Welsh Government’s decision to “piggy-backing” onto an “England-only” Bill questioned at the Senedd
The decisions of Ms Lynne Neagle, the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, in choosing to “piggy-back” Wales onto what was an “England only Bill” were explored on 12th May 2025 in an Evidence Session of the Senedd’s Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee to address the Legislative Consent Memorandum (LCM) on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools (CWS) Bill.
https://record.senedd.wales/Committee/15099
Three of the four members of the LJCC were present:
Mike Hedges MS (Chair) and Alun Davies MS, both of the same political party as Ms Neagle (Labour) and Samuel Kurtz MS (Conservative), with Adam Price MS (Plaid Cymru) sending apologies for absence.
The meeting essentially revolved around the key area of how appropriate is it for Wales to “piggy-back” onto what had progressed through the House of Commons as “England-only” legislation.
Aspects of concern within this included whether the Welsh Government had been actively involved with the development of this legislation or not.
Other areas of concern related the timing of the disclosure of Welsh Government’s intention to apply key clauses to Wales.
This intention had not been made public, nor disclosed to Members of the Senedd, until the relevant amendments were laid in the House of Commons on the very last day these could be tabled in March 2025, just days before the Bill left the House of Commons to progress to the Lords, after the stages when scrutiny is meant to take place in the Call for Evidence and Committee stages had concluded.
(1) Introduction
The Chair, Mike Hedges MS (Labour) wasted no time in immediately wanting to know when Lynne Neagle (Cabinet Secretary for Education) first became aware of what he called “UK Government’s England-only Bill”, noting that the LCM stated that “'discussions on the content of the Bill began in September 2024, and over the autumn these expanded to consider extending certain provisions to cover Wales”
Alun Davies MS, also on the committee, also stated the same concerns in various ways, for example stating “My concern remains that this suite of provisions, as you've described them, was developed for a situation in England” (46), “my concern is that we've taken something off the peg when, really, we could have developed something that is more appropriate”, “My concern, therefore, is: are we trying to knock this square peg into a round hole here”, “have we got something that is really appropriate for Wales?”(46). Sam Krutz echoed these concerns with questions including how does an “England-only Bill fit the principles of this Government, using UK Bills?” (62)
(2) Chronology of the involvement of the Welsh Government in the CWS Bill.
Ms Neagle, on questioning, gave her account of the chronology of the involvement of Wales in the CWS Bill as follows:
Ms Neagle stated she was aware of the Bill from the time of the King’s speech (which was delivered on July 2024), but “at that time only limited information was available” (12). This is quite remarkable given she is a Welsh Government Cabinet Minister, as the Cabinet Secretary for Education. Despite “only limited information” being available (12), she describes herself as having “been keen” to seize “the opportunity” that “arose” when saw the proposals “in the King’s Speech” (56).
Ms Neagle stated that “More details became available over the summer” of 2024 as “UK officials outlined their policy proposals to my officials”. Note that the policies were therefore coming from the UK government and the WG officials were being told about them, the comments do not reflect any involvement of WG officials or ministers in the development of these policies, even though LN confirmed that Welsh government officials “hold regular bimonthly meetings with UK Government officials in the Department for Education”
Ms Neagle stated that her officials briefed her further “in early autumn about the policy proposals” and that she agreed that these “officials should explore proposals further to determine whether there were benefits to extending some or all of the provisions to Wales, either by joining the Bill or making our own legislation” adding that “We were then made aware that the intention was to introduce the Bill ahead of Christmas recess, if parliamentary time allowed”.(13)
on 17 December, the day the Bill was introduced to the House of Commons, Ms Neagle received “a letter from the Minister for school standards, informing me of the introduction of the Bill”
Ms Neagle also “had a Teams meeting with Stephen Morgan MP to update (her) on the introduction of the Bill”, although it is unclear from her statement when this occurred. She stated that “it was during that call that I indicated that I was keen to extend certain provisions to Wales, if possible”(14)
Ms Neagle stated that “In December, when we had the further information on the Bill, I informed the UK Government I would like to consider applying certain provisions in the Bill to Wales. Discussions on that continued in the early part of this year. Policy instructions were passed to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel at the end of January with some further exchanges on the provisions”. (19). She did not explain why she did not inform the Senedd, or the Welsh public in December, when that decision was made, or when discussions were taking place in early 2025.
