Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Debate
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Baroness Barran
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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
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Baroness Barran
“Prohibition of smartphones during the school day(1) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, all schools in England must have a policy that prohibits the use and possession of smartphones by pupils during the school day.(2) Any policy implemented under subsection (1)—(a) may provide for exemptions from the policy, or for an alternative policy, for sixth form students, in so far as such exemptions or alternative policies do not negatively impact upon the wider policy,(b) may provide for exemptions for medical devices,(c) is to be implemented as the relevant school leader considers appropriate, and(d) may, where implemented by a boarding school or residential school, include appropriate guidance for the use of certain devices during other periods in which their pupils are on school premises, subject to such policies safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in accordance with relevant national standards.(3) For the purposes of this section—“smartphone” means a mobile telephone that is able to connect to the internet and whose main purpose is not the support of learning or study;“the school day” includes all time between the start of the first lesson period and the end of the final lesson period.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause requires schools to ban the use of smartphones during the school day.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The decision before us this evening in relation to Amendment 215 is whether we support the Government’s recent policy shift to tighten the guidance to schools about phones or whether we need to amend the Bill to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones in schools. On these Benches, we are absolutely clear that it is the latter. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Cass, who all bring exceptional expertise in this area, for adding their names to my amendment.
I will cover three points in my remarks. First, we need to be absolutely clear what we are trying to achieve with this amendment. As we heard in the debate on my noble friend Lord Nash’s Amendment 94A, on access to social media for under-16s, we need to reset our own and our children’s relationship with smartphones and social media, as smartphones are so often the gateway drug to social media. This is essential given everything we know about the impact of extensive screen time on a child’s ability to learn, to concentrate and to get a good night’s sleep, and on their mental health, as well as the harms that children are exposed to online. Resetting social norms is something our schools can play a crucial part in.
We should be in no doubt about the nature of the harms created by having smartphones in schools, and indeed on the bus, to and fro: photos taken without consent and then sexualised via a nudification app, and that are then traded online; exposure to live-streamed content, including children watching a live suicide on the bus home; and, of course, endless potential for distraction from learning. These harms do not happen with dumb phones; they are specific to smartphones.
The second point that it is important to stress tonight is that head teachers want a ban on smartphones. This sends a clear message about the harms smartphones can cause, it sends a clear message to parents and, crucially, it will result in consistency across our schools. The flexibility inherent in the new government guidance is portrayed positively as giving schools and communities discretion to adopt an approach that suits them best. But the reality for many school heads is that the exercise of that discretion is difficult, and it leaves schools facing off against pupils and parents. That seems to be why the “no see, no hear” policies have taken hold. It is a compromise to placate a vocal, emotional, and at times physically challenging minority of pupils and parents.
Thirdly, we do not believe that the Government’s approach of introducing stronger guidance will work, any more than the guidance we introduced when we were in government did. The entirely predictable result of leaving it to teachers to decide how they wish to tackle mobile phone misuse is that the pupils and schools that need help with behaviour and learning the most will be among those least well positioned to help themselves. By contrast, a statutory ban would provide all schools with a shield against pupil and parental complaints.
Guidance leaves heads exposed to parents who disagree, as it is their decision to make their school genuinely smartphone-free rather than down to legislation. Heads have reported that some parents can become very vocal and at times physically violent. It leaves heads having to spend considerable time and energy on deciding on a policy and then implementing it and convincing parents. As one head reported recently in the Times:
“I’m not exaggerating. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on this”.
When we were in government, we introduced guidance which set clear expectations about the use of phones in schools, but we were also clear that if it was not effective, we would consider moving to a full ban. In reality, after testing this approach in practice, only 11% of schools have effective bell-to-bell bans, so the time has come for legislation to support schools to implement a ban. My amendment would mean that smartphones specifically would not be allowed in schools except for limited exceptions for medical requirements, for sixth forms and for boarders in the evenings, for all the reasons that the House is well aware of. Of course, all phones need to be absent during the school day, but dumb phones or Balance Phones do not have the same addictive properties and do not create any of the problems that we have heard about from head teachers.
We do not support Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. It would allow smartphones into the classroom for children with special educational needs and disabilities and would undermine the whole approach. Of course, these children should have access to the assistive technology they need, but not via their personal smartphone.
The point of principle that noble Lords need to decide this evening is whether we want to leave the burden of trying to manage phone use in schools to head teachers or whether we want to take this opportunity to give children their childhood back and start to get smartphones out of their lives. We need to be ambitious. We need to be clear-sighted. This is a prize worth fighting for. I beg to move.
