My Lords, I rise to speak to the first group of amendments which relate to the proposals for children not in school registers. If I may, I would like to start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for their very constructive remarks in setting the context in which these measures are being introduced. I would also like to echo the noble Baroness opposite’s remarks regarding the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and his, as she said, very sensitive and kind work on this. Obviously, sensitivity and kindness are really important, because we are talking about parents who care desperately that their children get the right education, and all of us as parents can recognise how important that is.
Amendments 64B and 72A, from my noble friend Lord Wei, seek to narrow the eligibility criteria for the registers. Local authorities would still need to make inquiries and hold certain information to ascertain a child’s eligibility to be on the register, and indeed to check whether a child is at risk of harm. This is not materially different to local authorities recording this information in a register, except that the effect of these amendments would hinder local authorities from discharging their existing duties. The House has already heard reflections from the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Chapman, about the pressures that local authorities are under.
It is vital that the registers contain information on all children not in school. The registers are there not just for safeguarding reasons but also to aid local
authorities to undertake existing responsibilities to ensure education being provided is suitable, to help them identify children who are truly missing education, which will become easier once we know where all children not in school are, and, critically, to help them to discharge their new duty to provide support to home-educating families. As other noble Lords have said, this in no way diminishes the rights of any parent to decide to educate their child at home.
My noble friend talked about the lack of opportunities for appeal and complaints. There are a number of routes for complaints available for parents in relation to school attendance orders. First, they can ask the local authority to revoke the order, and the local authority must act reasonably in deciding whether or not to agree to this. If the local authority refuses, the parents can appeal to the Secretary of State to give direction; the Secretary of State will consider each case individually and will make a balanced judgment on the information available, and has the power to direct the local authority to revoke a school attendance order. The Education Act 1996 also gives the Secretary of State powers to intervene when a local authority exercises its functions unreasonably or fails to comply with duties under that Act. We are also looking at how we can strengthen independent oversight of local authorities and considering alternative routes of complaint for home-educating parents.
I will also write to my noble friend, and to the House, to clarify once again the fact that the failure to provide information to a local authority is not criminal. Rather it starts the whole process for a school attendance order, but in the interests of time I will set that out in a letter.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Lucas and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and, on his behalf, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, for their Amendments 65 to 66A. The measures in the Bill do not give local authorities any new powers to monitor, assess or dictate the content of education. The right reverend Prelate talked about a “cloud of suspicion”, and I think it would be unfortunate if he was right about that. We have striven to be clear about the scope of the powers and when any new powers are required. We are of the view that local authorities’ existing powers are already sufficient to assess the suitability of the education being provided. Therefore, I would like to be clear that the phrase in the Bill
“the means by which the child is being educated”
does not include the content of the education itself. I am happy to put that on the record. It is limited to matters such as whether the child is taught entirely at home or also attends education settings, which settings they are, and how much of their time the child spends there.
It is important to keep this existing drafting to ensure that local authority registers not only include information on where a child is being educated other than at school, such as entirely at home or at out-of-school education providers, but what proportion of their education they are receiving at those settings. Capturing this information will help local authorities identify those children who may be receiving most, if not all, of their education in unsuitable settings, such as illegal schools.
Regulations will set out the details of the child’s education provision to be included in registers, as well as whether or not a child is assessed to be receiving a suitable education. I have tabled Amendment 86 to enable these, and other regulations concerning the collection and sharing of data, to be subject to increased parliamentary scrutiny.
Turning to Amendment 67, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that it is already the Government’s intention, through regulations, to require local authorities to record the reasons why a child is eligible for registration, and Amendments 68, 69 and 73 in my name make provision for this. We believe that this information will be invaluable for understanding why parents may be home educating, including identifying systemic issues such as insufficient SEN support or off-rolling—all concerns that your Lordships have raised, rightly, during the passage of the Bill.
It was always our intention that the power in new Section 436C(1)(d) should be used to prescribe the inclusion of information, such as this, aimed at promoting the education, welfare and safety of children, but we recognise the concerns raised about its breadth. We have therefore proposed its removal and replacement with a targeted list of matters, which would allow for the inclusion of information such as reasons for eligibility, the child’s protected characteristics, or whether they are a looked-after child, on a child protection plan or a child in need.
Amendments 85A, 94 and 118C concern the important issue of safeguarding data. It is our intention that data protection be a key area of focus during implementation, but to provide more reassurance we have sought to introduce additional protections for families. Amendment 70, in my name, will place in the Bill our existing commitment that no data that could identify a child or parent be published or made publicly available.
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Amendments 71 and 72, also in my name, will also ensure that the information parents are required to provide is limited to information that is essential for the operation of the registers, which I hope will reassure parents of our commitment to processing sensitive data only where it is necessary. Disclosure of any additional information prescribed for inclusion in the registers under new Section 436(1)(a), such as protected characteristics, which may be more sensitive, will be voluntary. The amendments also remove any possibility for the school attendance order process to be triggered on the basis that a parent has failed to provide information for a local authority’s register that they do not have or know. While the power in new Section 436C(1)(a) would still allow for some additional information to be prescribed, not detailed in the matters listed, noble Lords should be reassured that this is limited, allowing only for information of a similar kind to be prescribed where the Secretary of State considers it appropriate for promoting the education, welfare or safety of children.
It is important that there be flexibility in this power should other types of information come to light as beneficial for inclusion, such as whether a child is subject to a supervision order or is a young carer. However, parents would still have the option not to
disclose this, should they wish. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, invited me to elaborate on how we plan to work with parents. I have said previously, and am happy to do so again, that we will be working with parents, local authorities and safeguarding experts to create the implementation guidance for the register. We hope very much that local areas will watch what is happening with that national panel, and encourage them to do so, and, if they feel it is appropriate, perhaps to consider mirroring it in their local area. The hopes and fears we have heard expressed in the debate will be felt by parents, children, local authorities and safeguarding experts. It is only by bringing all those groups together that we can come to proposals that will, I hope, work in practice but also be trusted and understood by those who are affected by them.
On Amendment 85 from my noble friend Lord Lucas, we will give further consideration to whether it is appropriate to require independent schools to complete the pupil-level school census that state-funded schools complete. But there is no need for any legislation in order to be able to do this. The aim of my noble friend Lord Wei’s Amendment 86A would be counterproductive to the changes to the school attendance order process to minimise the time a child spends in unsuitable education. It would significantly hamper a local authority’s ability to establish the facts of a child’s education and leave it unable to take further action to remedy a lack of education. This is surely an unacceptable outcome. Finally, I hope that the statements I have made today provide the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, with sufficient reassurances on her Amendment 86B.
I ask my noble friend Lord Wei to withdraw his Amendment 64B and other noble Lords not to press their amendments.