Westminster Hall

Monday 1st December 2025 Westminster Hall

Monday 1 December 2025

[Paula Barker in the Chair]

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Monday 1st December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Relevant Document: Second Report of the Education Committee, Scrutiny of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, HC 732, and the Government response, HC 925.]

16:30

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 722377 relating to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your authority, Ms Barker. As Chair of the Petitions Committee, it is a privilege to open these petitions debates. I do find it extraordinarily encouraging that so many members of the public are actively engaging with the Government and, in this case, engaging with legislation that is passing through Parliament.

The e-petition was created by Michelle Zaher, who is in the Public Gallery. Prior to the debate, I had the pleasure of speaking to Michelle to understand the motivations behind the creation of this petition. She explained to me that she believes that the implementation of the Bill falls far short of addressing the real problems in the education system, and that instead it tightens controls on parents and educators without consultation.

There are a plethora of reasons why signatories of the petition believe the Bill needs to be withdrawn, but the primary concern that came out of my conversations in preparation for this debate was the lack of consultation with key stakeholders in the Bill’s development. The Bill has the opportunity to embed children’s wellbeing at the heart of our education system and to create lasting safeguards and opportunities that no amount of voluntary guidance could match. However, those who signed the petition believe that the Bill does not do that, and that it should be withdrawn before it goes any further. We are here to debate their concerns.

Before we start the debate, I note that we still await the White Paper for the schools section of the Bill, so we approach the debate on the legislation without the full picture before us. I shall begin by outlining what the Bill aims to do. To put it simply, the Bill is set to prioritise children’s needs and raise standards for every child across the whole of England. It introduces mandatory participation in education, safeguarding, clear information sharing and multi-agency child protection teams. In an ambition to tackle inequality, the Government have included measures to support kinship carers and care leavers, and to provide free breakfast clubs in primary schools.

Crucially, the Bill seeks to remove unnecessary barriers in our schools by limiting branded uniform items, standardising teacher pay and conditions across academies, and establishing registers to safeguard children not in school.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for outlining the Government’s supposed intention for the Bill, but is he aware that Amanda Spielman, the former Ofsted chief inspector, said that this Bill was “very likely” to have a detrimental effect on children’s education?

[Jamie Stone]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That point was made in the consultation I had before this debate.

To continue, the Bill proposes wellbeing co-ordinators, structured mental health assessments and greater collaboration with community health services to embed wellbeing alongside literacy and numeracy as part of what every school must nurture. These are noble aims. Heaven knows, if a child is struggling mentally, they are not going to learn very much about trigonometry, are they?

We must approach the issues that campaigners have with the Bill. Previous Governments have spent decades giving academies and trusts more and more control, only for this Government to take it away again. Sometimes the best way to support wellbeing is to give schools freedom, not more top-down rules. In some instances, an attempt to standardise pay would mean giving our teachers in academies pay cuts. School groups have emphasised to me that the importance of local decision making cannot be underestimated.

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but I am sure that the Minister has clarified that the standardised pay across the sector should be a floor, not a ceiling. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is his understanding too?

[Jamie Stone]

It will be interesting to see what the Minister says on that. Perhaps there is a little bit of misunderstanding on that issue. Let us leave it at that.

Teachers, parents and local authorities often know best what their children need—far more than we in Westminster ever could. They understand their communities and deserve to be trusted and, I believe, properly consulted.

The Bill also reaches into the world of home education, with measures such as a national register of children not in school, requirements for local authority consent to home school in certain cases and powers for councils to intervene if a home environment is deemed unsuitable.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the way he is introducing this petition. I am sure he is aware of the case of my murdered constituent, Sara Sharif from Woking, who was abused, tortured and murdered. The safeguarding report that came out last month highlighted the failings in the home schooling system and the fact that a register is needed. Does he agree that parents should lose the right to home school in the event of child safeguarding concerns?

[Jamie Stone]

In proceeding with a Bill of this nature, that precise point has to be taken into account and weighed in the balance, because it is a matter of getting it right. That is precisely the reason behind the petition. I stress that many people think that we are not getting it right at this stage, but improvements can be made.

It is a fact that more families than ever are turning to home schooling. Some do it because the nearest school is miles away or parents deem it to be teaching to an inadequate standard; others because their child thrives better with one-on-one attention and teaching, perhaps for special needs that a standard classroom cannot accommodate. Campaigners for home education—some of whom I heard from in preparation for the debate—fear that the Bill amounts to an attack on their parental rights.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I apologise in advance, Ms Barker, for the fact that I cannot stay for the full debate because I have been assigned to a Delegated Legislation Committee. I want to echo the concerns of my constituents, many of whom are home educators, about the legislation. Will the hon. Member join me in calling on the Government to put firmer safeguards on data security in the Bill, provide clear protections in the legislation for parental responsibility to decide what education is in their child’s best interests and ensure that the Bill does not try to force home educators to fit into school-style timetables?

[Jamie Stone]

I am sure that is a wise intervention. I should imagine that we can all take heed of it, including the Minister.

The parents I mentioned previously argue that legislation for the regular registration of what learning has taken place in the home limits a diverse community where learning might be child-led one day and structured the next—all tailored to individual family needs. Those parents also spoke to me about their unease concerning the reach of new information-sharing duties and the requirement for child registers and unique identifiers. They fear overreach, diminished family autonomy and the erosion of parental rights, particularly where home education is concerned.

I should also add that I have been approached by religious groups that have serious concerns about the Bill as currently drafted. They believe that it fails to recognise the vital structure of education in stricter religious communities. In the case of Jewish children who attend yeshiva alongside homeschooling, for instance, the Bill seeks to pigeonhole the method of schooling that a yeshiva provides within two categories that do not apply to it. It has been argued that the lack of proper consultation with affected groups means that under the current proposals, yeshiva schools would be forced to close their doors.

The sheer scope of the Bill means that there are numerous factors about both wellbeing and schools that require thorough discussion. There is a substantial array of groups with specific grievances about particular clauses in the Bill. I hope that there will be sufficient space in the debate this evening and in the days, weeks and months ahead for those cases to be heard and considered properly. I see that a good number of colleagues have joined us for the debate, for which I am grateful as Chair of the Petitions Committee. I will conclude my remarks to allow everyone to participate.

16:39

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker. I begin by thanking the petition organiser and all who engaged with it. Like many colleagues from across the House, I entered politics because I wanted to make sure that all children, regardless of their background or circumstances, had the opportunity to have the best start in life. I am sure that that is also the motivation for the majority of those who signed the petition, even if we might disagree that the Bill represents positive progress. Although the petition primarily addresses the school reform aspects of the Bill, it is important to underscore the significant child protection measures it contains that would be lost if the Bill were withdrawn as the petition proposes.

The measures broadly enjoy cross-party support and have been developed following what we have learned when things have gone tragically wrong. One of the most significant protections is the introduction of a single unique identifier for every child, an innovation that will transform how we monitor and safeguard children throughout their educational journey. With a unique identifier, schools, social services, the NHS and other agencies can securely share essential information, ensuring that no child slips through the cracks. Instead of scattering attendance records, safeguarding concerns and progress across disconnected systems, this approach brings everything together. For a child at risk, perhaps moving between schools or facing hardship at home, this identifier becomes a vital thread linking their past experiences to the support they need today.

Time after time, when a serious case review occurs and the resultant review looks at how it could have been prevented, featuring in there somewhere will be poor communication and a failure to connect the dots between agencies. The unique identifier is a key step towards preventing that from happening. Safeguarding cannot happen in silos. That is why the Bill creates multi-agency child protection teams, bringing together professionals from education, health, social services, mental health, housing and law enforcement. When the teams work collaboratively, risks are identified earlier and responses are more effective. For children living in unstable homes, struggling with mental health challenges or at risk of neglect, the joined-up approach can become life changing.

Safeguarding is only part of the ambition, however. True wellbeing depends not just on safety, but on opportunity. That is why the Bill also focuses on raising standards and strengthening support across schools. When education and wellbeing work hand in hand, every child has the chance to thrive academically and personally. The mission that lies at the heart of the Bill is to break the link between a child’s background and their future success. I believe that part 2 is fundamental to that mission. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is welcome to intervene.

School reform is about creating the conditions for success. The introduction of regional improvement for standards and excellence teams will lead efforts to improve attendance and behaviour. The teams will provide the expertise and focus needed to tackle persistent challenges and support schools in creating environments where every child can flourish. The clear expectation is that schools employ qualified teachers and teach the national curriculum. Those are the foundations of a high quality education system, ensuring that every child, wherever they live, has access to excellent teaching and a broad, balanced curriculum.

Academy reform is about clarity and accountability. We have seen trusts that deliver exceptional support, helping schools raise standards and share expertise effectively. But we have also seen cases where that support has been absent, where performance has declined and communities have had little influence over improvement. The current system has grown fragmented and inconsistent. Structures alone do not guarantee success. What matters is the quality of teaching, the leadership and the support a child receives at home. The reforms will restore coherence and ensure that every school is part of a system focused on outcomes, not organisational labels. It is time to move beyond debates about governance and put standards at the heart of the conversation.

Other measures tackle barriers to learning head-on. Free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school will ensure no child starts the day hungry. Limiting branded items in school uniforms will ease cost of living pressures and promote inclusion.

[Gregory Stafford]

On the point about branded school uniforms, headteachers in my constituency have often bulk bought school uniforms through a supplier, so it can be more cost-effective to buy the uniform through the branded supplier than to buy it on the high street. Surely what the hon. Gentleman suggests could have a perverse outcome. Does he not think that if branded items can be bought at a cheaper cost, they would be better than buying off the peg?

[Andrew Cooper]

That is an interesting approach; it is a shame that has not been rolled out more widely. That is not the experience in the schools in my constituency. Across the population, the measures in the Bill will reduce costs for all. That is my view; the hon. Gentleman is welcome to his.

