Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling Amendment 159, to which I added my name. It is a probing amendment, so I hope the Minister has not been equipped with various intricacies on the drafting. I believe that His Majesty’s Government intend to consult on child protection.

As the noble Lord outlined, this is a recommendation from IICSA, which envisaged the child protection authority having an inspection function of certain settings within its purposes. However, there was another recommendation from the independent inquiry, which said:

“All religious organisations should have a child protection policy and supporting procedures, which should include advice and guidance on responding to disclosures of abuse and the needs of victims and survivors. The policy and procedures should be updated regularly, with professional child protection advice, and all organisations should have regular compulsory training for those in leadership positions and those who work with children and young people”.


Although the child protection agency will be led by the Home Office and the honourable Member Jess Phillips, this second recommendation sounds like a description not only of charities but of out-of-school settings. I am aware that, since the amendment was laid, a call for evidence went out from the Department for Education on safeguarding for out-of-school settings, but how are they intended to fit together?

In addition to religious organisations, sports clubs, informal educational settings, summer clubs and private tutors seem not to be within a regulatory framework at the moment. Is this not what the independent inquiry envisaged that the work of a child protection authority would be, or could be? Those organisations are outside Ofsted and, despite the excellent work of the Charity Commission—many of them will be charities but not all of them—the threshold for intervention by the Charity Commission on the grounds of safeguarding is statutorily very high. It is not an inspectorate, it seems, or an accreditor of safeguarding training.

If one looks momentarily at the scrutiny function that the Church of England is trying to set up, that function, which should be independent, looks as if it should be inspection, audit, accreditation and an end of complaint process facility. In these informal settings, out-of-school settings or charities, who accredits the safeguarding? Who does the inspecting? Who holds low-level concerns regarding staff and volunteers? Many of those settings will be a single charity under no umbrella organisation—and I thank the safeguarding charity Thirtyone:eight for its excellent work on safeguarding. If you are the trustee of a stand-alone charity and you begin to have concerns about a volunteer or a staff member—the kind of low-level concerns that are that are dealt with in Keeping Children Safe in Education—where is the umbrella organisation that will keep track?

We have to keep one step ahead of people who have this intention to get access to children. They will disappear from one independent stand-alone charity and have the potential to pop up, maybe in a different place—a different church or sports club—but who is keeping track of those concerns? You might informally tell another charity such as thirtyone:eight, but who will be collating that information? Could the Minister consider arranging a meeting for any interested Peers at which we can talk about the scope of the child protection authority and the call for evidence for out of school settings?

The call for evidence is, I believe, like a survey that you fill in. I promise the Minister that I will fill out the survey and go through that facility. But could she also confirm to noble Lords that the child protection authority will go out for consultation? What will the scope be for that and how will it fit together with this large gap—or number of small gaps—we have with out of school settings? This is an important moment to finally cover the many loopholes that still exist in relation to child safeguarding, particularly in out of school settings.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I find these two amendments extremely interesting, and I very much support the spirit of them. But I am not at all happy, I have to say, about exactly how they are put forward. I think it is important that the Government reflect on Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and the extent to which it could be updated and improved. I am delighted that the Government are taking steps to find out rather more about it.

I was extremely interested in the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, but I am not sure that they come into either Amendments 159 or 160. It does not mean that it is any less important. This is a wider issue of some real importance. I am not quite sure where it should come, but it certainly needs to be regarded .

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I am grateful to be able to respond, as this is Committee. With the child protection authority, the question is about what scope that will have. If it is to have an inspectorate function, which is what was recommended by IICSA, will it have a role to inspect out of school settings? That is the way that, I would say, it comes within the scope of the amendment. But I accept it is a probing amendment. We need to make sure that we put the DfE and Home Office together to keep children safe .

