Bridget Phillipson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  Tackling child poverty is a moral mission for this Labour Government. Background should not determine what people go on to achieve in life, but we know that inequality and poverty hold back too many of our children. We are improving the life chances of every child by scrapping the two-child limit, rolling out free childcare, Best Start family hubs, and free breakfast clubs, and expanding free school meals. Our child poverty strategy will deliver the largest reduction in child poverty in a single Parliament. This is the difference a Labour Government are making.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  I am proud of the last Labour Government’s record on tackling child poverty, but this Labour Government are going even further. We will lift the largest ever number of children out of poverty in a single Parliament, in sharp contrast with the Conservative party, which would plunge half a million children back into poverty.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am happy to extend my congratulations to Mr Bhatti and the brilliant team at Town Farm primary school, and I hope that all the pupils had a wonderful visit to Parliament. This is an opportunity that we, as Members of Parliament, can encourage our schools to take up, because funding is available to make it happen, and I hope that more children will be able to benefit from the investment that has gone into Parliament and the Parliamentary Education Centre.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady left behind a pay award and zero funding to pay for it. One of the first things that I did as Secretary of State was to deliver that award in full and fully funded; when she was a Treasury Minister, she was totally derelict in her responsibilities. This Labour Government will drive up school standards and make change happen for teachers and leaders. The right hon. Lady says it is nonsense that she has only one policy, which is to cut state school budgets to invest in tax breaks for private schools, but it is true. That is all the Conservatives have. They have nothing to say on education and nothing to say on how they would tackle the major challenges we are dealing with, especially on special educational needs and disabilities.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Many colleagues in the region with local schools served by the trust have raised similar concerns, and I would be more than happy to ensure that my hon. Friend and any other interested Members of Parliament can meet to discuss the issue further. It is clear that, across the system, there have been a number of failings in respect of financial oversight and accountability, which is why we are taking action on MAT-level inspection and will take further action to ensure that public money that is intended to benefit children in their schools and in their education is not wasted in some of the shocking ways in which we have sadly seen it wasted by the Conservative party.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Schools Funding · Hansard source

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  Yes, we will. We a rolling out the GB Energy solar programme to around 350 schools and colleges. We are also unlocking private finance investment in solar and energy efficiency for schools and colleges, with pilots planned for later this year. I am pleased to hear about the impact of the scheme in my hon. Friend’s constituency. A school local to me in Sunderland recently shared that they had saved £4,000 this year through being part of the scheme, which they are using to put on more school trips and activities. We are saving schools money on their energy bills, which will allow them to invest more in driving up standards and teacher quality.

• 29 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My message to nurses and to anyone working in our NHS is that they deserve dignity at work. They deserve to be treated with respect, and they should not face abuse, intimidation or harassment. We have seen some shocking cases, and that is completely unacceptable. The right hon. Lady will appreciate that the regulator is independent of Government. It is independent for a reason, and that is the right approach. She will also know that the code of practice that I intend to lay before Parliament does not apply to employment, but employers should be following the law.

• 29 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. She will appreciate, I am sure, that I cannot comment on the draft code of practice, but I want to reassure the House that trans people will continue to be protected from discrimination under the Equality Act. We will not treat this issue as a political football, as many others have done in the past. As I set out in earlier answers, I intend to lay the draft code before Parliament as soon as possible, once we are through the election period.

• 29 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I completely agree that we must ensure that women and trans people feel safe and are protected from harassment. We will treat everyone with the dignity and respect they deserve, because those are our values, and that is made clear in the Equality Act 2010. We have also been clear that we expect duty bearers to follow the Supreme Court ruling, and to seek legal advice where necessary. I recently received an updated code of practice from the EHRC. I am grateful to it for its work. My intention is to lay the draft code before Parliament in May, as soon as possible after the election period.

