Contribution
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 148C and the other amendments in my name in this group: Amendments 157A, 161B, 161C, 164A, 175ZF and 254. Together, they address the foundations of Clause 32 and the proposed register of children not in school.
I begin by recognising where the Government have listened and where Ministers have accepted the need for stronger parliamentary scrutiny, clearer procedures and a narrowing of discretion through the affirmative process and other means. This deserves acknowledgement. Restraint is not a weakness in law; it is what makes power credible.
I want to address the deeper questions raised by Amendments 164A, 175ZF and 254. These are not separate concerns; they express a single constitutional proposition. We heard just now about the restrictions that many families in the creative industries will face, and I would extend that to all families, as many families have complex fast-changing lives. In home education, you have a lot of online activity. I do not think that there is necessarily a huge world of difference. I accept that children in acting have a particular situation, but those who are in home education circumstances also have quite complex schedules. Many of the same arguments that were made in relation to that group apply to many families that are going to be swept in by the Bill.
A universal and persistent register of lawful families, together with the data infrastructure that flows from it, is not a proportional response to safeguarding risk. Proportionality lies at the very core of the balance between legitimate state regulatory power and civil and convention liberties. Safeguarding in this country has always been based on thresholds, reasonable cause, identifiable risk and particular children. Clause 32 alters that logic: oversight becomes the default, while risk is inferred from how families respond to that oversight. This is a significant change in the relationship between families and the state. Once a universal system is built, it rarely remains narrow: secondary uses accumulate, data sharing expands and retention grows. Each future tragedy becomes an argument for more routine intervention.
None of this requires malice; it flows naturally from administrative logic and institutional risk aversion. The House should therefore ask a simple practical question: what problem does a universal register solve that cannot already be addressed through existing powers? The answer is none. Local authorities already have extensive safeguarding tools. They can make inquiries, assess needs, convene multi-agency responses and go to court. None of these powers requires a population-level database of lawful families. If the concern is that some children fall through the cracks, that is serious, but it does not logically entail universal monitoring. The proper response is to examine how targeted systems fail, as in the tragic case of Sara Sharif, and to strengthen the response under current rules, not construct permanent identification spying for hundreds of thousands of children, most of whom are not at risk and many of whom are educated outside school precisely because they are vulnerable. These amendments therefore ask the House to pause before constructing an infrastructure that normalises permanent oversight of lawful difference. They do not deny safeguarding; they challenge inevitability.
However, if the House is not persuaded to remove the register entirely, the minimum duty upon us is to bind it with strong statutory safeguards. This brings me to the second tier of amendments in this group: those concerned with review, transparency, and redress. My Amendments 148C and 161B would introduce time limits, rolling review, and active parliamentary reauthorisation. These are not wrecking devices but constitutional hygiene. Government is good at building systems but much less good at dismantling them. Review mechanisms force Parliament to look again with evidence in hand. They create a lawful route for correction, refinement, and, if necessary, reversal without waiting for scandal or litigation, which home education leaders and legal advisers suggest to me will spiral should such systems in their current form be taken forward.