(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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Lord Storey
“Review: factory shutdowns and school attendance(1) On the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must order a review of the effect of factory shutdowns on local school attendance.(2) The review must consider the merits of varying local school holiday dates to minimise the impact of factory shutdowns on school attendance.(3) The review must be published within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, this is a simple amendment. I will preface my remarks by saying that, obviously, it is important that a child is in school as often as possible because when they are not in school, they are not learning. Equally, it is important that they have quality time with their parents. The opportunity to be with their mum, their dad, with both parents, is hugely important, and they learn so much from that opportunity.
As a very young teacher in Prescot, I was conscious that three large factories closed down for a period so that the factory workers could have a holiday. It often did not coincide with school holidays. As a school, we were relaxed about that because, again, we thought it important that children should be with their parents. That practice is very limited now. There are not many factories nationwide, but there are some, particularly in the north, that close down for a set period. I hope the amendment is clear that we take cognisance of that in terms of attendance issues.
On Amendment 499, there is not much to say; it speaks for itself. It is correct that all the available attendance information should be complete, accurate and consistent, and that it should always be available to parents.
I beg to move Amendment 426B.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and to give a nod to his amendment. I rise to speak to my Amendment 499 in this group, the purpose of which is incredibly clear: every child is entitled to an excellent education, but that does not mean that every child should receive the same education. The great joy of being born human is that we are born with rich, bright, beautiful diversity from the moment of entering this human world.
The difficulty with the Bill as set out is that it does not fully appreciate this fact or the difficulties parents have in achieving that excellence of provision for their children. In no sense is that a criticism of anybody in the system. Teachers do tremendous work, day in, day out, often in the most pressing, difficult of circumstances. This amendment is all about recognising the particularity of individual provision—not least for children and young people who may be disabled or have special educational needs—the difficulty for parents in trying to get an EHCP, and the often prohibitive cost involved, even if they can go through that time-consuming and terribly intense process.
The amendment simply asks the Secretary of State to produce a focused, “support-first” attendance code of practice that understands the particularities of those circumstances and that does not have an almost forced presumption that school is necessarily the best and only place for excellent educational provision. As I say, the amendment speaks to children, young people and parents across the piece, but it is often children who are disabled, who have special educational needs, and the parents of those children, who find themselves at the sharpest end of this current situation. That is why Amendment 499 suggests a support-focused, support-first attendance code of practice. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 499, tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would require the Secretary of State to issue a statutory attendance code of practice. I believe this is a modest proposal, yet one that could transform how attendance is enforced and supported across England.
First, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for stepping in for me last week, when I was unable to be here due to a family wedding. My own attendance record that day did not pass without comment. In fact, when the Whips discovered that the wedding was taking place on the Tuesday, business seemed to be swiftly and suspiciously rescheduled from Monday to Tuesday. In any case, I was unable to attend, but I am grateful none the less both to colleagues and to the staff of the House for their patience with me. My amendments have been submitted in large numbers, and some were received with humour, others less so, but they all make in their different ways the same point. At their heart lies concern about the overreach of this Bill and the heavy burden it will place on families and already overstretched local authority staff and systems.
Talking about attendance, practice across the country is wildly inconsistent, at present. One parent reported that, in their local authority, they have a 75% chance of being issued with a notice to satisfy, and a 35% chance of receiving a school attendance order. That authority issued 270 notices in a single year to just 320 home-educated children. In other areas, parents face nothing like this. This does not seem like safeguarding to me; it is a postcode lottery, and it is indefensible.
The current approach, regrettably, often defaults to enforcement and sanctions, rather than genuinely seeking to understand and address the underlying reason for unattendance. Over the summer, it was reported that Hampshire County Council had netted £1.6 million in revenue by fining families over the past three years. Government data shows that almost half a million penalty notices were issued last year, an increase of 22% from the previous year. This can exacerbate distress, erode trust between families and schools and, ultimately, fail to secure a child’s right to education.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, as the Committee knows, school attendance every day is critical for the success of pupils. During Covid, the previous Government introduced the collection of attendance data at a pupil level twice a day— initially on a voluntary basis for all schools in England and now on a mandatory basis. We have among the best attendance data in the world, which allows every school in the country to understand the patterns of attendance and absence within their own pupil cohort and compared to the other schools in their local authority. I thank the Government for continuing the work that we started in this area and commend the officials who are responsible for producing such accessible and practical help for schools.
I argue that the systems that have been built within the Department for Education and that are being used more and more by schools mean that they can already analyse the impact on attendance not just of a factory shutdown but—perhaps more relevant for today—of a tube strike, bad weather or many other factors, and pretty much in real time. Therefore, I am not sure that Amendment 426B is needed. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was suggesting that there should be more flexibility for school attendance, but I do not agree with him. The evidence that the department has produced is clear on the impact of missing even apparently small amounts of time on, for example, GCSE results, and we need to respect that evidence.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Holmes for setting out the purpose of his Amendment 499. He will forgive that I did not quite understand it in the way that he had presented it. My understanding, which perhaps the Minister will confirm, is that a considerable amount of diversity is already accommodated within schools. I have certainly visited schools where children are able to take time out of the classroom, particularly those with an education, health and care plan—very often that plan sets out the details of the flexibility that they require.
More broadly, there is extensive guidance and practical help to local authorities, admissions authorities and all the other groups referred to in this amendment. The department has been particularly proactive in this area and has encouraged those schools that are succeeding in turning the tide on attendance to share their insights with those that are struggling. Very often, it is about those positive actions that they take, such as putting on more after-school clubs, for example, or calling parents, when a child has had a particularly good series of days of attendance, with a message of congratulations. I absolutely understand and respect my noble friend’s concern about this issue, but respectfully suggest that his amendment is not needed.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, this Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity by supporting every child to achieve and thrive at school. We know the impact that any absence can have on a pupil. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right that even small bits of absence, particularly when added up over a child’s career, can disproportionately impact on that child’s achievement and, of course, create disruption in the classroom for other pupils.
That is why I am very pleased that, thanks to the efforts of the sector, absence is moving in the right direction; children are attending over 3.1 million more days this year compared to last and over 100,000 fewer children are persistently absent. However, this still leaves around one in five pupils currently missing 10% or more of school, which is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, says, there has been considerable focus on this which, as she also says, builds on the work done by the last Government. In fact, she in particular has worked on developing the sort of data to enable comparison and monitoring of progress.
In addition, the department has developed an attendance toolkit, alongside the data tools, to help support schools identify the drivers of absence and adopt effective practice to improve attendance for all children, including the most vulnerable. We have launched an attendance and behaviour programme, with strong schools offering support to others to improve their practice. We have held 12 conferences, attended by around 3,000 leaders from secondary schools, trusts and local authorities to help drive that change.
Amendment 426B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, seeks to create a duty on the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the effects of factory shutdowns on school attendance. We acknowledge, as the noble Lord says, that school attendance rates in particular locations can be influenced by a variety of external factors. However, schools and local authorities are best placed to identify those area-specific issues and take steps to mitigate them. In general, the school year is structured to provide plenty of time for holidays and family time outside term time, but schools and local authorities also have considerable flexibility to plan term dates and can hold inset days and other occasional days at times of the year suited to the specific needs of families in their area.
Amendment 499 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, seeks to require the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice on attendance. I accept his point about the need to recognise the different needs of children in our schools, which we have talked about in various other groups in Committee. On his call for a standardised approach setting out the requirements and roles of those outlined in the amendment, there is already statutory guidance which sets out in detail those roles and responsibilities for all the institutions and persons listed in the amendment in relation to improving school attendance.
The department published the Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance in 2022 following a full consultation and it was updated in August 2024. This guidance takes a “support first” approach to improving school attendance and is now widely known by the sector following extensive work by the department to promote and embed its contents and share best practice from around the country. It will be updated as needed in future. Introducing a separate code of practice, as this amendment proposes, would duplicate this statutory guidance that we already have in place, risking confusion and waste. I hope that, for the reasons I have outlined, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
“Sharing local authority best practice on home education(1) All local authorities must provide an annual report to the Secretary of State setting out—(a) the total number of home educators in their area (A),(b) the number of complaints they have received from home educators in the preceding year (B), and(c) the number of School Attendance Orders they have issued in the preceding year (C).(2) The Secretary of State must make funding and resources available to any local authority which performs in the top ten percent of both—(a) B as a percentage of A, and(b) C as a percentage of A,to facilitate those local authorities sharing best practice regarding management of home education with local authorities performing in the bottom ten percent of the same metrics.”
