Bridget Phillipson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jun 2025 · Antisemitism on University Campuses · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the report by StandWithUs UK. Antisemitism has no place in our lecture halls, campuses and universities, and no place in our society. Universities must be places where all students feel safe and respected, and are able to thrive. A week ago today, I brought together university vice-chancellors and community leaders to hear testimonials from Jewish students, and to discuss next steps to ensure safer and more inclusive campuses for all our students.

• 28 Apr 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  This Labour Government inherited a lose, lose, lose SEND system, in the words of the Tories’ last Education Secretary, but we have invested an additional £1 billion in high needs budgets and £740 million to pave the way for pupils with SEND to achieve and thrive in mainstream schools. Just last week in Derbyshire, I met families with experience of the SEND system who had been badly failed by the Tory county council. This Labour Government know that the SEND system needs far-reaching reform to deliver better life chances for all our children.

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend—that is where we will make the biggest difference to children’s life chances. All the evidence is clear that where gaps open up early, they endure into the long run, which has a lasting impact on children’s ability to do well at school and get good GCSEs and on their earnings potential into the future. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done over many years to support her community, including as a school governor.

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  I agree about the importance of family support services, especially for our youngest children. The hon. Lady mentioned Sure Start; that was a proud achievement of the last Labour Government, and when her party was in coalition with the Conservatives, we saw Sure Start centres close right across the country. However, she makes a fair point about the support that is required in the early years, which is why we are doing more, and will do more in the months ahead. While access to early education is a critical part of what many families want, alongside access to high-quality health visiting and speech and language support, community provision is also critical. That is why I am working very closely with the Health Secretary to ensure that all families have good access to both education services and health and care services.

