Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee debated the children-not-in-school register regime — covering what information parents must provide, data-sharing, sunset and review mechanisms, provider duties, exam access, local-authority support, school attendance orders, and safeguarding of private tutors.
L(I intend to listen first and speak only if the Minister's answers leave something worth adding — Committee is a free-for-all where Members may speak as many times as they like. There is no need for the phrase "before the Minister sits down"; we can go back and forth as many times as needed. On this group I beg to move Amendment 255.My Lords, it is my intention not to speak to the amendments in this group but to await what the Minister will say about them in order to shorten the debate. In view of the conversation before we had Questions, I want to reconfirm to noble Lords that, according to paragraph 4.31 of the Companion: “When the House is in committee there is no restriction on the number of times a member may speak”. Therefore, a Member may speak after the Minister, and the Minister may speak during the mover of the group’s response to the Minister. The back and forwards may involve as many sessions of conversation and ministerial intervention as possible; it is completely unnecessary to use the phrase “before the Minister sits down” in Committee. Committee is a free-for-all and a conversation. It is an opportunity to focus on the real issues of the group and to have the time to talk them out and get to the nub of them, even if that takes a certain amount of backwards and forwards. The great advantage of this is that noble Lords do not need to speak until they are sure that the point they want to talk about has not been covered already by other people and satisfactorily answered by the Minister. They can wait to see who speaks and what the Minister says, and only then, if they feel that what they wanted to say has not been said, need they say anything. It is a great technique for focusing debate and shortening groups, which is something which I hope the Government will find helpful. On this group, I beg to move Amendment 255 and look forward to the Minister’s response.
These amendments probe the privacy aspects of the children-not-in-school register. The consultation drew close to 5,000 responses — mostly from parents but also from local authorities and charities — and the findings should help produce gold-standard policy that genuinely serves children's best interests, wherever their education takes place.My Lords, I shall speak to this group of amendments on the children not in school register, which seek to probe issues surrounding privacy. The children not in school consultation aimed to collate thoughts and views around local authority registers of children not attending school to ensure that all children receive a positive and beneficial education regardless of where that education might be taking place. There were close to 5,000 responses, predominantly from parents, but also from both local authorities and charities, and the findings will help to weave a gold standard of policy and guidance, which I am sure all noble Lords wish to be entirely fit for purpose. On these specific amendments, it is of course acknowledged that the priority should be to find the right balance between privacy on the one hand and the safety of children who are not well looked after on the other. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Barran, who has already set out so well His Majesty’s loyal Opposition’s view on these issues in the previous groups, so I will not detain your Lordships’ House by repeating those same arguments.
Amendments 255–259 each target a category of voluntary information parents may provide for the register — protected characteristics, child-protection history, child-in-need status, looked-after status, and eligibility reasons. All of this goes beyond the mandatory basics: name, date of birth, address and how the child is educated. The Secretary of State will consult on any regulations before Royal Assent, and that consultation is the right place to test whether any of these fields should be removed. On Amendment 255, I can confirm the provision is compatible with the ECHR. Amendment 262 removes the delegated power to prescribe how registers are maintained — consistency across local authorities on format, accuracy checks and publication is exactly what that power is for, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw.Amendments in group 4, which we have now got to, concern the inclusion of certain information in the registers and the delegated power for changes to be made to the operation of the registers. I turn to speak to Amendments 255, 256, 257, 258 and 259, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Each amendment addresses an element of the information which the Secretary of State may prescribe for inclusion in the registers. Just to reiterate, as I did on the last group, parents need to provide only certain limited information about their child: their name, date of birth, address and how they are educated. All further information which the Secretary of State may prescribe for inclusion in the registers is voluntary for parents to provide. This includes information on the child’s protected characteristics, which Amendment 255 would remove, current and historic child protection inquiries, which Amendment 256 would remove, current or previous child-in-need status, which Amendment 257 would remove, the reasons for the child having looked-after status on the registers, which Amendment 258 would remove, and reasons why the child is eligible for inclusion in the register, which Amendment 259 would delete. As mentioned in the previous group, the Secretary of State may prescribe in regulations the information which the local authority shall be required to include in the “children not in school” registers, if they hold it or can reasonably obtain it. The intention is for this additional information to help local authorities better understand and support children who are not in school. My department will consult on the content of regulations following Royal Assent. I suggest to the noble Lord that the consultation process is the right approach to determine whether there is a case for omitting certain information or including details such as the reasons for a child’s looked-after status in the registers. On Amendment 255, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that the releva…
- Speaking on behalf of Lord Wei: Amendment 270 would require local authorities to establish a parental advisory board — a useful structure for ensuring parents and authorities work together. Amendment 278 would let parents provide information in their own words; the High Court in *Goodred v Portsmouth* confirmed that a parent's own statement is valid evidence of provision, yet many councils insist on rigid forms that erase the richness of home education. Amendment 280 would cap information requests to once a year unless there is cause, Amendment 281 would require only 'substantial' changes to be notified, and Amendment 282 would prevent families being bombarded with repeat demands.
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Wei, I will move Amendment 270 and address other amendments in this group. Amendment 270 would require a local authority to establish a parental advisory board. This is a useful structure for ensuring that parents and local authorities work together. Amendment 278 would allow parents to provide information in their own words. That may seem a small detail, but it is fundamental. The High Court in Goodred v Portsmouth City Council affirmed that the parents’ own statement is valid evidence of provision, but many councils insist on rigid forms that erase the richness of home education. When looking at the variety of home education, it is important that it can be expressed as it is and is not squashed into a mode of expression it is not suited to. Amendment 280 would require that the information request be proportionate and relevant to education. Some councils issue broad, ill-defined demands, daily lesson plans and samples of child-generated independent work. Part of this is being able to demonstrate to local authorities what good practice is. As we will discuss in later groups, we need to work towards that. Amendment 281 would introduce the word “substantial” to describe the information parents must provide. Without it, councils may request irrelevant minutiae under the guise of safeguarding; we all know which council I would use to illustrate that. Amendment 282 would ensure that families are not bombarded with repeat demands. It is important that we look at the burden of the information provision on parents and indeed on local authorities. My understanding is that this will be addressed in the guidance, and I look forward to that confirmation.
I declare an interest as a grandmother of three home-educated children, all with special educational needs — two are now at colleges in Cambridge and the other makes short films about autism. The Bill reads as if school is the safest, best place for every child; for many it simply is not — school can be a hostile environment, especially for neurodiverse children who are repeatedly failed by the state system. Making home education harder discourages parents from doing what is best for their child. Setting up a register that collects sensitive, personal information from families who are doing nothing illegal or dangerous is discriminatory; we should be supporting home educators, not criminalising them.My Lords, I am very sorry I was not here earlier today when Clause 33 was debated. The Green Party has had a very exciting morning electing a new leader, and that is where I was. I very much hope I am not going to make a Second Reading speech, but with so many amendments in the Bill, it is at times hard to see the way forward and to follow through a clear line. So I am going to make a speech, and I hope not to make too many more during the course of the Bill, however many amendments I have tabled. I declare an interest as a grandmother of three home-educated children, all with special educational needs; two are now studying at colleges in Cambridge and the other is making short films about autism. So my experience tells me that school is not suitable for all children. Not all children can find a suitable school and you do not need to be wealthy to create a very rich educational learning environment out of school. I, like many noble Lords, have had quite a lot of emails on this topic and I sympathise strongly with parents and grandparents of children with neurodiversities. Home education can take on myriad forms that are far removed from the classroom but are, none the less, educational, informative and far better suited to neurodiverse minds. Neurodivergent children are often repeatedly failed by the state school system, but the truth is that every child deserves a tailored education. Parents with the time and inclination to provide their children’s education know that no teacher can possibly have their child’s interest as much at heart as they do. The Bill reads as if school is the safest, best place for all children to be. For many, that is simply not true. In fact, for many children school is a hostile environment. By making home education harder for parents, we are discouraging them from doing what is best for their child and for many others. Home educators give up their working lives to improve the lives of their children; to ask them now to continuously justif…
On Amendment 270, a parental advisory board should not be statutory — it requires considerable organisation from local authorities — but there is nothing wrong with informal local arrangements. The voice of the child matters too: socialisation is one of the concerns I have always had with home education, though it can happen organically. On Amendment 280, most local authorities would sensibly want information once a year anyway.My Lords, I will speak briefly on a few of the amendments. First, Amendment 270 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, should be considered. It actually happens with one local authority, which gets together home educators to share good practice and their experiences, but it should not be statutory, because it requires a considerable amount of organisation in terms of local authorities. However, if home educators in a particular area are working with a local authority that wants to do this, I would not be opposed to that. It might happen formally or informally, but it certainly should not be statutory. I also think that the voice of the student is important. One of the concerns that I have always had with home education is that it is not just about education, it is about socialising. You have to work very hard to ensure that children and young people who are home educated have the important socialising that they need, but, again, this could happen organically or informally. It is not something that we should just ignore, but it cannot be a statutory provision. Again, on Amendment 280, I think most local authorities would want to have the information from parents just once a year. I do not see a situation where they would not want that, unless there was “cause”, as the amendment states. Local authorities would want very much to get that information on one particular occasion and that is it, done and dusted, for that period of time.
Amendment 277 effectively removes the requirement to provide information for the register. What concerns me most is proposed new Section 436D: parents who fail to provide even the basic initial information under Section 436C — name, address, details of home educators — face a monetary penalty. That is far too harsh on ordinary parents trying to do an ordinary job. Section 436C(1)(e) requires very detailed information about every setting a child attends — Sunday schools, evening exercise classes — and demands notification of any change within 15 days. This is onerous. I ask my noble friend the Minister to think again.My Lords, I am somewhat disappointed that there has not been support so far for the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, which I co-signed. This is a very important amendment and I will explain why. The amendment is basically to remove from the Bill the provisions in proposed new Section 436D. The purpose therefore is to ask the Government and my noble friend the Minister to think again about it. The provisions place a requirement to provide information within 15 days on all parents, who must provide initial basic information under proposed new Section 436C, such as the name and home address of each parent and, under paragraph (e), a lot of very detailed information about the home educators who will be educating their children. If a parent is in breach of providing either the initial information or any changes to it, they are then guilty of breaching proposed new Section 436D. The further consequence, if they are in breach, is that they will suffer monetary penalty. This is unfair and far too harsh on ordinary parents who are trying to do an ordinary job of home schooling, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to think again about those provisions. They put the home-schooling parent into an almost criminal capacity, and that is just wrong. So I would be very grateful if my noble friend would think again about all those penalties. Let us remember that under new Section 436C(1)(e), a lot of detailed information has to be provided for Sunday schools, that a child may be going to, or for evening classes for physical exercise, and so forth. Things can easily change: perhaps there is a new gym mistress for the evening physical education class, or there are new preachers at the Sunday school. These are very detailed matters, but it does not matter about the detail. The obligation is for the parent to provide the details of the change and provide that detail of change within 15 days. This is far too onerous.
