Munira Wilson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department for Education · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), on securing this important debate on the Department’s estimate. Given the constraints you just mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker, and how the Department’s remit is huge, I want to touch on a couple of areas: day-to-day school budgets and funding to support some of our most vulnerable children. I also hope that the Minister might answer some questions on the recent free school meal announcement. It is fair to say that since the Labour Government swept to victory a year ago there has been a huge amount of rhetoric about the opportunity mission and putting children at the heart of policymaking, but the reality on the ground feels a little different. Despite what the Government would have us believe, school budgets across the country are at best frozen and at worst falling into deficit. Years of Conservative mismanagement and underfunding from 2015 onwards— [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members chunter, but the figures are there. We all know that from 2015 onwards, their mismanagement— [ Interruption. ]

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department for Education · Hansard source

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  The Minister talked about the Government making choices to prioritise children, and about keeping families together. How will the cuts to grants for therapies for some of the most vulnerable, traumatised children in our society help families stay together? Those children manifest the most challenging behaviours, which result in adoption placement breakdown, and that means worse outcomes for those families. How is that putting children first?

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department for Education · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives’ decisions cast a long shadow over our schools and colleges. Although the Government trumpeted £4.7 billion for schools in the spending review, they failed to mention that school budgets will see an increase in real terms of only 0.4% over the spending review period. When I speak to school leaders, as I do regularly, they still express the same level of despair as I heard during the last Parliament, when the Conservatives barely mentioned children or schools. School leaders are tearing their hair out trying to balance the books while shouldering the double blow of an underfunded rise in employers’ national insurance and underfunded teacher pay rises. One school in my constituency has shared its budget figures with me in detail to show what is really happening. It has about a quarter of a million pounds of salary pressures as a result of the NI and pay rises, yet only an additional £30,000 to fund that hole. The result is that the most vulnerable children will suffer, with learning support assistance and inclusion staff most likely to go to protect teaching staff, who are obviously essential. Although prudence in previous years means that reserves can be drawn on and future capital projects cancelled to keep the lights on this year, the school is looking down the barrel of redundancies in 2026-27. Having seen figures from other schools’ budgets, I know that its situation is not unique. Following the spending review, the IFS said that schools would need to make efficiencies to the tune of £300 million to £400 million to afford the underfunded teacher pay rises and NI increases. When schools are facing ever-increasing pressures—special educational needs demand, student attendance challenges, behavioural issues and much more—it is ridiculous for the Government to ask them to find efficiencies. I know that school staff are already straining every sinew to find every penny possible, down to banning things like colour photocopying. It was frankly insulting, therefore, when the written ministerial statement came out just before the May recess, which lectured them on taking responsibility “to ensure that their funding is spent as efficiently as possible”, —[ Official Report , 22 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 48WS.] as if they do not already do that. Those so-called efficiencies are actually cuts, whether to staff, extracurricular activities, school trips or mental health support. To quote one headteacher from my constituency: “every year you think you’re going to go into bankruptcy”. I am not sure that was what the Government meant by their opportunity mission. After the Minister accused me last month of imagining these problems, I hope she will confirm to the House how she expects schools to cough up the extra money for the teacher pay deal and national insurance. If not, will she go into bat with the Treasury for more? I want to touch briefly on an issue that a number of my hon. Friends have spoken about: the cuts in grants to the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which are measures that will hurt our most vulnerable children. We know that the fund provides therapy for children who, in many cases, have been through deep trauma and who, without significant therapeutic intervention, will struggle to have a fulfilling childhood and life ahead of them. After the fund expired, Ministers were dragged to this place to confirm that it would continue, but they then snuck out announcements over the Easter recess of 40% cuts to the grants. I know that the Minister will come back and say that, at £50 million, the size of the pot remains the same, but that is simply not the point. If £3,000—that is what the grants have been cut to—cannot fund the therapy a child needs, it might as well be zero. Just speak to the professionals and the unsung heroes who have stepped up as adopters and kinship carers, who are dealing with the consequences of the trauma every day. They feel deeply let down by this Government. We are not dealing with massive figures here. Indeed, when we look at the billions in the departmental estimates, we are talking about small packages that will make a huge amount of difference, and not just to individual children but to the taxpayer in future, with money saved further down the track. It is not only immoral; it is short-sighted. Halving the Department’s spend on consultancy and advertising would allow Ministers to reinstate grants to previous levels by boosting the fund from £50 million to £75 million. As we debate these estimates, I once again call on the Minister to reverse those cuts. Also, now that the spending review is complete, I call on her to announce the ASGSF settlement for 2026-27 very soon, and by October at the latest, so that families and service providers can plan. I want to touch briefly on the welcome recent announcement to expand free school meals—a policy for which the Liberal Democrats have been calling and campaigning for many years, and for which we have campaigned alongside many others to ensure it was adopted. Even though it is a welcome announcement, there are a number of questions that need to be addressed. How many children are estimated to be losing out on free school meals as a result of the end of transitional protections? There has been some suggestion from some quarters that children currently in receipt of free school meals will now lose access to pupil premium funding, as well as home-to-school transport. Will the Minister clarify on the record to this House what the position is? We are also still in the dark as to where exactly the money for the free school meal expansion is coming from. In conclusion, while spinners in the Department for Education have made a good fist of ensuring that the headlines proclaimed that the Department was a victor in the spending review battle, there are still a number of crucial issues hidden beneath the top line. Our schools and our most vulnerable young people have been left struggling. The devil is in the detail. I therefore hope that the Minister can persuade us otherwise and convince us that she really believes in extending opportunity to every child and young person in this country.