Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to respond briefly to a couple of the remarks that were made about the amendments in my name. In relation to Amendment 198, I thank my noble friend Lord Nash for adding his name but also for making the case that we need more special schools and more alternative provision. I hope the Minister will have something to say on that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said—I wrote it down—that we were giving schools reasons not to take a child. But the reason is the other children in the classroom. I was not trying to suggest that that is easy. I am just saying that there is one child who needs the right place, and we should do everything we can to make that happen, but there are 29 other children who also need to learn and to be able to study safely.

I turn to Amendment 199. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, put it well when he said that it feels like we are punishing successful schools. That is the worry. Again, going back to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, the new school that is improving is exactly the example that would be allowed to continue to grow. I think perhaps she misunderstood my remarks about that. In relation to a situation such as Camden, as she knows, first of all, my amendment would not apply. You would have to make an appropriate plan in exactly the way that she described, but we are talking about areas where you have schools performing at very different levels and it is the best schools that are forced to reduce their numbers. The noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, describes that as market forces gone to “ridiculous” levels. I just think it is about respecting parent choice, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

With respect to the amendments in the first group, let me be completely clear that this Government are committed to ensuring that all children, especially the most vulnerable, can access a school place where they can achieve and thrive. The whole range of measures in the Bill reflects this objective.

Amendment 198, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would introduce specific requirements for local authorities when using their powers to direct a school to admit a child. I agree with the noble Baroness that local authority decisions on directing the admission of a child should be reasonable, account for the needs of the child and ensure that schools can meet those needs. As noble Lords have argued, I accept that there is more that needs to be done to ensure that all schools can provide for the needs of children with special educational needs, and that sometimes it is more appropriate for those children to be educated elsewhere. We will address that challenge, which is wider than we are discussing today, in our forthcoming White Paper.

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17:10

Division 1

Amendment 199 agreed.

Ayes: 295

Noes: 180

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Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Malvern]

202: Clause 58, page 124, line 14, at end insert—
“(5) In section 10 of the Academies Act 2010 (consultation: new and expanded educational institutions), in subsection (1)(a) omit the words from “other” to “authority),”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the duty to consult under section 10 of the Academies Act 2010 on whether Academy arrangements should be entered into would also apply to new educational institutions that are the subject of proposals pursuant to a notice under section 7 of Education and Inspections Act 2006.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we now move to the group on opening new schools. Our priority is that good schools are opened when they are needed. Amendment 202 would amend Section 10 of the Academies Act 2010, relating to the establishment of new academies.

Currently, where academies are established under Section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006—known as the “free school presumption” process—trusts are required to consult before deciding whether to enter into a funding agreement to run the academy. Section 6A will be repealed by the Bill and new academies will be established under Section 7 instead. This amendment is therefore necessary to retain a requirement to consult, meaning that relevant parties will be invited to comment on the details of the plan for the academy, including the planned admission arrangements. I beg to move.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 203 in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. Free schools have played an important role in raising educational standards over the last 15 years, with their benefits felt most strongly in communities that have needed them the most. As I set out during our discussions in Committee, last summer’s exam results underline their impact: free schools outperformed other non-selective state schools at GCSE and A-level, pushing up standards, particularly in areas of significant deprivation and low educational achievement. Giving school leaders the autonomy to innovate, whether through a longer school day and more stretching curriculum or developing closer links with business and universities, clearly has a measurable impact on school outcomes.

This success continues: only last week, 62 students—over a quarter of the year group—at the London Academy of Excellence, one of the earliest free schools to open, learned they had secured Oxbridge offers, surpassing the success of many of the country’s leading independent schools. This outstanding achievement makes it even more regrettable that, in December, the Government chose not to go ahead with a new sixth-form free school in Middlesbrough, backed by Eton and Star Academies, which aimed to deliver similar outcomes for its students. It was one of 26 proposed mainstream free schools that were cancelled after a long delay, to the dismay of the teachers, parents and communities that had championed their plans.

It is not just one free school or trust making a huge difference: research from the NFER shows pupils attending secondary free schools get better grades at GCSE, have lower absence rates and are more likely to take A-levels and to go to university. Will the Government publish the quantitative thresholds that were used to judge community need, demographic demand and the impact on existing schools that lay behind the recent cancellation of each of the 28 mainstream free school projects, and will they publish the assessment scores for each cancelled project? This would be extremely helpful information and a transparent way for the groups that put a lot of effort into these projects, and the parents, who obviously may not have been privy to conversations with the DfE, to understand the reasons for the decisions.

