At the moment because Parliament is closed, there are very few questions being asked for the Government and one of them who asked a question on Tuesday was the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham who is Paul Williams. He asked a question under the name of Home Education: Registration and he asked Baroness Barran to answer. That person is Diana Barran and she is a Government Minster. So here is the question and the answer which can be obtained from here. So far one person has endorsed that the answer was very positive.

Bishop: To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Barran on 19 December 2023, what consideration they have given to expediting the introduction of a statutory register of children schooled at home and online, given the rise in those numbers, in order to identify children (1) who are at risk, or (2) who have unmet needs.

Baroness: The government is committed to a statutory system of registration for children not in school and intends to legislate for that at the next suitable opportunity. My honourable Friend, the Member for Meon Valley introduced a Private Member’s Bill on 11 December with the aim of creating legal duties on local authorities to maintain such registers. The department welcomes her long and ongoing support for those measures, which the department had previously introduced as part of the Schools Bill.