Amanda Martin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The previous Government did take steps on uniform, but they are obviously not working, because parents are paying extortionate amounts of money for uniform. We need to look at what is going wrong. This is a way to help support parents.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Extremism Review · Hansard source

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  I echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray). Just this weekend in my own constituency, we had an incident in our community with young people and knives. Although I cannot comment on that particular incident, I am extremely concerned about the availability of knives, particularly to our young people. Does the Minister agree that the sale of knives is too easy, particularly online, and can he tell me and my constituents what the Government are doing to restrict that availability and the fear it spreads in our communities?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We heard from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire about the involvement of larger and smaller-scale providers in children’s social care, and the Bill covers the other places that children and young people can make their home in. I think we all agree that there is a need for a wide range of options, so that we can determine what is best for individual children and young people when they are finding their home. Clause 13, however, is particularly relevant to larger-scale providers because of the sheer number of children who would be affected should one of those providers experience unexpected or unreported financial difficulties. No young person should be faced with losing their house overnight, and this measure would help to secure provision for those children in a planned way, as opposed to a reactive situation where a number of places have to be found overnight. The clause also follows the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendation to emulate the equivalent schemes we find in adult social care. That is long overdue in child social care. It adds safeguards that allow for transparency and security, which we welcome when we are dealing with children’s social care and the homes that they will hopefully have for a long time.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Unity Contract · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Government and Rolls-Royce on their fantastic and innovative Unity project. As today’s welcome announcement shows, defence is a fantastic pipeline for building skills and refining the jobs and growth that this country needs. That is felt and needed nowhere more than in my constituency, the home of the Royal Navy and of so many defence companies, be they national or SMEs. Alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), I intend to hold a roundtable later this year on growth strategy. Can the Minister assure the House that the defence industrial strategy will have a focus on training and skills and will promote and prioritise British industry?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  For the record, NAHT—National Association of Head Teachers—was my previous employer, before I came to this place.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q It is clear that we need strong partnerships to stop children slipping through the cracks, which happens far too often. What do you think will be the impact of creating the duty of safeguarding for partnerships to establish the multi-agency child protection teams? What lessons must we learn? Dr Homden: I think we will need to send you a further briefing on that point, beyond what I have already said. The point is that if there is a duty, you are creating a framework within which there is much stronger accountability, assuming that it is carefully inspected, considered and acted on if it is not implemented. I sympathise with the previous point. The welfare of the child is paramount and local authorities have an absolute duty to act, irrespective of any other duties on them, to ensure the safety of a child in acute circumstances. But the Bill protects that and makes that clear. Mandating family group decision making makes sure that best practice, in time, becomes the only practice.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to take a step back from where you would be involved. What do you think the impact will be of creating the duty of safeguarding partnership to make arrangements to establish a multi-agency child protection team? Jacky Tiotto: It is a long way back from us, but I was a director of children’s services before this and we were always clamouring to have a much more formal arrangement with the police and with health, so this is a fantastic opportunity to get that resourced and to put child protection formally back on the platform where it was, which is multi-agency. We have “Working Together”, which is the best multi-agency guidance in the world, but it has been hard to express without mandation. So thumbs up!

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q With your experiences in mind, do you think it is right that local authorities that want to open new schools can currently only seek proposals for academies? Under the Bill, they will be able to invite proposals for other types of school. What implications do you think that will have for pupils? Ruth Stanier: We very much welcome this measure, which we have long called for. Councils continue to have the duty to ensure that places are available for all local children, and having the flexibility to bring forward new maintained schools, where that is appropriate, is clearly helpful. Andy Smith: ADCS’s view is that the education system must absolutely be rooted in place, and directors of children’s services and local officers know their places really well. The measures in the Bill around direction of academy schools are a welcome addition. The end to the legal presumption that new schools will become academies, and allowing proposals from local authorities and others, is very welcome. Local authorities understand planning really well, and they understand their place and their children really well. I think that will ultimately be better for children.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What is the importance in the Bill of providing a clear legal basis for sharing information with the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children? Paul Whiteman: We absolutely support that. A statutory duty for schools and educators to be consulted in that respect is necessary, and it will widen the voices within that. After all, it is in schools that children are most present and visible, and teachers and school leaders already play a role in noticing changes and issues. Julie McCulloch: We feel the same way. I would simply add that it is a growing set of responsibilities on schools—burden is not the right word, because schools absolutely need to do it. We are hearing a lot about the pressures on designated safeguarding leads in schools. While we also welcome schools’ having a statutory role here, we need to recognise that schools will need support and sufficient resources to deliver that.