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Much of the debate on this Bill has focused on dignity, control and choice. Over the past six weeks, I have had to confront those concepts head-on while watching a very close family member unexpectedly lose most physical capacity overnight. It is difficult when someone you love deeply, who has been a proud, strong and independent person, is unable to perform the most basic of human functions without help. The mental impact of that physical incapacity is utterly devastating for them, and for their nearest and dearest. That indignity and loss of control have felt unmanageable on days when the care has been poor, and so much more manageable when the nurses and healthcare assistants caring for my loved one have not been totally overstretched and coping without breaks; when they have been able to ensure that pain is well managed; and when the basic personal care that gives us dignity and boosts our wellbeing can be provided. That brings me to the heart of the conundrum we face today. Many of us in this place want to give people choice and autonomy over how they leave this world, but the reality—I have seen it up close and personal these past six weeks—is that our NHS and care system is nowhere near up to giving people that choice. It is creaking at the seams. I am very grateful that my amendment has been accepted, but a report on its own is not going to improve our palliative and end-of-life care, and we have had no commitment from Ministers yet that they will do so. The result will be either people choosing to end their life before they want to, or those who already have a huge distrust of the system—particularly those in minority and disadvantaged communities, whose voices have been heard the least in this debate—choosing not to access the care that they need, and dying an even more traumatic death. I do not believe that supporters of this Bill want either of those things to happen. Today, we parliamentarians have to cast possibly one of the most consequential votes of our time in this place. On such a complex and sensitive issue as assisted dying, it is only right that we turn to experts, and make evidence-based decisions. The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Physicians, which are both officially neutral on assisted dying, have said plainly that they cannot support this Bill, not least for reasons to do with the most fundamental principle of mental capacity, which sits at the heart of this Bill. I therefore say to colleagues across the House: it is not too late to think again. The very people who will be tasked with delivering the service we are legislating for today—and, by the way, we still have no idea what that service will look like, or how it will be funded—say it is not safe. How many lives taken in error is too many? One? One in 10? One in 100? This House clearly supports the principle of an assisted death, as do the public, but not at any cost. This Bill is not fit for purpose, and the experts have told us that the safeguards in it will not adequately protect those who most need—indeed, expect—us legislators to protect them. I implore colleagues today to vote it down, and I say to Ministers on the Front Bench: it is your responsibility to go back and do better.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Social Mobility: Careers Education · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) on securing this important debate. There is general consensus in the Chamber that every young person, no matter their background or needs, should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. They should be able to get the information and advice that they need to pursue a variety of career options for the many jobs and careers of the future. The options are growing by the day, and many of us do not even know about them yet. We know, however, that 12.5% of all 16 to 24-year-olds are not in employment, education or training, and that 37% of gen Z feel they will be financially worse off by the time they reach their parents’ age—a sobering statistic. We know, as we have heard clearly today, that many people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds cannot rely on the parental networks, role models, advice and guidance that so many of us—including many of my constituents—are able to benefit from. It is important for the Government and us, as parliamentarians and policymakers, to find ways of trying to even out those inequalities. That is challenging, but there are steps we can take to address them. As things stand, careers information, guidance and advice often comes too late in a young person’s academic career, and when it does, it can be quite generic and inconsistent. It is not even a compulsory element of all schools’ curricula. When it comes to thinking about higher education post school, students from more affluent backgrounds are 1.4 times more likely to think about higher education at primary school, say, than their disadvantaged peers. UCAS notes: “Disadvantaged students are more likely to consider higher education later, which can limit their choices, especially for more selective subjects and higher tariff providers.” The problem is not limited to just those who want to go to university. The Social Market Foundation reported in 2022 that support for students pursuing vocational options was weaker than for those pursuing academic options, with university often presented as the “default option”. One child told SMF that it was not until they got to year 12 that they realised there were other options besides university, with another saying that, “Help isn’t given to you,” if people do not want to go to university. It is high time that we level the playing field and put forward the full range of options—whether that is apprenticeships or other vocational training—on a par with going to university. How can we excite our children and young people about the wide variety of futures that could lie before them if they do not feel they have the options? When high-quality and effective careers guidance is offered, the benefits to young people are immediately tangible. Students in schools that meet all eight Gatsby benchmarks for careers guidance are 8% less likely to not be in education, employment or training, and that figure increases to 20% for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We know that schools and organisations that engage with local employers and businesses also score well on the Gatsby benchmarks. That is where I would like to pay tribute to the south London careers hub, which works across five boroughs of south London, including my own. It works with 80 business volunteers and has provided meaningful experience in the world of work for students in 95 schools across those five boroughs. It has held