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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

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

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

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  I will not give way, because of the number of Members who wish to speak. Some 16,400 SMEs have given up exporting to the EU because of Brexit-related red tape. [ Interruption . ] I will not give way, because of the number of colleagues who wish to get in. Our food is more expensive, regulation has dropped, and there was no £350 million a week for the NHS. During the debates that followed the referendum, I took the view that I would prioritise representing my constituents’ views, and that on such an important matter, even if we were losing the argument, democratic representation and plurality of voices mattered. It led me to rebel on a number of votes and to resign from the shadow Front Bench in order not to vote in support of the Conservatives’ Brexit deal. Brexit drove a huge wedge through the middle of our country. It divided regions from each other, split communities and even families, according to strong and sincerely held views. We do not need to re-litigate those arguments and to keep telling each other we were wrong, or seek to convince ourselves that we can easily return to where we were. However, responsible government demands that we reckon with the reality we find ourselves in. We must acknowledge the immense harm that has been done—that we are poorer and less secure as a consequence of Brexit—and it is right that we seek to undo the damage. I welcome the steps that the Government have already taken to reset our relationship with the European Union, starting with re-establishing the warmth of our friendship, reopening regular and constructive dialogue, negotiating new deals and rejoining Erasmus+. There is further to go, but we must move forward, step by step, making the consensus, building community and connection, and moving forward in a realistic way, recognising that relationships are mutual, not unilateral, and that there is more to do to rebuild our relationship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  I agree with everything that the hon. Member said. It is vital that such badly needed aid is allowed to enter Gaza unrestricted, and that we recognise that that process will need to continue for the foreseeable future because the situation is so desperate and the recovery will be long. But the recovery cannot begin without that unfettered access. There are only 15 health facilities in Gaza able to provide maternity and obstetric care. Mothers are giving birth without anaesthesia or essential drugs. Alongside the healthcare system in Gaza, the education system has also been largely destroyed. Children in Gaza have been traumatised by the conflict. Their psychosocial recovery is a really important part of achieving long-term peace and stability. They also have a right to education. Children in Gaza are desperate to return to school and the UN is working hard to restore education services, but the current ceasefire agreement and 20-point plan are silent on the subject of education, allowing it to be deprioritised. The Israeli Government’s co-ordinator of government activities in the territories states that all school supplies are currently banned from entry to Gaza. UNRWA submitted self-learning materials to COGAT for approval in July 2024. It acknowledges that the question of textbooks and content is controversial, but those supplies have not been approved and all basic materials, including basic stationery supplies, are currently being denied.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  On the work on extra-familial harms, what engagement is the Minister having with colleagues in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government? That very much reflects my perspective as a constituency MP and the heartbreaking cases I have seen in my constituency, where a family needed to move due to an extra-familial harm to a child. The social housing system is unable at the moment to protect the family’s tenancy rights. What happens is that families then move into temporary accommodation, and the whole stability of their life unravels as a consequence. In the previous Parliament, I put forward a proposal under the name Georgia’s law, which was named for one of my constituents who experienced exactly that, with utterly tragic consequences for her family. I wonder whether the Minister might pick that up with colleagues cross-departmentally.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I thank all hon. Members for contributing to this debate on a Thursday afternoon. For the benefit of anybody watching these proceedings externally, I should say that Thursday afternoons are a challenging time for hon. Members, when many of them have constituency commitments. The debate has therefore been characterised by the quality of the contributions, but not necessarily their quantity. It has been consensual and constructive, and it is important that we have brought the issues affecting some of the most vulnerable children in our country to the attention of the House. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for sharing his experience of pursuing, at a local level, making care experience a protected characteristic. Important work is going on in many local authorities on that theme, and I look forward to undertaking further work in the Education Committee to look at the evidence coming from local authorities that have implemented that approach of the benefits that it brings. I too pay tribute to Terry Galloway for all of his campaigning work in that area. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), and pay tribute to him for the contribution he makes to the Education Committee. We are lucky to benefit from his experience of senior leadership in his local authority and his lived experience—they are valuable for the work of the Committee. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who also spoke powerfully based on his lived experience, and we have benefited from him bringing it to the debate. Finally, I thank the Minister for his response. The Select Committee is pleased to see him in his place, with the depth of experience and commitment that he brings to this area of policy. We look forward to continuing to scrutinise work on it and to seeing some of the announcements he made bear fruit in the lives of children and young people across the country. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Education Committee, Children’s social care, HC 430, and the Government response, HC 1350.