Free schools have provided a route for new ideas, energy and educational models to join the state system. Indeed, the Government themselves have acknowledged that

“the free schools programme has been crucial to meeting demographic need and pioneering new models that can raise standards”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/12/25; col. 45WS.]

Yet Clause 58 will mean fewer chances to innovate and less opportunity for the best-performing academies to expand and replicate their models. It is disappointing that the Government, despite some of their words, seem unwilling in practice to recognise the contributions free schools have made, and indeed could continue to make, to improving our education system—an achievement in which we should all take pride.

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It leaves one wondering whether the Government, for all their warm words, just have a problem with free schools. The Government’s approach risks putting this kind of innovation and progress at risk in order to address a sufficiency issue which they themselves cannot quantify.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As we have heard, group 2 relates to opening new schools. Amendment 203, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would remove Clause 58 from the Bill. Clause 58 ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies always and allows a wider range of proposals for new schools to be put forward.

During Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, argued that the presumption process has worked well and raised concerns about the capacity of local authorities to deliver new schools. We provided her with further information on these points at her request. I emphasise again that we recognise the contribution that academies make to high and rising standards.

On the particular points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, on the free school pipeline, just to be clear, we are proceeding with those mainstream projects that meet the needs of communities, respond to demographic and housing demand and will raise standards without undermining the viability of existing local schools and colleges. We will back new schools that offer something unique for students who would otherwise not have access to it, but, again, we need to understand the context in which we are operating. Primary pupil numbers have been falling since 2018-19. That decline is set to feed into secondary. Creating new free schools now risks adding surplus capacity while demographic need declines.

Free schools have been a very positive addition to our school system, but, since 2010, over £300 million has been spent on over 53 schools that subsequently closed: money that could have been invested in places for children with special educational needs or in addressing urgent condition needs in existing schools. It is important that we plan these school places and these new openings carefully. We continue to back academy schools and are encouraging high-quality trusts to grow, for example by confirming that the outstanding Star Academies trust will be able to progress the Eton Star Dudley and Oldham projects, which will support young people in disadvantaged areas to progress to top universities, as we have heard.

In Teesside, the decision not to proceed reflects careful consideration of the likely impact on existing good-quality provision. Our assessment of the local context in each area indicated that there was a higher potential risk to the sustainability of the existing academic provision in Teesside than in Dudley and Oldham, which could not be mitigated by conditions. That is why the decision was taken not to proceed in Teesside but to proceed in Dudley and in Oldham. We also undertook to explore with Eton Star whether learners can be supported in a different way through its work.

I do not apologise for the Government taking responsible decisions about how we spend public money on high-quality but also sustainable provision for the future. In relation to special needs schools, for high-needs places we are offering most local authorities the option of per-place funding to deliver the same number of specialist places differently or to continue with their special or AP free school. The measure in Clause 58 will still provide a route for strong trusts to open new schools. We know that high-quality trusts exist in many areas of the country, but not everywhere. In many areas, we expect proposers of new schools to be predominantly or even exclusively high-quality academy trusts, but in other areas, the right trust may not be immediately available to provide the school that is needed. That is why Clause 58 provides flexibility and will support local authorities in fulfilling their sufficiency duty by allowing a wider range of proposals from different bodies and for different types of schools to be considered from the start of the process. This will better enable good local schools to open when needed. Given that, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment and support Clause 58.

Amendment 202 agreed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Malvern]

204: Leave out Clause 62
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove provision no longer needed because of the new general data protection override in section 183A and effect of 183B of the Data Protection Act 2018, both inserted by section 106 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 which came into force on 20 August 2025.

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[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling the government amendment, which His Majesty’s loyal Opposition support. We also thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for his amendment. He has been described in the media as the United Kingdom’s greatest living expert on Parliament and a world authority on constitutional issues. He is entirely correct that post-legislative scrutiny is essential for any public Act, but it is especially important for Bills as substantial as this. By the conclusion of Report, we will have debated over 10 amendments seeking reviews of various aspects of the Bill, which surely highlights how wide ranging its impact is expected to be. An all-encompassing review would combine these amendments and, most importantly, allow the Government to evidence the positive change that they believe this Bill will put into effect. Some form of post-legislative scrutiny is the right vehicle, and the noble Lord’s amendment would serve as the foundation stone of that verification.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in group 3 concern a review of the Act on commencement. Amendment 205 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. I too recognise his continued dedication to this matter, echoing the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and his undoubted experience and expertise in this area. As my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern set out in Committee, I am pleased to reassure the noble Lord again that the department understands the importance of the legislative feedback loop, as he described it clearly then and again this afternoon, and is committed to that. However, we believe this amendment cuts across what is a perfectly clear set of cross-government expectations for post-legislative scrutiny.

