Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The maths on temporary accommodation costs simply does not add up at the moment. I have more to say on that a bit later in my speech.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  There are different ways of looking at the analysis and I am sure that the Minister will speak in detail on the way that the Government have apportioned funding based on the formula. The reality of the settlement as finalised yesterday is undoubtedly that our councils are in a very stretching situation indeed, and that could lead to difficult situations ahead. One of the areas where the Government could really help our councils is by looking at the costs that they have to bear as well as the resources that they have to meet those costs. I will come on to make some of those points in a moment.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered funding for local authorities in inner London. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Murrison. My constituency includes part of the London borough of Lambeth and part of the London borough of Southwark. Before I was elected to this House, I spent five years as a local ward councillor in Southwark. I just managed not to overlap with the Minister, who was also a councillor on Southwark council and stepped down in 2010 as I was being elected. Being a councillor is deeply rewarding, with a responsibility for delivering services in a way that makes a direct difference to people’s daily lives. From recycling to street cleaning, adult services, children’s social care, roads, parks, playgrounds and council housing, our councils are responsible for important aspects of the fabric of everyday life. They affect people’s quality of life and, in doing so, play a vital role in building trust and confidence in politics, the Government and public services. I am proud that, as a councillor, I helped turn around a local primary school in a deprived area of my ward from being one of the worst in the borough to one of the best. I am proud that we delivered road safety improvements at a number of dangerous junctions in the ward. I am proud of the work that we did through tenants and residents associations and local community organisations to bring people together and build community. I am also proud that, despite more than a decade of Conservative and Lib Dem austerity, Southwark continued to keep the borough clean and open new libraries. It was one of the first councils to fund universal free school meals for primary-age children and it is a borough of sanctuary that supports the refugees and asylum seekers who are part of our diverse community. I remember very clearly the Labour group meeting in 2010 in which we were briefed on the coalition Government’s local government funding settlement for Southwark. There was a stony silence in the room as the newly elected cabinet member for finance told us how big the cuts were and the services and investment that the council would no longer be able to deliver as a result. We had no idea how much worse the cuts would get over the coming years such that, a decade on from the 2010 election, our councils were receiving 60% less in grant funding from central Government, and the capital grant for new council homes had been decimated. That marked a huge shift in local authority funding away from the certainty of grant funding and towards retained business rates, the new homes bonus and endless small, short-term pots of funding, often requiring resourcing for a bidding process. At the same time, our councils saw rising need. Our ageing population has meant an increasing need for adult social care, and the erosion of support for families has resulted in more children being taken into care and the cost of expensive placements increasing. The rising numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities has increased the costs of school placements and home-to-school transport. That is all before we get to housing. Inner-London boroughs are at the epicentre of our national housing crisis. Spiralling rents and a lack of security in the private rented sector mean that more and more families have turned to their council for support with housing, while the lack of investment in new social housing and the loss of council homes under the right to buy has meant that they have had to be housed in temporary accommodation, which is very expensive and often the worst-quality accommodation. London councils are currently spending £5 million a day on temporary accommodation—that is £5 million a day into the pockets of some of the worst landlords, and at times paying for damp, mouldy, overcrowded homes, often far from a family’s home, neighbourhood, community and their children’s school.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate today, particularly the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), who is a great champion for his constituents and his borough of Bromley, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) and for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for their interventions and for speaking up for their boroughs. I am grateful to the Minister for her response. I believe I am 10 years older than the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), so I would say very gently to him that perhaps my memory goes back a bit further. When I was elected to Southwark council, it coincided with the arrival of the coalition Government and the beginning, presided over by the Liberal Democrats in government, of some of the deepest cuts to local government funding that we have ever seen.