The Christian Institute has hit out at "intrusive and burdensome" proposals to force parents who educate their children at home to report their involvement in extracurricular activities including Sunday School.
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will be debated in Parliament today. Clause 25 would require local authorities to create a register of home-educated children in their area. Parents would have to provide information about the amount of time they and any other individuals spend educating their child at home.
The Christian Institute says the requirements "could amount to an almost hour-by-hour breakdown of a child's life and relationship with their parents, as well as their involvement in sports clubs and places of worship".
There would also be a duty on Sunday School and sports club leaders to keep records about which children in their groups are home-educated.
The Department for Education claims the measures will "put children at the centre of government" and "stop vulnerable children falling through cracks", but The Christian Institute says they have "echoes of totalitarian states" and amount to "bureaucratic over-reach".
The Christian group believes the measures may also contravene Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to a private and family life.
"These new proposals clobber hard-working parents with excessive and intrusive bureaucracy just because they home educate," said The Christian Institute's Deputy Director Simon Calvert.
"It doesn't make sense to require officials to discriminate against them when they are simply seeking to provide an education in the best interests of their child."
Mr Calvert said it was unfair to treat all home-educating parents as "a suspect category" and make them disclose sensitive information that is not required of parents who send their children to school.
"Home-educating parents have long suffered unjustified discrimination. During lockdown, when most families experienced a form of home education, this negative attitude dissipated. The bill risks undoing the progress made, to the detriment of home-educated children and their families," he said.