Ms Neagle later states that “It's only been since December that we had full sight of the legislation, and now we are in very regular dialogue. They've given us assurances that they will keep us updated”.
The Secretary of State for Education (at Westminster) wrote to LN “on 10 March ahead of the Commons Report Stage on 17 and 18 March, confirming that the necessary amendments to what were then clauses 11, 20 and 25 to 29 had been tabled, and that the UK Government considered a legislative consent motion would be required” (19)
LN stated that she “replied to that letter to confirm that I would be tabling one of those, and then myself and Dawn tabled a written statement on the 10 March to inform Members that the UK Government would be tabling amendments to the Bill to include Wales in some of the measures. I was keen to make sure that Members had prior notice ahead of those being laid by the UK Government later that day, and I did that, obviously, to ensure as much transparency as we could ahead of the laying of the LCM”(20). The concept of “as much transparency as we could” does appear somewhat at odds with only giving at best a few hours prior notice to Senedd Members of something so significant involving the children and people of Wales being laid before the UK “later that day”.
In terms of any future changes to the Bill, Ms Neagle did not expand on the issue of likely amendments, only mentioning how child employment provisions are not currently in the Bill but could come into the Bill. Ms Neagle said that “hopefully” there would be “no surprises”, as she claimed the Welsh Government were being “informed” of such matters (83), again demonstrating how the process was being led by the UK Government rather than the Welsh Government being actively involved in policy development. Ms Bowden however stated that she believed there would be changes and amendments to the Bill, all of which would require supplementary LCMs (84). Ms Edwards added that there are other areas where the Welsh Government are looking at how they “might apply to Wales if we wanted them to”, citing child employment as one potential area (86).
So the picture is very much of Ms Neagle, and, before her, her officials, being (eventually) told about the Bill rather than being actively involved in contributing to its development and construction. For just one example she comments that the Welsh Government will be “kept fully informed” regarding any potential changes to the Bill, rather than fully engaged in the development of these.
The lack of time to take measures through appropriately, the lack of substantive communications from the UK Government and the rushed nature of the whole process were a repeating theme throughout the meeting. For example, when apologising for omissions in the memorandum, Ms Neagle stated, “By way of explanation, the work on this has had to be worked up at pace when we only saw the detail of the Bill just after Christmas” (75)
This is a vital point to note. The Bill was put before the House of Commons on the 17th December 2024, just as the House adjourned for the Christmas break (with the first opportunity for debate being immediately on the House returning in January). This meant that concerned citizens in England were not given time and opportunity to engage with their MPs between the Bill being laid and debated. It would appear that this timing meant that not only concerned members of the public not able to engage with their MPs who were on holiday between the Bill being laid and debated, but also the Welsh Government were not able to see the detail of the Bill, let alone scrutinise it and feedback any concerns to the House of Commons before it was debated in the House of Commons because it was published just as Welsh Government started their Christmas holidays too, and no window of opportunity was afforded by the UK Government of working time between making the details of the Bill known and debating it.
This highlights the lack of scrutiny of the Bill in how it applies to England, let alone how applies to Wales or the lack of opportunity for the people of Wales to address concerns.
The rush on the UK Government side to get the Bill through Parliament is noted, for example, where Ms Neagle states that the UK Government “had to hit the road running with this legislation, very quickly, in the King’s Speech, and it is a very broad, wide-ranging piece of legislation, which isn’t without its challenges” (86)
This continued impression of the Welsh Government of being passive in the development of the Bill’s content was increased by the statement by Dawn Bowden, Minister for Children and Social Care, that “Certainly, at the outset, we weren't aware of the social care elements contained within the Bill, because that was something that was developing as the Bill was going along”. As with the Education department, Welsh government officials in Ms Bowden’s department “were in conversations with the UK Government officials, again, through the summer and into the autumn, as it became apparent that the two provisions that relate to my portfolio would be included in the Bill”, continuing to convey the appearance of being informed what was in the Bill rather than actively participating in its development. As with Ms Neagle, Ms Bowden stated that “more detailed discussions started around the autumn time”. She stated that she was “fully briefed by officials in January about the provisions as they apply to social care”. It is of note that, despite Ms Bowden being a Cabinet Minister in the Welsh Government, she said that “all of the inter-ministerial engagement around the Bill has been directed via the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and my engagement in this process has been with my officials”, indicating that that she herself had not been directly involved in communications with the UK Government, let alone in the development of policy or legislation with them.
