BACKGROUND

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which was introduced in the House of Commons on 17 December 2024, contains several clauses which discriminate against, and penalise, parents who exercise their legal right to educate their children “otherwise than at school”, whilst offering no protection to those it will impact the most. We believe that the “unseemly haste” with which this Bill is being rushed through Parliament is with the specific and undemocratic intention of avoiding rigorous scrutiny and limiting the extent to which stakeholders can engage. Close inspection of the accompanying documents unmasks the true intent behind this Bill and its potential implementation (for example: Human Rights Memorandum HCB151 ECHR Memo

TACTICS

We wish to highlight the following as examples of the tactics employed to avoid scrutiny and confound due democratic diligence in respect of this Bill:

Bill introduced just 3 days before the Christmas recess, when MP’s would not be available to constituents wishing to raise concerns;

2nd reading on 8 January 2025, just 3 days after the end of Christmas recess;

Call for Evidence, and Committee hearings a scant two weeks later (21 January);

Briefing document only published on 3 January 2025 (5 days before the 2nd reading) leaving barely any time for MPs to scrutinise the Bill;

Committee hearings spread over just 8 sessions, which was insufficient given the length and complexity of this Bill;

According to the Education Committee (Pg 24 of scrutiny report on this Bill) they did not have “the time or resource to comb through the Bill or take evidence on the delegated powers within it, although we note that the published Delegated Powers Memorandum for the Bill is 75 pages long. We stated at the beginning of this Report that the Bill’s timetable and handling has not allowed us to conduct detailed legislative scrutiny";

Although this Bill would significantly impact the lives of home educating families, there was no attempt to consult meaningfully with representatives from the home educating community;

At Commons committee stage, individuals and organisations representing those that would be directly impacted by the CNIS parts of the Bill were not invited to speak to the issues so this stage was biased against those it would impact the most;

We are aware that many responses to the Call for Evidence were not published, hence not being accessible to MP’s, members of the House of Lords, and other interested parties;

The Impact Assessment was only released on 30 January 2025, but once again failed to evaluate the extent to which this legislation could negatively impact the lives of thousands of families and stakeholders;

The Impact Assessment published by the Department for Education on 21 March 2025 cannot be accepted as an independent and unbiased publication;

The Labour Party whip has ensured that a substantial amount of amendments (which would have corrected some of the discriminatory and punitive measures in this Bill) did not make their way into this Bill;

The Bill was introduced on 17th December, and as education is a devolved issue, all were working on-premise that it would not apply to Wales. Without notice or consultation, Wales was tabled to be added to the Bill on 10th March and confirmed to apply to Wales on 18th March.

THE BILL

Good legislation will usually have protections built in for all parties, to prevent abuse, protect citizens and maintain justice. However, this Bill offers no such protection to home educating families should they fall foul of heavy-handed local authorities.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains clauses which breach the Human Rights Act 1998 and Data Protection legislation, undermining the principles of a free and democratic society, and should therefore be removed. These clauses include:

CLAUSE 4

16LA and 16LB: Information Sharing and Consistent identifiers

The proposals breach the child’s right to respect for private and family life as set out in Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The threshold for data-sharing is lowered from “risk of significant harm”, to the vague and subjective “promoting the welfare of the child”. The use of consistent identifiers and associated blanket data sharing could create vulnerabilities in data sharing, whereby sensitive information is shared inappropriately, with serious consequences for children.

CLAUSE 30

434A: Local authority consent for withdrawal of relevant children from school

Requiring local authority consent for home education is incompatible with existing law (Section 7 of the Education Act 1996), which places the responsibility for a child's education on the parent. This clause discriminates against certain groups of children, in many cases unjustifiably, and puts them at the mercy of the local authority.

CLAUSE 31

436B Duty to register children not in school

Schools are already required to notify the local authority when a child is removed at a non-standard transition point to be home educated, or when they suspect a child is “missing education”. While this Bill purports to enable identification of “children missing education”, in practice it targets legitimately home educated children. Under current legislation, ANY child who has been removed from school, will already be known to schools or local authorities. This section is susceptible to interpretation, and thus, abuse.

436C Content and maintenance of registers

The extensive information required of families places undue burdens on parents and suggests mistrust of their decisions. It is incompatible with the principles of Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, which upholds parental rights to choose their children's education. The requirement to provide information about providers (that parents have contracted with privately) and provide information which may be of a sensitive nature, breaches Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

No other category of law-abiding (or other) citizens in the UK is placed under such an invasive official burden.

436D Provision of information to local authorities: parents

Under current legislation, the local authority already have a duty to establish whether education is unsuitable by making enquiries of parents. This Bill would compel parents, under threat of penalties, to provide information to the local authority to which they should have no entitlement. This kind of relationship could be considered coercive and is unacceptable in a free and democratic society.

436E Provision of information to local authorities: education providers

The Bill compels education providers to breach confidentiality between themselves and the parents and children they serve, under threat of monetary penalties. This infringes on privacy rights and could harm the child’s wellbeing by sharing sensitive information without consent. The government has no right to this information.

According to the ICO “You should not share personal data if you can reasonably foresee that doing so will result in third parties using children’s personal data in ways that have been shown to be detrimental to their wellbeing”.

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436H (6) and (7); 436I (3) (a) and (c)

Preliminary notices and SAOs are open to prejudice and abuse through wording such as: “to safeguard" or “promote the child's welfare”, and “Child’s best interests”. It is no longer just about educational provision, but about provision of information under threat of criminal conviction, disregarding the child’s possible negative experiences within the nominated school, or whether the school can actually provide a suitable education to that child.

The requirement for parents to be compelled, under threat of penalties, to allow local authorities access to the child’s home, breaches Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

OUR REQUEST:

We request that this Bill be subjected to exhaustive and objective scrutiny for the purpose of withdrawing all clauses which foster prejudice against home educating families, encourage discriminatory practices, and which breach the Human Rights Act 1998 as well as existing Data Protection legislation and standard safeguarding good practice.