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I start by recognising the strength of feeling on term-time absences from school, particularly among the almost 182,000 people who signed the petition. Family life is precious, and there are so many pressures bearing down on families that serve to make time spent together relaxing and enjoying one another’s company all the more important. Going away on holiday; major family celebrations; religious holidays not currently reflected in our school calendar; caring responsibilities; parental separation—a whole range of circumstances can seem like more important priorities than being in school every single day of the school year, but I will set out three reasons why I do not agree that 10 days of permitted absence a year is the right way to address these concerns. First, and most importantly, all the evidence indicates that it is in children’s best interests to be in school with their peers as much as they possibly can. The link between attendance at school and attainment is strong: the Government’s data shows that key stage 2 pupils in year 6 who attended almost every day were 1.3 times more likely to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with pupils who attended 90% to 95% of the time. Missing 10 days of school a year reduced the likelihood of achieving the expected standard by 25%. For key stage 4 pupils in year 11, the situation is even starker. Missing 10 days of school reduces the chance of gaining a grade 5 in English or maths by 50%. That is because education builds from the foundations of a subject upwards. Missing days of education results in gaps in knowledge and understanding, which can affect a child’s ability to grasp future concepts properly, meaning that they never fully catch up. Secondly, a major concern of many petitioners is the excessive cost of holidays outside term time. Holidays are really important, and families should be able to go away. It is absolutely wrong for travel companies to exploit the constraints of families with children of school age by hiking up their prices during the school holidays. The practice is simply unfair—but the solution to the unfair pricing policies of travel companies is not to allow parents to remove their children from school to be able to afford a holiday; it is for travel companies to do the right thing and even out their pricing over the year, so that parents of school-age children are not penalised for doing the right thing and keeping their children in school. Thirdly, I am concerned about the impact of a change in policy to allow authorised absence for some parents on the attendance of the most vulnerable pupils. We have an attendance crisis in our schools at present; more than 22% of children severely or persistently absent from school. My Committee has been doing some work on school attendance, and we know that persistent and severe absence is a complex problem with a number of contributory factors, including poverty, an increased level of social, emotional and mental health need following the covid-19 pandemic, and the crisis in the SEND system. School leaders tell us that the pandemic broke the social contract between schools and parents, and that it has often been difficult to repair it. Introducing an entitlement to authorised absence would send entirely the wrong message to families at a time when the whole system should be pulling together to restore trust and confidence and to support children who are struggling to be in school to thrive. For the most vulnerable children, school is a protective factor. It is where they can get a hot meal—thanks to this Government, they are able to get both a healthy and nutritious breakfast and a hot lunch—can forge positive relationships with trusted adults and can access not only education, but a wider range of enriching extracurricular activities. If we say it is fine for the children of parents who can afford a holiday to skip school for 10 days, what message are we sending about the importance of being in school to the families who may never have the opportunity to go on holiday, but who often encounter significant obstacles in getting their children to school, for a wide range of reasons? The current challenges of severe and persistent absence demand multiple solutions. Schools must continue to rebuild relationships of trust with parents. The Government’s reforms to SEND and to the curriculum and assessment framework must ensure that school is an exciting, inspiring and engaging place for all children and young people. The child poverty strategy must remove the barriers to school attendance for the poorest pupils.

• 20 Oct 2025 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  My Committee’s recent inquiry on SEND found that, although support from health services is critical in enabling many children with special educational needs and disabilities to access education, health is often not represented at the table and there are no effective mechanisms to hold health services to account for the vital role that they play. What engagement does my hon. Friend the Minister have with her Department for Health and Social Care counterparts to ensure that health services play their full part in supporting and enabling children’s education?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Education Committee · Hansard source

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  As Chair of the Education Committee, I am pleased to present to the House our fifth report of this Parliament, “Solving the SEND Crisis”. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement. This inquiry was our first major undertaking in this Parliament. We chose the subject because the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities provision—SEND—is not just a challenge, but a moral imperative. Our report focuses on practical steps that can deliver an education system where every child, regardless of their needs, is given the opportunity to flourish. The crisis touches every corner of our education system, from early years to post-16 education. It affects 1.7 million children and young people, their families, their teachers and a wide range of other professionals. For too long, children and young people have been let down by a system that is fragmented, not fit for purpose and, as a consequence, often too adversarial. Our report sets out a road map for change—a vision for an inclusive, equitable and sustainable SEND system, grounded in the voices and experiences of the children and families it serves. Over eight months, we conducted a rigorous inquiry. I put on record my thanks to everyone who took part. We received over 890 written submissions and held seven oral evidence sessions. We heard from children and young people with SEND, whose courage and clarity moved us profoundly. We heard from parents exhausted by battles for basic rights, from teachers stretched beyond capacity and from professionals