Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Public Accounts Committee · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and for the work of the Public Accounts Committee on this important issue. I have seen at first hand how unbelievably difficult it has been for my constituents who were victims of the Windrush scandal to get compensation from that scheme. The Windrush compensation scheme was not co-designed with victims, and it forced victims to apply to the very Department that had done them wrong through processes that were unwieldy and Kafkaesque in their bureaucracy. I therefore welcome the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation that an independent body should oversee the design of compensation schemes. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong that victims of the Windrush scandal were not afforded access to independent legal representation in making their applications? Does she agree that the Government still have the opportunity to correct that, and should do so forthwith?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her Committee’s excellent work on the important issue of student loans and for the good communication that she maintained with my Select Committee during her inquiry. The Education Committee concluded earlier this year that there is a genuine crisis in the financial sustainability of our universities as a result of many different pressures bearing down on them. Does she agree that if the Government do not bring forward additional measures to improve the long-term affordability of student loans, as she recommends, the risk is that more and more young people will decide not to pursue a university education? That would not only mean that they miss out on the potentially transformative impacts of such an education, but serve further to undermine the financial viability of our universities.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I have had the privilege of visiting the west bank on two occasions on visits organised by Caabu—the Council for Arab-British Understanding—and by Yachad. I put on the record my interests in respect of both those visits. On the second occasion, I also visited some of the kibbutz communities in the south of Israel, which suffered horrific losses in the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. They were extraordinary conversations with people who had lost their loved ones, who had suffered the most horrific violence in their communities, who had been and continued to be long-term peace campaigners and who were still committed to working for peace. They included Maoz Inon, who has written so movingly with his Palestinian friend, Aziz Abu Sarah, about their hopes for peace in his book, “The Future is Peace”. I commend that book to the House. That visit was extraordinarily humbling. In the west bank, we visited communities that had been the subject of settler terrorism. In Turmus Ayya, we met Palestinians whose homes had been burned and who faced constant harassment, intimidation and threats from settlers. In the village of Zanuta near Hebron, we spoke with members of a 250-strong community who had been threatened that if they did not leave, they would be killed. A month after they left, the settlers came and destroyed the whole village, including a council building funded by the EU and the UK Government. We stood in the ruins of two schools, again funded by the EU and the UK Government, that had been razed to the ground by settlers, and we saw the decades-long desolation in Hebron where Palestinians have been banned from their homes. We also saw settlement after settlement after settlement —new homes and communities—built on land from which Palestinians had been displaced. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this activity is, as the Foreign Secretary said last week, ethnic cleansing and strategically designed to undermine the possibility of a two-state solution. The E1 settlement takes this even further, aiming to divide the west bank north from south and sever it from East Jerusalem. As a former town planner, I can say that it is simply the use of the planning system as a tool of oppression—an attempt to make a two-state solution impossible. I welcome the Government’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine—there cannot be a two-state solution without two states—but it is a source of frustration and deep regret that it has taken so long to see action to stop funding from the UK through trade supporting and sustaining illegal settlements. Clarity on human rights and international law is in everyone’s interests and words must be backed up by meaningful action. I welcome the ban on trade in goods and services from illegal settlements, and I welcome the Government’s confirmation that they agree with the International Court of Justice that Israel’s occupation of the west bank and Gaza is unlawful. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s moral clarity on the utter horror of the situation in Gaza, where the scale of death and destruction is unimaginable and people are living in utterly desperate circumstances. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has rightly described it as a “moral catastrophe”. As the Government have announced meaningful action, may I press the Minister on the urgency of the humanitarian situation in Gaza? The Israeli Government must allow essential items, such as prosthetic limbs, crutches and wheelchairs, into Gaza, as well as permitting more medical specialists to enter Gaza to meet the needs of its population. The Israeli Government must stop the killing. Will the Minister confirm which of the measures announced in recent days require legislation and confirm that the Government will take all measures possible to ensure that legislation is delivered as quickly as possible? The situation in Israel and Palestine is so far away from a peaceful two-state solution and progress towards it will require sustained effort over a long period of time. Will my hon. Friend the Minister assure this House that he will leave no stone unturned in maintaining the clarity of the Government’s position and ensuring that the position is always supported by meaningful action that furthers the cause of peace and the imperatives of justice and accountability?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Apprenticeships · Hansard source

