Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Norton of Louth]

502C: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of the Act(1) The Secretary of State must—(a) carry out a review of the operation and effect of this Act,(b) set out the conclusions of the review in a report,(c) publish the report, and(d) lay a copy of the report before Parliament.(2) The report must be published before the end of the period of five years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.(3) The report must, in particular—(a) assess the extent to which the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act have been achieved, and(b) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved more effectively in any other way.(4) In carrying out the review, the Secretary of State must publish an invitation for interested parties to make submissions on the operation of the Act.”

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, on my count, almost 20 amendments have been tabled to the Bill requiring the Secretary of State within six or 12 months of the Act being passed to promulgate some regulations or undertake a review of a particular provision of the Act. My amendment is more comprehensive and adopts a longer timeframe. It would require the Secretary of State within five years of the passage of the Act to undertake a review of its operation and effect. The wording is the same as that of an amendment I tabled to the Employment Rights Bill and has the same justification.

Post-legislative scrutiny is essential for ensuring that the law we enact meets the various criteria of good law. We cannot know that it does without undertaking a thorough review and, in effect, completing a legislative feedback loop. There is no point in enacting legislation that then fails to deliver what it is intended to deliver and for us to proceed, in essence, in ignorance of its effects.

The case for post-legislative review has been accepted by government since 2008, with a commitment to reviewing most Acts three to five years after enactment. Ministers have variously reiterated that commitment. However, not all departments are rigorous in complying with it. The Government have also introduced a get-out clause saying that there may not be a review if, following correspondence with the chair of the relevant departmental Select Committee, it is agreed that a review may not be necessary. As I pointed out when the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, reported this, it is not clear how a chair will know that a review is not necessary without undertaking some initial review. It is also not clear why this House is excluded from the process.

As I argued on the Employment Rights Bill, there is a case for putting on the face of a measure provision for post-legislative scrutiny where

“the Bill is large, is complex, makes substantial changes to the law, is contested and has not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny”.—[Official Report, 24/6/25; col. 223.]

This Bill is clearly substantial, both in length and content, and it makes a major change to educational law in this country—it has been characterised by my noble friend Lord Lucas as striking

“at the heart of the relationship between parents and the Government”.—[Official Report, 20/5/25; col. 173.]

It has clearly engendered strong opinions; we have had extensive debate, with 12 days in Committee, as to its likely effects. It has also been introduced without pre-legislative scrutiny.

Making provision in the Bill for post-legislative scrutiny would enable all the claims made as to the effects of the Bill to be tested. Including such a provision would also help reassure critics of the Bill that there will be such a review. That may help the process of getting the Bill through.

The Minister may say that the amendment is unnecessary given that the Bill will qualify automatically for review three to five years after enactment. Making a clear commitment at the Dispatch Box, putting on the official record that the Bill will be subject to post-legislative review, is obviously valuable; we got such a commitment on the Employment Rights Bill. However, as I pointed out in debate on that Bill, the wording of my amendment derives from the Government’s own amendment to the then Football Governance Bill. The Government, to their credit, accepted the argument for putting provision for post-legislative scrutiny in that Bill and brought forward their own amendment. The grounds for doing so apply in the case of this Bill.

As I say, it would be welcome to have a commitment at the Dispatch Box that there will be post-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, but it will be even better to enshrine it in the Bill. Putting it in the Bill will demonstrate that the Government are confident that they will deliver on what it is intended to deliver. If the Minister resists the amendment, it will be helpful to hear from her how she distinguishes this Bill from the Football Governance Bill in terms of the merits of putting post-legislative scrutiny in the Bill. Does she or does she not accept that good law is a public good? I beg to move.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 502YN and 502YR, which stand in my name. These amendments are bound by a common theme: that the powers we create in this Bill must be effective, proportionate and accountable, not only in ordinary times but in moments of crisis, when authoritarian temptations grow stronger.

Amendment 502YN would establish an annual review of all measures introduced by the Bill. Each year, the Secretary of State would be required to test whether those measures are achieving their stated purpose, and whether they are doing so without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on parents, children, schools, providers, local authorities or the department itself. Where a measure fails, it should be amended or repealed. If no action is taken, within two years it must lapse. This is about accountability cutting both ways. Families, schools and community groups—huge numbers of stakeholders—are being asked in this Bill to account for children’s education. It is only fair that the Government should account for the laws they pass.

We have been warned many times in these debates about the dangers of excessive bureaucracy and mission creep. Clause 31, the proposed register of children not in school, illustrates this risk. In principle, such a register may help identify who is being educated outside mainstream settings. In practice, the Bill demands far more data than is needed. In Portsmouth, more than 70% of home-educated children have already been served notices or orders annually, compared with a national average closer to 1%. That is not proportional oversight; it is overreach.

