Grangemouth Oil Refinery Closure: Job Losses
Lord Woodley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to mitigate job losses following the Grangemouth oil refinery closure.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
My Lords, the decision by Petroineos to cease refining at Grangemouth was deeply disappointing. Before July 2024, there was no plan for Grangemouth. Within weeks, we worked with the Scottish Government to deliver a £100 million package to support the local community. This includes a training guarantee for all Grangemouth refinery staff affected to help them into new, good jobs with local employers. Project Willow identifies nine low-carbon business models that could create 800 jobs by 2040, backed by £200 million from the National Wealth Fund.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. I speak as the former leader of Unite the Union. My union, and indeed the people at the sharp end in Grangemouth, believe that converting the existing refinery to produce sustainable aviation fuel, which is much needed by the industry now and in the future, is by far the best option for creating jobs on that site. That is what Keir Starmer promised—green jobs, new jobs. Does the Minister agree that the plan should therefore be fast-tracked and implemented now? We could be producing aviation fuel, as opposed to importing it and storing it as in the Chinese/Ineos joint venture proposals. It would be best for jobs, best for Scotland and best for Britain.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. We welcome Unite’s continued engagement in the long-term clean energy future of the site, and long may that involvement continue. The Prime Minister is committed to creating many more green jobs. The Government share Unite’s ambition to secure a viable, long-term future for the site, which is why the National Wealth Fund stands ready to invest £200 million once an investable proposition has been identified, which could include sustainable aviation fuel.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, on these Benches, we believe in a just transition, and I know that the Government do too, but, more broadly, what action are this Government taking to be proactive and not reactive in this space? The truth is that a blizzard of ideas, policies and proposals, just coming too late, do not work to save the jobs. It is important that we help those people to make sure that they have a living and that we do not sacrifice workers. Can I ask the Government to do more in assessing risk?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I welcome that question and agree with the noble Earl. If we look at the oil refinery industry, we see that refineries that are doing well are investing in the future; for example, looking at sustainable fuels. The Prax refinery unfortunately went into insolvency at the beginning of the week, but the refinery across the road, Phillips 66, is doing really well, because it is doing exactly what we want to see, which is investment in sustainable fuels for the future.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, when will we see the end of this hand-wringing about loss of jobs in Scotland? It can be summed up for two reasons. One is net zero and the other is Ed Miliband.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I think the noble Lord will understand that I do not agree with that assessment of the situation. Our objective is net zero and what the Secretary of State is doing is thinking about the future. The jobs being lost in Scotland at Grangemouth are because the company has lost over £700 million since it took over the refinery. It invested £1.2 billion and still made a loss. It has got to do with the future, and it is about oil refineries which have international competitors. They need to change and secure long-term investment in sustainable fuels. There is a future for them, and it is one that we are going to back.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, the sad reality is that the Grangemouth oil refinery has come to its end of life after 100 years of service. That is due to the transition from oil and gas to renewables. Of course, the loss of 450 jobs is deeply regrettable, and Ineos should get some credit for working with authorities to try to mitigate that with Project Willow, but I am even more concerned about the 1,000 jobs on the site next to the oil refinery in the Ineos petrochemical plant. It is one of two of its kind in the UK; it is best in class of 40 in Europe, but its profitability is deeply compromised by exorbitant energy prices and carbon taxes which are not imposed on its competitors in the US, China and India. When will the Government realise that their current energy policies are driving the UK industry on the rocky road to ruin?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that question, but I think that the Opposition want to airbrush out of the equation the last 14 years, from 2010 to 2024. As far as the petrochemical industry and oil refineries are concerned, under the last Government’s watch two oil refineries closed and a third, Grangemouth, announced its closure. Last month saw the first meeting of the industry with a Minister in 13 years. The trade body for the oil refineries in that sector has welcomed this Government’s approach, especially the energy-intensive industries compensation scheme and a review into the industry’s eligibility for it. We are working with the industry and doing our best to think about what is best for the industry into the future. It is time that the Opposition reflect on what they achieved in the last 14 years.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, the Interministerial Group for Net Zero, Energy and Climate Change met on 6 May 2025. Clearly, quite a lot of things were discussed there, but a communique published later that month makes no mention of Grangemouth. Can the Minister tell us when the interministerial group will meet again, and whether this will be on the agenda?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank the noble Earl for the question. I do not know when the next date is, but I can write to him and let him know. The oil refinery sector is something that we are keen to see as a success. We need to make sure that the fuel that we create is as homegrown as it possibly can be, and we want to see a future on this. We know that we have competitors around the world, such as in India and Africa, and that the margins in the fuel refinery industry are very small, so this is something we would like to take up internationally. I will write to the noble Earl on what we are going to do in the future.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
My Lords, another oil refinery is going bust, this time in Lincolnshire. It is run by an individual who has managed to turn a going concern into a so-called “loss-making” business. It is closing down with the loss of 400 jobs and more than 1,000 in the supply chain. The similarities to Grangemouth are obvious. Does the Minister accept that this is no way to run our energy policy? Does he agree that the only way to ensure energy security is to take Grangemouth and Prax Lindsey into public ownership—
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
Yes, public ownership; it does work—while sustainable, green jobs are developed?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. First, the problem with Prax was that it was a badly run company. If I have one message for it, it is to put its hands deep into its pockets and think about the 400-odd workers who have lost their jobs there. Secondly, we are investigating how that company was run. As far as the industry is concerned, as I said earlier, if we look just across the road, at Phillips 66, we see that that is a well-run oil refinery that is thinking about the future and looking at sustainable fuels. That is the future of the industry. We are looking at Project Willow, which is active in Grangemouth, to see whether we can utilise that in Lincolnshire as well, and at what kind of training package we can get together for the workers there. We are looking at this, and it is very important that we do, but the reason why Prax is in the position that it is in is that it was badly run.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, there is a certain irony in all this and in discussing net zero, because next door to the Grangemouth oil refinery is the Alexander Dennis bus company, which produces some of the finest electric buses in this country. The danger there is that a great number of jobs are apparently going to be lost at that facility. Has the Minister anything to say regarding those jobs?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
All jobs are important, and I will write to the noble Lord on exactly what we are doing about that. Our vision for the future is that it is sustainable and that we utilise EVs more than we are currently. There is a future in all this, and I am sure that we will do everything we can to ensure that those jobs are sustainable.
Lord Jack of Courance (Con)
My Lords, I think the Minister said that there had not been a ministerial visit to Grangemouth in the last 13 years; I certainly went to Grangemouth as Secretary of State for Scotland. Let me give him an easy question: to add to the factors creating uncertainty for the Scottish jobs market cited by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, does the Minister agree that another is the Scottish Government’s obsession with independence?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that. As far as Scottish independence is concerned, it is not the position of this Government, and it is something that I actively campaigned against 10 or so years ago. I do not deny that the noble Lord went up to Grangemouth, but the point I made in my answer was that there was no ministerial meeting with the industry in 13 years.
Housing Associations: Financial Assistance
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
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Lord Bailey of Paddington
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to provide further financial assistance to housing associations.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare my interest as chairman of Faraday Ventures, which is set up to provide social housing and key worker housing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, who I know is passionate about housing, particularly for young people. His question is very timely: just yesterday, we announced our long-term plan to deliver a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing. As part of this, we will provide the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation with our new £39 billion programme, and we will ensure that at least 60% of that programme is spent on social housing. We will also give social landlords equal access to government building safety funding and provide a decade of certainty through the new rent settlement, supporting social landlords to invest in new and existing homes.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
I thank the Minister for her Answer. I have an additional question: at what pace will this money arrive, particularly in London? In London and the south-east, we have the greatest housing crisis compared with anywhere else nationally. How many homes will this money deliver, and at what pace will the Mayor of London have to provide these homes? The Government’s own Deputy Prime Minister was upset with his low level of delivery, and we want to be sure that there is a KPI for how many homes he is to deliver year on year with the money the Government are providing.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We intend to get this programme running as quickly as possible. That is why we have provided £2 billion of funding in advance of that settlement—so that we could kick-start the programme and get it going straight away. The rest of the programme will be open for bidding very shortly, so that local authorities can apply to bid for that fund. To answer the noble Lord’s question about London, 30% of the housing in that programme will be in London.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, a recent report by the social housing ombudsman highlighted repairs as a major problem. So my question to the Government and the Minister is: what will they do to fill the skills gap that we badly need to fill to maintain and improve our existing social housing, as well as the new builds?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The noble Lord is quite right that we need to address the skills gap, both for the purposes of building new homes and for repair and maintenance. Some of the new skills are needed to retrofit homes for net zero. We have put aside £600 million over the next four years to train 60,000 skilled tradespeople—engineers, brickies, sparkies and chippies—working with our colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills England to make sure that we get our young people into those well-paid, high-skilled jobs. We are funding additional placements and setting up technical excellence colleges, foundation apprenticeships and skills boot camps. What we are trying to do—I have seen the effectiveness of this as I have visited further education colleges around the country—is get some of the skilled people who are now reaching the end of their careers to come back to train our young people and enthuse them about those careers.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I greatly welcome this national housing strategy and the £39 billion that goes with it. Does this mean an end to the sharp decline in the output of social housing for older people, not least because our ageing population leads to the vacating of family homes, creating at least two for one as a result? Is it now time for a major improvement in the number of homes that we build as social housing for older people?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I agree with the noble Lord, who has done so much work in this area. Much of the advice he has provided has helped the Government to develop our programmes. In the next few weeks, we will deliver our housing strategy, which will contain details of how the Government intend to move forward with a wide range of different housing, including supported housing and supported housing for older people.
Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town (Lab)
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister outline how, alongside the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the £39 billion commitment to affordable housing that has been referred to will help councils overcome delivery barriers and support our mission to build 1.5 million new homes?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. As well as the financial support that we announced yesterday, there is a significant package of delivery to help support our colleagues in local government and in the registered provider sector, supporting the planning process with additional funding for planners, setting clear targets for housing delivery, investing in the skills and capacities I outlined, working to help accelerate stalled sites through the major sites accelerator, helping with the delivery of infrastructure through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—which we will debate shortly—looking forward very much to the New Towns Taskforce and its work, and ensuring that we stabilise the economy to attract the investment we need in housing after 14 years of failure that led to the housing crisis.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The noble Baroness will be aware that there is a crying need for one-bedroom and two-bedroom houses in rural areas. That need is not fulfilled because the houses that are being built have three, four or five bedrooms. The affordable homes that form part of a planning application are often resiled from on intervention from the Secretary of State. Will the noble Baroness use her good offices to review the position to ensure that there is a stable supply of one-bedroom and two-bedroom homes in rural areas?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The Government genuinely understand the need for homes in rural areas, and we have focused on the rural exception site type of policies that allow local areas to ring-fence that housing for local need. We will continue to do that. It is for local authorities to determine the types of housing, both through the planning process and in their local plans. In the National Planning Policy Framework, which was published in December, we have for the first time allowed local authorities to make provision specifically for their social housing needs, which I hope will help in rural areas.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned skills. Is it not true that one of the quickest ways of getting more social housing is through novel, alternative methods of construction? The sorts of skills required for that are somewhat different from many of the ones that she mentioned. In Scotland now, the majority of new houses have wooden frames. What is going on in England to make sure that happens as well?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. We went into a bit of a decline in the modern methods of construction industry. I am a great supporter of it; it holds great potential for the future. We will support and encourage developers who are taking that approach. There is no difference in the safety of those properties because all types of property come under the same building regulations framework. In fact, I went to see an amazing office block, just across the river here, that is made with a timber-frame approach. I hope we can continue to encourage the development industry to make progress with those methods.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My noble friend Lord Bailey raised the delivery of affordable housing in London. In May, G15, the group representing the largest housing associations in London, said that there had been a 66% drop in affordable housing built in London over the last two years, down to fewer than 5,000. Given the lamentable failure of the Mayor of London to deliver, will the Government allocate the near £12 billion in funding for affordable housing directly to the London boroughs so that they can get on with the job?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The exact details of the programme will be published shortly. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, 30% of the funding in that £39 billion funding pot will be allocated to London. But the noble Lord should look at what has happened in the last 14 years and not blame the Mayor of London for what has happened with housing in London.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, it is very good news about investment in social housing. The role of the housing associations will be critical, obviously. The noble Baroness mentioned the role of the New Towns Taskforce. Can she update us on when we can expect the report? I think we can all agree that it is summer already.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I have discussed before at the Dispatch Box, summer is quite a flexible concept in the Civil Service, but we expect the report of the New Towns Taskforce imminently. I would like to say how successful it has been with the task force running an extensive round of consultation around the current new towns, with people with lived experience of what it is like to live in a new town, both to learn the lessons where things did not work and to see what did work to inform its work. So I am pleased to have been working with Sir Michael Lyons and the task force on that, and I very much look forward to its report.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
Does the Minister recall the exchange last December, when I raised the problem of private developers completing affordable homes on a site but being unable to find a housing association to take them over, leaving those homes empty and in some cases leaving the site uncompleted? Can the Minister give me an assurance that that problem has now been resolved and that there are housing associations ready to take over these Section 106 homes?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, and I do remember his question. The department, along with our colleagues in Homes England, has set up a matching service—a bit like speed dating—between the Section 106 developers and the registered providers, to make sure that we can match them up with the funding available. I do not have a progress report to hand today, but I will write to the noble Lord with an update.
UK–EU Defence and Security Co-operation
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
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Lord Browne of Ladyton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the state of UK–EU defence and security co-operation.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)
My Lords, on 19 May, the UK and the EU agreed a landmark security and defence partnership, delivering on our manifesto pledge to strengthen European security, support growth and reinforce NATO. This partnership marks a renewed era of co-operation on issues such as Ukraine, military mobility and maritime security. Additionally, it allows for potential UK participation in the EU SAFE regulation, indicating the strength of UK-EU defence and security co-operation.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, noble Lords will recollect that, in February 2018 at the Munich Security Conference, the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, then Prime Minister, urged European Union leaders to
“forge a new security partnership with the UK after Brexit”.
The EU-UK defence and security partnership—I imagine entirely coincidentally established in May—is testament to a mutual recognition that we must work together to deepen the resilience of our collective security. The FCDO has already been briefed on the European Leadership Network’s proposal for an annual EU-UK strategic forum, which would work to deepen defence and security co-operation, assessing emerging threats and ensuring that we pool capacity as needed. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that such a forum is desirable, and would he further agree to meet me and the ELN senior management team to discuss how the MoD could engage in this process too?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I will always agree to meet noble Lords, and I will of course meet my noble friend to discuss the particular point that he raises and how he might take forward his proposal with respect to the European leadership forum. Let me add the important point that the UK Government establishing a new security and defence arrangement with the EU, in the troubled times that we face in Europe and beyond, is a real step forward for this country, complementing the work that we do with NATO.
Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)
My Lords, with drones increasingly revolutionising modern warfare, is it not essential that the UK and European countries collaborate and partner drone research and production, thus avoiding the wasteful duplication of each country doing its own thing, which has so bedevilled European defence procurement in recent years?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The noble Lord makes a really good point. The issues involving drones have been one of the lessons that we have all learned with respect to the conflict in Ukraine, whether they be surveillance drones, one-way drones or any other sort of attack drone. Drones are a real weapon and resource of the future. International collaboration will therefore be vital. Anybody who visits a defence conference will see the whole range of drones that are laid out. There is a coalition, which we lead with Latvia, to streamline drone procurement with respect to what we give to Ukraine. That is a starting point, but there is more to be done. Drones will simply be something that we will all have to take account of as the battlefield of the future becomes clearer.
Lord Peach (CB)
My Lords, I recognise the potential of the announcement made by the Minister but, in declaring my interest as a former special envoy to the Balkan region for several years, I ask the Minister to consider whether the UK could perhaps support the European Union force which is currently serving in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The reason I raise this in your Lordships’ House is that Russia continues to destabilise the Balkan region—at very low cost to itself—and will not stop. The influence that it exerts, and has exerted for decades, is only too plain to see when you visit. Can we look at that as one element of a practical outcome from this new pact? My other question, and will I close on this, is this: can we please look at new frameworks to deliver some of this potential?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
We need to look at the new frameworks, which will deliver many of the things that are in the defence and security partnership. The noble and gallant Lord asked specifically about Bosnia. The EU mission there is Operation Althea, as he knows, and the Government are currently considering what to do with respect to that. Let me make it clear to all Members of this House that this Government, like the previous Government, support the integrity of Bosnia and support the Dayton accords. All of us over the decades have tried to support that agreement. It is under threat at the moment, as he knows, from Dodik in the Serbian part of Bosnia. We need to do all that we can to support the Bosnian Government to continue under the Dayton accords framework.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, there continues to uncertainty, and indeed anxiety, about whether UK defence firms will be able to access the EU Security Action for Europe fund. Is the Minister able to give this House any update, or has he any estimate to make, of the progress of discussions and when we might get a decision?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The fundamental point is that you cannot access the Security Action for Europe framework unless you have a security partnership agreement with the EU. That is the gateway to it. The fact that the Government, on 19 May, agreed the security and defence partnership means that we now have a gateway to the €150 billion loan available within SAFE. If we had not negotiated that partnership, there would be no gateway. On the loan money that is available, my understanding is that the first loans that could be made available will be towards the end of this year.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, on Tuesday, the Minister made it clear that the United States remains Britain’s prime ally. Does that imply that this is very much a secondary partnership with the EU, or are we engaged in a delicate balancing exercise, recognising that our dependence on the United States is no longer as secure as it used to be and that American priorities are moving away from Europe and we therefore need to prioritise our security relationship with Europe more than we used to?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I think that is in our interests. To run through this, NATO is our prime alliance and something of which we can all be proud—we have been a member for decades. Alongside that, having a better, more secure relationship with Europe and working with it where that is appropriate, whether in Bosnia or in other missions, such as in Georgia or Moldova, is in our interest given the threats that we face. It is in our interest to pursue that. Let us be absolutely clear that, alongside NATO and the security and defence partnership with the EU, the US and the UK standing together is of immense importance to our own security, as well as to the security of Europe and global security. That is the point that we continue to make. It was the policy under the last Government and is the policy under this Government. The US-UK relationship is fundamental to global security. We of course pursue other alliances and agreements where we need to, but let us always remember the US-UK relationship. It has kept the peace for years and will do so in the future.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister take the message back to his department that maritime security is under direct challenge now. With the Red Sea virtually closed and the Persian Gulf about to be closed if possible, that is the real challenge to our security and prosperity and where our attention should be diverted. Does he accept that something such as the Commonwealth network, which can integrate maritime data throughout the entire planet, is an important part of our future and also requires maximum attention—fundamental attention, in fact?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I agree with that. The Commonwealth and the other things that the noble Lord mentioned are of course important. In this Parliament and in this country, we should be immensely proud that our carrier strike group sailed through Suez, through the Red Sea, through the BAM and into the Indian Ocean. It did that to preserve the freedom of navigation and the trade routes of this country, which the noble Lord has mentioned. It is important to emphasise that and point to it as something of which we can all be proud, because it does the very thing that the noble Lord was asking for.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the global dominance of US and Chinese AI models is threatening Europe’s security and defence, through both its ability to cripple our public services and its impact on the rule of law and democracy within Europe? Can he say what collaboration is going on between the EU and the UK to develop shared AI models that will rebalance that global dominance?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In the document, there are things about cyber, emerging and new technologies, and the need for Europe to co-operate together to meet the very threats that the noble Baroness has outlined, including AI.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that our future and well-being are dependent on our relationship with Europe? Is it not also the case that, when people attack Europe, as they often do from the Opposition Benches, they weaken our defences and our position in the world?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My noble friend highlights the importance for us of developing a relationship with Europe. Where it is appropriate and where it is complementary to NATO, having a defence and security partnership with Europe, as outlined in the document, is in our interest, Europe’s interest and, ultimately, the interests of regional and global security. Taking that forward is really important for all of us.
Music Festivals: Hate Speech
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
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Lord Bellingham
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to monitor and control hate speech at music festivals.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has been very clear that there is no excuse for hate speech. Performers making threats or inciting violence should not be given a platform at any event. The Culture Secretary has confirmed that she will be having conversations with the BBC and festival organisers to ensure that action is taken to prevent this happening again. There is also robust legislation in place to deal with threatening, abusive, harassing behaviour and incitement to hatred. The Government will support the police in taking strong action against these abhorrent crimes wherever they occur.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that, when it was obvious that the law was being broken by these artists, the BBC should have immediately stopped the live feed? Does he agree that very senior people in the BBC must now take personal responsibility for this? I appreciate that the matter is actually being investigated by the local police, but surely if artists such as Pascal Robinson-Foster, who incited this dreadful violence, murder and hatred by chanting “Death to the IDF”, do not face the same consequences and treatment as Lucy Connolly, every fair-minded person in this country will conclude that we do indeed have two-tier justice.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
First, let me just say to the noble Lord that my right honourable friend the Culture Secretary is in urgent conversation with the BBC and has requested urgent clarification on what action was taken and why it was not taken in the way in which the noble Lord has mentioned. If he will allow me, I will leave that at that.
With regard to prosecutions, he will know that Avon and Somerset police are investigating these allegations. I think it is clear to see that the evidence is there and that those comments were made, but I do not think it is appropriate for a Minister to give a running commentary on police action. I also say to him that I do not accept the challenge of two-tier policing. I think the police have a responsibility to act on the legislation that has been put in place by both Houses of Parliament and which is very clear on harassment, on incitement to hatred and on the type of incidents that have occurred, which are potentially, in any of those circumstances, criminal actions. The police have to follow the evidence, and that is what I believe they will do in this case and what they did in the case of the lady that the noble Lord mentioned, who was sentenced following a police investigation.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former BBC producer. In light of the events at Glastonbury last weekend, the BBC has put out a statement saying that
“we will look at our guidance around live events so that we can be sure teams are clear on when it is acceptable to keep output on air”.
Would the Minister encourage a longer delay when the BBC is live streaming to allow time to stop unacceptable behaviour being broadcast?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I think that that is an eminently sensible suggestion. The BBC is independent of government. My right honourable friend the Culture Secretary has spoken and will continue to speak to the BBC. There needs to be a revision of the guidance and a review of what has happened in this incident, but I think that it is a sensible and obvious suggestion.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention, and indeed that of the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, to the article by Hugo Rifkind in the Times yesterday. Hugo Rifkind actually spent five days at Glastonbury and, right at the end of the article, he points out that he is a Jew. But he points out that Glastonbury was not a hate fest; it was an amazing broadcasting achievement by a public service broadcaster to cover one of the most successful popular music events in the world. We should not simply be going after the director-general’s head. I remind the Front Bench opposite that one of the most disastrous decisions of the Blair Government was to instigate the loss of Greg Dyke as director-general of the BBC over the dodgy dossier. It is very easy for the pack to go after the director-general, but the important issue here, as has just been said, is how we get the benefit of live broadcasting without the perils of second-rate artists causing trouble to get the headlines.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I say to the noble Lord that Glastonbury is a splendid, multicultural festival, celebrating the best in British and international music, and is a showcase. He will know that the organisers of Glastonbury and Emily Eavis, who is now the main organiser, on behalf of her father who founded the festival, have also issued a statement condemning the comments that were made by the individual and are now being investigated by Avon and Somerset Police. So, we can have a good festival, but we can still have within it an appalling potential act which needs to be investigated. I still think, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture still thinks, that it is important that we ask serious questions of the BBC about how it managed that incident when it was clear that it would potentially lead to the type of incident that the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, has raised in the House today.
Baroness Berger (Lab)
My Lords, here we have an artist who gleefully spouted hate speech and incited violence, the largest festival organiser in the country who gave him a platform and a public service broadcaster that has yet again showed scant regard for the Jewish community, which has totally lost trust in the BBC. Does my noble friend the Minister have confidence in the senior leadership of the BBC to properly grip this issue, to implement material changes and to make sure that this does not happen again?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My noble friend goes right to the heart of the Question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. Individuals from any community, in this case the Jewish community, have the right to enjoy their lives without intimidation, threat or harassment, or indeed calls for death to be implemented on sections of a community. There is a role for peaceful protest and for argument about who and what happens in the Palestine-Israeli situation; that is perfectly legitimate. It is not legitimate to move that into harassment, intimidation or death threats.
With regard to the BBC, as I have mentioned, my right honourable friend is in active negotiation and discussion with the chair of the BBC. I am sure she will make further statements. Indeed, this very morning at DCMS Questions in the House of Commons, she answered further questions on this. There are certainly lessons to be learned, but I reassure my noble friend that members of the Jewish community, and indeed members of any community who face harassment and intimidation, deserve the support of the law, which is why Avon and Somerset Police are currently investigating to see whether that criminal threshold has been crossed.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, the Hamas attacks of 7 October targeted innocent people attending a music festival, so it was horrifying to see the events at Glastonbury. Yesterday, during a protest in Whitehall, protesters were repeating the very same chant used by those performers at Glastonbury and currently under investigation by police. Can the Minister confirm that the Government share the view that this calling for the death of Israeli soldiers is incitement to violence, and can he confirm that, in the interest of applying the law equally, leading on from the point made by my noble friend Lord Bellingham, the same action will be taken against those who incite violence on our streets, not just those who do so from a stage?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I hope that I can again reassure the noble Lord. Legislation is in place, and his Government previously and this Government now want to see that legislation implemented when the police judge that criminal thresholds have been crossed. It is not for Ministers to determine whether a criminal threshold has been crossed; it is for the police to present a case to the Crown Prosecution Service, for the Crown Prosecution Service to put that to the courts and for a jury to convict or otherwise on the basis of evidence supplied. But I am supportive of his general aim. It is important that harassment, intimidation, threats and calls for death are seen as the serious criminal events that they potentially are. Therefore, it is right and proper that in this case Avon and Somerset Police follow that through, and it is right and proper that in any event, be it at a music festival, a football ground, a street protest or anything else, people have the right to protest but not the right to threaten, harass, intimidate or call for death.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I suggest to the Minister that it would be a sensible, practical measure for he and Ministers at DCMS to get together to produce a bespoke website aimed at festival organisers, performers and audiences, so that they understand what hate crimes are, what is and is not acceptable, and what will be the consequences if they choose to break criminal laws that have been created by all Governments in the last 15 years.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
That is a helpful suggestion. The noble Lord will know that this is a fluid discussion both with the BBC and internally within DCMS and the Home Office. I am repeating myself, but I reiterate that it is for the police to determine criminal action, but it is certainly for the Government, be it DCMS, the Home Office, jointly or both, in conjunction with other agencies, such as the BBC, to make sure that there is wide dissemination and understanding of where that criminal line is drawn. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s suggestion, which I will reflect on outside the Chamber today.
British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, watching this UQ in the other place yesterday was a slightly surreal experience. The Lib Dem spokesman said it was a shambolic process—he was obviously correct, although he clearly had not consulted his colleagues in this Chamber, who had voted for it 24 hours earlier. Government is about choices, particularly when there are limited resources, although it seems that Labour Back-Benchers have not realised this yet. The Government must allocate those limited resources to their most pressing priorities. We know that this £30 billion Chagos giveaway is being partly funded from the noble Baroness’s overseas development budget, although she has so far refused on a number of occasions to tell us exactly how much of it. How did she come to the view that funding tax cuts for Mauritians was a greater priority than funding other ODA programmes which provide, for example, life-saving vaccinations to children?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
I see that we are back to the charming noble Lord, Lord Callanan, whom we used to know and love. The cost of this will be around £100 million a year. That is about the cost of running the NHS for five hours or the Queen Elizabeth vessel—I hesitate to say which type, so I will not try. This is excellent value. It secures our ability to share this base with the United States and it is fundamental to our security in this country. It enables us to fight terrorism and keep ourselves safe. This is nothing to do with the ODA budget, as the noble Lord well knows. I will leave the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats to deal with whatever feud they have going on about process.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I have in my hand a BBC News report of Jeremy Corbyn welcoming the Government’s decision on the exercise of sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. It reports that he was “very pleased” that the UK Government had backed down and said that the Foreign Secretary’s announcement was a “good step forward”. That report was from 3 November 2022. Jeremy Corbyn was welcoming the Liz Truss Government’s announcement in Parliament that negotiations would open on the ceding of sovereignty. What has happened since then—one would think that any agreement between Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Truss is not one that we would follow—was a shambolic process in which the Chagossian community was denied its rights under the Conservative Government and not consulted sufficiently by the Labour Government. There has been insufficient information about the trust fund; the money was not going to be provided by the previous Government and there is a lack of detail from this Government.
There is no feud between me and my Commons colleagues, because the position is perfectly apparent. When this House had an opportunity to secure a concession from the Government to have more information about the funding and to include the Chagossian community in a much better way, because it had been let down by the previous Government and this Government, we took the opportunity to try to end the shambles. When will we see the Statement that the Minister promised me on Monday?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The Statement will be provided in due course. You will not find anybody in this House who gives less regard to what Jeremy Corbyn thinks than I do, although there is clearly some stiff competition.
The trust fund is important, because it is right that there is some acknowledgement and a fund to support Chagossians. I believe it will be held by the Mauritians. It is important to understand that there is a range of views about this within the Chagossian communities. There is not one voice; Chagossians living in different parts of the world—in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles—do not all agree on this. I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Lord says about the Chagossian communities having been badly treated over many decades. That is undoubtedly true, but it is not right to suggest to them that there is a way for them to resettle Diego Garcia or a straightforward way of holding some sort of process, when this treaty has been forged between the two sovereign Governments of Mauritius and the UK. This is a unique situation. We have prioritised our national security in this process. You can have only one priority, and that is our national security. That is right, but it does not mean that we cannot acknowledge and regret some of the issues that the noble Lord brings to our attention.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, in the debate on Monday I had the chance to namecheck the Chagos all-party parliamentary group, which I think was founded in 2008. I have been involved in it for a lot of that time. I think it would recognise that this treaty is the first time the Chagossians have secured the right to visit and the possibility of resettlement in Chagos, which the all-party group has long campaigned for. I do not often agree with the right honourable Member for Islington North, whom I stood against in 1992, but he is president of our all-party group and I have to pay tribute to him; he has long worked to champion the Chagossians when successive Governments have ignored them.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
What is useful in the noble Baroness’s contribution is that she draws attention to the fact that, under this treaty, Chagossians will be able to visit the outer islands and resettle, should that be feasible, with co-operation from the Government of Mauritius. That is by no means a straightforward undertaking when there is a complete lack of services. We should not talk about it lightly. There will also be the ability to visit Diego Garcia. These visits stopped some years ago, so their recommencement will be a welcome development.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, is it not the case that the right to visit is in the hands of the Mauritian Government, as is the trust fund that has been set up, which is capitalised by the United Kingdom Government? Therefore, Chagossians living in the United Kingdom, who have been denied their rights for so long, as we hear from all sides of the House, will be denied access to this trust fund.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We had to make a choice here. We could have prioritised the rights of the Chagossian community and enabled them to have the right to return and settle on Diego Garcia. That would have undermined the security and viability of the UK-US base, so we thought that was the wrong path to take. We have prioritised national security. The noble Baroness can disagree with that choice. She may suggest that she would have prioritised the Chagossians’ right to return. That is a pretty interesting position for any credible, responsible Government of the United Kingdom to adopt, and it is not one that we have chosen.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, my memory is not as good as it used to be, so can the Minister help me? How long ago were the Chagossians removed from their homeland? How many discussions and debates did the previous Government have on this matter, and has she heard any more hypocrisy from the Opposition Front Bench than we have heard today?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I mean, there is plenty. They were removed more than 50 years ago, and we can discuss the wrong of that. It was done, as Members will no doubt observe, under a Labour Government. That is all true. That does not change where we are today. Under successive Governments, including Conservative-led ones, it was recognised that negotiations were necessary to secure the legal footing of the base. I know that the ruling was advisory, but it was soon to be followed by a binding ruling. We could choose to disregard that binding ruling. Other nations would be unlikely to choose to disregard it.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I just said that there is no binding ruling but we anticipate that there would be one, which is presumably why the previous Government were negotiating. The decision we have taken secures the base. It gives a sound legal footing. It means that our allies and friends, whom we rely on to make that base work and supply it with all the things necessary to run it well, can now proceed on a secure legal footing. It has been welcomed by our allies across the world, including the United States.
