Item 5 on the agenda this afternoon is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on securing the right to a suitable education for all children. I invite Kirsty Williams, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, to make that statement.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This Government is committed to ensuring that every child and young person receives an education that inspires, motivates and equips them with the skills and knowledge necessary to fulfil their potential. In Wales, we have an education system that partners equity with excellence. Our system provides a range of choices to meet the different needs and abilities of learners of all ages and abilities. While most parents choose to have their children educated in school, there is a proportion of parents who decide to educate their children at home. Members will know that this is known as elective home education.

Local authorities are under a duty to make arrangements to establish the identities of children who are of compulsory school age and not receiving a suitable education. They currently have powers in relation to school attendance, but there is a challenge for them being able to identify children not registered at a school or receiving a suitable education otherwise than at school. We are in a situation where, frankly, the Welsh Government is unable to provide reliable figures on how many children are educated at home, and that is simply not acceptable.   

I have given careful consideration to the need to strengthen the policy and legislative framework around home education. In the course of developing this approach, we have looked at other international approaches, and I think, Deputy Presiding Officer, it is fair to say that home education legislation in Wales is one of the most light touch in Europe. By comparison, a number of European neighbours have had systems of registration in place for some time. 

Today, I'm announcing my intention to assist local authorities in meeting their existing duties to identify children not receiving a suitable education. I intend to consult on using existing powers found in section 29 of the Children Act 2004 to require local authorities to establish a database to assist them in identifying children not receiving suitable education. The consultation will also consider which partners will be able to provide the most complete database, such as local health boards.

Deputy Presiding Officer, there is currently no obligation on independent schools to inform local authorities of children in their care. Therefore, I will consider making regulations under section 537A of the Education Act 1996 to require the proprietors in independent schools to give certain information to local authorities in respect of pupils attending their schools. 

The main focus of our approach will be to assist local authorities to identify who is home educated, and to assess if they are receiving suitable education. To support local authorities in the operation of the database and in the arrangements to assess the suitability of education to children on the database, I propose to consult on statutory guidance to be issued to local authorities under section 436A of the Education Act 1996. This approach presents us with an opportunity to consider how our universal services, programmes and initiatives are delivered to home-educated children. This means we will be better placed to deliver our aim, set out in 'Prosperity for All', to support all children and young people to have the very best start in life and to achieve their ambitions. 

But let me be absolutely clear: we will not be compelling parents to register that their child is being home educated. Instead, it will enable the local authority to compile a database of children not on any local authority education or independent school register. This approach will allow us to test the limitation of existing legislation and we can commence work immediately on developing the regulations and the statutory guidance. It will ensure the level of engagement by local authorities will no longer be inconsistent.  

I am aware, Deputy Presiding Officer, that, currently, home-educating families have limited and varied levels of support from local authorities, and no support from the Welsh Government. I am committed to strengthening the support available to home educators, and, to that end, we are developing a package of educational support. This package will include making Hwb available to home-educated children, additional learning needs support, help with exam registration, and exploring options for home-educating families to learn Welsh and a clear offer of support from Careers Wales. My officials will be working with local authorities and home educators to ensure the package of support meets the needs of the home-educating community.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I have weighed up what will be perceived by some home educators as a disproportionate intrusion into their family life against what I expect the wider benefits will be for all home-educated children in terms of their education and overall welfare. 

In concluding, I want to make one final thing clear: I fully respect the choice of parents to home educate their children, and nothing that I'm considering or proposing will change that. I have no doubt that the vast, vast majority of home-educating parents choose to do so for valid reasons, and that, in some cases, it may well be the very best choice for the child, but I also believe that the Government has a moral duty to ensure that all children receive a suitable education, and an expectation that local authorities will act on their legal duties to intervene when children are not receiving a suitable education or may be experiencing neglect. I am convinced that the proposals put forward today are proportionate, reasonable, and in the best interests of all our young people.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement and for the briefing that you shared with me and other spokespeople prior to today. Can I say that I welcome your statement? I think that it's a balanced approach. I think it's one that, in my view, addresses many of the concerns that have been raised in this Chamber on a number of occasions about ensuring that there is adequate support available to parents and other guardians who home educate their children. I'm pleased also to hear you, on behalf of the Government, reaffirming your commitment to the right of parents to home educate their children, to take them out of the school system.

I have to say, though, that there are some issues that I just think I'd like you to clarify for me. You issued guidance just 12 months ago—non-statutory guidance—for local authorities to follow. I'm not aware of any assessment of the impact of that guidance and whether it was actually delivering any change in terms of levels of support for parents and for children who are educated other than in a school setting. Will you be able to share an evaluation with Assembly Members of your assessment of the effectiveness of that guidance? Because I do think that jumping into a statutory guidance position without showing us the evidence that the existing non-statutory guidance hasn't worked is perhaps a little premature.

