I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to place a duty on local authorities to maintain a register of children who are not in school; and for connected purposes.
When schools in England reopened after successive lockdowns, the expectation was that every child would come back to school, excited to return to classroom learning and to be reunited with their friends. The reality has been very different. Despite schools reopening their doors, thousands of children have not returned and, as each term passes, a growing number of children have started to disengage with education entirely.
There has been a catastrophic increase in the number of children who are severely absent. The latest figures on school attendance uncover that 140,000 children were severely absent in summer 2022—that is the highest number on record. Those are children who are more often absent than they are present. They may still be on their school rolls, but they are hardly ever in class. Those children have become known as the “ghost children” of the pandemic. Getting them back into school is an issue of social justice, and one that must be a priority for the Government.
Equally concerning, though, and what my Bill would address, is the number of children who have disappeared from the school roll altogether. Currently, we hold no comprehensive data about how many children are not on a school roll, where they are and what quality of education they are receiving, if any. That was echoed in a recent report by the Education Committee, which concluded that
“the status quo does not allow the Government to say with confidence that a suitable education is being provided to every child in the country.”
That is not acceptable. A quality education holds the key to a brighter future for every child, as well as playing a core role in ensuring our nation’s society and economy thrive.
What is most troubling to me and, I know, to many of my colleagues across this House and in the other place, is that we do not even know whether these children are safe. No one—neither Government, nor local authorities nor schools—can honestly answer the question, “How many children are missing from school?” Therefore, how can we know that every child is safe and suitably educated? These children are out of sight and out of mind. That is what my Bill is about—ensuring that every child is visible, safe, suitably educated and receiving the support they need to thrive. While we do not have the data to fully understand where these children are, it is thought that many of them have disappeared off the school roll and off the radar, under the guise of home education.
I want to take this opportunity to make it clear that I fully believe parents should have the right to choose what education their child receives. That right should always be enshrined in law. Parents are in the best place to make informed choices about what their children need, with many parents providing a high-quality home education for their child. However, that is not the case for every child in home education, with a worrying number being taken off roll for reasons other than their best interests. Additionally, local authorities have confirmed many incidents where they discovered that the home education being delivered was simply not up to standard or, in some cases, entirely non-existent.