Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks very well on behalf of his constituent, whose situation is replicated across the country, which gives urgency to the need to reform our SEND system. It is the right approach to be increasing the expertise of teaching staff and to be making specialist expertise available to schools whenever they need it. The long waiting times for diagnosis and specialist support, such as speech and language therapy, are one of the most appalling aspects of the current system. Childhood is so short and children should not be seeing years of their education pass them by without the support they need to get the most out of it. My Committee is undertaking our own scrutiny of the Government’s proposals tomorrow, when we will hear directly in an oral evidence session from witnesses with a wide range of perspectives and expertise. We will write formally to the Government in due course with our reflections following the evidence session. As I have spoken with parents and the organisations that represent them, I have heard about anxieties with some of the Government’s proposals that I hope the Minister will address today. The proposals involve, over time, a scaling back of EHC assessments and EHCPs, replacing some EHCPs with individual support plans. Parents and carers who I have spoken to are understandably concerned about replacing a statutory plan with an ISP that will not be on a statutory footing. The concern is about how accountability will be guaranteed if there are problems with the ISP, if their child’s needs are not correctly identified, if the ISP that is drafted is not fit for purpose or if it is not being implemented properly.

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

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  I am afraid I will not because of the lack of time. Parents and carers of children with SEND have often been let down so much and by so many different parts of the system that they simply do not trust that anything will work as it should. Their children have rights on paper that are often not upheld in practice. In such a context, accountability matters. Rebuilding the broken trust and confidence of parents and carers in the SEND system will be critical to the success of the Government’s reforms. It is why my Committee recommended no changes to current rights and entitlements, so that a new system can be built while parents still have the same access to redress to fall back on. I hope that the Minister will speak to the ways in which her reforms are designed to ensure that trust and confidence are rebuilt, and especially that parents and carers know exactly what will happen if things go wrong. There are also concerns about the proposed reassessment of EHCPs in year 6. The transition from primary to secondary is one of the most high-risk times in a child’s education. We hear time and again from parents who say that starting at secondary school was when their child’s education started to unravel, or that if only they had been able to transport what they had in primary school into secondary school, things might have gone better. I am grateful to the Minister for the considered and thoughtful approach that she has taken to SEND reform, and for the extensive listening she has undertaken with parents, carers and professionals. The current consultation on draft proposals is an important part of the process and I hope that if it is necessary to make adjustments to the proposals in the light of feedback from the consultation, the Government will be willing to do so. It is so important that these reforms are absolutely right.

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

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  Accountability is one of the areas that our Committee highlighted in our report last year, which I will speak about in a moment. Last year we published our inquiry report “Solving the SEND crisis”. The report was based on 900 pieces of written evidence, seven oral evidence sessions, and visits to Ontario in Canada and to schools and colleges implementing innovative good practice in England. In 95 detailed recommendations, our report called for comprehensive change to the SEND system, with a focus on early identification of need, making mainstream schools inclusive for the children with SEND who are already in them, increasing the accountability of the SEND system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) rightly suggests, for schools, local authorities and, importantly, for the NHS, and involving parents and carers in every decision about the support that their children receive. To date, we have received from the Government only an interim response to our recommendations, so we look forward to receiving their full response in due course. However, we are encouraged that the Government’s SEND reform proposals reflect several of my Committee’s recommendations. It is very welcome that the Government have committed additional resources to SEND support and will effectively be running two parallel systems for a number of years to avoid sharp cliff edges between the old system and the new one. That is the right way to deliver significant reform. I know that the decision to write off 90% of local authority SEND debts also comes as a huge relief. It is the right approach to prioritise early identification of need, to be seeking to make mainstream schools fully inclusive for the children who are already in them, and to be expanding the availability of provision in the state sector for children who need a place at a specialist school.