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 426D and 426E tabled in my name. These amendments, though modest in scope, address two fundamental issues in the way that our system interacts with families who choose to home-educate or educate otherwise: the sharing of best practice across local authorities and safeguarding children from harm that may arise when legal action is pursued without due regard for their welfare and education.
Amendment 426D would require all local authorities to provide an annual report to the Secretary of State setting out three simple but highly revealing metrics:
“the total number of home educators in their area … the number of complaints they have received from home educators … and … the number of School Attendance Orders they have issued”.
These figures are important because they shed light on how local authorities are engaging with families. They provide a means of comparison, showing where relationships are constructive and where perhaps mistrust and conflict are more frequent. This amendment goes further: it would introduce a mechanism to reward local authorities that demonstrate strong positive performance under these measures—specifically, those in the top 10%—and whose complaints and attendance orders are low relative to the number of families. They would receive funding and support to share their best practice with authorities that find themselves in the bottom 10%. This is not about penalising weaker authorities but about equipping them to learn from others, improve their systems of engagement and, ultimately, foster more trusting relationships with home educators.
While I have mainly focused in Committee on the problems that arise when local authorities overreach, it is important to recognise that there are many examples of thoughtful and constructive engagement which deserve to be commended. Parents have spoken warmly of meetings in which their children have felt valued. One child enjoyed showing his work after initial hesitation, turning what might have been a stressful encounter into a positive one. Authorities such as Salford have invested in training staff to understand diverse approaches, from structured to child-led learning, while families in Cambridge have noted that their efforts to educate officials about progressive methods have borne fruit. Portsmouth has piloted three-way meetings between school, parent and LA to support families considering elective home education, fostering collaboration rather than conflict.
Other good practice includes the creation of parental advisory boards—informal events where families and officials meet in a supportive environment—and commitments to provide local exam centres and fairer access to resources. These examples remind us that, when authorities choose partnership over prescription, families respond positively and children thrive. In my view, this is precisely the sort of light-touch but constructive intervention that respects both the duties of local authorities and the rights of parents. It recognises that the challenges of home education are best addressed not by top-down prescription but by the careful exchange of experience, knowledge and good practice.
Amendment 426E is motivated by an equally important principle: that the welfare and education of the child must always come first. It makes it clear that no parent should be subject to criminal prosecution, penalty or sanction under the provisions of this Bill, if such legal action would cause harm to their child’s welfare or, on balance, cause greater harm to their education than if the action were not taken. The amendment is carefully drafted. It grounds the definition of welfare in Section 1 of the Children Act 1989, the bedrock of our child protection framework, and it ties the understanding of education to both Section 9 of the Education Act 1996, which requires respect for parental wishes, and to Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to education. In other words, this is not about creating a loophole; it is about ensuring that the pursuit of enforcement powers does not, in itself, become a source of harm.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I support the thrust of both my noble friend’s amendments. The Department for Education has an important role to play in helping local authorities drive up the quality of their relationship with and service for the home-educating community. The department can provide leadership on this by giving local authorities the feeling that the Government understand what they are doing, and that is the direction that the Government wish to take. That needs to be transmitted. Doing it in a way which celebrates the achievements of local authorities, and draws out the best of what is happening and makes a good example of that, is a motivating and constructive way to do this. I hope that the Government will take this direction. Local authority home-educating departments tend to be small, a bit isolated and stuck at the back end of safeguarding, and subject to all the pressures that come from that activity. The department has an important role to play in helping get things right.
On my noble friend’s second amendment, as the Government will know from my previous amendments, this is a direction I very much support. We should be looking at the child first and punishing the parent second. I listened to the Secretary of State’s speech at the launch of the Children’s Commissioner’s recent report, and that was very much the spirit that I heard then. I hope it will be reflected in the Government’s answer today.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, on Amendment 426D, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right. It is important that good practice is shared between home educators and local authorities, and that the quality of home education is the best it can possibly be, and local authorities have a huge role to play in ensuring that happens. We already know—many noble Lords have mentioned particular examples—the sterling work local authorities have done with home educators.
I have a slight problem with the idea of the Secretary of State doing an annual report. We have seen dozens of other amendments decrying the fact that more information is required, but to put this annual report together would require doing exactly that—asking for all that form-filling and more information to come to the centre. There might be good practice where local authorities might wish to do a report—the amendment suggests an annual report—on the work that is going on with home educators and which could be shared with other home educators. To me, to put it in a formal way and say that the Secretary of State will produce an annual report is bureaucracy gone mad.
I am, in a sense, surprised by the second amendment. Schools are incredibly sensitive to the needs of children, particularly, as has been mentioned, those with neuro- diverse issues such as autism. They pull out all the stops to support those children. This amendment might create problems for the attendance policies of local authorities—policies that have been developed by the previous Government and this Government. We should recognise the work that goes on currently. Despite concerns, I can tell noble Lords that, in all the dealings I have had with schools, head teachers and teachers, they are more than sensitive to the needs of those pupils.
Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)
My Lords, briefly, I have a query about proposed new subsection (2) to be inserted by Amendment 426E. I am wondering who would make the judgment around whether legal action would be required if it were to
“harm … a child’s welfare, or … on balance, … greater harm … a child’s education than if the legal action was not pursued”.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In my experience, schools have been very good at making the assessments and dealing with young people’s difficulties. The difficulty sometimes is in the relationship between the school and the authorities—I find that that can be problematic.
I am not clear about supporting the amendment because of that proposed subsection, as I am not sure who would make that judgment. Who would make the judgment as to whether the child or young person is doing that deliberately, or whether it is due to their mental health state or some other reason? I am keen to know who would make that judgment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I preface my remarks on these amendments by saying that I do not recognise the Dickensian school world that my noble friend describes. I would encourage him to visit any of the schools that I have visited, led by the noble Lords, Lord Nash, Lord Knight and Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Agnew. In case anyone is thinking that I think only about academies, at my school of joy, Stanley Road Primary School in Oldham, the children are bursting with pride at what they achieve, in a clearly very deprived community. I acknowledge and thank all those involved in delivering education and joy to our children across our schools.
My noble friend’s Amendment 426D seeks to create a mechanism for sharing best practice between local authorities on home education. The principle of sharing best practice is, of course, an excellent one, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, when he says that it is perhaps disproportionate for the Secretary of State to require this report. There is nothing preventing local authorities trying to learn from one another already. Local conditions vary considerably on, for example, the availability of special schools between local authorities. The conclusions that could be drawn from the data that my noble friend suggests should be analysed could be misleading.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on Amendment 426E and the care that schools take to support children. There is a wider point here. It could be argued that a lot of particularly criminal prosecutions of a child’s parents could result in harm to the child, particularly if the child’s principal carer is sent to prison, and that is something that the courts already consider. My noble friend’s amendment would cut across many other areas of legislation and some of the principles that underpin our criminal justice system in a way that is not realistic. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify both these points when she comments.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I strongly associate myself with the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about the excellent work happening in schools around the country and the enormous pride, enjoyment and achievement that children experience in those schools. However, I would add that, in last week’s lengthy debates—and in those before the Recess—on the provisions in the Bill on children not in school registers, the Government were very clear that there is a right for parents in this country to educate children at home. In fact, as we discussed, we are probably one of the most permissive regimes of any country in allowing you to educate your child at home. What children not in school registers are about is ensuring that the education is suitable and children do not fall through gaps by virtue of claiming a suitable home education when that is not what is being delivered.
Lord Wei (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for her response and look forward to this letter. I am also grateful to the department for the correspondence that I and other noble Peers received relating to our questions.
I just want to reflect on some of the contributions. First, to clarify, the request for information from local authorities is asking them to provide data that they already have. Even though it might seem a little bureaucratic, I do not think it would require much more than a few minutes, or an hour or so, probably once a year. This is to be balanced with the tremendous bureaucratic demands that will be placed on over 100,000 families, for all the information pertaining to the education of their child, all the providers, which, in many cases will take many hours, days or weeks even, based on testimony I have received from families. So, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask for a set of data to be provided, to share good practice and highlight where there are areas for improvement on the local authority side, given the disproportionate bureaucratic demands, proposed in this Bill, to be placed on parents.
