Alistair Strathern MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate and for her tireless work campaigning of this issue. It is really encouraging to be joined by so many colleagues from across the House to speak about issues relating to SEND. I rise to highlight some of the shocking stories that families locally have shared with me about the challenges and pressures that special educational needs and home-to-school transport are causing for them in their day-to-day lives. It cannot be right that so many are not getting the support they need, whether they sit in or outside the statutory framework, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock highlighted. In Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, the rural context has been exacerbated by both authorities’ failure to appropriately place-plan at a local level. That has created difficult choices for the authorities and heartbreaking realities for families and young people, who are travelling too far at too great a cost to access the schools they need. Some are being shut out of the transport support that they need due to their age. I welcome this debate and the possible reforms to the statutory framework. I look forward to working with colleagues right across the House to ensure that we bring about the holistic reform the area desperately needs.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Critical Minerals: Domestic Production · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a compelling case, not just for the national security implications of critical minerals, but for the welcome huge economic benefits. Given that, does he welcome the Government’s commitment to bring forward a new strategy for critical minerals security? Does he agree that that would bring benefits, not just for the regions blessed with the minerals in natural supply, but for companies such as Panther Metals in my constituency, which will be able to deliver a big part of the national supply chain in future?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I deeply appreciate the respectful way in which the hon. Gentleman is making his point, but I stand before him not sure of how any colleague in this Chamber cannot have doubts whichever way they are voting today. It feels like there are two necessary harms that we are all forced to weigh up. If the hon. Gentleman is so certain that doubt should push people one way, I am deeply intrigued to hear why that is, when it is very clear that many people will continue to suffer unnecessarily if we reject this Bill.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  The theme of this year’s White Ribbon Day is, “It starts with men”. Does the Minister agree that it is incumbent on us all, especially men, to play our part in stamping out violence against women and girls wherever we find it? How is she working with the Executive in Northern Ireland to deliver on our shared mission and do exactly that?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  10. What discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on tackling violence against women and girls.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Online Safety: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is powerfully illustrating the responsibility on all of us to step up to the needs of this moment. Parents in my constituency—at schools including William Ransom and Samuel Lucas—have been leading the way in taking further proactive action, signing up to a smartphone-free pledge to delay the age at which their young people have access to smartphones. Hundreds across the constituency have already signed up to the pledge. Does my hon. Friend agree that that underlines the strength of parental feeling on online safety and some of the wider associated issues, and that it highlights our responsibility to legislate—not just to celebrate the benefits of technology, but to do all we can to protect young people from the very real dangers it presents, too?

• 26 Nov 2024 · COP29 · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the leadership that this Government showed at COP29, recognising that with the global transition under way, the economic benefits will accrue to those who lead and shape it, rather than shy away from it and remain all too passive in the face of the economic forces that it heralds. Can the Secretary of State set out how we will ensure that we capture those benefits domestically and show the necessary leadership to drive investment, growth and opportunity to every part of the UK, so that we have a coherent economic strategy that touches every part of our nation?

• 21 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Residents in Shefford are fed up with the dire pothole-ridden state of Old Bridge Way. A public highway in all but legal reality, this unadopted road is now ownerless after the previous private owner transferred it to a new company that was promptly liquidated, thereby side-stepping any repair obligations. I understand that this may not be the most glamourous backdrop to suggest a constituency visit. Instead, will the Leader of the House potentially back my campaign calling on Central Bedfordshire council to act on the road and can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Transport on how local authorities can be supported to adopt roads in such crucial parts of the public highway?