It is enormously important that local authorities have the opportunity to understand what is happening with children who are home-schooled, and they have a responsibility to check. I have no doubt the noble Baroness's grandchildren are brilliantly taught, but this is not true in every family. The Government are entirely right to take these steps — simply to check that children not at school are properly cared for.My Lords, I have not spoken much at this stage of the Bill but, having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I have to say very respectfully that I am concerned. It seems to me enormously important that the local authority has the opportunity to understand what is happening with children who are home-schooled, and it has the responsibility to check. I have no doubt at all that the family of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, teach their children extremely well at home but my understanding from what I have been told is that this is not true in every family. I think the Government are entirely right to be taking the steps that they are taking, just to check that our children who are not at school are properly cared for.
- The duty on parents to give information is key to the register's operation. Without knowing where and by whom a child is being educated, local authorities cannot identify potentially unsuitable or unsafe provision. On Amendment 277, the right to home-educate is not removed — I said this morning that this Government support it and want to provide additional recognition and support. On Lord Hacking's point: failure to provide information does not lead directly to fines; that was clear from my earlier remarks. On Amendment 278, allowing parents to use their own words is understandable but consistency of information across registers is essential — hence the delegated power for a prescribed form that we will make accessible and simple. Amendments 280 and 282 would restrict local authorities to requesting information once every 12 months — too long a gap; education concerns can arise at any time. Amendment 281's 'substantial change' threshold risks hiding a child attending an unregistered school for just 30 minutes more per week. Amendments 283 and 284 seek to extend the 15-day response time; the Bill already allows local authorities to extend that discretionarily. Amendment 287 would require magistrate or tribunal approval before any informal inquiry — entirely disproportionate. On Amendments 270, 380 and 382, existing complaint routes — the Local Government Ombudsman and judicial review — already provide redress; the new statutory guidance will strengthen consistency.
My Lords, as I have said previously, the duty on parents to give information for children not in school registers is key to their operation. Information on where the child is being educated, and by whom, is vital in enabling local authorities to identify cases of potentially unsuitable or unsafe education. The amendments in this group concern this requirement for parents to give information, and how local authorities must act in a transparent and accountable manner towards the home-educating families in their area. Amendment 277, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, seeks, in effect, to remove the requirement. I want to respond to the broader points that the noble Baroness made about home-schooling. I completely understand—actually, I am not sure that I do understand—why she might have wanted to celebrate the election of her new leader. In any event, I recognise that she has a new leader, which was decided this morning. Had she been here this morning, she would have heard what were, I hope, important comments from me and others on the support that exists within the English and Welsh education system, precisely for parents to home-educate, and the reiteration by this Government that there is no intention in this legislation to remove that right. In fact, there is an intention to provide additional recognition and support while also ensuring that local authorities are able to carry out their functions, by knowing where children are being educated otherwise than in school. I hope that the noble Baroness will read the comments that I made this morning about that. Without a requirement on home-educating parents to register with their local authority, authorities cannot be assured that they have fulfilled their education duties towards children not in school living in their areas. Parents having to provide required information is an absolutely crucial component for the success of the registers. I bring my noble friend Lord Hacking back to the poin…
- Thank you for those comprehensive answers — most of which amount to 'wait and see', which I am content to do. Could you send me the department's view on the scope of the Local Government Ombudsman in this area? I had assumed they would lack jurisdiction. I beg leave to withdraw.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that comprehensive set of answers, most of which amount to “wait and see”, which I shall be delighted to do. I would be very grateful if she would send me some information on what she thinks the scope of the Local Government Ombudsman is in this area. I had previously thought that they would not have jurisdiction, so I would be very grateful for the Department for Education’s understanding of what sort of questions they will feel able to resolve. Given that, I beg leave to withdraw.
These amendments come down to the use of information. I hope education policy follows what the data actually shows. A large group of home educators do it not by choice but because their children's needs are not being met elsewhere. Can the Government assure us that data from the register will be collated and used — including to drive long-awaited improvements in special educational needs provision — and that we will be told how it is managed and distributed?My Lords, we are doing things in a slightly unconventional way today, but I agree that it is probably in order. These amendments come down to the use of information. I would hope that education policy follows information and knowledge. I am talking here about the groups of home educators who are doing it not because they like the idea but because they feel they have to because needs are not being met. Earlier the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, spoke to an amendment specifying that you should find out certain things. Effectively, it is a reaction to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wei. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has tabled rather subtler amendments about the use and storage of information. I hope the Government can give us at least an assurance that they will be collating information to make sure that those who are home-educating because they feel they have no choice have an answer going forward. This will be very important in the Government’s long-awaited—and, I hope, not just aspirational—changes to special educational needs. We are a large group. I would hope that they are collecting this information, making sure they do something positive with it, then telling us how they manage and distribute it afterwards. That is an equally valid point.
The Government believe the department's understanding of children not in school can be improved through these measures. Amendment 271 would prevent register data being shared with DfE — that would undermine our ability to identify children who have fallen through the gaps, cross-reference relocations and detect illegal schools. Amendment 307 calls for a transparency register of data processing; current statutory accountability and quarterly GOV.UK publication of data-sharing arrangements already provide appropriate oversight. Amendment 308 would restrict individual-level data sharing to school attendance order cases — too narrow; individual-level data enables cross-referencing with departmental databases to find children who have disappeared, including those moving between England and Wales. Any data handled will comply with data protection law and GDPR.My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for stepping in and moving the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short but thoughtful debate. I will not take it personally. Fundamentally, the Government believe that the department’s understanding of children not in school can be improved through the measures in this Bill. Although we currently have collected and published aggregate data on home education and children missing education from local authorities since 2022, our understanding of this cohort of children can be enhanced further through improved quality of data collected by the department. This data will help identify trends among the cohort of children and help determine future policy needs. I assure noble Lords that any data handled by the department will be dealt with in accordance with data protection law and GDPR principles. I turn to the substance. Amendment 271 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would disallow data held on a local authority register from being stored on or shared with any other database that is held and managed by an organisation such as the Department for Education. We believe there is considerable value in the Secretary of State being able to receive data from local authority registers to improve oversight and understanding of this cohort on national and local levels. It will make it easier to identify when children have fallen through the gaps. The information collected will be used for straightforward reasons, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Analysis to identify trends to feed into policy development, maintaining the integrity of the register and supporting safeguarding, education and welfare will allow us to identify why some children are moving out of mainstream education. The adoption of this amendment would therefore undermine our efforts, as outlined in the Bill. Amendment 307 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would require certain public bo…
- This group would subject the most intrusive elements of the register to robust rolling checks and make them time-limited if they do not demonstrably work. Amendment 274 would let the register expire after two years unless renewed — systems do drift: Prevent, introduced as a targeted counter-radicalisation strategy, was quietly broadened into schools and nurseries; the UN special rapporteur described it as systematic surveillance of Muslim families under the guise of safeguarding. Amendment 330 calls for a two-year pilot before national rollout, so we understand how the system works in practice before imposing it on overstretched local authorities. Amendment 320 requires a review every two years and a report to Parliament. Amendment 329 would create an independent board of home educators and legal experts — SEND tribunals overturn 95% of local authority decisions precisely because independent panels exist to scrutinise flawed reasoning. Some councils insist on a rigid 'home at school' template and deem everything else unsuitable; expert oversight would catch that. One family was required to have their daughter seen alone by the local authority despite clear evidence of school-related trauma; another received a school attendance order threat within weeks of deregistration simply because the officer had no familiarity with unschooling.
My Lords, this group seeks to ensure that the most intrusive elements of the Bill, particularly the new register of children not in school and associated powers, are subjected to robust rolling checks and ultimately remain only if they demonstrably work. Amendment 274 from my noble friend Lord Wei would introduce a simple safeguard whereby the register will expire two years after its creation. This would make sure that the system does grow beyond its original purpose without a clear review. The troubled families programme is an example of a programme that was sold as an early intervention, but which had very little effect and continued long after people knew it was not doing anything useful. Similarly, Prevent, introduced as a targeted strategy to counter radicalisation, was quietly broadened over time into schools, nurseries and local authorities. The UN special rapporteur described it as the systematic surveillance of Muslim families and their children under the guise of safeguarding. These systems do tend to drift, so having the ability to curtail the register, or at least a requirement to review it, would seem a sensible safeguard. Amendment 330 calls for a two-year pilot scheme before the register is rolled out. We know from experience that local authorities are highly variable in their understanding, and we receive reports of wildly inconsistent demands. If we run this as a pilot, we will get a clear understanding of how the system is going to work before we have to try it nationally on a whole series of overstretched local authorities, some of which will be mid-reorganisation and not in a position to take on something new. Amendment 320 proposes that every two years the Secretary of State must review the operation of Sections 436B to 436G and lay their findings before Parliament. If we are not going to actively renew these, as previously proposed, we should at least be sure that we review them. Amendment 329 proposes an independent review board made up of hom…
The evidence does not support the claim that the Troubled Families programme achieved nothing — it is important not to let that go unchallenged.I will make a quick intervention, if I may, just to counter the claim that the troubled families programme achieved nothing. The evidence does not tell us that, so it is important not to allow us to think that.
That point is perfectly valid, and some elements of the Troubled Families programme — the single-partner relationship model — could be used for persistent school absence, where wider family issues often drive the problem. I invite the Minister to look at that.I support the point that has just been made, which is perfectly valid. Some of the elements of the troubled families programme could be used for school home support for children persistently absent from school. I invite the Minister to look at that, because some of the issues with children who are persistently absent are wider family issues. They need a relationship with one partner of government rather than many, which they do not trust. The noble Baroness makes a very good point.
I support Amendment 331 in Lord Storey's name, which would review the impact on home educators and on local authority administrative burdens. Given how much was discussed this morning about both the impact on families and the unpreparedness of some authorities, a review is even more necessary than before. The Minister has suggested regulations will provide flexibility; we need to know whether that flexibility actually works in practice.Rather foolishly in retrospect, I have added my name to several amendments proposed by Front-Bench Members of the parties opposite, and I therefore have to speak first on them, rather than just say that I agree. On this occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has proposed a new clause reviewing the impact on home-educators and the reduction of unnecessary reporting after the event. It also includes an assessment of the administrative and reporting requirements placed on local authorities as part of its proposed terms of reference. Particularly in the light of this morning’s discussions, when we looked a great deal at the impact on home-educators but also on unprepared local authorities, and the expectation that local authorities should up their game considerably as a result of a number of measures in the Bill, it will be even more important to undertake a review such as this. The Minister has suggested that regulation will provide considerable flexibility. Some of us, including me, have been arguing that some of that flexibility needs to be put in the Bill and that there needs to be parameters around it. But even if there is flexibility, it will be interesting to see whether that actually works in practice. I am very much a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey.