In short, the Bill is about ensuring that every child is safe, supported and given the chance to succeed. To withdraw it would be to turn away from that vision. Instead, we must commit to a future in which protection and education go hand in hand and no child is left behind.

16:45

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing this important debate.

Home education is often misunderstood. Some dismiss it as children avoiding education. Others portray it as an isolating environment, and even a potential safeguarding risk. Although that may be the case in the smallest handful of instances, the reality is that the large proportion of home educating families are those who have been let down by the state education system and act in the best interest of their child. For them, home education is not the easy choice but, often, a lifeline—a vital alternative for children who do not “fit” within the confines of mainstream schooling.

Families turn to home education for many reasons. We might be talking about children who have medical needs or anxiety and have been pressured out of school, those excluded because of unmet special educational needs, or those enduring unresolved bullying. Some parents make a philosophical choice to educate outside the mainstream system. This discretionary right, exercised by parents and guardians, allows learning to be flexible, personalised and responsive.

Taking away the option to home school through a poorly designed policy that fails to recognise the context and individuality of each home education journey is yet another example of the Government refusing to listen to communities they do not understand. We saw that with the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief for farmers, and we saw it with the unjustified housing targets imposed on rural communities. We now see it again—this time with thousands of home educators’ pleas being ignored.

Despite the Government’s unwillingness to listen, I have had the pleasure of meeting numerous constituents and campaigners to discuss the potential impact of the flawed Bill and to listen to their individual stories. One has a child with Down syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and another who is autistic, with global developmental delays and dyslexia. They were overwhelmed and dysregulated by the one-size-fits-all design of the school system, but now they are home educated and can truly thrive in a personalised learning environment.

Another person I met has a child with ADHD, autism and dyslexia who was severely bullied in two separate schools, leading to serious mental health struggles. For the wellbeing of both the child and the wider family, the child had to be removed from school and is now home educated and safe from ever enduring that traumatic experience again. Those are just two families among the thousands who have exercised their discretionary right to home educate their children in their and their family’s best interest.

[Gregory Stafford]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for outlining the situations in which his constituents find themselves, as mine do in many cases. Is he as concerned as I am that mandatory registration for home education essentially risks treating every parent as a potential safeguarding concern, rather than recognising the fact that they are doing their absolute best for their children? They absolutely want to comply with the law and should not be treated as criminals in the first instance.

[Bradley Thomas]

I agree wholeheartedly. My hon. Friend demonstrates the perverse reality of what is proposed, in that these parents and children are often seeking to break away from being a one-size-fits-all family, but they are being pushed into a one-size-fits-all approach that risks stigmatising home education and the very children who benefit from it.

Importantly, in the instances that I have cited, both families will be adversely affected should the Bill progress to further stages in its current state. As many home educators have argued, the Government, schools and local authorities are not the ones witnessing the emotional breakdowns before and after school. They are not the ones being forced to watch their children’s health deteriorate because of unsuitable environments. They are not the ones supporting them at medical appointments or sitting up with them late at night.

A decision to home educate is not often taken lightly. Parents and guardians weigh up the benefits and consequences of all education options. If, after that careful deliberation, a parent or guardian, who knows their children best, chooses to take the leap into home education and provides a safe, stable and nurturing environment, they should be free to continue with that choice.

[Mr Forster]

The hon. Member heard me talk earlier about safeguarding concerns. Although home education can have huge benefits to families, does he agree with the Children’s Commissioner, who has said that the proper oversight of children being educated at home is important, and that councils should be required to sign off on home education requests for the most vulnerable children?

[Bradley Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly valuable point that none of us can disagree with in principle. Safeguarding has to be a foundation of the education system. The point is that the Bill attempts to provide a one-size-fits-all approach, but it does not quite strike the right balance. In the process, many families feel they are being stigmatised.

It is not disputed that stronger safeguards for vulnerable children are essential. It is a tragic reality that many children in abusive or neglectful homes are safer at school than they are at home, but to push all home educating families into that category is not only an insult to the vast majority of responsible, caring families who turned to home education because of failures in state schooling, but a potentially greater safeguarding risk, as it stretches already limited resources even further. Requiring local authorities continually to assess and investigate perfectly safe environments diverts time and resources from children in genuine danger and urgent need of protection. BBC reports reveal that local authorities are set to face a funding shortfall of more than £5.7 billion by 2026-27. The Children’s Commissioner has warned that this crisis poses a direct threat to the wellbeing of children and young adults.

Meanwhile, the number of school pupils with education, health and care plans surged by 71% between 2018 and 2024. Consequently, local authorities have amassed severe deficits in their high needs budgets, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating a total shortfall of at least £3.3 billion at the end of last year. The Bill risks compounding the problem by stretching already overstretched resources, deepening financial pressures and weakening the fight against safeguarding risks. Thousands more children could be forced into placements within overcrowded schools, further exacerbating the crisis.

A Public Accounts Committee report published at the start of this year concluded that the special educational needs system is inconsistent, inequitable and not delivering in line with expectations, which inevitably undermines parents’ confidence in it. The Office for National Statistics predicts that 1.5 million children aged 10 to 15 experience in-person bullying. Which of the figures I have outlined offers any reassurance that children and young adults with complex needs or traumatic pasts would be properly cared for if removed from safe, personalised learning environments?

[Andrew Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to identify many of the reasons why parents choose to home educate. It quite often is as a result of bullying or an unmet special educational need. But under our current system, local authorities are not aware of the reason why somebody chooses to home educate. Under the Bill, parents will be required to provide that reason to local authorities. That might flag up to the local authority that there is a bullying problem at a school, or that there is a problem with the way special educational needs are dealt with. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that making that information available to the local authority is a plus that the Bill will deliver?

[Bradley Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman is right that it potentially could flag up those things; equally, it could be another burden on local authorities that are under-resourced to fulfil the requirements. It also could place a burden on parents and families that feels like stigmatisation.

The right balance must be struck between strengthening the safeguards for children and young adults and ensuring that the new legislation does not unintentionally harm thousands due to a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather than demonising all home educators and introducing measures that, in practice, will fail to improve many children’s wellbeing, the Government should redirect their focus towards improving support for SEND provision and children’s social services, ensuring better working relationships between home educators and local authorities, and fostering school environments that actively tackle bullying and rising classroom violence.

16:54

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Barker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing this really important debate. My feelings are very much aligned with the around 300 people in my constituency who signed the petition. At the heart of this debate is a fallacy: that children are more at risk in home educating families than they are at school. In fact, the figures show the exact opposite. I will come back to that point in detail.

My concerns are about not only home educating families but rural schools and rural environments, where the limited resources mean that the Bill’s more onerous requirements on schools could drive some smaller rural schools out of the system and lead to them being closed. Rural areas have fewer and smaller schools, and rural schools have fewer administrative resources to deal with the new administrative burdens such as supporting staff to meet the new qualified teacher status requirements, dealing with increased monitoring, handling fluctuating pupil numbers and budgets, and so on.

There are significant risks to small rural schools that may well lead to even more pupils ending up in home education settings as a result of the lack of choice and lack of diversity of supply in rural environments. If pupils do end up in home educating families, they will find the environment is even harsher and the support from the Government is even more non-existent than it was before, and that the general environment is less and less helpful.

We have to take concerns about safeguarding seriously, as every hon. Member across this Chamber would agree. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) has done serious work on that issue. I am happy to accept some of the Bill’s provisions, but there are real concerns about its more onerous requirements. I have significant concerns about the single unique identifier in particular. Let us remember that it gives any public body the ability to share any information, whether or not it is right, correct and accurate, without the knowledge or consent of parents. Anyone who thinks the public sector is good at looking after our data, and getting it accurate, has probably been living on the moon.

[Gregory Stafford]

Some weeks ago we had a debate in this Chamber about a petition signed by over 3 million people who oppose a national identity card scheme. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if those people knew the details in the Bill, they would be equally shocked and concerned?

[Gideon Amos]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. All the concerns that lead me to oppose digital ID cards also lead me to oppose a digital ID for all our children. As the campaigners behind the petition have stated:

“Once children’s data is out there it cannot be controlled nor put back in the box.”

I could not agree more.

According to the Government’s own reports, 58 critical Government IT systems have significant gaps in cyber-security. Is that the kind of system into which we wish to put all our children’s details? Is that the kind of system that anyone wishes the data of their children and grandchildren to be put into? I do not think so. The Metropolitan police lost the details of 47,000 of its own officers. Let us take that as an example of how the public sector handles data, and consider whether we really want to provide the power to share data about our children across all public bodies: councils, social services departments, health authorities, schools, academies and all the rest of them.

As I said earlier, it is often held to be the case that home educating families are unsafe environments, but the evidence shows the opposite. Only 11% of section 47 child protection inquiries into home educating families result in a child protection order being put in place, and such families are proportionally subject to far more child protection inquiries than non-home educating families, so they are massively over-represented within that cohort. The figures for children who are at school show that not 11% but 26% of inquiries result in child protection orders. Bearing in mind that a greater proportion of home educating families are investigated than families with children at school, a far greater proportion—more than double—of investigations of families with children at school result in a child protection order. The facts are evident: it is not appropriate to stigmatise home educating families.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for proposing an amendment to the Bill so that home educating families would not have to pay examination fees to take exams. There is zero support for home educating families. The Bill brings in even more stigma against those families. The amendment was defeated.

There is nothing in the Bill that will support home educating families, many of whom, as we have heard, are families with disabled children. A much higher proportion of disabled children are represented in the home educating community than in the school community, for the reasons we have heard—because special provision is not there and SEND provision cannot be obtained where it is needed, so many families give up on the school system. Some families need to keep their children safe so provide education at home. The vast majority of those families do so safely, putting incredible hard work into the education of their children.

