Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 502F in my name. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, who is unable to be here today, for lending her name to it, and Mr James Maurici KC for assisting us with its drafting.

The amendment is like Amendment 470, albeit differently worded, in seeking to give domestic legal effect in a somewhat different way, in the context of functions by public authorities under the Bill, to the rights of children contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the noble Baroness has just outlined, the purpose of the UNCRC is that children’s rights need specific consideration due to the special care and protection often needed by children and young people.

The UK has been a party to the convention for three and a half decades. It was signed by the Thatcher Government in 1990. Around that time my noble friend Lady Bottomley, then Minister for Health, said in the other place that the UK played a leading role in drafting it. Despite that, the convention has not yet been incorporated in our domestic law in England. The UN committee with oversight of the convention, as we have just heard, has recommended that it should be, so that the rights are enforceable.

In 2011, Wales became the first country in the UK to make the convention part of its domestic law by the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, and that legislation has been judged to be a success so far in Wales. Scotland has more recently followed suit through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. England, however, lags behind, and this amendment would go some way to addressing that.

The amendment would not give effect to the UNCRC generally in English law—that would be outside the Bill’s scope and would in any case require further consideration—but would apply to the exercise of any functions by public authorities under the Bill. The proposed duty is modelled on Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the public sector equality duty. In particular, and importantly, it is a duty on authorities to have due regard to the convention rather than the duty of outcome, and thus it would not impose undue burdens on public authorities. Like the Welsh legislation, it contains a requirement for the Secretary of State to report every five years on how the Government have complied with the duty.

I suggest that the significance of the amendment is threefold. First, it would be an important initial step on the road to bringing the law of England in line with that in Wales and Scotland in terms of giving legal effect to the convention that we signed up to over three and a half decades ago.

Secondly, the new duty it would introduce would apply to the exercise of any functions conferred under the Bill in relation to children’s social welfare and schools, and all the better for that.

Thirdly, the amendment would have added importance in combination with Amendment 502M, proposed by my noble friends Lord Young and Lord Brady, which seeks to create a duty to keep educational institutions, early years provision and childcare premises open for in-person attendance during civil emergencies “so far as is reasonably possible”, and those words would engage the UNCRC “have regard to” duty under my amendment. The combined effect of the two amendments would be that any decisions by public authorities on school closures in such situations would have to be taken having due regard to the UNCRC.

The two amendments together would provide powerful protections in the future against a repeat of what happened during the Covid pandemic in terms of school closures, the documented effects of which include the highest annual rise of children living with obesity on record; severe impacts on children who are victims of domestic abuse; the amplification of differences in educational attainment between children who come from well-off families and those less fortunate; a marked decline of participation by children in sporting and extra-curricular activities; and a significant increase in mental ill-health, self-harm and suicide among children and young people.

The Government have made much of their commitment to fulfilling the UK’s obligations under international law; indeed, the Attorney-General gave a lecture about that only a few days ago. This amendment would contribute to achieving the objective by giving domestic legal effect to the obligations the UK has long signed up to in the international sphere. I urge the Minister and the Committee to consider it carefully.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502G in this group. This amendment would ensure that Part 2 of the Bill complies with Article 2 in Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the United Kingdom not only signed and ratified but incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.

My amendment is based on the wording of the second sentence of Article 2 of Protocol 1, which provides:

“In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”.


Part 2 of the Bill directly engages this article, since the Government will be, in the words of the ECHR, “assuming many new functions in relation to teaching and education”. For example, local authorities will be given sweeping new powers to monitor, register and regulate the independent sector. The Secretary of State will be empowered to regulate proprietors of independent schools, arrange inspections, prescribe standards and suspend registration. He or she will be able to make regulations using Henry VIII powers so as to dictate which educational institutions are covered, and to mandate the national curriculum for academies using yet more Henry VIII powers to regulate the contents of the four key stages, as well as attainment and assessment targets. We are well within the Article 2, Protocol 1 envelope. I know that this Government take their ECHR obligations very seriously.

Without my amendment, these new powers in the Bill would impede the right of parents to ensure an education for their children which accords with their own religious and philosophical convictions. Why is that? It is because Article 2 is about parents having the right to choose which education and teaching is right for their children. As the Strasbourg court said in a Danish case, Article 2 of Protocol 1 aims

“at safeguarding the possibility of pluralism in education which is essential for the preservation of the ‘democratic society’ as conceived by the Convention”.

Our very own Supreme Court recognised this need for plurality in a case in 2020 concerning members of the Orthodox Jewish community. The court stated that their needs are different from those who are not members of that community, and they have a need for their own community facilities, including schools. The same could be said for members of other faiths who choose schools which support their religious and philosophical convictions, such as Christian schools.

This is all about the primacy of parental choice. I repeat: it is about the primacy of parental choice. Whether it is an academy, a single-sex school, a language or music school, a faith school or indeed a maintained school, parents must have the freedom to choose an institution whose ethos accords with their own religious and philosophical beliefs and with what they perceive is best for their children. This may mean choosing a school which has freedom to innovate, without regulation by the state, so as to promote the skills and talents of each pupil, including varying the curriculum or attainment targets and adapting assessment procedures or the daily schedule with a view to bringing out the best in each and every child. All these are the hallmarks of our diverse educational landscape and exemplify the rights which Article 2 of Protocol 1 protects.