On Amendment 426E, I want to also clarify that we are not talking about mainstream schooling for the majority of pupils or schools in this country. When I talk about some of the distress, the suicides or attempted suicides of children who are forced back into school through some of our measures, we are talking about extreme cases in this country, where it is inappropriate for that child to be sent to a school. Perhaps they have been home educated all their life. Perhaps, as I have testimony of, the parents who have been busy home educating have been repeatedly asked by the local authority for information—even recently and then asked again. They have said, “We can’t share any more. We need to educate our child”. That very statement that they cannot share the information that they shared very recently is interpreted as the child not receiving a suitable education by the local authority.
At the moment, there is no protection. Ultimately, you go down a legal process. I agree that many of the schools will take great care to ensure that whatever they ask the family to do will not harm the child or harm their education, but there is a gap. I would urge the Minister and department to look at this gap, when it is not the school deciding but the local authority deciding, in some cases without much resource or experienced people. They are having to make a very significant decision about whether to take action against that family. All I am saying is, why do we not pay attention to the harm that might cause? Schools, I think, are cognisant, on the whole, of this if they are functioning well. I am not sure that in every case, every local authority is able to make that decision on its own properly.
By the time you get to the courts—including the European courts and so on—and they enforce the principles, that is great, but that has already taken many months, perhaps a year or two, during which the family has had to face tremendous uncertainty and stress, which will inevitably have an impact on the child’s education.
I have heard the response from the Minister and will reflect on what has been said. I may wish to return to this at a later stage but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Lucas
“(c) institutions in England that cater for children placed with them for alternative provision by local authorities.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to bring unregistered alternative provision within the scope of routine oversight.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group.
This amendment concerns the practice of local authorities placing children in unregistered alternative provision. In my view, that should not happen. These children need quality provision, almost by definition. That they should be placed in unregistered provision by the state seems to me a complete dereliction of duty. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has a rather more subtle and nuanced approach to this; I very much look forward to listening to it.
Amendment 427B suggests to the Minister that the Government should tighten up on, or give themselves additional scope to deal with, unregistered illegal schools that seek to disguise themselves by splitting into separate parts. This is merely a technical issue that the Government should address.
The other amendments in this group address the challenge that the Bill presents to the Haredi community. Obviously, the same principles that I am addressing here will apply to other religious communities where they provide substantial education for their children, but I am focusing on Haredi because I have been talking extensively to them—though I claim no authority to speak for them and no deep knowledge of their life. The Haredi are a venerable and peaceful community. They are contributors to commercial life and to the common good, though they keep themselves apart in many ways.
It is part of the British way, as I understand it, to respect religions. The Haredi community, as with other religious communities, has cultural values that differ from those of wider society, such as treating sexuality as a private, more intimate, subject and having both specific gender roles and a stronger community structure. However, in my experience of the way in which this country is organised, we allow space for these differences and do not attempt to eradicate them, although we set boundaries and should be confident in doing so. There have been religions where murder and child abuse have been common features, and we are quite right to say, “No, those are off-limits”, whatever our religious belief. Where we choose to set those boundaries will change over time and be a matter for debate, obviously, but we should be confident in setting those boundaries.
This Bill, as it is currently understood, places the Haredi system of yeshivas beyond the boundaries set in the Bill; yeshivas would be outlawed by it. The principal conflicts are around the requirement that yeshivas would have to register at schools and thus be bound by the curriculum and moral teachings that we expect of independent schools. This, the community feels, would be fundamentally in conflict with the Torah and would make it impossible for them to continue.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and to associate myself with his remarks. I speak to Amendment 427C on behalf of my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, in whose name the amendment stands. He very much regrets his inability to attend today’s Committee debate. His amendment offers a reasonable and practical solution to the finely balanced tension between freedom and regulation in education provided by religious bodies.
As things stand, the Bill recognises two types of full-time education: education undertaken in either a school or an independent educational institution. The latter would need to be registered according to the 2008 Act and the requirement to register would apply to education that is more than “part time”. The need to include education provided by religious bodies in national mechanisms for oversight is well understood by all. The Church of England, for example, has taken enormous strides forward in both safeguarding training and safeguarding processes in local parishes that welcomed an average of 95,000 children each week in 2023.
We welcome the Government’s goal to strengthen educational oversight across the nation but, in relation to education provided by religious bodies, there are three issues with the Bill as it stands. First, as the National Society for Education wrote in its response to the Government on safeguarding in out-of-school settings:
“Compulsory state registration for religious activity involving children would significantly extend the role of the state in civil society and represents a considerable and major change to the nature of religious freedom”.
Freedom of religion and belief is a precious human liberty and legislators should think very carefully about the unintended consequences, as well as the intended ones, before enacting regulations that might inadvertently threaten that freedom and inhibit religious diversity.
The possibility of unintended consequences brings me to my second point. There is a risk that imposing extra bureaucratic burdens on many volunteer-run out-of-school settings would have an unintended chilling effect. Those unintended consequences might easily follow from a new burden to tot up religious educational activities, such as choir practice, for fear of exceeding the part-time hours below which registration is not required. This is to say nothing of the practicalities of securely and safely holding all the personally identifiable data that registration and keeping details current would impose on the Government as well as the religious educational institution.
Thirdly and finally, there are the difficult edge cases such as yeshivas that do not quite fit any of the categories that the Bill proposes. No one disputes that such out-of-school cases demand adequate scrutiny to ensure that children are being educated both broadly and safely, in addition to any religious component of their education.
This brings me to the amendment proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. It would offer a balanced and proportional route forward by ensuring that the provisions of the Bill can be met where a setting such as a yeshiva limits itself only to religious education; that the local authority has been clearly notified that an attendee has suitable out-of-school education separately and with sufficient time set aside to allow children to receive that broader education; and that the provider of that religious education demonstrates to the local authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures. I commend the amendment to the Minister and the Committee.
Lord Glasman (Lab)
My Lords, I first thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for tabling this amendment. I respect his gentleness and his nobility—it is very much appreciated.
I begin with just a couple of remarks. I very rarely speak in the House and, when I got here, I was given very sage advice that the more you speak, the less people listen. I therefore beg the attention of the Committee in this case, as it is a matter of great importance to me. It may come as a surprise to my fellow Labour Peers but, in the 14 years that I have been here, I have never once voted against the party. Party loyalty is a crucial part of our constitutional system. I therefore just say that this is a very important matter to me. It is not a matter of conscience—Clement Attlee used to say to Ministers who publicly rebelled, “I thought that conscience was supposed to be a still, small voice”—but a matter of obligation.
I am the Lord of Stoke Newington and of Stamford Hill. Stoke Newington does not really matter in this case, because people there do not care, but Stamford Hill is the centre of the last remnant of European Hasidic Jewry. Their origins mainly lie around 17th-century Ukraine but also Poland. Of the 6 million who were murdered by the Nazis, 3.5 million were Hasidic Jews. They were absolutely devastated by that.
They are a very strange bunch—very mystic, spiritual and absolutely not involved in Zionism or things like that. Those who live in Israel refuse to serve in the Israeli army. They are non-violent, and very committed to exile and a kind of redemption through prayer. For those here who are Muslim, I would say that they are very close to the Sufi tendency. For those who are Christian, I would say that they are probably closest to the Amish. In the film “Witness” with Harrison Ford, there is actually that mistaken identity moment with the child.
I was brought up close to them but not of them. Obviously, my story is different. At the age of 14, I became a socialist and an atheist and my troubles began—and the party’s troubles also probably began at that moment. I have always had a relationship with them, both family and personal. To me, they are a very precious remnant of a destroyed culture. It is a glory to our country that this very peculiar religious community could exist only in our country. It only survived in our country in all of Europe.
I could tell you stories I was told when I was young. They had no idea that all their rabbis, community and family were in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and those areas. After the war, there was no one there. I met people who went on delegations to find their family and find out why their letters were not being answered. All were destroyed. I have personally travelled through Ukraine and gone to the villages and towns where Jews made up 60% or 70%. Nobody is there. It is all gone. The synagogues are ruined; the cemeteries are desecrated. In only our country did this community survive.
They are a historical anomaly. They should not really exist; they should have been wiped out. It was not only the Nazis; the Bolsheviks—the communists—absolutely laid them to waste. They abolished religious education and yeshivas were illegal, so we should take great pride that our country is unique in Europe in having some kind of continuity of presence for this community and in the way things were sorted out with the yeshivas.
