The mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence has tackled the government over steps being taken to ensure schools are taking racist bullying seriously.

Baroness Lawrence pressed ministers over the recording and reporting of cases, which was a recommendation of the landmark inquiry into the racist killing of her son.

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In response to the report’s publication 20 years ago this month, the then Labour government said schools in England and Wales had to monitor and report all incidents of racist abuse to their local authority.

However, the subsequent coalition government changed the guidance and schools now have no duty to record and report the data.

Current ministers argue that schools are best placed to develop their own approaches to monitoring and dealing with racist incidents.

Speaking in the House of Lords, Lady Lawrence, a Labour peer, said: “I would like to ask the minister if they are able to tell the House [of Lords] what steps they are taking to ensure that schools are taking seriously racist incidents, and are reporting and publishing on this on an annual basis?”

Tory frontbencher Viscount Younger of Leckie said: “Schools should develop their own approaches for monitoring bullying, including racist bullying, and exercise their own judgement as to what will work best for their pupils.

“The reason we haven’t gone down the route of mandating figures to be published is because, for some schools, it will mean recording incidents so they can monitor incident numbers and identify where bullying is recurring between the same pupils. But other schools may prefer to survey their pupils anonymously to identify bullying trends and gauge how safe pupils feel at school.

“It’s work on the ground that counts.”

Earlier, responding to an opposition question, Lord Younger told peers: “Schools are best placed to monitor and tackle racist incidents.

“We do not mandate that schools record or publish these, but they are required to have a behaviour policy that outlines measures to prevent racist and other forms of bullying, and are held to account by [regulator] Ofsted.

“They are also required to take steps to advance equality of opportunity, foster good relations and eliminate racial harassment. We provide support to schools to do this.”

Shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti said: “Too often social media has been an engine and a vehicle for the transmission of race hate before, during and after class.

“I wonder if the minister would set out his thinking on what could be done on the part of the government to better resource hard-pressed teachers in schools to tackle this, and what the government intends to do about it?”

Lord Younger said: “We do trust the professionals in our schools to act in the best interests of their pupils.

“What counts is what is happening on the ground. Schools do not operate in isolation.”