• 20 Apr 2026 · Falling School Rolls · Hansard source

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  I do not recognise the characterisation offered by the hon. Gentleman. He will know that through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are making changes that will allow local authorities and local areas to manage school places within their communities better, especially where we are seeing demographic change. Let me add that far too many schools were not serving children well—that was a situation that we inherited—but we are being taking firmer and swifter action to support those schools through our regional improvement for standards and excellence initiative. We cannot wait for late-stage failure before we go in and make change happen. Children and families deserve much more than that, and they deserve much better than the failed approach of the party opposite.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Children in Poverty · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. We recognise the disproportionate financial strain on families with disabled children, who often face significantly higher costs for essentials. We heard that during the development of the child poverty strategy, through many of the children’s rights groups and other organisations that contributed to that work. Our child poverty strategy sets out a plan to lift over half a million children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. Alongside that, we are taking specific steps to support children with additional needs, providing £200 million of investment to ensure that every Best Start family hub has a dedicated practitioner for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Children in Poverty · Hansard source

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  Tackling child poverty is the moral mission of this Labour Government. Background should not determine what we can go on to achieve in life, but inequality and poverty are barriers to opportunity. We are investing in our children’s futures through a massive expansion of Best Start family hubs, childcare, breakfast clubs and free school meals, alongside the end to the two-child limit, and our child poverty strategy will deliver the biggest ever reduction in child poverty in a single Parliament.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Promoting Equality · Hansard source

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  Our recent “Every Child Achieving and Thriving” White Paper sets out our ambition to raise standards for all children and to halve the disadvantage gap between poorer children and their peers at the end of their secondary school career, to make sure that where someone is from does not determine where they end up. We are expanding free school meals and scrapping the two-child limit to lift half a million children out of poverty—that is the difference a Labour Government make.

• 2 Mar 2026 · School SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I know he brings real expertise in this area. I completely understand the point that he makes and that parents have made, given the lack of confidence they have in the system after years of failure, but we are determined to put this right and turn the situation around to make sure that there is more flexible, earlier support available for children. Settings will have a duty to create individual support plans and deliver high-quality provision, drawing on national standards. If schools are not following the plan, it will be clear and obvious. Parents should seek to resolve that directly with the school. Where that does not work, we are strengthening the school complaints process, with independent SEND expertise on the panel. I encourage parents and staff across my hon. Friend’s community to share their views to ensure that we get this right.

