Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I welcome the sanctions on Israeli Government Ministers announced today. Those two Ministers have shown the world who they are for a long time and this step, while welcome, is long overdue. The Minister speaks of the peril for the two-state solution. There cannot be a two-state solution that is realised without two states, so will he take with him to the summit next week the clearly expressed will of this House that this Government take a lead in the recognition of the Palestinian state? Also, is it not time for a full ban on settlement goods, so that we can be sure that consumers in this country play no part in a clear strategic attempt to undermine even the possibility of a two-state solution?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. Across London, 90,000 children are living in temporary accommodation, denied the essentials of a stable home, which has terrible consequences for their physical and mental health and education. This is a scandalous inheritance from the previous Conservative Government. When does the Secretary of State believe that we will begin to see those numbers drop substantially?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  The statutory override to special educational needs and disabilities deficit comes to an end in just 10 months. Without a plan from the Government for the end of the statutory override, more than half of all local education authorities face effective bankruptcy. The need for a resolution to the issue is now long overdue. When does the Minister expect to be able to give local authorities the certainty they need?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  14. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that councils are financially stable.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Maths: Contribution to the UK · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this debate. It is heartening to hear about his love of maths as well as the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince). I have to confess that was not my experience of school. I was at a school which had a quirk: we had to sit maths GCSE twice—once in year 10 and in year 11. Although I can report to the House that I achieved a good grade in both exams, there was a clear narrative: that maths was a difficult subject, and definitely not for everyone. A lack of enthusiasm for the subject certainly pervaded among many of my peers and was allowed to go unchecked within the education system at large. I do not blame only my school for that; I think it was a common thing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said, we need to challenge that. I have done the best to challenge it with my daughters, the youngest of whom sat her maths GCSE paper yesterday, so we will see whether I have been successful. We must have an approach that emphasises the critical importance of maths in our primary and secondary education systems and its foundational nature for so many aspects of education and life, and that also encourages a love of maths as part of a love of learning. Maths is key to problem solving and supports logistical reasoning and analytical thinking. It develops flexible thinking and creativity. Mathematical problems often require trying different approaches and tackling a question from multiple angles. Those skills equally apply in arts and the humanities subjects as they do in the maths and sciences. Maths is therefore foundational in building those essential critical skills. The practical applications of maths matter too. Financial literacy is important for us all. The Education Committee undertook an inquiry into financial literacy in May last year, in the previous Parliament, and recommended expanding financial education at primary level, the appointment of financial education co-ordinators in secondary schools and the provision of high-quality independently provided learning materials in all schools. Budgeting and saving, planning finances for the future, understanding how loans and interest work, and contributing to a pension pot are all skills that every young person should have when they leave school. Maths is a specialist subject, and we need skilled teachers to deliver interesting and inspiring lessons from reception all the way through to A-levels and on to higher education. There have been real challenges with the recruitment of new maths teachers for a number of years, with just under three quarters of the target of 3,000 teachers recruited for the current academic year. There are so many career opportunities open to graduates with degrees with a strong mathematical component, so it is important that the Department for Education offers strong incentives to train, recruit and retain maths teachers. I welcome the Government’s commitment to delivering an extra 6,500 teachers in England. It is critical that that target includes a good level of new maths teachers, appropriately supported to be recruited and retained within our education system. I turn briefly to the question of attainment in mathematics. Last year, 65% of pupils achieved a standard pass at grade 4 or above at GCSE in English and maths, but disadvantaged pupils were less likely to meet the expected standard—only 59% of them did so, compared with non-disadvantaged pupils. That means that 35% of young people are routinely not getting a qualification in maths while they are school. That should be a concern to us all. We want every young person to fulfil their potential in maths. Currently, those who do not achieve a grade 4 or above are expected to resit GCSE maths during their post-16 education. For some students, that means multiple resits of a subject that they have already found challenging for several years at school, and it traps them in a cycle of failure, just at the point where they should be discovering a love of learning and finding their vocation. The Education Committee has been looking at this policy as part of our inquiry on further education and skills, and asking whether that really is the best approach for all young people who do not achieve a grade 4 or above. For some students who achieve grade 3, the extra work in a new environment that is different from school may help them to successfully resit their maths GCSE, but for others repeated, unsuccessful resits can be demoralising and counterproductive. We have yet to report, so I cannot draw conclusions on behalf of the whole Committee, but we have received quite compelling evidence that embedding practical maths content into the curriculum for the particular subjects needed for the student’s chosen course of study may be a better way to support students on vocational pathways to achieve the level of both