I heard very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, and I share completely this desire to try to find some accommodation and understanding of how this works. It is a ridiculous state of affairs that I have to be in Stamford Hill and defend Bridget Phillipson from the accusation of being a Bolshevik. This is an insane circumstance. I assure them that she is absolutely not, but the historical memory of the community is precisely reminiscent of the Soviet Union: suddenly, their education will be banned, their way of life will be criminalised and they will be packing their bags. It is a very moving situation. As I say, I speak as a matter not of conscience but of obligation.
The arrangement we came to in the 1944 Act was very wise, in my opinion. It is absolutely vital to say that the accommodation was based on this: the yeshivas are not schools; children are home-educated. However, they spend an awful lot of time in these yeshivas, studying the Talmud and these things. I assure noble Lords that I was very grateful not to be part of that, but that is what they do. So the children are, technically speaking, home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I want to speak briefly in overall support of Amendment 427C, which has just been so well moved and spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman. I support the thrust of the Bill and what the Government are doing in these sections. I suppose, in a way, my remarks are directed not just towards the Minister but to her officials who will be listening. I would encourage them to engage with the thrust of this clause: if this is not necessarily the right wording, then something along these lines.
Those of us who have had the privilege of serving as Ministers in the Department for Education—I was going to say “served time”, but I do not quite mean that—know that these are difficult issues and have become more complicated. While we have heard a particular focus on a particular religious group, I know from previous conversations, in relation to both yeshivas and other religious institutions, that there is always a reason why there should be an exception, yet we also know that there will be those who seek to subvert any exception for the wrong reasons and it is the young people who will lose out.
What attracts me to this particular amendment is the fact that the local authority would be involved in terms not only of registration but of safeguarding assurance. I have some concern: we do not want to go back to 1944, when the world was very different—we are in 2025 and we know a lot more about different institutions—but, overall, as we know and have heard set out so powerfully, there are many communities who want both to comply with the law and to have their practices and customs respected. I hope that, even if it is not with this amendment, discussions behind the scenes before we get to the next stage of the Bill can find a way through so that these provisions are able to go through with the support of the whole House.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I oppose Amendment 427C and the gist of the speeches and comments that we have heard so far. In doing so, I tread with great care, because I realise the history, the sensitivities, and the passion and commitment of those people whose lives would be involved. I do not pretend to be part of that community or to criticise it in any way. I am very proud that our country welcomes people of all faiths. I have always been a defender of faith schools and served for a while on the board of Church of England schools. As a Minister, I argued—sometimes with great difficulty within my own party—for continuing with faith schools. That is the background I come from, but I cannot support this amendment.
Over the past 12 months, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, I have had the privilege of meeting young adults, some up to the age of 30 and some in their late teens, who have been students at yeshivas and educated within the system, living within the community. To be honest, they would not recognise the description that the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, has just given. They would not describe their own education and their own lives in that way. So I think our starting point should be that, as with any school or any community, there is a risk to children if we do not protect them in an orderly way and in the way that we should.
I am not opposed to this community being able to continue to educate in its own faith. Why would we not wish it to do that when we allow every other faith to do the same? But that is possible already. There are Haredi-registered schools where parents can send their children. It is not the case that if you close down the yeshivas, no one can have a school based on this faith. They can—and it is in the registered sector. What I have a problem with is the yeshiva. This is where I oppose Amendment 427C. My argument for doing so is very straightforward: if you are there at 8 am and you leave at 6 pm, it is a school. Whatever you do at home afterwards is not full-time education. If you are there at 8 am and leave at 6 pm, it does not in any way have that balance of education that I think we want for everyone.
I understand that it is difficult to get the balance right and decide where to draw the dividing lines. It is not easy and there is an element of compromise, but what I have heard from the people who have spoken so far is that we all welcome the Bill and we all want things to be regulated to protect children—but not this religion, not this faith, not this group. I cannot buy into that. Every child, including children in this community, deserves to be safeguarded and to have a broad and balanced education, which we are all signed up to. Unless you register it, I cannot see how this will happen.
Where I think the debate comes in is the nature of the registration and the consultation with the community. I urge the Minister, as I know she will— I suspect the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, spoke with her already on this—to try to get an understanding and, where possible, to fit our wish to regulate to protect children with the rights of the community to continue to educate its children in its faith. I would not want to stop that, but I would not want to support anything that excluded children from this community from being safeguarded in the way that children from other communities are.
Baroness Blackstone (Lab)
My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley has just said. Perhaps I can say to my noble friend Lord Glasman that I am Lady Blackstone of Stoke Newington, so we share part of our region in our titles. I am familiar with the Haredi community and have been for very many years, and I admire a great deal of what they do, but I am concerned about what is happening to some of the boys in this community. I share the concern based not only on the meetings that I have had, with my noble friend Lady Morris, with some of the young men who have been through these institutions, but also on the very good charity Nahamu, which is concerned about the abuses of children that are taking place in these yeshivas in north London and, I think, Manchester as well. The trustees of Nahamu are proud members of the Orthodox Jewish community and they are concerned about what is happening to fellow Jewish young men and boys. I think that we should respect that concern in considering how we approach the whole issue of these yeshivas. I will speak at greater length in the next group about what I and my noble friend Lady Morris think we should do to make sure that these young men get the education they deserve, which they are not at the moment, and that their experience is properly safeguarded.
Lord Marks of Hale (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support and compliment the amendments to Clause 36 in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman. The amendments seek to ensure that institutions that provide only religious instruction alongside guaranteed out-of-school education are not wrongly categorised as independent educational institutions under this Bill.
Education in this country has never been a one-size-fits-all, state-run system. Home-schooling remains every parent’s legal right. One community, however, has been singled out by Clause 36: the Haredi, or strictly Orthodox, Jewish community, whose boys attend yeshivas, which are supervised religious settings, alongside receiving home-schooling. As one professor remarked about the Bill’s intentions, which in its supplementary documents almost exclusively singled out that community, it is fine to be Jewish in the UK in 2025 as long as you are not too Jewish. That should not be.
Yeshivas are not schools and they cannot become schools. They are religious spaces operating alongside home-schooling with a wholly different purpose. They are settings where young men engage deeply with their heritage, to develop their spiritual and ethical character and absorb the wisdom and traditions of the Jewish rabbinic corpus. Inculcating a lived faith is fundamentally different from teaching subjects like geography or history. Those subjects are generally limited to one or two sessions a week. Inculcating one’s children into a lived faith must be an immersive experience. That is what yeshivas are all about and why they are so central to our faith community. Yeshivas operate as supervised spaces with robust safeguarding and health and safety arrangements in place. They allow sufficient and flexible breaks to enable attendees to continue their home-schooling alongside yeshiva.
Yeshivas are not illegal schools; they are not schools at all. They operate alongside home-schooling arrangements. The children there do not have access to television, smartphones, video games or social media. Their daily routine is geared towards study and productivity, making the days longer and more suitable for home-schooling.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I was going to speak in support of Amendment 451, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but perhaps he is going to introduce it when he winds up for his Front Bench. What I have to say is probably relevant to the wider aspects of this debate. I declare that I am a patron of Humanists UK.
I have listened to children speaking about the unregistered schools that they went to, of all faiths. Of course this is only about some schools. Nevertheless, I was very struck by what they had to say about the paucity of the curriculum, often about the enforced dogma of what was taught, sometimes about abuse and sometimes about a very anti-social and anti-democratic ethos. Of course this does not at all represent all faith schools, but those children themselves were not alone.
In short, we need to get a grip on unregistered schools, especially in the case of children for whom education has not been working well, as in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I very much look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s explanation of how we navigate this real problem in the free and diverse society we live in, as we must—we must navigate it. Unregistered schools are not all good—on the contrary.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, the concern of those who have spoken against Amendment 427C in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, is, if I have understood right, around whether these pupils are being safeguarded. Proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) says
“where the institution demonstrates to the Local Authority that it provides the required safeguarding measures”.
That is important. If it did not say that, I would be joining those who do not want this amendment.
The noble Lord said that it is wrong to call these schools and to think that they are providing education, and that the education being provided is in home-schooling. In terms of safeguarding, the amendment is very clear: the local authority must be satisfied that safeguarding measures are in place. Therefore, for me, the arguments fall away because the drift of them was about whether there is sufficient safeguarding for these pupils.