• 2 Mar 2026 · National Year of Reading: Phonics · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend knows well, ensuring that all our children, in every corner of the country, learn to read quickly and to enjoy reading is one of this Labour Government’s key priorities. We are building strong foundations for every child in this National Year of Reading. Our best start in life strategy will expand support to improve phonics teaching, and through our regional improvement for standards and excellence English hubs, we are doubling the reach of our “reading ambition for all” programme, so that every child achieves and thrives.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who cares deeply about this matter as both a parent and a politician, for the approach he has taken, and I look forward to working with him and his party in the weeks and months to come. We share a commitment to ensuring that the move from one system—one that we can all agree is not working—to a better one is phased and done carefully. I agree that the voices of parents must be heard right throughout that process. The right hon. Gentleman asks about early support. I completely agree with what he says, which is why we are investing £1 billion in rolling out Best Start family hubs, expanding early years education and school-based nurseries and investing in local authorities’ ability to develop early help. [ Official Report , 2 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 6WC.] (Correction) Colleagues will note in the material we have published that we will continue to see an increase in EHCPs in the years to come before we see a plateauing and then a reduction. The reason for that is that we want to do this in a managed way. I hope that we can reduce those numbers more quickly—not for any arbitrary reason or because we are chasing a number, but because we should be supporting children much earlier. The evidence from Sure Start was clear: if we step in earlier and support families, we reduce the need for SEND support later on in school, especially in areas such as speech and language support, because we have met that need more quickly. I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point around transition and education, health and care plans. We have already set out some detail on specialist provision packages, which will be shaped by an expert panel independent of Government—we will put that on the statute book. There will also be clear national accountability and national standards to move away from the postcode lottery that we have seen recently. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is also interested in how we can ensure that cases of high need and low incidence are addressed through regional models, which we have committed to considering through the consultation. The voices of parents will be heard as we move forward. We have launched our consultation, which will run for 12 weeks. There will be events the length and breadth of the country to enable parents to take part in that conversation, and I urge parents, health staff, education staff and others to share their views on what we have published to make sure that we are getting this right. On the pupil premium and the targeting of disadvantage funding, I am keen to address the fact that free schools meals are quite a blunt way to assess disadvantage in a family. We know that children who are on free school meals or who face persistent disadvantage and poverty right throughout their school career are far more likely to have bad outcomes than children who spend a period of time in poverty. We need a more nuanced approach to how we can better target resource to better improve outcomes for children. We will be consulting on that, and I look forward to discussing it with the right hon. Gentleman further.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I agree strongly with my hon. Friend and, like him, I have seen fantastic practice that works incredibly well. It can be variable, and we will make sure that there are clear quality standards for more specialist provision in the mainstream, and Ofsted will inspect against those. Also, the amount of provision available can vary hugely across an area. That is why I have set out our expectation that every secondary school will have an inclusion base, and we will have a similar number of inclusion bases in local primary schools, so that everyone comes together and does what is necessary to deliver a fully inclusive mainstream system that better caters for children with complex needs and special needs, but also works with the specialist sector to deliver that.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I understand my hon. Friend’s point and I am grateful to her. We will create and put in statute a set of nationally consistent specialist provision packages underpinned by clear national standards and shaped and defined by experts to bring an end to the postcode lottery and ensure consistency wherever someone happens to be.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I will seek to respond to the right hon. Lady’s questions. I welcome the broadly constructive approach she has taken, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that so many of the problems we are dealing with were left behind by the Conservative party, and an ounce of humility, contrition or understanding as to how we got here would really enlighten our understanding of what we need to do to make change happen. As I said in my statement, I recognise that the intentions behind the 2014 reforms were good intentions, but it became very clear, very quickly that problems were developing within that system. The right hon. Lady asks about council deficits and about the challenge. That became pretty clear, pretty quickly, and in 2019 the Conservatives brought in the statutory override, because it was clear that councils were struggling with the increasing demands they were facing. [ Official Report , 2 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 6WC.] (Correction) That, however, did not happen in isolation. It happened because, between 2010 and 2019, family support services were stripped away—Sure Start centres closed, early help went, children were left to struggle—and we stored up problems for the future. The failure to identify and support children sooner is part of the reason we continue to see escalating need in our school system. Today, we are putting that right. We will address the challenges that children and families face at the earliest possible point, not wait until years down the line when things have reached crisis point. That is as true in our schools as it is in children’s social care. It is also why we will take action to clamp down on the massive expansion in private equity-backed, independent specialist provision that is sucking money out of our education system into profit when it should be focused on outcomes for children. The right hon. Lady asks about specialist provision packages. We have published a document setting out the shape and nature of those packages. I intend to appoint an expert panel with clinical and education expertise to shape them, to make sure that we have clear national standards—not a postcode lottery, as we have seen in the past. On individual support plans, our intention is that they will be easy to use, digital, and able to move between different settings. In many settings that will happen already, but we want the consistency