Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to my amendment in this group and leave the summing up to my noble friend. I use the term “off-rolling” in this. It may be out of date and unfair, but the fact of the matter is that there has been an increase in the number of children not in school over recent years. A Commons report on the issue came out in 2020, but it has been exacerbated by the Covid situation. It is about time we had a real, in-depth dive into why more and more pupils are not within the mainstream system.

There has been some suggestion that the academy system wanting to get rid of bad pupils is to blame or that the greater emphasis on special educational needs has led to the thought that people might be more trouble for the school. I would like to know. I know that some of the academies—the better ones—have fought against this. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, getting extremely annoyed about the idea of that practice in a Committee stage debate on another Bill. If there are academies that are avoiding it or some that are falling to this, we should know. If academies are here to stay, under this Bill, whether we like it or not, because we have accepted them, can we find out whether there is a specific problem there or if it is something else? The increased number of people not in school is a problem that we have referred to throughout Committee, and it is about time we had a decent and in-depth look at it.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make very few remarks. I am an active humanist and I would like to identify my support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lord Watson. I hope that the Government will take heed of what these rather modest amendments propose. If there is something that needs to be discussed, I ask that my noble friend the Minister calls together those of us who are interested and committed to this to talk about it.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of these amendments and I want to do it from my own experience. First, I will start with the cap on faith. If your Lordships remember, this was originally introduced by the Tony Blair Government for any new schools. I thought at the time, “How sensible is that? If we live, as we do, in a multifaith, multicultural society, isn’t a good thing that children mix with children of different faiths?” Speaking on day nine in Committee, I referenced the fact that my daughter went to a Jewish school. It was wonderful for her to be able to have Jewish, Hindu, Christian and Muslim friends, because that was the ethos of that Jewish school. If you just put the Catholics there, the Anglicans there, the Jews there and the Muslims there, you divide people. I do not want a divided society. I want children to celebrate their faith and their culture, and the best place to do that is in school when they are learning and growing up. You only have to remember what happened in education in Northern Ireland.

Secondly, I want to talk about faith schools in terms of admissions. I am speaking to Amendment 456 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the 50% cap, and I cannot add anything further to his excellent contribution, so I turn to my noble friend Lady Burt’s Amendment 457. Faith schools do a fantastic job—I must stop using the word “fantastic”. They do a very good educational job. I look again at my own city, where the four Anglican schools are oversubscribed and are very popular. The way children are admitted raises real questions in my mind. Suddenly, the local Anglican churches, which are in the neighbourhood of that school, fill up their congregations, because when people apply to the school, they have to have a reference from the vicar.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, the amendments in this first group cover admissions and related issues in relation to these clauses. This package of measures will help to ensure that decisions on place planning and admissions support the needs of communities and families while also supporting local authorities to deliver their statutory functions.

I turn first to Amendment 449 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and Amendment 457 from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, which seek to ensure that admissions information is available to all parents. They would require the Secretary of State to publish information about schools admissions arrangements, including any faith-based arrangements. I hope to provide some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Admissions authorities are already required by the statutory school admissions code to publish their admissions arrangements on their school’s website, including the proportion of places that will be prioritised for pupils of faith, and ensure that parents can easily understand how admissions arrangements will be satisfied.

Admissions authorities must also provide information to enable local authorities to publish an annual admissions prospectus for parents. The code requires local authorities to publish this information for all schools via a composite prospectus. We believe that the existing approach is proportionate, reflects the diversity of admission arrangements and local circumstances and is not overly burdensome on schools or local authorities, while enabling parents to access the information they need about their local schools.

Amendment 455, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, seeks to insert a new clause to require a review of rural schools’ admissions policies. The admissions system already contains mechanisms to ensure that admissions policies meet local needs, including the policies of rural schools. Admissions authorities must consult locally before making changes, and anyone who considers a school’s admissions policy to be unfair or unlawful can object to the Schools Adjudicator.

Furthermore, our school travel policy ensures that no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. Local authorities must arrange free travel for children attending their nearest suitable school who could not walk there because of the distance or their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems, or due to route safety. The Government have also set out a plan to deliver better bus services and drive opportunity to underserved regions.

The noble Baroness talked in particular about the issue of the rural services delivery grant. In relation to that, the Government are committed to tackling the issues that matter to rural communities. We are allocating funding through improved needs formulae in 2025-26 to target funding where it is needed the most, investing in the priority services that people rely on the most. Places with significant rural populations will receive on average an almost 6% increase in their core spending power this financial year—a real-terms increase—and no council will see a reduction.

