I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 25, page 49, leave out lines 20 to 21.

This amendment would 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.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 63, in clause 25, page 49, line 23, after “parent” insert

“in respect of each individual or organisation which provides such education for more than six hours a week”.

This amendment would ensure that information relating to short activities such as those operated by museums, libraries, companies and charities, as well as individual private tutoring activities, would only need to be recorded on the register of children not in school if they are provided for more than six hours a week.

Amendment 64, in clause 25, page 49, line 36, at end insert—

“(1A) The requirements of subsection (1)(e) do not apply to provision provided on weekends or during school holidays.”

Amendment 86, in clause 25, page 49, line 36, at end insert—

“(1A) The requirement to provide information under subsection (1)(b) does not apply where a safeguarding concern in respect of either parent has been identified.”

Amendment 65, in clause 25, page 50, line 41, at end insert—

“(2A) The Secretary of State may only require further information about children to be included on the register by introducing regulations subject to the affirmative procedure.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to introduce regulations, subject to agreement in Parliament, when seeking to require additional information to be included in the register of children not in school.

Amendment 67, in clause 25, page 52, line 33, after “436B)” insert

“but does not include any person or provider that is providing out-of-school education to home-educated children on weekends or during school holidays.”

This amendment would mean that providers of out-of-school education would not be required to provide information to local authorities in respect of education they provide on weekends or during school holidays to home-schooled children.

Amendment 66, in clause 25, page 52, line 40, after “way” insert “, but may not refer to an amount of time that is less than or equal to six hours a week.”

This amendment would mean that providers of out-of-school education would not be required to provide information to local authorities where they provide education for fewer than six hours a week.

Amendment 68, in clause 25, page 54, line 43, at end insert—

“(9) The Secretary of State shall publish annually the GCSE results of children listed on the register.

(10) The Secretary of State shall ensure that the GCSE results of children on the register are included for each set of outcome data published by the Government.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to record outcome data for children on the register as a subsection of each set of performance data published by the Department for Education.

Clause stand part.

The principle of having a register for children not in school has long-held cross-party support. However, as I outlined in the debate on clause 24, there are very different groups of children who may be educated at home. In our eagerness to safeguard vulnerable children, we must also make every effort not to stigmatise or treat as suspicious parents who make a positive choice to home educate their children.

In clause 25, subsections (c) to (e) of proposed new section 436C of the Education Act 1996 require a lot of very specific details from parents, such as the amount of time they spend providing education for their child. In the Bill that we brought forward when in Government, we used a rather broader approach, citing such details as the means by which the child is being educated. The drafting of the proposed the new section seeks to make all home schoolers provide a pretty extraordinary level of detail, on pain of breaking the law. We understand the intent, but our amendments seek to make that a bit more proportionate and a bit less intensely onerous for legitimate home-schooling parents.

Amendment 62 would take out the requirement on parents to specify how much time a child spends being educated by each parent—something that would likely vary from week to week in many cases, and would also be slightly invasive into people’s home lives if the parents are not living at the same place. Amendment 63 would add a de minimis floor of six hours a week, so not every single tiny appointment or 30-minute piano lesson has to be recorded, but only the substantive bits of education outside the home, which is more to the original intent.

Amendment 64 would mean that activities on the weekends or in school holidays do not have to be included in the register; we do not ask what schoolchildren are doing on the weekend and they cannot be said to be “out of school” when school is not open. Amendment 65 would make the power to add even more detail in future subject to the affirmative procedure. Amendments 66 and 67 would do the same things, in mirror image, for the requirements that are also being put on to education providers, rather than parents, again applying a six-hour minimum and excluding school holidays. That is because otherwise a lot of museums, galleries, music teachers, swimming teachers and the like are suddenly going to find a new and unnecessary reporting requirement forced on them, which is not proportionate to our objective here: to stop fake home education, not real home education.

Amendment 68 would require that the Government shall annually publish the GCSE results of children listed on the register. Regarding the proposed new section 436C and the very high level of detail that is being asked for, what assessment has been made of the usefulness of such detailed information? Has it been tested anywhere and worked through as an exercise? Finally, a question that many real, fantastic and loving home-educating parents will ask: what do the Government deem to be an appropriate number of hours from each parent? We are asking about how many hours are spent educating the child, which almost implies there is a wrong answer to that question. What does the Minister think the wrong answer to that question will look like?

I rise to speak in support of clause 25 and to amendment 86 in my name. As I said on Second Reading, the Liberal Democrats strongly support the introduction of a register of children not in school; it is an overdue measure which is supported by all parties, and I am very glad to see this Government introducing it.