English and maths that they will need to apply later on in life, rather than the endless cycle of GCSE maths resits. Moving beyond GCSEs, it is good to see that maths is the most popular A-level subject, with more than 100,000 entries for A-level maths last year, as well more than 17,000 for further maths. But within those statistics, more work is needed to tackle the gender gap, because just 37% of last year’s maths A-levels were taken by young women, and a mere 27% of last year’s further maths A-levels. Increasing the number of girls taking maths will help to tackle the gender gap in science, engineering and maths at university and beyond. Having positive role models, and improving understanding of just how many well-paid and rewarding careers are out there, for which maths can help, are definitely two important approaches, but we need to do more. There should be more practical support available in our schools to overcome that gender gap in maths. Maths is an important component of many STEM degrees and myriad careers. To underpin a high-skill, high-wage economy, we need more young people with a good training in maths. I will end there, but I will just say that the Education Committee looks forward to scrutinising the curriculum and assessment review, and to scrutinising the Government’s recruitment of teachers, and we hope to see good progress in improving maths education and attainment for all pupils, across all our demographics, in every part of the country.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the expansion of the free school meals entitlement. It is an evidence-based approach for which many of us have campaigned for a long time. It will help to close the disadvantage gap in our schools, tackling child poverty, benefiting children’s health and supporting children to learn. I hope the Government will agree that every child who is eligible for this expanded entitlement should be able to receive that entitlement. Whether or not children get a free school meal to which they are entitled should not depend on somebody else making an application for them through a complicated process. The Government know which families are in receipt of universal credit, so is the Minister considering auto-enrolment for this expanded entitlement? That would be easier to achieve than auto-enrolment under the previous entitlement, and every child really should be able to benefit. Can I seek the Minister’s assurance that this very positive announcement is not an indication that other measures to reduce child poverty, such as scrapping the two-child cap, have been taken off the table? Finally, as a London MP and a former Southwark councillor who was very proud to be part of a council that introduced universal free school meals in 2010—we have seen the benefit of that policy, and I am proud we have a Mayor who is funding universal free school meals for all primary schoolchildren in London—can I ask for confirmation that London will also receive the funding for this expanded entitlement, so it can be put to the benefit of further reducing child poverty in London?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He mentioned that this problem is happening in every high street across the country, and that is certainly the case in my constituency, where we have seen the almost wholesale withdrawal of banks in West Norwood, Dulwich and Brixton—across the piece, they are closing. Where they close, the banks often say, “We’ll make our services available in a banking hub in the local library,” for example. The service is then poorly advertised and publicised and is not particularly convenient. The banks come along a few months later and say, “We’re closing it because of a lack of demand.” Does he agree that the banks are taking a cynical approach and are failing to provide an adequate service to our constituents?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross has described the situation in Gaza today as worse than hell on earth, but the Minister has come to the House today with a message that is exactly the same as it was two weeks ago. He condemns the settlements, but settlement goods are still being sold in our shops. He supports a two-state solution, but he has not recognised a Palestinian state. He disagrees with the Israeli Government, but he will not sanction their extremist Ministers. It is clear that the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu are not listening to the Minister’s words. In the context of the slaughter and starvation we are seeing in Gaza, the Government’s position is, frankly, not good enough. When will there be further action?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source

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  My constituents have been comprehensively failed by Thames Water for many years. We saw the catastrophic flood in Herne Hill in 2013, when many local businesses had to close permanently. Vulnerable customers were let down during the “beast from the east” freeze-thaw event, being left without water for days and days at a time. There are endless roadworks in the same locations where it has repeatedly failed to invest adequately in its infrastructure. Now my constituents are seeing bills go up by way more than the Ofwat determination. It is clear that this organisation is not fit for purpose. What options is my right hon. Friend considering to bring this misery to an end, and to put customers back at the heart of Thames Water’s operations?

• 22 May 2025 · School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations · Hansard source

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  Teacher pay is absolutely vital for the status of the profession, for the quality of life of teachers and for recruitment and retention of the vital skilled and qualified staff who are the backbone of our education system. It is really important that the Government’s response this afternoon begins the work of restoring teacher pay after the last 14 years, when we saw, by any objective measure, a shocking erosion in teacher pay under the previous Government. That has affected recruitment and retention and had a devastating impact on teacher morale. Those on the Conservative Benches should take note of that, because we would all benefit from a little more humility in the context of the legacy that they left behind. Can I press the Minister on the extent to which the pay award will be funded? We know that there are already extensive pressures on school budgets, and schools are very anxious about that matter. Also, will this afternoon’s statement include support staff pay, and will it begin the process of restoring that pay? We know how vital our teaching assistants and other support staff in our schools are.