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Keeping children safe and safeguarding are key priorities that you guys have a lot of expertise in. Many experts have talked about the widening attainment gap and the rising number of children out of school. Most of them are our most disadvantaged and vulnerable. What difference do you think the Bill’s provisions will make to those children on things such as admissions, the ability of local authorities to plan school places, and collaborative working across local authorities and across services, so that they have an appropriate and safe school place? Mark Russell: There is a great deal in the Bill that will improve safeguarding arrangements for children, which is really important. The role of the local authority is critical, and local authorities are under enormous pressure. We all work with local authorities right around the country. We hear from directors of children’s services and their teams about the sheer pressure. Alongside that, we need to look at how local authorities commission services for children and young people. I always find it slightly bemusing that local authorities can commission a bin service for 10 years, but cannot a commission a children’s service for two years. That would not cost the taxpayer any more money. If we improved the length of the periods at which commissioning were done, it would allow organisations such as ours to invest in services and teams to build stronger services locally. The environment in which local government finance works does not make our lives any easier in supporting children and young people. Lynn Perry: We have to think about this pre-school. Early intervention in early years services is absolutely critical to ensure school readiness for children. That is not just for those children in educational terms, but for their families to be able to establish a network of support as a parent or carer and to access universal and targeted provision. We need to take a whole-family approach to support children to start well in school. What that requires, of course, is a significant shift in investment. Currently, most of the spending in the children’s social care budget is on late interventions and the children in-care population. We need to re-engineer and reset the system so that there is more investment at a much earlier stage. All of that helps with school readiness, attendance and attainment. As we know, schools are at the heart of a lot of that multi-agency working across communities and the safeguarding system, in terms of their opportunity to identify children, so it is important that children have a positive experience of starting school and staying in school.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to come back on two points that you made, one of which is on the flexibility around schoolteachers’ pay and conditions. We have the document on national schoolteachers’ pay and conditions, and there are personnel documents from local authorities, as there are from academies, that will add to those things. Within that, there is room—we are hearing a lot about restricting pay—for recruitment and retention points, and teaching and learning responsibility points. We no longer have performance-related pay because of the things that the Government have changed, and there is also no longer a need to wait to move up to the upper pay scale, so there are still options in the hands of trusts or local authorities. Also, the document refers to 1,265 hours, so would you agree that there is some flexibility within that? My second question is around the qualified teacher status element. Many parents. and in fact pupils. in my constituency tell me that they do not see training to be a teacher in a profession as bureaucracy. They see that it is a profession, and people want their children to be taught not just by a qualified teacher, but by a specialist qualified teacher. Do you agree that this Bill does not really make a change in allowing people to work toward QTS, but it does put QTS and qualified professionals at the heart of classrooms and the heart of our kids’ education? David Thomas: On the first point, of course an amount of flexibility is available within the system, but we are not talking about the status quo; we are talking about the creation of powers that can be amended in the future. Statutory teachers’ pay and conditions are set by the Secretary of State, and that could be different next year from what it is this year. We have to ask what powers we want people to have rather than just saying whether the status quo happens to be acceptable or not. Even that status quo is limited, and I do not think we know what the right flexibilities are within the system to be able to give people optimal flexible working. That is something we are learning by innovation. There are great innovations, but they are all quite new. People have not been doing this for a very long time, so I would not want to cap us at the flexibility we have now; I want us to be ambitious and innovative about the future. On qualified teacher status, the goal is a subject specialist and a qualified teacher who has as much experience as possible. That is the gold standard you want to be shooting towards. The reality on the ground is that you do not always have that choice in front of you on an interview panel. You might have a subject specialist or a qualified teacher, and you have to make that judgment call. You are there, you know your timetable as a headteacher, you know which classes need to be staffed, you can see those people teach some lessons, you are aware of their past experience and you have to make that judgment call. Ultimately, headteachers should be able to make that judgment call because they are the ones who will have to manage those people, and to look parents and children in the eyes and tell them that they believe they have made the right decision for them.