I know from my own inbox, as well as from the many pieces of written evidence the Committee has received, that many parents of home-educated children feel that the register is an attack on them, so I want to reiterate—it is certainly my own party’s position—that we fundamentally support parents’ right to choose to home educate. This is about keeping children safe. We have had so many reports, not least from the Children’s Commissioner about children just disappearing from the system, and about how important this register is. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other children’s organisations also support it.

I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston around how much information is being asked of families to provide for this register, as stated on the face of the Bill. As I sat during Christmas recess reading it, I was quite shocked; I questioned why this information was needed and what it was going to be used for. I thought it was very instructive that I thought, “Look, Munira, you’re not the expert here,” and asked the experts, but when I asked Andy Smith from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services at the oral evidence session last week if he thought this level of detail was needed, his words were

“there may be some reflection on whether there needs to be such a level of detail captured.”—[Official Report, 21 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 15.]

I worry that local authorities are going to drown in a sea of information; rather than having simple information they can use to make a decision; they will have so much that they will be wading through it and everything will be slowed down.

Absolutely—I agree completely. I was talking to the director of children’s services in my own borough earlier this week about it, and read the provisions to him. I think he was shocked as well, and wondered how they would be implemented. I say this very much in the spirit of making the measure workable, but I urge Ministers to think again about the amount of information being collected. We think that a number of the amendments tabled by His Majesty’s Opposition are sensible and proportionate, and would mean that the measure is less intrusive.

Amendment 86, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, is a simple safeguarding provision. Where both parents are required to give their details, if there is a safeguarding reason that it would be bad for one parent’s address to be revealed to the other, for example because it would make the child or the other parent unsafe in a case of domestic abuse, the amendment would mean that that requirement did not apply. It would make sure that everybody is kept safe.

I have a couple of other comments on the level of detail required. Have Ministers thought about whether the measure will have a disproportionate impact on the families of SEND children? We have received written evidence, and I have received emails, from those who have made the difficult decision to home educate because of SEND needs that are not being met in the state sector. They are often home educating because their children cannot cope with regular school schedules. At home, they can educate and work with the ebb and flow; how they educate will be much more fluid. Parents are asking, “How on earth am I to meet these requirements? Will I be breaking the law if I cannot exactly quantify how many hours I have spent each week doing a certain task, given the way I need to educate my child in order that they can thrive?” For instance, if a child is being taught about nutrition and food technology while cooking dinner with their parents, will that count as part of the education time? I am not sure. I hope that the Minister will address those concerns.

I am slightly alarmed by proposed new section 436C(2)(a), which provides that information about a child’s protected characteristics will be collected. Some faith groups are worried about how that data might be used in judging the success of their education. Can the Minister allay those fears?

Proposed new section 436C(5) refers to information about data being published. I would hope that very little data is being published at all. I know that the measures contain safeguards, but other than a headline-level understanding of how many children are being educated not in school, we do not need to publish too much. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

I join colleagues in finding troubling the level of detail to be required of home-educating parents. The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston would make sensible adjustments to that, for example by deleting the requirement to show the split between how many hours are done by parent 1 and how many by parent 2. The Government could also amend the frequency of reporting to something more reasonable—or, handily, there is a piece of text ready and waiting, because a private Member’s Bill last year from my then hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley contained the text for a proposed new section 436C.

Proposed new section 436E concerns providers. Did Ministers consider approaching this measure in a completely different way? They could have said that the onus should be on the provider to say who they are and to demonstrate their bona fides, with Disclosure and Barring Service checks and so on, as part of a light-touch registration regime. I am not necessarily advocating such a scheme, but what other models were thought about?

On proposed new section 436G, Ministers will know that a gripe of home-educating parents is that a lot is asked of them but little is offered back. Might it be sensible to change the wording? Instead of the support being

“whatever the local authority considers fit”,

it could be something like “whatever the local authority considers fit, having regard to guidance that it may receive from the Department for Education,” or from Ofsted or whoever it might be.

I will just register this point again for Ministers to consider. A lot of people are surprised to learn that although a school will pay for a child to enter GCSEs and the like, home educators do not enjoy that benefit. If we want to make it easier for people to home school their children properly, rather than their children just being out of school, we need to address that long-standing issue. I wonder whether Ministers will consider that point?

My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me to my final point. Apart from the cost issue, there is the simple question of access and of children being able to sit the GCSE. As there is a vast amount of detail involved, it would be helpful to say that local authorities should ensure that entry to examination centres is possible for those children.

