December 2024 - Message from the chair re: Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill & Seasons Greetings

On the 17th December 2024 The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill was first heard in Parliament which included some proposed changes to the Child Employment Legislation.

 

The legislation will apply to England at first with changes being made to include Wales and Scotland at a later stage.  

 

This will replace the Brexit measures we were working towards.  Industrial undertakings / restrictions on the type of jobs will be clarified as part of additional regulations and LAs will be consulted on this.

 

Attached are some more details notes and I have highlighted the key changes in bold and also added some notes in yellow.

 

This is good news as some of the changes we have advocated for are included and some will be made clearer as the regulations are updated over the coming months.

 

Things will change quickly and we will keep you updated.  We have a national committee meeting in January to talk about this and hopefully by then it might be clearer about the how LAs will be consulted.

 

In January we will issue a forms survey to help generate some thinking from members that we can feed into the DFE discussions.

 

As we move in to our 31st year, from all of us on the NNCEE National Committee thank you for everything you have done this year to keep children safe. 

 

If you are celebrating Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Yule, Festivus, Christmas (in December or January), Kwanzaa, New Year and any other festival we may have missed, we hope you have a good festive / holiday time and a well earned rest to all our child employment officers, chaperones, agents and creatives and we will see you in 2025.

 

Ed Magee

Chair