Instead of the stigma put forward in the Bill, there should be support for home educating families, more work locally, more positive relationships between home educating families and local authorities, more positive work towards improving the education offer for those children and more support for those families at a difficult stage in the education of their children, many of whom will go back to school or college later on in life.

17:01

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Barker. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is an important piece of legislation for this Government. Among other things, it will drive higher standards in our schools, put more qualified teachers at the front of classrooms, bring down the cost of uniforms for families and create a new duty to establish multi-agency child protection teams. It is right that the Government are looking to implement the Bill, including all the measures around home educating.

I will talk about two things in particular: first, the provisions for children who find themselves between hospital, home and school; and secondly, home educating. I speak not only as an MP on behalf of constituents, but as someone with vast personal experience of educational interruption and learning in non-traditional settings. When I was 13, the day after we broke up for the summer holidays in year 8, I had a freak accident in which I shattered my right hip and did irreversible damage to my back. From that point on, I did not walk for four of my teenage years, and I did not have a full year at school from years 9 to 12. Instead I received a mixture of home education, teaching at the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel in east London and school. When I eventually did return to school, I went back a year, which was not a great experience and was a reminder of why people do not want to wind up in the year below.

I know that learning in non-traditional settings does not need to hold children back. There are challenges in delivery, despite the hard work that staff and parents put in, but these can be overcome. Having returned recently to the Royal London, I have seen the progress made in the provision of home education and education on the wards, overcoming many of these challenges. Children are now taught by a dedicated hospital school, with three onsite classrooms at the Royal London, strong provision of information and communication technology and partnerships with organisations such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the National Portrait Gallery.

This morning, before I came to Parliament, I had the pleasure of visiting the Bethlem Royal hospital in my constituency, which is the world’s oldest psychiatric institution, founded in 1247. It has a thriving hospital school that I have had the pleasure of visiting many times. I have also visited hospital schools at King’s and the Princess Royal University hospital, which serve my constituents.

I have raised this with the Minister before, and I know she is dedicated and committed to it: we must make sure we reflect the experiences of children who find themselves between multiple settings—hospital, school and home. Often, that can be done in parallel. I can remember being in hospital one week, at home the following week and in school the next. There are challenges in delivering that. However, I hope this Bill will reflect on that, and I know that Minister is very committed to that.

I also want to touch on the importance of home educated learning. Given my experience of home education at times, I have been pleased to engage with home educating families in my constituency. That has included individual surgeries with parents and a roundtable with parents and students during UK Parliament Week, which included dozens of families and children—I told Corin, Adelaide, Peter, Harper, Paige and Addison that I would mention them today. Addison is here in the Gallery today with his mother, Penny. During these interactions, parents, as well as children such as Addison, have carefully laid out their concerns with the Bill, including issues around the right to remove a child from school, what constitutes a “suitable education” under the Bill and the administrative burden that the Bill could place on parents. Today, I wish to bring those to the attention of the Minister.

First, under the Bill, removing a child from school would create a requirement for local authority consent before placing children in a special school or for those on a child protection plan to be removed from school. The local authority must consider the child’s best interests in that decision. Some children in special schools require complex, specialised care, and so it is right that local authorities ensure they would be best served by being home educated. However, parents are concerned about how local authorities, many of which are stretched thin and have let down parents before, will interpret this requirement. In Bromley, we have a Conservative-run council with some of the highest waiting lists for EHCPs in the country, and I can understand why parents who have tried to interact with that council before would have concerns about it having authority over whether they can remove their child from school.

My second point is on the definition of what constitutes a “suitable education”. The Bill requires local authorities to issue school attendance orders in cases where it appears that a child may not be receiving a suitable education. We know that children learn differently. Take Addison, my constituent here today. He is certainly learning through attending this debate, but his family may worry that activities such as this will not be classified as contributing towards a suitable education. That is a particular concern for some children with SEND, who may struggle to learn in a traditional setting but thrive in other contexts. Our approach to education and what we define as being suitable must account for this.

My final point on this Bill is its potential administrative burden, something I have raised previously in education oral questions—I thanked the schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), for his reassurance then. Many parents worry that they will have to submit large volumes of data as a result of the Bill. The way the Bill requires data to be collected does not square with the realities of home education. Will the Minister reconfirm that it will not be a requirement of the Bill for families like Penny and Addison to report on things such as accounting for Scouts groups in the evening or football activities—things that we would not ask other families to do? I know that has been said in the House previously, but that reconfirmation would be great.

I would like to touch on solutions and conclusions, and I hope that the concerns I have raised will be taken into consideration. In particular, on all sides of the House we need to do a lot more work and thinking about how we support the tens of thousands of children who find themselves between hospital and school every single year, and the inequalities and disparities between some hospitals that have lots of resources—such as Great Ormond Street hospital, the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital and the Royal London, where I was—and other hospitals across the country.

It is also my belief that none of the issues with the Bill that I have raised today represent innate, fundamental flaws in its logic. Instead, they represent risks in the implementation. There are risks that I, as well as organisations representing SEND and home ed parents, believe can be mitigated through minor changes and strong statutory guidance that considers the concerns of parents. Importantly, the statutory guidance must account for the plethora of different situations that local authorities find themselves in when it comes to SEND, and the different approaches that they may attempt to take. If we are successful in doing this, we can ensure that all children are protected while properly preserving the rights of those who wish to home educate their children, such as those dedicated parents I have in my constituency.

17:07

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you presiding, Ms Barker. This has been a good debate, and very good points have been made by hon. Members on all sides, including the hon. Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon), who has just spoken. This is a rare and important opportunity to talk about the vital role of hospital schools.

I do not intend to go through every measure in this Bill in detail; we did that at Committee stage, and I took that opportunity to go through many of its measures then. However, I will make a few broad observations about it. First, there are things in this Bill that we like. There are things in this Bill that were in the Conservatives’ earlier Bill, and we should all welcome some of the moves on, for example, multi-agency safeguarding, the expansion of the role of virtual school heads, and so on. Let us be clear—and Ministers, I am sure, will not try to say this today—that if the Government say that they want to withdraw the Bill, it does not mean that they do not like any aspect in it. Ministers are in charge of the Parliamentary timetable and are perfectly capable of withdrawing a Bill, noting that it is nicely set out in discrete units, and coming back the next day or the next week with a better Bill that does not include the bad bits and but does include the good bits.

To be clear, there are many things in the Bill that it would be better to be rid of. It is, I am afraid, a mix of trying to fix problems that do not exist; some retail offers, at least one of which is set to backfire with significant long-term consequences; an over-invasive approach to parents exercising their right, and thereby often giving up a great deal personally, to home educate; and worst, an attack on the school freedoms that have underpinned the great performance improvements that we have seen in schools in England over the last decade.

Let us remind ourselves what that record is. Our primary school readers are now the best in the western world. At secondary, our performance has improved from 27th to 11th in maths and from 25th to 13th in reading. The attainment gap has narrowed, and children eligible for free school meals are now 50% more likely to go to university than they were in 2010. What drove that improvement? It was standards and quality; brilliant teachers with autonomy and accountability; a knowledge-rich curriculum and proven methods, such as synthetic phonics and maths mastery; and a system in which schools learned from schools, with a hub-and-spoke network for different subjects and disciplines. But most of all, it was about academy trusts, where schools could learn from one another.

We knew that that system would drive up standards only if it also ensured diversity and parental choice. People need clear information, which is why Ofsted reports are so important, and why Progress 8 replaced the previous, contextual value-added measure, as a much better way of measuring children’s progress at school. That choice is necessary, which is why academies and free schools were at the heart of our approach.

I am sad to say that, all the while, there was what statisticians call a natural experiment going on. While those reforms were being pursued in England, in other nations of the United Kingdom—in Scotland and particularly in Wales—they were not. If anybody doubts the benefit of these reforms, they have only to look at the comparative results of the different nations of the United Kingdom.

The Government have already stopped new free schools, and this Bill stops more schools getting academy freedoms and erodes the freedoms of existing academies. I have said that the Bill seeks to fix problems that do not exist, and there is no evidence that academies pay teachers less than other types of schools, yet we have these new rules on the statutory pay and conditions framework. There is no evidence that there are armies of unqualified teachers marching through our schools. The proportion of teachers in our schools who are not qualified today is 3.1%. Can you guess what it was in 2010, when the Government changed, Ms Barker? It was 3.2%. There are good reasons to have unqualified staff in school sometimes. Then there is the national curriculum. Schools are already obliged to follow a broad and balanced curriculum, and they get measured on that by Ofsted, yet we now have a requirement in primary legislation to slavishly follow the detail of the national curriculum in its entirety, thereby removing the opportunity for any innovation and differentiation.

Alongside that, the Government have abandoned the EBacc, they are unpicking Progress 8 and, in parallel, they have moved the standard-setting function in technical and vocational education from an independent institute to a body that was first inside the Department for Education and then, inexplicably, moved into the Department for Work and Pensions.

Will the Government meet their targets? Of course they will, because they are in charge of deciding what counts as meeting the target. We saw that the last time Labour were in government, with the famous “five or more GCSEs at grade C or above”. I counted 11 ways in which that statistic was massaged so that every year it looked like the results were getting better and better, when all the while we were tumbling down the international tables comparing attainment at school, and not only in the PISA results. The OECD survey of young adults’ skills looks at countries across the OECD, and we were the only country in that survey where the literacy and numeracy of young adults who had newly left school were worse than those of the generation about to retire.

At least at that time, the then new Labour Government talked about academic excellence. Now, such talk is out of fashion, because it is believed that striving for excellence is somehow elitist. It is not—striving for academic excellence in state schools is the very opposite of elitism. It is what allows children and people from ordinary families to get on a level playing field with those who are in the elite. I say to Ministers, “Please, please don’t undo the progress of the last decade and a half”—some of which, by the way, built on what their predecessors did in the new Labour Government.

