Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill – NSPCC Children

Every child deserves to grow up safe, happy, and healthy, with equal access to opportunities.  My Liberal Democrat Parliamentary colleagues and I are committed to championing the safety of children both online and offline.  

The recent Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has, on the face of it, taken some positive steps forward, but there is still more to do. While the Bill includes some welcome provisions, such as a focus on mental health, we believe there are significant gaps in supporting children and young people. For example, we are pushing to extend free school meals to all children living in poverty and want to ensure that every school has access to a dedicated mental health professional. 

We are also advocating for a ‘Tutoring Guarantee,’ which would ensure that every disadvantaged pupil who needs extra support receives it. In addition, we will be working to strengthen measures to support kinship carers, who play a vital role in raising children in difficult circumstances. 

Further, while the Bill attempts to address profiteering in children’s social care, we believe this should be extended to independent special schools to ensure that all children in care receive the support and protection they deserve. We are particularly disappointed that the Bill fails to address the urgent need for reform in SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) education. We will be tabling amendments to establish a National Body for SEND to ensure children with very high needs receive the support they need.  

We have also called for a stronger focus on child safety online. As you pointed out, the internet can be a dangerous place for children, with illegal and harmful activity such as racist abuse, incitements to violence, and grooming for abuse. The Government has failed to act quickly enough on this, leaving tech companies to decide what is acceptable. Although there has been progress with the Online Safety Bill, we believe that more must be done to protect children. The Bill has been delayed multiple times, and while it includes some positive provisions, such as outlawing cyberflashing and addressing online fraud, the Government’s approach lacks ambition, and the Bill’s details remain unclear. 

We are therefore pushing for more effective regulation of social media platforms. We believe that a fundamental review of how algorithms work, rather than allowing adults to simply opt-out of content, would be far more effective in tackling the threat of harmful content to children online.  

Education plays a key role in keeping children safe. Schools can help children learn how to use social media safely, and parents should have the knowledge to also protect their children online. Digital literacy education should be included in the curriculum.  

Finally, we are calling for the introduction of a register for children who are not in school. While we support parents’ rights to home educate, we believe that it is essential to ensure that children are not falling through the cracks and that their whereabouts are known. This is a vital step in keeping all children safe.