Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

I add to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, on school uniforms that the VAT regulations seem to cut directly across these provisions. For clothing sized for most teenagers, the only items of uniform that are unequivocally zero rated are those that are clearly branded with the colours and/or logo of a specific school, so there is a risk that items that were formerly zero rated would now have to be standard rated. This means parents paying not less but more. I am sure that Ministers would not want a provision that was intended to save parents money ending up costing some parents more. That really would be an own goal.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I think there are two things on which all in this Chamber can agree. First, school uniforms are important. I think the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Mohammed was that they give confidence to learning, and I think they give a sense of identity to young people. That is the first thing that we can all agree on.

Secondly, we can all agree that we have to ensure that school uniforms are affordable and that parents of children from poorer families do not feel discriminated against. I want to give two practical experiences. I should declare an interest as a governor of the King’s Leadership Academy, Wavertree.

My first practical example is that, when I was a deputy head teacher, the school governors did not believe in a school uniform. That was not a particularly good decision, because young people from well-off families would wear the latest trainers and show off the latest T-shirts, designer gear and so on.

My second example is my own daughter. She went to King David High School and had a very simple uniform of a sweatshirt, a polo shirt and a grey skirt. A new head came along, who was anxious to make the school stand out, and the uniform changed to a kilt, a blue blouse, a V-neck pullover with the school colours in the V-neck, a blazer with a badge and a tie. The cost went through the roof, so that was clearly stupid.

If you want to deal with this issue, the current proposals from the Government are a bit of a dog’s dinner—or Eton mess might be a better phrase. I just do not see how it is going to work. My first question to the Minister is: what about the poor old book bag? In my school, infants carry their little, green, nylon, £3.20 book bags and it means so much to those children; they encourage them to value books and to read. That would be included as one of the branded items and presumably would go. Primary and infant heads would have to decide whether the book bag is going on the altar of correctness in terms of uniform.

My second concern is that this is just not workable. If a school decides that it wants other branded items, it can write to parents and say, “This is the law of the land but, if you want additional branded items, it is up to you”. Is the Minister going to enforce this and say to parents, “No, you cannot have this additional item”? Of course they are not.

Sport was mentioned. You see teams playing in the dominant school colour. Let us say that it is red; they will play their football, rugby, hockey, lacrosse matches or whatever wearing red. What happens if they turn up for a match and both schools have the same colour red? They have to notify teams beforehand which colour to wear, which is absolutely nonsensical. If you want pride in schools, you will also want pride in sport. I do not see this happening at all.

If you really want to deal with this issue, two things should happen. My noble friend Lord Mohammed talked about the Sheffield situation. I think that it was either the Macmillan Government or the Wilson Government that brought in school uniform grants, by which every local authority could provide money for families in poorer circumstances. This was not just in Sheffield; in Liverpool, Birmingham or elsewhere, this happened. But my noble friend’s two points are absolutely right: it is not about trying to limit the number of items, but about trying to get the costs correct. If the Government were serious about this, they would reduce VAT on clothing and they might look at an acceptable level of expenditure.

The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, was right to talk about the “magic three”. Imagine the Government saying, “We want to do something about this but how can we do it?” The civil servants and Government would get together and say, “We don’t want to go back to grants because the budget would go through the roof. We want to keep VAT; if we go down that route, there will be requests for other items to be excluded. I have an idea: why not limit the number of items that can be branded?” That is not the way it works; it will just not happen in the future.

This is totally different, but I am reminded of when in the Blair Government there was talk of school assemblies. The Government of the day said that every school had to have a collective act of worship every day and that it had to be mainly Christian. You go into schools today and that does not happen because it is totally unworkable, as people come from different circumstances and faiths. I am giving that example to the Minister to show that legislation has to work—and collective worship did not work in schools. That is the point I am trying to make.

If this is carried, it just will not happen. If we really want to make a saving for children and families, we have to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 195A, 195B, 198 and 199, and Amendment 199ZA, from my noble friend Lady Sater, which I have signed. We all recognise that the Government committed in their manifesto to bringing down the cost of school uniform by limiting the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools require. I wonder whether those who wrote the manifesto might now, having listened to this debate, wish that they had phrased it slightly differently and just stopped at committing to bringing down the cost of school uniforms full stop.

The amendments in this group, as we have heard, all seek to find ways to give schools more discretion and flexibility in the uniform they require pupils to wear, particularly regarding branded items, while meeting the Government’s goal of keeping costs as low as possible. As we have heard, Amendments 202A and 202B seek to limit the environmental damage from branded uniforms.

We have heard, very eloquently, from across the Committee, about the value of uniform, the sense of community it brings, the safety it provides for children travelling to and from school, the fact that it saves parents money and encourages participation in sport, and—a new one to add to my list that appeals to me a lot—the subtle rebellion point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton.

The Government’s approach raises a number of questions, particularly given the recent Private Member’s Bill, now an Act, passed under the last Government and sponsored in this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, who is not in her place, and the fact that, as my noble friend Lord Agnew said, the current guidance states:

“Schools should keep the use of branded items to a minimum … ensure that second-hand uniforms are available”


and avoid using items that are available only from a single supplier. The guidance is very clear:

“Parents should not have to think about the cost of a school uniform when choosing which school(s) to apply for. Therefore, schools need to ensure that their uniforms are affordable”.


A real merit of the current guidance is that it talks about the cost of the total uniform and not just the branded items, because that is what parents pay for. As we have heard, the cost of branded items has fallen significantly in real terms in recent years.

Furthermore, the definition of “school uniform” in the Bill is very broad. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made the case for the nylon school bag—I have several of my children’s in cupboards at home, fondly full of school reports. It also includes any clothing required for extracurricular activity, including items without a logo but which are only available from “particular suppliers” and have a “distinctive characteristic” such as its “colour, design” or “fabric”. We know from the Answer to a Written Question that, based on the department’s Cost of School Uniforms Survey 2023, which surveyed parents, an estimated one-third of primary schools and seven in 10 secondary schools will have to remove compulsory branded items from their uniforms to comply with the proposed legislation. The impact of the Government’s changes will be felt far and wide but not, it appears, in reduced costs to parents, which is rightly the Government’s objective. Given all the recent legislation and guidance, it is hard to see how this is the best use of time for school leaders, governors and trustees.

Amendment 200, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, would achieve two goals. First, like the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, it approaches the issue from the perspective of cost, rather than being prescriptive about the number of branded items a school is allowed to require its pupils to wear. Secondly, it addresses the issue of responsibility for the cost of school uniform and makes it absolutely clear that this should rest with the members in an academy trust and the local authority for a maintained school, rather than with the Secretary of State. Both these points are important; cost is at the heart of the issue, but so too is the need to keep responsibilities clear and delegated to the responsible bodies, rather than centralised. It is extraordinary to imagine that the Secretary of State has any time to worry about book bags and ties. That is why, although I agree with the principle behind Amendment 195, I believe that my noble friend’s amendment is stronger as it captures both points.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I do not think the main reason why pupils are being excluded from school is because of issues to do with their hair, but I do think it is right for schools to have the ability to set the criteria and the constraints within which they expect their pupils to behave. While not being across all the individual cases that the noble Baroness outlined, I can imagine circumstances in which it would be justifiable to take action against students who perhaps persistently fail to comply with the rules that have been set by a school, including about their appearance. We have had a wide-ranging debate, and I hope I have responded to all the points raised.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Will the Minister go away and consider the fate of the branded book bag, which means so much to primary and infant schools? It should not be included as part of the three, because it is a way of encouraging reading and literacy in our schools.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I also very much enjoyed the bookbags my boys carried backwards and forwards to school, but I am not sure that trumps what the Government are trying to achieve in reducing the cost of school uniforms. Of course, any school that felt that was crucial could of course include it in the three branded items in the legislative proposals.

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[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Nash’s Amendment 279. It suggests a very mild tweak to the proposed legislation, largely because he is respectful of the majority of parents who do a good job in home education, which I completely agree with. However, I see at close quarters the impact of home education in deprived communities where the parents have limited education themselves and little interest in it. They are clearly unable to educate their own children and yet, when they are withdrawn from schools, there is nothing a school can do. These children are being thrown to the wolves and, as the Minister has said, the numbers are escalating.

My noble friend Lord Nash talks about a trend over the past 10 to 15 years but, according to the NSPCC, the number has increased by 186% in six years. In 14 local authorities, it has quadrupled in that time. These are not all middle-class, educated parents, but we have no idea who they are.

In 2021, the House of Commons Education Committee’s Strengthening Home Education report made a number of recommendations. Perhaps the most important was that the DfE should provide

“a set of clear criteria against which the suitability of education can be assessed, taking into account the full range of pedagogical approaches taken in EHE”—

elective home education—

“as well as the age, ability and aptitude of individual children, including where they may have SEND”.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, a government-sponsored group, produced a number of recommendations on home education in its May 2024 report, and many of these mirrored the report I have just mentioned. The report refers to 27 referrals received between August 2020 and October 2021, involving the deaths of six children and a further 35 suffering serious harm, including physical neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse. There are many other good recommendations, but, as they do not fit this specific amendment, I will not list them. I recommend these two reports to any Peer interested in this vexing subject.

My noble friend’s amendment would provide a very light-touch review point. Bona fide parents would not be negatively affected. On the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, I say that the amendment is extremely light touch, but it would move the situation from what is currently a complete black hole to at least give us some indication of children’s well-being.

I want to finish with the case of Sara Sharif. Many noble Lords will know about it, but I will remind the Committee. A 10 year-old girl was withdrawn from her primary school in April 2023 under the pretext of home education. This occurred after teachers noticed bruising, which she had attempted to conceal beneath her hijab. The school referred their concerns to social services, but, after being taken out of school, she became invisible to safeguarding agencies. Neighbours reported hearing constant crying and screaming. She was murdered by her father and stepmother. They were convicted in December last year. The lack of school oversight allowed this to happen undetected. I respect the good work that most home-educating parents do, but it is for cases like hers that I support Amendment 279.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for taking this issue on and for being aware of the problems that we face. I also recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, was on to this in her role as Minister as well.

I have met hundreds of home educators and considerably more have contacted me, and most of them do an amazing job. Noble Lords ought to know that some of the home educators who have contacted me by email have been concerned about what has been going on and given practical examples of that. We need to get a balanced picture sometimes.

If we really want to understand this issue, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, makes the point in his amendment that 39,000 children are missing—we have no idea where they are. The Government want to tackle that head-on. Imagine a society that says to those who want to remove their children from the education system that that is fine—just do it—but we will not keep any records and we will have no idea what you are doing at home, and will leave you to get on with it. Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine a situation where fundamentalist religious groups set up unregistered schools and we have no idea what is happening in them, except occasionally when some of the teachers working in them report to the authorities the appalling behaviour of staff? Ofsted has on many occasions tried to close those schools down, but they re-emerge as home education settings—

[Lord Nash (Con)]

On the figure of 30,000, the Education Policy Institute, of which I was a trustee until relatively recently, estimated by comparing GP registrations with school registration and home education data that in 2023 there was a gap of 300,000 children—and that was not accounting for home-educated children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that.

Clearly, there are different groups of home educators and we cannot just use the blanket term “home education”. First, there are the traditional home educators. Let us be honest, the most important educators in a child’s life are the parents, and some parents have the time, opportunity, money and desire to teach their children at home. They do a fantastic job. As I said earlier, I have met many of them. They organise summer camps, celebrate together, et cetera. In the main, they are probably the people who have the resources and time to do that. The second group are those whom my noble friend mentioned: parents who feel that the education system is not working for their children who have special educational needs. I think we can understand that.

Then there is a third type, which the noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned. After Covid, children, mainly from poorer families or disadvantaged backgrounds, returned to school and could not cope. They went back to their parents and said, “I don’t want to be in school”. They nagged their mum and dad who, in the end, said, “Okay, we’ll home educate you”, despite having no experience of home education at all. Sadly, those parents did a major disservice to their children, who of course were not being home educated—they were just doing nothing at home and getting further and further behind in their learning. Some have gone on to criminal activities as well.

Finally, there is the group I mentioned before: those in unregistered schools. If noble Lords knew some of the practices that went on in those schools, they would be appalled. In fundamentalist religious schools, eight year-old boys spend all their time just learning holy scriptures and have no proper education, which is not acceptable at all.

I understand some parents’ concerns that they do not want to see bureaucratic procedures getting in the way of their home education, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, rightly mentioned. It is not beyond our wit to look very closely between Committee and Report at what we require. It is important that we know where children are. Any system we bring in has to work; we have been down this route before. In my first headship—some teachers here will remember this—there was the unique pupil number which every child had and which went on with them to whichever school they went to. The school had a duty to inform the next school that the child was moving to, et cetera.