• 20 May 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement today, the suspension of trade talks with Israel and further sanctions on Israeli settlers. However, in the horror of Gaza, it is clear that the Israeli Government are not listening to the exhortations of the international community and that they are very unlikely to listen to this further action today, so I want to press the Foreign Secretary. The UN has placed a timescale on the lifespan of babies in Gaza—it is not too much to ask that the Government set out a timescale for the meaningful further action that they will take in the event, as seems likely, that the Israeli Government do not change course.

• 19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The review of the Mental Health Act 1983 is very welcome. It started its life close to my constituency with the work of Professor Sir Simon Wessely, who drew on the experience of many residents in south-east London, particularly with regard to his work on racial inequalities. As the Minister is talking about the implementation of the Bill, I wonder whether he can reassure my constituents, who want to know that this Bill will do the job of eliminating racial inequality from mental health services, by committing to putting the patient and carer race equality framework on the face of the Bill.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I represent a constituency that is enriched and sustained every day by people who have come from overseas to make their home here, especially those who came as members of the Windrush generation. It is important that they hear from this place that they are not only valued and appreciated but part of us. Last week, the Office for Students published another report on the precarious situation facing our universities. This announcement includes a levy on universities in relation to their international students. What engagement has the Home Secretary had with her counterpart at the Department for Education on the impact of her measures on the financial sustainability of universities?

• 6 May 2025 · Middle East Update · Hansard source

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  Israeli Government Minister Smotrich said today that Gaza is to be “entirely destroyed”, and its people are to “leave in great numbers to third countries”. That latest threat is on top of the deliberate blockage of aid into Gaza, on top of the ongoing displacement of the past 19 months, and on top of 50,000 deaths. There are clearly breaches of international humanitarian law. The Minister has been clear in his condemnation, and clear that this is not the way to bring the hostages home. If the Israeli Government are not listening to his words, and surely they are not, will he consider what meaningful action the Government can take? Will he consider further sanctions against Israeli Ministers, and against goods that are made in illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land?

• 28 Apr 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The crisis in the SEND system is a source of distress for parents and children who have to fight far too hard for support, and for professionals working in local authorities and schools who face an extremely challenging funding situation. Does the Secretary of State agree that in this context blaming parents and GPs for the increase in the number of SEND diagnoses, as some Reform party politicians have done in recent days, is both inaccurate and insulting, and that solving the SEND crisis requires listening to parents and professionals rather than denigrating them?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Horizon Redress and Post Office Update · Hansard source

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  My constituents are served by Crown post offices in Brixton and East Dulwich, both just outside my constituency boundary and both in areas that have seen the near complete withdrawal of high street bank branches, leaving residents and businesses dependent on the post offices for banking services, as well as for the wide range of other services that they provide. The Minister knows that the big difference between Crown and franchised post offices is that no one in the public sector has any say in the public interest over whether a franchised post office remains open, or indeed whether a franchisee can be secured. What assurance can my hon. Friend give that post office franchises opened in place of Crown post offices will remain open for the long term?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Tackling Child Sexual Abuse · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister’s statement and the progress that she is making. I thank her for her very long and deep commitment to this issue and to seeing justice for victims. I will ask her about the version of mandatory reporting that she proposes to introduce. My understanding is that the mandatory reporting duty will apply in situations where a person has witnessed abuse or received a disclosure of abuse, which seems to be quite a high bar. There are many examples of abuse taking place in schools and in children’s homes, for example, in which it emerged later that suspicions of abuse were very widespread, but nobody witnessed the abuse, received a disclosure of it or reported their suspicions, allowing the abuse to continue. Is my hon. Friend confident that the version of mandatory reporting that she is introducing is at the right threshold? Will she commit to review the impact of the new measure once it has taken effect and to strengthen it in future if needed?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Israel: Refusal of Entry for UK Parliamentarians · Hansard source