The question he poses is: why did we not undertake pre-legislative scrutiny? The Government give consideration to which Bills will be published in draft, taking into account the overall requirements of the legislative programme and how to ensure that time is used as efficiently as possible. The Government did not consider the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill necessary for pre-legislative scrutiny, and therefore did not publish it in draft. We wrote to the Education Select Committee upon introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons and provided a briefing opportunity with officials before its Second Reading.

The noble Lord has previously raised issues in this House with the current process for such scrutiny. The process seeks to ensure that the chair of the Commons Select Committee has adequate information to decide whether to instigate a fuller inquiry, and we would expect to undertake that fuller inquiry given the importance of this Bill. However, as he will know, should they decide not to, that inquiry can be taken up by another interested parliamentary committee of either House.

In Committee, the noble Lord noted that the Government included post-legislative scrutiny in the Football Governance Act. I am not sure if others in the Chamber were subjected to the passage of the Football Governance Bill, but it was an interesting process. That was a single-issue Bill, so it was deemed appropriate for that Bill. However, that does not mean it is appropriate for all Bills, as I am sure noble Lords will be aware. This Bill covers a broad range of measures, with different timelines for implementation and different evaluation needs. I think we would all agree, for example, that the rollout of a single unique identifier is quite different from the rollout of breakfast clubs.

None the less, alongside our commitment to post-legislative scrutiny, we have committed to a post-implementation review as part of the Better Regulation Framework. We published our plans in the impact assessment for this Bill, on which the RPC rated us green, for how we will monitor and evaluate the transformative measures that will change the lives of millions of children and young people. I hope that noble Lords are reassured. I repeat that commitment now, for good measure: we will undertake post-legislative scrutiny for this Bill, but it is not needed to be included the Bill when it is already an expectation.

On government amendment 246, Clause 67 currently provides that

“any provision of or amendment made by Part 1 or 2, so far as it confers or relates to a power to make regulations or an order”,

will come into force on the day the Act is passed. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his support for the amendment. It will clarify that, by order, we mean secondary legislation. The only instance of secondary legislation order in the Bill is Schedule 3, which amends the Education Act 2002 to provide that the Secretary of State may by order make provision requiring the remuneration of an academy teacher to be at least equal to the amount specified in or determined in accordance with the order. The amendment would ensure that it is clear what order the Bill is referring to.

I hope I have addressed the noble Lord’s concerns, and that he feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister’s response is disappointing. I am grateful to the two Front Benches for their very kind opening comments but in terms of the substance of the amendment, I thought the Minister’s comments reinforced the case for post-legislative scrutiny; she spent some time explaining why the Bill has not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, which I would have thought adds to the case for subjecting it to post-legislative scrutiny. She referred to the Football Governance Act, which just dealt with one particular issue, whereas this Bill is very wide-ranging. There is therefore scope for a lot of things to go wrong, which I would have thought reinforced the case for checking that the Bill has delivered on all aspects of what the Government seek to achieve with it.

The value of committing to post-legislative scrutiny is the Government demonstrating that they have confidence in the measure. If there is to be a review anyway, why not put that on the face of the Bill? At least critics of it would then know that it will definitely be subject to review—it is in the Bill, and that will happen. That is one of the arguments for post-legislative scrutiny of the Football Governance Act.

As I say, I am disappointed with the response. I shall keep coming back to the case for putting provision for post-legislative scrutiny on the face of Bills that meet the criteria I have outlined, and will press the Government to have the courage of their convictions. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I have one substantive amendment in this group, Amendment 220, which is also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked why the guidance needs to be statutory. I think the answer is that the issues associated with children who are questioning their gender at a young age overlaps significantly with the safeguarding responsibilities of a school and therefore should be on a statutory footing.

