Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2026 · Historical Forced Adoption · Hansard source

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  The evidence that the Education Committee heard from mothers and adult adoptees was utterly devastating. I thank Diana Defries, Ann Lloyd Keen, Sally Ells and Debbie Iromlou for courageously reliving their trauma so that we could shine a light on the extent of the injustice they suffered and the urgent need for a meaningful response. They should not have had to work so hard for so long just to be heard and to have their experiences recognised. I also thank the academics who gave evidence, and especially Professor Gordon Harold and Dr Michael Lambert, whose painstaking and rigorous research helped to prove what mothers and adult adoptees have long known: that the state was culpable for the wrongs they suffered by presiding over, funding and facilitating a system that dehumanised unmarried pregnant women and their babies, and inflicted horrific cruelty upon them. I thank the Prime Minister for this apology today. It is long overdue and much needed. I thank him for the breadth of the apology and for the Government’s work with survivors to get to this point. Women whose babies were forcibly adopted and who endured cruelty and humiliation in mother and baby homes and in the NHS should know today that the shame of this period in our history rests on the Government and on the religious and community and healthcare organisations who presided over, facilitated and sustained the system; it is not, and never was, theirs to carry. This apology is a watershed, but it must be only the beginning of putting right the disgraceful wrongs of this shameful period of our history. May I ask the Prime Minister to set out how progress on delivering the support he has announced will be monitored and how survivors will continue to be involved in it? Will he ensure that as the Government progress this work, information on how to access that support will be made widely available? So many families have a story, and there are so many stories that are still untold with so many still feeling ashamed to speak about this period in their lives and its lifelong impact. They must no longer feel ashamed; they must feel that they can come forward and access the help and support they need.

• 25 Jun 2026 · Windrush Day · Hansard source

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  I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate. I received many messages from others who would have loved dearly to contribute but were unable to come—for reasons to do either with fleeing the weather in London or with the by-elections taking place here—so the relatively small number of speeches should not in any way be interpreted as a lack of interest in Windrush Day. The speeches that we have heard have been excellent. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for sharing her family story and experience, and for raising so clearly the problems with the compensation scheme and the need for urgent further reforms, including independent legal representation and more experienced caseworkers. We must not forget that this work is urgent; the Windrush generation is ageing. It is particularly egregious that people have died while waiting for compensation from the scheme. I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for her recognition of the Windrush generation and for sharing her memories. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for mentioning Andrea Levy and for her tribute to Baroness Benjamin. Sadly, I am old enough to be regarded by Baroness Benjamin as one of her “Play School” babies. She deserves all our respect for her incredible work to secure the national Windrush monument at Waterloo—although I think a few different people would lay claim to being the first person to raise the need for a national Windrush Day. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for responding to the debate, for her heartfelt tribute to the Windrush generation and for agreeing to take our concerns back to colleagues in Government. In my experience, many members of the Windrush generation recognised 18 months ago the reasons for not making the compensation scheme independent. They recognised that reform, if possible, would speed things up, and that people would not be left waiting for so long. However, the Government must take seriously the fact that experiences have not improved to the required extent over the past 18 months, and that there are still calls for independence. We have not seen change at the scale required to address all those concerns. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister took that back and seriously considered the call for independence from Rev. Clive Foster, the Windrush commissioner. Finally, I wish everybody well in their celebrations and commemorations of Windrush Day over the coming days and at the weekend. We must remember that this particular Windrush Day takes place at a very serious time in our history. We must do everything possible to ensure that the cancer of racism cannot take hold in our society. Our task is to support all the wonderful, rich and diverse communities across the country to live well together. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Windrush Day 2026.