- Amendment 331 is quite simple: it is good practice to review how things have gone so you can adjust, leave things alone, or trumpet success. Given the degree of concern this issue has caused among home educators, building in a review — at 12 months, two years, whenever — is one small way to make them feel heard.
I shall speak to my Amendment 331. This is quite simple, really. It is good practice from time to time to review how things have gone so you are able to adjust it slightly, leave it alone or trumpet the fact that it has worked well. Given this is an issue which has caused such a degree of concern among home educators, this is one small way to say that, whatever is finally agreed, we are going to review it in 12 months, two years or whenever. I think that would make them feel a lot more satisfied with the way we have dealt with this Bill.
- I entirely agree with Lord Storey — a guaranteed review would be a great comfort. Home education legislation appears so rarely that a malfunctioning system could persist for ten years without one; knowing it would appear after two years would reassure families enormously.
My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on that. I think it is an excellent amendment. To have the certainty of that review would be a great comfort. Home education legislation appears so rarely that it might be 10 years before some malfunctioning system was put right. To make it appear after two years would be a great comfort.
- On Amendments 274 and 276, the objective is to identify children not receiving a suitable education — not only a safeguarding tool — so measuring success solely through safeguarding outcomes is inaccurate. On Amendment 329, we have already established a home-educator forum and will continue engaging post-implementation; a separate board is unnecessary. On Amendment 330, a pilot before national rollout is also unnecessary: the Bill already allows adjustments via regulations. On Amendment 331, six months is too soon to gather meaningful insights; we will begin analysing data one year after the registers come into force and engage with parents and providers at appropriate intervals. On Amendment 425, requiring automatic expiry of all home-education law every five years would create uncertainty and waste parliamentary time. Where monitoring shows adjustments are needed, we will bring them forward in the usual way.
My Lords, this has been a useful and considered debate. I thank noble Lords for their participation. Local authorities have existing duties under the Education Act 1996 to identify children in their area who are not registered at school and not receiving a suitable education and to intervene in such cases. The ability of local authorities to fulfil these duties has been undermined by there not being an obligation on parents to inform the local authority that they are home-educating. Statutory children not in school registers, along with duties on parents and out-of-school education providers to provide information, will support local authorities to identify those children not receiving a suitable education and take action to address this. On Amendments 274, 276 and 320, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, and moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, these amendments would require the Secretary of State to publish evidence on the impact and operation of children not in school registers within two years of their creation in order for them to remain in place. In relation to Amendment 320, of course we will periodically evaluate the impact of the registers on local authorities and parents, following their implementation, and bring forward any necessary adjustments to your Lordships’ House as appropriate. In response to Amendments 274 and 276, the central objective of the registers is to support local authorities to identify children not in school in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. This is not just a tool for safeguarding. We therefore do not agree with Amendments 274 and 276, which suggest that solely looking at safeguarding outcomes would be an accurate measure of the register’s success. On Amendment 329, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which would require the Secretary of State to establish a board of home educators and educational experts to evaluate the impact of the registers, this amendment is unnecessary as we already intend to evaluat…
- Delighted to hear the home-educator forum will continue. Will the Government consider issuing an occasional communiqué from it — not complete openness, just enough so we know what is going on? You mentioned starting a review one year after implementation — a sensible timeline — but will you also commit to establishing a baseline so we know where things started, and make a slightly firmer commitment to report to Parliament?
My Lords, I am very grateful for those responses. I am delighted to hear that the forum of home educators is to continue. Will the Government consider producing an occasional communiqué from that forum? I would not expect complete openness but something so that we can all know what is going on. The noble Baroness said she will start reviewing one year after. That seems a sensible timeline to me, but will she also commit to a baseline so that we know where they have started from and not just where they are in a year’s time? Might she also make a slightly firmer commitment to report to Parliament on how it is going?
- I am happy to write to the noble Lord and reflect on what he has said.
I am happy to commit to write to the noble Lord and reflect on what he has said.
- Amendment 288A is the counterpart to the parent-information amendments: it covers what out-of-school providers must report. Two words are central — 'regular' and 'not primarily social or recreational'. 'Regular' matters because one-off or last-minute activities cannot be pre-registered; it should not be in statute only in guidance. 'Not primarily social or recreational' turns the question the right way round: rugby training and Girl Guides could easily be labelled 'educational', so it is clearer to exempt what is primarily social or recreational — a straightforward judgment that would calm many fears. The Wildlife Trusts have already stood down their home-education programme because of data concerns; that should not be the outcome.
My Lords, Amendment 288A is in my name. In a way, it is the counterpart to the amendment we debated this morning under which parents would have to provide information about providers. This is about the information that the providers need to provide. There are two points in it. I have used the same format as the earlier amendment to say “a person or organisation is providing regular out-of-school education to a child not registered in school, for more than 10 hours in a week” and used the words “is not primarily social or recreational” and “takes place without any parent of the child being” there. I will dwell for a moment on those two points: “regular” and “not primarily social or recreational”. The point about “regular”, as we have touched on but not fully discussed, is that this should not apply to one-off or occasional items, some of which will come up at short notice and cannot therefore be included in the register because the parents did not know about them in time to give notice. It would be extremely useful to have this in the Bill and not just in guidance. As I argued earlier, we need some parameters around what will come out in regulation. The word “regular” is not a particularly difficult one for the Government to include and would clarify that this refers only to people who are providing regular activities—maybe a definition of regular would be needed. The other point on which I want to dwell a little more is saying that these activities are “not primarily social or recreational”. The Minister will correct me, but I think that at some point she said that it was not expected that activities that are not educational should be included in the register. The trouble is that a lot of activities—such as rugby training or swimming lessons, where they are carried out by a school—are educational, or could be, and, for example, the Girl Guides is an educational charity. It would be easy enough to label these organisations and activities as educational, which is why…
- I am a trustee of the Atlas Foundation, which supports youth rugby groups that reliably reach young people at risk of offending. Will this duty catch them? Rugby attracts children not in school because they have rejected school; these groups are run by amateurs who do their own tax returns. An extra administrative burden on volunteer-run charities — who want to spend money on kids, not paperwork — could push them out. Can we have a clear assurance that organisations whose client base partly includes home-educated children are not swept in?
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, this is probably not an interest that I have to declare under the rules of the House, but it is relevant. I am a trustee of the Atlas Foundation, which helps a couple of groups to do with rugby, and which regards itself as benefitting children through rugby. Rugby is a nice sport, with lots of structure and authority figures, and such groups reliably reach young people who are in danger of offending and so on. Will these groups be taken down by this? This will not be the cuddly end of home education. It will concern people not in school because they do not like school and have rejected it, who might technically be regarded as home-educated. What is their status? Are they affected? Is this going to put an administrative burden on groups which are run by amateurs—by people who do their own tax returns, such as the secretaries of organisations? Will we put this burden on them? A little clarification and common sense might help. If some of your client base comes from this area, what is your status? Placing another administrative burden on organisations which, if they are run on a charitable basis, do not want to spend their money on admin but rather on the help they provide, might put more pressure on them. I do not think it was the Government’s intention, but making sure this does not catch those organisations is very important.
These amendments clarify the responsibilities that the Bill places on providers and how they fulfil them in practice — highlighting the variety of approaches used to home-educate. Amendments 291 and 293 in my name and Lord Hampton's are probing amendments. In light of the Minister's earlier point that weekends and holidays may not apply to some home-educated children, there is no need for the Minister to cover that again.My Lords, this is a large group of very detailed amendments which seek to clarify the responsibilities that the Bill will place on providers and how they are expected to fulfil those responsibilities in practice. The amendments, which are mainly in the names of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, highlight the variety that exists in the range of approaches that are used to educate children at home. I know that the Minister’s earlier commitment that officials would work through these points with my noble friends and other noble Lords over the summer was very much appreciated by them, and I hope that any outstanding uncertainty can be clarified when the Minister makes her closing remarks. Amendments 291 and 293, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, are probing amendments and have, at least in part, been addressed by the Minister earlier today. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and I accept her point that the concept of weekends and holidays might not apply to some home-educated children, so I do not think there is any need for the Minister to cover that point again when she responds.
- These providers play an important part for home-educating families; the measures in the Bill give them no reason to stop their valuable work. We will keep engaging with the sector on implementation. Amendment 288, removing the provider duty altogether, is essential for cross-referencing register accuracy. Amendment 290, removing 'structured', would perversely expand scope — bringing informal ad hoc arrangements in. The duty applies only where education is provided without a parent actively involved in supervision, so parent co-ops meeting together are unlikely to be caught. Amendment 288A's 'regular' and 'not primarily social or recreational' language captures the intent well — I can confirm it is our intention to exempt museums offering workshops, public lectures, and work-experience placements. On the threshold for hours, Amendments 288A, 291, 292 and 293 illustrate why six hours and ten hours are both being suggested — exactly why it should not be set in primary legislation; regulations subject to the affirmative procedure are the right vehicle. Amendments 294 and 299 seek to remove the duty to confirm whether education exceeds the prescribed threshold or how many hours are provided — the latter is critical to identifying children attending illegal unregistered schools for long hours. Amendment 296 would limit providers to information 'they already know' — too easy for a bad provider to say 'I don't know'. Amendment 300 would remove the requirement for requests to be served at the place of education — electronic service is already possible and we can clarify that in guidance.
Let me organise my notes—you are keen for things to move quickly and then they move just that bit too quickly. The importance of out-of-school education providers to home-educating families has been raised several times already. I recognise again the important part these settings play, providing enriching activities and education to a vast array of children. I hope that these providers will recognise that the measures included in the Bill give no reason to cease this valuable work—notwithstanding that I recognise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about the concerns of organisations as we clarify the intentions here. We will continue, therefore, to engage with the sector on the implementation of children not in school registers, so it is confident in what the registers mean for it. The amendments in this group concern the duty on certain out-of-school education providers to give information for children not in school registers. Amendment 288, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the duty. This is a vital element of the measures that will aid the identification of children who should be on registers but are not. It is essential for enabling local authorities to cross-reference information on their registers to ensure accuracy. We know that many out-of-school education providers share our ambition to secure the best possible outcomes for these children and will gladly support the registers on that basis. Amendment 290, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the word “structured” from the definition of out-of-school education. Actually, the impact of this amendment would be to potentially bring many more providers into scope of the duty, such as informal or ad hoc educational arrangements. It is important that the duty remains proportionate. I know that proportionality is an ambition shared by many noble Lords in this House and has been an important theme of the debates today. This is not to say that informal or ad hoc educati…
- The Minister's statements on what the regulations will and will not cover were clear and definitive. Would she consider putting any part of that in the Bill itself? It seemed not beyond the wit of the department to find form of words that signal the intent without foreclosing flexibility in regulation.
