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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I too added my name to Amendment 215 but, like my noble friend Lord Hampton, I have spoken on this issue quite a lot and anyone who would like to know my view can find it in Hansard—reams of it.

However, I want to ask the Minister a few questions about the Government’s current position. I was delighted to hear the Prime Minister declare that no one thinks you should have phones in schools and that schools are expected to be phone-free by default. I am particularly pleased because that is a shift in government messaging: in the last two debates on this issue, I was told that the guidance was sufficient as it is and that 90% of secondary schools already have policies in place that work.

I am delighted, but I want to understand what recycling the guidance is going to do to change the experience on the ground for children. Only 15% of children say that phones do not affect their lessons in some way. How will the new guidance help?

My second question is around Ofsted inspections. Ofsted inspects about a quarter of schools each year, so each school gets between three and four years between inspections. I would like to hear from the Minister because I am concerned that, if we pass this today and stick with the Government’s guidance, there are some schools that will not be inspected for another four years. We have a problem in the real world. We will have new guidance, but with a system that will be checked at some time in the future. I am worried that many things could happen in that gap.

Thirdly, I looked at the government website, where Ofsted’s national director of education wrote:

“If a school chooses not to follow the guidance, inspectors will continue to explore the impact of mobile phones on pupils’ behaviour, safety and wellbeing”.

Can the Minister state under what circumstances not having a bell-to-bell restriction would be appropriate, given what the national director of education has said?

Finally, I hope to give the noble Lord, Lord Addington, a little support. I have long advocated for a bell-to-bell restriction, for support for schools to store phones during the day, and for exemptions for children, carers and even for pedagogical reasons—teaching about phones—and for pupils who need assistive technology. But this has taken so long, and we cannot let the exemptions undermine the need to act. If this goes through tonight, will the Government come back with something that is sensitive to these exceptions but does not undermine the purpose of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran? We cannot have an expectation of a phone-free school day, an inspection regime that means that, even if we arrive on this today, some schools will not have seen it in four years’ time, and a policy which the inspectors represent as a choice. This does not add up.

The reason most often given by Ministers against this policy is that it is worse at home. I beg the Government to give the kids a break and eight hours off. The Government are in loco parentis when children are at school. This would be a marvellous thing for the Government to do for parents.