Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Report Stage: Amendment 188

Amendment 188 to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill was defeated at Report Stage on 17 March 2025, with 319 MPs voting against and 160 in favour. The amendment was tabled by opposition or backbench MPs and voted down by the government's Commons majority. The detailed content of Amendment 188 is not fully set out in the available Hansard record for this division. The debate group in which it sat covered corporate parenting duties, care leaver support, and related children's social care provisions, including government new clauses on corporate parenting responsibilities and collaborative working, as well as a separate new clause that would have required the Secretary of State to publish a National Care Offer setting minimum standards for local authority care leaver information. The bill as a whole extends support for care leavers up to age 25 and strengthens the statutory framework around children's social care providers, family group decision-making, and multi-agency child protection. The vote divided sharply along party lines. Every Labour and Labour and Co-operative MP who voted backed the No lobby, providing the bulk of the 319 votes against. The 160 Ayes came primarily from Conservative MPs (93) and Liberal Democrats (59), with small numbers from Reform UK (5), the Democratic Unionist Party (2), and two independents. No Labour MP voted Aye, and no Conservative or Liberal Democrat MP voted No. The result reflects the government's comfortable working majority and the opposition parties' alignment in supporting the amendment against the bill as drafted.