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  With permission, I will make a statement to update the House on the roll-out of nurseries in our primary schools. This Labour Government are bringing the change that families deserve. We made promises to the parents and children of this country and, not nine months in, we are acting to deliver on them. Free breakfast clubs are already being rolled out, the curriculum and assessment review is in full swing, and children’s social care is seeing the biggest overhaul in a generation. We have funding for 10,000 new places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, backing for up to 10,000 more apprentices to qualify, new improvement teams for our schools and a new allowance for our kinship carers—promises made, promises kept. Here, today, we go further. This £37 million in funding for 300 primary schools to open and expand nurseries is a big step towards delivering 3,000 nurseries for schools, a big step towards delivering childcare for parents and a big step towards delivering the best start in life for all our children. I want that best start in life for every child, because I want opportunity for every child. I want every child in every village, town and city across our country to grow up knowing that success belongs to them. That is the kind of country I want to live in—the country that this Labour Government want to build, with opportunity not just for some, but for all our children. To achieve that, we need to start early, before university or college, and even before school—in the earliest years of our children’s lives. Those years are fundamental to opportunity. That is where gaps in learning and development first appear, and the longer we wait, the wider they grow and the harder they are to close. That is why, when I am in schools, colleges and universities—even in those places—they agree that the biggest chance to make an impact on our children’s lives sits in those crucial early years. That is why this is my No. 1 priority. If we get this right, and we set all children on the track to success, that is where they will stay. That is why, despite the huge fiscal challenges that we inherited from the Conservatives, we chose to invest more than £8 billion in the early years at the last Budget. It is why the early years are a central part of the Prime Minister’s plan for change, setting the target of a record share of children starting school ready to learn. That is why I am today announcing the 300 schools that will be delivering our first wave of new and expanded school-based nurseries. Many of these school-based nurseries will serve communities facing big challenges, where there is strong evidence of need. Overall, it means up to 6,000 more nursery places for young children where they will have the biggest impact, with most of them starting in September this year. That is vital, because that is when the final stage of the 30 hours a week childcare entitlement will kick in. When that is joined up with the offer for three and four-year-olds, working parents of children from nine months right up to the beginning of school will get 30 Government-funded hours of childcare a week. The 300 schools are just the start. It is 300 on the road to 3,000 school-based nurseries. We will work with schools, voluntary and private providers, teachers and local partners to find and spread what works. By the end, it will mean that tens of thousands more parents have the power to choose the hours they want to work. What a contrast with the Conservatives, because what we inherited was not just an offer that they had not bothered to fund, but a pledge without a plan, with places, promises and provision missing. Parents made decisions on the back of those promises. Again and again, I hear from parents how much they have been relying on the promises that the previous Government scattered about like confetti. Across our country, this Government are delivering change in months, when the last Government waited 13 years before signing a post-dated cheque. The changes that we are making will give parents more control over their lives, time to choose their working hours and money back in their pockets. The last Coram report showed that the effects are starting to flow through. Childcare costs for under-threes in England have halved since the expansion, but ultimately childcare and early years education is about children. It is about launching a lifetime of learning and starting as we mean to go on, so as we roll out these school-based nurseries, we are also adding the biggest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, closing the attainment gap and giving every child the support that they need to learn and grow, and we are supporting early years educators to build their expertise. It is not just what is taught in those nurseries that counts, but where they are located: they are in primary schools, which is no accident. We are centring schools in their communities, starting early, working with the voluntary sector and private providers too, so that the move from nursery to school is a natural step, from one room to another, sometimes even in the same building, as is the case at St Anne’s church academy in Weston-super-Mare. Having a nursery on site means that stronger, longer lasting relationships with families can be built. Parents feel that they are part of the community, so they engage more when their child starts nursery and then moves into school. When their child starts reception, there are no big, scary changes, building the sense that school is where they are meant to be. I saw that powerfully this week when I went to Peterborough to visit Fulbridge academy. Little Oak nursery sits at the heart of the school. While I was there, I spoke to Hannah, a working mum whose little boy, Nile, goes to the nursery. She told me all about the difference that Little Oak was making to her family, and about how her son is making friends and taking big strides in his learning, ready to join his two older siblings at school in September. The nursery plays a big part in making Fulbridge academy the centre of that community. It is the same for free breakfast clubs, which is why we announced the 750 early adopters this year. Schools are the beating hearts of their communities, where children come together to eat, learn and grow. It is good for attendance and achievement, for behaviour and belonging, and for children and their life chances. That is the point: this is action for them, to give them the start that they deserve, because that is my No. 1 priority, built on a deep and fierce commitment to the children of this country in the first years of their lives, taking their first steps into the world. In our youngest children’s faces and in the faces of all who work with them, we see something that for so long has been missing from our country: hope. We see the hope of a brighter and better future, the hope of a secure and prosperous world, the hope that tomorrow can be better than today and the hope that this is a Government that are on their side. That is the future that we shape together, not face alone. That is the hope that so many people in our country have—that our best days lie ahead of us. That is what the people of this country chose in the general election last July, when they chose hope over fear, and chose a brighter tomorrow, not a bitter yesterday. And that is why I am so focused on getting on and delivering change, because it matters so much for lives now, not in some distant future. Early years are where futures are made, where life chances are won and where healthier societies are built. That is the prize on offer. Our youngest generation is the first generation for whom opportunity is open to all, right from the start, and I know that Members from across the House will agree that that is a prize worth fighting for. I commend this statement to the House.

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  I was delighted to join my hon. Friend in visiting Fulbridge and to meet the brilliant staff team, who are doing so much to support all children in that community, so that they can achieve all they are capable of. There should be no ceiling on children’s ambition and aspiration, including in working-class communities. I know he will continue to champion his constituency and community, and ensure that, alongside our plan for change, we deliver a country in which background is no barrier to getting on in life, and in which we have broken the link between background and success.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence Teams · Hansard source

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  Universal support will be available to all schools to drive up standards, but we expect all schools to engage in mandatory, targeted RISE intervention. We will not hesitate to act where there are concerns. Unlike the last Conservative Government, we will not stand by as children pass through schools that are not delivering, year after year.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence Teams · Hansard source