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating the time for it. The support for children with special educational needs and disabilities is an area in which my Committee has taken an intense interest. It is the single biggest challenge in our education system, with far-reaching consequences. The current system is failing children, families and the professionals who work with them, right across our country. It is causing deep distress, sometimes even trauma, for children and their families. The implications of the failing system for local authority finances are profound, and many professionals are put in the invidious position of being unable to deliver the education and support that children and young people require because of impossible constraints on resources and ever-increasing need. The outcomes for children with SEND are unacceptably poor. I am afraid that I simply do not recognise the description given by the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon that this is a system that is broadly working. A system that relies on parents having to battle every step of the way and having to go to tribunals to seek redress is an exclusionary and inequitable system. We need to be absolutely clear that it is failing and that the reform that is necessary to get it to work is comprehensive and far-reaching. It is vital that the failures in the current system are addressed. It is vital on its own terms, because no child should feel that there is no place for them in our education system, that their needs are not understood or, even worse, as we have heard from some of our witnesses, that they are the problem. No parent should have to battle at every single stage of their child’s education to get the support they need. It is also vital if we want to improve outcomes in our education system, and if we want to unleash the talent and creativity of every single young person, for the benefit of our society and our economy.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Southport Inquiry · Hansard source

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  All of our thoughts today are with the families of Alice, Bebe and Elsie. They have already suffered the most horrific loss, and to have confirmation today from Sir Adrian Fulford that their loss was preventable is utterly unbearable. Sir Adrian’s report highlights the failure of the multi-agency safeguarding hub, which was exactly the place where joint responsibility between different agencies should have been held, and he also said that children’s services were not well equipped to manage a risk presented by a young person, as distinct from risks to a young person. Can I therefore ask the Home Secretary what plans she has to work with the Department for Education and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that, as a matter of urgency, every professional working with high-risk young people knows exactly what to do when they are fearful that a young person is a risk to others, and is accountable for taking that action?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  The Tulse Hill gyratory in my constituency is very dangerous. We see frequent accidents, near misses and, tragically, lives lost. We urgently need to see the transformation of the gyratory to make it safe for all road users, yet we are struggling because the availability of Transport for London funding for major junction improvements depends on there being substantial new development in the vicinity of the junction, which is not the case at Tulse Hill. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how the Government, Transport for London, Lambeth council and the local campaign group “Transform Tulse Hill” can achieve our important goal of making the Tulse Hill gyratory safe for all?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  6. What steps she is taking to improve road safety.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The right of tenants and residents in social housing to manage their own estate is an important one. Many tenant management organisations deliver excellent services for their residents. However, that is not the case for residents of the Loughborough estate in my constituency, who have been badly failed by the Loughborough estate management board for many years, with poor repairs and maintenance services and truly shocking conditions on the estate. The mechanisms to resolve those issues are within the control of the very organisation that is failing residents. The renewal ballot for the LEMB is now more than a year overdue, and a recent annual general meeting was held outside the rules, with many residents denied entry. Can we have a debate in Government time on resident and tenant management organisations, and changes in the law that may be needed to ensure that, when things go as badly wrong as they have on the Loughborough estate, steps can be taken quickly to intervene?