Protection and Disclosure of Personal Information (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Lord Leong
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 14 May be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 1 July.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, I should inform your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to I will be unable to call Amendments 195A to 197A for reason of pre-emption.
Clause 29: School uniforms: limits on branded items
Amendment 195
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley
“(1) The appropriate authority of a relevant school in England may not require a pupil at the school to have to buy branded items of school uniform for use during a school year which cost more in total to purchase than a specified monetary amount, to be reviewed annually.(1A) The Secretary of State may by regulations specify the monetary amount that may apply to—(a) a primary pupil, and(b) a secondary pupil.(1B) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1A) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment imposes a monetary cap, rather than an item cap, on branded uniform items.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, education is frequently described as a great leveller: a powerful force to close the gap between opportunity and background, between privilege and disadvantage. As someone who experienced that divide, I can say that unless we tackle entrenched inequalities that quietly shape a child’s journey before they even enter the classroom, that idea will remain stubbornly out of reach.
That is why I will speak on two amendments to the Bill. They might seem modest in terms of admin but they carry immense significance for families across the country. Amendments 195 and 201 have been tabled alongside the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. They focus on a subject that is too often overlooked in our education debates: the affordability of school uniforms. Specifically, I propose a statutory monetary cap on the cost of branded school uniform items and an extension of VAT zero rating to include all compulsory school uniform items for pupils up to the age of 16.
These are not abstract proposals; they are informed by data from the Child Poverty Action Group. In 2024, approximately 4.5 million children lived in poverty, with 2.9 million living in deep poverty, meaning that their household’s mean income was below 50% of the median income. The amendments are also informed by personal experiences and by listening closely to families, teachers and welfare advisers who witness the strain at first hand.
I grew up in inner city Sheffield in the 1980s, a working-class child in a household that often struggled to meet ends. My father, like many, worked in the local steel industry. When he lost his job, we lost our financial security. I know intimately what it feels like to rely on free school meals and I benefited from school clothing grants, not as a charity but as a lifeline. The grants provided by Sheffield City Council, at the time under the leadership of David Blunkett—now the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—meant that I could walk to school on my first day wearing a jacket and shoes that fitted and a jumper that did not single me out. It gave me more than clothing: it gave me confidence, and that in turn allowed me to focus on learning rather than surviving.
It is that lived experience that brings me to this Bill with urgency and conviction. I turn first to the statutory monetary cap on branded uniforms. In 2024, the average cost of compulsory secondary school uniforms and sportswear stood at just over £92 per pupil. That figure is already burdensome on many families, but it often disguised a more troubling reality—the steep and sometimes punitive cost of branded school items. In recent years, we have seen the provision of branded and school-specific clothing, logoed jumpers, custom trousers, embroidered polo shirts, and even branded socks. One school in West Yorkshire required 10 different branded items, none of which could be purchased in supermarkets or high street stores. These requirements are no longer about promoting school identity; they have become a barrier to participation.
The consequences are clear. In 2023, research showed that 18% of families borrowed money to pay for uniforms, 10% missed rent payments and 27% struggled to cover energy costs, all so their child could comply with school dress codes. This is not just a matter of inconvenience; it is about access. As one 14 year-old said, “You need it for every day and it costs a lot of money and there are some people who don’t go to school because of the uniform. It ruins your education”.
Despite existing Department for Education guidance that encourages schools to limit branded items, compliance remains inconsistent, and 70% of secondary schools still require five or more branded items. That tells us that the voluntary guidance has reached a limit. What is needed now is a legislative floor—something firm, fair and enforceable. That is why I propose a statutory monetary cap, tailored by phase of education and reviewed annually. This would ensure that no child is excluded or penalised simply because their family cannot afford a school’s preferred uniform. Schools will still set their uniform policy, but they will do so within a reasonable, defined cost ceiling. In doing so, we would also encourage schools to adopt a more affordable and flexible approach, such as allowing iron-on logos or sew-on patches for supermarket-bought garments and improved access to second-hand uniform schemes.
I turn to the VAT issue, which is even more egregious in its injustice. Under current UK VAT laws, a school uniform item for a child over 14, or for a child taller than 1.2 metres, is taxed at the standard rate of 20%. This includes blazers, trousers, shirts and even footwear, despite these items being compulsory and often identical in form to those worn by younger pupils. To give your Lordships an example, a school blazer in size 36 might be VAT-free but the same blazer in size 38, required by a taller pupil due simply to growth, is taxed. This means that the families most likely to face additional costs during adolescence are hit hardest. It is a system that penalises families for their growing teenagers. We would not dream of taxing GCSE textbooks, so why do we tax the clothing required to sit in the same classroom?
According to the Schoolwear Association, parents in England are paying close to £9 million annually in VAT on school-specific uniforms. That is equivalent to around £2,604 per year per secondary school—money that could be far better spent on food, housing and transport. Removing VAT on all compulsory school uniform items up to the age of 16 is a clean and easily implemented solution. It reflects the reality that school attendance is mandatory up to age 16 and that school uniforms are not an optional accessory but a requirement.
I emphasise that this is not about undermining school identity or discipline. I support the principle of a smart, cohesive uniform, but smartness must mean affordability and identity should not mean exclusion. If Parliament adopts these two amendments, capping school uniform costs and removing VAT, we could go further. We could reinstate the Sheffield school clothing grant scheme from the 1980s and offer a modern form of school clothing support for families on free school meals or universal credit, for example, whether through digital vouchers, local authority grants or school-managed credits. This is about designing support systems that match the realities that families face, because the cost of not acting is far higher than any tax foregone.
When a child feels ashamed to walk to school or sits in a classroom worried about how they look, they learn less, their confidence flattens and their attendance drops. Teachers and heads know this, and increasingly they are personally covering the gap, reaching into their own pockets, running second-hand shops, and making judgment calls between discipline and compassion. This is not how we should run our schools. In the sixth-richest country in the world, no child should be left behind because their shoes do not fit or their jumper lacks a crescent.
This Bill and these amendments offer a chance to say that we see the child behind the blazer, the family behind the invoice and the value behind the policy. This is not about handouts; it is about dignity. It is about a society that does not penalise children and it is about reaffirming in practical strategic terms our belief in equality. I urge your Lordships to support these amendments, not just because they are fair and efficient but because they are right. Sometimes real change does not come in the form of grand reform or a national strategy; sometimes it starts with a blazer—a blazer that fits.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 196 and 197 and declare, as ever, that I am a teacher at a state academy in east London.
Before I talk to these amendments, I want to rather cheekily add a little thing. Given that the Minister kindly committed to getting the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance out in good time for the inset days in August, is there any progress on the recent news that the framework has been delayed and is going to be published only this month? There is a lot of concern among our safeguarding heads about this uncertainty, and I wonder if the Minister could write to me about that.
Baroness Sater (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 199ZA in my name. It was previously brought forward by my noble friend Lord Moynihan who, regrettably, cannot be here today, despite his enthusiasm for the subject. I will keep my comments short, as much has been said already on the subject.
This probing amendment goes further than my noble friend Lady Barran’s Amendment 199, out of concern that the Government’s proposals could lead to some schools excluding PE kit altogether as a branded item. This could disincentivise schools and pupils from meeting the Prime Minister’s commitment, made with the Lionesses, that every child across the country should benefit from and have equal access to high-quality PE and sport.
A survey by the Schoolwear Association carried out among school leaders found that over 50% of schools indicated that they would remove PE kits from their uniform policy if a strict cap were imposed, risking reduced sports participation due to the pressure to wear the latest brands, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, particularly among teenage girls. Worryingly, it believes that the Bill, as drafted, would lead to increased PE costs, as mentioned, and pose a risk to sports participation in our schools.
We know why PE uniforms are important: they promote a more equitable environment for students, and inclusivity. Importantly, they remove the pressure to wear the trendy—and, usually, more expensive—kit and create a level playing field. They promote safety, equality and a sense of unity among students, and they enhance school spirit. Schools need to foster a sense of community and belonging.
I of course support the ambition of keeping the cost of school uniforms down, but not at the expense of reducing participation in sport and physical activity in our schools. At a time when we are seeing an increase in the obesity figures for children and concerns about their lifestyles and well-being, we should not put in place barriers to their getting active. In fact, we need to do more to support and encourage activity. Above all, accepting this amendment would raise the profile of PE in schools and the importance of a healthy lifestyle for all our children.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I am in favour of Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. That may surprise my colleagues on the Front Bench—to some extent, it surprises me—but I will speak from personal, recently lived experience.
My son is in year 9 at an academy in London. In the Easter break, he moved from one academy to another, so we had to have a complete change of uniform in that period. It was interesting to compare the two schools, because one required considerably more for its badged uniform than the other. The school he originally attended needed a jersey, a blazer, a tie, two PE shirts, two pairs of PE shorts, a house t-shirt, two pairs of monogrammed sports socks, a rugby shirt and a football shirt. The school he has moved to requires just a jersey, a blazer, a tie, one PE shirt, one pair of PE shorts, a rugby shirt and a football shirt.
I accept the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, made on her amendment—which was originally brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—about encouraging young people to be as active as they can in sport. Being active in school may, on many occasions, lead to being active in clubs and societies outwith school; that is self-evident. However, I do not believe that having the school badge on what they wear really makes any difference. I am therefore not in favour of necessitating sports gear being badged.
If boys and girls represent their school, when they play against another school they clearly need to have a jersey with the school badge on it and with proper school colours. But if they are just playing rugby and football, they can do what I did at school: there was a blue top and a white top, which were interchangeable depending on what team you were in that week in preparation for matches at the weekend, and then you got the school top for the actual match on Saturday. Unless you are actually representing the school, you do not need anything with the school’s name on the breast—that would be unnecessary. I do not believe that that will disincentivise people getting involved in sport. PE is compulsory anyway, and it is very much the job of PE teachers and parents to encourage children to be physically active; whether they are wearing a red or a blue top with the school badge on it will not really make much difference.
I take issue with one point that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, made. He said that a blazer can last the whole of a child’s career. I take it that he is not including both primary and secondary schools. Even in secondary school, there are five years between year 7 and year 11. My son turned 14 last month and he is five inches taller than he was this time last year, so the blazer he wore then certainly would not go anywhere near meeting his needs now. It is not impossible, but it would be unusual for a child not to gain much height or girth between joining and leaving a school. I think that most children will probably require three blazers for those five years.
That brings me to another other point about blazers. I am not convinced by the idea that just buying a blazer from a supermarket, and then getting a badge sewn on it, is of any great benefit in tackling the problem of less well-off parents facing the burden of the costs of sending a child—or, in most cases, children—to school. These blazers are not of such good quality. It is well known that blazers bought in a supermarket will not be the same quality as those purchased in bulk by a supplier for a school, which can therefore sell them at a reasonable price because they are bought in bulk.
Incidentally, I checked up on that in relation to my own son. The blazer that we had to buy for him two months ago cost £34; on Amazon, the alternative without a badge was £31. So there was very little difference in price, but the difference in quality—in terms of having to replace the uniform—is important. While I very much support what the Government are trying to do here, I believe that five items, as well as a tie, is perfectly reasonable. This should be given further consideration by my noble friend the Minister and her colleagues in government.
Finally, I am very much committed to children wearing a school uniform. At the moment, we see many children from other countries in and around Parliament, who are clearly on school visits, not wearing school uniforms. In many countries, having a school uniform is unknown. That is unfortunate, because there is undoubtedly the issue of peer pressure, which, incidentally, is not dealt with by some uniform swap system. In many cases, a child wearing a recycled uniform will probably have it pointed out to them by—let us say—not too well-meaning friends, and it may well be obvious. If a child does not wear a uniform, other kinds of peer pressure very much exist, as the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, said in his introduction. That is why uniform is so important.
A uniform school uniform, as opposed to various brands of uniform, is worth having and retaining for a school’s identity, while at the same time not being overdemanding on parents. As I said, I speak from my own recent experience, which, to some extent, surprised me; I thought that all schools had more or less the same requirements, but they do not. However, requiring just three items, as well as a tie, risks parents buying items that are not exactly the same colour or style as that worn by the boy or girl sitting next to their child in class. For that reason, Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is worthy of support.
Amendment 202, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, covers school uniform swaps. In theory, that is a good idea, but it could exacerbate the problems of peer pressure rather than overcoming them.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust. Before I speak to my amendment, I offer my support to all the uniform amendments proposed so far by noble Lords. Schools need a bit more flexibility around uniforms than is allowed for by the Bill.
My amendment, much like Amendments 195A and 199ZA, would caveat the ban on schools being allowed to mandate three items of a branded uniform, excluding branded items that have been provided or lent to pupils free of charge. Why? One reason, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Sater, is that some schools have sport kit sponsors which provide more than three branded items free of charge.
The more important reason is that this prohibition would throw up an obstacle to the expansion of the Combined Cadet Force programme in state schools, which the Government have said they are in favour of. My reading of Clause 29 is that the prohibition would apply to CCF troops, because it says:
“For the purposes of subsection (1)”—
the limit on the number of branded items a pupil is required to have—
“a pupil is required to have a branded item of school uniform for use during a … year if the pupil is required to have it … to participate in any lesson, club, activity or event facilitated by the school during that year”.
A school-based combined cadet force would be an activity facilitated by the school.
I was surprised to see this clause appear as written, because an article in the UK Defence Journal published on 29 May 2025 began:
“The Ministry of Defence has welcomed the findings of a recent academic study highlighting the positive impact of school-based Cadet Forces, and confirmed plans to expand Combined Cadet Forces (CCFs) in state schools as part of a broader effort to improve youth development and opportunity”.
When responding to a Parliamentary Question, from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, on 28 May, shortly after this report was published, the Minister of State for Defence, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, affirmed the Government’s support for the report’s recommendation that school-based cadet forces be expanded:
“We very much welcome the excellent research by the University of Northampton on the impact and value of school-based Cadet Forces in the UK, a study commissioned by the Ministry of Defence”.
He went on to describe the report as
“compelling reading for anyone interested in the development of young people”,
noting that it contained
“many useful insights … for school leaders to help support their efforts to seek wider opportunities for all their pupils”.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I have listened with interest to what the noble Lord said, as I always do. I prefer the politics of his father, the author of the 1945 Labour manifesto, rather more than his own, but that is something else.
The point he is making about the Combined Cadet Force is interesting. Earlier, I mentioned my son; he is in the air cadets, not associated with a school. The Combined Cadet Force should be available in schools, but it would not be compulsory. It would surely be something that boys or girls would opt in to. Only in a situation where the school made it mandatory that all children join the Combined Cadet Force would the argument he is advancing have any weight.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
As I read it, the clause does not just limit the prohibition to items mandated by the school for every pupil. If those are mandatory for an activity facilitated by the school, I believe this prohibition would still apply. That is my reading of the clause, but perhaps the Minister will correct me on that point when she responds.
To sum up, I welcome the Government’s intention here, which is to avoid schools placing excessive financial burdens on low-income families, but making an exception for items given or lent to pupils would not impose any additional burdens on those families, so I cannot see how the Government could possibly oppose my amendment or the other similar amendments hoping to achieve the same purpose.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I tabled two amendments in this group. The first, Amendment 202, follows on in a complementary manner to the amendment moved so excellently by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, because it addresses the cost issue of uniforms by asking for the mandating of second-hand uniforms in schools.
I am sure the Minister will say that there is already statutory guidance encouraging schools to provide secondary sales of school uniforms, but her own department did a survey in 2023 and found that some 65% of parents said that their schools provided second-hand sales. That is a significant minority of schools that are not providing it.
It has been estimated that more than 1.4 million quality items of school uniform are lost every year, which is a loss to parents in savings, a cost to us all when local authorities have to deal with the disposal of those uniforms and a cost to the environment in dealing with the plastics and the carbon that comes from disposing of those garments.
In this amendment, I call for the mandating of schools to provide second-hand uniforms. If the Minister is not able to agree to that at the end of noble Lords’ remarks, I hope that in the refresh of the upcoming sustainability and climate change strategy she might think about the issue of uniforms, which was not in the previous strategy. Clearly, looking at the affordability of uniforms and sustainability could a be a win-win for parents and for the environment.
My second amendment, Amendment 202A, deals with a slightly different issue: the health impacts of school clothing on young people and the inclusion of forever chemicals, PFAS, in much of the clothing that young people are wearing. They are called forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment. There is now emerging evidence of significant negative health impacts in terms of cancer, impacts on fertility and, crucially for young people, neuro development. These PFAS are mainly picked up by people through the skin. For young people, this is a really important issue.
PFAS are added by the manufacturers to give a stain-resilient quality or make clothes ironing-free. But these stain-resistant surfaces do not last—they will be kept on an item of clothing for a maximum of 10 to 20 washes before they are washed away—so there is a limited benefit for a long-term potential health impact on our young people. For this reason, both France and Denmark have got rid of PFAS in clothing. My amendment would insist that the Government stop allowing PFAS to be used in school clothing because of the impact on the welfare of our children.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 202A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Bennett. This is a fantastically important amendment, and I will be very distressed if the Government do not seize the moment as the knowledge comes into view about what these kinds of chemicals in cheap clothes provide and are putting into our children’s systems.
Jeremy Grantham, who many people may know, has been one of the main funders of climate change research across the world over the last 40 years and indeed was one of the funders behind the LSE and Nick Stern report. I met him about three weeks ago and he said he is no longer providing climate change funding, largely because he thinks it is a more or less foregone conclusion that things are not going well. He has turned his entire industry and scientific might behind looking at PFAS and the chemicals that are in not just our clothing but our soils.
Let us look specifically at clothing around the world. American Airlines has recently been sued because it produced very cheap uniforms for its stewards and stewardesses. They have started to develop incredible ranges of different skin illnesses and internal illnesses. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, found, research in Denmark has shown that prenatal contact to cheaply made fabrics with PFAS in them has led to reductions in IQ among children. France is banning all school uniforms containing PFAS from next year.
Interestingly, Fidra, a big company that works on and looks at the environmental impact of chemicals, says that people want these chemicals in clothing because it is very easy to wash, it dries almost immediately and you never need to iron it. But interestingly, it discovered that people treat these clothes in exactly the same way as they treat something of better quality. Every time you wash it—it is not just when you put it on your skin—bits come off in the washing machine. They are now in circulation: they are in breast milk, placenta and our plants. Our plants are looking at 25% reduction in whole fertility within the next 10 years.
Some of the work that Jeremy Grantham is doing is looking at male fertility. Some people may say we have too many people in the world, but this is probably not the way we want to do it—crashing male fertility and all sorts of things. These are dangerous.
As everybody knows, I have worked on ultra-processed foods. One of the interesting things about these chemicals is that a single one of them on their own may not be dangerous, but they are if you mix them up. That is the whole point of chemistry. That is why we went into chemistry labs for our GCSEs and had fun making things explode. They change.
Those chemicals go into these fabrics. They can be manufactured at immense volume and cheapness. As I say, it is not just the school uniforms but the stuff kids are buying when they can buy 20 garments for 20 quid through a company such as Shein. These are dangerous. We can stop this.
I completely support all the amendments in this group. Yes, I want school uniforms because they are fair, and I want them to be cheap, but I do not want them to be dangerous to our children. Please can the Government start doing something about it? Europe is ahead of us. Other countries are ahead of us. We can do this.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Parminter. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, just made an extremely powerful case for Amendment 202A, to which I attached my name. In the interests of time, I shall mostly focus on the two amendments that appear in my name in this group, which are Amendments 202B and 484.
Amendment 202B is essentially an expansion of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. She focused on the health impacts of PFAS; I am focusing on the broader issues of the health of school uniforms. This amendment
“seeks to allow the Secretary of State to regulate school uniforms, given the human and environmental health risks they represent”.
That is not written in the amendment, which is written broadly to have a review within a year, but I say that in the explanatory statement and that I am particularly thinking about
“artificial fibres and chemical constituents”
—so it includes PFAS, but is much broader than that.
This is actually a narrower version of an amendment I tabled to the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill that was debated on 11 December. I included a great deal of evidence in that that I do not have time to include today, but I said then that these products, chemicals, plastics and other substances are accumulating in our bodies day by day. That picks up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott: we have a cocktail effect of bodies being bombarded from our clothing, our environments and our food. We are talking about young people, who are going to live for decades, accumulating more and more PFAS and more and more plastics in their bodies.
This is particularly important when we think about school uniforms, because we are forcing pupils to wear them. This is the state mandating that our children wear clothing which is highly likely to be doing them harm. Think about how it will go from the clothing into people’s bodies: for a blazer, a pupil is running for the school bus or running around in the playground. Smaller children touch their clothing and then they put their hand in their mouth, or they touch something else. They will be ingesting whatever is in their clothing.
It is literally week by week now that we get more medical and research reports on the impacts, but just this week microplastic particles have been found in human semen and female reproductive fluids. There is great concern about the potential impacts on fertility, as has already been referred to. There are microplastics in samples of human penises, and this may have a role in erectile dysfunction. There is a study out just this morning from the Netherlands. Every person in the Netherlands—and there is no reason to think that we are any different—has multiple types of PFAS in their blood, and virtually all of them are above healthy limits. We do not have a detailed explanation of exactly what impact this cocktail has, but we apply the precautionary principle to the environment, so surely we should apply it to the health of our young people and the clothing we are putting them in.
As has already been referred to, France is moving towards a ban on most PFAS imports and manufacture, and by 2030 will ban all PFAS-treated textiles. I note that, in the debate on the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, who is not currently in his place, got quite concerned about what had made his shirt non-iron. I had to go away and look this up: it is formaldehyde. Europe has stepped up and has stronger regulations on formaldehyde exposure in products than we do.
In 2019, the National Trust recognised that the artificial fibre fleeces it supplied to its staff and put in its shops shed an estimated 1.7 grammes of microfibres every time they were washed. It was also concerned that, when people walked through its wonderful, beautiful, natural environments with them, they were shedding plastics everywhere. This is, of course, an environmental health issue as well as a human health issue, but in the context of this Bill, the human health issue for children and young people is overwhelming.
Shifting topics slightly, my second amendment in this group, Amendment 484, is about school hair requirements. It says:
“Pupils must not be denied opportunities to take part in classes, or any other school activities, by reason of their hair style or cut, unless for reasons of health and safety”.
The origins for it go back to a couple of events I have been to with the World Afro Day campaign group. To quote Michelle de Leon, the founder of that group, the bias against Afro hair has become ingrained in some parts of the education system.
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, I am taking a slightly different approach with my Amendment 200, which relates to school uniform policy.
It is important to recognise that a tiny minority of schools use the cost of uniforms as an unpleasant instrument to screen out children in poor families—I am not in denial of that. However, that relates to perhaps 1% or 2% of the 20,000 or more state schools. Nor am I in denial that we should do something about it. A lot has been done, which I will come to in a moment.
Nevertheless, the solution proposed in this clause is heavy-handed and bureaucratic. It is a classic example of the dead hand of the state intervening in an entirely impractical way to cause more harm than good. Does Whitehall really know how many branded items a school would like to use? Where does the magic number of “three” come from? For example, schools encouraging sport and competing with others are trying to foster an identity, and branded sportswear is a basic part of that. Have the bureaucrats found out how much a branded iron-on logo costs? A quick search of the internet suggests that you can buy them, custom designed, for £1.16 each.
How can we do this? I refer to my interest as the chairman of Inspiration Trust. Let me quote some of the bullet points from our uniform policy:
“We will make sure our school uniforms … are available at a reasonable cost … Provide the best value for money for parents/carers. We will do this by … Carefully considering whether any items with distinctive characteristics are necessary … Limiting any items with distinctive characteristics where possible. For example, by only asking that the blazer, worn over the jumper, features the school logo … Limiting items with distinctive characteristics to low-cost or long-lasting items, such as ties … Considering cheaper alternatives to school-branded items, such as logos that can be ironed on, as long as this doesn’t compromise quality and durability … Avoiding specific requirements for items pupils could wear on non-school days, such as coats, bags and shoes … Keeping the number of optional branded items to a minimum, so that the school’s uniform can act as a social leveller … Avoiding different uniform requirements for different year/class/house groups … Avoiding different uniform requirements for extra-curricular activities … Considering alternative methods for signalling differences in groups for interschool competitions, such as creating posters or labels … Making sure that arrangements are in place for parents to acquire second-hand uniform items … Avoiding frequent changes to uniform specifications and minimising the financial impact on parents of any changes … Consulting with parents and pupils on any proposed significant changes to the uniform policy and carefully considering any complaints about the policy”.
It is all there—I am sure, in large part, just following the DfE guidance. Your Lordships will see a similar approach on most of the larger academy trusts’ websites. The bit missing is the cost, but, according to the Schoolwear Association, uniform costs have undershot inflation by 34% in the last three years. According to the House of Commons Library, the cost of a secondary school uniform in 2014-15 was £232 for a boy, while today it is around £94. Great progress has been made—that has been driven by guidance, which is a good thing.
However, does this really need a central government mandate? In the last three years, my chief executive has not had a single complaint about uniform costs—that is for over 11,000 pupils in 18 schools. Let us say that something has to be done, but, rather than a top-down Whitehall diktat, we suggest that the members mechanism that the Labour Government themselves originally conceived be given the task. The extraordinary power of this structure and the protection of stakeholders’ interests is not well understood by many DfE officials. For noble Lords not familiar with it, I should explain that, in essence, members of an academy trust act as the proxy shareholders—a trust, of course, does not have shareholders, as it is a charitable entity—but they sit above the trust board and have certain enshrined rights and responsibilities. The problem at the DfE was that officials had allowed the two groups—members and trustees—to become intermingled. This undermined the whole point of a separate body being able to step in when governance failures by the trustees occurred.
It is reasonable that the chair of the trustees and one or two others are members, as long as the members who are not trustees are in a majority, which is now the case. At the moment, members have several key powers. These vary slightly depending on the time of the creation of an academy trust. The original trusts set up by the Labour Government gave more protection to “sponsors”, as they were putting in £2 million of their own money to take on the school. However, the following key responsibilities apply to the vast majority: appointing and removing trustees; appointing and removing members; amending the articles of association, subject to legal and regulatory restrictions; directing trustees by special resolution; appointing auditors; and safeguarding governance, which I stress. Members must assure themselves that governance is effective and intervene if it is failing. These powers ensure that members can intervene if the trust governance or performance is inadequate, but their involvement is otherwise minimal. Members must always act to further the academy trust’s charitable objectives.
The solution would be to add a specific requirement for members to monitor costs of school uniforms and report on it in the annually audited accounts. The members are already answerable to the DfE. Noble Lords will see from those six key responsibilities that I listed that it would be logical and straightforward, if prescribed, to add something specific—such as overpriced uniforms. “Directing trustees” and “safeguarding governance” are there to protect children if a trust is badly run. Overpriced uniforms are part of bad management; it is as simple as that. Noble Lords will have seen from the statement on its website that the Inspiration Trust already deals with most of this. However, adding something simple such as, “The members of the trust have scrutinised and approved our uniform policy and its cost”, would close the loop.
It is important to mirror the governance oversight in local authority schools, as nearly half of primary schools are not academised. This can be done by requiring directors of children’s services, or DCSs, to assume the same responsibility as that set out for members of academy trusts. There is separation between local authority governing bodies and DCSs. This would give consistency across the English state system.
When the Prime Minister was elected last year, he said that he wanted to lead a Government who would “tread more lightly” on people’s lives, but here we have primary legislation that seeks to do exactly the opposite and control lives from Whitehall in a rigid, top-down way.
Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, I fully understand the Government’s desire to limit the cost here, but I support the principle behind most of these amendments, particularly those of my noble friend Lord Agnew and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, made an excellent point, which was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that if uniform is not standardised, parents with students who can afford it may well “show off” through the clothes which their children wear. That is why we ban trainers in the schools in the multi-academy trusts that I chair, and why they are banned in most schools. We want all our children to feel equal.
As the Minister previously responsible for the school cadet programme, and as for the point that my noble friend Lord Young made, if the clause works as he says it does, this would seem to me an obvious and easy give by the Government. I hope that the Minister can reassure us on this point. As for the amendments from the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Bennett, I thought they made an excellent case for more, rather than less, uniform, because that would be the easiest way to regulate and monitor what it is made from.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for being a minute or two late arriving in the Chamber. I support Amendments 196 to 199 proposed, respectively, by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and Amendment 201, from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed. If these are not accepted, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, and Amendment 195 from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, also have considerable merit.
Every autumn, there is a rash of stories about children being sent home for not being in the correct uniform. However, most often, these disputes are about not branded items but a child’s reluctance to wear something in the style that has been approved for all pupils. It is encouraging to note that household expenditure on clothing and footwear as a proportion of household spending has fallen substantially over the past 50 years. In historical terms, it has probably never been cheaper to clothe a family, though I note the concerns that have been expressed about cheap synthetic fabrics and finishes.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I think there are two things on which all in this Chamber can agree. First, school uniforms are important. I think the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Mohammed was that they give confidence to learning, and I think they give a sense of identity to young people. That is the first thing that we can all agree on.
Secondly, we can all agree that we have to ensure that school uniforms are affordable and that parents of children from poorer families do not feel discriminated against. I want to give two practical experiences. I should declare an interest as a governor of the King’s Leadership Academy, Wavertree.
My first practical example is that, when I was a deputy head teacher, the school governors did not believe in a school uniform. That was not a particularly good decision, because young people from well-off families would wear the latest trainers and show off the latest T-shirts, designer gear and so on.
My second example is my own daughter. She went to King David High School and had a very simple uniform of a sweatshirt, a polo shirt and a grey skirt. A new head came along, who was anxious to make the school stand out, and the uniform changed to a kilt, a blue blouse, a V-neck pullover with the school colours in the V-neck, a blazer with a badge and a tie. The cost went through the roof, so that was clearly stupid.
If you want to deal with this issue, the current proposals from the Government are a bit of a dog’s dinner—or Eton mess might be a better phrase. I just do not see how it is going to work. My first question to the Minister is: what about the poor old book bag? In my school, infants carry their little, green, nylon, £3.20 book bags and it means so much to those children; they encourage them to value books and to read. That would be included as one of the branded items and presumably would go. Primary and infant heads would have to decide whether the book bag is going on the altar of correctness in terms of uniform.
My second concern is that this is just not workable. If a school decides that it wants other branded items, it can write to parents and say, “This is the law of the land but, if you want additional branded items, it is up to you”. Is the Minister going to enforce this and say to parents, “No, you cannot have this additional item”? Of course they are not.
Sport was mentioned. You see teams playing in the dominant school colour. Let us say that it is red; they will play their football, rugby, hockey, lacrosse matches or whatever wearing red. What happens if they turn up for a match and both schools have the same colour red? They have to notify teams beforehand which colour to wear, which is absolutely nonsensical. If you want pride in schools, you will also want pride in sport. I do not see this happening at all.
If you really want to deal with this issue, two things should happen. My noble friend Lord Mohammed talked about the Sheffield situation. I think that it was either the Macmillan Government or the Wilson Government that brought in school uniform grants, by which every local authority could provide money for families in poorer circumstances. This was not just in Sheffield; in Liverpool, Birmingham or elsewhere, this happened. But my noble friend’s two points are absolutely right: it is not about trying to limit the number of items, but about trying to get the costs correct. If the Government were serious about this, they would reduce VAT on clothing and they might look at an acceptable level of expenditure.
The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, was right to talk about the “magic three”. Imagine the Government saying, “We want to do something about this but how can we do it?” The civil servants and Government would get together and say, “We don’t want to go back to grants because the budget would go through the roof. We want to keep VAT; if we go down that route, there will be requests for other items to be excluded. I have an idea: why not limit the number of items that can be branded?” That is not the way it works; it will just not happen in the future.
This is totally different, but I am reminded of when in the Blair Government there was talk of school assemblies. The Government of the day said that every school had to have a collective act of worship every day and that it had to be mainly Christian. You go into schools today and that does not happen because it is totally unworkable, as people come from different circumstances and faiths. I am giving that example to the Minister to show that legislation has to work—and collective worship did not work in schools. That is the point I am trying to make.
If this is carried, it just will not happen. If we really want to make a saving for children and families, we have to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 195A, 195B, 198 and 199, and Amendment 199ZA, from my noble friend Lady Sater, which I have signed. We all recognise that the Government committed in their manifesto to bringing down the cost of school uniform by limiting the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools require. I wonder whether those who wrote the manifesto might now, having listened to this debate, wish that they had phrased it slightly differently and just stopped at committing to bringing down the cost of school uniforms full stop.