Amendment 216 (to Amendment 215)
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the House is probably keener to hear from the Minister than from me. I am grateful to noble Lords for their remarks. It was clarified that there are exceptions in the amendment around medical devices. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, of course, we want children with special educational needs to be independent and would be very happy to work with the noble Lord to look at that. But I agree completely with my noble friend Lady Spielman that we risk having one in three children in a classroom then being allowed to have a phone, which I know is not what the noble Lord wants either. With that, along with the rest of the House, I would like to hear from the Minister.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impact of mobile phones in schools, including the distraction from learning and the wider effects on children’s well-being. For this reason, we have always been clear that mobile phones have no place in schools.
It was clear from the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that schools can deliver this. Research from the Children’s Commissioner shows that the overwhelming majority of schools already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day. However, it is also clear that the old mobile phones in schools guidance inherited from the previous Government did not deliver the clarity or consistency that schools need to implement mobile phone-free schools.
Amendment 215 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, requires schools in England to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones during the school day. As I say, the vast majority of schools already have policies in place that restrict access to mobile phones. The problem, therefore, is one of clarifying the guidance and enforcing those policies. That is why we have acted to address both. On Monday 19 January we published strengthened guidance which is clear that all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default for the entire school day and pupils should not have access to their devices. That includes lessons, time between lessons, break times, lunchtime and in the loos. Not only does the strengthened guidance remove any ambiguity as to what effective prohibition of mobile phones looks like, but it includes practical, real-world case studies, demonstrating how schools are successfully implementing and sustaining these policies.
We know that schools need help. Where they do, they can get one-to-one support from the DfE’s attendance and behaviour hub lead schools, spread across all regions of the country, that are already effectively implementing mobile phone bans and have exemplary track records of supporting other schools to improve their practice. We have gone further: to reinforce the importance of effective implementation, Ofsted will, for the first time, check school mobile phone policy on every inspection, with schools expected to be mobile phone-free by default. It will check how effectively these policies are implemented when judging behaviour during inspections.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, questioned whether that would be effective, given the, in some cases, four-year gap between inspections. To be clear, Ofsted is one of the most powerful signals that the department gives to the sector on its priorities for teachers and leaders. While not all schools are inspected every year, the prioritisation of mobile phone policy in every inspection will improve policies across the system. From my time teaching, it is my experience—and I am sure it is the same for others across the House, including the former chief inspector—that Ofsted does not have to be on the premises to have an impact on what schools are doing.
We have already communicated these changes to the sector, but I make it clear that schools have our full support in taking this forward. This is a national reset on mobile phone use in schools, and we expect all school leaders, pupils and parents to follow this guidance. But this is not the end of the conversation, and we will continue to listen to the voices of parents, teachers and children on this issue.
I remind the House that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced that the Government will launch a short, sharp consultation on how to improve children’s relationship with social media and mobile phones. This will be a three-month consultation, with the Government reporting back in the summer. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Reid, as part of this the consultation will seek views on whether the mobile phones in schools guidance should be placed on a statutory footing, working through the evidence and bringing any proposals forward once these views have been taken into account.
Amendment 215 addresses the issue in a way that the Government cannot support. It is unclear what “possession” is meant to cover. If we define possession too tightly, we create problems for schools. On the radio this morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, was praising the use of, for example, sealed pouches as a way to prevent the use of phones but also promoting this amendment. Of course, many schools already use sensible, effective approaches such as sealed pouches, stopping pupils accessing their mobile phones throughout the school day, which is the intention of this policy, but an overly strict definition of possession could make those approaches non-compliant, and we should not undermine what already works.
Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is an amendment to Amendment 215, and requires schools to provide exemptions for pupils who use mobile phones as assistive technology. Our strengthened guidance is clear: exceptions to the mobile phone policy may be required for children with specific special educational needs, disabilities or medical conditions. That includes users of healthtech or assistive technology. For example, pupils with diabetes might use continuous glucose monitoring with a sensor linked to their mobile phone to monitor blood sugar levels. Where mobile phone use allows pupils to manage their medical condition effectively, our guidance ensures that these cases are protected. Where school leaders need to make additional exceptions to or flexibilities in their policies based on a child’s individual needs, we trust them to do so.