My Lords, the Minister made some excellent and very clear statements in response to my amendment, which are extremely useful. Will she consider putting any part of that in the Bill? It seemed to me that she was very clear and definitive, and that it was not beyond the wit of the department to come up with some clever form of words that would indicate what she stated without making it very difficult to introduce regulations later. Perhaps that is something the Minister would consider.
- I have stated it on the record, and the regulations will be subject to this House's consideration. The reason for keeping it out of the Bill is genuine — two suggestions have already been made about the threshold (six hours and ten hours), and that kind of specificity creates real inflexibility. I am happy to write setting out the intention on those regulations.
I have stated it on the record here. I have also identified one of the problems with putting it in the Bill—I used the example of time limits, where, so far, we have had two different suggestions as to whether that should be six hours or 10 hours. The noble Lord knows this, but there are real difficulties and inflexibilities in placing that sort of detail in legislation. I would be more than happy to write to noble Lords, going over again the intention with respect to those regulations. I think I am right in saying that the regulations will also be subject to consideration by this House. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord. As much as I know that people love things to be in Bills, in this case I genuinely think that we can be clear about the intention and provide assurances without creating the inflexibility that placing something in the Bill would do.
- Amendment 295 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was not spoken to in the debate — has the Minister addressed it? It imposes detailed information obligations on parents, with a monetary penalty for breach.
If my noble friend could imagine that she has not sat down, I would like to ask one question. Maybe I have missed it out, but the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, tabled Amendment 295 but did not speak to it in the debate, and I am not sure that I heard any reply to it from my noble friend. This amendment is important because, once again, detailed information is being sought from parents and, if they are in breach of providing that information, it is stipulated that they are exposed to monetary penalty. Has my noble friend dealt with this? Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, can help here.
- I did cover Amendment 295. We have moved from the parent-information provisions to penalties on *providers* — not parents. There is considerable reassurance about both the process and the range of circumstances in which monetary penalties would be an absolute last resort for providers failing to provide information.
Well, I can reassure my noble friend that I did cover Amendment 295 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. What we are talking about in these provisions relates to penalties on providers. We have moved on from the discussions that we were having about the requirements for parents to provide information. I hope that my noble friend will look back on what I said. I did provide quite considerable reassurance about both the process and the range of circumstances in which monetary penalties would most certainly not be the first thing that would be looked to in relation to a failure by providers to provide information.
- Amendment 306 would require DfE to publish aggregate GCSE results for children registered as home-educated — not individual results, but aggregate: what percentage sit public exams, what the results are, and what percentage sit none at all. Published separately from school data so there is no confusion. Why would the Government not want to publish this? Amendment 317 would extend reporting to other groups of children under state care not in a specific school — all children's performance should be understood for good governance of education.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 306 in my name, which would require the Department for Education to publish the aggregate GCSE results of those children registered as being educated at home. I stress “aggregate”, because I think there was some confusion when this amendment was debated in the other place as to whether we were seeking to publish the individual GCSE results of individual children, which is not the aim of this amendment. The aim is to give some relevant insight from this data, including what percentage of children who are electively home-educated end up sitting public exams, what those results are and what percentage are not sitting public exams. Our amendment would see these results being published separately from those relating to schools, so that the data would not be confused. I suppose I am puzzled as to why the Government would not want to publish this information. I will touch briefly on the other amendments in this group. Amendment 317 is very much in the same spirit as my Amendment 306, in the names of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei. It seeks similar data, in relation not just to electively home-educated children but to those looked after by the local authority, those in a PRU or in special education otherwise than at school. I wonder whether the Minister thinks this would be useful or whether some of the numbers involved would be so small as perhaps to be potentially misleading. Amendment 316, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Storey, probes the provision of financial support for electively home-educated children sitting public exams, and the Minister will know that there are real issues in practice about these children being able to sit public exams, and finance is one part of that. I appreciate the pressure on local authority budgets, but of course these are, effectively, children who have saved the state money, and I for one would be keen to see as many as possible sit public exams. I beg to move.
- This is a no-brainer. England has one of the lightest-touch approaches to home-education oversight in Europe, so understanding these children's outcomes is essential. Home educators themselves should welcome this — it gives them the opportunity to show their results.
My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 306 in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. Given that this country has the joint lightest-touch approach in Europe in relation to the oversight of home education, I would have thought this is a no-brainer to enable us to understand more about the performance of these children. I also hope that those in the home education lobby will welcome and support the amendment, as it would give them the opportunity to show their paces.
- Reporting at a national level involves no personally identifiable data, but it would put a figure on the table and draw attention to what is happening across the cohort — whether outcomes differ, what the difficulties are, and how to drive improvement over time. The starting point is simply getting the data out.
My Lords, I have Amendment 317 in this group, which would rather expand the range of reporting to other groups of children who are under the care of the state and not in a specific school. It is really important for the governance of education in this country that we understand how all our children are performing. I would expect a local authority to take an interest in the examinations of home-educated children and these other groups of children in Amendment 317 in their local area. I would expect the Department for Education also to be interested, not for year-to-year panicking but in a determination to understand what the difficulties and differences are and how, over time, to drive the results up. The basic starting point of that is to get the data out. Particularly if you are reporting at a national level, you are not reporting anything that has any element of personal or identifiable data to it, but you are putting a bit of data down on the table to draw people’s attention to what the state of affairs is. That is a very important part of the way in which the state should have responsibility for what it is providing to our children. Equally, I agree with those who are saying, particularly as we are bringing home education within the scope of the state so much more, that we should take responsibility for making sure that home-educated children find it easy to take crucial examinations. At the moment, it is extraordinarily difficult. They may have to travel hundreds of miles to find an examination centre and pay thousands of pounds to have access to an exam. The Prime Minister is borrowing a flat so that his child may have a quiet environment in which to study for his examinations, so one would hope that the Government realise that making it easy to take exams within a reasonable distance from home and without undue stress on the family’s finances is an objective we should have—particularly when, as my noble friend says, home-educated children are saving us so muc…
- I support Amendment 306. The home-educated children I have seen can perform well — their results might improve the national picture. On Amendment 316, in my name and Lord Storey's, access to exam centres is perhaps the biggest practical obstacle that home-educating parents have reported to me.
My Lords, I support the proposal on GCSE results from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. It is very important, for the reasons she suggests. I have seen some interesting results from home-educated children, which show them performing well in these areas. The results would be interesting to see and may improve the score, as it were, for the country as a whole. Secondly, I entirely support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I will say nothing more except that this is perhaps the biggest single practical obstacle in the current regime that home-educating parents have reported to me. I will leave it to the noble Lord to press that case.
- On Amendment 306, I would like to hear from the Minister why we would not want to do this. On Amendment 316, in my name and Lord Crisp's — it would be wrong to say 'you chose home education so you can pay for exams yourself'. There was a huge rise in home-educated children during Covid, many from deprived areas who simply cannot afford exam fees. This is a hand of educational friendship. Not every home educator has the resources. Local authorities should help.
My Lords, I will deal first with Amendment 306 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which we also support. I am interested in hearing from the Minister about why we would not want to do this. On Amendment 316, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, it is easy to say, “You chose to let your children not be part of the school system, so you can just get on with it. You chose to home-educate them, so we are not going to pay for exams or whatever”. That would be the wrong way to approach this. If we really want to make home education closer to local authorities, so that they support each other, there are a number of supportive things we can do. Not every home educator has the financial resources to pay for examinations. We saw a huge rise in home-educated children during Covid, many of whom come from deprived areas. Families really struggle to find the costs for examinations, so supporting this amendment would be a hand of educational friendship. We know that home educators take huge pressure off the education budget as a whole and off school rolls, so I just think it is the right thing to do. I am quite fascinated by Amendment 478 and looking forward to hearing the Minister’s reply. I thought that all high achievers—super-high achievers, if you like—whether they are educated at home or at a maintained school, academy or free school, would get that recognition. I do not quite understand this amendment, so perhaps the Minister will enlighten us.
- Lord Storey raised this at Second Reading and I supported him then. It is simply unfair that home-educated children face a financial penalty for taking exams that state-educated children sit for free. Encouraging home educators to put their children through examinations also allows the quality of their teaching to be tested.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised this issue at Second Reading. I supported him then and I support him again now. It is quite unfair that a child who has been educated privately at home should be placed in a different position from state-educated children. All children who have been home educated should be encouraged to go through these exams and not face a financial penalty. This is a very simple measure, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to give it favourable consideration. It is a much fairer system and it encourages all home-educating parents to put their children through examination, so that the quality of their teaching can be tested.
- Parents who choose to home-educate assume full financial responsibility, because a state-funded school place remains available. On Amendment 306, aggregating GCSE results is harder than it sounds: home education takes many forms and many parents choose not to put their children through exams; comparing results with those from schools would not yield a meaningful measure of provision quality. On Amendment 316, local authorities already have a support duty under the Bill — including on access to past exam papers — but the Government's view is that parents bear the cost of exam fees. I acknowledge the practical difficulty of exam centre access and am willing to give further consideration to how we could support parents in finding access without placing a statutory requirement on local authorities.
Supporting children to achieve and thrive requires parents, authorities and education providers to work together. That is what much of our debate today has been about and speaks to the amendments in this group that concern the facilitation of examinations and the publication of exam results for home-educated children.
- I understand the reluctance to publish data as though home educators were a school. But one of the long-running criticisms of home education is the absence of outcome data — it makes it impossible to show that children are doing well. Even for internal policy-making, being able to understand the effects of the current internationally liberal approach would be very useful.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response to Amendment 317. I understand her reluctance to publish information as if home educators were a school, but I urge her to think how useful it would be to have that information for understanding what is happening in home education. It is one of the long-running criticisms of home education that there is no information as to how these children are doing—you say they are doing well, but you cannot show me any information as to that. It would be really useful in understanding, as the noble Baroness has said, whether an internationally liberal approach to home education is justified. Even if it is only for the Government’s own policy formation, I very much hope they will make sure that they can put together the sort of information I have detailed in this amendment, so that they can understand the effects of policies as they are at the moment.
- The Minister's reasons for not aggregating and publishing GCSE results were, as I wrote down, that it was hard to do and would not produce the results we expect. It feels curious that you could not simply add a tick-box on an exam form for home-educated status and aggregate that. The whole point was also to know how many home-educated children are *not* sitting public exams — that too would be valuable. On the support duty and exam-centre access, how the duty is communicated to parents will be of great importance.
