Concern over Westminster-Wales deal in pupil data pilot and late Bill changes

A combination of last minute legislative changes, with powers for local and national governments to compel data sharing from education providers, raises serious concerns over the lack of parliamentary scrutiny and any communication to learners or their parents.

The government has proposed amendments only a few days before the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will be debated on Monday 17th of March in the House of Commons, that will significantly expand the Bill that was only about England so far, to include Wales. The new proposals would amend both the Education Act 1996 and The Children Act 2004, to compel state registration of learners under 19 and their providers of almost any type of education outside state-funded settings. The changes affect every child in Wales—including those in private, independent schools, as well as those in Elective Home Education (EHE) and otherwise not in state schools.

Particularly alarming is the use of children in Welsh private schools singled out as test subjects in the data extraction “pilot” in 7 authorities (Cardiff County Council, Carmarthenshire County Council, Gwynedd Council, The Isle of Anglesey County Council, Monmouthshire County Council, Powys County Council, and Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council). Simultaneous changes last week to the Children Act 2004 (via Commencement Order 2025 No.10 that came into effect 3 days after being made) and the Education (Information about Children in Independent Schools) (Pilot) (Wales) Regulations 2025 appear to be designed to enable those children in Wales to be guinea pigs for a trial of the national powers, with a window for the pilot set in the legislation to run from 8 April 2025 to 20 May 2025.

With less than a month to go, parents and guardians are still in the dark as to what data will be extracted, if and why it will be sent to Westminster, and how it will be used.

Despite these profound changes, no public scrutiny has been permitted in the Senedd or at a national level so far, despite the Bill being so far through its legislative process, because Wales was never in scope.

The connected Welsh government statement made on March 10th fails to mention most of the wider implications for families in Wales or make any mention of the private, independent schools pilot secondary legislation and its time limited window in April-May.

The Welsh Government’s 2024 consultation about “children missing education” proposed that Local Authorities would receive not only data from every child’s education records but from their NHS records too. However, that public consultation a year ago, did not address the additional powers in the national Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will permit children’s named data to be sent to the Westminster Department for Education. From there, in England, state school pupil data is already distributed to third parties including for commercial reuses, and the Department has further aspirations to use pupil data for AI product development.

There are still unanswered questions about which children will be affected when, how families can object to data sharing if they are not told what is going on, whether their objections will be respected, or the nature of the “unique national ID number” children will be assigned, mentioned in the Bill without further details—despite the legislation already being far along in the process.

The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) has criticised the Bill’s lack of supporting evidence, and its Equality Impact Assessment has flagged risks of discrimination against Gypsy, Roma, Traveller communities, Jewish families, and digitally disadvantaged parents as did the 2024 Welsh Government consultation on similar data sharing powers, but Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson was refused time to discuss the Impact Assessment in a recent Commons debate in Committee Stage on January 30th. No MP could ask questions about the impact for families in Wales because it was not included until his week. The rushed nature of these new amendments added on the very last day they could be admitted, without proper consultation, threatens to erode public trust and compromise children’s privacy.

A request by concerned parents for the data measures’ risk impact assessment was refused by the Welsh government.

We are calling for

• an immediate national statement on the full nature of the trial and what the Westminster-Wales deal involves,
• a delay in the Bill process to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny by MPs, especially any MPs for Wales, and to ensure the Bill is ready for scrutiny before passing over to the House of Lords,
• full and open discussion with private school parents whose children will be affected by the pilot,
• and a halt to data-sharing pilots until all concerns are addressed with meaningful safeguards put in place.