themed events focused on certain sectors of the economy, such as the green economy. I opened an event for the hub in my constituency a couple of years ago that focused on entrepreneurship and showed young people how they could create their own work and business opportunities in the future. Critically—to speak to some of the points already made—it also focuses on SEND provision, because we often overlook those with particular needs. At the other end of the country, I visited South Durham university technical college a couple of years ago. UTCs are different from mainstream schools and colleges because they focus on vocational skills. I was blown away by the partnership that that UTC—I know this is also true for other UTCs across the country—has developed with local major employers to provide meaningful experiences for the young people it is working with. For example, its careers guidance people accompany young people to meetings and events with employers. Clearly, schools do not have the capacity and resources to do that kind of intensive careers guidance, but there is a lot for mainstream schools to learn from UTCs. I have several asks of the Minister. As the Government are looking at the curriculum and assessment review, will they ensure that high-quality, age-appropriate careers education, starting from primary school, is part of the curriculum? Will they look at including financial literacy, as recommended by the Education Committee? The hon. Member for Wrexham talked about soft skills; I would not call such skills—communication, teamwork and so on—soft; they are life skills that are critical to success in the world of work. They are key to securing a job, being able to navigate interviews and networking, and then holding down a job in the workplace. Have the Government considered expanding the National Careers Service to ensure more face-to-face time for careers guidance for adults, particularly now that we know that so many people will be changing careers and going into new and emerging sectors of the economy? What plans do the Government have to strengthen the professional careers guidance workforce, as well as to ensure that our main teacher workforce is recruited from a diverse range of backgrounds, to share those experiences with children and young people? I will end with the elephant in the room: none of this will be possible until we fix school funding. I know from talking to headteachers across the country, including those in my constituency just yesterday, that school budgets are absolutely at breaking point. With neither the rise in employers’ national insurance nor the teachers’ pay rise being fully reimbursed, they are having to make all sorts of cuts, and some of them are planning teacher redundancies. Careers education will be one of the first areas that they look to cut, because they do not want to compromise on teaching the core subjects that they have to get children through. I therefore ask the Minister, when she responds, to address some of those questions. How will she fund schools so that they can provide the careers education and guidance that our children absolutely need and deserve?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I actually think the stats the hon. Member cited undermine his own argument, because all the data shows us that the members of the communities I am talking about are less likely to access the healthcare services they need and therefore, less likely to end up accessing assisted dying. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) gave the game away—he is acknowledging it—that wealthier people tend to access assisted dying more because they have the choice, as well as the services to have that meaningful choice. Those inequalities deeply concern me. My grave concerns about the Bill becoming law are that the people I am talking about do not have the loudest voices or well-funded campaigns to support them. This whole debate about inequalities in access to palliative care should be the topic of a debate on a separate day and I hope there is the chance to have that debate. Marie Curie also warns that there is “no realistic national or local plan to address the scale of this challenge”, and that the whole system is in “a perilous state” due to a “lack of sustainable funding…and limited prioritisation of…end of life care”. A 2023 survey of integrated care boards found that half had no plans to invest capital in palliative care services and 40% admitted that their services were inadequate for the needs of their population.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I note that the Health and Social Care Committee and the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) have undertaken a report, so they will advise us on that issue. [ Interruption. ] I am aware that I need to finish, so I urge hon. Members to support the amendments of my hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) to ensure that we do not allow the Bill to implement sweeping Henry VIII powers on such a sensitive and important issue, and to ensure that we collect, through new schedule 2, important monitoring data on how any assisted dying or death service will operate. We need transparency.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Even though I am not opposed to the principle of assisted dying, I have a number of deep concerns about the content of the Bill, the process by which we are legislating for such a monumental change and, importantly, the context in which it would be enacted, given the numerous challenges facing our health and care services. That is why I have tabled amendment 21 relating to palliative care and end-of-life needs, which has attracted cross-party support. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for supporting the amendment. I want to pay tribute to her today for kick-starting a debate about dying well and, in particular, about palliative care—a topic that has been neglected by many of us, myself included, for far too long. Amendment 21 would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament a year after the Act has passed detailing the availability, quality and distribution of health services to those with palliative and end-of-life needs. Marie Curie estimates that one in four people who could benefit from specialist palliative end-of-life care do not receive it. People who are poorer, less educated and, yes, non-white are even less likely to receive it. I was horrified, if I am honest, by the earlier speech from the hon. Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). All the data shows us that people from minority ethnic communities are less likely to access the healthcare services they deserve, in particular palliative care. There is a deep distrust of health services, and those of us who were in this place during the covid pandemic saw that played out in real time in hospitals and care settings up and down the country, with far more people from minority ethnic communities losing their lives and far more healthcare professionals from ethnic minorities not protected in the way that they should have been. If those people from minority ethnic and disadvantaged communities are less likely to access palliative care as a result of the Bill being passed, contrary to what its supporters say, my fear is that more people—rather than fewer—will die a terrible, horrendous, traumatic and painful death and they will be disproportionately from those communities.