My Lords, on behalf of all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, I thank the Minister for her response. I absolutely support the sentiment just expressed by my noble friend Lord Lucas about the importance of understanding the outcomes for children who are home-educated. In relation to my Amendment 306, the reasons that the Minister gave for not aggregating and publishing, or even aggregating and not publishing, their GCSE results was—as I wrote down—that, first, it was hard to do and, secondly, it would not produce the results that we expect. It feels curious to me that someone could not put a box on the form—that a child could tick, to say that they were home-educated—that could be aggregated. On the expected results, the whole point, or part of the point, was to understand how many home-educated children were taking public exams and how many were not. I think that would be a useful bit of information. So I do not accept the argument that it would not produce the results that we expect; we do not have an expectation because we do not know what they are. More widely, when there were very small numbers of children who were home-educated, it was perhaps—
- To be clear — I did not mean that the data would not produce the results we expect. I meant that the different nature of home education and parents' diverse choices — many of whom decide exams are not the right route for their children — would mean we could not formulate from that data a common view of performance in the way the noble Baroness suggests.
Just to be clear, I do not know whether I said that they would not produce the results that we expect. If I did, that was not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that in terms of the ability to have a statistical analysis of the quality of home education, the different nature of home education and the range, quite rightly, of decisions made by parents—many of whom might decide that exams are not the appropriate route for their children—would mean that we would not be able to formulate from that data the common view of performance that the noble Baroness is suggesting would be the objective.
Amendments 309 and 310 would alter local-authority behaviour so that they must *offer* support proactively rather than waiting for a request. This matters because parents in marginalised communities, low in literacy or remote from the digital world, may not know support is available; and Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents are particularly in need of outreach. I also support Amendment 309A on language accessibility and Amendment 426C on access to sport and recreation for home-educated children.My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 309 and 310 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am grateful. I also support Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, on language accessibility, and Amendment 426C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on access to sport and recreation. I can see that the practical implications of that are a little complicated, but it would be really important for home-educated children to have the same encouragement for physical activity. My amendments would alter the behaviour of the registering authority in that it would have to offer, not wait for the home education parent to request, support. This is, first, because parents in marginalised communities, remote from the digitalised world and in some cases low in literacy, may not know that support is available, and, secondly, because, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents may have learned to distrust public authorities because of the widely attested discrimination and prejudice they will have experienced. Requiring local authorities to make the first move would enable the authority to identify more clearly what kind of support is needed and, further, find out what problems the child experienced in school so that these can be addressed. I hope my noble friend will accept these amendments.
- Amendments 313 and 314 try to rebuild trust between home-educating families and local authorities — trust that was badly damaged by the original presentation of this Bill. There are more than 100,000 home-educated children but also a 'missing' 100,000 whose whereabouts are unknown; local authorities need to keep both groups in mind. My amendments seek positive statements about home education and practical support for rebuilding that relationship.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 313 and 314 in my name. I originally thought I was going to speak for rather longer on this, but so much has already been covered, including the fact that I was looking here for some very positive statements from the Minister about home education generally. Such statements have been coming throughout this debate, which is extremely good. I am also totally supportive of the fact that the Minister needs to send out some very firm messages about the people missing school. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, there are more than 100,000 home-educated children but also a missing 100,000 and we do not know where they are, so there is a balance to be drawn between both of those. My two amendments try to pick up on the point about rebuilding trust in the system among home-education parents, and indeed perhaps among local authorities, which has been quite badly damaged by the original presentation of this Bill. As has been said already today, there is a common endeavour here to secure the education, welfare and future of children and young people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in the country. Those are the young people we are talking about. Throughout the Bill, we need to get the balance right between safeguarding and necessary bureaucracy, between parental and state responsibility, and between necessary assessment and support. I do not think that is being achieved at the moment.
- Amendment 315 follows on from Lord Crisp's contribution. Local authorities are under huge financial pressure and vary enormously in their expertise with alternative education approaches. Officers who visit families may be completely unfamiliar with home education or special educational needs. The premise that local authorities are always best placed to judge every child's needs — over and above their own families — may simply be wrong.
My amendments so far have tried not to put further administrative burdens on families who home-school. It can be vast, complicated and very difficult for them to achieve. However, my Amendment 315 follows on very nicely from the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, because, at the moment, there are huge financial pressures on local councils. We know that local authorities are struggling. I am told that the special educational needs and disabilities system is creaking at the seams—some people are using the words “breaking point”. So the premise that local authorities are best placed to judge the needs of any child, especially over and above their own families, is perhaps foolish, because local authorities vary enormously in expertise and understanding of alternative education approaches. Officers who visit families might be very unfamiliar with the sort of experience they see. They may be unfamiliar with home education and special educational needs, and they may not know much about child development. They might make subjective and perhaps inconsistent judgments about the family they are seeing and might penalise families who are supplying excellent education simply because it does not look like “school”. It is quite important that we understand that local authorities have to exercise extremely difficult judgment. Putting a further burden on families is really unwise.
- Some local authorities seize any opportunity to push home-educating parents back into school. Approaching a local authority for help should feel ordinary — the way a solicitor would go to another solicitor — and it must never be used against families. A strong relationship between home educators and local authorities depends on protecting against that misuse.
My Lords, I very much support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. This is really the nub of things—how we can make support work. I also support what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said. It is absolutely clear that some local authorities take any opportunity to tip home-educating parents into getting their children back into school. We want to be encouraging parents, at all times, to approach local authorities to say that they need some help—that is a perfectly ordinary thing to do. If you as a solicitor are sued by someone else, the first thing you would do is find another solicitor. Even if you are an expert, you go and ask for help. It should be regarded as ordinary. No one should take on something such as home education without looking all the possible sources of advice, because there will always be someone who has insights that go beyond your knowledge. Protecting against the misuse of that approach is important to making sure that we have a strong relationship between local authorities and parents. My Amendment 311 would require local authorities to explicitly take account of the needs of the child and the educational preference of the parents. That is a very important part of the attitude; the local authority should understand the parents and work with them, not try to impose its own formula. I will also speak to a number of amendments in this group tabled by my noble friend Lord Wei. Amendments 390, 401, 402, 407, 419 and 422 address the financial asymmetry borne by home-educating families. Every child educated at home saves the state around £7,500 a year. However, the entire burden of curriculum costs, exam fees, tutoring and lost parental income falls on the families themselves. Amendment 390 would introduce tax relief for education expenses, while Amendment 401 would grant rebates when families home-educate due to a lack of suitable school places. Amendment 402 would adjust council tax to reflect that home-educating households are n…
- Amendment 309A says that where a parent does not have English as a first language, support information should be provided in a language they understand. It is a small point but important to get on the record. I would also ask whether there is a way to link sporting education support for home-educated children, given that physical fitness and the arts can build confidence in groups that struggle in traditional school settings.
My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend Lady Garden was beaten by the rapid progress that has been made by recent standards, so I shall just draw the House’s attention to her amendment, which says that if someone does not have English as a first language, they should receive some help in understanding the requirements, and that that should be appropriate to them when they are dealing with this field. It is not a big thing, but it is important to get it and the Government’s response on the record. Looking down this very eclectic list of amendments, I come to one from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about sports education, and I wonder if there is some way of linking in there. One of our challenges is how much we should help people with sporting education. Physical fitness is an important part of that; it is a great way of asserting degrees of confidence in certain groups of people, and we could put the arts down here as well. Are the Government looking at ways in which certain aspects that cannot be provided in a small setting might be done by the education establishment? Is any thought going into this? We have sport on the list, and we could easily put something like the performing arts down too.
- Three themes run through this group: what support home-educating parents can expect from local authorities, how specific elements are delivered (language, equality of access to school facilities), and the new support duty itself. It would be very helpful for the Government to set out what the basic support offer from local authorities will look like and how it will be funded.
My Lords, three main themes run through this group of amendments. The first relates to the practical support offered to home-educating parents who request it. Amendments 309 and 310 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, have merit in that they seek clarity about what support can be expected from a local authority, although in practice I imagine that the term “appropriate support” might be hard to guarantee. As we have just heard, other amendments focus on very specific elements of support, such as Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, which would offer support in a language that parents understand, or Amendment 313 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, regarding the provision of the same support for electively home-educated children as is available to children in schools. It would be very helpful for the Government to set out what the basic support offer from local authorities will look like and how it will be funded. I hope very much that the Minister will cover this when she responds. The second principle that emerges from this group is about the relationship between electively home-educating families and the local authority, which I know my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei have been particularly concerned about. This is set out most comprehensively in Amendment 314 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. It is helpful to see the spirit of engagement that electively home-educating families would like to have with local authorities. I am not quite sure—perhaps the Minister has an answer—how you legislate for relationships. Having clarity about the Government’s expectations in this area, alongside what the basic support offer will be, could create a degree of transparency, which is a good platform from which to build good relationships.
- This Government are introducing the first-ever duty on local authorities to provide support specifically for home-educating families — a baseline across all English and Welsh authorities. On Amendments 309 and 310, proactively requiring support irrespective of parental choice would remove local-authority discretion and the choice of families who prefer not to engage. On Amendment 309A, local authorities must already have due regard to accessibility including use of languages other than English. On Amendment 313, expecting access to school facilities as of right is tied to school attendance — a state-funded place remains available for those who want it. On exam access: the Joint Council for Qualifications website lists exam centres; I recognise the practical difficulty of accessing them and am willing to give further consideration to facilitating access without imposing a statutory duty on local authorities. On Amendment 315, allowing a support request to halt school attendance order proceedings would create a system open to abuse. On the financial support amendments, parents who choose home education bear the financial responsibility; the data collection from registers will support ongoing research into home-education outcomes.
My Lords, this Government are introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support specifically for home-educating families. While home-educating parents assume full responsibility for the education of their child, local authorities can and should be a source of information and advice for parents. At the heart of this is the importance of families and local authorities working together to support all children to achieve and thrive. The support duty establishes a baseline level of support across all English and Welsh local authorities. We will say more about the form that that should take in statutory guidance, were this legislation to pass—or when it passes, I should say, optimistically. I shall respond to some of the points that have been raised in this group on the support duty and access to resources and facilities for home educators. First, I turn to those amendments which focus on the operation of the support duty and relationships between local authorities and home-educating families: Amendments 309, 309A, 310, 311, 313, 313A, 314 and 315. Amendments 309 and 310, tabled by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, would require local authorities to provide support to families irrespective of whether they choose to access it. I have sympathy with the points made by my noble friend about some of the very vulnerable children who may receive home education. It is probably more appropriate to think about the other forms of support that those children should receive—or even, given that level of vulnerability, whether or not home education is the appropriate and suitable education for them. The other issue is that this proposal would also remove local authority discretion as to the nature of the support provided. It would mean that many home-educating families who would prefer to have a choice as to whether they wish to access the support offered by local authorities would not have that choice, as the amendment suggests that authorities should provide support…
- On exam centres — I began exploring in early 2024 what was required to reverse years of declining availability, before that work was interrupted in July. About half a dozen organisations each have their own requirements that do not quite mesh, making it hard for a school to continue admitting outside candidates. One of the complications is the Equalities and Human Rights Commission's position: if a school admits any outside candidate, it must admit all, including those with special needs requiring separate rooms it may not have. That creates a deterrent even for schools that want to help.
