Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Acton and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 243A, I declare my interests as the director of the Free Speech Union and a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust.

The amendment would stop safeguarding policies and procedures in schools being misused for political purposes, a prime example being the recent cancellation of a talk by the Labour MP Damien Egan at a secondary school in his Bristol constituency, on the grounds that allowing a vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel to speak posed a safeguarding risk to children. The Bristol branch of the National Education Union said on its Facebook page, after Mr Egan was no-platformed:

“We celebrate this cancellation as a win for safeguarding”.


In another Facebook post, the Bristol branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign also described Mr Egan’s ban as a win for safeguarding.

At the Free Speech Union, we have come across numerous examples of school safeguarding policies being weaponised by political activists to silence their opponents, whether visiting speakers or members of staff. For instance, the Free Speech Union recently took on the case of a teacher in Henley who was referred to the local authority designated officer—LADO, the official in charge of investigating safeguarding concerns—because he showed his A-level politics class some Trump campaign videos from the 2024 presidential election. The teacher was accused of causing his A-level students, aged 17 and 18, “emotional harm”. In one document, local officials in charge of child protection suggested that the showing of the Trump campaign videos could amount to a “hate crime”. Incidentally, he also showed the students in his A-level politics class some of Kamala Harris’s campaign videos, but those did not raise any safeguarding concerns.

In another Free Speech Union case, a teacher at a primary school in Tower Hamlets was sacked and referred to his local child protection board after telling off some Muslim boys for washing their feet in the sinks in the boys’ lavatories. I could go on.

Safeguarding policies and procedures were put in place to protect children from abusive parents and sexual predators, yet the weaponisation of these policies by political activists risks local authority designated officers and local safeguarding boards not taking genuine concerns seriously. That in turn endangers children’s safety. It is hard to think of a more cynical form of political activism—but, of course it has the desired effect. What MP who is sympathetic to Israel in its war with Hamas will risk arranging a visit to a school in his or her constituency knowing, ahead of time, that they could end up being no-platformed and branded a safeguarding risk to children?

Amendment 243A would put a stop to this mischief. It says:

“When making safeguarding assessments or investigating safeguarding complaints in relation to teachers, visitors or volunteers in schools and other educational settings, no account may be taken of the political views expressed or presented by the subject of that safeguarding assessment or complaint, provided those views are not … unworthy of respect in a democratic society … in conflict with the fundamental rights of others, or … affiliated with any political party, group or organisation which is proscribed for the purposes of the Terrorism Act 2000”.


We urgently need to stop this cynical weaponisation of policies and procedures that were put in place to protect children from predators and abusers, not unfashionable political opinions.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to signal my support for Amendment 243E, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I added my name in Committee, and I am very sorry that, sadly, I missed the deadline for adding it on Report. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, set out very clearly the purpose of this amendment and I do not want to repeat that. I just think it is very telling indeed that three times as many people apply for apprenticeships than the numbers who obtain them, and that is just because the places are not available. Just think how different that is from the university route, where nearly all applicants find a place. For me, it is fundamentally an issue of equity and parity of treatment for all young people.

We have seen the number of under-19s starting apprenticeships fall by more than a third since the apprenticeship levy was introduced. This amendment, as has been said, has been very carefully recrafted by the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Macpherson, into something which I hope very much goes with the grain of what the Government are trying to achieve. I therefore very much hope that we will hear something positive from the Minister on it.