For these reasons, and given the wider action the Government are taking to improve children’s relationship with technology, mobile phones and social media, I hope—although I do not have a lot of hope—that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the Minister says that phones have no place in schools and that the Government want a national reset. I say that we need our amendment. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Barran
“Permanent exclusion: assessmentAfter being informed that a pupil has been permanently excluded from a school or academy, the local authority must carry out an assessment under paragraph 3 (assessment of children’s needs) of Schedule 2 of the Children Act 1989.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require the local authority to undertake an assessment of the needs of the child if they are permanently excluded from school.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this group of amendments returns to the issue of balancing the rights of children who are excluded from school with those of other children and staff in the classroom. All three of my amendments were tabled in Committee. Before I speak to them, I want to acknowledge the very positive evaluation of the impact of the behaviour hubs programme that was just published, and I thank all those involved.
In Committee, the Minister referred to the statutory Working Together guidance, which says that the local authority and partners should identify problems and unmet needs, including for children facing multiple suspensions or permanent exclusion from school. She referred again to the changes that the Government are making to local authority children’s services with a greater proposed emphasis on early help. Of course, this is how all of us would hope that the system would work but, by definition, when a child is permanently excluded, that early intervention has not achieved its goals.
To take my amendments in reverse order, Amendment 219 would make it clear that there is a presumption against reinstatement in a mainstream school after a child has been permanently excluded twice. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said in Committee, there is good evidence that these children do not go on to thrive in mainstream and are more likely to have their needs met through high-quality alternative provision. We all know that there is not enough of this currently, but that is for a different debate. Perhaps the forthcoming schools White Paper will address it. However, can the Minister confirm whether the Government plan to make it clear in future updates of the suspension and exclusions guidance that if a child has twice been excluded from a mainstream school, there is a presumption against placing them in another one?
My Amendment 218 reflects the anxieties that many parents and head teachers have about having a child in their classroom who has committed serious violence or sexual assault. We heard several examples of this in Committee, and the Minister talked about how the Government would,
“trust head teachers to use their professional judgment based on the individual circumstances of the case when considering whether to exclude a pupil, and we will protect their right to do that”.—[Official Report, 16/9/25; col. 2132.]
However, in Clauses 54 to 56 the Government are strengthening the ability of local authorities to require academies to accept a particular child via a managed move, so we need the clarity that my amendment brings. Again, can the noble Baroness confirm whether that will be in the forthcoming guidance?
In these debates, we rightly focus on the excluded child, but we too rarely speak with equal clarity about the children who remain, those whose learning could be disrupted, whose classrooms become unsafe and whose trust in adult authority is eroded when serious behaviour is not addressed decisively. Exclusion decisions are not made in a vacuum; they are made in the context of 30 other pupils and the staff responsible for them. Any system that weakens the ability of head teachers to act risks failing not one child but many. This is about not giving up on children but recognising when repeated failure in mainstream indicates that a different setting is more likely to meet a child’s needs and keep other children safe.
Finally, Amendment 217 aims to ensure that children who are permanently excluded are guaranteed a proper assessment by the local authority. I understand that schools need to inform the local authority when they permanently exclude a child. Of course, in strong local authorities this results in an assessment, but it is not consistent. I know the Minister understands just how vulnerable a child who is permanently excluded can be, so I hope she will agree to make this assessment a requirement. I beg to move.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, one year ago today, on 3 February 2025, 15 year-old Harvey Willgoose was tragically stabbed in the heart at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield. It happened in the school courtyard in the lunch break, and the perpetrator was Mohammed Umar Khan. An independent review has been commissioned by the school’s trust on what it calls “missed opportunities” and “too many red flags” about Mohammed Khan’s previous behaviour. Khan’s record showed around 130 incidents of concern relating to violence, anger issues and even carrying weapons, yet somehow teachers did not feel able to handle that. Allegedly—the trust is looking into this—some teachers said that they raised the alarm but were ignored or it was pushed away from them.
It is important that we note that teachers should never be frightened to intervene for whatever reason by asserting adult authority. One problem we have to address is making sure that we do not in any way send a message that teachers cannot have the tools that they need to deal with challenging behaviour in schools. It is therefore important that suspension and permanent exclusions are part of the tools that reinforce and deter serious misconduct across schools, signal that certain behaviours have severe consequences and allow boundaries to exist and be reinforced. That is beneficial to all pupils as well as staff. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that sometimes we forget those children who are sitting there and are victims of the misbehaving or violent child. It is for that reason that I have added my name to Amendment 217, which would require local authorities to undertake an assessment of the needs of any permanently excluded child. I am sure that one reason many head teachers are nervous about permanent exclusion is that they do not want that to be the end of the educational road for the child and they do not want the child to disappear. It is very important that we do not allow that to happen.