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

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  The sanctions on the appalling extremists Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, while extremely overdue, are welcome—we on these Liberal Democrat Benches have been calling for them for some 16 months now. The Minister acknowledged in his statement that there is cross-party support for a two-state solution. He also said “when we say something, we mean it.” Yet he has repeatedly refused tonight to recognise the state of Palestine or to commit to recognising it at the summit next week. I remain wholly unconvinced by his reasons for refusing to do so, so let me try a different tack. This evening there are reports that the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has stated that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent state of Palestine. Will this now bring a new urgency to recognising the state of Palestine and to the UK standing up and assuming its historic responsibility in the region, when Trump is abandoning the Palestinians?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to speak in this important debate. I will address three amendments that stand in my name: amendments 88 and 89, which go together and relate to hope value, and new clause 107, which relates to the disposal of public land. Amendments 88 and 89 are linked and represent a simple yet important change to the Bill. They would extend the circumstances in which hope value may be disregarded in the event of a compulsory purchase order to include playing fields and recreational facilities. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues warmly welcome the important changes in the Bill. Ministers have brought forward measures to reform the CPO process for the purpose of building more affordable homes, so that hope value no longer over-inflates land prices for acquiring authorities. However, I believe that a prime opportunity has been missed. As such, my amendments seek to include recreational facilities such as playing fields in these provisions when an acquiring authority—for instance, a local authority—is using a compulsory purchase order to acquire land for use as a sports or recreational facility. They would ensure that hope value would not be applied, thus making the cost more affordable and helping to boost grassroots sports provision in communities up and down the country. We in Twickenham, Teddington, the Hamptons, St Margarets and Whitton are incredibly fortunate to have a thriving grassroots sports scene, from football to cricket, rugby, hockey, tennis and much more. Girls’ and women’s football is just one example of the continued growth in grassroots sports in my constituency; my own daughter plays with the growing number of girls’ teams at Whitton Wanderers, and Twickenham Cygnets now boasts over 300 girls and has 40 women—Twickenham Swans—on its books. However, they are at the point of turning more away because they simply cannot get the pitch space to train and play matches. This problem affects many clubs across the country, and certainly right across the London borough of Richmond upon Thames. At the same time, we have the absolute scandal of Udney Park playing fields in Teddington lying derelict for more than a decade, with successive developers paying over the odds for the site, only to be rightly prevented from developing it; that precious site has numerous protections attached to it. The brilliant Udney Park Community Fields Foundation —a community group in my constituency led by Jonathan Dunn, who has been a tireless campaigner for grassroots sports—has repeatedly bid for the site to bring the playing fields back into community use. The current owner has given notice that he wants to sell the playing fields, but has not engaged with the foundation at a realistic playing fields valuation. Trying to recoup a high purchase price for this precious and well-protected site does not look feasible. Extending the Bill’s provisions to playing fields to allow hope value to be disregarded for a compulsory purchase order could allow such sites to be acquired by the local authority or another public body. Richmond council, like many other local authorities, is hardly awash with cash, but simply having that provision in law would provide leverage for community groups when they have to negotiate with developers, as we have seen in the case of Udney Park. I am certain that Udney Park is not the only example where this is happening. I was therefore extremely disappointed by the Minister’s response to these amendments in Committee, which, with all due respect, was contradictory. He rejected them on the following basis: “Affordable housing, education and health are types of public sector-led development where the public benefits facilitated through the non-payment of hope value can be directly demonstrable to local communities. The Government have concerns that the provisions would be less compelling for sporting and recreational facilities.” –– [ Official Report, Planning and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2025; c. 489.] I say that sport and physical activity are critical to physical and mental health, and he said that health is an important public benefit for the purposes of disregarding hope value. Just yesterday, Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport stated that the Government “are committed to supporting the growth of grassroots sports across the UK.” The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made a brilliant speech last night at an event attended by many Members in this place to launch the inspirational Lionesses’ campaign to defend their European crown. She was passionate about the importance of grassroots sports and extending opportunity to every community. She has announced £100 million of investment in grassroots sports facilities, which is extremely welcome. The change proposed through my amendments would help Ministers to achieve the important objective of expanding sports and recreation grounds without costing them a penny. It would not encroach on the principle that the use of CPO powers must be proportionate and justified in the public interest, given that Ministers have so strongly and correctly championed the growth of grassroots sport across the UK as being in the public interest. The amendments would apply solely to land that is already sports field or recreational land, where there is local need for that sports and recreational facility and it is at risk of loss to speculative development. It is entirely proportionate and justified in the public interest that CPO powers and the removal of hope value should apply in such circumstances, so it defies all logic that Ministers have not embraced this change and that they continue to oppose it. I look forward to hearing an explanation from the Minister. I hope he will at least commit to engaging further on this issue as the Bill moves to the other place. Perhaps he will meet me to discuss it, rather than dismissing it completely. Let me turn to new clause 107, which is also in my name. There is cross-party consensus on the dire need for more housing across our country. The Liberal Democrats have a strong commitment to delivering desperately