A bill for monitoring home education



Lord Soley

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL] 2017-19

"A Bill to make provision for local authorities to monitor the educational, physical and emotional development of children receiving elective home education, and for connected purposes."

=================

"This week, a seemingly innocuous private member`s bill appeared in the House of Lords, brought by Lord Soley and introduced by Estelle Morris. Innocuous for two reasons – private members’ bills rarely make it onto the statute books and Lord Soley has a previous track record on the subject, not least via Lords of the Blog so this is merely an extension of previously expressed views. But in reality, it is far from innocuous."

"In 2014, Diana Johnson introduced a private member’s bill on sex education. As expected, it didn’t go anywhere, but three years later, we saw far-reaching legislation on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) sneaked into law using the Children and Social Work Bill as a Trojan Horse. The private member’s bill was just part of the normalisation process – raising the issue, provoking debate and testing the water."

"And that is exactly what is happening here. The bill won’t go anywhere – Lord Soley knows that. But it is part of the softening process, a piece in the jigsaw which is designed to remove a parent’s right to educate their child as they think best."

Persistent alarm bells for home educators

See also Home-ed Bill