Strictly Orthodox leaders have compared the Government’s Schools Bill to “antisemitic” moves introduced in the Soviet Union under Stalin and Nazi Germany under Hitler as they staged another protest outside parliament.
Introducing the Bill into the Commons on Wednesday, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said it was “time for Government to act” with new powers for local authority registers of children who are being home-schooled or taught in out-of-school settings such as yeshivot.
Around 250 members of the Charedi community, including school children, staged their latest demonstration in Westminster to coincide with the Bill’s second reading in the Commons.
Many held banners that suggested the Bill amounted to “religious persecution” and an “oppressive attack” on the religious communities in the UK.
Phillipson, who has met with Charedi leaders, and who has been supportive of Jewish state schools such as JCoSS and JFS, is adamant that action needs to be taken to stop children from disappearing from the registration within the education system, either as a result of them attending unregulated schools, or not attending schools at all.
The minister told the Commons that if the Bill passed, it would establish “a new legal obligation for safeguarding partners to work hand-in-hand with education, because it’s often teachers who first see the signs of abuse and neglect; a new duty to establish multi-agency child protection teams because keeping children safe is everyone’s business; a new power to put in place a unique identifier for children, sharing information so that no child falls through the cracks; a new compulsory not-in-school register in every area of England, because if children aren’t in school, we need to know where they are”.
Charedi demo outside the Commons
Hackney Council recently reported that it was aware of 1,582 children and young people in unregistered educational settings in the borough.
The “vast majority” were thought to be teenage Orthodox boys studying in yeshivot providing “only religious instruction,” the council said.
Phillipson told MPs: “A vote against this Bill today is a vote against the safety of our children, a vote against their childhoods and against their futures.”
But standing outside at the protest, Rabbi L Weiss told Jewish News :”We have been through Russia with Stalin, and we have been through the Nazis with Hitler and we have survived.
“We have got God, they won’t survive, we will survive. We have got the promise.”
Asked about banners at the protest which branded the government’s Bill as “antisemitic” Weiss said: “Well, they are trying to take away our religion, and they are trying to take away our beliefs.
“Antisemitism does need to mean to kill Jews, it is to take away their beliefs to be held.
“We have held these beliefs for thousands of years, and we will not accept their attempts to try to make us become atheists.”
The rabbi said that the decision not to use yellow star symbols associated with the Nazi death camps at the latest demonstration was not taken deliberately.
“I don’t know why,” he said, when asked why they were not displayed as they had been on earlier demos.
Asked why there were no women at the demo, Rabbi Weiss said: “They are at home praying!”
He also defended the use of school kids on the protest saying it would help them learn about the need to stand up for their beliefs.
Also on the protest Rabbi Friedman compared Torah education used in the community’s yeshivas to “an old boiler.”
He added: “A plumber will tell you that it is better to carry on using an old boiler that works well rather than using a new one which might have problems. Our education system has worked well for thousands of years.”
Another protestor, who gave his name as Lev, said that his community might have to think about moving elsewhere to somewhere like America if the Schools Bill was introduced.
“That would be a shame,” he added. “This is a good country, our community is established and successful here.”
Later a man walked past the protest shouting “Free Palestine”. One of the men approached him to explain that most of those on the protest did not consider themselves to be Zionist. “Free Palestine, Insallah!,” he told pro-Palestine campaigner, who looked slightly surprised at the response.
Parents will need permission to home school children on a child protection plan, if the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill clears the Commons, Bridget Phillipson told MPs inside parliament.
JFS politics students question Labour education secretary Bridget Phillipson
The Education Secretary told the Commons about “a new requirement for local authority consent for parents to home educate their children if they are on a child protection plan, or subject to child protection inquiry”.
She said: “I respect the rights of parents to make choices about their child’s education, but children’s safety must always come first, and under this Government, their safety will always come first.”
As about the local authority registers a Department for Education spokesperson said: “This measure promotes equality of opportunity for all groups and communities and does not prevent parents securing a faith-based education for their children, if that is their wish.
“It merely requires people responsible for educational settings which provide full-time education to children to register with the Secretary of State and be inspected against agreed standards.
“This is already required of those responsible for independent schools and the change will ensure more children receive a safe and suitable education which is subject to regular inspection and greater oversight.”
And not all in the Charedi community have condemned the government’s proposals.
Yehudis Fletcher, co-founder of Nahamu, told Jewish News:”Almost a decade has passed without progress since David Cameron first made a commitment to ensuring the education and safety of Charedi boys.
“The Labour Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which had its second reading on 8 January 2025 finally seeks to make good on that promise.
“Charedi boys routinely receive extremely limited secular education in primary school, and no secular education at all after bar mitzvah. This failure not only constitutes an assault on their personal dignity in childhood: it also stymies their opportunities throughout their adult life.
“Combined with universal early marriage, lack of education contributes to the perpetuation of poverty and a cycle of abuse.
“All children deserve safety and access to a broad and balanced education. We enjoy unprecedented freedoms in this country as Jewish people.
“However, that freedom must not extend to permitting the exposure of children to this level of deliberate neglect.”
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