Amendment 218, which probes the Government’s willingness to introduce a presumption against the reinstatement of a child excluded for very serious matters, such as possession of a knife or other weapon, sexual assault or assault against a teacher, would be key in backing up teachers’ ability to be authoritative and feel safe when teaching. Pupils need to be relocated to an environment more suitable to their challenging behaviour and then they should be followed up because we do not want an argument to be used that permanently excluded, difficult, challenging children will end up in the wilderness with no possible options. These amendments cover that really well, and Amendment 217 aims to prevent that bleak outcome.
On Amendment 219, under which if pupils are excluded on two occasions it would not automatically be assumed that schools would have to take them back, I think that is important and I will be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about it, because it could prevent heightened risk to other staff or students. But I also think we should not presume that it is okay simply to move the problem to another mainstream school. It just feels lazy, like moving the deckchairs. More pupils are then put at risk in another school, but the problem is never tackled. They might actually need to be relocated to a more suitable environment.
I should say that, at one point, I taught for several years in a further education setting pupils from the age of 14 upwards who had been excluded from schools in the local area. They were, to say the least, challenging. Many of them had been violent in their classrooms, but many of them had literally just gone from pillar to post, pillar to post, with no particular regard to the issues they had. When they were actually in a special class—I am not saying it was special because I was teaching it—at least it meant that we could focus on the difficulties they had.
My final thought, having sat through a lot of the discussions, is that we need to be aware that the deterioration—and there has been a deterioration—of young people in schools does not come out of a vacuum. We have just heard the discussions and the tensions around mobile phones. We do have to think that sometimes our policies can make matters worse. In that instance, I think that the question that was asked earlier about how we are actually going to police and enforce any ban on mobile phones in schools was worth asking, because the teachers are going to have to police it. That could lead to a lot more tensions.
Also, to refer to an earlier amendment, suspensions and permanent exclusions rose sharply when schools reopened after the Covid lockdown period, with suspensions up by 21% and permanent exclusions up by 16%. Following on from the earlier amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Young, in relation to lockdowns, I think we should understand that that period really did damage young people and led to a decline in behaviour. We have to take some responsibility for that.
In general, I think that the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, are a really useful way for us to reconsider how we tackle this issue.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The amendments in group 8 relate to the school exclusion framework. We firmly believe that every pupil, no matter their background, deserves to learn in a safe, calm and orderly classroom. Supporting good behaviour in schools is essential to achieving this, and we will continue to back teachers and school leaders in maintaining high standards.
Amendment 217, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to require local authorities to assess the needs of children under the Children Act 1989 whenever a pupil is permanently excluded. Section 17 of the Act already places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need. Naming specific groups risks narrowing eligibility and limiting local flexibility.
The Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance makes clear local authorities and partners should identify emerging problems and unmet needs, including for children facing exclusion. Our reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, supported by over £500 million this year, will embed education experience within multi-agency teams. We are introducing a duty on safeguarding partners to ensure education settings are represented at both strategic and operational levels.
Amendments 218 and 219, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to introduce a presumption against reinstating pupils who have been excluded twice and for extremely serious behaviour such as possession of a knife or offensive weapon, assaulting a teacher and sexual assault. To be absolutely clear, no child or teacher should ever feel unsafe at school. Safe, calm and orderly environments are central to the Bill and to our support for schools and teachers, and head teachers must retain the ability to use appropriate sanctions, including exclusions, to maintain safety and good behaviour.
Governing bodies play an essential role in reviewing exclusions and deciding on reinstatement on a case-by-case basis. A blanket presumption of reinstatement would remove their ability to judge whether an exclusion was lawful, reasonable and fair, and could risk limiting a child’s access to mainstream education and opportunities for successful reintegration. For this reason, we do not have plans to change the guidance in the way the noble Baroness asked about. School leaders should use early intervention and multi-agency assessments as soon as concerns arise, to identify needs early and avoid escalation.
The Government are delivering a strong package of behaviour support, including new attendance and behaviour hubs targeted at the schools most in need, and plan to consult on an internal suspension framework to help schools use these sanctions effectively, minimise lost learning and keep children engaged in their education. The Bill represents a major strengthening of safeguarding legislation, reinforcing the importance of safety, well-being and behaviour in schools. Importantly, it aligns with wider action to protect young people from harm, including banning dangerous weapons, tightening online knife sale controls and expanding programmes that prevent youth violence.