(3) The lack of information that Welsh Government themselves were given about the content of the Bill was a repeating theme through the meeting, for example:
Ms Neagle confirmed that, in terms of herself and her own department, “We had very scarce information on the Bill up until its publication in December” (18)
Ms Neagle stated the Welsh Government could only keep the Children’s Commissioner for Wales “informed of our plans as far as we were able to, bearing in mind the very late information we had on the legislation” (21), which one could potentially interpret as admitting that this Bill appears to be something of a rushed job on the part of the Government at Westminster.
Alun Davies, for the committee highlighted the juxtaposition between the claims of how Ms Neagle and her department “have had a very good relationship with the UK Government in terms of developing the policy” and how “in answer to questions, you seemed surprised or you didn't have the detail,” commenting that “Those two things sort of rub, I think, up against each other in my thinking” (82).
Given the repeated claims that the Welsh Government did not know much detail of the content of the Bill, the wisdom of the clear desire to hitchhike a ride onto something they claim they knew so little it is surely rather questionable.
(4) The delay in communicating the Welsh Government’s intentions to the Senedd was called into question, with the chair’s second question being, “Why did you wait until the day amendments were tabled in the UK Parliament to advise the Senedd of the intention to seek provision for Wales in the Bill” (17). He did not mention that that day was also the last date possible for such amendments to be tabled.
Excuses for such late disclosure to the Senedd (and to the public) of the Welsh Governments intentions on the CWS were given at various stages of the meeting by Ms Neagle. These included:
Her claim that “confidentiality reasons” meant that she could not share details of provisions tabled as amendments to the Bill before they were made public through their tabling (18)
Whilst not disagreeing with the discussions on the inclusion of the Wales in the Bill being kept confidential from the general public and those who would be affected by these measures, Alun Davies for the Committee comment that “I’m not sure why that confidentiality should apply to you as the Minister, from a UK perspective. That’s why I find it a bit curious” (85), presumably meaning how it is strange that even a Cabinet Secretary for Education was not informed of the details of the Bill, let alone involved in the development of it.Ms Neagle stated, regarding the development and content of the Bill being kept confidential from her for some time that “Well, I’ve not been involved in a process like this before. I’m told that this is usual. There were also sensitivities around this matter because of the criminal case that I’ve referred to” (86). Note “told”.
Another excuse given was that the “announcement” of the England-only CWS Bill being tabled at Westminster “was made immediately following the conclusion of the murder trial of Sara Sharif's parents” because of “sensitivities” relating to that “criminal case” (86). No clarification was given of the exact significance of or reason for this, other than referencing “provisions in the Bill to prevent parents removing their children from education if they are subject to child protection plans”. (19, 86)
Is this an admission of the desire to make the most of media coverage of that tragic case in relation to timing of announcement of the CWS Bill? Or did the UK Government believe announcement before this was likely to influence the criminal trial, thereby considering it acceptable to not lay the Bill before Parliament until the day parliament was due to be dissolved for the Christmas break, scheduling the debate for the day of return, thereby making it extremely difficult for concerned citizens to engage and meet with MPs to raise concerns with them in readiness for that.
In addition, is the reference to “removing their children from education” rather than removing them from school somewhat revealing of the Secretary for Education’s opinion of home education, something of a Freudian slip? If so, a very concerning one if a secretary for “education” does not see home education as “education”.
Furthermore, it is difficult to understand how any sensitivities around a criminal case meant a Minster in the Welsh Government’s cabinet could not be kept informed of content of a Bill when numerous public servants within the Department for Education at Westminster (and presumably MPs too) would have been fully aware and working on the content.
Other statements Ms Neagle made in her defence regarding not informing the Senedd prior to the day the amendments were laid in the House of Commons in Westminster included the claim that she “did endeavour to keep key Members of the Senedd informed”. However, correspondence seen elsewhere indicates that at least some of those mentioned have significant concerns about how the conduct of the Welsh Government in this matter.