We know also, Cabinet Secretary, that many parents choose to home educate their children because they're not satisfied with the schooling that they can get in their local authority schools. We've heard evidence that pupils and learners with additional learning needs are not getting adequate support from their local authorities and that that is causing many of them, even with the ALN support system that is there, to withdraw their children. We know also that some parents, because they are concerned about the standards in local schools, are withdrawing their children and choosing to educate them in a different way. I wonder whether this new system, this new database system, will incorporate any views from parents and perhaps from pupils on the reasons that they have withdrawn their children from the state system, because I think that would give us an insight, really, into whether this is a particular issue in terms of standards in our schools that's leading to this particular phenomenon, because we have seen a rise in the number of home-educated children in recent years.

I do think you're absolutely right to have an approach that looks at extending children's rights, if you like. I know that the children's commissioner has spoken about her concerns about the lack of going to a full compulsory registration system, but I disagree with the children's commissioner on that. One thing I do agree with the children's commissioner about is that we need to realise children's rights. Effectively, you're wanting to extend those rights, it seems to me, to ensure that there's access to additional learning needs support, access to learning the Welsh language, and access to some of the other technology and support that's available to learners that wouldn't otherwise be available to learners who were educated at home. It would be good to know that you've actually assessed your decision against the children's rights impact assessments that all ministerial decisions are supposed to be screened through, if you like. I'd be grateful if you could let us know and confirm that there has been a children's rights impact assessment in respect of the decision that you've announced to the Chamber today.

Is there a timetable for the implementation of all of this work? You didn't allude specifically to a timetable in terms of the announcements you've made. I'd be grateful to know precisely when you expect to have completed your consultation with the various stakeholders and when we can expect some further significant development in terms of an actually statutory set of guidelines to be made available and published, and from when you expect those to be implemented. I'd also be interested in the costs that might arise from this, both for the Welsh Government and indeed local authorities. Again, there's no financial information in your statement. I assume that there's been some sort of financial impact assessment, particularly if you're going to be issuing statutory guidance. It would be interesting to see the results of that.

But, as I say, on balance, I think you've gotten it about right. I think both sides of the argument here, those who don't want compulsory registration and those who do, will feel dissatisfied, frankly, from the statement that you've made today. But, you're right to focus on the obligations that local authorities already have to make sure that people are receiving an appropriate education where they are of compulsory school age. I believe, frankly, that the best local authorities have already adopted this sort of approach that you are hoping to roll out and make consistent across the country. So, I welcome your statement, but I look forward to your answers to my questions.

Thank you very much, Darren. I guess a cautious welcome is the best I could have hoped for from Darren Millar, given previous statements that he's made on this subject.

Can I say that it is my intention—indeed, it is a requirement placed upon me by Standing Orders—that there will be a full consultation on these issues, with Wales and anybody in Wales who has an interest in this regard? My officials will commence work immediately to develop the draft regulations and the statutory guidance to enable that consultation to take place. I expect that to be done in a timely fashion. I want to make progress, but, Darren, you will be aware from previous attempts by previous Ministers with regard to this agenda that they have usually elicited a great deal of response, so I anticipate that this will be a very busy time. I don't want to say that I will definitely get it done by the end of the year, because we'll have to wait and weigh up all the responses that come in, and because I'd want it to be a genuine consultation and to reflect all the views that come in. But work will begin immediately in this regard. That consultation will indeed give the home educating community, as well as local authorities and children themselves, an opportunity to feed into the process in terms of the regulations, the statutory guidance and what a comprehensive package of support will look like for home-educating parents.

I am aware that there will be some home-educating parents who feel that they don't need support or they don't want it, but I am aware that there are some home-educating parents who do want support, and who have found it frustrating that oftentimes local authorities perhaps have washed their hands of those children and then access to examinations has been difficult—a whole host of things. We want to work with that community to identify a package of support, should families wish to avail themselves of it.

Darren did ask a genuine question about the fact that, 12 months ago, we did non-statutory guidance, and why move. Well, research in this field is continually being developed, so we have been in receipt of the Cascade report that has been done that identified yet again that we really do not have a handle on the size of the home-educating population. We don't know what's going on, although we expect the trend to be going up. That makes very uneasy reading for me. Local authorities continue to correspond to say that they are finding it difficult to be able to fulfil their duties under ensuring that children are in receipt.  So, given that continuous feedback and continually looking, as I made a commitment to do last year—that we would continue to look at these issues—that's what I've continued to do, and I've come to the conclusion that this is the appropriate way forward.