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  I agree completely. The levy is a really important source of additional revenue into London, and it is so important that it is spent where it is needed. That does mean allowing councils to retain some of the receipts—I would say 50%, as London Councils is calling for—in order for them to do exactly that. Exceptional financial support was designed to be a temporary intervention to support councils with acute financial pressures, but the consequence has been a growing number of councils running structural deficits. Will the Minister set out in greater detail how the Government intend to support councils to exit EFS so they are not held back by growing deficits? Finally, the announcement yesterday on SEND deficits is very welcome. It is a clear recognition that the current costs of SEND provision are totally unsustainable. Writing off 90% of SEND deficits will only help if the forthcoming SEND reforms are properly funded and designed such that they are financially sustainable. What is the Minister doing with the Department for Education and the Treasury to make sure that councils’ statutory SEND responsibilities are properly funded when the schools White Paper is published? Our councils and councillors are a crucial part of the bond of trust between local residents and the politicians and governments that serve them. We cannot leave our councils in the position in which the Conservatives were happy to leave them, with no answer to the needs of their local populations because they do not have the resources to deliver. Our local residents need and deserve clean streets, well-kept parks and open spaces, good-quality road services, good adult social care and effective children’s services, good-quality homes in the social rented sector, and proper support for children with SEND. They deserve nothing less, so that they can trust that government is there to deliver for them. We owe it to our dedicated, hard-working colleagues in local government to support them.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Nurseries and Early Years Providers: CCTV · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she is doing, particularly on behalf of constituents who have been so badly traumatised by their recent experience. I am grateful to some of those parents for recently meeting the Education Committee privately to discuss the change they wish to see. On Tuesday, my Committee will hold a public oral evidence session to explore safeguarding in early years settings. Does my hon. Friend agree that in addition to practical measures like compulsory CCTV, which can strengthen safeguarding in nurseries, we need to explore the operation of the inspection and accountability framework in the early years, so that every parent can be sure that when they entrust their precious child to an early years setting, they will be safe?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q10. I am proud that Labour MPs voted yesterday to remove the two-child limit and lift 400,000 children out of poverty, but child poverty cannot be eradicated while children are living in overcrowded temporary accommodation without their own bed or anywhere to do their homework. Will the Prime Minister commit to urgent and persistent action to drive down the use of temporary accommodation, ensuring that our councils, including my councils of Lambeth and Southwark, have the funding they need in the final local government finance settlement next week?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Child poverty is a scourge on any society. It is a tragedy for individual children and families, and the untapped potential, worse health and lower attainment resulting from it hold the whole of society back. In the fifth richest economy in the world, it is also inexcusable. Under 14 years of Conservative-led Governments, the number of children living in poverty grew and poverty deepened, compounded by a housing crisis unprecedented since the second world war, the growth of insecure, low-paid work, and the imposition of the two-child cap. Action for Children estimates that 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK. That is three in 10 children—on average, nine in every classroom. Seven out of 10 children who are living in poverty have at least one parent in work. Behind those statistics are children without a bed to sleep in; children without enough nutritious food to eat; children without warm clothes in winter, living in cold, damp, mouldy homes; children who lack the basics to nurture their growth and development, who are disadvantaged before they even set foot in a classroom. This situation is not an inevitability. It has come about through the deliberate political choice to prioritise the rhetoric about the benefits system and the stereotypes about the families who rely on it, rather than looking at the evidence and the reality of people’s lives. The Child Poverty Action Group’s analysis of DWP data finds that 1.6 million children have been directly impacted by the decision to impose a cap, above the first two children in a family, on the social security measure that specifically supports families to care for children. Some 59% of those children have parents in work. The two-child cap has directly pulled 350,000 children into poverty. It is a measure that effectively punishes children for the number of siblings they have. One of the reasons I joined the Labour party many years ago is that we believe that every child deserves to have the opportunity to succeed. We do not judge children on the circumstances of their birth or the decisions of their parents. I am therefore delighted that the Government are taking action to remove the pernicious two-child cap and to lift 400,000 children out of poverty.