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Lord Hampton (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 September 2025

Debate

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I am standing up to make a speech absolutely on the fly now. I have taken some legal advice and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, says there would be no adverse impact from this. So I add my support to Amendments 469, 470 and 502F. As a teacher, I think the history of education in this country is that it has gradually dawned on us that children have rights. If I may give a bit of hope to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I think we do listen to children much more now. The noble Lord, Lord Banner, touched on the idea that we are very good at setting up conventions—we are extremely diligent signatories and very good penholders—but we are not usually very good at following our own advice. The Children’s Charity Coalition has said that the Bill currently lacks explicit measures to ensure that children’s rights are systematically considered in law and policy-making. That is a lot of children’s charities that think that. We have heard from Team Cross Bench, which I thought put some extraordinary power behind these amendments, but perhaps I may quote my legal adviser, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on this one: these are appropriate and overdue.

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