Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendments 502K, 502YI and 502YH, I also register my support for Amendments 493 and 494 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and, more broadly, to associate myself with everything he has just said. Amendment 502YI calls for a code of practice for education data. I tabled a similar amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill earlier this year and was given an assurance from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who gave me “a firm commitment … that the Government will use powers under the Data Protection Act 2018 to require the ICO to publish a new code of practice addressing edtech issues”.—[Official Report, 28/1/25; col. 148.] A letter I received from the department in anticipation of today’s debate suggested that the Government are “reviewing and considering”. I ask the Minister whether we are reviewing and considering the firm commitment that was made nine months ago. We have been discussing data protection in schools since 2017 and we have had multiple promises from both department and regulator that have yet to bear fruit. Yet the Government are pressing ahead to introduce new data-hungry technology in our schools. The uses of pupils’ data are well evidenced and egregious. Some of it has ended up on adult sites and gambling sites, which is an abuse of children’s privacy. Pupils are, first and foremost, children. They are not critical sources of data for commercial enterprise. It is beyond time to act. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment so that this Bill is the one that finally sets out the scope and timescale for a data regime that delivers children the protection they deserve when they are at school. I turn to Amendment 502K. I wish to be very clear that I, too, welcome the potential of technology to contribute to learning and well-being at schools, but while the Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson has heralded a “new technological era to modernise our education system”, there is as yet no corresponding binding commitment to ensure that the technology being introduced at pace actually works. The Education Endowment Foundation has said that gains are often very small and has warned that edtech may be a “gap-widener” for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. A 2023 DfE survey found that fewer than half of teachers thought that technology improved pupil attainment, and UNESCO referred to the use of edtech as a “tragedy”, and the results from the huge global investment in edtech during the pandemic as “far from clear”.