that comes with having one system. Ofsted will also look carefully at how settings are using ISPs in order to judge effective inclusion. The right hon. Lady asks whether this is about saving money, what the time period is, and about the OBR’s projections. The figure quoted by the OBR was a projection based on an unreformed system. We are reforming the system and investing up front to deliver reform. This is not about cutting costs, saving money, arbitrary targets or reducing numbers; this is about better support and better outcomes for children. The way in which the right hon. Lady framed her point about inclusion was fundamentally wrong and misjudged. Of course schools should take action when violent incidents take place, but that is not the same thing as making sure that schools are catering to children with special educational needs and disabilities. There is a need for caution in how we approach this point. The transition to the new system will be a careful, phased transition over the course of the decade. It will not be until 2030 at the earliest that the new system will be fully operational. We are taking the time to manage this and get it right, as children move from one system to the next. Finally, the right hon. Lady asked about the role for trusts and the Government’s approach. It was the last Labour Government who introduced academies to drive up standards in our most disadvantaged communities, but I see no conflict at all between the approach that we are taking and insisting that children should be taught by qualified teachers and that their parents should be confident that the national curriculum is being followed. It was the Conservatives who first introduced the national curriculum. They were right to do so then, and we still back that now, but it is right that parents should expect a qualified teacher and should not expect to pay the earth for a school uniform. This is a conversation that I have no doubt will continue in the weeks and months ahead. I relish the opportunity to set out the Government’s ambition for every child in our country. This is a golden opportunity to shape our school system to deliver better, earlier, and more timely support for children who have been let down for too long. This Labour Government will turn it around.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I am certainly interested in hearing more about that approach. We have made big strides forward in initial teacher training. The extra investment we are putting in will support existing teachers and staff working in the profession. However, there is more to do. We are committed to continuing to review standards in initial teacher training. I would be very happy if the hon. Lady shared more details with me.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is right about the transition to adulthood and ensuring that our children are well prepared for what comes next as they move through the school system and into adult life. Many further education colleges and specialist settings already do that incredibly well, but it is variable. We want to deliver higher standards and greater opportunities for young people—particularly those with SEND—through supported internships and options for work placements, and ensure that they can live independent lives as much as possible.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. I have heard time and again from educational psychologists, SENCOs and speech and language therapists that they spend all that time training to work with children to deliver better support and to drive up standards across a setting, but they find themselves sat at a desk sending emails and filling out forms. I want those amazing and talented professionals to work with children, delivering change. The move to a more flexible system away from that bureaucracy and fight will free up a lot of time for those amazing people to do that work.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  Madam Deputy Speaker, please allow me to begin by saying that the unauthorised leaking of elements of today’s announcement is deeply regrettable. I have already asked officials to launch a full investigation into the source to ensure that such breaches do not happen again. With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will now make a statement to update the House on this Government’s work to transform education in this country, because childhood is changing. Our children are growing up in a world of ever-increasing connectivity and communication, but uncertainty and mistrust are on the rise, too. Our children have the curiosity, resilience and enterprise to succeed, but a vision for education that stops at the school gates has failed to deliver the opportunities they need. Under the last Government, absence was at historic highs. Despite the heroic efforts of staff, the disadvantage gap is still stubbornly wide, children with special educational needs and disabilities are still sidelined, and bright pupils are still left to drift along. A system of high standards for some, but not for others, is not good enough; high standards and inclusion must go hand in hand. The last Government’s vision for education was too narrow. No school is an island, and for children to do well, we need to look outside the classroom as well as inside it. We need to rebuild the services on which families rely. That is why we have acted fast, beginning to remove the stain of child poverty, rolling out free breakfast clubs, expanding free school meals and removing the two-child limit. I am deeply proud that this Labour Government will have lifted more than half a million children out of poverty by 2030. We have also delivered the expansion of 30 hours of Government-funded childcare; we are rolling out Best Start family hubs, and we will fund a SEND practitioner in every hub. Today, we go further. We are publishing our schools White Paper, a vision for schools that do not stand alone, but are at the heart of happy and healthy childhoods. For every child, a great local school—a school of ambition and achievement; a school filled with sport, music and drama; a school of high standards and inclusion. Let there be no doubt: standards will rise for all children. Those born under this Labour Government will on average leave school with a grade 5 or higher across their GCSEs, and I will not have higher standards for some while others are left behind. The disadvantage gap was as stark in 2024 as it was a decade before, but now we will cut it in half. We will boost the impact of the pupil premium and the national funding formula, consulting on better targeting, and we will deliver three big shifts in our schools. The first big shift will be from narrow to broad, capturing the true breadth of opportunity, starting before children even reach the classroom with our Best Start family hubs. To improve the transition into reception, we will establish partnerships between early years and schools, and staff will work together to help children settle. School days will be energised by a broad and rich curriculum that contains the knowledge and skills for all our young people to succeed, and we will consult on measuring attainment and progress, improving the Progress 8 measure to strengthen the academic core and support students to pursue subjects that strengthen our economy and our society, such as drama, art and design, if that is the route they want to take. We will set high expectations and