Because the amendment is quite sensitive, I was not going to speak to it or support it. Having heard the arguments, I am persuaded that proposed new paragraph (h)(iii) answers the question. Therefore, I am bound to support this amendment.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I want to speak to this group of amendments on the poorly understood world of unregistered provision, including the types of religious institution that have had a lot of discussion already, as well as looking more broadly. I support two of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas—Amendments 427 and 427B.
Clause 36 is a constructive attempt to put sensible controls in place around the oversight of educational provision for children outside schools and colleges. It creates a wider category of independent education institution to supplement the narrower concept of an independent school. This is a complicated and messy landscape. I could draw out at least four strands—there are probably others—and they overlap. There are the alternative provisions, most often for children with severe behavioural problems. There is a huge patchwork of provision there. Some of it is registered and inspected, so it has a level of quality control, but much of the weakest is not, and there are no neat cut-offs.
A school puts two children in a volunteer-run community garden for one afternoon a week. That would be best viewed as part of the school’s educational model, and the school would be accountable for the child’s experience. However, if those same children are at the garden four days a week and are barely attending school, it is unrealistic to ignore the fact that the gardens become the children’s main source of education —though it is clearly an incomplete education—and that school registrations become a fiction, perhaps to avoid recording an exclusion.
It is often assumed that alternative provision is or should be a brief stint to prepare a child for reintegration into a mainstream school. However, the reality is that few children who move into alternative provision will successfully reintegrate. Hardly any such children take their GCSEs in a mainstream school. AP needs to be seen as a mode of education, not just as respite care.
Then there is provision for children with psychological problems, such as school refusal. Again, unregistered provision is often born out of excellent local initiatives. If a child makes use of such a programme for a short period as part of a plan to help them acclimatise to a suitable school, direct oversight might be overkill. However, if it becomes a de facto permanent placement, it has become that child’s main place of education and it needs to work to the same standards as other schools.
As has been touched on, there are programmes for children who are home-educated, including sports, music, art and other worthwhile activities. Parents are entitled to home-educate, and sports, music and art are all part of a rounded education, but, if an organisation is running five different programmes, one each day, and a child attends all of them, the reality is that, at that point, the organisation is best viewed in the round as having the characteristics of a school—or at least an independent education institution—in taking responsibility when parents are not present for a large part of the week. It is hard to see why such an entity should sit outside the legal framework that protects children’s education and safeguarding.
Finally, I need to talk about illegal schools. It is depressing that they exist, and even more depressing that some of them operate knowingly and intentionally outside the law. Ofsted has a small budget to investigate suspected illegal schools and to warn those that are outside the law that they must register with the Department for Education. It has successfully prosecuted proprietors of such schools, at least one of them twice; I should day that I do not think any of those prosecutions related to a Jewish-affiliated institution. Current legislation just is not equipped to deal with bad-faith operators. It dates back to a time when it was almost unimaginable that a school that had omitted to register would not do so when it was pointed out.
It has been extraordinarily easy for operators to sidestep the law. There is a kind of artificial separation. An operator running multiple illegal institutions, teaching the same group of children in one location in the morning then bussing them to another location to be taught in the afternoon, may claim that they are separate institutions and that neither reaches the threshold to be considered as a school, but, clearly, the reality is that it is a single school. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 427B. There needs to be a sensible ability to take a holistic perspective so that avoidance does not readily happen.
We have had a lot of debate about institutions that rely on the fact that children are not being taught subjects such as English and mathematics, but only an exclusively religious programme, to say that they are not schools. It is a shocking fact that there are British citizens reaching adulthood without the most basic education that they need in order to play their full part in British society and the workplace, if they choose to do so, as adults. They may not choose that, but pre-emptively taking away their capacity to do so should concern us deeply. It seems unreasonable that an institution that is part of such a model should want to be outside the scope of any meaningful scrutiny. We know from IICSA and from many previous cases that, sadly, a strong religious affiliation is not a guarantee that children will be completely protected from the kinds of harm that adults can inflict on them.
It is worrying that so many people do not want to acknowledge or discuss this problem and its tensions. There is widespread hesitancy to venture into sensitive areas linked to faith or ethnicity; we have seen this where other issues have arisen recently. I can see the temptation of offering an opt-out, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas, yet I also know that the better path is to carry on working to try to find models that do a better job of reconciling the desires of a faith group and the important rights of children. I know that many of my colleagues, including my noble friends Lord Nash, Lord Agnew, Lady Morgan and Lady Barran, worked hard in their time in government to try to find those next steps and better accommodations. An opt-out is just not, in my view, sensible or workable. At the point when this country has become simply a patchwork of self-segregated communities, cut off from each another, there will not be much of a nation left.
I note that there is an evolving picture internationally around the same issues that we have been seeing in schools in England. As chief inspector, I talked to my counterparts in countries such as France and Sweden, which are seeing parallel trends. This is something that needs discussing, not just domestically but internationally. I believe that it is impossible—and, indeed, undesirable—to try to make tidy regulatory categories covering every kind of provision outside school. They quickly become obsolete, as would any micro-precise thresholds.
Overall, the extension of scope in Clause 36 is important and justified, but it is also important that the regulations that are made are clear and well understood, and that enforcement is adequately funded, with enough resource for Ofsted to carry on its investigatory work and for the DfE to act where it should. There has to be a high level of transparency about the work, to help stave off pre-emptive attempts to brand this difficult work as biased or unfair. We must carry on doing all that we can to make the intrinsically knotty subject matter here fully discussable.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I strongly support Amendment 427C and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who made the two opening speeches. All the speeches today have shone a light on what many people in the country are not aware of.
I was a councillor in Hackney many years ago and I knew this community. What was most interesting to me in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, was that he was able to explain how much effort has gone into improving the whole question of safeguarding. That must be something that we are all concerned about in any school.
For me, this is very clearly about the fact that the yeshivas are not schools. They are no more a school than the Sunday school that I went to for many years as a youngster. That was nothing to do with the church—it was a separate Sunday school, set up by some very nice people in the countryside, and I went every Sunday afternoon for many years. It was not a school in the sense of education; it was about religion and understanding the history of Christianity and all those kinds of things. I can see exactly what the yeshivas are doing.
We might think that Governments cannot possibly be misled, but it seems that, under Clause 35 of the Bill, yeshivas will be regulated as if they are schools. That is wrong. We have heard about what goes on there. We know that it is a place for young men to engage with their heritage and build their spiritual and ethical character. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned some of the young men she had spoken to who were unhappy about what is happening. I am sure that if we went around many of our schools and spoke to young men about what was going on in their school, we would always find somebody who has a real problem, but that does not mean that there is anything wrong with what is happening overall.
It seems to me—maybe the Minister can tell me I am wrong—that there has been very little engagement prior to the drafting of the Bill with the community about the central role that the yeshivas play in the communities. Was there any real discussion? It seems to me, having listened to what people are saying, that we have underlying support for safeguarding. Surely, if the department had spent time talking to the community to know what was going on in those schools, and talking to the local authority, this could have been solved without such an amendment and without having to go through this whole debate. It could have been solved by a bit of common sense and good will, with people sitting around a table.
I hope that that might still happen, and we can find a sensible and practical solution that would allow the yeshiva schools to stay open. I am calling them schools but I am not implying that they are schools; as I said earlier, they are not schools in the sense that we all know what a school is. We could then address remaining concerns about safeguarding and the links between home education and yeshivas. We must try to settle this; otherwise, we will see them all closing and we will be left with a much more difficult situation to handle.
Recognising just how many people feel strongly about this, I urge the Minister to look at this again and come back on Report with wording that may be slightly different and more satisfactory to the department. This really needs to be looked at.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I had not anticipated speaking until the next group. I declare an interest as a senior research fellow at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, which is researching freedom of religion or belief in the UK. A number of Peers have entered into talking about this human right without, I think, fully appreciating its impact.
In relation to the “institution”, as it is referred to in the amendment, if this amendment were accepted, can the Minister outline where it would sit with the other out-of-school settings work that is going on, because I think it would sit as an out-of-school setting? I do not think that they are charities, otherwise they would already have safeguarding responsibilities. Could there, in some respects, be good unintended consequences of the amendment, in that we take an out-of-school setting and bring it into the safeguarding world, with DBS checks, et cetera?