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will go on to talk a little about some of the further measures that I believe the Government need to take on this journey of tackling child poverty. Evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is clear that, in the medium term, investment to bring down child poverty reduces the demand on public services that is caused by poor physical and mental health, and by poor education outcomes, which are caused by poverty. Removing the cap is projected to increase the health and education standards of 2 million children who would otherwise have been affected by the cap. By removing the two-child cap, this Labour Government are projected to deliver the biggest ever reduction in child poverty in a single Parliament. I am proud of the other measures that our Government have already announced to help families, which will also help to reduce child poverty: the expansion of free school meals to all children whose families are on universal credit, the delivery of universal free breakfast clubs and the reduction in school uniform costs. The Government’s commitment to children can be in no doubt. The Education Committee is working jointly with the Work and Pensions Committee to undertake formal scrutiny of the Government’s child poverty strategy. We want the strategy to be as effective as possible, and over the coming weeks we will be listening to evidence from experts on the impacts that the measures announced will have and on whether more should be done. I want the Government to be truly ambitious in tackling child poverty. We should not simply lift the poorest children just above a threshold—important as that is—but ensure that children can truly thrive right across our country. That will require action on some of the other causes of poverty, including housing costs—a shocking number of children are living in temporary accommodation—and food and energy costs. We must provide access to support for families in communities, and an education and skills system that really works for everyone. Those are the questions that our Committees will turn to in the coming weeks, but this step today is fundamental. The Bill sets the context for an ambitious strategy and will be transformative for families. I am proud to vote for it today.

• 29 Jan 2026 · First 1,000 Days of Life · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and the Health and Social Care Committee for all its work on this vital stage of childhood. Last year, the Education Committee published our report, “Solving the SEND Crisis”, which highlighted the following: the importance of early identification of special educational needs and disabilities; the absence, all too often, of health from the network of support that children with SEND need; the lack of accountability around these services; and, inconsistent access to expertise on SEND in early years settings. I welcome the Health and Social Care Committee’s call for a children’s health workforce strategy. Will my hon. Friend say more about how the Government can help to ensure that we have the early years workforce we need? Did the Committee look specifically at the question of accountability for health services in delivering support for SEND?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Key Stage 1 Curriculum · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing this debate, and the 106,082 people who signed the petition, of whom 182 are my constituents. I pay tribute to the campaigners, who are here today, for their important work on this topic. There is a huge body of evidence that demonstrates the paramount importance of play in early childhood. When my two-year-old next door neighbour visited for tea over the Christmas recess, he announced as he stepped through our door, “Where are the toys?” If any of us has any doubt about the paramount importance of play, that is a particular experience that he was looking for on his visit and looks for wherever he goes. I pay tribute in particular to the work of PEDAL—the centre for research on play in education development and learning—which is a part of the faculty of education at the University of Cambridge. PEDAL is dedicated to amassing evidence on the importance of play and is developing a wealth of resources for practitioners in all aspects of childhood. PEDAL highlights the important role of play in developing relationships and secure attachments for young children, in supporting physical and mental health, good development, learning and communication, and in building good foundational social relationships. I have had the privilege of visiting many early years settings and primary schools in my constituency and across the country, and I have seen many brilliant examples of play-led learning, particularly in the many schools that that now have forest school programmes that give children the opportunity to go into the outdoors and learn from each other and the natural environment, outside of the formal classroom. The best teachers and early years practitioners make play a part of the curriculum, and work to make all learning fun. This topic is relevant to aspects of the Education Committee’s current and recent work. We are midway through a big inquiry into the evidence on what makes for good support across the early years. We have undertaken some work to scrutinise the curriculum and assessment review—a topic I will return to—and last year we undertook a major piece of work on SEND, focusing on creating inclusive learning environments for all children and looking at the evidence on the very high number of children who are being failed by a system that is not properly geared to meet their needs. As part of that work, we identified transition points in education as requiring particular attention as the Government consider SEND reform. The transition from the early years foundation stage to key stage 1 is important in that respect. We are also undertaking work on child poverty. Although play is important in education settings—in formal settings—in early childhood to reduce the attainment gap, access to high-quality play experiences in communities is also vital. My constituency is in the eye of the storm of the housing crisis, with so many families with young children who are not adequately housed and are living in overcrowded, cramped accommodation. For those families in particular, being able to access high-quality play equipment in their local community close to home is vital to their children’s development. I will briefly pay tribute to a much-loved and much-missed Member of this place, the late right hon. Frank Dobson, who was passionate about play. Under the previous Labour Government, he helped to deliver a step change in investment in play equipment in our communities, and he continued to correspond with me about this topic until he was very near to the end of his life. The erosion of council funding under the Conservative Government