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  I have had the privilege of visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories with two delegations, one with the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestinians and the other with Yachad. During those visits we met people working in schools, hospitals and clinics, we saw the operation of the Israeli military courts, we met Palestinians whose villages had recently been destroyed by settlers, and, during the last visit, we met Israelis who had lost loved ones on 7 October. Such visits enrich our understanding. They ensure that our debate in this place is informed not only by what we think we know, but by lived experience—by having looked in the eye people whose day-to-day reality consists of the issues that we discuss in this place. Can the Minister assure the House that he will continue to seek a commitment from the Israeli Government that such delegations will not be prevented in the future?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) on securing this important debate. I was a councillor in Southwark for six years before I was elected to this place. It is a privilege to serve in local government. Our councils carry the heavy responsibility of delivering local services across a huge range of areas, and they have a unique opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of local residents by delivering vital protections for vulnerable people as well as the services that all of us rely on. I pay particular tribute to my local councils, Lambeth and Southwark, for the work that they did during the covid-19 pandemic and what they have done over the last few years to support residents with the cost of living crisis. I was elected to my local council in 2010, on the same day that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government took power in Westminster. I remember the first meeting of our council, when we were briefed on its financial settlement from central Government at the start of a period of austerity. I remember the shock that descended in the room at the scale of the cuts to our budget as the impact on local services became clear. We had no idea what was yet to come. For 14 years, the Conservative Government outsourced both the pain and the blame for their austerity programme to our local councils, cutting well over 50% of the local government grant, slashing the affordable housing grant, freezing council rents, reducing investment in the existing council housing stock, and freezing the local housing allowance, driving up homelessness. On SEND—an area in which I take a particular interest as Chair of the Education Committee—the coalition placed almost all the statutory responsibility for delivering services on councils, but took away their ability to deliver new school places directly, driving up home-to-school transport costs and the cost of purchasing places in the independent sector. There will not be a Member here today who does not see the impact of the housing crisis, and the crisis of temporary accommodation, on our constituents and local authorities. The shortage of homes is driving more and more residents to seek support from their council, and putting more and more into the worst-quality accommodation, which has destabilising effects on families across our city. The Liz Truss mini-Budget had a devastating impact on our councils’ ability to build new homes. Both of my boroughs have ambitious programmes for delivering new homes, but they have had to mothball sites as the cost of materials and labour has been sent spiralling. On all of these issues and many more, London councils face a perfect storm in their finances, and we urgently need support from the Government. Let me finish with five quick measures that the Government should turn their attention to: raising the local council housing allowance to stabilise housing in London; ensuring immediate investment in small sites owned by councils and housing associations that already have planning consent and can be delivered; addressing the statutory override—there is not sufficient engagement with councils on what the Government plan as they begin to plan for the next financial year—getting housing revenue accounts back on a sustainable footing; and delivering multi-year settlements to give certainty and stability to our councils for the future. I know that our councils have the commitment and determination to keep delivering for our residents, and I call on the Government to support them to do so as a matter of urgency.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Knife Crime: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) for securing this important debate, and for his thoughtful speech. I join him in paying tribute to Ciaran Thapar, whose work took place in my constituency. It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster), who made a moving statement on behalf of his constituents. I grew up near Parbold Hill and Southport, and it grieves me deeply to hear about the appalling violence in both those communities. I rise to speak in this debate on knife crime with great sadness, because today, just after 5 am, a young man lost his life on Coldharbour Lane in my constituency after being stabbed. I visited the scene this morning and stood at the police line as the forensic officers undertook their work. I spoke with community members who were confronted with the shocking aftermath of this violence as they went about their day. I thought about the family, whose day would begin with a knock on the door from police officers, and the utterly devastating news that their loved one would not be coming home ever again. It is hard to feel anything but despair in these circumstances. I know that hon. Members across the House will wish to join me in expressing our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young man who lost his life. We do not yet know his identity, but we know that there will be people who loved him, and who are suffering the most visceral pain and loss today. I also pay tribute to the emergency services who attended the scene this morning. When this young man’s name is released, it will join the names of others who have lost their life to serious violence and knife and gun crime in my constituency since I was first elected to this place in 2015. They are Jude Gayle, Kyall Parnell, John Ogunjobi, Donnell Rhule, Glendon Spence, Dennis Anderson, Beatrice Stoica, Filipe Oliveira, Chino Johnson, Ronaldo Scott and Keelen Wong. Each one was loved by their family and friends, and each one leaves a community traumatised by their loss and the circumstances of it. When a knife or gun crime is reported in the media, we see the names in the headlines for a few short hours, and maybe again if the case comes to trial. We never hear about the ongoing trauma left behind in the local community, and the sense of loss felt not only by the immediate family but everyone who watched that person grow up and saw them out and about daily, those whose children went to school with them, and those who recognised and knew them. There is a sense of fear among parents that next time, their child might be the victim, and there are the mental health consequences of living with loss, fear