For all these reasons, we do not consider that removing governing boards’ discretion through a presumption against reinstatement is necessary or appropriate, and I hope the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the Minister for those remarks. They are slightly disappointing, and certainly the Government’s reforms are doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. I am not going to press my amendments, but it is with a heavy heart, particularly in relation to Amendment 217. This is not about narrowing the scope of Section 17 of the 1989 Act; it is about saying that these children are children in need, almost by definition, so let us make sure we look at it systematically. But I hope that the Government’s reforms will work the miracle that the Minister believes they will. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 217.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, it is a bit like the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, having the two doctors in the room and great passion. It reminds me a bit of this Chamber, actually: we can certainly go for it at times.
I normally shy away from edtech, but I thought, “No, come on, grow up, Storey, you need to look at this carefully”. I went into teacher mode, I am afraid. I have some general thoughts. All the amendments grapple with the tension between protecting children and preparing them for the digital world. We need to balance parental rights, children’s educational needs and teachers’ autonomy. Technology is neither inherently good nor bad, and implementation and context matter. Finally, there is the risk of one-size-fits-all solutions not accounting for diverse school context and pupils’ needs.
I turn first to Amendment 227:
“Register of software tools permitted in schools”.
There are positives, are there not? This would ensure minimum safety and privacy standards for educational software, protect children from inappropriate content or data harvesting, and address current inconsistencies in firewalls, as some schools overblock, preventing legitimate learning. What are the concerns? There is a risk of creating a bureaucratic bottleneck as innovation in edtech moves faster than government approval processes. It could stifle teachers’ ability to use emerging tools or respond to pedagogical needs. Whitelisting requirements could be too rigid. What about trial periods for new tools? And who decides what meets curriculum principles could become politically contentious.
Then I look at Amendments 234, 235 and 236 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Their intent is to reduce screen time for young children, which is particularly important for early years development and the reception baseline. They address equity concerns that not all families might have reliable devices or internet access at home. Handwriting skills and motor development remain important, especially for young children. The amendments reduce the potential for cheating or AI assistance in assessments. They give parents agency over the child’s screen exposure. From head teacher experience, I say that some parents are deeply concerned about excessive screen time and lack of control.
The concerns are that reducing screen time might disadvantage students who are more comfortable with digital tools. It could also limit the development of general computer skills and risk making education feel out of step with modern skills. It could create additional administrative burdens for schools, as managing two parallel systems could be impractical for certain subjects beyond just computing, and might inadvertently stigmatise children whose parents opt out. So it is over to the Minister to unravel the pros and the cons and tell us what we should do.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I start by acknowledging, as I am sure others in the House felt while listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, her many years of battling—I am sure it feels like battling—on this important area. I hope I speak on behalf of all of us, and I think I do, in thanking her for her work in this field.
Every day we see more options to include edtech in our classrooms and different forms of technology and tools, and indeed in our homes for homework purposes. With that in mind, I express the support of these Benches for Amendments 238, 239 and 240 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I hope very much that we will get a firm date for the publication of a code of practice on the efficacy of edtech and on the use of children’s data. That is ever more pressing in a week when the Government have promised to roll out AI tutoring in schools. Of course, they are doing so with the best of intentions, but it creates an imperative to ensure that such tutoring is effective not just in engagement, where the evidence is pretty good, but, crucially, in learning, where the evidence is much less so. Indeed, a recent international study showed that the use of AI tutors resulted in improved homework grades but worse exam results when compared to those children who followed traditional approaches, suggesting that, without great care, edtech tools can be adopted that do not translate into long-term memory and deep learning.
The message we have really heard in all the speeches tonight is the need for pace from the Government, and I am sure the Minister has heard that. The noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, also made a powerful case for his Amendment 227 and the strength of using existing standards to try to accelerate things and come up with a plan as quickly as possible.
I have brought back the three amendments that I tabled in Committee. Amendment 234 would ensure that all public exams could be completed by hand, Amendment 235 would remove the use of devices from the reception baseline assessment, and Amendment 236 would give parents the right to opt out of device-based homework, with some limits to accommodate medical and other needs. These need to be seen in the context of an ever-growing use of devices, which includes not just the ability to complete homework but also, in the case of personal devices, the power to distract through social media in particular. Parents are clear that when children are expected to use a personal device for homework, that erodes their ability to make the case for a phone-free or device-free evening or weekend.