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Given the nature of that evaluation, I am not convinced that waiting until the end of what will be a lengthy evaluation will be the most appropriate way to address the issues that currently face the care market—although it is the case that in Clause 66(4) we are clear that the Bill will come into force on such day as appointed by the Secretary of State made by regulations, and Clause 66(5) allows different commencement dates for different areas or different purposes. So there are already provisions in the Bill which would permit the Secretary of State to delay implementation of this clause on regional co-operation arrangements. However, I very much hope that that will not be necessary. As all noble Lords have outlined, there are considerable reasons why we need to improve the sufficiency of placements: we need to fix a market that is broken, and we need to do that in order to ensure that the children who so desperately need appropriate and sufficient placements are able to get them. I hope that, for all those reasons, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the discussion of these amendments. One issue that I was worried about many years ago, and I would be surprised if it did not happen still, is the fact that once a child moves from its local authority area to a local authority somewhere else, the sending local authority completely loses contact with anything that happens to the child—even though, as I understand it, it retains a certain responsibility. I wonder whether anything can be done to make sure that each local authority—that which the child comes from and that which the child goes to—is actually in touch and discussing what happens.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As usual, my friend the noble and learned Baroness makes an important point about the application of the law in this particular case. I think, as she suggests, that legal accountability and responsibility remains with the authority placing the child, but that does not mean that, in practical terms, there should not be engagement, and I would have thought that that would have been good practice. I also think that it is important that there is clarity about where the responsibility stays. That goes for the care co-operatives as well.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I put my name to Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, which I am happy to do. She has made a strong case for amending the sufficiency duty or doing something similar to make it clear that moving children beyond a certain geographical distance from their normal base is deleterious to their well-being and health in every way possible.

I also put my name to Amendment 144 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. We have all heard what is going on and I think we all agree that it is unconscionable and appalling. The question, as was put very aptly by the noble Lord, is what action we are going to take to do something about it. The fact that it exists is bad enough, so we need to have a clear plan to do something about it.

I will focus my remarks primarily on Amendment 165 in my name. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for putting their names to it. It is to do with temporary accommodation and the effect that being moved into temporary accommodation has on young children. This is a topic that the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, which is headed by Dame Siobhain McDonagh, has long campaigned for. In fact, on 13 May Dame Siobhain met the Minister’s colleague Janet Daby, Minister at the Department for Education, and Rushanara Ali, Minister at the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government, specifically to explore what can be done about this issue.

The issue, as the amendment’s explanatory statement says clearly, is that the new clause would establish a notification system requiring local authorities to alert schools and GPs when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. To explain why that is important, this is a direct quote from a head teacher in Lewisham about this phenomenon:

“On the ground, the impact of TA on children is colossal. We only hear, by accident, only by us being nosey and being at the gate in the morning, or them being late, tired or hungry, is how we find out, then we do our best to support them”.


We have a situation at the moment where there is a lot of inconsistency in what is happening when a child is moved with their family into temporary accommodation, sometimes in a very different area from where they were before, which clearly is disruptive to both education and their health. I understand that the upshot of that meeting was positive. We still need to get colleagues in the Department of Health on side because there are some complications in there being several different elements to trying to get this to work.

There are three particular areas that need to be done better if this amendment is to be successful. The first is local authorities. There is a move within the LGA to acknowledge the need for councils to be compassionate councils. There is agreement that, in principle, local authorities should be doing this notification on behalf of the child, and that they should be sending the receiving authority a notification—a point that was raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, on the last group. That often takes place but not always, when clearly it should. The LGA has very good and clear guidance on this. However, its guidance does not mention schools or general practices specifically. Perhaps this is an area that could be looked at.

The second is to do with technology. While government in all forms, including local government, can spend vast amounts of money on technology, it does not always do what you think it should be able to do. Many local authorities do not have the ability in their current systems to send notifications easily. Manchester, for example, which you would have thought of as one of the larger and more sophisticated metropolitan authorities, has to do this individually by email; there is no way of pushing a button and just getting it done.