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s response to my amendments, but may I pick up briefly the question of exam centres for home-educated children? The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, was kind enough in early 2024 to allow me to start exploring what was required to reverse the trend that we have seen for many years of a reduction in availability of exam centres. This was rudely interrupted in July—sadly, for us—but it was clear to me that there was no lack of good will. We have a collection of about half a dozen organisations, each of which has sets of individual requirements and ways of looking at things that do not quite mesh and that make it difficult for a school to continue the provision. This includes the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. One of the great difficulties is that, if you allow any outside candidate, you have to admit all outside candidates, and if any of them have special needs and require particular provision in separate rooms and you do not have that, you do not know where to provide it and you do not have the budget for the staffing, you just say, “We cannot do this because we cannot handle the exceptional circumstances”. It is a question of getting people together and saying, “We, the Government, have an objective: we want home-educated children to have reasonable access to exam centres. Please sit down together, sort out your differences and give us the answer”. And they would, because it is perfectly possible; it just requires a series of small compromises.
- I am not convinced the Equality and Human Rights Commission is the reason for the difficulties in the way the noble Lord outlines, but I take the point that progress could be made with some brokering of arrangements. I am willing to give further consideration to information about access to examinations and how to overcome the practical issues.
I am not convinced that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is the reason why there are difficulties in the way that the noble Lord outlined, but I take his point that we could make progress on this were there to be some brokering of arrangements. I would be willing to give further consideration to information about access to examinations and how to overcome some of the issues.
Amendment 333ZA would prompt a review of safeguarding practices in private tuition, including background checks. I declare an interest as a secondary school teacher and former private cricket coach. Under the private-arrangement exemption in Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, individuals barred from working with children can legally operate as private tutors if hired directly by a parent — no legal requirement for an enhanced DBS check, no mechanism to prevent someone on the barred list from tutoring children. This includes those struck off by the Teaching Regulation Agency. The Sutton Trust reports that about 30% of children aged 11–16 have private tutors; this loophole is significant and increasingly relevant.My Lords, I will speak to the rather dramatically numbered Amendment 333ZA in my name and belatedly declare an interest as a state secondary school teacher. In the past I also worked as a private cricket coach, which is quite relevant here. I acknowledge the help of Edapt in this amendment and in bringing this issue to my attention. I was astonished to discover that under current UK legislation, individuals barred from working with children can still legally operate as private tutors if hired directly by a parent. This is due to the private arrangement exemption in Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. As a result, there is no legal requirement for such tutors to undergo an enhanced DBS check, nor a legal mechanism to prevent someone on the barred list offering or delivering tuition to children. This is also true of those who have been struck off by the Teaching Regulation Agency. This loophole presents a significant and increasingly relevant safeguarding risk, especially in the context of rising private tuition, including via online platforms. The private arrangement exemption applies even where tuition is paid, unsupervised or delivered online. Research published by the Sutton Trust suggested that 30% of 11 to 16 year-olds in the UK had received private tuition at some point. That includes both my children; it never occurred to me to ask for a DBS. The BBC recently reported that 90 private tutors in the UK have been convicted of sexual offences involving children over the past 20 years. While many tutoring platforms and companies require DBS checks, the current legal framework leaves a large part of the educational landscape unregulated, particularly for self-employed tutors working independently. This is not commonly known. Speaking in September last year, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: “Anybody who is working one-on-one with a child as a tutor, should have a DBS criminal record check. It’s an absolute basic minimum”. Her…
- I was not aware of this situation until this morning, and I am dumbfounded. We have rightly made schools very safe places; imagine a teacher dismissed after being arrested for a serious child sex offence who can still offer private tuition — hired directly by a parent who would reasonably assume a teacher had been safeguarding-checked. This is not about criminalising parents but about closing the gap. At Report, after conversations have been had, we need an amendment that addresses this.
I am sorry that I raised this issue in the debate on an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I was not aware of this situation until this morning, and I was dumbfounded. We have rightly made our schools very safe places for our children, and safeguarding is one of the key things that Ofsted inspections look at. As we have heard, the Sutton Trust says that about 30% of children aged between 11 and 16 have private tutoring, either in person or online. Imagine a situation where a teacher in a school has been dismissed from their position after being arrested for a serious child sex offence, and might even have gone to prison if found guilty. They could do private tutoring if they were employed by a parent, with no safeguarding taking place. That surely cannot be right. This is not about criminalising parents who employ them—I do not think parents would be aware—but about making sure that, on Report, perhaps after conversations have been had with the Minister, this final loophole is sorted once and for all.
- The noble Lord has made a very clear case that providers of online and in-person tuition should face the same safeguarding checks as in-person settings. Those barred from teaching should not be able legally to offer services directly to parents. That said, parents remain ultimately responsible for checking out the tuition their children receive — a DBS check contributes important information but is not sufficient: the vast majority of sex offenders never appear on a DBS check. Balance must be struck, and I look forward to the Minister's response.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has made a very clear case that providers of online and in-person tuition services should be subject to the same safeguarding checks as those providing tuition in person, particularly in relation to the gap in the current legislation that he outlined. I agree completely on the importance of safety for children who receive private tuition and that those barred from teaching should not be able legally to offer their services directly to parents. However, I have a slight hair shirt in relation to this issue, because I think that parents are ultimately responsible for checking out the tuition services that their children receive. Having a DBS check can contribute important information, but it is by no means sufficient. We know that the vast majority of sex offenders do not get reported to the police or end up with a criminal record, and their behaviour would not appear on a DBS check. There is a balance to be struck—in no way diluting the responsibility of parents while closing the loophole as the noble Lord suggests.
- Not all agencies that employ tutors carry out checks.
The noble Baroness might not be aware that not all agencies that employ tutors carry out checks.
- Parents might not have the wherewithal to know how to go about checking. They would assume — wrongly — that a tutor from an agency had been cleared, and that a teacher employed directly had had safeguarding checks already.
Parents might not have the wherewithal to know how to go about checking and would assume—wrongly, obviously—that if they employed a tutor from an agency, that tutor would have been cleared. If the tutor was not from an agency but employed directly, parents would assume that, because they were a teacher, they would have had safeguarding checks.
- The Government recognise this as an important issue. We have already acted: published safeguarding e-learning for tutors and other providers, strengthened guidance for local authorities to act on safeguarding concerns, and are widening the scope of regulated activity to include those who work frequently with children in supervised roles — so employers engaging tutors frequently with children will be required to apply for a DBS check. There are also existing powers for local authorities to act where they have concerns about out-of-school settings. We will keep looking carefully at this important issue.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for initiating such an important debate, which has already had an effect by ensuring that more Members of your Lordships’ House are aware of this issue. His amendment would prompt a review of current safeguarding practices in private tuition, including background checks on tutors, and of the impact of activities defined as “Regulated activity relating to children” on private tuition settings. This is an important issue and the Government recognise it as such. That is why we have already acted to improve the safety of children in private tuition, along with the wider out-of-school settings sector. The Government have published safeguarding e-learning for tutors and other providers, as well as strengthened guidance to help local authorities to act where there are safeguarding concerns. We are also widening the scope of regulated activity to include those who work frequently with children in supervised roles. This change will mean that employers engaging tutors in supervised roles can check whether the person is on the children’s barred list because the DBS considers them to pose a risk of harm to children. The Government are also taking action to ensure that all those working in regulated activity with children can access enhanced barred lists checks, whether that is a teacher in a school or a self-employed tutor offering private tuition. With these measures, we will reduce the risk of a barred person working with children. However, we recognise the need to understand what more can be done. That is why we have also published a call for evidence on safeguarding in out-of-school settings. It will gather much of the information this amendment seeks and will help inform any future action to further enhance the safety of the sector. The deadline for submissions is 21 September, and I hope that noble Lords will actively participate in this consultation. I want to take this opportunity to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about onlin…
- I rise with a certain amount of repentance — Amendment 233A was an overreach and I regret drafting it in that form. It was too sweeping in removing from the Bill the provisions that give local authorities full powers to issue school attendance orders. There are some 10,000 children receiving no education at all; local authorities must be diligent in finding them and using school attendance orders when needed. I withdraw.
My Lords, I rise to speak with a certain amount of repentance, because this amendment is too much of an overreach and I regret drafting it in that form. At earlier stages in the Bill, relating to Clause 31—this goes to my Amendment 233A—I found it necessary to seek to have taken out of the Bill provisions going over one, two or three pages. I proposed that for Clause 31 because there was far too much information being sought of parents and far too much of an obligation on local councils, which were being compelled to meet some 13 requirements as part of the process. This is an overreach on my part, and I apologise. It is very important that the local council has full powers to issue school attendance orders. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I have mentioned, there is a great worry about the number of children—some 10,000 was the figure given—who are not having any education at all. Therefore, local authorities should be diligent about finding where these children are and issue the necessary number of school attendance orders. I support Clause 32 until the top of page 66, where there is a requirement for the recipient of the school attendance order to provide the information within 15 days. That is a very tight timetable for ordinary citizens, who would not be at all familiar with receiving an attendance order, which, presumably, is rather a scary experience. I suggest it should be a longer period, but that is the only revision I am now seeking under this amendment.
- The balance between state and family is not right in Clause 32. Parents have primary responsibility for their child's upbringing; state intervention should be justified only in exceptional circumstances and must be proportionate. Families tell us school attendance orders cause stress, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. One parent said: 'We felt trapped, unheard, threatened and fearful for our daughter's safety.' Another described a child with severe anxiety and seizures who thrived only when withdrawn from school. For many, home education is not elective — it is a response to systemic failure.
My Lords, I have several amendments in this group. My noble friend Lord Wei is concerned that we are not getting the balance right between the state and family, and I agree with him. It is the parents who have the primary responsibility for upbringing and the best interests of their child, and intervention by the state should be justified only in exceptional circumstances and must be proportionate. My noble friend feels that Clause 32, as drafted, risks tipping that balance the wrong way. Families already tell us that school attendance orders cause stress, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. One parent said they were forced to send their child to school against her will, where her needs were not going to be met. They said, “We felt trapped, unheard, threatened and fearful for our daughter’s safety”. Another described a child with severe anxiety and seizures who has thrived only when withdrawn from school. For many, home education is not elective but a response to systemic failures. I am sure the Government are aware of that, and what a mess the SEND system is at the moment. Many of the parents who home educate are doing so in response to a less than ideal system. I know we tried to improve the system, and that this Government are going to have another go; it is not easy. We must expect a continued flow of parents who choose to look after their own child because the state is not doing a good enough job, and be humble enough to recognise that that deserves our support and not continual harassment. Amendment 334 would change the duty on local authorities to serve a preliminary notice from “must” to “may”. In the context of all the other discretions that local authorities have, it would be sensible to allow them to see that issuing a notice in a particular set of circumstances would do more harm than good. It would allow them to focus on the child’s welfare and not force them down a rigid path. Amendment 335 would require that all relevant support be offered before is…
- There are many tweaks in this section — which suggests Clause 32 may not be quite right and may need rethinking. School is not a safe place for everybody: children who have been bullied, have prior trauma, special educational needs, or have never attended school face real risks. Local authorities sometimes judge in a completely erroneous way what families are doing; Clause 32 may not be fit for purpose.