Further questions on the conduct of the Welsh Government in relation to the CWS Bill included:
- how “the memorandum was laid six days after the Report Stage proceedings were completed in the House of Commons”, leading to the question, “Why was there no account or summary of these proceedings included in the memorandum?” (22).
In response, Ms Neagle admits that the Report stage proceedings did not include discussion of any further amendments in relation to Wales. She then somehow concludes that because the idea of key clauses applying to Wales hadn’t been discussed in the parliamentary process of the Report Stage, then therefore she was somehow justified in not mentioning this vital stage – and the lack of discussion about the inclusion of Wales - in her memorandum, even though it had already been decided that key clauses would apply to Wales well before that Report Stage.
Essentially this conveys that even though the Welsh Government knew that key legislation would affect the people of Wales, because it hadn’t been discussed as part of due parliamentary process at Westminster, then the Welsh Government felt it was fine to not mention this to the Senedd or to the Welsh public.
(5) Reasons given to attempt to justify measures included in the CNIS clauses of the Bill:
The source of the drive behind the desire for legislation containing increased powers over home educating families is indicated in Ms Neagle’s statement that “we and local authorities were concerned that we needed to do more”, with “we” presumably referring to her own department (44)
Sadly, we hear reference once again to the death of Dylan Seabridge as grounds for a claim that that case leads to the requirement for a register of CNIS (47).
However, Ms Neagle and the committee omitted to observe that the measures in the Bill would not have protected this poor boy as he was known to the local council EHE staff and to social services where concerns had been raised about him but not followed up on using existing powers.
Ms Neagle and the committee failed to note that the problem in the case of that poor boy was a failure to use existing powers correctly.
Sam Kurtz made the point that the case of Dylan Seabridge was “one specific case”, of over 14 years ago when asking why, if such legislation were considered to be needed, was it not enacted by Welsh Government since that time.
The continual justification used is the assumption that this Bill will help children and keep them safe, despite this being a belief that many people would disagree with, despite many people believing this would be demonstrated to not be the case if only the policies and measures proposed in the Bill were subject to true and open scrutiny. There are growing numbers of people who have a wide range of concerns on how this Bill is damaging to the wellbeing and education of children. This emphases how vital true scrutiny is, emphases how the Bill, and its contents, implications and repercussions has been taken on face value, and embraced without scrutiny. This emphasises how those accepting it as an effective safeguarding measure have not understood how it fails to add anything protect the most vulnerable minority of children whilst damaging the majority of children and families unnecessarily.
Ms Neagle repeatedly conveyed an implicit belief that the Bill affords improved safeguarding (45), even though she gave backing to this Bill before being fully aware of its content, and even though scrutiny of the Bill causes many to consider it has the opposite effect.
(6) Why not bring in a specifically Welsh Bill or a Parallel Bill alongside Westminster?
There were a range of questions from the Committee on why does the Welsh Government not bring in its own Bill in Wales now rather than spending time in so many communications with Westminster (25)paras) or in the past (paras) or why not develop a parallel bill alongside that of England (60), in a way that would allow more scrutiny with uniformity and without gaps in provision (60). (One could potentially read an element of possible point scoring between the Senedd and Welsh Government).
Reasons and excuses given by Ms Neagle for taking the “piggy-back” approach instead of those options included:
That the Welsh Government were running out of time before the next Senedd election (due to take place in May 2026) and the Welsh government being essentially too busy during the remining time before then (“having a full legislative programme”) (26) , with Ms Neagle admitting she was looking for the “quickest” way (26). Ms Bowden also referenced the fact that this was the last year of the present Senedd parliament as the reason for not bringing Welsh primary legislation forward (33).
Alun Davies MS, as part of the LJC committee summarised the statements of Ms Neagle and Ms Bowden about “not going through any process in the Senedd” as “what you're actually saying is that the Welsh Government didn't have the capacity to deliver this Bill, not the Senedd”(34). Ms Neagle reiterated that the Welsh Government “did consider our own Bill, but it wasn't felt to be practical in terms of timing, et cetera, in terms of the work that was already in train by officials in education, and also in terms of an already packed legislative programme” (61)
“cross border issues” (26, 63) (failing to mention that those could be addressed in any parallel or Wales only legislation).