The effects ripple outward. Children suffer when teachers, social workers and SEND staff are forced to spend more time filling in forms than supporting them, and parents are treated with suspicion, not because of evidence of harm but because they made a lawful choice to educate differently. Schools themselves may be dragged down by compliance checks that drain morale and resources. Providers and tutors may be chilled by one size fits all rules designed for large institutions but applied indiscriminately. Community groups and charities—often the lifeline for struggling families and children—will find scarce volunteer time consumed by licensing and paperwork.

We have seen where such unchecked bureaucracy leads. The contact point database was launched with the best of intentions to safeguard children. It collapsed under its own weight: disproportionate, unworkable and ultimately abandoned. Scotland’s named person scheme likewise promised protection but in practice extended excessive authority and intrusive data collection before being struck down. These are cautionary tales of what happens when there is no obligation to review and no sunset clause to cut away what does not work.

Yet the risks are not only of inefficiency; there is something deeper. Bureaucracy when excessive is not neutral. It becomes a means of control. It erodes freedom, not by open coercion but by endless demands that exhaust and intimidate until families, schools and communities yield.

That is why Amendment 502YR is so important: it recognises that powers created in good faith can one day be misused. It would require that, within six months of Royal Assent, the Secretary of State ensures that a mechanism is ready so that, in any national emergency or period of authoritarian governance, the courts, not Ministers, retain the final authority to uphold the primacy of parental rights in their children’s education.

We cannot ignore the geopolitical context. Across Europe and beyond, we see the rise of extremes on both left and right. Authoritarian Governments rarely declare themselves at the outset; they grow by increments, often beginning with education. They use registers and guidance powers, not to support families but to control them. They impose ideological curricula, marginalise communities of faith and stifle innovation and dissent in the classroom. Disturbingly, elements of this Bill draw inspiration, whether knowingly or not, from an unlikely and troubling source. The original departmental human rights justification cited to justify state intervention in home education here arose from a case in Germany where a home-educating parent was prosecuted under laws dating back to the 1930s. These laws, introduced under Hitler’s regime, continue today to ban home education outright in Germany. It is sobering that our own debates now echo arguments first made to defend a system designed not to protect children but to eliminate educational pluralism—one that our own national wartime Government in the 1940s sought to fight by giving parents the ultimate say over their children’s education.

We must not follow that path. We must not allow powers framed as safeguards to evolve into machinery that stifles freedom. This is not to deny the state its proper role in protecting children. Safeguarding is vital, but safeguarding fails when systems chase compliance instead of risk: when form filling replaces human judgment, when bureaucracy itself becomes the end rather than the means. In such a climate, children most in need are overlooked while families acting responsibly, and schools, are burdened and alienated.

The two amendments before us are modest disciplines against such outcomes. The first creates a feedback loop: Parliament learns from the real-world impact of its laws and corrects course where necessary. The second ensures that, when times grow dark, there is a constitutional anchor, that courts can guard against authoritarian misuse, ensuring that parental primacy in education is never extinguished by bureaucratic or dictatorial creep.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am more than happy to meet my noble friend and to bring those legal minds with me that I hope will enable him to be reassured. Given that this is the last group that I will be responding to today, I also thank him for what he has said about this Committee stage. It has been lengthy, but usually carried out in a respectful, amicable and constructive way. For that, I particularly thank the opposition Front Benches and, obviously, my excellent Whip and co-responder my noble friend Lady Blake. I agree with my noble friend that I do not think anybody could say that we have not done our jobs as legislators in this place in well and truly giving this a good going over, and I thank all those who have been involved in that.

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, given that, as the Minister said, she is just bringing to a conclusion her 12 days in Committee on the Bill, I was rather hoping that she may be a little demob happy and put aside her brief and accept the amendment.

I naturally welcome the commitment that the Bill will be reviewed within five years. For the reasons I developed, I believe that putting the commitment in the Bill is the preferable option. As I trust was clear from what I said, I do not believe putting such a provision in the Bill should apply to all or even most Bills, but only those that meet the criteria I detailed. Providing for such a scrutiny imposes a valuable discipline in drafting the measure, stimulating Ministers to think about the criteria by which one would know whether an Act had actually achieved what it was intended to achieve. That is not always clear. It would also demonstrate the Government’s confidence in the Bill to achieve its purpose.

The arguments for doing this, as I said, are the same as those accepted by the Government on the Football Governance Act. This is an important issue, not least for the health of the statute book. We rather miss the significance of such provisions, along with commencement orders, by sticking them at the end of Bills. I think we need to look at that again, but that is a matter I will pursue on another day. Given the importance of ensuring good law, I may return to the issue on Report, but for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 502C withdrawn.