for 14 years of course made it harder for councils to keep pace with investment in this space, and in recent years we have seen too many examples of play equipment that has fallen behind best practice and even fallen into disrepair. I welcome the curriculum assessment review and its focus both on restoring creative subjects to the heart of the curriculum and on reducing the burden of assessment. These are important reforms and they are very welcome. Of course, the curriculum is a framework; it does not dictate individual lesson plans or teaching methods. Consequently, I hope that as the Government continue to develop the guidance around curriculum reform, there will be creative responses to these reforms that give some prominence to play, particularly in key stage 1. Finally, I will highlight a conversation I had recently—last week, in fact— with the Estonian Education Minister. As we know, Estonia’s education system achieves excellent outcomes. In the early years, it focuses almost entirely on the social and emotional development of children in early childhood as the foundation for more formal learning. The Estonian Education Minister told me, “School is tough in Estonia. We expect children to work really hard. We give them a great deal of content. But they do that on a foundation in the early years that means that they are good co-operators and collaborators with their classmates, that they are good at working in teams, and that they are good at managing their own emotions to engage with learning to the fullest extent.” This Government have an ambitious programme of reform for education, and a clear commitment both to making childhood better across our country and to investing in the services that support children, particularly in their early years. I hope that as the Government bring forward more detailed guidance to support these reforms and move towards the publication of the schools White Paper, which we expect shortly, the work of the petitioners on the topic of play in the key stage 1 curriculum will be at the forefront of their thinking. Play is important for children’s development, for their engagement in education and for discovering a lifelong love of learning, and the evidence to support that view is very strong.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

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  I welcome the launch of the consultation and the Government’s commitment to an evidence-based approach. The evidence is clear that mobile phones have no place in schools. Many schools have managed to implement a ban, but those that have not done so, or which have only implemented a less successful version of a ban, often speak about the challenging nature of the dialogue with parents and children as they seek to implement a ban. They say that having a statutory ban, which would require them to ban phones by law, would help. Why is a statutory ban not being announced today, and can the Secretary of State confirm that it is not off the table?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Ukrainian GCSE · Hansard source

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  Last week, the Education Committee heard from the chief regulator at Ofqual about the demand for GCSEs in both Ukrainian and British Sign Language. He stated: “There is no legal obstacle to a new awarding organisation that is not currently recognised to deliver GCSEs coming forward and asking to be recognised… That could happen.” Given the strength of demand for GCSEs in both Ukrainian and British Sign Language, what is the Minister doing to identify, encourage and equip organisations—outside the four main awarding bodies for GCSEs—to step up to deliver these important subjects if there is continued reluctance from the existing exam boards?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the additional steps she has announced today. It is important that action keeps pace with the speed of the technology that it seeks to influence, so can I press her on the timescale for the Ofcom investigation and any subsequent action that may be needed? Can also I press her on the steps that the Government are taking to ensure that children, whose abuse is being enabled by the creation of images by Grok, are safeguarded and protected, and that those responsible face the full force of the law? Can she confirm that, if X continues to take the attitude and approach to these issues that we have seen so far, no options are off the table?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her statement and warmly welcome this strategy. I pay tribute to her for delivering this strategy and for her years of personal commitment to the safety of women and girls. I welcome in particular the focus on educating children about misogyny and driving misogyny out of our schools. My hon. Friend will know that the Ofsted inspection framework has previously been largely silent on the issue of misogyny, allowing examples to occur where schools have been rated “outstanding” despite girls at that school having widespread experience of sexual harassment and abuse by their peers. What engagement is she having with Ofsted to ensure that all the Government’s objectives are aligned and that no school where girls routinely experience misogynistic harassment and other behaviours can be regarded as “exceptional”, “strong standard” or “expected standard” under the new framework?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her statement. I particularly welcome the restoration of the link between funding for local government and deprivation, and the inclusion of housing costs within the measure of deprivation. It makes no sense to do anything other than that. Even with the funding settlement, the financial situation will continue to be very challenging for my local authorities of Lambeth and Southwark without meaningful support from the Government with the costs of temporary accommodation. When does the Minister expect to be able to set out more detail on how councils will be supported to reduce the need for temporary accommodation and to bring the costs down?

