Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Moynihan

Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling it.

I would like to quote from a speech I made on 26 June 2014, soon after the terrible crimes of Jimmy Savile had been analysed in the Lampard report. Our campaign for the mandatory reporting of child abuse went back at least a decade before that, but the Savile case showed clearly what happens when people who know do not tell. I realise, as the noble Baroness does, that the Minister might tell us this is the wrong Bill to explore this issue, but I have always taken every opportunity to raise it, and that is why I am doing so again today.

On that occasion, I said:

“I have always felt that a child is his or her own best protector. We can do what we can to protect a child, but we cannot sit on her shoulder all the time. This is why it is so important that children are taught in every school, through a balanced PSHE course, how to protect their own personal integrity … They also need to be taught what a healthy, non-abusive relationship looks and feels like, and who to turn to in case of fear or of actual abuse”.


I still believe that this is every child’s right. I went on to say:

“We must then minimise the opportunity for perpetrators to reach vulnerable children”,


and to talk about the shortcomings of DBS checks, which

“are not enough, as they only identify those who have offended before, and are no use against first-time offenders or those who are clever enough to avoid detection”.—[Official Report, 26/6/14; cols. 1418-19.]

This is still the case.

In that situation, the knowledge or suspicion of abuse by adults around the child is a vital ingredient of protection. We need to ensure that those who know or suspect what is going on report what they know to an appropriate and responsible person. I mentioned that lawyers who acted for dozens of Jimmy Savile’s victims had told me that the most shocking revelation of all was the number of victims who had reported what had happened at the time to someone in their institution, only to be ignored and their claims covered up. One girl in Stoke Mandeville told a nurse what Jimmy Savile had done, only to be told, “You’re making a mountain, you silly girl. Do you know what he does for our hospital?”—how shocking.

That is why I believed then, and I still believe 11 years later, that we need a clear and comprehensive system for the mandatory reporting of child abuse which would make it an offence—with clear penalties—for those in a position of trust in a regulated activity to fail to report knowledge or reasonable suspicion of abuse. The person making the report need not know for sure that abuse was taking place; that is for the competent authorities to decide after investigation. Reasonable suspicion is all that is needed.

The amendment before us refers to regulated activity as defined in the Children Act 2004 and the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, both of which I well remember—though the definitions would need amending to exclude such confidential helplines as Childline. These measures have been successfully in operation in Australia for years, so I do not believe that it would be a problem here. I am grateful for the advice of Professor Ben Mathews—who also advised IICSA—about the Australian system. The idea that there would be a lot of mendacious reporting did not occur in Australia; in any case, one cannot fail to lift a stone for fear of the slime one might find underneath.

Childline advisers will often encourage children to report the abuse themselves to a trusted adult. In that situation, the child must be able to have confidence that, if they do so, their disclosure will be properly dealt with, and no concern about reputational damage should get in the way of that adult doing the right thing by the child. The only way children can have that confidence is to make failure to report abuse an offence. When a child gets up the courage to confide in a trusted adult about abuse, they do so because they want it to stop. Imagine how that child feels when nothing is done.

The intention of the amendment is not to put people in prison, except in the most egregious cases, but to change the culture. I believe that it would help workers to report abuse if they saw it as a public duty and not as telling tales. There is considerable public support for this. In an independent poll of the public in 2014, 96% of people supported it. I am not sure what the figure would be now, but, in the years since then, given the revelations of mass grooming gangs abusing young girls for years and nobody believing the children, I would think the figure might be even higher now. I urge noble Lords to support this amendment.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment is both necessary and important. It is a credit to the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Walmsley, who eloquently introduced it, and for years fought for the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse to be firmly placed on the statute book.

Child abuse, whether in the form of physical, emotional or sexual mistreatment, whether through lack of care, or whether leading to injury or harm, is offensive and detestable. I welcome recognition by the movers of this amendment that the amendment should capture the importance of child sexual abuse in schools and sport clubs, as covered in proposed new Schedule 1A.