Under the previous Government, the central government ensured that the providers of technology to local government were able to change their data systems so that they always included rough sleeper assessments. Where there is a will, there is a way; this can be done. We hope that His Majesty’s Government can do something to ensure that the housing system has a notification system embedded within it to make notification much more straightforward than it currently is.

The last point is to do with getting better guidance implemented. At the moment, training across schools and primary care provision is very varied, and I do not think there is necessarily an understanding, either by the schools from which the children are being moved or by the schools to which they are being moved, of the importance of having that dialogue, and the same is true of GP practices.

For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will be able to give some indication as to whether the initial impression given at the meeting with the two Ministers in May—that the Government were receptive to this—is still the case. Perhaps the Minister can update us on any talks that have happened since then.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 118, 144 and 165 in particular. Dealing with perhaps the least important of the three: as a boarding school girl, I think that boarding school can often be a very sensible place to send children. I would not want to see it required for all children—that would be most unsuitable—but boarding school should be in the thoughts of those wondering where to put a child. It might be that it would be possible to keep the child with a particular member of the family if that family member did not have the child for 12 months of the year. Anyone who has been a mother or a father understands that situation.

On Amendments 144 and 165, I feel particularly strongly about unregulated accommodation. Under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, there is an obligation on the local authority to promote the welfare of the child. I cannot believe that local authorities that send children to unregulated places are complying appropriately with the law. I wonder whether any local authority has ever thought about it.

Unregulated accommodation—which has been set out so well already—is not, in fact, checked. If one thinks about it, the idea that 16 and 17 year-olds are not being checked as to how they are getting on—bearing in mind, as has been said, that they are still technically children and are at a very vulnerable age, particularly if they are in care—is extraordinary. The other point is that even adult accommodation seems very unsuitable. Who are they going to meet in adult accommodation? Although it may be checked, one wonders how much checking there is. I hope the Minister will listen to these particular matters very strongly.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 170 and lend my support to the other eminently sensible amendments in this group. They all, individually, beg the question: why would we not? I implore the Government to consider these gaps, which have been so carefully thought through and proposed before the Committee today. If Committee serves any purpose, it must be to collaborate and work for the benefit of the children we are talking about.

I will not rehearse the points I made on the first group today. The data point, under Amendment 170, drives at the same point. I ask the Minister to think carefully, because I had almost anticipated that her previous answer would address the data required already under the Children Act. So I carefully focused this amendment on the gaps where the data is not already required—that is to address sufficiency in care homes overall.

A body of science around attachment and trauma now emphatically supports the case for providing secure and stable environments for young people—including young adults, because the brain is not fully developed until well into the 20s. This debate is very timely, in the wake of the grooming gangs story and the Casey report, which has just been published. When children have not been securely attached and have been moved into and out of care, they are at their most vulnerable. They are the most susceptible to risk, the most vulnerable to being preyed on and the most easily seduced by any kindness whatever, so the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly dangerous scenario. It is time that we dispense with unregulated accommodation, and I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her comments and her extensive experience of that.

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[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 126, in my name, is in this group. This amendment relates to a discreet issue for children who are under a High Court deprivation of liberty order but who are not also looked-after children under the Children Act. Approximately 96% of those children under a High Court deprivation of liberty order are also looked-after children under the Children Act, but then they end up at the High Court, as there is a shortage of Section 25 secure accommodation. Only in Section 25 accommodation under the Children Act can a looked-after child be restricted of their liberty—that currently means a secure children’s home—so they are also put under a High Court DoL so that the local authority can deprive them of their liberty in non-Section-25-type accommodation. It seems that by the move to the phrasing “relevant accommodation” the Bill will regularise in law their situation, which is that 96% of these young people are currently under that inherent jurisdiction deprivation of liberty order. However, there are currently 4% of children under a High Court deprivation of liberty order who are not also looked-after children under the Children Act.

