who gets in.My Lords, I will speak to a number of these amendments and I want to do it from my own experience. First, I will start with the cap on faith. If your Lordships remember, this was originally introduced by the Tony Blair Government for any new schools. I thought at the time, “How sensible is that? If we live, as we do, in a multifaith, multicultural society, isn’t a good thing that children mix with children of different faiths?” Speaking on day nine in Committee, I referenced the fact that my daughter went to a Jewish school. It was wonderful for her to be able to have Jewish, Hindu, Christian and Muslim friends, because that was the ethos of that Jewish school. If you just put the Catholics there, the Anglicans there, the Jews there and the Muslims there, you divide people. I do not want a divided society. I want children to celebrate their faith and their culture, and the best place to do that is in school when they are learning and growing up. You only have to remember what happened in education in Northern Ireland. Secondly, I want to talk about faith schools in terms of admissions. I am speaking to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the 50% cap, and I cannot add anything further to his excellent contribution, so I turn to my noble friend Lady Burt’s Amendment 457. Faith schools do a fantastic job—I must stop using the word “fantastic”. They do a very good educational job. I look again at my own city, where the four Anglican schools are oversubscribed and are very popular. The way children are admitted raises real questions in my mind. Suddenly, the local Anglican churches, which are in the neighbourhood of that school, fill up their congregations, because when people apply to the school, they have to have a reference from the vicar.
Most of these amendments in this group are probably unnecessary in practice, but the Minister should clarify. On off-rolling, Ofsted already defines and targets it in its inspection framework — the noble Lord's amendment may not be needed. On the faith-admissions cap, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raises a fair point: removing the free-school presumption does create a real policy change and the Government should explain their reasoning.My Lords, as we have heard, this group and the next one cover a range of issues in relation to admissions. My sense is that most of the amendments in this group are not really needed in practice, but the Minister will no doubt clarify. In relation to Amendment 449 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, as my noble friend made clear, each individual school publishes its admissions policy on its website. I accept his point that local authorities no longer publish as many comprehensive booklets as perhaps they once did. It is reasonable to expect that parents should be able to look at different websites and the admissions policies of the schools that they are interested in sending their children to. Turning to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, my understanding is that under the fair access protocol, children in need of a school place will be found one. While I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s concerns about the groups of children she described, I am not sure it is helpful that we should place a priority on one group of children over another, but rather that we see the right to education as fundamental for every child. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering’s Amendment 455 relates to admissions policies for children living in rural areas. My noble friend raised some valid points about the financial pressures that rural schools, and in particular very small rural schools, face, but I am just not sure that it would be appropriate for an analysis of those policies to be done in the department. I turn to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. The noble Lord raises a valid point. There is a change in policy happening around the future ability of maintained free schools—although they will not be free schools in the sense that many of us understand—to be available, and that is different from what exists today for academies. So it is entirely fair of the noble Lord to probe the Government’s…
Admissions authorities are already required by the statutory school admissions code to publish their arrangements on their websites, and local authorities must publish a composite prospectus covering all schools. The rural transport duty is separate and no child should be prevented from accessing education by lack of transport. On the faith-admissions cap: we greatly value faith schools and support their ability to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. We do not intend to change that at this time. Removing the presumption that new schools must be academies is about giving local authorities flexibility — it does not signal enthusiasm for 100% faith-selective schools.My Lords, the amendments in this first group cover admissions and related issues in relation to these clauses. This package of measures will help to ensure that decisions on place planning and admissions support the needs of communities and families while also supporting local authorities to deliver their statutory functions. I turn first to Amendment 449 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 457 from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, which seek to ensure that admissions information is available to all parents. They would require the Secretary of State to publish information about schools admissions arrangements, including any faith-based arrangements. I hope to provide some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Admissions authorities are already required by the statutory school admissions code to publish their admissions arrangements on their school’s website, including the proportion of places that will be prioritised for pupils of faith, and ensure that parents can easily understand how admissions arrangements will be satisfied. Admissions authorities must also provide information to enable local authorities to publish an annual admissions prospectus for parents. The code requires local authorities to publish this information for all schools via a composite prospectus. We believe that the existing approach is proportionate, reflects the diversity of admission arrangements and local circumstances and is not overly burdensome on schools or local authorities, while enabling parents to access the information they need about their local schools. Amendment 455, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, seeks to insert a new clause to require a review of rural schools’ admissions policies. The admissions system already contains mechanisms to ensure that admissions policies meet local needs, including the policies of rural schools. Admissions authorities must consult locally before making changes, and anyone who considers a school’s admissions policy to be…
- The Minister hasn't explained why this is a change from the existing position. We will need to discuss this before Report.
I do not feel that my noble friend the Minister has answered the questions asked by my noble friend Lord Watson asked about why this is a change. I do not expect to make any progress right now, but I do think that, before Report, we will need to discuss it further.
- Happy to write and to facilitate a meeting with the new Schools Minister to discuss this before Report.
I am certainly happy to write to my noble friends and perhaps facilitate the opportunity for them to meet the new Schools Minister to discuss this particular issue. I was in the process of saying that this relates to the new provisions around opening schools. In doing that, decision-makers will carefully consider proposals from all groups and commission the right new schools to meet need and to ensure every child has the opportunity to achieve and to thrive.
- When you said "not at this time" on Amendment 456 — does that mean the Government might consider it later, or that it will simply never happen?
The Minister, when referring to Amendment 456 from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said there were no plans to make a change “at this time”. What does she mean by that? Does that mean that the Government will consider it in the future or that it is not going to happen at all?
- I was pretty clear: we do not intend to change the admissions arrangements for faith schools.
I think I was pretty clear about the position that the Government take with respect to the admissions arrangements of faith schools, and it is not intended to change that.
- But the Government are changing that — I was part of the debates that arrived at the 50% figure. It was explicitly agreed that new schools could have a strong faith character without fracturing communities. Where is the pressure coming from to go back on that? It's not from the Church of England, who have been silent here. Which group lobbied for this? What kinds of 100% faith schools does the Government envisage opening and where? Binding communities together has never been more important — why is the Government adding to that dissolution?
But the Government are changing that, my Lords. I was part of the debates where we arrived at the 50% figure. I remember the Catholic schools playing a very strong part in that debate. It was very much understood that the schools created could quite clearly have a strong religious character and be directed and run in that way but not becoming isolated parts of the community, fracturing it and separating it. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, one has only to look at Northern Ireland to see the difficulties caused by a fully segregated system. We agreed a system for avoiding that. Why are the Government now going back on it? Where is the argument coming from? It does not appear to be coming from the Church of England—the right reverend Prelate has been silent on these amendments. We have not heard any other religious voices saying, “Thank you so much, this is what we want”. Who has been lobbying for this? Where is the pressure coming from for the Government to give in and make this change? It is not at all obvious—and the Government are not being open or clear about—what the motivation is or what outcome they wish for. Presumably, they are hoping that a collection of 100% religious character schools will be founded over the next year or two. Where are those schools intended to be? What kind of schools are they looking at? What future are the Government letting us in for? I really think they owe us some clarity and some openness on this so that we can understand what they are doing and what they intend to do to our society. This is a really important set of issues. Binding us together as a nation has never been more important. We are threatened from various angles now. Why are the Government adding to that dissolution of our nation? I can see that I am not going to get anything out of the Minister now.
- The noble Lord is enormously overstating this. These criteria relate to specific and limited circumstances around opening new schools under the Bill. This is not an open invitation to expand the number of faith schools. I will write.
I will respond and, as I said, I will write. The noble Lord is enormously overstating the very specific circumstances to which these criteria would relate. This is not an invitation by the Government to enormously increase the number of faith schools. This is a requirement specifically relating to the provisions about opening a new school contained in the Bill. I will write to noble Lords about that point.
- I look forward to the letter. On my own amendment on admissions transparency — the composite prospectus the code requires is simply not being produced in East Sussex or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else. The information is also not on school websites. The system is there in theory but has broken down in practice. I hope admissions information will form part of the new school profiles.
I look forward to that, but I very much regret that the settlement that we reached should be torn up in this way. When it comes to my own Amendment 449, it is all very well for the Government to say that there should be a composite prospectus, but there is not one. It used to exist, absolutely, but that is not what is available now. If you look for an East Sussex composite prospectus, it is not there. What is there is a confusing passage among a collection of documents and websites; then it is back to the school and off to here or there. We have produced a system where the really diligent, intelligent, motivated parent can find their way through, but anyone—
- If East Sussex isn't publishing a composite prospectus, it's not fulfilling its statutory obligation. I'd be surprised if that were so, but I'm willing to look into it. The requirement is clear.
In that case, East Sussex is not fulfilling the requirements of the statutory code that I spelled out in my response. I would be surprised if that were the case but, obviously, if it were, I would be willing to look into it. The Government have made clear the requirement both on schools to publish their admissions arrangements on their websites and on local authorities to publish a composite prospectus about the admissions arrangements of all the schools in their areas.
- I'm not aware of a single local authority that still produces a composite prospectus in the old style — this is a national problem, not an East Sussex quirk.
My Lords, I have not done a complete survey, but I am not aware of a single local authority that does produce a composite prospectus in the old style any more. I absolutely take—
- Perhaps the emphasis is on "in the old style" — the requirement is for this to be on a website. Surely we're not insisting on a printed booklet in this day and age?
The noble Lord might have put quite a lot of emphasis on the “in the old style” expression there. I think the requirement is for this to be on a website. I am not sure that production of a written prospectus for all parents is necessarily something that we would require in this day and age, is it?
- A website or PDF — anything that lets a parent go to one place and see the admissions criteria and outcomes for all local schools. That's not happening either online or offline. I'll take up the Minister's invitation to pursue this through correspondence, and I hope admissions information will be part of the forthcoming school profiles.
No, I would expect a website or maybe a PDF, but something containing the information that is supposed to make it possible for parents to go to one place and see the admissions criteria and how they work, for all the schools within the local authority that they might be interested in. This is widely not happening, and nor is that information available on school websites; I checked a few as the Minister had challenged on that and, no, I cannot find that either. There is supposed to be a system, but there is not so, yes, I will take up her invitation to pursue this afterwards. It is important that we get back to a system where ordinary, hard-pressed parents can easily find the information they need to make good decisions for their children. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me at some stage that the admissions information will form part of the school’s profile, as talked about in the announcement that was made at the same time as the announcement of the new Ofsted systems. There is real promise in that. I should like it if she could tell me more about the Government’s plans for what should be in that profile and how that will evolve; I should be very grateful. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Managed moves — permanent school changes that are not exclusions — are currently unmonitored and unregulated. For every child permanently excluded, ten more are invisibly moved around. Sometimes children are almost traded between schools; some end up out of school altogether, and neither the local authority nor the DfE knows where they are. My amendment is practical: route managed moves through the existing fair access protocol, require local authorities to report to DfE, and ensure moves are assessed before they happen in the child's best interest — not because it suits the school.My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 450 on managed moves, as well as Amendment 453, which is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. The amendments concern a group of children who are literally moved between schools. At the moment, they are pretty much out of the spotlight and are not in any way accountable within the system. Mine is a very practical amendment: it seeks to provide a framework that is consistent, fair and transparent, so that we do not lose these children. It would ensure that we know where they are and that the moves are in their best interests. Managed moves relate to permanent changes of pupils on a school registration where the move is not the result of a permanent exclusion, transfer to a special school, school closure or movement between educational phases. They are currently unmonitored and unregulated in many areas. While some local authorities have very strong protocols and partnerships that mean that managed moves operate well, the lack of appropriate guard-rails, to ensure moves between schools are in the best interests of the child, has allowed some problematic practices to emerge. In the current system, frequently neither the local authorities nor the Government know where, or even if, the child is being educated following a managed move. The Who is Losing Learning? report this year uncovered a deeply concerning trend: it estimated that, for every child that was permanently excluded, there were 10 more invisibly being moved around the system behind that. There are also reports that, sometimes, children can almost be traded between different schools and systems within this process. Some children will spend a lot of time out of school as a result, and others are moved time and time again. The solution proposed in my amendment is very practical. It would bring managed moves in line with suspensions and exclusions. It proposes that they are put through the existing fair access protocol and that local authorities report on its use to t…
Clause 61 and Clause 62 give local authorities new powers to direct admissions, including into academies. But local authorities have a structural conflict of interest — they compete directly with academies for pupils. My amendment ensures decisions are made in the best interests of the child and that academies have a right of appeal, because the current proposals could be used to offload the most challenging pupils onto the academy sector.My Lords, I speak in support of my Amendments 452 and 454, on the control of admissions into schools. This is a fraught issue for parents trying to get their children into excellent schools that lack sufficient places, so rationing—that unpleasant word—has to apply. Where the shortage of places is structural, outstanding schools can be and are supported to expand their facilities. In my trust, we have an outstanding school that started out with us in special measures over 10 years ago. It has nearly doubled its cohort size over that time, and I am grateful to the local authority and indeed to the DfE for supporting that expansion in physical terms. This year, it was the highest-performing secondary school in Norfolk at GCSE, and I am incredibly proud of the staff who have achieved that. But, more relevant for this legislation, it shows that the system can work well and responsibly.
I oppose Amendment 452. Local authorities have a statutory duty under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996 to ensure enough school places exist, but they currently have no power to direct the 83% of secondary schools — academies — that must co-operate on place planning. Multi-academy trusts cannot be allowed to set their own pupil numbers in isolation when birth-rate falls are already reducing primary numbers. Co-ordinated planning is essential, especially now that pupil numbers are declining.My Lords, I oppose Amendment 452, which has just been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, which would limit local authorities’ interventions in admissions to situations where the admissions authority had failed to meet its admissions obligations or had behaved improperly. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996 to ensure that enough school places are available in their area for every child of compulsory school age. The provision in the Bill to create a duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities to enable them to carry out their place-planning duties as required by law and to co-operate on SEND inclusion and school admissions is entirely necessary and reasonable. It ends the nonsense of academies being allowed to set their own pupil numbers without regard to the number of pupils in the catchment area. Multi-academy trusts are no longer outliers; they run over 46% of primary schools and 83% of secondary schools. The Government have a duty to ensure that local authorities, on which the legal requirement to provide school places falls, are able to do so. This must require local authorities and multi-academy trusts to work together to ensure that place planning is done effectively and cost-effectively. That is particularly important now, as we are experiencing a decline in the birth rate which is affecting primary places and will affect secondary places. The sustained rise we have seen in pupil numbers since the early 2010s has now been reversed. The number of pupils in England’s school system overall decreased in January, dropping by more than 59,000. Primary numbers have been falling for several years now, but secondary numbers are due to peak in 2027 before falling as the population bulge moves out of compulsory education. These pupil demographics require co-ordinated place planning. We cannot have a situation where local authorities are legally responsible for providing places for pupils but have n…
Competition between schools has been proven to work — strong schools survive and expand. Good schools must be allowed to grow, not be forced to shrink. Local authorities clearly have a conflict of interest under the proposed admissions provisions; there must be a right of appeal as my noble friend Lord Agnew's amendment sets out. High-performing schools should also have the freedom that Amendment 502YC asks for.My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted. She may be pleased to hear that I have advised my noble friend on the correct pronunciation of her name. I did not hear very well when we were here last week, but the word “devil” was mentioned. Having checked Hansard, I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, seemed to think that when we had some dealings in the Department for Education, I thought she was doing the devil’s work in working for unions. I could not possibly think that—I always found her the most charming person to deal with—and, as opposed to the devil’s work, I commend the unions on doing what seems to me the Lord’s work in their campaign on smartphones. I look forward to talking to them about that. I welcome the noble Baroness back from her sojourn in the Arctic this summer, and I hope she is finding the atmosphere in the Labour Party at the moment somewhat less glacial than she found it there—although in the current circumstances, maybe not very much so. I rise to support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Agnew. Life in the real world teaches one that the benefits of competition are that strong organisations survive and expand, and weak ones demise. While I accept that there may be remote communities where the availability of these schools is essential, as an overriding policy in schools, allowing competition has been proven to be a good thing. Take for instance the London Academy of Excellence in Stratford, which resulted in a rising tide lifting all boats. Apart from its own excellent performance, it has had a dramatic effect on the performance of the other sixth forms in the area. Good schools must be allowed to expand. To not allow this is to deprive children of their benefits, and they certainly should not be forced to shrink. Turning to my noble friend Lord Agnew’s amendment, local authorities clearly have a conflict of interest under the proposed admission provisions. Surely there must…
On managed moves: where they work well on a consulting basis — and in parts of Birmingham they do — adding layers of bureaucracy would harm what's working. On admissions: the question of why you wouldn't let a good school expand is reasonable, but it's not that simple. Expanding by a form of entry adds 30 pupils a year and 200+ over seven years. That changes the nature and culture of a school. And schools owe each other the same obligation as MATs at their best: do no harm, support each other, compete without putting the school down the road into closure. The proposed amendments risk doing precisely that harm to neighbouring schools.My Lords, I want to speak to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, as the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has done. However, on managed moves, these are good things when done well, as they can prevent permanent exclusions. At their best they are in the best interests of the child. I know Birmingham very well, and the size of Birmingham. Sometimes the managed moves are made on a consulting basis. I ask my noble friend Lady Longfield, who moved the amendment, to reflect that if you make that more bureaucratic in terms of the local authorities’ overall role, it will put too much of an administrative burden on what is working very well in some parts of the city. I am not saying that it is working well everywhere, but where it is working well on a consulting basis, it would be a shame to add layers of bureaucracy. However, on the whole, managed moves based on the framework she suggests are very good. On admissions, my starting point is the same as that of the noble Lords, Lord Agnew and Lord Nash. Why would you want to prevent a good school expanding? Also, if something is good, why would you not want more children to go to it? That is at the centre of what this is about, because it is true. However, life is not as simple as that. It is not only the interests of the school and the children who might go to it that are affected by the amendments. I was reflecting back on both noble Lords. One of the best things they did as Ministers was to recognise the early mistakes made by the coalition Government in having stand-alone academies and not encouraging schools to work together. The work they did on multi-academy trusts was a very good step forward from what we had at the start of the coalition Government. Inherent in that is the understanding that schools do not stand alone. At their best, they work with each other, help each other, depend on each other—and the key point is that they do no harm to each other. They do not make life more difficult for the school do…
- When my primary school wanted to expand to three forms of entry, the local authority said no — because it would weaken the two neighbouring primaries. At the time I was annoyed, but the LA was right: it first built up those other schools, then agreed my school could grow. That is how it should work. On managed moves: we need a clear definition and a fair access protocol before any move is initiated, with LAs reporting to DfE. It is not bureaucracy — it is knowing where 171,000 severely absent children actually are.