• 25 Jun 2026 · Windrush Day · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered Windrush Day 2026. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate. Windrush Day is on 22 June, the anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks. The Windrush has become a symbol of a period in our history when many people came to the UK from the countries of the Commonwealth. I am grateful to Arthur Torrington, who co-founded the Windrush Foundation with his dear friend, the late Samuel Beaver King, for his work documenting the history of the Windrush. Later this week, everyone will be able to read Arthur’s new book, “Windrush Myths and Misconceptions”, which I highly recommend. The Windrush began its voyage in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 20 May 1948. It made a number of stops in the Caribbean, including at Kingston in Jamaica. We do not know everything about the passengers on the Windrush, in part because the ship’s manifest records limited information, and in part because there were a number of service personnel on board who, for security reasons, were not recorded on the manifest. We know that there were at least 1,067 passengers on board, probably considerably more. The Commonwealth passengers on the Windrush travelled straightforwardly on British passports, knowing that they had the right to come to the UK, the place they called the mother country. The passengers were a diverse group with differing levels of income, different reasons for travelling, and a range of skills and occupations. Among them were 66 Polish refugees. Not all the passengers were coming to look for work. Some were visiting the UK as tourists, and at least one was coming to watch a relative who was competing in the 1948 London Olympics. Upon their arrival, around 230 of the passengers were provided with temporary accommodation in the Clapham Common deep shelter, from where some of them came to Brixton and found work and accommodation. That gives my constituency a proud and direct relationship with the Windrush, recognised in the naming of Windrush Square in the heart of Brixton. One of the passengers was Sam King, an RAF airman who had served during the second world war. He returned to the UK on the Windrush and regarded the voyage as historic. He made great efforts to ensure that it would not be forgotten, keeping in touch with his fellow passengers and, from 1968, bringing them together to commemorate anniversaries. Sam King became known as Mr Windrush, and started the tradition of Windrush Day, long before it became a national day recognised by the Government in 2018. Sam King achieved many things in his life, including working with Claudia Jones to found the Notting Hill carnival. We are immensely proud in my constituency that he became the first black mayor of Southwark. HMT Empire Windrush entered our narrative as a symbol for a whole cohort of people who came from the Commonwealth to live in the UK from approximately 1948 to 1971. They became known as the Windrush generation, and we have a debt of gratitude to them. They came here to contribute, founding businesses, working in our NHS and transport systems, helping to rebuild our country from the ruins of the second world war. They enriched our culture and national life through food, music and faith communities, and they helped to forge the identity of modern Britain. Members may have seen the “Windrush Untold Stories” exhibition that has been installed in the Portcullis House atrium for the whole of June. The exhibition features beautiful portraits of 18 individuals who are all either members of the Windrush generation or their descendants. They include: the Reverend Michael King, son of Sam King; the late Clovis Salmon, wheelmaker and documentary maker, who lived in my constituency; and Dawn Hill CBE, one of the founders of the Black Cultural Archives. Each portrait has a QR code, through which people can listen to the subject telling their story. I encourage anyone who has not yet done so to listen to the stories. They are moving, humbling and inspiring. They capture perfectly the courage, grit, determination and passion of the Windrush generation, alongside some of the pain that members of that generation endured. I pay tribute to Ros Griffiths, who initiated the “Windrush Untold Stories” exhibition; Amit Lennon, who took the photographs; and the Empathy Museum, which gathered the stories and produced the exhibition. I look forward to celebrating Windrush Day with Ros at the Big Caribbean Lunch on Windrush Square in my constituency this weekend. However, our celebration of the Windrush generation is not a sentimental thing. Despite their commitment and contribution, members of that generation faced terrible racism, hostility and hardship, from the signs in the windows of rental properties that read, “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish”, to the workplace racism, and eventually the Home Office scandal, which broke in 2018. The Windrush scandal saw the citizenship of those who had come here on British passports—whether before or after the British Nationality Act 1948—being denied their citizenship, often with utterly devastating consequences. Eight years on from the scandal coming to national attention in the media, there is still work to be done to secure justice for its victims. I pay tribute to the former Minister for Migration, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), for the work she did to rebuild trust with many of the victims of the Windrush scandal. She reformed the compensation scheme and resourced the Windrush unit in the Home Office, resulting in an event that many would never have thought possible: the holding of a Windrush conference in the Home Office itself, which was attended by many elders of the Windrush generation and many victims of the scandal. But there is still considerable work to do. Research by JUSTICE and the University of Sussex has found that claimants to the compensation scheme received an average offer of £11,400 when they applied for compensation by themselves, but an average of £83,300 for the same cases once they had legal representation. Such disparity is completely unacceptable, and it must be addressed. There are still victims who do not trust the Home Office to administer the scheme, and