Not wanting children in Wales to be “less protected” than those in England (26, 63) – continuing with the belief, despite increasing voices stating the opposite, that the bill protects children, not countenancing the perspectives of how it can harm them.
(7) Counterarguments were put by Committee members to the idea that it was better to “piggy-back” onto an “England-only Bill” rather than Welsh Government develop its own legislation, alongside counterarguments to the decision to not involve the Senedd, such as:
A number of questions were asked about how the lack of Welsh Government input into policy development meaning that had to run with whatever Westminster said.
The concern was raised on “to what extent do you—both of you, really, as Ministers in this field—still feel that you have control of the way the policy is developed?”, “to what extent do you feel that the Welsh Government, with this series of provisions, still have the opportunity to control that agenda and to do what you said” (43).
Bear in mind that Ms Neagle had earlier plead the haste with which the measures had been put together and then put to Parliament in England, and how little info they in the Welsh Government had had almost to the last minute, as an excuse for not admitting to their intentions to the public sooner.
So it would appear a very valid concern regarding just how in control of the policy development could WG if they themselves were by their own admission kept relatively in the dark on the content.
The committee asked Ms Neagle “by inserting these provisions via a UK Bill, to what extent are we confusing the legislative framework?”
Committee Members countered Ms Neagle’s claim that the “piggy-backing” approach was necessary as she deemed it the quickest approach given the limited time until the next Senedd election. She was reminded by a longstanding colleague on the committee, Alun Davies MS, that that secondary legislation was not necessarily the “quickest” way as “you don’t have any control over the process in London”, citing former examples without specifying these (27).
Ms Neagle had to acknowledge to some degree that secondary legislation, with the required consultation process, was not a quicker or less demanding way to bring the desired legislation into place, in admitting to “capacity issues arising from dealing with the secondary legislation associated with this legislation” adding “and it would also have been a question of officials to work on that then as well”(35).
In terms of the time requirements to bring these measures through secondary legislation, other factors that will impinge on time and capacity of Welsh Government staff were raised, including the requirements such as a full cost analysis (65-71) and the likelihood of further necessary LCMs being required in response to anticipated changes and amendments to the Bill being brought by the UK Government (83, 84), with Ms Neagle promising to “give you my commitment that we’ll table that as soon as we possibly can” (83).
The Committee also addressed how secondary legislation does not afford sufficient opportunities for true scrutiny. Ms Neagle, when admitting there had not been appropriate opportunities for scrutiny for the application of this legislation to Wales, used the defence that there could scrutiny during secondary legislation processes. Alun Davies MS swiftly reminded her that their previous mutual experience had been to find secondary legislation inadequate for proper scrutiny of legislation. (42). Despite this reminder by Mr Davies of the insufficiency of scrutiny processes of secondary legislation, Ms Neagle later returned to using the same disputed defence of claiming there would be opportunity for scrutiny in bringing this forward under secondary legislation (45)
(8) Points of concern raised of the timing of not informing the Senedd and of only announcing the involvement of Wales at such a late stage included:
Fundamentally that this meant that MPs at Westminster were not able to follow due process and scrutinise significances of the inclusion of Wales in what had been put to Parliament as an “England-only” Bill, with Alun Davies pointing out that “the provisions were introduced at the final Stage of House of Commons consideration, so there's been no opportunity for MPs to really seriously scrutinise these provisions. It's very much a Report Stage, it's not a scrutiny stage”, adding that “and, obviously, nobody in the Senedd has had the opportunity to scrutinise them either”, commenting that Ms Neagle hadn’t “been scrutinised to justify that”(38).
Even Ms Neagle had to admit that she “recognise(d) that the way that this has been done does impact on the scrutiny to date”, that she “recognise(d) that, from a committee scrutiny point of view, it's not an optimum situation”.