There are quite a lot of tweaks in this section, which suggests that it is perhaps not quite right and that it needs to be rewritten in some ways. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, just now that school is a very safe place, but I am sure he is well aware that school is not a safe place for everybody. Young people get bullied and it can be extremely distressing for some children, specifically if they have prior trauma, special educational needs or unmet needs, or have never attended school. There are all sorts of people for whom school is not the best and safest environment. I am trying to protect families who have already indicated that school is not meeting their child’s needs. I hope we understand that local authorities sometimes judge in a completely erroneous way what families are doing with home education. We have discussed this, but I think Clause 32 is perhaps not fit for purpose.
- I struggle with the whole issue of attendance orders. Bullying can make children literally petrified of school — it becomes a vicious circle when local authorities then issue orders. Children with special educational needs face particular difficulties. We need to think very carefully about wielding the stick at groups for whom it is genuinely not appropriate.
Truth be known, I struggle with the whole issue of attendance orders. Of course we want as many of our children as possible to be regular attenders at school or an education setting. When they are not at school, they are not learning—apparently. However, there are all sorts of reasons—I have two relevant amendments, I think in this group, which highlight particular groups of children—for this. The issue of bullying in schools has been raised. That can have a huge effect on children, making them literally petrified to go to school. It becomes a vicious circle then, with the local authority taking action and issuing attendance orders. There are also children with special educational needs. I had a pupil who had an absolute phobia of school attendance—I almost could not believe it. His mother, a hospital nurse, had to drag him to school every day. The whole thing was a constant battle. We have to think very carefully about this. There are certain groups of people for whom waving the stick of an attendance order is not the right approach. We have to look at other ways of increasing school attendance, and we have to be mindful of the situation they are in. I always believed that parents who took their children on holiday during school time were wrong to do so. However, I reflected that the quality time they may have with their parents—often, perhaps more importantly, their dad—was hugely beneficial for them as a family, and that they learned so much as well. I hope we think this through very carefully before we enact it on Report.
- His Majesty's loyal Opposition believe local authorities must be able to hold parents to account. However, exceptions in legislation risk creating inconsistent practice that could be challenged in the courts. I look forward to the Minister's response on how local authorities will be guided to use these powers sensitively.
My Lords, this group includes a series of amendments, including several from my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei, on the Government’s proposed approach to school attendance orders. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition believe it is important that local authorities are able to hold parents to account who are either not ensuring that their child attends school daily or not providing a suitable education at home. I appreciate some of the concerns that this could be seen as punitive by some families. Equally, if exceptions were introduced into the legislation, I worry that it would create a different risk, with inconsistent practice which is perceived to be unfair and could well be challenged in the courts. I think, if I may say so, that the amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred are actually in the next group. I appreciate that, with so many amendments today, it is hard to keep track.
- A child receiving unsuitable education for even a single day could be detrimental to their development. Parental choice matters — but with rights come responsibilities. Where parents fail in their responsibility to secure a suitable education, there must be a consequence and a swift route to suitable provision. Clause 32 is essential: without it, local authorities would have no power to act when parents refuse to comply with registration duties or when a child is not receiving a suitable education. The best-interests test in Clause 32 allows local authorities to require school attendance where a child is on a child-protection plan or inquiry and school is in their best interests — a vital safeguard for our most vulnerable children. The clause strengthens enforcement by introducing timelines, allowing prosecution without restarting proceedings, and aligning fines with attendance fines.
To continue where the noble Baroness finished, a child receiving unsuitable education for as little as a day could be detrimental for their educational development. The measures in the Bill seek to make this process more efficient, minimising the time in which a child may be receiving unsuitable education. We have heard many speeches that highlight the rights of parents to educate their children how they wish. Parental choice is important, but it is crucial to remember that with rights come responsibilities. All children have a right to a suitable education, and parents have a responsibility to secure that education for their children. Where parents fail in this responsibility, there must be a consequence for the parent and a swift route to suitable education for the child. The amendments in this group are focused on the school attendance order process. I turn first to address the opposition from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to Clause 32 standing part of the Bill. We believe that Clause 32 is essential. Without it, local authorities would have no power to act when parents refuse to comply with the children not in school registration duties, or where a child is not receiving a suitable education. Clause 32 allows local authorities to require school attendance where a child is subject to child protection investigations or plans and where school is deemed to be in the child’s best interests. This is a vital safeguard for some of our most vulnerable children. As part of school attendance order proceedings, local authorities will be empowered to request to visit the child inside their home, so that they can fully consider the environment in which home education is being provided. Parents have the right to refuse the local authority’s request. If access is not given, this will be a relevant factor for the local authority to consider when deciding whether to serve an order. The clause strengthens the current system by introducing timelines to make enforcement more efficient…
- Could you write to me before Report with a much clearer account of what the parental experience will actually feel like — for example, when a local authority makes a best-interests determination that parents consider seriously damaging to their child, what is the appeal process? Assuming the authority has it wrong, how does a parent navigate back to the right outcome? I still cannot get a grip on that.
I am grateful, as ever, for the Minister’s responses, but I would be additionally grateful if she could write to me, between now and Report, to give me a much clearer idea of what the parental experience will be. For example, when faced with a best interests determination by a local authority that the parents consider to be seriously damaging to their child, how do they appeal it? What is the process for taking that through? Assuming that the local authority has it wrong, what is the full process that results in the parents being able to help the local authority understand the reality of their child’s circumstances and where their best interests really lie. With all the help that has been given, I still fail to get a grip on what that process will be and will feel like, and I would love to share that with home educators.
- Just to be clear — the best-interests requirement applies only in cases where children are subject to child-protection inquiries or plans.
Is the noble Lord clear that the best interests requirement relates to cases where children are subject to child protection inquiries or plans?
- Yes — it is only in some Section 47 situations where it is a real problem. But if, for example, a child has deep school anxiety or has been badly bullied, and the local authority says 'go back in', what does the appeal actually look like for that parent? I do not have the grip on the details that I would like.
Yes. It is only in about half of Section 47 where one would judge that that is a real problem. I understand and accept what the Government are saying about the need not to find that we are not covering children whom we need to cover, and that means that there are children going through the system for whom the dangers are not absolute, but if, for example, the child has deep school anxiety, or has really been bullied in the school, or the school has taken against them for some other reason and they have a horrid experience, and the local authority says, “Go back in”, what is the experience of the parent in appealing that? I do not have the grip on the details of the system that I would like.
- I will write on that specific point.
I will write about that specific point.
- Amendment 368 recognises that higher fines — and especially imprisonment of the often lone parent — betray the interests of the child. The Government do not collect data on the protected characteristics of those subject to these penalties, so they cannot assess impact. Every case I saw as a magistrate involved someone in poverty. Gypsies and Travellers have the lowest economic activity rate of any ethnic group. Research shows that parental imprisonment harms children's own behaviour; the perverse consequence of imprisonment is to harm the very child the order was meant to protect.
My Lords, I think I should fit in Amendment 368—I apologise; I thought the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was going to speak again—which is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am again grateful. It recognises that higher fines, and especially imprisonment of the often lone parent, in fact betray the interests of the child. The Government do not collect information on the protected characteristics of those who are subject to these penalties, so they cannot assess their impact. All the cases I saw when I was a magistrate were of people in poverty, and we know that Gypsies and Travellers have the lowest rate of economic activity of any ethnic group—47%, as opposed to 63% for England and Wales overall. A Prison Advice and Care Trust survey of 2023, apart from confirming the poverty I have alluded to, points to a range of research showing increased risky behaviour among prisoners’ children, poorer mental health outcomes and the potential lifelong negative impact of parental imprisonment. When a mother goes to prison, 95% of children have to leave home. This amendment would serve the interests of the child, which should of course be paramount, and I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept it.
- I join on the point about removing the threat of imprisonment — it would be entirely inappropriate, and there are already enough people in prison.
I join my noble friend Lady Whitaker on removing the threat of imprisonment: it would be entirely inappropriate, and there are enough people already in prison.
- We must never lose sight of the child at the heart of this. On Amendment 368 and Amendment 369, the consequence of breaching a school attendance order must be brought into line with the offence of unauthorised school absences — otherwise there is a perverse incentive to remove a child from school under the guise of home education to avoid the higher school attendance fines. On Amendment 371, courts in England and Wales must already consider the impact on the child when determining sentences, per Article 8 of the ECHR.
My Lords, as we continue to debate school attendance orders, we must never lose sight of the child at the heart of this. A child gets one chance at an education, and that is why our processes must act swiftly, decisively and in the best interests of the child. Amendments 348, 349, 350 to 352, 358, 362, 363 and 367 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 357 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, look to remove or alter the ability for a school attendance order to be served. Amendment 348 seeks to remove the entire school attendance order section. I accept that that may not be the purpose or intention of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, so let me move on to Amendment 349, which would mean that a local authority could serve an order on parents of children who had historically been subject to a Section 47 child protection inquiry or plan, even if this is no longer the case and the child is receiving a suitable education. It would be disproportionate for a local authority to be able to serve an order in these situations. If a Section 47 inquiry has concluded and not resulted in a child protection plan, parents will not be required to demonstrate that home education is in their child’s best interests. If the notice was also issued on the grounds that the local authority was not satisfied as to the suitability of education, the parent would still be required to demonstrate that the home education is suitable. Amendment 350 would require local authorities to consider only the major educational settings used by a child, and Amendment 351 would prevent the consideration of where the child lives as part of the decision to serve a school attendance order. Settings where the child is educated are an important part of the local authority’s suitability assessment. Children attending unsafe or otherwise unsuitable settings are unlikely to be receiving an overall suitable education. It is essential that local authorities can identify where this is…
- I am particularly interested in the Government's approach to home visits — how they should be conducted and when they may not be necessary. In a well-run local authority, the need to visit at home should be much reduced if children are already seen through other activities. But when visits do seem necessary, they always produce conflict. How will a well-run local authority approach this?