The rural services delivery grant does not properly account for need. In fact, many predominantly rural councils receive nothing from it. That is clearly not right. The Government consulted on proposals to repurpose this funding in the usual way, in the provisional 2025-26 settlement, but the Government are nevertheless keen to hear from councils about how best to consider the impact of rurality on the cost of services as part of the longer-term consultation on local authority funding reform, which was published in June.

Amendment 456 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson seeks to apply the 50% faith admissions cap to new state-funded schools designated as having a faith character. We greatly value the contribution that faith schools make to our schools system and support the ability of faith schools to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. This can support parents wishing to have their child educated in line with their religious beliefs; it is for the admissions authorities of individual schools to decide whether to adopt such arrangements.

Many faith schools are oversubscribed, which suggests that parents value and want these schools. We also understand that the ability of faith schools to prioritise children of faith when they are oversubscribed—and of course it is only at the point at which a school is oversubscribed that these admissions criteria would bite—is important and, at the risk of disappointing my noble friends and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, we do not intend to change that approach at this time.

Removing the legal presumption that all new schools should be academies, which is what has brought about this issue, is intended to give local authorities the flexibility to make the best decisions to meet the needs of their communities. Decision-makers will carefully consider proposals from all groups and commission the right new schools to meet need and to ensure every child has the opportunity to achieve—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I do not feel that my noble friend the Minister has answered the questions asked by my noble friend Lord Watson asked about why this is a change. I do not expect to make any progress right now, but I do think that, before Report, we will need to discuss it further.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am certainly happy to write to my noble friends and perhaps facilitate the opportunity for them to meet the new Schools Minister to discuss this particular issue.

I was in the process of saying that this relates to the new provisions around opening schools. In doing that, decision-makers will carefully consider proposals from all groups and commission the right new schools to meet need and to ensure every child has the opportunity to achieve and to thrive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is important because I think we have a crisis in SEND provision. I am particularly attracted to Amendment 498, on the SEND provision review, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Also, on Amendment 502V in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, on the need for more transparency and reporting on SEND funding in state-funded schools, that seems a key and obvious demand, because the SEND issue is having a huge financial impact on schools and education in general.

But for me, as well as that, the issue of SEND provision is important because it potentially shapes how young people see themselves, and in some instances they are being encouraged to develop a habit of dependence and pathologising their own everyday experiences. One in five children in the UK are now identified as having SEND needs, and the number of education, health and care plans for those with the most severe needs has increased by 83% from 2015-16 to 2023-24. The number of 11 to 15 year-olds receiving disability living allowance for which the main condition determining eligibility is a learning disability such as ADHD increased by 70% between 2018 and 2024. So something peculiar seems to be going on and, as part of explaining what is happening here, we need to acknowledge that there is a widening social definition of mental health and neurodiversity—an issue I will raise briefly again in the next group.

Informally, if you go into any school and talk to pupils of all ages, as I do—obviously, as teachers do and those who are familiar with young people—young people regularly describe themselves these days through the prism of a range of mental health acronyms or their particular divergence from the neurotypical norm. They use the language of medical textbooks and psychiatry with ease. Meanwhile, teachers too think in terms of these labels—I am sure that we are all watching “Educating Yorkshire” on Channel 4; it is great viewing—and, almost inevitably, if there is a behavioural issue, staff suggest testing the pupil for ADHD as both an explanation and a solution. So investigating what is going on here is essential, and that is why I am interested in the review.

In that context, I hope that the tablers of the amendment and the Minister get the opportunity to read—if they have not read it already—a new Policy Exchange report entitled Out of Control: Addressing the Rise in Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Disorders amongst Children and Young People. I do not always agree with Policy Exchange, but I found this report fascinating. One issue it identifies is a bug in the system of support. It argues that it is

“designed to meet the needs of a small number of specialised cases, rather than the sizeable”

numbers that it is now expected to support. Even more troublingly, it says:

“These systems of support can also incentivise diagnosis-seeking behaviour … which has squeezed support for those with the most severe needs”.


Those kinds of issues were touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Gove, in an earlier group.

So, to return to spending, spending on EHCPs for those with SEND has ballooned, but funding per head has fallen by nearly a third since 2015-16. So I hope that the tablers of the amendments and the Minister will consider the risks of overdiagnosis in relation to SEND but also how current support may inadvertently encourage an escalation in perceived need, rather than target the support where it is absolutely needed the most, as has been vividly described by some of the speakers on this group.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, in contrast to the previous speaker, I would say the following. I do not know how many noble Lords attended the rally held in Parliament Square yesterday by parents and children about the SEND review, on getting it right, or how many noble Lords attended the drop-in held in our committee room upstairs, which was full of joy and optimism, with lots of Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum—including our new Schools Minister, Georgia Gould—who called in to listen to parents and children. It gives me hope and optimism that, if those listening exercises are taking place as this review goes on, we will end up with something that is worth having and that has involved listening to the people who are at the sharp end of this.