• 17 Dec 2025 · UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the announcement that the UK will rejoin Erasmus+. I had the opportunity to live and work in Europe as a young person aged 18, and it was an experience that has continued to benefit me throughout my life. I particularly welcome the extension of the scheme beyond study, and the Government’s desire to extend that opportunity to young people from all backgrounds. It is one of the very many detriments of Brexit that young people were denied the opportunity to live and work and study through the Erasmus scheme. Having announced this welcome development, can the Minister confirm that he will now be turning his attention to some of the other detriments that continue to be experienced, particularly by small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency, as a consequence of the inability to trade in Europe because of barriers resulting from Brexit? Can he confirm that work is ongoing in that regard, and that all options that are in the national interest will remain on the table?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Child Poverty Strategy · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the publication of the child poverty strategy, which builds on the steps that the Government have already taken, including expanding access to free school meals and introducing free breakfast clubs. I particularly welcome the removal of the two-child benefit cap. All the evidence is clear that that has been one of the biggest contributors to the shameful increase in child poverty that we have seen in recent years. My Committee, along with the Work and Pensions Committee, will undertake detailed scrutiny of the strategy and play our part in ensuring that its implementation is as effective as it can be. I welcome the focus on temporary accommodation. Where children sleep and the safety and security of their home environment have a huge impact on their life chances. However, I note that the measures in the strategy are limited to pilots. This work is badly needed across the country, so when does the Secretary of State expect to roll out the work to eliminate the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families everywhere, so that no child’s life needs to be scarred by the trauma of living in temporary accommodation?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Camden Nursery Sexual Abuse Case · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. Vincent Chan’s crimes are utterly horrific—the most egregious breach of trust imaginable, and every parent’s worst nightmare. My thoughts and, I know, the thoughts of the whole House have been with the children who are his victims, and with their families, ever since news of his crimes came into the public domain. Incidents like this one, and the recent case of Roksana Lecka, who was convicted of abusing children at two nurseries, raise serious concerns about the effectiveness of Ofsted’s early years inspection regime, which currently rates 98% of providers as good or outstanding. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that Ofsted urgently brings forward reform of its early years inspection framework, so that it is fit for purpose? Will she review the current requirements for safeguarding training for early years practitioners, and the use of CCTV, to ensure that all staff are appropriately trained and the requirements are fit for purpose? The Secretary of State’s colleagues in the Home Office have decided not to implement the version of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse recommended by Professor Alexis Jay in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse report, citing the workload that it would create. Does the Secretary of State agree that workload should not be a consideration when it comes to the safety of children? Will she urge her colleagues in the Home Office to rethink that decision, and to implement the more robust mandatory reporting obligation set out by Professor Jay, which includes criminal sanctions for non-compliance? Finally, the Secretary of State spoke about the support that is quite rightly being provided to the victims of Vincent Chan and their families. Can she say a bit more about how support will be made available to those children and their families in such a way that they can draw on it throughout their life, whenever they need it?

