“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a protocol for the collection and dissemination of information relating to bereavement support services for children and young people.

(2) A protocol made under subsection (1) must—

(a) define the bereavement support services to which the protocol applies, which must include services provided by—

(i) local authorities;

(ii) NHS bodies; and

(iii) charities and other third sector organisations;

(b) place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish information, including online, about services to which the protocol applies;

(c) place a duty on specified public bodies and other persons to provide information to children and young people about services to which the protocol applies, including—

(i) specialist services for children and young people;

(ii) services provided online; and

(iii) accessible services for deaf and disabled children and young people;

(d) where a duty under paragraph (c) applies, require the identification of children or young people who may require a service to which the protocol applies.

(3) The Secretary of State must make regulations under this section by statutory instrument.

(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

(5) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft statutory instrument containing regulations under this section within 12 months of the passing of this Act.”—

This new clause would place a duty on the Secretary of State to establish a protocol for the collection and dissemination of information about bereavement support services to children and young people.

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 52— Bereavement policy in schools—

“(1) The governing body of a relevant school in England has a duty to develop and publish a bereavement policy.

(2) A policy developed under this section must include—

(a) a process for supporting a pupil or staff member facing or following bereavement;

(b) details of how the school will incorporate opportunities to learn about death and bereavement as part of life in its taught curriculum;

(c) details of partnership arrangements with child bereavement services; and

(d) arrangements for staff training.

(3) In developing a policy under this section, the governing body of the school must consult with bereaved pupils and their parents or carers.

(4) The Secretary of State must provide, or make arrangements for the provision of, appropriate financial and other support to school governing bodies for their purposes of facilitating the fulfilling of the duty in this section.

(5) For the purposes of this section, “relevant school” means—

(a) an academy school,

(b) an alternative provision Academy,

(c) a maintained school,

(d) a non-maintained special school,

(e) an independent school, or

(f) a pupil referral unit.”

This new clause would require schools to develop and publish a bereavement policy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am moving this new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend Christine Jardine. According to the Childhood Bereavement Network, around one in 29 school-aged children—about one per classroom—has been bereaved of a parent or sibling. Many more will lose grandparents, and sadly some will have lost their friends. Each year, data is collected on the number of adults bereaved of their husband, wife or child, and until recently data was collected on the number of children affected by the divorce of their parents. However, no similar data is collected on the number who face the devastating loss of their mum or dad or someone else really important in their life.

All that means that when a child is bereaved, there is no obvious way of letting them know what support is available to them, despite a diverse range of services offered by organisations across the country, including Winston’s Wish, Child Bereavement UK and the Childhood Bereavement Network, which all offer online and group sessions with trained professionals and peer-to-peer services for young people to share their experience with each other. Those services are really important in engaging those young people going through quite a diverse range of circumstances, many of which will need quite bespoke support, whether that is specifically around children with disabilities or additional needs, children who might be in a rural community where they are more isolated, or simply the difference between losing someone suddenly versus through a long-term illness.

We know that schools do very good work in supporting vulnerable young people through bereavement, but it is not consistent in every school. Many young people will need help at times when school is not available, such as in the holidays and in the evenings, and they may just feel embarrassed about asking people at school. New clause 9 would finally put in a simple protocol to ensure that every child who is bereaved knows that support is out there if they would like to access it. This is a relatively low-cost, low-effort task that would help those charities to connect with grieving families and young people and provide that support to children to help them to process those difficult, traumatic experiences and, in turn, try to prevent the long-term negative impacts that can arise from bereavement.

I rise to speak to new clause 52 on bereavement policy in schools, which is closely related to new clause 9.

The hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire has already alluded to the fact that no official data is collected on the number of children and young people who are bereaved of someone important in their lives. In the absence of annual statistics, the Childhood Bereavement Network has estimated that over 46,000 children and young people are bereaved of a parent each year in the UK. That is a huge number—around 127 each day. Data from representative samples suggest that about one in 29 children and young people in school today—roughly one per classroom—has been bereaved of a parent or sibling at some point in their childhood. Some 70% of primary schools have at least one recently bereaved pupil on roll. That means that all schools are likely to be touched by bereavement, and those ripples of grief can be felt across the whole school community.