The amendments in this group, as we have heard, all seek to find ways to give schools more discretion and flexibility in the uniform they require pupils to wear, particularly regarding branded items, while meeting the Government’s goal of keeping costs as low as possible. As we have heard, Amendments 202A and 202B seek to limit the environmental damage from branded uniforms.
We have heard, very eloquently, from across the Committee, about the value of uniform, the sense of community it brings, the safety it provides for children travelling to and from school, the fact that it saves parents money and encourages participation in sport, and—a new one to add to my list that appeals to me a lot—the subtle rebellion point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton.
The Government’s approach raises a number of questions, particularly given the recent Private Member’s Bill, now an Act, passed under the last Government and sponsored in this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, who is not in her place, and the fact that, as my noble friend Lord Agnew said, the current guidance states:
“Schools should keep the use of branded items to a minimum … ensure that second-hand uniforms are available”
and avoid using items that are available only from a single supplier. The guidance is very clear:
“Parents should not have to think about the cost of a school uniform when choosing which school(s) to apply for. Therefore, schools need to ensure that their uniforms are affordable”.
A real merit of the current guidance is that it talks about the cost of the total uniform and not just the branded items, because that is what parents pay for. As we have heard, the cost of branded items has fallen significantly in real terms in recent years.
Furthermore, the definition of “school uniform” in the Bill is very broad. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made the case for the nylon school bag—I have several of my children’s in cupboards at home, fondly full of school reports. It also includes any clothing required for extracurricular activity, including items without a logo but which are only available from “particular suppliers” and have a “distinctive characteristic” such as its “colour, design” or “fabric”. We know from the Answer to a Written Question that, based on the department’s Cost of School Uniforms Survey 2023, which surveyed parents, an estimated one-third of primary schools and seven in 10 secondary schools will have to remove compulsory branded items from their uniforms to comply with the proposed legislation. The impact of the Government’s changes will be felt far and wide but not, it appears, in reduced costs to parents, which is rightly the Government’s objective. Given all the recent legislation and guidance, it is hard to see how this is the best use of time for school leaders, governors and trustees.
Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, would achieve two goals. First, like the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, it approaches the issue from the perspective of cost, rather than being prescriptive about the number of branded items a school is allowed to require its pupils to wear. Secondly, it addresses the issue of responsibility for the cost of school uniform and makes it absolutely clear that this should rest with the members in an academy trust and the local authority for a maintained school, rather than with the Secretary of State. Both these points are important; cost is at the heart of the issue, but so too is the need to keep responsibilities clear and delegated to the responsible bodies, rather than centralised. It is extraordinary to imagine that the Secretary of State has any time to worry about book bags and ties. That is why, although I agree with the principle behind Amendment 195, I believe that my noble friend’s amendment is stronger as it captures both points.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments in group one. Just to be clear, the Government believe that uniforms have an important role to play in our schools, for many of the reasons that noble Lords have outlined, but we are committed to cutting the cost of school uniforms for families. This is why we have chosen to support families by limiting in this Bill the number of branded items that schools can require pupils to have. This will enable parents to buy more items from a range of retailers, including high street retailers, allowing them the flexibility to make spending decisions that suit their circumstances.
On Amendment 195 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, we want to ensure that any action we take provides schools and parents with clarity and offers parents choice in how to manage the costs of school uniforms. Ensuring that parents can buy more items from a range of retailers gives them that flexibility. The argument has been made that a cost cap is simpler than the Government’s proposals. I cannot see that argument. A cost cap would mean that schools would have to review uniform policies annually, as the noble Lord said, to ensure that they remained within the cap. It could mean schools changing their uniforms more frequently, thereby increasing overall costs and restricting choice for parents. A cost cap would be complex for schools and suppliers to administer, and the need to meet a particular price for items could also increase a school’s reliance on specific suppliers, whereas a competitive market benefits all parties, allowing parents to take advantage of lower prices, better-quality goods and services, new and innovative products, and greater choice.
Responding to the points made about the school uniform grant, we recognise that parents are struggling with the cost of uniforms—that is why we are bringing forward these provisions—and that in England some local authorities provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms in cases of financial hardship. We are facing difficult choices about how we best support families. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, in a rather dismissive comment about government officials, which has been a bit of a regrettable theme this afternoon, suggested that it was somehow unreasonable of the Government to be considering the cost of the proposals they are bringing forward. A national grant, even if targeted to those most in need, would be a considerable commitment in the current financial climate, so, rather than subsidising expensive uniforms through a grant, this Government have chosen to reduce the cost of uniforms for all parents through these provisions.
On Amendments 195A and 195B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as previously mentioned, it is a key priority of these provisions that we provide clarity on what the measure means for parents. These amendments could create confusion for parents about whether a given branded item of uniform would be captured within the statutory limit, depending on how it was acquired. There is also a risk that schools may subsequently attempt to charge parents for expensive replacements if branded items provided for free are lost or damaged. Furthermore, allowing schools to set different uniform policies depending on the school’s ability to provide or source branded items for free could also risk increasing inequalities between schools and pupils.
Amendments 196 and 197 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, seek to increase the number of items that secondary and middle schools can require from three to five, or six if one of those items is a tie. We believe that the limits in the measure that the Government are bringing forward provide the best balance between reducing costs for parents and ensuring that schools, parents and pupils can continue to experience the benefits that allowing a small number of branded items can bring, while ensuring that schools retain the flexibility needed to set uniform policies that work for them. Increasing these limits would significantly limit the impact of this measure, depriving many parents of the opportunity to enjoy greater choice in where to buy their child’s uniform and the flexibility to make spending decisions that suit their circumstances.
Amendment 197A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, is, as written, as opposed to some of the points the noble Lord made, which I will come to, unnecessary as the measure does not restrict the ability of schools to offer branded items for sale or to provide or loan branded uniform items, such as competition kit, as long as these items are optional. This is an important point, because there has been some suggestion that it would not be possible for schools to offer branded items or to provide or loan branded items. It would be, but they would have to be optional. If wearing the item is optional for participation in the activity, it is not counted in the limit of branded items.
We also do not want to place an undue burden on schools by suggesting—
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am sorry, perhaps the Minister is about to come to this: that is what normally happens when I stand up. I think my noble friend was saying that in the CCF, you have to wear the CCF uniform. Similarly, if you are representing the school in a sports competition, I am not sure it is really optional. But maybe the Minister is about to clarify that.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
On the sports competition, I think it is wholly possible to envisage that the school would provide a set of branded uniform for the school sports team, while not suggesting that it was compulsory to wear it. Of course, I understand all the arguments for wanting to have a clear identity for the school while you are doing sports. On the point about cadets, which I was specifically coming to—sorry, I will make one other point before I come to cadets. There is a challenge. We do not want to place an undue burden on schools by suggesting that they should routinely be supplying additional, expensive, branded uniform items to their pupils at no cost.
The point about cadets is important. We do not intend the legislation to prevent cadets, and we will consider how to make that clear. Our view is that the legislation does not do that, but we understand the point being made and we will ensure that that is made clear, because of the benefits of students being able to take part in cadets in the way in which the noble Lord outlined.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Just to be clear on this, I heard the Minister say that, in the case of cadets, where wearing a uniform is required and it is given for free, the Government will clarify that that is acceptable. She also said that she does not want to place undue burdens on schools, understandably, but, in a sports competition, whether pupils wear the kit that is provided for free is going to be optional. That feels unworkable and very inconsistent.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
What I said was that this measure does not prevent schools providing or loaning branded uniform items, such as competition kit, but, if that were to be compulsory, that of course would need to be included in the three branded items. As long as those items are optional, I do not think it is too difficult to envisage that schools might be able to make that work.
Lord Nash (Con)
So if the shirt provided by the school is blue and the opposition plays in red, and this has all been arranged in advance, and some pupils decide to be difficult and turn up in red, which will create chaos, that is okay, but if you say “You’ve all got to turn up in blue”, that is breaking the rules. It does not sound very practical. I ask the Minister to take a bit of time with people who run schools and officials to see whether we can work our way through this in a practical way, while at the same time trying to make sure that all children are treated equally and that we limit the costs as far as we can.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am certainly willing to continue thinking about the issue of school sports, because it is very much not the intention of the Government to prevent the loaning of branded items for school sports. On the example that the noble Lord mentioned, in my day, when I played hockey, if we ended up playing against a school with a similarly coloured kit, we wore bibs to distinguish ourselves. My point is that I do not think it is impossible to overcome this. Let us come back to it. I take the point that noble Lords have made here.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, when the Minister said that we are working across government, what actually is happening? Is there a review? Is there something specific about school uniforms? Is it just about PFAS? Can we get some details so that we who are concerned can keep an eye on it?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The point I was making was that it relates to all clothes and is considering the risks from PFAS used in textiles, but I will be happy to provide further information about how that work is being carried out. In the interim, our statutory guidance is already clear that it is important that schools consider sustainability and ethical supply chains, as well as engaging with parents and pupils when tendering for uniform contracts. I know that many high street retailers already offer school uniforms without PFAS treatments for many of the reasons that noble Lords have outlined today. Furthermore, UK product safety laws require all consumer products to be safe, and manufacturers must ensure the safety of products before they are placed on the market. We already have robust systems in place to identify the impact of chemicals under the UK registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—UK REACH—and to regulate them effectively.
On Amendment 484 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, discrimination has no place in our schools or, in fact, in society. Our guidance is clear that in setting uniform and appearance policies, including on hair, we expect schools to meet their existing obligations under equalities law not to discriminate unlawfully. Guidance also already exists for schools on preventing hair discrimination, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The noble Baroness had a lengthy list of cases. I do not know the details of all those, but I think it is reasonable for schools to develop and implement behaviour policies, to uphold school rules and to use sanctions that are fair and proportionate, and that could well also relate to uniform and expected appearance within schools.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Would the Minister care to address my point about the fact that we have great concern about pupils not in school, yet we are excluding them for this reason? It is reducing the amount of education that pupils are getting.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I do not think the main reason why pupils are being excluded from school is because of issues to do with their hair, but I do think it is right for schools to have the ability to set the criteria and the constraints within which they expect their pupils to behave. While not being across all the individual cases that the noble Baroness outlined, I can imagine circumstances in which it would be justifiable to take action against students who perhaps persistently fail to comply with the rules that have been set by a school, including about their appearance. We have had a wide-ranging debate, and I hope I have responded to all the points raised.
Lord Storey (LD)
Will the Minister go away and consider the fate of the branded book bag, which means so much to primary and infant schools? It should not be included as part of the three, because it is a way of encouraging reading and literacy in our schools.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I also very much enjoyed the bookbags my boys carried backwards and forwards to school, but I am not sure that trumps what the Government are trying to achieve in reducing the cost of school uniforms. Of course, any school that felt that was crucial could of course include it in the three branded items in the legislative proposals.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
From the debate we have just had, It is clear noble Lords have a keen interest in school uniforms. I am going to keep my submission brief. I thank everyone; I think we are all on the same page in the sense that we want to reduce the cost of school uniforms. We have different ideas, but that is what your Lordships’ House is about; we come here together to improve legislation from the other place.
I am keen that we pursue this. I see that in the other place the Government are in a spirit of reflection and review of policies. I hope that spirit wheels its way down the Corridor to here. Then we can also say that, yes, the Government have an ambition of reducing the cost, but we also have ideas that warrant looking at. They may well be ideas that work better. I hope the Government think about it as we move to the next stage of the Bill, so I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 195.
Lord Frost
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment seeking to establish how these provisions would relate to flexischooling children, that is, children who are not full-time in school with the agreement of their school and therefore remain on the school roll.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 202C and 227A, in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Wei. We are now, at last, beginning consideration of the large number of amendments on home education. It is a pleasure and an honour to be able to kick off what I think is going to be a lengthy and important discussion.
The proposals on home education are an important part of this Bill and have perhaps got less attention than other aspects of it. I guess that is because most people have been to school and not many people have any direct experience of home education. As a result, it is a sector that does work well but is often misunderstood. I hope that by the end of our discussions, however long they take, and our consideration of these amendments, noble Lords and especially the Government will have a clearer understanding of some of the difficulties home educators have to deal with.
This group contains a slightly miscellaneous, heterogeneous collection of amendments. Some of them touch on ground that we will probably consider more extensively and debate at greater length later, so for now I will focus on the two amendments standing in my name that are on a specific but very specialised aspect of the general issue of home education: flexi-schooling. I will make a couple of more general remarks at the end on the broader aspects of home education, as the question of whether Clause 31 should stand part of the Bill is formally in this group.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I acknowledge that it is unusual to rise at this point in the debate. I recognise that we have lots of detailed groups ahead of us in considering the issues in these clauses, but I thought it might be helpful and important to set out the intention behind the children not in school measures before we get into further detail on the technical elements.
But, first, I pay tribute to those noble Members of this House who have previously supported legislative measures introducing registers of children not in school: the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who did excellent work in this space as part of her role in government; the noble Lord, Lord Storey, who has tirelessly worked to support and craft legislation; and Lord Soley, who has now retired from this House, who did a tremendous amount of work in campaigning for these registers.
I also thank Members of the House for their engagement to date, including the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who met with officials, the noble Lord, Lord Wei, and my noble friend Lord Hacking who met my colleague Stephen Morgan, the Minister for Early Years. The engagement and overall support for these measures from all sides of the House have been welcome and instructive, but I recognise the detailed questions that noble Lords have, as reflected in the many groups we have ahead of us. On that basis, I want to be clear that it is important for this engagement to continue as we look at the detail of how this measure is implemented.
We also continue to engage with the home-educating community. The previous Government held a consultation on a children not in school register in 2019, which received around 5,000 responses, mainly from parents. We have built on this engagement and have an ongoing implementation forum made up of home educators and other stakeholders, as well as other engagement opportunities with officials and Ministers. We will also consult on the regulations and statutory guidance required for implementation of the measures, which will provide further opportunity for engagement. I have given the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, a commitment that this engagement will continue following the end of Committee. Input from noble Lords, as well as local authorities, home educators and others, will be invaluable as we move towards drafting the regulations and statutory guidance required for the successful implementation of the measures.
On the purpose behind the children not in school measures, I know that noble Lords will agree that every child has the right to a safe and suitable education, whether at school or at home. This is the underpinning principle of these measures. The legal responsibility for a child’s education rests with their parents. This Bill does not change that. Some parents choose to fulfil their responsibility by exercising their right to educate their child at home. We recognise this right and we know that many home-educating parents work hard to ensure that their child receives a suitable—in fact, often an excellent—education.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the case for all children. Where children are missing out on education, it is essential that they can be identified quickly and supported. Local authorities have an existing legal duty to make arrangements to identify children not in school in their areas who are not receiving a suitable education, but this is undermined by the lack of obligation on parents to notify their local authority that they are home educating. England and Wales are outliers among western nations in this respect. We are in a small minority whereby there is no requirement for parents to inform authorities that they are home educating. The noble Lord, Lord Frost—I think there may be a theme among some noble Lords on this—believes, or fears, that what is proposed in this legislation is an overstretching of the intrusion of the state into the issue of home education. I simply identify to him, as I have suggested, that England and Wales in fact have very light—arguably too light at the moment—regulation of home education. Even if all the provisions in this Bill come to fruition, we will still have a very light legislative approach, because we recognise the right of parents to choose to home educate.
We also recognise that the current system makes it too easy for children not in school to fall through the gaps. The department, the Government, indeed all of us, cannot ignore the rising numbers of children not in school. Our latest data shows that, as of October 2024, there are 111,700 children known to be home educated and 39,200 children known to be missing education.
An effective system of registration for children not in school is therefore long overdue. Parties across the political spectrum have attempted to introduce one and parents recognise that registers are common-sense. A recent poll commissioned by my department shows that three-quarters of parents surveyed believe that parents should be required to register their home-educated children with local councils. Together, I am confident that we can deliver on this long called-for system of registration and ensure that it works for local authorities, parents and children.
Lord Meston (CB)
My Lords, Amendment 226 in my name differs from others in this group, which are more concerned with children not attending school because they are not registered at any school, and the amendments we have discussed so far are more concerned with home education in its various forms. My amendment concerns those who are on a school roll but not attending and focuses on the responsibilities of local authorities in such situations. I apologise, therefore, if my amendment seems to be somewhat out on a limb, but I think it is quite an important limb.
There is no doubt that the Government are working hard to address the problem of what has been described as an epidemic of school absences. It is well understood that such absences disadvantage children educationally and socially and deprive them of the value of education and of opportunities, in both the short and the long term. I will not attempt any analysis of the many explanations for failures to attend school, but they clearly include poverty, mental health problems and the pandemic, which is thought to have led some parents to see daily school attendance as optional. In this context, the fundamental duties are those of parents to ensure that their children of compulsory school age are receiving suitable full-time education and those of schools to record and monitor attendance and to inform local authorities of failures to attend regularly.
In August last year, important revised statutory guidance on children missing education was issued. It states:
“Schools should monitor attendance closely and address poor or irregular attendance. It is important that pupils’ poor attendance is referred to the local authority”.
The guidance is also clear that the duties of schools and local authorities are to be viewed alongside the wider duties and local initiatives to promote the safeguarding of children.
In October last year, the Government announced increased investment in attendance mentoring. On 22 October, the Minister, in answer to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, expressed her determination to bring absenteeism figures down. She also referred to the work already done by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran.
Between the guidance issued in August and what the Minister said in October, in September 2024 the Children’s Commissioner published a powerful and wide-ranging report entitled Children Missing Education: The Unrolled Story. This provided analysis of the procedures followed by local authorities to support children missing education and analysis of the characteristics and histories of children known or suspected to be missing education, who are among the most vulnerable in society and in need of support.
The report found that there are significant inconsistencies between local authorities in the use of the term “children missing education”, which can lead to children falling through the gaps; that few local authorities take proactive steps to prevent children from going missing from education; and that there is little one-to-one support available for children missing education to reintegrate into school. It referred to the lack of a shared national definition and to differing interpretations of children missing education. It called for resources for local authorities to trace and support children missing or at risk of missing their education.
The commissioner expressed her increasing worry about thousands of children being denied their right to education, having fallen off the radar of their local authorities. She said that in too many instances, no one knows where these children are or whether they are safe. She described a shocking lack of urgency in trying to trace these children. My amendment seeks to address, in terms of statutory duties, some of the main deficiencies and inconsistencies identified by the commissioner and to underpin in primary legislation what is or ought to be required by existing guidance and regulations.
Absenteeism requires a fast and sometimes robust response. Good practice should not be piecemeal. The amendment seeks to provide for such a response with consistent arrangements for local authorities to be promptly informed of persistent non-attendance or irregular attendance; a duty to take urgent steps to trace any child known or believed to be missing school without authorisation or satisfactory explanation; and a duty to provide appropriate support as soon as the child has been traced. I therefore hope the Minister might take the opportunity to indicate the Government’s response to the commissioner’s report and recommendations and indicate what is already being done to ensure compliance with the latest guidance.
The other trigger for this amendment is my experience of cases in the family court when the court is provided, sometimes as an afterthought, with the school attendance records of the child or children concerned in those proceedings. These can show how unexplained or unsatisfactorily explained absences can be a marker of significant neglect or mistreatment, which may have been unknown or not visible to other agencies. On occasions, with provision of those records, the court is left wondering why nothing or nothing more was done to follow up the absences much nearer the time. On other occasions, the court itself can be left to ask for unprovided information about school attendance. That explains the last sub-paragraph of the proposed amendment. All in all, I seek that the Government confirm that there will be a consistent approach, better communication and a better and faster response to absences.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I think this is a very important amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Meston. It reminds us that, in this part of the Bill, we dealing not just with parents who choose to educate their children at home but with some very substantial problems that state education has in not keeping hold of and looking after children who are nominally registered at school. I will come on to the question of unregistered alternative education, to which the state commits many children, in a later amendment. This is about looking after the children and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has put his finger very firmly on what we ought to be doing.
If there is a whole structure being built here to get better information on home-educated children, what is the point of it if we are not already using the information we have on children who are registered? Is there actually a responsive system that all this extra information is going to be fed into? Are we actually focusing on the children who need our help, or are we just making life more difficult for a lot of very responsible and successful parents? I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s approach to elective home education. I felt that there was a good deal in common in our approaches and I very much hope to be able to build on that as we look at these amendments.
I will very much endeavour not to take up the time of the House if I can avoid it. In that context, picking up on the Minister’s very kind offer of conversations with officials, might it not help if those conversations could take place between today and 1 September? That would mean that I would not have to take up time in Committee: we could short-circuit it before then. I am in the UK all August, but perhaps that might not amuse her officials.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I can clarify for the noble Lord that that is what I had in mind.
Lord Lucas (Con)
If I might address the general issues first, I remain unclear about many aspects of the Government’s policy. I was unaware of conversations with the implementation forum: if the noble Baroness is able to share who is on it, so that I can understand what been going on, that would be very helpful. My understanding is that, following the provisions of the Bill, all children will have the educational route that they are following clearly recorded, on one register or another, by the local authority; so, this is not something aimed at elective family education, it is aimed at looking after children. I would be very grateful if the Minister could confirm that, so that we will not be left with invisible groups of children somewhere in the system.
My own view of home education, though I have never tried it—I did threaten my daughter with it on several occasions, but I have never tried it—is that it is a fundamentally positive thing. One substantial group of home educators—about 60%, I would reckon—have found their child’s experience of state school to be sufficiently bad, or the child’s needs to be sufficiently non-standard, that they have taken on the challenge of educating them at home. In doing this, they are doing the nation a most substantial service and freeing the school concerned of a pupil who they have clearly had difficulty coming to terms with. They are contributing their own time and effort and they are costing the state much less than it costs to keep a child in school, particularly if that child has special educational needs, which many of these children do. To my mind, these parents deserve our wholehearted approbation and support, and I very much hope that the Minister agrees.
Another group are those who wish to educate their children in a different way from what is on offer in our schools. Fundamental British values should guide us to respect and tolerate such difference, as we traditionally have. I agree with the Minister that we have a right to ask that these children emerge from their education fit for the world, prepared to make the best of themselves and safe. In our legislation, that is set out as suitable education and the surety of well-being, which can be summarised as “being seen”.
A case in point here is the Haredi community. Their children undergo elective home education—plus, for the boys, an intense religious education in yeshivas. Can the Minister confirm to me that the Government wholeheartedly support the right of this community, and other similar communities, to bring up their children in accordance with their beliefs? Will she further confirm that, subject to those children being seen and it being confirmed that their education is suitable, as for home-educated children in general, there will be no government demand for their religious education to be subject to inspection or controls, as long as it is clear to all that the religious education concerned stays within legal limits?
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, this is my first occasion to speak in this debate on the eighth day of Committee. As I said at Second Reading, I have concentrated and will continue to concentrate on the issues relating to home-schooling parents and their pupils. It was therefore heartening to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, his strong endorsement of home education. It was also helpful of my noble friend the Minister to intervene when she did. It gives me the opportunity at the beginning of my short speech to say that there should always be a register.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, may remember that when she was in the Department for Education—I do not know if she is listening to me at the moment—I brought home-schooling mothers to her. The issue that I have on behalf of the home-schooling mothers is not whether there should be a register or not. I wholly endorse the ample reasons my noble friend the Minister gave in her speech just now. Yes, there should be a register, but the problem is that—these are the words I used at Second Reading—the provisions relating to home-schooling in the Bill are
“too long and too complicated”.—[Official Report, 1/5/25; cols. 1414.]
We have certain difficulties in the conduct of this debate. First, there are several amendments that are not on the issue of home-schooling. The second difficulty, which the noble Lord, Lord Frost, identified, is that we are not taking things in the order of the Bill. We have already jumped to Clause 31. The first clause in the Bill on home-schooling is Clause 30. As an omnibus, there are altogether four clauses relating to home-schooling in the Bill: Clauses 30, 31, 32 and 33. It would be much more convenient if we had taken them in order.
The best thing that I can do at this stage, it being the first occasion I have spoken on the Bill in Committee, is to address your Lordships on home-schooling, and their parents. Altogether, home-schooling accounts for only 1% of all children eligible for state education. In England in the academic year 2024-25, there were altogether 9,092,073 children in state schools. That makes the total of home-schooling parents to be in the region of 90,000 to 91,000. This is a substantial and surprising number of pupils, but that is how the arithmetic works out.
Many of the home-schooling mothers, but by no means all, are university educated. They group together in what they call co-operatives. The number of children being educated is often around seven to eight pupils per group and sometimes, on special subjects, home-schooling mothers can gather together 20 to 30 pupils at the same time. During each term, home-schooling parents have on average three educational visits to London museums and other places of education.
Another feature of home-schooling is that it allows the teaching of subjects that are not available in the state system—for example, classics, and also schooling in music and drama is not always available in state schools. There was a good example given to the Minister, Stephen Morgan, when I met him with some home-schooling mothers. One cited the case of wanting to include classics in the education of one or more of her children, so she found an Oxford graduate who could take on that task.
The reasons for home-schooling are a better education, an education in subjects that are not available in state schools and, sometimes, the need to take a child out of a state school for one unhappiness or another. Your Lordships can all understand that home-schooling is a big commitment—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, recognised that—and that home-schooling mothers are very busy in their prime role of the education of their children. Therefore, to involve them in extensive bureaucracy as proposed in the Bill is wrong and that is what I oppose.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, perhaps I might just interject here. One of the things about home education is that the education of the child should come first. That education should allow them to function independently as an adult afterwards. If we do not lose sight of that, we stand a chance of some common sense emerging on this.
When somebody mentions “special educational needs”, I do not know whether it is me rising like a trout to a fly or running like a bull at a red flag, but I always look at this. The first people I ever experienced dealing with home education were doing so because special educational needs were not being met. The system is probably better than it was when they started, but we still know that there are a great many problems with it. If, for instance, you do not have the right teachers in a school or you cannot find the right school or one that you think has an acceptable plan, home education would certainly become more attractive. But do not forget that you still need a parent who is trained well enough to deliver that education. It is not an easy option. The fact is that some parents might think that they are well enough trained, but they get it wrong.
I do not think that anybody here or who works in education has lacked for people who have a miracle cure—dyslexia is the one I am most familiar with—and say, “I can teach anybody to read by picturing the word and associating it”. This totally misunderstands that short-term memory is one of the primary problems. The last time somebody said that to me, I said, “Inconsequential: give me a mental image for that”. It was about the politest way I could tell them, when expletives came more readily to mind, but schemes like this are going through.
I hope that we can get something here that says that education is the most important factor, because what happens to that child and the rights of the child must come first. If the state can find a way of delivering that, fine, because it has a duty to make sure that, after their education, that person can function as independently as possible, as an adult in the real world. I hope that we never lose sight of that.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, at this stage, at the beginning of the many amendments on home-schooling stretching ahead, I would like to thank the Minister for her opening remarks. They were very helpful and, as a consequence, I will not speak on all the amendments to which I have put my name, even though a lot of scrutiny is required to make sure that we get this right.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to the question that Clause 31 stand part of the Bill. I apologise to the Committee for not having taken part in Second Reading.
I also thank the Minister for her very clear statement at the start of this debate. I want to make a relatively short contribution to highlight one of the issues the Welsh Government wish to take forward in this Bill, and to acknowledge the constructive collaboration of the two Governments and their officers on this and other issues raised in the Bill. In particular, I want to make a few comments on children not in school registers. Liberal Democrats have long called for such a register, including in our recent manifesto. Here I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Storey, who initiated this work in his Private Member’s Bill on the subject.
We agree with the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner that the register can be an important tool in keeping children safe. We understand the legal responsibilities parents have to ensure that their children receive an education. As liberals we believe that parents have a right to choose home education where they feel this is the right choice for their child. However, we are very concerned that the whereabouts of hundreds of children in England and Wales are simply unknown.
Education is devolved to Wales, and the Welsh Government already operate a register on their children missing education database. However, the Welsh Education Secretary states in the legislative consent memorandum to this Bill that
“the children not in school provisions proposed in this Bill would enhance the”
children missing school
“policy (from a safeguarding perspective) with the CNIS register, school attendance order (SAO), strengthened suitability assessment and child protection clauses applying alongside the CME database arrangements”.
I am pleased that the Welsh Government have recognised that the provisions in this Bill as introduced would have resulted in local authorities in England having greater levels of contact with elective home-educated children than local authorities in Wales. If the provisions were not extended to Wales, as proposed by the tabled amendments, duties on families in Wales would be considered less stringent than those in England. I welcome the Welsh Government’s pragmatic approach, which should produce a seamless system between the two nations.
The action of the Welsh Government in taking this opportunity to enhance child protection measures is also commended by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, who recognises the importance of addressing the gaps in provision to ensure that children not in school have all their rights fulfilled. It is to these rights that I would like briefly to turn. When we talk about a children not in school register, we tend to have discussions, as we have had today, about the rights and responsibilities of parents. But in her letter to the Senedd’s Education Committee chair supporting the LCM, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales highlighted the three tests her office has published in relation to children’s rights on home education. They are:
“First, that all children in Wales can be accounted for and that none are invisible. Second, that every child receives a suitable education and their other human rights, including health, care and safety. And third, that every child is seen and their views and experiences are listened to. This is essential for the first two tests to be met”.
These three tests help us to focus our attention away, slightly, from the needs and rights of parents, and to consider the needs and rights of children.
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales points out that the Welsh Government make no reference to children’s rights in their LCM and is surprised that no children’s rights impact assessment has been produced with the proposals. She said that such an impact assessment would help ensure that the Welsh Government fulfil their own duties to consider children’s rights, provide valuable transparency for key stakeholders, and assist in identifying and mitigating any unintended consequences.
I am sure that the Welsh Government will rise to the challenge and produce a children’s rights impact assessment to ensure the rights of the children of Wales, but can the Minister say whether the rights of children in England will be similarly addressed? It seems that the Bill, and Clause 31 in particular, goes a long way to ensuring that the rights of children are met in both England and Wales, but the Government need to make it clear that that is their intention.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a parent of home-educated children. I take this opportunity to echo the earlier tributes to the many home-educating families who have worked so hard over such a long period to raise their children well, which, as another Peer mentioned, the data shows. I also thank the Minister for her offer to meet Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I am around in August and, if officials can meet us to discuss our concerns, I would like to join some of those discussions.
I support Amendments 202C, 227, 227A and 286, which collectively interrogate what I believe is a sweeping new framework that Clauses 31 and 34 impose. These clauses lie at the heart of the Bill’s proposals to establish this compulsory register of children not in school, and to empower local authorities to demand detailed information from parents about how and why they are educating their children outside the mainstream system.
Let us be clear: I fully accept there are very few tragic cases where parents, intent on harming or neglecting their children, have cited home education as a smokescreen. However, in pretty much every instance, the abuse was already present when the child was still enrolled in school—or, indeed, in state-run care, as has just been mentioned. To take these horrors and use them to justify a regime that treats all parents who choose to home educate as presumptively suspect is not only disproportionate but profoundly unjust. It risks creating a system that soaks up scarce safeguarding resources chasing bureaucratic compliance by good families, while truly at-risk children continue to slip through the net precisely because professionals are mired in routine paperwork.
Clause 31 in particular gives local authorities extraordinary powers. It requires the registration of any child not attending school full-time, regardless of whether there is any reason to suspect unsuitable education or harm. The data that can be demanded under this clause is extensive, including personal details, philosophical convictions, protected characteristics, information on supplementary educational providers and more, which will be held indefinitely and cross-referenced with other local records. As I mentioned at Second Reading, I totally oppose this register on principle.
Here we can see exactly the concern raised by Reclaim Rights for Children and other expert bodies, including many academics, that the proposed children not in school register requires information far beyond what is necessary. Even the Department for Education itself has conceded that simply having a child’s name, date of birth, home address and the names and home addresses of each parent should be sufficient to support the existing duties of a local authority to try to identify those children not in school and ensure they are receiving efficient, suitable education. Yet the Bill goes on to say that there may be other data that it would be helpful to capture. That is not how lawful data processing works. Under well-established principles of minimisation, personal data processing must be limited strictly to what is necessary and not exceed the purpose for which it was collected. You do not gather more than you need simply because it might be helpful.
