MPs heavily criticise Government’s proposals to regulate out-of-schools
education settings

This morning Parliament debated the Government’s Out-of-school educational settings proposals. More than twenty MPs, led by Sir Edward Leigh, spoke in what was a powerful and passionate debate.  It was very telling that every single Member spoke against the Government proposals……apart from the Minister who responded to the debate!

The debate served as a very clear warning to the Government about the scale of public opposition which we very much hope will cause them to think again.

Two very interesting things came out of the Minister’s response.  He acknowledged that, although the consultation had only run for six and a half weeks (over the Christmas period no less), they had received over 10,000 responses!  He also provided the very first acknowledgement on the part of the Government that churches offer more than one form of Out-of-school education, not only Sunday School.  In so doing he recognised CARE’s central concern that while Sunday School by itself may not cross the Government’s 6 hour threshold (resulting in the need for registration), young people are likely to access more than one service from a church in a given week – e.g. youth club, choir, two services on a Sunday, etc – surpassing the 6 hour threshold.

Unless the Government now changes its proposed policy, churches providing 6 hours of educational services for children and young people will have to register with the state and face the possibility of all those services – including Sunday School – being inspected.

Thank you very much to all of you who responded to the consultation and who wrote to your MPs about this issue.  It has made a real difference.  The Government can now be in no doubt about the seriousness of what it is proposing!

You can watch the debate in full by clicking here.
You can read more from Christian Today here.


_{Source: www.care.org.uk}