and anxiety. The causes of knife crime are complex. We need to take a public health approach to it, as though it were a disease. We should understand its pathology and take steps to prevent it taking hold, stop its spread, and treat the causes and the symptoms. I introduced a private Member’s Bill in the last Parliament to stop the availability of the most horrific weapons on our streets. I have met the lead consultants in the emergency department at King’s College hospital, who described the horrific injuries that are inflicted by machetes and zombie knives—weapons that can cut through bone, and serrated blades that inflict the most complex injuries on internal organs. They spoke about the survivability of many such injuries, compared with wounds inflicted with domestic knives, and described machetes and zombie knives as “weapons of war on our streets”. No one in our communities needs a machete or a zombie knife for any legitimate purpose, but they have been readily available for purchase online for as little as £10. I therefore welcome the Government’s action since July to further restrict their sale. I want further action on domestic knives. In particular, we should look at whether further restrictions can be introduced regarding age verification of those purchasing knives with pointed blades. I also want action further up the chain, to tackle those who exploit and groom our young people into serious violence—the county lines exploiters, the drug dealers and the serious organised criminals who are not spoken about enough in these debates. In my constituency, in part because of the tragedies that we have experienced, we have seen inspiring responses from community organisations working with public services. The embedding of youth workers in hospital emergency departments was pioneered by Redthread at King’s College hospital. They provide options for young people who have been injured, or have seen their friends injured, allowing them to access support to keep themselves safe. I welcome the Government rolling out that intervention in other parts of the country. I am also grateful to the Mayor of London’s violence reduction unit for funding Ecosystem Coldharbour through the My Ends programme. Ecosystem Coldharbour is a coalition of grassroots organisations working with young people and families in the Brixton part of my constituency. It has been working for the last three years and has delivered some really impressive results. It has built up the trust and confidence of young people and families, so that they can access help and support. It provides mentoring and training opportunities, and leads the community response when tragedies occur. It delivers trauma support to families and communities. Our communities feel empowered by that work. It is particularly inspirational to see a group of mothers who have all lost a child to serious violence working together, under the banner “Circle of Life Ignite”, to support each other and prevent further deaths. I am inspired by the way that young leaders have been equipped through that work. I pay tribute to the work of Abdoul Lelo, an extraordinarily impressive young man who has been working with McDonald’s in Brixton to embed a youth service in the restaurant. It takes support and positive opportunities to young people where they are. There are also benefits for the staff, who have often felt unsafe and overwhelmed in their workplace. I also pay tribute to the work of Sergeant Nigel Pearce from central south basic command unit, who has pioneered a different approach to community policing, based on trusting and listening to the community, and responding respectfully and supportively to their needs and experiences. If we had more officers working in this way across the Metropolitan Police, trust and confidence in policing would be much higher. The partnership in my constituency is called Ecosystem because of the belief of the organisations in it that all the solutions to serious violence are in the community—but the community needs help and resources to find them. That is what we have had through the violence reduction unit. My plea to the Minister is that funding for such vital work be put on a long-term footing, so that we can keep on delivering and working to tackle the scourge of serious violence. In fact, as the Minister thinks about the design of the Government’s Young Futures project, I invite her to visit Ecosystem, because we have much good practice to offer for the development of that national programme. The debate today is about young people and knife crime, but to tackle the scourge of knife crime, we must properly understand the nature of the problem and who is affected. Of the victims who have been murdered in my constituency since 2015, only two were under the age of 18. The majority were young men in their 20s, a cohort who grew up at a time when funding for youth services was being stripped away, who may find themselves unable to access employment often due to minor criminal convictions, who often have very poor mental health, who are accessing deeply damaging online content and for whom society can seem like it has very little to offer. There is currently no protocol or good practice for tackling serious violence in that cohort. The only part of the system obliged to try to help is the criminal justice system, if the person in question has committed a crime. Social services have no formal role or responsibility and mental health services are not designed with this cohort in mind, despite the fact that they are so often traumatised by the experiences, what they have witnessed in their communities and what they have seen their friends go through. If we want to end the cycle of violence in our communities, we must turn our attention to that group. They are siblings, cousins and parents to the next generation. The key to prevention must therefore lie in helping them to turn their lives around, making support services more visible in our communities, making it easier to ask for help through services that are designed with their needs in mind and properly resourcing effective rehabilitation. I welcome the Government’s focus on halving knife crime. My communities have suffered far too much from its devastating effects and we continue to suffer today. I urge the Minister to work with us to devise services and interventions based on the experience in our communities, because we utterly reject this violence and we just want to see it stop.