Helen Hayes MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 5 Sept 2024 · UK-EU Trade · Hansard source

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  Goods exports to the European Union are still 11% lower than in 2019, before the Brexit agreement took effect. Can the Minister confirm that, in seeking to grow the UK economy, the Government will take an evidence-based approach to the UK’s trading relationship with our nearest neighbours, and will take all possible measures to remove the barriers to trade that are holding our country back?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  For the communities in my constituency mourning the loss of a young person to knife crime, the Government’s commitment to ban zombie knives, machetes and ninja swords cannot come soon enough. Can the Home Secretary confirm that, in bringing forward this vital legislation, she will ensure that the penalties for selling those weapons illegally will be substantial and that they will apply personally to executives at the highest level in any retail outlet, including online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Education and Opportunity · Hansard source

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  May I start by congratulating you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election, and say what a great pleasure it is to see you in your place? I also congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment. I know how deep her commitment is to increasing opportunity and adjusting disadvantage for children across our country. Education from the early years through school and on to further and higher education is arguably the most important tool in the Government’s box for addressing disadvantage. I am therefore delighted to see that breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage is one of the core missions of this Labour Government. Labour has always recognised the importance of education as a route to addressing poverty, disadvantage and inequality, as well as to driving economic growth. It is at the heart of what we believe in and at the heart of what we have always delivered in government—from comprehensive schools to the Open University, from Sure Start to the London Challenge for school improvement. This new Labour Government will continue in that proud tradition of delivering for our children and young people with free breakfast clubs in every primary school; new nursery places across the country; open access mental health support in schools and communities; more teachers in our schools; a new fit-for-purpose curriculum; a further education sector to deliver the skills that young people need to thrive and our economy needs to grow; and new support to protect young people from serious violence. I wish to highlight today, as we discuss the commitment of this new Government and also the mess that they have inherited after 14 years of Conservative cuts to children's services, some of the issues that are most pressing in my constituency. Services are now really stretched to the limit as they seek to support children, young people and their families. The first issue is the funding crisis facing maintained nursery schools, which often provide a gold standard of early years education. Some 64 % of them are located in areas with the greatest deprivation. I have two in my constituency: Effra nursery school and children’s centre and Dulwich Wood nursery school. They are constituted as schools, and therefore have the additional expertise—and also the additional costs—of fully qualified headteachers and teaching staff. The number of maintained nurseries has already dropped dramatically and only 400 now remain, many of which face severe financial difficulties. I therefore urge the Government to bring forward measures in the Budget to ensure that the depth of knowledge, expertise and quality in our maintained nursery schools is not lost, and that they are put on a sustainable financial footing. The second issue is special educational needs and disabilities support. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for mentioning the work that I did in this regard when we were in opposition. In the context of the decimation of local authority funding since 2010 and with increasing presentation of additional needs across the country, local councils and schools are simply buckling under the pressure of resources that they do not have and needs that they cannot meet, while families are suffering the consequences. At a recent visit to an outstanding school in my constituency, the headteacher broke down as she described the conflict of seeking to be an inclusive school with the reality of simply not having the funding that she needed to deliver for children with additional needs. Increasingly, local authorities are being driven to the edge of financial viability by the costs of SEND support and SEND transport. I really welcome this Government’s focus on the inclusivity of mainstream schools, but they will need to work very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that there is a sustainable approach to funding SEND support, which schools cannot deliver in isolation. Thirdly, the outcomes for care-experienced people after 14 years of Conservative Government are utterly disgraceful. The system is so broken that frequently the state takes the decision to remove a child from their family because they are not considered to be safe, and places them in an environment in which they are even less safe and secure. Care-experienced people are so over-represented in both the criminal justice system and the homeless population because they are being so badly failed. If the Government are serious about tackling these challenges, they must turn their attention to delivering better support and better outcomes for care-experienced people. One way that this situation could be turned around is through the development of a new care experience covenant, placed on a statutory footing, requiring every part of the public sector to take the responsibilities of corporate parenting seriously, supported by a national care leaver offer. I wonder whether the Minister is able to make any commitments in that regard today. Finally, the Conservative Government changed the schools funding formula to remove the disadvantage weighting. That had the effect of proactively funnelling funding away from schools in constituencies such as mine with high levels of deprivation to more affluent areas of the country, and my local schools are really feeling the impact as they seek to provide an excellent education for every child. Will the Minister give an undertaking to look at the schools funding formula, to ensure both that schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the country have the resources they need to deliver for every child, and that the formula itself is no longer pitting different areas of the country against each other, but represents a genuine levelling up of the resources for our schools? I know that this Government will transform the life chances of children and young people across our country and make sure that no child is left behind. I look forward to seeing further plans come to fruition, as children, young people and their life chances are once again placed where they should be—at the centre of our national life.