• 21 Nov 2024 · Local Bus Services: Travel to School · Hansard source

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  Rural communities in towns and villages such as Holwell in my constituency, which I visited last week, often depend on buses for their day-to-day life and for getting their children to school, but all too often the reliability of these services makes it increasingly hard for families to depend on them. What new powers and funding will this Government be giving transport authorities, such as Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire, to ensure that they can get buses for my community back on track?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  For too long, far too many of my towns and villages have had to endure rising levels of antisocial behaviour, such as people riding unsafe bikes through village centres, and an epidemic of shoplifting, including at my local Morrisons, whose staff I met last month. I am working closely with our local police and crime commissioner, John Tizard, to push for a more robust police response. What reassurances can the Minister give my constituents that our new strategy will ensure that a far greater priority is given to such crimes, and that those crimes will not be tolerated, as they seem to have been far too often in the past?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Not a week goes by when my office is not contacted by young people and their families who are being let down by the shocking state of SEN provision locally. In my constituency, I am trying to work across party lines to push both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire councils to do more. I welcome the fantastic news in the Budget about additional funding, and the subsequent announcements about increased support for mainstream settings, but we will need to do more. Can the Prime Minister assure my constituents that we will not shy away from the whole-system reform needed to finally ensure that every young person has the support that they need to thrive in school?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful point. He rightly highlights that financial support is a crucial part of the package that kinship carers need. I am really excited that the Government are finally bringing forward the £44 million needed to get on with the pilots. However, it is important that we do not just put an arm around kinship carers, but provide a wider range of therapeutic support and advice. Both financial and non-financial support will be crucial.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for kinship carers. It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I start by welcoming my hon. Friend the Minister to her place. It is a real pleasure to see her in this role. Not only does she bring experience as someone who has worked in children’s social care, but her compassion and drive to improve situations for young people right across the country will be a powerful motivator to ensure that we deliver the change we have committed to as a Government, and will benefit of kinship carers in my constituency and right across the country over the coming years. I am delighted to introduce my second debate on kinship care, having held one in the immediate aftermath of the last Government strategy earlier this year. As MPs, we get to meet, I think it is fair to say, quite a wide range of campaigners, all of whom are very powerful. I have to say that some are more convincing than others, but there can be no group more powerful or moving to work with than kinship carers. I was privileged, before I was even an MP, to be grabbed by Carol and Amanda, two kinship carers in the then constituency, to talk through some of the challenges they were facing. It was impossible not to be moved by their determination to do right by the young people in their care and young people in kinship care right across the country, so we stepped forward and agreed to work together. I was soon to find that kinship carers are, rightly, an incredibly tenacious group of campaigners. One week after I was elected, Carol and Amanda pitched up at my surgery to ask what I had managed to do so far, and what I would be doing in the next week, to take their cause forward. It should have come as no surprise, then, that one month after my re-election—albeit in a slightly different constituency—they were beating down my door again. They did so because this is a cause that matters. Kinship carers do amazing work on behalf of the young people in their care right across the country. They step up at a moment of real trauma for a young person and ensure, through love, compassion and dedication, that everything possible is done to give that young person the stability, the common identity and the compassion they need to thrive.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I hope the hon. Lady knows that I will always be an ambitious advocate for kinship carers. I have met my match in the Minister, who is a very ambitious advocate for them too. I look forward to working with her and the Secretary of State, who I know has a real ambition for kinship carers and children’s social care more generally, to ensure that we do right by those who have been failed all too often by the system we have inherited.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. It highlights the breadth of support we need to be considering for kinship carers—not just the pilots that have already been announced, but some of the wider training and therapeutic support needed to ensure that they are equipped to support the young people they are taking on caring responsibilities for. This debate comes at a critical time for kinship carers across the country. They are finally having their voice heard, and we as parliamentarians owe it to them to live up to the commitments we have made over the last few years. It was fantastic at a recent reception to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education listening so attentively to one of the kinship carers, Poppy, talking through some of the challenges she faces and what she would like to change so that kinship carers and those in kinship care across the country are finally fully supported by the Government and their local authorities.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who, with typically great foresight, has alluded to one of the points I hope to touch on later in my speech.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I will give way to both my hon. Friends, then I will have to make some progress.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I absolutely echo those sentiments. It cannot be right that young people who have gone through exactly the same level of trauma or difficulties early in their life can get very different levels of support depending on the statutory context in which they are looked after. We must consider that as part of the wider reforms to social care. It would be fair to say that there is a consensus in the Chamber today that although there are exciting announcements coming from the Government on kinship care, there is a real desire to ensure that we do justice to kinship carers in thinking about how we can go further. I am really glad that in the Budget, the Government clearly set out the need to think about children’s social care reform more widely. It has been kicked down the road for too long. As the independent review of children’s social care rightly laid out, we are presiding over a system that is not delivering good outcomes for young people and their wider family network, at great cost to the taxpayer. That cannot be allowed to continue. It is important to me and, I can see, to everyone in the Chamber today that kinship carers are a big part of how we put that right. We know that outcomes with kinship carers are better. We know that for every thousand people we place in kinship care, the taxpayer saves £40 million, and that that cohort, being better supported, will go on to earn up to £20 million more than if they had been placed in private social care. That is simple maths—a cold, hard, brutal underlining of the scale of the opportunity we are missing if we do not do right by kinship carers.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. The new kinship care ambassador and the guidance for local authorities that was brought out earlier this year will be important in delivering that, as will making sure that local authorities are held to account for delivering the local offer for kinship carers. This is an incredibly important issue, and whether a kinship carer and a young person get the support they need cannot be left to the luck of a postcode.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  Let me make some progress, in order to ensure that I give the Minister time to respond. I will briefly highlight three areas where we would welcome further consideration and action. The pilots are fantastic news, and if we have not yet settled on where they will be, I cannot recommend Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire councils more. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is no delay and that the support is brought forward as quickly as possible. While I recognise the value of a compelling evidence base in policymaking, there is a clear case that this financial support will make a meaningful difference to kinship carers and potentially help to relieve the impact of further cost burdens in the system right now. As other Members have alluded to, far too many kinship carers and their families cannot access the therapeutic support their young people and wider family networks need to navigate moments of trauma as effectively as possible. I know that there have been moves to rename the adoption fund, which has had positive benefits in improving some kinship carers’ access to it, but currently just one in seven of even those kinship carers who are eligible are benefiting from therapeutic support provided through that funding, and others are not eligible yet. Measures to widen access and put kinship carers on par with foster carers in other parts of the care system can only be welcomed. I welcome the Government’s ambition to look again at things like parental leave. We have seen real action from the Government already, in their expansion of workers’ rights. It cannot be right that some of those who are least prepared to take on family responsibility, and have to do it at the shortest notice, in some cases with no planning at all, because of the very nature of the responsibility, receive no support at all. I urge the Minister to do everything she can to voice the need for consideration of kinship care leave as part of that wider allowance. I am so excited to be part of a party that is taking this issue seriously and showing real leadership. I am looking forward to working with everyone in the Chamber to take forward our shared ambition to do right by kinship carers across the country, including those who have joined us here today. No one who meets a kinship carer or a young person in care can be under any illusion about the urgent case for change. We need to put right the things that they are experiencing and do all we can to support their love and determination to ensure that no other young person has to go through the challenges that the care system is currently forcing on them. I thank the Minister for listening so attentively and colleagues for intervening so forcefully. I apologise to those from whom I was not able to take interventions in the end. It is so nice to see such interest in this issue, and I very much look forward to working with hon. Members and the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), in taking forward the exciting issues we have been discussing today.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. Since they took office, we have seen from the new Secretary of State, the Minister and the Government an urgency that, finally, is starting to meet the needs of the moment, and the needs of young people in kinship care and their carers. Whether it is making sure that we finally have a kinship care ambassador to actively champion the role of kinship carers and take to task local authorities that do not always provide the support they need, as some kinship carers in the room might be able to attest to; bringing forward statutory guidance and a framework to ensure that we have more in place to recognise the values of wider family networks in planning decisions for young people, and to do everything we can to remove the barriers to placing young people in kinship care; or—