I will pick up that last point, which was very incisively made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. My primary school was a two-form entry primary school. It was a popular school, and we wanted to increase the size to three forms of entry. The local authority initially said, “No, because if you do that, you’ll take children from the two other primary schools in the locality, which will weaken those schools”. At the time, I was a bit miffed about this, but I thought, “Okay”. The local authority said, “What we need to do is to build up the numbers and the esteem of those two other primary schools”, which it did very successfully. Then, guess what: it agreed that my school could become a three-form entry school. It is not just about size; it also about schools working together. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, quite rightly paid tribute to the role that the noble Lords, Lord Agnew and Lord Nash, played as Ministers in establishing multi-academy trusts. One area which has never worked, to my mind, is that you can have the headquarters of the multi-academy trust at the other end of the country. It has never worked for me that a multi-academy trust can have schools in Devon and Cornwall but also in the north-east. Where is that community feel about them? The trouble with expanding schools is that you can get to a situation in which schools just want to grow and grow, because they get more money. They can get too large for the existing children and families. I think of the school that my wife worked at, a seven-form entry comprehensive which was allowed to increase its size to 11. It became completely unmanageable. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, rightly said, by taking children from one school, in many cases you are almost putting a close notice on that school. The way to deal with it is not by moving children or allowing schools to grow but by providing the resources and expertise and making that school popular, putting in real expertise to change its character and ed…
There is a real risk that the new powers to direct admissions will be used by local authorities to offload the most difficult children onto academies. I know of a case where a girl was raped by a boy on a managed move whose history of serious sexual misconduct had not been disclosed to the receiving school. No school should be forced to take a child who poses a serious risk to others. Local authorities also already have a de facto incentive, via EHCPs, to steer the most complex SEND pupils toward popular academies. My noble friend's Amendment 452ZA — requiring impartiality between maintained schools and academies — should be explicit in the Act.My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s amendments to Clause 56 and my noble friend Lord Agnew’s Amendment 454. I have heard much around the Committee this afternoon that is extremely important, but I think there are some wider points to make. There are many romantic expectations of school admissions—that there is a perfect world in which every child will go to the school that they and their parents choose, in which every mainstream school can provide well for every child no matter how extreme their needs, and in which no child will ever cause harm to any other child or adult in a school. In this perfect world, the romantics expect children to be distributed perfectly evenly between schools on any measure by which we choose to analyse the population. But this is a dream, and chasing dreams rarely improves children’s experiences in the real world. Sadly, it is entirely possible that the extended powers to direct admissions will backfire, especially with policy pressure on local authorities to keep even the worst behaved children in mainstream schools irrespective of the consequences. Consider a child for whom an LA is trying to find a managed move. If several schools decline to accept the child, it may mean that they are all shirking their responsibilities, or it may mean that they have correctly assessed that the child’s needs are too great for that school or any mainstream school to manage the child safely. One shocking case I saw as chief inspector related to a girl who was raped by a boy who had come to her school on a managed move and, worse, the receiving school had not been informed by either the LA or the sending school of the boy’s known history of serious sexual misconduct. No school should be levered into putting other children at risk in this way. If the LA directs the child to one of its own schools, it still has direct responsibility for the child, but if it can direct the child to an academy, it has offloaded the problem, at least in part. Th…
- Clause 54 gives local authorities new powers to direct individual pupil admissions — powers that already exist for the Secretary of State to use via the funding agreement. The policy notes accept that schools and LAs will not always agree. But where is the evidence that academies are unreasonably refusing pupils? In 2023-24 there were just under 11,000 permanent exclusions. The data shows huge variation in exclusion rates between neighbouring authorities, whether predominantly academy or maintained. Before adding powers we should know what problem we're actually solving.
My Lords, Clause 53 covers the role of schools in general and academies in particular in relation to pupil place planning. As we know, in the vast majority of cases, academies co-operate and fulfil their role in helping the local authority to meet its sufficiency duties, as the Bill says, so far as is reasonable. Clause 54 gives the local authority new powers to direct admission of individual pupils, despite the fact that those powers already exist for the Secretary of State to use within the funding agreement for all academies. The policy notes say, slightly quaintly: “Schools and local authorities’ interests may not always be aligned, and they are not expected to agree on all admissions and place planning matters. However, it is expected that they will behave reasonably and collaboratively, for example, considering the other party’s views, being willing to meet and discuss differences, and sharing information in a timely manner”. All this is fine, but presumably the point of the clause is to get quicker decisions and to address a problem of academies apparently unreasonably refusing to accept these pupils. But where is the evidence that that is true? In the academic year 2023-24, there were just under 11,000 exclusions. Looking at the data on the department’s website for exclusions and suspensions, including repeat suspensions, one sees incredible differences, in the rates of permanent exclusion in particular, even in neighbouring local authorities. This is true for local authorities where almost all the secondaries are academies and for those where there are predominantly maintained schools.
- Clause 62 and Clause 63 extend local authorities' power to direct admissions to academies — currently you can only direct into half of all schools and increasingly fewer as academies grow. The route to direct into an academy via the Secretary of State takes an average of 38 days; that's too long for a vulnerable child without a school place. These clauses will allow faster placement for children in care and where the fair access protocol has failed. On impartiality: the noble Baroness is absolutely right that decisions must be in the child's best interest and that maintained schools and academies should be treated equally — the code will reflect that.
My Lords, I turn first to Clauses 54 and 55, the latter of which the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, opposes standing part of the Bill. Together, they extend local authorities’ current powers to direct maintained schools to admit a child to enable them to direct academies in the same way. There are important elements of this Bill that are about future-proofing the system. As I explained last week when talking about the nature of the national curriculum, if, quite rightly, a majority of our schools, or schools that are teaching the majority of our children, are academies, and if, as we do as a Government, we want to continue the progress to see more academies developing and opening, we need to future-proof the system. At the moment, local authorities can direct admissions in the particular circumstances in which they need to do so in only half of schools, and in the future in even fewer schools than that. The proposals enable the school admissions code to set out additional circumstances in which directions can be made to ensure school places for vulnerable children can be secured more quickly and efficiently. Enabling local authorities to direct into academies without needing to make a request via the Secretary of State will help to reduce delays in securing vulnerable children a school place. It is right, as the noble Baroness says, that there is a route to direct into an academy, but that requires making a request to the Secretary of State and an average, as I understand it, of 38 days for that to be determined. That is a long time for a vulnerable child to be without a school place. These clauses will also create a more streamlined directions process for children who have come out of care, or where the fair access protocol—the local process to secure places for unplaced and vulnerable children—has failed to secure a child a school place. Together, these measures will help provide a more robust and consistent safety net for vulnerable children, ensuring that no child fall…
- The emphasis throughout on inclusion is welcome. The purpose of my managed-moves amendment is precisely to keep children in the education system and ensure we know where they are. I have been working with a group of school leaders who are already demonstrating positive practice in this area. I beg leave to withdraw.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her response and the emphasis that she has placed throughout on inclusion. The ambition is for all children to be able to benefit from a great education and for them to be able to thrive in school. The amendment I put forward about managed moves is very much about keeping children within schools and the education system. It is a practical response, and I have been really pleased to bring together a group of schools and school leaders who are really putting forward a very positive practice by meeting with the education team and talking about that. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
- Free schools — Michaela, Ark Greenwich, Eden, Mercia — have produced some of the most significant improvements in outcomes in the system, particularly in deprived areas. Clause 57 removes the presumption that new schools should be academies, allowing local authorities to open schools themselves. But where is the evidence that LAs have ever been unable to meet their sufficiency duty because of a lack of suitable trust applications? During my time in office there were always multiple applications for new presumption free schools. This risks bureaucratic tidiness over outcomes. My Amendment 480 would unblock the 44 approved free school projects currently on hold — some serving high-deprivation areas with white working-class boys, others maths schools the Government have themselves said they want to replicate. The review has now taken twice as long as it took to open the first 24 free schools after the 2010 election.
My Lords, we have seen some of the most significant improvements in outcomes for pupils in our free schools, with schools such as Michaela and Ark Greenwich in London, Eden girls and boys, part of the Star academy trust in Birmingham, and the Mercia School in Sheffield, to name but a few, achieving remarkable results. I know that my noble friends Lord Harris, Lord Nash and Lord Agnew are very likely to add to that list of exceptional free schools that they have been part of creating. Free schools have been a mechanism for the injection of new ideas, new energy and improving models of education into the state system. Free schools respond to parental and community demand; they provide parents with choice over their child’s education and they have driven up standards. Free schools are usually part of a strong multi-academy trust that has a track record of delivering high-quality education and the back-office capacity needed to support smooth and financially sustainable operations across HR, finance, IT, premises and more. Local authorities do not have and never have had the same capacity and ability to provide tailored support to schools. The reason for the change in policy in the Bill to allow local authorities to open free schools in future is given in the policy summary, which says that the measure better aligns “local authorities’ responsibility for securing sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools”. Again, to loop back to the previous group, on which the Minister did not commit to write—I am sure that her officials noted my request for data—can she share the evidence that there really is a gap in their ability to secure sufficient school places and cite any instances where a local authority has been unable to meet its sufficiency duty as a result of a lack of applications from suitable trusts to establish a new free school? Certainly, during my time in office, there were always multiple applications for new presumption free schools, both mai…
- Financial governance for maintained schools is a murky scandal. An academy trust must file a full external audit at Companies House within four months of year-end — four clicks and you can see any trust's finances. There is no equivalent for local authority schools: no audited accounts, no three-year forecasts, no chart of accounts, no disclosure of salaries over £100,000, no accounting officer with personal responsibility. The cost of auditing all maintained schools would be dwarfed by the waste that rigorous management eliminates: in every secondary school in my trust, tighter financial management has freed up enough to extend the school day by three hours a week — the equivalent of an extra year's education over five years.
My Lords, I will address my Amendment 481. This group is a bit of a mixed bag, but I think that my amendment is relevant and important, as it seeks to level the playing field by ensuring that there is a high level of financial governance for local authority schools compared to academies. Yet again, the credit must go to a previous Labour Government for setting out such strong foundations to underpin the governance of academies; comparing academies and local authority schools is like light and day. I have a reputation for being something of a martinet when it comes to the disciplined management of school finances. Various people have made fun of me over the years, which does not trouble me in the least, because every pound I have saved from wasteful and poor management in schools is then available to go to the front line in improving the education of children. The Minister might even want to call me a bureaucrat, because I have been so assiduous in that part of the system. I would love to see the overall schools budget at a much higher level, but that will not happen given the parlous state of our country’s finances. We therefore have to work with what we have. In the meantime, the level of accountability and visibility of LAs’ oversight of their own schools is murky at best. An academy trust has to complete a full external audit of its finances within four months of the close of the academic year—that is, between 31 August and 31 December. The accounts have to be filed with Companies House on that date. At that point, the full record of the trust’s financial affairs is available for public scrutiny for the year ending only four months earlier. You can get that information on any trust in England with about four clicks of a button. There is a red list in the DfE—I hope the Minister has seen it —of any trust that misses this deadline. When I was there, any trust more than a month late was immediately placed on a risk register. If schools’ managers or trustees cannot g…
We have over 50 free schools in the pipeline from which we are still waiting to hear back. Harris has 16 free schools, 12 outstanding and four good, serving 15,000 children. This year the gap between ordinary and disadvantaged pupils in those schools is just 1%. We have teachers trained and ready for new schools, but we cannot get the schools. In Bow we were promised a new free school to serve 4,000 new houses — all three settings in that building are now outstanding — but we still cannot get an answer. A child gets only one chance at a good education.My Lords, I am very disappointed that we have over 50 schools from which we are still waiting to hear the results. We started taking free schools back in 2012. We have 16 free schools today, all handed to us under the Conservatives. We have got great results from these 16 schools: 12 are outstanding, four are good, and there are 15,000 children. This year, in those schools, the difference between the ordinary children and the disadvantaged children was only 1%; that proves that they are working. We want more of these schools. I want to see everyone get a good education. The other point is that we want more schools because we have teachers whom we have trained. We have nearly 200 teachers trained to go into new schools. We are paying for them privately from investors to make this happen, but we cannot get the schools. We cannot get schools that are failing because they will have another two years of failing. That is very disappointing. Look at the results in the free schools and the county schools. With primaries, looking at every school in the country, the results are 68% for free schools, at local council schools it is 62%, and I am proud to say that Harris is at 76%. At secondary level, which is finished for this year, our Progress 8 scores are at 0.24 while the council scores are at 0.001. A-level results at academies are fantastic: 29% of the children get A*s and As from our free schools against the country average of 26%. This makes a big difference. We are giving children a better education. We want to make sure they get a better education; I think that is a fantastic thing. We have two schools that we have been working on for two years and three years respectively. One of them is at Bow, in an old mill, at the top of Tesco and in a building down the road. We were promised that we would get a new free school in Bow, where they are building 4,008 new houses, but at the moment we cannot get an answer. We have got the staff for it. Before, this school was always…
741 free schools are educating hundreds of thousands of children, with 93% rated good or outstanding. This summer free schools again outperformed other non-selective state schools: 31.3% of A-levels achieved A or A*, against 25.2% at other state schools; 70% of free school key stage 2 pupils met the expected standard against 63% nationally. These gains have been most striking in the most deprived communities. Clause 57 risks dismantling the mechanism that produced them. Please tell us when the review of the 44 paused projects will conclude.My Lords, I too speak in support of the free schools programme, Amendment 480 and the clause stand part notice in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. As we have just heard so powerfully, free schools have been a significant driver of education improvement in this country over the past decade and a half, and their impact has been felt most powerfully in the communities that needed the benefits they have brought the most. Today there are 741 free schools educating hundreds of thousands of children and their results speak for themselves. Of those free schools that have been inspected, 93% are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. As my noble friend Lord Harris just said, this summer’s exam results have confirmed their impact. Free schools once again outperformed other non-selective state schools in both GCSEs and A-levels, helping to drive up standards, particularly in areas of high deprivation and traditionally poor educational achievement. Some 31.3% of A-levels taken by pupils at free schools achieved grade A or A*, compared with 25.2% of pupils in all state-funded schools; 23.7% of GCSEs taken by pupils at free schools were graded 7 or above, compared with 20.6% studied by pupils in all state-funded schools; and provisional results for 2025 key stage 2 showed that 70% of pupils at free schools met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with 63% of pupils at all mainstream primary schools. These are not isolated success stories. They are systemic proof that autonomy, innovation and freedom work. The success of free schools has been especially striking in disadvantaged communities. The New Schools Network report on the impact of free schools highlights that they have been disproportionately located in the most deprived parts of the country and played a key role in improving access to high-quality places where they are most needed. Many of the strongest performers, such as Reach Academy Feltham, Dixons Trinity Academy, Newham Collegiate Sixt…
- I will not compete with my noble friend Lady Evans on the free schools programme, but I ask the Minister specifically: of the 50-plus special and AP free schools approved before last October, how many are now planned to open and how many are not? Special and AP schools are desperately needed. If she cannot say today, please write.
My Lords, it is a great honour to speak after the last two speakers and I will speak in support of the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Agnew. The speech from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the passion with which he spoke were a tribute to him and his team, who have done a most remarkable job. It is also a tribute to the previous Labour Government, who had the foresight to bring in people such as him to help turn around failing schools. That is why it is such a shame, as I have said before, to see this Labour Government appearing to row back on many of those proposals; I hope that is not really the case. I will not begin to try to compete with my noble friend Lady Evans, who so ably ran the free schools programme and understands so much more about it than I do. My own experience of free schools is limited to my group opening one primary school in the grounds of Pimlico Academy because we believe strongly in an all-through education, a broad education and a subject-specific education even for primary school pupils where that can be delivered efficiently. We teach Latin in our primary schools, a subject which some believe is too exclusive for children in state schools. The noble Baroness will be aware that my group, Future Academies, was appointed by the previous Government to run the Latin excellence programme, a £4 million contract to bring Latin to 40 state schools across the country which were not previously teaching it, something we were doing. Sadly, this Government binned that programme, which was a great pity, because the students love Latin; it helps them greatly with their grammar, their vocabulary and their thinking skills. I offer just one statistic. Noble Lords may be interested to know that this summer 48% of pupils at Pimlico Academy who took Latin GCSE, a subject which is thought to be very difficult, got a grade 9. I understand that there are over 50 special and AP free schools in pre-opening, or which were approved p…
- Clause 65 ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies and gives local authorities the option to put forward their own proposals. Local authorities hold the statutory responsibility to secure sufficient places — it is right they have greater ability to fulfil that duty. On Amendment 480: we understand the enthusiasm of noble Lords for the free schools pipeline, but committing to open all 44 projects regardless of need or value for money would be wrong. The department is carefully considering each project. On Amendment 481: I must correct the noble Lord — maintained schools are already required to publish salaries over £100,000 and submit three-year budget plans. That said, I accept the broader point about financial accountability. A full external audit for all maintained schools would cost at least £100 million a year.
My Lords, this third group of amendments relates to the opening of new schools, including new maintained schools, academies and free schools, and the financial governance of maintained schools—but not to the noble Lord’s amendment about local elections, so I will not respond to that. Clause 57 relates to how new schools are opened, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, opposes it standing part of the Bill. The clause ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academy schools. It requires local authorities to invite proposals for academies and other types of school when they think a new school should be established and gives them the option to put forward their own proposals for new schools. The current system allows local authorities to propose new schools only as a last resort or in very limited circumstances. Local authorities hold the statutory responsibility to secure sufficient school places in their area, and it is right that we give them greater ability to fulfil that duty effectively. These changes will enable consideration of any local offer that meets the needs of children and families. Amendment 480, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, relates to the opening of projects in the free schools pipeline. I understand the noble Baroness’s desire—and the passion and enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who, as others have said, has played an enormously important role in improving the quality of schools for many of the children who need it the most—to ensure that the approved free school projects open as planned. I know that trusts and local authorities commit significant time and energy to supporting these projects. However, noble Lords will also understand the need to consider carefully the use of a limited amount of school capital. Agreeing the amendment would commit the Secretary of State to opening all projects in the current pipeline, regardless of whether they are still needed or represent value for money. That is why the department…
- The review has been running for nearly a year. Could the Minister at least commit to contacting the schools and trusts in the pipeline with an update? It's the not knowing that is most frustrating for them.
I accept what the Minister says—that of course the proposal for new free schools has to be properly interrogated, et cetera— but it has now been nearly a year. She alluded to the fact that some of the issues may be around the tight funding. At the very least, could she commit to contacting the schools or groups that have put forward proposals, just to give them an update? In some sense, it is the not knowing and not hearing that is the most frustrating for them, so perhaps she could at least do that. As the Minister well recognises, it is a huge amount of work to do this, and there will be local groups, schools and parents desperately wanting to know if these schools are going to open. Even if she cannot tell us today, if she could perhaps commit to some further information for those in the pipeline, that would be a welcome move forward from their perspective.
- I recognise the need for trusts to have certainty. We will provide an update on next steps to trusts and local authorities in due course.
I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness and the need for trusts to have certainty about their projects as soon as possible. We will provide an update on next steps to trusts and local authorities in due course, and I am sure that others in the department have heard the reasonable points made by the noble Baroness.
- The Minister repeated the policy-note justification for Clause 57 about LA sufficiency duties, but gave no examples of cases where a local authority actually failed to meet that duty for lack of suitable trust applications. Please write with that data — year by year over the last five years. She gave no recognition of the capacity constraints or conflicts of interest inherent in local authorities opening their own free schools, and no real acknowledgment of the contribution free schools have made to narrowing the disadvantage gap. On Amendment 481, the cost of auditing maintained schools is what it is — but consider what that audit would unlock: three extra teaching hours per week per school, equivalent to a full year's education over a secondary career.
I am slightly surprised by the Minister’s response to this group. On the changes proposed by Clause 57, she repeated the point set out in the policy summary document about the importance of local authorities being able to meet their sufficiency duty, but she did not give us any examples or data to suggest that there had been instances where they were unable to meet their sufficiency duty because of a lack of suitable applications. Therefore, if I may, I will repeat my earlier request that the Minister write to me setting out exactly how often that has happened, maybe over the last five years, year by year, so we can get a picture of what this problem really is. The Minister gave the House no reflection on the capacity of local authorities to deliver new free schools, no reflection on the conflicts of interest inherent in this policy and no real recognition of the contribution of free schools, which, as we heard particularly from my noble friend Lord Harris, have done really great and important work, particularly in narrowing disadvantage gaps. As my noble friend Lord Nash said in relation to the importance of the Latin Excellence programme, these schools have often been pioneers in raising the aspirations of children through the curriculum they offer. As we debated, and as I quoted in the debate last week on the curriculum, this is about opening doors for children—not moving the destination closer to them but building the bridge so they can get to that destination. On my noble friend Lord Agnew’s Amendment 481, it is good that the Minister has the figure on the cost. I am sure my noble friend could negotiate that down given half a chance, but the real point is the one he made: that his trust has been able to unlock funding that gives three more hours a week to the children in that trust, or one year more of education. The Government’s accepting invisibility and probable financial inefficiency in local authority schools does the children in those schools a real disse…
- This group asks how the Government plan to balance schools' duty to manage behaviour — including violence against staff and exclusions — with the rights of other pupils in the classroom. Pupils must understand that acts of violence against staff will be referred to the police; that is not about criminalising children, but resetting expectations and giving children's services essential information. We are concerned about pressure toward zero-exclusion policies — Scotland's disastrous experiment in that direction has led to assaults on teachers with no power to exclude. Head teachers need reassurance they will be backed. The correct rate of exclusion is "when necessary", not "as low as possible".