• 25 Mar 2026 · Public Baths and Lidos · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a heartfelt and moving speech in support of somebody who was clearly very dear to her, for which I commend her. I hope I have given her a little breathing space.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Public Baths and Lidos · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) for securing this fantastic debate about lidos. I am proud that my constituency is home to Brockwell lido in the magnificent setting of Brockwell Park. Brockwell lido is an unheated outdoor swimming pool that opened in 1937, and it is grade II listed. It is a very special place. Crowned Britain’s best outdoor pool by the AA in 2025, it is known locally as Brixton beach. It is a place where generations of children have learned to swim and enjoyed the freedom of a summer by the pool. It is where many local residents enjoy the ritual of year-round swimming and a range of activities, including gym, fitness, yoga, and a truly wonderful programme of inclusive children’s activities run by the brilliant Whippersnappers. Brockwell lido is firmly at the heart of our community, and it has a special place in my life too. I have swum there regularly since 1996. In 2024, after many years of trying to summon the courage, I—pardon the pun—dipped my toe in the water of cold-water swimming, continuing my weekly swim into the autumn months. I very much enjoyed the experience until the Sunday before Christmas, when the water temperature was a balmy 8°. I fainted in the changing room afterwards. I am grateful to the kind women who found me and helped me to recover my pride and dignity, as much as my consciousness; I am now not quite a year-round swimmer at Brockwell lido. Throughout Brockwell lido’s history, however, it has faced precarious times. It was closed for a period in 1990 and opened again after a vigorous campaign by the Brockwell Lido Users group. I pay tribute to BLU, which played such an active role in advocating for lido users and for the protection and maintenance of Brockwell lido. In 2003, when the lido needed major investment to be able to continue, BLU was involved in the choosing of a new operator, Fusion Lifestyle, which secured the investment needed at the time and ran the lido well for the first few years through good collaboration with BLU, Whippersnappers and Lambeth council. In recent years, however, following a change in the leadership of Fusion Lifestyle and some of the challenges faced by the leisure industry as a result of the pandemic, there has been increasing concern about the quality of the facilities and the lack of investment and maintenance at Brockwell lido. Right now, Brockwell lido is facing a new risk, as it is understood that Fusion Lifestyle faces grave financial difficulties and may no longer be in a position to continue to operate the lido. On Sunday, I attended a meeting of more than 200 local residents, who came together with Lambeth councillors and members of the BLU committee to talk about the future of Brockwell lido. Were any confirmation needed as to how loved and valued Brockwell lido is by local residents in our community, that meeting was it. I am pleased that Lambeth council agreed to step in if needed to ensure that Brockwell lido stays open, but the anxiety in recent weeks poses a number of questions about protections for our lidos, and whether sufficient protection is afforded to them given their great value to our communities. We know, for example, that Brockwell lido is a profitable site, but there has been little transparency about, and no ringfencing of, the funding that the lido brings in, such that it is spent on the maintenance and investment that is needed for the lido. The process is under way for designating Brockwell lido an asset of community value, but I wonder whether such a designation should be automatic for facilities that are always going to be assets of community value. There is no guaranteed role for users of our lidos in their governance, despite the fact that the users are so often the custodians of such valuable and important places. Finally, in the event of insolvency or administration, there is no obligation on an operator to co-operate with, or to hand the facility back to, the council so that it can continue to operate for the public benefit. We love Brockwell lido and, as a community, we will work to ensure that it has a sustainable, viable and long-term future, but without doubt, having had this experience, we are learning about possible additional protections. I hope that the Minister will have some response to such concerns.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Dulwich and West Norwood, particularly in the SE22 and SE24 postcodes, have been suffering the consequences of Royal Mail’s failings for years. Residents in SE24 recently had no mail for four weeks. A key problem in holding Royal Mail to account is that it is required to report performance data relating to only the first part of the postcode. That means that the failures of individual delivery offices are disguised in the sub-regional data. Will the Minister raise that issue with Ofcom, and ask it to look again at the reporting requirements on Royal Mail, so that it can be held properly to account?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not, because of the time limit. However, there are important differences of opinion between stakeholders on the best ways in which to regulate young people’s access to smartphones and social media, so I consider it right for the Government to consult. I welcome the amendments that will allow legislation to be introduced without delay. It would be helpful if the Minister could give some assurances about the timescale for the introduction of legislation following the consultation, which I believe will be necessary.