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  May I put on record my condolences to the Prime Minister on the sad loss of his father? The Education Committee strongly agrees with the Government’s focus on expanding opportunities for apprenticeships and high-quality technical and vocational education across the country, but too often young people who want to pursue apprenticeships are left to do their own research across multiple different platforms with varying application timescales. Last year, the Education Committee recommended that to help young people understand the full range of opportunities available to them and provide parity of esteem, there should be a single point of access for information about apprenticeships alongside vocational, technical and academic courses. Will the new Minister look again at that recommendation and seek to ensure young people wishing to do apprenticeships and vocational and technical courses are just as well supported as their peers who are applying for university?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, we received the fantastic news that the Buy Back Brixton community campaign has been named as the preferred buyer for Brixton’s iconic markets, Brixton Village and Market Row, which are in my constituency. That means that the markets can be purchased by the community for the community, safeguarding their character and heritage and securing the long-term future for the incredible traders who make their living there. Will the Leader of the House join me in recognising and celebrating the milestone reached by Buy Back Brixton and encourage everyone to support its drive to raise the remaining funds needed to complete the sale? Could we have a debate in Government time on what more can be done to safeguard community assets and independent businesses on our high streets and in our town centres and to expand community ownership?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The housing crisis is the single biggest issue facing my constituents. Every single year since I was first elected as a local councillor on the same day that the coalition Government came into power in 2010, I have watched the housing crisis deepen and become more entrenched in my constituency. Our local council had vital grant funding for new social homes withdrawn; subsequent Conservative Governments froze and cut council rents, leaving gaping holes in the housing revenue account and hamstringing our councils on repairs and investment; and right-to-buy changes have haemorrhaged council homes out of the system and into the private sector, sometimes only for them to be let back to our councils as temporary accommodation at extortionate rents. After 14 years of harmful policies, the impacts are clear: tens of thousands of families living in temporary accommodation and in unsafe, damp, mouldy conditions that harm health and undermine the essential stability and security that every one of us needs to thrive. This is not only a housing crisis, but a public health crisis, a cost of living crisis and a basic human decency crisis. I rise to speak in particular to the campaign that I have been running since 2022: a reform to social housing regulations called Georgia’s law. Georgia is a former constituent who had been a social housing tenant for five years when her eldest son, having done nothing wrong, was threatened by gang members. The police told Georgia that his life was at risk and that she needed to move. The move into temporary accommodation was catastrophic for Georgia and her family, ultimately resulting in the murder of her second son—a horrific act that would never have happened had that family’s life not been destabilised in that way. What we discovered was that Georgia had no security of tenure as a social housing tenant in those circumstances; her family had to move through no fault of their own, because they were the victims of a threat of serious violence. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister’s commitment and engagement on this issue, and I particularly thank the noble Lord Best for picking up this issue in the Lords and for the debate and discussion that happened there. I look forward to engaging further with the Minister on the amendments that might be tabled to secure in law the protection for social housing tenants who have to move because of a threat of violence, where police deem that move necessary, so that they do not suffer the compounding trauma of the destabilisation of their lives in temporary accommodation. I will table an amendment on Report if necessary, but I look forward to further engagement with the Minister on the issue in the meantime.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Education and Skills Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, and welcome her to her place. I also warmly welcome the Government’s focus on boosting technical and vocational education, and giving them parity of esteem with academic routes. The Children’s Commissioner has today highlighted the unacceptably high number of young people who are registered at college but attend less than 50% of the time. Colleges need the resources to address this problem by monitoring attendance more effectively and intervening to provide targeted support to students who need it, but despite being part of our state education system, colleges are on an uneven financial playing field, because, unlike schools, they are unable to claim back VAT. They have told my Committee again and again that they could do far more if this unfair and unjustifiable tax anomaly was corrected. May I therefore ask the Secretary of State to make representations to the Chancellor, ahead of the Budget, about colleges being allowed to claim back VAT in the same way that schools can?