As we discussed in Committee, the consultation on the draft guidance for schools for children questioning their gender identity closed in May 2024, and we are now approaching the two-year anniversary of this. I must say that it is laughable that the Government think they will respond in a matter of weeks to a consultation about whether to prevent under-16s from accessing harmful and addictive social media, but it takes nearly two years and we have no response from government on the gender questioning guidance, which was in draft and had been consulted on. The Government repeatedly say they need time to get it right; I just wondered whether the Minister could give us an indication of how much time, and how much time they think they will need to get the social media issue right. It feels like, if this is two years, that might be 10 years. The Government really need to get moving to publish the guidance to safeguard our children in these schools from this very contested and harmful ideology.

I thank my noble friend Lady Sater and her cosignatories for the extremely constructive Amendment 243C, delivered with exactly the same amount of energy as our noble friend Lord Moynihan. We read in the national press about potential cuts to funding for sport in schools. I wonder whether the Minister can reassure the House that that is not the case. Sport is—I reluctantly admit, as the least athletic person in your Lordships’ House—extremely important. As we have heard, sport builds not just physical fitness but teamwork, mental resilience and an ability to meet the two imposters of triumph and disaster on the field with equanimity. I hope the Minister will give this amendment the consideration it deserves.

My noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes made the case powerfully for bringing consistency to the provision of relationships and sex education and PSHE to pupils in FE colleges. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and I tussled over his amendment back in the Schools Bill in 2022, but he remains very persuasive on this subject. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Finally, I expressed our concerns about the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, in Committee. I am afraid our position has not changed.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group address themes that are central to pupils’ development and well-being, and the values that underpin life in Britain. The Government remain committed to supporting schools and colleges with clear expectations and guidance so that they can deliver high-quality teaching that reflects the diversity of young people’s experiences and prepares them for modern life.

Amendment 206, in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, seeks to introduce and define values of British citizenship. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and as the noble and right reverend Lord admitted, I have also had the benefit of discussing this before, particularly when he introduced his Private Member’s Bill. We had a good debate, which was longer than we are going to be able to have today, on this issue and on some of the questions raised by noble Lords about how we can ensure citizenship is not only on the national curriculum but delivered effectively.

Although I agree with the sentiment, I do not believe that primary legislation is the right way to secure effective implementation. Schools already embed important values through their statutory duty to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. They should remain free to tailor their approach, ensuring that values remain relevant to pupils’ lives.

However, we need to do more to give citizenship teaching the place it deserves on the curriculum. That is why, following the curriculum and assessment review, we will introduce new statutory citizenship teaching at primary level and an updated secondary programme of study. Consultation on that work will be under way soon, so noble Lords who have rightly engaged in the debate about the significance of citizenship teaching will be able to contribute to that.

On Amendment 208 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, as I said in Committee, we recognise the importance of supporting young people with high-quality teaching on healthy relationships. That is why personal, social, health and economic education, including sex and relationships, is taught in colleges. However, I recognise the gap in the nature of the requirement the noble Baroness identifies, particularly for further education colleges. We have begun to take action on that.

In response to calls from the further education sector, we commissioned a leading expert to create a well-evidenced range of resources to help colleges deliver high-impact relationships and sex education tutorials. I am grateful to Polly Harrow, our FE champion on this, for the work she is doing. The freely available toolkit provides high-quality lesson plans, materials and bespoke training to equip staff with the confidence needed to engage young people in conversations about misogyny, respect and consent, particularly given the context which many noble Lords have referenced this afternoon: the particular challenges for young people of this age, which I wholly accept and share their concern on.

I was particularly affected by the meeting I was able to have with Faustine Petron from the Make It Mandatory campaign, along with colleagues from the Sex Education Forum, End Violence Against Women and the Brook sexual health charity about the requirement to go further on this.

Although the Bill is not the best vehicle, as I have discussed with the noble Baroness, given this late stage in its progress and the absence of other further education measures, I intend to identify the most deliverable route to make relationships and sex education mandatory in further education. As the noble Baroness will know, I am not in a position to name Bills that may or may not be coming down the track, but she also referenced the possibility that somebody might choose this as a topic for a Private Member’s Bill. Were that to be the case, I would most certainly want to engage in supporting that making progress.

On Amendments 220 and 247 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we have been clear about our commitment to placing children’s well-being at the centre of guidance for schools on gender-questioning children. We are clear that the Cass review’s conclusions and principles—the review was of course published since the issuing of the draft guidance—need to be reflected in it and that schools can be confident in that.