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. So often we hear from teachers that they recognise a drop in a student’s engagement or performance, but without understanding why. I welcome the introduction of the new requirements on allergy safety in schools. As the parent of a child who had unexplained allergies in early childhood, I understand some of the fear and anxiety that parents experience when entrusting a child with allergies to a formal setting. There is anxiety about whether allergens will be properly managed, and anxiety about what will happen if their child experiences an allergic reaction. The new requirements will ensure that there is more consistency, improve knowledge and introduce better protocols for managing allergies in schools, so that parents and schools can have more confidence. I turn to Lords amendment 17 on siblings and foster care. In the Education Committee’s inquiry into children’s social care last year, we heard directly from young people with recent experience of the care system. They told us about the profound impacts of sibling separation. Sibling relationships are very important for looked-after children, who often have experienced trauma and broken relationships with their parents and other family members. Yet far too often, siblings are separated by a care system that struggles, due to funding and lack of capacity, to deliver child-centred care. My Committee was shocked to discover that the Department for Education gathers no data on sibling separation. That is a first and necessary step in seeking to reduce it. I appreciate that the Government are not yet content with the wording of the amendment on sibling contact, but I urge them to find a way to incorporate stronger requirements for sibling contact to be prioritised and maintained before the Bill reaches the statute book. It is a small change concerning something that should happen anyway, and has the potential to make a big difference to vulnerable children in the care system. In the short time that remains to me, let me mention just two other matters. The first is the amendment relating to school uniform costs for families. I know what a strain those can be for families who are struggling with the cost of living, and I welcome the Government’s efforts to limit the costs, but I urge the Minister to give a further assurance about the risks of the high costs of specific items. I encountered an egregious case in my constituency, in which a child from an extremely low-income background had been given a place at a school but was told that she could not attend unless she had the appropriate blazer, the cost of which was £100. I hope the Minister can give an indication that the guidance for schools will be strengthened in this regard. I support robust measures to protect children from social media harms, including raising the age of digital consent and a ban on some social media apps for under-16s, and I support a statutory ban in schools.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to the Lords amendments to the Bill that are of most interest to the Education Committee, following our scrutiny work on the Bill and in relation to a number of other subsequent and ongoing inquiries. I welcome the decision to place the expansion of the entitlement to free school meals in the Bill. The Education Committee welcomes that expansion, which will increase the number of children who can benefit from a nutritious hot meal in the middle of the day. Combined with the roll-out of free breakfast clubs, it will substantially reduce the scourge of hunger, which harms children’s health and holds back their learning. My Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for free school meals. The use of universal credit data, which the Government already hold, would make auto-enrolment much easier to achieve. I urge the Minister to ensure, by implementing auto-enrolment, that no child misses out on the meal to which they are entitled. I welcome the introduction of a requirement to notify health and education services when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. I have seen at first hand many times in my constituency the destabilising impact of temporary accommodation on children’s lives. It is usually the worst quality accommodation and is the most likely to be overcrowded, damp and mouldy. It is often far away from school and friends, with no space to do homework, and brings the constant underlying insecurity of not having a permanent home. It can have profound consequences for children’s health and education, and the new duty to notify is an important first step in ensuring that children can be supported.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

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  That is a wonderfully creative way to engage children, not only in reading but in a wider and important area of learning. I pay particular tribute to the schools and public libraries across my constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood; they are going above and beyond this week. I also pay tribute to the wealth of independent bookshops with which my constituency is particularly blessed, including the Paper Cat children’s bookshop, where I recently had the privilege of meeting the Gruffalo in person, and to the brilliant Stepping into Stories children’s literary festival, which goes from strength to strength each year. The core purpose of World Book Day is to promote reading for fun. World Book Day is the UK’s largest reading for pleasure campaign and is run by a charity of the same name. World Book Day is a delivery partner for the National Year of Reading. This year it is encouraging children to “Go All In” for