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  Labour’s RISE teams have hit the ground running. The first wave of advisers—professionals with a proven track record of driving up standards—are now drawing up improvement plans with schools. The Tories left more than 600 stuck schools teaching over 300,000 children with no plan for improvement. Labour will drive high and rising standards, turning those schools around and creating a system where every child can achieve and thrive.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence Teams · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is right to identify the disadvantage gaps that exist in many parts of the country, and the challenge in her part of the country. We believe that local authorities have an important role to play, working with trust leaders and others to drive up standards. That is why, through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are bringing forward measures to ensure that the system works together more effectively, including in areas such as admissions and place planning.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right about the challenges across the further education sector. Sadly, we know those challenges all too well after 14 years of failure under the Conservatives. We recognise the enormous opportunity that comes from investing in our fantastic colleges. That is why at the Budget we announced an extra £300 million of additional revenue for further education and £300 million of new capital investment. That also builds on our investment to extend targeted retention incentive payments of up to £6,000 after tax to eligible early career FE teachers in key subject areas. Our FE sector will have a crucial role to play in our mission for growth and opportunity, and he is right to draw attention to that. Skills England will be ready to give employers the fast and flexible support they need. While updates to courses in the past have been sluggish and left behind by new technology, the Bill will help us keep up with the pace of change. Skills England will draw on high-quality data. It will design courses that are demand-led and shaped from the ground up by employers. Employers should be in no doubt that they will have a critical role in course design and delivery. That is why I have appointed Phil Smith to chair Skills England. Phil brings a wealth of business expertise from his two decades leading Cisco and will ensure that employers are at the heart of Skills England. I have appointed Sir David Bell as vice-chair, drawing on his wealth of experience across education and Whitehall. I have also appointed Tessa Griffiths and Sarah Maclean as chief executive on a job-share basis, with Gemma Marsh as deputy chief executive. They will provide strong, independent leadership to move the skills system forward. Skills England will be held accountable by an independent board, and the Bill requires a report to be published and laid before Parliament, setting out the impact on technical education and apprenticeships of the exercise of the functions in the measure. The clear relationship between the Department and Skills England is governed by a public framework document, which will be published for all to see. It will be a core constitutional document produced in line with guidance from the Treasury, making clear the different roles of my Department and Skills England. Skills England will reach across the country. It will not be trapped in Whitehall but spread to every town and city, because growth and employment must benefit every part of the country, not just where it is easy to drive growth. That means being ambitious, especially in areas that have been overlooked for decades, because talent and aspiration are no less present in those places. Skills England will drive co-ordinated action to meet regional and national skills needs at all levels and in all places. It will work closely with mayoral strategic authorities and local and regional organisations, and it will connect with counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Skills England will simplify the system by combining functions within one powerful body and pulling together the disparate strands of Departments, local leaders, colleges, universities and training providers and weaving them into a coherent offer for businesses and learners alike. To see why the skills revolution is so important for growth and why we must take skills seriously again, we should look no further than the UK’s stalling productivity over the last decade and a half, dragging down our economy and cutting off hopes of higher incomes for workers. The skills system is central because, despite all its problems, the expansion of workforce skills drove a third of average annual productivity growth between 2001 and 2019. Here we have a chance. Here we see what is at stake. If we get this right by investing in our people and backing Skills England, we can drive productivity and get economic growth back on track. At the same time, we can give working people power and choice because that is what good skills can offer: the chance for them to take control of their careers and take advantage of the opportunities that our economy will create. That is why Skills England will work to support the forthcoming industrial strategy unveiled by the Chancellor last November. The next phase of its work will provide further evidence on the strategy’s eight growth-driving sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, the creative industries, defence, digital, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services. Added to those are two more: construction and healthcare. Skills England will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Council, which will monitor the strategy’s progress against clear objectives.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and to the workforce there, for the fantastic efforts that they have made in order to take part in this scheme. I look forward to seeing the impact it has in schools in her community and in constituencies across the country, so that we can make sure that when we roll out this scheme nationwide, we do so on the basis of the best available evidence, taken from a range of different contexts in different constituencies across England.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his work in his community to support families. He is right to suggest that all parents experience challenges at different points. Being a parent is a wonderful job, but it can also be a very challenging job at times, and the Government are determined to make sure that support is always available to families. We want to ensure that as we roll out this programme across the country as quickly as we can, we learn the lessons about what works in different parts of our country. I give my hon. Friend my commitment that the action that we are taking as a Government will benefit families right across his constituency. We are taking action on school uniform costs, rolling out childcare and early years entitlements, and making sure that children have more early and timely access to support in areas like SEND.