My Lords, this is an important set of amendments about Part 3 of the Bill, and it is our first opportunity to really debate it. It is not a part that I had time to really reflect on in my Second Reading speech. I would like to be able to set out a little bit of thinking about the right approach to home education and school attendance in that context.
I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for having done the grunt work of going through all this and putting down a swathe of amendments—I do not necessarily agree with them all, but I have put my name to some of them, and to those from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. I know that the noble Baroness,
Lady Jones, has also put in some useful amendments. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I think she made some really useful points.
First, I fundamentally support the right of parents to home educate; it is an important freedom and right. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, some of the circumstances where the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities find that mainstream schooling does not work for their child and that special schooling and alternative provision might not be right—or might not be right for now. It is important that they have an alternative: to take responsibility themselves, as long as they are “providing a suitable education”—which I think is the phrase used in law. I also know of examples where parents have an alternative view on the values and vision set out in the national curriculum or in mainstream schooling. There are examples of really innovative, interesting practice from aggregated home schoolers who are coming together at different times of the week. Indeed, I have friends who elected to home school their daughter so that they could take off—literally—and travel and circumnavigate the globe with their child who was, I think, nine years old at the time. He is a primary school teacher and took responsibility for educating her while she went around the globe. I would hate for us to pass any kind of legislation which would criminalise someone for providing such a rich educational experience for their child. I must say that it would not be my choice to home educate; the experience of Covid meant that many parents had suddenly to educate an eight year-old or nine year-old—depending on at what point in the pandemic they were. I had to home educate only one child, and that was enough—thank you. So it would not be my choice, but I respect the rights of others who want to do it.
It also true that this right can be abused to hide children from the authorities that we ask to keep children safe. Here, I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Soley, whom I am glad to see in his place, and others in this House and the other House who have been working to bring in a requirement for parents to register their children with the local authority if they are not in school. I absolutely agree with that, alongside the right to home educate. I am pleased that the Government, in this part of the Bill, are bringing that in. Indeed, it is logical that, if we are mandating parents, there are consequences for those who flout that mandation. This is why penalties are being introduced, and fines are probably right. I am concerned by feedback I have received from correspondents that the Government have not consulted with home schoolers on the monetary penalties. I know that there have been various consultations around changes to home education, registration of home education and so on, but this move to criminalise parents through the use of the single justice procedure—given the specific way in which that works—is causing some significant concern which I ask the Minister to look at.
Of course, most local authorities already operate a register, so this ought to be an incremental measure that could be introduced without too much controversy. Sadly, however, that is not the case; huge concern has arisen, and these amendments allow us to debate some of them. Indeed—surprise, surprise—it feels a little bit
like the Government have rushed to take overweening powers in this Bill—as with other parts of the Bill—rather than think it through and win the argument on the detail of how they want to implement it. There is a concern that much of this has been written with a mindset that all parents who choose not to send their children to school are colluding in some kind of truancy—and that is informing quite a lot of the concern we need to explore.
I understand some of the concern. When I read new Section 436C(1)(c)—
“details of the means by which the child is being educated”—
I thought that was maybe okay. I could see some over-intrusion in it. I know of examples of people providing services to home schoolers, among others, who have had Ofsted inspectors using powers of entry and filming themselves entering premises in a way that even the police are not allowed to do. There are examples of people using their powers in ways that are over the top. However, when I read new Section 436C(1)(d)—“any other information” as required—the alarm bells then ring about taking on excessive powers, and I understand why parents worry. I remember, for example, the case in 2009 of the local authority in Poole, not far from the South Dorset constituency I used to represent, using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to implement surveillance on some parents who were living in an area in order to be within the school catchment area of the Lilliput school, which is very popular in Poole. In the end, that was thrown out as an unreasonable use of RIPA powers by that local authority. I also read the Square Peg briefing that was helpfully supplied, and of the anger that some parents feel towards local authorities about the way they are already being dealt with—before these powers are even brought in.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right to want to define what data is collected in the register, and some of that comes up in the next group. I am slightly concerned by his comments about tracking and how that feels. I do not self-identify as an overly libertarian sort of politician, but it raised some concerns about tracking individual children. If he is talking about aggregation and anonymisation in the context of tracking so that we understand the general trends, I feel somewhat calmer about some of the privacy concerns around children’s data that might flow from where he was going. I was very happy to add my name to Amendment 97A on the main address; it is important to establish the principal address, rather than penalising people when they are on holiday—as the noble Lord said.
In the next group, we have Amendment 97D, where my noble friend Lady Whitaker and I question why we would not add gender and ethnicity to the data collection. It is important, as in Amendment 101B, that we should establish the reason for not being registered in school, and specifically to identify home education, and people electing to home educate, so that it is properly acknowledged and that a proportionate response from the local authority, and a proportionate relationship between it and the parent, follow. It is also right that these regulations—particularly if they remain as wide-ranging as “any other information” as required—should
be brought in by the affirmative procedure. My noble friend Lord Hunt was not able to stay to speak to his Amendments 131 and 132, but I have signed my name to Amendment 131 and support Amendment 132, which would give Parliament more oversight over the regulations.
This data collection should then be the basis of some kind of annual check by the local authority; it should be able to see the child to fulfil its child safety duties, but in a reasonable and proportionate way that respects the right of parents to home educate their children. I had a very interesting conversation with Professor Eileen Munro of the London School of Economics, who is opposed to any of these measures. She made a really important point that, if we had properly funded child social care workers who could go around and do the human business of working with the children in their area, things would be a lot easier, and it would take a lot of the heat out of this debate. At the moment, the worry is that this is all going to be done by algorithms, registration and data collection—an inhuman approach. I also put it to your Lordships that this whole regime will become easier as and when local authorities are no longer providers of schools. That is because if they are no longer running schools and we get to a position where all schools are academies—as is the policy direction of travel—they no longer have a vested interest in the funding that goes with getting pupils into school; they can become a more independent advocate for children and families. I think that being their voice first and foremost—unfettered by any of those other interests—could make a difference to this regime.
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My Amendment 97BA in this group questions the need to double register pupils. New Section 436B(5)(b) at the top of page 41 concerns children already registered as pupils at a relevant school, and then opens up powers for them to also be required to be registered with the local authority. I would just like to know why that is, because schools, although they might not do it very well sometimes, should have responsibility for the safeguarding and education of all pupils who are registered with them, even if they have—to use a pejorative term—parked them in alternative provision. If they are registered with the school, it should know where they are, and it should have a responsibility towards their well-being. I do not really understand why those children then need also to be subsequently registered with a local authority. That then raises the question of how parents with children they know are registered in a school will know when they are suddenly mandated to register them with a local authority. What is the trigger? Of course, if they get that wrong, they are subject to a criminal penalty and a criminal record. That is a serious part of the regime we are debating.
I ask the Minister to reflect on this regime she is bringing in. I am pleased to see that she has ministerial responsibility for home education, so I am not just talking to the person responsible for taking the Bill through—this is also in her policy brief. I remember as a Minister that you would make the basic, principled decision about the policy and then have to trust officials
to draft the legislation accordingly. I know that she is a listening Minister. I hope that, as part of her reflections on how regulation is being used generally in the Bill, she can include whether regulation is being used too liberally and whether the Secretary of State is taking on too many powers, which in the end they would pass on to local authorities, some of whom—a minority—might use them in a draconian fashion.