Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Acton]

502M: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to keep schools open for in person attendance(1) So far as reasonably possible, public authorities must ensure that, during the period of any civil emergency, schools are kept open for in person attendance by children and young people.(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision about how public authorities should discharge the duty under subsection (1), including provision specifying—(a) steps that a public authority may or must take to comply with the duty, and(b) actions that a public authority is prohibited from taking.(3) Regulations made under subsection (2) must be made by statutory instrument.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.(5) A power to make regulations under this section includes the power to make—(a) consequential, incidental, supplementary, transitional or saving provision;(b) different provision for different purposes.(6) A public authority must not, in response to a civil emergency, take or facilitate any action (including making regulations, issuing directions, issuing orders, giving guidance, or making recommendations) that—(a) results in, or encourages, the closure of schools, or(b) otherwise prevents or restricts lawful attendance at such institutions or premises by children and young people,unless the requirements of subsection (7) are met.(7) Before taking any action of the kind described in subsection (6), the public authority must first, unless the urgency of the civil emergency precludes this—(a) request the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people who will be affected by the action,(b) provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for the proposed action, and(c) have due regard to the Children’s Commissioner’s advice in determining whether to proceed with the action.(8) If any action of the kind described in subsection (6) is taken prior to seeking the advice of the Children’s Commissioner due to urgency—(a) as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 7 days of taking the action, the public authority must provide the Children’s Commissioner with full and complete information about the nature of and reasons for that action;(b) the Children’s Commissioner must then promptly, and in any event within 14 days of the action having been taken, provide the public authority with its advice in relation to the impact of that action on children and young people;(c) the public authority, having due regard to the Commissioner’s advice, shall determine whether the action continues to be justified or whether it should be revoked.(9) If action of the kind described in subsection (6) continues beyond 14 days, and in relation to each such period of 14 days thereafter, the Secretary of State must—(a) lay before Parliament a copy of the Children’s Commissioner’s advice, and (b) seek approval from the House of Commons for the continuation of the action.(10) If the House of Commons does not approve continuation under subsection (9)(b) within 14 days of the advice of the Children’s Commissioner being laid before Parliament under subsection 9(a), the relevant action automatically lapses, and any measures (including regulations, directions, orders, guidance, or recommendations made in support of or continuance of the relevant action) become legally void.(11) Where under any of the above provisions the advice of the Children’s Commissioner is sought, the Children’s Commissioner shall set out in writing his or her advice on the following matters—(a) the foreseeable impacts of any closures of schools on the affected children and young people,(b) any reasonable actions that could be taken to mitigate those impacts,(c) whether the anticipated benefits for those children of the closures identified by the public authority appear to him or her to outweigh the foreseeable impacts of closures for those children, and(d) any other matters which appear to him or her to be relevant.(12) The Children’s Commissioner is entitled to require the public authority or the Secretary of State to provide such further information, assistance, and resources as he or she considers necessary in order to set out his or her advice on a particular action and the public authority or the Secretary of State, as the case may be, shall provide such information, assistance or resources as soon as reasonably practicable.(13) For the purposes of this section—“children” means persons under the age of 18;“civil emergency” shall include any emergency situation which could constitute an emergency for the purposes of section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 or which has otherwise been identified as a risk in the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment. For the avoidance of doubt an emergency need not be the subject of measures taken under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to be a civil emergency for the purposes of this Act.“closure” in relation to schools, means any action to discourage, restrict or prevent in person attendance at those institutions or premises by children and young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend, or any sub-group or class of such children or young people;“open for in person attendance” in relation to schools, means being open for the attendance by all of the children who would ordinarily, and but for the occurrence of a civil emergency, be entitled to attend those institutions or premises, during their normal hours of operation;“open for in person attendance” does not include the provision of online learning or other remote learning services nor the keeping of such institutions or premises open for physical attendance only for a sub-group or class of those children or young people who would ordinarily be entitled to attend;“public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998” save that a court or tribunal is not included for these purposes.”Member's explanatory statement
The purpose of the amendment is to enact a statutory duty to keep schools open for in person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves, and continues every two weeks to approve, any closures.

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[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 502M would create a statutory duty to keep schools open for in-person attendance in future public health and other civil emergencies, unless Parliament expressly approves any closures and continues to approve them every two weeks.