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  The children and families at my hon. Friend’s schools in Worcester will benefit directly from the early adopters programme, but they will also be an important part of how we roll out this scheme nationwide, allowing us to develop best practice. I pay tribute to the schools and their leaders in his community for taking part in the scheme. He is absolutely right that we want to ensure that all children are set up to succeed at the start of the school day, so that they can achieve, thrive and succeed in every way possible.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  The schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency will play an important role in determining how we can roll out this commitment right across our country. Of course, the early adopters in his community will make a really meaningful difference to parents and children, but they will also give us the opportunity to test and learn as we go and, crucially, to demonstrate the impact of a universal breakfast club offer. We know that that is the way we can make sure that we reach some of the families that might find it more difficult to access such provision, because it is a less stigmatising way of reaching those in greatest need.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the school leaders in his community, who will be a part—a very important part—of our early adopters scheme. I thank them for their contribution. He is right to highlight the important need for all breakfast clubs to be inclusive, including for children with SEND, which is why, through this process, we will be able to learn from what works. It is also why, alongside announcements about breakfast clubs in mainstream schools, we are announcing specialist provision—alternative provision schools will be a part of this—so that we can learn from the best practice that exists in the specialist sector and ensure that mainstream schools can also develop it.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  Through the early adopters programme, schools will be able to take part in a peer-to-peer support network, so that they can work together to share expertise and approaches at a regional level, which will be crucial to the work we take forward on the national roll-out. The school in my hon. Friend’s constituency will not just play a role in supporting families locally; it will be an essential part of how we learn what works and what is most effective. We want to ensure that best practice is spread across the country as we roll out breakfast clubs nationwide.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I send my best wishes to Miss Dawley and to the whole school community. They are clearly doing fantastic work to support children in my hon. Friend’s area. Of course breakfast clubs in primary schools bring benefits to parents at the start of the school day, giving them choices and flexibility at work, but, critically, this is about boosting children’s life chances. The evidence is very clear about the impact on attendance, behaviour and attainment. This is a crucial part of ensuring that background is no barrier to getting on in life.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the need to ensure that every child has the best start in life. I am grateful for her generous invitation, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Early Education Minister and I will consider it along with, no doubt, a great many other invitations. We intend to test and learn as we go along to ensure that the scheme is being rolled out effectively. This is a crucial part of ensuring that all children have opportunities at the start of the school day to play, to learn, to socialise and to benefit from that softer start. My hon. Friend was right to mention evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation which demonstrates the impact of breakfast clubs on attendance, attainment and behaviour, affecting not just the children who benefit but the whole school community.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  With permission, I will make a statement updating the House on the Government’s work to deliver free breakfast clubs and give every child the best start in life. This is a Government who act on their principles, deliver on their promises and drive the change that the country needs—change that is felt in our villages, towns and cities; change that will help families with the cost of living; and change that lifts the life chances of our children across the country. Change begins and the biggest difference can be made during those early years of life, and on into primary school, when the possibilities still stretch out. Our action is urgent. Far too many children growing up in this country are held back by their background and denied the opportunity to go on to live happy and healthy lives, with the bad luck of a tough start weighing down their life chances. I will not stand by while those children are let down, because I believe that background should not mean destiny. Every single child deserves the very best start in life. To achieve and thrive at school is the right of all children. Our manifesto outlined the action a Labour Government would take, and now, not yet eight months on from the election, we are delivering change in early years, change in primary schools and change in our country. I am delighted to update the House today that I have confirmed more than 750 schools as early adopters of our free breakfast club scheme. That is a promise made, and a promise kept. I will always act to protect working families’ livelihoods for children and their parents. It is for them that we are working tirelessly to deliver change, and it is for them that we will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school in this country. That is what we said we would do in our manifesto, and it is exactly what we are doing now. Evidence shows why this matters so much. When schools introduce breakfast clubs, behaviour improves, attendance increases and attainment grows. That is no surprise when we are giving children the gift of a calm, welcoming start to the day, filled with friends, fun and food. It is the foundation for success that every child needs. This is about parents as well as children. Our new breakfast clubs will save families up to £450 a year, putting money directly back into parents’ pockets. That is why we are moving ahead with such energy and urgency, for children and for parents. We are working to cement the clubs in legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Thousands of schools have applied to take part—an indication of overwhelming demand, and a spur to act. From this April, free breakfast clubs will begin to reach more