[Liam Conlon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I am coming very close to the end of my speech, and I think Ms Barker would want me to continue to allow for more speakers.

[Paula Barker (in the Chair)]

It is entirely up to you.

[Damian Hinds]

In that case, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Liam Conlon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what has not been conducive to education and preparing children for the best start in life, as I have heard from primary school teachers across my constituency, is the decimation of Sure Start, which provided children with the best start in life?

[Damian Hinds]

I am so pleased that the hon. Gentleman asked me about that, because it is one of the great slogans of his party. One of my favourite statistics, however—people can look it up; it is available in an official publication—is that there were more children’s centres open in this country when I was Secretary of State for Education than in any year that Tony Blair was Prime Minister. The fact is that from 2008 to 2010, under Gordon Brown, there was a massive explosion in the number of things called a “Sure Start centre”. Basically, people could go to any old building, stick a sign on it that said “Sure Start” with a rainbow, and that became a Sure Start centre.

The Education Committee, which is a non-partisan Committee of this House, conducted an inquiry in about 2011 or 2012 looking at Sure Start. We tried in chapter one to define what a Sure Start centre was, but we could not, because there was no actual design. One Sure Start centre that we visited had no children at all in it; some centres were fully fledged nurseries, family centres—you name it. There is very important work to be done with family hubs and other programmes. When we were in government, we made a huge increase in entitlements to early years education and childcare, which was a good thing to do.

Ms Barker, I said that I would finish shortly, and I will. I say to Ministers that they should please come back with a Bill that can achieve widespread support, but that does not include these damaging measures that will undermine and harm education and opportunity.

17:17

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms Barker.

Years of austerity have stripped out much of the vital support that young families once received through—dare I say it?—Sure Start. The number of children in care has risen by 28%, the number of children in residential care homes has more than doubled, and 4 million children are living in poverty. I have been to many schools where teachers and staff bring in their own food; we know they are spending their own money to feed children in the school. It is against that backdrop that the Government are looking to pass the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Having been a foster carer for 25 years, a member of an adoption panel for a decade and the lead member of a tier 1 local authority, I recognise many of the problems that the Bill is trying to address and I fully support the Government’s determination to protect children. I will concentrate on just a few aspects of the Bill today.

Rather than school staff having to put their hands in their pockets to feed children, we are rolling out free breakfast clubs. Of course, they will help with the cost of living by saving parents up to £450 a year and by ensuring that children get a good start to the day. Having visited a couple of our pilot schemes, I can also say that they seem to reduce the traffic chaos outside schools, as there is a steadier arrival of children at school throughout the morning.

Over the coming years, local authorities will have to create more specialist places to address SEND pressures. At the moment, far too many children are being sent to high-cost private provision. The Bill enables local authorities to respond to this issue by being able—once again—to build new schools and run them themselves.

As I have said already, the number of children in care has increased by nearly a third and the number of children living in residential care has more than doubled. The cost pressure of dealing with that has almost broken many local authorities, because there are nowhere near enough local authority places to accommodate such increases, so the majority of those children end up in high-cost residential placements. We know that excess profits have been made: in 2022, the largest 20 providers of children’s residential placements made over £300 million in profit, all off the back of the taxpayer. The Bill introduces financial oversight of the costs of residential care and independent fostering agencies. We must be assured that the state is not being ripped off.

When those children—an increased number—have left residential care, they are going to need support. The Bill provides for the nationwide roll-out of the Staying Close programme, which increases the support for care leavers to find and stay in accommodation and get on a work-related path.

I appreciate that some parents worry that creating a register of home educated children will interfere with their ability to choose how they educate their child. It is therefore important to stress that the overwhelming majority of parents who home school do so with the best interests of the child at heart: there are children who currently cannot cope in a school environment; there are children who want to be in school, but there is currently no school that can meet their needs; and there are parents who simply feel that educating at home is in the child’s best interests.

[Gideon Amos]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in return for those extra controls, the Government or the Bill should offer some kind of support to home educating families?

[John Whitby]

I welcome support for all children, but I am trying to make the point that there is no negative judgment here. I say to those parents, “If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.” I have also heard the Secretary of State say that privately and publicly.

Unfortunately, though, there are people—although very few in number—who, when they start to be asked difficult questions by the authorities, move school, move house or take their child out of school to avoid scrutiny. It is only right that local authorities should be allowed to refuse home education for a child who is subject to a child protection plan or going through section 47 action. We need to know where children are and we need to keep them safe. There is no bigger reason to be in politics than to protect, safeguard and support our most vulnerable children. That is why I, for one, am here.

17:22

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Barker. I thank the Petitions Committee for granting this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for so ably opening the debate. I pay tribute to the approximately 166,500 people who have signed this petition, including the 184 in my constituency.

There is much in this Bill that many of us can agree on, especially in part 1. During its passage there was cross-party support for the measures in part 1 to ensure that the Government go further in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of our children. Part 1 also includes the proposals for a single unique identifier, and I say to hon. Members concerned about it that I do not think it is the precursor to digital ID for our children. If hon. Members look at Professor Jay’s report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, one of the biggest issues in the system—as I heard when I met her earlier this year—is the lack of data sharing between different service providers, such as health, the police and social services.

Some of the young women and girls who were victims of grooming gangs across the country were regularly turning up in hospitals with sexually transmitted diseases, but that data was not being married up with what the police and social services were seeing. If data had been better shared, those issues might have been picked up. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports a single unique identifier for the same reason.

I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) that there are concerns about data sharing, data security and privacy that need to be tackled, and they were explored in detail in the Bill Committee, particularly by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Whether it is the NHS number or a different single unique identifier, however, it is an important provision for safeguarding our children and ensuring that we can better research their needs and commission services to meet them.

As a number of Members have mentioned, part 2 of the Bill feels a bit muddled, particularly the clauses that deal with academies, and in a number of cases it puts the cart before the horse. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire looks back at the last decade of Conservative Governments with rose-tinted glasses, but I gently remind him—

[Damian Hinds]

David Laws!

[Munira Wilson]

David Laws was not in government for the last decade of Conservative Governments; he was there for the first five years and he did some excellent things, not least introducing the pupil premium. I would say, however, that Conservative Governments left us with crumbling schools that are unable to hire specialist teachers, a crisis in special educational needs provision, and a huge problem with persistent absence.

Given those major issues in our education system, I am not quite sure why the Government have chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority for education policy, when there is limited evidence to suggest that a mixed economy of governance arrangements in our school system is posing a major problem. With the promised schools White Paper hopefully being revealed in the new year, although I think it has been delayed twice already, there is a question as to whether part 2 of the Bill was somewhat premature. I am increasingly wondering whether the Government feel the same way, given that the Bill keeps being delayed in the other place. By the time the Bill returns to the House of Commons, it will have been well over a year since it was first introduced.

When the Bill Committee consulted education leaders in January, the one strong message that came through was about how the Government went about drafting part 2 of the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross set out, it was done with limited consultation and showed a lack of coherent vision for the school system; there was no White Paper and no consultation of those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector.

That lack of coherent vision and joined-up thinking seems to be a recurring theme for this Labour Government. They introduced free breakfast clubs, but they are not funding them properly. They have capped the number of school uniform items to three, but that will actually risk further inflating prices for hard-pressed families. They have proposed broadening the curriculum, which is something we welcome, and the Bill will make that statutory for all academies, but they have failed to set out the funds or a plan to recruit the necessary teachers to deliver it. During the Bill’s passage, they voted against Liberal Democrat proposals to widen eligibility for free school meals, but they subsequently decided to copy the policy and announced that they will introduce it next year.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, the Liberal Democrats have sought to engage constructively with the Government by tabling amendments and new clauses that aim to improve the Bill and to address some of the concerns raised by the petition that we are discussing today. Given that the Government have already copied at least one of our policies, I hope that the new Minister, who is here today, might listen to some other good ideas in my speech and in the other place.

There is a real fear that this legislation, which is seeking to safeguard children who go missing from education, will over-police home educators, most of whom are doing a great job. I have been very clear at every stage of the Bill—I think there was cross-party support for this—that the Liberal Democrats strongly support having a register of children not in school to ensure that vulnerable children do not simply disappear from the system. We also strongly support the right of parents to choose to home educate, where that is the best option for their child.

In oral evidence to the Bill Committee, however, even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was circumspect about the vast amount of detailed information that the Bill will expect home educating parents to supply. That level of detail risks becoming intrusive and unnecessary. Many home educators choose to home educate their children not because they want to but because they feel forced to. There is a crisis in our special needs system, and so much special needs provision just does not meet the needs of those children, forcing many parents to give up work so that they can home educate their child. By virtue of their child’s need, parents tend to be much more flexible in how they home educate, but the very onerous reporting mechanisms will interfere with the flexibility that parents need to provide for their children.

I tabled various amendments to try to pare back the burdensome nature of the register, as set out in the Bill. One amendment called for, at the very least, a review of the register’s impact on home educators to be carried out within six months, to ensure that only reporting requirements that are strictly necessary for safeguarding purposes are retained. We also tabled an amendment that would have removed the requirement for parents and carers of children in special schools to secure local authority consent to home educate. Furthermore, we proposed that home educated children should not be excluded from national examinations because of financial or capacity constraints.

Sadly, the Government voted down all our amendments, but I encourage the new Minister to give serious consideration to relevant amendments tabled in the other place, because we must do more if we genuinely want to extend opportunity to every child. Our SEND system is letting down many children, and it is allowing a number of organisations with bad intentions to exploit the market failure in the system. I am talking about private-equity-run special school providers, which are making exorbitant profits, as they have with children’s homes. They are exploiting the lack of provision to hold local authorities and parents to ransom.

