The people of Wales were denied the right to engage with their MPs to make representations for them when the Bill was at the House of Commons, as the Bill was progressed there as an England-only Bill.  

More on that on a separate article on the lack of due scrutiny and haste in progression of the Bill at Westminster. 

BUT  – what about concerns of lack of scrutiny from the Senedd’s perspective? 

Subsequent discussions at the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee (LJCC) at the Senedd on 12^th May 2025 give some insights into this.

That meeting revealed some very significant admissions: 

• The majority of Senedd members had not been aware of Welsh Government’s intention to “piggyback” (to quote the Attorney General and LJCC) onto what had been put through the House of Lords as an England only Bill until the same day the amendments were laid in the House of Commons at Westminster, just before progression to the House of Lords. 

Lack of scrutiny at Westminster and the Senedd so far

• The LJCC pointed out that “the provisions were introduced at the final Stage of House of Commons consideration, so there’s been no opportunity for MPs to really seriously scrutinise these provisions. It’s very much a Report Stage, it’s not a scrutiny stage”. The LJCC added that  “obviously, nobody in the Senedd has had the opportunity to scrutinise them either”, commenting that the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education hadn’t “been scrutinised to justify that”. 

• Even the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education had to admit that she “recognise(d) that the way that this has been done does impact on the scrutiny to date”, that she “recognise(d) that, from a committee scrutiny point of view, it’s not an optimum situation”. 

Lack of future scrutiny via subsequent secondary legislation 

• When the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education, in admitting that there had not been appropriate opportunities for scrutiny for the application of this legislation to Wales, used the defence that there could scrutiny during secondary legislation processes., she was swiftly reminded by a fellow Labour MS and member of the LJCC that their previous mutual experience had been to find secondary legislation inadequate for proper scrutiny of legislation. Another member of the LJCC also raised the issue of secondary legislation being a very poor way to afford appropriate and sufficient scrutiny when addressing the lack of evaluation even by that stage of the financial implications for Wales . 

• It appeared the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education didn’t really know what she was signing Wales up for. 

• She confirmed in that meeting that she and her aides “had very scarce information on the Bill up until its publication in December” and that “we only saw the detail of the Bill just after Christmas”. 
• The Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education also stated that the Welsh Government could only keep the Children’s Commissioner for Wales “informed of our plans as far as we were able to, bearing in mind the very late information we had on the legislation”.
• Welsh Government had been on Christmas recess as well as MPs at Westminster, so even the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education had been unable to find time to  at the detail of this Westminster Bill until the 2^nd Reading stage at Westminster. 
• The LJCC highlighted the juxtaposition between the claims of the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education that she and her department “have had a very good relationship with the UK Government in terms of developing the policy” and the observation of the LJCC in relation to what Westminster had actually put into the Bill that “you seemed surprised or you didn’t have the detail”.

• Neither did the Welsh Cabinet Minister for Children and Social Care.
  • Regarding the social care elements in the Bill, the Welsh Minister for Children and Social Care revealed that at the onset “we weren’t aware of the social care elements contained within the Bill because that was something that was developing as the Bill was going along”. Note the reference to the Bill being *developed by Westminster*, with even WG ministers finding out what decisions had been made by Westminster after the fact. Despite being the relevant Cabinet Minister in the Welsh Government for Children and Social Care, she indicated that that she herself had not been directly involved in communications with the UK Government, let alone in the development of policy or legislation with them. 

• Excuses and reasons for not informing the Senedd earlier were explored by LJCC including revealing how the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education appeared to be basing her explanations on what she had been “told”. 
• It was claimed by the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education that “confidentiality” and “sensitivity of the issues” were the reasons why she and her aides were not more informed or involved. This seems a *remarkable excuse for a Cabinet Minister*, given the number of staff members and civil servants of a whole range of levels of seniority or otherwise at the Department for Education in Westminster who would have been involved in policy development and drafting of such very extensive legislation. 

Justification for the measures within the CNIS clauses

• It was given as council staff wanting more powers – a theme echoed in the Welsh Government commissioned evaluation of their EHE guidance”, which is explored in other articles, for example here.
• No evaluation has been given or even suggested at regarding lack of accountability for how such markedly increased powers would be used or could be abused, nor is there acknowledgement for concerns of misuse of existing powers and overstepping of present lawful remits by council staff. More information in this article here.

• Two cases of children who were known to social services and education departments, where it is known that the *problems lay with multiple failings of multiple agencies to use EXISTING powers correctly*, where the measures of the Bill would therefore not have changed the outcomes for these poor children, were again cited as if failure to use existing powers is justification for wide-reaching and extensive increase in powers. 

Reasons given for “piggybacking” onto what had been an “England-only Bill 

• The main reason for “piggybacking” onto a Westminster Bill seems to be given by the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education as “lack of time” at the Senedd, of the Senedd being too busy with other legislation. Other legislation seems to have taken a far higher priority for Welsh Government than legislation on the wellbeing and education of children of Wales. However, the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education also had to admit that secondary legislation, with the required consultation process, was not a quicker or less demanding way to bring the desired legislation into place, in admitting to “capacity issues arising from dealing with the secondary legislation associated with this legislation”. 

• The LJCC highlighted that the issue appeared to be the lack of capacity of the Welsh Government, not that of the Senedd, and that any perceived lack of capacity of the Senedd should not be used as an excuse for not informing or engaging with them. The LJCC observed that “because without having any conversations with anyone in the Senedd, your Government can’t really form a view as to what the capacity of the Senedd is.”,  with the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education demonstrating that the concept of lack of capacity of the Senedd seemed to be based on supposition, stating that “we are in the last year of the Senedd, so there are bound to be capacity issues within the Senedd as well, I think”.  

