THE MP for Taunton and Wellington, Gideon Amos, told a Parliamentary debate on Monday, December 1, that the proposed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill could place the future of rural schools under threat.

The Department of Education says the Bill will aim to protect children at risk of abuse, stop vulnerable children falling through cracks in services, and deliver a core guarantee of high standards with space for innovation in every child’s education.

But Mr Amos said that more than 300 people from his constituency had signed a petition calling for the Bill to be withdrawn.

Mr Amos said: “My concerns are about rural schools and rural environments, where the limited resources mean that the Bill’s more onerous requirements on schools could drive some smaller rural schools out of the system and lead to them being closed.

“Rural areas have fewer and smaller schools, and rural schools have fewer administrative resources to deal with the new administrative burdens such as supporting staff to meet the new qualified teacher status requirements, dealing with increased monitoring, handling fluctuating pupil numbers and budgets, and so on.”

He added: “At the heart of this debate is a fallacy: that children are more at risk in home educating families than they are at school. In fact, the figures show the exact opposite.”

Mr Amos said he was happy to accept some of the Bill’s provisions, but felt there were “real concerns about its more onerous requirements.”

He added: “I have significant concerns about the ‘single unique identifier’ in particular.

“Let us remember that it gives any public body the ability to share any information, whether or not it is right, correct and accurate, without the knowledge or consent of parents.

“Anyone who thinks the public sector is good at looking after our data, and getting it accurate, has probably been living on the moon.”