My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments as it seeks to understand the Government’s attitude to behaviour in our schools and, in particular, how to balance the rights of children who have been excluded or have committed acts of violence with the rights of other pupils in the classroom, as well as how best to address bullying in schools. Amendment 459 aims to bring clarity about acts of violence or threats of violence towards school staff. Pupils should understand that any such act would be referred to the police. We have made it clear that this is not intended to criminalise children, but we believe it would help to reset expectations on behaviour and give the police and children’s services important information about those pupils. I recognise, of course, that schools know their pupils very well and are able to exercise their professional judgment; but even with that, we are concerned that there might be pressure on the Government to move to a position such as we have seen in Scotland to reduce the use of exclusions and suspensions. Noble Lords will be aware of the disastrous impact of the Scottish Government’s policies in this area, which have led to violent assaults by pupils on teachers with no power remaining to exclude them. More recently, the Mayor of London has launched an inclusion charter to reduce suspensions, and at an event hosted by the Children’s Commissioner last week, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, suggested that he would like to see all pupil referral units abolished. Head teachers need and deserve reassurance that they will be backed to exclude or suspend when necessary, and the presumption will always be that the rate of these strategies should not be considered too high unless there is good reason to think otherwise. The correct rate of exclusion is “when necessary”; it is not “as low as we can make it”. Amendment 502YYA seeks to clarify this. We are concerned about the impact of councils pursuing zero-exclusion poli…
Head teachers absolutely need reassurance they'll be backed. A head told me recently he'd had to permanently exclude two pupils who set the school on fire — they were successfully moved to a PRU. But I'm now in the odd position of speaking against my own Amendment 459, having put my name to it. The Mossbourne trust's executive principal warns that the amendment creates a safeguarding duty on schools with no corresponding duty on the police to respond — which would erode the trust between child, home and school without any guaranteed benefit. Reporting must be worth the risk.My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran: head teachers need and deserve reassurance that they will be backed to exclude or suspend where necessary. I would like to pass on the experience of a head teacher who told me recently that he had had to permanently exclude two pupils who had set the school on fire; they were successfully moved back to a PRU. I am now in the rather bizarre situation of speaking against an amendment to which I put my name: Amendment 459. As a teacher, I thought that this amendment was eminently sensible, given that the police would still be able to decide whether or not to act. But I found out that it is more complex than that. Rebecca Warren, the executive principal of the Mossbourne trust, says: “I agree that on the face of it this appears eminently sensible as one would think it is vital to ensure that all services are alerted to ensure that the perpetrator … and victim are offered necessary support. Given that the police service is one of the three arms of Safeguarding Boards (along with the council and healthcare) then police should be alerted and equally responsible for the welfare and safeguarding of children. An act of violence against an adult in a school environment is, in itself, a safeguarding concern. However, I am dismayed that once again no duty is placed on the police to respond or act. So, in the absence of a collegiate approach, I worry this will become just another duty for teaching professionals with no duty placed on fellow services. I must emphasise that this should not become yet another safeguarding duty placed on the shoulders of schools, with schools being potentially penalised if an act is not reported. Reporting to the police is very likely to erode the trust between child/home and school. This is only worth risking if there is a definite response and support from the police for the child and family. My question is why the professional judgement of educators is deemed to be less worthy than the…
Racism in schools is a real driver of exclusions and home education — Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents have cited it for decades. Faith-based bullying is also rising and too often goes unreported. Black Caribbean children are 1.5 times more likely to be permanently excluded, Irish Traveller children three times more likely, Romani/Gypsy children four times. Unless incidents are recorded, the pattern will never be understood or addressed.My Lords, I support Amendment 501 by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and will speak to Amendment 464 in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for all of whose support I am most grateful. The amendment implements and supplements an excellent recommendation of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. It is difficult to understand why it has been left on the table when racism has been acknowledged as a problem in schools for so long. Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents have reported racist incidents as a reason for opting for home education for as long as I have been concerned about these communities. One of the problems in their case is that, because the children are usually white, they are often not recognised as members of a legally defined minority ethnic group. But they are ill-treated, ostracised and bullied for that membership just the same. Now, we also have seen religious prejudice, incidents and taunts demoralising children and undermining their motivation. This totally belies the right to freedom of religion and belief. It really is time to put this right and record and report such incidents. They should have no place in the conduct of the school day. Unless the data is captured, the position will not be understood and improved. This is an amendment, surely, whose time has definitely come.
- When a child is permanently excluded, there is a real risk they disappear into a black hole with no adequate handover between school and local authority. Schools should continue to have some involvement after a PEx — I've sat on PEx panels and hated seeing children vanish. In Milton Keynes a model of around a dozen secondary schools co-operating with the LA on post-exclusion provision seems to work. My amendment would require a Children Act assessment when a child is permanently excluded, so that at least the right services are alerted.
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 502YF in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Bailey, to require an assessment under the Children Act when a child is permanently excluded. The reason for this amendment is that, in my experience, when a pupil is permanently excluded without an adequate handover or adequate liaison between the school and the local authority, there is a risk that the pupil disappears into a black hole. I have sat on, thankfully, few PEx panels—we really do not like excluding pupils in my trust. I have always hated having to exclude a pupil, not just in its own right but because they just disappear from view. In my view, schools should continue to have some involvement, if not responsibility, for PEx students to ensure that they receive adequate provision. As things stand, they have no say in where children go when PExed, often because the local authority has an arrangement or a contract with one or two AP providers such that there are no other options—and, of course, in some areas, the AP providers have no capacity. As I have said, that is why we desperately need more such provision. I would like to see schools with greater involvement in this. I understand that, in Milton Keynes, there is a model where about a dozen secondary schools—11, I think—co-operate well with the local authority on this. That could perhaps be a model for the future. I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran in this group. Poor behaviour by a few students has a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of a school. Teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a few pupils who exhibit very poor behaviour, and they are increasingly acting as social workers. We must protect the other pupils in the school, and we must support our teachers. There comes a time when the disruption this causes to other pupils and to teachers means it is necessary to exclude certain pupils.
If Amendment 464 passes, it would introduce a duty to record and report racist and faith-based bullying — something my diocesan board of education says would help strengthen anti-bullying and inclusive practices across our 139 church schools. Every child deserves to feel safe at school. Black Caribbean children are 1.5 times more likely to be permanently excluded; Romani and Gypsy children four times more likely. Unless the data is captured, we cannot improve.My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 464 knowing that, had my right reverend friend the Bishop of Lincoln been in his place, he would very much have wanted to contribute to the debate. If passed, this amendment would introduce a duty on schools to record and report any incidents of racism or faith-based bullying on school premises. It would also help diocesan boards of education in collating and monitoring such cases and better assisting those church schools which might benefit from support. In preparing for this speech, I spoke to our own director of education in Chelmsford diocese, whose team oversees 139 church schools. She told me that this proposed amendment had the potential to help the board of education strengthen anti-bullying and inclusive practices in partnership with schools. Every child deserves to feel safe at school, yet we know that racist and faith-based bullying is a significant driver behind school exclusions. A report published last year by The Difference and the IPPR revealed that black Caribbean children are 1.5 times more likely to find themselves permanently excluded from schools than the national population. Irish Traveller children are three times more likely, and Romani, or Gypsy, and Roma children are four times more likely.
- When children fail, it's usually a cocktail — and one ingredient is almost always unidentified special educational needs. Look at the prison population: a gross over-representation of every single SEN you can name. Both victims and perpetrators of bullying frequently have SEN. What support are we going to give so that identification and early intervention is not left on the classroom teacher's shoulders? I hope the Minister will explain how the Government's SEND strategy fits into this picture.
My Lords, I will make a couple of comments. When children fail, it is usually the result of a cocktail of inputs. One of those is frequently special educational needs. If you do not believe it, just look at the prison population—a gross overrepresentation of virtually every single special educational need you can mention. We do not get this right or spot it early enough. There are several more groups that touch on this, and I hope that when the Minister starts to sum up, she will have in the back of her mind how this all fits together. Often, both the victims and the perpetrators of bullying have special educational needs—somebody does not fit in, they look for somebody weaker, and so on. It is disruptive to a classroom, and it affects everybody else. If you get in early enough, along with the other considerations made here—and I fully endorse the comments made about racism and so on—it can bring the whole thing together. How are we doing that? How are we working it in? I would hope that the Minister has an answer. I would also hope that it does not fall on the teacher in the classroom. We are asking them to do a superhuman task anyway. What support are we going to give? We are going to come to this again and again. We may not get the Government’s strategy on the special educational needs bit in full until later on. If we could get some idea of the thinking, it would help in future debates on the Bill, both at this stage and on Report.
More than one in five children are bullied each year. Bullying not only disrupts childhood and mental health — its effects persist into adulthood and are especially pronounced for children with SEN, children in poverty, and care-experienced children. Yet schools have no consistent approach: parents often don't know how to report to their child's school, or what the school will do. My amendment is straightforward: require each school to appoint an anti-bullying lead, develop an individual anti-bullying strategy that includes recording incidents to a standard format, and provide training for all staff.My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 502E in my name. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just said. To judge by the numerous safeguarding and similar cases in which I have been involved as a lawyer, it is the failure to share information that causes huge damage and often leads to that cycle—the revolving door of children going in and out of school, which leads to many of them going into custody for crimes when they are not very old. My Amendment 502E is an uncomplicated attempt to provide consistent standards and process in the way in which individual schools focus on bullying. I am grateful to the Anti-Bullying Alliance for providing me with information on this subject. The truth of the matter is that huge numbers of children are bullied, and we see it every day. A few days ago, I was on a bus in north London at the time when children are just going home from school. There were three noisy, normal-looking 11 or 12 year-olds on the bus laughing and pointing through the window at something. I realised that they were pointing at another boy, on the pavement, who was actually the largest of the group. I deduced from what I saw that they had tricked that boy into getting off the bus at the wrong stop and then had got back on themselves. Off the bus went, and they were laughing at the disconsolate fourth boy as the bus passed him by. It was a small example of bullying, but what I saw was evidence—possibly, at least—of a much larger bullying issue relating to that fourth child. It is a heartbreaking reality that over one in five children and young people report being bullied each year. That figure comes from the Office for National Statistics. It is a pervasive issue which not only disrupts their childhoods, mental health and education; its repercussions can persist well into adulthood. Many of us know people who have been affected by bullying, particularly at school, which they suffered from at a very young age. There is plenty of evidence that…
The right reverend Prelate spoke about racism, but faith-based bullying against communities like mine — Hindu, Sikh — is the most underreported of all. Children are told they will burn in hell if they don't change their faith. We must make sure that families are part of the solution, that teachers are properly supported rather than left as the sole line of defence, and that police and local authorities are intrinsic partners in the response — not standing on the sidelines.My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments, but I really want to follow on from what the right reverend Prelate said about racism. Racism has been rife in schools from as far back as I can remember, but at that time social media was not there to inflame it further. Over recent years, it has become racism about not just colour but religion. The right reverend Prelate mentioned Islamophobia, but most underreported acts of bullying against faith are not Islamophobia. People from my community endure it quietly. Where do they report it when, as often as not, it is the most misunderstood way of bullying? Parents say to me that children have told them that they will burn in hell and that, if they do not change their faith, this or that will happen. We have to find solutions that involve not just the teachers—they have more than enough to do already—but making sure, first, that what we say and do is reasonable. Secondly, families cannot abdicate from their duties in what happens in and out of school. They need to be part of the solution because, unfortunately, we have a lot of dysfunctional families— not by choice but, often, because of the economics of everything. We need to find ways for every child to go to school knowing that they will learn, like every other child, and not be fearful of going. I grew up in a fearful atmosphere. That fearful atmosphere is back—even more now than ever before. It is amplified by social media. So I say, on my noble friend’s amendments, that yes of course the police have a duty; so do local authorities. They need to be the support mechanisms for the teachers, not standing on the sidelines waiting to offer help. They should be intrinsic in the integrated plans to make sure that we can respond to the needs of children who come with problems—not of their own making, mostly, but from their surroundings and their environment. We should not make excuses and say that it is acceptable and that everything should be on the teachers. It is not f…
I have reservations about amendments 501 and 502E. Bullying is a term subject to concept creep — it has become elastic enough that name-calling is increasingly treated as equivalent to physical violence. Anti-bullying initiatives are already teaching pupils that words hurt in ways that can lead young people to believe speech is violence — and if speech is violence, it becomes justifiable to use violence against speech. Schools and these amendments need to be careful about that dynamic.My Lords, I will raise some reservations that I have about Amendments 501 and 502E, on bullying in schools, and Amendment 464, on the reporting of racism or faith-based bullying. Bullying is a label that has been subject to the phenomena of concept creep. Bullying has now expanded enormously. It is an elastic term and so a wide range of behaviours can be described as bullying. I fear that it is becoming a vehicle to encourage pupils to lack resilience —a point was just raised about how we deal with the issue of resilience. I have written about this extensively. For now, I note that, via anti-bullying initiatives in schools already, pupils are taught that words hurt and damage, that words can become interchangeable with violence, and that name-calling is on a par with physical intimidation. Inevitably, that can lead the young to believe that speech is violence. I think all of us can acknowledge that that is a problem at the moment, with people who say that speech is violence then feeling able to use violence to deal with speech they dislike—a very current issue.
Isolation rooms — whether called isolation, calm rooms, breakout rooms or nurture spaces — are seclusion: the child is placed alone and is not free to leave. Disabled children and those with SEN are disproportionately affected, sometimes removed daily, and parents are not always told. Healthcare and secure settings already regulate seclusion; education should not be an exception. My probing amendment would introduce a statutory definition, empower the Secretary of State to regulate through consultation, and set minimum protections: no seclusion as punishment, notification to parents, recording, and internal safeguarding oversight.My Lords, Amendment 502N, in my name, would insert a proposed new clause after Clause 62, which raises the issue of seclusion in education, particularly in the form of isolation rooms. Isolation rooms have serious implications for the emotional and psychological well-being of children, especially disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs. This is a probing amendment that would introduce a statutory definition of seclusion. It would empower the Secretary of State to regulate its use through consultation. If regulations are made, my amendment requires minimum protections: banning seclusion as discipline, notifying parents, recording incidents and ensuring internal safeguarding oversight. The experience of seclusion impacts too many children today—children with speech, language and communication needs—whose communication may not be understood, recognised or supported in that moment. Children with ADHD may find it hard to regulate strong emotions without timely support, and yet instead of being supported they are removed, placed alone and not free to leave, in rooms with such labels as isolation, calm, breakout room, nurture space or any other number of euphemisms. What they experience is seclusion, whether it happens in a locked room, a space with a closed door, or an area where the child is simply not permitted to leave. The impact is the same: a loss of connection and potential safety. Disabled children and those with special educational needs are disproportionately affected. Some children are removed daily, and there is no guarantee that parents will be told. These experiences can be isolating, traumatic, and deeply damaging to a child’s sense of safety and belonging. Other sectors, such as healthcare and secure settings, already regulate seclusion and deprivation of liberty. Education should not be an exception. The Department for Education acknowledged the issue in its 2020 guidance, but guidance alone does not close a legal looph…
- There is too much discomfort about permanent exclusions and too much hope that keeping every child in mainstream regardless of what they do will prevent later criminality — but the data shows excluded children are more likely to have already had contact with youth justice *before* they are excluded than after. The real problem is that we do not start contingency planning for the children most likely to fall out of school early enough. My noble friend Lord Nash's Amendment 502YF will help concentrate minds on realistic planning for excluded children. The amendments on reinstatement presumptions rightly reflect that — for persistent sexual offenders, for instance — the harm to other children from reinstatement is likely to exceed the benefit to the excluded child.
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 502YF, proposed by my noble friend Lord Nash, and Amendments 502YV to 502YYA, proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran. There has long been a lot of discomfort about permanent exclusions. No one likes the idea that there are children who cannot thrive in mainstream schools or who are too likely to harm others to be allowed to attend them, but last year’s youth justice statistics show 12,000 convictions of children for offences of violence, 3,000 for knife-related offences and 1,400 for sexual offences. Serious misconduct does not begin only once children have left school. There is also a lot of hope that keeping children in mainstream schools, no matter what they may do, will avert later criminality, but in fact excluded children are more likely to have come into contact with youth justice services before they are excluded than after. Because we have been remarkably successful in reducing the number of children in custody, there are more children with very serious behaviour problems in the school system who might once not have been there. What I saw at Ofsted is that the vast majority of schools work extremely hard to keep children in mainstream schools. Relatively few exclusions are unjustified. Many parents, especially those with children who have been harmed by other children, believe that there is too much pressure rather than too little on schools not to exclude. The vast majority of exclusions are a culmination of a long period in which a school does all that it knows how to do to support a child and help them to progress academically and socially. As a result, I believe that we have a problem of a different nature. Many teachers will tell you that it is often possible to spot the children who are most likely to fall out of school as early as reception year, or even earlier, but the pressure is always to keep them in mainstream schools, even when that school can do little more than warehouse a child with teaching assist…
- Words can harm — sometimes devastatingly so. Think of an eight-year-old girl frozen out of a football game by jealous teammates, told to "grow up" by the organiser whose own daughter was part of it. She never played again. We need anti-bullying policies that are separate from general behaviour policies — not every school currently has one. And we must share the data we collect: gathering information about racist incidents and bullying is useless if it stays in a school drawer. I also strongly support the amendment on children with a parent in prison — the number is nearly 193,000, not 31,000 as many assume.
My Lords, this debate has been very thought-provoking. I always want to listen to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has to say; she always challenges my own thoughts. We all know the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me”. But, of course, words can harm you—sometimes tremendously so. They can almost “destroy” a pupil’s resilience and well-being. I think about a little girl called Millie, who was eight years old and a very good footballer. Her grandad took her to play football every Saturday morning on the fields by Otterspool Prom. Because she was so good, the other girls became quite jealous of her, so they contrived among themselves never to pass the ball to Millie. Millie just could not understand that; she wanted to take part in the game, but together they bullied her by not passing her ball. She went to the parent who organised and refereed the football; one of his girls was part of this little group saying, “Let’s not pass the ball to Millie”. He said to her, “Oh grow up. Go away. You’re a footballer, come on, you can take it”. She went home feeling completely “destroyed” and chose not to play football again. I tell that tale because we actually forget the bully in that situation; the bully needs help and support as much as the person who has been bullied. We often do not consider that in school policies on anti-bullying. I just want to say to the Minister that when we briefly discussed bullying in another group of amendments, she mentioned that schools have behavioural policies. I was arguing that we should have separate anti-bullying policies, because—I think I am correct in saying this—not every school has to have them. This amendment simply says that we should know where we are. I will perhaps criticise myself a bit—as did the noble Lord opposite. All these amendments are seeking more information, quite rightly, on racist incidents, bullying and so on. But who has to collect that information? The school. Who in the sch…
- Violence and bullying in schools are never acceptable. All schools must have a behaviour policy including measures to prevent bullying — Ofsted and the ISI inspect on this. On Amendment 459, we fear requiring schools to report acts of violence to the police would impose burdens without strengthening protections; police involvement is already a matter for the school employer's judgment under NPCC guidance. On Amendment 464, further reporting requirements risk creating privacy concerns and perversely raising the threshold at which schools act. On Amendments 501 and 502E, the DfE already monitors bullying through the annual National Behaviour Survey — which I confirm will continue — and is launching a procurement for an expert review into best practice. We are launching 21 new RISE attendance and behaviour hubs. On Amendment 502N, the Government have already initiated secondary legislation to mandate recording and reporting of seclusion to parents — significant and positive progress.