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) on his maiden speech. It was a moving speech, and I know that his family and his constituents will be very proud of his commitment to work on the issues around Crohn’s and colitis, which is a devastating and difficult disease for those who have to endure it. It is a privilege for me to represent the communities of Dulwich, West Norwood, Herne Hill, Gipsy Hill, and parts of Brixton, Crystal Palace, Camberwell and Tulse Hill, and I am grateful to everyone who voted to send me here for a fourth time. I am especially grateful to the residents of Champion Hill ward, who voted for me for the first time in this election due to boundary changes. I am delighted to be speaking for the first time from the Government side of the House of Commons. Over the past nine years in this place, I have seen the impact of the Conservatives’ political decisions on my constituents. I have seen the housing crisis deepen every single year. Our local schools have struggled as the schools funding formula was changed to redirect funding away from constituencies like mine with high levels of deprivation to more affluent areas of the country. Local authority funding has been decimated, affecting the ability of our local councils to keep delivering the services that residents need. Our local health services have been placed under unbearable pressure. Parents are paying more than their rent or mortgage for a childcare place, and our police are unable to fill essential roles in neighbourhood policing. There is not a single part of our public sector that is not at least partially broken after 14 years of cuts and neglect, while every Gracious Speech that I have listened to until now has made something else worse than it was before. Among the most egregious legacies of the past 14 years of Conservative government has been the impact on the life chances of children and young people. Seven hundred thousand more children are living in poverty than in 2010. There has been a shocking decline in children and young people’s mental health. We have seen 1,300 Sure Start centres close, spiralling numbers of teenagers entering the care system and parents across the country battling for special educational needs and disabilities support. So I am deeply heartened to see that this Gracious Speech sets out a legislative programme that begins the process of renewal and restoration that our country needs and that will start to improve the life chances of children and young people. Legislation will increase the number of teachers in our schools, improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people, ensure that no child in primary school has to start the school day hungry, increase the number of nursery places and deliver better support for young people who are at risk of serious violence. I welcome the establishment of the child poverty taskforce. Child poverty is a scourge on our society. The increase over the past 14 years is shameful, and it must be a core driving mission of the Government to eradicate it. Child poverty does not happen in isolation. Children live in poverty because their parents are poor. The solutions to poverty are multiple and include making work pay; more genuinely affordable housing; reducing energy bills; and creating a social security system that actually acts as an effective safety net. I understand the need both for a comprehensive strategy for tackling child poverty and for all public spending decisions to be fully funded and affordable, but two things are important. First, the child poverty taskforce must work with urgency and speed, and it must result in concrete action soon. Childhood is short, and the years that are blighted by poverty cannot be rerun. Secondly, the taskforce and the Government must follow the evidence. That includes evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Trussell Trust and a wide range of experts showing a clear correlation between the two-child cap on child benefit and increased child poverty, as well as the alleviation that would come from lifting it. I hope that the Government will consider that evidence as part of a wider, comprehensive strategy. Several wider challenges affecting children and young people were not included in the King’s Speech but will require imminent strategic decision making from our new Government. They include the crisis in SEND support and the safety valve programme, which is forcing many councils to make impossible cuts to services that vulnerable residents rely on while families are left fighting in the tribunal for SEND support. There is also the financial crisis in our university sector, which should be the pride of our country, helping us to face the future, prepare the next generation and deliver world-class research. Universities are also the fulcrum of the local economy in cities and towns across the country. Their collapse would be catastrophic for jobs and economic growth. The Government must therefore ensure that a plan is in place that offers meaningful interventions to stem the current crisis and allow our universities to stabilise and chart a sustainable course. When a country invests in its children and young people, it invests in the future. When it delivers a better society for children and young people, it delivers a better society for everyone. When it acts to protect the most vulnerable. It places all of us on a more solid foundation. I welcome this Gracious Speech from our new Labour Government and look forward to seeing the Government deliver for our children and young people in the coming months.