than 180,000 children, and 70,000 pupils from schools in the most deprived parts of the country will be able to take part. Our early adopter schools are drawn from all kinds of places: cities and villages, north and south, east and west, affluent areas and more disadvantaged communities, big schools and smaller schools, mainstream schools and special schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities. They include schools that have had a club before and those that have not; schools in which parents have had to pay for breakfast clubs in the past; and schools in which places are limited. That variety is key. It gives us a representative sample, so we can see what works, when, where, why and how, guided by the best evidence. That is how we will maximise the impact of the full roll-out, bringing the benefits to children across the entire country. We are taking a new approach—the challenges we face demand it. Breakfast clubs are one part, but we are going further and delivering more change for children. We are a mission-led Government, bringing meaningful change that is felt in our towns, our cities, and our communities, and I am proud to be leading our mission across Government to break down the barriers to opportunity. In December the Prime Minister unveiled our plan for change, and within that plan lies a vital milestone: a record proportion of children starting school, ready to learn. That is crucial to closing the opportunity gap; all children arriving at school, ready to achieve and to thrive gets right to the heart of what it means to have the very best start in life. I believe that delivering the best start in life is about families—parents and children. Breakfast clubs are one piece of the puzzle, but our action starts earlier in life, with great early education and childcare. It is something that I have spent many years in this House fighting for, but that our childcare system has denied families. There are areas underserved with childcare places yet overwhelmed with demand; additional hours are offered nationally, but they are unavailable to families locally. The Opposition’s failure to keep their promises is the reason their party suffered such an emphatic defeat at the last election. A promise made but not acted on is not a promise at all, and a pledge without a plan to deliver is meaningless. That is why this Government are committed to delivering the entitlements that parents were promised before the last election. As a result of this Government’s hard work in making that pledge a reality, families can now access 15 hours of Government-funded childcare a week from when their child is nine months old. From September, that will increase to 30 hours a week, matching the offer for three and four-year-olds. This Government have matched the pledge with a plan—a promise now backed by funding. In the next financial year alone, we will invest more than £8 billion in early years entitlements, an increase of more than £2 billion. On top of that is a new £75 million expansion grant to support the sector to provide the extra places and staff needed. We will use those 30 hours a week to combine childcare with great early education, and to give children the very best start in life. I want to double down on support for those children who need it most, in the areas that need it most. That is why I introduced the biggest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium. Childcare delivers for parents too. Just like breakfast clubs, the entitlements give parents power, choice and freedom over their lives, enabling them to go back to work if that is what they want to do—work choices for parents; life chances for children. These are the steps we are taking and the promises we are keeping to support families. I am determined to see the change through, but it is not a shot in the dark. The value of giving children the best start in life, and the power of spreading breakfast clubs across the country, is as clear as day and there for all to see if we know where to look. On the northern edge of St Helens sits Carr Mill primary school. Children at Carr Mill can come in before the school day starts and eat breakfast with their friends in the school bistro. When they reach year 5, they are invited to become bistro leaders. Those young leaders help their peers to get a good breakfast, but they also learn about responsibility, caring for their classmates, and what it means to be part of a community. Parents see the change in their children, who are more confident and eager to go to school in the morning, and the younger ones look up to the bistro leaders. It is not just the breakfast; it is the club too—helping children to settle, showing them that they belong in school, getting them ready to learn, and shaping not just the students of today but the citizens of tomorrow. It sets children up for success in school and in life, because that wider goal we are chasing of giving every child the best start in life means giving them the best start to their school day, each and every day, week after week, year after year. That is how we are breaking the link between background and success, and how we are delivering the change that parents voted for. That is how we are driving the change that the children of this country deserve. I commend this statement to the House.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Child Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  Parents who choose to home educate their children are within their rights to do so. Those who provide a safe, loving environment and a good standard of education have nothing to be concerned about in the legislation. We are concerned about the growing number of children of whom we simply have no visibility. The Bill will ensure that where there are serious concerns about child protection and safeguarding, such as where a section 47 investigation is under way, the local authority must consent to home education. I am staggered that the hon. Gentleman finds those straightforward measures to keep children safe such an outrage. They are about protecting children.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Higher Education Regulatory Approach · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that, across the board, there are big challenges in the university sector. That is why I took the difficult but necessary decision last year to increase the fees that they are able to charge. This year, we will engage in reform right across the sector to provide the long-term financial sustainability that is required. As my hon. Friend recognises, we on the Government Benches are clear that our universities are a central part of our local and regional economies, and a beacon of excellence around the world. That is why so many students from around the globe seek to come to our world-leading universities.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Higher Education Regulatory Approach · Hansard source

