Commons Report Stage debate indicates that some politicians are listening, but a lot more work remains to be done
What’s been said?
“This Bill contains 38 policy proposals all linked by a troubling theme: the misguided notion that the bureaucrat knows best.”
These were the words of Graham Stuart, speaking straight after Steve Witherden (Lab, Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) during the second day of the Report Stage on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which took place on 18 March.
Witherden, a teacher, national executive member of the NASUWT and Chair of the Education APPG, was protesting “the negative impact of academies becoming the default model, while local authorities have been sidelined,” and expecting that the Bill would bring about “greater consistency and fairness between academies and maintained schools.”
Stuart, a long-standing advocate for home educators, went on to tell Witherden that the Bill “also undermines the rights of parents to determine what is best for their children’s education, whether it be attending school or being home educated.”
Of course the CWS Bill covers a much wider range of matters than the ones home educating parents are focusing on right now, and it’s useful to remember that the broader backcloth to the exchange of views above is the classic ideological positions on education of those on the left or the right of politics.
All in all, the Report Stage debate on Tuesday 18 March makes very informative listening. [ Video | Transcript ] The proportion of debating time taken up by home education-related clauses was surely a reflection of the effective and determined lobbying done by HE parents. Several MPs were keenly aware of their concerns, and spoke up cogently on their behalf.
Space precludes detailed analysis here. Those with limited time might appreciate this short compilation video of key input by Educational Freedom. A selection of quotes from the Hansard transcript have been collected together in this PDF to demonstrate the range of parliamentarians who spoke up on home education-related issues.
The way the more experienced politicians identified that ideology underpinned the whole Bill, not just those parts pertaining to HE was also noteworthy, and distinct ideological positions were very evident in the short Third Reading. This followed on seamlessly after the Report Stage concluded around 7.30pm, and saw a heated exchange between Minister Bridget Phillipson and Shadow Minister Laura Trott, where Phillipson (herself the Queen of Rhetoric) appealed to those on the Opposition benches to:
“Put aside their rhetoric and gimmickry, just for one moment, and consider what their constituents actually want—not their friends in high places, in the commentariat and in the Westminster bubble, but parents up and down this country.”
All things considered, quite ironic coming from Phillipson, whose measures on registration of children not in school are riding roughshod over what many home educating parents actually want.
Why does it matter?
Information:
Several members raised queries about the amount of information being required from home-educating parents, but Minister Catherine McKinnell was uncompromising from the start on the matter of information-sharing.
“Members… will be all too aware of the succession of tragedies that we have seen when children have fallen between the cracks in services that should be there to support them. The changes in the Bill are a reflection of this Government’s determination to bring that era of state failure to a close.”
Unfortunately, despite her assertions, the creation of registers will have no bearing on the efficacy or otherwise of the support services for vulnerable children.
Undue haste:
This debate took place only three months after the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill was published. A determined government has railroaded it through the Commons at top speed. Though personally supportive of registers, Helen Hayes, Chair of the Education Committee, spoke her mind on this:
“This is a very large Bill covering many areas of policy, and it is being taken through this House very quickly and was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny.”
She later spoke to one of her own amendments to the effect that the Secretary of State should be required to “conduct regular reviews of the impact of this Act and to publish reports.”
Wellbeing:
Another education heavyweight, LibDem spokesperson Munira Wilson, reminded the House that “it was surprising that a Bill so entitled had little content on wellbeing.”
Corporate Parents:
Everyone should be clear that Local Authorities are not Corporate Parents for all children. Lib Dem MP Vikki Slade spoke very supportively about the concerns of HE families, but it is important to note that her statement about LAs’ Corporate Parenting responsibilities was somewhat misleading. Politicians as well as HE parents need to be clear where the boundaries lie. LAs have corporate parenting responsibilities only for those children who have been formally placed in their care. See this explanation with reference to the Children and Social Work Act 2017.
Last minute extension to Wales:
On 10 March, the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, published a Written Statement announcing that her department had “discussed the Bill with the UK government and… asked that certain provisions within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, be applied to Wales in the same way as England.”
Three matters which would apply to Wales initially, she said, would be Children in secure accommodation; the extension of the offence of ill-treatment of a child by a care worker to cover 16/17-year-olds, and Children not in school.
This information was confirmed by English Minister McKinnell during the debate:
“this Government [are] determined to work with the devolved Governments to deliver higher standards of education and care in all parts of the UK. The majority of today’s amendments concern the extension of the ‘children not in school’ provisions to Wales… [They] will extend all the ‘children not in school’ measures to Wales. There is a legislative consent motion on this change, on which we are working very closely with the Welsh Government.”
See this report from Families First in Education Wales for further information.
What can I do?
Share some of the concerns raised in this debate with other parents – not just HE ones – pointing out the dangers of diminishing parental primacy and enlarging the role of the state in the life of every child. Some may not have given much thought to whether it is really desirable for the state to do more and more on behalf of parents, and where this eventually leads.
Keep an eye on wider news stories too. Other items sometimes stimulate a national conversation, and these can serve as a bridge to connect issues in people’s minds.
Bookmark useful articles and resources. Defend Digital Me publish regular news items relevant to information-sharing. A recent article in The Critic by Catherine Oliver made some salient points. Others from both the wider media and within the HE communities can be found on our page listing articles relevant to the Bill.
Engaging with Peers ahead of the Bill’s Second reading in the House of Lords on 1 May is the next important thing. Resources to help you get started are available on this page. Now is the moment to be choosing who you might write to, and start drafting your letter.
Even though the Bill is now in the Lords, if you have established contact with your MP, please keep them updated over the coming weeks. If the Bill is amended by Peers, it will then have to go back to the Commons for the changes to be debated. If any of the alterations are helpful, then their support will be needed.
Don’t forget your local councillors either. Time and again, discussions and questions at local council level reveal how little councillors actually know about the realities of HE. In the absence of first-hand contact with HE families, they are likely to default to the biased, negative image portrayed by the media.
Everyone has different skill sets and different stories to tell. Whether writing, speaking, communicating on social media, your own journey and experience with HE is a powerful tool to deploy in whatever way you feel most comfortable with. Recently, there have been articles in local media that were the result of HE families reaching out to them. It would be good to keep this flow going – the more people are aware that their freedom to choose how their children are educated in the future depends on home educators being able to make this choice today, the more support they will provide for our collective cause.