Sadly, there is considerable evidence for the latter, for those willing to look and evaluate  

(1 )   See this report on highly disproportionate and excessive use of legal proceedings against home educating families, with two Welsh LAs among the “worst ten” of the UK.

(2 )   See this survey of the information available in the public domain of LA concepts and approaches to home educating families – showing frequent misunderstanding of and intention to overstep existing lawful remits.

(3) See this survey of Welsh home educators’ experiences of LA conduct and Welsh Gov policy, showing, amongst many other findings:

• Over two-thirds of respondents indicated that they had received misleading communications from council staff giving the impression or stating that home visits or meetings with council staff were a requirement (when they are not), with less than one-third of such communications enabled respondents to exercise informed consent in relation to meetings.

• Less than 45% of those who agreed to home visits or meetings did so with fully informed consent, because of repeatedly misleading information from LAs.

• In only 25% of cases where “samples of work” were obtained was this with fully informed consent.

• Over 20% who had exercised lawful rights to decline offer of a meeting met difficulties from the LA for doing so.

• Of those who had made a formal complaint about conduct of council staff or policy in relation to EHE, only 12% of these found the process to be to any extent easy or straightforward, and only 8% being in any way satisfied with the outcome or considering the issue to have been resolved.

• Nearly one-quarter of respondents reported they felt they had grounds to make a complaint about LA conduct but did not. The only process available is as an internal complaint. Reasons included being concerned about potential or perceived negative personal consequences of putting in a complaint or raising concerns (66%) or feeling it would not be worth the effort/would not be listened to (66%).

• Over two-thirds of respondents (68.8%) indicated an awareness of potential discrimination or bias of council staff as a potential influencing factor of how they or their educational provision would be viewed, with nearly two-thirds indicating that feeling treated with suspicion impacted how they chose to engage with council staff

• Nearly one-third of respondents had experienced cold-calling by council staff to make enquiries about their children and educational provision, with over two-thirds of these unable to clearly identify the person visiting or calling despite information about children or access into family homes often being sought, highlighting a major safeguarding risk.

(4)  Consider the tone and approach to Welsh home educators as revealed by this Welsh Government commissioned evaluation of their guidance. Note the mislabelling, slurring and derogatory references to families who act within lawful remits.

It cannot be safe to consider giving unprecedented increases in power and remits over ordinary, law-abiding families, especially without any independent appeals, complaints, mediation, advocacy, support or tribunal services.

Even the Cabinet Secretary for Education has had to admit that “local authorities are not as good as they should be at self-evaluation”.

Even the LJCC agree the process of “piggybacking” onto a Westminster Bill does not provide sufficient scrutiny, time for consideration, or capacity for recommendations by the Senedd.

Even the Cabinet Secretary for Education herself has had to admit this

It cannot be safe to approve the LCM on such a complex, controversial and ill-scrutinised Bill – especially with no assessment of the impact of these measures on the children of Wales.

The only safe option is to vote against the LCM on the application of the Children’s Wellbeing and Support Bill at the Senedd on 17^th of March, 2026.