That, for some reason, has broken down; I do not understand why. Therefore, the system that we adopt here has to work—and not just between schools; in cases where children do not go to school, we have to know where they are, so that we can keep them safe and ensure that they are learning.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

Perhaps I might build on that point. There seems to be a lot of conflation in this debate between home education and children who are missing education or invisible. It seems that all these measures are designed to try to find these invisible children. Is there not a risk, as I think the noble Lord is touching on, that we may bring in a system that does not actually find the missing children? The people who are very determined to abuse their children, or to hide them in very fundamentalist environments, are the very people who would not register their children even if we had a database. In which case, we would be going after all the people who are doing a good job in the noble Lord’s first few categories. Will the parents we actually want to get—the 39,000 or 300,000 or however many—really self-disclose? There is a real risk that we might not know this until we have imposed a huge amount of bureaucracy on all the parents who are doing a great job.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. The answer is that, at the moment, we are not doing anything, which is why the children are going missing and why we do not know where they are. We therefore need to do something to ensure that those children have the opportunity of education and are safe.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. I am on the Social Mobility Policy Committee. As part of the evidence gathering process, we went to Blackpool, where we met with the Department for Work and Pensions, which has a database on many children who are being home-schooled because they are in receipt of benefits. Indeed, a lot of the parents who have been mentioned today, who are not particularly well suited to home education, also claim benefits. If the Department for Education and DWP could communicate with one another, we could get to these people via the benefits system.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point; I am sure that the Minister is listening and learning. Again, I hope that, between Committee and Report, we can be sure that what we legislate for will be workable, clear and as unbureaucratic as it can be.

Finally, I will deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made at the very beginning made about flexi-learning. I have some slight experience with that, because, as I think I have mentioned before in your Lordships’ House, I had a pupil who was school-phobic; he literally would not come into school. His mum was a nurse and did not have the opportunity to home-educate, so we home-educated for her. Gradually, by that home education—which, I suppose, was a type of flexi-learning—we were able to bring the boy back into school.

I hope that, at the end of debating these many amendments, the most important thing will be that we ensure that we know where every child is, that every child is learning and that every child is safe.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the clarity she brought with her earlier remarks. She set out the objectives of the Government and her commitment, on behalf of colleagues in the department, to work with Peers across the House—it looks as though that will be in August—to explore their concerns and, where possible, to address them. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for the constructive tone of his opening remarks.

The principle of having a register for children not in school has long held cross-party support and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, described, there are very different groups of children who are educated at home. What the debate has started to explore is that, in our eagerness to safeguard vulnerable children, which we must try to do well, and to support those children who have struggled in mainstream school, we must also make every effort not to stigmatise, or to treat with suspicion, parents who make a positive choice to home-educate their children.

This group and many of the others which follow highlight the complexity of creating a home-schooling register and the multiplicity of details that need to be considered. I note that Amendments 202C, 227, 227A and 286 and the opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill are all probing, and I look forward to the Minister’s clarifications. I thought, unsurprisingly, that my noble friend Lord Frost made some very valid points on the risk of duplication of supervision and safeguarding in relation to children who are flexi-schooled.

On the individual amendments, there are two in this group which we support: Amendment 226 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and Amendment 279 in the name of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew. With regard to children missing education and Amendment 226, most people would be surprised if it was not already a duty to inform the court if proceedings relating to the welfare of the child were under way and that child was not in school. It seems to me highly relevant information for the court to take into consideration, since there is a lot more risk attached to a child who is classified as missing education as opposed to a child who is electively home-educated. I am not sure about the practicality of consistent arrangements to address persistent non-attendance or irregular attendance, as the noble Lord’s amendment sets out, but I absolutely support the spirit of his amendment that the family courts should be made aware of the child’s situation and the risks that accompany it.

Amendment 279 in the names of my noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Agnew raised the important point of what a local authority can do if it has concerns that a child is not receiving a suitable education or, indeed, any real education at all. I hope that the Government have thought about this and have a plan for it. There is a great deal of detail in new Section 436C in Clause 31 of the Bill, but nothing about the actual education that a child receives, just the time spent and with whom.

On Amendment 233A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I remember very well the meeting with a group of home-educators—in fact, I look below Bar and there they are again, in the same place as last time; it is like Groundhog Day. The amendment would remove new Section 436C, which defines in detail the content and process for maintaining the proposed children not in school registers. While I agree with the noble Lord that the drafting appears unnecessarily detailed and potentially intrusive, it is important to have clarity about what will be recorded and how it will be kept up to date.

I also cannot support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s opposition to Clause 31 standing part of the Bill, although I appreciate that this was designed to give the House a chance to explore the principles that the Government intend to follow, which we have heard from the Minister. My noble friend will remember that, in the 2022 Schools Bill, we were very clear that a register for children not in school was necessary. I think the current Government have improved on our original proposal in one way, with the increased focus on safeguarding in Clause 30—although, as I said in relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I regret the extent of detail that is required in the Bill. Of course, we will probe in subsequent groups the balance between the clear right of parents to educate their children at home and the right of a child to receive a suitable education, but the principle of a local authority register for children not in school has very broad support.

My understanding is that the remaining amendments in this group are also all probing amendments. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

School Libraries

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point about the power of books and reading to enable children—in fact, all of us—not only to recognise the world in which we live but to have our horizons expanded. The Index on Censorship survey was an important but relatively small survey. I understand my noble friend’s point and recognise the important advice provided by the School Library Association, as well as the Government’s reading framework, on how to develop good-quality school libraries. However, it has been the decision of subsequent Governments not to collect the sort of data that my noble friend is asking for, partly because of burdens and partly to allow schools the autonomy to make decisions about how they stock their libraries. I strongly endorse my noble friend’s initial point about the benefits to children from reading and enjoying a broad range of books.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, in talking about this example of over 50% of books being withdrawn, I wonder whether the Minister is concerned that there might be a case of schools feeling intimidated and having the knee-jerk reaction to withdraw the books without thinking it through. I am surprised that there is no thought of giving any guidance to schools about how they might react.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

To clarify, I think the survey showed not that 50% of books were withdrawn but that in 50% of cases there was pressure to withdraw books—pressure that might have come to fruition. As I previously said, there is important guidance for schools from the School Library Association and through the Government’s reading framework to support them in developing their libraries and the other ways in which they make books available to children. Of course we support schools in making the right decision for the education and broadening of horizons of children and in making sure that all children’s lives and families are represented in the books they have the opportunity to read in their libraries.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

I very much support the idea that it should not be limited to children who may be exploited. All unaccompanied children, many of whom are in danger of being exploited in this country, should have this same service. I hope, despite the restraints of cost, that the Government will look seriously at this, roll out the current guardianship scheme right across the country and add asylum-seeking children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I entirely agree with what has been said. You cannot imagine how it must be for a child or young person to suddenly arrive here on their own and not have any knowledge of how they progress or what to do.

Liverpool used to be a centre for children who were just sent to the UK, although I think there were a number of places. I remember vividly a boy who arrived in Liverpool at the age of seven. The local authority, which happened to be Knowsley, immediately found foster parents for him. His life was completely changed; he came to my school not speaking a word of English, but when he did his key stage 2 SATs in maths, he got fantastic results. The sad thing was, of course, that at the age of 18 he had to be sent back home.

I do not understand the difference between a local authority dealing with this problem and organising foster parents and providing a guardian. There must be something so that young people who arrive in this country through no fault of their own are supported.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 166 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, would amend the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and, as I understand it, would complement the role of the independent child trafficking advocate in these cases with the right to an independent guardian. It would also expand their remit to include children who are separated from those with parental responsibility or the equivalent in their home country.

As the noble Baroness knows, probably better than anyone else in the Committee, there is existing statutory guidance for unaccompanied migrant children and child victims of modern slavery dating from 2017. It is clear that, in common with all looked-after children, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are entitled to independent advocacy support. The guidance stresses that this might particularly be the case for this group of children.

The Refugee Council has a very helpful flow chart on its website showing the asylum process and clearly highlighting the role of independent advice at two stages in the application process. As we heard from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the independent child trafficking advocates have only partially been implemented. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about full implementation.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for sharing the recent research from the LSE and the University of Bedfordshire with me. As she described very emotively, this paints a picture of real inconsistency in the response that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children receive. It makes a number of recommendations, including this one. However, as the noble Baroness knows, implementing independent legal guardians would require significant investment in training, establishing oversight and case management systems—although I acknowledge her cost-benefit point. I presume that there would also need to be some form of proper accountability and oversight of these guardians.

There is a case for making the existing law work as it was intended before amending it and introducing an alternative. I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s deep and long-standing concern and work in relation to the welfare and rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but there are profound questions to be asked about her amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

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[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak on this group—I was a minute or so late, for which I apologise. I wanted to hear the arguments of those who oppose Amendment 177 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I will just address a couple of those.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said that we cannot warn children of the danger of smartphones if they are not using them in schools, but let us be more realistic. The school day is only seven or eight hours, and there are 52 weekends and 15 weeks’ holiday. They are going to use these awful things, whatever we do. But at least schools provide a safe space if they cannot use them—we heard the point from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, about not being mugged on the way to school. I see it in my own schools where, although we have bans, the kids get around them. If they have hair similar to that of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, how do we know whether they have AirPods in their ears? With the so-called magnetic pouches, you can buy a disabler on the internet to get rid of it. The list goes on and on.

I agree with the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that you cannot uninvent them, but they are very toxic. We look back on tobacco and sugar, yet we are allowing these things to go on while people cogitate, when it is so obvious that we should be bringing a much more vigorous ban of these devices into schools as soon as possible. I support the noble Lord, Lord Nash.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard some very powerful speeches this afternoon, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, who talked about a world health crisis. I was also taken by my noble friend Lord Addington, who talked about the importance of technology for special needs. I am going to be brave and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton: I want to see children talk to each other, and I want to see them play in schools.

I remember being absolutely—I cannot find the adjective to describe it. During our debates on the Online Safety Act, we were remembering the young girl, Molly Russell, who took her own life after being groomed online, and her brave father sat below the Bar for the whole of that debate. I thought what a brave parent he was, to sit through that and listen to what had happened.

I do not know whether any of your Lordships saw “Question Time” last week—I do not tend to watch it these days—when one of the questions was about smartphones. A young man of 18 or 19, who had ADHD, pleaded with the panel to ban smartphones. He said, “I am addicted to them—I cannot stop myself using a smartphone. Please ban it”. I thought, “Wow! What a brave thing to say on television in front of everybody”.

Whatever we do, we have to make sure it works. It is no good us passing laws which do not actually work. I remind noble Lords that children who are under the age of 13 are not allowed to use social media. That ban does not happen. I had children at my school who were seven and eight who accessed social media. Whatever we agree, it has to work. My great fear in this whole debate is that it will not work, and people will find ways around it. So I plead with the Government—indeed, with everybody—to have a realistic streak in what we do.

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[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I support the group of amendments before us, which are well judged. I appreciate that they are essentially probing in nature, but I will make a couple of brief observations.

First, the amendments are important because they focus our minds on long-term strategy. It is often the complaint about government—about any Government; I do not want to be partisan in that regard—that Ministers will often look at what is in tomorrow’s papers and what is going to lead the politics shows on Sunday. At most, if they have particular levels of vision, they might look at what will get them through to the next election.

We know that there must be a much greater focus within government on long-term strategy. The perils of short-termism are no more acute anywhere than in the issue of education. We know that when we look at interventions, particularly early interventions in education, the true dividends of what we provide and invest in may not manifest themselves until 10 or 15 years down the line, but that is no great reason for us to shy away from them. Indeed, it is something that we need to embrace.

Secondly, as other Members have said—I will not repeat the figures—we know that early interventions can create massive dividends for society. Whether that is on the basis of diversion of young people away from future social problems, from justice issues, or of foregrounding, from a societal point of view, in terms of their education, what I think will become an increasing problem, which is the need for early identification of special educational needs—we have seen the explosion in terms of the cost within that. Those are all, if we take it from a very cynical, crude point of view, massive societal gains for a level of investment in early intervention, but on a personal basis, the biggest single intervention is in changing the lives of those individual children. Because I believe that in a society, education can be the great life changer, it can be the great deliverer for young people as individuals.

Thirdly, I believe it is the right focus. We will, in this Committee and other places, spend a lot of time debating the importance of getting qualifications right, getting school transfers correct at different ages, getting the right provision of schools and dealing with curriculums. All those are, I think, very important educational subjects, but the biggest single intervention that helps to determine how successful a child is in education happens before they walk through the school doors in the first place. That is not just my opinion. When I was Minister of Education for Northern Ireland, we commissioned a report entitled A Fair Start, which gathered experts in the field, whether they were academics or people who had direct life experiences. Their strong conclusion was that the biggest single thing that government can do to tackle educational underachievement and raise attainment levels is in that intervention before a child even reaches school.

