Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I got around to reading all these amendments only today, and I was quite impressed. I felt that in some ways this is your Lordships’ House at its best, because this is all from personal experience. People are talking about something they know very intimately and can therefore put the necessary emphasis where it matters: the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson—le petit Guillaume—and the noble, Lord Wei, with his home schooling.

I feel that we have completely failed children who are home educated; we have not understood how important that aspect of education is for many children. At the moment, there are excessive data powers, legal ambiguity and the erosion of long-standing parental rights. It is just so much worse than it could be, and I feel very sad about that. I have three grandchildren who were home educated; two are now studying at Cambridge and the other is making films, so their home education did not hold them back. I am concerned about the digital ID as there are no safeguards on sharing that information. There are unchecked powers for the local authorities, and there was no meaningful consultation or risk assessment. Therefore, home-educated children are subject to a higher level of scrutiny and data extraction, and it just seems that we are going to a place where a lot of children are going to be very disadvantaged, because being taught at home is not an option for them.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support my noble friend’s Amendment 157A. One of the fundamental things that can come out of this register is proper information for Parliament on what is happening in home education, and I very much hope that we will receive that.