I am actually encouraged by the fact that our new Minister in the Commons has been the leader of a council, has been the Local Government Minister and has hands-on experience of what it is like dealing with the SEND system. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I am encouraged that the Government are listening to parents and children with that direct experience, and that gives me hope that this review is going to produce the right outcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, at this late hour, I sound a slight note of caution and concern over Amendments 465 and 471. I do not have any particular problem with Amendment 463, which is something all of us should be able to embrace, in terms of ensuring education around prevention of sexual violence and promoting respectful relationships.

Amendment 465 in many ways transposes the proposed Private Member’s legislation and tries to put it within this legislation. By removing the requirement for collective worship, what is put in its place seems to be quite vague and ill-defined in its nature. It talks about assemblies that have to promote

“spiritual, moral, social and cultural”

aspects. It strikes me that it almost replaces a religious assembly with what is, in effect, a humanist assembly. That is a conclusion which a lot of people will draw.

The vagueness of what is being proposed to, in effect, replace the collective worship will lead a lot of schools into trying to find other forms of lectures and lessons that they will try to put across within an assembly. There is no doubt that this will lead to a widespread and vast difference of interpretation. There is also no doubt that many of the subjects, while very merited, can be quite controversial. We would be naive if we did not believe that this would create a situation in a number of schools in which there were levels of friction, perhaps between parents and the school, or between governors and the school. There is a certain element of the hornet’s nest being stirred up.

The proposer of the amendment also then talked about choice. It is absolutely right at present that no child or family is compelled to attend religious or collective worship. The right to opt out is enshrined in legislation and, as such, clearly will remain, and I think everyone would accept that. However, the way the amendment before us today is drafted creates this alternative form of assembly, which is compulsory for everyone. It would mean that if a parent objected to a particular assembly, to a lesson, there is no right for them to withdraw their child because there is no provision directly to do that.

There is a danger of unintended consequences as a result of this. Mention was made on a number of occasions today of not wanting to go down the route of Northern Ireland education. Without going into the details, some of what has been said was a bit oversimplified and wrong. But leaving that aside, Members made the point that they see the best social mix of education where there is a wide range of faiths—where, indeed, there is a considerable level of mixing. Removing collective acts of religious worship will actually push some parents much more towards faith schools, feeling that perhaps the faith of their children is not being represented. That will create a situation that makes integration less likely, albeit perhaps in a relatively small fashion. So there is that question of unintended consequences.

I do not believe that Amendment 471 is necessary. The curriculum already at times reflects non-religious topics within RE. This, to some extent, supercharges the non-religious issues within RE. Whether we have faith or not, I think everyone in this House probably, in different ways, holds non-religious beliefs. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell is gone. I share with him one unfortunate trait, in that I am a lifelong Manchester United supporter. I have a belief that within the next few years, Manchester United will win the Premiership again. Perhaps that is not a non-religious belief, because the amount of faith required to hold that belief is such that it perhaps tips over into being much more a matter of faith over hope and experience.

Nevertheless, we have seen that the definition is tied to the provisions of a particular part of the ECHR. We know that, as a result of that clause, there has been quite a lot of case law, not just here but throughout Europe, in relation to the definition of non-religious beliefs. A very wide range of topics has come into play and been defined in case law. Again, all those are perfectly legitimate topics. However, it raises the prospect of the non-religious belief side overwhelming the religious side of RE. I may be quite literalist in my view, but I think religious education should principally be about religion, and this clearly dilutes that to an unacceptable extent.

In conclusion, I appreciate, given many of the figures that have been quoted, that we are becoming an increasingly secular society, so I suppose what I am saying may be regarded as a bit unfashionable. But I believe that, in an age when perhaps there are a lot of unnecessary divisions within this country, a lot of our laws and collective values ultimately rely on Judeo-Christian values and traditions. We should not abandon those in a school setting, on a casual basis without specific consultation. These amendments take us too far in that direction.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the naivety that the noble Lord referred to is actually his own naivety. Because of the area in which it is, the primary school that I attended in Manningham—which is part of my title—in Bradford now has a population that is over 70% Muslim. The idea that, by law, that school has to have Christian services and assemblies is naive and possibly offensive to the parents of those children. Our society needs to recognise that it is not fair to impose these things upon those parents and children.