Freedom of religion or belief is not an absolute right. It is sometimes put into a debate as if it cannot be curtailed. It is important to remember that the children to whom we have been referring also have the right to freedom of religion or belief. Parents have the right to bring up their children in the faith that they wish them to have, but that does not mean an immersive experience that does not allow a child to exercise their right to know, through a broad and balanced curriculum, about the world and nation that they are growing up in and about other faiths and humanist and other belief systems. This is a very difficult world—not just in the Jewish context but in the context of Christianity, other faiths and some atheistic traditions—in which to try to shield a child from knowledge so that they never choose a different type of Jewishness or a different religion for themselves.
I hope that, whatever situation we end up in with regard to these schools, we bear in mind that these children have freedom of religion or belief and should have an education that enables them to exercise that right fully. I hope that that will be part of the considerations and the engagement with the community, as we come to a position on these institutions. It is accepted in the amendment that they are institutions of some category, not some kind of faith space.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I was head of a Church of England primary school and my daughter went to a Jewish school. I am conscious that, in my home city of Liverpool, one-third of the schools are faith schools. I want to reflect on what various noble Lords have said, and I want to speak very carefully because I am still considering everything that has been said. I have found it, at times, quite challenging.
Let me deal with an issue that I do not find challenging, which is my Amendment 451. Children who are suspended from school are the responsibility of the school, while pupils who are permanently excluded from school are the responsibility of the local authority. Secondary schools that have pupil referral units, called PRUs, are often able to put suspended students into the referral unit. I have visited many of them and been astounded and impressed by how they have supported students. Instances of expulsion—permanent exclusions, as we now say—are very limited.
Let us remember that young people who are permanently excluded from school often have severe behavioural issues, which perhaps could have been picked up when they were younger and perhaps could have been supported in a different way. Many of them have severe behavioural problems.
Many—quite a high percentage, I think, and certainly over 80%—have special needs. They are the very young people who should not be excluded from school; they should be in school but, clearly, schools have a right to teach, and pupils have a right to learn. When they are excluded from school, local authorities may put them into what we call alternative provision. There are two types of alternative provision. There is alternative provision that is registered, which means that it is inspected from time to time by Ofsted. I have visited two alternative providers and been incredibly impressed by what I have seen. Many local authorities choose to put permanently excluded pupils not into a registered provider but into an unregistered one. Why? Because it is much, much cheaper. That is no way to treat a young person, no way at all.
Some of those unregistered providers do not keep a register. The young person comes and goes. There are no proper qualifications among the so-called teaching staff, et cetera, et cetera. As I have mentioned in debates in this Chamber, that is not to say that some unregistered providers are not very good, but it is still no way to treat a young person. This amendment is very simple. All it says is that any alternative provider—those schools or units, because when we talk about a school, we are probably talking about a school of 20 pupils—should be registered. We should know that there are qualified staff, qualified support and quality learning for those pupils. We should know that all the things we expect take place and that there will be, from time to time, Ofsted reports on those schools. I have looked at many of those Ofsted reports and been incredibly impressed by the work those alternative providers do. That is the simple request: that we should not allow the most vulnerable children and young people in our society to be treated in this way. They have the right to go to a proper institution—a proper school.
I now come to the other amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris—it used to be “I agree with Nick.” I am sorry, I am not comparing the noble Baroness with Nick Clegg. I want children—young people—to have an education, whether in a school or, in some cases, at home, which is broad and balanced, which equips them for life, which they enjoy and which brings out their best qualities. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, does not mind me mentioning this, but I remember that several years ago, she came to me in a discussion about a particular faith school—a Christian school, actually—where the pupils were treated in quite a challenging way. One boy, for example, happened to tell the school that he was gay, so he was pushed into a cupboard and locked in there until he came out and announced that he was not gay. I am not going to mention the school, but I think it employed its own inspection regimes. Because it was in charge of its own inspection regimes, that company—
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I am not sure that the noble Lord is remembering the situation accurately, so it would be best in future to consult before referring to something that I think was many years ago. I say that with no disrespect to the noble Lord’s comments.
Lord Storey (LD)
I raise it only because it is a shocking condemnation of a schooling situation where young people cannot be themselves or have a proper education. I respect different religions and their rights; as I say, my daughter goes to a Jewish school where there are Hebrew lessons, the children are taken out at various times and there is a whole range of different faiths. The children’s faiths are respected and there are opportunities for them to develop learning and an understanding of their faith. That is all good and positive.
I do not have an issue with any particular faith bringing up children and young people in that faith, but I do want to see those children and young people have schooling that is registered and/or inspected. That is all we should ask for as a society. Anything that does not carry on the tradition of this country—one of the most successful multicultural and multifaith nations in the world—or develop what we believe in, we need to legislate against.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will keep my comments brief. We have had an excellent debate and these Benches support the aims of this clause: to ensure that children learn in settings, where they provide all or the majority of a child’s education, that are safe and regulated. I have a couple of technical points of clarification that might win the prize today for the most boring question asked of the Minister. I confess that I have read and reread the Bill and the policy notes and still do not quite follow it.
Section 92 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, which this clause amends, includes institutions that offer part-time education within the definition of an independent educational institution. I am unclear what the status of those institutions will be in future and why they do not form part of the revised definition. If the Minister wants to write, that would be fine. I am sure there is a simple and obvious answer that I have missed.
The regulation-making powers in this clause, if I have understood them correctly, are much wider than those in the 2008 Act. New Sections 92(3)(c) and 92(3)(d) seem to give the Secretary of State unlimited flexibility to redefine full-time education without proper scrutiny in Parliament. I suspect the Minister will tell me that it will use the affirmative procedure, but all of us know that that is very restricted scrutiny.
I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Lucas has raised unregistered alternative provision, which benefits from neither safeguarding nor educational oversight, in his Amendment 427. It is extraordinary, as other noble Lords have reflected, that, rather like unregulated provision, we put very vulnerable children and young people in unregistered provision without any safeguards available. I agree with him that we would ideally have no unregistered provision but, at a minimum—this also applies to Amendment 451 from the noble Lord, Lord Storey—we would have some safeguarding regulation of those settings, even if children were going there for a short period. There is always the infamous “Dave the car mechanic” with whom some children apparently spend time. We should at least have appropriate safeguarding checks and I am interested in what the Minister thinks about that.
I now turn to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, all of whom have raised issues that can arise for children whose parents choose an educational path that aligns with their religious tradition. The Minister and the whole House have heard both sides of the argument very clearly today and the valid concerns that have been raised by faith groups about the impact of the Government’s legislation on their communities. Those were eloquently put in particular by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and the noble Lord, Lord Glasman—who I promise we will still listen to however much he speaks.
I close by aligning myself with my noble friend Lady Morgan of Coates. We want to retain what I think the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, described as the “precious” tolerance that many of us, including my own family, have benefited from this country welcoming us with, but also to ensure that the rights of every child are upheld. I hope very much that the Minister will put her not inconsiderable abilities to the task.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, first, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that she is right—those questions were very boring, but I am sure that they were none the less important. I will write to her to respond to those specific points. The rest of the debate, however, was not boring, and was also important. I hope that I will be able to respond to the wide range of issues that have been raised and the conflicting positions that are part of what we need to wrestle with in taking this legislation forward.
This group of amendments impact Clause 36 and concern which settings are and are not brought into the system of regulation found in Part 4, Chapter 1 of the Education and Skills Act 2008. It might therefore be helpful if I first outline the intent of Clause 36. As I say, the clause concerns the settings regulated by that framework. Among other things, regulated settings are required to register with the Secretary of State and be subject to regular inspection against prescribed standards. At present, that framework applies to independent schools.
Clause 36 expands this framework further. Under this clause, settings will be required to register with the Secretary of State if they provide full-time education to five or more children of compulsory school age or one or more such children with an EHCP or one who is looked after by a local authority. This change will bring more settings that provide a full-time education into this well-established and effective regime. Typically, the settings impacted by this change will be those that operate during, but not necessarily only during, the school day, and we will produce guidance to help those potentially impacted by this change understand what is expected of them.