Within sport, each case of sexual abuse among children is one case too many. In sport, it is compounded because it takes place within a relationship of trust or responsibility; it is an abuse of the power and it is a breach of that trust. The influence that a sports coach or physical education teacher has over children is disproportionately compounded by the physical nature of proximity in sport and the near total control which can be exercised over an ambitious child seeking success in the world of sport. We have seen how prevalent this is in the worlds of gymnastics, football and athletics, to name just three sports which have witnessed the ugliness of child sexual abuse.

Taking each in turn, for decades this was a problem that was festering at the heart of gymnastics. For far too long, some coaches and teachers have been able to act with total impunity, forcing young children to experience extreme training programmes while bullying and humiliating dissenting voices into silence. Some coaches have abused their power and authority to commit terrible crimes against the children they should have been caring for, leaving lives destroyed in their wake. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, numerous prominent gymnasts spoke out about the bullying, discrimination and abuse that they experienced in the sport at schools and in clubs. As a result, the Whyte review was commissioned, and an independent report examined the allegations of mistreatment in the sport of gymnastics. Predatory coaches and teachers were allowed to move from school to school and gym to gym, undetected by a lax system of oversight, and predatory coaches and teachers worked to conceal abuse.

In football, a child abuse scandal involving the abuse of young players at football clubs began in November 2016, and by the end of 2021, 16 men had been charged with historical sexual abuse offences, 15 of whom were tried. One was head of PE at a school in Birmingham, another a secondary school teacher. In athletics, the documentary “Nowhere to Run” in the UK concerned the sexual abuse of athletes by a coach and how the athletes tried to deal with the impact of the abuse.

The current situation in law, as noble Lords in this Committee know, is that while child safeguarding requirements are mandatory for all schools and colleges in the UK, a duty is legally enshrined in the Education Act and various statutory instruments, which are welcomed. However, we need to go further. Those measures did not deter many of the cases that have come to light, and there is no law that compels everyone to report child sexual abuse. Despite the promises for action within the Crime and Policing Bill, there is no criminal sanction for failing to report child sexual abuse under the mandatory reporting plan. We need to go further than a duty to report that “may be referred” to a

“professional regulator (where applicable) or the Disclosure and Barring Service, who will consider their suitability to continue working in regulated activity with children”.

I join the noble Baronesses in their view that there should be professional criminal sanctions for failing to report or covering up child sexual abuse, which they have put in the amendment they have tabled.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has led work on a duty of care and safeguarding; I have been privileged to support on it for over 20 years. We have sought to create a sports ombudsman, or a sports duty of care quality commission, who would also have duties of care within all schools. We have sought to develop an independent benchmark survey to measure duty of care, to monitor whether duty of care policies are working, and to inform future policy and investment decisions, and we have sought to ensure that there is a duty of care guardian—one in every school, I hope—with responsibility for engaging with participants in school sport, as well as with young people across the talent pathways and in community sport.

Today we can go one step further. We can rectify the position of the absence of a well-designed, mandatory reporting law at the heart of the safeguarding shortcomings in institutional settings such as sport and recreation at schools. Let the lessons of the past protect the children of tomorrow, and let those of us who I hope one day will vote for this amendment, if it is not accepted by the Minister today, take the lead for future generations.

Wine (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Moynihan

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords have many impressive attributes, but being in two places at once in person is not one of them. So, because my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville is moving an amendment in the Chamber, the Committee will have to put up with me.

I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument. This is the second instrument on the provisions around wine in a short period of time. Is it a trend? Apparently, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has had something to say about the SIs in both cases and has drawn them to the attention of the House.

These regulations prohibit the labelling and marketing of wine as ice wine unless the grapes used have been frozen on the vine as opposed to being subject to freezing afterwards. I had always thought that genuine ice wine was exactly that: wine made with grapes frozen naturally on the vine, concentrating the sugar and making the wine both delicious and very expensive.

I understand that these regulations are necessary to fulfil the obligations in the CPTPP, which was signed by the Government in July last year and debated in the Chamber earlier this afternoon. I also understand that Canada is a major producer of ice wine.