Clause 34 compounds these concerns. It not only record facts but makes local authorities active interrogators of family choices without clear statutory boundaries. There is no real limit on what might be demanded under the vague heading of sufficient information. This invites mission creep, allowing data collected ostensibly for educational oversight to be repurposed for broader monitoring. It risks empowering officers who may be ideologically suspicious of home education to harass families, treating any non-co-operation as evidence of neglect and flipping the burden of proof entirely.
That is why I strongly support Amendment 286 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which probes how these sweeping new powers would intersect with children who have special education needs. Children with education, health and care plans or who receive Section 19 or Section 61 provision are already under a robust statutory framework. Pulling them into an additional generalist register not only duplicates bureaucracy, which does not sound very efficient to me, but risks destabilising finely balanced arrangements, often secured only after long struggle and hard evidence of need. The local authority already knows exactly what education these children are receiving; they do not need another compliance net.
Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, my Amendment 279 would allow local authorities to inspect the materials being used in the child’s home education and to see the child’s work. I also support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I strongly support the Government’s measures in relation to home education in this Bill, and in this respect I find myself in disagreement with a number of noble friends on these Benches with whom I generally share a common view of life. I was delighted to hear the Minister’s opening remarks on this group. I thought she put the situation exceptionally well.
As we have heard, the home education lobby is very concerned about these provisions, and I am sure it will be concerned about my amendment. However, the number of children apparently being educated at home has grown exponentially over the past 10 to 15 years, probably from 20,000 to 30,000 to somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, and that is without allowing for the 300,000 children estimated by the Education Policy Institute to be missing from education. My noble friend Lord Frost says that only 1.4% of home-educated children get a school attendance order, which is unsurprising as without a register local authorities just do not know who these children are. As for the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, about the majority of home-schoolers being university-educated people, that may well be the case for those home-educated children who are being suitably educated, but I believe there are many more children who are apparently being home-educated but who do not have that benefit.
Of course, many children are educated exceptionally well by their parents at home or in other settings, and I respect parents’ right to do that. These are not the parents who concern me, and nor should these parents be concerned about the provisions in the Bill or my amendment. If they are providing a suitable education, why should they be? But those of us who work in schools know that many children apparently being educated at home are not receiving a suitable education, or indeed any education at all. Many are active in gangs. Surely, we must be concerned about these children. Children have a right to be educated, and I invite the home education lobby to reflect on whether its objections to the Bill, and no doubt to my amendment, are a little selfish and lacking in public spirit in some respects. I understand what my noble friend Lord Lucas was saying about the importance of children being seen. I assume, therefore, that he supports going further than my amendment, because the whole point is that too many children are unseen.
England is an outlier in relation to home education. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, talked about the relatively low number of children being home-educated. We have the highest proportion of children in home education and the lowest amount of regulation. No other European country has a higher rate of home education. The next highest is France, which mandates yearly inspections. The 2018 European Commission report into home education concluded that students’ progress is monitored and assessed everywhere in Europe except in the UK and in the Netherlands. I refer noble Lords to an excellent report by the Centre for Social Justice dated November 2022, entitled Out of Sight and Out of Mind. That report made a number of recommendations, including that local authorities need powers to conduct visits and see the child in person at least every six months, and that home-educated children should complete an annual light-touch progress assessment in English and maths. My amendment goes nowhere near as far as that.
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has uncovered incidents of harm involving children reported to be in home education, including a number of children who have died. The panel concluded that such children were often invisible, were not in school and did not receive home visits. A 2021 report by FFT Education Datalab found that children with additional vulnerabilities are disproportionately likely to be out of the school system by the end of key stage 4, and it is estimated that about half these children are in home education. It found that a child who has been persistently absent from school is more than three times more likely to end up with no final destination than a child who has never been persistently absent, and a permanently excluded child is two and a half times more likely than the child who has never been permanently excluded.
Local authorities do not like serving school attendance orders because by the time the matter gets to court, the parents are lawyered up and, even when they are not providing a suitable education, may well be pretending to be doing so by producing documentation that they have only recently obtained. My proposal would cut through this dance. Unless a child who is home-educated is known to social services, how is a local authority to know whether they are receiving a suitable education?
While Sara Sharif had previously been under a CPP, she does not appear to have been at the time of moving into home education. On my noble friend Lord Wei’s point about scaremongering, we should certainly be concerned about children who are home-educated and suffer abuse or are murdered. I believe there are many more children, not in this category, who are apparently being educated at home but are actually not receiving any education at all. Sadly, in the last decade or so, the world has moved rapidly to this appalling state of affairs.
My amendment is consistent with the recommendations made by the Education Select Committee in its report Strengthening Home Education, although it does not go anywhere near as far as its recommendations of annual contact with the family and a minimum annual assessment of a child’s progress, particularly in relation to literacy and numeracy.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 202C from the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and Amendment 226 from my noble friend Lord Meston. As this is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I would like to make two preliminary remarks. The first is to declare a personal interest, as I have a relative who is home-educating, and therefore I have learned at second hand some of the issues involved here. Secondly, that has also caused me to want to investigate more and to thank the many people both inside and outside this House who have provided me with information about the whole field of home education and how it relates to local authorities.
I am very grateful to the Minister for having a meeting with me early on in this process and to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for also having meetings with me to discuss these issues. I very much appreciate it, and I very much appreciate the fact that the Minister has offered to meet Peers. I am available in August, so we look forward to having further discussions and perhaps saving some time in Committee around some of the relatively minor details that need to be cleared up in the Bill.
I do not want to take up too much time; I will simply make three or four points and then speak to the amendments. If noble Lords want to see a real approach to personalised education, they can find that in some of the successful examples of elective home education perfectly attuned to the needs, capabilities and aspirations of the child. That happens at all levels of achievement.
However, and equally, I am concerned about the 39,000 missing children mentioned who may be at risk of abuse, may be running wild or are being brainwashed and separated from society in some form. There are a whole range of different sets of issues that we must think about here.
In characterising home education, I just want to pick up one other point that I do not think has been made by anyone: some parents choose to home-educate one of their children because of that child’s particular needs but have their other children in school. Indeed, many parents will home-educate their children for a period and then bring them back into school later on when they perhaps have moved up or managed to develop in a way that allows them to take advantage of whatever the provision is locally.
We must really recognise the poor state of some of our schools and some of the stories I have heard about what has been described to me as “in-school excluded”. These are children who perhaps have difficult behaviours or whatever, have an educational assistant and end up spending the time in the corridor with that assistant rather than being educated.
There is a whole range of issues that we need to tackle here. My approach to it is, like others—I am delighted to see this spirit in your Lordships’ Committee on this—to try to find practical ways forward to balance all the different issues. Central to that, in whatever we do, is to help to frame a positive relationship between home-educating parents and local authorities. In some cases, this is excellent but, in others, this is very fraught indeed. I will have a bit more to say on that later.
Lord Nash (Con)
My amendment also says
“to see the child’s work”.
As those of us in schools know, seeing a child’s books is one of the best ways of finding out whether they are being properly taught. It may be that the home educators are educating their children in a particular way and you can see the materials that they are using to teach, but one needs to know whether the children are actually learning. The only way to know that is to see their work.
Lord Crisp (CB)
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, and I very much understand the point that he is making. However, the issue is what happens to that material once it is inspected. How does the home education officer make a judgment on it? Most of them are not teachers—in fact, I suspect very few are. Do they go to an outside source, or do we set up some great panoply of mechanisms to decide whether those materials are appropriate?
At the moment, we have a different situation. The current position, as I understand it, is that, where authorities have cause for concern, Sections 437 to 443 of the Education Act 1996 provide for steps to be taken if it appears that there is very little or no education in place for a child, or if the local authority has no information about any education arrangements. I understand that in most, possibly all, local authority areas home-educating parents provide an annual report to the local authorities, rather than providing materials that will be judged in isolation.
I think that we should leave the law where it is. As I understand it, the attitude of the best local authority home education officers is that they build relationships; they are happy with most of the people, but can then concentrate on the problem areas—because there are problem areas—within the home education sphere. Imposing new duties such as this would add burden, bureaucracy and frustration to authorities and parents alike. We should concentrate on improving that relationship, not making it more burdensome.
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Nash’s Amendment 279. It suggests a very mild tweak to the proposed legislation, largely because he is respectful of the majority of parents who do a good job in home education, which I completely agree with. However, I see at close quarters the impact of home education in deprived communities where the parents have limited education themselves and little interest in it. They are clearly unable to educate their own children and yet, when they are withdrawn from schools, there is nothing a school can do. These children are being thrown to the wolves and, as the Minister has said, the numbers are escalating.
My noble friend Lord Nash talks about a trend over the past 10 to 15 years but, according to the NSPCC, the number has increased by 186% in six years. In 14 local authorities, it has quadrupled in that time. These are not all middle-class, educated parents, but we have no idea who they are.
In 2021, the House of Commons Education Committee’s Strengthening Home Education report made a number of recommendations. Perhaps the most important was that the DfE should provide
“a set of clear criteria against which the suitability of education can be assessed, taking into account the full range of pedagogical approaches taken in EHE”—
elective home education—
“as well as the age, ability and aptitude of individual children, including where they may have SEND”.
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, a government-sponsored group, produced a number of recommendations on home education in its May 2024 report, and many of these mirrored the report I have just mentioned. The report refers to 27 referrals received between August 2020 and October 2021, involving the deaths of six children and a further 35 suffering serious harm, including physical neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse. There are many other good recommendations, but, as they do not fit this specific amendment, I will not list them. I recommend these two reports to any Peer interested in this vexing subject.
My noble friend’s amendment would provide a very light-touch review point. Bona fide parents would not be negatively affected. On the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, I say that the amendment is extremely light touch, but it would move the situation from what is currently a complete black hole to at least give us some indication of children’s well-being.
I want to finish with the case of Sara Sharif. Many noble Lords will know about it, but I will remind the Committee. A 10 year-old girl was withdrawn from her primary school in April 2023 under the pretext of home education. This occurred after teachers noticed bruising, which she had attempted to conceal beneath her hijab. The school referred their concerns to social services, but, after being taken out of school, she became invisible to safeguarding agencies. Neighbours reported hearing constant crying and screaming. She was murdered by her father and stepmother. They were convicted in December last year. The lack of school oversight allowed this to happen undetected. I respect the good work that most home-educating parents do, but it is for cases like hers that I support Amendment 279.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Government for taking this issue on and for being aware of the problems that we face. I also recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, was on to this in her role as Minister as well.
I have met hundreds of home educators and considerably more have contacted me, and most of them do an amazing job. Noble Lords ought to know that some of the home educators who have contacted me by email have been concerned about what has been going on and given practical examples of that. We need to get a balanced picture sometimes.
If we really want to understand this issue, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, makes the point in his amendment that 39,000 children are missing—we have no idea where they are. The Government want to tackle that head-on. Imagine a society that says to those who want to remove their children from the education system that that is fine—just do it—but we will not keep any records and we will have no idea what you are doing at home, and will leave you to get on with it. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine a situation where fundamentalist religious groups set up unregistered schools and we have no idea what is happening in them, except occasionally when some of the teachers working in them report to the authorities the appalling behaviour of staff? Ofsted has on many occasions tried to close those schools down, but they re-emerge as home education settings—
Lord Nash (Con)
On the figure of 30,000, the Education Policy Institute, of which I was a trustee until relatively recently, estimated by comparing GP registrations with school registration and home education data that in 2023 there was a gap of 300,000 children—and that was not accounting for home-educated children.
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for that.
Clearly, there are different groups of home educators and we cannot just use the blanket term “home education”. First, there are the traditional home educators. Let us be honest, the most important educators in a child’s life are the parents, and some parents have the time, opportunity, money and desire to teach their children at home. They do a fantastic job. As I said earlier, I have met many of them. They organise summer camps, celebrate together, et cetera. In the main, they are probably the people who have the resources and time to do that. The second group are those whom my noble friend mentioned: parents who feel that the education system is not working for their children who have special educational needs. I think we can understand that.
Then there is a third type, which the noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned. After Covid, children, mainly from poorer families or disadvantaged backgrounds, returned to school and could not cope. They went back to their parents and said, “I don’t want to be in school”. They nagged their mum and dad who, in the end, said, “Okay, we’ll home educate you”, despite having no experience of home education at all. Sadly, those parents did a major disservice to their children, who of course were not being home educated—they were just doing nothing at home and getting further and further behind in their learning. Some have gone on to criminal activities as well.
Finally, there is the group I mentioned before: those in unregistered schools. If noble Lords knew some of the practices that went on in those schools, they would be appalled. In fundamentalist religious schools, eight year-old boys spend all their time just learning holy scriptures and have no proper education, which is not acceptable at all.
I understand some parents’ concerns that they do not want to see bureaucratic procedures getting in the way of their home education, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, rightly mentioned. It is not beyond our wit to look very closely between Committee and Report at what we require. It is important that we know where children are. Any system we bring in has to work; we have been down this route before. In my first headship—some teachers here will remember this—there was the unique pupil number which every child had and which went on with them to whichever school they went to. The school had a duty to inform the next school that the child was moving to, et cetera.
That, for some reason, has broken down; I do not understand why. Therefore, the system that we adopt here has to work—and not just between schools; in cases where children do not go to school, we have to know where they are, so that we can keep them safe and ensure that they are learning.
Lord Wei (Con)
Perhaps I might build on that point. There seems to be a lot of conflation in this debate between home education and children who are missing education or invisible. It seems that all these measures are designed to try to find these invisible children. Is there not a risk, as I think the noble Lord is touching on, that we may bring in a system that does not actually find the missing children? The people who are very determined to abuse their children, or to hide them in very fundamentalist environments, are the very people who would not register their children even if we had a database. In which case, we would be going after all the people who are doing a good job in the noble Lord’s first few categories. Will the parents we actually want to get—the 39,000 or 300,000 or however many—really self-disclose? There is a real risk that we might not know this until we have imposed a huge amount of bureaucracy on all the parents who are doing a great job.
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. The answer is that, at the moment, we are not doing anything, which is why the children are going missing and why we do not know where they are. We therefore need to do something to ensure that those children have the opportunity of education and are safe.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. I am on the Social Mobility Policy Committee. As part of the evidence gathering process, we went to Blackpool, where we met with the Department for Work and Pensions, which has a database on many children who are being home-schooled because they are in receipt of benefits. Indeed, a lot of the parents who have been mentioned today, who are not particularly well suited to home education, also claim benefits. If the Department for Education and DWP could communicate with one another, we could get to these people via the benefits system.
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for that point; I am sure that the Minister is listening and learning. Again, I hope that, between Committee and Report, we can be sure that what we legislate for will be workable, clear and as unbureaucratic as it can be.
Finally, I will deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made at the very beginning made about flexi-learning. I have some slight experience with that, because, as I think I have mentioned before in your Lordships’ House, I had a pupil who was school-phobic; he literally would not come into school. His mum was a nurse and did not have the opportunity to home-educate, so we home-educated for her. Gradually, by that home education—which, I suppose, was a type of flexi-learning—we were able to bring the boy back into school.
I hope that, at the end of debating these many amendments, the most important thing will be that we ensure that we know where every child is, that every child is learning and that every child is safe.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the clarity she brought with her earlier remarks. She set out the objectives of the Government and her commitment, on behalf of colleagues in the department, to work with Peers across the House—it looks as though that will be in August—to explore their concerns and, where possible, to address them. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for the constructive tone of his opening remarks.
The principle of having a register for children not in school has long held cross-party support and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, described, there are very different groups of children who are educated at home. What the debate has started to explore is that, in our eagerness to safeguard vulnerable children, which we must try to do well, and to support those children who have struggled in mainstream school, we must also make every effort not to stigmatise, or to treat with suspicion, parents who make a positive choice to home-educate their children.
This group and many of the others which follow highlight the complexity of creating a home-schooling register and the multiplicity of details that need to be considered. I note that Amendments 202C, 227, 227A and 286 and the opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill are all probing, and I look forward to the Minister’s clarifications. I thought, unsurprisingly, that my noble friend Lord Frost made some very valid points on the risk of duplication of supervision and safeguarding in relation to children who are flexi-schooled.
On the individual amendments, there are two in this group which we support: Amendment 226 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and Amendment 279 in the name of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew. With regard to children missing education and Amendment 226, most people would be surprised if it was not already a duty to inform the court if proceedings relating to the welfare of the child were under way and that child was not in school. It seems to me highly relevant information for the court to take into consideration, since there is a lot more risk attached to a child who is classified as missing education as opposed to a child who is electively home-educated. I am not sure about the practicality of consistent arrangements to address persistent non-attendance or irregular attendance, as the noble Lord’s amendment sets out, but I absolutely support the spirit of his amendment that the family courts should be made aware of the child’s situation and the risks that accompany it.
Amendment 279 in the names of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew raised the important point of what a local authority can do if it has concerns that a child is not receiving a suitable education or, indeed, any real education at all. I hope that the Government have thought about this and have a plan for it. There is a great deal of detail in new Section 436C in Clause 31 of the Bill, but nothing about the actual education that a child receives, just the time spent and with whom.
On Amendment 233A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I remember very well the meeting with a group of home-educators—in fact, I look below Bar and there they are again, in the same place as last time; it is like Groundhog Day. The amendment would remove new Section 436C, which defines in detail the content and process for maintaining the proposed children not in school registers. While I agree with the noble Lord that the drafting appears unnecessarily detailed and potentially intrusive, it is important to have clarity about what will be recorded and how it will be kept up to date.
I also cannot support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill, although I appreciate that this was designed to give the House a chance to explore the principles that the Government intend to follow, which we have heard from the Minister. My noble friend will remember that, in the 2022 Schools Bill, we were very clear that a register for children not in school was necessary. I think the current Government have improved on our original proposal in one way, with the increased focus on safeguarding in Clause 30—although, as I said in relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I regret the extent of detail that is required in the Bill. Of course, we will probe in subsequent groups the balance between the clear right of parents to educate their children at home and the right of a child to receive a suitable education, but the principle of a local authority register for children not in school has very broad support.
My understanding is that the remaining amendments in this group are also all probing amendments. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments relates to the purpose and scope of children not in school registers. As the first group in consideration of these clauses, it has, rightly, raised some broad issues of principle as well, so I will speak for slightly longer than I will, I hope, on subsequent groups to put some of the important principles on the record and, I hope, to begin to allay some of the concerns expressed.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for the important points he raised. I want to address the principal points, as I say, before turning to other noble Lords’ amendments in this grouping. During today’s debate, we will hear much about parents’ rights, so I want to be clear up front again that parents already have and will continue to have a right to home-educate their children, in line with their preferences, values or religious beliefs. On some of the specific points that the noble Lord raised, we will give further consideration in Clause 36 to the nature of the places in which children are educated and whether they should be further inspected and regulated.
The noble Lord is right that we are attempting here to make sure that we know where children are and that they are seen. It is not about preventing them being educated elsewhere than in schools or necessarily seeing that as a risk. It is important that we do not, as some noble Lords have suggested, view the register as a statement that there is something illegitimate in the choices made by many parents to educate their children. It is about ensuring that every child, however, is seen. It is also important that we do not lose sight of parents’ responsibilities and children’s rights. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Nash, made this point very well. Parental rights are not absolute. They must be able to be evidence to local authorities that education is suitable. That is the existing position and the Bill does not change it. Children not in school registers will help ensure that children’s right to a safe, suitable education is protected. It is the Government’s ambition that no child falls through the gaps in this respect. The information that we are asking parents to provide for the registers is underpinned by that very singular goal.
To be absolutely clear, the registers are not intended to drive a wedge between local authorities and parents. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords that positive engagement between parents and local authorities is essential. I also recognise the concerns of noble Lords that we are careful about the burdens and the process for gathering and recording information for the register. This is an area where looking at it in more detail with officials in my department may well help provide some assurance to noble Lords.
Information recorded on registers and shared with the department could increase transparency and accountability; for example, by improving our understanding of reasons for home education and local authority practices. Why people choose to home-educate and accountability for local authorities are both important.
I understand that data protection is a concern for many and we take it very seriously, including our data protection obligations. We are committed to high standards of information security, privacy and transparency. All data will be processed only for a specific purpose, which in this case is regarding a child’s education, welfare or safeguarding. Local authorities will also be subject to the UK GDPR as the domain data controllers. We will talk in more detail about the nature of the information collected and its use in some later groups.
I will now move on to address in more detail other points that have been raised by noble Lords, beginning with Amendment 226, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. Tackling persistent absence and ensuring that we can trace and support children who are identified as missing school due to persistent absence is a very important part of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. I thank the noble Lord for raising this important issue. However, it is not necessary to set up a new system to track and trace these children. Schools are already required to return the information outlined in the noble Lord’s amendment to their local authority. Schools are also required to share information on attendance with the Secretary of State through the school census and the department’s daily attendance data collection. As outlined in the department’s statutory guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance, local authorities are expected to use this information to identify attendance problems and to take appropriate action. Expectations include facilitating support for families where that is required, such as in the family courts.
Lord Wei (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but is it not the case that if a determined local authority objects to home-schooling, they could start a process of investigating a family under these powers and therefore, technically, the family would be under investigation and could be refused—and all parents could theoretically be prevented from doing so?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
No, and we will come to that in detail. The Section 47 provision, the child protection inquiries, would require evidence of significant harm to the child. It is not the case, as we have identified, that many parents who are home-educating would get anywhere near that sort of threshold. Nor would local authorities have any incentive to do that.
These provisions do not prohibit flexi-schooling arrangements. However, schools should agree to a flexi-schooling arrangement only in exceptional circumstances. We will update guidance to make this clear. In later groups we will be talking in more detail about the provisions around the consent process.
I turn to Amendment 286 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. This is a probing amendment which would remove an exemption on the parental duty to provide information for registers. To be clear, the proposed exemption relates to children whose education is provided under alternative provision arrangements when special educational provision other than in schools is in place or where arrangements have been made by the proprietor of the school that the child is attending. These children may be in scope of the children not in school registers, but the local authority will already hold this information, so there is no need for a duty to provide information that rests with the parents in those cases.
Amendment 233A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hacking, aims to push on what mandatory information local authority registers should contain. The only information required to be held on registers is that which is easily available to parents or obtainable by local authorities, and that is important for ascertaining the suitability of education and the safety of the child—such as the child’s name, their date of birth, address and details of education provided by the parent and others. We will talk on later groups about the way in which that information should be provided and the ease with which I hope it can be provided.
I turn now to Amendment 279, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, who made a strong case for the provisions in this legislation. His amendment aims to give local authorities the right to inspect the educational materials used by home educators and to view work that that child produces. Local authorities must consider a range of factors when assessing the suitability of a child’s education. One example of how they may conduct their inquiries into suitability is to request evidence of work samples. This position was confirmed in the Portsmouth judicial review case in 2021. If the local authority is not satisfied that the education is suitable based on the information received, it must usually serve a school attendance order, which requires the child to be enrolled at a school.
I turn to the Clause 31 stand part notice tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I hope the noble Lord was satisfied by my first speech on this group but, to summarise succinctly, we need an effective registration system so that local authorities can identify all children not in school and ensure that they are receiving suitable education and are safe. This is what Clause 31 will achieve.
The stand part notice tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, seeks to remove Clause 34 from the Bill. Clause 34 allows for statutory guidance to be provided to local authorities on how they should carry out their new duties in relation to the school attendance order process and children not in school registers. This guidance will provide local authorities with advice on how to exercise their new powers and responsibilities proportionately and consistently. For example, we would expect it to include further advice on how local authorities should request and conduct home visits.
As part of the implementation of the Bill, we will consult on the guidance to ensure that we hear from stakeholders that the measures will have an impact. It is necessary that the guidance is statutory to help ensure compliance with the advice within it. There will be considerable opportunity for further engagement on the details of that; the House will have the opportunity to consider it, because it will be subject to the affirmative resolution process.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made points on why all children need to be included on registers. To reiterate, we agree that home education is not in itself a safeguarding risk, but it can mean that children slip under the radar of the services that are there to protect them. Our consent measures are a proportionate solution which, as I have said, focuses on the small but important group of children for whom there are concerns about actual or likely significant harm. We will further discuss these issues later. The registers are about helping local authorities to discharge their existing duties to ensure that children are receiving a safe and suitable education.
Finally, with respect to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about the child rights impact and the relationship with Wales, there is, to be clear, a child rights impact assessment produced by the Government for this piece of legislation, but Wales wanted to produce its own. That is the reason for the situation that the noble Baroness outlined.
For the reasons that I have outlined, and given the extensive discussions we have had as a forerunner for the further discussions that we will have, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments or stand part notices.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, if I might pick up the Minister on a couple of small issues, could she first confirm to the House that we will see a form of registration that will include every child? I thought that that was where we were going in Clause 4. She seemed to be talking about a register that includes only bits and pieces. In order for the local authority to know that it is not missing a child, can it use the provisions in Clause 4 and whatever comes out of that to connect to, as my noble friend said, what is going on in the benefits system and the NHS, in order to know that every child is in the system somewhere and to pick up cases where children are not being registered and seen?
Secondly, when it comes to flexi-schooling, is not the school absolutely in the best position to evaluate whether a child is receiving a proper education as a whole? A school has the power to discontinue flexi-schooling if that is not the case. Why do we want to insert a local authority official into a process when the school is in much the best place to take those decisions?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
If I have understood the noble Lord’s first point, it relates to whether the information-sharing provisions within this legislation will support the ability of local authorities to be able to track, so that they can ensure that children do not fall through the gaps. Of course that would be the case, but that in itself does not remove the requirement to ensure that, as he said, local authorities have information about where all children are receiving their education. The noble Lord is right that the intention of these clauses is that, obviously, if a child is receiving their education in school, it is clear and they are seen, but if they are not receiving their education in school for whatever reason, it is important that they are seen. The intention is that those are the children who should be included in the register of children not in school.
I take the noble Lord’s point about flexi-schooling, but it is possible to envisage, as I suggested, models of flexi-schooling where children are receiving part of their schooling at a school where they are registered and on the roll but are not receiving all of their schooling there. Therefore, the explanation of why they should be included in the register of children not in school is in order to have sight of the other part of their schooling. The other point that I made was that that would not necessarily require parents to provide additional information, because it may well be that the information about where that education provision is happening is known by the school. There is a range of different flexi-schooling arrangements and it is important that, in line with the helpful principle that the noble Lord set out at the beginning, we are able to see children and to see the education that they are receiving.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her support on the flexi-schooling amendments and the Minister for her response and her comprehensive statement earlier in the debate, which was helpful. The brief discussion that we have just had on flexi-schooling illustrates exactly the sort of point that is perhaps better discussed in one of those August meetings than now on the Floor of your Lordships’ House.
I will not detain noble Lords further. We have had a much fuller debate than perhaps I expected and I might have spoken at greater length at the start if I had known quite how large a debate we would have. I take this opportunity nevertheless to associate myself with the comments of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei on the principles of this discussion.
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:52 - Division on Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb’s amendment - Ayes: 16 / Noes: 144 - Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb’s amendment disagreed.
Lord Hanson of Flint
That the draft Order laid before the House on 30 June be approved.
Relevant document: 30th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, this order was laid before the House on 30 June. I am grateful to the House for its consideration of this draft order, which will see three distinct groups proscribed. They are Maniacs Murder Cult, Palestine Action and the Russian Imperial Movement. The proscription of these three organisations will reaffirm the UK’s zero-tolerance approach to terrorism, regardless of its form or underlying ideology.
It may be helpful to noble Lords if I first set out some background to the power of the proscription order. To proscribe an organisation, the Home Secretary must reasonably believe that it is concerned with terrorism. This means that an organisation commits or participates in terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned with terrorism. Noble Lords will, I am sure, welcome knowing that some 80 terrorist organisations are currently proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Proscription is, rightly, ideologically neutral. It judges an organisation not on its politics but on its actions and the actions that it is willing to deploy in pursuit of its cause. The UK’s definition of “terrorism” was established in law a quarter of a century ago. It has stood the test of time and had extensive scrutiny since.
The legislation currently has three specific limbs. The first is that the use or threat of action must reach a certain level of seriousness, such as serious violence or serious damage to property. The second is that the use or threat must be designed to influence a Government or intimidate the public, or a section of the public. The third is that the use or threat must be made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. Successive Independent Reviewers of Terrorism Legislation, a number of whom still sit in this House, have upheld the UK’s terrorism definition as effective and fit for purpose, even as the threat from terrorism has evolved.
Proscription is one of the most powerful counterterrorism tools available to the Government. I reassure the House that any decision to proscribe is taken with great care following rigorous consideration. Jonathan Hall KC, in his report on the operation of the Terrorism Acts in 2022, reaffirmed that principle.
We have three organisations before the House. I turn to the measure and shall speak to the proposed additions to the list of proscribed organisations in the order in which they are taken.
First, Maniacs Murder Cult, also known as “MMC”, is an insidious, white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation that operates online and across borders. It aims to encourage individuals to engage in acts of violence against people it perceives as anti-social, including homeless people, drug addicts and migrants—all to further its ideology and degrade human society through violence. The Government have assessed that MMC commits, prepares for, promotes and encourages acts of terrorism. MMC members and leaders have claimed a number of violent attacks globally that were committed in pursuit of the group’s aims. MMC supplies instructional material that could increase the capability or motivation of an aspiring attacker, including a guide that provides information on how to attack someone fatally with a knife and use a vehicle as a weapon. Members and non-members share MMC’s material online, including videos of violent attacks, to encourage further violence in support of its ideology.
I regret to the tell the House that on 22 May, a 21 year-old Georgian national considered to be one of MMC’s leaders, who is known as “Commander Butcher”, was extradited to the United States—by regret, I mean that we have go to the extent of extraditing somebody—and is set to stand trial in New York for soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence. In the indictment, he is alleged to have recruited individuals online to promote MMC’s ideologies by committing acts of murder, arson, bombing and mass poisoning in New York, targeted specifically at members of ethnic minority groups, homeless people and Jewish schoolchildren. I hope that case in New York illustrates that MMC has a truly transnational audience, including in the UK. It does not matter where the leaders of this network are based; if they are capable of inspiring acts of violence and terror they should be dealt with.
Vulnerable individuals, such as minors, are particularly exposed to the horrific material MMC publishes and distributes online. Frankly, the Government will not stand by and allow the terrorist threat and wider societal harms caused by MMC to persist. Proscribing MMC is key to help deter and divert individuals from engaging with MMC’s violent content and will send a clear signal to social media companies to remove MMC’s material from their platforms. The threat posed by MMC must be taken extremely seriously, whether it is inspiring acts of violence against our people or influencing young people to commit those acts. We will not hesitate to take action against groups such as these to keep our country safe.
I turn to the second group, which is Palestine Action. The public attention it has garnered should not be confused with legitimacy; nor should a group formed five years ago be conflated with the legitimate campaign for Palestinian rights and statehood, which has existed in our country—and, indeed, across both Houses of Parliament—for more than five decades.
I want to be clear, and I hope that this will help noble Lords in their consideration: proscription of Palestine Action does not seek to ban protests that support Palestine. There are many ways in which people can continue to lawfully express their support for Palestine without being a member or supporter of Palestine Action.
Freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are cornerstones in our democracy. I have protested; I know of many other Members who have protested against various things in our lives, and we have done so fairly and openly. It is a fundamental right, and this Government will respect and protect those rights. I will always defend the rights of British people to engage in legitimate and peaceful processes and to stand up for the causes in which they believe.
Essential as these rights are, they do not provide a blank cheque for this particular group to seriously damage property or subject members of the public to fear and violence. The attack on Brize Norton on 20 June has understandably provoked widespread shock and anger, but the reality is that this is just the latest episode in Palestine Action’s long history of harmful activity. Palestine Action has orchestrated a nationwide campaign of property damage, featuring attacks that have resulted in serious damage to property and crossed the threshold from direct criminal action into terrorism. Palestine Action members have used violence against people responding at the scene of attacks. For their role in co-ordinated attacks, members of the organisation have been charged with serious offences, including violent disorder, grievous bodily harm with intent, and aggravated burglary, which is an offence involving a weapon. Despite some of the rhetoric to the contrary, the group’s own materials have stated that the organisation is not non-violent. This is echoed in the actions of its members, who have committed atrocious attacks.