For understandable reasons, a significant part of this debate has focused on the issue of Haredi children and yeshivas. I will respond to that, but in doing so, I reiterate the point that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is just wrong in suggesting that this legislation is aimed at yeshivas. As I have said, this measure is about ensuring that, where settings are providing a full-time education to children, they are registered and subject to regular inspection and meet certain standards. I accept that there has been concern among the community, and I will respond to that now.
Let me be clear that this measure does not presuppose an inherent problem with a child being educated at a yeshiva or the quality of home education. It is about ensuring the suitability of settings that provide full-time education to children. On the basis of how we define “full-time” and “engagement”, we intend to produce guidance to assist people in understanding whether the education setting they run needs to register with the Secretary of State. It is likely that this guidance will be similar to our existing approach and therefore the starting point will be that settings operating during the day for more than 18 hours per week will be regulated. I say in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, that I very much doubt that she attended Sunday school for 18 hours per week.
I emphasise that in expecting institutions operating for those hours to register, there is no requirement in the Independent School Standards, or in standards akin to those that we will bring forward for these institutions, for a setting to provide a wholly secular education. There is no requirement for them to deliver the national curriculum, for example. In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, there is considerable flexibility provided around the curriculum. These standards are well-established minimum standards which already apply to many registered settings that do not consider themselves to classically be schools. The regulatory regime gives Ministers flexibility to decide on which standards apply to different types of regulated setting. We will carefully consider options on the standards that will be used to regulate settings. In doing so, I assure noble Lords that there has been considerable engagement with the Haredi community up to this point—I have met with the Yeshiva Liaison Committee and my officials have ongoing engagement with the community. My former colleague Stephen Morgan met the yeshiva community on these issues and we undertake to continue that engagement as we clarify the nature of the regulations and the extent of those that will be included within it.
It is right that full-time educational settings are registered and subject to regular inspection. This will lead to children who currently attend these settings learning in a regulated and safe setting which is subject to regular inspection. For that reason, we believe that Clause 36 should form part of the Bill and is an important improvement on the current situation, as has been recognised by several noble Lords in this debate.
There are several amendments which seek to further change the application of this regulatory framework. Both Amendments 427A and 427C seek to exempt settings which provide religious instruction. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, via Amendment 427A, appears to wish any setting which provides any form of religious instruction in addition to education elsewhere to be exempt from the regime in the 2008 Act. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, in introducing Amendment 427C, seeks to exempt settings which provide only religious instruction or guidance to children of compulsory school age, provided certain other conditions are met.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and others, that in this country we are rightly tolerant of faith education. I remember the arguments that my noble friend Lady Morris had in defending that principle when we served in the previous Government in the Department for Education. We should be proud as a country of the many faith schools that operate. That principle has been supported by successive Governments, and in each of those Governments we have seen support for the development of new faith schools as well as for the protection of those that existed. I hope no noble Lords believe that this is in some way an attack on the ability to deliver a religious education, either within a school setting or as a freedom for parents as part of their right to home-educate their child. This provision is about full-time education, not about the religious approach of the institution.
Lord Lucas (Con)
I am very grateful to the Minister for that extensive reply. To pick up on some of the issues in the debate, I entirely understand what the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Blackstone, are saying. If children are not receiving their entitled education, we need to do something about that. That is part of the basic contract, as I understand it, between the state and any education system. The child has a right to an education, and if for whatever reason it is not being provided, that is not tolerable.
It is surely important for the Government to indicate to the Haredi community and others which way forward they favour. I hope I am not leaping too far ahead in my understanding of where the Government want to go, but are they preferring to say that they would like to see yeshivas registered as schools but they will make sure that the regulations that apply to yeshivas do not require them to violate their religious principles in the way that they teach? In other words, is the accommodation to be within that element of what we might normally require a school to provide by way of education, so that yeshivas are schools but are allowed to teach in a way which is consistent with the Torah and with their belief? That is one way forward.
The other way forward is that proposed by the right reverend Prelate and myself. I do not recognise the characterisation of the amendments in the Minister’s reply. We are specifically saying that settings should be exempt which do not provide education and which provide only religious instruction. In other words, the children’s education has to happen somewhere else; there has to be another space, another institution, which is providing that education. The religious space is not regarded as a school, because there is another space which is regarded as home education or a school. If there is somewhere else that is regarded as providing that child’s education, why should the yeshiva, or whatever, be regarded as a school too, because the function of education and school is being provided elsewhere?
First, I would like the Minister’s guidance on whether we are looking at a structure that aims to take yeshivas out of the definition of a school and makes it clear how a child’s education is being provided—whether that is the preferred way forward—or a structure that makes it possible for education consistent with the Torah to be provided within a regulated school. We owe this community a clear way forward, whereby they can focus on what they need to do and where they need to get to, and so those of us who support them can say, “You need to do this”, or “Let’s have a go at the Government because they are asking too much”, so we can have a dialogue on this issue. At the moment, we have a blank as to the Government’s intentions, and that really is not fair or satisfactory.
I really hope that the Government will find that answer. If the Minister wants to reply now, I shall understand, but otherwise I would be very grateful if she wrote to me giving a clear view of the Government’s preferred way forward. What is their opening offer? What would they like to see happen? The Bill as it stands just says, “Destroy these communities”. That is not the impression I get from what the Minister has said, so what is the other way forward? But for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, before we start debate on the next group of amendments, I want to make a couple of points. The Committee will have to adjourn before 2 o’clock so that we can get the Chamber ready for Oral Questions. If noble Lords want to make the Whip very happy, they will speak very swiftly so we can conclude this group of amendments before 2 o’clock. If not, I will have to adjourn mid-group—it is quite a huge group—and then we will continue after Oral Questions this afternoon. I remind all noble Lords to be brief in their comments on this group.
Amendment 427BA
Baroness Barran
“(d) an Academy, University Technical College or studio school;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to include academies, University Technical Colleges and studio schools as excepted institutions for the purposes of the new section 92 in the Education and Skills Act 2008.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I had better start with an apology to the Whips: my comments are a bit detailed, but they are quite detailed amendments—but I am still pleased to introduce them.
We on these Benches support the aims of this clause to ensure that children learn in safe and regulated settings, that illegal schools either register or are closed down, and that institutions that do not meet the independent school standards are required to do so in an effective way. However, we have two sets of concerns that I shall try to set out. First, they lie with the apparent wish of the Secretary of State to regulate academies in multiple different ways: through the funding agreement that the former Minister argued in Committee in the other place, in relation to Clause 36, was sufficient; through the new powers in Clause 49, which we have yet to debate; and now through the additional powers in Clause 37.
Secondly, our worries reflect the fact that the details of the revised standards will be set out in regulations. Effectively, independent schools are flying blind as to what these new obligations will be. Under Section 94 of the 2008 Act, the Secretary of State was authorised to make regulations prescribing standards in relation to specific matters. These regulations have always bound proprietors of academies, as they are independent schools.
Clause 36 introduces additional subsections into Section 94 of the 2008 Act, and these include a standard
“by reference to whether or not the proprietor of an independent educational institution has regard to guidance issued, or a document published, by the Secretary of State from time to time”.
So, until we see the regulations that are proposed to be published in relation to that standard, we cannot see what the consequence of this change would be. Will the noble Baroness clarify what new obligations, if any, the proprietor of an academy would have to comply with, as distinct from “have regard to”, in new guidance given by the DfE? It would be helpful if the Government could be clear about the changes to the current burdens on the proprietors of academies. My Amendment 429A would remove these types of schools from the standard-setting powers in Clause 37.
Baroness Blackstone (Lab)
My Lords, Amendments 432A and 434 in my name concern enforcement provisions. They are critical elements of the Bill that seek to address the harm caused by unregistered educational settings.
Let me begin by referring to the experience of a woman whom I shall call Dina, a mother in the Haredi community in Stamford Hill. Like other Haredi women, Dina received a broad and balanced education in a Haredi school. She wants the same for her son, but boys are expected to be protected from secular education, and Dina found herself with no genuine choice but to send her son to an unregistered educational establishment called a yeshiva. The curriculum that Dina’s son studied was exclusively religious, with no provision for any secular subjects, including important subjects such as English and mathematics. This was not parental choice in any meaningful sense; it was the result of communal pressure within a context that often leaves families with no real alternatives. These are the institutions that Clause 36 rightly seeks to bring within the scope of regulation.