My Lords, we have had a good, wide-ranging debate on this group, which concerns how schools deal with acts of violence against their staff, pupil behaviour management, and tackling bullying in schools, including incidents that are racist or faith-based. Violence and bullying in schools are never acceptable. No teacher should feel unsafe or face violence or abuse in the workplace. The department will always support teachers to ensure that they can work in safe and calm classrooms. All schools must have a behaviour policy to regulate the conduct of pupils, to help ensure that teachers and pupils are protected from disruption and, most importantly, that they have a safe school environment in which to work and learn. When misbehaviour occurs, schools can use sanctions as a measure to improve behaviour; in the most serious cases, exclusion may be necessary to ensure that all pupils are protected from disruption and can benefit from the opportunities provided by education. To provide some assurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we believe that pupil referral units have an important role to play in this. To reiterate the importance with which the Government view this, we have recently announced the launch of new RISE attendance and behaviour hubs, focusing on supporting senior leaders to develop safe, supportive school cultures with high expectations for attendance and behaviour. Their role will include using data to identify and address areas of concern. We have now appointed the first 21 lead schools in this programme. Amendment 459, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would require schools to report acts of violence against staff to the police. I want to be completely clear that, as I have already said, all forms of violence against school staff should be taken seriously. It is never acceptable for anyone to be harassed, intimidated or attacked. The primary duty to take reasonable care for the health and safety of all employees rests with the employer.…
- I felt much happier listening to that reply than to the earlier one on admissions. Head teachers need to hear clearly that the Government have their back — and the Minister's confirmation that head teachers retain full discretion on exclusions when necessary, that the correct rate of exclusions is "when necessary" not "as low as possible", is important. On Amendment 502YF: I heard the Minister say excluded children already qualify as children in need under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 — if that duty is not being fulfilled in practice, can we bring those cases to the department? On smartphones and bullying: if the Government won't listen to me, perhaps they'll listen to Esther Ghey, who has bravely campaigned about the role smartphones played in the bullying of her daughter Brianna.
My Lords, I thank the Minister. I felt much happier listening to that reply than to her earlier one. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said, it is important that head teachers know the Government have got their back in terms of managing very difficult situations with such dedication day in, day out. The Minister’s comments about the importance of safe, calm classrooms, her focus on the guidance that already exists in relation to suspensions and exclusions and her reassurance about the discretion that head teachers have on behaviour and permanent exclusions when they are necessary—and that the Government protect the rights of head teachers to do that—are important for them to hear, and I am grateful to her for making that very clear. I am sure everyone in this Committee would echo her sentiment about early intervention strategies. That was picked up by my noble friend Lady Spielman. I warmed very much to the contrast she drew between the current focus on following process versus the opportunity to think about a plan for the future for each child who sadly finds himself in that position. On Amendment 502YF in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Nash, I think I heard the Minister say that those children already qualify under Section 17 as children in need, and I agree with her. I wonder whether it would be helpful if, where that is not happening in practice, we bring those examples to the department for it to consider because clearly that is both the letter and the spirit of the law, and we all want to see that happening in practice. I will skate over my minor fallout with my noble friend, as I hope I can call him, Lord Hampton. Things have been going so well and to fall over at 7 pm on Day 11 seems unfortunate, but there we go. I hope we can recover before Day 12 is out. Briefly on the amendments regarding bullying in schools raised quite rightly by the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Storey, I very much share their concern about the impact of bullying, but I a…
- On Amendment 502YF — I'm still concerned about the black hole after permanent exclusion. I'll reflect on this, but the liaison between schools and local authorities needs to improve. And on smartphones and social media: bullying continues outside school hours too — that's why I commend the NEU's push to raise the social media age restriction to 16.
May I just refer to my Amendment 502YF? I heard what the Minister said about the general duty under the Children Act, but I am still concerned about the black hole I spoke about. This is all part of improving the liaising between schools and local authorities on how we provide for these children. I will reflect on that, but I am still concerned. As far as my noble friend’s point about smartphones in schools and bullying goes, of course, bullying does happen outside school, when they still have those smartphones. It happens on social media, and that is why I am pleased to see the National Education Union and others pushing for increasing the age restriction in respect of social media to 16. As I say, I commend them in that endeavour.
- During Covid, the national tutoring programme — at a cost of £1 billion — kept children from disadvantaged backgrounds learning with dedicated tutors. The attainment gap is growing. A national tutoring guarantee, targeted at disadvantaged children, could be the rocket fuel that ignites their educational progress. This amendment simply asks whether it would be feasible.
I thought we might be breaking at quarter past, so you caught me unawares. My Lords, Covid seems a long time ago, and I remember very well the virtual meetings we had as Members. We carried on our business, but for schools it was a very challenging time. Perhaps one of the successes of that time in terms of education was the national tutoring programme—I think it cost £1 billion—so that children could carry on their learning with a dedicated tutor online. This amendment suggests that we look at introducing a national tutoring guarantee that is particularly aimed at children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The gap between children is growing and growing, and this might be one way we can accelerate children from disadvantaged backgrounds’ learning and help them overcome that deficit. It is, if you like, the rocket fuel that will ignite their educational needs. It is easy to do. It is effective, as we found during Covid. The amendment is just asking that we look at whether this is feasible. I beg to move.
SEND provision is not working — not for the excellent SENCOs and teachers who strain every sinew, not for parents navigating labyrinthine processes, and not for children who just want an inclusive education. My probing amendment calls for a royal commission to examine the attainment gap for children with SEND at all school stages. I don't insist on the royal commission format — a swift task-and-finish group would do — but the weight of the issue merits it. The aim must be to close the gap, not merely measure it.My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 490 in my name; I thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for adding her name to it. Special educational needs and disability education are not working in the UK right now. This is no fault of the excellent SENCOs up and down the country. It is no fault of teachers, who try to teach all of the children in front of them in their classes. It is certainly no fault of parents, who try to find their way through often labyrinthine, circumlocutory, beyond-bureaucratic practices in order to get the best for their children. It is obviously no fault of children with special educational needs or disabilities, who just want an inclusive educational experience to give of their talent. Amendment 490 simply asks, in a probing manner, for a royal commission to look at the attainment gap for children with special educational needs and disabilities. I do not much mind if it is a royal commission; the weight of the issue merits a royal commission but, were the Government to undertake swiftly a task and finish group, so much the better. The attainment gap needs to be considered at all levels of the school experience, and right through all examinations from when they begin. Crucially, it is about putting a plan in place so that, in short order, we no longer talk about an education attainment gap, because there is no reason why there should be one just by dint of a young person having a special educational need or a disability. That is all this amendment is asking for: simple, clear and effective measurement of the current situation and disability educational attainment gap. It is important to measure the gap. However, the aim—the mission—must be to close it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
- Having a parent in prison is one of the most significant adverse childhood experiences — children with an imprisoned parent are 25% more likely to suffer mental health difficulties. Yet schools are not even aware when a pupil's parent has been imprisoned. Approximately 192,000 children are affected, but schools know about only around 30,000. The amendment would commission a report and make recommendations; it would also fulfil a specific Labour manifesto commitment. Will the Government grasp this opportunity?
My Lords, sadly, my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester is unable to be here to speak to Amendment 482 in her name. This amendment, which I support and has already been touched on by a couple of noble Lords in our debate on the previous group, would compel the Secretary of State to “commission a report on the educational attainment of school age children with a parent who is in prison”, and to “make recommendations for how the educational attainment of those children can be improved”. I will not presuppose what the recommendations of this report would be. However, through its work in supporting more than 1,450 children with a parent in prison, the charity Children Heard and Seen has shown that, through simple, targeted and tailored emotional support, you can drastically change outcomes for children with a parent in prison. Having a parent in prison is among the most significant adverse childhood experiences, severely impacting children’s mental health and well-being. Children with an imprisoned parent are 25% more likely to suffer from mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, insomnia and eating disorders. Negative school experiences such as bullying, persistent truancy and academic underachievement are also common among this group. It is estimated that there are almost 200,000 children with a parent in prison in England and Wales, yet we still do not know who or where these children are. This means that they are not being brought to the attention of schools. Due to the lack of awareness of the issue of parental imprisonment throughout schools, support for children with a parent in prison varies hugely from school to school. There is no uniform approach and many children are left without the appropriate support that they need. Amendment 482 would be a strong step in the right direction in increasing awareness and understanding of the harms within schools of parental imprisonment, ensuring that pupils and students who are affe…
Parental imprisonment is among the most under-researched adverse childhood experiences. Schools — which have a crucial role to play — are usually not told when a pupil's parent goes to prison. I visited Holloway in the 1990s during visiting hour: the joy of children seeing their mothers, then the despair as they were physically separated from them by prison officers at the end — that still haunts me. The Labour manifesto on page 71 committed to identifying and supporting children with a parent in prison. Nothing has happened yet. Will the Government accept this amendment and fulfil that commitment now?My Lords, I strongly support the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate. We know for a fact that, as we just heard, children who have a parent in prison are at significantly greater risk of suffering mental health difficulties than children who do not, including low self-esteem, depression, disturbed sleeping patterns and symptoms of post-traumatic stress. The Ministry of Justice’s research highlights a strong correlation between parental offending and child offending. Family members often explain that parental imprisonment for children is akin to a type of bereavement from losing a parent who suddenly leaves the home and never returns. It is not exactly the same, however. I remember visiting Holloway prison in the early 1990s, when it was a women’s prison, and it happened to be visiting hour for the children seeing their mothers for the first time possibly in many months because of the geographical distances involved in travel. It was wonderful to see the excitement and joy that the children had in greeting their mothers after perhaps a long time, but that turned to despair and anguish when visiting time was over. Sometimes, and I saw it, the children had to be physically separated from their mothers by prison officers. It was a horrific sight and it still haunts me. Parental imprisonment is hugely under-researched. In most cases, schools, which have a crucial role to play here, are not even aware that a pupil’s parent has been imprisoned. These children are the forgotten and invisible victims of crime and they are totally innocent. Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all decisions and actions that affect children. This means that the best interests of the child should be taken into account at every stage of a parent’s journey through the criminal justice system, as these decisions affect these children directly. The Labour Government, on page 71 of t…
Three groups are particularly affected by attainment gaps in every jurisdiction: children of socioeconomic disadvantage, children of prisoners, and SEND children. When I was a Minister in Northern Ireland I established an expert panel — multi-disciplinary, with educational academics, community members and school leaders — that produced the "A Fair Start" report. Its conclusion: there is no single solution; it requires a cocktail of measures and buy-in from the ground up. Small-group tutoring and nurture units were among its most effective recommendations. The Covid-era "Engage" programme in Northern Ireland showed that targeted tutoring at scale can work — I would encourage the Government to look at replicating it.My Lords, I start on this group of amendments by declaring an interest as a board member of the Education Authority in Northern Ireland, which is responsible for around 90% of education spend in Northern Ireland and, most pertinently as regards these amendments, has direct responsibility for all special educational needs education there. I would be broadly in favour of all these amendments. I had one caveat as regards Amendment 460, but to some extent the noble Lord, Lord Storey—I am sure that he will be pleased to hear—allayed some of my concerns during his opening remarks. These amendments are important because they highlight the issue of the attainment gap in their different ways. Across different jurisdictions, while there may be some slight degree of variation in which groups have particular issues around attainment gaps and the extent of those gaps, we know that issues around educational underachievement and attainment gaps are universal in whatever part of the United Kingdom and, indeed, internationally. Three of the areas that seem to be particularly true in all jurisdictions are around children of socioeconomic disadvantage, children of prisoners and SEND children, so these amendments are apposite. Given that challenge, whenever I was a Minister in Northern Ireland I saw one of my key priorities as tackling educational underachievement, ensuring that we could take whatever steps we could in a strategic manner to address the attainment gap. I established an expert panel to draw up a report on the issue—very much as a template, if you like, for some of the proposals put forward today. That panel was drawn not simply on the basis of ensuring that it had the right mix of a cross-community element and those drawn from educational sectors; it is particularly pertinent to the proposals in front of us today that, whether on a single report or a royal commission, we need to draw from a range of expertise. It was critical that we had people who came from an education…
I urge the Minister to reject all three amendments. A national tutoring guarantee is a misdirection of resources when persistent absence is the actual crisis — tutors cannot help children who aren't in school. Singling out children of prisoners for dedicated administrative resource diverts civil servants from improving education in prisons, where the real benefit lies. A royal commission on SEND "takes minutes and lasts years" — the attainment gap has already been narrowed in living memory, through the coalition's policies of school autonomy, rigorous Ofsted inspection, and strengthened curriculum accountability. This Bill risks putting those gains in peril.My Lords, I rise—briefly, I hope—to urge the Minister to reject all three amendments. They come, I am sure, from the very best of intentions, making sure that disadvantaged children, children who labour under the additional difficulty of having a special educational need and children whose parents are in prison are deserving of our compassion and our support, but the means by which the Minister and the Government are being urged to support those children is a diversion of resource, an addition to bureaucracy and an impediment to progress. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, requests that we have a national tutoring guarantee. That seems to me to be an entire misdirection of resources. We should be concentrating on making sure that children are actually in school in the first place. When we have a level of persistent absence at the rate that we have at the moment, and when any national tutoring service would be staffed inevitably by people who are already stretched and are hard-pressed members of the teaching profession, it seems to me to be—I hesitate to suggest that such a thing would ever come from the Liberal Democrat Benches—a performative attempt to secure publicity rather than a thoughtful analysis of what is actually going on in our schools. If we want a national tutoring guarantee, perhaps we should make sure that, across the nation, tutors—or, as I prefer to think of them, teachers—are guaranteed the support they deserve in the classroom. The children of criminals and those in prison deserve our support: the sins of the father and mother should not be visited on the son or daughter—absolutely. But equally deserving of support are the children of veterans, those who work in our emergency services and others in homes where daily stresses and pressures increase the likelihood of anxiety or depression in that household. To single out and devote administrative resource to the children of one vulnerable group rather than others is simply to divert the energy of the Mini…
- My parents threatened to sue the Secretary of State for Wales to secure my right to mainstream education — without that, I would not have had my career. The system in those days gave a tiny percentage of disabled children a good education while everyone else languished in special schools without even the right to sit exams. I hoped things would have moved on. They haven't enough: disabled children are still multiple grades behind peers, and the gap is growing — from 3.4 grade-places behind in 2019 to 3.6 in 2020. If we don't get education right for disabled people, we deny them the chance to work and contribute to society.
My Lords, I was delighted to put my name to Amendment 490, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, because it took me back to thinking about my experience at school, which admittedly was a while ago. My parents used the work of Baroness Warnock to threaten to sue the Secretary of State for Wales over my right to go into mainstream education. Without that, I would not have had the career that I now have. The system that existed back then took a tiny percentage of disabled children and gave them a great education, but everyone else was left languishing in a special school system that did not even allow children to sit exams. At the school I nearly ended up in, I would have been able to sit three CSEs at most. So there was nothing around looking at the ambition of disabled children. I had hoped that things would have moved on by now, but the reality is that disabled children in the UK still face a significant educational attainment gap compared to their non-disabled peers. Studies show that they are significantly behind in key exams and assessments and are less likely to achieve higher qualifications or degrees. The Education Policy Institute has research that shows that disabled children are some of the most educationally disadvantaged children in the English state school system. Around four in 10 children are identified as SEND at some point between the ages of five and 16. These children have been shown to have multiple grades lower than their peers. I find myself in a slightly interesting situation: I agree with some of what the noble Lord, Lord Gove, said about making sure that children are not absent, and I am certainly not seeking to expand the definition of “SEND”, but there has to be something in the middle of where we are now and where I came from through my educational experience. To me, it is about getting the right support to the children who need it. Disability Rights UK has reported on the situation with the gap. There is a huge gap for disabled chil…
- The attainment gap for children with identified SEND is real, and the education system itself compounds it — requiring a dyslexic child to sit English 14 times is not support, it's failure. But we should be honest: well over half of dyslexic children are never identified at all. A duty focused on "identified" SEND would at least show us how the system fails those it knows about.
My Lords, I will say just a few words, inspired particularly by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We know that there is an attainment gap for those with disabilities, and we also know that bits of the education system do not help. The biggest one for me—and I remind the Committee yet again that I am president of the British Dyslexia Association—is English and maths, because guess what, the British Dyslexia Association also covers dyscalculia. About three days ago, I sat down with a child who said that they had a brother with dyscalculia who had been made to sit English 14 times and still had not achieved a pass. What an incredible waste of time, because we have decided that English and maths are gatekeeper exams. People have a better target with English, because they seem to understand it a little better, but maths is a real problem. Getting some degree of flexibility and understanding and looking at the attainment gap and what causes it would be very helpful. However, I must slightly disappoint my two, shall we say, noble colleagues on this—I do not think that I am allowed to call them noble friends, although I hope that they are friends—by saying that we would have to say, “identified special educational needs”, because we might know somebody who is blind or deaf, or who has impaired movement, which is pretty obvious. We know that, for instance, well over half of the dyslexics in the country are never identified. We do not know the situation for the others—dyspraxia, et cetera—and we are still very bad at identifying them. Therefore, we could adjust this amendment to say that we should have a look at the attainment results of those who have been identified. That would give us an idea of how the system properly fails, because we know that there is a problem, we just have not addressed it. There is a problem that is running through here. When the Minister replies, I hope that she can start to address this, be…
Raising attainment with inclusivity in mind is a top Government priority. On the tutoring amendment: schools are better placed than Whitehall to decide how to help disadvantaged pupils — and they can use pupil premium for tutoring already. On children of prisoners: the DfE is working closely with the Ministry of Justice on this; but a separate report risks duplicating that work and risks getting the sensitivity wrong — siblings in the same family can have radically different experiences of a parent's imprisonment. On a royal commission on SEND: we recognise this needs serious attention — that is why the SEND review is under way — and we will say more in the next group.My Lords, I thank all those who have contributed on this important group of amendments. First of all, it is not going to be possible to give the list that everyone has specifically asked for, but I want to start by making it absolutely clear that raising attainment for all children with inclusivity in mind and recognising the gaps wherever they occur is absolutely a top priority for the Government. This is such a complex area of work, as has been eloquently highlighted by the contributions that we have had on the three amendments. On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, he reminded us of the place we were in during those very dark days of Covid, and of the response to try to recognise that so many vulnerable young people in particular were being left behind as a result of their absence from the school system. I fully appreciate his concern and the concerns expressed by others, and particularly his interest in this and his understanding from his background of how this works locally. But I emphasise that it was a programme that was time limited for obvious reasons and has served its place. I am very conscious of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Gove, about how we target the resource we have. One of the best resources we have is our schools and those involved in the system, and I believe it is much better to go to those schools and let them identify the best way forward. It could be that a tutoring programme has worked brilliantly for them specifically, but we know that this is not the case all over. We should have confidence in those schools to determine the best way that they can reach young people who really need that additional support. As I say, schools can choose to continue to provide tutoring through the use of funds such as pupil premium, for example, and to support the disadvantaged pupils identified in this amendment. Also, the Department for Education has published evaluations of the National Tutoring Programme; therefore we do not believe th…
- My general duty amendment asks for a thorough look at the SEND attainment gap — because unless teachers are better equipped to spot and support conditions in the classroom, we will always have late or no diagnosis and then compound failure. If you have dyslexia, giving you 15 extra spelling tests each week isn't intervention — it's just repeating the failure. We need different structures, not more of the same. Other, more specific SEND amendments follow in this group.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for that compliment. We go back to special educational needs here, with a series of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. My amendment is the most general of them, on a general duty to have a look at special educational needs. Some of the specifics in the other amendments probably should be included in that general duty. On teacher training, unless you have teachers who are increasingly better equipped to spot conditions and deal with them in the classroom, you are always going to fail because you will have late diagnosis—or no diagnosis for many conditions—or the wrong practice. I am trying to convince people here that getting extra help for special educational needs may be a bad thing if that help is from the system by which you have already failed. If you do not know what is required and are being told “You’ve already failed to do this”—English would be a classic one—you will just not pass. My experience with dyslexia, which I have mentioned once today, is of being given an extra 15 spelling tests, one every week. You fail them all; you carry on doing it, but you just will not pass. This is because having special educational needs usually means that you process information differently. There can be extreme cases. I have already referred to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes—nobody expects somebody who is blind to copy off a blackboard. You would describe what it is. You have got to have a different system of working and different structures that go with it. I could expand upon this for ages, but the hour is late and other noble Lords with more detailed amendments are waiting to speak. I beg leave to move my amendment and look forward to the rest of this debate.