The Government have to consider all the evidence, and the Home Secretary and my honourable friend Dan Jarvis, the Minister for Security, have concluded that Palestine Action is concerned in terrorism and should be proscribed. I hope that the House will understand that I am not able to comment on specific intelligence or go into details about incidents that are currently sub judice. However, I can provide a summary of the group’s activities, and it is right that I make those positions clear to the House.
Since its inception in 2020, Palestine Action has orchestrated and enacted a campaign of direct criminal action against businesses and institutions, including key national infrastructure and defence firms that provide services and supplies to support our efforts in Ukraine, NATO, our Five Eyes allies and the UK defence enterprise. Over time, but most importantly and notably since the start of 2024, Palestine Action’s activity has increased in frequency and severity. Its targets have broadened to include financial firms, charities, universities and government buildings. Its methods have become more aggressive, with its members demonstrating a willingness to use violence. Some of Palestine Action’s own materials state: “We are not a non-violent organisation and we have specific targets”. The group has a footprint in all 45 policing regions in the United Kingdom, and has pledged to escalate its campaign.
This pattern of activity cannot be allowed to continue. In applying the legislative framework, the Government assess that Palestine Action commits acts of terrorism. In several attacks, Palestine Action has committed acts of serious damage to property, with the aim of progressing its political cause and intimidating and influencing the public and the Government. These include attacks on Thales in Glasgow in 2022 and, last year, on Instro Precision in Kent and Elbit Systems UK in Bristol. In such attacks, Palestine Action members have forced entry on to premises armed with a variety of weapons and damaged or demolished property, causing millions of pounds-worth of criminal damage.
As the House will have heard, Palestine Action members have used violence against individuals who were responding at the scene at the time. During Palestine Action’s attack against Thales and the defence factory in Glasgow in 2022, the group caused over £1 million of damage, including parts of essential submarine materials. Palestine Action has caused panic among staff, who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs were thrown in an area when staff were evacuating from that area. The sheriff who passed custodial sentences for the perpetrators said:
“Throwing pyrotechnics into areas where people are being evacuated could hardly be described as non-violent”.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
At end to insert “but this House regrets that the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation (1) undermines civil liberties, including civil disobedience, (2) constitutes a misuse of anti-terrorism legislation, given that offences such as property damage can be dealt with under other criminal law, (3) suppresses dissent against the United Kingdom’s policy on Israel, and (4) criminalises support for a protest group, thereby creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression.”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, when I tabled this regret amendment yesterday, my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle gave me some advice. She said, “Don’t lose your temper”. I am going to try to do my best to heed her advice. I thank the Minister for his engagement; he has been very kind and polite, and I thank him for that. I had better state for the record that I am a protester of many decades, but I believe in non-violence: that is a limit for me.
However, there are many reasons why proscribing Palestine Action is a bad idea. Listening to the Minister, I thought that his descriptions of the three organisations had very distinct differences and that the actions of Palestine Action did not appear to have the same calibre of evil as those of the other two. Therefore, collectively organising these three into one SI is perhaps a little bit sneaky of this Government. Palestine Action is not like any other group that the British Government have so far declared a terrorist organisation. I was 12 years on the Met Police Authority and in that time I had lots of anti-terrorist briefings. To me, the actions of Palestine Action do not ring true as terrorist activities.
This SI also goes against the promises—
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
Would the noble Baroness give way momentarily?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I am so sorry, but no. If the noble Lord does not mind, I would like to finish my speech.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
No.
This SI goes directly against the promises made by Ministers when the anti-terror laws were introduced. The then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, clarified that if direct action groups
“do not engage in serious violence … the new definition cannot catch them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/12/1999; col. 227.]
The current definition of terrorism includes property damage to cover
“actions which might not be violent in themselves but which can, in a modern society, have a devastating impact”.
Based on what the Minister has said and what the Government have told us, Palestine Action’s activities have not had the potential for a “devastating impact” on society, and nor have its activities included a pattern of serious violence. Yet the Government are putting it into the same category as Islamic State and al-Qaeda, setting an incredibly dangerous precedent that will impact on numerous peaceful campaigning groups. There is a long and noble tradition—
Lord Harper (Con)
Is the noble Baroness prepared to answer questions about—
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
No, sweetie. Noble Lords can come in at the end, okay?
There is a long and noble tradition of the use of direct action by protest movements, including the suffragettes—yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act, when women were finally given the right to vote—anti-apartheid protests, Greenpeace and peace campaigners such as CND and the women of Greenham Common. I ask the Minister: under the Government’s proposal, would they also be retrospectively branded as terrorists? What about Queen Boudicca, a freedom fighter for the British tribes under the Roman yoke? This Government would call her a terrorist and say there is no place in British society for her, either.
Campaigners committing criminal damage have been annoying the public and Governments for well over 100 years. The police take them to court, the newspapers owned by rich people condemn them and occasionally we get a change in government policy. That is rather how our damaged democracy has been working.
I completely agree that democracies have to defend themselves against violent attacks on their citizens aimed at furthering a political cause, which is why we should be uniting to proscribe the other two groups that the noble Lord has described. But democracies have to defend themselves against politicians choosing censorship as a way of silencing opposition to unpopular policies, which is what I think the Government are doing here.
That brings me to my most important point. This proscription order undermines the entire consensus behind our country’s anti-terror laws. I ask the Minister and every noble Lord whether they can name another group that they are about to proscribe that has hundreds of thousands of British people following it on social media. What exactly does the Minister think will happen to that support for Palestine Action from such a large swathe of British people who suddenly feel, after Wednesday, when the order takes place, that they might be affected if they morally oppose genocide and the terrorism laws being used to defend what is morally wrong? I do not agree with everything that this group has done, not by any means, but when I hear that businesses have been stopped supplying arms to the Israeli military in Gaza, I feel happy that that has happened.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
No, I am sorry; I will not take interventions. There is an opportunity at the end.
Some 53% of British people agree with stopping sending arms to Israel, and I would expect any Government with a sense of morality to do that. Instead, it has been left to groups such as Palestine Action to take the lead. If you want Palestine Action to disappear, stop sending arms to Israel and giving military support to a foreign Government engaged in ethnic cleansing. Palestine Action has done many things that I do not agree with, but spraying paint on refuelling planes that campaigners believe are used to help the ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not terrorism; it is criminal damage, which we already have laws for. It is gesture politics, and the MoD itself has declared that it did not block any planned aircraft movements or stop any operations. Palestine Action would have been in court to face justice, but so would the Government on that basis, and I think that is what Ministers have actually been rather concerned about.
Palestine Action has a five-year history of things it has done, but as soon as Ministers realised that a jury might not convict it of spray-painting at Brize Norton, they declared it a terrorist group. The Government were very aware of how likely it was that a jury would free Palestine Action campaigners because of the public’s horror over our involvement in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They would remember that the Prime Minister was the lawyer who defended the “Fairford five” after anti-war protesters broke into RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to sabotage United States bombers before the Iraq war. He argued that while their actions were unlawful, they were justified as an attempt to prevent war crimes, asserting that the Iraq war lacked legal basis under international law due to an absence of a clear UN resolution. I can easily see why a jury might choose not to convict the campaigners at Brize Norton in the same way. Subsequent legal appeals, based on the legal threshold of terrorism when events do not endanger life, could cost us, the taxpayer, a lot of money. This Government have clamped down on civil liberties in many ways, through many laws, and for me this is a step too far. I deeply regret that we have reached this point, and I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I have supported my party for nearly 10 years since I joined this House, sometimes late like the last two nights, but I cannot support this Motion, as my noble friend understands. That gives me no joy because I have been a long-standing colleague of his as a Welsh MP. Indeed, he was a very effective Minister when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. To be absolutely clear, I support the right of Israel to exist and of Israelis to enjoy full security. I am also a long-standing supporter of Palestinian rights to self-determination in their own state. I was vehemently opposed to the antisemitism tolerated under Jeremy Corbyn’s ill-fated leadership and, as far as I remember, I have never participated in any Palestine Action protest or been on any of its platforms. I sought advice from the clerk of the Table Office to amend this Motion so that it proscribed only the two Nazi-like paramilitary groups it lists and not Palestine Action but was advised that this was not procedurally possible.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Is there not a fundamental distinction between Nelson Mandela and the suffragettes on the one hand and our society today in which everybody has the right to vote? We live in a democratic society in which there are ample means of expressing your views.
Lord Hain (Lab)
Of course democracy did not exist in South Africa at the time and women did not have the vote at the time. I concede that point but, frankly, Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft in Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison with what the suffragettes did, and those alleged to have done this are being prosecuted for criminal damage, as indeed they should be.
Lord Harper (Con)
I simply want to make what I hope is a helpful point to the House. In case noble Lords have not seen it, four individuals have now been charged with the alleged offences at Brize Norton. As a new Member of your Lordships’ House, I have to confess that I am not entirely certain what the sub judice rule is in the House, but it seems to me that we ought to exercise a certain level of caution in commenting on that specific offence for fear of prejudicing the trial of the four individuals who have been charged with those offences as of last night.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I totally agree with the noble Lord, but it is like that that they have been charged. There are plenty of other criminal offences that such activity could attract rather than treating young people as terrorists because they feel frustrated about the failure to stop mass killings and bombings of Palestinians in Gaza. That is the point I am making. There is plenty of ammunition in the legal armoury to do that.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I may have a helpful interjection. The charges brought against the four are all criminal charges, not terrorism charges, which is an important distinction that points exactly to what the noble Lord is saying. Protests can be unlawful but not necessarily terrorism.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I am making exactly that point. By the way, someone should be disciplined for permitting such an easy breach of security at a key military airfield such as Brize Norton. What if the Palestine Action protesters had been real terrorists? Imagine what would have happened then.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
There is nothing in this order that will prevent young people protesting about what Israel is doing in Gaza. It is pretty shocking to hear people compare Palestine Action with the suffragettes and Nelson Mandela. Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that it is non-violent when people smash their way in armoured vehicles into factories where ordinary working people are at work and when security guards and police have been injured in such attacks with sledgehammers? That is not non-violent protest.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I am not suggesting that it is. I completely agree with the noble Lord, but there is a difference between that kind of action and the action generally taken by young supporters of Palestine Action. Whether or not I agree with it—I have never supported its activity—there is a great difference between that and terrorism. If you start labelling people as terrorists willy-nilly right across the board, you go down a very dangerous route.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I have great regard for the noble Lord, but will he answer a simple question in a simple way? Does he accept that the actions of Palestine Action as described by the Minister are criminal actions that fall within the definition of terrorism and therefore are available, if the Director of Public Prosecutions so decides, to be prosecuted as terrorist offences?
Lord Hain (Lab)
The acts at Brize Norton were certainly criminal acts and should be prosecuted, as they are being at this very moment. As has been described, it is a matter of sub judice.
Please remember that the suffragettes were arrested and subjected to harsh terms of imprisonment, including force-feeding when they went on hunger strikes. We are trying to discuss the contemporary situation, but we should consider it against the background of historical reality. I seek to make that point, because it is very relevant. They went on hunger strikes and were subject to force-feeding for doing so.
Now look at the real terrorists: al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Members of al-Qaeda suicide-attacked New York’s twin towers on 11 September 2001, killing 2,753 people. That is real terrorism. Islamic State deliberately targeted its civilians in public spaces to instil fear, spread panic, gain media attention and punish any groups or Governments opposing them. ISIS became notorious for filmed beheadings and executions. It engaged in widespread sexual slavery, particularly of Yazidi women. That is real terrorism. In 2015, Islamic State members killed 130 people in Paris. In 2016, its suicide bombers struck Brussels Airport and the metro system, killing 32, and it attacked Istanbul Airport, killing 45. In Easter 2019, Islamic State terrorists bombed churches and hotels, killing over 250 people, in Sri Lanka. That is real terrorism, real terrorists.
Nazi-like US racists and, here in the United Kingdom, the IRA also committed terrible terrorist atrocities, targeting or killing innocent civilians. They are properly and rightly labelled terrorists. This Government are treating Palestine Action as equivalent to Islamic State or al-Qaeda, which is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong. Frankly, I am deeply ashamed, which is why I support the regret amendment.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s statement but start with a sense of disappointment that the Home Office did not see fit to give the intelligence assessment behind this, which he rightly says cannot be made public, to the ISC. He is a former member of the ISC, so he knows our remits. I understand that, yesterday, his colleague in the other place, Dan Jarvis, made attempts to contact certain privy counsellors to give them a Privy Council brief. The committee met this morning and was quite angry that the Government had not given it this information before this legislation was put forward; no attempt had been made by the Home Office to do so.
My noble friend well knows the remit of the committee under the Justice and Security Act, so I ask him to remind his colleague in the other place and his civil servants that the ISC is not a Select Committee of Parliament; it is a parliamentary committee set up by statute, which has a right to information. I think we agreed this morning that we expect this intelligence assessment as soon as practically possible.
I welcome the inclusion on the list of the Russian Imperial Movement. This appeared in the ISC’s Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism report in 2022. It is a neo-nationalist paramilitary organisation based in St Petersburg. It has defined links to international white supremacist movements throughout the world and it is a clear danger. As we said in our report, in April 2020, the Americans proscribed this organisation. At the time, from the intelligence we saw, it did not meet the threshold, so it will be interesting, when we get our briefing from the Home Office, to see what has changed over that period. I have no problem at all with proscribing that horrible, detestable organisation.
I turn now to Palestine Action, and I think the Minister’s point is right. I would defend to the death the right of anyone in this country to protest peacefully. That is something that we should celebrate in a democracy, but it is not what we are dealing with in Palestine Action. It is progressing a false narrative that the UK is arming Israel to bomb innocent civilians—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, used the word “genocide”—in Gaza.
Arms exports from the UK to Israel in 2023 were worth £8.2 million. The Government have already moved to restrict some exports to Israel after the conflict, but this narrative justifies in the minds of members of that organisation attacking defence industries across the UK—and they are not even very good at it. Some of the sites that they are attacking have nothing to do with Israel and do not export anything to Israel. There was an issue around the F35, but we do not export F35s to Israel. We do produce components, and I am proud that 15% of the content of every F35 in the world is from the UK, but we are not directly exporting them. The court upheld that view. If we suddenly said that we are not going to be part of that contract, it would affect our security, because not only our allies use that plane; the UK does as well. So that is complete nonsense. Palestine Action is attacking companies legitimately involved in the production of instruments and pieces of kit that keep us and our allies safe.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, asked whether he would have been included in this legislation when he was protesting against apartheid. It crossed my mind that he was a liberal many years ago and that, clearly, in older age he is reverting back to his youth. In answer to him I say yes; if he were damaging property and attacking the national security of this country, he would be included in this legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, pointed out, it meets the threshold in this legislation.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as I had a recent trip to Israel, organised by Conservative Friends of Israel, to learn more about the consequences of the terrorist events of 7 October.
I had not intended to speak in this debate had it just been the statutory instrument in front of us. I was provoked into doing so by the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, which I think is misplaced. I have to say that my experience is that, when Members advance arguments and are not willing to take questions, it is usually the sign of a very weak argument. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for taking an intervention. That shows somebody who has confidence in their arguments and is prepared to have them challenged. The fact that the noble Baroness was not even prepared to take an intervention from a single noble Lord I think demonstrates that she does not actually think her arguments are that strong.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
The noble Lord had little choice then.
First, I think it is entirely inappropriate in this discussion, which is fraught enough, to assume you know which side people are on around the Israel-Gaza situation. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I disagree wholeheartedly, but I agree with her that there is real concern over this particular issue. Secondly, when you are trying to make a contribution and are heckled, with people standing up and calling out, and you are basically on a minority side, I think it is perfectly respectable for noble Lords to accept that you do not want to take interventions. To draw any other conclusion from that has a really unpleasant, nasty vibe about it.
I am actually shocked. I am generally on the side of the people backing this proscription. At one point, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, I thought maybe people were being proscribed for misinformation. I have got to the point now where I do not know what the terrorist act is. However, I think it is completely wrong to assume that there is cowardice involved in not taking points from other Members.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
I suggest we take the heat out of this a bit. Interventions are welcome, but noble Lords are not obliged to take them, and they should be brief.
Lord Harper (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said I was making assumptions about what views people have about Israel or Palestine. I do not think I made any assumptions about that at all. I just happen to think that, in a debate, it is helpful if people take questions and listen to the arguments of others and are prepared to deal with them. That is how in a democratic forum you test arguments. I think it is very helpful, and perfectly reasonable, for people to draw conclusions from the fact that people are not prepared to have their arguments challenged. That is all I was saying.
Let me come to the Minister’s opening remarks. I strongly support the proscription of all three organisations mentioned in this statutory instrument. I am going to limit my remarks to Palestine Action, as that is the subject of the noble Baroness’s regret amendment, and draw attention to and support several things the Minister said.
In part two of the amendment, the noble Baroness talks about the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation and mentions property damage. The Minister made it quite clear that, on multiple occasions, this particular group has been involved not just in property damage. The attack against the Thales factory in Glasgow caused over £1 million pounds-worth of damage and caused panic among the staff, who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs were thrown into the area to which they were evacuating. When passing custodial sentence for the perpetrators, the sheriff said that throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non-violent.
It is very clear that this organisation is careless about the effects of its actions on people. I am not going to draw attention to the specific event that is now the subject of criminal charges, but once you start attacking the defence assets of the United Kingdom—the people and property designed to keep this country safe—you cross a line. That is a line that peaceful protesters do not cross, and it helps support proscription.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
In that case, would the noble Lord have proscribed the Greenham women?
Lord Harper (Con)
I am talking about this statutory instrument. I will not go back over historical cases. I am talking about this particular case and the noble Baroness’s amendment; otherwise, we will, frankly, be here all day and trying the patience of noble Lords.
Let me pick up the rest of the noble Baroness’s regret amendment, because that is what we are debating. The first part of it talks about undermining civil liberties, including civil disobedience. Nothing in this statutory instrument stops people carrying out acts of civil disobedience. This is about people who are specifically going about breaking the criminal law in a way that meets the test of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000. That is not triggered by people carrying out acts of civil disobedience. I listened carefully to the noble Baroness’s speech, and she did not set out any evidence to support the first part of her regret amendment.
The second part, I have just dealt with. The third part is about suppressing dissent against the United Kingdom’s policy on Israel. Again, proscribing this organisation does nothing to stop people protesting about any aspect of the conduct of the Government of Israel in any way. People can contact their elected Members; they can go on demonstrations; they can do whatever they want in the media and all sorts of other things, but what you cannot do in a democratic country is use violence. Other examples were given in the debate in the other place yesterday of members of this organisation going out, tooled up with weapons, and being charged with offences that threaten other people. That is not a legitimate way to carry out dissent in a civilised country. As we know from this debate about the conduct of the Israeli Government and what they are doing both in Gaza and on the West Bank, nothing in this order stops people having views on both sides of that argument, both inside Parliament and outside. Again, the noble Baroness did not set out in her argument any evidence to support that part of her regret amendment.
In the final part, the noble Baroness says that the order
“criminalises support for a protest group, thereby creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression”.
She refers in that part of the amendment to this organisation as a “protest group”. It is not a protest group. As the Minister set out very clearly, it describes itself as “not a non-violent organisation”. So, in its own words, it accepts that it uses violence. That is not a legitimate protest group. Again, there is nothing in this statutory instrument that in any way stops people having freedom of expression and carrying out protests. Again, the noble Baroness did not provide any evidence to back up that part of her amendment.
There are four parts to the noble Baroness’s regret amendment. She has not made out a case with any evidence to support any part of it. I urge her to withdraw the amendment and allow this statutory instrument to reach the statute book so that the country can be safer from people who are willing to use terrorist methods to make arguments, while leaving the rest of us free to use the democratic means at our disposal on these important subjects.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I will be brief. Invoking the terrorism laws has consequences and, although I do not object to invoking them in relation to any of these three groups, we need to understand properly what those consequences are. Many people want to speak, and I will make only one point, which is that the consequences of designation for individuals misguided enough to approve of, for example, Palestine Action are rather more draconian than the Explanatory Memorandum to this order suggests.
Paragraph 5.20 of that document states:
“It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to, or invite support for, a proscribed organisation. It is also a criminal offence to arrange a meeting to support a proscribed organisation”.
That is an accurate summary of Section 11 and Section 12(1) and (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000. If you are a member or a promoter of a proscribed organisation, you can face up to 14 years in prison.
However, since the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 introduced Section 12(1A) to the Terrorism Act 2000, you can also be looking at up to 14 years if you express
“an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”,
without even needing an intention that your listener or listeners should agree—being reckless about that suffices. By our bringing Palestine Action, for example, within the ambit of the terrorism laws, anyone who is young and foolish enough to say that its heart is in the right place, or that the Government should listen to it, is committing a very serious offence for which they could be prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned as a terrorist. It is not their right to protest but the right of freedom of speech that is the issue here.
Does the Minister agree that this 2019 offence takes us on to more sensitive territory than the others? Can he tell us whether its potential impact was considered as part of the Government’s analysis of these decisions, even though it was not referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum? Might it be a good idea, for future proscription debates, to ensure that the Explanatory Memorandum template is updated to make reference to the full arsenal of proscribed organisation offences?
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I, too, can be brief. I have deep concerns about proscribing Palestine Action. I do not think that the case has been made. I think this is a dangerous overreaction to populism expressed primarily in the British media.
I also want to take this opportunity to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for standing up and moving her amendment. We in this House talk a great deal about the principles of democracy, yet we are not often good at listening to unpopular or dissenting opinions, and I believe the way that she was piled on was completely inappropriate.
I also wish to associate myself with the contribution of my noble friend—and I underline that—Lord Hain. It takes courage to question a Government. I stand here and have the freedom as a non-aligned Member of this House. I was a member of the Labour Party for 45 years and, as noble Lords know, had the Whip removed and subsequently resigned. I have the luxury of standing here and criticising without repercussions from my party in government. My noble friend Lord Hain, too, has shown immense courage.
I did not intend to speak this afternoon, but I cannot sit here and allow this to go through with my silence and, thereby, my agreement. If the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wishes to press her amendment, I will go into the Lobby to support her.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, everyone will be able to speak in this debate. We will hear from my noble friend Lady O’Grady next, then the noble Baroness.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend and the noble Baroness, and I thank the Minister for always listening to different perspectives with respect. We do not have to agree to be able to respect one another.
I support the proscription of the paramilitary and white supremacist IRM—or RIM, as I now have to call them—and MMC. To me, they clearly meet the commonly understood definition of terrorism, which is the use of violence that threatens civilian lives. Palestine Action is different: in its bid to disrupt the arms trade, its members commit serious damage to property. In my view, they are not terrorists but criminals. Drawing the definition too broadly risks fragmenting the power of that term and our common understanding of what terrorism is. I also worry about the impact on community cohesion.
My question is, what message would my noble friend the Minister send publicly, including to minority communities here in the UK, who may sincerely see this proscription of Palestine Action as, at best, a terrible distraction from the true terror we are all witnessing on our TV screens? Instead, the Government should do everything we can to help bring the hostages home, to seek justice for all victims of war crimes, to meet our duty under the UN convention to prevent and to punish genocide, and to secure an end to the unlawful occupation of Palestine with a two-state solution and lasting peace.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and I certainly agree wholeheartedly with her final sentence. I too support a two-state solution, but I also support this SI and I am very grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation of why it is necessary.
I have to say to the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Jones, for whom I have respect—we have often agreed on other issues—that to say that this group is not engaged in serious violence baffles me. I shall just suggest to noble Lords an incident from last August when Palestine Action used a repurposed prison van to smash through the perimeter of a research facility in Bristol. Of the security personnel who tried to intervene to stop them attacking the buildings, one was hospitalised with head injuries, two policemen who came along were attacked with sledgehammers and one ended up in hospital. So, when the Minister describes the tests for terrorism as being, one, to advance an ideological or racial cause, two, the intimidation of the public, and three, serious violence or serious damage to property that endangers life, I struggle to see how those examples do not meet the requirements for terrorism.
I am grateful to the Government for acting swiftly to try to prevent people actually being killed, rather than endangering their lives.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, like others, I had not really intended to speak in this debate, but unfortunately, I have listened at times—while I respect other views—with incredulity at some of the remarks that have been made. This House rightly has a reputation for a wide range of expertise on almost every aspect of public life we can think of. It is often a pleasure to come here and listen to Members who have such in-depth knowledge on a great range of subjects; it is a true education in that regard. But I say, perhaps humbly, that I come from the part of the United Kingdom that has suffered most from terrorism throughout our lives. Sadly, for those of us from Northern Ireland, if there is one thing we have gained knowledge of through our lived experience, it is to know a terrorist organisation and to recognise one whenever we see it.
The Minister is absolutely right: we judge terrorism not by ideology but by actions. There are many organisations whose views I disagree with. There are many organisations out there whose views I find repugnant. All three of these organisations are ones whose ideology I would not find any particular favour with, but that is not a reason to ban them. We judge them by their actions, by their violent conduct, by their disregard for or indeed targeting of human life, by their intimidation, by the damage they cause. This is not just, as was indicated by some, a one-off incident carried out by a few rogue members; we have seen from the information the Minister gave that all these organisations have systematically organised over a long period a wide range of activities which collectively meet the threshold of terrorism.
Rightly, we defend the right to protest and to peacefully protest. Freedom of expression and the opportunity to voice very unpopular views are rightly ones that we should cherish. But when you move towards violent systematic attacks on society, as has been done by all three of these organisations, you cross the line into terrorism. For me, terrorism is terrorism. We go down a dangerous path if we start creating gradations of terrorism and, for example, we see some terrorists as “real terrorists”, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, with the implication that some are lesser terrorists, mild terrorists or terrorists with whom we have some sympathies for their ideological position.
If the argument being made is that the threshold has not been met, what is the threshold? Do we wait until incidents happen in this country that result in a string of dead bodies? Is that really the test we are putting forward? The only solution is that once you have crossed the line, this House and this Government rightly need to show zero tolerance towards terrorism. That is the approach that we as a House should unite around. I therefore strongly support the actions of the Government on all three organisations.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I compliment the Minister for summarising the situation, because no one has done so yet. The question seems to be, as has been so ably put by so many people, the difference between criminal activity and terrorism. There is a general acceptance that the actions of Palestine Action are criminal in all cases. The question we are really asking is, does it cross over into terrorism? I think it does, although I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said about the things that follow from such a proscription, which is something we need to be careful about.
The issue I raise, following on from other noble Lords, is the actions against businesses that had no reason to be acted against. In May this year, Palestine Action claimed responsibility for an attack on a Jewish-owned business in north London. The glass front of the building was smashed and the floor defaced with red paint and slogans including “Drop Elbit”—Elbit being a defence manufacturer. The attack can be classified as antisemitic under the IHRA definition as the business is solely Jewish, as I am. It has no links to Elbit or to Israel, and the actions suggest that Palestine Action held the owners responsible for Israel’s actions.
This is where the difference between purely criminal actions and terrorism starts. Palestine Action is a recruiting agent for the actions that have happened. I defend to the end anyone’s right to belong to any organisation supporting Palestine, the Palestinians, Israel or anybody. That is their right, and in our democracy, we have the right to give that support. For anyone who is currently a supporter of Palestine Action, if it is proscribed, there are plenty of other organisations they can join to push their points that are not points of violence. It is the violence that pushes it into terrorism, and I support the Government on this issue.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, the suggestion that Palestine Action is somehow helping the cause of the Palestinians is, I am afraid, rather nonsensical. The sort of damaging activity in which it is engaged serves only to further damage the cause of the Palestinians.
I speak here as a Zionist, but as a Zionist who supports the Palestinian cause and who does so in a very practical way. My wife and I run a charity that supports young medical researchers from Israel, Palestine and Gaza. I have met many of the Gazan students we have supported over the years, and they value that support. So, I am a Zionist who supports the Palestinians.
I think that if Palestine Action could do something supportive of the Palestinians instead of the destructive activities in which it engages, it would do much better. For that reason, I support the Minister’s view.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I would like to make a point about why so many people across the UK, particularly young people, have joined Palestine Action. It is important that we recognise their frustrations at the current time. Direct action at military bases is nothing new, as many noble Lords have pointed out. Welsh women marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common and were joined by thousands more women along the way. They did not just march. They used a range of direct action tactics, including blockading the base and cutting the fence, to protest against nuclear weapons being held at that base. There is a long history of direct action across the UK that is perhaps not comfortable. The actions of Palestine Action are the direct actions of a civil disobedience group, not a terrorist group. That is why I support this regret amendment.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was brave in moving this regret amendment, and she should have been heard with more respect. I was one of those who suggested that she should give way, but I know it can seem like bullying in this House, and I think we should reflect on that. It is not a very good thing to gang up on someone who has a difficult job to do.
I would also like to mention two others who have contributed and for whom I have great respect. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, joined the Cabinet in 2002, as I remember, as Secretary of State for Wales. He was a successful Secretary of State for Wales and then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Terrorism Act 2000 was in existence in 2002. Offences were added and other legislation was introduced while he was in the Cabinet, and I do not recall any occasion on which, publicly at least, the noble Lord protested, objected or resigned as a result of the creation of the body of terrorism law that now we have—he is confirming that—so I think that what he has said today is perhaps a little inconsistent with his history. Forgive me for saying so.
I also commend the Minister strongly. I thought he gave a very balanced description, which in factual terms nobody has contradicted. He said that three bodies are being proscribed now. It is interesting that objections have not been made in relation to two of those bodies—probably because noble Lords do not really like what they do very much, because they are extreme right-wing terrorists—but exactly the same process has been gone through with them as with Palestine Action. What is that process? To examine intelligence that no doubt exists, but that we have not heard about. In this House, we have to be responsible and take it that there is an intelligence case behind what is proposed. Material evidence has been brought together that shows that this organisation, Palestine Action, like the other two, has carried out activities that fall within the definition of crime that can, and I emphasise “can”, be treated as terrorist.
The context is that what has happened since the Terrorism Act 2000—since 9/11, in fact—is quite different from the world in which the suffragettes, the Greenham women and all the other examples that have been mentioned, including very successful anti-apartheid demonstrators such as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, lived. It is a given. That has not been objected to. Even the noble Baroness has not said that Palestine Action does not commit crimes that qualify as terrorist crimes, if they are prosecuted as such.
Noble Lords should not assume that every time a crime is committed that could be prosecuted as such, it is. The Crown Prosecution Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions have to make a decision. One of the most important protections in our constitution, which we talk about all too rarely, is the discretion of the DPP not to prosecute in the public interest or for other reasons covered by the two-stage code test. It may well be that if silly supporters of the criminal acts of Palestine Action or these other two bodies are interviewed by the police, they will not be prosecuted under the Terrorism Act. We have to trust juries, and magistrates in summary cases, to ensure that the prosecution system is run fairly. In this House, and particularly in the other place, there is a huge amount of control available over the prosecution system.
Let us be clear. If we do not like the definition of terrorism we have in our law, it is our duty as legislators to change it—and we have all decided not to change it. When it suits us, we encourage it to be used: something has to be done. When it is a bit inconvenient, we say that it is the most terrible thing on earth. The truth is the middle road, which has been given to us by the Minister. I urge your Lordships to act responsibly today, listening carefully to what has been said, taking into account what we can do in future, but accepting this instrument.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, I have a few short points. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has just said.
First, I hope that when we vote, if we vote, we will entirely put out of our minds whether we sympathise with the Palestinian cause, as most of us do, and whether we regret what Israel has done in various respects. We are concerned with a violent group. It really does not matter whether the cause it articulates and supports is justified. The law in a civilised country simply cannot accept people using violence against people and property in support of a cause they believe to be right. No such law can survive in a civilised society.
Secondly, if I understood him correctly, the Minister has explained why it is not sufficient for the law simply to prosecute people who commit criminal acts of the sort that are alleged—I agree that we have to be very careful here, for sub judice reasons—against members of Palestine Action. The point, if I have understood the Minister correctly—and he will say if I have not—is that there is a vital public need to prevent these people organising and recruiting, and the only way in which the law can do that is to take the action that the Minister is proposing today, which I strongly support.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am a little concerned about how the sides are being laid out in this discussion. I have some serious worries about proscribing Palestine Action and have a lot of sympathy with the regret amendment, but not because I consider Palestine Action to be some idealised, cuddly, heroic campaign for peace. I have no sympathy with its destructive, wanton, often violent and nihilistic assaults on factories, air bases and so on. The individuals deserve criminal prosecution and punishment. God knows, we have enough draconian laws on the statute book to throw the book at them.