Fourthly, I say, without entering into the turf war on Sure Start, that it worked well, and when I was Minister in Northern Ireland, I sought to enhance and support it. However, it is also the case that if we are looking at early interventions, we know that there will be families that are at risk of raising children with low educational achievement, and we know that there are communities out there where socioeconomic barriers create problems. Again, from experience and from talking to a lot of people, I think that if we are to have the best early interventions, we need a sense of co-operation and buy-in, particularly from the communities where we are targeting those interventions. If a community in whatever part of the United Kingdom feels that this is simply a top-down solution which is being imposed upon them, and they are being talked down to, the ability for that community to change and to have a level of ownership of education is greatly reduced.

It is important, I think, whenever we look at early interventions that we not only get it fully supported but get it right, which is why I think that the amendments focusing on a strong sense of strategy and taking a very clear look at this are very important.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we very much support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, and the noble Lords, Lord Farmer and Lord Russell of Liverpool. If we were putting together an early years strategy, we have all the ingredients in this Chamber. Everybody has mentioned the ingredients that will be part of that strategy, from good toilet training on. To my mind, what is really crucial is early identification of problems and then early intervention in those problems. That is the key. We have talked a lot about Sure Start. That was a very good government policy and I pay credit to then Labour Government for introducing it. I know that, in my city, we introduced a number of Sure Start centres in deprived areas. Sadly, they were so successful that the more prosperous parts of the city wanted them as well.

The important thing about Sure Start centres was that they were not just for the children, they were also for the mums and dads. They gave support to those mums and dads in all sorts of areas, from financial support to employment ideas and health: a whole menu of things that were important to parents. Also, which nobody has mentioned, there was outreach provision as well, so that staff from the Sure Start centres could go out into the community, visit parents in their homes and give that advice and support.

We have to be honest with ourselves and remember that there was a world recession and we were all scrabbling around to try to find out where the money was coming from. Perhaps in the UK, in some areas, we made some of the wrong choices, but it was left to local authorities to decide, and many local authorities decided that although there had been a huge reduction in the funding for local authorities, they would keep their Sure Start centres. Sadly, some of them closed. But let us not go back there now; let us celebrate that time but also remember that we have family hubs. Family hubs are perhaps the son and daughter of Sure Start centres and maybe they can, over time, take on some of the other roles that were provided in those previous centres.

Importantly, the amendments say, quite rightly, that there should be two elements. One is that local authorities should make sure that parents are aware of the facilities, information and support that is available to them. It is not just statutory or local authority information; it could be from charities as well. The second is that they can get that information quickly. The Secretary of State must also produce a report that is available to parents and carers as well.

I thank everybody who spoke in this debate: I think it has been really important and useful. There are two things that were not mentioned. The first in fact links to the debate on—dare I mention it?—smartphones. One thing I see that really upsets me currently is parents who, to keep their children quiet or occupied, hand them an iPad. I have seen two and three year-olds with an iPad in the back of a car. I am sure that family hubs will be saying to parents, “That is not the best use of an iPad” and “That is not the way to develop your children”.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, reminded us of going into a primary school where the head teacher said, “I can look at a two, three or four year-old child and see that they might become a problem in the future”. Tony Blair said exactly the same thing some 30 years ago, and there was an absolute furore when he said, “I can go into a nursery and can see the potential criminals of tomorrow”. What he actually meant was that if we do not, as a society, deal with the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, has made, then, yes, that is a probability.

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[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I want to express some concerns about Amendment 183CD. Its intentions are clearly excellent, but there are nevertheless some real concerns to take note of here.

Diagnoses of special educational needs are made by educational psychologists and experienced clinicians. To ensure there is consistency in diagnosis and treatment, it is important that that continues to be the case. By contrast, “neurodivergence” is a term with no clinical definition or standard. In a world where stigma about mental health conditions has been reduced, or in some cases even reversed, it is, as we all know, increasingly common for teenagers and adults alike to assert their neurodivergence. Sometimes, that leads, in essence, to a claim, by or on behalf of the individual, that they should be able to self-identify into additional services or special treatment.

In the case of the criminal justice system, the hazards of that are obvious, and, if children, parents or their lawyers see an opportunity, they will have a strong incentive to take it, irrespective of whether they have a true diagnosis that warrants that treatment. So, although it is of course sensible for police to obtain information about a child’s diagnosed health or educational conditions that are relevant to their detention and treatment, and so to make proper inquiries, that is one thing, but to set up a parallel diagnostic system leaning on a concept that does not have a clinical definition is another, and is clearly wasteful and risky. Those concerns should affect any consideration that is given to this amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I do not think that the amendment says that it should not be qualified practitioners who carry out the assessments. We already know, in general terms, that 85% of young offenders have special needs. It is important for their future journey that the type of special need is identified by a qualified practitioner.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As drafted, the amendment explicitly suggests what my noble friend referred to. Proposed new subsection (2)(b) says that the strategy must set out

“the accredited training police officers and legal representatives of the children must complete to support the child’s wellbeing and to aid recognition of SEND and neurodivergence”.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

I am grateful for that clarification. Maybe this could be picked up on Report, but it is hugely important. As my noble friend Lord Addington said, there is a young offenders centre in Wavertree where qualified staff assess pupils and provide for their needs.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to this amendment, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I thought, from the original groupings, that we were also going to talk about Amendment 502T, but I gather that is no longer the case, so the Committee will be relieved to hear that my speech will be even shorter.

Like my noble friend Lady Spielman, I do not support the noble Lord’s amendment, although I accept absolutely that it is a real sign that a child or young person has been failed by both their family and the services designed to support them if they end up in police custody. But the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s guidance regarding the treatment of children in police custody is clear. It already states that children should not be held overnight in police cells, suggesting that time will typically be very limited in police custody. It is also clear on the role of the local authority where there are concerns about the child’s welfare, and the child’s right to have an appropriate adult present to explain their rights and help them understand the situation.

In practical terms, even if we could magically find an educational psychologist to go to the police station, I question whether that really is a good time to assess a child for special educational needs and disabilities, since it is a particularly stressful situation. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said, very specialist skills are required for this. To reiterate, there is no high-quality definition of special educational needs and disabilities and no clinical definition. My noble friend already said that there is no clinical definition for neurodivergence. Currently, definitions of SEND vary from school to school and within different forms of SEND. This confusion would open the door to misinterpretations. For example, a child could have ADHD, but that does not mean that they are incapable of making decisions. With respect to the noble Lord, who is not in his place, I suggest it would be very hard to make the amendment work in practice.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this stand part notice is to probe, and therefore understand, what changes the Government intend to make to the regulation of agency social workers and how those changes will work in practice.

I am very well aware of the concerns about social worker recruitment, but I was in fact slightly surprised when preparing for this debate to find that, as of 30 September 2024, there were 34,300 children and family social workers in total, which I gather is the peak since data started to be collected in 2017; and 6,500 agency social workers, which is the lowest since data collection started. Vacancies fell by 6.9% year on year, there was a drop in staff turnover of 13.8% and the average caseload fell to 15.4%. The vacancy rate is still high at 17%, but down from 22% in 2022, and 76% of vacancies were filled by agency social workers. Retention has improved, with the number leaving to work in an agency falling by 38%, while the number of social workers leaving the profession entirely fell by 5.3%. So I know the situation on the ground is extremely difficult, but I think it is helpful to have a bit of context.

As I understand it, in terms of the current regulatory environment, agency children and family social workers are covered by the Agency Rules: Statutory guidance for Local Authorities on the Use of Agency Child and Family Social Workers of September 2024. As I understand it, this has the same aims as the proposed regulations: to control costs, improve quality, reduce turnover and ensure that governance is retained by local authorities. Two main requirements are planned to be implemented this year: first, there must be data collection by local authorities on the number of agency workers, with the first submission having happened in April and May 2025; and, secondly, that local authorities must submit plans on locally agreed price caps by this October. The main thrust of Clause 19, therefore, is to make regulations for what is already covered in statutory guidance.

The department’s policy summary says that the Government intend to regulate

“a broader cohort of agency workers than child and family social workers including, but not limited to, social workers”—

forgive me for being slow, but it is not the clearest explanation. The summary goes on to state:

“The regulations are likely to include similar provision to the current statutory guidance which currently applies to social workers only, but to a wider cohort of workers”.


Sir Humphrey would be proud.

In the other place, the Minister for School Standards said on 28 January that this could include

“agency workers delivering targeted early intervention or family help”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 28/1/25; col. 234.]

I therefore ask: are the Government’s plans restricted to these two groups only, and if not, who else will be covered? How many of those workers are there nationally? And what is the current cost of agency workers in the different categories to local authorities? The proposal to expand the replacement regulations to a wider cohort is not defined anywhere in the Bill or the accompanying policy summary, so it would help to understand the Government’s intentions better.

Can the Minister also explain how the regulations will differ in terms of local discretion from the current statutory guidance? I am unclear on this, but perhaps suspicious that it might result in a more directive approach from the department and less discretion for local authorities themselves. Can she confirm that there will be exceptions to the specific requirements detailed in the regulations, for example for payments above the national rate if there is a local staffing crisis?

The Minister knows that the use of agency workers varies greatly across the country, but the powers in this clause are wide-ranging and—yet again—are going to be set out in regulations. The powers in new Section 32A(4)(b) and (c) appear to be very broad indeed, including about how social workers will be managed and the terms on which they may be supplied, including the amounts that may be paid under such arrangements. This would allow the Secretary of State to set payment rates from Whitehall. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can explain to the Committee why this is a good idea.

The fundamental problem underlying this clause is, as we debated in the area of children’s homes and foster placements, a shortage of capacity. No local authority is using agency workers other than because it has no choice but to do so. The previous Government had taken steps to address this with the Step Up to Social Work scheme and the creation of social work apprenticeships. Can the Minister update the House on the progress of these? I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, gave the background in terms of the statistics and figures, which make for quite a salutary understanding. Agency workers are, as we know, three times more likely to leave a case mid-assessment compared with permanent staff, which obviously would increase risks to children. Let us remember that local authorities spend £500 million annually on agency social workers—on average 60% to 70% more per worker than on permanent staff. Inconsistencies of local policies allow agency staff to move frequently between councils, undermining safeguarding and continuity and, of course, causing resource churn—what a phrase, “resource churn”.

Some rural and high-need areas rely on agency workers due to staff shortages, with poorly defined regulation risks shrinking this vital stopgap workforce. Do we ensure that the training, supervision and caseload standards for agency workers are the same as those of permanent staff? I worry considerably that we see permanent local authority staff taking early redundancy payments and then reappearing as agency workers. In some cases—I do not know whether this is the case with social workers; my research has not shown me that yet—they are then reappointed by other local authorities. That surely cannot be right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to raise that, but—I hope she will not take this the wrong way—the figures that she cited are as much the responsibility of the previous Government as they are figures that the present Government have had to inherit. Towards the end, she mentioned some of the initiatives that her Government had started; I do not know whether the Minister has a briefing on them, but it would be interesting to know whether they have at all been helpful.

One thing I cannot understand—well, I can understand it—is that many public services face a shortage of public service workers. It is not just social workers; it is right across the board—teachers spring to mind. Yet at the same time our universities face shortages of students wanting to come to university. Surely, that is a way of sorting that out. Why do people not want to go into social work? I know why; you know why. Why do people not want to go into teaching? I know why; you know why. That is the answer to the problem: we want to make people want to be teachers and social workers, and we want our higher education and further education sectors to be geared up to that. The Government’s mantra, which we all agree with, is, “Training, training, training”, but training is no use if people are not prepared to take it up. This is a classic example of the problem we face.

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[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 151. My friend—the noble Lord, Lord Addington—has done my job for me, but I will not be done out of my few moments to speak.

I am absolutely thrilled that the Bill seeks to strengthen the support provided to looked-after children and care leavers. I seek to add Jobcentre Plus to the list of organisations classified as a relevant authority. Currently, the authorities listed—I will not name every single one—include central government, education, health and youth justice. On a previous amendment I gave something of a statistic sandwich, but let me remind noble Lords of those figures. As at May 2025, there were 923,000 NEETs, and 41% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were deemed to be NEET. Some 66% of young people in Feltham young offender institution, and 25% of the adult prison population, have been in care. That is frightening.

Ultimately, the Bill seeks to improve outcomes for looked-after children and care leavers, but the one organisation that is missing is Jobcentre Plus. I have known that organisation for—I do not want to give away my age—35 to 40 years. I know people who have worked there for 25 years; they ring me and tell me about all the things they are doing or are struggling with. Jobcentre Plus has an excellent network of staff and of third-sector and other organisations that, collectively, can wrap these people up in their arms and make sure that we improve outcomes for young people. The rationale for its existence is sustainable employment—which is critical to care leavers and looked-after children—and jobcentres are already delivering services aligned with the Bill’s aspiration.