The point was made by the Committee that the issue appeared to be the lack of capacity of the Welsh Government, not that of the Senedd (34, 36), that any perceived lack of capacity of the Senedd should not be used as an excuse for not informing or engaging with them. Alun Davies as part of the committee observed that “because without having any conversations with anyone in the Senedd, your Government can't really form a view as to what the capacity of the Senedd is.”(36), with Ms Neagle demonstrating that the concept of lack of capacity of the Senedd seemed to be based on supposition, stating that “we are in the last year of the Senedd, so there are bound to be capacity issues within the Senedd as well, I think” (37).
Part of the counterargument of why feel the need to jump so urgently to “piggy-back” (to quote Sam Kurtz and the Counsel General) onto what was an England-only bill” included the attempt by Sam Krutz as part of the committee to explore such legislation had not been brought by the Welsh Government and Senedd previously(57).
Ms Neagle claimed that such measures had not been brought into legislation in Wales sooner because her predecessors had “wanted to make sure we had exhausted all the possible secondary legislation opportunities”, and then blaming Covid for delays.
She does not mention that the consultation on CME databases was run DURING the peak of the first wave of the pandemic and first lockdown. Even though concerned parties had explained to Welsh Government that running a consultation on something with profound ethical , practical, financial and legal liability issues for clinicians when they were in the throws of the demands on them of the first wave of Covid would greatly hinder the opportunity for appropriate input to the consultation, it continued to be held when clinicians were least able to give it due consideration.
Ms Neagle also omits to say that Kirsty Williams, a former Secretary for Education in Wales who first introduced the proposals for amended guidance and databases of EHE children to the Senedd, gave rather different reasons for not progressing the proposals even before the Covid pandemic. The reasons she cited included realising “the strength of feeling that exists on some of the issues” and that “because a significant number of the many responses also raised complex technical, policy and legal matters which require careful consideration” they were not able to take the proposals forward at that time”. https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-children-act-2004-education-database-wales-regulations-2020-and-education
It is certainly worth of note that Ms Williams had also said that she and her department could not take those proposals forward because there was not much time before the next Senedd election. So the very reason that Ms Neagle is giving for rushing to “piggy-back” onto the proposals in Westminster without scrutiny or even much knowledge of the content is the same reason that her predecessor said that proposals could not be pursued, emphasising the need for through attention to detail. Furthermore, Ms Williams stated that there was insufficient time even though the required processes such as public consultation had already taken place at that point, whereas Ms Neagle has taken the opposite approach of considering the limited time being reason to rush forward without scrutiny to date.
Sam Kurtz (Conservative MS and part of the LJCC) asked if this is seen as the earliest opportunity to legislate, when addressing the comment about the “one specific case” of over 14 years ago. We do not know if Mr Kurtz asked his in awareness of issues regarding legislative power to do so over that period, including the kinds of “complex technical, policy and legal matters which require careful consideration” that caused the then Education Secretary to pause progression of the proposals during her term in office.
The committee repeatedly brought Ms Neagle back to the fact that there was no conversation with the Senedd over the potential for a Bill being presented and becoming law before dissolution, as seen (for example in 27, 29, 31).
(9) Financial implications for Wales.
Sam Kurtz noted, that “the memorandum notes that there will be financial implications for Wales, but they're not quantified” asking “Why is that?”(65)
Ms Neagle admits this is something the Welsh Government are going to “have to work on” – i.e. that she thought the Welsh Government had not looked at that yet (66, 67).
When asked by Mr Kurtz if she thought “it's entirely appropriate for the UK Government to be calculating the financial implications for Wales?” (68), Ms Neagle could only comment that “Well, they've just given—. They're not calculating the financial implications for Wales. As I understand it, they've provided the costs for England” (69).
Her official, a deputy director in her department of Equity in Education, Nicola Edwards, confirmed that the UK Government “had not calculated the costs for us”, admitting that the range of estimated costs in England is “quite a broad range”. Although Ms Neagle had said that she thought the Welsh Government had not looked at costings for Wales yet, the deputy director of her department gave a very rough and broad estimation of their concept of cost as a percentage of that in England.
Mr Kurtz returned to the concept of concerns over lack of scrutiny, asking if there will be sufficient scrutiny of those figures via secondary legislation processes (71), to which Ms Neagle promised there will be a “full, detailed cost analysis”, speaking in the future tense of course, as part of developing subordinate legislation. Note however that she earlier claimed that there was not much time to get these measures through before the next election.