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend co-chairs the child poverty taskforce. Can she tell the House what analysis she has undertaken of the impact on child poverty of the reforms she is announcing today? Will she publish that analysis, and can she assure the House that these reforms will not make child poverty worse for any child living in a family where their parents or carers are in receipt of benefits?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister has set out the Government’s commitment to increasing the take-up of free school meals for children who are already eligible, as well as a number of practical measures the Government are taking to make registration easier. On the basis of what she has said today, I am content not to push my new clause 1 to a vote. However, the Select Committee will continue to closely monitor the take-up of free schools meals. Should the progress that the Minister expects to see be lacking, we will come back and press the issue of auto-enrolment again with her and expect that she looks at it again.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of new clause 1, new clause 2 and amendment 2, all in my name. The amount of time afforded to the Education Select Committee to undertake detailed scrutiny of the Bill was very limited. We were able to undertake just one evidence session on part 2, and we deliberately sought not to duplicate the evidence taken by the Public Bill Committee. We therefore took limited evidence on the changes to the role of local authorities in school place planning and admissions. I speak, however, as an MP whose constituents have suffered the consequences of the fragmentation of admissions policies and place planning over the past 14 years. That has resulted in school places sometimes being delivered in areas where they were not needed, undermining other local schools; our councils struggling to ensure the delivery of school places that were needed, particularly for children with special educational needs and disabilities; and local places at a very popular local school being allocated not to local families but to children across a wide area of south-east London. I therefore wholeheartedly support the attempts in the Bill to restore coherence to admissions and place planning through the role of local authorities. I also support the measures to reduce the cost of school uniform for families by limiting the number of branded items, which are a really significant cost of living pressure for families. However, I encourage the Government to keep a careful watch on how this requirement is being complied with, particularly in relation to the cost of blazers, having heard of one appalling example in my constituency of a very vulnerable child who had been allocated a place at a good school but was told she could not attend until she was wearing a blazer, the cost of which was over £100—way beyond the means of her family. I know the Minister will agree that no child should be shut out of the classroom because their family cannot afford the right clothes for them to wear, and that that is the intention of the Bill, but the monitoring of the detail will be important. I also welcome the measures in the Bill to introduce a register of home-educated children. While home education is the right option for some children who are well supported to receive education at home, the number of children going missing from the education radar, out of sight and without any regulation of the quality of the education they are receiving, and sometimes coming to harm, as in the horrific recent case of Sara Sharif, is deeply concerning. The measures in the Bill will help to address this. The Education Committee welcomes the introduction of breakfast clubs in the Bill, which will help to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, but we also heard compelling evidence of the importance of school lunches for the poorest children. Around one in 10 children who are eligible for free school meals do not claim them because their parents or carers do not complete the administrative process. This can be because of difficulties with the administrative process itself, lack of awareness about the entitlement, or language barriers. Children from non-white backgrounds are more likely to be unregistered. This under-registration has impacts on schools too, since the ability of schools to draw down pupil premium funding is linked directly to the registration of eligible children for free school meals. I am talking about the existing entitlement, not a new spending commitment. The benefits of free school meals for children’s health and wellbeing and their ability to learn are clear, and are being seen in local authorities that are already auto-enrolling eligible children, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and some London boroughs. In London, the benefits are pupil premium receipts for schools because the Mayor of London is already funding universal free school meals. Research from the Food Foundation found that, while local authorities were successful in their mission to reduce the number of eligible children missing out on free school meals, it was a difficult and resource-intensive task, and the data sharing between relevant authorities necessary to register children automatically was not straightforward. The local authorities piloting auto-enrolment have called for central Government to step in and help. The Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for children already eligible for free school meals. This recommendation would ensure that between 200,000 and 250,000 additional families with the poorest children in our country, who are already eligible, will receive the meals to which they are entitled. That recommendation is reflected in new clause 1, and I hope the Government will choose to support it today. I turn to amendment 2. The Committee took evidence on breakfast clubs. We heard about the benefits of them both in ensuring that children do not start the school day hungry, and in relation to the opportunity afforded a child to settle gently into the school day and play with their friends. We also heard about the need for breakfast to be provided on a flexible basis, so that children whose families are unable to get them to school early. who may be among the most vulnerable children, do not miss out on this vital meal. The Committee has heard extensive evidence in our inquiry on special educational needs and disability about the