Amendments 62, 63 and 64, in the names of the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, and amendment 86, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Twickenham and for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, would remove requirements for parents to provide certain information for children not in school registers.

Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 makes it clear that it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children

“receive efficient full-time education suitable” for them. We know that many parents work hard to do so, including parents who home educate. However, some children not in school are not receiving a full-time education that allows them to achieve and thrive. Where that is the case, it is essential that local authorities can identify and support them. This is a fundamental objective of the children not in school register.

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.

Amendment 86 seeks to remove the requirement that the names and addresses of a child’s parents are provided for registers when a safeguarding concern is identified by either parent. To build a full picture of the circumstances of a child’s home education, it is necessary to include the name and address of each parent.

We know that there will be safeguarding concerns around some parents that mean that they are not or should not be allowed to be involved in the child’s education or have contact with the child, such as where there have been instances of domestic violence. The duty requires only that parents provide information that they know. Parents would not be required to seek out an estranged partner to provide their address if they do not know it, and the data held on the registers will be subject to data protection law, with the requisite restrictions on access and disclosure of personal and identifying information. For the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.

Amendment 65, tabled by the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, would require that where the Secretary of State wants further information about children to be included in children not in school registers, regulations subject to the affirmative procedure have to be made. The Bill already provides for the affirmative procedure in proposed new section 436C, within clause 25, so I ask the hon. Members not to press the amendment.

Amendments 66 and 67 concern the information that providers of out-of-school education will be required to supply for a local authority’s children not in school register. I agree with the sentiment of the amendments that a threshold to the duty should apply, which is why the Bill provides for regulations to set the threshold at a suitable level. It is more appropriate to set the threshold in regulations because changes may be needed in time, as local authority and Department data improves and as we develop a clearer picture of the use of out-of-school education providers.

Additionally, there is huge variation in how out-of-school education providers operate and in how they are used by home-educating families. Setting the threshold at an arbitrary level or calendar period without careful consultation with the sector and home educators risks the provider duty being unworkable in practice. To ensure that the threshold is set at a level that works for providers, parents and local authorities, we intend to consult on the regulations, and they will be subject to the affirmative procedure. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Members not to press their amendments.

Amendment 68, in the names of the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich and the shadow Minister, seeks to ensure that the Department publishes the GCSE results of those on the children not in school register, and that those results are included in each set of departmental published outcome data. I highlight that the Department does not publish any results data at an individual student level. Instead, results are published at an aggregate level across England. It would be inappropriate and potentially unlawful to publish the GCSE results of specific, individual children.

I would have thought it was pretty clear that our intent was to provide information on the aggregate rather than the individual. Of course we do not publish individuals’ GCSE results anywhere, but does the Minister have a disagreement in principle with the idea of publishing aggregate data on the achievement of this group of young people?

That is not something that we are currently considering, but the shadow Minister’s point will be recorded in Hansard.

The Department for Education is responsible for driving high and rising standards in state schools across the country. DFE headline data is therefore focused on pupils at the end of key stage 4 attending state-funded schools in England. To hold state-funded schools to account, the Department publishes performance data for schools and colleges. The purpose of that performance data is not to provide information about the attainment or achievement of individual pupils. The Department publishes performance data at a regional and national level, so that it can track the performance of the state-funded sector.

Including children not educated in the state school system would distort these figures and make it more difficult to monitor the performance of state schools. In choosing to home educate, parents are opting out of this system and assuming responsibility and accountability for the education of their child, whether they choose GCSEs or any other type of qualification. I also recognise that some home-educating children choose not to take any public examinations. This data would therefore offer an incomplete picture of the outcomes of this cohort.

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.

It is also true that, on results day, the Joint Council for Qualifications already publishes results by qualification and subject. This is data for all students taking that GCSE, including home-educated children, adults and independent and state school pupils. It would therefore not be appropriate for the Department to publish the results of this cohort or include them in performance data. I therefore kindly ask the hon. Member not to press the amendment.

I turn to clause 25. The number of children who are not in school because they are being home educated has drastically increased since the covid-19 pandemic. The numbers have more than doubled since 2019: the latest Department data shows that 111,000 children were home educated as of October 2024. As I have highlighted, all parents have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child receives a suitable, efficient full-time education. Some parents choose to fulfil that responsibility by home educating their children. I reassure the Committee again that we recognise that parents have the right to do so, and that many work hard to ensure that their child receives a suitable education. But as we know, this is not the case for all.