In terms of financial assessment, that will be developed alongside the statutory regulations. We've already made a small amount of funding available to the WLGA to begin to work up some of the costs, and to get some feedback from them on how a database could be managed and the costs associated. So, we've already done a little bit of seed-corn funding to be able to better inform us as we go forward in this research. Of course, again, Standing Orders would require me to be able to satisfy Members with a financial assessment alongside the legislation. 

I'm grateful for the open-mindedness that Darren has come to the Chamber with today to look at how we can improve this system, which I do believe gives us a good balance between the rights of a parent to choose to home educate if they wish, and the rights of a child to have an adequate and suitable education. 

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement this afternoon? You may expect me to have mixed feelings about the statement that has been made. Certainly, I am pleased that you are getting to grips with this issue once again, after at least two of your predecessors failed, in my view, to sufficiently tackle the issue. But, you do fall short of what many of us have been calling for for many years—and I and Plaid Cymru have been clear on what we would wish to see—but I do recognise that this is a step in the right direction, even though it doesn’t go to the very point that we would wish.

As far as I can see, it will strengthen the legislative and policy framework around home education, but it does leave some questions unanswered in my own mind, and these may become clearer as more details are published. I would ask once again why you are not taking the advice of the children’s commissioner, the NSPCC, the independent safeguarding board and the child practice review, which have all called for a statutory register. You recognise in your statement that other nations have implemented registration systems for many years, but you reject that for Wales.

Also, how will asking local authorities to identify these home-educated children and put them on a database be more effective than placing a requirement on the parents to register them? I would assume that more children would be identified if parents had to register them, rather than that, somehow, local authorities had to track them down in some way. So, I’m still struggling with that, to a certain extent, and I would be grateful if you could just respond to that point. I also wanted to raise the financial implications and whether there were any, because there would be additional requirements on local authorities. Would there be additional resources made available to them?

There are a number of positives in this statement—don’t misunderstand me. I do see this as an opportunity to secure more consistency across Wales in the way that local authorities do deal with and support families who choose to home educate. You’ve referred to the improved access to resources, such as laboratories, Hwb and so on, and I’m particularly interested to the reference you made to the effort to provide opportunities to learn Welsh. I know that you will be looking into all of those options. If you do have specific ideas, I’d be pleased to hear about them now, because, clearly, that is something that I would interested in.

The children’s commissioner, of course, has consistently reminded us that there are specific criteria that she would be seeking in any approach in this area.

The children's commissioner is quite clear that there is a series of litmus tests, if you like, in terms of what she'd be looking for—primarily, of course, that all children in Wales can be accounted for and that none slip under the radar of universal services and society more widely. Well, you know, even a statutory register can't guarantee that and that's something I know that we've touched on previously. But I honestly believe that it would better achieve that aim than a local authority database, albeit that's probably moving closer to what I'd like to see.

The second litmus test, of course, is that every child receives a suitable education. I think, on that front, this is where I find the greatest positivity in your statement today, in that that is being firmed up. Hopefully we'll see that being more effectively articulated and implemented. But also, of course, that every child should have the opportunity to be seen and their views and experiences listened to. That's another key test for the children's commissioner. So, I just need more clarity, really, about whether your proposed statutory guidance will include that opportunity for children but also include that right for the authorities to have access to those pupils being home educated. One way of testing all of this, of course, is through a children's rights impact assessment and I would like you to confirm whether the Government will be producing a detailed children's rights impact assessment on these proposals as part of the process. As I say, that hopefully will go a long way in demonstrating whether you meet some of the children's commissioner's tests.

Finally, two questions to close. Some members of the home education community will be more willing to engage with local authorities and the Welsh Government than others maybe, so how will you ensure that the voices of more hard-to-reach children are heard within this process? I'd be interested in hearing your answer to that. And finally as well, there's a whole other cohort, of course, of children who haven't started at school or who aren't at school age yet and I'd be interested in hearing what discussions have occurred across Welsh Government on how the health, social care and education sectors could work together to more effectively include children under compulsory school age as well in some of these areas that we're currently deliberating.  

Thank you, Llyr. Can I start with the issue of—? Apologies to Darren Millar. When considering the approach, I have indeed looked at the legal obligations that we as Welsh Government are under, and that includes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Improving outcomes for all learners, whether electively home educated or in mainstream education, I believe, contributes to article 3, article 4, article 5, article 12, and articles 18, 19, 24, 28 and 29 of the UNCRC and we will continue, as we develop the statutory guidance, to ensure that a full children's rights impact assessment is carried out at those stages. Certainly, those have been at the forefront of my consideration in looking at these issues.