difficulties that families of disabled children have in finding childcare and accessing extracurricular activities. To that end, it is vital that children with SEND can access breakfast clubs on an equal footing with their peers. This may involve additional costs, particularly in relation to home-to-school transport and the need to have specialist staff on site at the time of the breakfast club. I welcome the fact that the early adopters programme includes about 50 specialist schools, but the inclusion of children with SEND in breakfast clubs in mainstream schools is also essential, and I hope the Government are looking closely at the early adopters and at any additional support that may be needed to ensure that. Amendment 2 would ensure that children with SEND were able to access breakfast clubs, and I hope the Government will support it. Finally, I turn to new clause 2. This is a very large Bill covering many areas of policy, and it is being taken through this House very quickly and was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. There have been a large number of Government amendments at a late stage, and a number of measures in the Bill will be contingent on Government policies that are not in the Bill for their success, including the curriculum and assessment review, the reforms to the Ofsted assessment framework and the work of the child poverty taskforce. New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to conduct regular reviews of the impact of this Act and to publish reports. I would anticipate that such reviews would show a positive impact of this legislation. Having a clear monitoring and reporting mechanism is good practice, particularly for a Bill of this size that has been delivered so quickly. I welcome the intention behind this Bill and the measures it contains. I look forward to supporting it this evening, and my Committee looks forward to playing a constructive role in scrutinising its impact in the months and years to come.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is raising a number of technical considerations about the implementation of a project that is no doubt very ambitious. But does he not hear the cries from parents of children with SEND who are so weary of having to tell their story again and again to different parts of the system that are supposed to help them, and are currently being hampered in those efforts by exactly this want for information about a child being held in a single place? Does he not think that, ambitious though this project is, and important though the technical considerations are, it is worth delivering, and that it is worth giving parents the confidence that we in this House will scrutinise it and do that job? There are big gains to be had from pursuing this course of action.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of new clauses 3 and 4, which both stand in my name. The Education Committee was afforded little time to undertake scrutiny of this important Bill, but we worked hard to do so, refocusing our ongoing inquiry on children’s social care to focus on part 1 of the Bill and holding an additional evidence session to look at part 2. I am grateful to all the witnesses who came to give us their evidence. We have published a report for the Secretary of State setting out recommendations based on the evidence we received. Broadly, the Committee welcomes the scale of the Government’s ambition as expressed in the Bill, which is a key plank of the Government’s opportunity mission to break the link between young people’s background and their future success. We join the Government in wanting to see high and rising standards in our education and care systems to protect vulnerable children and ensure educational opportunity for every child. We welcome the measures in the Bill to strengthen child protection, particularly the provisions to establish multi-agency child protection teams, including education in safeguarding arrangements and a single unique identifier for children, which has the potential to be genuinely transformative for the delivery of many of the services that support children and young people. We support the measures to improve the children’s social care market through regional commissioning and a financial oversight scheme. Action to remove profiteering in the children’s social care sector is long overdue. The Committee welcomes the measures in the Bill that will enable more children to remain within their kinship network or, where a residential placement in kinship care is not possible, in contact with family and friends. The Committee also made some recommendations on ways in which the Bill could be strengthened, based on the evidence we received. The amendments tabled in my name relate directly to our recommendations, and I will now turn to each recommendation that is relevant to part 1 of the Bill. New clause 3 would require the Government to publish and consult on a draft national offer for care leavers within 18 months of the Bill coming into force. A national care offer would set minimum standards for local care offers and ensure greater consistency between local authority areas. A national offer would act as a floor, not a ceiling. It would not be designed to prevent innovation at a local level or to stop additional commitments being made by individual local authorities, but we believe that greater national consistency, driven by Government, would make a big difference. The evidence of the unacceptably poor outcomes for care-experienced young people is shocking. Some 39% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training, compared with 13% of all young people in the same age group. Some 14% of young people with care experience go to university, compared with almost half of their peers, and care leavers are 38% more likely to drop out of university. A third of care leavers become homeless within two years of leaving care, and 25% of homeless people have been in care. Care leavers are hugely over-represented in the criminal justice system. These are young people whose corporate parent has been the state, and these statistics are clear evidence that for many of them, the state is not a very good parent. I welcome the Government’s amendment of the Bill to introduce additional corporate parenting responsibilities, but the Committee heard that there is significant disparity in the support that different local authorities offer to care leavers. We heard about the differences in support with bursaries