- SEND provision is not working — not for SENCOs, not for teachers, not for parents, and most importantly not for children. Amendment 498 starts from the principle of "inclusive by design": fund SEND provision properly across departments, not just education, because the education attainment gap leads directly to the employment attainment gap. Amendment 491 proposes a practical measure the Government could deliver almost entirely through public-private partnership: a mentorship scheme pairing young people with disabilities with adults in successful careers who have lived experience of disability. Imagine what that empowerment could do.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I congratulate him on all the work that he continues to do in this area. I thank my friends, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for cosigning my Amendments 491 and 498. I will take them in reverse order, with Amendment 498 first. Quite simply, it addresses the issue we discussed in the previous group: current SEND provision is not working. It is not working for the SENCOs, who try their utmost; it is not working for the teachers, who strain every sinew to educate all in their classrooms; it is not working for the parents; and, most importantly, it is not working for children with special educational needs or a disability. Yet it can, if we start from the provision of inclusive by design and set out an approach where the funding is identified and ascribed to that SEND provision. The department should and must reach out beyond its budgetary constraints, because the reality is that this is far more than an issue of education. For example, there is a clear causal relationship between the education attainment gap and the subsequent employment attainment gap for those with disabilities. Other departments must also pull their weight in addressing this issue of special educational needs and disability provision. This is why in Amendment 491 I suggest a practical, reasonable and achievable measure to make a difference across government: to introduce a mentorship scheme for those young people with special educational needs or disabilities. Before the question arises of distracting departmental officials from their incredibly important work, or of putting more pressure on already overstretched resources, I suggest to the Minister that this would be an ideal situation for an effective, practical and achievable public-private partnership. Imagine how local, regional, national and international businesses could get involved to help support and be part of the d…
- Amendments 502Q, 502R, 502S, 502T and 502W seek to achieve co-ordination between criminal justice services and schools in relation to children with SEND. These are the product of a Michael Sieff Foundation review. The failure to share information is what causes the most damage — creating the revolving door of children going in and out of school and ultimately into custody. These amendments would require schools, criminal justice agencies and local authorities to share relevant information about children with SEND who come into contact with the justice system.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 502Q, 502R, 502S, 502T and 502W in my name. Amendment 502R is supported strongly by my noble friend Lady Bull, who has expressed sincere regrets at not being able to be with us tonight because of a long-standing engagement. These amendments seek to achieve co-ordination between criminal justice services and schools in relation to children with special educational needs. The amendments are the product of a review carried out by the Michael Sieff Foundation, chaired by Professor Cheryl Thomas KC of University College London, of which the membership included Sir Robert Buckland, the former Lord Chancellor. And I had a part in it too.
- We have a crisis in school SEND provision — not because of a lack of care but because of systemic failure. Too many children with SEND are being excluded or suspended, and those exclusions lead directly to the criminal justice system. Every amendment here, whether on exclusions, bullying, attainment gaps, anti-bullying leads or behaviour data, points in the same direction: we need the data to understand what is happening and we need to act on it early.
My Lords, this group of amendments is important because I think we have a crisis in SEND provision. I am particularly attracted to Amendment 498, on the SEND provision review, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Also, on Amendment 502V in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, on the need for more transparency and reporting on SEND funding in state-funded schools, that seems a key and obvious demand, because the SEND issue is having a huge financial impact on schools and education in general. But for me, as well as that, the issue of SEND provision is important because it potentially shapes how young people see themselves, and in some instances they are being encouraged to develop a habit of dependence and pathologising their own everyday experiences. One in five children in the UK are now identified as having SEND needs, and the number of education, health and care plans for those with the most severe needs has increased by 83% from 2015-16 to 2023-24. The number of 11 to 15 year-olds receiving disability living allowance for which the main condition determining eligibility is a learning disability such as ADHD increased by 70% between 2018 and 2024. So something peculiar seems to be going on and, as part of explaining what is happening here, we need to acknowledge that there is a widening social definition of mental health and neurodiversity—an issue I will raise briefly again in the next group. Informally, if you go into any school and talk to pupils of all ages, as I do—obviously, as teachers do and those who are familiar with young people—young people regularly describe themselves these days through the prism of a range of mental health acronyms or their particular divergence from the neurotypical norm. They use the language of medical textbooks and psychiatry with ease. Meanwhile, teachers too think in terms of these labels—I am sure that we are all wa…
- In contrast to the previous speaker: I don't recognise that SEND and mental health provision in schools has become industrialised or counterproductive. At yesterday's Parliament Square rally, parents and children of children with SEND made very clear they need more support, not less. Data and evidence are essential — we need to know what works.
My Lords, in contrast to the previous speaker, I would say the following. I do not know how many noble Lords attended the rally held in Parliament Square yesterday by parents and children about the SEND review, on getting it right, or how many noble Lords attended the drop-in held in our committee room upstairs, which was full of joy and optimism, with lots of Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum—including our new Schools Minister, Georgia Gould—who called in to listen to parents and children. It gives me hope and optimism that, if those listening exercises are taking place as this review goes on, we will end up with something that is worth having and that has involved listening to the people who are at the sharp end of this. I am actually encouraged by the fact that our new Minister in the Commons has been the leader of a council, has been the Local Government Minister and has hands-on experience of what it is like dealing with the SEND system. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I am encouraged that the Government are listening to parents and children with that direct experience, and that gives me hope that this review is going to produce the right outcome.
- No one stands here to speak about SEND without preparation — and without awareness that the system is failing. There are 12,000 convictions of children for violence each year, 3,000 for knife offences, 1,400 for sexual offences. Many teachers will tell you they can spot the children most likely to fall out of school from reception year. Yet we warehouse those children with teaching assistants until the situation becomes manifestly unhelpful. We do not start contingency planning early enough. When exclusion does come, our laws focus on whether the process was followed — not on what plan will give that child the best chance in life.
My Lords, no one stands to speak here or anywhere else about SEND without preparing for a social media barrage from one direction or another. But unless we can discuss the underlying problems and tensions openly and honestly, there can be little hope of getting to a better place than we are in at the moment. From the parents’ point of view, some are happy, but others say that theoretical entitlements do not translate into the support they believe their child needs. From the schools’ perspective, they are loaded with enormous expectations and have inadequate resources to meet them. From the funders’ perspective, eye-watering amounts of money are already being spent on SEND. If you do the sums, the average household in England already contributes £450 a year just for the cost of the high needs funding block, on top of the other money it contributes for education. Yet local authorities, and behind them the taxpayer, must meet almost unlimited demand from this large but finite resource, with few levers to direct that resource to the activities where it will make the most difference. As my noble friend Lord Gove said in a previous group, the SEND category has expanded and diversified to an extraordinary degree in recent years. Among other things, I think we are mixing up the children who have conditions that will always affect their lives with those who really only need some catch-up teaching or some extra encouragement, and who should be able to lead unimpaired adult lives. They are really quite different things. Clearly, this situation cannot go on, and that explains the raft of amendments relating to SEND proposed for insertion after Clause 62, as the Bill does not contain any direct proposals for SEND. In aggregate, what I take from these proposed amendments is a hope that if only we can find a few more ways to extend and push harder, everything will be better. There are certainly ideas that deserve attention within these amendments. We do need a national body for SE…
- I very much support Amendment 502W from Lord Carlile. When children fail to engage with school, special educational needs are almost always part of the cocktail. Unless we spot conditions and share that information — with other schools, with other agencies — we simply repeat the failure. Information sharing is the key to ending the revolving door.
My Lords, I very much support Amendment 502W from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. We need a much better standard and a much better quantity of data in this area. We need to start with some clear understanding and definitions of the terms we are using. There seems to have been a lot of drift and expansion in definitions, and we need to get back to something that is clear, commonly defined and commonly understood. Then we really need to understand what works for these children. We need to track what we are doing and when and why it works. This is a really complex area, so we will not get the answer out of small studies and small amounts of data. We need to track every child who has been fingered as SEND, and then we will get enough data to start seeing some patterns. Perhaps we can add other categories, such as young carers and those who are in care, where there are known difficulties with their education that are not associated with SEND but which may well share some common characteristics. If we get better at data, we will really start to understand how to do better by the children and work the cost down at the same time, and that is important. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in the spirit of some of the other things that he is doing but I hope that, if this amendment ever came to be enacted, there would be alongside it a recognition of the interests of the other children in class.
- We have heard thoughtful speeches on the issues facing pupils with SEND. On the specific amendments: the approach should be from the bottom up, focused on practice on the ground, rather than a royal commission. But the underlying issues are of the greatest importance — the SEND attainment gap is real and growing, and we need the Government to set out clearly how they are addressing it.
My Lords, we have heard some thoughtful speeches on the issues facing pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in general and neurodivergence in particular. There is no doubt that this is a pressing issue for parents, pupils, staff and of course local authorities, whose budgets are being severely impacted by the costs associated with education, health and care plans, or EHCPs. As all noble Lords are aware, the Government have committed to publishing a new White Paper on SEND and have been working with an expert group ably led by Tom Rees, the CEO of Ormiston Academies Trust. That is an incredibly important task, and we on these Benches hope very much that the Government can show a positive way forward that addresses some of the problems that beset the current system. I think the plans for that report mean that Amendment 498 is not needed. I understand the criticism of the Children and Families Act 2014, which introduced the current system. However, all who were involved with that legislation, including some noble Lords who have been in the House today, had the best interests of children with special educational needs and disabilities at the forefront of their minds. Whatever the Government propose, I hope that they will take the time to pilot it and avoid the problems of implementation and the unintended consequences that the current approach has found. I hope also that we can move away from blanket terms such as “SEND” or “neurodivergent”, as they cover such an incredibly wide spectrum. With that in mind, I am cautious about some of the amendments in this group, including Amendment 491 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would include mentors for all children with SEND, and the implications of Amendment 502S. Given my earlier amendments on exclusions, it will not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that I do not agree with subsection (2) in his Amendment 502Q, which would make a presumption against permanent exclusion or f…
- A common theme this evening is that noble Lords from all Benches want to improve outcomes for children with SEND. The Government share that ambition. The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan is under way. On the specific amendments: the Government do not believe that a royal commission is the right mechanism — it would take too long. On information sharing and consistent practice, the Government are committed to improving this through the SEND review. On teacher training for SEND, this is being addressed through the revised initial teacher training framework. I will write with more detail on the mentorship proposal.
My Lords, a common theme of the debate this evening has been that noble Lords from across this House have recognised the pressures facing our special educational needs and disabilities system. It is a system that many families find frustrating to navigate, where too often the outcomes for children fall short of what they deserve, and where, as we have heard from noble Lords—I think including the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman—a considerable amount of money is being spent with insufficient evidence of effective outcomes. It is certainly a system which has lost the trust of parents. For all those reasons, I can assure the House that the Government remain absolutely committed to reforming the SEND system. Our ambition is clear. We want all children to receive the support they need to succeed in their education and to lead happy, healthy and productive lives. The amendments in this group raise important questions about the support available to children and young people with SEND. First, Amendment 498, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, concerns a review of SEND provision in England. Although I thank the noble Lord for both his amendment and his obvious commitment and concern to improve the situation, we do not need another review at this point. I think we know, and in fact we have heard in this debate this evening, many of the failings of the SEND system, and there have been many reviews by the previous Government, by Parliament and by the National Audit Office. The Government inherited a system with significant failings, and we know that too many children and young people with SEND are not getting the support that they need. That is why we are determined to take action, and we are committed to bringing about a more inclusive education system. This is a difficult and complex task. We are working with parents, teachers and experts that we have appointed. We are fortunate, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, to have the leadership of practitioners suc…
- I'm reassured by the attention paid to this subject. Special educational needs, if unidentified, compounds every other problem this Committee has discussed today — attendance, exclusion, bullying, prison pipelines. Getting support without having to fight for it as a "tiger parent" is the goal. I beg leave to withdraw.
My Lords, I am reassured by the amount of attention paid to this subject, and that we are getting through and into the Government’s head. We do not know yet whether the results we have will be delivered. Just to sum up some of the arguments, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, said that there are problems but there is overidentification or something, if I may paraphrase her. The fact of the matter is that we know that, for many of these hidden needs, these diverse educational problems—call them what you like—we do not identify most of them, and this means that you have somebody in an environment where the learning process is not one that they enjoy. It might be something such as delivering and receiving information, which is usually where the basic blocks are, but there are identified ways to deal with that now, most of which are quite cheap. There is technology—I declare my interest as chairman of Microlink plc. Most of the technology you have is not specialist any more: a lot of it is on every computer already; it is about structuring how you get at it. It is also about identifying the structure and way in which you learn and making it acceptable in a mainstream classroom to be using it. Headphones are not regarded as a good thing in most classrooms, until you realise that they might be the way you are taking in information. Attitudes to technology will colour this. There is this great thing about no smartphones in school, but there is a wonderful platform to hold assistive technology going through them. Some suggest that these computers, screens and structures are bad things—no, they are not, if used correctly. The noble Earl shakes his head; they are not. We are going through this thing about how we use them, and how we go forward is the important bit here. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the criminal justice system and special educational needs. He is right to draw attention to it, for this very simple reason: if you want to find what happens to someb…
Amendment 462 would establish in every school and college a designated mental health practitioner — not necessarily a new hire, but ensuring that a properly qualified professional, not just a trained staff member juggling other roles, is responsible for connecting pupils to NHS mental health services. The missing middle — children too unwell for a school counsellor but not acute enough for CAMHS — is the gap we need to fill. Mental health support teams are only at 52% coverage and will not be universal until 2029-30.My Lords, Amendment 462 is in my name. I thank my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for adding their names. This is a very important group. It is about the mental health and well-being of children, something that is, or indeed should be, central to the Bill. It is the name on the tin. My amendment would ensure a dedicated mental health practitioner in all schools qualified to a level—and this is the critical point—that they can deal safely with the problems that are more complex than those currently dealt with by early-intervention CBT—cognitive behavioural therapy—support, which is currently delivered by existing mental health support teams. To be clear, I welcome and applaud the Government’s commitment in the spending review to expanding mental health support teams to all schools and colleges in England. These teams work with children, parents and wider school staff to promote good mental health and, funded through the health system, provide effective prevention and early-intervention support for children with a range of mild to moderate mental health needs, including things such as low mood and anxiety. They are doing important work. These teams are staffed by education mental health practitioners. The terminology can be a bit confusing here, but it is a relatively new role within the children and young people’s mental health workforce system. As these mental health support teams expand, these practitioners in training are recruited for a work-based placement, while they complete a diploma or postgraduate qualification over a period of one academic year. During this time, practitioners are trained to deliver low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy to children or, in some cases, to parents, to allow them to directly support their children. While this approach has been effective for children with lower-level needs, CBT is not appropriate for all. Evidence has shown that some groups of children are less likely to benefit from these in…
Amendment 472 is probably the most important thing we can do. I've spent over two decades in the Treasury and I know: you need data to prove what works. The UK ranks 37th out of 38 OECD countries for children's well-being in the PISA survey — only one country in the OECD has lower child well-being than we do. Nobody is arguing for compulsory measurement: this is a voluntary annual survey. Without a common definition of well-being and without consistent data, every other proposal this Committee has discussed — free schools, academies, managed moves, exclusions, SEND, mental health — cannot be evaluated on its actual impact on children's lives.My Lords, I will speak on behalf of Amendment 472, which is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who has spoken very well, and the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Moynihan. This is a modest proposal, but it is probably the most important one. I have sat through all the hours of this debate and I would say to all noble Lords who have spoken that, if this does not go through, they will not succeed. The reason I say that is that I have not spent over two decades in the Treasury without knowing that you need evidence: you need to prove what works. Your Lordships have talked various things. The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, mentioned various interventions and wanting to know whether the costs and benefits were worthwhile; that is absolutely right. She mentioned NICE. The key thing about NICE is that it works out whether a given medicine is worthwhile by doing a cost-benefit analysis based on QALYs—quality adjusted life years. We now have more sophisticated measures known as WELLBYs—well-being years. To understand whether a thing makes sense, we need to do the assessment and for that we need data. Your Lordships have all made suggestions: we want more physical exercise; we want less bullying; and we want to think about what things in SEND work. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, we need some common definitions. We need a common definition of well-being that we can use; the department can give us that. Then we can work on the basis of exactly how important and how effective all these things are. If we think about how this debate started, we all talked about our favourite brand of school: free schools, academies, you name it. How do we assess which one is better? Well, either implicitly or, in some cases, very explicitly, it was a matter of exam results or Ofsted rankings. Nobody talked about these schools’ impact on well-being, for the very good reason that we do not know. We do not have data. The only data we have is the world’s most embarrassing da…
- Amendment 479 would make statutory the existing non-statutory whole-school approach guidance on mental health and well-being. It would not be a material change for most schools, which already have mental health leads — but without statutory status, leaders under pressure will overlook it. The guidance also needs updating; it last changed in 2021. Will the Minister say when the training grant for senior mental health leads — which ended in March this year — will resume?
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 479 in my name. Before doing so, I offer an apology to noble Lords, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Holmes of Richmond. I added my name to their amendments in the previous group and fully intended to speak in support of them, but I got my timings rather wrong and did not arrive here until the first three speeches had been made. Because of that discourtesy, I felt it would have been inappropriate to contribute on that grouping. Amendment 479 would not mean a material change for schools and colleges because it aims to make the existing guidance statutory, with programmes and support around that guidance already in place. Previous Governments have acknowledged concern at the worsening mental health among children and young people, with the most significant policies stemming from the 2018 Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care joint Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health. That referenced the non-statutory guidance issued in 2015, Promoting Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing: A Whole School or College Approach. I welcome the fact that the Labour Government have continued with this commitment. The announcement from the Department for Education in May indicated that the rollout of the mental health support team programme will continue, with additional funding committed for this year and full rollout—aiming for 100% coverage of schools—expected by the end of the 2029-30 academic year. However, as the guidance is non-statutory, there is a current inequity of access to support for schools that would like more help with improving mental health and well-being in their setting. Most schools will have a trained senior mental health lead who understands whole-school approaches, but that person is often a current member of staff who may be juggling other roles, such as a pastoral lead, a SENCO or a safeguarding lead. Also, many schools may not have further a…
After such a powerful speech from Lord O'Donnell I was waiting for the Minister to accept the amendment on the spot. Without data, how do we know which mental health interventions work? This amendment proposes one voluntary annual survey — virtually every school in the state sector will want to take part. When the CEO of Lego can show dramatic well-being improvements in five-year-olds through play rather than screen time, we need the data infrastructure to identify and scale such interventions. Well-being data would promote mental health, enhance learning, strengthen accountability, and build a healthier society.I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, to which I have attached my name. I have to say that after such a powerful speech—probably one of the best we have had in Committee—I was sort of waiting for the Minister to jump to her feet and say, “Look, I can bring this to an end and accept that amendment. It makes such consummate sense that we need to underpin with data all the ambitious goals we have for the well-being of children”. What can we do without data? Introducing policies that we do not know are effective or ineffective costs too much; we need data. Nobody is arguing today that this data should be compulsory among all schools. This is voluntary, but I expect virtually every school I have ever visited in the state sector to want to do this, to be party to this, because there can be opportunities to benefit from this as well. Some of us had the opportunity the other day to listen to the CEO of Lego, Niels Christiansen, who was giving a presentation here in Parliament. He was talking about the work he and his company were doing with young kids—five year-olds in Slough—to get fantastic benefits at an early stage in life by playing with Lego rather than playing online. If you had the data and the evidence that companies such as Lego were doing such good work, more schools would want to do that. Having that information available would be second to none. I am confident that this evening the Minister is going to be wholly supportive of this amendment. I am not going to dwell on the points that have been made so far, but on the reasons why. How would the measurement we are talking about benefit the well-being of young people? It would promote children’s mental health, enhance learning outcomes, promote fairness, strengthen accountability and build a healthier and fitter society. It would have long-term social benefits. Schools play an absolutely central role in shaping future citizens, and this information would help us foster well-being, which impr…
- I commend the Government on the restraint shown in this Bill on well-being clauses — the Bill's title suggests a lot but there is a welcome absence of measures treating well-being as separate from, or antithetical to, good teaching. DfE research published earlier this year found that several established mental health awareness programmes did not reduce emotional difficulties in the short term and were associated with greater emotional difficulties and decreased life satisfaction in the longer term. The SEAL programme evaluation similarly found that it taught mean kids to be better emotional bullies. Less is sometimes more. On measurement: we should not collect data by constantly asking children about their negative emotions — I have seen very young children prompted to express sadness they did not feel before being asked about it.