yearning to deliver but constrained by broken systems. We visited schools in Norfolk and learned from the inclusive model in Ontario, Canada, where children’s needs, not processes, drive support and where SEND provision is everyone’s responsibility. The evidence is stark. The number of children identified with SEND has risen by 400,000 in a decade to 1.7 million. Nearly half a million children have an education, health and care plan, and 1.2 million rely on SEND support. Behind those numbers lie stories of frustration, exclusion and unrealised potential. Parents told us about sleepless nights, navigating a maze of bureaucracy, and the impact on the whole family of having to fight constantly just for their child to be able to access education. Teachers spoke of the deep frustration they experience when they are unable to meet every child’s needs. Local authorities describe the invidious situation they face, holding the statutory responsibility for delivering for every child, but without the powers to do so, and with a funding crisis that is driving them to the edge of bankruptcy. This is not what inclusion looks like—this is a system at breaking point. Our report identifies a series of critical failures and offers practical, evidence-based solutions. First, inclusive education remains an aspiration, not a reality. A decade after the 2014 reforms, there is still no shared definition of what inclusion means. Without clarity, schools, local authorities and families are left adrift, with no consistent standard to aim for and no clear accountability for delivering it. We call on the Department for Education to publish a clear definition of inclusive education within three months, underpinned by national standards for SEND support and ordinarily available provision, backed by statutory duties and proper funding. Secondly, trust has collapsed. Parents and carers feel sidelined, blamed or forced into costly legal battles to secure their child’s rights. Last year, 95% of SEND tribunal appeals were upheld, a damning manifestation of systemic failure. We must rebuild trust through genuine partnership. This means treating parents and carers as equal partners in their child’s education, ensuring access to independent advocacy and making transparency the cornerstone of every process. Thirdly, while there are many committed, highly skilled professionals who work hard every day to deliver for children, there are some fundamental ways in which our workforce are not equipped to deliver. Teachers and support staff are dedicated but overstretched, lacking the training and resources to meet rising needs. Special educational needs co-ordinators are in short supply and are too often regarded as the sole person with responsibility for SEND support in a school. Educational psychologists are mired in assessments, preventing them from directly delivering interventions and sharing their expertise with other professionals. We propose a cross-departmental SEND workforce strategy, jointly led by the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, to invest in training, to secure the recruitment of specialists and to free professionals to focus on frontline support. Fourthly, funding is broken. The notional £6,000 threshold for SEND support, unchanged since its introduction in 2014, is woefully inadequate. High-needs deficits are spiralling, and the statutory override is a temporary plaster on a deepening wound. We urge the Government to commission a full cost-benefit analysis of inclusive education and to ensure sufficient funding in the high-needs block to deliver early intervention, which can transform lives and reduce long-term costs. Finally, accountability is failing and there is a structural misalignment of statutory responsibilities and powers. We heard time and again that health and social care partners are too often absent from the SEND table and cannot be held to account. In education, accountability is unevenly distributed, leading to an understandable over-reliance on the statutory part of the system—the education, health and care plans—because it is accountable. We also heard that local authorities do not have the powers or the funding to deliver the school places that are needed, which is contributing to their financial pressures as they are forced to purchase expensive independent school places to meet their statutory responsibilities. We recommend statutory duties for health and social care, enforceable SEND tribunal powers for health provision and a SEND lead within the NHS to drive accountability, a statutory framework for SEND support and ordinarily available provision, and better alignment between local authorities’ responsibilities and their ability to deliver the school places that are needed to meet them. We have seen what is possible. At Aylsham high school in Norfolk, we witnessed a resource base seamlessly integrated into mainstream education where every child’s needs are met with flexibility and care. In Ontario, we saw a system where support is based on need, not diagnosis, and where parents are partners, not adversaries. These are not distant dreams; they are models that could be emulated across our country. I make it absolutely clear that the statutory entitlement to an education, health and care plan should remain unchanged. That is a commitment the Government must honour. During our inquiry, it became crystal clear to us that if we build a truly inclusive and properly resourced mainstream education system, we can ease the pressure and the struggle that so many families face in securing an EHCP, because in settings that have a whole-school approach to inclusivity, the needs of more children are met without having to go through that process. Inclusive education is not just a right; it is a necessity. It benefits every child, strengthens our schools and builds stronger communities. It is also cost-effective, reducing the long-term burden on public services by investing early in children’s potential. This report is not a catalogue of despair; it is a call for action. Our 95 recommendations offer a blueprint for reform, rooted in the lived experiences of children, families and professionals. We cannot afford another decade of delay, so I urge the Government to act with urgency and ambition, to work across Departments, to listen to those at the heart of this system, to rebuild trust and to place inclusion at the core of our education system. Every child deserves the chance to thrive. Every family deserves to be heard. Every education setting deserves the tools to succeed. Let us build a SEND system that delivers not just for today but for generations to come. Let us make inclusion a reality. I commend this report to the House.