The Member asks, 'Why not a register?' and actually wouldn't a register be easier. Well, a compulsory register—a compulsory register that would potentially criminalise parents if they failed to register—relies on those parents to do that. The issue is that that legislation would only be as good as our ability to enforce it, which means you need to know who hasn't registered. So, there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario there. I have thought very carefully about it. If a parent, for whatever reason, is determined to not have their child known to services, I suspect this element of compulsion could have the unintended consequence—the very real unintended consequence—of driving those parents further away from engagement with statutory services. By placing the requirement on local authorities rather than parents, I think that gives us the best possible chance of identifying as many children as possible, recognising—and, Llyr, you and I have had this conversation before—that this is not the answer to all our children's safeguarding issues, because whether you have a compulsory register that puts the legal emphasis on the parents or whether you take this approach, which puts the emphasis on local authorities, this only applies to children of a compulsory school age, and that is five to 16. So, it would be remiss of us to think that any approach around bigger regulation of elective home education solves that problem of a small minority of families who decide, for whatever reasons, to keep their children away from universal services.

What's crucial is that we make the database as robust as it possibly can be, which is why we are closing the loophole, for instance, with regard to independent schools, so that we can populate the database with those children. That's why we'll be working across Government with colleagues in health to be able to check live birth registers alongside local education maintained schools' registers to identify those children who suddenly are not appearing.

So, I believe that this gives us the best chance—. By putting the emphasis and the responsibility on the state to do this work, I think it gives us the best chance of being able to identify, where at all possible, where these children are and, crucially, then being able to assess whether those children are in receipt of a suitable education. This approach allows us to act now, whereas primary legislation would take longer, and again this is a consideration. But, Llyr, I would be the first person to admit that, having tested the full extent of what this legislation allows us to do—and there are still concerns—we will have to look again. But this gives us an opportunity to act now, and it gives us a real opportunity to test the fullest extent of existing legislation. But you're right that we need to continue to work across Government, below and post compulsory school age, which is why I, the Cabinet Secretary for health and the Minister for social services continue to meet and work on this agenda.

You'll be aware that a task and finish group has been set up by Keith Towler, the previous children's commissioner, to give advice to the Government around issues around invisibility to universal services, and we continue to work with the national independent safeguarding board on how we can improve issues around this area with below and post-compulsory-school-age children.

We need to be a bit careful. This is not about tracking anybody down, Llyr, because that gives a wrong impression, I think, about what we're trying to achieve here. We are trying to assist local authorities to carry out their duty to ensure that children are in receipt of a suitable education. So, we're not looking to track anybody down. I think the words you did use, maybe in inverted commas, were 'track people down'.

Crucial also is the support package. We know that, if children were in school, they would have access to Welsh-medium lessons. That may be an area where, perhaps, home-educating parents feel less confident and less well equipped to be able to offer those opportunities, so we'll be looking at working with the home-educating community to look at realistic proposals about how they can gain the skills to offer that sort of tuition at home or working collectively as a group in some circumstances. So, we're very open to ideas, but this principle of ensuring that children have access to Welsh-medium education and that that might be an area where parents feel less confident is a really important one to me, as well as looking at other issues about, as we said, examination centres, careers advice—. All those things that are available to children who are in mainstream schools I want to make sure are available to children who are home educated also. And I think that's part of our responsibility towards those families.

All of this, I just want to reassure everybody again, is subject to a consultation. So, if the Member has ideas about how he wants this to feed in, then that would be very welcome. But I believe that this gives us the opportunity to really strengthen the law in this area and to give the local authorities the ability for them to be able to be sure. Does that mean we see a child? I don't think it would be possible to make an informed judgment about whether a child is in receipt of an adequate education without seeing a child, and we'll be working on how that should be approached via the statutory guidance.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. I think every Member here is committed to seeing that children and young people in Wales receive an education that is inspiring, motivating and provides them with the skills they need to fulfil their potential, as you said in your statement. We have very different ideas about how that can be achieved, but I think everybody is approaching this from the same perspective—we want the best for all children and young people in Wales.

I should first give credit where credit's due to the Cabinet Secretary for admitting that Welsh Government is unable to provide reliable data on how many children are educated at home. To be fair, ascertaining those numbers of children who are being home-schooled is far from being a simple matter. You can't simply compare birth and death records, for instance, with school records, because families move around, obviously. I welcome the measures the Cabinet Secretary has announced today to try and address this lack of information.