I want to thank the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. I believe that it was his work that brought in the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, when High Court DoLS—as we would call them—began to be used as a jurisdiction. It is due only to that work that we know that, within that group, we have this little group—the 4%—who are not also looked-after children. Even an amended Section 25 of the Children Act refers only to looked-after children having their liberty being restricted in what would now be known as “relevant accommodation”. They would still be left under the High Court jurisdiction, with fewer safeguards. The whole purpose of Clause 11 is to bring from the inherent jurisdiction these children under a statutory system of protection, safeguards and reviews.

This 4% of around 1,280 children last year are often children coming out of the mental health estate. They have been taken into hospital for their own protection and for treatment; then they are discharged but, for health reasons, their home is no longer suitable. In my view, they are not going to pass the threshold test under the Children Act 1989 to be a looked-after child, because the threshold test—philosophically and in practice—is about harm by the care or neglect of the adult who should be caring for them or the fact of their being out of control. Neither of those circumstances seem in most cases to apply to a young person who has gone into the mental health estate and then been discharged.

While I recognise the imperfections of the current drafting of Amendment 126—for instance, it might trigger other provisions of the Children Act if we deem these children to be looked after-children—I chose that mechanism to try to bring them under the safeguards that we will have for children under Section 25 who are looked-after children, and not leave them still to be under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. I hope that that serves to be a mechanism for the Minister to explain what the situation is for that small group of children.

I imagine it was envisaged by Sir Andrew McFarlane that he would get the data through the Nuffield work, so that we would come to Parliament, legislate and take this into statute law, out of the inherent jurisdiction. It seems to me, from Amendment 126, that unless we do something for this small group of children, he is going to have to continue needing Nuffield, because there will be a need for this type of deprivation of liberty order under the inherent jurisdiction for the group of children I have just outlined.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, what the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has just said is entirely sensible, and, if I may, I add my voice to it.

I did not know about this group of children. It seems wrong in principle that they should not be treated in exactly the same way as all other children in this particularly vulnerable group. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, pointed out, they are quite obviously the most vulnerable of all the children. I declare my interest as patron of the Atkinson unit in Exeter, which is secure accommodation.

What I am really standing up for on this is not only to understand and support in principle what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is saying but to express some concerns. I will just take, as an example, Amendment 120. If this child under the age of 13—and that is a very sad circumstance to have a child under 13—is under an order of the court, the Secretary of State would not be able to deal with it further than suggesting that the court order should be reversed. It is important that, when looking at these amendments, one has to bear in mind that it appears that deprivation of liberty may be able to be made without the introduction of the court. In so far as the court is concerned, I remind the Committee, as a former lawyer and judge, that neither the Home Office, the Department for Education nor any other government department can actually change the law of England other than through the parliamentary process. I have no doubt at all that the Minister knows that perfectly well, but it seems to me we have to be a little careful about the extent of the suggested use of these amendments.

I entirely understand what is intended, and it is entirely laudable, but we just need to be very careful as regards in what circumstances and whether there will be a court order. My recollection is that, in the past, Section 25 orders were also made in the family proceedings court. Not a word has been said about that now, and it may be that that does not happen any longer, but certainly there continue to be orders under the inherent jurisdiction, so I just make that warning to your Lordships.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords often say in this Chamber that it is a pleasure to follow whichever noble Lord or noble Baroness. I cannot say it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, because, given the depth and detail of what she says and the experience she brings as a former judge—and she always speaks without a note—it is not a pleasure but humbling to be given the role of speaking in her wake, as it were. She is, as ever, extremely impressive and adds so much to our debates.

I want to speak to Amendment 506B in my name, on the use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty. When a child is in a secure setting, there is a robust framework for reviewing the suitability of arrangements for deprivation of liberty, including through the appointment of independent persons. Where deprivation of liberty orders are used in other accommodation arrangements, the same safeguards may simply not be there. So there need to be additional safeguards, including, as recommended by the Children’s Commissioner, a record in the looked-after child census, including the type of setting and the length of and reasons for restrictions placed. Also, wherever possible, independent advocacy should be provided for all children where a deprivation of liberty order is being considered or is in place.