We await the conclusions of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, but it is now widely accepted that it was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic. The evidence that it had a catastrophic impact on children is overwhelming. I am thinking of the research published by Ofsted in April 2022, when my noble friend Lady Spielman was at its head, which was based on inspection evidence that highlighted delays in children’s speech and language progress and a negative impact on children’s personal, social and emotional development. I am thinking of research published by the IFS, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Social Mobility Commission detailing the persistent and highly damaging impacts of school closures, exacerbating inequalities and reversing progress previously made to narrow the attainment gap.

I am thinking of the work done by the Centre for Social Justice showing that some children who were told to stay at home during the pandemic never reacquired the habit of attending school, with severe absences—defined as missing at least 50% of lessons—tripling compared to pre-pandemic levels. In the summer term of 2024, 172,938 English schoolchildren were severely absent. Incredibly, the number of persistently absent children—defined as missing at least 10% of lessons—climbed to 1.6 million last summer.

I am thinking of the data accumulated from children and young people now about the deterioration in children’s mental health since the school closures. Some 1.3 million schoolchildren were referred to mental health support services in the school year 2023-24—a 71% increase on the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.

Some will argue that these costs, while undoubtedly high, were outweighed by the benefits in terms of infections averted and lives saved, but children were at negligible risk from Covid-19. According to the ONS, between March 2020 and October 2022 in England and Wales, 88 deaths of children under the age of 18 were registered as being due to Covid-19. That is 0.05% of the total number of Covid deaths in the same period. To put that figure in perspective, between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022, 644 children died from accidents.

In any event, closing schools did not make children less likely to become infected. A study published by the Public Health Agency of Sweden in 2020 found that infection rates were no higher among schoolchildren in Sweden, which closed sixth forms but no other schools, than they were in Finland, which closed all schools.

What about adults? Did closing schools protect them? We are in the realm of counterfactuals here, but if we look at Sweden again, the evidence is that, no, keeping schools open did not mean that more people were at risk of becoming infected and dying from Covid-19. According to the ONS, Sweden’s overall excess mortality between March 2020 and July 2022 was negative —namely, lower than the pre-pandemic average—and far lower than in the UK, where schools were closed. In fact, Sweden’s excess mortality was the lowest of all European countries, except Norway. Incidentally, Norway did close schools, but the Prime Minister at the time apologised for doing so.

The costs of closing schools were almost incalculable and the benefits non-existent. It was a catastrophic error. Nevertheless, this amendment does not rule out ever closing schools again during future public health or civil emergencies. All it does is make it a statutory requirement, before schools are closed, to seek the advice of the Children’s Commissioner on the likely impact of such action on the children and young people affected by it and to have due regard for the Children’s Commissioner’s advice. It also makes it necessary to secure the approval of Parliament, with such approval needing to be renewed every two weeks if schools are to remain closed.

It was a mistake to close schools during the pandemic and we should take whatever steps we can to avoid making it again. I beg to move.

[Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend in supporting the amendment, which is in his name and mine. I am conscious of the hour, so I shall be brief in endorsing the point that my noble friend made. This is a modest amendment in that it seeks only to place a duty on Ministers to do something that we surely would all wish them to do anyway. It is crucial because it seeks to make the huge error of closing schools during the Covid pandemic far less likely to be repeated.

Many of us thought, at the time, that it was a mistake to engage in protracted school closures and that it would be immensely damaging. The excellent work of UsForThem, run by the splendid Molly Kingsley, helped to highlight the problems that were going to be caused. These harms were always going to be significant, but the evidence since the end of the Covid restrictions, as my noble friend pointed out, suggests that our fears five years ago were actually a gross underestimate of the damage that would be done to children and young people.

The repeated lockdowns and school closures constituted, in my view, the biggest public policy disaster in modern history. The fact that the interests of children and young people were treated so lightly is a disgrace. The damage to mental health, to education and to levels of school attendance have all been, and continue to be, profound. The lessons from Sweden, Florida and those few places around the world that took a more measured and intelligent approach is proof that many of our restrictions delivered little if any benefit while doing immense damage.

This amendment would ensure that, should there be pressure to repeat school closures in a future emergency, the government response would have to be transparent and that the criteria used to decide on school closure and opening would have to be clear and available to the public and to Parliament. It would ensure that Parliament would have a role in making those decisions in a way that Parliament was denied during the Covid period. I urge the Government and the Committee to accept it.

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[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Brady for an excellent speech in support of Amendment 502M, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Barran for their words of support.

All I will say in reply to the Minister’s thoughtful response is that yes, of course the Government need to remain flexible in the face of emergencies. However, there need to be safeguards in place, particularly when taking such momentous decisions. The safeguard of requiring the approval of Parliament seems a fairly modest one. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Amendment 502M withdrawn.