The latest revelation in the Budget is that the Government will absorb the costs of SEND provision from local authorities, and the projected £6 billion black hole only strengthens the need to start capping the profits of private special schools. The Bill already makes provision to cap the profits of the same companies that are running children’s care homes and fostering agencies, so I again ask the Minister to consider introducing the measure so that no child is left waiting because of a lack of resource, given that local authorities are being bled dry.

While I am talking about children being left waiting, I encourage the Minister to look at another Liberal Democrat proposal to automatically enrol every eligible child for free school meals, so that no one misses out on a hot, healthy meal. Durham county council, under its previous Liberal Democrat-led administration, auto-enrolled 2,500 children, whose schools benefited from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding.

It is not too late for the Minister to improve the Bill, which I do not believe needs to be withdrawn wholesale. Instead, with the help of the other place, it can be amended so that there is a strong foundation to improve safeguarding for our children and strengthen provision for them in our schools.

17:32

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker, and to speak in this very important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for his opening remarks, and Michelle Zaher and all 166,498 signatories of this important petition, including 250 of my constituents. The petition calls on the Education Secretary to withdraw the disastrous Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and states:

“We believe the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is poorly drafted and does not stem from robust evidence. We feel the accompanying impact assessments are inadequate and may damage all children’s educational opportunities. We believe the Bill is silent on children’s voice and children’s right to education. We also feel part 2 undermines parental responsibility for education and school leaders from ensuring their educational settings can optimise children’s education and wellbeing.”

I cannot fault that damning verdict, which summarises many of the huge inadequacies that are part of this woeful piece of legislation. I am clear that His Majesty’s official Opposition share no enthusiasm for the parts of this Bill relating to schools in particular. To put our views simply, this legislation will trample over two decades of cross-party consensus that has seen the quality of an English child’s schooling improve at a rate of knots.

It is beyond question that the previous Government drove up school standards across the country, and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made that point very eloquently. By the time the Conservatives left office in 2024, English schoolchildren were some of the best in the western world at English and maths. Moreover, 90% of our schools were rated good or outstanding, up from 68% when Labour were last in office. It is a record we are fiercely proud of, because those changes have benefited children across the country, have driven up social mobility and have given more young people the chance to succeed. This legacy is of enormous significance, but it is under great threat because of this woeful legislation.

The overwhelming consensus over the past 20 years—started by Tony Blair and improved by Lord Gove and Sir Nick Gibb—has demonstrated the profound benefits of giving schools and local trusts greater autonomy. The political consensus that created free schools, a knowledge-rich curriculum and academisation has brought enormous benefits. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill ends that consensus. It is an act of pure educational vandalism that, tragically, is not backed up by any evidence that suggests it will improve school standards.

In 2024, academies represented 80% of secondary schools and nearly 43% of primary schools. They have been at the heart of the cross-party effort over the past two decades to improve schooling. We know that headteachers are better equipped to design curricula that benefit their students and communities, and they should be empowered to do so. The fact the Government disagree with that, despite an abundance of evidence suggesting otherwise, speaks volumes. The petition challenges this educational vandalism. It makes it clear that the impact assessments are totally inadequate and fail to show how effectively removing academy status will improve school standards.

Of course, the official Opposition are not alone in our objection to the Bill’s provisions to effectively end the academies project. The Confederation of School Trusts is very concerned about the provisions that seek to remove the academy freedoms that have so greatly improved our education system. Even Lord Harris of Haringey, a Labour peer, has raised his concerns. He is on the record as saying that he cannot express his disappointment at what the Government propose in the Bill, and that it will

“undermine everything that so many people have fought so hard to achieve.”

The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, who is a former headteacher and the co-founder of the Inspiration multi-academy trust, has criticised the Bill, saying that Ministers are

“legislating against the things we know work in schools”.

As has been alluded to, even Amanda Spielman, a former head of Ofsted, has called on the Education Secretary to abandon her plans

“before the damage is done”.

Does the Minister take seriously those concerns, and the concerns of the 166,498 signatories? What will she do about them?

Before the Education Secretary imposes her union-backed policies on English schoolchildren, I remind Members present about Labour’s record in Wales. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire made an excellent speech in which he highlighted Labour’s track record, which reinforces the importance of the petition we are debating. Children over the border are being let down by Labour-run Wales. Welsh children have been unable to experience the same revolution in school standards that we have seen in England.

The Welsh education system is far behind the rest of the UK in the international league tables. As Onward’s “Devolved to Fail” report makes clear, Wales is a huge outlier. The UK is ranked 14th among OECD countries in the PISA tables, but were Wales to be ranked as an individual country, it would come just above Vietnam, in 34th place. England moved to a rich, knowledge-based curriculum, while Wales continued to use a skills-based one. England introduced academies; Wales resisted and paid the price. Attainment in Welsh schools has stagnated so much that the average Welsh pupil performs only as well as the most disadvantaged pupils in England.

I also want to address the issue of homeschooling, which was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) and for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas). As a parent, I believe in the liberty of parents to choose the best options for their children, but I also recognise that there is a balance to be struck, especially when it comes to safeguarding. The sad case of Sara Sharif has been raised; I draw the Minister’s attention to the amendment tabled by Baroness Barran in the other place, which states that if there is or has ever been a child protection plan, or if a child is in need, there must be local authority consent for them to be withdrawn from school. Will the Minister share her reflections on that amendment? I trust she is willing to work on a cross-party basis.

I want to put on record my concerns about the proposed three-item cap on children’s school uniform, which is being advanced without due consideration of the harm it could cause to families, schools and businesses. As has been mentioned, it could actually inflate prices. The Government claim that the cap will make schools fairer, but the limit could also put pressure on pupils to wear the latest fashions, which often end up being much more expensive than a uniform. The practicalities are also significant, as has been raised in some of the meetings I have had on the issue, because the cap will cause nightmares for PE teachers and children playing sports. Will the Minister clarify the issues in respect of PE? In addition, the relevant part of the Bill will do significant damage to the specialist schoolwear sector, which has significant concerns.

Let me present some of the constructive steps that the official Opposition have taken to improve the flawed Bill. We have tabled several amendments that are aimed at preventing harm and improving educational outcomes, including in respect of proposals to ban smartphones during the school day; to ensure automatic exclusions for the possession of a knife, for sexual assault or for the assault of a teacher; and to move pupils who are permanently excluded twice out of mainstream settings. Banning smartphones would help to address the behaviour issues we see in schools, including social media-driven knife crime and the impact on attainment.

The Bill needs to be looked at again. There are some areas that the official Opposition can support, but overall, it is a wrecking ball that destroys 20 years of educational consensus and achievement. Today’s petition is therefore extremely important, and I thank all the people who signed it. I hope the Minister can do them justice and reflect on some of the arguments I have made today.

17:40

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing this excellent debate on a landmark Bill. I thank all colleagues for their contributions, and all those in the Public Gallery who have signed the petition, particularly Michelle and Addison, who have been mentioned by my colleagues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) reminded us at the start of this debate—quite nicely, I thought—that we all share the same ambition to try to ensure that our children are safe and get the very best start in life. I thought that was an excellent way to start this debate.

The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) told us that home educators are often misunderstood. I wanted to start by referencing that directly, because he is right that the vast majority of home educators are doing it in the best interests of their children—the Government and I absolutely recognise that home educators are doing it with the best interests of their children in mind—but he explicitly stated that we are taking away that option, and he was wrong to do so. That is categorically not what this Government are doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) shared his personal experience. As the Minister responsible for bullying and behaviour, I would say he is also right to say that he should not wind up the year below! He rightly spoke about the importance of supporting children before those settings, using his own experience powerfully. I thank all the staff of the hospital schools he mentioned today—Royal London hospital, Bethlem Royal hospital, King’s College hospital and the PRUH. I would also like to give him the reassurance he seeks on the risk of bureaucratic, burdensome reporting requirements on home educating families. The Government are determined to ensure that there are no unduly burdensome requirements on home educating families.

Later in my speech, I will address some of the more substantive points that have been made in the debate. As we have heard, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation, but at its heart, it is about protecting children and ensuring that they have the best possible education. It is also rightly described as the biggest single piece of safeguarding legislation for a generation. As we have heard today, the measures in the Bill cover four broad areas: easing the cost of living for parents, supporting children in care, keeping all children safe, and driving the best possible standards in our schools. I will expand on each of those points in turn.

First, the Bill puts more money back into parents’ pockets at a time when all of us are feeling the impact of the cost of living. Introducing free breakfast clubs in all state-funded primary schools will save families up to £450 a year and drive improvements in behaviour and attendance. The claim made by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) that we are not properly funding breakfast clubs is inaccurate. We have deliberately adopted a test-and-learn approach with breakfast clubs. In the first phase, we learned from schools, and in the second phase we have increased funding for breakfast clubs for the average school by 28%.

[Damian Hinds]

As a simple, comparative piece of maths, if the Minister is saying that breakfast clubs will save families £450 a year, how much money is the Department for Education providing to the school to provide that breakfast?

[Olivia Bailey]

As the right hon. Gentleman will be well aware, the breakfast club represents 30 minutes of free childcare, as well as a healthy breakfast. That is how we calculated the estimated cost savings for families. We have also increased the funding for schools, as I have just said, having learned from headteachers and schools, which has been widely welcomed.

We are also limiting the number of branded uniform items a school can require, a measure that could save some parents up to £50 per child during the back-to-school shop. Together, these measures could save up to £500 per child per year. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) asked about school uniform costs. I would like to take the opportunity to clarify this point: we are introducing the policy deliberately because we need to reduce costly expectations on parents in this challenging time for the cost of living. There will be three branded items that schools may use as they see fit. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East mentioned sports clubs, and the Government are taking a common-sense approach here. If, for example, a school wants to loan some pupils its uniform or whatever it may be, it will be able to do that, as long as it is not a requirement for the child to wear it. We are taking a common-sense approach here, but it is important that we set out clearly that there are three branded items.

