On 17th June 2025, the House of Lords debated the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The Bishop of Manchester spoke in support of amendments to the bill that would ensure safeguards and limits on deprivation of liberty for children:
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I have added my name to a number of the amendments in this group; I could probably have added it to all of them. Like other noble Lords, I am very grateful for the work of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which has been quoted several times. I am ignoring all the careful facts and figures I had prepared for this evening, because most of them have already been given by other noble Lords, and it is a principle here that we do not repeat what has already been said. Rather, I would like to speak to the broad principles and the moral case, and to be brief.
I have been struck by the number of parallels with another situation of last resort that I have worked with for many decades now, and that is families who are made homeless. Homelessness should be rare, short and unrepeated and so should a deprivation order for a child. It should not be something that happens very often; it should only ever happen the once; and it should be for the shortest possible time. A number of the amendments in this group, particularly those I have signed up to, would help to ensure that that is the case.
When I have been dealing with services for those who have been made homeless, what matters is the quality of service that is provided. I have tabled some amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill that are around that. Some of these amendments in this group would ensure that children who are deprived of their liberty have a good solid provision of services for them.
Finally, when I have been dealing with homelessness, I have heard too many stories where families are trekking across multiple local authority boundaries to get to a school. It is important, as some amendments in this group would tease out, that if we must deprive a child of their liberty, we should do it as close to where they live as possible and as close to where they belong.
I will echo the words of one other noble Lord to finish with. I was really struck and impressed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, reminding us about love, relationships and belonging. It is these big-picture issues that matter. They must be the foundation stones on which we build services for some of our most deprived and vulnerable children in our society.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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