Recently I went to visit the Margate task force. It is in a room not much smaller than this wonderful Chamber, but it has Jobcentre Plus, the police, immigration and social services in there—you name it, it is there. The youngsters and the people at most risk of getting themselves into trouble are known to them all, and when there is a problem they can sort it. I cannot speak highly enough of the potential for them to be added to this list.

Formal inclusion of jobcentres would ensure accountability and consistency in the quest. Their role has the potential to improve outcomes for all young people, particularly those who are in care and looked after, and help them make a good transition to the world of work, giving them the best start in life. I spent yesterday talking to another organisation about how, if we started this thing in schools, if we got hold of them and started early, we could prevent a lot of this happening—but you have heard all that from me before, so I will not go on again.

I urge the Minister to include jobcentres and their network of excellent delivery partners in the list of relevant authorities. I look forward to her reply and live in hope that she will do this or, if not, help us understand why.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, all these amendments help in some way and are important. It seems to me that Thursday afternoon in the Chamber has become friends day. I will add just a few thoughts. On the whole issue of children in care, we have constantly said that we should do everything that we possibly can to support those children and young people.

To add to the figures that the noble Earl gave, 13% of care leavers go on to higher education by the age of 19, but that compares with 43% of all young people. They also have higher rates of homelessness, unemployment and mental illness. The noble Earl mentioned those young people not in education, employment or training, and those figures are starting to deteriorate rather than improve. We need to watch that situation very carefully.

On balance, I support Amendment 151 from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, but I just make this additional point: expanding duties to more bodies may stretch already underresourced systems, especially if there is no additional funding allocated to support any legal changes.

I will make one point that has not been mentioned by any noble Lord. It is about children in care who do not have British citizenship and lack the support to secure it, risking detention, loss of rights or removal. As we know, the average cost of registration is £1,012, and that is often a significant barrier. Immigration and asylum decision-making has historically failed to consider the welfare of children, particularly those under Section 22 of the Children Act. Maybe the Minister can respond to that issue when she replies.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Lord’s point about resources and stretching people too far is well made. I would never want to do that, but these people are doing it now. I sat with a lady who has worked for the jobcentre for 25 years. People she has helped still come to her before they get into trouble, and I just think it is well worth considering.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

For a number of years, when the noble Baroness’s Government were running things, I was always concerned about the issue of Jobcentre Plus mentors, who are hugely important in this area, and was trying to probe to find out what training they had. I never got a straight answer, and never found out whether they were equipped with the tools to do the work, particularly in this area.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott’s amendment on jobcentres. I hear the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about resource stretch, but from my own experience of this in my academy trust, we have about 50 looked-after children, and I require a report on them to come to every one of the trustees’ board meetings. It does not cost anything, but it just gives a little bit of focus to these very vulnerable children.

The same could apply in jobcentres; it just needs an asterisk by the person’s name so that when the advisor is talking to him or her, they can use a little bit more empathy and maybe ask a couple more questions about the status of that child. I strongly support my noble friend and hope that the Government will support her amendment as well.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I just remind the Committee that, 12 or 13 years ago, when we were looking at the Children and Families Bill, my noble friend Lady Benjamin took up this issue with great vigour, and quite rightly so. Since then, of course, times have changed, as traditional child employment laws have often failed to address online influencer work, digital content creation and remote gig roles taken up by children.

My own experience as a head teacher at a primary school was that I had a number of such children. I remember Josh Bolt, who appeared regularly as a main character in “Last Tango in Halifax”, and the problems that we faced trying to ensure that he could fulfil his acting potential. He was able to do so, and appeared in the film “Nowhere Boy”, about the life of John Lennon. But it was us bending the rules, quite frankly, and not following the exact letter of the law, which allowed him to fulfil his dreams and ambitions. There were other children as well; I think of sports and those children, both boys and girls, who went to football academies, for example. A number of them went on to have successful careers in sport.

So we must make laws that not only protect the young person but work for the young person as well, enabling them to enhance their skills and take up the opportunities that are available. According to the Education Policy Institute, part-time jobs can support resilience, time management and confidence. But, of course, unregulated work can harm education as well; it is about getting the balance right.

I am looking forward to discussing the amendments on school registration. Some schools can be overzealous on registration and do not take personal factors into account. It is really important that we listen to my noble friend Lady Benjamin, in particular; she has huge experience in this area. If we want to be a successful nation in the cultural industries, which we are, little hiccups such as this need sorting out.

One noble Lord mentioned that there are discrepancies between England, Wales and Scotland in child labour and performance law, and that creates confusion and enforcement challenges. While performance licences require education provision, oversight is inconsistent and, as I have been saying, schools sometimes incorrectly mark children absent when, in fact, that should not be the case. I am sure that the Government will want to listen to what is being said and to make this work for families and children.

I was particularly taken, as it had not occurred to me until I read the amendment, by the point that my noble friend raised at the very beginning about how these earnings should be, if you like, looked after for the future. That is a really important point.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased that we have been able to have a wide debate on the measures in the Bill that relate to child employment. I am sure many noble Lords agree that employment can have a hugely beneficial impact on a child: it can contribute to their development, introduce them to the world of work and help them develop key life skills. However, current legislation needs to be updated to better reflect the world of employment today and to make things simpler and clearer for children, families and employers.

I should perhaps be clear at this point that, in this group of amendments, we are talking about two different sets of regulations. We have heard, and I will come to, the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser—by the way, both of them demonstrate the benefits of being a performer, child or otherwise. To be clear, these are two completely different sets of regulations. To respond to the specific point, the changes made in the employment regulations do not impact on the ability of children to be performers.

I speak first to the government amendments in this group, which include Amendments 157 and 158 and consequential Amendments 503, 506, 507 and 510 to 514. These amendments seek to bring these changes in employment regulations to children in Scotland and Wales too. Our aim is that all children, regardless of where they live, can benefit from these new employment opportunities. These amendments will ensure that children in Wales and Scotland, as well as children in England, will be able to take advantage of the greater flexibility that this clause allows. This means being able to work more hours on a Sunday, an hour before school, and until 8 pm—crucially, without increasing their overall weekly working hours. This is to ensure that employment does not negatively impact on their health, development and education.

We have also made a small amendment to the definition of “light work” so that it better reflects the circumstances of children who are educated at home, not just those who attend school. I will try to come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. The new definition of light work is probably more appropriate at this time, when children’s work is not necessarily going to be about only the physical efforts that they are engaged in but other elements of that work which could have an impact on their health, development and education. Overall, this increased flexibility will ensure that a child can, if they want to, benefit from the positive impacts we know that the world of work can bring, and we will have a more consistent approach across Great Britain. In doing that, we will be allowing all children to benefit from the same employment opportunities. I hope noble Lords will feel able to support these government amendments.

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[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I was not originally planning to trouble this chorus, so I will be very brief. It is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I absolutely endorse and support his Amendment 185A, which he spoke to just now in very cogent and powerful terms. If we can ensure that there is more sport in schools, that will have a read across to health and well-being and it will help counter obesity.

I suggest that one of the most important takeaways from this short debate has been the figures put forward and explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, around the obesity crisis we are facing in this country. It really is quite shocking. The impact that will have on the health service in future generations is something we should all be really concerned about. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, also made that point extremely well.

During my 32 years as an MP, I tried to visit a school every fortnight. Over 32 years, that is quite a few schools. I saw a great variety—a huge spectrum—of performance in terms of school meals. To be honest, you can have whatever standards you want, but if there is not leadership in schools on the part of the head and the chairman of governors, and there is not determination and will to ensure that food is of a high standard, then even with more money schools will not deliver. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, made a very good point that it is not just about cost, as you can deliver better-quality food with really good ingredients at very little extra cost. That has been proven beyond any doubt.

I had a look a moment ago at Ofsted’s responsibilities. Ofsted is not actually responsible for food in schools but can comment on the standards of food. I have read a huge number of Ofsted reports over the last number of years, and I do not recall any of them commenting on food standards, even when it is well known that food standards in that school are at a very low level. It is legally the Minister’s department’s responsibility, but Ofsted can comment, and I think that it should comment much more often. Can she comment on that point?

I raise very quickly the point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, regarding SEN pupils at special needs schools. In my old constituency, there were two special needs schools and there were a number of autistic units in secondary schools. A special school, with the leadership and the right policies in place, can often deliver really high standards of food; I have seen that on many occasions. Normally, there is a determination and will in those schools to make sure the pupils are properly fed and given every opportunity. That is very often in the context of a well-equipped and well-funded special school.

However, when it comes to an autistic unit within a secondary school, as my noble friend Lord Holmes pointed out, there are lots of issues around transport, the one-to-one attention that these children often demand, the role of TAs and the fact that very often you have an autistic unit that is separate from the main school, although it is part of the school. I suggest to the Minister that sometimes that unit can get left behind. What is her department going to do about that, because so much of what we heard during this group of amendments is very positive but it requires delivery? Even when the legislation is passed, I hope that some of these amendments will be picked up by the Government. Although my noble friend Lord Moynihan said his was a probing amendment, I see no reason why the Government cannot adopt and support it, go away and think about it and include it in the Bill when we come back on Report.

With those few remarks, I hope the Minister will take on board the point that, whatever the Bill says, it will require her and her department to make sure it all happens in the future.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I always enjoy the sports love-in we get in these debates. I admire the support we have for each other.

I was a great fan of the Blair Government in so far as, on the curriculum, they ensured that in primary schools there was at least two hours of physical education a day—and that happened. They also encouraged swimming and after-school activities, with the setting up of after-school clubs. That was really important but, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, suggested, since those days we have gone backwards.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Addington that you can link after-school provision and breakfast clubs to activities as well, and that happens all the time. We have talked about the 400 breakfast clubs, or however many there are, but for years many schools up and down the country have been providing breakfast clubs, either for free or sponsored by a local business or provided by the school itself from its pupil premium or at very little cost. There are probably more breakfast clubs in that category than the current pilot has to offer. We should thank those schools for what they have been doing.

I also have a great deal of time for the coalition Government’s decision to bring in free universal meals for all of key stage 1—that is years 1 and 2. The independent results from the provision showed that providing free meals improved attendance and learning, helped children who were in poverty and improved social interaction between children, because when you have breakfast together, you talk and relate to each other, and that is hugely important.

The amendments that have been tabled have to be thought through very carefully. They all have something that adds to what we understand. I do not understand, for example, why the Government never consider automatic enrolment. Is it to try to save money? Surely not. I also think that we have got to a stage now where we have the 300 or 400 pilot schemes in the breakfast clubs, and I would like to know when the next phase is going to happen and how many schools we think we will want to encourage. There will no doubt be a question about the provision of kitchens and all those sorts of things. I would like to know the answer to that.

We have that. We have the free meals for key stage 1, which have been extended with the Government’s announcement. Presumably we will look at after-school provision at some stage because providing meals for children after school is important as well. There is the issue of meals in holidays. All those have a cost to them. I understand why the Government do not want to do things straightaway, because you have to find the money to pay for them, but we could have a road map of where we want to go—what do we want to do first? What are the next things we want to do?—so that the points made in Committee can be clearly thought through.

We started this debate with the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I was fascinated by the information that she gave us, which was picked up, of course, by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. It is not just about provision; it is about the quality of the provision and how healthy that provision is for children. It is easy to give a plate of toast or whatever, or a soft drink, but that is not necessarily healthy. It is easy to give Kellogg’s—and yes, Kellogg’s would want to sponsor various schools, would it not?—because it is filled with sugar. That is not the breakfast I think children should be having. Those are really important issues and when the Minister goes away from this Committee stage, I hope she will reflect on these amendments, because I think they are potentially life-changing for our children and young people.

Finally, let us just remind ourselves that, as of 2023, over 4 million children across the UK live in food-insecure households, with the cost of living crisis creating further problems in terms of access to nutritious food. The absence of school meals during holidays has been linked to cognitive decline, poor nutrition and a rise in child hunger-related hospital admissions. That is independently verified. I thought the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in relation to special schools was hugely important; again, the Minister should think very carefully about that. I thank noble Lords for the amendments, which, if enacted, will make a huge difference to our children and young people.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the provision of food in schools. It is essential that children have a balanced diet to ensure that their development can progress as it should. As such, this is an incredibly important group of amendments, as a balanced diet is the cornerstone of ensuring that our children grow up healthily.

I will speak first to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which I have signed. Amendment 186B is a probing amendment that seeks to understand why the Secretary of State would not be able to exempt a school from the duty of providing free breakfast clubs without a prior application from the school. It seeks to question how this application system will work in practice. Can the Minister say what the process will be and whether there will be a time by which the Secretary of State must respond?

