Lord Wei:

Tabled by Lord Wei

353: Clause 32, page 66, line 42, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 67Member’s explanatory statementThis Amendment seeks to remove the local authority’s power to request to visit a child at home, for the purpose of determining whether a school attendance order should be served.

My Lords, again, this is a group of amendments on which I would largely prefer to wait for the Minister’s reply. However, I have a particular interest in where the Government find themselves when it comes to visiting children at home, how that should be done and the circumstances in which it need not be done. A lot of what we have been discussing is about producing a system, a set of relationships between home educators and the local authority, meaning that most children get seen anyway in the course of activities in which the local authority is involved—by professionals who are qualified to make judgments on how the child is flourishing and to flag if there seems to be a problem. I am confident that, in a well-run local authority, the need to visit at home should be much reduced. None the less, there will be circumstances where this seems to be necessary, and it always produces conflict.

I am interested in the Government’s thoughts on how they will approach this. How will a well-run local authority deal with circumstances when it feels that it needs to see the child? How will a parent who feels that their child will react extremely badly to this intrusion have their voice heard? I am also interested in the potential role of third parties, such as the family doctor —for those who still have one—to mediate in that process.

For the rest of the amendments in this group that I am responsible for, I look forward to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.

My Lords, I will weigh in just on Amendment 417. Home-educating families having a flexible school term calendar will mean they benefit financially for holidays because, as we know, during school holidays, holidays shoot up in price. Would it not be nice if all schools had the luxury of cheap holidays for their children? Maybe the Government could look at the eminently sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on holidays, and see whether in some way holiday companies could be equitable with all school families and not hike up their prices during the holiday period.

My Lords, this group again covers a large number of very technical amendments. Some of them appear to me to be at the more speculative rather than the probing end of the spectrum. They highlight a number of issues in relation to home-educating families and home visits, but the Majority of these suggestions, as put in these amendments, would be very challenging for any Government to justify in terms of the potential resources that would be required to implement them.

My noble friend Lord Lucas rightly raised the issues around home visits and the pressure that they put on families. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that local authorities understand that too and would use those powers when necessary, and always in the best interests of the child. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

My Lords, the voice of the child is key in creating a supportive, responsive and effective safeguarding and educational environment. I believe that the best way for a local authority to ensure that a child’s education is both suitable and safe is to meet with the child in the child’s home. We want to ensure that local authorities are able to capture and appropriately consider the views of children, so advice on how to conduct these visits sensitively, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, rightly suggested is required, will be a key focus of our statutory guidance.

In terms of the ask on parents, we have aimed for this to be proportionate and at the right intervals. The purpose is to minimise the duration any child is in receipt of unsuitable education. The compulsory information is what is required for a local authority to undertake existing responsibilities related to education suitability and safeguarding. It is not intended to be disruptive to the parents, who will still be able to focus on providing a suitable education for their child.

The amendments in this group seek to make changes to the ability of a local authority to request to visit the home and to limit the potential impact on home-educating families. They also seek to make provision concerning how home educators may engage with and would like to be treated by national and local government.

I am going to suggest that the amendments brought by the noble Lord, Lord Wei, beginning with Amendment 406, might be suitable for me to write to noble Lords about. Several of them fall within the category defined by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as being at the “speculative end” of the spectrum. I hope I would be able to either reassure noble Lords or identify why they would not be suitable to be carried forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes a broader point with respect to Amendment 417 about holidays, and I am sure this is something that we cannot solve here this evening, but I recognise the concerns that parents have.

I will deal with the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Amendment 353 seeks to remove the local authority’s power to request to visit a child at home to determine whether a school attendance order should be served. I hope I have already identified the approach that we will expect local authorities to take with respect to visits. This ability to request to visit the child at home allows the local authority to see the environment in which home education is being provided and to meet the child. Without this, local authorities may not be able to form a comprehensive view of whether the home environment is conducive to the child’s education. Parents will be able to refuse such a request, but, if they do, the local authority must consider this refusal to be a relevant factor when determining whether to issue a school attendance order.

Amendments 354 and 355 would require a local authority to obtain a court order to request to visit a child at home and to consider a child’s reaction to persons in authority when determining whether to serve a school attendance order. A court order would be unnecessary as the local authority would only be making a request, which parents have a right to refuse. On the point about sensitivity, though, I can assure noble Lords that our statutory guidance will provide further steers to help local authorities sensitively conduct visits, and we will consider whether additional support is needed, such as training for local authority staff.

I hope that I have assured noble Lords that the ability to request a visit is an important opportunity for the local authority, but that these visits will be carried out sensitively, and, if necessary, we will provide further statutory guidance on how that should happen. I will respond to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Wei, in writing to noble Lords.

I am grateful for the Minister’s response to my amendments. I would be grateful for a brief response to the amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Wei—just a confirmation, I suspect, when it comes to Amendment 387, of the recognition that there is a lot to say about the methodology of home education and the curriculum, and similarly, on Amendment 393, confirmation that the timing of educational progress, which should in principle be respected, can form part of a suitable education.

I have met a very capable young Oxford undergraduate who did not begin to write until they were 13. Having learned entirely through other methods and found writing extremely difficult, he was able to move on to a keyboard aged 13 and get himself eventually to Oxford. The generality, which is picked up in my noble friend’s amendment, of not beginning formal education until seven is very common on the continent. There are structures which do not impose reading, writing and arithmetic before that age and which succeed on a national level.

The understanding that the Government recognise that there are other routes to educational success, and that this is something that local authorities do not understand, is of general interest, rather more so than some of my noble friend’s more focused amendments.

On those points, I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that the law is already clear. We have discussed during the course of the debate that parents have the right to educate their children using the methods, approaches and content they think best, provided that the education being received is suitable and safe. The point, though, is that local authorities must be able to assess that education to establish whether or not it is. The Bill does not give local authorities any additional powers to regulate the content of home education.

On the point about the nature of education, we believe that a child must be provided with a suitable education from the age of five. Of course, the point about home education is that it would be up to parents, assuming that that education is suitable, to determine what sort of education was being provided to a child of five.

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, as we are in the closing straight. Can the Government confirm that they accept that flexibility of approach is something that will happen? If we look laterally—says the dyslexic—at special educational needs, that is often what is required there. Some of the problems come from the fact that there is a structure that one is supposed to be doing, but not everybody learns like that. Can the Government confirm that this is something which should be worked across the education system?

I have just confirmed that, and we have talked about it at various different times with respect to home education. I completely accept that one of the reasons why parents want to home-educate is to provide different and more flexible approaches to the way in which children learn. The most appropriate methods for learning and teaching will have to be at the heart of not just the Government’s reforms to special educational needs and disabilities but the very hard work that teachers and schools do for those children.

I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment 353 withdrawn.

Amendments 354 to 359 not moved.