Local authorities have a legal duty to identify all children not in school in their areas who are not receiving a suitable education. However, as parents do not need to notify the local authority that they are home educating, it is difficult for authorities to fulfil that duty and to take action to support and protect children where necessary. It is vital that we introduce an effective system of registration for children not in school. Clause 25 will introduce compulsory registers in every local authority in England and a duty on parents of eligible children to provide information for them. This will help authorities to identify all children not in school, including those who are not receiving a safe, suitable education and, where that is the case, support them to take action.

Parents of eligible children will be required to provide the local authority with the information necessary for operation of the registers, including the child’s name, address and date of birth, the names and addresses of each parent, and details of how, where and from whom the child is receiving their education. A local authority can require a provider of out-of-school education to give information on children attending their setting, if the authority believes the provider to be supplying education to an eligible child for a period above the prescribed threshold. Having these duties on parents and certain providers of out-of-school education to provide information will ensure that as many eligible children as possible are on local authority registers.

I know that parents who are home educators have faced a tough decision on this. Looking at the information provided, I think it is clear from the Government that we are not lambasting or judging those parents for taking their children out of school. Does the Minister agree that we must ensure that we know who and where every single adult is who comes into a child’s education? The listing that we are providing will enable us to do that, to ensure that children aresafe whether they are being home educated by a parent or using another provider within their home education setting.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. These measures are proportionate and are to ensure that every child is kept safe. I welcomed the comments from the shadow Minister earlier; we seek cross-party support on these measures to keep all children safe.

Where a child is eligible for inclusion on the children not in school register, the local authority will have a duty to provide support to the parents of that child if the parent requests it. By focusing support on advice and information, we can ensure that local authorities give a consistent baseline level of support to those who request it. We know that some authorities are already offering carefully considered support packages that go beyond the baseline to meet the needs of families in their local areas. Authorities will continue to have the discretion to offer that additional support.

The measures set out how local authorities in England may share information from their registers with other relevant local authorities and specified bodies, and how they are required to share information with the Secretary of State on request. Appropriate information sharing will create a more complete picture of individual children, and where necessary, support multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. We will also ensure that the data collected is protected. Local authorities, as data controllers, must process data in accordance with the principles of UK GDPR legislation, and ensure that any data that they process is kept safe and secure. This applies to data collection, storage and sharing, as well as respecting the rights of individuals to access, rectification and erasure.

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.

The shadow Minister asked what appropriate amount of time should be spent on home education. Parents are required by law to ensure that their child has a full-time suitable education; the number of hours required to fulfil that duty will depend on the individual child, and is not stipulated in law. On whether our measures will be burdensome to parents, parents must only provide details of their child’s name, their date of birth, their address, the parents’ names and addresses, and details of where their child is receiving education, who is providing it and the time spent receiving education from different people. All other information will be optional, and parents will only be expected to notify their local authority of that information when they first begin home educating or when their circumstances change, such as a move to a new area or a new education provision.

Many measures, of course, will be of benefit to parents. The information provided by parents for the registers will support local authorities to gain a fuller picture of the child’s educational needs and circumstances, which will enable parents to access tailored advice and information from local authorities via the new duty on local authorities to provide support should parents request it.

On that point, we know that at the moment, not all local authorities provide support to our home-educating parents. Will these measures allow for some best practice to be shared, and place a duty on local authorities to provide help and support if requested?

I know that my hon. Friend has been meeting home educators in her own local authority area who have had a difficult relationship with Portsmouth city council. I know that she will take those concerns to that local authority and feed back to home-educating parents.

To address a point that was raised earlier, local authorities may also be able to analyse information from the registers and take action, should that be deemed necessary—should families feel forced into home education due to dissatisfaction with schools or mental health concerns, for example. The hon. Member for Twickenham also raised a number of points about the disproportionate impact on SEND families. We have undertaken a thorough equality impact assessment, and this information will allow local authorities to provide more tailored support to those children.

We will withdraw our amendment today, but overall, we are still not persuaded that the objectives that we all share for this Bill could not be met in a more proportionate and less bureaucratic way. I hope that their lordships will have further thoughts on that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I think the hon. Member for Twickenham gave notice that she wished to move amendment 86.

No, I do not wish to move it. I just wanted to make one comment on the last sentence from the Minister.

Sorry, but we have debated it now. It would be time to move amendment 86. Sorry, I misunderstood the hon. Lady.

I would like to speak on the impact assessment.

Imminently.

Imminently? Okay.

Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.