Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 183B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. I am grateful to her for a probing amendment that allows us to think in particular about school readiness. We have already heard about the well-evidenced links between poor school readiness and academic career and lifetime outcomes. Recent research, including from the Centre for Young Lives, has made the link between long-term absenteeism and school disengagement.

I want to think about what school readiness means in the case of neurodiverse children, particularly those with a specific congenital biological learning difficulty, such as dyslexia or dyscalculia. I will highlight four important points that we know about these conditions. First, you are born with them and you will live with them throughout life. Secondly, without identification and support, dyscalculics and dyslexics are likely to suffer long-term impacts to their education, career and health outcomes. Thirdly, with identification and the right support, dyscalculic and dyslexic children can absolutely thrive in school and in future careers because neither condition is a sign of low intelligence or low intellectual ability. Finally, I point to the crucial importance of early intervention in improving outcomes.

If you take those four points together, they present a compelling case for considering the identification of specific learning difficulties as a key component of school readiness. Children with specific learning difficulties will need specific support and, if they get it from day 1, the outcomes for them will be so much better. It is really hard to see how we can deem a child ready to learn if we have not identified a specific learning difficulty and put in place the adjustments that are necessary to meet those needs. So it is not just about securing the foundations for their future learning and giving all children an equal chance to thrive; it is also about obviating any risk that they will be mistakenly judged as stupid, lazy or not trying, all of which have serious impacts on self-esteem, confidence and mental health.

So I very much support the noble Baroness’s amendment, but I would like to see it further strengthened by including a requirement to screen for dyscalculia and dyslexia at the beginning of the educational journey. At the very least, screening for dyscalculia should be included alongside the reading assessments that are already undertaken at key stage 1. My noble friend Lord Tarassenko has suggested that such screening could be made available in every school simply by training two teachers to undertake the testing. Yes, of course there would be a cost involved, but it is a very small price to pay when we think about the long-term economic impacts and the cost to individuals of living and working with an undiagnosed and unsupported learning difficulty. Some 17 years ago, it was estimated that dyslexia can reduce lifetime earnings by £81,000. For dyscalculia, that was £114,000. Goodness knows what those figures would be today—they are 17 years out of date—and we should not forget the cost to the economy of low numeracy, which is currently £25 billion a year.

My noble friend Lord Addington—I like to call him my noble friend—will agree that it is very good news that the sustained focus on literacy and reading scores, and greater awareness, have made it more likely that dyslexic children will be identified. But, for children with dyscalculia, it could be years before an enlightened teacher spots that they are not stupid or lazy but just have a learning difficulty of which most people have never heard. I heard today about a 600-strong school in which there are apparently no known incidences of dyscalculia. The UK prevalence rate is between 6% and 10%, so that just cannot be—

[Lord Addington (LD)]

There is a great way of discovering that you have no dyscalculia or dyslexia—Japan did it. They just did not recognise the words.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

The noble Lord returns to a theme he has raised before.

To conclude, children have 13 precious years to gain the knowledge and the skills that will set them up for their adult lives. All children need to be ready to take advantage of that from day 1, including children who learn differently and therefore need different support from the very beginning.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Cash on a national strategy to promote the health, development and school readiness of all children from birth to the age of five. I agree with everything that has been said in this Committee on this subject. The Minister will know that I will always take an opportunity to rise in support of what we will eventually come to: a national strategy for schools, sport, health and well-being.

But, as my noble friend Lord Young highlighted, this should not be just at primary or secondary level. It is vital also to think about this in the context of early years intervention. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, in her place—she is a passionate champion for children and has done an amazing amount of such work in her life. The Centre for Young Lives emphasises the importance of the expertise in this Committee in looking at the early stage of development and focusing not on a postcode lottery of accessibility to services but on a national strategy and trying to bring together all the good work that is under way.

In that context, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, would normally also talk about early years activity and the importance of physical activity for young children’s development, promoting play and an active lifestyle, building physical literacy, enhancing learning readiness and encouraging habits that can be sustained throughout life. Getting confidence into young children through physical activity is vital. I commend to the Committee the work done by many organisations specialising in early years physical activity programmes—Early Movers comes to mind. It has highlighted that there has been a decline in physical activity among young children, and its work therefore brings our attention to that decline. The Youth Sport Trust’s Healthy Movers recognises the importance of providing training and resources for early years staff to support physical and emotional well-being in young children. There are many other organisations—Hidden Talents, Tiny Tots Yoga and BBC Tiny Happy People—all offering different programmes.