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We take a broad definition of reading in the report, including audiobooks, because this is about the stories and the connection. Any way that gets children and young people engaged in that is important. Frank Cottrell-Boyce makes the point so well that reading with babies often means books that do not have any words in them at all—it is about the pictures, the story and the engagement.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Member about the importance of face-to-face services. I mentioned the excellent community midwifery services that I was able to benefit from as a new mother. We have got ourselves into a terrible state with maternity care right across the country, with tragedies and a real challenge in turning those services around. One of the things I found so important and appreciated so much about that community midwifery service was that during the course of my pregnancies, I got to know the team of five midwives who worked in that service. One of those midwives took me through labour and the antenatal period. That was so important for building the trust that, in midwifery and maternity services in particular, has been badly damaged by service failures in lots of areas of the country. My second daughter has two middle names, one of which is Agnes. Agnes is the midwife who delivered both my babies through that excellent community midwifery service, about which I cannot speak highly enough. Those services have now largely gone; midwifery services are not delivered in that way anymore. On the delivery of online services, parents and carers—all of us—look for advice online all the time, so it is important that there are accredited, reliable, trustworthy sources of good information online. I do not dismiss the role of online services, but they cannot ever be a substitute for the delivery of in-person services. As our Labour Government seek to restore some of the provision that was lost as Sure Start was dismantled, and to respond to the challenges that families face by expanding Best Start family hubs, there are some vital considerations. The first, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) alluded to, is the principle of universality. None of us comes to parenthood for the first time knowing everything about what is best for our baby. For many new parents, irrespective of material resources, the experience is overwhelming. It is an incredibly vulnerable time of life: 10% to 15% of new mothers experience post-partum depression. We should therefore ensure that all new parents can access support and advice in the earliest years, and that it is easily accessible for everyone in their local communities. If support was delivered in that way, there would be no stigma associated with accessing it, and there would be the added benefit of helping to build community cohesion by giving parents from different backgrounds living in the same area an opportunity to connect with each other.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. I mentioned the need for early access to SEND support, and I would include audiology in that category. Those services are vital, as are speech and language services, which we know are all too often not available at the earliest possible opportunity. In a moment, I will speak about the importance of that very early intervention. That network is the village, and the village should be available in every community for every family, right across the country, every single week of the year. One of the proudest achievements of the Labour Governments of 1997 to 2010 was the creation of Sure Start—a children’s centre in every community, bringing together a range of universal services for pregnant women, new parents and carers, and children under a single roof in local neighbourhoods. I once again pay tribute to my predecessor, Dame Tessa Jowell, for her pioneering work to establish Sure Start right across the country. The results of Sure Start were transformative, with long-term evaluations showing that integrated early childhood interventions significantly improved long-term health, especially for disadvantaged children; reduced hospital admissions; and improved GCSE results. The analysis also showed that investment in those services represented exceptional value for money and a positive financial return, with every pound spent on Sure Start delivering more than twice as much back in societal benefits. My own daughters were born in 2005 and 2008, and we experienced at first hand the benefits of that investment in the form of antenatal and early childhood support. It provided a gold standard in community midwifery services, excellent health visitors, good breastfeeding support, a drop-in speech and language therapy clinic when one of my daughters needed that, and a wealth of other services. All of this was delivered a very short distance from home in our local community, so we also got to meet other parents and babies at the same stage and to build relationships with them.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on coming top in the private Members’ Bill ballot and on his choice of Bill. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) for her work to champion the needs of very young children and their families over many, many years. I thank the 1001 Critical Days Foundation for its work on the Bill. Its research so clearly demonstrates how critical the first 1,001 days—the stage from conception to the age of two—are for child development and the unique opportunity they offer to set every baby on a solid foundation for the rest of their life. There is a sign outside the wonderful Sheringham nursery and children’s centre in east London that captures the importance of the first 1,001 days perfectly: it reads “Building brains here.” During the first 1,001 days, babies’ brains develop at the most astonishing rate, forming over 1 million neural connections every minute and reaching 80% of their adult size by the age of two. The right support during this vital phase of development can bear fruit for a lifetime in terms of good emotional regulation, learning capacity, language and communication skills, and physical health. Conversely, without the right inputs in early childhood, the impacts of disadvantage can become embedded for a lifetime. Good support in the first 1,001 days involves a wide range of people. It means family, of course, but also midwives, health visitors, GPs, parenting support, breastfeeding and weaning support, and perinatal mental health care. It can also involve special educational needs and disabilities specialists, and, sadly, sometimes those in safeguarding and social services. This network of people involved in providing support for babies, parents and carers during the first two years gives meaning to the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child.”

