Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Frost]

202C: Clause 30, page 50, line 32, leave out “withdraw the child from school” and insert “remove the child’s name from the school roll”
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment seeking to establish how these provisions would relate to flexischooling children, that is, children who are not full-time in school with the agreement of their school and therefore remain on the school roll.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 202C and 227A, in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Wei. We are now, at last, beginning consideration of the large number of amendments on home education. It is a pleasure and an honour to be able to kick off what I think is going to be a lengthy and important discussion.

The proposals on home education are an important part of this Bill and have perhaps got less attention than other aspects of it. I guess that is because most people have been to school and not many people have any direct experience of home education. As a result, it is a sector that does work well but is often misunderstood. I hope that by the end of our discussions, however long they take, and our consideration of these amendments, noble Lords and especially the Government will have a clearer understanding of some of the difficulties home educators have to deal with.

This group contains a slightly miscellaneous, heterogeneous collection of amendments. Some of them touch on ground that we will probably consider more extensively and debate at greater length later, so for now I will focus on the two amendments standing in my name that are on a specific but very specialised aspect of the general issue of home education: flexi-schooling. I will make a couple of more general remarks at the end on the broader aspects of home education, as the question of whether Clause 31 should stand part of the Bill is formally in this group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

If I have understood the noble Lord’s first point, it relates to whether the information-sharing provisions within this legislation will support the ability of local authorities to be able to track, so that they can ensure that children do not fall through the gaps. Of course that would be the case, but that in itself does not remove the requirement to ensure that, as he said, local authorities have information about where all children are receiving their education. The noble Lord is right that the intention of these clauses is that, obviously, if a child is receiving their education in school, it is clear and they are seen, but if they are not receiving their education in school for whatever reason, it is important that they are seen. The intention is that those are the children who should be included in the register of children not in school.

I take the noble Lord’s point about flexi-schooling, but it is possible to envisage, as I suggested, models of flexi-schooling where children are receiving part of their schooling at a school where they are registered and on the roll but are not receiving all of their schooling there. Therefore, the explanation of why they should be included in the register of children not in school is in order to have sight of the other part of their schooling. The other point that I made was that that would not necessarily require parents to provide additional information, because it may well be that the information about where that education provision is happening is known by the school. There is a range of different flexi-schooling arrangements and it is important that, in line with the helpful principle that the noble Lord set out at the beginning, we are able to see children and to see the education that they are receiving.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her support on the flexi-schooling amendments and the Minister for her response and her comprehensive statement earlier in the debate, which was helpful. The brief discussion that we have just had on flexi-schooling illustrates exactly the sort of point that is perhaps better discussed in one of those August meetings than now on the Floor of your Lordships’ House.

I will not detain noble Lords further. We have had a much fuller debate than perhaps I expected and I might have spoken at greater length at the start if I had known quite how large a debate we would have. I take this opportunity nevertheless to associate myself with the comments of my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lord Wei on the principles of this discussion.