Georgia Gould MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · Draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 20 May 2026. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 changes the legal framework for opening new state-funded schools. It ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies, and helps to ensure that new schools can be delivered quickly where they are needed, by enabling proposals from local authorities and voluntary organisations as additional routes to delivery. That provides greater flexibility in the system, including in circumstances where suitable academy trust capacity is limited. The statutory instrument makes consequential amendments arising from those provisions. The amendments, which are to both primary and secondary legislation, are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book, and to update provisions to ensure that they are compatible with the new legislative framework. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not introduce any significant new policy. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act repeals section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, relating to the presumption that new schools should be academies. Arrangements for inviting proposals for new schools are now contained in an amended section 7 of the 2006 Act. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act also replaces sections 10 and 11 and of the Education and Inspections Act with an amended section 10. The draft regulations remove references to section 6A and section 11 in other primary and secondary legislation, and replace them with references to sections 7 and 10 respectively, where necessary, providing legal clarity. The amended provisions relate to land given to a local authority on trust for educational purposes, transfer of employment, proposers of new schools, governance of new schools and local government reorganisation. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act sets procedures for the establishment of new pupil referral units by local authorities. The draft regulations extend legislation to apply to newly established pupil referral units in two cases. Currently, where a new maintained school replaces an independent school, a teacher of the independent school transferring under transfer of undertakings legislation to the new school may choose to retain their existing terms and conditions or choose to opt in to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. The instrument extends the provision so that it applies when an independent school is replaced by a pupil referral unit, affording teachers the same choice. Secondly, the statutory instrument applies and extends regulation 5 of the School Governance (New Schools) (England) Regulations 2007 to pupil referral units, when only one school proposal has been published under sections 7 or 10 of the Education and Inspections Act. A local authority is able to put in place governance arrangements for a maintained school in anticipation of proposals being approved. That will also apply where only one proposal for a pupil referral unit has been published. These amendments will ensure legal clarity and consistency.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I thank Members for the range of important questions, although I think they are broader than the individual draft regulations we are discussing today. I will start with the question about special places in specialist schools and how we can ensure that there is consistency. As part of the Government’s reforms to SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—we are proposing the introduction of new specialist provision packages. Those will be developed by a national independent panel and will set out the broad range of provision we expect to be available in every community. Local authorities will have a duty to provide specialist provision packages—that is, the type of special provision that, as the hon. Member for Guildford has set out, is missing from too many communities. To fund that measure, we are investing £3.7 billion into creating new specialist places. That money is going into the system now, and we are setting very strong expectations on local authorities to deliver new specialist provision both within mainstream schools on an inclusion basis and, where necessary, in new special schools. The policy that forms part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act makes it easier for local authorities to set up new maintained schools. On the specific question about pupil referral units and their role in the system, we will be very clear in the specialist provision packages about the kind of support we expect for children with internalising and externalising social and emotional needs. As we have set out in the SEND reform consultation, we want the role of alternative provision to be focused on really reintegrating children back into school. The Experts at Hand model we have developed is about using some of the best practice from really high-quality alternative provision to support mainstream schools. The SEND reforms are subject to consultation, but I hope that gives a wider reassurance. The hon. Member for South Devon asked why we have created these new powers. As she correctly said, we have set out a steer to the system to say that we expect schools to move towards being part of collaborative trusts. The current system means that there are real geographical discrepancies, and sometimes there is not a trust available to set something up quickly, so we want local authorities to have the flexibility to respond quickly to demands and to offer that provision where it is needed. The hon. Member for Bridgwater raised the wider, more general debate about academisation. I am glad to hear his support for academisation; as he knows, it was something that a Labour Government first introduced. We support that system because we see so many benefits for schools, including collaboration and resilience, from being part of multi-academy trusts. We are setting out a direction to say that is the way in which we expect the school system to move, and we want those freedoms to be available to all schools. We want to have really strong standards and consistency in critically important areas. We know some of the real challenges that young people face in misinformation and the need for digital literacy in a changing world. Our new national curriculum, on which we have consulted widely with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authority schools, will set the standard we want for all children, and we think it is really important that all schools teach that. It is critical that children have access to a qualified teacher, so we are setting very clear standards through the schools White Paper on not only issues such as inclusion but offering the benefits that come from being part of a multi-academy trust, which is a really sensible approach to developing the new system. The draft regulations are really about implementing policy that has already been debated and discussed. Question put.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND: Improvement · Hansard source