Clause 11 provides a statutory framework for children to be deprived of their liberty in accommodation other than a secure children’s home through amending Section 25 of the Children Act 1989. The intention is for there to be parity with secure children’s homes in terms of access to legal aid. But the current position for parents and anyone with parental responsibility in these cases is that they are entitled only to means-tested legal aid. Such means tests are very restrictive; research by the Law Society has demonstrated that even those living in poverty can fail the financial eligibility test for legal aid.

Many parents are therefore left to navigate these complex legal proceedings on their own. The result of these court hearings is significant for children because it could lead to a child being put into a placement that is many miles away from their home environment and their local network of support—mirroring the arguments that we heard in the last group of amendments. Additionally, deprivation of liberty orders are increasingly being used to place children in unregistered accommodation —I will not go there again—due to the lack of secure children’s home places.

According to figures published by the Family Court Statistics Quarterly, there were 1,280 applications to the High Court for deprivation of liberty orders for children in 2024, of which 132 were for children 12 years of age and under. That total figure represents a 120% increase since 2020-21 figures, which themselves reflected a fourfold increase since 2017-18—again, according to the Law Society. By way of comparison, there were 261 applications for secure accommodation for children in 2024.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, mentioned the Nuffield Foundation; the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory found that almost 90% of parents and carers were not legally represented at any hearings in applications made under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction for deprivation of liberty orders. For an event of such importance to those families involved, that is surely a worryingly high figure and is just unacceptable.

It is surely a basic human right for no child to be deprived of their liberty, particularly into an unregistered placement, without their parents having access to legal advice and representation. There should always be access to non-means tested legal aid for parents and carers in these cases, and Amendment 506B would provide for that.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

This may be a rather silly question, but in my experience of the Atkinson secure accommodation unit, every child needs at least two carers. There are even children who need three. I wonder how a children’s residential care home will manage a child deprived of liberty. It will be an extreme case and the child will be unbelievably difficult to look after.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Nevertheless, we believe that it is possible. On the definition of relevant accommodation, we believe that it is possible to find those sorts of homes—sometimes supported by the use of technology to help maintain security for children, and certainly needing a certain level of staffing, as the noble and learned Baroness said—and that, for many children, it is preferable to live in that type of accommodation as opposed to the alternative, which has been to be deprived of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction of the courts. Actually, some of that type of accommodation may well be more suitable for things such as maintaining contact, having education and being closer to the community.

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right about the challenge for the workforce. That is why, last week, as he says, we published further information about the 75,000 additional staff that will be necessary. It will be a challenge, but we have already begun work, focusing on the Government’s childcare recruitment campaign, “Do Something Big”. We have also introduced a T-level in early years and childcare, and through Skills England we will be identifying the gaps and ensuring that the support is there for employers to develop staff in this area. But it will be a very big challenge to make sure that the places and people are there to deliver the entitlement by next September.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, many young mothers are not very good at looking after their very young children. What are the Government doing to help mothers and children bond and learn to look after each other?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In my case, I could say that slightly older mothers were probably not particularly good at looking after their young children either.

The noble and learned Baroness makes a very important point about the support we provide for mothers, obviously through midwives and antenatal care, which I know my colleague in the Department of Health and Social Care will be very concerned about, and we will hear her views. In ensuring we have early family support, particularly for the most vulnerable families, we will also help to overcome that problem.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. As I suggested earlier, childcare provision is good for parents because it provides them with opportunities to work and supports them with the cost of living. Most importantly—my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is adamant about this—high-quality early years education provision ensures that children get the very best possible start. It helps to overcome disadvantage in their home lives; it helps to identify special educational needs earlier, and it sets children up to learn. That is why it will be an absolute commitment of this Government. We were pleased to be able to outline last week the next stage of our development in this area.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, could the Minister of State say something about the importance of the status of people who work in early years?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Absolutely. The name of our recruitment campaign to encourage more people to come and work in this area is “Do Something Big”. Our argument is that there is little that you can do that is more important for changing somebody’s life than working with them in their very earliest years, whether through caring or through early years education and development. That is why the investment that this Government are putting in is so important and why we will celebrate the people who carry out that really important role.

Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, this is an important Bill. It is an equally important reminder than unless children in schools learn about the importance of values for British citizenship, how on earth are they to grow up and live with their neighbours of different ideas, cultures, religions, beliefs, or none of those? As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, said, I chaired the commission in 2015, of which he was a most valued member. He largely kept us in order, which was actually quite important since there were 20 of us of various religions and none.

The noble and right reverend Lord referred to a great deal of what was said in part of that report, which came before the Select Committee and I hope had some influence on it. At the end of the day, living with difference is what we have to do, since we are a multicultural society. In our report, we set out a vision very similar to the wording of this important Bill. We included the importance of a national story, and that people should be treated with equal respect and concern. Concern matters as well as respect; we should recognise other people’s needs as well as their views. We also included freedom to practise beliefs, religious or otherwise.

Clause 1 of the Bill refers to

“democracy … the rule of law … freedom … individual worth”

and, very importantly, as other noble Lords have said,

“respect for the environment”,

which is a valuable addition to what has already been said.

The Government absolutely must take notice of what the Bill is saying and breeze it through both Houses, as I would hope, or at least bring it into whatever legislation they choose to introduce. One way or another, it is extremely important, as other noble Lords have said, that the Government pick up and act on what is being said today by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries.

Independent Schools: VAT Exemption

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest that I went to an independent school, as did my children. I must say, like many others have said so far today, that doing that spent all our money. We did not take foreign holidays and things like that, but it was worth it.

I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, said, as well as many other speakers. The Government have not looked across the independent sector; they have concentrated on the great schools. As has been said, the great schools will survive, probably largely because of foreign pupils.

I have had a lot of experience of small independent schools, right across the country, and I have had—like everyone else here, I am sure—endless emails from parents from small independent schools, many of which are likely to close. They are often local, and parents have put their children in them for very good reasons. One example I read was of a nine year-old autistic boy who is extremely clever. In the state sector, he was absolutely hopeless. He was removed and sent to a small independent school, where he was cherished. That sort of child may well cope in ordinary school if he has sufficient help, which this child did not have.

I also have a personal experience. One of my grandsons is profoundly deaf. He is American, and he went to an independent school in Los Angeles because he could not cope with a lot of noise and had to sit at the front of the class to be sure to hear what was going on. I am sure that similarly profoundly deaf children in this country going through ordinary education would not necessarily have a very good time.

I have to say that I am very concerned for the people on modest incomes—many of your Lordships have already been talking about modest incomes—who are still taking the trouble to spend money on education rather than on holidays and other things. That is what is being attacked here with this proposal.

As I said, many small schools are almost certain to close. What on earth will the effect be if, in the middle of the academic year, a considerable number of children have to go into the state sector? We know that many schools in the state sector are overfull already, and the teachers will not be there because the money has not yet been raised. I am particularly concerned with pupils in their GCSE and A-level years; nobody has yet spoken particularly about those two groups. How on earth will they go into the state system with probably a completely different programme, working in a state where they absolutely will not be able to cope with what is going to happen? If they do not look at anything else, the Government must look at January. Finally, I ask them to please look at SEND, at special schools for other needs and at military schools.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right, and I am very proud of that. Our position, as I said, has been tested in the legal advice in the consideration of these changes. Our view is that being charged at the standard rate of VAT paid by millions of businesses across the UK is not discriminatory and is clearly proportionate to the objective of better funding for state schools. To the extent that I am able, I will certainly ensure that I write further about that issue to my noble friend and to others.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