Amendment 186C probes the same area but seeks to clarify the consultation process that a school authority must take before making such an application. It seems important that teachers are also involved in the process, so will the Minister give greater detail about the process and explain why the teachers are not included?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 163, tabled by my noble friend Lord Bird, to which I added my name. One of the advantages of membership of this House is the free subscription to the New Statesman, which recently devoted a whole issue to Britain’s child poverty epidemic. From it, I will quote Andrew Marr, who wrote that

“child poverty is inescapably central to any party with a sense of justice and fairness—it creates damage for a lifetime”.

As a teacher, I am increasingly aware of the growing research that shows that education is not the leveller that we thought it was. What comes in goes out. Poverty, lack of opportunities, transport and cultural capital all impact on a child’s progress and attainment. As Gordon Brown said, it costs more not to invest in children than to invest in them. We have déjà vu here. Once again, like the curriculum review, the Bill is arriving before a crucial report. This amendment, so movingly and passionately introduced by my noble friend, enshrines that the findings of the child poverty strategy are acted on. If they are not, a lot of work that we have been doing on this Bill will eventually be proven to have been expensively wasted.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for his tour de force. One thing he did not say was that, as soon as children, particularly children from low-income families, go into school, the gap in their learning narrows as a result of child poverty. Growing up in poverty is strongly linked to lower educational outcomes, worse health and reduced lifetime earnings. As of 2022-23, 4.3 million children, 29%, in the UK lived in relative poverty. Rates are higher for single-parent and minority-ethnic families. An estimated £500 million in unpaid child maintenance exists, and many lone parents do not receive the money that is due to them. The Child Poverty Act 2010 led to measurable progress until—and this is crucial—the targets were removed in 2016. During that period, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%.

We could all get involved in talking about the effects of child poverty, but the amendment is about saying, “We need to have targets”, and that is absolutely right. You cannot go on a journey unless you know what you want to achieve and measure as you go along. I will repeat the evidence to support that: the Child Poverty Act 2010 had targets, and it led to improvements. As soon as those targets were removed, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%. What does that tell us? Does that tell us targets are right or that they are not the best way of moving forward? I do not know, but my common sense tells me that you need to have targets to understand where you are going. I do not understand what I am saying, to be quite honest, because I thought the targets were—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have not spoken on the Bill, but I have been present for quite a lot of the debates. I am slightly confused by the what the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, and I wonder whether he meant to phrase it like that. He said that when the targets were removed, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%. Does he mean it the other way round—that it rose, rather than fell? I just wondered whether he might be able to clarify that.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I have to be careful here with what I say. When are you are in Committee, you are dealing with dozens of amendments, and you get handed briefs to do that. Initially, I read that to be the way the noble Baroness said it. But when I read it again, I thought, “This does not make sense. Could it be the other way round?” I slightly inwardly panicked and thought, “I am not going to mislead the Committee and say something that is not correct”. I am going to put that down and say that my common sense tells me that if you are doing something, you need to know where you are going on that journey. You need to be able to understand that a target is set and ask, “Have I reached that target or not?” The best example of that is—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I am so sorry; this is perhaps just to put the noble Lord out of his misery. I remind noble Lords that under the last Labour Government, there were targets. They were made legally binding in the 2010 Act, but the targets were already there, and child poverty fell. Under the subsequent Governments, child poverty started to rise again, and it has risen. I am not saying it is just because of the targets, but the targets certainly helped to galvanise civil society, local authorities and central government. That is why the noble Lord’s gut feeling is absolutely right.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

It is wonderful to be surrounded by so many supportive people, including someone in the Official Opposition, who has just told me it should be the other way round.

What I originally said should have been the other way round. You have only to look at the NHS to see that: when we had clear targets in the NHS, we could see the progress that was being made or not being made. As soon as we did away with targets, we did not know how successful or unsuccessful we were. I support this amendment because it says, “If we are going to deal with child poverty, we need to say what we want to achieve and the targets we want to set”, and we can monitor them and know whether we are successful or unsuccessful. I apologise for misleading the Committee.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by stressing that reducing child poverty is a goal that we clearly share across the House, and tackling the challenge of child poverty must be a priority for every Government. This Government have been very clear on that point.

Understandably, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, reflects his desire to drive forward real progress on this issue, and he brings extraordinary experience from his own life. My remarks and caution about the noble Lord’s amendments are in the spirit of honesty and respect to the noble Lord and in no way diminish the aims of his amendment but raise, I hope, reasonable questions about the approach.

As the noble Lord said—I have never heard the phrase used like this before, but I thought the concept of inherited poverty was very helpful—we know that child poverty stems from a number of different interconnected factors, including employment patterns, housing costs, structure of families, educational opportunities and regional economic conditions. My overriding concern is that having binding central targets risks oversimplifying this very complex challenge and could overlook local interventions that genuinely improve children’s lives. The challenges and underlying causes of a child living in poverty in Hackney or in Jaywick are significantly different, despite them being only about 50 miles apart. In fact, I would argue that, for a child growing up in poverty, the differences between Bristol and Weston-super-Mare, which are on each other’s doorstep, are also very great.

We have seen repeatedly how targets can distort behaviour and priorities. When governments and local authorities face binding targets, there is a risk that they are driven to pursue interventions that improve statistics rather than outcomes. This can lead to short-term fixes that artificially move families just above the poverty threshold without addressing the underlying causes; somewhere back to the empty stable and bolted horse that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, referred to. However, I absolutely recognise the reality behind the call that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made to make particularly deep poverty more comfortable—a slightly curious concept, but I think we all understand exactly what she means.

Child poverty, as noble Lords know, manifests differently across England—from rural communities that face challenges with transport and access to employment, to urban areas grappling with housing costs and concentrated deprivation. What works in Manchester would be inappropriate for rural Devon, and I would argue that local authorities, combined authorities and community organisations are perhaps often better placed to understand and respond to their specific poverty challenges than central government.

Setting binding targets risks creating a hierarchy of government priorities which may not reflect emerging needs or, indeed, changing subjects. Such targets risk us focusing on specific areas rather than the underlying causes of child poverty. So again, I do not agree with the approach set out in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, but I do agree with his ambition; and I also agree with the call of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for action as well as words.

As I said in opening, I know that the Government are very focused on reducing child poverty, and I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

I support Amendment 119, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, about the availability of boarding places. I do so as a former south London boy who was, rather unexpectedly, because of family circumstances, sent away to a boarding school—with, I believe, considerable financial help. Pretty much every child in care I have ever spoken to, when I have asked them, as I tend to do when I meet them, what the biggest issue facing them is, replies that it is the lack of a constant adult in their lives—the revolving door of people responsible for them. This leaves issues of lack of trust, which can stay with such children all their lives.

In a boarding school, a child has a constant adult—often a housemaster or mistress. I accept that it might not be appropriate for all children, but I agree that children should be offered it. It can be a very inexpensive way in which to look after these children, although obviously that is only a secondary consideration. I have seen the benefit of this in many cases of young people who have experienced boarding, thanks to the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation.

I support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and others about unregistered settings and about children being sent away many miles from their home.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that all these amendments would enhance the life chances and life opportunities of looked-after children, and they should be seriously considered.

In the 21st century, the words “unregistered” or “unregulated” should never enter into our dialogue or vocabulary. It is not acceptable for our schools or our children; whether it is an unregulated school or an unregulated home, it should not exist. I wish that I had signed the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and I apologise for not doing so. The noble Lord is absolutely right to call it scandalous. Noble Lords should have a look at the BBC “Panorama” programme from two or three years ago that looked at looked-after children in unregulated schools. Never mind caravans—some of them were being housed in barges. Imagine that in the winter. Unregulated provision is never inspected, and anything can go on in them. The children are not safe—we should not allow it to happen. Of course, Ofsted does not inspect them either. We owe it to our children to give them something better than that. I agree with my noble friend Lady Tyler that we cannot do that overnight, but we can make a stand and say that we are not going to have children in unregistered provision and we will phase it out. That would be a testimony to the current Government.

On Amendment 129 from my noble friend Lady Tyler, to which I added my name, everything that she says almost ties in with that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson; they are very similar on what they say.

I turn to Amendment 119 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I think that the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Bennett, are looking at a stereotypical view of boarding schools. I would like to take them both to Liverpool College, which was an independent school and is now an academy, and where the local authority buys in places for looked-after children. The children get accommodation of high quality, but they also get adults who properly look after them, and they get sport and they get clubs and activities as well as outdoor pursuits. What is more, they go to the school and get fantastic results. I agree that not every boarding school would be suitable, but if it is a choice between being on a barge or in a caravan or some other dump, as some of the unregistered schools are, a boarding school would be a better prospect.

I had not thought about the link between schools, GPs and looked-after children moving into a particular area. Presumably, in a digital age, when we are about to move to a new registration system, probably linked to NHS numbers, there is a real opportunity for us to be very joined up. When children move into those areas, the doctor and the school will be notified, and it can only benefit the child as well.

I like the idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, of a national plan to ensure that there are sufficient places for children and we are not in the same position that we are in currently. We cannot wave a magic wand and expect this to happen overnight, but all of us in this Chamber want the same thing—we want the best possible opportunities for children, including registered schools and proper provision properly inspected. As we have said time and again, we also want the children to be as close to their locality and their family and friends as possible.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate on a range of specific amendments, all of which either seek to improve the residential care provision for children and young people or, in the case of Amendment 165, require notification if a child is placed in temporary accommodation. This group has been named the “Why wouldn’t we?” group.

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[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I have added my name to a number of the amendments in this group; I could probably have added it to all of them. Like other noble Lords, I am very grateful for the work of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which has been quoted several times. I am ignoring all the careful facts and figures I had prepared for this evening, because most of them have already been given by other noble Lords, and it is a principle here that we do not repeat what has already been said. Rather, I would like to speak to the broad principles and the moral case, and to be brief.

I have been struck by the number of parallels with another situation of last resort that I have worked with for many decades now, and that is families who are made homeless. Homelessness should be rare, short and unrepeated and so should a deprivation order for a child. It should not be something that happens very often; it should only ever happen the once; and it should be for the shortest possible time. A number of the amendments in this group, particularly those I have signed up to, would help to ensure that that is the case.

When I have been dealing with services for those who have been made homeless, what matters is the quality of service that is provided. I have tabled some amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill that are around that. Some of these amendments in this group would ensure that children who are deprived of their liberty have a good solid provision of services for them.

Finally, when I have been dealing with homelessness, I have heard too many stories where families are trekking across multiple local authority boundaries to get to a school. It is important, as some amendments in this group would tease out, that if we must deprive a child of their liberty, we should do it as close to where they live as possible and as close to where they belong.

I will echo the words of one other noble Lord to finish with. I was really struck and impressed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, reminding us about love, relationships and belonging. It is these big-picture issues that matter. They must be the foundation stones on which we build services for some of our most deprived and vulnerable children in our society.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I realise that, quite often, we are very privileged in this House that, when there is a Bill, we get showered with briefings from all sorts of organisations. Of course, we read them, and then we say, “Oh my goodness, I did not understand this. I did not know about that”. Then, when we come to debate in the Chamber, we get real expertise, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who bring that added understanding and information. In fact, I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who mentioned Learn with the Lords, and when I do a Learn with the Lords session, and they ask, “Why are you in the Lords?”, I say it is because we have got real people who are experts in the field, and when you listen to them, you say, “Wow”. That is not just in this debate.

When I looked at the briefing from the Nuffield Foundation, I was just absolutely shocked. It was not something in my understanding or that I particularly knew about. I do not want to repeat the figures—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said we should not repeat things—but when you read the briefing, perhaps they do need to be repeated because they are quite shocking. The number of children being deprived of their liberty through the High Court is rising and rising—102 in 2017, and in 2024 it had gone up by 1,100%. These were meant to be last-resort measures, but there were 10 times as many applications to deprive children of their liberty to the High Court as there were applications for secure accommodation orders between July 2022 and March 2023. We have talked a lot about the voice of the child. It has sort of been a mantra of this part of the Bill, and yet only 10% of children were present at hearings considering their case. So where was the voice of the child? The other figure which quite alarmed me was that 89% of parents or carers were not represented at hearings.

Of course, these children are not only the most vulnerable children but also, in most cases, very difficult children to manage and to support. You need highly trained and professional people to be able to do that. Sadly, those numbers of people are not always available. The final part of this briefing, I noticed, said that costs are escalating—not that costs are everything—but outcomes are not improving. You would think if costs were going up, the outcomes would be improving.

Finally, I want to deal with one point that was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, because it quite surprised me. She talked about children in handcuffs. The reason I was surprised about that was that I remember that, during the coalition period, one of our MPs sent a letter around saying, “If we have achieved anything, it is to stop the use of handcuffs on children”. I was quite shocked to hear that, and I went to ask my noble friend Lady Tyler if I had got this wrong and she said she thought I was right. I do not know where this is happening, and we need to find out. I really look forward to the Minister’s response on this.

