Not content with their own efforts to track and trace children being educated outside of school, Welsh Labour ask Bridget Phillipson if they can piggyback on her misleadingly named Children’s Wellbeing Bill
Significant developments took place in the week beginning Monday 10 March. Two items were published that day by the Welsh Government [WG]. The first was a Commencement Order which brought into force a particular section of the Children Act 2004. The second was a Written Statement from Cabinet Secretary for Education Lynne Neagle announcing that the WG had asked for parts of the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill [CWSB] to be extended to cover Wales.
Note: Families First in Education Wales has been provided with a very helpful summary of the way developments relating to the pilot scheme and the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill will be processed over coming weeks through some of the lesser known procedures in the Senedd. This can be downloaded as a PDF. Readers may find it helpful in further understanding the relevance of documents referred to below.
The Children Act – why now?
The significance of section 29 of the Children Act 2004 is explained in the Explanatory Note from the Welsh Government’s legislation page:
“This Order, made by the Welsh Ministers, brings into force on 10 March 2025 section 29 of the Children Act 2004 (information databases: Wales). Section 29 provides for the establishment and operation of databases for the purpose of arrangements under section 25 or 28 of the Children Act 2004 or under section 175 of the Education Act 2002.”
These powers had effectively been sitting on the shelf or lying dormant for over twenty years ready to be enacted when occasion demanded, and the Commencement Order has brought them into force as of the date of its publication
In January 2018, previous Education Secretary Kirsty Williams had spoken in a Senedd Plenary session [video] about her intention to consult on “using existing powers found in section 29 of the Children Act 2004 to require local authorities to establish a database to assist them in identifying children not receiving suitable education.”
Lynne Neagle had referred to these words in her own Written Statement on 11 September last year announcing the outcome of the consultation on the ‘Children Act 2004 Children Missing Education Database (Wales) Regulations’ and proposed next steps.
More extensive comment on both these can be found in this Families First in Education Wales news report from October 2024. Suffice it for now to point out these two key features of the back story, as we turn to Neagle’s recent Written Statement published on 10 March.
Cabinet Secretary’s statement
This opened with a summary of the aims and objectives of the CSWB, noting that the Bill “applied to England only on introduction.” From then on, the direction of travel was clear – whilst education and social care are devolved issues in Wales, the shared aims around “children’s welfare, safeguarding and protecting children’s rights” made working together desirable in order “to achieve the desired outcomes.”
Having summarised the benefits of “additional legislative measures across both nations,” Neagle even went on to suggest that if equal measures were not implemented in Wales, “this would result in fewer protections for our children than their counterparts in England.”
All of course laying the foundation for communicating to Members the fait accompli that “we have discussed the Bill with the UK government and have asked that certain provisions within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, be applied to Wales in the same way as England.”
Initially, the areas within the Bill which are to apply to Wales are, in Neagle’s words:
- Children in secure accommodation
- The extension of the offence of ill-treatment of a child by a care worker to cover 16/17-year-olds.
- Children not in school
Meanwhile, in England
At the time Neagle’s statement was published, the Bill was awaiting its Commons Report Stage at Westminster. The day after the two actions reported above, Bridget Phillipson tabled a host of amendments most of which were to enable the above provisions to be extended to Wales.
In her opening speech on 18 March, the second day of the Report Stage debate, Education Minister Catherine McKinnell stated:
“Just as we are committed to working with all our schools, so too are this Government determined to work with the devolved Governments to deliver higher standards of education and care in all parts of the UK. The majority of today’s amendments concern the extension of the ‘children not in school’ provisions to Wales. The Minister spoke yesterday of our pride in working with the Welsh Government. Labour Governments in both Cardiff and London will deliver our shared ambition for a society where all children receive high-quality education, wherever they grow up. We will build a Britain where children come first. These 91 amendments will extend all the ‘children not in school’ measures to Wales. There is a legislative consent motion on this change, on which we are working very closely with the Welsh Government.”
In her Written Statement to Cabinet Members, Neagle had also made tentative reference to the possibility of extending other provisions of the Bill to Wales:
“Subject to agreement with the UK government other areas of the Bill may be included at a later stage. Should additional provisions be extended to Wales, a further update will be issued.”
The overall tenor of this statement leaves the discerning reader in little doubt that as much advantage as possible will be taken of this piece of English primary legislation by both parties. It is however impossible to know which Labour administration approached the other in order to maximise the benefit from this piece of ill-conceived legislation.
Is this a new idea?
In any case, it’s not the first time key figures in political circles have raised their voices in favour of primary legislation. The last Children’s Commissioner, Sally Holland, advocated strongly for the necessity of it in her February 2021 “Review of the Welsh Government’s Exercise of its Functions,” having repeatedly told the Welsh Government that the secondary legislation route would not achieve their desired outcome in a timely manner.
Speaking of timing, the WG Cabinet Statement was published after the Committee stage had concluded. So far therefore there has been no opportunity for proper consideration of the implications for either government, let alone for those Welsh families already facing intrusive cross-services data collection and sharing measures, and now having this further burden thrust upon them with no opportunity to make representations or submit evidence to the Bill Committee.
Further Cabinet Statements, intended as they are “to provide members with an update on the Welsh Government’s proposed plans” are far from the best way of informing those citizens most likely to be impacted by such policy decisions. It will do little for home educating families’ confidence that WG has any intention of listening to them or and engaging with the issues they have raised repeatedly in the past.
In the interests of fairness however, one should also note that the Westminster Government is also wedded to obliqueness. Defend Digital Me wrote scathingly in early February about their Impact Assessment and scrutiny not being fit for purpose, pointing out that their Equality Impact Assessment was not published on the Bill page. The English Department has published a growing number of additional background documents, including a dozen or more Impact Assessments listed here, with several being of importance to HE families in Wales as well as England. How MPs were supposed to find time to read and properly consider the contents of the one published just hours before the start of the Report Stage debate is a complete mystery.
Looking ahead
As to the future, there are still many unknowns. The CSW Bill has now completed its journey through the Commons and had its First Reading in the House of Lords. The postponed Second Reading has been provisionally timetabled for 1 May, it will then be followed by Committee stage over several weeks, when amendments can first be proposed in the Upper House. Nothing is binding until the Bill receives Royal Assent, at which point it becomes an Act of Parliament, though its provisions will not be enacted immediately in either country.
For now, HE families should continue to monitor developments carefully and seek to engage as meaningfully as possible with any constituency or regional members of Senedd willing to listen with an unprejudiced ear.
On the Senedd front, we now know that Neagle’s Written Statement was discussed in private by the Welsh Legislation, Justice & Constitution Committee when they met on 17 March.
Written Questions have already been submitted by Opposition members Mark Isherwood, WQ95998 and Natasha Asghar, WQ96011 & WQ96012.
Defend Digital Me have highlighted many and various concerns in a news report published on 17 March. This is very informative, and definitely recommended reading. Here they point out that,
“The connected Welsh government statement made on March 10th fails to mention most of the wider implications for families in Wales or make any mention of the private, independent schools pilot secondary legislation and its time limited window in April-May.”
DDM’s careful monitoring and scrutiny of what steps have already been taken is very welcome; without their vigilance these developments could have gone entirely unnoticed by the majority of parents in Wales.
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