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LONDON: UK lawmakers on Wednesday backed better safeguards for home-schooled children following the brutal murder of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl, in a vote overshadowed by the recent row over grooming gangs.
MPs progressed the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to the next stage of the parliamentary process without the need for a further formal vote.
That came after MPs rejected an amendment that threatened to derail the legislation.
The opposition Conservative party had sought to use the debate to force the establishment of a new national inquiry into sex offences dating back decades against children in northern England.
Controversy has swirled around the issue over the past week after US tech billionaire Elon Musk made repeated incendiary attacks against Britain’s Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer about it on his X platform.
Starmer has rejected calls for a new inquiry, arguing it is time for “action” to implement the almost two dozen recommendations made in an earlier seven-year-long inquiry with a broader focus.
He said Wednesday that the children’s bill, which would require all local authorities to hold a register of children who are not in school, forms part of wider efforts to protect vulnerable youngsters.
Sharif was found dead in her home outside London in August 2023 with extensive injuries including broken bones, burns and even bite marks after being subjected to years of abuse.
Her father Urfan Sharif and step-mother Beinash Batool were convicted of her murder last month and given life sentences in prison.
‘Safeguarding’
Months before Sara’s death, Sharif had taken his daughter out of school to be taught at home, after the girl’s teacher reported her bruises to child services.
At the time, child services had probed the incident but did not take any action.
Once enacted into law, the legislation would remove a parent’s right to take children out of school for home education if the child is suspected of being at risk of significant harm.
The law would require a unique number for children — similar to how adults are required to have a national insurance number to work and receive benefits — to better monitor at-risk cases.
The bill represents “the single biggest piece of children safeguarding legislation in a generation”, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told the BBC.
Lawmakers rejected the Conservatives’ amendment by 364 votes to 111 in a widely expected defeat owing to the Labour party’s massive parliamentary majority.
Demands for a new national inquiry into widespread sexual abuse of primarily white British girls by men of mostly Pakistani origin in various northern English towns, spanning several decades, has long come from far-right UK figures including the notorious agitator Tommy Robinson.
But Musk, who has called for Robinson to be released from prison, as well as the Conservatives and Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party have joined the calls for a probe in recent days.
The row has piled pressure on Starmer, who was chief state prosecutor at the time of the scandals. He hit out this week at “lies and misinformation” around the issue.
On Monday, his government announced new curbs including that legally require professionals to report claims of sexual abuse against children.
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