With regard to the proposal that independent schools be required to give certain information to local authorities, I wouldn't normally welcome something that might be seen as an intrusion by the state, however, on this occasion, I think the Cabinet Secretary doesn't really have anything else that she can do, because I don't see how accurate data can be gathered by local authorities if they don't know which children are in independent education.

I support the objective to ensure that children and young people who are being home-schooled receive a good, rounded education. You've said that you want to ensure that children receive a suitable education. It's vital that the assessment of whether a child is receiving a suitable education is made fairly and that 'suitability' is not a euphemism for 'state approved'. The essence of home-schooling for many parents is that the parent has the ability to decide curriculum and pace for their child. Recognition therefore needs to be given to parents' right to decide the contents of their child's education. It's key that parents who home-school their children have a full voice in the development of the assessment criteria and a means of challenging a local authority's assessment of the education being provided to their child.

I welcome the Cabinet Secretary's intention to put statutory guidance out to consultation and I would encourage parents to contribute. Is the Cabinet Secretary able to confirm today when the consultation documents will be issued and how long the consultation period will be? I also welcome the intentions expressed by the Cabinet Secretary to consider how services are provided to home-schooled children and to provide assistance to parents, such as support with additional learning needs. I take the Cabinet Secretary at her word that her intention is to support parents who wish to home-school, rather than to sit in judgment of their decisions, which, I'm certain, is not her intention.

I believe that parents who home-school their children, whilst welcoming additional support and assistance, would be concerned that this represents the thin end of the wedge to state interference in the choices they have made for their child. So, would the Cabinet Secretary be prepared today to give parents her personal assurance that the measures you introduce will not have the effect of placing pressure on parents to stop home-schooling their children, or lead to local authorities effectively deciding the content of education provided at home? Thank you.

Can I thank the Member for her questions? With regard to the independent sector, officials have been in touch with the Welsh Independent Schools Council to outline our intentions to legislate in this area, and they are very supportive of the approach that we are taking. They have no qualms at all and are happy to play their role in addressing these issues. I'm grateful to the Welsh Independent Schools Council for their initial welcome of these proposals and their willingness to engage with us in this regard. I appreciate that.

This is not about imposing a curriculum on our home-educating parents, but there is already existing legislation in Wales that says that every child has the right to a suitable education. Now, you're quite right, there are probably many different views around this Chamber about what constitutes a suitable education, but I'm sure we could all agree that ensuring that a child is literate and ensuring that a child is numerate are the basic building blocks that any person needs to go on to fulfil their potential and to live successfully, and I don't think that's about imposing a state-run curriculum on a child. But those skills that I believe are necessary are the ones that we'll be focusing on. What's important is that there is a consistency across Wales—that we don't have 22 different approaches to what a suitable education looks like, and that there is fairness, and that there is transparency in that process. That's why it is necessary, I believe, to introduce statutory guidance to local authorities about how they should carry out their functions in this regard, because I don't want 22 different approaches, I want there to be a consistency across the piece, and I want that to be clear about what our expectations are. There will be an opportunity via the consultation, which will happen later on this year, for Members to feed into that consultation on what the statutory guidance looks like.

I thought I had made it very clear in my statement that I respect the right of a parent to choose home education for their child if they believe that is in the best interests of their children. I am aware that parents do that for a whole host of reasons. One of the things that Darren mentioned is whether some parents feel forced into that choice, and I think there's a job of work to do—. If people have felt that they're being forced into this choice because of a lack of provision in mainstream education, we need to work harder to address that. There's been some horrible anecdotal evidence about schools encouraging parents to deregister their children just before the exams, so that issues around attendance and issues around exam performance don't count against the school's performance measures. That's clearly not acceptable. There's a whole host of other policy interventions we need to make with regard to how we manage performance in schools, to address those things. So, this is not about making a judgment on those choices that parents make, but it is about saying, 'In balancing the right you have as a parent to home educate your child, we, as a state, need to know where those children are.' I think most people out there will probably be surprised, listening to this debate or watching the news this evening, that we don't already do it—we don't already have this information. It's just knowing where those children are and being able to satisfy ourselves that those children are in receipt of a suitable education, balancing the rights of parents, but also the rights of the child.

Thank you very much. And thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

Item 6, the Land Transaction Tax (Transitional Provisions) (Wales) Regulations 2018, and item 7, the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 (Amendment to Schedule 5) Regulations 2018—in accordance with Standing Order 12.24, I propose the following two motions, item 6 and item 7, are grouped for debate. Does any Member object? No. Good, because I couldn't read them all out again. [Laughter.]