I added my name to Amendment 132, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, on expanding the legal duties of the independent review officer.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 119 to 124 very briefly. We have touched on some very important points, and there is something that still needs to be crystallised. As others have said, these are some of the most troubled children in the system. They are also the ones whose care is probably the most expensive of all. Such specialised arrangements have to be made. We have touched on the tensions here between local authorities, the health service and the justice system. One of the reasons for the increase in the number of orders is the reduction in the number of justice secure beds and also tier 4 mental health beds. We have this terrible lacuna around children whom the health system deems to have, for example, untreatable personality disorders but who very clearly need to be looked after somewhere where both they and others can be kept safe and to have everything that we can do to improve their lives and to help make life work for them on a permanent basis in a healthy, humane way. This is an enormous challenge. I would very much like to hear the Minister explain how the health functions of government are also going to be tied into making the deprivation of liberty scheme work.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I was pleased to be asked to speak to Amendment 82 by my noble friend Lord Farmer, who is unfortunately not able to be here today. As well as the evidence I will refer to, I was in your Lordships’ House back in 2014 when my noble friend gave his maiden speech. A Conservative Party treasurer perhaps brings a certain stereotype to mind. However, you could have heard a pin drop, as a globally successful metals trader spoke of being a young teenager in a chaotic home with an alcoholic single mother. But he went to the boarding house at the state-run Wantage Grammar School. It rescued him.

It made me reflect on the role of boarding schools. I was born and bred in Oakham and I have had to deal for many years with the annoyance of, “You’re from Oakham? So you went to Oakham School, then?” “No”, I reply, “there is a state comprehensive as well in the town, called Catmose College”—which was rated “outstanding” in every category in an Ofsted inspection in 2024, if noble Lords will forgive the shoutout for my state school.

This testimony by my noble friend is supported by the 2023 study by the University of Nottingham’s School of Education, commissioned by the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation, which found that children in or on the edge of care who attend state boarding or independent schools experience significant educational and financial benefits. They are four times more likely to achieve good GCSE passes in English and maths and five times more likely to pursue and succeed in A-levels, leading often to higher education. The study estimates that, for every 100 children attending boarding schools, lower social care costs and increased future earnings mean there is an economic return on investment of approximately £2.75 million. The report stated that, when vulnerable children in boarding schools were interviewed, they said such opportunities were life-changing.

This amendment would also make it significantly easier, as my noble friend Lord Agnew outlined, for kinship carers to step forward to offer a home to a child who might otherwise enter the state care system. Not every family will want or be able to house the child 24/7, 365 days a year. That can be a daunting task. They know of course that their own children will be greatly affected, and their house might not be big enough for that extra child. Kin altruism can be greatly aided and encouraged when a child can be educated in this way in the state boarding sector, giving the carer breathing space to attend to all their other responsibilities, while knowing that the child is safe and cared for in the state boarding sector. I hope the Minister will look at the evidence carefully in relation to this matter.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we have no amendments in this group, but we are very sympathetic to them. When you look at all the statistics for children in care, your heart goes out to those young people, and we should do everything humanly possible to help them, develop them, encourage them—and any other adjective you can think of.

I will deal with a few of the amendments. First, I want to deal with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. He may not know Liverpool College, but it is a very successful independent school with a dynamic head teacher, a Dutch American who came to England and did two things. First, he made Liverpool College an academy, and then he decided to make a boarding facility available. He came to an agreement with the local authority that he would offer a percentage of the places to children in care. The results have been spectacular. It is a model that should not be shunned for party-political reasons—“We are not in favour of independent schools or boarding schools”—but should be welcomed, embraced and encouraged.

Secondly, I want to make a point about Amendment 83, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. Again from personal experience, not only did we create a virtual school in Liverpool, but the then director of education, Colin Hilton, said, “I am going to be the virtual parent of these children”. He set up a steering committee of children in care in the local authority and he met with them once a month to hear their issues and their problems. Some might think this was flag waving, but, by taking on that role, he nailed his colours and the colours of the local authority to the mast, and again the results were amazing.

I am in favour of all sorts of information being made available, because it is only by getting information that you know what you have to do and how you can achieve it. Surprisingly, I am the chair of Liverpool’s education, employment and training scrutiny committee; the Labour authority has made a Lib Dem the chair of two of its select committees. The local authority sets a series of targets, and for education those are obviously training, employment and so on. In each quarter, we look at the results next to the targets we hoped to achieve, and I was surprised that children in care were not separated in those figures. I asked for the figures to be separated and that has now happened, so you can track the progress that those children in care are making.

So all these amendments, in one way or another, can only help to further the support that we as a nation want to give to those children in care. On the question of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, again, why not? All these issues are important, so I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 94 in this group. It is very much the same as my amendments in the last group. If we can get local authorities to say clearly what they are doing and what they have achieved in a year, then they will wish to do better next year.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I just want to say a few words, especially in support of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I remember that 14 years ago this issue was discussed during consideration of the Children and Families Bill. We all sort of huffed and puffed and said, yes, this is really important, but nothing came of it. I just wish we had seized that opportunity then. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, rightly said, we do not want to make this a missed opportunity. Some young people are ready to leave, but many are not. If you look at the figures for young people who are not in care and not fostered—I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned 24 year-olds—sometimes we see people in their 30s still living at their parents’ home. What happens in those families should be reflected right throughout our society. Sometimes young people are not emotionally ready. We heard of “pack the bag and go”, but I can tell of the opposite: foster parents, at their own cost and in their own time, being prepared to keep on their foster children for several years afterwards. That is amazing.

I turn to the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Having each local authority publish what its national care offer should be seems such an obvious thing to do. I just hope that the Government will seize this opportunity and do that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 85, 89, 92 and 93 in my name. Clause 7 introduces new requirements for local authorities in England to assess whether certain care leavers aged under 25 need Staying Close support; and when such support is deemed necessary, the local authority must provide it. This provision builds on the Staying Close pilot scheme, which gives care leavers safe and secure accommodation along with a trusted adult relationship for emotional and practical support. I am very grateful to the charity Become for sharing its expertise in this area with me. As the Minister knows, each year thousands of young people face what we might describe as a care cliff edge. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, vividly described, when they leave the system, they are expected to leave home at around 18—often abruptly but, I hope, not always as abruptly as in the case she described—losing vital relationships and support when they most need help transitioning to adulthood.

Research by Become shows that

“the transition from care to ‘independent living’ is often poorly planned and managed, and many young people feel unsupported”.

Evidence from the Staying Close pilots demonstrates

“improved outcomes for care-experienced young people … including better ‘independent living’ skills, increased happiness, better stability, increased participation in … education and employment; and a reduced risk of homelessness”,

and that extending Staying Close support to age 25 will benefit thousands of young people leaving care. We warmly welcome that.

However, we have concerns about the drafting of Clause 7, which could limit its impact. First, Clause 7(2) requires local authorities to assess whether Staying Close support serves the young person’s welfare, but without providing specified assessment criteria. We worry that this could lead to the rationing of support or a postcode lottery. Our Amendment 85 seeks to address that by explicitly setting out the factors the local authority must have due regard to, including the

“wishes and preferences … accommodation requirements … emotional and practical support needs … and existing support network”

of the young person. Our ever-optimistic Amendment 92 would give the local authority flexibility to offer additional support where it is judged to be appropriate.

The current wording defines Staying Close support merely as providing advice and information or making representations to help with accommodation and services. The Minister will know that “making representations” does not always translate into a service. That narrow definition does not reflect the comprehensive support that was offered in the pilots, so our worry is that it will not achieve the same positive outcomes that the pilot did.

Our Amendment 89 aims to strengthen the voice of young people and ensure that a record of their wishes is kept. The Bill does not reference young people’s wishes and preferences. We believe, and I know that the Minister agrees and has been a great leader in this, that young people’s input is vital when determining support.

Lastly, our Amendment 93 gives a strong legal entitlement to an opt-out for all care leavers, ensuring young people’s preferences guide decisions about their support and create consistent assessment criteria. I very much hope the Minister agrees that these are reasonable and practical amendments that the Government could turn into their own.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, very generously pointed out the response of the previous Government and put the case for extended Staying Put support extremely ably. I am sympathetic to the spirit of his amendments; indeed, he or another noble Lord mentioned that, when asked, 75% of children said that they would like to go on living with their foster parents beyond the current limitations. I look forward to what the Minister has to say on that. I am also sympathetic to my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 94. Having clarity and good performance-management data should always lead to better outcomes.

I feel rather mealy-mouthed not to be more enthusiastic about the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 164. I absolutely do not want to sound preachy, but I worry. Of course it is extremely important that information is accessible and easily accessible, but, as we often discuss in your Lordships’ House, some of that comes from the culture and the attitude to young people in care and the relationships that we have with them. I suppose my only hesitation is that information without relationships does not get us much further, but I know that all noble Lords know that.

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That lends itself very neatly to Amendment 99, to which I have added my name, which would define a national offer for care leavers. Therefore, one could use one amendment to try to embrace and pull together the issues where the disparities are; then, under Amendment 99, pull it together into a much clearer exposition of what needs to happen for it to work and what the standards are. As other noble Lords have said, clearly there is—and should be—room for local variation according to local needs and expertise, etcetera. This seems a sensible way to proceed.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lady Tyler, and to Amendment 130. We have heard that 67% of care leavers are anxious about money, according to the study by the charity Money Ready. Given that the second Oral Question today was on financial education post-16, it seems appropriate to talk about this in considering this amendment.

Some 80% of care leavers want more help managing their finances. Rent eviction and homelessness are the consequences of poor financial literacy. In 2024, a report from the Become charity revealed that 4,300 young care leavers aged between 18 and 20 end up homeless. This represents an increase of 54% in the last five years. The Staying Put charity has helped, but most still leave care on or before their 18th birthday.

In contrast, 55% of female and 59% of male 20 year-olds still live at home, and 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. Most young people move out when they feel ready, when they have the financial capacity and literacy to live away from home. In contrast, care leavers need to be ready to leave home at a much younger age and do so usually with very tight financial budgets. There is no home to go back to if the money runs out.

It is easy for care leavers to miss out on financial education to help prevent issues that come up with independent living for the first time. Not only is there little information about financial management; the avenues available for reaching support to apply for grants and loans mean that many struggle to access these resources.

Because of the nature of the job market and house prices, 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. The cost of living is keeping people at home; care leavers should have this support too. The expansion of the Staying Put scheme is supported by charities, and evidence from the charity Become shows that this would be a core way of mitigating against homelessness among care leavers.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that this was a wide-ranging group. As I was thinking about it, I thought that what pulls it together is that it is a kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of the amendments in it are the basic planks at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid; one of those planks is of course healthcare.

My Amendments 96 and 107A try to address some of the evidence, which noble Lords will be well aware of, that shows that care leavers face much more negative physical and mental health outcomes than their peers. These disparities stem from the trauma they have suffered, adverse childhood experiences and, sadly, in some cases, the inability of their carers to meet their healthcare needs.

In the general population, children and young people visit specialist clinics more frequently than adults, if they need them, and their growth and development necessitate regular adjustments to medication and treatments. In young adulthood, health needs typically stabilise. We expect adults to manage their own healthcare, work with GPs and other medical systems, and self-manage long-term health conditions. Parents in supportive family settings will guide their children, and maybe even grandchildren, through this transition, but care leavers do not have that support. They often struggle to recognise that they need help, they do not know how to seek it, and it can often be very difficult to navigate complex healthcare systems. As a result, care-experienced people have a very poor uptake of physical and mental health support but very great physical and mental health needs. These clear and practical points were raised with me by the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, to which I am extremely grateful for its briefing and advice, and for the time it has taken talking me through these issues.

My Amendment 96 would require local areas to set out clearly the transition arrangements for health and primary care for care leavers. It does not feel like it should be too much to expect this to be available. As importantly, my Amendment 107A would automatically schedule an extended GP appointment for care leavers who wish to use it; that is the simplest way to bridge this gap and empower them to talk about their health needs, and understand what local services are available to them and how to access them easily. Through this, they would receive support in navigating health systems—from booking appointments and requesting repeat prescriptions, to recognising when they need help. It seems a very small ask, and I hope the Minister will say yes.

There is a coherence to the other amendments in this group. They are the planks that all of us all too easily take for granted, such as having confidence in and transparency about how money works, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, so ably argued. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, cited the interesting example of the appetite for financial education of care leavers who are part of the universal basic income pilot.

I put the case for health and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, put the case for Staying Put—it was such a good idea that we have had it twice—and possibly the national offer. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham highlighted very simple human requests about how the housing system works for care leavers. The idea that a young person aged between 21 and 25 who has been through the care system has to yet again prove they are vulnerable is frankly shocking. I hope the Minister can say something encouraging about that.