World Book Day. The charity distributes 23.5 million £1 book tokens annually—sent to every UK primary school, plus secondary schools and nurseries on request—which children can exchange for a book from a selection chosen with the input of children and publishers. World Book Day is enormously successful. In 2025, 91% of UK children aged five to eight took part in a World Book Day activity, and 93% of UK adults are aware of the event. A quarter of children on free school meals said that the first book they owned came as a result of the World Book Day £1 book tokens. This is important because reading has such enormous benefits. A child who is read to at ages one to two scores more highly in reading, spelling, grammar and numeracy skills at ages eight to 11. Reading for pleasure at ages 10 to 16 has a substantial positive effect on vocabulary, spelling and maths performance by the age of 16. Children who are read to frequently at age five are over half a school year ahead in reading performance at age 15 compared with those who are read to infrequently or not at all. For children growing up in poverty, being read to daily at age five is significantly associated with a greater chance of avoiding poverty in adulthood. The Education Committee, which I Chair, has heard that reading for pleasure is a “driver of social mobility” and an “anti-poverty strategy”. Reading helps develop children’s vocabulary. Studies have shown that the language used in books is more complex than spoken language, helping children learn more words and get used to more complex sentence structures. Reading has been shown to help develop empathy, especially towards stigmatised groups. Professor Jessie Ricketts, professor of psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, said that reading allows children to learn about things outside of their own experiences. She said: “When we pick up a book, there may be characters and environments that are not part of our lived experience. That is particularly important for people who are not moving around much and may not have access to those things.” Shared reading in the early years improves emotional closeness between child and caregiver. It lifts the parent’s mood, increases warmth and reduces stress, enabling the sensitive and nurturing interactions that young children need to thrive. Reading also helps children with their cognitive development. Reading with young children helps develop their attention and memory skills, and learning to read helps develop the area of the brain responsible for processing language. Evidence from neuroscience states: “There is clear evidence that learning to read shapes the brain, resulting in the tuning of an area specialising in word processing”. Yet despite this huge range of benefits, the number of children reading for pleasure—choosing of their own volition to read when they have a choice about how to spend their time—is declining. The National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey 2025 found that the percentage of children and young people who enjoy reading is at its lowest in 20 years, with just one in three children and young people aged eight to 18 saying that they enjoy reading in their free time. That is a decrease of a third since 2005. Fewer than one in five children and young people aged eight to 18 read something daily in their free time in 2025. The decline is not evenly distributed across all demographics. Girls are significantly more likely to read for pleasure than boys. In 2025, 39% of girls aged eight to 18 said that they enjoy reading, compared with just 26% of boys. Reading for pleasure also declines as children get older. Among children aged five to eight, 63% say that they enjoy reading, declining to 47% of eight to 11-year-olds, 30% of 11 to 14-year-olds and 29% of 14 to 16-year-olds. The situation in England is substantially worse than internationally, with the most recent progress in international reading literacy study in 2021 finding that 29% of English pupils said they “very much like” reading, compared with the international average of 42%. Children’s reading patterns are not established in a vacuum. It is striking that a recent BookTrust survey found that 70% of parents and carers said they face challenges in sharing books with their child. That rises significantly to 75% for those parents on low incomes. It is in that context that the Education Committee is undertaking an inquiry on reading for pleasure. We are exploring why there has been a generational shift in reading for pleasure and what can be done to reverse the trend. We are looking across the sector to assess the role of schools, early years settings, libraries, parents, authors, publishers and more, and we are looking at the different groups of children and families who are least likely to read for pleasure and how they can be supported to read more. So far, the inquiry has received around 180 pieces of written evidence and has held two oral evidence sessions during which we have heard from academics, charities and experts. I would like to put on record my thanks to children and their teachers from Mulberry Canon Barnett primary school, who came into Parliament today to talk to the Committee about their experiences of reading. The evidence we have received cites a number of possible reasons for the decline in reading for pleasure. Barriers to children’s reading for pleasure include an increase in recreational screen use. Onyinye Iwu, a children’s author and secondary school art teacher, said that her pupils told her, “we have TikTok. What’s the point?” As she continued, “You’ve got TikTok, you’ve got Netflix, you’ve got the film coming out, so why would you read the book?” We also heard that the focus on reading proficiency and an overcrowded curriculum can mean that reading for pleasure is seen as a “nice to have”, crowded out of the everyday practice of some schools. A Department for Education survey found that 21% of parents of secondary-aged pupils and 14% of parents of primary-aged pupils said their children were too busy with homework to find time for reading. We have heard that cuts to library services and school libraries have limited access to books. Local authority spending on public libraries decreased from £1.5 billion in 2009-10 to £673 million in 2022-23, followed by a slight increase the following year. The Great School Libraries campaign found that there were 10% fewer libraries in secondary schools between 2019 and 2022, and that 15% of secondary schools had a library but no budget at all for it. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that every primary school has a school library by the end of this Parliament and to provide funding for secondary school libraries. The lack of a quiet reading environment due to overcrowded housing and reduced community provision is also making a difference to the reading habits of children from the lowest income backgrounds. The evidence also points to a decline in reading among adults, leading to less shared reading with children and less role-modelling of reading by adults. The Reading Agency found that only 53% of UK adults now read regularly for pleasure, compared with 58% in 2015. Children are more than twice as likely to report seeing parents relax by watching TV than by reading. Luke Taylor, senior researcher at the Centre for Social Justice, told the Committee that it is particularly important for boys to see men reading, and highlighted a lack of male role models as a factor in the lower levels of reading among boys. It is also important that children can find themselves in books. Children from minoritised communities are particularly likely to say that they do not see themselves in what they read. Only 24% of children’s books published in 2024 featured a racially minoritised character. Onyinye Iwu said that although there was a boom in ethnically diverse books in 2020, it has not been sustained. The Committee also reviewed evidence on what works to get children reading. We have heard that connecting reading to children’s interests is important. The National Literacy Trust survey found that two in five children and young people were motivated to read when material related to a favourite film or TV series, or matched their interests or hobbies. Debbie Hicks, creative director at the Reading Agency, told the Committee that tying reading in with interests such as sports, music or science, technology, engineering and maths can offer “really familiar entry points for reluctant readers.” Our witnesses spoke of the need for “mirrors and windows” to ensure that children are represented in books while also being exposed to different cultures and experiences. Onyinye Iwu said that there has been a “big jump forward” in the availability of books with diverse characters and stories, but a much narrower range of authors is still being regularly highlighted and promoted in shops and in the curriculum. Witnesses spoke of the need for children to have genuine “choice and agency” over what they read. The National Literacy Trust survey found that a quarter of children said that being free to choose what they wanted to read was a motivating factor. The Committee has heard that children with special educational needs and disabilities, especially those with dyslexia, can struggle to access traditional texts. Ellen Broomé, the chief executive officer of the British Dyslexia Association, said that dyslexic children can find reading “difficult, exhausting and something they avoid” and that they can have “feelings of failure and embarrassment and stigma around their reading.” The evidence that we have received has emphasised the importance of accessible texts for children with SEND and ensuring that read-for-pleasure initiatives are inclusive. We have also heard that seeing reading as a social activity is a motivating factor for children. Children are motivated to read by social factors such as having opportunities to discuss books with their peers or—as we heard from children at Mulberry Canon Barnett primary school this morning—to act out the story in class or have the opportunity to continue or finish the story themselves. Professor Jessie Ricketts highlighted the special importance of social factors for teenagers, as they are “very much guided by what their peers think” and often do not see reading as a social activity. There is much to be learned from World Book Day for the encouragement of reading for pleasure all year round. Professor Teresa Cremin told the Committee that teachers should aim to “spread World Book Day practice…throughout the year” by supporting children to read in their own time and to develop the habit of reading. She said: “If you had a rich reading pedagogy in your classroom, every day is World Book Day. Every day I am trying to support you 32 as readers. It is my job...not an occasional piece”. Jonathan Douglas, chief executive of the National Literacy Trust, and Annie Crombie, co-chief executive of BookTrust, told the Committee that events such as World Book Day have “immense value” in creating a buzz of excitement around reading and making partners on the ground feel that they are part of something bigger. However, they highlighted the need for that to be built on a wider infrastructure of reading activity throughout the year. The Education Committee will make our recommendations to the Government later this year. The benefits of reading for pleasure for children and adults are enormous; they speak directly to some of the most significant challenges that children and young people face around mental health and wellbeing and the impacts of screen time and social media. Reversing the decline must therefore be an urgent priority. I will end by once again thanking everyone who is involved in supporting this year’s World Book Day and the National Year of Reading. Whether they are marking World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite character or simply curling up in a corner with a good book, I hope they enjoy the day.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