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  I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member to discuss funding. As he knows, it is an area that we are heavily investing in, with £4 billion going into early intervention to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. We will be consulting on how we fund special educational needs and the formula in the future, and I would be happy to discuss that.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND: Improvement · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. We are investing £3.7 billion into creating 60,000 new specialist places, and I have heard from families how life-changing it is to have that provision in their community. Children who have been out of school, sometimes for years, are now back in education. Earlier we were talking about the issues affecting rural schools, and there are real opportunities to create inclusion bases in schools around the country.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND: Improvement · Hansard source

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  When we came into Government, we made a significant increase to the high needs block, precisely because we knew that investment in special educational needs and disabilities was desperately needed. Hon. Members across the House will know that the current system has been failing for a long time. We are acting to reform the system, but we are also investing £4 billion into early intervention, £3.7 billion into capital places and £200 million into teacher training and supporting local authorities with their deficits. This is something we are taking absolutely seriously. It is at the heart of our agenda, and we are acting where the previous Government failed.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND: Improvement · Hansard source

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  Children with special educational needs and disabilities have been let down for too long. We are determined to transform their experiences and outcomes. We are working with young people, parents and professionals to create a system where needs are identified and met early and schools have the training, resources and physical environments to be inclusive for all children. We will end the postcode lottery for children with complex needs, with stronger national standards for specialist provision and a new role for the best specialist schools as centres for excellence.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND Provision: Finance · Hansard source

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  The Government are investing in special educational needs and disabilities, as I have set out. We have set out substantial investment over the next few years. We are currently consulting on special educational needs and disabilities reform. We will set out final plans on that reform after we have carefully looked at all the considerations.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND Provision: Finance · Hansard source

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  We are committed to prioritising early intervention and making major increases in investment in SEND, investing £4 billion more over three years. That includes £1.8 billion so that every community has experts on hand, £1.6 billion to settings for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Officials are meeting with Kent county council to understand the model. We are in favour of schools pooling resources to support children with special educational needs and disabilities, but there have to be safeguards. I would welcome the opportunity to speak further to understand my hon. Friend’s concerns.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Every year we review the bursaries across the system—there is a limited pot, so we look at where the need is highest—and we will review bursaries this year. We are also setting up a national centre for the arts, which will support teacher training for music as well as wider arts, because that is so critical to our agenda.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are investing £1 billion over three years to build new sports networks. That money will be used by many different partners to support schools, bring resources together, and put funding directly into school budgets. We will be setting out more plans to reassure primary school heads of our commitment to increasing activity for children and young people.

• 22 Jun 2026 · PE and Sport Premium: Primary Schools · Hansard source

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  At the moment, too many children do not have access to sport and are not meeting the recommended 60 minutes of daily activity, so it is critical that we build something that supports schools, like the one the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, with national bodies to provide those opportunities. The funding breaks down into £580 million to build the new PE and school sport partnerships network, £200 million for improved facilities, and the rest for transitional support for schools through the year before we build the new service. There will be transitional support in place, but we will build something that is better for schools. I am happy to have a discussion with him to clarify matters.

