This page is about the process of law-making and what to expect as the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill makes its way through parliament and afterwards.
In December 2024 the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill had its First Reading in the House of Commons. It puts forward proposals for compulsory registration of children not in school [ENGLAND ONLY] and says that in future some parents will need permission to home educate (including already home educating if child protection action is being taken)
It takes quite a long time for a new law to be made as I explain below. Anything you have read about the proposed new law does not change the current law; the government has to get the new law in place first.
Furthermore, even after a new law is on the books, each part or section then has to be “commenced” before it is in force. “Commencement” appears in the bill on page 115; sections 24-29 do NOT appear in the early list except under the general heading of Part 2 provisions concerning new regulations.
In other words, should the bill become law, there would be a further time after the bill became law during which details of secondary legislation would be hammered out. The relevant sections of the bill might then be “commenced” to coincide with these new regulations.
Parliament Bill Page
The home page for the bill is where you can find the current version of the bill, plus tabs for News, Stages, and Publications. The contents of the bill will change as it goes through parliament; you can track this via the Publications tab.
The Publications tab is where you can also find Explanatory Notes and a Human Rights Memorandum but as yet no Impact Assessment. Department for Education [DfE] Policy Summary Notes [LINK] do not appear on the Publications tab.
Parallel Parliament Bill Page
With thanks to He-Byte for this link https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2024-26/childrenswellbeingandschools where all the bill information is displayed much more clearly than on the official parliament page
Onscreen View Without Download
As an alternative to downloading a 128 page PDF, I have put the Children Not In School clauses of the bill onto a spreadsheet which can be viewed and shared here https://shorturl.at/eJleP
Bill Overview
The Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill is about much more than home education; in the following order it sets out changes to: Part 1 Children’s Social Care – safeguarding, children in care, child employment and; Part 2 Schools – food, uniforms, children not in school, wider range of institutions registered and inspected as independent schools, bringing rules for academies more in line with maintained schools (including ending the requirement for all new schools to be academies)
How Laws Are Made
A bill must go all the way through both Houses of Parliament before it can become law. This is called “Passage of a Bill”. It is important to note that the CW&S bill started in the Commons (unlike the 2022 Schools Bill which started in the Lords). Here is the link for the stages of the bill. This library briefing provides useful information on exactly how a bill goes through parliament.
Bills have reading stages and committee stages. Second Reading is a chance for any MP [Member of Parliament] to comment on any aspect of the bill. Second Reading of the CW&S Bill in the House of Commons is on January 8th 2025 [LINK]
Directly after Second Reading there was a Programme Order setting out how long the bill will spend in committee, plus how many days (usually one or two) for Report and Third Reading before the bill finishes in the Commons. More about timetabling here.
Amendments can be submitted as soon as Second Reading has finished, as explained here. More about amendments below.
Each government bill has its own commons committee and a cross section of around 20 MPs will be selected for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee. In due course these MPs’ details will be added on the News tab. As explained here, members of the public can also send written views to the bill committee and of course constituents can make their views known at a local level including to bill committee MPs (find your constituency MP here)
The committee will go through the bill in order, which means children not in school will be scrutinised after children’s social care but before independent schools and academies.
Public bill committees meet several times a week (typically Tuesdays and Thursdays) You can watch on Parliament TV and find transcripts on the Publications tab. Once they have been timetabled, the committee sessions will be listed on the Stages tab. SEE https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2025/01/15/tight-timing-written-evidence-bill-committee/
Amendments
Committee members debate how each part of the bill might be improved (including taking things out completely). The process is organised by way of discussion on amendments, more on this here. In due course the amendments will be listed on the Publications tab. The amendments form the basis of discussion in committee and are tabled with reference to the clause number and the bill page number plus line numbering within a page.
To assist with amendments, I have prepared a spreadsheet here https://shorturl.at/eJleP so that precise line numbers can be easily tracked. It also means that the proposed measures can be viewed in the browser or on a phone without having to download a 128 page PDF.
A large number of amendments tabled by MPs is a good indicator of the level of controversy or concern over a particular area. Amendments not tabled by ministers will not succeed immediately but they can prompt the government to table its own amendments in the name of the responsible minister. This is why it is important to note the name(s) alongside the amendment; the more names the better, with a minister’s name being the most significant.
https://guidetoprocedure.parliament.uk/articles/gI3h3dnB/how-to-submit-an-amendment for MPs. See also https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2025/01/09/bill-committee-childrens-wellbeing-and-schools/
By the time it has gone through committee, the bill will be different from the original version, which is to say it will have been amended. Each amended version supersedes the last and successive versions will appear on the Publications tab. The latest version returns to the House of Commons for Report and Third Reading (the time limits for these later stages will already have been set out in the Programme Order)
Only after the bill has finished in the Commons does it go to the Lords where the sequence of readings, committee etc is repeated. However, at committee stage, unlike the Commons, any member of the Lords can speak to the part of the Bill under scrutiny at the time (as we saw with the Schools Bill).
Lords Meeting Early 2025
As described above, the bill will not formally reach the Lords until it has been through all the stages in the Commons, but there will be a conversation in early 2025 between members of the Lords and the responsible minister in the Commons, as indicated here. NB Baroness Anderson is not herself the education minister, she is a government whip in the Lords who picks up government business as required. A full list of all the government ministers for DfE can be found here.
House of Commons Briefing
The House of Commons Research Library produces briefings for MPs about topics of parliamentary interest. A briefing was released on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on Friday January 3rd 2025. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10165/ Children Not In School is covered on pages 85-100 which provides a useful recap of the situation to date.