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  I thank all hon. Members who contributed to this debate. It has been a consensual debate, celebrating the power of World Book Day and the benefits of reading. It has also been an enlightening debate, in which we have learnt about the poetic talent of the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), which he should be congratulated on. We have learnt about the Cyclops costume of my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), which he has mentioned previously in the Select Committee. We are all very anxious to see it in real life. We have heard from the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) about how a whole career can be built on World Book Day costumes, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) about the book she wrote. Congratulations are due to her on her success in getting Dunstable the recognition it deserves. It was lovely to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) about the benefits of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Many years ago, I spent a summer at Drumchapel, and it is lovely to hear that the community there has benefited from that brilliant initiative. We have heard about literary traditions on the Isle of Wight, and the benefits of reading for communities across the country, including in Northern Ireland. This has also been a serious debate, in which we have recognised that reading is a powerful part of our toolkit for tackling many of the serious challenges that our children face, from closing the disadvantage gap to improving mental health and wellbeing. We will take those lessons forward from the debate, with a commitment to spread throughout the year all the good practice and benefits of the fun and excitement of World Book Day, as we continue to grapple with the challenge of how we support more children in getting back into reading for pleasure. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered World Book Day.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. World Book Day is a collaboration between lots of different organisations across our communities, and libraries are central to that. This year, we mark the 30th anniversary of World Book Day, which was first celebrated in 1996. Although it was founded by UNESCO, it was based on an idea from Pere Vicens, a prominent Spanish publisher from Barcelona and a former president of the International Publishers Association. He and his colleagues were reacting to the notion, common in the early 1990s, that books would be obsolete within 25 years. Their idea was to promote the Spanish tradition of giving books and roses on St George’s day, 23 April. That date did not work so well in the UK, as it regularly clashes with the Easter break, so we mark World Book Day on the first Thursday in March—today, in fact. This year, World Book Day takes place during the Government’s National Year of Reading, which is supported by the National Literacy Trust and other partners. I pay tribute to the parents, carers, teachers, support staff, early years practitioners, librarians, bookshops, authors, illustrators, publishers and others across the country who support and facilitate the celebration of World Book Day in numerous and ingenious ways.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered World Book Day. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate. I am tempted to dedicate this debate to every parent or carer whose child has ever announced that they wanted to go to school for World Book Day as the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Flat Stanley or the tiger who came to tea; who has looked optimistically at their floor mop late at night, wondering whether it would pass as a Harry Potter broomstick; or who celebrated quietly when their child’s costume of choice was a more modest “Where’s Wally?” or Mr Bump. It is important to be clear at the outset, however, that while dressing up for World Book Day is a source of great joy and excitement—sometimes accompanied by a degree of last-minute panic—for children and parents across the country, and for the commuters who get to appreciate the wonder and creativity of the costumes during the morning school run, that is not the core purpose of World Book Day. It is also important that any dressing up to mark World Book Day is done in an inclusive way, so that no child misses out on the opportunity to dress up because of a lack of resources or parental time.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Student Loan System · Hansard source