• Covid was blamed for delays in exploring other options of secondary legislation, whilst omitting to note that the same department ran an extensive consultation (on mandatory datasharing from healthcare sources for the so called “CME database” pilots) during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic lockdown (when clinicians were obviously going to be extremely distracted in dealing with such unprecedented demands and circumstances).  

The Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education also omitted to share that a former Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education again with an election looming at that time, and even though public consultations had taken place, had stated that she had not progressed such secondary legislation due to those consultations raising “complex technical, policy and legal matters”. 

Implicit beliefs of the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education revealed

• The Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education repeatedly conveyed an implicit belief that the Bill affords improved safeguarding, even though she gave backing to this Bill before being aware of its content. 

It is of course essential to note the emergence of increasing opinions to the contrary from a range of sectors, who believe that the Bill would do the opposite and damage the safety and wellbeing of children. 

• A somewhat Freudian slip in that same committee meeting may have revealed something of institutionalised discrimination or personal bias that same committee meeting, with the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education describing deregistration from a school roll as “removing from education” rather than removing from school.
  

Lack of evaluation of the financial implications for Wales 

• The Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education admitted that there had been no evaluation of the costings and financial implications for Wales even by the stage of this LJCC meeting, months after making the decision for these clauses to apply to Wales. She promised her department would therefore provide a “full, detailed cost analysis”, but this would be in the future as part of developing subordinate legislation, despite earlier claims that there was not much time to get these measures through before the next election. 
• Thus, information about the financial implications and consequences is not made available before asking the Senedd to vote appropriate these wide-reaching clauses to Wales 

It is worth noting that the English child impact assessment considered there would be no increased financial provision to such wide-reaching and extensive measures, and that existing resources would have to absorb the costs, without specifying the extent of these. This is another key criticism of the measures in the Bill – diverting scare time and resources away from children who need input and using them instead for surveillance and monitoring of loving healthy families.

Lack of impact assessment

• Even the Children’s Commissioner for Wales has highlighted the lack of a full Children’s Rights Impact Assessment of the bill’s implications for Wales, with the Welsh Government having considered it acceptable to ask the Senedd to vote to agree to these clauses of the CWS Bill without any such assessment when setting the date for the vote for 3^rd February. 
• If the Welsh Government are considering preparing one in haste for the adjourned date of a few weeks’ time, they will need to bear in mind that the English version has been said to be “not fit for purpose”, so producing a full, appropriate, accurate, fully costed and meaningful Children’s Rights Impact Assessment within the next few weeks would be a quite remarkable challenge.    https://defenddigitalme.org/2025/02/07/impact-assessment-and-scrutiny-not-fit-for-purpose-the-childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill-so-far/ 

Regarding scrutiny of future changes as the Bill progresses through Westminster

• the Welsh Education secretary said that “hopefully” there would be “no surprises”, indicating, as elsewhere in the disclosures of the meeting, the lack of involvement of Wales in the development of the policy and legislation. 
• The best that the Welsh Education secretary seemed to be able to offer in terms of reassurance of the development of the legislation was that Westminster would keep the Welsh Government “fully informed”. 

Lack of involvement of those with lived experience in policy development or the process, including lack of use of this input to inform accurate and appropriate scrutiny

• Even the Children’s Commissioner for Wales has made reference to having to remind the Welsh Government of “the importance of ensuring full and meaningful engagement and consultation with children, young people and their families in Wales when drawing up the regulations or statutory guidance for Wales”. 
• However, surely that is a rather “after the fact” approach, only allowing some degree of comment on how things could maybe possibly be tweaked so slightly once plans are in place, how only minor secondary modifications could maybe, possibly be condescended to when opinions, experiences and concerns had already been overridden and ignored, rather than using lived experience and input of the normal, healthy, loving families and children who would be most impacted by these measures in development of reasonable and respectful policy in relation to them. 

More information can be found on the lack of engagement of the Welsh Government with home educators in this article.

• Confidence in the approach of Welsh Government towards  those with interests in home education or those concerned about the CNIS clauses of the Bill appears to be extremely low, particularly in light of the disparaging tone towards home educators and home education groups conveyed in the evaluation they commissioned into the “effectiveness” of their 2023 guidance, alongside repeated lack of respectful involvement of those with lived experience in policy formation and development. 
• There appears to be virtually no confidence of those with lived experience in the potential consultation phase in Wales, given the tone and approach of the Welsh Government towards them to date, including how responses to previous consultations on similar issues were treated, including perceptions that the input of those who did not necessarily condone Welsh Government’s policies and who raised concerns about these was generally dismissed, demeaned, devalued or negated. 
• This is somewhat ironic given how the present Cabinet Secretary for Education soon after appointment to post, on the floor at Plenary, clashed with the former First Minister when telling him “you cannot have a consultation and then just ignore that consultation“. 
• Yet that is the very situation that has happened with consultations her department has run. 

Thus, there is admission of a quite remarkable lack of due scrutiny at the Senedd, as well as the lack of scrutiny at Westminster, as discussed in a different post, on what even the Welsh Education secretary described as “very broad and wide-ranging legislation” which “isn’t without its challenges. 

You can read more on this issue in this evaluation article here. 

If you are a Senedd Member who is planning to vote on the LCM on the CWS Bill at the Senedd on the 3^rd of March, then surely this would be vital reading.

https://homeeducationaction.substack.com/p/welsh-governments-decision-to-piggy