• 1 Dec 2025 · SEND: Funding · Hansard source

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  This morning I visited the Nido Volans Centre, a specialist college in my constituency, and enjoyed a delicious cup of tea made by two students, Marco and Jason. Nido Volans means “Fly the Nest”, and the college provides education and training on independent living and employability skills for young people with special educational needs and disabilities up to the age of 25. Will the Secretary of State join me in celebrating Natspec’s The Power of Specialist FE Awareness Week, and will she assure me that the Government’s SEND reform proposals will fully recognise the vital role of specialist colleges and the need for sustainable funding, so that every young person who can benefit from a specialist college placement has access to one?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Domestic Abuse: Children · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an important issue. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that in her remarks. We have a children’s social care system, and the tragic case of Sara Sharif—which the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) spoke very powerfully about—is an important case in point where the arrangements that should be in place to protect children, decide the right outcome for them and provide an environment in which they can be safe too often fail to do that. That speaks to the need for reform. The removal of the presumption of contact puts children’s experiences, their voices and safety, back at the heart of contact decisions, where they should always have been. I want to turn to the question of support for children who have experienced domestic abuse. Research by Women’s Aid found that 70% of children said that they would seek help in a situation of domestic abuse, but that 61% did not know where to go to find any help. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner also found that fewer than a third of victims and survivors of abuse who wanted support for their own children were able to get it—so more than two thirds were unable to access that support. Setting that against the very significant funding pressures experienced by both domestic abuse support services and children’s social care, it is clear that access to support is not currently adequate. I am particularly concerned to read Women’s Aid’s findings from its 2025 annual audit that the proportion of organisations running children and young people’s domestic abuse services in the community without dedicated funding doubled from 15.7% to 31.4% this year. There are always costs to failing to meet the needs of children. The costs of children not being able to access support to recover from domestic abuse are seen in ongoing harm to victims and also in additional need for health services, because people who have experienced domestic abuse as children have higher mental and physical health needs, especially if they are not supported. I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that the views of child victims of domestic abuse are considered when developing policy and designing services, but it is important that that translates into changes that increase awareness of abuse among children, make it easier to disclose abuse and seek help, and which make support more readily available so that children can recover. Finally, it is important that we focus on not only what happens when abuse occurs, but how we reduce incidents of abuse in the first place. The Education Committee has emphasised the need to improve early intervention by strengthening and increasing funding for the Families First partnership. We welcome the announcement of increased funding this week. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to improve how children learn about healthy relationships at school through relationships, sex and health education and the commitment to tackle misogyny in schools. That requires tackling the pernicious information that young people are accessing online and equipping them with the skills and values to challenge such information among their peers. I hope that the Minister can set out today some further information on how those commitments will be implemented. Tackling this issue and ensuring that every child grows up knowing how to keep themselves safe and with a good understanding of what makes for a healthy relationship, along with the ability to spot when that is not happening around them, and the ability to access help and support when they need it is a vital part of creating a country where every child can thrive.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Domestic Abuse: Children · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate and on his powerful opening speech. For far too long, our understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on children failed to recognise the reality. Children do not simply witness domestic abuse, they experience it, they suffer it and they are profoundly affected by it. Living in a home in which domestic abuse is taking place is traumatising for children. It makes them feel frightened, insecure, sad and alone. It undermines the essential security that the home environment should provide. It affects children’s understanding of relationships and what is normal, and children often take on a completely misplaced sense of responsibility for what is happening or for protecting other members of the family. These issues are, sadly, very widespread. One in seven children and young people will have an experience of domestic abuse at some point during their childhood. The Office for National Statistics records that, in 32% of domestic abuse cases, there was at least one child under the age of 16 living in the household. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent report, “Victims in Their Own Right? Babies, children and young people’s experiences of domestic abuse”, is a sobering read. The commissioner listened extensively to children and young people affected by domestic abuse. They told her it is important that they are listened to, that they are taught how to recognise domestic abuse and that they receive proper support to recover from it. They also told the commissioner about some of the barriers they experience in getting support, including failing to recognise that abuse is taking place and the influence of other family members. They also cited unwanted contact arrangements as a barrier. I therefore welcome the Government’s recent decision to end the presumption of contact, and I pay tribute to Claire Throssell, who has campaigned so hard in the name of her sons, Jack and Paul, to see this change in the law. Claire’s case is utterly heartbreaking. The Education Committee was privileged to hear from her directly earlier this year during our inquiry into children’s social care. Jack and Paul’s father was abusive to Claire. It was one of the reasons—which they clearly expressed—that they did not want contact with him. They were murdered by their father on a contact visit mandated by the court. Jack and Paul were not listened to, and Claire was not listened to when she clearly warned of the danger—the tragedy of Jack and Paul’s deaths was the consequence. The removal of the presumption of contact in cases of domestic abuse is a landmark moment in the protection of children from domestic abuse. It recognises that children are victims of domestic abuse in their own right, and that domestic abuse occurring in the home is also a significant risk factor for children. Women’s Aid reports that, over the past 30 years, 67 children have been killed by a parent who was also a perpetrator of domestic abuse in circumstances related to child contact arrangements, including Jack and Paul. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West pointed out, 19 of those children were murdered between 2015 and 2024.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that we need unfettered access to aid in Gaza. I turn my attention now to the current humanitarian crisis. The ceasefire has restored the distribution of aid to the UN, which is best placed to undertake that complex task and should never have been forced to stop operating in that role. The situation remains desperate and there is still not unimpeded access. For example, there is a significant problem with getting tents for basic shelter into Gaza because of Israeli Government restrictions. Winter is fast approaching and there has been flooding in parts of Gaza. Tents are urgently needed for basic shelter. There is also an urgent need to restore the healthcare system to provide services to a population whose health is fragile in so many ways, and there is a particular need for healthcare services for women, because approximately 130 babies are born every day in Gaza in conditions of acute risk.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for opening this important debate. I also thank the 1,351 residents of my constituency for signing the petition, a number that speaks to the extent of distress and concern that they feel about the situation in Gaza. The ceasefire, which began on 10 October, is very welcome, enabling the remaining hostages to be released, the bodies of deceased hostages to be returned alongside the release of Palestinian detainees, and allowing Palestinians to return home. However, it is impossible to overstate how much devastation the people of Gaza have suffered over the past two years, and how much they continue to suffer. Almost everyone has been displaced, often multiple times. Loved ones have been killed. The people have faced starvation, a famine across Gaza, the risk of disease and the decimation of the healthcare system. Now they are returning home and finding only piles of rubble on the streets where they once lived. There is an urgent need for humanitarian aid at scale to reach Gaza now, and every week and every month for the foreseeable future. There is an urgent need for food, medicine, shelter and blankets as we enter the winter months, and for the restoration of infrastructure, water supplies, communications, schools and healthcare facilities. This situation is not the result of a natural disaster, nor was it unavoidable; it is the result of the relentless bombardment of civilians, schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure; the two-year restriction by the Israeli Government on humanitarian aid into Gaza at anything close to the scale that was needed; and the forced displacement of people from their homes and their land. As we speak of reconstruction and humanitarian obligations, we must also speak of the need for justice and accountability under international law. The need to drive forward the humanitarian response and reconstruction is urgent, but that urgency cannot mean that the question of accountability for the many breaches of international humanitarian law by the Israeli Government and Hamas in Gaza, and by the Israeli Government in the west bank over the past two years, is forgotten. Can the Minister update the House on the UK Government’s approach to justice and accountability in relation to the conflict in Gaza? What engagement has he had with the US, the UN and other partners on this issue, and how confident is he that, under the current plans, the question of accountability is not being dismissed? It is important that legal obligations are the starting point for the situation in Gaza. The ICJ determined in an advisory opinion in October 2025 that Israel, as an occupying power, has “a general obligation to administer the territory for the benefit of the local population.” It is really important that the failure to discharge that obligation does not become normalised.