Minister’s Committee Stage responses shine further light on the Department for Education’s underlying intentions to build a complete “picture of home-educated children’s circumstances.”
What’s been said?
After fourteen sessions scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill clause by clause, the work of the Public Bill Committee came to an end on 11 February, its members’ duties complete. Transcripts and audio recordings of all sessions are available; there are no video recordings.
The clauses of particular interest to home educating families (24-29) were debated in just an hour and a half during the eighth sitting of the Committee on 30 January. [transcript | audio] Clauses 30-37 pertaining to independent educational institutions were considered in the next session on 4 February. [transcript | audio].
NOTE: the Bill has now been re-issued with an additional clause, which has affected the clause numbering. However, the original version was still in use when this session took place, so original numbers are used.
Space precludes a complete review of the ‘debate’ on clauses 24-29; this Byte considers how discussion of amendments brought forth significant responses from the Minister.
The Bill moves next into its Report stage and Third Reading. Further information here.
Why does it matter?
Having already struggled with parliamentary jargon and procedure and the different functions of Commons Select Committees and Public Bill Committees, we are aware that many were perplexed by the way most amendments were seemingly dropped before they could be voted on.
This practice made listening to the eighth Bill Committee session something of a roller-coaster experience at times, seeing what felt from a home educator’s point of view to be an encouraging amendment later withdrawn. Were opposition MPs climbing down or being strategic?
The governing party has a large majority, so according to Parliamentary rules the Committee was always going to be front-loaded with Labour MPs. Therefore, if a proposer pushes an amendment to a vote in these early stages of a Bill’s journey, it will certainly be defeated. (Unless of course it is a Government amendment – these are usually adopted.) The text of rejected amendments cannot simply be resubmitted during a later stage, so it can be more strategic to use it to test the water, but retain it for later use.
Bill Committee sittings function just like all parliamentary debates but in miniature, which means that one of the Ministers in attendance has the opportunity to provide the Government’s response to each group of amendments.
These ‘probing amendments’ are therefore tactical, in that they dig deeper into formal policy statements and evoke responses from the Ministers, potentially yielding further insight about government intentions.
Similarly, amendments put forward by Shadow Education Minister Neil O’Brien and Lib Dem Education Spokesperson Munira Wilson also serve to provide further perspective on their parties’ positions.
With all this in mind, consider for instance Minister Stephen Morgan’s comments on the Conservatives’ amendment 35 to Clause 24 (now 25), a proposed insertion of:
“or (c) providing services to the child or their family under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.”
This refers to a Child in Need, which would have been a serious lowering of the bar for non-consensual intervention by the State in the life of a child. Even the Minister rightly recognised this in his response, acknowledging that it would be counter-productive:
“Amendment 35 seeks to expand the eligibility of the home education consent process to include those children and families receiving support and services under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
The family hub model combines targeted early help and section 17 support into a seamless, non-stigmatising approach focused on the whole family through a single plan and consistent worker, even as a family’s needs change. Bringing children in need into scope of the home education consent process is likely to prevent families from seeking support when they need it, the opposite of what we want. Parents and families might well be reluctant to accept support from the local authority under section 17 if it meant that their ability to home educate was called into question and, potentially, permission to home educate was refused.”
Clause 25 (now 26) is the one requiring vast quantities of information from parents about their children’s activities along with details of all other education providers. When it was debated, a total of eight tabled amendments were grouped with it, and the following three from the Conservatives were cited in the Minister’s reply.
62 “remove a requirement for the register of children not in school to include details of how much time a child spends being educated by parents.”
63 “in respect of each individual or organisation which provides such education for more than six hours a week”
64 “(1A) The requirements of subsection (1)(e) do not apply to provision provided on weekends or during school holidays.”
Introducing these, Neil O’Brien reiterated the importance of not stigmatising or treating as suspicious those parents who make a positive choice to home educate. He also pointed out the discriminatory nature of not requiring similar weekend or school holidays information from parents of schooled children.
Both Wilson and Hinds followed with up with their objections, having reached similar conclusions about the unworkable volume of information being required.
All this fell on deaf ears, for Stephen Morgan’s response was categorical – all this information was absolutely necessary! A section of his response is cited below, but it is worth reading or listening to the whole speech to see his associated preoccupation with out of school settings, and how school attendance is viewed as a ‘protective factor.’ [Emphasis added throughout]
“Information on the amount of time that a child receives education from their parents, combined with information on where the child receives education other than with their parent, is a crucial part of building the picture of home-educated children’s circumstances. Amendment 62 would mean that that picture could not be built.