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with everything that my hon. Friend says. It is important that Best Start family hubs are, like Sure Start centres, anchor institutions—anchor places in local communities—as well as places where individual services are delivered; then the whole will be more than the sum of its parts. The second principle I want to mention is the importance of the availability of SEND expertise in early years settings. The earlier that a special educational need or disability is identified, the sooner that appropriate support can be put in place. Early identification also enables parents and carers to understand their child’s needs and provide the support they need as they grow. Early intervention is not only the best for the child and the family, but much more cost-effective for the public purse. I therefore strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to put SEND specialists in every Best Start family hub. The third principle is the opportunity to participate in a range of activities together. My Committee recently published a report on reading for pleasure, which delivers such significant benefits for children’s development, educational attainment, empathy and mental health and wellbeing. Reading for pleasure should start as early as possible in a child’s life, with parents and carers reading to their babies. My Committee recommended a national reading guarantee that will embed opportunities to read for pleasure throughout every child’s life, from birth to the age of 18. This should start in Best Start family hubs. I pay tribute to the brilliant work of BookTrust and former Waterstones children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce in this area. They have modelled inclusive approaches to early years reading that engage and build the confidence of parents and carers, who themselves had negative experiences of reading at school and lack the confidence to read with their own children, by making reading together a fun and joyous experience for everyone. We heard some wonderful testimony about groups who do this work with fathers, grandparents, parents and carers, building the confidence back to do something that delivers such benefits both for children and for parents.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with everything that my hon. Friend says. The role of fathers is so important, and they must have the opportunity to connect with each other and share their experiences. I will later talk about some powerful work on reading that involves fathers. Parenting support should be presented as something that absolutely everybody needs, not as something that people need only if they have a problem, because that is where the stigma creeps in. As well as making these services as normal as possible, we need to make them as accessible as possible. My hon. Friend also makes some important points about paternity leave.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  Later in my speech, I will make exactly that point about the importance of these services being available on a universal basis, for the reasons my hon. Friend alludes to. It was a tragedy that Sure Start centres were one of the earliest and most extensive casualties of the austerity of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government of 2010. The funding was not ringfenced; in many cases, the services were not statutory; and the integrated service design model was not mandated. In many ways, the strongest argument for the Bill we are debating today is the experience of just how easy it was for Sure Start to be dismantled, ultimately resulting in the closure of 1,300 centres and the loss of that precious and vital integrated network of support for babies and their families, which had been delivering so much. Those closures were compounded by the covid-19 pandemic, when access to face-to-face services in early childhood was very limited. We have seen the impact of that, particularly the increase in the number of children with speech, language and communication difficulties coming through the system in recent years.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I was coming to that exact point. We must pay tribute to the legend that is the late Dolly Parton. We mourn her passing. Her extraordinary commitment through her Imagination Library means that children in my constituency, many other parts of the country and across the world can receive a book a month free of charge. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her generosity and leadership in this area. My Committee is undertaking an inquiry on the early years and will report shortly. I look forward to setting out our recommendations for the ways in which support in the first 1,001 days can be further strengthened to give every child the best possible start in life. In addition, we are working with the Work and Pensions Committee on a joint inquiry to scrutinise the Government’s child poverty strategy, because unless we tackle the scourge of child poverty, children will continue to experience the blight of disadvantage, which prevents them from fulfilling their potential. I welcome the Bill and I am pleased that the Government are supporting it. Placing early childhood services on a statutory footing will provide a better basis to ensure that these vital services are delivered consistently in every community across the country, making it much harder for a future Government to dismantle them, as previous Governments have been able to do. I welcome the requirement for an annual report to Parliament as the accountability mechanism for the new statutory duties. My Committee would welcome the opportunity to play our part in scrutinising the Government’s progress in this area. There is no more important task than giving every child the best possible start in life. It is important because every child is precious and deserving of love and security. It is important because the benefits to our society and our economy are huge. The Bill will play an important role in ensuring that we deliver for every single child, and I am proud to support it.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Tenant Management Organisations and the Right to Manage · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of the Loughborough Estate in my constituency, I wish to say that the conditions in which the residents there are currently forced to live are shocking. The lack of a straightforward remedy to those conditions is completely unacceptable, and the need for change is urgent. The petition states: The petition of residents of the Loughborough Estate in Brixton, Declares that the right to manage for residents of social housing is important and that tenant management organisations often deliver high quality services, but the Loughborough Estate is under the long-term control of a tenant management organisation which has lost its democratic mandate, and fails to deliver the essential services in respect of which it receives over £3 million per year of funds from the London Borough of Lambeth; and further declares that the current right to manage legislation is not fit for purpose, lacks essential safeguards, and enables rogue entities to retain control of council housing without democratic mandate and oversight. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons considers this issue, and urges the Government to: (i) produce regulations amending the Housing (Right to Manage) (England) Regulations 2012, introducing essential changes to safeguard the democratic integrity of tenant management organisations; and (ii) publish updated guidance in relation to the application of any such regulations, including a new Modular Management Agreement. And the petitioners remain, etc. [P003218]