As it stands, Part 2 fails to respect such rights. Therefore, my amendment is surely unobjectionable and indeed to be welcomed by all who value maximising the unique talents of our children in an educational environment consistent with the religious and philosophical upbringing their parents have chosen.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 469 and 470 and have added my name to Amendment 502F. However, I suggest that altogether more forthright and comprehensive embedding of the UNCRC into English law is now both appropriate and overdue, even if that cannot be fully achieved under this Bill. That convention was signed by the United Kingdom, among many others, as long ago as 1991. It commands widespread respect. Since then, England has fallen out of step with Wales, where, as we have been told, a measure in 2011 placed an express duty on Ministers to have regard to the rights and obligations in the convention. England is yet more out of step with Scotland, where the convention was fully and directly incorporated into law by statute last year. Amendment 470 would align England with Wales, but not yet with Scotland.

Amendment 502F would impose a duty on public authorities, not just on Ministers, yet both fall short of unqualified incorporation. The convention provides a wide-ranging and valuable list of rights which should be an invaluable checklist for any public authority. Even if some may criticise parts of it as idealistic and aspirational, the convention both sets and raises standards, and specific articles of the convention supplement current gaps in practice and procedure and enhance accountability. Without going into too much detail, significantly, it was the first international convention expressly to recognise and underpin a child’s right to identity, as set out in Articles 7 and 8. This is not unimportant for migrant and unaccompanied children, or in the complexities of modern parental relationships.

Article 12 is widely recognised as important in requiring proper consideration of the views of a child on all matters affecting that child. Any family law practitioner can see the potential general and specific influence of many of the other articles. For example, Article 10.2 could influence disputes over child relocation. More broadly, several topics and problems discussed in the course of this Bill’s progress through Parliament are covered by the convention. Article 24 is relevant to the real problem of the poor take-up of vaccination for children; Article 28 to school attendance; and Article 33 to drugs. Overall, although I submit that these amendments could be more robust, they would be a step along the way to following Scotland.

Although I support Amendment 502F, I suggest that the drafting of proposed subsection (5) could be simplified to remove the double negative. Amendment 470 would require publication of reports every three years, and Amendment 502F would require them every five years. It would probably be better to co-ordinate the timing of any reports with those required under Article 44 of the convention itself, which may have been what was intended. Scrutiny of such reports is important to ensure that they are not selective and altogether uncritical, as can occur.

If we are serious about children’s rights, they should be incorporated into law—irrespective of any future formulation of human rights. These amendments should be accepted. I am glad that Amendment 502G has been added to this group; Governments have to balance children’s rights and parents’ rights with care. All children are entitled to equality of educational opportunity in a way that broadens horizons, rather than narrows potential. Children have rights and parents have rights, but parents also have responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I would say in return— I was trying to keep my speech brief—that I hear what the noble Lord said. He talked about being unsuccessful in keeping it brief. That is because we have had a lot of stuff about legalism. I am giving direct experience of government—I appreciate what the noble Lord said. I can give more examples. One reason why children get the flu vaccine every year is primarily to protect adults—the teachers and school workers—to stop the spread of flu. It is not really to help the kid. All sorts of things happen today that are actively encouraged to be done to the child in a way that should not be harmful.

I come back to the legislation and the point that is relevant. The Secretary of State for Education has the leading responsibility in government to have that horizon-scanning of every bit of legislation that affects children. If there have been deficiencies, I recognise them. I am not convinced that the incorporation of more law into domestic law is going to be the way to achieve that. I encourage the Minister in her reply to give confidence. Even if the noble Lord feels that the last Administration were deficient, I am sure that the current Administration will say that they are very much on top of it.

Frankly, it is a bit like when I was at DWP. I had primary responsibility for disabilities, so it was my job, working with my officials, to keep scanning legislation for how it would impact people with disabilities. That was not always very popular with other departments, which kept telling us to keep our noses out, but that is what we did. I am sure that that is what the Department for Education is intending to do. That said, I know that my noble friend Lady Barran was assiduous in her support of children, and I am sure that the Minister for this Government has continued to be so as well.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I quickly respond to a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, made. The wording in my amendment is not my wording; it is already in the convention. I am not trying to incorporate it into our law, because it is already incorporated. That ship has sailed, really. All I am doing is pointing out its relevance to a Bill that I perceive as seeking to restrict parental choice in various ways. To pick up on one point that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, made, I entirely respect what he said about the importance of being aware that parents may make wrong choices. The assumption built into this provision of the convention is that they are entitled to make what they consider to be good choices. Otherwise, you would take away all rights of parents altogether, if you make the assumption that they are not. On children’s rights in respect of schools, it is their parents who have chosen to send them there. That was the parental choice.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, responding to the noble Baroness about vaccination, I think it is important that we put facts on the record. She suggested that vaccination of children was primarily to protect other age groups—