This SI applies to wine for the English market only. The Minister mentioned that Scotland and Wales are progressing their own SIs, which will fit in with this one. Can he say when it is likely that those SIs will be in place? There is likely to be considerable confusion if this is not done quickly, as a bottle of wine is easily transported across borders; confusion could result.

There are also likely to be issues around the labelling of ice wine in Northern Ireland, which is subject to the regulations that exist in Europe and not those that will pertain under the CPTPP. Perhaps the Minister can say something about that.

As a member of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine since 2019, the UK now has to abide by the regulations adopted by that organisation, which, according to the Explanatory Memorandum, change on a fairly regular basis. This SI is temporary and likely to change again in 2025 when it will be revoked. Can the Minister provide any clarification on whether Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will at that stage have the same regulations as England—or will all four nations be operating under separate arrangements on ice wine? The SLSC raised the issue of confusion around different rules on ice wine being applied across the devolved nations, including for methods of production.

The Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 11.1, indicates that the Government

“will put the necessary guidance regarding measures contained in the instrument on GOV.UK”

once Parliament has approved it. Is it therefore safe to assume that this instrument will be presented to the Chamber tomorrow for approval and that the guidance will appear on the website later tomorrow afternoon? Given the likelihood of confusion, I would like the Minister’s reassurance on this matter.

The Wine and Spirit Trade Association is concerned about the excise duty system and the need to make permanent the temporary easement mechanism. This is the single most important issue for the UK wine sector. The temporary easement taxes all wines in the 11.5% to 14.5% ABV range at a single rate of the mean, I suppose: 12.5%. This is due to end on 1 February 2025. If this is not made permanent, UK businesses will encounter increased bureaucracy and administrative burdens, and therefore increased costs, so will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the Treasury to make this easement permanent and thus support our flourishing wine industry?

This is a fairly straightforward SI which is linked to the CPTPP, and presumably ice wine will begin to appear on our supermarket shelves correctly labelled in the fairly near future, but I do not think I will be able to afford it.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, it is very difficult to follow the noble Baroness after such an erudite speech, but I have a few quick questions to put to my noble friend. As I see it, this statutory instrument is being introduced only because we need to meet the requirements and obligations on the marketing of wine in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. There is nothing intrinsically necessary in the labelling of ice wine that would otherwise have required legislation.

I therefore turn to why we are doing this and why it was originally agreed. I am sure the Minister has had many a glass of fine ice wine, not least from Canada or Germany. The definition of ice wine is that the grapes are left on the vine, as my noble friend said, until the temperature drops to a specific level, which I think is between minus 8 degrees and minus 14 degrees Celsius, which allows the grapes to freeze naturally. Then, when the pressing takes place, they are quickly harvested and pressed while still frozen, the frozen water content remains in the form of ice crystals and only the concentrated sugary juice is extracted. If, by chance, the frost passes quite quickly and the pickers go to the same vineyard and take the grapes from the same vine during the day, when it is marginally above freezing, can that still be called ice wine?

Secondly, and related to that, the alternative method of making ice wine from grapes follows after the harvest: the grapes are harvested and then artificially frozen to a temperature similar to that used in the natural freezing on the vine method. Frozen grapes are pressed much the same and the concentrated juice is collected, similar to the process with the grapes frozen on the vine. They do not need to go through the technical stages that my noble friend has outlined; it could be exactly the same process. As I understand it, there is therefore a distinction to be made between ice wine that is made from grapes frozen after harvest and grapes frozen on the vine, although I challenge the Minister to tell me the difference, if he were given a blind tasting, between the two.

So the Minister comes forward with an excellent SI that says we cannot have anything that is

“a term similar to a term mentioned”

as ice wine. I would be interested to know what a similar term to ice wine might be. We always want to get the legislation exact. I imagine that a lengthy court case might ensue as a result of asking: what is “a term similar to” ice wine? Could it be called “frosty wine”, for example? Would that be “a term similar to” ice wine? I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Opposition, but I give the very fine officials who are sitting behind the Minister the opportunity to answer those two questions. It would be very helpful to me and, I am sure, to the Committee to know those answers.