Education Secretary confirms Schools Bill to be ditched

The Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, has confirmed that the Schools Bill "will not progress" to its third reading in the House of Lords.

The Bill had originally proposed 15 new laws, with measures including: a requirement for councils to maintain a register of children not in school, an obligation for schools and trusts to have an attendance policy in place, a duty on local authorities to provide support to home-educating families, a revised regulatory framework for multi-academy trusts, a new power for local authorities to apply for an academy order, and greater powers for Ofsted to crack down on unregistered schools operating illegally.

Speaking to MPs, Gillian Keegan insisted that ministers remained committed to the objectives of the Schools Bill, adding: "A lot of the Schools White Paper is being implemented and didn't require legislation in many cases”.

The Schools White Paper, published in March, set out the Government's vision for education this year, some of which was meant to be achieved through the Schools Bill.

Keegan said a register of children who are not in school was "definitely a priority".

Following the Education Secretary’s announcement, Robin Walker, chairman of the education select committee, told the BBC he wanted to hear how a register for children not in school would be legislated for instead.

Although the Schools Bill was initially made up of 69 clauses, on 30 June 2022 the Government announced that 18 clauses dealing with the regulation of academies and trusts would be removed, after peers in the House of Lords made accusations of a ‘Whitehall power grab’ that would have limited the freedom of academy schools.

The Government had been due to come back with new proposals, but instead the Bill will not progress any further.

National Association of Head Teachers general secretary Paul Whiteman told the BBC he was "pleased to see [the Bill] won't go ahead in its current form".

However, he added that it’s "a shame that the sensible and necessary elements of the Bill that we did support have been thrown into the long grass alongside the others".

He said: "The introduction of a register of children not in school, for example, is something we believe is important to improve safeguarding for children, as is the crackdown on illegal schools.”

Lottie Winson