Often, the circumstances will differ greatly from child to child; for example, home-educated children do not have set hours in the same way as children at school. Amendments 63 and 64 would potentially create loopholes in the registration system through their attempts to set a time threshold or to exempt weekends and holidays from the parental duty to provide information about out-of-school education providers.
Six hours per week at a provider could represent a large proportion of a child’s learning, especially for children with additional needs that limit their ability to engage with teaching for prolonged periods. Equally, children who could spend five hours per week or the whole weekend in an unsafe setting and home-educated children would not have the protective factor of attending a properly registered school for the other five days of the week.
The amendments would mean that parents are not required to inform their local authority that their child was receiving education in such settings, by virtue of the provision falling below an arbitrary time threshold or taking place on the wrong day of the week, such as at the weekend. There is too much potential for unregistered independent schools to exploit this to avoid detection.“
Later, in response to a suggestion that aggregated information about GCSE results for home educated children might be helpful, the Minister again justified the need for addition information for those on the CNiS register, speciously linking it with the provision of ‘support.’
“A comprehensive view of outcomes for home-educated children cannot be based on a single measure. That is why clause 25 includes powers to require additional information to be held on the children not in school register and for this information to be provided to the Department so that it can be analysed and actions can be taken at a national level to support these children.”
He reassured the Committee that the measures were ‘proportionate’ and went on to speak about “appropriate information sharing” which will “create a more complete picture of individual children, and where necessary, support multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.”
In more generic comments, he played the dual-purpose “suitable education” and “keeping children safe” card as he drew comparisons with other countries’ policies on home education, still claiming that the proposed measures are proportionate.
“Picking up on the points that colleagues have raised, more broadly, these measures provide local authorities with a proportionate power to ensure that children receive a suitable education and are kept safe. These measures would take us to a level that the vast majority of western countries are already at, and many other countries go much further, even banning home education completely or putting many more restrictions or requirements in place. We are not doing that – these measures are about keeping children safe.”
He later dismissed concerns about the disproportionate impact on SEND families, with reference to the “thorough equality impact assessment” the Department has undertaken.
Note too important information about expanded purposes for SAOs:
“The clause amends the school attendance order process in England to extend and strengthen it. In addition to addressing instances when a child is not in receipt of suitable education, as school attendance orders do now, the orders will also act as, first, a consequence for parents not providing information for a local authority’s children not in school register and, secondly, will provide a route for a home-educated child to attend school if that child is subject to a child protection inquiry or a child protection plan and the local authority decides that it would be in the child’s best interest to do so.”
He also subsequently drew connections between SAOs, all educational settings, and the child’s home environment:
“When a local authority is deciding whether to serve a school attendance order, it is important that it considers the child’s full circumstances. That is why the clause will place a new requirement on local authorities to consider all the settings where the child is being educated and their home environment when deciding whether to serve an order.
To help authorities make that assessment, they will have a new power to request to visit the child inside their home…”
All the above provide insights into the Government’s motivations and intentions in the proposals contained in the Bill. Importantly, they are now part of the Parliamentary record and can be used when writing to MPs and Peers, and they can be used in Written Questions when probing Ministers for further details.
What can I do?
Make time to listen to or read as much of this debate as you can, paying particular attention to the Minister’s responses and the wide-ranging queries raised towards the end of proceedings.
Recent media reports about HE have varied widely, on a spectrum from appalling to positive. This one in the Spectator reaches rather a gloomy conclusion, but makes some good points along the way. Another, published two days later in the Telegraph, highlights the dangers implicit in undermining the role of parents.
Having gleaned a clearer understanding of the issues at stake, seek opportunities to influence the narrative in whatever way you can.
Public opinion is made up of the views of countless individuals, and we all have our spheres of influence. Conversations within your own family and local community circles, local media (press and radio stations), social media. Emphasise the dangers of an increasingly standardised state education provision, along with decreased opportunity for parents to pursue other options. People are individuals. They are not standard issue. They learn in different ways.
We are seeing a dangerous erosion of parental responsibility at a moment when it’s vital to defend their right to educational choice as they fulfil their responsibility to their children.