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  I am confident that the OfS, as the regulator, and its director for freedom of speech will seek to engage with a range of views, including those of Jewish students and community organisations, as they take forward this important work. That is certainly something that I have done to understand the concerns and the potential impact on minority students, including Jewish students, at a time when we all sadly know that antisemitism on our campuses and streets has been rising. As a country, we must do everything in our power to tackle that.

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

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  A number of provisions in the Bill deal precisely with that challenge. We recognise that in London—but shortly this will be the case right across our country—there are challenges that come with falling rolls and making sure that we manage that properly. That will require schools to work with local councils, and to collaborate on managing admissions and place planning. It will also require decisions on how we make best use of the schools estate. That is why we have started encouraging primary schools to bid to open primary-based nurseries. The recent pilot programme for that has closed, and we were delighted to see so many applications. There is also an opportunity to think about using the space that will open up as a result of falling rolls to create additional provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, so that they can go to a school much closer to home, and can go to school with their friends, in their local community. There has been welcome consensus that a high-quality state education should be the right of all children. That consensus has helped to ensure that innovations—from Ofsted to the national curriculum and academies—have stood the test of time, as Governments of all parties have driven reform. Academies, introduced by the last Labour Government and expanded by the Conservative party, have been instrumental in raising standards in our school system. They have delivered brilliant results, particularly for the most disadvantaged children, and they will continue their record of excellence under this Labour Government. However, this consensus must not stifle progress. While the Conservative party did make some progress over the past 14 years, it must reckon with its many failures. For example, one in four children leaves primary school without meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. Tens of thousands of children do not secure good maths or English GCSEs. One in five children is regularly absent from school; they are unable to learn if they are not there, and hold back their classmates when they return. There are also hundreds of thousands of children in schools that perform poorly year after year. Protecting the foundations should not mean that we do not build on them. After a decade of stagnation—I say a decade because Conservative Members will remember a time when they had an Education Secretary who was determined to deliver reform—now is the time to press on and, once again, deliver for our children. Members will see in the Bill a respect for the fundamentals, twinned with the drive to go further and deliver high and rising standards for each and every child. We inherited a system that was too fragmented, and that too often incentivised harmful competition over helpful collaboration.

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

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  No; I invite the right hon. Lady to look carefully at the measures in the Bill. We will not hesitate to intervene in failing schools—indeed, we will intervene a lot sooner than the Conservatives did in schools that are coasting. Those schools that fall short of the statutory level of intervention will see regional improvement teams in their schools driving up standards. Where there is failure in the system, or where schools are not delivering the standards that every child deserves, we will act. That action will always be guided by what is best for the children in those schools. That may well be academisation, or it may be targeted intervention to drive change in practice and drive up standards, rather than to change the structure. The Bill will convert the duty to issue academy orders into the power to better deliver high and rising standards for all children, strengthening the range of ways through which failure can be tackled. There can be no excuse for fixating on structures and not on standards, because what matters is what works. The Bill ends the presumption that new schools should be academies, giving local authorities the freedom to deliver the schools that their communities need. That includes the ability to open new special schools—something that Members across the House know is a major challenge. This Government will work tirelessly to make sure that all children with special educational needs and disabilities receive the support they need to achieve and thrive. The previous Government left that in the “too difficult” box, but we will tackle it and ensure that all our children get a great education.

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

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  We are looking carefully at all the schools in the pipeline, but we need to ensure that in every case there is a strong case for the need for the school and good value for the taxpayer. We have inherited an enormous challenge when it comes to the public finances, and we have had to make difficult decisions because of the £22 billion black hole that the hon. Member and his party left behind. [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), who is chuntering away, was in Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and responsible for overseeing all of that. Returning to support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, we will improve inclusivity in mainstream schools while ensuring that specialist provision can cater for those with the most complex needs. The changes that the Bill brings are underpinned by our wider reforms to drive improvement. New school report cards will give a full picture of a school’s performance. New RISE—regional improvement for standards and excellence—teams will draw on the excellence in our system and bring schools together to spread good practice and challenge underperformance. Accountability and inspection should be a galvanising force for improvement and a catalyst for quality, raising the floor of success, not lowering the ceiling of ambition. It should not drag schools down but lift children up. It is about them—it is always about them.