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I am sorry if this is a blunt question, but on 18 April 2022, you wrote an opinion piece for the Telegraph alongside Nadine Dorries, who was then the Culture Secretary. In that article, you said that the Conservative manifesto was “our manifesto”. Are giving evidence here today from your personal opinion or in your role, given that you called the 2019 Conservative manifesto “our manifesto”? Dame Rachel de Souza : I really do not remember that word, but I did that article with Nadine Dorries because I was absolutely desperate for the Online Safety Bill to get through. I spoke to Lucy Powell and Bridget about it. I felt that there were forces in the Government at the time that were trying not to let the Bill go through, because of freedom of speech issues. I knew that the NSPCC was working with Labour, and I stuck my neck out in that article to try to convince everybody that the Online Safety Bill should go through. I am totally independent. I do not think that any Government or person I have worked with thinks otherwise. I challenge you to find anywhere—I mean, this is a word in an article. I think you will find that I have been strong and robust on online safety. Sometimes I use “our” when I am talking about the school system, children, or the country and the Government, and if I have used it inappropriately, I am sorry.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q The Minister touched on admissions and I would like to widen that. Positive and best outcomes and the destination of children and young people should be at the heart of every Government mission on education, as it should be at any school trust or local authority. However, concerns continue to grow about the widening attainment gap of our most vulnerable pupils. More worrying is the fact that parents feel they have no choice if they want to remove their children from a school setting. The Bill does have provisions on admissions and allows local authorities to plan school places. Today we heard from the Church of England and the Catholic Education Service about how they have always worked with local authorities to ensure fairness and collaboration in the wider services. You all have academies and schools across the country. How would you work with local areas, where your schools are, to ensure that collaboration really does find places for children and reverses that worrying trend that we still see? Sir Jon Coles: The worrying trend being poor attainment and the widening gap?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes. Sir Jon Coles: I suppose everything we do addresses trying to tackle the gap. We take on schools in areas of severe deprivation, places where schools have failed, where children are not succeeding. We look to turn those schools around. I guess my starting point for this is that we do already, in the overwhelming majority of cases, work with local authorities on admissions. None of our schools change their admission arrangements when they become academies. We stick with the pre-existing admission arrangements, unless we are asked by the local authority to do something different. That is our fundamental starting point for everything we do. As I said, I do not have concerns about the provisions around admissions; we are basically happy with them. If the Government issue guidance on how those are to be used, I think other people’s concerns will go away as well. The one thing that I would love to see the Government do is really set out their strategy for improvement, how they think things will work and how we will drive improvement across the system. I think part of the reason for response to the Bill has been that the Government have not published a policy document ahead of publication, so people have read into the Bill their concerns and fears and worries. There has not been a clear Government narrative about how the Bill will drive forward improvements in the school system overall and how we are going to tackle the achievement gaps. We want to work with Government. We want to work with local authorities—we already work with local authorities and other trusts and maintained schools. We want to do that. We think we are all on the same team trying to do the right thing for children. Our worry about some provisions in the Bill is really just a concern that in future we might be prevented from doing things that we do that we know are effective. Sir Dan Moynihan: On the disadvantage gap, the biggest thing was the coalition’s introduction of an explicit strategy focusing on disadvantage, and they introduced a pupil premium. It was highly effective for probably five years, then withered and disappeared. The Government, in my view, need an explicit strategy for tackling disadvantage, whether that is a pupil premium that is higher or whether it is metrics. That is not something that we have seen for a long time and not something that we have yet seen in the new Government, but it is a door that is wide open. The system wants that. That is the clearest thing: making it a Government priority. The second thing for me, to be a bit more controversial, is that good schools should reflect their local area. Sometimes that does not happen, including for many selective schools. If we are really going to have a world-class system, that needs to be addressed. Luke Sparkes: I do not have anything of significance to add. We try to work as closely as we can with local authorities. In north Liverpool, for example, we took on a school that would have closed had we not taken it on. We take on the most challenging schools and try to do the very best we can for disadvantaged children.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have a question in two parts, but before I ask it, when we come to this Committee, we have to make declarations of interest. Can I confirm that you were the Conservative party candidate for Norwich South in the last election? David Thomas: Yes, that is correct.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q So, to answer my question, you are giving evidence as the commissioner. Dame Rachel de Souza : Always. I would not come to Parliament and do anything else.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q How will the Bill support local partnerships? We heard from Sir Jon Coles, the Church of England, the Catholic Education Service and others about collaboration. How will the Bill support local partnerships to work together more effectively to prevent children from falling behind? Catherine McKinnell: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is very much at the heart of what we want to achieve through our changes to schools. We want to ensure that every child has a good school place; that every parent can be confident that their child will be taught by a qualified teacher within their local mainstream school wherever possible, being educated with their peers; that no vulnerable child falls through the cracks; and that we know where they are if they are not in school. We are making important changes on admissions to ensure that all the schools in a local area collaborate with their local authority on place planning, so that we can really deliver on that vision.