Asked by Baroness Massey of Darwen To ask Her Majesty’s
Government how they plan to respond to the National Children’s
Bureau report, Children Missing Education, published on 31 January;
and what plans they have to improve the collection of
national-level data on such children. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew
of...Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to respond to
the National Children’s Bureau report, Children Missing
Education, published on 31 January; and what plans they
have to improve the collection of national-level data on
such children.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, in September 2016 we introduced a duty on schools
and local authorities to work jointly when carrying out
inquiries to establish the whereabouts of children to
ensure that they are safe and receiving suitable education.
We have a commitment to review the impact of these
regulations by September 2019. The review will take into
account the points raised in the National Children’s Bureau
report issued in January this year.
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(Lab)
I thank the Minister for that response. He will be aware
that almost 50,000 children were missing from education
between 2017 and 2018. How will the Government build an
accurate picture of who these children are, where they live
and what their needs are? How will they form a strategy to
deal with this problem when there is no national data on
these children?
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of Oulton
My Lords, we believe that part of the reason for the
awareness of more children being home educated is as a
result of the duties we placed on schools in the 2016
guidance, which I mentioned in my first Answer. The next
stage is to ensure that local authorities are using all
their existing powers to investigate cases of where home
education might be occurring or where children are missing.
Yesterday, in our integration strategy, we announced
further measures on that.
-
(Con)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that these children
will form a high priority for the teaching of English,
reading and writing, given that they are most likely to be
among the three-quarters of a million people in the United
Kingdom who do not speak our native language?
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of Oulton
Obviously, children who are missing from education are one
of the highest priority categories that we have to worry
about. In the integration strategy document announced
yesterday, we launched a consultation on the guidance and
enforcement of independent school standards—a lot of
children can end up in such small schools—and guidance on
unregistered schools, which will deal with similar issues.
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(Lab)
My Lords—
-
(LD)
My Lords, some groups particularly at risk of missing
education include disabled children, those with special
educational needs, young offenders and children in care.
Surely these young people should be known to social
services, the police, doctors or other authorities. Will
the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to
encourage these authorities to liaise with the education
authority to ensure that these children get the education
that they need and deserve for a better life?
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of Oulton
My Lords, it is already a requirement following the issue
of our guidelines in 2016 that, for any child registered as
SEN, permission must be sought from the local authority to
move them to home education. We are strengthening that
guidance, as announced yesterday, and have indicated that
we will carry out an exclusion review, which will of course
begin with these vulnerable children.
-
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness; I did not see
her standing up. In England and Wales, 70% of children
excluded from school have learning difficulties. Many
exclusions are not even officially recorded—they are soft
exclusions. We are in danger of creating an underclass of
young people who are lacking basic education, are alienated
from society and might become criminalised. Unlike the
point made by my noble friend Lady Massey, this data is
known and is available. What are the Government doing about
it?
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of Oulton
My Lords, it is important first to differentiate between
temporary and permanent exclusions; the ones of concern
are, I think, the permanent exclusions. The figures on that
have not increased dramatically in the past few years—it
has gone up from 0.07% to 0.08%. However, as I mentioned in
my earlier Answer to the noble Baroness, we have announced
an exclusion review, which will look at many of these
issues. The other point I would like to raise is that we
have opened a number of alternative provision free schools
over the past few years, and they are dealing with some of
these issues.
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(CB)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that some of these
children will be denied any form of education and, perhaps
even more serious, those who are being denied it are also
being excluded from the safeguarding arrangements in this
country and therefore are exceptionally vulnerable to
abuse, neglect and exploitation?
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of Oulton
My Lords, I accept that this is a vulnerable group of
children, but local authorities have a number of powers of
intervention. The guidance that we will be issuing shortly
will clarify that to ensure that they aware of all the
tools that they have available to them.
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(Con)
My Lords, we are a tolerant and diverse society in which home
schooling plays a part. However, there should be a register
of these institutions to ensure better safeguarding, and
certainly premises should be looked at from a health and
safety point of view. Who is driving the agenda for
secularisation? Will the Minister remind Ofsted that the
humanists are not the only minority group with opinions? Does
he agree it is bizarre that it is they who are the most
intolerant and are being evangelical in wanting everyone to
conform to their views?
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of Oulton
My Lords, we try to represent a broad coalition in education.
I am proud that we live in one of the most tolerant and
inclusive countries in the world—as I said in an article in
the Times today—and we have to meet the concerns of all
people. The humanists have to be reasonable, as do any of the
other religious groups, and my job is to ensure that we reach
a compromise for all concerned and that children are safe.
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(Lab)
The Minister referred to home education in his Answer to my
noble friend Lady Massey, although that is not mentioned in
the Question. He avoided the Question on the collection of
data, which is important. The Government do not collect data
on the number of children whose parents claim they are being
educated at home or elsewhere. The same is true of national
statistics on unregistered schools, which are an increasing
problem. No one knows how many children are being educated in
unregistered schools, although Ofsted estimates it as many as
6,000. Surely the time is now right for the Government to
place a legal obligation on parents to register children not
attending school, as proposed by my noble friend in his Bill which is
going through your Lordships’ House. Will the Minister
signify his support for that?
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of Oulton
My Lords, as I made clear at Second Reading, we are aware of
these concerns and have been motivated by the Bill of the
noble Lord, . We shall watch its
progress in Committee with interest. I am not able at this
stage to give a unilateral commitment on registration, but I
am sympathetic to the arguments made by the noble Lord
opposite. We have to be aware of the nuancing around this.
For example, if we insist on registration, what do we do
about the parents who refuse to register? If that does not
solve the problem, they remain missing. What do we do with
parents like the one who said in the newspapers the other day
that she would go to prison rather than co-operate in any
way? This is an open area for discussion, and I have an open
mind.
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