What we are challenging here is whether the concept of them being proscribed as a terrorist organisation is appropriate, not whether they are nice, peace-loving, wonderful Greenham Common types. That is the wrong way to look at it. In an earlier intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, asked whether these could indeed be terrorist acts. I think that they could well be assessed as acts of terrorism without proscribing a whole organisation.
These are my reservations. I am worried about criminalising the vocalising of support for this organisation. Vocalising support for a reprehensible law-breaking protest group is one thing, but once it is proscribed, we are talking about the possibility of prison sentences of up to 14 years. All of this was brilliantly explained legally by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. You could, even if you only say that you support them, end up in prison.
The problem we have is that it is true that Palestine Action’s cause and its broader support are very popular —we have heard it here today. I do not mean that it is populist; I mean that many young people support that outlook. I do not. I spend a lot of time at the moment going around arguing with those young people about what I consider to be the growth of casual antisemitism and an intense hatred of Israel that seeps into Jew hatred. I talk a lot about that wherever I go, but it is certainly the case that I am not on the winning side on this one. If you go into universities and sixth forms, many support them. I am worried about the consequences of proscribing this organisation because it can threaten free speech. There are also going to be a lot of people who could be classified as in breach of it.
We should note that, for the first time since records began, this week the UK is no longer classified as an open country in the global expression rankings, which is shameful. In case noble Lords think the global expression rankings are some JD Vance-like prejudice or something, it is actually an annual report by Article 19, which noticed that free speech is seriously deteriorating in this country, so I put that warning out. We have to be very careful that this proscription does not have a chilling effect or, even worse, give some credibility to the idea that supporters of Palestine Action are some kind of free speech heroes and martyrs along with, undoubtedly Bobby—what is his name?
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
No, I do not mean Bobby Sands. That made me laugh. Bob Vylan was where I was going. What I mean is that there are these people, whose views I despise, who, once you start banning them, suddenly develop some kind of heroic free speech status. That is the point I am making.
Finally, I am slightly worried about making a mockery of the anti-terror laws and even confusing our definition of what constitutes terrorism. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others have implied that the definition of terrorism is absolutely clear-cut and that we know what it is in the law. We have had a wide range of controversies from the Government on what Prevent interprets as terrorism and extremism. There has been some confusion. If it was so black and white then recent confusions would not have emerged.
My concern here is quite straightforward: we might end up relativising what constitutes terrorism if we put Palestine Action on the same list as the likes of Hamas, ISIS and Hezbollah. It seems that it could create a moral equivalence. It could, unintentionally, confirm a prejudice in western activist circles that the likes of the Houthis and Hamas are legitimate resistance groups, a little bit like those encampments on university campuses, and everybody thinks, “They’re just resisting; we’re resisting”. I always make the point about the butchers and rapists of Hamas. The Jew hatred that goes on in their camps is slightly different from standing around with a flag or going on a demo. If we flatter Hamas and say that it is just like Palestine Action then surely that undermines the very thing that we are trying to do.
At the very least I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I do not think that this is something where you can be so certain of yourself that you think, because you are on one side, that something should be banned as terrorism and, because you are on another, something should not be banned. It is much more complicated and we have a responsibility to acknowledge that.
Lord Walney (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, made a number of important points. I accept much of her analysis, but come to a different conclusion on proscribing Palestine Action. I strongly endorse the statement made by the Minister today and the Government’s action. It is something that I called for last year in my review Protecting our Democracy from Coercion, in my then role as the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walney, on a brilliant speech. Listening to the threshold and the conditions the Minister set out, it is absolutely clear that Palestine Action satisfies those three conditions. I have a lot of respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I spent a lot of time on protests about apartheid and I pay tribute to his leadership of that movement, but when he was leading that movement, he was not getting an armoured van, driving it into factories, intimidating workers and attacking them with sledgehammers. It is very different. The attack on the RAF planes has nothing to do with campaigning against Israel. Since its inception, Palestine Action has caused tens of millions of pounds-worth of damage. It has cost the Government and firms making equipment for the British military, our Armed Forces who protect us all, as much as £55 million. We should take that very seriously.
In response to something the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said about community cohesion, I say that this is an organisation that singles out and attacks Jewish-owned businesses in London and Manchester. The local MP in Manchester said that the attack there saw antisemitic graffiti targeted towards the Jewish owners of the building and the Jewish businesses that use it. That has nothing to do with standing up for the Palestinians. People on the left in here would never justify or dismiss racist violence if it was directed at any other group.
Baroness Berger (Lab)
I am conscious of time, but specifically on that point, I bore witness to the attack on the Jewish business in north-west London last May. It reverberated throughout the entire community. I have never seen anything like the glass that was smashed and the paint that was daubed. It dominated the area for a whole weekend because it could not be cleared up because it took place over the weekend. In the interest of community cohesion, I point to that as a very strong example, coupled with all the other points people have made about why this is a violent organisation and how it directly intimidates and attacks people. Its impact goes far wider than what we are discussing today.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
I pay tribute to the work the noble Baroness has done over many years, at immense personal cost, in fighting antisemitism. She is completely right about this. I know the owners of that building. I went to see it afterwards. I know how deeply shocked they and other Jewish residents in that area were after that attack.
I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the defence and security relationship between Britain and Israel, which is of huge importance to our national interest. People who argue for boycotts or banning defence exports to Israel need to be careful about this, because the RAF would not be able to get its planes off the ground without Israeli technology. British soldiers would have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan without Israeli defence equipment. Israeli intelligence has prevented terror attacks here in the UK. We have to be careful when people suggest undermining that relationship. People who argue for that would have a great deal of difficulty explaining to the public why they want to put our Armed Forces at risk because they are so obsessed with this. There are 200 land-based conflicts in the world and the only one that people seem to care about is the one involving Israel. We have to ask ourselves why that country is singled out and held to standards that never apply to any other country.
The final point I want to make about Palestine Action is this: if the only country you campaign against, the only country you think should be abolished, or the only country you think should never have been established in the first place just happens to be the only Jewish one, do not tell me that you are not a bunch of antisemites.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I am aware of the time and I will be very brief. It will not surprise your Lordships’ House that I rise to offer the strongest possible support to my noble friend. Responding to the noble Lord who just spoke, I note that I have been strongly campaigning against arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and many other places, for a very long time.
I wanted to make three points, drawing some things in this debate together. One is the point about social cohesion made powerfully by the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Grady and Lady Smith of Llanfaes. Many young people—hundreds of thousands of people—show social media support. This is an issue where we are, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, powerfully pointed out, potentially criminalising and calling terrorists an enormous number of people who are absolutely horrified, in their gut, about what is happening in Gaza. We have to think about the impact on our society of what the Government are choosing to do.
My second point is that we have heard some powerful and important points about process. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, about the ISC not having been briefed and some astonishment about that. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out that the Explanatory Memorandum simply did not set out clearly the impact of what the Government are doing, and that surely is a real problem of process.
I turn to my third point. I thank the House collectively —a number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—for acknowledging that my noble friend has done a difficult thing. It is important that people are allowed to set out their case clearly, particularly in starting the debate. So I thank the House for the support that has been shown.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
Forgive me, my Lords; I think I was nodding off.
No matter how passionately any of us may feel about the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East, we all remain bound by the law. Activists cannot expect to waltz into a high security Ministry of Defence base and escape without consequences. The Liberal Democrats regard last month’s intrusion at RAF Brize Norton as totally unacceptable. The perpetrators should be prosecuted, taken through the courts and, if proven guilty, punished accordingly.
I grew up in Ireland, where terrorism was a very real and constant presence. Our newspapers were filled every day with what terrorists had done in the north—I lived in the south. It was just appalling: kneecapping, murder and bombing. That, to me, is the definition of “terrorism”. I believe that there is a big difference between that and criminal activity. I find anyone who commits violence to be absolutely abhorrent, but I see committing criminal acts and terrorist acts as very different things, and I do not believe that this particular act could be described as a terrorist act.
We are being invited not to prosecute criminal activity but to criminalise membership of an organisation. It is regrettable that Ministers put the three SIs together, because two of them are clearly well-proven, whereas the other one is, in my opinion, open to doubt. I want to be clear that we are definitely in favour of two of them, and we have no problem with that whatever. But it is not possible to say that, if a vote comes, we will vote for two of them and not for the other one.
When Parliament granted the Home Secretary the extraordinary power to ban organisations, it did so on the condition that such action be reserved for the most extreme circumstances when proportionality could be plainly demonstrated. It is our responsibility to question whether the use of these powers is fair, just and proportionate. That question of proportionality should be at the forefront of our minds today. I do not believe that the test of proportionality has been met. If this proscription proceeds, it will be the first time that a direct action group is outlawed primarily for damaging property. Although the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it clear that serious damage to property can meet the legal threshold for terrorism, questions about proportionality remain unanswered.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
Which of the three tests that the noble Lord outlined for something to qualify as an act of terrorism has not been met by this organisation in the example that I gave?
Baroness Doocey (LD)
It is proportionality that I am concerned about. Proscription, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, rightly pointed out, would mean that merely expressing approval for Palestine Action, even via an ill-judged retweet, could carry a 14-year prison sentence. I was not particularly convinced by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, although he is a very long-standing friend, because if the CPS will not prosecute because it is clearly not the right thing to do, why is it there?
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I am sorry but I cannot let that pass. Every day the police prosecute people for theft. The maximum sentence for theft was seven years—I am not sure whether it still is. Practically nobody gets seven years; most people get a non-custodial sentence. The assumption that everybody prosecuted will be locked up for years and years is a misleading premise for this debate.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
I am not trying to mislead anyone; the noble Lord knows better than that. If it can happen, I do not think it is right. It is as simple as that.
That brings me to the security breach. Barely three weeks after the Strategic Defence Review urged stronger protection for RAF logistics bases, an activist group breached the security at Brize Norton. Can the Minister say in winding up what consequences there have been for those in charge of security at the base? Was site security managed by the RAF or contracted out? Can he give the House a categorical assurance that whatever mistakes enabled this breach will not be repeated?
There is also the question of workability. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens have marched peacefully for a ceasefire and an arms export ban on Israel, a position that opinion polls say now commands majority support. Since this position is shared by Palestine Action, a member of the public promoting these views could be interpreted under this law as supporting the group. I would welcome clarity from the Minister on this, as it has understandably left many concerned and a bit confused.
We should be concerned that, while we debate the order, innocent Palestinians continue to die in their hundreds. The Government’s principal diplomatic energy should be directed at securing a durable peace: a plan for Gaza which excludes Hamas, pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to halt the de facto annexation of the West Bank and, without further delay, formal recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Kingdom. That is the Liberal Democrat position. For the sake of our security, credibility and liberties, I ask the Minister to focus on pursuing these aims instead.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I support the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025, which rightly moves to proscribe the group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under UK law.
The right to protest peacefully is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy, as many noble Lords have expressed here this afternoon. It is a right that generations have fought to protect, but there is, and must be, a clear line between legitimate protest and violent coercion and wanton damage. Palestine Action has crossed that line repeatedly and deliberately, as its actions at RAF Brize Norton last month, which we have heard about, made absolutely clear.
This is not a question of silencing dissent, nor of suppressing pro-Palestinian voices; it is a move to uphold the rule of law and our true freedoms. It is intended to protect the public from targeted, dangerous and ideologically motivated criminal acts. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has tabled an amendment to regret the proscription of Palestine Action. She set out that she is concerned that civil disobedience is being misinterpreted. We on this side are clear that Palestine Action’s actions do in fact cross a line. Civil disobedience is one thing, but breaking into, attacking and seriously damaging our national defence infrastructure is another, as was made clear by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.
If the noble Baroness does not want to take my word for it, maybe she will listen to the words of the group itself, previously cited by the Minister. Palestine Action’s own training materials have stated that it is
“not a non-violent organisation”.
The group has a footprint in all 45 policing regions in the UK and has pledged to escalate its campaign. A group that openly admits its intention to be violent cannot be disregarded as a threat in the way that the noble Baroness proposed. A group that advances its views through violence is itself a direct threat to the integrity of free speech in our country.
It is clear that Palestine Action’s entire modus operandi is to use direct, violent action in pursuit of political ends. Its members do not operate through petitions, campaigns or democratic engagement; they operate through sabotage, criminal damage and threats. They have repeatedly targeted companies involved in the UK defence sector, often without regard for legality. They do so with the explicit intention of coercing change through unlawful means.
The group was established on 30 July 2020, when activists broke into and vandalised the interior of the UK headquarters of Elbit Systems in London. From the very beginning, members of this group have been intent on causing damage and have acted to assert their views through criminal violence. Is that not the rightful definition of a terrorist organisation?
Time and time again, Palestine Action’s activities have endangered third parties. They have vandalised property, occupied buildings and attacked not only private companies but critical components of our national defence. Its tactics are both calculated and militant.
When a group pursues its aims, not through democratic discourse, but through organised campaigns of destruction and violence, and strives to terrorise legitimate businesses and opinion-formers, its acts are those of terrorism as defined by the law. This order does not criminalise views; it outlaws those who use terror and violence to force their views on others.
To fail to act would send a message that violent extremism would be tolerated if it is dressed up as enthusiastic activism. We cannot allow such ambiguity. We must be consistent. This country has proscribed far-right groups that promote violence under the banner of nationalism; it did so in the 1930s against the Blackshirts. We cannot allow such abhorrent methods today. We must apply the same standard to all who use violence and intimidation and who seek to advance political causes by criminal means against law-abiding members of society.
This proscription does not ban support for Palestinian rights or peaceful demonstrations; it is a necessary step to uphold public safety and the democratic rule of law. There are other voices lawfully making the case for Palestine and Palestinians; Palestine Action is not one of them. We support this order in its entirety because we believe in protecting the public, defending our democracy and drawing a firm line against those who would use violence to impose their political will. We therefore welcome the Government bringing this order and are pleased to support it.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions to what has been a thorough and testing debate. Having introduced the order on behalf of the Government, it is my responsibility to respond to the points that have been made today. All three organisations in the order before us—this is a very important point for Members to remember—are subject to the same tests under the 2000 Act that this House and the House of Commons passed and put in place for 25 years, along with, to date, around 80 proscription orders that were passed under similar tests.
This debate is not about whether you support the rights of the Palestinian people to a homeland, whether you are appalled at the actions of the Israeli Government, or whether you think the Israeli Government are acting fairly and proportionately following the Hamas kidnappings and murders. This is not about that issue. It is not, dare I say it, about the right to protest. I served with my noble friend Lord Hain in Northern Ireland for two years, and I have some admiration for the way that he has approached some of the issues that I shared. I said at the outset that I have been carried out of a building for protesting the apartheid regime, I protested against the fascist regime in Chile and I have been on a picket line during the miners’ strike. I have been involved in protests across my political life that have been fair and open, but not those that have not led to harassment, intimidation, violence and criminal damage.
Noble Lords in this debate have, dare I say it, fallen into two camps—with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who asked legitimate questions that I will return to. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, the noble Lords, Lord Harper, Lord Beamish, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, Lord Austin of Dudley, Lord Turnberg, Lord Carlile, Lord Walney and Lord Pannick, and the Official Opposition have all, in one way or another, supported the approach that the Government have taken.
From this Front Bench, I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has tabled an important amendment that has generated this debate—which is an important part of the democracy that I believe we should stand up for. She has had support from my noble friends Lord Hain and Lady O’Grady, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, Lady Fox of Buckley and Lady Bennett. Again, she has put forward a legitimate point of view, but I want to draw noble Lords back to the essence of this debate.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe organisations that she believes are concerned with terrorism. There is a clear definition of terrorism in that Act, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said, has stood the test of time:
“‘terrorism’ means the use or threat of action … designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public”
and the actions used or threatened must involve
“serious violence against a person … serious damage to property … endangers a person’s life … creates a serious risk to … health … or … is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system”.
I say again that all three organisations in this order are being judged on their actions as to whether they are committing or participating in acts of terrorism, preparing for terrorism, promoting terrorism or are otherwise concerned with terrorism. If that statutory test is met, factors that the Home Secretary takes into account include the nature and scale of the organisation, the specific threat, the extent of the presence and the need to have support from members of the international community in the global fight against terrorism.
The Home Secretary does not sit in 2 Marsham Street and say, “What’s happening today? Should I proscribe these organisations?” There is a decision, which is never taken lightly. That decision has robust processes in place to ensure the evidence is available and is carefully reviewed and considered. The decision to proscribe Palestine Action has been taken with significant considerations, which include technical assessments, deep engagement with the subject matter, experts from across government, policy officials, law enforcement and a proscription advisory group that makes recommendations to the Home Secretary to determine whether that proscription is legitimate.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank the Minister for his response, and every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate, especially those who have been kind about me. I will just say that I do not normally take interventions because, in my 12 years’ experience of your Lordships’ House, most interventions can be a speech after mine. I just do not see the point in being disrupted all the time—I think it is rude. Admittedly, there were two points of information that I should probably have taken, so I apologise to the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Scriven.
This is a regret amendment, and I have heard enough regret from various of your Lordships to want to test the opinion of the House.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wei
“(c) a local authority is—(i) conducting enquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 (duty to investigate) in respect of the child, or (ii) taking action under section 47(8) of that Act to safeguard or promote the child's welfare, in a case where the enquiries mentioned in sub-paragraph (i) have led the local authority to conclude that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm (within the meaning of section 31(9) and (10) of that Act).”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment limits consent requirements to safeguarding cases under section 47 of the Children Act 1989. It removes subsection (3) of 434A, recognising special school placement as supportive, not suspicious, and ensures local authorities must evidence actual harm risk, rather than requiring parents to justify withdrawal.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 203A and Amendment 215A, and to give moral support to Amendment 221. Before turning to these provisions, I wish to reflect briefly on the underlying scope and purpose of Clause 30.
Clause 30 as drafted is striking in its breadth. It hands local authorities the power to demand consent before a child may be withdrawn from a maintained school. I pick up here on a point made previously by the Minister about whether all parents could be subject to this. My assertion is that they could if a local authority decided, on the withdrawal of the child from school, to put the parent under a Section 47 order. Apparently, this is incredibly easy to do. The law requires only reasonable cause to suspect significant harm. It is a deliberately low bar, meant to protect children, and I have had correspondence—we can discuss this again in August—that indicates that it has at times been misused, just through a referral, for example, from the school itself. Let us say that a teacher does not really understand home education, is concerned that withdrawal might cause harm and alerts the local authority. Instantly, it can start an investigation. As an officer, you run that by your manager, who is busy—partly, perhaps, because there are many more families to investigate now that that the database exists. Perhaps there was a missed medical appointment, which I am sure we have all experienced, and they were late and could not see the doctor in time, perhaps because there was traffic. Suddenly, that might give rise to an S47. Although in theory, under the clause, only a certain subset of parents may be affected, potentially, in practice, depending on the ideological bias of the officers involved—and we have seen in some authorities that there clearly are some outliers—all parents may be swept into such measures.
Clause 30 as drafted hands local authorities the power to demand consent before a child may be withdrawn, yet nowhere does it properly limit the grounds on which that consent may be withheld. This gives the state a sweeping veto over parents’ decisions to withdraw their children, even when such withdrawal arises from urgent, pressing circumstances such as sustained bullying or grooming—I believe that you can be subject to an S47 if you are being groomed in a school—unmet special educational needs or serious mental health concerns. In doing so, it risks turning what should be a family’s protective step—for example, taking your child out of that circumstance of grooming by bullies in school—into a procedural trap.
This is a significant expansion of state power into private family life. It runs counter the well-established principle, under both domestic common law and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, that parents are presumed to act in their children’s best interests unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. By casting such a wide net without rigorous statutory safeguards, Clause 30 risks inviting inconsistency, arbitrary refusals and unnecessary confrontations that erode trust between families and local authorities. It is precisely this sort of overreach that sows the seed of future litigation and damages the co-operative spirit that effective safeguarding truly depends on.
Against that backdrop, Amendment 215 offers a much more balanced and constructive approach and, dare I say it, safeguard. It would require local authorities to offer parents a voluntary information session before they formally deregister a child to home educate. This session would do three modest but crucial things: provide an exploration of the parents’ legal rights and responsibilities, give details of what support services might be available, and lay out clearly what the process and consequences of withdrawal would entail.
This is not a barrier, a checkpoint or a covert mechanism for delay; it is simply an offer of information. It is a means to ensure that parents contemplating such a significant step—as we have heard, many more do so these days—do so with a full understanding of the legal and practical landscape, and it respects their right to choose while empowering them to make that choice wisely.
The decision to home-educate is rarely casual; many parents arrive at it after considerable distress. We have heard accounts from across England of children so overwhelmed by school that they stop speaking, suffer debilitating anxiety or face persistent exclusion. In such cases, parents often withdraw a child in a crisis, being understandably focused on immediate well-being rather than long-term procedural consequences. Those parents deserve our empathy, not our suspicion.
This amendment is rooted in sound constitutional principle. In R (Anufrijeva) v Secretary of State for the Home Department the law is clear. Procedural fairness is a cornerstone of our system requiring timely, clear information when rights are at stake. This is precisely what Amendment 215A would achieve, ensuring that parents understand their freedoms and obligations.
It is not an abstract problem. In evidence we have repeatedly heard of parents who did not fully appreciate the impact of deregistration. Some assumed that they could simply return their child to school at any time. Others did not realise the additional hurdles for exam access or the financial implications once local authority funding fell away. One parent who wrote in from the West Midlands said starkly, “We thought we’d just get on with it, but suddenly we were isolated. No support, no guidance and a local authority more interested in interrogating us than helping”. Another told us, “No one warned us about exam costs. If we’d known, we would have budgeted and planned differently”.
This amendment also helps to address the troubling postcode lottery that currently characterises local authority engagement. Some councils build relationships with home-educating families, others issue notices to satisfy and school attendance orders at extraordinary rates. In Portsmouth, for instance, in one recent year nearly three-quarters of all known home-educating families were issued a notice. That is not a safeguarding approach grounded in individual assessment; it is a blunt instrument that breeds fear and resentment.
Offering a voluntary information session helps to shift this climate. It replaces adversarial compliance checks with constructive engagement. It gives parents confidence that they understand their rights, that they are under no obligation to accept invasive home visits, and that they can approach home education in a spirit of informed partnership rather than fearful retreat. It is essential that this remains voluntary. To compel attendance would simply re-create the coercive environment that we seek to avoid. Some parents may never need further help; others may seek guidance. This gentle first step ensures that they start that journey from a place of respect and understanding.
Finally, I want us to remember the positive role that schools themselves can play. Head teachers are often the first to hear of a family’s intention to deregister. With this amendment in place, they would have somewhere helpful to direct parents to—not as a hurdle but as a supportive opportunity to become better informed.
In sum, this is precisely the kind of proportionate, relationship-based approach we should be championing, respecting parental authority, ensuring clarity of obligation, building trust and ultimately safeguarding children far more effectively than heavy-handed procedural entanglements could ever do. If in August we can perhaps implement more changes such as this, we may need fewer tribunals, although I agree they are a very important measure, and we may need fewer databases because parents and local authorities are working together in co-operation. I beg to move.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, as I said at Second Reading and repeated earlier this afternoon, it is my contention on behalf of home-schooling parents that the provisions in this Bill are
“too long and too complicated”.—[Official Report, 1/5/25; col. 1414.]
To that end, I have given notice that I will oppose the Question that Clause 30 stand part of the Bill. I also put down Amendment 233A relating to Clause 31.
Perhaps we could look at the whole. I have argued against the long and complicated provisions in this Bill relating to home-schooling parents because they are frightfully oppressive on home-schooling parents and are in many ways unworkable because of the complicated language used in this Bill.
To look at it as a whole, the home-schooling provisions in the Bill are covered in Clauses 30 to 33. They cover 29 pages, from page 50 to page 79 of the Bill, and the clauses therein contain 17 very large new sections to be inserted after Sections 434 and 436 of the Education Act 1996. So the further complication is that not only do you need to have in your hands this Bill, or Act when it is passed, but you have to go back to the 1996 Act.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to ask a question on this set of amendments on registers. I have not spoken before, but I am absolutely supportive of the Bill; it is long overdue and I very much welcome it. But in the spirit of wanting to do this as practicably as possible, we need to make sure that we are not being too onerous on parents and local authorities in this area, and that what we do makes sense. In respect of what has just been said, if I am right, parents just have to provide information under new Section 436C(1), not new Section 436C(2), which is a much longer list. In fairness, it says:
“To the extent that the local authority has the information or can reasonably obtain it”,
so I am not overly worried about that.
I do not think that the questions being asked are unreasonable, as long as the list does not grow and we are firm with local authorities about not sneaking in extra questions that are not required, but—I am not sure where this is in the Bill—how often does this have to be updated by parents? When educating your child, if for some reason you wish to do an area of learning next month and you approach somebody new to do that—maybe for one hour a week—would you have to notify in advance, would you do an annual review or whatever? We need to be really clear around that area, as a sign of good faith that we are not deliberately trying to make this onerous. There should not be some kind of checking that means you can never make a mistake. I am just using this as an example for the Minister because, if we are not careful, the rules could be misinterpreted and this could get more cumbersome than we intended. Other than that, I do not think that new Section 436C(1) is unreasonable or time consuming, as long as it is interpreted in the way that was intended.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend was a most distinguished Secretary of State for Education, and I am very grateful to her for intervening in this debate. To answer her questions directly, she said that she was focusing only on new Section 436C(1), which is indeed the subsection that I particularly drew to your Lordships’ attention in covering paragraph (e). I have to disagree with my noble friend saying that it is okay; I do not think it is okay at all.
My noble friend asked what the onward obligation is to provide further information when, let us say, an extra teacher or the like is brought in. The answer according to the Bill is that there is a duty to inform the register every time, within 15 days, so that is the onward responsibility.
My noble friend is quite right that new Section 436C(2) refers to the local authority, not the parents. I pointed it out because there is an enormous number of requirements on the local authority in the registration process; they actually number 27. That is an illustration of how complicated the Bill has become and how unworkable it is in its present state.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has said, as the Minister will know from my numerous amendments later in the Bill, which I look forward to discussing with officials.
I have three amendments in this group. Amendment 204 inquires after the process in subsection (3) describing condition A. I hope that the Minister can describe today what the Government’s reasoning is in making this change. When it comes to what the process is going to be and whether there is the capability in system to do it, I am happy to leave that to discussions with officials.
Amendment 210 questions the meaning of “without undue delay”. If the hereditary Peers Bill was amended to say that we were leaving without undue delay, I would regard that as a plus. Such phrases in the mouths of government tend to mean quite a long time. I would have thought that in these circumstances, where the education of a child is concerned, something tighter might be advisable.
Amendment 221 says that, if this is what it looks like, the parent really needs access to a tribunal. If a local authority is on song and doing things quickly and it all goes smoothly and fairly, fine, but there are a lot of local authorities—my noble friend Lord Wei named the most notoriously worst of them—where this is not the case, often just temporarily because of staff changes or short-staffing. In those circumstances, the parent needs some recourse, because it is the child that matters.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 204 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lucas would narrow the scope of local authority powers to withhold consent to home education, in this case to exclude children in special schools. The driver of this—I looked at the Explanatory Notes but could not see anything that explains why special schools are all included—is that we seem to be treating parents of children with special needs in the same way as parents where there is an active investigation from children’s services and that feels disproportionate. There is also a risk of a conflict of interest where home education could be discouraged if the costs of providing therapeutic support to a child might be higher in that setting than in a special school, even if that was in the child’s best interests.
My Amendment 219 is a sort of common-sense amendment on an issue that I hope the Minister can clarify at the Dispatch Box. It seeks clarification that, if a local authority was to refuse consent to a parent to educate their child at home, it would need to provide the parents or carers with a statement explaining the reasons why, including the costs and benefits to the child. I assume that this would be good practice anyway, but if the noble Baroness can confirm that, that would be helpful.
I am sympathetic to the clarity that Amendment 210 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas would bring in terms of timings, but I think that Amendment 215A would be unduly onerous for local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, expressed concerns about the complexity of Clause 30. I am with him in that I think there is work to be done on Clause 30. He also focused on Clause 31 in his remarks, but I will cover those points in the next group.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I am sorry; I missed my turn to jump up. I wanted to make two remarks. First, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has drawn the big picture of a range of issues that concern us all and I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we can hopefully work through those in meetings or in Committee in a bit of detail. There are many points to come back to on that.
The one that I want to pick up on is Amendment 221, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others, on the right of appeal. It goes back to a point that I made earlier: the relationship between local authorities and home-educating parents is the vital one in all of this. In the end, we are providing the legislative framework within which that will operate. At a time when there is clearly a lot of suspicion, confusion and so on, a right of appeal will help to deal with that situation. It seems common sense to have a right of appeal to a tribunal.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, we have got to group 3, which is good. I start by addressing the Clause 30 stand part notice tabled by my noble friend Lord Hacking. Clause 30 sets out the requirement that a child who is on a child protection plan, who is the subject of a Section 47 inquiry or who is registered at a special school cannot be removed from school to be home-educated without local authority permission.
We have set out clearly those instances—my noble friend did not necessarily agree that it was clear, but I hope that I will make it clear now—where children will fall within the scope of Clause 30 and so require consent in order to be home-educated. Specifically, it will apply to pupils in England who are of compulsory school age and for whom at least one of the following applies: the child attends a special school and they became a pupil at that school through arrangements made by the local authority; the child is subject to child protection inquiries under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989; or there is a child protection plan in place. The intent of the legislation is that, if you do not fall into one of those categories, you do not need to seek the consent of the local authority in order to home-educate your child. There is a narrow and specific group of children for whom Clause 30 suggests that their parents will need to seek the consent of the local authority.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister. She has lucidly identified what we now know is the correct position and I am very grateful to her.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The children who are subject to child protection inquiries and plans are among our most vulnerable and the children who attend special schools are likely to have the highest levels of need. It is necessary that local authority consent is sought in those scenarios to ensure that these children are safe and suitably educated.
Even then, Clause 30 does not mean that these eligible families will not be able to home-educate their children. We are simply requiring the local authority to take a closer look in those circumstances. It may, in any of those three categories, be wholly appropriate for those children to be educated at home, but it is also right, given the specific circumstances, that the local authority that has responsibility—or where those children live—looks at that case and gives consent for home education in those narrow categories of cases.
We want local authorities to know which children in their areas may be home-educated and to make an informed decision to determine what will be in the best interests of the child in those circumstances. Clause 30 is underpinned by a review process; I will return to that in a moment. Statutory guidance will also be published to help schools and local authorities to carry out their new duties consistently from authority to authority and in a proportionate way.
I turn to the specific amendments. Amendments 203A and 204, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wei and Lord Lucas, seek to remove the requirement for parents to obtain local authority consent to home-educate should their child attend a special school under arrangements of the local authority. The Government believe it is important to retain this requirement. We totally recognise that parents of children at special schools have their children’s best interests at heart, just like other parents. However, children in special schools often have very complex needs that would be difficult for their parents to provide for at home. The loss of the support the child receives in a special school may be a major upheaval in the child’s life. Clause 30 retains an additional check that there are no educational suitability issues resulting from the loss of this support and that home education would be in the child’s best interests. It is clear that this is a different nature of concern from that represented by Section 47 inquiries or a child protection plan.
Amendment 210, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, wants to specify a timeframe for the home education consent decision to be made. I wholly share the noble Lord’s desire for decisions to be undertaken as quickly as possible. We think that the current wording in the clause, “without undue delay”, ensures as prompt a turnaround as possible. If we had an arbitrary timeline for this process—28 days, for example—that would imply that every decision was as straightforward as any other. Timings are likely to be different, depending on the circumstances of the child. By necessity, because these are children who already have other needs and requirements, the process could be complex and will involve multi-agency collaboration and information-sharing to reach a decision.
Amendment 215A seeks to ensure that local authorities offer parents an information session on home education as part of the consent process. I agree it is important that the decision to home-educate is an informed one. But the duty to secure a suitable education rests with the parent, not the local authority. With this in mind, requiring local authorities to offer mandatory information sessions would not be appropriate. It is parents who should be taking responsibility for researching their educational choices. Parents should carefully consider their responsibilities and the financial implications of home-educating before requesting permission to withdraw their child from school. We will ensure that the department’s relevant guidance provides key information that a parent needs to consider when contemplating whether to home-educate. Local authorities and schools can signpost to this should they become aware of parental intentions to home-educate.