[Munira Wilson]

I strongly support the Government’s objective of driving down the cost of branded uniform for families. Will the Minister look at the proposals that the Liberal Democrat tabled in Committee and on Report? We suggested that, instead of capping the number of items, we cap the cost, which would then be reviewed in line with inflation every year. That way, we would help to bring down the cost, because if we reduce the number of items, suppliers will just push up their prices, as they are selling fewer items. They might charge £100 for a blazer instead of £50. Our proposal would free schools to set their own uniform policy and let the market do its job by driving down prices for families.

[Olivia Bailey]

I thank the hon. Lady for her positive and constructive engagement on this question. Of course, the Government carefully considered the amendments that were tabled. My concern with her proposal would be the bureaucratic burden on schools. The simplicity of requiring three branded items can help us in that regard.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I am not trying to catch the Minister out here; perhaps she could write to me afterwards for clarity. She talks about a common-sense approach, but we are making it concrete in legislation. On the requirement for three branded items, would the school be in breach? Would the parents be in breach? What happens in that situation?

[Olivia Bailey]

I am very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and set that out in detail, but let me try again. There will be a requirement for three branded items. That is the maximum that schools can require. They can choose where they would like to allocate those branded items, whether that be in the main school uniform or for PE. If a child joined a football team, for which the kit is not part of the three required items, then as long as the school does not require the pupil to wear that kit, they may, for example, provide a loan or say that they could buy it. I hope that clarifies the point.

[Damian Hinds]

The Minister says that the limit is three items, but actually, the limit is three in primary school, while I believe it is four in secondary school—she will correct me if I am wrong—so long as the fourth is a tie. Can she tell me for what reason a fourth is not allowed in primary school, if the fourth is a tie?

[Olivia Bailey]

I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman in extreme clarity on that point.

Secondly, the Bill’s children’s social care reforms will shift the system away from increasing reliance on residential provision, towards stronger early intervention and prevention. We want to keep families together as much as possible and, where children cannot remain at home, we want to support them to live with kinship carers or in foster families. Children’s social care has the power to transform the lives of some of our most vulnerable children, and children in care deserve a childhood filled with love, support and access to the opportunities that will set them up for a successful life, but the system is not delivering that ambition. Through the measures introduced by this legislation, we will champion family group decision making, fix the broken care market, create powers to introduce a profit cap for providers, and provide a staying close support package to address the cliff edge that young people face when they leave care.

Thirdly, it bears repeating that this is the biggest piece of safeguarding legislation in a generation, delivering robust action to keep children safe from harm. The Government have challenged themselves, and will continue to do so, to stop children falling through the gaps by ensuring legislation introducing an information sharing duty and provision for a single unique identifier, and ensuring that implementation is as watertight as possible.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I have come along to genuinely learn more about this and to ask a question about the single identifier raised by my constituent Catherine. She points out that the General Medical Council, in particular, has advised against using the NHS number to supply an effective identifier and that it should not be used outside the Department of Health and Social Care. Does the Minister recognise people’s concerns about a possible loss of data? Does she accept that we do not want to be introducing a form of digital ID that might persist after the children become adults?

[Olivia Bailey]

I take everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said on board. I will come to the topics he raises in more detail in my speech.

The Government will also introduce new multi-agency child protection teams in every local area to make sure that agencies work together to protect children from harm as quickly as possible. We will also require local authorities to maintain registers of children not in school in their areas, such as home educated children and children missing education. Parents of home educated children will have a duty to provide information about them. That will help to ensure that local authorities can identify all children not in school living in their areas so that they can fulfil their existing duties to ensure that those children are receiving a safe, suitable education.

The Bill also introduces provisions requiring local authority consent for the most vulnerable children, or those with the highest needs, to be home educated. That includes those subject to child protection inquiries or plans and those enrolled in special schools. Home education can mean that children sometimes slip under the radar of services that are there to support them, so it is essential for those children that an additional check is undertaken before they are removed from school. That will help to ensure that home education is in their best interests and that they receive a suitable education.

[Mr Forster]

As the Minister will have heard, I am a bit more supportive of the Bill due to safeguarding concerns based on what happened with Sara Sharif in my constituency of Woking. However, I would also highlight the concerns about the way that Surrey county council failed to protect Sara. Although I am mindful of safeguarding concerns, does the Minister agree that the Government need to properly hold local authorities accountable and resource them to ensure that they can properly protect children? They are not doing that at the moment.

[Olivia Bailey]

I thank the hon. Member for his advocacy on this issue after the terrible events that led to Sara Sharif’s death. He has been doing an excellent job of that. I very much agree that the findings in the report on that case are appalling. The Government are taking them extremely seriously and will continue to work with local authorities to make sure that children are kept safe.

Lastly, the Bill helps to ensure consistently high standards in our schools. If I may quote the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) , we are indeed “striving for academic excellence”. Through our reforms to the academy system, we will give every family the certainty that they will be able to access a good local school for their child, delivered through excellent teaching and leadership, a rich, broad and high-quality curriculum and a pay floor for all teachers. We are designing a school system that supports and challenges all schools, allowing them to collaborate, innovate and drive excellence.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross talked about the issues raised by Michelle Zaher and the hon. Member for Twickenham talked about evidence. The Bill is built on a robust evidence base that the Government have taken time and care to produce. The children’s social care measures in the Bill build on extensive consultation over the last few years in response to three reviews calling for a transformation of children’s social care.

Despite the many strengths and practices that have driven improvements across our school system, including transformational changes in phonics, professional development and strong multi-academy trusts empowering schools to collaborate and innovate, the fact is that the school system is not working well enough for all children. Standards vary widely and there is a stark contrast between the experiences of children in the best and worst schools.

The hon. Member for Bromsgrove talked about the children not in school register. Every child has the right to a safe and suitable education, whether they are educated at school or otherwise. We recognise that parents have a right to home educate and we know that many parents work hard to provide a suitable education for their children. Local authorities must identify children who are not in school and are not receiving a suitable education, but that existing duty is undermined by parents having no obligation to inform their local authority that they are home educating.

Statutory registers of children not in school, along with duties on parents and out-of-school education providers to provide information, will support local authorities to identify all children not in school in their area, including those not receiving a suitable education or at risk of harm, and to take action where that is the case. This was raised earlier, but crucially, parents will also be able to access tailored advice and information from local authorities, thanks to the new duty on local authorities to provide support should parents request it.

The hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) raised concerns about the single unique identifier and the information-sharing duty. For too long, poor information sharing has been identified as a contributory factor to serious child safeguarding incidents. As outlined in “Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive”, we are taking two important steps in the Bill to improve how services share information. First, we are introducing an identifier system for children to end misconceptions about the legal barriers to sharing information for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Alongside that, we are piloting the use of the NHS number as a SUI, starting with Wigan local authority. The pilot phase allows us to test the approach in practice, understand the implications fully and determine whether it should be mandated via future regulations.

[Andrew Cooper]

The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) raised concerns about the General Medical Council’s view on this. Is the Minister aware that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is advocating the use of the NHS number? Is she therefore aware that there is a divergence of views in the medical community on this point?

[Olivia Bailey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that useful contribution to the debate.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude by once again thanking the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross for presenting this debate. I also thank Members across the Chamber for an excellent debate and for their thoughtful contributions this afternoon. I would like to recognise the tireless efforts of schools, local authorities and the many organisations that champion children’s wellbeing every day. The Bill will put more money back into the pockets of parents, reform our children’s social care system, safeguard vulnerable children and drive rising standards in all our schools. As we continue the passage of this transformational Bill, our focus will continue to be on breaking down the barriers to opportunity and ensuring that every child is safe.

17:57

[Jamie Stone]

As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, it has been a good debate, although perhaps a little sparkier than I had first anticipated. As Chairman of the Petitions Committee, I must remain resolutely impartial in these matters. If we say that the overall impression of the Bill at this stage has some way to go, it is like the proverbial curate’s egg—good in parts.

I particularly thank Michelle Zaher, who must take considerable satisfaction from the fact that the petition that she launched, with all the many people who support her, has achieved such a far-ranging and broad debate. The petitioners can take pleasure from how it has worked. That is how it works in the Petitions Committee: the petition has instigated a response from the Government. That is how we deal with petitions in this place. Ms Barker, thank you for chairing this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 722377 relating to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Evacuation Chairs: Schools and Colleges

Monday 1st December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke in the Chair]

18:00

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 706513 relating to evacuation chairs in schools and colleges.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec, and a privilege to lead this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is especially appropriate that we are having the debate during UK Disability History Month, which asks us to recognise the realities faced by disabled people in our society and to confront the barriers that remain. Few things bring those barriers into clearer focus than the question of whether disabled children can evacuate safely from their school in an emergency. More than 100,000 people signed this petition, because they believe that every child deserves a safe and dignified exit from a building during a fire alarm or real fire, and that disabled pupils must not face greater danger than their friends.

I pay tribute to the petition’s creator, 16-year-old Lucas Vezza-O’Brien, who is here with us in the Gallery today. He is joined by his mum, and by Nick from the Emergency Group, who has been supporting Lucas in his campaign and donated evacuation chairs to Lucas’s school.

Lucas has shown incredible courage in reliving a horrifying experience so that other children will not go through the same ordeal. I want to start the debate with Lucas’s story and the reason why he started the petition in the first place. In November of last year, a small electrical fire broke out at Hyde high school. Staff followed the procedures available to them. Pupils were evacuated, but Lucas, who uses a wheelchair, was taken to a designated safe area—rather than being evacuated with his classmates—because the school did not have an evacuation chair to bring him downstairs. He was led to a room on an upper floor and left there, alone and with the smell of smoke in the air. What makes that even more disturbing is that after Lucas was placed in that refuge, the fact that he was still in the building was not reported to firefighters. He waited in that room while everyone else believed that he had been brought out to safety.