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Education Committee · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend has extensive experience of this area, not least through his own family experience. I am really pleased to see Ministers and the Secretary of State from the Department of Health and Social Care on the Front Bench for this statement—by accident, I think, but I will take full advantage of it. We heard time and time again from parents and from professionals working in the SEND system that health has such an important role to play in the ability of children with SEND to access education, but that health services are too often absent from the table and there are no mechanisms to hold them to account. It is nonsense that the SEND tribunal can make rulings that are binding on education, but cannot make rulings that are binding on health. As we propose in our report, that is an easy fix that would create more accountability in the health system. Our report contains other recommendations, but we need to get this right, because the consequence of not getting it right is children being locked out of education.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Education Committee · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member raises a devastating case, which is sadly not a unique example across the country. The pressures that families face as a consequence of this failing system cause further health complications, not least with mental health and wellbeing. He is right that there are problems with local authorities’ ability to deliver against their statutory responsibilities. We highlight in our report the broken nature of the link between powers and responsibilities—currently, local authorities do not have everything they need to enable them to deliver—but the crisis across the system also masks local authorities that are performing poorly, even by the current standard. I believe the hon. Member’s local authority is one that faces particular challenges.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Accessibility of Railway Stations: Dulwich and West Norwood · Hansard source

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  I am honoured to be intervened on in an Adjournment debate by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I thank him for his intervention. He is right that adequate staffing at railway stations is a really important part of making stations accessible. All too often, disabled passengers have to endure unacceptably long waits when there is a failure in communication. The railway operating companies need to continue to improve their service so that not only the stations but rail travel itself is fully accessible and disabled passengers can get the support to which they are entitled. All our stations should be accessible, and it is therefore important that the Government work to increase the funding available and make changes to the criteria for Access for All funding. Currently, the Access for All programme prioritises stations with high levels of footfall and the availability of third-party funding—usually through local development—as well as proximity to a hospital or major interchange and non-specific rail industry priorities. The majority of the 10 stations in my constituency are busy but would not rank among the highest footfall locations in the country. They do not have significant development sites in close proximity or other third-party sources of funding available. They are not next to a hospital and we cannot account for non-specific rail industry priorities.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing this important debate. The introduction of the adoption and special guardianship support fund as part of the Children and Families Act 2014 marked an important recognition of our understanding of the impact of early childhood trauma and the increasing complexity of need of children in the care system. It is a vital acknowledgment of the reality that the impact of early childhood trauma does not always end with the stability of a loving adoptive home. The fund also provides vital support to children in kinship care with a special guardianship order and to other children who have previously been looked after—for example, where family reunification has taken place. The fund has provided support to 54,000 children who have been able to access diagnosis and therapeutic support, and it is a vital source of support for families who are struggling as a consequence of early childhood trauma. It has been a lifeline. However, the fund has never been established on a long-term footing, and that has left families in a state of continual anxiety about whether the support they rely on will continue. I know that the Minister is aware of this, but the delay in announcing the continuation of the fund until the day after it had expired, despite many weeks of requests for clarity, caused unnecessary fear and anxiety for many families. I hope that she and her colleagues are reflecting on how cross-Government decision making can be done in a more compassionate and child-centred way in the future. My Committee recently published a report on children’s social care, for which we heard the concerns of parents and voluntary sector organisations about the decision this financial year to reduce the fair access limit for therapy from £5,000 to £3,000 per child. I understand that the Government have concerns in the sense that some of the services being paid for by the fund should be provided by the NHS. Will the Minister set out her assessment of the level of need, including the level per child, that the fund is seeking to meet? What work is she doing with the Department of Health and Social Care to improve access to mental health services via the NHS for looked-after children and previously looked-after children, including adopted children and those in kinship care? My Committee recommended that the Government undertake urgent engagement with families on the impact of the reduction in the fair access limit and, if evidence of negative impacts is found, that urgent steps be taken to restore the level of funding per child, so what assessment is the Minister undertaking of the impact of the changes, and what engagement is under way with families?