We have a combination of the specific elements that would make a difference to care leavers’ lives: the reporting data that my noble friend Lord Lucas raised; the financial aspects highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Bird; and, crucially, as I mentioned on an earlier group, the importance of relationships, ably explained by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott on behalf of my noble friend Lord Farmer. I remember listening to the honourable Member for Whitehaven and Workington talking about this issue, and I think he said that every child is one or two relationships away from success or failure. Actually, in the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, of children going into gangs, they are seeking relationships. We would all do the same if we had no choice, but we want strong, positive relationships such as lifelong links has been proven to create, so I very much hope that, when the noble Baroness comes to sum up, she will come with good news.

--- Later in debate ---

It simply feels wrong—indeed, inhumane—that children in care do not have a right to reasonable contact with their siblings in the way that they do with their parents, and that they are not always supported to stay in touch with their siblings. Their lives are tough enough; why are we making them tougher still, when this small change could make a real difference? I very much hope that Ministers can see their way to make some progress in this area. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I shall speak to my noble friend Lady Tyler’s Amendments 101 and 102. Without embarrassing my noble friend, I thought that was a very powerful and emotional speech. For all of us in this Chamber, one of the most important things in our lives is the love of our family, our friends and relationships with other people. Those are the very things that children in care are often missing, so we should do all we can to ensure that they have the relevant relationships that they want. My noble friend Lady Tyler rightly said that we all need people in our lives to give us love, support and positive relationships—hear, hear.

Children and young people in care indicate that it is relationships not just with professionals such as teachers and health professionals but with a range of other people who provide an important support network that they need. The quality of the relationships is much more important than the quantity. Research suggests that the presence of one stable and significant adult in the life of a young person is more important than multiple relationships.

Social care cases across the UK reference the benefits of promoting the relationships of looked-after children. Those benefits will include: contributing to children’s resilience; promoting physical and mental well-being; minimising the likelihood of forming alternative, potentially dangerous relationships; helping with therapeutic work; and enhancing the stability of placements. But there are many barriers to ensuring such stable relationships.

As a teacher, in case conferences I found time after time that—through no one’s fault but perhaps the fault of the system—one of the problems was that the social worker had moved on to another area of work. The child or young person had built up a relationship with the social worker, and the social worker, through no fault of their own, had to move on to another job, perhaps because of a shortage of social workers. That created real pressures. Changing social workers and professionals means that there is not the time to build the trust with young people that is so essential. Where young people are excluded from shaping contact plans, or where previous secure attachments have been broken through experience in care, children often struggle with trust issues with adults—something that is exacerbated by the constant changing of social workers, as I have said.

On Amendment 102, an estimated 37% of looked-after children are separated from their siblings when they are placed into care. That is 20,000 children, as referenced by the Children’s Commissioner. For older children placed into semi-independent accommodation, 93% are separated from their siblings. Once separated, very little support to maintain relationships is provided.

Lots of research by social workers and charities emphasises the importance of sibling relationships for looked-after children. Siblings provide the longest-lasting relationships, often extending through their lifetime. Contact with siblings can foster positive identity development, provide emotional support through feelings of connectivity through shared experiences, give priority to existing functional relationships and help support the emotional needs of looked-after children.

When children are going through court cases to be removed from their parents, relations of direct contact are often prohibited between certain family members. This means that siblings cannot continue their relationship. Children are rarely consulted about such decisions.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says:

“No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation”.


In talking to children in care, they express that their relationship with their siblings is essential. The weight of responsibility for maintaining relationships with siblings is often placed on the looked-after person. That should not be the case.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

I speak in support of both amendments but particularly Amendment 102 for the strong arguments which have been advanced.

At every stage of a family’s involvement with a local authority, efforts should be made to enable siblings to maintain contact with each other and not to overlook the importance of the sibling relationship. It is now much better understood that, when parents can no longer care for a child, the most important and significant relationship that child may have is with his or her siblings—a relationship which, as the noble Lord has just said, can last a lifetime.

Although local authorities and courts strive to keep siblings together, that is not always possible and they may have to be placed separately. They may have different and sometimes conflicting needs. At a practical level, larger sibling groups can be more difficult to place together. If, for whatever reason, they cannot be placed together, meaningful and workable contact arrangements are essential.

There is a report, which I think is correct, of two sisters who were placed separately five minutes apart but were not allowed to see each other. One sister had to see her sister at a distance in the same school playground playing with a foster-sister. It is a desperately sad story. I recall having to deal with a case in which the siblings were a short distance apart from each other but in different local authority areas, and considerable efforts were required to get the two local authorities to co-operate. It is for that reason that I support the amendment. Judicial encouragement is usually enough but not always, and therefore court orders may be appropriate.

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Moved by

[Lord Storey]

107: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Adoption and special guardianship support fund review(1) Within one month of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must conduct a review of the level of funding available per child from the adoption and special guardianship support fund.(2) The review must produce recommendations regarding any steps necessary to increase the funds available per child.(3) The review must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, as a local councillor in Liverpool, once a week I do what I call my “Keeping in touch”, where I go to each resident with a little form and ask them to fill out any particular concerns they have in the area: “Leave it outside your letterbox, and I’ll be back in an hour to pull it out”. I did the final household and thought, “I will finish now and go home”. The lady opened the door and said, “Everything is fine. We didn’t need to fill it out”. I said, “Oh, that’s good news. Goodbye”.

As I was walking down the path, the lady said, “Actually, there is something you could help me with.” I said, “What is it?” She said “No, I don’t think you can help me.” I said “Well, what is it?” She said, “I and my husband adopted two children when they were two-and-a-half years old. One is now 11 and the other is 12. The boy was severely traumatised as a two-and-a-half year old, so much so that he has to have regular therapy sessions. The problem is that the grant we got has been cut by nearly £2,000, and we now cannot afford the therapy sessions.” I said, “Okay, leave it with me and let me think this through.” I thought, “Well, I will put down a Written Question to the Minister.” We know how Written Questions work, do we not? Those who have been Ministers will know that, often, they try not to reveal all the facts as they happen to be.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Oh!

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Oh, goodness, I would not suggest that for one moment of the current Minister—or the previous Minister.

My Written Question was:

“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the importance of the adoption and special guardianship support fund.”


The Answer from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, was:

“This government fully recognises the importance of support for adoptive and kinship children and families. The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund … has been a valuable part of the support landscape for ten years. This is why we have provided £50 million of funding for the ASGSF for 2025/26, alongside £8.8 million for Adoption England, to complement the range of support available in local areas.”


I did a little further research, because that seemed to tell me that everything was okay and that this family need not worry: they were not getting any cuts. Almost half the ASGSF awards last year exceeded the new £3,000 allowance, so some children will receive cuts of almost 40%. Data shows that thousands of children will now go without the therapy they need as a result of this cut. Alongside this cut has gone a separate allocation of up to £2,500 per child per year for special assessments. This has been completely removed. Match-funding support for children with an exceptional level of need has also been removed. Previously, the ASGSF provided up to 50% of the funding for up to £30,000 per child, with the rest provided by the local authority. The consequences of these changes are that any new specialist assessment must now be paid for from the £3,000. Therapy care or support must also come within this budget, regardless of need. Support that was given may no longer be given.

Change can exacerbate issues for children with attachment and trauma-related needs, who require sustained, regular support. Building trust with a therapist takes time, but continuity of care will now be harder. Children with the most complex needs now face a highly uncertain future, which may may lead to increased exclusions, due to behavioural issues that were traditionally tackled with therapy. An increase in issues such as child-to-parent violence threatens family placements further.

This family just cannot cope any more because the funding, as we have heard, has been cut. Whether that is the element from the local authority or from the Government, I do not know, and I have been unable to look into that any further. The language we sometimes use in such cases is interesting. Need for funding is now framed as demand. Such language is insensitive to children who need the funding—SEND children as well as children who have experienced significant trauma.

I do not want to talk any longer on this. Given that we had the Statement yesterday from the Chancellor and there is a bit of extra money for education, maybe a small amount of it can be used in these cases. We all know the figures on fostering and adoption. Anybody who adopts a child—never mind two children—into their family, brings them up and supports them needs all the help we can give them. I feel lucky that, because I am in your Lordships’ House, I can use the opportunity to try to help this particular family. I hope the Minister will look sympathetically on my amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I will also speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. As far as this fund is concerned, I have been involved in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adoption and Permanence as an officer and occasional co-chair for the past seven or eight years. I do it with somebody the Minister will know: Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central. I was just scrolling back on the group’s website to see how many times we have had to launch a mini-inquiry into this fund and go through a process of appealing yet again to successive Governments to keep it going. In doing that, we have amassed each time a large amount of evidence to show just how much good this fund has done and how transformative it is for families who have adopted children, many of whom are expressing the medium- and long-term effects of the trauma they received in early life. This fund is a genuine lifesaver for those children.

I have kept in touch with a parliamentary assistant who works for an MP and is an adoptive parent. She has told me over the past few years about the intense challenges she and her husband have had with one of their adopted children and how, frankly, without the support of this fund, they were getting near crisis point and would have had to give up the adoption, so the child would have lost their adoptive family. It was the fund that enabled them to keep going. I stress to the Minister the disproportionate good that is done for these families by the expenditure of relatively small amounts of money, in the great scheme of things. The quality support and counselling that is required to help children with this level of trauma is not cheap. It requires extremely dedicated professionals who are very focused in this area. Working with children who have experienced trauma is as challenging for the practitioners as it is for the parents and the children.

I would hate to think that, over the next four years of this Government, we will have a repeat of what the all-party group experienced under previous Governments, of having to go through this cycle every two or three years of the Government threatening to reduce the fund and us having to go out and get evidence to explain just how important and life-changing it is—along with other groups, of course. In the end, the Government typically listen to the argument, but in each case it has been a challenge to get them to listen, so this group is an opportunity to remind the Minister just how transformative this fund is for the parents of children who have experienced trauma, as many adopted children have.

That leads me to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to which I added my name. In terms of numbers, adoption is a relatively small part of looking after children who are unable to be with their birth parents. There are the large numbers in kinship care, which we talked about earlier this week, the large number—we wish it was larger—who are being fostered, and then the extremely large, expensive and distressing number of children who are in residential care.

--- Later in debate ---

I have a feeling that I will not have completely reassured noble Lords about the fund. I hope I have gone further to reassure my noble friend Lord Watson about the ability to review and inspect the quality of adoption support services. But on those bases, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Watson and Lord Meston, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and my friend Munira Wilson in the other place for raising this issue.

The Minister is right. My father was adopted: surprisingly, he was adopted by a single woman. In those days, no support at all was given. But now we recognise the contribution that parents who adopt children give. We should be giving them all the support we possibly can, because every failed adoption is a failure for us.

On the particular case that I encountered, there was a two-and-a-half year-old boy who had been seriously traumatised—I will not tell you how he was traumatised, although I know. He had therapy and then that therapy stopped, which just seems unbelievable. He presumably will regress; I just do not know.

However, the Minister has given me some crumbs of comfort, and perhaps we can hope that, as a caring, tolerant society, we can support not just this boy but any child who is adopted and who needs that kind of therapy. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 107 withdrawn.

Post-16 Financial Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I do not necessarily agree with the noble Lord’s characterisation of the way that financial education is delivered, for example, through citizenship, but he makes an important point. I have just mentioned, of course, that financial education and the skills necessary to understand your finances and the concepts around them are part of the national curriculum from key stage 1 to key stage 4, and of post-16 maths study.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very important Question from the noble Baroness. One in four 18 to 24 year-olds is in some form of financial difficulty. Lacking knowledge of where to go for help or services that can help them, they are often pushed to illegal loan sharks. Does the Minister not think that we should run a young person’s public information campaign, which could be targeted in colleges, jobcentres and sixth forms?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Of course, this is part of what the Money and Pensions Service strategy aims to do, as is the work I identified that is being supported by the dormant assets funding. We also need to work alongside the legitimate parts of the industry to make sure that the support and information that it is providing is made more broadly available to young people—and, in fact, to people throughout their lives. I suspect that those of us who did not have the opportunity to have even the type of financial education that children nowadays get have a continuing need to understand our finances well into our lives and, in particular, into our retirement.

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2025

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for the scrutiny they have provided to this order. This statutory instrument, laid in draft on 5 February, will allow the Construction Industry Training Board to raise one more year of levy on the construction sector to fund training. In particular, I welcome the £40 million from levy funds that the CITB is investing in homebuilding skills hubs to support the Government in reaching our 1.5 million homebuilding target.