who have not come forward to apply for the compensation to which they are entitled. There are still individual cases—including at least one that I have been made aware of in detail—in which people are being denied their status, based on an inaccurate understanding of history. We should not mark this year’s Windrush Day without reflecting on the fact that political parties in our country are now seeking to rewrite the definition of Britishness as being based on ancestry alone. They are trying to create a false and completely unacceptable distinction between native Brits and non-native citizens, focusing implicitly on whiteness. This is a divisive, abhorrent and, most importantly, completely inaccurate articulation of Britishness, and we must reject it with all our strength. In recent weeks, the stoking of racist hatred and division has resulted in long-term residents of Belfast being hounded out of their homes based on the colour of their skin, in a sickening echo of the “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish” signs that greeted many of the Windrush generation. It is making many black and brown Britons feel anxious and fearful in their own communities. It is shameful and it is wrong. We do not have different categories of British citizen; we just have citizens of many different backgrounds, all together. We are one United Kingdom, with more in common than divides us. People come to citizenship through a range of routes—some by birth, and some by naturalisation. We are diverse, but we are all equal in status. Our task as citizens is to live well together in our communities and have respect for each other, to contribute to our society in the ways that we can, and to build places in which all our children and grandchildren can thrive. I pay tribute to all those who work to preserve the history of the Windrush generation, to educate people about it and to campaign for justice. In particular, I want to mention Arthur Torrington and the Windrush Foundation; Bishop Desmond Jaddoo and the Windrush National Organisation; Garrick Prayogg and Justice for the Windrush Generations; Sir Patrick Vernon, who I was delighted to see knighted in the King’s birthday honours this month; Ros Griffiths; the Windrush Justice Clinic; the Black Cultural Archives in my constituency; and Dr Les Johnson and Denize Ledeatte at the Windrush Museum. I want to make a number of asks of the Minister. Will she take seriously the need for support for victims of the Windrush scandal who apply to the compensation scheme, and work with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that they have access to funded legal support? In the light of concerns that the scheme is not on an equal footing with others, such as the infected blood compensation scheme and the Post Office/Horizon scandal compensation scheme, will she work with the Home Office to commission an independent review and address any disparities? Will she raise with the Home Office the calls for the scheme to be made fully independent from the Department responsible for the scandal? Will the Minister start work to plan for the 80th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in 2028 so that commemorative and celebratory events like the Big Caribbean Lunch can take place across the country? Will she consider calls to deepen our celebrations by having a Windrush Month or a national Windrush motion, to embed Windrush history further within our civic life? Will she provide support for recording and preserving the oral histories of members of the Windrush generation, as has been done for the “Windrush Untold Stories” exhibition? Those stories are powerful, and they have an important role to play in educating people about our shared history. As part of that work, will she support the campaign by Sir Patrick Vernon and others to raise the anchor of the HMT Empire Windrush from the Mediterranean seabed, so that this important symbol of resilience and hope can be restored and used as an opportunity to tell this story? Finally, in the light of the abhorrent narratives on immigration that are currently gaining currency in our politics, will she commit to do everything possible to ensure that the Government’s policies always reflect and celebrate our rich and complex identity as an island nation to which people from all over the world have always come to make their home, including through upcoming legislation on immigration? The story of the Windrush generation is remarkable in so many ways. Most importantly, however, it is part of the story of us. It is an integral and interwoven part of the history of our country and our identity as a nation, and we must never forget it.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Social Media Ban for Under-16s · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, and warmly welcome the decisive action that she has set out. She has agreed with the evidence-based conclusions of the Education Committee: that social media harms currently outweigh the benefits for children, that technology companies cannot be trusted to regulate themselves, and that we need to reset completely the relationship that children have with the online world. Our evidence demonstrated that a ban is not enough, and that when young people start using social media—hopefully post-16—it should be free from the most harmful, addictive features. The tech sector is constantly innovating and evolving. Can the Secretary of State say whether and how the list of banned applications will be reviewed so that it keeps pace with the innovation in the tech sector and does not become out of date?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  I welcome the announcement today. The Education Committee recently took evidence from social media and gaming companies, which left every member of the Committee profoundly concerned. They downplayed the issues, denied the scale of harm and overplayed the magnitude and effectiveness of their own responses, so we have very little confidence that big tech knows what is required and has any motivation to do it. If, as seems likely, legislation is required after three months, can the Minister provide an assurance that the drafting of that legislation is already under way so that we do not lose any more time before our children are safe online?