Amendment 219, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to require local authorities to provide a statement of reasons to parents when refusing a request for consent. As the noble Baroness suspected, it is the case that local authorities are already obliged to provide their rationale for such a decision. We intend to make this clear in the relevant statutory guidance, which will need to be updated so that relevant professionals know what is required of them.
Finally, Amendment 221, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, looks to provide a tribunal appeals process as a review in the case of a local authority’s decision to refuse to grant permission to home-educate a child. We do not believe that this amendment is necessary because Clause 30 already provides for a review process. Parents who disagree with the local authority’s decision to grant or refuse permission to home-educate their child can refer the decision to the Secretary of State for review. They will carefully consider the full facts of the case. Having done so, the Secretary of State has the power to either uphold the local authority’s decision, to direct the local authority to grant consent or to refer the question back to the local authority for review.
Lord Wei (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister. I believe that this appeal process to the Secretary of State already exists. Clearly, it is a very difficult situation for the Secretary of State to be the tribunal for the parents, if the parents feel that the local authority or the Government have not been supportive of their desire to home-educate. I would be grateful if the Minister could let us know how many times, when a home-educated family has requested support from the Secretary of State to overturn a local authority decision, that has actually happened. According to the statistics I have, there has never been such an instance. I wonder whether, if this were to be tested in a court or by some other mechanism, this form of procedural appeal would not really muster the kind of belief that the Minister has. Might she reconsider looking into the various forms of appeal that we will propose in later groups of amendments, or indeed look again at the idea of a tribunal?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
This legislation introduces the consent process. People have not gone through this process, with the specific, narrow categories of children and families for whom it applies. Does the noble Lord want another go?
Lord Wei (Con)
I am referring to other instances, which home-educated families have referenced, where they have written to the Secretary of State for Education —under the current regime, not the future one—and where no action has ever been taken in their favour. Perhaps we can discuss this in August.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Let us not talk about what will happen and when in terms of engagement with my officials. Just to be clear: as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that engagement will enable noble Lords to get an understanding of the way the Government intend to implement these provisions and to get some assurance around the processes that will be used. It will not be another opportunity for noble Lords who fundamentally oppose what the Government are doing—I am thinking of the noble Lord, who started his contribution by saying that he fundamentally opposes what we are trying to do here. I am not sure that the engagement will be particularly helpful for persuading, through officials, the Government to wholly change their approach to this. As I said, it is intended to look at the detail and to provide some assurance about how the processes will work.
I will reiterate the point I made previously. Clause 30 is introducing a consent mechanism and, specifically, a review process of that consent mechanism. Home-educating parents may well have written on other issues to the Secretary of State and been dissatisfied with the response that they received. However, that is different from the review process that is spelled out in legislation in Clause 30.
I turn to the points made by my noble friend Lady Morris. She is right. She asks questions that are the subject of amendments to be debated in later groups, but they are very reasonable. She asked about how much time a child would need to study with a provider for it to be reported, and how often and how quickly parents would need to update the details about that. Those are precisely the types of issues that would be subject to the further consultation around the regulations and guidance, including with home-educating parents and others, to ensure that we do that in a way that balances the burdens and requirements on parents, alongside ensuring that the local authority has the basic information that it needs to make the scheme work properly. In this area, there is considerable scope for consultation and engagement about how precisely that will work. I hope that answers my noble friend’s question and that the noble Lord, Lord Wei, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her flexibility on the notification period, which in the Bill currently is 15 days. It is very nice to hear that the Government and my noble friend can be more flexible about it and are prepared to discuss it. I thank her very much indeed for that. I gave a very strong indictment against new Section 426C—
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Can I just clarify whether my noble friend is concluding the group or intervening on me?
Lord Lucas (Con)
In Committee, noble Lords may talk as many times as we like. We will try to keep it short though.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Does my noble friend want me to respond again? That is what I would like to know.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I am getting up to thank the Minister for her willingness to consider the timetable for the notification by the schooling parent of any changes in the educational plan, which they will have had to give already in detail under new Section 426C(1)(e). I am asking her, as I did in my speech, whether she and the Government would be willing to look at the actual terms of subsection (e), which have been widely described as very onerous. I gave examples of that, such as the need to give details of Sunday schooling. I also pointed out that that type of information is not sought at all from parents with children at state schools. I remind her that, after the very successful meeting with the Minister, Stephen Morgan, on 17 June, I wrote a follow-up letter on 20 June, copying in my noble friend. I asked specifically whether the provisions in subsection (e) could be reviewed, with a schooling parent, to find a practical answer. I must suggest again that, in its present form, it is most onerous.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The questions that my noble friend asks are, I think, the subject of amendments in later groups, which is when I had presumed we would come to those details. I will stick to that, if that is okay.
Lord Lucas (Con)
I am very grateful to the Minister for what she said. I entirely understand the limitations of discussions with officials, which is why I want to talk to her again about tribunals. Tribunals are an established part of mediating between the citizen and the state. In situations like this, or in many circumstances similar to those we are talking about—and this is by no means the only time we will discuss this; the next time will be when we are talking about best interests—when you have a hard-pressed local authority that may have a particular prejudice against home education and may be making life extremely difficult, as some of them do, you want an effective right of appeal. The system of appeal to the Secretary of State has existed in various forms in various bits of legislation for a long time. I am aware of one occasion when the Secretary of State agreed with the complainant. It does not work as an effective forum. It is not set up to be an effective forum. It does not allow for balanced and deep argument. The department is just not set up as a tribunal: it is not staffed as a tribunal, nor skilled as a tribunal. It is not the right place. I just say to my noble friend Lady Barran that I would very much appreciate her support for a tribunal amendment at Report, because that is what this appears likely to come to.
Lord Wei (Con)
We have heard in discussing this group of amendments a number of excellent suggestions for trying to take the edge off these complex—as the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, said—and, in my view, quite heavy-handed requirements on families. On the previous group, the Minister was very kind in offering discussions so that we can move forwards. Even though I have said that I oppose the register totally, that does not mean that I am shirking my responsibility as a legislator to help improve this legislation and to make it practical, based on the experience of someone from a home-educating family and having heard what was said by many Peers who have contributed to the debate. We are trying to make this practical and to make it work, so that people can get on with educating their children and local authorities can catch the perpetrators they want to catch.
There have been discussions about the tribunal, appeals and the fact that the department’s appeals process generally does not seem to behave in the way you would expect of a proper appeals process when parents complain directly. We have heard some quite sensible amendments in this group and the Minister has not indicated that she is willing to adopt any of the ideas in them. We will see later on. We appreciate the clarification that, when we meet officials, we will be told what the Bill is about and why it has been written in this way, but I hope we can also improve the Bill, which is the intent of us all. There have been suggestions on ways to improve its wording, in order to treat children in special schools and their parents with a bit more care and to have a statement of costs and benefits. These do not seem unreasonable.
I am afraid I am hearing a bit of a “state knows best” argument—that it should have 28 days to give a reason for its decision whereas parents should have only 15. That does not sound very fair to me and I am not sure it will sound fair to the British public, let alone to home-educating families. However, in the interests of time and given that we will discuss in further groups and potentially over the summer more of what we have talked about today, I will reflect on what has been said. I may return to this on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I must alert the Committee that, if Amendment 205 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 206 for reasons of pre-emption.
Amendment 205
Lord Lucas
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to allow a debate on the effects of this clause and of the reasons for section 47 enquiries, and the intersection with abusive relationships.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 206. My concern here is that Section 47 has a very broad class of orders. Some are extremely serious and some, frankly, are irrelevant to whether someone should be concerned about a child being home educated. The amendment is to get some sense, which I am very happy to leave to further discussions, of how one deals, for instance, with spurious complaints from a former abusive parent who just wants to mess up the other parent’s life.
The overall statistics show that home-educated children are twice as likely to be referred to children’s social services, yet are much less likely to have a child protection plan result from that referral. There is a prejudice towards referring children who are home educated or whose parents are thinking of home educating them. We need to understand that in order to provide some circumstances that allow officials in local authorities to feel comfortable about taking informed professional decisions, rather than feeling vulnerable doing anything other than refusing. I look forward to discussing this at a later opportunity. I beg to move.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 207. Ever the optimist, I hope the Government will take it seriously and bring it back on Report with a “g” in front of it.
The amendment has two parts: the first extends the right of a local authority to withhold consent to home education for a child or their family who is in receipt of services under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989; the second extends this to children who have ever been classified as a child in need of protection under Section 47 of the Act. To be clear, both parts would give local authorities just the discretion to withhold consent on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, I am not proposing a blanket refusal, but, as drafted, the Government’s position is not altogether clear, although I suspect that the noble Baroness will tell me that my drafting is not altogether clear either.
All children who are in special schools would now be within scope, as we debated in the earlier group, of the local authority’s right to withhold consent, but not those under Section 17 where there are safeguarding or neglect concerns. That just feels the wrong way round in terms of priorities. I appreciate that my drafting could focus more narrowly on those children defined under Section 17 of the Act to focus on safeguarding and neglect, but it is curious not to focus on those children. Unlike my noble friends, I do not think it is easy to get either Section 47 or Section 17 status and I worry that the bar is too high with just the current Section 47.
On the inclusion of children who have ever been subject to a Section 47 child protection plan, we talked earlier about the tragic case of Sara Sharif. The Minister in the other place said that
“we cannot say for sure what might have made a difference, but we will learn lessons from the future … local child safeguarding practice review”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 30/1/25; col. 297.]
I think I am right in saying that Sara Sharif had been put on the child protection register at birth. She came off the register and, as we know, was removed from school and died, tragically. Without the changes in my amendment, the one thing we can be sure of is that the proposed law as drafted would not have made any difference to her.
I know that both Ministers on the Front Bench want to get this right; I am just trying to state the reality that if a child has ever been considered to be vulnerable enough to be subject not to a Section 47 investigation but to a child protection plan at any point in their short life then that is a massive red flag that needs to be removed before consenting for them to be educated at home. I respect the probing Amendments 205 and 206 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, but I support the Government’s approach to giving local authorities the power to withhold consent in cases involving child protection.
Lord Frost (Con)
I want to underline the points made by my noble friend Lord Lucas on Amendments 205 and 206, which I have also put my name to. Section 47 is obviously a very difficult area for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, just underlined, and it obviously needs to be taken seriously. At the same time, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said, a debate needs to be had about where we are drawing the borderline, whether there are areas where Section 47 need not be an automatic barrier to home education, whether there needs to be a further process, or whether the process is different in some cases compared with to others. At the moment, it is a very broad and straightforward yes or no test. As we know, as has been said and no doubt will be said again, there is evidence that this Section 47 process can be hijacked in certain circumstances and in certain kinds of relationships just to disrupt, cause trouble or make life more difficult, so we have to be sensitive to that.
I certainly think that, again, it is something perhaps better explored in these famous August discussions than necessarily in the detail now, but it is important not to take a completely black and white view on this. I will not labour the point, but I also think it underlines the need to have a proper appeal process and tribunal to take the sensitivities of the particular cases properly into account.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, very briefly, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, points out that intervention in schools can be a protection. The Government’s thinking about the future of this and the future interaction would be well worth hearing.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
In group 4, we have an interesting combination of some amendments suggesting that the Government are going too far in their proposals around the hurdle for having to seek consent to home-educate and others suggesting that they are not going far enough. I will try to find a way through the centre of this, because what they all have in common is seeking to explore the rationale for the local authority to have to provide consent before a parent can withdraw a child from school to home-educate—in this case, where the child is subject to a child protection inquiry
I turn to Amendments 205 and 206. Just to be clear, the Government believe that the consent measure with respect to Section 47 inquiries provides an important but proportionate safety net for children subject to child protection inquiries and plans. To clarify something that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said and to reiterate this, the consent provisions are not an automatic bar to these parents home-educating. It could well be the case that, notwithstanding the fact that a child was subject to Section 47 inquiries or even under a child protection plan, the local authority felt it was appropriate for, or was willing to give consent for, that child to be home-educated. To reiterate what I said, it is a requirement for the local authority to consider the circumstances of that child, given that they have come under the auspices of children’s social care through Section 47 of the Children Act. Our view is that this should be done as part of its wider decision-making on whether a child needs protection and the planning that follows that.
There is some suggestion, which I really disagree with, that local authorities would find it easy to jump to a Section 47 inquiry simply to prevent a parent being able to home-educate their child. There are a lot of consequences to undertaking a Section 47 inquiry. I would find it hard to understand why a local authority would be so keen to prevent a parent home-educating if there were no reasons to stop them or want to get itself into the burdens around a Section 47 inquiry if it did not think it was important to do that. Of course, it is not just what a local authority believes about the circumstances of a child. For a child to be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry, they will have already hit a threshold of actual or likely significant harm. That is a high threshold. An inquiry should certainly not be initiated purely because a parent has decided to home-educate.
I note the understandable concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about how this measure could be used in an abusive relationship, where false or malicious allegations regarding the safety of a child, for example, might be made to continue to control or harass an individual. The sad reality, of course, is that it is not only with respect to issues about home education that that might happen. It could happen, and does happen, in many circumstances where local authorities are making decisions about children. For that reason, we are confident that this would not be something unusual or unheard of for local authorities, and that they do have robust policies and processes in place to consider information and evidence about child protection concerns, including recognising and handling malicious allegations. Perhaps the noble Lord could be provided with some more examples of how local authorities would handle this type of circumstance, to provide some reassurance. Given that a child will be the subject of a Section 47 inquiry only where there is actual or likely significant harm, it is reasonable that checks should be undertaken before such a child can be removed from school for home education.
Amendment 207, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, focuses on bringing all children receiving support and services under Section 17 of the Children Act, known as “children in need”, and any child who has ever been the subject of a child protection plan in the past into the scope of the consent measure. We share her commitment to ensuring that all children are protected from harm, and recognise that, while home education is not an inherent safeguarding risk, it can of course mean that some children could slip under the radar. However, we believe that this amendment would be disproportionate. “Children in need” is a very broad group of children and many will receive services which are nothing to do with safeguarding concerns or particular educational needs.
I think the noble Baroness was suggesting that there might be ways in which it would be possible to have a definition that looked at different elements of Section 17 concerns, and perhaps I can come back to her on that point. I think one of her reasons for suggesting it is that she understands, of course, that, for example, all children with disabilities are automatically included under Section 17. We certainly would not want to suggest here that any child with disabilities whose parents wanted to home-educate them would necessarily need to seek consent. I also draw her attention to the deliverability of a measure that includes both children in need and children subject to child protection activity in the consent measure.
In the year to the end of March 2024, there were 399,500 children in need, compared with 224,520 child protection inquiries and 49,900 children on child protection plans. As noble Lords can see, it would be both disproportionate and overly burdensome on local authorities to make a consent decision for every parent who wished to withdraw their child from school for home education where that child is receiving help under Section 17: it would be roughly a doubling of the potential number of children who might need it.
Baroness Barran (Con)
From memory, are there not 400-and-something thousand children with an EHCP who will be within the kind of consent framework? Obviously, the vast majority of the 400,000 children who are under Section 17 are not going to be home-educated. I take the noble Baroness’s point; I am just trying to say that we have one group that is in and another group, where we suspect potential abuse or neglect, that is out. That just feels like an odd split.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I recognise that point. On the special school point, it is not sufficient to have an EHCP to need consent to withdraw your child to home-educate; it is if they are in a special school. The rationale there is that you are changing their schooling and removing them, by definition, from something that contains very specific levels of support, otherwise it would not be a special school. It is the consideration of that impact that is the reasoning behind the special school intention here.
So we are confident that the consent measure, as drafted, is focused on the right groups of children and that it is proportionate. I hope that I have demonstrated the proportionality of this measure and that it is part of a wider set of activities that we have discussed previously on the Bill, about strengthening requirements to protect children at the earliest opportunity. I hope therefore that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Even more briefly, I did not hear the Minister’s response in relation to children who have been on a child protection plan. Could she be very kind and write to me, in the interests of time, because that is also extremely important?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, I recognise that. There are still questions about burden there, but I understand the noble Baroness’s point, and particularly her reference to the Sara Sharif case. On that case, we are still awaiting the detailed review from the safeguarding panel in order to be able to determine the causes there, but I understand her point and will write to her about that specific group of children.
On that basis, I hope noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not move their amendments.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her replies. I look forward to meetings after today to go into these matters further, but I very much understand what my noble friend Lady Barran is saying with her Amendment 207. It convinces me that, if we can insert a tribunal into this process, we will make all these difficult questions flow much more easily for everybody. However, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe how school proprietors have knowledge of the information referenced in this paragraph.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, my Amendments 208, 216, 217, 220 and 225 seem eminently appropriate for discussing between today and September. Amendment 222 again raises the need for a tribunal to deal with tricky cases. We need something effective, we need something fair and open, and that is what tribunals are. I beg to move.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 209 in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Storey and Lord Watson.
Amendment 209 would require local authorities to ensure that they have offered a young carer’s needs assessment if they are notified of a pupil who is a young carer being withdrawn from school. This is to ensure that withdrawing a young carer from school does not result in increases in their caring responsibilities to the extent that it prejudices their education.
I am vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Young Carers, an active APPG producing reports on the challenges facing young carers and enabling parliamentarians to meet young carers, virtually and physically, to hear at first hand the challenges that confront them. A recent report told us of the difficulties that they face when their responsibilities as carers are not recognised by school and others, and that too many young carers cannot thereby access the support they need.
By way of background to this amendment, there are more than 15,000 children caring for parents or siblings for more than 50 hours a week. That is more than the average working week—and of course, they have to squeeze in their education on top of that. One issue that young carer services have shared with the APPG is that there are cases where a young carer is caring for a parent—for example, with a severe mental illness—and is withdrawn from school. Not being in school then results in greater responsibilities falling on those young shoulders, and in even more isolation from the support that a school can give them.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to which I have added my name, and I thank him for introducing it so effectively. A young carer is defined as someone who is under the age of 18 and is looking after a family member or close friend. Often being forced to balance school and their social life with caring duties could seem an impossible task, which can take its toll on a young carer’s mental health. That said, on the other side of the coin, with the right level of support, many of the skills that they learn while caring are later transferable to adult life and the world of work.
All too often, however, young carers are invisible. If adults outside their family, particularly teachers and school support staff, are unaware of their caring responsibilities, it is unlikely that the help that they need will reach them, so it is important that we recognise young carers and learn how we can help them, because being a young carer is undoubtedly demanding. They assume adult responsibilities and worries while still a child and have to prepare for and get to school, study for exams and look after themselves.
During the pandemic, the Children’s Society launched the young carers count campaign, which highlighted the experiences of young carers and called for a child’s status as a carer to be included in the school census. The DfE acknowledged the value of that, because in 2022 it began to include young carers as a category in that census. Now that data is being recorded, a much clearer picture of the number of young carers across England and how they are impacted by their caring responsibilities is beginning to emerge. With proper resourcing, this should help significantly to improve the support that they receive.
The Children and Families Act 2014 amended the Children Act to make it easier for young carers to get an assessment of their needs and introduced whole-family approaches to assessment and support. Local authorities must offer an assessment where it “appears”—I am not quite sure what that means—that a child is involved in providing care. That legislation is aligned with similar provision in the Care Act 2014 that requires local authorities to consider the needs of young carers if, during the assessment of an adult with care needs, or of an adult carer, it appears that a child is providing or intends to provide care. In those circumstances, the authority must consider whether the care being provided by the child is excessive or inappropriate and how the child’s caring responsibilities affect their well-being, education and development.
Amendment 209 would add to Clause 30, which, of course, is concerned with children not in school. When a local authority is informed that a request has been made for a child to be removed from school, this amendment would require that a young carer’s needs assessment is undertaken. This would highlight cases where a child was being withdrawn to enable them to offer more support to a family member, likely at the expense of them attending school and thus continuing with their education. Increased caring responsibilities almost always mean that there is neither the time nor the facility for a child either to receive meaningful education from that relative or to self-educate, even where he or she was at least theoretically old enough to do so and the appropriate learning materials were made available. The starting point for any such assessment should always be that children are children first.
The young carer’s needs assessment must determine whether a young carer is giving what I described earlier as “excessive” care. Although a child might be undertaking relatively minor care tasks, the time that these take up and the demands that they make on the child could place significant limits on their life—for example, if the level of care interferes with school attendance or appears to be isolating the child in their home and preventing contact with their friends. For that reason, I hope that my noble friend will agree that a needs assessment is necessary to ensure that local authorities are aware of young carers’ needs and that their needs are being met, while preserving their access to education.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I will be brief. I can see why my noble friend Lord Storey added his name to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young. Any child taking on responsibilities like those described in that amendment is not having a childhood. In reality, they are getting through from day to day—they cannot be doing much more. School may be the only point where they will get some support and some normal life; enabling them to have that may be the only way that they can have a future.
If you spend your entire life looking after somebody else, and they inconveniently live for quite a long time, you could find yourself in middle age without an education or qualifications and having been de-social skilled—I do not know if that is a correct expression. Your life will have been taken over by another function. That should not be put on somebody that young. When she comes to respond, I hope that the Minister will say something positive, because this is something that we should deal with at the first opportunity.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 224, which I think is less contentious than the last issue that I raised in your Lordships’ House. The amendment is about deregistration from school when it is triggered by crises, or whatever. Taking your child to school is a voluntary arrangement at the point of enrolment, but parents get fined for unauthorised absence, even if they go into the sort of crisis that will eventually lead to them deregistering.
I do not know anything about education, despite being in education until I was 18, and then at university, but I have vested interest because three of my grandchildren were home-schooled. Two of them are now at Cambridge—one is doing history and the other politics—and the other one has made a comedy film about autism, which is a condition she has, and that is doing incredibly well. Those three children have been home-schooled and have reached a level that many children do not get to regardless, so I would argue that home-schooling can work extremely well. It is important to remember that, for some children, it is the answer. We want to avoid government overreach in these situations.
It seems obvious to me that, where a parent clearly no longer consents to the education arrangement with the school, it makes sense that they do not get fined. The fines do not get the children back to school, but they do add financial worries to the sense of stress. I understand why the Government reach for deterrence in order to give children the best education that they can, but sometimes school is not the right answer and I ask the Minister to consider whether financial penalties are useful in all these situations.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords I rise to speak to my Amendments 218, 223, 381, 403 and 418. Together, they seek to introduce fairness, balance and accountability into the Bill and to support families who are simply choosing a lawful, legitimate path of home education.
I will first focus on Amendment 218, which will require any local authority officer making decisions about elective home education to have at least two years’ personal experience of home educating their own children. This is not an ideological proposal but a practical one. I recall being asked once by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to help create a Teach First programme for social workers. I declined, not because I doubted the value of new graduates but because lived experience matters. Pattern recognition, nuance and trust are not easily taught, especially if you have only recently graduated. You cannot understand the reality of raising and educating a child outside school unless you have walked that path yourself.
To ask someone with no such experience to judge a family’s educational approach is like asking a man to speak with authority on childbirth or someone without children to dictate how others should raise theirs. According to Education Otherwise, home-educated children are twice as likely to be referred to children’s social services as their schooled peers, and yet no more likely to be placed on a child protection plan. This points to systematic overreferral, driven in part by ignorance and in part by a narrative that wrongly associates home education with safeguarding risk. This amendment offers one step towards correcting that imbalance.
Case law supports this. In R (T) v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester 2014, the Supreme Court held that administrative decisions that infringe individual rights must be informed by proper context and not rely on rigid or generic assumptions. Without understanding the diversity and nuance of home education, decisions risk being fundamentally flawed. If flawed decisions are made persistently, structurally and without oversight, judicial review becomes not just possible but likely. My concern is that the Bill, without this amendment and others like it, will open floodgates to such challenges, and perhaps rightly so.
This brings me to Amendment 223, which would establish an independent home education ombudsman—somewhat similar to the tribunal idea but very focused—to receive and investigate complaints against local authorities that overstep in the course of carrying out their duties under the Education Act. This is frankly overdue. At present, if a parent believes that they have been mistreated, there is no meaningful avenue of redress: no independent appeal, no clear complaints process and no statutory body to oversee how these immense powers are exercised. All they can do, as we have discussed, is write to the Minister, who to our knowledge has never, or rarely, upheld a complaint by a parent in this or a similar context.
I will give noble Lords some testimonies to bring this to life here. We have talked about the legal process here, but I want to bring home how human lives are affected by what we are proposing and what already takes place. One mother, a non-UK national, withdrew her child from the UK system before school age, having mistakenly registered with the local authority on school advice. Despite their lawful departure, the LA demanded boarding passes, proof of address and school details abroad. The child was never of school age in the UK. This was not protection; it was pursuit.
A military family has described how their local authority contacted the husband’s workplace repeatedly to discuss the children, even after it had ruled that the home education was of a satisfactory, suitable level. It then had to make an apology and had clear instruction to contact only the mother. The mother said this was a huge breach of privacy because of the nature of the agreement they had established. A home-educating doctor wrote:
“After de-registering my daughter with SEND, I was referred to social services again. My son and I were followed in public. I feared for our safety. My daughter began to regress. I had done nothing wrong—just removed her from a school that failed her”.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, in part for the reasons given so eloquently by the supporters of the amendment, but also because it provides the opportunity for the child concerned to be home-educated if that is the right thing for them. It is not just about ensuring that being home-educated is in the child’s best interest, but about providing the opportunity for that to happen. This is an important, and presumably relatively small, concession in terms of numbers, because here we are talking only about people who are in special schools, although I know there is another amendment later. I hope that the Minister will consider this amendment favourably.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support what my noble friend said about young carers. We ought to be much better at collecting information on what is going on with young carers. The whole business of collecting information is getting easier with AI. The government AI team is a sight to be seen. I have not, in government, come across such an enthusiastic and effective team. I very much hope that the Department for Education will make contact and make use of the blockers. When you are faced with a difficult problem and need to find a way of collecting data that does not put a burden on the organisations that are having to do that data collection, and it is diverse and complicated, AI is a really good approach. I urge the Government to help look after young carers by taking that step.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, there is a large number of probing amendments in this group and, in the interests of making progress, I will not comment on most of them. I am very sympathetic to the intent behind Amendment 209 in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I would hope very much that a child who is a young carer would be supported to stay in school, given the obvious risk that their education would suffer and conflict with the care needs of their parent if at home, but I have no further comments on the other amendments in this group.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in group 5. These amendments mainly concern the requirement to seek consent should a parent wish to withdraw their child from school in particular circumstances. Just to reiterate, we recognise that most home-educating families provide safe and suitable education in the best interests of their children. The consent measure applies only to specific groups of children—where there are child protection concerns or the child has a special school placement. We are confident that this is a proportionate response to help to ensure that these children’s needs are met and are protected.
With respect to the detail in the amendments, I turn first to Amendment 208, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would remove the requirement for a school to notify the local authority responsible for the child if that is different from the local authority where the school is located when a parent intends to withdraw the child to home educate. To be clear, schools will hold the child’s address; therefore, they will know which local authorities to notify. Working Together to Safeguard Children, the statutory safeguarding guidance, is clear that schools should be included in child protection activity and planning, and therefore should also be aware of which local authorities should be contacted. It is crucial that schools retain the responsibility to verify whether consent is needed for home education. Without this, children in scope of the consent process could be mistakenly removed from school rolls without permission, or the consent decision could be delayed.
Turning to Amendment 209, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, which has rightly received the most attention in this group of amendments and would require a carer’s needs assessment before the child is withdrawn from school, I commend the noble Lord on championing the needs of young carers. To be clear, I certainly do not demur from his overarching argument—and that of other noble Lords, such as my noble friend Lord Watson—that young carers are in need of specific attention, care and consideration from local authorities because of the enormously difficult position they find themselves in.
The local authority will have ample opportunity to fully consider the child’s circumstances as part of the consent decision-making process. In fact, that is the whole point of having that process. Of course, under Section 436C(2), which we touched on in, I think, the group before last, local authorities will also be able—be expected, in fact, I would suggest—in the case where a child is a young carer and is being educated at home, to record and keep relevant information about that child. If they were being home educated, the fact that they were a carer would be an important part of the information that a local authority should record about them, precisely in order to make sure that they are getting the support that they need.
The Children Act 1989 already provides robust safeguarding measures for young carers, who may be recognised as children in need, ensuring that their support needs are assessed by their local authority. Of course, we will ensure that our reforms to both education and children’s social care work for all disadvantaged children and young people, including young carers.
I think it was interesting that some people, in responding to this amendment, were arguing that being a young carer should not be a reason why a child could not be home educated, and others were arguing that it would be better for that child to remain in school, with support, and be able to learn without the relentless role, as I am sure it is, of being a carer. I think this suggests that there are probably differing circumstances for young carers, and it reinforces the general point that local authorities should take seriously their responsibilities to fully consider the needs of young carers and to ensure that their support needs are being assessed.
Turning to Amendments 216 and 217—
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
Before the noble Baroness leaves Amendment 209, will she say something, or perhaps write to me, about the delay in getting a needs assessment for young carers?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Sorry, yes, I remember that the noble Lord asked about that. I will write to him on the broader issue of the speed with which young carers are getting their assessments. I will follow that up separately.
Amendments 216 and 217, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to remove or amend the requirement for local authorities to notify any other parent of the child of their home education consent decision. In law, all parents have responsibility for their child’s education, and it is therefore necessary that all parents are notified, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Amendment 216 would remove this. Including exceptional circumstances provides safeguards where a parent does not have to be notified: for example, in cases of domestic abuse. Of course, children must be protected from domestic abuse. Amendment 217, however, states that
“exceptional circumstances will always apply where domestic abuse is alleged or established”.
We are concerned that this could have unintended consequences, including a parent making an accusation of domestic abuse to prevent the other being informed of the consent decision. Again, sadly, local authorities are quite used to the way they need to behave and the care they need to take in circumstances of allegations of domestic abuse. However, we will provide further detail regarding what “exceptional circumstances” means in this context in statutory guidance. As I have said previously, we will engage with stakeholders when updating that guidance.
I turn to Amendments 218 and 381 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. Amendment 218 would require local authority staff to have at least two years of personal home education experience of their own children before making consent decisions. Amendment 381 would require at least one person with direct home education experience on safeguarding panels for decisions related to home-educated children. I think it is possible to be an experienced practitioner without specific lived experience; however, that can make a good, important and interesting contribution. I am not sure that the noble Lord’s experience about men not being able to work with women giving birth would be recognised by the large number of male obstetricians operating around the country, but that just proves that, while lived experience and, most certainly—
Lord Wei (Con)
To clarify, I was in no way saying that men could not work with women in childbirth. I was trying to make a point about speaking as authoritatively on the process of giving birth as a man as if you were a woman. In no way would I want the Minister to interpret me as saying that one could not be a male midwife or anything like that, but, as some of us know, when in certain circles I have talked about something feeling like childbirth, I have quite rightly been told off, because I have never given birth. There is something about that lived experience that I am pointing to. I am not making the point that people cannot work in certain professional settings in that sense.
We are crossing over from professional expertise into lived experience, saying that a parent can or cannot raise their child and parent-educate. Even if you were to use the professional argument, I am not sure that having that determined by someone who may not have that experience—when, right now, even the professional in this context is not trained in the philosophies and the different nuances of home education—is quite right in this context.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I certainly think it is right that we should attempt to ensure that people with lived experience are a key part of all areas of policy. That is why, for example, I talked earlier about the home educators’ forum that the department has brought together to help to inform our work here and the guidance. The point that the noble Lord was making went well beyond that. The suggestion that you could not make a professional social work or education decision in this area unless you had lived experience would make this area wholly different from any other area that professionals were making decisions about, and that is the stumbling block for this amendment.
We have a workforce of trained, dedicated practitioners who understand and champion the needs of the children they work with across schools and children’s social care. These amendments, in effect, would exclude around 99% of the population and, of course, would assume that one professional’s experience of home education is reflective of all parents. Working Together guidance is clear which practitioners should be involved in safeguarding decision-making and the importance of including children and families in that as well. We are confident that the Bill measures, and wider children’s social care reform that strengthens the protection of children, will mean that local authorities can draw on a range of expertise when making decisions—and so they should.
