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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to move Amendment 209 and to support the other amendments in this group. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for moving this amendment in Committee, as unfortunately I could not stay in the Chamber that night. In turn, I have taken on the amendment because my noble friend Lady Prentis has been unable to take part in this Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Ramsey and Lady Bennett, for adding their names to the amendment.

As this amendment was debated at the previous stage of the Bill, I will not repeat all the arguments. In summary, it seeks to introduce mandatory allergy safety policies for all schools in England. It marks the culmination of a long campaign in conjunction with the inspirational Helen Blythe following the tragic death of her son Benedict in 2021 when he was only five. An inquest last year concluded that Benedict’s death was avoidable. It was caused by the accidental ingestion of cow’s milk after his school failed to follow the processes and procedures in place to protect him.

I know that we have heard this before, but I want noble Lords to think about it for a moment. Outside of homes, schools are the setting where the most

allergy fatalities occur. Only putting these protective measures on a statutory footing will ensure that there are adequate protections for the two children in every classroom who have allergies. Helen has worked tirelessly to establish the safety measures necessary to ensure that no child is ever lost again in such a tragic and avoidable way. I pay tribute to the work of her Member of Parliament, Alicia Kearns, to other campaign groups and to other families—I know we will hear from noble Lords about this—who, sadly, have been through these tragedies and campaigned so hard. There are also the families who live with the fear of allergic reaction and sensitivities every single day when they send their child off to school or another setting, although we are talking about schools tonight.

The current government guidelines for schools do not mention allergies. There is one line on food and one link to an anaphylaxis charity. We now know that schools do not necessarily have the adrenaline auto-injectors or any plans and training in place. The key aim of this campaign is for schools to have spare adrenaline auto-injectors, trained staff and a proper policy in place. I understand that the Government would prefer any change to be in guidance rather than legislation, as proposed here, but there are strong feelings, as I am sure the Minister and her colleagues are aware, that this would not give the guarantees necessary. Hence the debate on this amendment.

Between 1998 and 2018, 66 children died from allergic reactions. There are 680,000 pupils in schools in England who have allergies. That is one or two per classroom, according to the Benedict Blythe Foundation’s REACT report of March 2024. The Department for Education is rightly focused on the attendance crisis; children miss half a million days of education due to allergy every year. Adrenaline auto-injectors are life savers. The Benedict Blythe Foundation estimates that their rollout in English schools, plus training, would cost only £5 million.

I remember a similar campaign to put defibrillators into every school. That was done. It was, as I understand it, funded by the department, at least initially, so I hope the Minister will address the call for these adrenaline auto-injectors and proper training and policy to be put in place in schools.

I am going to come back to funding in a moment. The reason I sort of ran towards my seat in the Chamber is that I was receiving an email about the costs which I think will be relevant to how we proceed this evening.

I want to say something about the department’s approach to this matter. On 5 August last year, the department said in response to a proposal for a Private Member’s Bill by Chris Bloore MP:

“We do not believe the School Allergy Safety Bill is necessary because in the autumn we plan to bring forward proposals for supporting pupils with medical conditions, including allergies”.

No proposals or consultation were published during the autumn. The House debated this amendment on 16 September, which is almost five months ago. There have been plenty of opportunities for engagement with Helen Blythe, the other campaigners, their MPs and me, but instead a rather rushed round table was convened yesterday morning, and in the last week statutory guidance has suddenly been promised and

presented to campaigners to have a look at. If there is going to be statutory guidance, I know that a number of noble Lords will have questions for the Minister, but I seek reassurance from her on two key questions, the first of which is, will the guidance make it clear that it will be mandatory for every school to have spare adrenaline auto-injectors? We will come back to the fact that there could be other treatments, but it is particularly AAIs, and spare ones, not just relying on pupils to have their own, that are critical.

On the issue of central funding, we know that school budgets are squeezed and that if schools are left to find the money, some will and some will not. That is not because they do not care, it is just because there are other priorities. The reason I was slightly running in was that I was being briefed. The current model, which is the total annual spend on additional AAIs that can be reallocated, is just over £9 million a year. The proposed model is £5 million for the total cost of rolling out spare adrenaline auto-injectors to schools nationally, and there are some additional costs for training and programme support. That would suggest a potential saving, as a result of the introduction of Benedict’s law, of £1,000,032.15. We can obviously argue about the pounds and the pence, and I understand that it is not the role of this Chamber to help government spend its money, although we can all have strong views on that; but it is critical for noble Lords to hear tonight exactly how the Government think that policy is to be funded. That has not come up in discussions with campaigners so far.

Earlier engagement would have been helpful, because we would all have had the time to work together to get the wording right on things such as the use of the injections. I understand that there are now needle-free, more user-friendly adrenaline delivery options available, and I would have been very amenable to changing the wording of the amendment, had there been earlier engagement to help us to come to a conclusion about how this amendment could be the best it possibly could be. This lack of engagement is why people are tired of politics. It takes too long to get anything done because no one steps forward quickly enough to say, “We can put this right, so let’s make this sensible change”.

My understanding is that pretty well all noble Lords, I hope, will agree with the overall thrust that we want children with allergies in school and it is right that their parents and families know that there are spare treatments—injections and other treatments—available should the worst happen. Often, the child does not know that they are going to have a reaction so it is not a question of saying that they will have their injections with them. The first time a reaction happens may well be in a school setting. It is also right to say that teachers and schools deserve proper training to be put in place.

8.30 pm

This is a common-sense amendment on an issue that families whose children have allergies find absolutely terrifying. I think it would cost a fraction of the amount it costs, presumably, to treat children who fall ill, or worse, and would stop untold grief and anxiety which can poleaxe families for years—for ever.

The department has had time to engage with this. Many of us feel that it needs legislation behind it. I shall be listening really carefully to what the Minister has to say. I have welcomed the engagement with her colleague but those two key points—about schools having spare auto-injectors, and the funding coming from the centre—are fundamental for noble Lords to hear tonight. In the meantime, I beg to move.

Amendment 210 (to Amendment 209)