• 4 Jun 2026 · Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister on his commitment to making a difference for children in the care system and for care leavers. It is a shocking reality that our care system has, over a long period of time, become so far removed from putting the essential needs of children and young people for secure, loving relationships at the heart of everything it does. May I acknowledge the magnitude of the shift that the Minister has announced today? We do not often have moments like this in the House—we should have them more often. Having spoken to many, many care leavers over a long period of time, I know the difference that what the Minister has announced today has the potential to make for them. I welcome the fact that many of his commitments are consistent with recommendations from the Education Committee in our report. May I ask the Minister for further detail on two areas? First, can he give an assurance that, as he works to deliver this transformation of the care system and support for care-experienced people, he will retain a focus on restoring the early intervention and family support that prevents children from entering the care system in the first place? Secondly, with the focus on regional care co-operatives, may I press him on their geography? They cover quite large geographies, and it is possible for a child to be placed in a regional care co-operative and still be placed a long way from home. In delivering on the detail of regional care co-operatives, will he give his attention to that issue and pay attention to the distance that children will need to travel within them?

• 18 May 2026 · Youth Justice · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and welcome the publication of the White Paper. Education has a vital role to play in reducing youth offending. There is a strong link between the offences committed by young people and educational disengagement earlier in their lives. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the Department for Education’s work on persistent absence, exclusions, special educational needs and disabilities, and support for care-experienced young people is properly joined up to ensure that the Government have a focus on removing disengagement from education and reducing youth offending? I welcome the work that the Secretary of State has asked the Children’s Commissioner to do on the quality of education in young offender institutions, but we already know that the quality of that education is abysmally poor and that action is urgently needed. Will he set a timescale for that work, so that we know when we will see the positive change that is so urgently needed?

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  I welcome many of the measures in the Gracious Speech, including legislation to strengthen our relationship with the European Union. Brexit has been the unmitigated disaster that the evidence always suggested it would be, and it is the Government’s responsibility both to act in the national interest by seeking to build closer alliances with the EU, and to continue to work to build a national consensus that it is in the UK’s economic, security and cultural interests to do so. We are focused on economic growth in this debate, and economic growth depends on a strong and sustainable education system at every level. The Education Committee’s recent report on higher education funding makes it clear that universities—anchor institutions in local and regional economies—face unprecedented financial pressure, with a real risk of insolvency and no clear plan for managing it. If we are serious about economic growth, we must be serious about the financial sustainability of the institutions that underpin it. In addition to taking the measures in the Gracious Speech, I urge the Government to take with the utmost seriousness my Committee’s recommendations on the steps needed to stabilise our university sector. I will focus the remainder of my remarks on the proposed “education for all” Bill. This legislation sits at the centre of the Government’s support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Too many families still have to fight to secure the right help for their children. Too many children wait months, sometimes years, for essential support. Too many teachers and school leaders are being asked to meet growing and complex needs in a system stretched beyond capacity. I welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that that cannot continue, and the aim of making generational reform that will raise standards and build a more inclusive education system. The emphasis on early intervention, support close to home and collaboration across education, health and care reflects many of the recommendations made by my Committee. The move towards earlier identification of need is right and necessary. National inclusion standards could help to address the deeply entrenched postcode lottery that families face, and provide a baseline for accountability. Investment in workforce training and multidisciplinary support through initiatives such as Experts at Hand shows understanding that inclusion relies on professional expertise, as well as good intentions. However, there are legitimate concerns about capacity in the SEND system and the resources needed to deliver effective and impactful reforms. Parents and carers have expressed significant anxiety about some of the proposals in the Government’s draft reforms, which could both reduce access to existing backstop accountabilities and risk exacerbating friction between parents and carers and schools. If the “education for all” Bill is to succeed, it must be matched by the resources and workforce planning needed to turn its vision into reality, and it must be based on the lived experience of children and families and the professionals who work with them. Any reform of education, health and care plans must strengthen, not weaken, the ability of families to secure the support that their children need, and to hold the system to account when it fails. Everyone wants a system that works better and delivers more effectively for children, but no system is perfect, or can be perfect. Parents need to know that, should things go wrong, the system can be held to account through robust and independent mechanisms, underpinned by legislation. For that reason, I strongly encourage the Government to provide space for continued and meaningful engagement at each stage of reform, and to consider publishing the Bill in draft form for pre-legislative scrutiny by the Education Committee. That would allow for the testing of ideas, the identification of unintended consequences, and improvements that would give the Bill the best possible start. We have a rare opportunity to make lasting change, and to build a system that delivers on the principle of inclusion in practice, provides timely and appropriate support for every child who needs it, empowers professionals and supports local services, rather than overwhelming them. With careful design, proper resourcing and true partnership with those on the frontline, the “education for all” Bill could mark a turning point for a system that is too often characterised by struggle and exhaustion, turning it into one defined by trust, consistency and opportunity. That is a goal that we all should share, and it is by working together that we can achieve it.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  First, I welcome the Government’s decision to introduce a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools. I appreciate that the guidance previously proposed was clear and that schools must take account of Government guidance, but where an issue is unequivocal—and I think the need for mobile phones to be absent from schools unless there is a clear need for an exception is unequivocal—putting the matter into legislation is the most straightforward way to ensure compliance, and it provides clarity for the public. However, what approach will the Minister take to the guidance accompanying this ban, particularly with regard to exceptions? There will be children who still need to have a phone in school for a variety of different reasons—for example, because they are young carers or because they rely on phone-enabled software for support with a disability or special educational need. At the Education Committee yesterday, one of our witnesses made an important point about how exceptions are to be treated when implementing a ban, which was that care needs to be taken regarding how the wider issues in the classroom are managed for children who have an exceptional need for a phone. Those issues include who gets to use the phone, what apps are allowed to be on that phone, and how children are kept safe from bullying in this context.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Member—and, indeed, with the Opposition Front Bencher, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott)—that the ban must be on the basis that phones are not in bags during the school day, but are removed from children while they are at school. The point I was making was really about children who need to have their phone with them. There will be some exceptions, and the question of how that is worked through in the guidance is important for protecting those children from the pressures that might come with being the only child in a classroom who has access to their phone. Drawing up a list of exceptions is more straightforward than deciding how those exceptions should be managed in a classroom environment, so I hope the Minister will be able to provide some assurance on that point. I now turn to Lords amendment 38. Yesterday, in the first of two evidence sessions on screentime and social media that are designed to enable the Select Committee to contribute to the Government’s consultation, we heard from three companies: TikTok, Meta and Roblox. Next week, we will hear from Snapchat, which withdrew from yesterday’s session at very short notice, much to our disappointment. We also heard from academics undertaking research in this area. It was absolutely clear from the evidence those three companies gave us that we cannot continue to rely on the companies whose platforms are causing the problem to regulate themselves out of it. I think that parents and carers across the country would have been incredulous had they listened to our evidence session yesterday. We heard Meta say that it did not believe that its apps were in any way addictive, when it has just lost a court case in the US on that precise point. We listened to TikTok say that it was horrified that children were coming to harm on its site, as if that was a rare exception, when a police investigation found that such harm is widespread. We heard Roblox express confidence that exploitation cannot happen on its site, when an independent expert recently said that the risks of children coming to harm on Roblox were so high that children should never be left unattended while using it.

