Draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026
House of Commons · General Committees · 30 Jun 2026 · 31 speeches · Official Report
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
Chair: Martin Vickers
Ali, Rushanara (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)
† Botterill, Jade (Lord Commissioner of His Majesty ’ s Treasury)
† Collins, Tom (Worcester) (Lab)
† Cross, Harriet (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
† Darlington, Emily (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
† Fox, Sir Ashley (Bridgwater) (Con)
† Franklin, Zöe (Guildford) (LD)
† Gould, Georgia (Minister for School Standards)
† Naish, James (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
† Niblett, Samantha (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
Pritchard, Mark (The Wrekin) (Con)
† Rankin, Jack (Windsor) (Con)
† Smith, Sarah (Hyndburn) (Lab)
† Strickland, Alan (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)
† Voaden, Caroline (South Devon) (LD)
† Wrighting, Rosie (Kettering) (Lab)
† Yemm, Steve (Mansfield) (Lab)
Yohanna Sallberg, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Second Delegated Legislation Committee
Tuesday 30 June 2026
[Martin Vickers in the Chair ]
Draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026
I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 20 May 2026. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 changes the legal framework for opening new state-funded schools. It ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies, and helps to ensure that new schools can be delivered quickly where they are needed, by enabling proposals from local authorities and voluntary organisations as additional routes to delivery. That provides greater flexibility in the system, including in circumstances where suitable academy trust capacity is limited. The statutory instrument makes consequential amendments arising from those provisions. The amendments, which are to both primary and secondary legislation, are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book, and to update provisions to ensure that they are compatible with the new legislative framework. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not introduce any significant new policy. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act repeals section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, relating to the presumption that new schools should be academies. Arrangements for inviting proposals...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. This statutory instrument amends provisions within the Education and Inspections Act in relation to new schools. Let me start by acknowledging the one positive aspect of these regulations, which is to make it easier to create new pupil referral units. The previous Conservative Government supported PRUs and expanded provision of alternative education to children who need additional help. In particular, the alternative provision academies achieved better results, according to Ofsted, because they were allowed to innovate and take control of their curriculum. Unfortunately, this Government have not learned that lesson, either in relation to alternative education or traditional schooling. Regrettably, the focus of the statutory instrument is to crack down further on academies and the freedoms they enjoy. The Academies Act 2010 allowed more schools to benefit from academy freedoms, to innovate and to improve standards. Those rising standards are one of the proudest achievements of the previous Government. Research by the Education Policy Institute found that pupils attending the early sponsored academies achieved outcomes equivalent to roughly one GCSE grade higher in subjects, compared with similar pupils in predecessor schools. Academies are now educating millions of children across England, to their benefit. Although no system can guarantee success in every case, academy trusts are strongly represented among the...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I appreciate that these draft regulations are technical, but they touch on issues that directly impact families in my constituency, particularly those of children with special educational needs. I hope that the Minister will bear with me and be able to clarify a number of issues. In Guildford and across Surrey, the shortage of specialist state school places has reached an unacceptable level. Parents are telling me repeatedly that there is simply nowhere appropriate for their child to go. Sometimes, children are placed miles from home and are left in settings that are unsuitable. As Surrey county council cannot always meet its statutory duties, it is increasingly reliant on expensive private placements or pupil referral units. Those do great work, but they were never designed to support children with significant and long-term special educational needs. I see that the regulations expand procedural powers around PRUs. What safeguards will ensure that councils, including Surrey county council, do not end up using the PRUs as a substitute for specialist provision that they are unable or have failed to deliver? PRUs play an important role, but they should not be the default destination for children whose needs are not being met elsewhere. Another concern I have is that, if the Government are altering how new schools are proposed and approved, where is the guarantee that councils will plan and build the necessary...
I welcome the explanation of the draft regulations, but I wonder if the Minister could provide clarification, because there seems to be a contradiction. The draft regulations remove the legal presumption that new schools should be academies, yet through the Children’s Wellbeing and School Act, the Government intend for all schools to be academies. Why are they encouraging local authorities to open maintained schools if they will then have to go through a governance change in the next couple of years to become an academy? Surely, that is disruptive, time-consuming and potentially unnecessary for the school.
I thank Members for the range of important questions, although I think they are broader than the individual draft regulations we are discussing today. I will start with the question about special places in specialist schools and how we can ensure that there is consistency. As part of the Government’s reforms to SEND-special educational needs and disabilities-we are proposing the introduction of new specialist provision packages. Those will be developed by a national independent panel and will set out the broad range of provision we expect to be available in every community. Local authorities will have a duty to provide specialist provision packages-that is, the type of special provision that, as the hon. Member for Guildford has set out, is missing from too many communities. To fund that measure, we are investing £3.7 billion into creating new specialist places. That money is going into the system now, and we are setting very strong expectations on local authorities to deliver new specialist provision both within mainstream schools on an inclusion basis and, where necessary, in new special schools. The policy that forms part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act makes it easier for local authorities to set up new maintained schools. On the specific question about pupil referral units and their role in the system, we will be very clear in the specialist provision packages about the kind of support we expect for children with internalising and externalising social and...
Committee rose.