My Lords, I will be fairly brief. I mainly want to commend the Government on the restraint that they have shown in this Bill in clauses relating to mental health and well-being. Despite the Bill’s title, there is a welcome absence of clauses that imply that well-being and activities that promote it are separate from, or even antithetical to, good education. In reality, they are strongly correlated. For most children, well-being is a likely outcome of being well taught, well supported, discovering and developing their wider interests, and forming good relationships with peers and with adults—developing a sense of belonging. Further, there is a growing recognition that spending too much time talking about mental illness to young people who are not ill can be counterproductive. We may need less mental health awareness training in schools, not more. For those advocating more universal mental health interventions in their amendments, I recommend reading the findings published by DfE earlier this year on the effectiveness of several school mental health awareness interventions. These tests of established programmes found that they did not reduce emotional difficulties in the short term, and in the longer term appeared to be associated with greater emotional difficulties and decreased life satisfaction. Those who have been around in education long enough may also remember the evaluation of the then popular SEAL programme; I think it was “social and emotional aspects of learning”. This study of the programme, which was for primary schools, showed not only that the positive outcomes expected did not materialise, but also that there was an unwelcome side-effect in that, to paraphrase, it taught the mean kids to be better bullies, using the techniques of emotional manipulation that the programme taught them. These findings are a valuable reminder that sometimes less is more. A word of warning: much of what is proposed in these amendments is hugely well intentioned, but I am pa…
- One point: the noble Baroness cited evidence about harms because there was data to analyse. That's exactly the argument for this amendment. We're proposing one annual survey — not asking children every couple of minutes how they're doing.
I will just say one thing. The noble Baroness mentioned all the things on which she has been able to talk about the evidence because there was data. I just remind noble Lords that this amendment is talking about one annual survey. It is not asking people every couple of minutes how they are doing, just to be absolutely clear.
- Children are already surveyed from many directions — adding another would add to an already extensive load. If we want measurement, let us use indirect routes that don't require constantly asking children to self-assess. And the Government should resist crowd-pleasing but ultimately wasteful or even harmful initiatives.
Children are very frequently surveyed from different directions; another one would actually add to an extensive load of surveys that they already complete. The wider point is that there are many ways of measuring indirectly. If we want to measure, we should look for indirect routes that do not involve constantly asking children to self-assess. We should make sure that schools are doing only what is genuinely likely to be helpful for children. The Government should resist the urge to launch crowd-pleasing but ultimately wasteful or even harmful initiatives.
Two children per class on average have a food allergy. Half of England's schools — 10,000 of them — don't have an EpiPen. Two-thirds of teachers have had no formal training in responding to anaphylaxis. Schools are where children are most at risk — six hours a day, five days a week. All that's being asked at this stage is that an EpiPen is at the school reception and there's someone who knows how to use it. That is a potentially life-saving requirement that would cost very little to implement, and it would reassure the many parents — like me — who live with constant fear.My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 502YG, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, and other noble Lords. Your Lordships may well have seen the helpful briefing from the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, of which I have the honour to be a parliamentary ambassador. For those noble Lords who have not had the chance to read it, I will share some brief highlights, given the hour. Two children per class suffer from food allergies, on average. If your allergic reaction to milk, cheese, nuts or anything else triggers an anaphylactic shock, you need an immediate dose of adrenaline injected with an EpiPen, also known as an autoinjector. Half of all of England’s schools have not got one—that is 10,000 of them. Two-thirds of teachers have not had any formal training on what to do if a pupil suffers from an anaphylactic reaction or shock—and that is in the buildings outside the home where children are most likely to have an anaphylactic shock, unsurprisingly, since they spend six hours a day, five days a week, 38 weeks a year there. I am confining my remarks on this amendment to the support of all elements relating to EpiPens and autoinjectors, but I support all of the amendment. Your Lordships can see from my comments that requiring all schools, not just half of all schools, to have an EpiPen and someone who knows how to use it has the potential to save lives and reassure countless parents that their children will be safe at school. Your Lordships might be wondering why so many schools are completely unprepared for this sort of emergency. Schools have a vital day job to do. It is hard enough teaching maths to children who are not interested—please insert your own least favourite lesson if you happen to be a mathematics enthusiast—so is it fair to load this responsibility on to them as well? I gently say that all that is being asked at this point is that an EpiPen is in the school reception and that there is someone who knows one end of it from the ot…
Well-being means different things to different people — unless we define and measure it consistently, we leave it to drift. The term "well-being" is not vague: the WHO definition is clear. The UK's PISA ranking — 37th of 38 OECD countries — tells us something important. The Be Well programme, where universities, charities and local authorities work together, is an example of what data gathered sensitively can achieve. This amendment is about equipping schools and policymakers with the evidence to respond to what young people are really experiencing.My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 472 and everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and my noble friend Lord Moynihan so passionately. I cannot agree more with what the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, just said. I frequently touch on themes of well-being, especially with regard to sport, physical activity, mental health, inclusion and financial security. The term “well-being” means different things to different people. If we do not define and measure it consistently, we leave it to drift and risk missing the opportunity to improve children’s lives in meaningful and measurable ways. We all recognise that young people today face mounting pressures, whether increased anxiety or reduced physical activity, yet we lack a consistent national framework for measuring how children are really doing—not just academically but emotionally and physically. That is why I look forward to hearing how initiatives like the Be Well programme are progressing. Be Well is an example of what can be achieved when universities, charities and local authorities come together to prioritise children’s well-being. It can offer valuable lessons on how data, gathered and shared sensitively, can inform targeted support and drive better outcomes. Anything that improves children’s well-being and strengthens the evidence base behind policy has my full support. This amendment, as we have heard, proposes an annual, voluntary and confidential national survey. It would equip schools, local authorities and policymakers with the data they need to understand and respond to what young people are really experiencing. Better data leads to better policy and ultimately to better outcomes. Back in 2023, Youth Sport Trust chief executive Ali Oliver said that “fewer than half” of children in the UK meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for the minimum recommended activities. She said: “This is contributing to a nation where too many children are missing out, have poor wellbeing and…
This amendment marks the culmination of a campaign by Helen Blythe following the avoidable death of her five-year-old son Benedict in 2021 — an inquest last month confirmed it was avoidable, caused by accidental ingestion of cows' milk after the school failed to follow its own procedures. 680,000 pupils in England's schools have allergies — that's one or two per classroom. Between 1998 and 2018, 66 children died from allergic reactions. The Benedict Blythe Foundation estimates that EpiPen rollout in English schools would cost only £5 million. Guidance alone is not enough — only statutory footing will guarantee the protections needed.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502YG and pass on the apologies of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who has had to go but had agreed to introduce the amendment on behalf of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, who cannot take part on the Bill. In summary, the amendment is to improve allergy safety in schools, but it marks the culmination of a long campaign in conjunction with the inspirational Helen Blythe, following the tragic death of her son Benedict in 2021, when he was only five. An inquest last month concluded that Benedict’s death was avoidable and caused by the accidental ingestion of cows’ milk after his school failed to follow the processes and procedures in place to protect him. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, outlined, almost 20% of all allergic reactions take place in schools and, sadly, we now know that not only do they not necessarily have the EpiPens but they do not necessarily have a plan or training in place. Only putting these protective measures on a statutory footing will ensure that adequate protections are there for the two children in every classroom with allergies. Helen has worked tirelessly to establish the safety measures necessary to ensure that no child is ever lost again in such a tragic and avoidable way. I also pay tribute to the work of Alicia Kearns in the other place, MP for Rutland and Stamford, with which I am connected. Helen Blythe is her constituent. The current government guidelines do not even mention allergies. There is only one line on food and one link to an anaphylaxis charity. The key aim is of course spare EpiPens, trained staff and a proper policy. The Government would prefer any change to be by way of guidance, but that just does not give the guarantees necessary—hence tonight’s amendment. Between 1998 and 2018, 66 children died from allergic reactions. There are 680,000 pupils in England’s schools who have allergies—that is one or two per classroom, according to the Benedict Blythe Foundat…
On Amendment 462: CAMHS delays are actively frustrating the family courts — every week we are told a family is waiting for a CAMHS appointment, then an assessment report, then treatment. If Amendment 462 reduces that backlog by catching children earlier, children, parents and courts will all benefit.My Lords, I want to underline, in respect of Amendment 462, the importance of the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, about reducing the pressures on CAMHS. The family courts are being frustrated, as I know from recent experience, and impeded in reaching necessary long-term decisions about the future for children. They are told, week by week, that they are waiting for an appointment with CAMHS and then that they are waiting for an assessment report from CAMHS—and then that they are waiting for the recommended treatment to take place. If Amendment 462 serves to help with those tasks, children, their parents and the courts will benefit. The courts are being criticised for the delays in reaching decisions, and certainly the problems with CAMHS contribute to those delays.
- There is already a booming school-based mental health industrial complex — mental health leads, support teams, emotional literacy assistants, mental health first aiders, counsellors, well-being officers. Walls covered in information about mental illness. Yet despite all this provision, pupil well-being is deteriorating and diagnoses are rising. Something is going wrong. These amendments simply assume we should do more of the same. Schools are for introducing the young to the wonders of knowledge outside their own experience — get into a brilliant novel, the physics of the universe, the history of our world, and you forget your troubles. Constant self-focused therapeutic conversation makes matters worse.
My Lords, I really want to challenge the assumption of some of the amendments in this group that what we need is more dedicated mental health practices and provision in schools. One of the problems is that there is too much emphasis on mental illness and mental health in education at the moment. That awareness is taking up too much time in school life, is over-preoccupying young people and is becoming a real problem. If you look at what is going on in schools at the moment, there are indeed endless numbers of staff, volunteers and organisations with responsibility for emotional well-being: mental health leads, support teams, emotional literacy support and assistance, mental health first aiders, counsellors, and well-being officers. If you go into any school, the walls are covered in information about mental illness, mental health and so on; it is everywhere you go. Yet despite this booming, school-based mental health industrial complex, almost, the well-being of pupils continues to deteriorate—or that is what we are told. Mental health problems and diagnoses are rising at the same time as all the awareness initiatives are taking place. Something is going wrong and that at least needs some investigation, but these amendments just assume that we should carry on doing the same and more of the same. Along with the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, I think that real, critical thinking needs to be done around some of the awareness campaigns. I want to challenge the idea that schools are the vehicle for tackling the undoubted spiralling crisis of unhappiness among young people. It is also important that we untangle that from the crisis of CAMHS. There is actually a serious problem in NHS mental health support for children, and I would like that to be taken on. That is very different from the kind of discussion we are having here about schools, which is that mental distress becomes such a focus of all the discussions in schools. I tend to agree—for possibly the only time—with…
- We are mixing up a lot of things. Rooms full of evidence exist for what works effectively. Schools are not being asked to conduct surveys — they're being given information. The goal is keeping children well: intervening when they need help, not overmedicalising. Other professionals — health workers, youth workers — should work with schools; schools should not be asked to bear it alone. Families are the last ones who want an industrialisation of this.
I shall add something on those points, although I do not want to drag this on. Clearly, this arouses a lot of emotions, but we are mixing a lot of things up. There are rooms full of evidence on how these effectively work, not least on the things that the noble Lord is putting forward. I do not think that schools are being asked to undertake surveys—it is about giving information to schools, which is a completely different aspect. What we should all be talking about here is keeping children well, which means intervening when they need help; it does not mean taking them to clinics or overmedicalisation but it is about providing positive environments in which children can flourish. Also, it is not something that we are asking schools to take on; schools have had to take this on, because it comes through the door. We are talking about other professionals —health professionals, youth workers and others, who know about well-being—being able to work with schools to support those children. This is a win-win for everyone, and children and their families are the last ones who want to overmedicalise this and come up with what has been described as an industrialisation of a medical complex. That is not what anyone wants, and I do not think that it is there in any of the intentions that have been put forward.
The WHO definition of well-being is clear: a positive state that enables people to contribute to the world with meaning and purpose. This is not about self-focus. The Dutch system measures well-being alongside academic achievement and scores among the highest in Europe — we score among the lowest. If we measure only exam results, that is what we judge schools on; that is exactly how we have got into this position.My Lords, first, I want to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the World Health Organization has a clear definition of well-being: “Well-being is a positive state experienced by individuals in society … Well-being encompasses quality of life and the ability of people and societies to contribute to the world with a sense of meaning and purpose.” So this is not about self-focus; it is clear that it is about people being in a position to contribute. The WHO goes on to say that a society’s well-being can be “determined by the extent to which it is resilient, builds capacity for action, and is prepared to transcend challenges”. Perhaps most of us can agree that that is something society needs to do much better. I am afraid that I disagree entirely with the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, said that the Dutch score particularly highly, along with Denmark, in the recent PISA figures on children’s well-being, and we score astonishingly badly. I was looking at a publication from a few years ago, The Dutch Way in Education. The publisher of that notes how the Dutch system measures not only academic achievement but also the well-being and involvement of students. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, that I have raised the study he referred to a number of times. I would like to raise it tonight, but in the interests of the Committee making progress, I will not. Every time we are told how much progress our schools have made, saying, “Look at the exam results”, I say, look at the state of well-being of our pupils. I say particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, that if we measure only the exam results, that is what we are going to judge our schools on. That is what we have been doing, and it is what has got us into this position.
- Ofsted took personal development including well-being very seriously — it was one of the inspection judgments. I have never suggested academic outcomes were the only thing that mattered.
Ofsted, where I was chief inspector, took personal development, including children’s well-being, very seriously; it was one of the judgments there. I have never suggested, nor would ever suggest, that academic outcomes were the only thing that mattered for children.
- The allergy amendment is crucial — the Benedict Blythe Foundation's work needs to be acknowledged. On nature: my Amendment 502B would require the Secretary of State to promote school pupils' access to nature, including one hour per week. A 2015 study of 3,000 Barcelona primary children found that those looking out at green space scored better on tests than those who didn't. Access to nature also improves anti-social behaviour, mental health, teenage anxiety and truancy. Amendment 502Y from Baroness Willis would require only a review of benefits of nature-based learning.
In responding to the noble Baroness, I can speak as a former school governor, and I have my own opinions of Ofsted. I want to put it on record that the Green Party wishes to abolish Ofsted, so that is where I am coming from. It is important that we speak in support of Amendment 502YG about allergies. I also went to an event with the Benedict Blythe Foundation where I learned about this crucial issue, and the work of that foundation absolutely needs to be acknowledged. There are two amendments in this group that have not yet been introduced. The first is Amendment 502B in my name, kindly backed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. I am also going to speak to Amendment 502Y, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and backed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Boycott. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, apologises greatly that she is unable to introduce her own amendment. Like me, the noble Baroness had a train to catch and, while I have now given up on mine, she had to catch hers, so she has departed. Both amendments focus on the importance of nature in the physical spaces in and around school buildings, and to promote active-based learning and teaching in the school curriculum. It is important to say that far too often that is seen as a “nice to have”—an additional something for schools that have the resources to get money from parents to plant trees, make nice gardens and so on. It is a great pity that the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, is not here because this is something that she has literally written the book on. I am sure that many noble Lords already know that the title of her book is Good Nature: The New Science of How Nature Improves Our Health. I shall highlight the difference between the two amendments. My Amendment 502B says: “The Secretary of State shall have a duty to promote school pupils’ access to nature”, and says there should be one hour of access to nature each week for every pupil. This is so…
Our education system is completely unprepared for the growing numbers of food-allergic children. One in five allergic reactions to food happens in school. Too many schools lack policies and staff training. At the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation we hear regularly from parents about schools that are dismissive of their child's allergy. This amendment would ensure all schools have proper training, effective policies, data on reactions and spare adrenaline auto-injectors on site. Who can disagree with life-saving medication being quickly accessible to save a child's life?My Lords, I support Amendment 502YG. I declare my interest as the chief officer of the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity. Regrettably, we have an education system completely unprepared for the growing numbers of food-allergic children in the UK, with safeguarding standards varying widely from school to school. Recent incidents underscore the urgent need for thorough staff training and well implemented allergen management policies. Food allergy-related deaths, which for the most part are preventable, while uncommon, tragically occur in school. A few months ago, as the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, noted, the inquest into the death of Benedict Blythe, who was aged just five, concluded. Today, as we discuss this amendment, I know that Benedict is in our hearts and our minds, as is his mother, Helen. She is the driver behind Amendment 502YG, which would be a critical addition to the Bill. There are of course excellent examples of food allergy management in some of our schools. However, with two children in every classroom having a food allergy, and one in five allergic reactions to food occurring in school, too many schools lack policies for effective allergy management and staff are inadequately trained. There is also a lack of understanding around allergy in our schools. That all impacts on children’s attendance and puts them at risk. At the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, we regularly hear from parents about schools that ignore their requests for reasonable adjustments or, worse still, are dismissive about a child’s allergy. These persistent challenges are faced by thousands of allergy families across the country, and they reinforce that allergies should be treated with the same seriousness and attention as other medical conditions in school settings. That is why, at the Natasha foundation, we launched Allergy School, which offers free practical resources to help teachers create inclusive and safe environments for children with…
16% of children aged 5-16 now have a mental health disorder; CAMHS cannot cope. On average, one child per class has been bereaved of a parent or sibling — major trauma requiring support they often don't receive. On data collection: validated, properly evaluated measures are essential — schools must be confident they're measuring what they think they're measuring and that results won't be misused for accountability. On allergies: staff have been known to confuse anaphylaxis with panic attacks and to inject themselves rather than the child. Simple training and EpiPen access is a very small measure that could save lives.My Lords, the hour is late. I have my name on some of these amendments. I simply say that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has highlighted that around 16% of children aged five to 16 now have a mental health disorder. CAMHS cannot cope with this. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, is certainly trying to plug that large hole. I also remind the Committee that it has been estimated that in every class, on average, there is a child who has been bereaved of a parent or sibling. That is not trivial trauma; it is major. They need support and help, but they are often not getting it. On collecting data, it is essential that we know what we are doing. However, we must use validated measures that have been properly evaluated, so that schools are measuring what people think they are measuring and they do not contain leading questions and so on. In addition, good-quality data allows a school to understand whether it is improving. I declare my interest as having chaired the Science and Technology Committee’s sixth report on allergy, and I strongly underline all the comments made in it. During that inquiry, we heard about children being bullied by other children who put peanuts in their pockets, and about staff sometimes confusing anaphylaxis with panic attacks because they have not had training. It is a very simple measure to train staff and to make sure that they can access an EpiPen. With that, I hope that the Government will adopt the suggestions in these amendments.
- I strongly support the nature amendments. The National Education Nature Park is a great DfE initiative — I hope the Government are actively pushing it out. And on measuring well-being: indirect measures are best; watch, observe, look for strong structures and relationships. An excess of mental health professionals in a school is almost always a sign that school is in trouble.
My Lords, I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the amendments she has put forward. I hope that the Government are thoroughly behind the National Education Nature Park, which is a great initiative from the Department for Education, and are looking for ways to push that out, maybe through the natural history GCSE. If the noble Baroness feels in need of a holiday, I recommend Japan as a place that has really got on top of how to get young citizens involved with nature; that may surprise noble Lords, in view of the urban character of Japan, but it is very good at that. I also agree with my noble friend Lady Spielman that indirect measures are best. They are very much the underpinning of the Good Schools Guide: watching, observing and looking for strong structures and relationships—and, yes, someone to turn to when you do not know what to do, but an excess of mental health professionals is almost always the sign of a school in trouble. When it comes to children, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies. By asking a child a question, you create the answer; you have to be really careful how you try to measure well-being, particularly in young children. Maybe the Dutch can teach us to do it, but I share the scepticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about much of what is going on in schools at the moment.