The fear that Lucas felt is captured in the poem that he wrote afterwards, which has touched so many people. He says:

“The bell screams loud the smoke runs fast

Footsteps pound as students dash past

The fire alarm wails its desperate cry

But here I sit just asking why

No ramp, no chair to help me flee

Just stairs that laugh and imprison me

My hands shake tight upon my wheels

A rising fear too sharp to feel”.

That is a powerful reminder that disabled children and the wider disability community are too often asked to trust systems that have not been built for them.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, and Lucas’s poem really resonates with that. In my constituency, we have Evac+Chair, which creates evacuation chairs like the ones we have in Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the current legislation, the stay-put policy from an outdated era—1962—does not recognise that the technology has moved on?

[Jacob Collier]

Yes, absolutely. I will come on to some of the legislation later, but the hon. Member highlights a really important issue and I know that he is a big supporter in this space, so I thank him for that intervention.

Fire and rescue services in England attended 417 primary fires in education premises in the last financial year; primary fires are generally more serious fires causing damage to property or harm to people. Of these primary fires, 355 were accidental fires and 62 were deliberate. When we look at the current legal and guidance framework, the gaps become clear.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is nice to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I did not know that you would be chairing Westminster Hall. I wish you well.

The provision of evacuation chairs is imperative—all schools and colleges, across the whole of the United Kingdom, must have them for pupils, staff and visitors. Furthermore, where evacuation chairs exist, staff must be trained in their use. Without mandatory training, the presence of a chair alone does not ensure safety. Does the hon. Member agree that there must be an adequate number of staff trained in the use of these chairs so that schools can make full and proper use of them in the event of an emergency?

[Jacob Collier]

I agree with the hon. Member—he must have read what is coming up in my speech. He is absolutely right, and I will come to that point.

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools have duties to avoid substantial disadvantage for disabled pupils, but they are not required to make any physical changes to features of the building for individual children. Instead, they must prepare long-term accessibility plans that look years ahead. That means that a multi-storey school does not have to provide an immediate safe route for a specific child who cannot use stairs. Fire safety legislation requires responsible persons to ensure that everyone can escape safely, but it does not specify how. It does not mandate personal emergency evacuation plans—or PEEPs—for pupils who cannot self-evacuate. It does not require evacuation chairs. It still allows the use of refuge rooms, even though children cannot be left alone in them and cannot legally be lifted by staff.

Current guidance for the evacuation of disabled pupils is simply not sufficient, as has been highlighted by Lucas’s experience. In many cases, PEEPs do not identify the need for evacuation chairs, which means that schools conclude the equipment is unnecessary and therefore never purchase it. PEEPs vary widely in quality, and often lack a clear method for onward evacuation. They need to be significantly strengthened.

In 2015, the Equality and Human Rights Commission commented that schools were in effect exempt from removing barriers to extraction during emergency. That exemption explains why so many pupils remain unprotected. There is also a profound accountability gap: no single regulator or public body is charged with assessing whether disabled pupils can be evacuated safely. No one is tasked with checking whether reasonable adjustments have been made for the purpose of extraction. Ofsted does not inspect evacuation readiness or assess whether disabled pupils can leave a building in an emergency. In that vacuum, schools are left to interpret a patchwork of rules that are not abundantly clear. In a response to a written question from the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), the Department for Education stated:

“Schools and their responsible bodies are not obliged to notify the department of fires at their premises and we therefore do not routinely collect or record this data…nor information on fire-safety-related repairs.”

PEEPs are not legally mandated in schools. They are planned to become mandatory for residential buildings following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, but remain non-mandatory in school environments, which have the highest numbers of individuals who cannot self-evacuate. That contrast should concern every Member of this House. In some circumstances, staying put and awaiting the fire service is the safest approach. When someone dials 999, fire control operators will issue that safety advice. In Lucas’s case it was not even recognised where he was in the building. That highlights a need for a clearer process for everybody to follow so that all people are accounted for and safely evacuated.

Evacuation chairs are not suitable for every disabled pupil, but they are a safe and internationally recognised non-lifting method for bringing a person downstairs in an emergency. When a child cannot use stairs and has a lesson on the upper floor, the school must have a safe evacuation method. It should not fall on teachers to improvise solutions when an alarm is sounding and smoke is spreading, and it should not fall on a child to wait in fear and hope that someone will remember that they are upstairs.

This petition is measured in its request. It does not call for every school to purchase equipment that is not relevant to their buildings; it calls for evacuation chairs or equivalent equipment to be required when a pupil’s needs make them necessary. It also calls for personal emergency evacuation plans to be prepared for those who cannot self-evacuate and, crucially, for them to contain a clear method for reaching safety. Finally, it calls for a clear national standard, so that schools are not guessing what is expected of them.

The Labour Government have committed to building safer and more inclusive public services, and we promise to learn the lessons of the Grenfell tragedy. We also promise that no one who cannot self-evacuate will be left without proper planning. Schools must be a part of that commitment.

Today, I urge the Government to act. We must ensure that personal emergency evacuation plans are required for every pupil or staff member who cannot self-evacuate. A personal emergency evacuation plan must set out the equipment, the route, the timing and the staff support needed. We must establish national expectations for evacuation equipment—not just a blanket rule, but a clear principle that when a child is taught on an upper floor and cannot use stairs, their school must provide a safe assisted evacuation method.

We must provide consistent guidance and high-quality training, so that staff know exactly what to do. We must make accountability meaningful. It must be clear which organisation checks whether disabled pupils can be evacuated and whether reasonable adjustments have been made for that purpose. Finally, we must design these policies with disabled pupils, their families and school staff at the centre. They know better than any of us what a safe and dignified evacuation looks like.

I will close my remarks by quoting the end of Lucas’s poem—with a plea that we cannot ignore:

“So hear my voice through smoke and ash

Make sure the next can make a dash

For no one’s life should end in flame

Because the world forgot their name”.

Our responsibility as legislators and as a Government is not only to remember the names but to protect those children, to ensure that no child is ever forgotten in a refuge room, and to build a system where a disabled pupil is not an afterthought but a child whose safety is guaranteed. We need to ensure that no student is ever left behind like Lucas was.

I thank those who took the time to meet me in preparation for this debate, and I especially thank Nick and Lucas. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other hon. Members, and to Ministers turning this petition into meaningful action.

18:12

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alec.

I start by thanking all the people—over 104,000 in total—who have signed this petition, including 65 people in my own constituency of Twickenham. They are the primary reason why we are debating this important issue. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for his speech. It was hard to disagree with a single word of it.

However, I particularly thank and pay tribute to 16-year-old Lucas for his #NoStudentLeftBehind campaign, which has included starting this petition and then gathering such a large number of signatures that we are now debating it in Parliament. It is an incredible campaign, and it is just brilliant and brave of him to lead it in the way that he has.

I was shocked to learn of Lucas’s case when I read about it. As a wheelchair user, he was left upstairs on his own when a fire broke out at his school. Although it was only a small fire and thankfully no one was hurt, Lucas described feeling petrified and even considering getting out of his wheelchair to crawl down the stairs, because there was no evacuation chair. No person should ever have to feel like that, and Lucas’s passion to ensure that no disabled child or staff member has to endure the fear and indignity that he had to go through is truly commendable. I was very moved by his powerful poem, which the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter read out.

Lucas is not alone. According to Disabled Students UK, more than one in five students with physical or sensory needs do not feel confident that they would be able to exit on-campus buildings in case of emergency. That is unacceptable. Disabled people must be sure that, like all other pupils, they will be quickly and safely evacuated from schools during fires or any other emergency. Although there were no fire-related fatalities in schools in the 2024-25 financial year, we cannot continue to hope for the best and run the risk of somebody losing their life because of a lack of accommodation for the needs of disabled people.

Evacuation chairs are vital to meeting these needs. Not only do they provide a safe and effective means of escape for individuals with mobility impairments, but they ensure that everyone has equal access to emergency evacuation procedures. In the case of a fire or other emergency, individuals with disabilities should not be left behind or be unable to evacuate because of a lack of proper equipment.

As the Government’s response to the petition acknowledges, not all disabled people feel comfortable using such chairs, and it is not always possible for wheelchair users to transfer into an evacuation chair or to maintain a sitting position once seated in one. Evacuation chairs are incredibly important, but they are not an automatic solution to the escape requirements of all wheelchair users. However, it is essential that they are readily available and well maintained, and that staff are trained in their proper use to guarantee a smooth and efficient evacuation process when someone’s personal emergency evacuation plan requires an evacuation chair. It should also be checked that the evacuation chair is suitable for the person who will be using it, as different types of chair are available.

The legal framework for this issue has room for improvement. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which applies to schools, does not mandate that evacuation plans for schools must include PEEPs. That is in contrast with the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025, which were rightly brought in to mandate PEEPs for relevant persons in specific residential buildings in England from April 2026 following the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to go further and to widen mandatory PEEPs beyond residential buildings to include schools. We believe that PEEPs should be mandatory for students and school staff with a disability who might require evacuation assistance, and that they should be developed in genuine partnership to ensure students’ needs and preferences are fully understood and acted upon, so that disabled children and staff feel safe and secure at school. This change to the regulations is common sense and clearly implementable, given the Government’s identical changes to fire safety regulations in residential buildings. This change to the regulations will ensure that every disabled person can safely evacuate schools during a fire or other emergency, whether with an evacuation chair or via another method.

It is vital that no disabled person is left behind during a fire or other emergency that could put their life in danger. If we are truly committed to equality of opportunity for everyone, especially for children and young people, we must ensure that every person is free from fear. We owe it to Lucas and many others like him.