needed social housing, so it was disappointing to see Labour Members vote against our amendment 15 last night to write a social housing target into law. One important way to secure sites for social and affordable housing is when public bodies dispose of land and buildings. In constituencies such as mine, with its royal park, a river and other important protected parks and spaces, sites are few and far between, yet week in, week out I see cases in my inbox and at my constituency surgeries of families on the social housing waiting list for years, with little hope of getting out of desperately overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation. I am incredibly proud that Liberal Democrat-run Richmond council has consistently sought to repurpose, and sell below market value, sites that it owns but no longer needs to provide for more social homes from which families in my constituency can benefit. The council has done this despite the immense pressures on local government funding, but sadly other public bodies do not feel able to do the same, whether they are national Government Departments such as the Ministry of Defence, key public services such as the Metropolitan police, or arm’s length bodies such as NHS England. They all want to achieve as high a price as they can when selling assets that they no longer need in order to be able to invest in frontline public services. That is a laudable and important aim, but it prices social housing providers, and other public service providers, out of the market, while losing assets from the public sector balance sheet at the same time. New clause 107 would fill the gaps in the existing patchwork of legislation and regulation that is somewhat piecemeal in the public bodies included and is not properly used to allow all public sector bodies to sell assets below market value for public benefit, whether that is for social housing or for much-needed community infrastructure like health facilities or a community centre. Not only would it extend that provision to all public bodies; it would go further still by imposing a duty on all public bodies to at least consider disposing of assets for public good. This wide-ranging new clause builds on my successful campaign in the last Parliament, when I worked with a succession of Conservative Housing Ministers to secure a change in the then Bill, which became the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, that included police authorities under existing provisions to sell public assets below market value for public good. My campaign was born of frustration about the fact that the disused Teddington police station lies derelict in my constituency. A local housing association and the Park Road GP surgery are desperate to obtain the site to expand and provide state-of-the-art GP facilities on the ground floor, as well as much-needed social housing on the floors above. This Government think that all members of the public are blockers, but I can tell the Minister that the Teddington community are right behind my campaign, and we will fight tooth and nail to ensure that when the Met puts the site on the market we can obtain the GP surgery and housing that our community desperately need at a reasonable price, which will almost certainly not be as high as private developers can offer. I secured the legislative basis to achieve that ambition in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, but in many other cases the provision is not there or is not used. Furthermore, the amount below market value for which some public sector bodies can dispose of their assets has not been updated since 2003. New clause 107 seeks to address that anomaly, although I note that the Conservative Government made a commitment to consulting on and reviewing the amount—something that did not happen before they left office, and something that the present Government have not implemented since they took power last year. The Chancellor herself has previously said that surplus Government land is a “huge untapped resource that could create opportunities for the next generation of homeowners.” I warmly welcomed the news in March that Network Rail would set up a property company to use surplus land for house building. There is so much more than just Network Rail land, but we need both the legislative basis for public sector disposals below market value and the incentives to achieve those sales. I do not blame the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for wanting to get top dollar for Teddington police station, especially when I read about the cuts that he is having to make to frontline policing and the intransigence of the Treasury when it comes to proper funding for the community policing that the Government have promised. I say to Ministers that this is robbing Peter to pay Paul. We need a duty on all public bodies, and financial incentives from the Treasury for them to repurpose or sell their assets for community good. We can achieve the homes and public services that our country desperately needs, not by ripping up our green belt and precious open spaces but by thinking creatively about how we repurpose existing sites, including those already owned by the taxpayer. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I, too, thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. I warmly welcome this announcement, which will make such a difference to the lives of children up and down the country. We know the impact that free school meals can have. A hot, healthy meal in the middle of the day helps children to learn, concentrate and thrive. Making sure a child does not go hungry in school can truly change their life. That is why Liberal Democrats have for so long championed free school meals. That is why we have long called on successive Governments to take this step. That is why this policy was in our election manifesto last year. I am delighted that, even though it was not in Labour’s manifesto, they are taking our idea today. The Liberal Democrats introduced universal infant free school meals when we were in government, and we are today sharing in the joy of the tireless campaigners and struggling families for whom this announcement is such as victory. For far too long, far too many children in this country have gone hungry through the school day. The previous Conservative Government ignored the advice of their own food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, and even Michael Gove, to leave children in poverty without the meals they deserve and need. This announcement can only be the start. We need to see the policy fully funded and properly implemented. We need to see auto-enrolment, as the Chair of the Select Committee said, so that every child receives the meals they are entitled to, because thousands of eligible children currently miss out. Now we know that the Government are finally looking to the Liberal Democrats for policy ideas on tackling the cost of learning, may I urge them to look again at capping the cost of branded uniform items, not the number of branded uniform items? Lastly, if the Government are serious about tackling the scourge of child poverty, will they finally scrap the two-child benefit cap?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source

