Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that home-schooled children and young people do not become radicalised.

Educating children at home can be a positive choice when carried out with proper regard for the needs of the child. Local authorities are responsible for taking action when it appears that the Elective Home Education provision is unsuitable. This will include assessing if the provision conflicts with ‘Fundamental British Values’ as defined in Government guidance. This includes, for example, seeking to promote terrorism, or advocating violence towards people on the basis of race, religion or sex.

The provision of home education itself does not constitute a safeguarding risk. However, it is important to bear in mind that a failure to provide suitable home education can constitute a safeguarding risk, because unsuitable or inadequate education can also impair a child’s intellectual, emotional, social, or behavioural development.

The Government’s guidance to local authorities, issued in April 2019, explains how a local authority’s safeguarding duties may be engaged in these circumstances, and what steps they can take.

The Department works closely with the Home Office and Counter-Terrorism Policing to support local authorities at the highest risk of radicalisation, to fulfil their duty and prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. This includes jointly funding Prevent Education Officers, who provide expertise and support to the education sector and relevant local authority services. The Department and partners also provide a range of advice and support for parents to help them protect children and young people from extremism and radicalisation, including through both the Educate Against Hate and the Counter-Terrorism Policing ‘Act Early’ websites.

To support home education, we know that children may also attend a range of out-of-school settings. The Department has invested £3 million in a pilot scheme aimed at enhancing the safeguarding of children in out-of-school settings to protect children from all forms of harm, including radicalisation.