15:24

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec, and may there be many more opportunities for me to do so.

I thank the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for his opening remarks. I thought he spoke eloquently and raised some really pertinent questions. I will not repeat them all, but I do hope to support him. As we have heard, this debate is extremely important and timely, and I want to start by putting on record the thanks of His Majesty’s official Opposition to all Members who supported the petition. In particular, I thank the more than 104,000 signatories, including 266 of my own constituents in Meriden and Solihull East. This is the second consecutive debate that I have responded to. My constituents have been very busy, and long may that continue.

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) for highlighting the good work of Evac+Chair. He is a formidable parliamentarian on this issue and many others. I want especially to thank Lucas Vezza-O’Brien, who started this important petition; I know he is in the Public Gallery. His poem gave me goosebumps, and his story is immensely moving and thought provoking, so I thank him for standing up on this issue. Last year, as has been said, at his school in Manchester he was forced to stay put during an evacuation, not through choice but because the school did not have adequate facilities to get him to safety. I can only imagine the fear, stress and anxiety that Lucas experienced. The fact that this happened is nothing short of unacceptable, and we should all try to rectify it.

I am sure I speak for all hon. Members when I say Lucas’s courage and bravery are absolutely commendable. He has shown immense resilience in bringing this petition forward so that others do not have to experience the same stress and anxiety that he did. I hope this debate has focused the Government on ensuring that people such as Lucas can remain safe and be evacuated from danger.

Lucas has joined forces with the Emergency Group, a collective of emergency response companies dedicated to providing life-saving equipment, including evacuation chairs and defibrillators. The group donated four evacuation chairs to his school to ensure that this never happens again, and it is supporting his campaign for safer and more accessible schools. The Emergency Group has since made him an ambassador—a very wise decision. Between them, they are calling for policy changes to ensure that all schools have evacuation chairs for disabled students and proper emergency evacuation training, something that Members from all parts of the House are calling for.

This petition asks the Government to make it a legal requirement for all schools and colleges to have evacuation chairs, and for all staff to be trained in using them. It is backed by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Health and Safety Executive, who emphasise the importance of having the right equipment to support mobility-impaired individuals during evacuation.

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools and other educational premises have a duty to make reasonable adjustments where necessary for anyone with a disability. Moreover, under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, all UK educational establishments have a legal responsibility to ensure that every person on the premises can escape safely during an emergency. One of the key requirements of that legislation is that evacuation plans must take into account individuals with additional needs. That has come in the form of personal emergency evacuation plans—PEEPs—as has already been referred to. They play a crucial role in supporting group evacuations by providing clear guidance on how to respond quickly and safely. Could the Minister reflect on some of the points made around PEEPs and whether they are adequate?

The legislation provides that failure to provide appropriate evacuation equipment, such as evacuation chairs, can result in enforcement notices, fines and reputational damage. It is important that all schools and education establishments comply with those regulations and guidelines. It is also essential that the Government ensure that, in cases where evacuation chairs for disabled people are not in place in schools or colleges, the institution acts immediately to meet its legal duties. To that end, I ask the Minister: what steps are the Government taking to ensure schools comply with this legislation? In addition, does the Minister have any consideration for strengthening it so that it is robust enough to keep everyone safe?

It is important that this House understands that failure to comply with these requirements may constitute a breach of the Equality Act 2010 and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. More importantly, as His Majesty’s Opposition are making clear, failing to do so could place vulnerable individuals at significant risk during a fire or other emergency situation. We are very clear that where such provisions are not in place, the institution’s compliance should be reviewed and it should be held to account. Will the Minister confirm that those regulations will be enforced in full? Can the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are taking to hold to account institutions that do not comply?

To conclude, I once more thank all the signatories of this important petition. Again, I pay a special tribute to Lucas, who has led this petition and ensured that this House has considered its important message. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

18:23

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I am really pleased to have the opportunity to discuss fire safety and the provision of evacuation chairs in our schools and colleges.

I thank the Petitions Committee for granting time for this important debate, and I join everyone across this House in congratulating Lucas on his campaign and his leadership. It is because of that leadership, and the national attention he has brought to this issue, that we are having this debate. No one listening to the poem that Lucas wrote can fail to be moved by his words. The fact that we are here discussing it shows the difference that Lucas is already making, and has made, in his own school. I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), who spoke really powerfully on Lucas’s behalf. I would be happy to meet him, Lucas and Lucas’s mum to talk through this in more detail, and about some of the ideas we have discussed today.

The safety of all pupils, students and staff at schools and colleges is paramount. Educational premises are workplaces and public buildings, and they are therefore already subject to national health and safety legislation, fire safety legislation and other statutory duties around their use, access and safety. Under current fire safety legislation, those who have responsibility for the building must ensure that everyone in the building can leave safely in the event of a fire.

Schools and colleges need to have an up-to-date fire-risk assessment, appropriate fire alarms and regular fire drills to ensure they are as safe as possible and well prepared in the event of a fire. A school’s fire safety risk assessment should include an emergency evacuation plan for all people likely to be in the premises, as part of its fire safety strategy. Risk assessments include disabled people or anyone needing particular consideration or help during an evacuation, for example because of temporary injuries or pregnancy.

Schools and colleges have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments where necessary for anyone who has a disability or needs special consideration because of pregnancy or age. All students or staff who need one should have a personal emergency evacuation plan. As we have heard, a PEEP is a tailored plan to ensure someone who may need assistance in a building evacuation can safely reach a place of safety. It is designed for individuals with disabilities and other permanent or temporary conditions that might make it difficult for them to evacuate on their own.

Ideally, a PEEP should be developed as part of a school enrolment or staff induction process for students or staff with disabilities or otherwise requiring assistance in an emergence evacuation situation. If students have an education, health and care plan or an individual healthcare plan, their PEEP should capture any requirements. PEEPs are developed collaboratively between the individual and relevant staff, such as managers, fire safety officers or disability advisers, to ensure the plan is effective and meets their needs.

A well-prepared PEEP ensures that everyone understands their role, making the evacuation process efficient and effective. It is important to stress that a PEEP is a personal document relating to a specific individual. The requirements and preferences of individuals may vary even when their disability is similar. While some people with mobility impairments will require the use of an evacuation chair, others would not welcome using one to escape and may prefer other options to be available.

An evacuation chair looks like a deck chair with skis and wheels underneath. When placed at the top of the stairway, it slides down the stairs. Although there are wheels on the back that facilitate movement on flat surfaces, they are not suitable for long distances. An evacuation chair is operated by one or two people and it requires training and regular practice to use one safely, as we have heard from hon. Members.

In most instances, training need not include the person with the PEEP, although some may wish to practice being moved in the evacuation chair. It may be appropriate for the group of people trained to operate the evacuation chair to take it in turns during the practices, so that they are ready for an incident. That will increase their confidence in using the equipment and reduce their risk of injury to others. As hon. Members may imagine, not all people with mobility impairments feel comfortable using evacuation chairs, and it is not always possible for wheelchair users to transfer into an evacuation chair or to maintain a seated position once seated in one.

Almost half of schools in England are single-storey buildings, with no stairways on which to operate an evacuation chair. That is why it is important the provision and use of an evacuation chair should be determined on a case-by-case basis at a local level based on the specific needs and preferences of the individual concerned. Government guidance is clear that in any school or college where a personal emergency evacuation plan of a student or member of staff requires an evacuation chair, it must be provided.

Fire marshals or nominated evacuation staff and the person needing the chair must be trained in its use. Under school premises regulations, each school’s responsible body must ensure that schools are maintained so that pupils’ health, safety and welfare is ensured. The responsible body is usually an academy trust or a local authority. Schools and responsible bodies have duties as employers under health and safety legislation.

The Department’s health and safety guidance sets out clearly what schools must do, and the Health and Safety Executive provides additional guidance on managing health and safety in schools. Additionally, as we have heard, all schools must comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which requires schools to have an up-to-date fire risk assessment, appropriate fire alarms and regular fire drills to ensure that they are as safe as possible and well prepared in the event of a fire. The Department provides comprehensive supporting guidance to schools in the “Good estate management for schools” guide, which covers all aspects of estate management, including fire safety.

It is the responsibility of those who run our schools, such as academy trusts and local authorities, to ensure that they can be safely operated and to carry out necessary maintenance, including ensuring that a fire risk assessment is undertaken and kept up to date. Since 2010, the Department’s standards require staircases to be wide enough to allow for carry-down evacuation where necessary, and from November 2021, the Department has required that all new schools with more than one storey must have an evacuation lift as standard, providing means of escape from the building for disabled people in the unlikely event of a fire.

The Government have published guidance on fire safety risk assessments for organisations responsible for providing means of escape for disabled people. There is school-specific guidance that includes considerations for mobility-impaired people, and it makes it clear that effective management arrangements must be put in place for those needing help to escape. A well-prepared PEEP ensures that everyone understands their role, making the evacuation process efficient and effective.

A number of other ideas and issues have been raised today, which I will look into further, and I am also happy to take meetings to discuss them. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is rewriting its guidance to ensure that we continue to do all we can to protect children and young people in the event of fires.

18:31

[Jacob Collier]

I thank all Members who have taken part in this debate. In particular, I thank the Minister for her commitment to meet Lucas so that she can hear more about his story, and to take on board some of the things that have come out of the debate—one thing I have learned is that I need to ensure that people know how to say Uttoxeter. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) highlighted the contrast in the changes to personal evacuation plans that we are making following Grenfell; we are making them mandatory in certain settings but not in schools. Finally, I thank Lucas and Nick for their work on the campaign. Lucas has been in the media today, and I am sure that he will continue to be until he gets the changes that he needs to see. I thank him for coming today and for starting the petition, and I thank everyone who signed it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 706513 relating to evacuation chairs in schools and colleges.

18:32

Sitting adjourned.