Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill set for Lords committee stage

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will strengthen safeguards for children's social care, offer increased support for care leavers, regulate the use of social worker agencies and enshrine kinship carers in law.

The bill will also require state primaries to offer free breakfast clubs, limit the use of uniforms branded with school logos, regulate academies and introduce a register of children not in school.

Line by line examination

Committee stage is a thorough examination of the individual parts (clauses) of the bill.

Starting from the front of the bill, members work through the clauses in order, considering changes (amendments) to the wording or proposals for new clauses.

Four days of committee stage have been scheduled so far:

• Tuesday 20 May
• Thursday 22 May
• Monday 9 June
• Thursday 12 June.

(* Further days are expected, and schedule is subject to change)

Proposed changes   

Members speaking on day one of committee stage have put forward amendments (changes) to the bill on subjects including:

• strengthening mediation and reconciliation outside of court
• family group decision-making process
• ensuring schools have resources to meet their statutory commitments
• NHS number as the single unique identifier for children
• review of the disparities which care leavers face.

Get involved

Watch and read the debate

• Watch live on Parliament TV from 3.15pm.
• Read the Lords Hansard transcript (available from three hours after the debate).

Explore further information 

Find out more about the bill in the House of Lords Library briefing. 

What's happened so far

Second reading

Second reading, a full debate on the key principles of the bill, took place on Thursday 5 May.

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