IN Westminster, silence is never neutral. Since September, when ministers hurried through a string of last-minute amendments, the Schools Bill has vanished from the parliamentary calendar. No date for Report Stage. No statement. No momentum.
Officials call it a ‘pause’. Insiders call it what it is – paralysis.
‘You don’t delay a flagship Bill unless you’ve lost your course,’ said one senior civil servant. ‘It’s chaos disguised as strategy.’
The Department for Education insists the Bill is ‘progressing as planned’. But behind closed doors, officials are war-gaming legal scenarios and mapping political escape routes. One insider described ‘a bunker mentality’ with departments bracing for judicial review if the Bill proceeds unamended.
The confusion runs deep. Ministers are split. Peers are rebelling. And Downing Street, once bullish on the reforms, now appears intent on keeping its distance.
Resistance in the upper chamber has hardened. Crossbench peers, lawyers and child welfare experts are uniting against what one described as ’surveillance in the language of safeguarding’.
At the heart of the backlash are the Bill’s most contested powers:
- A mandatory national register linking children’s data to their lifelong NHS number;
- Expanded inspection rights allowing officials into family homes;
- Sweeping data-sharing provisions that override parental consent.
‘The Government calls it protection,’ said one peer. ’Parents call it intrusion. This Bill confuses oversight with ownership.’
Beyond the politics lies a question that cuts to the bone of British liberty: who raises the nation’s children – parents or the state?
Critics warn that the Bill represents an irreversible shift toward bureaucratic control of family life. Its defenders insist it safeguards children ‘missing from education’. But as one senior barrister put it: ‘There are already laws for neglect and abuse. This Bill criminalises parenthood by default.’
For now, the Schools Bill is adrift. With no schedule, no clear strategy, and no united defence, it stands as a monument to overreach – a cautionary tale of what happens when government forgets the limits of its mandate.
A Bill once framed as protection now reads like intrusion. Each week without progress tightens the vice of scrutiny and exposes a deeper truth: the Government has lost confidence, coherence and control.
The message from parents, peers, and professionals is unambiguous: Let parents parent. End the power grab.
This article appeared in Rabbi’s Substack on October 23, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