When somebody in the family is terminally ill or has died, just getting to school, concentrating, getting on with peers and managing emotions can be hugely challenging, and can have major consequences for attendance and achievement in the long term. Parentally bereaved young people’s GCSE scores are an average of half a grade lower than their non-bereaved peers; in one study, girls bereaved of a sibling scored almost a full grade below their matched controls. Bereavement also has long-term effects further in life. The death of a parent by age 16 is associated with women failing to gain any sort of qualification, and both men and women being unemployed at the age of 30.

Schools clearly have a huge role to play in supporting children facing such tragic circumstances. Two years ago, the independent UK Commission on Bereavement surveyed children, young people and adults about their experiences of bereavement. It found some examples of fantastic practice and support in schools, but it was far from universal. Just under half of the bereaved children, young people and adults who shared their experiences said that they got little or no support from their education setting after their bereavement. That is such a tragic missed opportunity.

Many children and young people shared the loneliness, isolation, and lack of acknowledgment and support that they had faced. For example, a young teenager said:

“I knew my teachers all knew, but no-one spoke to me about the fact they knew, so it felt like an unspoken secret.”

A primary-aged child said:

“I felt like I was the only one whose daddy had died.”

Another teenager said:

“Everyone sees it as me just misbehaving. Maybe if teachers and any other adults involved were trained to see the signs I wouldn’t of been left for the last 18 months with no support.”

These young people are crying out for support from their schools and from us.

To address the challenges, the commission recommended that all education establishments should be required to have a bereavement policy, including staff training and a process for supporting bereaved children and their families. In line with wider evidence from parents, teachers, and children and young people themselves supporting the inclusion of grief education in the curriculum, the commission also recommended that students should have opportunities to learn about coping with grief as a life skill.

New clause 52 would directly address the inconsistencies in support that grieving children and young people face, and it would help schools to get on the front foot. At the moment, they often reach out for support in crisis mode when a pupil is facing bereavement or has been recently bereaved. They make contact with local child bereavement services, scrambling for guidance on how to respond, how to tell the rest of the school community, and how to make a plan to support grieving pupils coming back to school. All too often, they wish they had done that work in advance of the crisis. The new clause would help schools to be wise before the event, to respond calmly and consistently, and to help children and young people stay on course as they navigate this most challenging of events in their life.

I have tabled this as a probing amendment; I am interested to hear the Minister’s response. I hope that the Government will consider taking this opportunity to write into legislation the requirement for schools to provide support, consistently across the country, to the children and young people who desperately need it, to ensure that bereavement is addressed by every school to improve the life chances of children facing these most difficult circumstances.

I thank the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire and for North Herefordshire for raising those important issues. Bereavement touches the lives of everyone, and it has a unique impact on each person. It is particularly important that children and young people who lose someone close to them are able to access support when they need it.

New clause 9 seeks to improve access to bereavement support services for children. It seeks to establish a duty to make regulations to establish a protocol to provide information on those services. The Government continue to consider how to improve access to existing support. The cross-Government bereavement group, chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care and attended by representatives from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office, continues to look at how we can improve access to support and options to improve data collection. There are many fantastic charities and community groups—the Childhood Bereavement Network, Hope Again, the Anna Freud centre and the Ruth Strauss Foundation, to name just four—that provide vital support, and schools and other public bodies perform vital roles in supporting bereaved children and families. A legislative solution would therefore not be the most appropriate way to ensure bereaved children and young people access the support they need.

On new clause 52 and the matter of requiring schools to publish a bereavement policy, including the approach to grief education, we know that teachers and other school staff do an excellent job in understanding the specific needs of their pupils and identifying what support is needed for a range of life experiences, including bereavement. To support them in that, the Department for Education provides a list of resources for schools on supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. That includes resources from charities and organisations, including those I just mentioned, and resources hosted on the Mentally Healthy Schools site for mental health needs, which includes supporting children dealing with loss and bereavement.

On the curriculum, following the consultation that ended in July last year, we are currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance, which sets out the content of what children and young people are taught about these subjects. It is also clear in the current RSHE statutory guidance that teachers should be aware of common adverse childhood experiences, including bereavement. We want to ensure that children’s wellbeing is at the heart of the guidance, and we are looking carefully at the consultation responses, considering the relevant evidence and talking to stakeholders before setting out next steps to take the RSHE guidance forward. It would not be appropriate to pre-empt our response to the consultation, nor the publication of the RSHE curriculum guidance. I hope the hon. Member for North Herefordshire is reassured that we will consider that as part of our work on RSHE. We will continue to provide support from the Department and right across Government to help schools support children and young people who experience bereavement and other significant adverse experiences in their childhood.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.