We know that concerned professionals, parents and children would welcome clarity on how schools should respond to young people who are questioning their gender. We have been carefully considering all the evidence as well as responses from the public consultation. It is essential that we take the time to get this right and to consider the best way to support schools. We will confirm next steps in due course, but our approach is clear: an evidence-led approach, clarity for schools, and children’s well-being at the centre of it.

Turning to Amendment 231 in the name of the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, this Government are committed to collective worship in schools. Schools are already required to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural development within their curriculum and have flexibility to deliver non-religious assemblies. We plan to publish updated guidance later this year on collective worship in England to make expectations clear, including objective, pluralistic and critical delivery to give schools practical support.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends have made a compelling human, practical and democratic case for the role of Parliament in expressly approving school closures in the event of a future pandemic or public health emergency. In practical terms, as we all know and have heard in this short debate, parents and teachers see every day the impacts on those young people who missed out on significant chunks of their education and their social development when schools were closed. My noble friend Lord Brady rightly pointed out the fundamental value of schools being open as unlocking all the other good things that we expect and trust them to deliver for our children.

I hope that, when the Minister comes to close, if she does not plan to accept these amendments, she gives a clear response as to how the issues that my noble friends have raised will be dealt with in future. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said, children at that point had no balancing voice to the decisions that were made, and that feels like something we do not want to have happen again.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all the contributors to this important debate. Amendment 207, which has been degrouped and stands alone for the reasons the noble Lord has outlined, would require schools to remain open to all pupils during civil emergencies unless Parliament decides otherwise. As the noble Lord stated during Committee, closing schools has significant impacts on children, as has been reinforced by the discussion here this evening. We all agree that continuity of education is vital for their learning and well-being.

We mentioned it in Committee, but I do not think it has been stressed enough in this debate that almost all schools remained open and allowed attendance in some cases to all pupils and in others to vulnerable children and to children of critical workers. I want to put on record here today our enormous thanks to the staff who worked under incredibly difficult circumstances, with changing guidance on this on a day-to-day basis, in putting the needs of those children first. There were very few total closures, and where they happened, they were usually short-term and for operational reasons. I am sure noble Lords will remember the coverage about deep-cleaning and all the other issues that came up on a daily basis.

We know now that children generally were not at risk from Covid-19 in terms of health. That does not mean that the staff were not, but children were not as vulnerable as was first feared. But that might not always be the case in future pandemics or other whole-system emergencies, and we need to keep that at the forefront of our minds as we discuss this important issue.

I reassure the Committee that the department is committed to learning from the Covid-19 pandemic inquiry. We learned from the last pandemic that planning is at its best when it is agile, takes a whole-system approach and is responsive to the situation. The department is continuing to build its capabilities to support education in all circumstances, including strengthening remote education.

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[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her serious response. She alluded correctly to the role of many different bodies, were these difficult circumstances to happen again. However, if I am not mistaken, the one body she did not mention in her response was Parliament. Does she not accept, as is fundamental to Amendment 207, that in these circumstances a decision to close schools is so important that it should have explicit parliamentary approval within a reasonable time?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I apologise, but my assumption was that all the departments working together would keep Parliament informed of the decision. However, I do not think we can pre-empt at this time how quickly decisions will need to be made. We just need to make sure that we do not create serious disadvantage by putting in legislation something that might undermine our ability to respond at pace and appropriately in circumstances that we perhaps cannot envisage now. With that, I hope that the noble Lord feels reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response, and I thank my noble friends Lord Brady and Lady Spielman for cosponsoring this amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for her excellent contribution.

I will make just one point in response to some of the points raised. It is important to learn one lesson from our response to the pandemic. That lesson is that we are pretty poor at learning lessons from previous pandemics. We had a pandemic preparedness strategy, and we prided ourselves on being better prepared for a pandemic than almost every other country. That pandemic preparedness strategy was based on the findings of public inquiries into previous pandemics and epidemics, and it was junked within two weeks in the febrile, panicky atmosphere and the heat of politics. The compelling desire to be seen to be doing something overrode the lessons we had supposedly learned from previous pandemics and epidemics. Sweden, on the other hand, which broadly speaking followed our pandemic preparedness strategy, did far better.

I am a little reassured by the words of the Minister about responding in a more intelligent, systematic, thoughtful way next time, but once the conclusions of the Covid-19 inquiry have been published, the Government need to give some thought to how those will be conveyed and how they will be meaningfully observed by a future Government, in the absence of legislating and giving Parliament the kind of role it should have before critical decisions affecting the most vulnerable people in our society are made. With that, I will of course withdraw my amendment.