I accept that there are parents who genuinely choose to send their sons to yeshivas, but let us be clear: they are schools by any functional definition, and the Bill makes the necessary statutory clarification to ensure that they are treated as such for regulatory purposes. Once within the scope of regulation, they will be a viable option for parents who wish to make use of their services. However, boys in these environments often attend for very long hours, including Sundays. That secular education can be delivered at evenings and weekends in the home is, in almost every case, entirely implausible, so there is no adequate home education for boys who are attending these institutions, often from 7.30 am until late in the evening and on Sundays.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, whose name is also on the amendment, and I offered to visit two yeshivas, but the offer was rejected. There was therefore no transparency in that respect. However, we have met young men who attended such yeshivas. We were struck by their resilience but also deeply saddened by the obstacles they faced in accessing the education that was denied to them in childhood. I am deeply disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who is not in her place, was so disparaging about the comments that they have made; they were genuine, and the young men were deeply concerned.
It is important to note that these young people do not wish to abandon their religion or community; they seek to live full lives as both observant Jews and fully educated citizens. That is a goal that all in this Committee should affirm, respect and support. They also raised serious safeguarding issues in relation to the excessive use of corporal punishment in the yeshivas. We should be concerned about that, too.
The Bill adopts a two-pronged strategy. First, Clause 31 introduces a home education register to provide transparency and ensure that those genuinely providing home education can continue to do so, and Clause 32 strengthens school attendance orders where that education is not genuinely being delivered.
Secondly, Clause 36 enables regulatory oversight of independent institutions operating outside the law. Our amendments strengthen the enforcement mechanisms required to make these provisions truly effective. These provisions are not about targeting responsible home educators; they are about ensuring that no child, whatever their background, falls through the cracks. Unfortunately, these boys are falling through the cracks in a big way.
I turn now to the amendments themselves. Amendment 432A creates an offence for landlords, property owners and letting agents who knowingly facilitate the operation of an illegally unregistered educational institution. It also creates a further offence for assisting or encouraging such activity in any other manner. This is a proportionate response to a practical challenge. In many cases, it is not immediately clear who owns or operates these institutions, but it is clear who owns the buildings. This amendment aims to create a disincentive to any individual or organisation from profiting from unlawful activity that places children at risk, either directly or indirectly.
Amendment 434 grants His Majesty’s inspectors the power to search premises without a warrant during investigations into suspected illegal schools. This is a necessary power to prevent disguised compliance and to enable timely safeguarding action. Delay can perpetuate harm.
The enforcement provisions are not about criminalising communities; they are about upholding our collective duty to protect the rights of children to a safe and adequate education, irrespective of cultural or religious context. I greatly agree with everything that the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman and Lady Berridge, said in their speeches to a previous group of amendments.
I acknowledge the important contribution by the noble Lord opposite, who referenced Article 2 of the protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. It is indeed vital to uphold the right of parents to educate their children in line with their beliefs, but that right is not absolute, and that is what we must all accept. It must be balanced with the state’s duty to ensure that every child receives an education that meets minimum standards of safety and quality. That duty is enforced by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Bill does not constrain religious practice; many Haredi children already attend registered schools, where they receive both religious and secular education, and they are frequently within the maintained sector. That might be relevant to the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked earlier.
As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, stated at Second Reading, no cultural or religious norm should be permitted to override the fundamental rights of children. I thank all those Members of your Lordships’ House who engaged on this issue with considerable care and conviction, but I urge the Minister to consider these amendments seriously. They seek only to ensure that all children in this country, without exception, can access the education that they deserve.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My amendments are different from those of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and narrow in scope. I refer to my Amendments 429 and 433, which relate to independent schools and which I have brought forward in close association with my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, who is, like me, a strong champion of independent schools.
I declare my interest as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council, which gives expression at national level for the collective views of its 1,423 member schools, where around 80% of the pupils in the independent sector are educated. Indeed, I have a double interest to declare, since I am the current president of the Independent Schools Association, which is one of the council’s constituent bodies and has nearly 800 members, many of them small in size and cherished by the local communities they serve so well—particularly by making provision for a wide range of special needs.
It is no secret that independent schools have their differences—deep differences—with the current Government, principally because of the imposition of VAT on school fees. However, I am glad to say that this Bill does not arouse deep anxiety among members of the Independent Schools Council. There is no clash of fundamentally opposed principles as over VAT. My two amendments seek to explore the possibilities of adjusting and modifying the Government’s proposals in a number of respects, rather than taking serious issue with them.
I should add that the points in question have been the subject of careful discussion between Department for Education officials and senior staff of the Independent Schools Council. The essential aim of my probing amendments is to secure on the public record a firm indication of the Government’s response to issues that have been raised in those discussions without seeking to contest overall policy.
Amendment 429, for example, accepts that the Secretary of State should have a power to require independent schools to “have regard”—the phrase used in the Bill—to guidance issued from time to time by the Department for Education. That is entirely appropriate in order to ensure, for example, that all children have equal safeguarding protection and equal education in moral and cultural development. The amendment recognises that, in such areas, it is reasonable for a Secretary of State to place duties on independent schools by way of guidance. However, would it not also be appropriate to ensure that a Secretary of State would not seek to limit a school’s independence, in the words of the amendment,
“with respect to admissions, the curriculum, or examinations”?
Those are the three vital components of independence in education, subject to qualifications specified in the amendment. It would surely not be unreasonable to expect that a Secretary of State who prescribes a new standard that independent schools must meet would lay before Parliament a statement asserting that those three vital components of independence would not be compromised. A similar statement would also be appropriate when subsequent guidance is issued.
As it stands, the Bill provides that any new standard to which independent schools would be required to adhere would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Thereafter, though, guidance issued under that standard would be legally binding on independent schools without any defined role for Parliament. My amendment would give Parliament a role. Members in both Houses would be able to bring forward motions on individual documents and pieces of guidance if they wished to do so. Effective power for Ministers needs to be balanced with effective protection for independent schools. Above all, no future Government should be able to limit their operational independence by expanding the purposes for which guidance can be used; that is what Amendment 429 would achieve.
Amendment 433 would address a single, specific problem that independent special schools frequently encounter. There are 128 such schools within the membership of the Independent Schools Council and another 600 that are not council members. Children admitted to these schools to receive support for one or more special needs are often found to have other needs as well—a point on which my noble friend Lady Barran touched. A child admitted to a school specialising in dyslexia, for example, may be found to have trouble learning to read as part of a wider disorder such as ADHD. Under the Bill, a special school that responds to these circumstances by making provision for additional need or needs will be required to make what is known as a material change application. It is that to which my noble friend Lady Barran made specific allusion.
The trouble is that, under Clause 39, such applications will need to be made before action is taken to meet a child’s extra needs. This is obviously impractical. A school that is deeply concerned to assist such pupils fully will want to make immediate arrangements to cover all of their needs. Amendment 433 would provide a simple remedy and set at rest the concern of schools finding themselves in these circumstances that they may be in breach of the law. It would give such schools two academic terms to make a material change application. This is a common-sense proposal that I hope the Government will consider. Plainly, some change to the Bill seems to be needed in order to avoid inflicting difficulty on independent special schools.
A misunderstanding could perhaps have arisen here. In some places, the Bill gives the impression that a school will need to make an application for material change only if it wishes to alter its main purpose. The Explanatory Notes accompanying the Bill refer to schools that are
“specially organised to make special educational provision”.
Does this mean that an independent special school will need to make a material change application only if it changes the type of SEND provision that it is specially organised to make? Perhaps the Minister could clarify this point when she responds to the issues that my two probing amendments have raised.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 432A and 434. I spoke about this issue in our debate on the previous set of amendments; I do not wish to rehearse that but, briefly, I wish to link to what the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, said in her contribution to the previous debate. She described a situation in which people are not co-operating with Ofsted and the inspectorate to make sure that unregulated schools can be regulated. Amendment 432A would, as my noble friend Lady Blackstone said, mean that action can be taken in relation to the people who own the building, which is usually clear, rather than the people who run the building, as you can see how that might be evaded.
Secondly, the other amendment would give Ofsted the power to search premises when it goes there, rather than being sent away and, presumably, having to get a warrant in order to go back and look round. I very much support those amendments and tag my comments on to those made in the previous debate.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, it is approaching 2 pm. I suggest that, unless the next speaker can finish his or her contribution by then, we take a short break to allow the House to prepare for Oral Questions; and that the debate on this amendment be adjourned until after Questions.