We have been reporting the passage of Labour’s misnamed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill through the House of Commons and now in the House of Lords largely thanks to the close attention Rabbi Asher Gratt has paid to it and his persistent warnings since the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, introduced it last year. He calls it ‘the Bill that smiles while it takes your child’. The Independent did not exaggerate when it said it would bring in ‘a range of sweeping changes which will affect both parents and educators’ – a state overreach that that both educators and parents should resist with all their might. Education lawyer Michael Charles listed the five reasons why here. In effect the Bill takes away basic parental rights.
Today, Asher Gratt reports on last week’s sitting of the House of Lords, when senior peers from across the political spectrum delivered their warning that the Bill—specifically its controversial Clause 3—could dismantle local safeguards, jeopardise family privacy, and replicate past policy failures.
At the centre of this particular storm is the Bill’s proposed shift to centralised Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs). These, the Lords’ critics say, bypass proper scrutiny and have yet to prove they work.
Not tested – no research
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley , a veteran of local governance, told the Lords: ‘This proposal is not fully tested and has no research to back its veracity.’ She warned that forcing councils to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ structure risks ‘undermining local innovation and stunting workforce development’.
O’Neill highlighted the chaos already emerging from overlapping jurisdiction:‘Our police… are a tri-borough relationship. The NHS is a six-borough relationship… This could create issues in determining not least the ownership but also the cost implications.’
Accountability at risk
Lord Hogan-Howe, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, warned that local authorities may end up overseeing the very organisations they need to be scrutinised by: ‘Sometimes the police have to investigate local authorities… To bring them into the team is dangerous and could confuse that accountability.’
Feels like guidance, but it’s not
Baroness Barran said the Government was underplaying the impact of its own Families First Partnership Programme Guide: ‘It very firmly states that it is not guidance but—trust me—when you read it and it keeps saying it is going to set ‘delivery expectations’, it feels a lot like guidance.’
She noted: ‘The concerns we are trying to flag are that [local leaders] are worried about implementation. I worry that the Minister is not seeing the whole picture.’
She added the reforms risk being underfunded and unrealistic:
‘Where are those social workers going to come from, and how will they be funded? . . .That is the sort of thing that is easy to write down and slightly harder to deliver in real life.’
ContactPoint Mark 2
Few statements landed as powerfully as that of Lord Jackson of Peterborough, who warned that the proposed single unique identifier for every child could become ContactPoint mark 2—a reference to the controversial child database abandoned in 2010 over privacy concerns: ‘What happens if erroneous information is entered? How can we guarantee that false data will be wiped?’
He pointed to legal administrative abuse, where systems are weaponised during family disputes, and warned: ‘A vexatious and unfounded allegation… might be associated with the SUI [Single Unique Identifier] and stay on a child’s record indefinitely, leading to all sorts of injustices.’
Baroness Cash reinforced his warning with a stark reminder from recent history: ‘There are problems with data sharing. In fact, the last time that noble Lords on the opposite Benches were in government, in 2004, the introduction of ContactPoint under the Children Act 2004 had to be abandoned for privacy reasons.’
Together, their remarks underscored a fundamental point: that without clear limits, secure controls, and strict oversight, the SUI could repeat past mistakes—on a larger and more permanent scale.
Real and Present Danger
The Earl of Effingham cited recent data breaches as a reason to halt and reassess: ‘The child benefit data loss in 2007… the cyberattack and theft of data from the Legal Aid Agency only last week… This is a real and present danger.’
He condemned the Bill’s ‘loose’ wording for failing to set limits on access and use of sensitive child data.
Parallels with failed SEND reforms
Baroness Spielman warned that the changes resemble the failed Special Educational Needs reforms:’A new model was expected to simplify and reduce costs… but has, sadly, done the opposite.’
She called for: ‘A report that all can see and that is really transparent about how these reforms are working in practice.’
Cultural loss of shared responsibility
Baroness Berridge warned the changes could shift safeguarding from being a shared duty to a siloed responsibility: ‘You might end up with them thinking, ‘‘It’s not my responsibility’’ … I do worry about the cultural loss of everybody seeing it as their responsibility.’
She added that introducing new personnel would risk severing relationships with families: ‘Changes bewilder the children and frustrate the parents.’
Devolution Conflicted
Baroness Evans flagged how this Bill contradicts broader government policy: The devolution agenda… seems to jar with the approach currently set out in the Bill.’
Where will training and support come from?
Lord Addington challenged the Government on how frontline workers would be supported: ‘If it is a new skill, how will they acquire it?… Without that linkage… people will fail if they do not know what they are doing.’
Respect privacy unless safety demands otherwise
On the issue of data sharing, Baroness Barran was clear: ‘The balancing considerations in the data protection legislation are there for a reason and we should respect people’s privacy—unless we think that, by sharing information, we will make them safer.’
What the Lords Are Demanding
Peers are calling for:
- A pause on Clause 3 implementation
- Public release of pilot evaluations
- Clear, transparent reporting
- Robust privacy safeguards
- Protection for family continuity and professional discretion
These concerns echo warnings from community and faith-based groups who fear the Bill will override parental authority, impose one-size-fits-all systems on diverse communities, and create a dangerous data infrastructure.