I understand that some schools have concerns about how this would work in practice, but I think the Overton window has shifted on this issue too in the less than six months since we last debated it. It seems like the Government are moving in the opposite direction with the introduction of AI tutors, but I hope the Minister will reassure the House that that is not the case. As one expert wrote recently:
“If exams go fully digital, handwriting instruction could quickly be marginalised, and note-taking by hand be swapped out for a digital device with AI aids by pragmatic teachers and tech-loving students”.
Similarly, he wrote:
“Homework already jumps to online apps with assistive supports and AI guidance. There is little thought or complaint about how our brain may respond differently to screen scrolling and that of the physical act of writing on the page”.
There is so much evidence about the importance of physical handwriting in learning, and we are concerned that the move to using ever more screen-based learning will impact on that.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
As we turn to the amendments in group 11, which are, of course, on educational technology, I thank noble Lords for their focus during this debate on safety, effectiveness and fairness. The Government share these aims. We want schools and parents to have confidence in the tools being used and innovation that supports learning while protecting pupils’ data and well-being.
We are clear that technology used in our schools must support learning and children’s development. It must not expose children to harm, undermine trust or operate without appropriate safeguards. The question before the House is not whether action is required—action is already under way—but how we ensure that protections are robust and enforceable and can keep pace with rapid technological change.
I turn first to Amendment 227, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, and Amendment 238, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which seek to strengthen assurance that education technology is safe, effective and permitted for use in schools through the introduction of a statutory mechanism. At this point, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, for the work that he was talking about with DfE to develop important new qualifications, which we are grateful for and which the Government will certainly want to maximise the use of.
However, the amendments before us address that concern—the concern about whether tech is safe and effective—in a way that the Government do not believe is appropriate and cannot support, because they do it by treating safety and educational effectiveness as the same regulatory question when they are not. There is a clear distinction between product safety and pedagogical efficacy, and it is essential that we respond to each in the right way. If a tool is not safe, it should not be used in schools at all.
That is why we have already introduced robust safety standards for generative AI, which will set clear expectations for tech companies to follow. That said, providing clarity for schools is key, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for providing additional information on this point earlier this week. We are committed to going further, and we are therefore considering the benefits of consulting on a certification scheme to apply to generative AI tools in education.
Product safety cannot be achieved through a rushed government-compiled register but must be delivered through legally robust and independent certification. Educational effectiveness is different. Whether a tool improves learning is not a universal yes or no question, and it cannot be certified in the same way as safety. What works will vary by age group, subject, setting and approach, and it will evolve over time as the technology itself develops. Attempting to fix this through rigid certification risks undermining professional judgment and stifling innovation without delivering better outcomes for children.
That is why we are working with AI and education experts on new benchmarks for AI use in education, including tests to make sure that products meet national expectations for pedagogy. Our EdTech Evidence Board is developing a clear, publishable framework for assessing effectiveness, including expectations on pedagogy, evidence, outcomes, equity and inclusion, and clarity for schools.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, for clarifying the intent of his Amendment 227 by stating that he was looking for a minimum list of approved tools. I believe that our work on evidence will precisely support that aim.
We are also investing £23 million to expand the edtech test bed into a four-year programme to test technology and AI tools in real classroom settings with independent evaluation. This approach provides schools and colleges with confidence in what works without locking them into a static list. Our aim is to establish a credible pedagogical bar that is fair to suppliers, usable for schools and capable of evolving, rather than a rigid statutory regime that would quickly fall behind technological change.
Amendment 239, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, focuses on filtering and monitoring systems and seeks to increase confidence, through certification, that products used in schools are effective and appropriate. As I noted in Committee, schools are already expected to have filtering and monitoring systems in place through the Keeping Children Safe in Education framework. However, we agree that more can be done to provide clarity and confidence. I am therefore pleased to confirm that the Government will consult on a scheme to certify filtering and monitoring products used in schools, which would reinforce safety standards and allow schools to be confident that products are aligned with them. Alongside this, we have strengthened our guidance to make it clear that filtering solutions must be designed so that illegal blocklists cannot be disabled, overridden or altered. Consulting will allow us to develop a certification scheme that is proportionate and effective in education settings. We therefore do not feel that a statutory obligation is necessary at this stage.