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  There are concerns that military accommodation, which I have in my constituency, is not included in the Bill, but one of my main concerns is the immense cut in funding to that accommodation. The properties are in such a state of disrepair that the Government have had to go back and re-buy them. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a larger issue, which we need to deal with when looking at the Armed Forces Commissioner role?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Good-quality, secure and decent rentals should not be too much to ask, and I thank those landlords who do provide that in my city and beyond. I welcome the Government amendments to this detailed Bill, which will help residents in Portsmouth North to rent homes that are both secure and decent.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Prostate cancer costs the NHS around £93 million a year, but more than a third of those costs are avoidable through early diagnosis. Prostate cancer remains the only major cancer in the UK without a national screening programme. I understand that requesting screening can be a real obstacle to some men, so I give heartfelt thanks to my constituent Steve, who is fighting prostate cancer, and who opened up to me about the importance of helping men to get a diagnosis early. Will the Leader of the House allocate time for a debate on the targeted screening programme that is urgently needed to address the gap and improve outcomes for vulnerable groups?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman needs to understand that it is about pay and conditions, not just pay, and it needs to be national if we are to recruit and retain teachers. The previous Government failed on every single measure to retain and recruit qualified teachers.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Children growing up in our country, and in my city of Portsmouth, deserve the very best start in life and nothing less. As a teacher for 24 years, I have seen the best in education and unfortunately, under the Conservatives, the very worst. The best journey in life is not easy, and it is shameful that under the last Government we saw the scrapping of Sure Start and Building Schools for the Future, the narrowing of the curriculum, a failure to meet targets in recruitment and retention, a lack of joined-up services in education and health, a lack of child protection, the ignoring of inquiry recommendations and an Ofsted system that is not fit for purpose. In short, there was a disregard for our children’s future. In just six months, this Government have introduced a Bill that seeks to reverse that situation. The Bill is innovative, and importantly, in drafting the measures the Government have listened to the voices of charities, professionals, parents, children and young people. The Bill provides an opportunity to truly transform lives. The measures will take action in the wake of appalling and tragic child abuse cases; create a register of children not in school; save families in Portsmouth potentially £500 a year per child through the creation of breakfast clubs; cap branded uniform; introduce national pay and conditions for teachers; and ensure that kinship carers have clear guidance. I could continue with this list because the Bill sets out so many more actions to benefit the wellbeing of children, but I want to concentrate on home-schooling. The relationship between many families and local authorities on home-schooling is adversarial and characterised by mistrust. That relationship must be reset. The register is vital to stop children slipping through the cracks. It is crucial that home-schooling is a clear choice and, when chosen, is not a battle between parents and local authorities. Parents must not feel they have no choice but to home-school because the previous Government dismantled SEND provision in our schools, or because children have been offloaded by some schools. We must ensure that every family who make the decision to home-school are doing so freely and with the best interests of their children at the forefront. I believe the children’s register will help provide data and understanding. The new duty for mainstream and alternative provision schools to co-operate with local authorities on place planning will help ensure a plan for adequate school places, which I know will be welcomed in my constituency. The Bill is the single biggest piece of child protection legislation, and it is what the children in my city and our country deserve.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I welcome this important debate. A number of causes for concern are being raised with me by my constituents, and all of them are preventable. First, abandoned cars are routinely being left at the side of a road in my constituency, usually near car dealerships, with no MOTs or insurance. They can sit there for weeks, and they cause a hazard, because local schoolchildren are having to walk around them. One constituent contacted the council, only to be told that it was not the council’s responsibility and the constituent should go to the police. The police said, “Go to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency”, and the DVLA said, “Go back to the council.” Someone needs to take responsibility; that is vital. The second problem is congestion. Cars pull up in bus lanes where there are no double yellow lines, near hospitals, when roads are jam-packed with buses. No one can get in or out, and that causes not only delays but accidents and damage to vehicles. Congestion, and accidents, are also caused by narrow streets and roads that are used as rat runs, with cars running all the way down them. Residents of Oakwood Road have been pushing for a one-way street, although there are speed bumps, because it would help with the flow of traffic and also with safety; the street in question is very near a school. Finally, there is the serious issue of zebra crossing safety. A lack of signage means that crossings are ignored. One, in Baffins, is next to a sixth-form college and also near schools, and hundreds of pupils cross the road every day, but that zebra crossing and others are often ignored.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend talked about a number of schemes, but has he looked at the 20 mph speed limit in Wales, which came into force in September 2023? Insurance companies such as Esure have said that it has reduced risk and that it is also beginning to reduce the premium that people pay in residential areas. We do not just have long and fast roads in our constituencies, but also residential areas, where that 20 mph speed limit has an impact.