(10) Admission regarding the CME databases
Ms Neagle also made a significant admission regarding the “CME” databases, the Welsh Government’s plans to construct databases of children who it is terming “missing education” based on sharing of identifying data without consent from health care sources. The Secretary and her department have repeatedly in recent months tried to insist that these databases do not relate to elective home education. However in this meeting, she refers to how she had recently taken “the regulations on the children missing education database through the Senedd”, describing them as “separate but aligned to this” and crucially giving the reason for those “CME” databases as “because that is designed to make sure that we know where all the children are” (44), clearly stating that those databases are not only about “CME” but all children.
It is important to bear in mind that, despite Ms Neagle and her department’s recent denials that those “CME databases” do not relate to home educators, her statement here is more consistent with the information provided on these by her predecessor Kirsty Williams, when introducing those proposals to the Senedd in 2018 (https://record.assembly.wales/Plenary/4901)
(11) Admission of other oversights and concerns raised by other committees.
Ms Neagle apologies for oversight in not making appropriate reference to a range of clauses, giving the excuse again that “By way of explanation, the work on this has had to be worked up at pace when we only saw the detail of the Bill just after Christmas” (74, 75)
it would appear that the Children, Young People and Education Committee had raised concerns, apparently about these omissions. At this point it is unclear when or how CYPEC communicated concerns to Ms Neagle.
(12) Lack of reference to concerns on the content of the Bill.
It was confirmed that the Bill provides 10 new regulatory powers to Welsh Ministers (77-81) without mention of what these powers entail.
It is of concern that the Committee do not reflect on the content of the Bill, although that may well relate to their remit as LJCC.
Mr Davies references a written question he will be submitting to Ms Neagle (46), saying he “shared her concern on a lot of matters”, intimating that he was broadly in agreement with the content, despite having repeatedly questioned the lack of scrutiny of it, despite still expressing uncomfortableness in the juxtaposition of claims of a good working relationship with the UK Government alongside claims of not having the detail of the contents of the Bill let alone opportunities to engage in the development of it.
That written question was submitted several days before this Evidence Session and responded to by Ms Neagle 3 days after it. Mr Davies asked in that written question, “How does the Welsh Government monitor the wellbeing of homeschooled children”, with Ms Neagle responding:
“When parents decide to home educate their children, they are responsible for delivering the child’s education and ensuring their needs are met. Local authorities must ensure the child is receiving a suitable education, and we are improving their ability to safeguarding through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill”.
That written question by Mr Davies that was referenced in the evidence session could be interpreted as being a leading one to provide Ms Neagle with an opportunity to justify her actions, and promote her viewpoint of a perceived need for the measures within the Bill alongside her belief that the measures would fulfil those needs.
https://record.senedd.wales/OralQuestion/62699
Although Ms Neagle’s response was not referenced in the session, being published 3 days later, it is of note that there are several flaws and misleading features in that response.
Whilst home educating parents may take on the delivery of education, it is always parents rather than the state who are responsible for both ensuring that a child receives a suitable education and for their safeguarding and wellbeing. The duty for all of these lies with the parents not the state.
The statement that councils "must ensure that children are receiving a suitable education” isn't quite correct". "Must" is a statutory term, a legal duty, but the legal duty for ensuring a child receives a suitable education lies with the parents, not the state. The Education Act of 1996 is quite clear on this. The legal duty of councils is to establish the identities, as far as it is possible of children who are NOT receiving a suitable education, being empowered to then take action “if it appears” that parents are not providing this. It is a duty to identify those that are not, not to ensure that all are, a reactive not a proactive duty. The difference is far deeper than semantics.
The presumption throughout is that the issue is not with the contents of the Bill but the process of applying it to Wales. The presumption is conveyed that the content and the principal proposals are not in question, even that these are approved of. The continued presumption throughout the Evidence Session is that the Bill safeguards children, despite growing bodies of concern that it fails to protect those most in need, whilst damaging the rights, wellbeing and education of the vast majority of children impacted by it.
This just further demonstrates why open and transparent scrutiny of the measures proposed in this Bill, to be able to challenge the validity of those viewpoints and beliefs, alongside objectively analysing the impact of the proposed measures, is so important.