- I am chair of Sport Wales. We survey 116,000 children on sport and well-being — not just to direct funding but to make them part of the solution. Amendment 500 asks for physical literacy to be given the same status as literacy and numeracy; there is strong evidence that physical literacy supports mental well-being. UK Active data shows this generation is more likely to die before their parents because of inactivity. One in eight young people aged 16-24 is not in education, employment or training. The system is not sustainable. In a Bill that has well-being in its title, it would make sense that we actually measure it.
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am chair of Sport Wales. I strongly support Amendment 472 in the name of my noble friend Lord O’Donnell, and I agree that it is one of the most important things that we can do. At Sport Wales, we carry out a school sport survey, and we had responses from 116,000 children who gave their opinion on sport and well-being. We do not use it only to focus the funding; it is to help them to be part of the solution, to think about how their well-being might be improved. I have my name on Amendment 500. I make a plea for physical literacy, and for giving it the same status as literacy and numeracy. We know that, if we teach children good physical literacy skills, it helps their mental well-being. The reason why we need to do this is that we are in a time of crisis. UK Active data shows that we have a generation of children who are more likely to die before their parents because of inactivity. A press release issued by the Department for Work and Pensions on 18 June 2025 stated that one in eight young people is not in education, employment or training. I realise that that cuts across age groups and is looking at something different—but we have up to 93,000 young people between 16 and 24 on personal independence payments. This is not to criticise the Government, but the system is not sustainable in this current format. We cannot keep just pushing young people on to benefits, so we have to do something differently. This group of amendments is part of the solution to helping young people. In a Bill that has well-being in its Title, it would make sense that we measure well-being.
- This debate has brought out the best in your Lordships. On Baroness Fox's point: words do harm — sometimes devastatingly so. Getting mental health issues sorted early accelerates learning, not the reverse. We know that about ourselves: when we feel good, we give of our best.
The hour is late, so I shall be brief. This group of amendments has brought out the best in your Lordships. How people have spoken on each of these amendments I have found truly caring. Stupidly perhaps, earlier on I was saying how the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made me consider more closely particular issues, but I have to say that on this issue I think she is wrong. For me, the most important thing in schools is not just getting children learning; it is about how they learn about themselves, and their well-being and mental health is so important. The sooner they can get the feeling of a sense of well-being and get any mental health problems sorted, the more their learning will accelerate—not as the noble Baroness suggests. We know that about ourselves; when we feel good about something, we give of our best, do we not? I know that I do. If I feel down and miserable and things are not going right for me, I do not give of my best. So it is important to get mental health issues sorted.
- This group concerns pupil mental well-being and schools' role in it — set against an adolescent mental health service struggling with demand and long CAMHS waiting lists. Schools already have extensive DfE guidance, a mental health hub of resources, and mental health leads introduced under the previous Government and continued by this one. I'm not convinced that more duties, standards and guidance in Amendments 462, 500 and 479 are the answer. The root causes — smartphones, social media, screen time — are not being addressed. On Amendment 472, I accept Lord O'Donnell's powerful case, noting my noble friend Lady Spielman's concern that indirect measurement may serve better. The National Behaviour Survey already asks pupils about well-being including happiness and anxiety. On allergy safety, I thank the organisations doing this work — the Benedict Blythe Foundation and Natasha Allergy Research Foundation in particular.
My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments focuses on the important issue of the mental well-being of pupils and the roles that schools could play in that. This obviously needs to be seen in the context of an adolescent mental health service which is currently struggling to keep up with demand, and where waiting lists are all too often extremely long, particularly with the rise in reports of poor mental health since Covid. However, schools already have extensive guidance from the department on how to support both pupils and staff with mental well-being, and there is a mental health hub of resources. The previous Government introduced and began the rollout of mental health leads in our schools, and my understanding is the current Government have continued with this. So I am really not convinced that more duties and standards and guidance, as proposed in Amendments 462, 500 and 479, are the answer, although I accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, regarding the range of qualifications one might want to have on a team. We have also heard that we have some major red flags in relation to children’s mental health and well-being with the use of smartphones and social media and the extraordinary amount of time that children and young people typically spend on their screens. Once again, I urge the Government to address these root causes of isolation, loneliness and disconnection in our society, especially for young people, rather than introducing yet more guidance. I am sympathetic to the spirit of Amendments 502B and 502Y in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Willis, respectively. Many schools are able to offer a forest school in primary, but this is something that school leaders need to decide on. As the Minister mentioned, we introduced the National Education Nature Park when we were in office, with an emphasis on schools in areas with few or no green spaces, and I was pleased when I looked at the National Education Nature…
- The Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people. Mental health support teams will expand from 52% coverage to 100% by 2029-30, and £13 million has been committed to pilot enhancements for trauma, neurodiversity and eating disorders. On Amendment 472, we strongly support the principle of schools measuring well-being, but a centrally-administered survey costing millions per year is not the right approach. Instead, we are working with measurement experts to standardise the questions schools can use, providing non-statutory guidance and tools, and committing to publish an annual national data release on pupils' experiences including sense of belonging, enjoyment and safety. We will also explore, in the longer term, whether data could be collected centrally. On Amendment 479, existing statutory duties on teaching, safeguarding, behaviour and SEND already underpin whole-school approaches — we will write on the training grant. On allergy safety via Amendment 502YG, we recognise the importance of this and will address concerns raised.
My Lords, this Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people to help pupils achieve and thrive in education. We also agree that all children and young people should have the opportunity to understand and connect with the natural world, and recognise the importance of supporting pupils with allergies. On Amendment 462 on the dedicated mental health practitioner, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, this Government have announced that we will expand mental health support teams from 52% coverage of pupils and learners at the start of April 2025 to 100% by 2029-30. This will ensure that all schools have access to NHS-trained and -supported mental health practitioners. Additionally, funding of £13 million has been agreed to pilot enhancements to this service to support those with more serious needs; for instance, young people who have experienced trauma or those with neurodiversity or eating disorders. We will look at the experience of those pilots and how they could be extended. The issue, as other noble Lords have identified, rests particularly in the numbers of mental health staff available to deal with the most acute needs of young people. This amendment would not add to the provision of mental health professionals, although the Government have committed to increase their number by 8,500, but switch responsibility from the NHS to schools. Schools provide a range of pastoral support, including counselling, but managing mental health professionals is not their job. Mental health support teams benefit from being recruited, trained, clinically supervised and having outcomes monitored by the NHS, and there is good evidence of their effectiveness. Amendment 472, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, seeks to establish a national children’s well-being measurement programme. The Government are strongly committed to supporting all children and young people to achieve and thrive. To help us do this, we need to understand…
- This issue has become highly polarised in a way that is unhelpful. But the PISA data is clear: UK young people have the lowest well-being in Europe and second worst in the OECD. To do something about that we need data. A voluntary survey — not linked to school accountability — would cost very little and is what practitioners on the front line want. I was moderately encouraged by the Minister's pilots for the enhanced mental health support teams — exactly the missing middle I was trying to address. We will return to this on Report.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response to this, as she said, wide-ranging—you could even say “interesting”, in a certain sense—debate. I simply reflect that, in terms of the tone of the debate that we have had, there was a time not so long ago—perhaps a few years ago—when, if you were talking about children’s mental health and well-being in this Chamber, there would have been a certain sort of debate. There would probably have been a general consensus about the problem and what we were trying to achieve, and there would probably have been some disagreement over the best way of getting there. I have to say: that is no longer the case. As with so many things in this current world, this whole issue seems to have become highly polarised and contested in a way that I find pretty unhelpful, but we are where we are. We can all quote our favourite bit of evidence or research report that backs up our own worldview but, frankly, unless you are looking at these things in the round, that rarely takes you much further forward. I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, talk about the need to look carefully at the root causes of mental health issues. That was a very helpful perspective; personally, pretending that a problem does not exist rarely helps to address it. I do not recognise that schools have turned into some sort of industrial complex of mental health with an excess of mental health professionals. All I can say is that the schools I have visited are not like that; they tell me what an issue mental health is and how they want extra help and support. That is all I am going to say in general terms. I will respond to a couple of the points on the amendments. On my amendment, I was moderately encouraged to hear the Minister talk about the pilots, looking at the enhanced levels of support from mental health support teams. That is exactly what I was trying to get at in my amendment about the missing middle, as I put it. It is about the skills mix. There i…
Amendment 463 would extend mandatory relationships and sex education to all pupils under 18 in post-16 institutions. 16 and 17 year-olds are still children under the UN Convention. Faustine Petron — a university student and survivor of domestic abuse — founded the Make It Mandatory campaign, which has 50 organisational endorsers and over 105,000 petition signatures. Since RSE was made mandatory in schools, it has begun to make a real difference; extending it to FE and sixth-form colleges is the next logical step, especially as the Government's own Ministers have described RSE as vital to preventing violence against women and girls.My Lords, given that my noble friend Lady Lister is unable to be here this evening, it is my pleasure, with her permission, to read her speech to move this amendment. It is an honour to move Amendment 463, which would extend the provision of relationships and sex education to young people aged under 16, in post-16 institutions in England. It is an honour because it has been dubbed the Massey amendment as a tribute to our late friend and colleague Baroness Massey of Darwen. Had she still been with us, she would have been the ideal person to move this amendment, given her experience and commitment to young people’s social health and well-being. It was to honour Doreen that I agreed to table this amendment, even though I do not claim any expertise in this area. Another reason that I agreed to table the amendment was that I was so impressed by how Faustine Petron, who approached me, founded the Make It Mandatory campaign and enlisted the support of many important bodies such as Brook—of which Lady Massey was a former president—the Sex Education Forum and the End Violence Against Women and Girls coalition. She has received the endorsement for this amendment of 50 organisations, and has collected over 105,000 signatures for her petition. She says, in her own words: “I am a university student and young survivor of domestic abuse. As an older teenager, I would have benefited from being provided with RSE after year 11 and an adequate education surrounding the early warning signs of domestic abuse, the different forms abuse can take, and places to get help”. The third reason is that Faustine Petron has such a strong case: she has identified a real gap in the mandatory provision of relationships and sex education, which does not cover 16 and 17 year-olds, yet, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, these are still children. Since RSE was made mandatory in schools, it has begun to make a real difference. The Office for Students is making it into a condition of regi…
- Government data shows 16 to 19 year-olds experience the highest rates of domestic abuse of any age group. After Tender's RSE workshops for this age group, over 90% of students could identify abuse and knew where to find help — compared to only about half before. In a world of harmful online content and social media, mandatory RSE in FE creates a safe, structured space for 16 to 18 year-olds to critically examine harmful attitudes and learn about positive relationships.
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 463, to which I added my name. Government data shows that 16 to 19 year-olds experience the highest rates of domestic abuse of any age group. Without mandatory RSE, we are leaving many 16 to 18 year-olds unsupported, just as they are starting their first intimate relationships. Tender, a marvellous charity that goes into schools to educate children in relationships, has been working with this age group. It found that only around half of the students could identify signs of an abusive relationship or knew where to find support; by contrast, after participating in Tender’s workshops, over 90% can identify abuse and will know where to find help. Victim-blaming and perpetrator-excusing attitudes are prevalent in this cohort, in part due to a high percentage of young people viewing harmful content online. The End Violence Against Women coalition agrees, quoting the National Association for Managers of Student Services in saying that, “As the front line of support services in post-16 education, we know it’s been never more important to give young people a safe place with structure, to discuss and learn about positive relationships and to address the social isolation and misinformation a world living on social media has created”. In a confusing world, 16 to 18 year-olds seeking guidance deserve to be supported to critically examine and challenge harmful attitudes among their peers in a safe, supportive environment, which we can create through mandatory RSE lessons.
- Amendments 465 and 471 would remove the requirement for daily Christian collective worship in non-faith schools and require RE curricula to include non-religious beliefs. Over a third of the population has no religion — rising to over half of those in their 20s. When non-religious parents send children to a non-faith school, that school is still legally required to perform Christian worship. The alternative — withdrawing your child, who sits alone in a corridor — is not a real choice. This is not about banning prayer, Christmas carols or religious holidays; it is about not imposing mandatory worship on children whose families don't share that faith.
My Lords, I apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Storey, who has unfortunately had to leave to get the last possible train home. I want to say just a few words, as the hour is so late, on Amendments 471 and 465, which seek to clarify in legislation the requirement for schools to teach about non-religious beliefs, such as humanism, in religious education at all stages. I am aware of the ongoing review into the national curriculum. It may be that, through the review, it is recommended that religious education becomes part of the national curriculum. This would be welcome, to ensure that the subject becomes impartial, objective and balanced, with clear national minimum standards that teach children about all the main religions and non-religious belief systems within our country. However, as this may not come to pass, my amendment seeks to ensure the teaching of non-religious beliefs in religious education. In 2015, the High Court ruling in R(Fox) v Secretary of State for Education declared that religious education curricula should include the teaching of non-religious beliefs, such as humanism, to comply with the rights of freedom and belief under the European Convention on Human Rights. Nearly a decade later, in 2024, Ofsted released Deep and Meaningful? The Religious Education Subject Report. It reported that half of all secondary schools and a majority of primary schools still did not teach about non-religious world views in their RE lessons. It is vital that children and young people learn about non-religious belief systems alongside the major religions. Humanism has a long and significant history in the UK, stretching through our sciences, arts, culture and politics. Many people in the UK live their lives around the values of the scientific method, making ethical decisions based on reason, empathy and a concern for all living life, and that in the absence of a God or afterlife we must strive to improve ourselves and our communities in the time that we have.…
- Removing the requirement for collective worship replaces a clear legal duty with something vague and ill-defined about "spiritual, moral, social and cultural" assemblies — which, in practice, is a humanist assembly by another name. This will generate friction between parents and schools and lead to wide variation in interpretation. The right to opt out of collective worship already exists; the proposed replacement removes that opt-out right for the new humanist-style assembly. There is a risk this will actually push religious parents further toward faith schools, making integration less likely.
My Lords, at this late hour, I sound a slight note of caution and concern over Amendments 465 and 471. I do not have any particular problem with Amendment 463, which is something all of us should be able to embrace, in terms of ensuring education around prevention of sexual violence and promoting respectful relationships. Amendment 465 in many ways transposes the proposed Private Member’s legislation and tries to put it within this legislation. By removing the requirement for collective worship, what is put in its place seems to be quite vague and ill-defined in its nature. It talks about assemblies that have to promote “spiritual, moral, social and cultural” aspects. It strikes me that it almost replaces a religious assembly with what is, in effect, a humanist assembly. That is a conclusion which a lot of people will draw. The vagueness of what is being proposed to, in effect, replace the collective worship will lead a lot of schools into trying to find other forms of lectures and lessons that they will try to put across within an assembly. There is no doubt that this will lead to a widespread and vast difference of interpretation. There is also no doubt that many of the subjects, while very merited, can be quite controversial. We would be naive if we did not believe that this would create a situation in a number of schools in which there were levels of friction, perhaps between parents and the school, or between governors and the school. There is a certain element of the hornet’s nest being stirred up. The proposer of the amendment also then talked about choice. It is absolutely right at present that no child or family is compelled to attend religious or collective worship. The right to opt out is enshrined in legislation and, as such, clearly will remain, and I think everyone would accept that. However, the way the amendment before us today is drafted creates this alternative form of assembly, which is compulsory for everyone. It would mean that if a parent objec…
- The naivety the noble Lord refers to is actually his own. The primary school I attended in Manningham, Bradford now has over 70% Muslim pupils. The idea that, by law, that school must hold Christian services and assemblies is not just naive — it is potentially offensive to those parents and children.
My Lords, the naivety that the noble Lord referred to is actually his own naivety. Because of the area in which it is, the primary school that I attended in Manningham—which is part of my title—in Bradford now has a population that is over 70% Muslim. The idea that, by law, that school has to have Christian services and assemblies is naive and possibly offensive to the parents of those children. Our society needs to recognise that it is not fair to impose these things upon those parents and children.
Replacing the duty to provide an act of worship with an assembly "principally directed towards furthering the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education" of pupils is incoherent. You cannot have spiritual education regardless of belief; you cannot have moral education without beliefs about what is right and wrong. The new assemblies would inevitably promote humanist beliefs and there is a disparity of rights: parents can currently withdraw their children from collective worship, but there is no equivalent right to withdraw from the proposed humanist assembly. I oppose this amendment.My Lords, I oppose this amendment. Time does not permit me to properly debate and discuss Amendment 471, so I will confine my comments to Amendment 465. I thought that the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, were very apposite, and I more or less wholly agree with him. I want to specifically talk about the first part of the amendment, which would replace the duty to provide an act of worship with “an assembly which is principally directed towards furthering the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education”, rather than the specific issue of replacing the daily act of worship. This amendment contains an incoherent phrasing that, in effect, amounts to an imposition of humanist beliefs. To refer to spiritual education, regardless of religion or belief, is absurd. To refer to moral education, regardless of belief, is irrational. It is impossible to make moral judgments without beliefs about what is right or wrong or beliefs about how these judgments should be made. It is not possible to understand British society and culture without regard for the religious beliefs that have shaped its literature, music, art, history and institutions. The exclusion of religious belief from a social and cultural education in assemblies is illogical and will restrict pupils’ understanding. The assumption that it is possible to provide an assembly “directed towards furthering the spiritual, moral … education of the pupils”, without regard to belief, is illogical. In effect, these new assemblies would promote humanist beliefs and provide pupils with a highly partial account of spiritual, moral, social and cultural education. As humanists are keen to point out, not everyone is religious. There are people who hold non-religious beliefs, but these are beliefs, and consequently shape the perspective, values and attitudes of those who hold them in ways that are not neutral. They are sincerely held, but they are not universally held. This is why Humanists UK, for example, campaigns so vig…
- A large number of young people and their parents do not adhere to any religious faith. They are entitled to learn about the central faiths that shape our culture, but also to access ethical and moral frameworks that do not depend on religion. Both amendments enable that positive development.
As it is late, I shall just register my support for Amendments 465 and 471. I agree that a large number of young people and their parents do not adhere to a religious faith. It is clearly valuable and important for them to learn about the central faiths that influence our culture, but they are also entitled to have access to moral and ethical frameworks which do not depend on a religious faith so that they may arrive at their own moral compass. These amendments would enable that positive development.
- I offer Green support for all three amendments. On Amendment 465: 70% of school leaders in a 2024 poll wanted to get rid of the current collective worship arrangement. The amendment also creates space in the curriculum for cultural learning that noble Lords across the House lament has been squeezed out. On the suggestion that tabling this as an amendment rather than a stand-alone Bill is somehow irregular — any amendment your Lordships insert into a Government Bill follows this same path.
My Lords, I offer Green support for all three of these amendments, but in the interests of time I shall make two brief remarks about Amendments 463 and 465. On Amendment 463, I agree with all the contributions made thus far, but with a focus particularly on the relationship and sex education part of it. I think that it is also important that we focus on the PSHE element of that. This is education about the financial sector and managing personal finances, something that it is generally agreed there is a real shortage of. This is education about physical and mental health—and I cross-reference the earlier amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about the importance of physical literacy in particular. It is also about rights and responsibilities. We have to note that, with votes at 16 now being government policy and coming in this direction, it is surely important that we provide education about voting and our political system to young people in our further education system. When I say that we need that kind of education, people sometimes say that that is an argument against votes at 16. I think that 16 year-olds are as well informed about our political system as 60 year-olds, and they all need more information and more education. Educating 16 and 17 year-olds will also provide information that will disseminate out into the general community through their family, friends and colleagues in the workplace. On Amendment 465, I want to respond directly to the noble Lord, Lord Weir, who, I think, suggested that there was something odd about the idea that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, had previously brought two Private Members’ Bills—I have spoken in support of both—and that their subject was now being put forward as an amendment to a government Bill. There is a very well-trodden path for—
- To clarify: I was pointing out that this amendment had not gone through the same consultation as the rest of the Bill — not suggesting there was anything wrong with the procedural route.
No, I did not. In case there is any misunderstanding, I was simply pointing out that this was, in effect, a transposition. I did not suggest that it was some sort of irregular route or that there was something wrong with it. I pointed out that, if it were to become part of the Bill, it would not have gone through the same level of consultation as the rest of the Bill. However, I did not suggest that this was an oddly trodden path—in case there was any misunderstanding on that.
