Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, the hour is late. I have my name on some of these amendments. I simply say that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has highlighted that around 16% of children aged five to 16 now have a mental health disorder. CAMHS cannot cope with this. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, is certainly trying to plug that large hole.

I also remind the Committee that it has been estimated that in every class, on average, there is a child who has been bereaved of a parent or sibling. That is not trivial trauma; it is major. They need support and help, but they are often not getting it.

On collecting data, it is essential that we know what we are doing. However, we must use validated measures that have been properly evaluated, so that schools are measuring what people think they are measuring and they do not contain leading questions and so on. In addition, good-quality data allows a school to understand whether it is improving.

I declare my interest as having chaired the Science and Technology Committee’s sixth report on allergy, and I strongly underline all the comments made in it. During that inquiry, we heard about children being bullied by other children who put peanuts in their pockets, and about staff sometimes confusing anaphylaxis with panic attacks because they have not had training. It is a very simple measure to train staff and to make sure that they can access an EpiPen. With that, I hope that the Government will adopt the suggestions in these amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the amendments she has put forward. I hope that the Government are thoroughly behind the National Education Nature Park, which is a great initiative from the Department for Education, and are looking for ways to push that out, maybe through the natural history GCSE. If the noble Baroness feels in need of a holiday, I recommend Japan as a place that has really got on top of how to get young citizens involved with nature; that may surprise noble Lords, in view of the urban character of Japan, but it is very good at that.

I also agree with my noble friend Lady Spielman that indirect measures are best. They are very much the underpinning of the Good Schools Guide: watching, observing and looking for strong structures and relationships—and, yes, someone to turn to when you do not know what to do, but an excess of mental health professionals is almost always the sign of a school in trouble.

When it comes to children, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies. By asking a child a question, you create the answer; you have to be really careful how you try to measure well-being, particularly in young children. Maybe the Dutch can teach us to do it, but I share the scepticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about much of what is going on in schools at the moment.