• 22 Jun 2026 · PE and Sport Premium: Primary Schools · Hansard source

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  We are determined to reverse the declining rates of activity for children and the stark inequalities we see across the country. We have confirmed £1 billion in funding for PE and school sports over three years to create stronger local partnerships to revitalise PE and school sports.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Children of Military Families: Educational Support · Hansard source

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  I am visiting a garrison in North Yorkshire in similar circumstances soon to talk to families and schools about the particular pressures they face in supporting children with that high level of mobility. We are working closely on this matter, as I have set out, particularly through the SEND reforms. Time and again, I hear from military families that one of the biggest barriers for them, where there is an additional need, is how hard it can be to move from place to place. I have set out some of the changes we are making, but it is an area that we are looking at closely, and I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Children of Military Families: Educational Support · Hansard source

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  I would really like to thank my hon. Friend and the chair of the APPG for organising that meeting; it was an impactful conversation. Members have spoken today about service families really struggling to navigate the SEND system. The people I spoke to welcomed some of the changes I have set out today, but they also set out new ideas, which we will be looking at as part of our response to the consultation.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Children of Military Families: Educational Support · Hansard source

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  Last week, I met a Minister from the Ministry of Defence and we discussed exactly that issue. I have heard from service personnel who have turned down jobs as a result of being worried about provision for their child if they move. This issue is a massive priority for the Government, and we are working on it.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Children of Military Families: Educational Support · Hansard source

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  As I have set out, it is far too hard to move SEND provision from place to place in the country at the moment. The changes that we are making—introducing national inclusion standards, national specialist provision packages and digital individual support plans and EHCPs—will make a massive difference in making it far easier to move provision. We are absolutely consulting on this; I continue to talk to military families and welcome their engagement on this important issue.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Children of Military Families: Educational Support · Hansard source

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  We are deeply grateful for the service of military families and recognise the additional pressures that military life puts on the education and family life of those families. We are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to address this area. Schools receive service pupil premium funding to address challenges including mobility and family separation, and we are improving special educational needs and disabilities support for families who move frequently, including proposing new digital individual support plans and education, health and care plans to make those moves easier.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND Improvement Plans: Multi-academy Trusts · Hansard source

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  The Government will be setting national standards for all schools, including multi-academy trusts. National inclusion standards will be developed by an independent expert panel and all schools will need to ensure they are delivered. We are also introducing new inspections for multi-academy trusts that will focus on a range of levers, including the importance of inclusion in education. Through our focus on area partnerships, we are really clear that every player, whether schools, health services or local authorities, needs to work together to deliver for children.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND Improvement Plans: Multi-academy Trusts · Hansard source

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  Through the national consultation and local special educational needs and disabilities reform plans, we are ensuring that multi-academy trusts play a key role in SEND reforms. New national inclusion standards will create shared expectations for all schools around inclusive education, and the SEND reforms make clear our expectations that all multi-academy trusts and schools work in partnership with local authorities to ensure the needs of every child in an area are met.

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND Improvement Plans: Multi-academy Trusts · Hansard source