to pay for university accommodation, access to wi-fi to be able to study and ringfenced apprenticeships for care leavers in local authorities. In a powerful evidence session in which the Committee heard from young adults with recent experience of the care system, one witness told us that “there needs to be a national offer for care leavers. The postcode lottery is profound”. Another pointed to a lack of awareness of the needs of care-experienced people across the wider network of public services. She told us that “when I had gone to the jobcentres they were very ill-prepared. They did not know any support for care leavers. There were certain grants I could have had to get back into education; they did not inform me, in fact, everything that I have done now is from me Googling it…or asking people. That should not be the case.” A national care offer would be the foundation for building better, more consistent support for care leavers everywhere in the country. It would provide the Government with an effective mechanism for holding local authorities to account on the quality of their provision, making it much easier for care-experienced people to understand what support should be there for them and stopping the current disincentive to leave home to go to university because of uncertainty about the support when they get there. I urge the Government to support new clause 3. New clause 4 would require health assessments of children in the care system to include assessment by a mental health practitioner. It would make assessing the mental health of children in care a core part of the health assessment of those children by ensuring that a mental health practitioner is involved. Children in care are significantly more likely to have experienced trauma and abuse than their peers, and they are consequently more likely to experience mental ill health. In 2021, 45% of children in care had a mental health disorder—rising to 72% among those in residential care—compared with 10% of all children aged five to 15. The care-experienced young adults who gave powerful evidence to the Committee spoke strongly about the urgent need for better mental health support and suggested that local authorities are not always fulfilling their obligations to include emotional and mental health in their health assessments of children in care. One of our witnesses told us: “Growing up it was only physical assessments; we did not have mental health check-ins at all…I think if my mental health was taken more seriously from a young age, if I had that person to check-in with me…I would probably be so much better. I would not have mental health problems growing up. I do think that mental health check-ins are equally as important—if not more important—as physical check-ins for children in care.” Another witness said that “looked-after children should get mandatory assessments, as with physical health. Also, if they are referred to CAMHS the waitlists are horrific right now…looked-after children should have fast tracks and there should be more funding for specialist teams.” We heard very movingly from a witness who spoke about the need for more trauma-informed training for foster carers and other professionals working with children in care. She said: “I feel a lot could be explained if they understood the experience of trauma. It will take time. It will not go away at night, and sometimes before it gets better it could get worse. No one talks about that. You will not be okay if you are going into care; there is a reason why you are there, and so it is important that the minute you go into care every child should have a mandatory assessment, physical and mental, and there should be that on-call support for them”. It is the trauma that underlies the decision to take a child into care—the abuse, neglect, bereavement or exploitation—that often has the most profound impact on their lives. Our care system needs to place dealing with that trauma in a child-centred way at its heart. Ensuring that mental health assessments are properly undertaken is an essential requirement of such a system, because mental health must be assessed before treatment and support can be provided. New clause 4 would help to deliver that badly needed refocusing of the system, and I urge the Government to support it. I wish to make two further points. First, I support new clause 14, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). It would introduce a requirement to notify a child’s school and GP when they are placed in temporary accommodation. As a constituency MP in south-east London, I see the horrific impact of poor-quality, unstable temporary accommodation on children in my constituency every week. Temporary accommodation is harming children, whether through the sleep deprivation of having to get up at 4 am to travel a long distance to their school, the lack of space to do homework, the fear and insecurity of sharing a kitchen and bathroom with strangers, the physical health impacts of living with damp and mould, or the impacts on gross motor development of being in a space that is too small to crawl or play in. The impacts are profound, so it is completely right that there should be a statutory requirement to notify the public services that have the ability to help mitigate such impacts, and which have a responsibility for a child’s health and wellbeing when that child is placed in temporary accommodation. The Government should be taking urgent action to reduce the number of people in temporary accommodation, especially families with children. However, in the short term, the new duty introduced by my hon. Friend’s new clause would make a difference to the support those children receive. Finally, at the same time as we are debating this Bill, the Government are preparing to announce reforms to the welfare system. I wish to emphasise the vital importance of considering the impact on children of any proposed reforms. Children do not get to choose the families into which they are born, but each one is equally deserving of economic security and access to the resources they need to thrive. It is not a justifiable outcome of changes to the welfare system to make life harder for the poorest children, or to increase child poverty by limiting the access to support that their parents receive. The Government must undertake and publish an assessment of the impact of their welfare reforms on children, and must ensure that children do not suffer as a result of any planned reforms.