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  Thames Water is teetering on the brink, investors are running for the hills and my constituents are paying the price for its mismanagement through soaring bills. All the while, it is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a proposed sewage recycling project at Teddington lock on the River Thames in my constituency, which will at best be used every two years and which some cynics suggest is designed entirely to boost its balance sheet. This morning, the Secretary of State committed to my constituent Ian McNuff that he would come and visit the site to look at the impact of the proposed project. Will he reiterate that commitment today? My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and I would be delighted to welcome him.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, we have seen the parks police slashed from Bushy Park and rates of theft and knife crimes soaring. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned last week that the Home Secretary will not meet her laudable targets on neighbourhood policing, tackling knife crime and tackling violence against women and girls without additional investment. Can she reassure my constituents that they will see the bobbies on the beat that she has promised, or will they see only the Chancellor’s iron fist?

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

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  Each and every week, I hear from teachers and school leaders in my constituency and across the country. In my time in this place, never has their outlook been as gloomy as it is right now. After years of underfunding and neglect from the Conservatives, schools now face a double blow of underfunded national insurance increases and unfunded teacher pay rises, if the reports are to be believed. Together, these represent massive cuts to school budgets. Frankly, schools expected better from Labour. School governors in my constituency recently told me that they are all setting deficit budgets, which one described as “beyond imagining”. That is why teachers are so desperately worried. Parents are, too, because ultimately it is our children who will suffer—and the most vulnerable, at that. The Government’s claim that schools can find the money through efficiencies simply does not stack up; budgets are already cut to the bone, with schools relying on parents to buy them the basics, such as glue sticks, through Amazon wish lists. They are already cutting back subjects, cancelling trips and cutting back on teaching assistants—meaning that children with special educational needs and disabilities will suffer the most—and now they are planning redundancies. Budget decisions for next year are already being made. We need urgent clarity about whether the pay rise will be funded, so will the Minister tell schools across the country where exactly they are expected to find this money?