May I ask the Minster, before she sits down, about the children taking GCSEs and A-levels? What are the Government going to do to help them where there will be changes in the programmes they are doing?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness: with respect, I was showing my inexperience in this House and asking my Whip about the situation. If the House will allow, could the noble and learned Baroness repeat her question?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I was asking about children taking GCSEs and A-levels when this starts in January.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think I covered that point in talking about the arguments for introducing this in January, while also making it clear that it is the Government’s view that introducing the VAT liability does not necessarily imply that a sudden increase in bills will arise; nor does it imply that the whole of that increase in VAT will be passed on in fees. In fact, if we look at the behaviour in the private school sector, we see that, despite very large increases in fees—well above inflation—parents have tended, where they have made that choice, to keep their children in the private sector anyway, and I am sure that the vast majority of parents will continue to do that. The analysis, including that carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, suggests that, even if there is going to be a movement of pupils away from the private sector, that will tend to be not immediately in January but over a much longer period, and I imagine that will be the approach that most parents take.

Coram’s Charter for Children

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not fully recognise the figures that the noble Baroness refers to. As she knows, we have been adjusting school funding to try to move towards a national funding formula. We have also invested increasingly in the pupil premium to support precisely the children whom she and the Government are most concerned about.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, looking at the other end of childhood—teenagers—will the Government do something better about youth clubs, which might have some effect on gangs?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There are multiple things that will have effects on gangs, but clearly the engagement of young people is very important, as the noble and learned Baroness suggests. That is why we made the national youth guarantee commitments in 2022.

Children’s Care Homes: Reform

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not agree with that. While I agree that children in care homes potentially have more severe mental health issues, I think that, typically, children who go into a care home have also experienced severe neglect and abuse, and have more complex needs than those who are fostered.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, what efforts are the Government making to support a lot more foster carers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are making a great deal of effort in this area. We are investing over £27 million, in this spending review period, in a foster care recruitment and retention programme. That will start in the north-east, with £3 million for a pathfinder hub; the additional £24 million will be for a wider rollout.

Children in Care: Gone Too Far Report

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I said in my initial response, it is the responsibility of local authorities to provide sufficiency within their boundaries. Of course there are exceptional cases, and I have touched, for example, on children who are gang-involved and need to be moved further from home for their safety, but the kind of co-ordination the noble Lord talked about is exactly what we want in practice.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, as we have heard, because these children are disturbed and many of them have suffered trauma, which is why they have been taken into care, there seems to be some urgency in this matter. They should be put, where possible, reasonably close to home. Can this not be speeded up?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are going as fast as possible in this. Obviously, our foster caring strategy has had a very significant investment, and there is the additional £9 million we are putting into kinship care. The latter is building on some very successful pilots, so we want to speed up the things that work but make sure that we understand that they work first of all.

Special Educational Needs: Employment Support

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Everybody who meets with a work coach should expect to get quality time, and my understanding is that the vast majority of individuals do. Of course, this is important for young people with SEND. DWP has a huge amount of experience in dealing with long-term health conditions and disabilities. Secondly, part of the work we are doing together with the DWP is to understand and knit together where education meets employment, to make sure that we get the best outcomes for young people.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, my granddaughter, aged six, was identified with quite severe dyslexia. She went to the Eleanor Palmer School, where the headmistress said that no one in the school knew how to deal with it, so she sent two of the staff to be trained. My granddaughter did brilliantly at primary school and ended up at Edinburgh University with a good degree. So support really needs to start at primary school to ensure success in education.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can reassure the noble and learned Baroness that it does start at primary school. The work we are doing to help teachers identify dyslexia early on—in particular, the early phonics screening test—allows us to do just that. Through our English hubs, we are helping primary schools and their teachers to support children like the noble and learned Baroness’s granddaughter.