Amendment 236, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, raises concerns about on-screen homework and proposes a parental right to exemption. We share the principle that no child should be disadvantaged due to a lack of access to devices, but we remain clear that decisions about homework are best made by schools in partnership with families and reflecting local circumstances. Many schools already work closely with parents to understand access issues and provide alternatives where needed. We do not have evidence to suggest that legislating in this way would be proportionate or beneficial.
There has been considerable debate about screen time, but it is important not to conflate personal and educational use. When applied well, education technology can improve outcomes and accessibility and help pupils, including neurodiverse children, to engage more confidently. The aim is not more screen time but better learning delivered safely. The Government’s recent announcement of £1.6 million for assistive technology lending libraries reflects this commitment to inclusion, particularly for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
I turn to Amendment 235, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on the reception baseline assessment. We share the belief that assessment should be appropriate and fair. However, a blanket prohibition or rigid requirement in primary legislation would remove needed flexibility, including where digital approaches support accessibility while non-digital options still remain available. As we discussed at some length in Committee, the reception baseline assessment includes some digital elements, but it also uses verbal responses and small toys, with no expectation of prior screen use; a paper-based version remains available in exceptional cases. The revised version has been in development since 2018 and was trialled extensively with pupils during that time. It has been in general use since September, and we have received positive feedback from teachers on pupil engagement. For these reasons, a restrictive legislative approach is not necessary, and the proposed timescales would be impractical and expensive.
Amendment 234, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seeks to ensure that secondary education exams are completed by hand rather than with a digital device, subject to specific exceptions. Ofqual is currently consulting on how on-screen exams should be regulated. It is proposing a highly controlled and limited introduction, with rigorous safeguards. The vast majority of exams would still be with pen and paper. Each exam board could submit proposals to introduce a maximum of two new on-screen specifications, but not in the highest-entry subjects. We have worked closely with Ofqual to consider the potential benefits and risks. Ofqual has also published the evidence base that has informed its consultation. Research shows that on-screen exams may deliver a range of potential benefits over the long term, including improving assessment validity, accessibility and efficiency. We therefore remain of the view that it is not appropriate to fix a highly restrictive policy position in legislation, but of course we encourage interested parties to respond to Ofqual’s consultation.
Finally, Amendment 240 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, seeks to require the Information Commissioner’s Office to produce an edtech code of practice for children’s data. We fully agree on the importance of strong protections for children’s data. At Second Reading of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology confirmed that the Information Commissioner would be required to publish codes of practice for AI and automated decision-making, followed by a dedicated edtech code, and this sequencing is deliberate. Developing the AI code first will inform the edtech code, providing greater clarity and coherence for organisations, schools and families. Accelerating the edtech code ahead of this work would risk duplication and confusion rather than strengthening protections.
I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on 16 December to confirm that regulations will be laid requiring the Information Commissioner to produce these codes, beginning with the AI code and followed by the edtech code. I am pleased that work on the AI code is already in progress. I am also aware that DSIT officials have been in touch with the noble Baroness to discuss the development of the regulations that will require the ICO to prepare the AI code, and we would welcome her support in getting those regulations right. We share the same aims, but we do not believe that legislating in the way proposed would deliver better outcomes for children or schools. The Government’s approach is proportionate, evidence-led and capable of adapting as technology evolves. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, she talked, in relation to my Amendment 236 and homework, about the Government’s concerns about equality of access to devices at home, but she did not address the point I raised about the increasing number of parents who want to have a screen-free evening at home, or screen-free weekends as a household. What would she say to those parents?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
In those cases, I would expect every school thinking about its homework policy to have engaged with parents on the details of how that homework policy was going to work, but I think what was proposed by the noble Baroness in this amendment would limit the ability of schools to have those conversations and to make the decisions that were appropriate for them. It is on that basis that we are resisting it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I strongly support Amendment 233, as I did in Committee, as well as the other amendments in this group. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who reflected what many of us have been saying: the children’s well-being Bill has been short on well-being. Earlier—much earlier, yesterday now—we were talking about sport, culture, PSHE and citizenship education. But we need to see what does and does not work if we are going to deliver some of the changes that are clearly so urgently needed.
I will refer to one survey: the National Parent Survey 2025, conducted by Parentkind, which found that unhappiness among children doubles between primary and secondary school. The parents said that the chief reason that their children were unhappy was that they were finding lessons uninteresting: the figure was 42%, which really is telling.