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  I really appreciate that question. Making educational psychologists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists far more accessible for students in mainstream education is at the heart of our reforms. We are investing £1.8 billion in the new Experts at Hand service, which will start from September. As part of that, we are also investing £40 million into training new educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, developing the workforce to ensure that all children have access to an inclusive education.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Home-to-School Transport · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank all Members for an incredibly constructive and thoughtful discussion. It was particularly powerful that so many Members brought the lived experience of their constituents and some of the challenges that they face with home-to-school transport to the Chamber. I welcome the visibility given to those stories. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on securing this important debate. His passion for and commitment to this subject came across in his speech, as did the fact that he has been an avid campaigner who has widely engaged with families. We have heard today why this is such an important issue. We also heard why the support that is available through home-to-school transport matters to families. It is the mechanism through which many disadvantaged families, many children in rural communities and many young people with SEND are able to access education. We heard how the existing statutory rights are incredibly important. In addition, we heard about the particular challenges faced by rural communities, where the distances are greater and home-to-school transport costs are higher. That is why the Government made changes as part of a fair funding review, which included a distinct home-to-school transport relative needs formula, based on pupil numbers and home-to-school distances. The focus on distance deliberately supports those authorities with the longest distances and recognises the needs of rural communities. We heard about the statutory guidance and about the discretionary opportunities available to local authorities. Local authorities have a discretionary power to arrange free travel for children who do not meet the eligibility criteria, in recognition of specific local factors. We have heard about some of the challenges that areas face, and local authorities are best placed to make those decisions. We heard from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough about the importance of data, and about the data that the Department holds, in holding local authorities to account. We have added a new absence code to reflect issues with local authority-arranged transport. Since September 2025, local authorities have been able to evaluate absences that are the result of home-to-school transport. Just 0.011% of the total number of school sessions that are missed is due to such transport; for special schools, the percentage is higher. That is really important data. Of course, any missed school session is one too many. Data helps with accountability, but I understand that the hon. Gentleman was referencing wider data and I would be very happy to have a follow-up conversation about that. We also heard from many other Members about the interaction between SEND and disabilities, and about the increase that we have seen in the need for home-to-school transport for children and young people with SEND. As I have engaged with children around the country, that is something that I have heard time and again. Sometimes, children have to spend up to two hours on transport to access education. For some children who sometimes have issues regulating and who can find change disruptive, as well as for their families, that can be an incredibly distressing experience, despite the best efforts of the providers. This also disconnects children from their communities. I always remember speaking to an 18-year-old who travelled a long distance to school every day. He said that when he returned to his community, he did not have friends or networks within it, so he felt very isolated going into adulthood. It is therefore incredibly important that children have access to SEND provision locally and closer to home, and Members today have agreed with that. Improving home-to-school transport is core to the SEND reforms. The hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), who spoke for the Opposition, rightly challenged me on how we can move as quickly as possible to deliver such improvement. As he knows, we are investing £3.7 billion into 60,000 new places. That investment has gone in last year and this year, so it is going into communities urgently to help them to address those challenges. We are supporting a large number of free schools to go forward. As we have heard, some local authorities have chosen to use their share of that investment to move faster in providing new places, at a cost of around £50,000 per place. The development of new places is critical, but it is also critical to make schools more inclusive for students—everything from improving school buildings and teaching—to develop the expertise around schools, so that local schools are accessible for children with SEND and every area has the right specialist provision available. This investment will transform children’s outcomes; it not only reduces travel time but, as we have heard, saves money, which is also important. And the money that is saved can go back into improving outcomes for children in some of the really critical issues that have been raised during this debate. We also heard a number of Members talk about support for young people post 16. There was a particularly powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) on the topic. At the moment, local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure no young person is prevented from attending education post 16 because of a lack of transport. Local authorities must publish annual transport statements on this, and it is expected that local authorities will make reasonable decisions. Many local authorities do subsidise transport for young people post 16, but I have very much heard the passionate responses in the Chamber today. The issue also came up in the SEND consultation that we recently completed. We will look carefully at those responses. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor, said, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) made a powerful speech about an incredibly distressing story from his constituency. I will of course meet him and Lewis’s family to discuss it and look at what we can do to make changes in the future. I thank him for raising that—I am sorry that they got caught in that transition. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) also raised issues about safeguarding and an appalling tragedy that happened in his constituency. He will know that some of the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 were very much a response to the lessons learned from that horrendous case, but again I am very happy to meet him to discuss this further. More widely on the national criteria and the statutory guidance, we heard a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft), who is a brilliant campaigner on these issues. I want to reassure her that there is no intention to look at means testing. We absolutely reject some of the calls we have heard from, for example, the Reform leader of Warwickshire county council to try to reduce those statutory distances. We are not in the business of reducing disabled children’s rights to transport. In conclusion, this has been a thoughtful and important debate. A number of issues have been raised that we must continue to look at. I hope we can follow up on conversations in relation to not only special educational needs and disabilities but the wider system and our shared ambition, which have been highlighted in this debate, to ensure that people have access to opportunity and education.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Children: Development of Essential Skills · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue. We have developed guidance for parents to support them with screen time in early years. As a parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old, I know how confusing it can be. It is not something that I was spoken to about when I had my son. It is important we have guidance that is not judgmental but gives parents the best advice. We have put that out now. A lot of expertise has gone into developing it and I have had really positive feedback. Certainly, I have found it very helpful personally in shaping those important decisions. It is also important that through our Best Start hubs we are able to have that conversation and support for children, not just about not being on screens, but about what engagement looks like: what are the activities, how does one encourage a child to speak, and as they get older what are the enrichment activities that they can engage in after the school day? The hon. Member for Yeovil is always a passionate advocate of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and I welcome him mentioning that as part of these wider issues. On the questions on identifying needs, he will know that we are developing national inclusion standards which include research into identification around the needs we have set out in our SEND consultation document. That work is ongoing and it will form part of national inclusion standards. We are working on appointing the panel of independent experts at the moment. It is critical that we get that right, and have that early identification of needs, whether on speech and language or others. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of support for young people who are constantly having to re-sit English and maths. He will know we have been consulting on a new level 1 English and maths qualification, which is precisely designed to support children and young people to consolidate their knowledge and be a gateway qualification to deal with exactly that problem, which is one I have heard time and time again.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Children: Development of Essential Skills · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I welcome today’s constructive and thoughtful debate and the constructive tone of both the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). I know we all share a desire to ensure that our children are supported to grow up into well-rounded adults. It is brilliant to see young people in the Gallery listening to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. He has been such a champion of these issues, and almost on a daily, or at least weekly, basis he stops me to discuss these questions. As he said, I have visited his constituency and seen some of the work that he is leading in practice. As we have heard today, these are massively important topics. The Milburn review has shown the real cost of unemployment for young people and how critical it is to ensure that they have the skills that can support them into the workplace, but also, as we have heard from so many people, support them to be active citizens participating in community life. I will start where my hon. Friend did in his speech and focus on the importance of children and young people feeling confident to face challenges and shape the world around them. So much change is happening, and we cannot fully imagine the world that young people will go out into. It is therefore critical that they have the core foundations of knowledge as well as a love of learning. We want young people to return to and enjoy learning as their time in the workplace goes on; learning should be core throughout their lives. They must feel that they have the skills to be able to deal with uncertainty, to shape the world and to feel confident. So many young people tell me that that is not how they feel at the moment. That is why the curriculum and assessment review and this debate are so important. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked whether we have to choose between knowledge and skills and standards and inclusion. For me, they are two sides of the same coin. It is absolutely critical that we support our children to attain academically. We all know that too many young people are being left behind, and we have stark gaps for disadvantaged young people that we need to address. A big part of that is how they are engaged in education. School has to be unmissable, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell said, the joy of learning is critical. It is important that children are engaged and want to come to school to develop their knowledge, whether that is through enrichment or through teaching the core things that they really want to know about, such as financial education. In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we often talk about inclusion and the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Too often, they have not felt that, and that has left them feeling disengaged from education. We will pursue both knowledge and skills and inclusion and high standards for our young people. We have heard throughout the debate about the curriculum and assessment review and the work that we commissioned Professor Becky Francis to do with an incredibly expert panel. It did a really careful and thoughtful piece of work for the Government, setting out the things that it felt needed to change to support children to be able to go out confidently into the modern world. Lots of the themes that came up in this debate—media literacy, digital literacy, the importance of citizenship, oracy—came out in the review, and we have committed to embedding them. In terms of next steps, a huge amount of work is going on to draft programmes of study and to test them with a range of different partners. We have committed to giving schools four terms to prepare for implementing the new curriculum. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked about space in the curriculum. What was really powerful about the work that Dr Becky Francis led was that it gave careful thought to the sequencing of the curriculum, how things fit together and how duplication can be prevented. We are developing a digital curriculum for the first time, so it will be much easier for teachers to make links between different subjects. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell also raised enrichment and its importance in making school unmissable and making young people excited about coming to school. I travel around the country talking to young people, and they often say that it is the thing they really look forward to and that it helps them to feel part of the wider school community. We will publish an enrichment framework with a focus on developing wider life skills relating to arts and culture, civic engagement, nature, outdoor adventure, and sport and physical activities. Many Members made really important points about making sure that the enrichment offer is open to students who feel further away from those opportunities, and we are working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to build up the enrichment offer in 400 schools in the most disadvantaged areas. We are investing £22.5 million from the dormant assets fund to make that a reality, as well as working with a whole range of partners to ensure that the enrichment framework for all schools is a really powerful tool. Another point raised by a number of Members was about citizenship and political education. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a really powerful speech about how important that is for votes at 16, but also for our democratic institutions and our ability to disagree agreeably and have these political debates. When we have so much misinformation and division, embedding that in our education system is incredibly important. We have committed to citizenship being statutory in key stages 1 and 2, and to strengthening and modernising citizenship across the curriculum, looking at many of the themes that we have talked about, including media literacy. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) talked about digital literacy and AI and about making sure that those are core skills. We are looking to embed key areas such as digital and media literacy across the curriculum, because every single subject will have an element of these AI and digital skills, but we are also refreshing the computing GCSE so that particular content is focused on that. On media literacy, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) mentioned misinformation. That is another really important theme that will sit in citizenship but also in other subjects. In history, for instance, people will really think about sources and how to decipher information, and in English people will look at emotive language. Those are areas where we can look at these core themes embedded into the wider curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and others mentioned financial literacy, which comes up more than anything else from young people as being a skill that they really want to have and learn about. We are working across the maths curriculum and the wider piece to look at how we really embed financial literacy, and we will be doing a number of test and learns around implementation and working with teachers. Turning to the different contributions on early years childcare, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She made an incredibly powerful speech about what a lifeline childcare is for families, and I completely agree. I see that all the time as a constituency MP, and particularly how essential it is for mums, who often end up doing so much of that childcare. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of the 30 hours of free childcare; that has made a difference for people taking up the full entitlement, which we think has saved them an average of £8,000. She also mentioned how fees and different practices can pull away at some of that really important cost of living support. The Secretary of State for Education has written to the Competition and Markets Authority to request a review of the early years childcare market, which is to look precisely at many of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is worth having a look at that letter, and it is a really important issue to pursue. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of early years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke powerfully about the long-term impact of delayed language development for children. Sadly, since the pandemic we have seen many more children coming into school with delayed language. We know the long-term impact on children, so that has been a key focus for the Government in developing Best Start hubs, which will give that wraparound support to children, but also introducing new programmes such as the early language support programme, which brings NHS services to schools to identify needs earlier, and the Nuffield early learning intervention programme, which puts support in for reception children. I would be interested to hear more about what is going on in Cornwall and some of the challenges that my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth mentioned, and to discuss that further. This is also a key part of our thinking around the SEND reforms, putting more investment, earlier, into speech and language support and the new Experts at Hand service, which will include speech and language therapists.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Children: Development of Essential Skills · Hansard source

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  I really appreciate that question. Again, talking to families and young people around the country, that comes up all the time. I welcomed the Milburn review’s focus on the experience of young people with SEND and disabilities, and on some of those barriers. There is action we are already taking, through supported internships and our work with further education, but it is an area in which we need to go further. It is something we are continuing to work on with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am happy to have further conversations about those issues. I want to conclude by thanking everyone for this really important debate. These are areas we are actively looking at as we develop the new curriculum and think about developing the oracy framework we have committed to. Employers have said to us that it is essential young people have the skills they need for later life. Many of us will have seen how powerful some of these interventions are. I was recently with the Duke of Edinburgh, talking to young people in a school in my constituency. They talked about the confidence and problem-solving skills that the programme gave them, changing their sense of what was possible for them. That sits alongside the core knowledge that young people must learn, supporting young adults to be well rounded and able to shape their futures confidently. I hope that we can continue these conversations, as a lot of important ideas were mentioned today. We will consult fully on the new curriculum, which I am sure that all Members will look at with interest.