Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Hampton

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am happy to have added my name to Amendments 121A and 131A by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I am grateful to officials from the Department for Education who had a meeting with us to discuss these amendments and the reasoning behind them.

The reasoning behind those amendments is really simple. The Sara Sharif incident happened despite multiple reviews looking into not dissimilar cases, in some cases over previous decades. In this case, I do feel that almost an extreme preventive approach is required to make sure that we do not have a repetition. The point was made by the officials that there have been significant improvements in the quality of children’s services in most of the country and about two-thirds are now in a reasonable shape, but that raises the question: what about the other third?

If there is another case, God forbid, like Sara Sharif —and history, for I am a historian by background, teaches us that that probably will happen—the opprobrium that will be heaped upon whichever unfortunate Ministers and officials happen to be in office at the time will be considerable and, in our view, is avoidable. We should mitigate that risk by assuming that we have to legislate for the one-third of children’s services that are not in good shape, because that is almost certainly where the accidents will happen. One of the key findings of the Sara Sharif review was that there have been systemic weaknesses again and again, despite all the inquiries and the well-intentioned actions that followed them. This is important enough that we feel we have to prepare and assume that the worst might happen and do everything in our power to prevent it.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 121A and 131A. There is a real problem of mistrust with elective home education against traditional education. I acknowledge my noble friend Lord Crisp, and am delighted to be on his working party to try to do something about it.

I was in the same meeting as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and my noble friend Lord Russell where we talked to the DfE. It was rather wonderful, because instead of talking about technicalities, one of the people there started talking about cricket, which I am much happier with than Section 31s and things. He accused us of setting the field for a bad ball—so we were being extremes. Obviously, I came back with no setting the field for a bad ball but putting some sweepers out as well just in case. The whole point of legislation is to avoid the disasters, the out of the ordinary, the Sara Sharifs. We were also told that a possible future home visit might deter parents from seeking help with a Section 31. Again, I cannot see why. These amendments are incredibly sensible and thoughtful, and their spirit would help those avoidable disasters, which, tragically, may well happen.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Hampton

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of Amendment 62 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler.

The case for this is, really, fairly straightforward. Children in care often have quite strong mental health needs and are not in the best of mental health. Care leavers comprise about 1% to 3% of the general youth population, but that translates into them being responsible for one quarter of the homeless population. That group are twice as likely to die prematurely than the general population, and in many cases suicide is the largest reason for that high death rate. That is a fairly strong causal link between children in the care system, or those going into the care system, having fragile mental health, and that not being picked up as early as it should be. This amendment simply asks that we please ensure that, when children have an assessment of the quality of their mental health, the practitioners who are doing that are qualified in mental health. Only in that way can we be sure that we catch those vulnerable young people at that early stage and that they do not become one of the depressing statistics that I have just mentioned.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 62, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and to which I have added my name. I declare, as ever, that I am a teacher and I thank the National Children’s Bureau for its help on this.

Children do not come into care because they have won the lottery of life; trauma is unlikely to be far from their lives. Yet our assessment processes still rely on professionals who may have little or no training in mental health or trauma-informed practice. Care-experienced young people told the Education Select Committee, as part of its inquiry into children’s social care, that local authorities are not always fulfilling their obligations to include emotional and mental health in their health assessments of children in care. One young person told the committee:

“I feel a lot could be explained if they understood the experience of trauma. It will take time. It will not go away at night, and sometimes before it gets better it could get worse. No one talks about that. You will not be okay if you are going into care; there is a reason why you are there, and so it is important that the minute you go into care every child should have a mandatory assessment, physical and mental, and there should be that on-call support for them”.


Bringing qualified mental health practitioners into the mandatory health assessment of children in care is simple, practical and overdue. I hope that the Government will use this amendment as an opportunity to do more for children in care and to make their lives and, as importantly, their futures better.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Hampton

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 222 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, which she has so ably explained. All the amendments in this group seem to be a good idea. I also acknowledge the help of the Children’s Commissioner and the children’s coalition.

This is a very simple amendment: there is a concern that the offence of child-criminal exploitation, as written in the Bill, gives the perpetrator a defence if he or she reasonably believes that the child is over 18. We understand that this is a common part of legislation around other forms of abuse and exploitation; we believe that it will hinder the prosecution of perpetrators. During the Jay review into child criminal exploitation, many witnesses pointed to the role of adultification and racism in the criminalisation of children. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is clear that children cannot consent to their own exploitation. However, the Jay review found that perceptions of children’s complicity in their exploitation meant that some groups of children, and black boys in particular, were not receiving an adequate safeguarding response. We strongly recommend that this part of Clause 40 is removed. It is a small piece of text that would have a profound effect on young victims.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was happy to put my name to Amendments 218, 219 and 222. The Minister mentioned that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has Amendment 222A. She apologises for not being here this evening, but said that she thought that the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, were so much better than her own, that she would not move them anyway—so that deals with that.

I am a governor of Coram, and used to be a trustee there. Coram is very involved in some of the activities that we are talking about. The Jay review is like a gut punch to the stomach. I had heard of it; I had not actually read it, but did so last night, and did not have a particularly undisturbed night’s sleep. What it contains is pretty horrifying.