- On Amendment 463 — nobody has disagreed; the noble Baroness Lady Blower did it pretty well on behalf of Baroness Lister. On Amendment 465: one assembly a week will not change anybody's religious views either way, and neither will removing one compulsory point of view. The values shared across religions — that we should be kind to each other — can be conveyed in many ways. On Amendment 471: I hope the Minister will confirm that all current RE should already include the contrary arguments — this feels like belt and braces.
My Lords, I will very briefly say a few words about this group. On Amendment 463, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, may have taken up the baton from somebody else, but she did it pretty well—nobody has disagreed with her. It seems agreed that she is on very solid ground. The amendment is about useful information that people should have. I hope that the Government are at least friendly to the amendment. On the two amendments tabled by my noble friend, I very much doubt that one assembly a week will change anybody’s religious views either way. Not making one point of view compulsory will probably not change religious views either way. The similarity in the values of religions—the fact that we should be nice to people seems to be common across the board—is something that we can probably convey elsewhere; it does not have to be put forward in this way. I do not think that it will make much difference. It would certainly bring it in line with a bigger chunk of the population. If people want spiritual activity somewhere else, it would be available. I turn to the final amendment in the group. I hope that my noble friend will not hit me too much when I say that the provision should already be there. Any education about religion must include the contrary arguments, so I think this is really belt and braces. I am not getting snarled at by my noble friend, so I think I am not too far off in saying that. I hope that the Minister can confirm that Amendment 471 should be covered, at least partially, in all current religious education. [Continued in column 2199] [Continued from column 2198]
- I support extending RSHE to 18, but I'm sceptical it will significantly reduce domestic abuse: young people are good at identifying abuse in others, but much less likely to recognise it in their own relationships while they are in them and significantly controlled. On collective worship and RE — those debates have been clearly aired.
My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to strengthen the curriculum by extending the teaching of RSHE and PSHE to the age of 18 and broadening it to include non-religious beliefs in the RE curriculum. I confess to being sceptical about the impact of extending RSHE in particular to 18, in relation to safeguarding young women, principally, who might be affected by domestic abuse. My experience from working in that field is that young people are very good at identifying domestic abuse in other people and that training and support can facilitate disclosures of abuse, but it is much less likely that they will identify it in time in their own relationships. That is because, of course, most abusive relationships start off looking like any other relationship and it is only when you are in that relationship and significantly controlled by your partner that you begin to realise what is going on. I absolutely support helping and providing advice to people, young and old, in abusive relationships, but I am not convinced that RSHE to 18 will change much on the ground.
- On Amendment 463: PSHE and RSE are already taught in colleges and the Government are launching an RSE toolkit with regional events in autumn, with Polly Harrow leading dissemination. The Minister has recently met the Sex Education Forum, End Violence Against Women coalition, and Make It Mandatory campaign for a positive discussion. On Amendment 465: schools already have considerable flexibility to deliver non-religious assemblies and may apply to SACRE for an exemption from predominantly Christian worship; pupils over 16 and parents of younger pupils may withdraw. The independent curriculum review is already gathering evidence on religious education and will report later this year; we do not wish to pre-empt its recommendations.
My Lords, as we have heard, this group covers a range of issues. Inevitably, we have heard some very detailed views on different sides of the arguments covering the subjects of the amendments. I begin with Amendment 463, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, which concerns making personal, social, health and economic education and relationships and sex education mandatory for all pupils under 18 in further education colleges. We absolutely recognise the importance of promoting healthy relationships to young people. That is exactly why PSHE, including sex and relationships, is taught in colleges. I strongly believe that schools play an important part in developing students’ attitudes. We recently updated the statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education to ensure that it provides foundational knowledge for all students to thrive. Given the public consultation results and our safer streets mission, we have strengthened the content of the guidance on sexual violence. Going further, the Government understand the challenges that young people, particularly women, face at college. This is part of a society-wide problem with sexual and domestic violence and it is why one of the Government’s five core missions is to make our streets safe again. All parts of government are contributing to the key target of halving in a decade the incidence of violence against women and girls. The FE sector has huge experience in meeting these challenges and the department’s FE student support champion is drawing on this and international comparators to create a new toolkit that will arm colleges with the confidence, skills and materials to make a real difference in the lives of their students. To pick up on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, with regard to the National Association for Managers of Student Services, I reassure him that the department works closely with the association on improving support…
Schools have entered into RSHE contracts with external providers that contain commercial confidentiality clauses — preventing schools from showing materials to parents. That has generated litigation and suspicion. My amendments would create a statutory obligation to make all RSHE resources publicly accessible. 23% of parents say their child has been exposed to inappropriate content in RSHE. 71% think it important that schools consult them. Parents must be able to see what their children are being taught.My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 467. These amendments have the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Cash, who are not here at this late hour. I also support Amendment 502YE, to which I put my name, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. Both my amendments are concerned with RSHE and the rights of access by parents and carers to the relevant teaching materials. In doing this, I stress that I support the teaching of RSHE. But it is a sensitive area, as I think we all know, and it is important that parents know what is being taught. Not least, that is because—although I hope they will not—parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education to be delivered. If parents can be reassured about the content, they are less likely to be suspicious and to remove their children. However, schools have been entering contracts with external providers of RHSE teaching materials which forbid the schools from showing them to others. This has created suspicion and unhappiness and, on occasion, parents and carers have resorted to litigation. That is not helpful to the education of our young, and makes it more likely that children will be withdrawn. The National Parent Survey 2025 was published last week. It found, among other things, that 23% of parents say that their child has been exposed to inappropriate content in an RHSE class and 71% think it important that schools consult them on the content of such lessons. Parents must be entitled and should be allowed to see the materials from which RHSE is being taught, but they have faced spurious legal arguments of commercial confidentiality or copyright. We must make the content accessible and remove cause for suspicion. The purpose of these amendments is to create a statutory obligation on schools to make all resources for use in RSHE properly accessible to the public.
- The commercial-confidentiality shield must go. Schools used to teach from textbooks whose content had been honed and scrutinised over generations and was visible to all. Online RSHE resource providers operate largely unregulated, and some of what has been disseminated — on microaggression, critical race theory, and gender ideology — is low-quality, ideological or unscientific. Education should be a unifying experience; these resources can divide children along contested lines. Full publication would restore accountability.
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s commendable Amendment 466. He is right about the misuse of the concept of commercially confidential contractual relationships between the education provider and the company providing the material. We need to go back to an accountability that we had with the old-fashioned model of school textbooks. They contained knowledge that had been honed over the ages and was visible and accessible to all, and rightly so. It is the heritage that we need to pass on to our children. What we have seen are some examples of RSHE and other school resources that are low-quality, unscientific, ideological or political. These resources are often provided to schools as worksheets by online school resource providers and they are not in the public domain Indeed, the business model requires them to be available by subscription only. I have some examples that I could draw to the attention of the Committee, but I will not go into too much detail. The point is that teaching works when it can bring pupils together with a shared educational experience. Often, some of the contested issues around microaggression, casual racism, critical race theory, et cetera, and particular preposterous, unscientific nonsense around gender ideology—which can have an impact on young, vulnerable children and their families—are not open to the transparency and clarity we really need. Education should be a unifying experience and not divide children in this contentious way. To give one example, moving away slightly from RSHE but pertinent to this amendment, there is a resource I have seen which states: “The wealth of the British Empire was built upon the enslavement and labour of people from across the Empire”. That is historically ignorant, in that the United Kingdom —Great Britain—gave up a third of its national wealth to destroy slavery, so there has to be context. There is a pattern here. The internet has made so much knowledge accessible to all, but it has also allowed harmfu…
I support Amendment 502YE on guidance for gender-questioning children. The previous Government published draft guidance in December 2023, ran a consultation through early 2024, and every word was chosen with enormous care. Since then, the Cass review has confirmed that gender identity ideology causes harm; social transition is not a neutral act. Schools need clear statutory guidance on safeguarding obligations, on keeping accurate records of children's sex, on single-sex spaces, and on not socially transitioning children behind parents' backs. Why has publication been delayed for over a year?My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment but would like to speak to Amendment 502YE in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. The Conservative Government published draft gender-questioning children guidance in December 2023, followed by a consultation which lasted until March 2024. The Government have now had well over a year to examine the guidance and the responses, but there is still no explanation as to why the response has been so delayed. Much of the draft guidance is a reassertion of existing requirements for schools. I will not go into that now—although I would like to—but what is being taught at the moment that is so contentious, and why are we are so keen to have the guidance confirmed? Here are a couple of examples. Stonewall tells primary schools: “Everyone has a gender identity. … This might be the same as the gender they were given as a baby, but it might not be”. EqualiTeach tells schools: “If a transgender young person wishes to change their name and pronouns, this must be respected”. Brook and Gendered Intelligence advise teachers: “Schools should support young people to use the facilities they wish to use”. This bad and confusing advice needs to be addressed. We were talking earlier about the well-being of children. One of the reasons why they are so confused and upset is that they do not understand what is going on. Groups supporting parents are still regularly contacted by distressed families who report a challenging and sometimes hostile response from schools when they raise their concerns about social transition. When parents request that schools take into account the Cass report, statutory safeguarding requirements and the Supreme Court judgment, they are met with claims that “no official guidance has yet been released”. By the time some families discover their child’s adoption of a trans identity, the school has already been fully complicit in encouraging the child in their new identity without the parent’s knowledge. Family relation…
- I speak briefly against Amendment 502YE. Schools need clear guidance to support gender-questioning children, but rushing out statutory guidance will help neither young people nor schools. The Government should take the time to get this right. And on tried-and-tested textbooks — we should remember that rampant homophobia and misogyny were in those textbooks for decades; we should celebrate that Section 28 is long in the past.
My Lords, I briefly speak against Amendment 502YE and the consequent amendment. We need schools to have clear guidance to support gender-questioning children, but rushing out the statutory guidance will help neither young people nor schools. I am sure that the Government acknowledge that they need to take the time to get this right. With regard to the other amendments in this group, and just to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on tried-and-tested knowledge, textbooks and things that have been there for decades, we are of course talking in an age when, thankfully, Section 28 is long in the past. Rampant homophobia, misogyny and so on were in our textbooks for many decades and we should be very much celebrating that that has disappeared. It is also worth noting that we do not need the internet to spread very harmful ideas in this space. I will note that there is an MP in the other place who, until this week, was sitting on the Tory Benches and has now shifted to the Reform Benches. He is on record as saying that “the only possible basis for a safe and successful society” is marriages between men and women. His new party leader has expressed approval of such sentiments. We need to acknowledge that we have many places where harmful ideas are being spread in our society.
- The Government have already taken action on much of what's in these amendments, which is welcome. But schools need to be supported to resist the one or two parents who might use transparency rights to veto curriculum content that other children benefit from. On gender-questioning guidance — everybody agrees schools need it, but rushing it out is worse than getting it right. I would prefer the Government take the time.
My Lords, there are two important things in this debate. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, acknowledged, the Government have already taken action on many of the amendments he has proposed, which is of course to be welcomed. I would however, like to seek some assurance. Supporting schools to make sure that parents approve of materials is absolutely fine, but how can schools be supported to resist the one or two parents who might object to materials, when doing so risks depriving all pupils of those resources? Those parents of course have every right to remove their children from RSHE, but they should not be able to deprive everybody else of materials that have already been approved and are of a high enough standard. The high standard is something this Government have already mentioned. Turning to Amendment 502YE, we would all agree that schools need clear guidance to support gender-questioning children, but rushing out statutory guidance will help neither those young people nor the schools. I would therefore much prefer to let the Government take the time to get this right. Everybody acknowledges that it is a sensitive issue, particularly right now.
- My Amendment 474 would extend the same transparency principle — parents being able to see the materials — to all curriculum areas, not just RSHE.
My Lords, my Amendment 474 would encourage this openness towards parents to be extended to all curriculum materials.
- Some external RSHE providers begin from the position that no child is too young for detailed and explicit sex education. Others have produced materials that reflect their ideology rather than factual curriculum or the law. In the light of the Cass review, teaching that everyone has a gender identity separate from biological sex has spread confusion and caused real damage. Vulnerable children have been steered toward social transition and puberty blockers. Change in schools has been too slow. Full publication of RSHE materials and prompt gender-questioning guidance are both urgently needed.
My Lords, I support Amendments 466 and 467, proposed by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, and Amendment 502YE, proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran. My noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment is substantially the same as one of the other amendments. On RSHE, we know that there is something of a free-for-all on what is taught in schools to give effect to the statutory requirement. It is an aspect of education that many teachers feel underequipped or unconfident to teach, and many schools and teachers rely on external providers to supply curriculum programmes and resources. Some of these external providers are excellent, and some topics are uncontroversial, but there are some real tensions. One is around age-appropriateness. Some PSHE providers appear to start from the position that no child is too young for detailed and explicit sex education, with the associated terminology. There is little recognition that parents have a wide range of views about and a legitimate interest in what is appropriate for their children’s age and stage, especially at primary school but also in lower secondary school. There are elements of the RSHE curriculum that relate to issues that have become highly politicised, with some providers producing materials that reflect their ideology, rather than a factual curriculum or the law. Many schools have embraced teaching about gender identity, sometimes downplaying the importance of teaching about sex, by which I mean the protected characteristic, not the activity. In the light of the Cass review, it is clear that the claim that we all have an inner gender identity that is more important than our biological sex has spread confusion and caused much damage. Vulnerable children have been encouraged towards social transition and puberty blockers. Choices that should not be contemplated before adulthood are still being floated at children who may already be in distress and need clinical help. Yet, in our schools, change has been too slow.
25 years ago I piloted the repeal of Section 28 in the early Holyrood Parliament. The watchwords — inclusivity, tolerance, transparency and age-appropriateness — still hold good a quarter century later. Yes, parents should see materials; yes, individuals can withdraw their child from specific lessons. What is not right is for one parent to censor other children's education. The role of schools is to educate, not to judge. On gender-questioning guidance: the ECHR rushed its guidance after the Supreme Court ruling, had to reissue it as interim, then consult again. Let the Government get it right the first time.My Lords, I rise to speak on this group of amendments with some trepidation, not just because it is incredibly late but because, as my accent suggests, I come from Scotland. This an England and Wales only Bill, and a Scot speaking on education, given our recent performance, may seem a little unusual. I wanted to speak on this group of amendments because 25 years ago, as Minister for Local Government in the very early, young Holyrood Parliament, I piloted the repeal of Section 28. On this very issue of school guidelines, 25 years ago our founding phrase, which was very much rooted in the language of the time, was that “We do not honour marriage by denying the validity of other relationships well established in our society”. In that context and the context we discuss today, it is about not denying the validity of relationships and identities established in our society. Those watch- words of inclusivity, tolerance, transparency and age-appropriateness still hold good a quarter of a century later. Of course, the question of school guidance and resources for RSHE is inevitably challenging when you are trying to balance preserving the preciousness of childhood for children, parental beliefs, and building inclusive societies. What does this mean in terms of the amendments before us now—Amendments 466, 467 and 474? The Government should be encouraged to step up and create age-appropriate materials and not leave it all to third parties, although I think that doing so by retaining statutory guidance is the right way forward. Yes, parents should have access to all the materials that are taught in schools, and yes, individual parents should have the right to withdraw their child from individual lessons if they so wish. What would not be right is for one parent to censor the educational rights of others. In the parlance of today, this is an issue of free speech. The role of schools is not to judge but to educate, and it is not for parents to interfere in other children’s educati…
- This is guidance for children to take forward into adult life — and at a certain point the child's right to that knowledge must take precedence over the parent's desire to restrict it. Not liking something doesn't mean you should be kept ignorant of it.
My Lords, I will very briefly say, from what is left of my own Benches, that when it comes to this, remember that this is guidance for the child to take forward into adult life. At certain points, they may differ from what the parent thinks they should do and wants them to do, and we have to make sure that the knowledge is given to them. I cannot remember the exact details of the discussion we had, but at a certain point the parent has to stop having that ability to deny. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the idea of giving people the knowledge they need at certain points is still embraced. Value judgments will come into it from various people coming round, but the fact that you do not like something does not mean to say you should not know about it.
- The RSHE curriculum sits in a delicate area between school responsibility and parental values. Amendment 466 ensures absolute transparency. On gender-questioning guidance: every word of the draft published in December 2023 was chosen with extraordinary care. The guidance was clear that schools have no general duty to allow social transition, must keep accurate records of children's biological sex, must protect single-sex spaces, and must not exclude parents from decisions. Schools need this. The Secretary of State is reportedly under pressure from unions to water down the Supreme Court judgment's implications; I hope the Minister can reassure us that she will hold the line.
My Lords, I start by stressing how much I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. As we have heard, the RSHE curriculum exists in a delicate area between the responsibility of the school and the values and beliefs of a child’s parents. Amendment 466 would ensure absolute transparency on what a pupil is being taught and avoid some of the very regrettable instances in recent years that noble Lords are well aware of. My Amendments 502YE and 504B would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance for schools regarding gender-questioning children. I was slightly surprised at this new idea that things are being rushed through. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin said, the previous Conservative Government published draft gender-questioning children guidance in December 2023 and ran a public consultation on its contents in early 2024. This was in response to evidence of schools socially transitioning children or affirming children as being of the opposite sex, sometimes behind their parents’ backs. As my noble friend Lady Spielman suggested—and as I can confirm to be true—I cannot describe the care that was taken over every single word in that guidance, and I pay tribute to the longest-suffering, most patient official in the DfE responsible for leading that drafting. The guidance said: “In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl, including their physical attributes of sex and the related ways in which they fit into society. This has been linked to gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’, whether male … female … or ‘other’, that is different to their biological sex”. Since the publication of this draft guidance, there has been a growing consensus that gender ideology harms. There is no science or evidence behind the idea of gender identity—it is an ideological assertion. Social transition or cross-sex affirmation for child…
- The July 2025 update to RSHE statutory guidance now makes clear in paragraph 56 that schools must ensure parents are able to view all curriculum RSHE materials on request — the word "all" is underlined in the guidance. It is equally clear that parents cannot veto curriculum content. On gender-questioning guidance: the Government understand the need for clarity and are working on it; we will not be rushed into guidance that is wrong.
I turn first to Amendments 466 and 467, both of which were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. Amendment 466 seeks to ensure that all external resources used in schools within the relationships, sex and health education curriculum are published, and Amendment 467 seeks to ensure that the department issues guidance which includes an instruction not to prevent parents from requesting to view copies of RSHE school material and not to enter into commercial confidentiality agreements that would prevent schools from showing materials to parents. In July 2025, we published updated RSHE statutory guidance, which now makes it clear that there is a public interest in parents being able to see what their children are being taught. This is particularly important regarding RSHE, where, as noble Lords have suggested, content is often sensitive and covers issues on which there are differences of opinion. The legal requirement for schools to publish their relationships and sex education policies, and to consult parents on them, has been in place since 2020. However, we have gone further in our revised statutory guidance, which is now clear that schools should ensure that parents are able to view all RSHE materials on request. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, identified, these issues are expressed particularly clearly in the guidance from paragraph 55 onwards. To reassure noble Lords, I will quote some of the key sentences in the guidance. Paragraph 56 is clear that schools “should ensure that parents are able to view all”— the word “all” is underlined— “curriculum materials used to teach RSHE on request”. On the important point made by my noble friend Lady Thornton, the guidance is also clear that parents are not able to veto curriculum content, and that schools must consult with parents when developing their RSHE policy. It is right that parents can see what their children are being taught, especially in relation to sensitive topics, and schools should respond positively t…
- By introducing the new statutory guidance the Government have recognised exactly the points these amendments make. The guidance is excellent and fits the bill. I cannot see what would be lost by accepting amendments consistent with government policy, but I will reflect and consider returning on Report.
I thank the Minister for her reply. By introducing the statutory guidance in this form, the Government have recognised the points which needed to be made and the health and protection for which I have argued. I made it plain, I hope, that I think that the current guidance is excellent. It really does fit the bill. I still fail to see what would be lost by accepting these amendments, which are consistent with government policy. I will consider the matter again on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.