• 20 May 2025 · Vulnerable Families: Tax System Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his response, but what short and long-term assessments have Ministers made of the cost to the taxpayer of the deep cuts in grants for therapy for some of the most vulnerable and traumatised children in our country through the adoption and special guardianship support fund? Given the Treasury’s intransigence in putting more money into the fund to meet rising demand, it is likely that adoption and kinship care placements will fail, resulting in more children in the care system in the short term. In the long term, sadly, we know that care-experienced children are four times more likely to end up with a criminal conviction. There is a moral and economic case to support this fund properly.

• 20 May 2025 · Vulnerable Families: Tax System Support · Hansard source

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  13. What steps she is taking through the tax system to support vulnerable families.

• 20 May 2025 · Adoption and Kinship Placements · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) on securing this important debate; she and I are both passionate about this issue, and I know she cares about it deeply. I will start by reminding colleagues—as many have done already—about who the children we are talking about are. These are children who have experienced the kind of trauma that none of us should ever have to experience in our life. After I first brought up the adoption and special guardianship support fund with the Prime Minister in March, a lady from Lincolnshire wrote to me. She is a special guardian for a child who witnessed her mother being murdered by her father at the age of two. For some reason that child does not qualify for child and adolescent mental health support, and has been able to access only a limited amount of counselling. That is the sort of child the ASGSF is for. These are also children who have been abused and neglected. When I spoke to the Purple Elephant Project, a therapy provider in Twickenham, its chief executive officer Jenny, who has worked with adopted children for many years, spoke to me about children she had worked with who had been made to sleep in the garden, or who had ingested heroin. Those are the sorts of experiences these children have been through. They need our collective help and support to overcome that trauma, as do the amazing people who step up to care for them, whether through adoption or often as kinship carers overnight. As one adoptive parent in my constituency said to me, these children deserve “the absolute best second chance in life.” I implore the Minister, who has a professional background in this area and cares about this issue deeply, to please listen to the pleas from those on all Benches about the support that is desperately needed. Before I talk in a bit more detail about the ASGSF, let me say a couple of words on kinship carers, given that I have been proud to campaign alongside my party for kinship carers for a number of years. I welcome the limited progress we have seen under this Government and the previous one on support and recognition of kinship carers, but as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we have to go much further. We have to roll out allowances on a par with those for foster carers across the country to all kinship carers, extend employment leave to kinship carers and ensure that children in kinship care are given the support that they need in education through pupil premium plus and priority school admission. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) said in a recent debate, adoptive parents make a “lifelong commitment” to children. We heard from the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who has also adopted, that the state needs to give them a lot more support. One constituent said to me that the ASGSF is the only post-adoption support there is for these children. That brings me to the ASGSF. I cannot begin to describe my anger and dismay at what has happened. I will try to contain that emotion as I speak. The stories that have been sent to me, and that I have heard face to face as I have been working on this issue in recent weeks and months, have on a number of occasions moved me to tears. These families faced months of uncertainty. The Minister had to answer a litany of written questions and letters from Members from all parties on whether the ASGSF would continue for this financial year. Those Members were stonewalled. I have explained the trauma that these children have experienced. They have had a huge amount of uncertainty and instability in their lives, and the Government added to it. We were all stonewalled. It took me dragging the Minister kicking and screaming to the House of Commons Chamber to answer an urgent question the day after the fund expired for her finally to commit to renewing it for this financial year. There was a sigh of relief among carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers and charities across the sector that the uncertainty had ended, despite the backlog that had built up in the meantime and the interruption in therapy for so many children who had had to stop therapy because they had run out of money from last year’s fund. However, there was no hint from the Minister during her response to my urgent question of the cuts that were to come. Instead, the Government waited until the depths of the Easter recess to sneak out a private letter to local authorities and charities about the 40% cut to grants, the removal of the assessment grant and the scrapping of the match funding. An adoptive mother I met at the drop-in organised by Adoption UK and Kinship yesterday told me that that felt very underhand. She said, “It felt like the Government didn’t care as I was dealing with my adoptive son, who was dysregulated and trying to hurt me.” There was no consultation with the sector, despite the fact that the Government have reference groups, such as the kinship care reference group, that they talk to on a regular basis. There was no consultation with them and no formal public announcement. Even the Government website on the ASGSF remained out of date for several weeks, until our first day back after recess, when the Minister issued a fairly scant written ministerial statement. My first question to her is: when she answered my urgent question on 1 April, was she aware that these cuts were coming, or did she inadvertently mislead the House on that occasion? The impact of the changes to the ASGSF means that we have a backlog. Everybody who had previously applied—some 46% of applications for grants for this financial year exceed the £3,000 limit—has to reapply. There will now be a delay and an interruption in therapy. The mum I met yesterday told me that she is borrowing money from friends and family to continue therapy because, in her son’s last therapy session, they finally achieved a breakthrough and she cannot bear to stop it. Purple Elephant in Twickenham is desperately fundraising to try to make sure that there is no interruption in therapy for the 40 or so children that it supports. We know that, with smaller grants, providers will struggle to provide adequate therapy. Given the sorts of trauma that we have talked about, these children’s brains need rewiring and they need time to build trust. Often, therapists have to run several sessions before a child will even come through the door. That takes time; it will not be done in the few short sessions that the grants will cover. Given that the assessment costs will now have to come out of the reduced grant of £3,000, after a bespoke assessment is made there will be very little, if anything at all, left for the actual therapy. In addition to the impact on the children and the carers who are desperately trying to look after them, the changes will undermine and destabilise the charities and other providers that offer support in this area. As many hon. Members have said, we are talking about children who are dysregulated and exhibit challenging behaviours, and the changes will lead to adoption and kinship care placement breakdown, which will result in extra costs for the taxpayer, because more children will go back into care. We will probably also see more school exclusions as a result of dysregulated behaviours, and therefore poorer educational and employment outcomes. Sadly, care-experienced children are four times more likely than other children to end up with a criminal conviction by the age of 24. The costs to the taxpayer of the changes, in the short term and the long term, are exorbitant, yet the fund is only £50 million; in the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge amount of money. If the Government wanted to extend the fund, say by 50%, I could tell the Minister exactly where she can get the money from. In her written ministerial statement, she suggested that the fund can be topped up from local authority children’s services budgets. I am not sure whether she is aware of this, but a lot of local authorities are on the brink financially, and many children’s services budgets are in huge deficit. However, where she can find the money is in the £46.5 million that the Department for Education spent on advertising, consultancy and marketing costs in the last year. I suggest that she halves that budget, and instead expands the ASGSF by 50%. These cuts are entirely incoherent and contradict Government policy. The DFE has recently written to Adoption England calling for improvements in adopter recruitment, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill mandates the signposting of support, yet everything we have discussed today will go against those measures. I have three asks of the Minister: please apologise to carers and children up and down the country, reverse the cuts—I have told her where to get the money—and fight tooth and nail in the Treasury over the spending review for the next financial year, and make that announcement early. Carers and children will continue to campaign, and I will be alongside them.