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for making incredibly poignant remarks, as he always does in these debates. I think I have yet to attend a debate here where he has not brought something to the table, and I could not agree more that we need to be thinking about the breadth of support that kinship carers get. I hope to touch on some of those points later in my remarks. As a former councillor and lead for children’s services, I was also privileged to work closely with kinship carers and see at first hand the impact they could have in transforming the outcomes of the young people in their care. They were making sure, in those difficult moments, that the young people had the stability of place, the familiar face and the retention of their identity needed in order to be as resilient as possible in the face of more traumatic circumstances than many of us will ever have to comprehend or grapple with personally. It came as no surprise, then, that the independent review of children’s social care a few years ago remarked clearly that kinship carers deliver far better outcomes than many other parts of the care sector, but are often underserved by a care network that just is not set up to fully consider them, fully recognise their needs and fully embrace the role they can play in supporting young people through that really difficult moment.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Kinship Carers · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful intervention. It is important to recognise the urgency. We have inherited a situation in which one in eight kinship carers are worried that they might not be able to carry on their caring responsibility, while thousands of other young people across the country could be placed into productive, meaningful and nourishing kinship care placements but are currently denied that by our antiquated children’s social care system.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Household Support Fund: Extension · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s decision to provide more than £1 billion in new funding for the household support fund, extending it all the way through next year, and to give much more notice to the local authorities that deliver it. The funding is so important not just to countless vulnerable residents, but to great local organisations, such as the Need Project food banks in my constituency. How will the Department work with local authorities to make the most of the notice and to ensure the funding goes as far as possible?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Household Support Fund: Extension · Hansard source

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  15. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the extension of the household support fund in 2025-26 on low-income households.