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  Concerns raised in recent weeks about plan 2 student loans, including unilateral and unexpected change in the repayment terms and repayments based on the consumer prices index, are about the promise of higher education: whether working hard for an undergraduate degree really does result in a good quality of life when graduates face 30 years of student loan repayments on these terms. In the light of these escalating concerns, can the Minister tell the House what discussions he has had with the Treasury on this issue, and when we can expect to see the work that he promises to make plan 2 loans fairer for students?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  My constituent is a survivor of abuse within a religious organisation, and she represents a larger group of survivors at the same organisation. She has found the Charity Commission to be utterly ineffectual and far too slow in dealing with her complaint. When I wrote to the Minister about this issue, she referred me to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. When I wrote to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, I was referred back to the Home Office. The religious organisation continues to operate with the suspicion that the practices that led to the abuse claimed by my constituent are continuing. We are a couple of years down the line in raising these concerns, so will the Minister advise me how I can get some traction on behalf of my constituent to ensure that her allegations and those of other survivors of the organisation are properly dealt with, and that the organisation cannot continue to operate with the same practices?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On reasonable suspicion, does he agree with me that in any closed community, including religious organisations, it is a characteristic of abuse that people have suspicions, but often nobody feels able to speak up? Bringing reasonable suspicion into the definition for mandatory reporting, and putting that on the statute book, is a really important safeguard in that context. It creates an additional duty that could allow us to deal with circumstances that are pretty common.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall this week is called “Voices from Ukraine”. It is a collaboration between my constituent, the sculptor Stephen Duncan, and celebrated Ukrainian sculptors Oles Sydoruk, who is serving on the frontline in Ukraine, and Borys Krylov. It is an extremely moving set of meditations on both the horror of the conflict and the resilience of Ukrainian people and their identity, which Putin is so viciously seeking to erase. Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to those talented and courageous artists in recognising the value of the arts and culture in how societies come to terms with difficult conflicts and trauma, and encourage all hon. Members across the House to go and view that important work this week?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals · Hansard source

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  In 2018, in the Windrush scandal, many of my constituents suffered the detriment of being denied access to their own country. A part of the learning from that scandal is that people do not always read information that is in the public domain, and they do not always have a hotline to Home Office messaging. One of my constituents is in Australia and was due to come back, but his father has been placed on end of life care, so he has had to extend his visit. Another constituent, who was due to travel next week, only found out about the new requirements this week, and it is too late for her to apply for a passport. The scale of the cases raised today implies that there is a problem. What assurance can the Minister give my constituents that this is not another Windrush scandal in the making, whereby British citizens end up being denied access to their own country?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Student Loan Repayment Plans · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for his powerful opening speech and for securing the debate. I declare an interest as a mum of two students who are currently in higher education. I want to acknowledge the strength of feeling among graduates with plan 2 loans and the material impact that current loan terms and the planned freeze in the repayment threshold are having on them. The generation of graduates with plan 2 loans studied between September 2012 and July 2023. They are the same generation who have found themselves increasingly locked out of the housing market, unable to put down roots in their community, and squeezed by the cost of living and the cost of renting in particular. Plan 2 loans add unfairly to those cost pressures. If the promise of education is that if you work hard, do well and get a good degree, then that degree will be a passport to increased earnings and a good standard of living, that promise is not being fulfilled for far too many in the plan 2 generation. I believe there is an urgent need to look at the value for money of student loans. We need to do that for the plan 2 generation, but also for the generation of young people who are considering university. We need to recognise that students from the lowest-income backgrounds are most likely to be deterred by the perception that university is not good value for money because of the impact of the loans. I share concerns about unilateral changes in payment terms; that does not meet the standard of fairness that we would expect from any other lender. I share concerns that loans are linked to a measure of inflation that the Government do not use as the basis for other calculations. However, in short, the solutions are not straightforward. The Education Committee is currently undertaking work on the funding of higher education institutions, and its headline conclusion is that they are very fragile. The proposals made by the Leader of the Opposition this week are entirely untenable, and I reject in particular her war on arts degrees, which will always have an important place in our education landscape.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. The Office for Budget Responsibility is clear that Brexit has caused a 4% long-term reduction in GDP and has created a structural challenge in UK manufacturing. The export of UK goods to the EU has fallen by 27% and imports have fallen by 32%.