Amendment 220 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 224 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would allow a child not to attend school prior to receiving consent from the local authority. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who was not here for the earlier parts of the debate—for which I do not condemn her—that the points she made about the very successful home education experience of the children she was talking about who are close to her has very much been reflected in the comments that other noble Lords made earlier. We are clear that there are many children for whom home education has been a very fulfilling and successful process, and there is nothing in this legislation that removes, for example, the right of parents to make that decision to educate their children at home.
With these consent provisions, however—and in wanting to ensure that if a child is being educated at home, they are at least seen and understood to be being educated elsewhere than in school—we want to make sure that every child is seen. That is the expression that we were using earlier, and that is what we are aiming to do here. Also with respect to the consent provisions, we are concerned about those children for whom there might be particular reasons for a local authority to look carefully at the decision to grant consent by virtue of them being subject to a Section 47 inquiry, under a child protection plan or requiring the specific facilities of a special school.
For many children, a school is a protective environment and a means of offering essential support. I know that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness share our desire to reduce the risk of children falling through gaps and potentially going missing. It is therefore important that a child continues to attend school until a local authority has determined the consent request. Removing a child before this could subject them to unsuitable education or increase the risk of harm. I am sure that the noble Baroness could envisage a situation where, for legitimate reasons, a Section 47 inquiry is instituted where there are concerns about a child being at risk of very significant harm and—I am afraid that we have seen examples of this—a parent, thinking that this would be a way of avoiding it, decides at that point that they want to remove their child from school. In those circumstances, I do not think that any of us would want that child to be removed from what may well be the protective environment of a school before the decision had been made about consent.
For all children who are not subject to the consent process, which will be the vast majority of children whose parents want to home-educate them, all we are expecting is that the parent notifies the school that they want to remove their child from the roll and that the school has the opportunity to check, therefore, whether they fall within the criteria of a child for whom consent would be necessary or whether they are subject to a school attendance order. It would not be unreasonable to expect a child to carry on attending school while that relatively straightforward administrative check was made.
Amendment 222, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would require consent decisions to be revisited sooner than six months after the previous request when new evidence becomes available or the child has been disadvantaged by the decision. This six-month timeframe is proportionate and is provided to reduce multiple requests regarding the same child. There will be situations where it may be appropriate for the local authority to consider applications sooner—for example, if there has been a substantial change in the child’s circumstances. A local authority can do this under the clause as drafted, if it so wishes. I am sure that the noble Lord could also envisage a situation where a parent who was unhappy about the consent decision made by a local authority expected the decision to be revisited perhaps every week. That is the reason for setting this timeframe.
Amendment 223 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, is about establishing an independent ombudsman. I understand the theme that is developing here about independent review capacity. Notwithstanding that, the Government do not believe that it is necessary. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, uses almost every opportunity to push his tribunal suggestion. I am interested in whether the proposition now is that we should have both a tribunal and an ombudsman in these cases. Of course it is right that there should be a process for referring local authority decisions that parents are not satisfied with; however, it should be uncomplicated. It is right that the final decision should rest with the Secretary of State, or Welsh Ministers, who will fully and objectively consider the merits of the case.
Amendment 225, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would remove the definition of the “relevant local authority” that is responsible for making a home education consent decision. For children subject to a child protection inquiry or plan, the local authority where a child lives is responsible for making the consent decision. They will have the information needed to make informed decisions and should therefore determine consent. For children in special schools, who are not also subject to child protection processes, consent is needed from the local authority that maintains the plan, just as is the case under existing legislation. This new subsection provides legal clarity for parents, schools and local authorities.
Amendment 403, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, requests emergency court hearings for parents where a local authority seeks to remove, or removes, a child from their parents due to concerns arising from home education. To reiterate, the Children Act 1989 is clear that the threshold for care proceedings is significant harm. Home education as a singular factor would not reach the threshold for care proceedings. Child protection concerns about a home-educated child must be addressed through the same process as any other child facing harm. This includes parents’ rights to challenge decisions about the removal of a child into care.
Finally, Amendment 418, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, would require local authorities to refer individuals who file false or malicious allegations against home-educating parents, who then may be subject to civil penalties. There is a concern that this could deter valid concerns about home-educated children being reported, potentially leaving children at risk. Local authorities have robust processes in place to identify whether a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, harm and appropriately respond to malicious allegations, regardless of a child’s educational status.
I said earlier that it would not only be in the case of home-educated children that a local authority might have to make a decision about whether a complaint about a child’s parents was well founded or malicious. Home-educating parents have the same rights as other parents. Families can seek support from the local authority or police advice if intentional false reports are being made against them.
For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Lord Lucas (Con)
I am grateful for the Minister’s extensive responses to the amendments. She is right that I will keep coming back about tribunals. I am not attached to any particular form—a tribunal, an ombudsman or what the Government propose. My concern is that it should be effective, and my experience of the Secretary of State route has been that it is not. I am very happy to take the opportunity of the gap between now and 1 September to learn more about the Government’s proposals as to how the Secretary of State route should work, and it may be that I will come to love it as much as she does—that would be nice.
On Amendment 208, knowing a child’s address is not the same as knowing their local authority. There is nothing in the address that says what the local authority is; you need to have a lookup. Local education authorities are not necessarily coterminous with what we think, so the Government would have to provide a lookup. Also, in circumstances where children are in joint custody, the question of their address can be complicated and moot. In both circumstances, there needs to be some help from the Government to enable a school to be sure that, in all circumstances, it determines the right local authority with responsibility. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to restore the current relationship between state and parents with regard to education.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 211 goes to a much deeper part of this Bill: the assertion in lines 39 and 40 on page 51 that those in a local authority are the right people to determine what is in the best interests of a child. For the past 150 years it has been accepted that it is the parents who are the first people to determine what the best interests of a child are, so this is a fundamental change in education legislation, which may run out into all other aspects of the relationship between parents and children. If the local authority is the best judge in this space, why is it not also the best judge of which school a child should attend, or many other aspects of the child’s educational journey—what exams they should take or which university they should go to? Why is the local authority’s judgment being inserted here against all precedent?
Who in the local authority is making this judgment? Local authorities used to be staffed with a big school improvement department and lots of people who knew their way around education. They are much thinner now. How on earth is a local authority staffed to take this decision? Is it guaranteed to have the expertise? Will there be a special cadre of people capable of taking this sort of decision, and trained and experienced in it?
I find it very hard to understand why the Government wish to take this role away from parents. It is a big, fundamental change and something that gives me great cause for concern. Again, it brings me back, as the Minister will expect, to the idea that, if we are to have something like this, there has to be an effective right of appeal to someone who has access to a much wider and deeper pool of information and judgment.
My other amendment would mean that, if a local authority is making the judgment, it must make it as a real judgment—how the school they are thinking of placing the child in actually does for children like the child concerned. It must be a careful, individual judgment, and not a judgment in principle from someone in a local authority who believes that, in almost every circumstance, education in school is better than home education. There are people in local authorities like that.
I find these two lines in the Bill really disturbing and I hope the Government will reconsider them. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
My Lords, if Amendment 211 is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendment 215 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 211A, which is in my name. I very much agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. This is one of the biggest issues in the Bill. Why the words
“in the child’s best interests”
have appeared here and not elsewhere seems strange. They seem slightly out of place.
It may be that it is late in the evening, and I am going slightly brain-dead, but it seems that what is written in the Bill is internally contradictory. It says that the local authority
“must refuse consent if the local authority considers …that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school, or”—
going back to my education, I assume this is the law of excluded middle—
“that no suitable arrangements have been made for the education of the child otherwise than at school”.
If it is alternatives, then presumably new Section 434A(6)(b)(i) means that there are cases when suitable arrangements have been made for the education of the child otherwise than in school, but it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school. Unless I have that completely wrong, it seems that this is something of a muddle anyway in the presentation of this account.
The bigger point, rather than simply that, is the one the noble Lord makes about who decides what is in the best interests and what we mean by it. I have suggested in my amendment to leave out
“that it would be in the child’s best interests to receive education by regular attendance at school”
and replace it with the actions mentioned further up the page in new subsection (4)(a) where the inquiries
“have led the local authority to conclude that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm (within the meaning of section 31(9) and (10) of—”
the Children Act 1989.
In other words, keep this about abuse and about child protection, and do not introduce the wider consideration of
“in the child’s best interest”,
whatever that means, as well as, as I said, the logical inconsistency of the framing that is down on paper.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I have similar doubts and concerns about Amendment 211—or rather the problem it is designed to deal with—to my noble friend Lord Lucas. To elaborate, the principle that parents have the primary responsibility to provide education for children has been in statutes of various forms for the best part of 150 years and is currently in Section 7 of the 1996 Act. There is a qualification to that, for reasons of cost and efficiency, but no qualification for anything else. My noble friend Lord Lucas is right to say that this is the first time we have seen this very important principle qualified. The fact that it is done almost in passing and, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, in a bit of a muddle, makes one wonder how much thought has been given to this, and whether indeed the intention is to go back on this very long-standing principle or not. It does not seem to have been very clearly thought through.
At the moment, we have a provision that says that local authorities “must refuse consent” to the subset of children who are caught by these new provisions if they think that home education is not in the best interests of those children. That is most egregious for children in special educational schools but also for the Section 47 part of the definition, which, as we have been discussing, potentially has quite a low threshold.
My questions to the Minister are these. Is it intended with this provision to overturn that very long-standing principle? If it is not, can she explain why it is not and why this draft does not do that? Is it worth thinking a bit harder about the drafting of this section and, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, substituting some sort of objective positive test rather than this very broad and novel “best interests” test?
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 212 and the related amendment to Clause 30. Taken together, these amendments aim to restore vital balance and proportion to the question of whether a parent may withdraw their child from school. They would place evidence, not mere suspicion, at the heart of decisions to profoundly shape children’s lives, reaffirming that it is parents who are the primary guardians of their child’s welfare, unless proven otherwise.
As others have mentioned, Amendment 212 addresses the critical flaw in the Bill: trapping children in harmful environments by allowing local authorities to withhold consent for withdrawal without first producing clear, documented evidence of a standard sufficient to satisfy courts that such a withdrawal would cause greater harm. This is not some radical departure; it simply restates the core principle of the Children Act 1989 that the welfare of the child and the authority of the parents to act in their child’s best interest must be paramount.
From the groups that we have discussed so far, one of the concerns I have is that although we must recognise the sterling efforts of local authority officials, the department and the Minister, we must not always presume that in every case the state knows best. Mistakes are made, and from what I have heard so far I am worried that there is no real consciousness that there could be mistakes that would warrant either a tribunal or an ombudsman, and, in this case, no recognition that schools can potentially be a cause of harm as well—for example, if children are being groomed or exploited at school. Why is there this presumption that the parent must prove to the official that the alternative to school that they are about to provide will be safer, when in some cases they may be trying to get their child out of a harmful environment—for example, that particular school?
This is a real issue. Scandals we have had in the past. Horizon, and even Rotherham—if I dare to mention that in this place—were based on the assumption that the state clearly understands what is going on and is not making any mistakes, that nobody is overlooking anything, and that the state is wise and therefore everything it does is right and cannot be challenged, except when we find out years later that there have been mistakes and problems. The amendments that many of us are proposing are trying—certainly I am with this one and others—to address that assumption and create some safeguards.
The related, equally essential amendment to Clause 30 rightly distinguishes between the mere existence of a Section 47 investigation and its actual outcome. It seeks to ensure that local authorities may refuse consent only if their inquiries under Section 47 have led them to conclude that the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
I want to echo similar points made by others in this group that there is a real troubling shift towards the state deciding what is in the best interest of the child, based not on neglect or the criteria that we have relied on in the past for state intervention but on deciding what is in the best interest of the child educationally and holistically. How can this possibly be justified?
Even with Section 47, we are talking about suspicion as the threshold, so we may have this running debate which we may need to resolve when we sit down with officials. I have documented proof—real testimony—of officials who are suspicious, not recognising that there is harm being done in school to a child, of parents who want to home-educate. They say that the parents are going to harm the child, using cases such as the Sharif case and others to justify this intervention. This has caused officials to behave in ways that put them in a position of extreme power, without any protections or appeals.
The state should override parental rights only when there is evidence of significant harm, not because the state believes that it has a better view of what is in the best interest of the child over the parent. In re B (A Child) 2009, the Supreme Court was unequivocal. As Lord Kerr memorably put it, the state does not become the parent. It is justified in interfering only where a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. That is the litmus test.
For many families this is not theoretical; it is painfully real. I have been sent countless accounts, too often dismissed as anecdotal, of children enduring conditions in school that no safeguarding regime should tolerate. The 2021 Ofsted review on sexual harassment found that many girls routinely experience peer sexual abuse in school. The Women and Equalities Committee has documented similar risks. Children with autism, sensory processing difficulties and anxiety disorders frequently find the mainstream classroom overwhelming, not through any failing by parents but through systemic failure.
One mother recounted that her autistic child’s school-triggered anxiety caused seizures three to four times a week, which dropped to once every six months after she was withdrawn. Another spoke of her son vomiting every morning, paralysed by dread. Yet another mother described home education as not a lifestyle choice but “a safety net that saved my child’s life”. A 2023 study in the British Medical Journal found that adolescent mental health measurably improves during school holidays and worsens during school term time. This is not mere coincidence but evidence that for some children, school environments simply do not work.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, the idea that the best interests of the child would be judged by the state is one that is reasonable under certain circumstances. It comes back to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Does it have enough resources to do this? Does it have the structure? If the Minister could tell us, now or in a letter, what criteria, what resources, will be put forward, everybody would be a little bit more comfortable with what is happening here. But I am afraid that the fact of the matter on special educational needs is that it is the parent who often struggles to get the help they need. We all know why—we have all been through the system and we understand it—I just want to know the process by which we get there. If we get one that sounds reasonable, I am happier.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, have made a powerful case for the point of principle that underpins this group of amendments. I confess to agreeing with them only in part. The point of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that there may be a muddle in the drafting, may be a fair one because of the discussion we had earlier on my Amendment 204 about the automatic inclusion of children in special schools within the framework of local authority consent. So I am sympathetic to the points my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, make on children in special schools and the idea that the state knows what is best for them.
Where I am not sympathetic—I respect their opinion and I think they have a point—it is because, on balance, when a child is subject to a child protection plan or a child protection investigation, we have already established that it is either confirmed that the child is at risk of significant harm or there are serious concerns that the child could be at risk of serious harm. Whether the “best interest” is the best way of framing it, I do not know, but I think that at that point and for that group of children—
Lord Crisp (CB)
The amendment I have proposed uses almost the same words as those the noble Baroness has just used: rather than using the phrase “in the child’s best interest”, why not refer to being at risk, and abuse, as found by the tribunal? It seems much clearer to do it that way, and I wonder whether she would agree.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord is right and I am grateful to him for again drawing my attention and that of the Committee to his drafting. I guess one would then need to consider the group of children in special schools, because I would be surprised if the noble Lord’s drafting applied to so many of them.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
At the heart of this group of amendments is the concern about the use and definition of the expression “best interest of the child”.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others suggested that the use of the “best interests” ground in Clause 30 is a fundamental change to parents’ rights. I reiterate the quite narrow scope of the use of “best interests” in this clause. Remember that what we are dealing with here is not the fundamental decision about whether a parent has the right to remove their child from a school to educate them at home. They have that right, unless some very specific circumstances are met—when they may still have the right, but we introduce a process for the local authority to consent to whether it is appropriate for that to happen. I do not think I need to run through once again that narrow category of children and circumstances where, as we are proposing here, the local authority should be enabled at least to consider the issue of whether, in those circumstances, it is appropriate for the child to be removed from school.
I know that some noble Lords do not believe that there should be any need for consent and therefore do not believe that the criteria that the Government have chosen of Section 47 inquiries, child protection plans or special schools are appropriate. I accept that but, if you do have a consent system—and there is quite a lot of support for the idea that an additional stage is appropriate for children in these circumstances—you then need to decide the criteria for the local authority’s decision-making. New subsection (6)(b) makes it clear what those criteria should be in these very specific circumstances.
It does not feel unreasonable to me that those criteria should be what the local authority believes to be the best interests of the child. We can assume that the parents believe in the best interests of their child, but in these very specific circumstances, because of the nature of the children, we think the child’s rights might override the view of their parents.
So the first criterion is what is in the child’s best interests; the second is whether or not there are suitable arrangements made for the child to receive education, other than at school. I understand that some noble Lords do not believe that those are the right criteria, but I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that this is somehow a fundamental change in the rights of parents. We recognise that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart and tirelessly advocate for them, often in difficult circumstances. That should be the basis on which parents are able to make decisions, in most circumstances, about whether or not their children are removed from school to be educated otherwise.
However, there are situations where a child could receive a suitable education at home but it is not in their best interests to do so—for example, if there are concerns that the child is being exposed to domestic abuse or extremism. In those cases, the school can act as a protective factor that enables issues to be escalated quickly.
I hope that my argument about the reason for the choice of those criteria also covers the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He recommends that a local authority should automatically refuse consent for any child where the local authority has concluded that they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm following a child protection inquiry, but child protection is complex and practitioners must gather a range of information and evidence from multiagency partners and others who work with the child and their family, and children can experience harm from both inside and outside the home. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to prohibit all such children from being removed from school for home education.
The consent measure rightly requires the local authority to consider the individual circumstances of each child. It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the consent measure is not preventing parents in these circumstances from home-educating; it is simply saying that the local authority should consider whether that is appropriate and use the two criteria that have been set out in the Bill.
Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei—
Lord Crisp (CB)
I think I understand the Minister’s points, but could I just pick up the slightly pedantic point that I was making? If it is an “or”, it implies that suitable arrangements could be made for the education of the child otherwise than at school and that the local authority still considers that it would be in the child’s best interest to receive education by regular attendance at school. It is a slightly pedantic point and I am very happy to just register it rather than require an answer. As I say, I think it is the law of the excluded middle.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I understand the noble Lord’s point. If I am wrong on this then I will clarify afterwards, but you could envisage a situation where the problem was not the nature of the education being provided but whether, given the circumstances that the child found themselves in, it was in their best interests not to be in a school. The protective element of being in a school could be the most important point there.
Lord Wei (Con)
To build on that, if you had a local authority officer with not much experience of home education—given that that is apparently not available—who is shown suitable education arrangements by the parent planning to take their child into home education, then that first new sub-paragraph could allow them still to override those arrangements, which they have agreed are suitable, by saying that they think it would be best if the child attended a school. How do we deal with that precise situation which she has said could happen? Do we not need to work this out so that our wonderful local authority officials are not confused when reading this guidance and say, “Well, I can still override the parents because I think it is right that they stay in school, because that is in their best interests”?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
That is what I was saying. You could envisage circumstances in which there is a child on a child protection plan, notwithstanding that there might be suitable education, where the protective role of being in school would be in that child’s best interests and being away from the school might be against them, regardless of what the other education provision might be. Let us not forget that this would be a consideration only for children for whom there are child protection concerns or for children in special schools, where, to be fair, it would more likely be about the appropriateness of the education, but could be about the other support available for a child that would not be available in other circumstances, notwithstanding the question of education, because of their needs that required them to be put into the special school in the first place.
Lord Wei (Con)
I can fully appreciate that, given the scope here, if there was a safeguarding concern then one might want to pursue the route the Minister is talking about as the officer in question is trying to make that decision. However, the way that this is worded, even if the parents or family subject to Section 47 have found a way to provide suitable education, gives the officer the room to say, “I am concerned about the safety of the child”, when it is more that they do not like the education being provided.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I think I might speak for others in the Committee in saying that this level of detail could be better dealt with face to face with officials, which would allow us to do another group before the House rises.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Amendment 212, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seeks to raise the threshold for the local authority to refuse consent to home-educate. This would mean that, if a parent was concerned that their child was being harmed by attending their current school, the local authority would be unable to refuse consent unless it provided evidence of a standard sufficient to satisfy a court that withdrawal would result in greater harm.
Let me be clear that parents’ concerns regarding bullying or their child’s mental health are serious, and these issues should be discussed with the school and local authority. I can quite understand why parents might want to remove their child from school in those circumstances.
However, it is important to remember that the requirement for local authorities to consent to home education relates to a specific set of children who are subject to a child protection plan or inquiry or who are in a special school. This measure is intended to ensure that the local authority takes a considered, proportionate and informed decision for these groups. Eligible children should not be withdrawn from school for home education if it is not in their best interests or if education outside school is not going to be suitable. I want to be clear that local authorities must evidence their decision-making, but requiring it to the degree that the amendment suggests is totally impractical. Local authorities are well placed to make this best interests and suitability judgment. They possess the required information and have access to multi-agency expertise as part of their child protection and education duties, and parents’ views will be taken into account by local authorities as part of their decision-making process.
Amendment 215, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure that a refusal to grant consent to home-educate is taken against the background of the characteristics of the school that the child might attend. Just to be clear, the consent process is not intended to keep children in a specific school or to keep children in a school that is not right for them. Parents remain free to remove their child from one school to attend a different school that they believe can better support their child’s needs, for example. I hope that assures the noble Lord that there is no intention that a child could or should be forced to remain in a specific school, so the need to compare different schools is unnecessary. I hope noble Lords feel that I have provided sufficient assurance and that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. Yes, I would very much like to pursue some of the details of this in meetings. The practicalities of what she described do not coincide with my experience of trying to get children moved from one school to another, particularly special schools. I do not see how it works. She described local authorities as fountainheads of expertise in this area. That is not my experience. It used to be, but not now. These are areas in which I really want to understand more about the Government’s reasoning and how they are approaching things.
There is a deep principle here. It is only a small footprint on the first bit of beach, but the direction is clear. If it applies to children with SEN, why does it not apply to everybody? If the local authority’s judgment is better for those children, why is it not better for everybody? If the local authority’s judgment is best for children who are being taken out of school, why is it not best for children who never go into school? There is no edge here. Once this direction has been taken, it will carry on, and we must question it hard at its first instance and not shy away from that just because it is small. But for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wei
“(6A) A child is not required to be registered under this section if the parent provides evidence that any one of the following conditions is met—(a) a competent home educator with at least five years of personal or professional experience has provided a sworn affidavit affirming that, in their judgment, the parent will be capable of providing a suitable education consistent with their educational philosophy,(b) the parent has arranged and paid for the child to sit at least three externally assessed national qualifications, including but not limited to GCSEs, A-Levels, or accredited vocational awards, or(c) the child is enrolled with a national online school or flexible provision provider known to support home-educated or otherwise educated children to a suitable standard.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and another in the name of Lord Wei exempt families from registration and data submission requirements where they can show credible evidence of suitable education through endorsement by an experienced educator, formal qualification entry, or enrolment in a recognised online provider.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 230, 254, 323 to 326 and 423, all of which stand in my name. The creation of a register, though flawed, is fundamentally intended to identify children and families who have yet to demonstrate they are providing a suitable education through home education or otherwise. It stands to reason, therefore, that those who have already demonstrated this suitability or who have mitigating circumstances preventing them doing so at this time, such as being in crisis, seeking asylum, holding diplomatic status or navigating a legitimate and complex personal or family situation, should not be treated identically to those where safeguarding concerns may genuinely arise.
There ought to be legitimate exemptions. These amendments start to aim to highlight such families, to give space to children who can show for themselves or through others that they are receiving a suitable education and that their parents are competent, committed and responsible, free from unnecessary state interference. These amendments deal with a wide range of contexts, but they all converge on a single point: not every child outside school is invisible, unsafe or neglected. Many are thriving, and the law must recognise that.
Amendment 230 is central to this group. It proposes that where credible evidence of suitable education already exists, families should not be compelled to register with the local authority. This could be demonstrated, according to the amendment, in three ways: first, through an affidavit from an experienced home educator, perhaps one who has seen their own children succeed in life and academically; secondly, through enrolment and payment for formal qualifications, such as GCSEs, for which I think the going rate is currently several hundred pounds; or, thirdly, through enrolment with an established online provider. It should be noted that the fastest-growing sector within education in the country is online virtual schooling. Indeed, the Government have their own Oak National Academy. These are not mere technicalities. They are serious, objective indicators that a child’s education is suitable. For those not taking home education seriously, they could be a suitable deterrent as well.
The state routinely accepts this kind of evidentiary substitution. The DVLA accepts a GP’s opinion for driving fitness. The Home Office accepts identity attestation from religious leaders. I think it is all digital now, but many of us have had our passport photos signed, and I think you still can get them signed, by a vicar or someone else of standing in the community. The courts accept third-party expert testimony in mental health cases. In GDPR, controllers are not required to collect identifying data if it is not needed. Why should education be the one domain where all such trust is withdrawn?
Case law supports this principle. In R v Secretary of State for Education ex parte Talmud Torah, the court affirmed that where parents choose an alternative but suitable method of education, the state must respect it. In Campbell and Cosans v UK, the European court held that education must respect parents’ philosophical convictions. A blanket requirement for registration, regardless of evidence or circumstance, may fall foul of that very principle. Not every religious school or environment is raising terrorists. Many of them are producing Nobel Prize winners, children who are totally blitzing every GCSE, children who are rounded and full of confidence.
A mother in rural England wrote: “I have taught three children from home, all of whom are now gainfully employed, emotionally stable and engaged in their communities. We have done this without needing state validation or supervision. If I now had to register and justify my choices retrospectively, it would feel like rewriting our family history through the lens of suspicion”.
This amendment makes clear that oversight should not be triggered where provision is already evidenced and functional. It reflects principles long recognised in other fields that where the state’s goals, be they safety, quality or accountability, are already being met, it need not intervene further.
I just want to share one testimony that I have been sent. One parent with qualified teacher status, who taught in state schools for over 12 years before home-educating, argued that the register was so vague that it risked turning families such as hers into scapegoats for failures that have nothing to do with home education. Another mother, a primary teacher of 15 years now teaching her own children, warned that repeated oversight by less experienced officials would be disproportionate and likely to be carried out by people who have no understanding of what is going on. I have one more: parents have been reported being referred to social services simply because their children were home-educated, despite data showing that home-educated children are less likely to end up on a child protection plan. One said that choosing to educate outside the system was in itself seen as neglect.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on all these amendments, but particularly on his Amendment 423. At an earlier stage in these proceedings, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, who is no longer in his place on the Benches, was very critical of home-schooling, alleging that there were poor results in home-schooling. Anything that home-schoolers can do in order to show the success of their home-schooling is to be encouraged. For that reason, I particularly support Amendment 423.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, all the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Wei seek to find exemptions to the basic principle that there should be a register of children not in school; therefore, I cannot support these. First, the point of the register is to ensure that the local authority knows which children are not in school, and these amendments would undermine that. Secondly, and importantly, it allows home-educating parents to access support where they need it. I hope we might spend a bit more time on that in future groups. Finally, these amendments make an assumption that, in these conditions, it may be preferable to educate the child at home, and this could well be right, but, in my opinion, it remains reasonable and proportionate to record which children are not in school.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I think I have to correct myself, because I have said, on behalf of home-schooling mothers, that we favour the registry. I said that two years ago and during the Schools Bill of 2022. I did not comprehend that these amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, are anti-register. I therefore cannot remain loyal to what I have just said in support of them, because I think the register is important, but Amendment 423 still stands good and I continue to support it.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, very briefly, I find myself roughly in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on this one: a register should be there.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I want to clarify that, while I personally oppose the register totally, if there must be a register, I am proposing practical amendments. I believe the numbers shared earlier today were that the Government are going to have to get local authority officials to deal with more than 100,000 home-educating families. If they all have to be registered and a portion of them lead to various determinations and investigations, this will create a massive workload for already stretched local authority officers, who we know are struggling to catch the children we want to protect. My point in tabling these amendments is to create exemptions.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I am so sorry to intervene on my noble friend again but, having introduced the group, he had a chance to make the points he needs to make. I think now is the time to hear from the Minister.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hacking for the clarification that he has just made, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for a very clear explanation of why she is not supporting these amendments. As a former lead member for children’s services for the second-largest metropolitan authority in the country, I find it very difficult to recognise some of the comments that have been made tonight, and I emphasise the dedication and hard work of so many people whose primary, indeed sole objective is to make sure that all children in this country are safe from harm. It is so important to reference that as we go through.
I am not sure how many more times Ministers need to stress that there is total recognition of how many parents are out there working extremely hard to provide a suitable education when educating their children otherwise than at school. We have heard examples of the successes of so many of them, and we recognise that many of those children are thriving.
I emphasise that parents have no reason to fear the prospect of having to include key information on local authority children not in school registers. This information is vital to help local authorities discharge existing responsibilities and ensure that the education children receive is suitable and safe. As we have heard, without the registers, too many children and young people are at risk of falling through the gaps.
I will respond briefly to the amendments in this group, which are all tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. They suggests exemptions for why a child’s information should not be included on a local authority’s children not in school register.
Amendment 254 seeks to ensure that, if a child does not fit the eligibility criteria, their parents would not be required to provide any information. This is unnecessary. If a child is not eligible to be registered, their parents would not be under the duty to provide information.
Amendments 230, 323, 324 and 326 seek to limit which children must be registered on a local authority children not in school register. A key objective of the registers is to aid local authorities in their existing duty to identify, as far as it is possible to do so, all children in their areas who are not registered pupils in school and are not receiving a suitable education. These amendments would prevent this.
Amendment 230 would exempt children if the parent is able to provide a sworn affidavit from an experienced home educator that the home education being provided is suitable, if the parent has arranged for the child to sit at least three national qualifications, or if the child is enrolled in certain educational provision. None of these proposed reasons for exemption would give a local authority enough assurance that the education being provided is suitable for an individual child.
Amendment 323 would exempt children who are temporarily residing in the UK with a permanent residence elsewhere. Where a child is living in the local authority’s area, even if only for a short time, the local authority has education and safeguarding duties towards the child.
I am particularly disappointed to see Amendments 324 and 326, where the noble Lord suggests exempting asylum-seeking families and families affected by war, natural disaster or economic collapse from registers. These are some of the very children who registers will most benefit. Where local authorities are aware of these children, they can offer support to ensure that their education continues undisrupted. The registers would simply not work if the exemptions that the noble Lord proposes were to apply.
Amendment 325 would enable children aged 14 or over to be exempt from being included on the register if they register as self-directed learners. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 is clear: it is the responsibility of the parents to secure a suitable education for their child. Parents, not children, must remain accountable for this. As we have heard, most parents are fulfilling this duty, but registers will be a crucial tool in identifying where this is not the case so that these children can be supported into suitable education.
Finally in this group, Amendment 423 seeks to allow parents to discharge their duty to provide suitable education when their child is providing services, mentoring or trade-related activities. The Government’s guidance on home education for local authorities and parents sets out that a parent must provide their child with a full-time, efficient, suitable education. Parents therefore have the flexibility to educate their child in whatever manner they deem best for their child, provided it is suitable. This may be able to be achieved through school-type work or through practical education, such as the noble Lord mentioned, depending on the needs of the child. For the reasons I have outlined, namely that exemption of any eligible child for inclusion in the registers would mean that children who may be in receipt of unsuitable education fall through the gaps, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wei (Con)
I thank the Minister and my noble friend Lady Barran for their comments. Frankly, I am disappointed. I feel that many of the measures that I have proposed are designed to help our wonderful officials, who work in local authorities and are struggling under a huge workload, to focus their efforts with the register, which will create a lot of, let us say, false positives as well as genuine areas where intervention might be needed, and a huge amount of work. That is the focus of these amendments.
The point I wanted to raise about asylum seekers was that asylum seekers are obviously very vulnerable, but under the Bill, the moment when the details of the asylum seeker’s children are in the register, the clock starts ticking. They have two weeks to do it, they have to report X number of people’s email addresses and names, they might not even speak or write English, and yet the clock will start ticking. Of course, local authorities and we as a society need to support asylum seekers, but are we willing to put them through such an onerous process if they choose, for whatever reason, to home-educate? I am not sure that this has been really thought through.
It is not any part of my design to exclude asylum seekers from the support that local authorities can provide; it is just trying to be practical. While I recognise and really applaud the officials working on the front line—already under huge pressure and struggling to work out, within all the noise of all the many databases they have access to, where they should intervene—my concern is that without exemptions such as these, this is going to make their life much more difficult and may indeed lead to safeguarding scandals and problems because they have not been able to get around to the families and children who really do need help.
I am grateful for what has been said. I will reflect on it and may return to it at a later stage but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.