• 7 May 2025 · United States Film Tariff · Hansard source

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  I am deeply proud that St Margarets in my constituency has been home to Twickenham Film Studios for over 100 years. The studios have been involved in production and post-production work for big-name films including “The Italian Job” and “Ghandi”, and most recently they did the Oscar-winning sound production for “Top Gun: Maverick”. However, they have been beset by financial challenges, from the US writers’ strike to the sky-rocketing business rates mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper). The tariffs could deal a fatal blow to studios such as Twickenham. Can I urge the Minister, as others have, to work with the Treasury and the Valuation Office Agency on bringing down the rateable value of film studios? Can I also invite him to follow in the footsteps of Tom Cruise and come to St Margarets to visit Twickenham Film Studios?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State give way?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I agree with all the points the shadow Minister is making about keeping our children safe online, so why does new clause 19 only commit to a review of the digital age of data consent and raising the age from 13 to 16 for when parental consent is no longer required? Why does he not support the Liberal Democrats’ new clause 1 that would start to implement this change? We can still, through implementation, do all the things the hon. Gentleman proposes to do, so why the delay?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 6 May 2025 · Middle East Update · Hansard source

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  In the light of the latest outrage from the Netanyahu Government in displacing hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians, which comes on top of the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the murdering of aid workers and the expansion of violence by settlers, we get from the Minister strong opposition, a request for “urgent clarity” and a reiteration of his “outrage”. He says that he is taking action, but he can hear from all sides of the House that nobody is satisfied with the level of action that the British Government are taking. I implore him to listen to the support from all sides of the House, recognise a Palestinian state, impose a full arms embargo on Israel and sanction Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. In the name of God, as others have said, please can we get aid into Gaza so that people will stop starving?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last year the Secretary of State said: “There can be no goal more important and more urgent than extending opportunities to our most vulnerable children”. —[ Official Report , 24 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 700.] Actions speak louder than words, so will she commit to reversing her 40% cut to the grants available through the adoption and special guardianship support fund so that vulnerable children are not made to pay the price for the Conservatives’ financial mess?