Flick Drummond Home Education Bill

On Friday March 15th 2024 MP Flick Drummond’s home education bill had its Second Reading in the House of Commons. This is a private members bill rather than a government bill and as noted here it is a presentation bill rather than a ballot bill which gives it a lower priority as explained here.

All these factors are significant because there are only 13 Fridays allowed in any parliamentary session for private members bills. We are in the last session of the current parliament which must be wound up by December 2024 at the latest (A general election may be called earlier; at the time of writing a date has not been announced)

The Drummond bill did not actually need to be debated yesterday in order to get through to the next stage, owing to a peculiarity of the private members bill process, as explained here. The Drummond bill was fourth on the list to be discussed but the session only got as far as the first two bills, therefore at 2.30 when all debate had to finish, MPs had to say whether they agreed each bill could go straight to Committee or whether they “oppose” which means the bill has to be listed again for second reading at a later date.

The Drummond bill was not opposed so the next stage is Committee but before Committee can look at the bill a money resolution must be passed as noted here which is where the government must bring forward a motion to allow for the extra government spending that the bill would require. Similar provisions in the defunct Schools Bill were costed at £11.4 million in the first year and £7.6m in subsequent years. The Impact Assessment done at the time noted that this money was just for keeping registers and didn’t include money for support although the bill covered support as well as registration. (See page 68)

In addition, the bill committee can only look at one private members bill at a time so bills have to queue up once they have gone through second reading. The money resolution and bill committee rules are explained here https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/publications/guides/private-members-bill-procedure-in-the-house-of-commons

Any bill before parliament has to go through all the stages in the first House where it is introduced and then the same stages in the other House as shown below.

The link for the bill is here and the short title of the bill is Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill

Flick Drummond, Private Members Bill, Schools Bill