National Assembly for Wales

I'd like to welcome Members to the committee meeting this morning. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv and the Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. There are no apologies this morning. Are there any declarations of interest from Members? I see no declarations of interest.

We'll move on to the first item, which is our papers to note. The full details of the papers are set out in the agenda and in the paper pack. Are Members content to note the papers all together? I see Members are content.

I'd like to open the discussion on paper to note 3. Members will know we've had correspondence regarding elective home education. We've received correspondence from over 20 different people raising their concerns about the recently published Welsh Government statutory guidance on elective home education, and I would like to thank all those people who have taken their time and trouble to raise their concerns with the committee. Before I open up the discussion with the rest of the committee, I'd just like to outline what the committee can and cannot do. Some of the requests include a call for us to look at the lawfulness of the guidance. Obviously, matters of lawfulness are for the courts and not for a Senedd committee. Obviously, if we did any work, we would have to pause any relevant work, if any court proceedings began, such as a judicial review.

There are also requests for either the committee or the Senedd to pause implementation of the guidance until there has been further scrutiny. Now, Senedd committees do not have such power, and Senedd committees can make recommendations for policy changes to the Welsh Government, which the Welsh Government must consider and provide a response to, but they do not have to implement any recommendations of a Senedd committee, nor does a Senedd committee have the power to stop or make any instruction to stop such statutory guidance being implemented. I'm aware that there was a statement in Plenary last week, in which I asked questions about the consultation, and I know Laura Jones also spoke in that statement. Paper to note 4 is a response from the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language, which provides more detail on when the regulation handbook for home educators will be published. Obviously, that's in our paper pack and published on our website. So, I wonder if any Members would like to raise any points to start. James.

Thank you, Chair, and I want to associate myself with your comments of thanking all those people who actually wrote in about the consultation on the guidance, and I just want to thank my colleague Laura Anne Jones, who spoke on this issue at the Senedd last week.

I just want to put on the record my concern, Chair, that a lot of people who are home educating children are removing those children from school because they cannot get the additional learning needs provision they want or the mental health support they want. And I think something that we could do is look at that as part of the inquiry we've got into disabled children and see how we can fit all that in together to make sure that we're highlighting some of those concerns that people have wrote in to us about. Because I think we owe it to those young children that are being home educated because they cannot access that service to highlight this issue and put recommendations to the Government of what they should be doing, to make sure that those young people get the support that they deserve and need, to make sure they get a full and rounded education. Diolch, Cadeirydd.

Thank you, James. Sioned.

Diolch, Sioned. So, would Members be content to write in the first instance, raising our concerns around the number of people who've got in touch with the committee, and then we'd obviously publish the response that we receive from the Minister as well? And as James has mentioned, for some people, some issues will come up in our work that we've been doing on the ALN reforms as well, as well as our inquiry into equal access for disabled children. And we can keep a close eye on these things and perhaps look at what we can do in the future as well. Are Members content? Lovely. Thank you.

Okay, we'll now move on to the next item on our agenda, which is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? I see Members are content. So, we will now proceed to meet in private.