standards for all, and nowhere more so than in reading. The ability to read opens up a world of opportunity, and falling behind locks children out of learning, so our new year 8 reading test will help them to stay on track. Currently, too many children are sidelined and held back, with their needs not met. We know that the biggest challenges are concentrated in some communities: that is why we will launch and fund two place-focused education missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal. We will transform the life chances of local young people and draw a blueprint for national change. We need an education system that works for every child: that is why our second shift is from sidelined to included, to inject excellence and rigour into the learning of every child. But, as a society, we have let those expectations slip for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Members across the House all know that our SEND system is not working. They have heard it from their constituents: parents who are tired of fighting, who are fed up with sending their children out of their communities to have their needs met, and who are angry that their child’s future is being written off. Parents and children have been failed, and they have been failed for too long. That is the reality that this Government inherited from the Conservatives: a system that was designed with the best of intentions, but which became “lose, lose, lose”, in the words of my predecessor, because of the choices and then the inaction of the Conservative party. It was a system that drove local councils, again and again, to put process above people. Support was stripped away, forcing parents to run a legal gauntlet for what should have been their child’s by right: support that all too often just did not materialise. Today, that changes. We will fix the SEND system once and for all. Today is a realisation of those children’s rights, the right to high expectations and outcomes and the support to fulfil them. Far more local children will be going to school with their friends in their local communities, close to home. It will be better for them and, evidence suggests, better for the whole class. Over the next three years, we will invest more than £1.6 billion to strengthen the mainstream inclusion offer. For those children whose needs cannot be met through universal support, there will now be three further layers of support—targeted, targeted-plus and specialist—available from day one when a child needs them. Schools will now have a statutory duty to record and monitor each child’s special needs and provision in an individual support plan. We will fortify mainstream provision with our new national Experts at Hand initiative, backed by £1.8 billion of new investment. Educational psychologists and occupational and speech and language therapists in our schools will support our teachers, benefiting our children. Earlier this month, we announced huge investment in school buildings. Every secondary school will have an inclusion base, a dedicated space to bridge the gap between mainstream and specialist provision. This is about improving support, not removing support. Children with the most complex needs will still have access to education, health and care plans derived from a specialist provision package of support designed by experts. We know that insightful, holistic inclusion happens when schools share their expertise and their resources, so we will strengthen schools’ strategic SEND partnerships, with every school becoming part of a local SEND group. Our new national inclusion standards will set out clear evidence-based guidance for support. To restore parents’ trust in the system, we will improve the mediation and school complaints process, making the SEND tribunal the genuine mechanism of last resort, and we will give the Children’s Commissioner a new remit to oversee our SEND reforms. I thank every parent, every organisation and every group who has taken part in our national conversation on SEND. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould) for driving forward that work. This is not the end of the conversation. I urge everyone to get involved, as today we launch our national SEND consultation. I ask parents, carers, support staff, teachers, experts and leaders to work with us. We are building a system for children with SEND that will be unrecognisable from what came before. We are putting in the investment, care and time to get this right, with a smooth transition from 2030. Schools need engagement from without as well as within, with communities coming together to support every child, so our final shift will be from withdrawn to engaged. We need to mend the broken social contract by helping children to feel that they belong in school and providing calm, inclusive classrooms that welcome children with different needs, guarded by high standards for behaviour and attendance. Schools will build deep and meaningful partnerships with parents by inviting them in to see how their child can achieve and thrive. We will establish minimum expectations for home-to-school partnerships, making it clear what families can expect from schools and what schools can expect of families. Excellent support staff, teachers and school leaders can transform children’s lives, but too many incredible young women are still leaving the profession, so I am putting an end to a quarter-century of standstill and boosting maternity pay. I want to spread the excellence of our wonderful staff, so we will put purposeful collaboration at the heart of our education system. Strong school trusts are vital in sharing what works and driving improvement, so all schools will move towards forming or joining a high-quality trust, and we will empower local authorities and partnerships to establish trusts too. We will work with the sector through this significant change, set high expectations through new trust standards, and introduce trust inspection by Ofsted. We in this House have a responsibility to look beyond the here and now—a duty not just to run the country of today, but to shape the society of tomorrow. Members will agree that, in Britain, background should be no barrier, success should be open to all, and talent, invention and hard work should matter more than class and connections. A stronger, fairer Britain is possible, but to make it true in our country we first have to make it true in our schools and for the little boys and girls now sitting in our classrooms, who can become the thoughtful and engaged citizens to take us towards the 22nd century. For them, we must come together today and build a Britain of opportunity for all. I commend this statement to the House.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  We have set out our intention to introduce inspections at trust level. Alongside that, we will renew trust standards to ensure that all trusts are doing the best for children in their care. I am sure that the Minister for School Standards would be happy to discuss further the issues that the hon. Lady raises.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am not aware of the particular case that the right hon. Lady describes. What I can say is that violence, intimidation or harassment has no place in our politics. No political candidate or Member of Parliament should be subject to that kind of experience. I am very much looking forward to going to campaign and make the case to the people there.