I return to the Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report 2025, already referred to, which of course was reporting on the opposite. One of its recommendations was:
“Introduce a national wellbeing measurement programme”.
It is just such an obvious thing for the Government to do.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, on these Benches, as is true across the House, of course we want our children to have the highest standards of mental health and well-being, and the data to support this, but, as in Committee, we do not support the specifics of these amendments.
On Amendment 233 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, presented this morning by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, we felt that the Minister’s response in Committee was a constructive way forward and substantially addressed the goals of the amendment, albeit perhaps not in the way that the signatories would prefer or advise. My reading of the Minister’s remarks was that the Government did commit to providing non-statutory guidance, including a standard set of questions and additional tools and resources to support implementation.
As in Committee, I am sympathetic to the gap in provision that Amendment 237 from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, seeks to address: in particular, the postcode lottery that she highlighted in her remarks this morning. I also recognise that it expressly prescribes the provision of qualified practitioners and implicitly prescribes that any interventions have a sound evidence base. As my noble friend Lady Spielman pointed out in Committee, too many interventions have been used in schools in relation to both mental health and well-being, which Amendment 242 from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, addresses, which have been shown subsequently to have caused more harm than good. That is clearly something we need to avoid.
I return to the point I made in Committee and that we have heard fervently debated on Report, including today: the single most powerful thing this Government can do to restore the mental health, well-being and sense of belonging of our children would be to keep smartphones out of school and prevent access to social media for the under-16s. Teachers, parents and their children will not thank this Government for being slow to act.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Well, as we approach nine hours of considering the 13 groups that we have got through today, I note—and I am not being churlish—that if everybody who stood up and said, “I will speak only briefly” spoke only briefly, we would have saved a reasonable amount of time.
However, let us move to the amendments. I start by assuring noble Lords that the Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people, helping pupils to achieve and thrive in education. Of course, we are focused on, and have already made considerable progress in, providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. With that in mind, I turn to the amendments.
Amendment 233, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, intends to establish a national children’s well-being measurement programme. We welcome the added emphasis that the measurement should remain voluntary for schools. While we are committed to supporting more schools to do this effectively, legislation is not necessary.
As stated in Committee, the Government have already committed to publish non-statutory guidance helping schools to measure and act upon factors related to well-being. To do that, we are working with measurement experts, including from the Our Wellbeing Our Voice coalition, to establish standardised questions for schools to ask pupils about key modifiable factors that impact their engagement in school life and their well-being, including how this can inform their approach to promoting and supporting mental health. This will enable benchmarking, aggregation, and sharing of data and practice between schools and with partners. We are exploring whether and how this data could be collected centrally to inform national policy. In the meantime, we will continue to publish annually the data we collect centrally on pupils’ well-being and experiences in school.
Amendment 237, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, would require the Secretary of State to ensure access to professionally accredited counselling or equivalent therapeutic support in schools, alongside government commitments to expand mental health support teams. As we said in Committee, this Government will expand mental health support teams from 52% coverage of pupils and learners at the start of April 2025 to 100% by 2029. The noble Baroness makes an important point about ensuring that we provide support for pupils whose needs are too complex for low-intensity interventions but do not meet the threshold for specialist child and adolescent mental health services. That is why we will pilot enhancements to mental health support teams, developed with a range of experts, including from the counselling profession, to support more complex needs such as trauma, neurodivergence and disordered eating.
These teams already integrate with a school’s existing well-being offer, which can include counselling. However, while there is good evidence that CBT used by the teams can deliver lasting benefits, more research is needed into the effectiveness, implementation and cost efficiency of counselling in schools. Many pupils also benefit from other in-school support. It is important that schools continue to have the freedom to decide what pastoral support to offer their pupils based on need, making the best use of their funding.
Lastly, Amendment 242, tabled by my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie, seeks to require statutory guidance for schools on whole-school approaches to mental health and well-being. As I said in Committee, existing statutory duties provide schools with a strong foundation to adopt whole-school approaches and secure the support that their pupils need. Our pupil engagement framework, to be published this year and developed with Mission 44, with support from other key stakeholders, will provide schools with guidance on whole-school approaches to pupil engagement and, in turn, well-being. Together with our ongoing work on measurement as part of this framework and the expansion of mental health support teams to 100% of pupils and learners, the Government are building on existing support in a consistent and equitable way—key components of my noble friend’s amendment.
Having described the progress that the Government are already making on the range of concerns that noble Lords have outlined, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.