Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 193A and 193B in the names of the right Reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and myself. These amendments are very simple. They seek to address a small technical omission regarding the inspection of multi-academy trusts when they are the proprietor of one or more schools with a religious character.

When Ofsted inspects schools with a religious character, one of the organisations it is required to notify of the outcome of state inspection is the religious authority responsible for running the school. My noble friend the Minister’s amendment to introduce inspections of multi-academy trusts is welcome, but I feel that the amendment does not replicate the duty of notifying religious authorities for these inspections.

Multi-academy trusts play an important role in creating and upholding the ethos and community in which schools with a religious character operate, so it is essential that the result of any inspection of the trusts that contains such schools must be shared with the relevant religious authority. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth has already said, it is an issue of communication.

These amendments would ensure that the inspection of multi-academy trusts which contain schools with a religious character is consistent with the individual inspection of those schools. I have worked closely with the Catholic Education Service and with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth in bringing these amendments to your Lordships’ House today, and I am sure that the representatives of other religious groups which run schools would also support them. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to accept these amendments today or give her assurances that under the Government’s amendment the relevant religious authorities will be notified about the results of multi-academy trust inspections when those trusts are the proprietors of schools under their denominational jurisdiction. I also support Amendment 193C in the name of the right reverend Prelate.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a big change in the education service. I welcome the Government bringing this amendment, because it was not there in Committee and I think it is a response to speeches made on both sides of the House, so I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister and her team for working in between Committee and Report to give us something. It deserves a longer debate than it will get at this time of the night, so it is a shame that it has arrived so late.

I want to seek one reassurance. It must get the prize for the longest amendment because it is pages long. But it also gets the prize for the longest amendment that does not say very much. That is basically the first question I want to ask. Will the Minister give assurance that we will have opportunity to discuss the detail of this? It is a big change, and some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, need to be addressed. Secondly, and this is the most important thing for me, could the Minister give an assurance that she will endeavour to make the inspection such that schools do not feel they have been inspected twice, and that it is an inspection of the MAT ownership or governance and not the schools themselves?