My Lords, again, this is a group of amendments on which I would largely prefer to wait for the Minister’s reply. However, I have a particular interest in where the Government find themselves when it comes to visiting children at home, how that should be done and the circumstances in which it need not be done. A lot of what we have been discussing is about producing a system, a set of relationships between home educators and the local authority, meaning that most children get seen anyway in the course of activities in which the local authority is involved—by professionals who are qualified to make judgments on how the child is flourishing and to flag if there seems to be a problem. I am confident that, in a well-run local authority, the need to visit at home should be much reduced. None the less, there will be circumstances where this seems to be necessary, and it always produces conflict. I am interested in the Government’s thoughts on how they will approach this. How will a well-run local authority deal with circumstances when it feels that it needs to see the child? How will a parent who feels that their child will react extremely badly to this intrusion have their voice heard? I am also interested in the potential role of third parties, such as the family doctor —for those who still have one—to mediate in that process. For the rest of the amendments in this group that I am responsible for, I look forward to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.
- Just on Amendment 417 — home-educating families benefit financially from flexible term calendars because holiday prices are lower in term time. Would the Government look at whether holiday companies could be more equitable with all school families, not just home educators?
My Lords, I will weigh in just on Amendment 417. Home-educating families having a flexible school term calendar will mean they benefit financially for holidays because, as we know, during school holidays, holidays shoot up in price. Would it not be nice if all schools had the luxury of cheap holidays for their children? Maybe the Government could look at the eminently sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on holidays, and see whether in some way holiday companies could be equitable with all school families and not hike up their prices during the holiday period.
- This group covers very technical amendments at the speculative end of the spectrum. Some of the proposals on home visits would be very challenging for any Government to justify in terms of resources. I hope the Minister can reassure us that local authorities understand the pressure home visits put on families and would use those powers only when truly necessary and always in the child's best interests.
My Lords, this group again covers a large number of very technical amendments. Some of them appear to me to be at the more speculative rather than the probing end of the spectrum. They highlight a number of issues in relation to home-educating families and home visits, but the majority of these suggestions, as put in these amendments, would be very challenging for any Government to justify in terms of the potential resources that would be required to implement them. My noble friend Lord Lucas rightly raised the issues around home visits and the pressure that they put on families. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that local authorities understand that too and would use those powers when necessary, and always in the best interests of the child. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
- The best way for a local authority to ensure education is suitable and safe is to meet with the child in the child's home. Conducting those visits sensitively — as the noble Baroness rightly stressed — will be a key focus of the statutory guidance. The information requested of parents is proportionate and designed to minimise the time any child spends in unsuitable education; visits are not intended to be disruptive.
My Lords, the voice of the child is key in creating a supportive, responsive and effective safeguarding and educational environment. I believe that the best way for a local authority to ensure that a child’s education is both suitable and safe is to meet with the child in the child’s home. We want to ensure that local authorities are able to capture and appropriately consider the views of children, so advice on how to conduct these visits sensitively, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, rightly suggested is required, will be a key focus of our statutory guidance. In terms of the ask on parents, we have aimed for this to be proportionate and at the right intervals. The purpose is to minimise the duration any child is in receipt of unsuitable education. The compulsory information is what is required for a local authority to undertake existing responsibilities related to education suitability and safeguarding. It is not intended to be disruptive to the parents, who will still be able to focus on providing a suitable education for their child. The amendments in this group seek to make changes to the ability of a local authority to request to visit the home and to limit the potential impact on home-educating families. They also seek to make provision concerning how home educators may engage with and would like to be treated by national and local government. I am going to suggest that the amendments brought by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, beginning with Amendment 406, might be suitable for me to write to noble Lords about. Several of them fall within the category defined by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as being at the “speculative end” of the spectrum. I hope I would be able to either reassure noble Lords or identify why they would not be suitable to be carried forward. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes a broader point with respect to Amendment 417 about holidays, and I am sure this is something that we cannot solve here this evening, but I recognise the concerns that p…
- Could you confirm: on Amendment 387 — recognition that there is much to say about methodology and curriculum in home education — and on Amendment 393, that the timing of educational progress, which should in principle be respected, can form part of 'suitable education'? I have met a very capable Oxford undergraduate who did not begin to write until 13 — learning entirely through other methods and eventually reaching Oxford via a keyboard. The continental model of not beginning formal education until seven is widespread; we should not insist on reading, writing and arithmetic before that age.
I am grateful for the Minister’s response to my amendments. I would be grateful for a brief response to the amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Wei—just a confirmation, I suspect, when it comes to Amendment 387, of the recognition that there is a lot to say about the methodology of home education and the curriculum, and similarly, on Amendment 393, confirmation that the timing of educational progress, which should in principle be respected, can form part of a suitable education. I have met a very capable young Oxford undergraduate who did not begin to write until they were 13. Having learned entirely through other methods and found writing extremely difficult, he was able to move on to a keyboard aged 13 and get himself eventually to Oxford. The generality, which is picked up in my noble friend’s amendment, of not beginning formal education until seven is very common on the continent. There are structures which do not impose reading, writing and arithmetic before that age and which succeed on a national level. The understanding that the Government recognise that there are other routes to educational success, and that this is something that local authorities do not understand, is of general interest, rather more so than some of my noble friend’s more focused amendments.
- The law is already clear: parents may educate using the methods, approaches and content they think best, provided the education is suitable and safe. The Bill gives local authorities no additional powers to regulate the content of home education. A child must receive suitable education from age five — but what 'suitable' means for a five-year-old at home is for parents to determine, provided the education meets the test. We are not prescribing a national curriculum for home educators.
On those points, I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that the law is already clear. We have discussed during the course of the debate that parents have the right to educate their children using the methods, approaches and content they think best, provided that the education being received is suitable and safe. The point, though, is that local authorities must be able to assess that education to establish whether or not it is. The Bill does not give local authorities any additional powers to regulate the content of home education. On the point about the nature of education, we believe that a child must be provided with a suitable education from the age of five. Of course, the point about home education is that it would be up to parents, assuming that that education is suitable, to determine what sort of education was being provided to a child of five.
- Can the Government confirm that flexibility of approach is something they accept will happen across the education system? For special educational needs, lateral approaches are often exactly what is required. Some problems arise precisely because there is a fixed structure everyone is supposed to follow but not everyone learns that way.
My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, as we are in the closing straight. Can the Government confirm that they accept that flexibility of approach is something that will happen? If we look laterally—says the dyslexic—at special educational needs, that is often what is required there. Some of the problems come from the fact that there is a structure that one is supposed to be doing, but not everybody learns like that. Can the Government confirm that this is something which should be worked across the education system?
- I confirm that — and one of the central reasons parents want to home-educate is to provide different, more flexible approaches to how children learn. The most appropriate methods must be at the heart of not only the Government's SEND reforms but the hard work teachers and schools do for those children every day.
I have just confirmed that, and we have talked about it at various different times with respect to home education. I completely accept that one of the reasons why parents want to home-educate is to provide different and more flexible approaches to the way in which children learn. The most appropriate methods for learning and teaching will have to be at the heart of not just the Government’s reforms to special educational needs and disabilities but the very hard work that teachers and schools do for those children.
- These amendments concern children with education, health and care plans and the use of school attendance orders. Some local authorities are particularly resistant to home education for EHC plan children because of the financial costs — sometimes including health therapies. Could the Minister comment on those fears? Where a child has an EHC plan and continues to need particular therapies, how is the parent protected from a local authority that might use the school attendance order regime to avoid funding those needs?
My Lords, these amendments relate to children, particularly those with education, health and care plans, and the use of school attendance orders. If I understood correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, argued through amendments in earlier groups and Amendments 359A and 366A in this group that these children should be excluded from the school attendance order regime. I outlined my concerns, which remain the same, about introducing inconsistency into a system where we already have incredible variability in how school attendance orders are used. I have spoken to families who have a child with an education, health and care plan who are considering educating them at home. They have expressed concerns that the local authority can be particularly resistant to that because of the financial costs, which are sometimes related to the physical and medical therapies—health therapies—that a child might need. It would help if the Minister could comment on those fears. Equally, a child in receipt of an EHCP clearly has more complicated educational needs and it is entirely reasonable that the local authority should consider that carefully and ensure that the parents are able to deliver on their wish to support their child at home. I confess I am unclear what material difference Amendment 360 would make to the Bill, but maybe the Minister will shed light.
- Where a local authority is serving a school attendance order in respect of a child with an EHC plan that does not name a school, the plan must be amended to name one — not merely reviewed — so the child can be enrolled without delay. On local-authority resistance around financial costs: local authorities have existing duties to review EHC plans at least annually; if home education is no longer suitable, they must intervene. On the financial concerns, I will write to noble Lords with assurances on the Lord Wei amendments dealing with penalties in various circumstances, rather than going through them all now.
My Lords, as I said previously, the school attendance order process is an existing process that is absolutely essential to provide children in unsuitable education a route to suitable education through regular attendance at a school. In speaking to the amendments in group 15, I turn to Amendments 360 and 361, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. They seek to require a local authority to review rather than amend an education, health and care plan where the authority is required to serve a school attendance order in respect of a child and the plan does not specify the name of a school. If a local authority is serving a school attendance order, it has determined that the child is not receiving a suitable education and that the situation must be resolved. In this situation, it is right that the education, health and care plan be amended to name a school and that the school attendance order reflect this. This will enable the child to be enrolled in that school without delay. The noble Lord may be concerned that parents will not have the opportunity to influence the school named in the order and the education, health and care plan. I reassure him that local authorities will still be required to follow the processes outlined in Regulation 22 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. These regulations require that local authorities send parents a notice outlining the changes to the plan. Additionally, the child’s parents can request a review of the plan at any point if they believe that the school is not meeting their child’s needs. Amendment 366, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would remove the right to refer questions on school attendance orders in Wales to Welsh Ministers and delete the clause preserving the existing education, health and care plan framework. Parents must have a right to appeal a local authority decision to refuse to revoke a school attendance order, regardless of whether that local authority is in England or Wales. The mir…
- I reiterate — because it feels right to do so at the end as at the start — that parents have the right to educate their child in the way that best suits their child's needs, if that education is suitable. The Bill does not change that. Amendment 378 seeks to protect that right against a national emergency or an authoritarian Government: Parliament is sovereign; any law passed now can be changed by a future Parliament. But existing legislation is clear that parents have the right to educate otherwise than at school, provided the education is safe and suitable. This Government support that right.
I will speak to this amendment in group 16, which is about the right to home-educate. I reiterate—it feels right to be doing this at the end of this debate, as I did at the start—that parents have the right to educate their child in the way that best suits their needs, if that education is suitable. The Bill does not change that. Amendment 378, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to protect a parent’s right to home-educate in the event of a national emergency or an authoritarian Government. First, this amendment would be ineffective, as Parliament is sovereign. Any law passed by a current Parliament can be changed or repealed by a future Parliament. However, existing legislation is clear that most parents have the right to educate their child otherwise than at school provided that the education their child receives is both safe and suitable. This Government support that right. I hope that, on that basis of reassurance, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.