• 20 Apr 2026 · Apprenticeships · Hansard source

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  I recently met a young constituent who is hoping to start a legal apprenticeship. He told me that he has had to research each apprenticeship opportunity himself and, unlike his peers who are applying to university, he is having to apply in the crucial weeks before his A-levels, when he needs to be revising. The Government rejected the Education Committee’s recommendation that information on apprenticeships should be available via UCAS, so that students have a single source of all post-16 and post-18 opportunities, and that the timescale for applications should be aligned with university applications. Will the Minister update the House on what the Government are doing to make apprenticeships available to young people on a more equitable basis?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in giving way. I think he would find it helpful to listen to the Education Committee’s evidence session on Tuesday next week, which will afford two hours of questioning of experts and important stakeholders in the field. I believe that we will make a useful contribution to helping the Government get to the right and implementable solutions during the consultation process. I encourage him to tune in to that.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I believe that there is a consensus across this House, both about the harms of social media and smartphones for our young people and about the urgent need for action. I have listened carefully to the contributions from Opposition Members but have heard no acknowledgment that, on some points of detail, there is genuine disagreement between different important stakeholders—including bereaved parents—on what exactly the solutions should look like. The Government’s consultation is affording the opportunity, for example, to the Education Committee to undertake some really detailed questioning of those important stakeholders who have differences of opinion. That will help the Government get to the right and effective approach. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge that difference of opinion and the importance of probing it?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome Government amendment 17B, which strengthens obligations to support sibling contact for children who are looked after. As the Minister knows, this is often the most important relationship that those children have. I pay tribute to the Family Rights Group and Become, as well as the campaigners she mentioned, for their important work in this area. The Education Committee recommended that the Government collect data on sibling separation in the care system in order to drive improvements in this area. As part of the implementation of amendment 17B, will the Minister commit to data collection, so that we can be certain that this measure is having the intended effect?

• 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?

• 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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  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?