The common denominator among Committee Members this evening on this subject is that we really do look to see whether it is possible to bring together a lot of the evidence of best practice in a national strategy. I urge the Government to look at that carefully, because the benefits of early physical activity are undeniable. Improved physical development is the first. Enhanced cognitive development is undoubtedly a benefit. Social and emotional development comes from building confidence, teamwork and social skills. Long-term health is critical in early years intervention. A focus for those early years is important, as are outdoor activities that match those objectives, such as walking, playing in the park and exploring nature, as well as indoor activities such as dancing, playing with blocks, messy play—finger painting with rice—and using climbing frames. These are all important components of early years activity, and we need to structure those activities. That is where Sure Start was so good, as my noble friend Lord Young said. It showed that one could bring all this together and that it was possible to have a strategy that focuses on best practice for all young people, rather than, as I say, having a postcode lottery whereby some were the beneficiaries of the many charities and initiatives.

I have made a short intervention on this, but a really important one on the wider strategy, as far as I am concerned. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the Government are thinking about responding positively to try to bring together all best practice, in the interests of all our young people, because there is no doubt at all in my mind that the issues and objectives that I have set out should be universally available, and I very much hope that through this Government they will become so.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impact of mobile phones in schools, including the distraction from learning and the wider effects on children’s well-being. For this reason, we have always been clear that mobile phones have no place in schools.

It was clear from the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that schools can deliver this. Research from the Children’s Commissioner shows that the overwhelming majority of schools already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day. However, it is also clear that the old mobile phones in schools guidance inherited from the previous Government did not deliver the clarity or consistency that schools need to implement mobile phone-free schools.

Amendment 215 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, requires schools in England to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones during the school day. As I say, the vast majority of schools already have policies in place that restrict access to mobile phones. The problem, therefore, is one of clarifying the guidance and enforcing those policies. That is why we have acted to address both. On Monday 19 January we published strengthened guidance which is clear that all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default for the entire school day and pupils should not have access to their devices. That includes lessons, time between lessons, break times, lunchtime and in the loos. Not only does the strengthened guidance remove any ambiguity as to what effective prohibition of mobile phones looks like, but it includes practical, real-world case studies, demonstrating how schools are successfully implementing and sustaining these policies.

We know that schools need help. Where they do, they can get one-to-one support from the DfE’s attendance and behaviour hub lead schools, spread across all regions of the country, that are already effectively implementing mobile phone bans and have exemplary track records of supporting other schools to improve their practice. We have gone further: to reinforce the importance of effective implementation, Ofsted will, for the first time, check school mobile phone policy on every inspection, with schools expected to be mobile phone-free by default. It will check how effectively these policies are implemented when judging behaviour during inspections.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, questioned whether that would be effective, given the, in some cases, four-year gap between inspections. To be clear, Ofsted is one of the most powerful signals that the department gives to the sector on its priorities for teachers and leaders. While not all schools are inspected every year, the prioritisation of mobile phone policy in every inspection will improve policies across the system. From my time teaching, it is my experience—and I am sure it is the same for others across the House, including the former chief inspector—that Ofsted does not have to be on the premises to have an impact on what schools are doing.

We have already communicated these changes to the sector, but I make it clear that schools have our full support in taking this forward. This is a national reset on mobile phone use in schools, and we expect all school leaders, pupils and parents to follow this guidance. But this is not the end of the conversation, and we will continue to listen to the voices of parents, teachers and children on this issue.

I remind the House that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced that the Government will launch a short, sharp consultation on how to improve children’s relationship with social media and mobile phones. This will be a three-month consultation, with the Government reporting back in the summer. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Reid, as part of this the consultation will seek views on whether the mobile phones in schools guidance should be placed on a statutory footing, working through the evidence and bringing any proposals forward once these views have been taken into account.

Amendment 215 addresses the issue in a way that the Government cannot support. It is unclear what “possession” is meant to cover. If we define possession too tightly, we create problems for schools. On the radio this morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, was praising the use of, for example, sealed pouches as a way to prevent the use of phones but also promoting this amendment. Of course, many schools already use sensible, effective approaches such as sealed pouches, stopping pupils accessing their mobile phones throughout the school day, which is the intention of this policy, but an overly strict definition of possession could make those approaches non-compliant, and we should not undermine what already works.

Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is an amendment to Amendment 215, and requires schools to provide exemptions for pupils who use mobile phones as assistive technology. Our strengthened guidance is clear: exceptions to the mobile phone policy may be required for children with specific special educational needs, disabilities or medical conditions. That includes users of healthtech or assistive technology. For example, pupils with diabetes might use continuous glucose monitoring with a sensor linked to their mobile phone to monitor blood sugar levels. Where mobile phone use allows pupils to manage their medical condition effectively, our guidance ensures that these cases are protected. Where school leaders need to make additional exceptions to or flexibilities in their policies based on a child’s individual needs, we trust them to do so.

For these reasons, and given the wider action the Government are taking to improve children’s relationship with technology, mobile phones and social media, I hope—although I do not have a lot of hope—that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Bull) (CB)]

My Lords, I remind the House that the Question before the House is on Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so we must first deal with that before we return to Amendment 215.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as it appears that everybody wants to vote on this, I would like Amendment 215 to be in half-decent shape. I think it needs my amendment; therefore, I beg leave to press my amendment.