The CITB’s latest figures state that the construction sector contributes £186 billion to our economy and employs 2.1 million workers—unquestionably a significant part of the UK economy. However, the sector’s reliance on subcontracting and self-employment means that investment in workforce skills is too frequently left to others to prioritise. This levy order reflects the key role that industry plays alongside government in making its workforce safe, competent and increasingly productive.

Established in 1964 with a remit across England, Scotland and Wales, the CITB’s legal purpose is to encourage the provision of construction training. It is a purpose that, some 60 years on, the independent 2023 ITB review found is still needed, due to what the lead reviewer, Mark Farmer, identified as “ongoing market failure”. His report accepts that the current ITB model, a statutory levy system for construction employers, remains the best way to fund such training. The CITB also remains a key partner with government and is an important player in our plan for change. It will work closely with Skills England when it emerges from the passage of legislation through these Houses.

Over the last three years, the CITB has used levy funding to support almost 69,000 apprentices, given grants to over 44,000 businesses and delivered masterclass courses in areas including roofing and bricklaying. This order is the vehicle to bring in just under £224 million of focused funding from the construction sector for the CITB to deliver training and skills activity to support our missions. I trust that noble Lords will continue to support this approach of levy funding training within the construction industry.

Before I outline the details of the SI, I will address the duration of this order. The primary legislation permits a one-year levy order without consensus, the process of consulting with industry, as long as certain criteria are met. The CITB wanted to give industry time to consider the impact of the ITB review before debating its support for three years of levy payments through the usual consensus process. With the delayed ITB review publication truncating the available time before current levy income runs out, the CITB provided me with levy proposals for one financial year. With the ITB review now published, the CITB will start consensus next week on proposals for a 2026 three-year levy order and will listen and respond to industry views in earnest on that.

I turn to the details of the SI. This one-year order retains the levy assessment rates prescribed by the three-year 2022 order: 0.35% of the earnings paid by employers to directly employed workers and 1.25% of the contract payments paid to indirectly employed workers. The levy order exemption threshold means that employers with an annual wage bill of below £135,000 are exempt from paying any levy at all. The CITB estimates that 69% of in-scope employers fall into that category. The levy order reduction threshold provides a 50% reduction for employers who pay a wage bill between £135,000 and £449,999. A further 15% of employers are in scope of this provision and would pay reduced contributions.

Both thresholds have been increased from the 2022 order to prevent employers who have increased employee wages exceeding the limit and facing new or increased levy rates. Employers who are exempt or pay reduced levy rates are still eligible to claim CITB support. The large volume of eligible employers is counterbalanced by the amount of levy paid by larger employers, enabling the few to support the many for the wider benefit of the construction industry.

In lieu of the typical consensus process, the CITB sought views on the one-year proposal from its 14 prescribed organisations, sector federations representing around 30% of all levy-paying employers and the nation councils for England, Scotland and Wales. The vast majority were supportive, and subsequent industry engagement via CITB comms channels and engagement with trade media has not attracted any dissent over a one-year approach. With the ITB review and the CITB’s strategic plan now published, industry is in a much stronger position to enter consensus for the 2026 proposals and make informed decisions.

In conclusion, I have confidence that your Lordships’ Committee will have suitably scrutinised the impact assessment that was laid with the levy documentation; this articulates how the CITB proposes to spend the levy raised by this order. This spend is focused on activities that support the Government’s ambitions to deliver on the plan for change, especially in commitments to build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament and to drive growth for the good of the nation. This order will enable the CITB to continue carrying out these vital training responsibilities. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I always remember how the late Lord Andrew Stunell, who was a spokesperson at one stage for the construction industry, used to rage at us about the huge shortages in every branch of construction. He said, “Just imagine, if we were able to fill these vacancies, how we would be able really to boost the economy and opportunities for young people”.

With an estimated 250,000 extra construction workers needed between now and 2028, it is vital to look at a wide range of ways in which to increase the number of new entrants to the recruitment pool, creating a more diverse workforce. One problem is the mismatch between supply and demand; individuals find it hard to find the right route into a role in construction, and it can be economically challenging for employers to invest in apprenticeships and new entrants.

Better pathways need to be created into the industry. Construction needs to grow apprenticeship starts, which are the main source of industry recruitment at entry level. In addition, around 30% of further education learners need to be able to progress to an apprenticeship or job in construction by assuring employers that they have the skills and experience they need.

Another problem is retention. Better retention of trainees and current workers in construction can significantly reduce skill shortages. Nearly 60,000 new entrants leave the industry each year. We need to retain the current workforce—many leave due to preventable reasons, such as poor workforce culture or limited career progression. Developing a training and skills system to meet the current and future needs, with CITB working with Skills England, will, I hope, start to reverse the problems we face. We very much welcome the levy.

Schools: Mobile Phones

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, it is clearly unacceptable if lessons are being disrupted. That is, in many ways, a broader issue than whether mobile phones are being used and goes to the behaviour policies that every school has a responsibility to have and to develop with their parents. I think it is important that we look at the way in which schools are already taking action to limit mobile phones. Actually, schools are moving towards developing many of the things that the noble Lord has suggested should be in place. This comes back to the point he raised about whether we believe that, with clear national guidance, including examples of how phones should be controlled in schools, we should nevertheless allow a determination at school level by head teachers of how that is actually implemented. I think that the balance is broadly right at the moment, although it is of course important that we keep this under review and that we encourage schools to do what is necessary to enable all classrooms to be purposeful and calm and for every child to be able to learn.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is right that there is a place, I suppose, for phones in schools in terms of learning. Equally, parents think that, if the child has a phone, they are far better safeguarded, particularly on long journeys home. However, there is the other side, where phones can lead to bullying, to pupils taking inappropriate photographs, to such photos being sent, as well as to well-being and mental health issues. It is not a clear-cut situation we face. It is also disruptive for classes when schools have to ask teachers to collect the phones, hand them out, et cetera. Technology might be the answer. For example, in Ireland they have spent €20 million on giving schools what is called a Yondr wallet, into which the phones go and they cannot be used during that period: it cuts off all the connections. The Minister said we must look at ways: how will we look at those ways and how will we come to a final conclusion?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

There are schools in the UK that are already using the Yondr wallets that the noble Lord refers to. On the whole, schools are not using the approach of making individual teachers collect phones at the beginning of classes. The most recent evidence suggests that the most commonly used way of controlling mobile phones is to collect the phone at the beginning of the day and give it back to the child at the end of the day. The broader point, however, that the noble Lord makes, relates not just to how mobile phones are used in schools but to broader issues of how children are using their phones, with high levels of screen time. Sometimes, we seem to think that what happens in schools solves all problems. Actually, I think we need to look more broadly than simply at a relatively blunt legislative proposal.

Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is right to talk about financial sustainability. She is also right to talk about how we must value students. I remember quite clearly how the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, told us at every opportunity that we needed to increase tuition fees for the sake of the university sector. It always struck me as interesting how we would laud our university sector by saying, “We have three universities in the top 10 in the world rankings” and “We have got x number in the top 100 rankings” and—

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Four.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

King’s is not yet, but will be.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

It always seemed to me that were almost gloating about this, but what a fine way to show that in the financing of our university sector, or in how we look after our students in many cases.

As I think has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, last year the Minister very bravely said the Government were going to increase tuition fees to get over that difficulty. Then, of course, along came national insurance and all that wonderful extra financial resource is completely lost.

My knowledge of the university sector has increased over the years with my children going to university and I also served on the governing council of Liverpool Hope University, so my interest has grown. I always think that we do not really grapple with some of the issues that face us; we try to push them away. I thought that when loans were introduced, it would put students in the driving seat of a university education. I do not think that has happened. In some universities, the way students are regarded is not as good as it should be.

I also wonder whether Tony Blair saying he wanted 50% of young people to go to university was the right way of deciding how we grow the university sector. I look now, and I see some universities really struggling, offering very low grades to get into university. I see universities almost competing with each other on courses when they are in the same city, for goodness’ sake—I just do not understand that. I look at private universities, which, obviously, get finances from the system. I was heavily involved in the Greenwich School of Management, where the Government were able to say, “We’re taking all these young people from deprived backgrounds and giving them a university education”—but, at the end of the first year, they took the money and ran. What went on in that particular private institution, along with others, was completely wrong. When it was highlighted on “Panorama”, the college was closed down, along with others. In one case, police took action. So we have to look carefully at how we use the money as well. Some of the practices that we currently carry out are, in my mind, just not acceptable.

I want to see students really value their university education. I will give an example of something that is a great pity. When I was at university, I stayed on Merseyside, but I loved the fact that I met people from all over the country, who are some of my best friends—from the north-east and elsewhere. Nowadays, students cannot afford that and, increasingly, they go to the university in their home area or even their home city. The figures for Liverpool John Moores or the University of Liverpool, for example, increasingly show that the students come from that city, that conurbation or that region. We have lost something in losing that opportunity.

I am delighted that the Minister talked to us about how we need to look at this properly and come forward with some proposals in the summer. I am delighted and excited by that, to be quite honest, but I hope those proposals will give us the opportunity to give our ideas and thoughts on what that might be. But, in terms of this SI, I very much support what the Government are doing.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this statutory instrument increases by 3.1% the maximum tuition fees that higher education providers can charge for the majority of courses and, in turn, the amount of tuition fee loans that students can take out. It also reduces the maximum amount of tuition fees that can be charged for foundation year courses in certain classroom-based subjects, such as business studies, humanities and social sciences. These Benches very much welcome the Government’s decision on foundation year courses; we have seen potentially troubling increases in the number of students taking these courses, particularly where franchise providers are used to deliver them.

However, I have three main concerns about the approach that the Government are taking to the tuition fee increases. First, this increase, in line with inflation, sets a precedent for future fee increases. I absolutely hear the points made by the Minister and my noble friends about the importance of giving universities visibility and stability in their financial model. But if we assume, in line with the OBR, that inflation remains at around 3%, it will take only a further two years of this policy before students will have to pay more than £10,000 a year in fees. So, after a typical three-year degree, students will leave with debt of around £59,000, or up to £68,600 if they live in London. Echoing the requests of my noble friends, I ask the Minister to clarify whether the Government plan to increase fees again in this Parliament in line with inflation—taking my noble friend Lord Johnson’s advice and doing that quickly—or is this a one-off decision?

Secondly, the Government have stated that they increased university fees for 2025-26 to

“help cement higher education providers’ roles as engines of growth in the heart of communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/1/25; col. 19WS.]

The Secretary of State for Education deemed that this action was necessary to

“secure the future of higher education”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/11/24; col. 47.]

However, as we have heard from all speakers this afternoon, this increase will not result in a net improvement in university budgets; indeed, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee commented in its report on this SI that the increase will “not reduce those difficulties” that higher education providers are facing. Our understanding is that the Government’s choice to increase employers’ national insurance will cost the university sector around £372 million, which will more than offset the increase in fees. So we are left in a situation where the Government have increased costs for all parties—students and taxpayers—without fixing the root of the problem. Indeed, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that

“the ultimate costs of increases in tuition fee loans (and presumably also of maintenance loans, for the same reason) fall on the public purse to a significantly greater extent than the costs of those loans overall”.

So, although the focus is on students, the committee clearly believes that, ultimately, it will be the taxpayer who picks up the bill.

Thirdly, although, as I noted previously, we very much support the Government’s decision to reduce fees on foundation year courses, again, the SLSC notes that about 12 or so institutions will be most affected by the drop in income, which it estimates—or, perhaps, the Government estimate—as being between £154 million and £239 million annually. What assessment have the Government made of that impact? Can the Minister update the Committee on it?

More broadly, I hear and respect the comments of my noble friend Lord Johnson but I think it is fair to say that, as the number of degrees has expanded, some degrees have—my noble friend does not want to use the term “value for money”; I am fine with that—resulted in the taxpayer picking up a greater proportion of the costs than was the case in the past. The IFS noted in its 2020 report that total returns from a degree will be negative for about 30% of the men and women undertaking them. I totally understand that a degree is about much more than one’s earnings power, but one’s earnings power, particularly if you come from a disadvantaged community, is not insignificant either.

So I would be interested to know what the Government are doing to try to give students greater transparency about the degree choices that they are making in terms of future employability, career options and earnings power. The Minister will know that even a degree such as maths, depending on where you do it, will end up with very different outcomes in terms of earnings. It is important for students to understand the implications of their degree choices. The latest data showed that the median first-degree graduate earnings five years after graduation were £29,900 as compared to £33,800 for a level 4 apprentice. I appreciate that they are not interchangeable; I just use that as a demonstration of the point I am making.

It has taken a freedom of information request from my honourable friend Neil O’Brien to reveal the wide variations in the share of loans that are being repaid between different higher education institutions. In some cases, we see only very small fractions of what is being loaned out getting paid back, which means that these courses are definitely not great for the taxpayer but are arguably not great for the student either, who may feel that their degree has cost them a lot but not taken them to where they had hoped to get to.