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member very much for his intervention, and our report, which we published last week, says exactly that. We have a system of children’s social care that is under so much pressure that it all too often fails to put children at the centre of the services that are supposed to be delivered to give them more stability and security in life, and many things about that system urgently need to change. I welcome the Government’s commitment to invest in Best Start family hubs, providing better early help and support services in more areas of the country. We need investment that can tip the balance over time from crisis spending to spending on more preventive services that can deliver genuinely good outcomes for children. Our Committee’s report, which I was proud to launch last week, points to some of the further steps that are needed, including creating a national offer for care leavers, improving mental health support for looked-after children and addressing the practical barriers, such as housing, that currently prevent the effective recruitment of foster carers. On early years, the Government inherited the previous Administration’s commitment to expand funded hours of childcare, predominantly for working parents. This is a very challenging commitment to deliver. We know that quality early years education has the most potential to break down barriers to opportunity, yet the previous Government’s approach was designed to deliver more hours of care, without any specific focus on quality. The early years sector is fragile and fragmented, and providers continue to close. The expansion of school-based nurseries is a very welcome first step, but there is undoubtedly a tension between a funding system designed to support working parents and the early years sector’s ability to reduce the impacts of disadvantage for the poorest children. The Government must address this tension in the forthcoming child poverty strategy. Our Committee’s second big inquiry is on the system of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The SEND system is the single biggest crisis in the whole of the education system, routinely letting down children and families, putting professionals working with children in an impossible position, and driving more than half of local education authorities to the edge of bankruptcy. Children with SEND should be able to thrive in education, and education should equip them well for the next stage of life, yet for far too many children, the failure of the SEND system results in absence from school, poor mental health and low attainment. There have been many rumours about what the Government may do to reform the SEND system, and I must say that these rumours are really unhelpful and traumatising for families who already have far too much to contend with. My Committee will report after the summer recess, but I am clear that the Government should be setting out a clear process and plan for SEND reform, and that any reforms must engage parents and professionals and ensure clear and effective accountability mechanisms. I think the Government are right to start with increasing the inclusivity of mainstream schools, but if they are to do that effectively, there must be proper investment to resource mainstream schools to become more inclusive, with clear definitions of what an inclusive school is and strong accountability. Finally, a priority that runs through all these issues is tackling child poverty, which rose to shamefully high levels under the last Government and is perhaps the biggest barrier to opportunity of them all. I am delighted that the Government have announced an expansion of the eligibility criteria for free school meals to include all children whose families receive universal credit. As a local councillor in Southwark, I was proud when we introduced universal free school meals for primary children in 2010, and over many years we have seen the benefits of providing children with a nutritious hot meal. Universal free breakfast clubs will also make a big difference. Hungry children cannot learn, so together these measures will ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, and that the children who need it most get a nutritious hot meal at lunch time. They will boost learning while also easing costs for parents. However, our Committee has recommended that the Government implement auto-enrolment, so that every child eligible to receive the new expanded free school meals offer receives it automatically and no child misses out.

• 16 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  Giving every child the best possible start in life should be a driving mission of every Government. Investment in the early years and in a high-quality education for every child delivers among the highest returns of any area of public spending; they are literally building the foundations of a child’s life. Governments who get policy right in these areas reap benefits in health and wellbeing, in economic growth and in lower crisis-related costs. The previous Labour Government made huge strides in this area. The longitudinal studies now confirm that children who lived close to a Sure Start centre did better in their GCSEs, and that hospitalisation of children was reduced and so was the need for specialist support in education. But a year ago this Government inherited the legacy of a previous Government who had not prioritised the needs of children for 14 years. Sure Start had been largely dismantled and school and further education budgets cut, early years funding had not kept pace with inflation, key services like health visiting and midwifery were scaled back, and SEND provision and CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—were stretched to breaking point, with increasing numbers of children in the care system, who are all too often being failed. Our children have been buffeted by the multiple blows of austerity, Brexit, the covid-19 pandemic and the Liz Truss mini-Budget bearing down on public services that support children, young people and their families, resulting in more of childhood being left to chance, with existing disadvantages and barriers to opportunity remaining in place and being allowed to perpetuate. The Education Committee recently published our report on children’s social care. Children’s social care is a good place to start thinking about this Government’s opportunity mission, because it is where some of the most egregious barriers can be found—for the children whose families need the most support, those whose lives are scarred by abuse or neglect, and those for whom the state has both the gravest responsibility and a huge opportunity to make a difference. The independent review of children’s social care commissioned by the previous Government described the system they presided over as in need of a “total reset”. Spending on early help and support services—the preventive, nurturing support delivered by Sure Start centres, health visitors, community nurses and early years practitioners—has plummeted, while spending on crisis interventions, including out-of-area residential placements often at great cost, have spiralled. The number of children entering the care system has been rising, and perhaps most telling of all is that the outcomes for care-experienced people are absolutely dire. This failure is so significant that, if the Government are serious about tackling homelessness and about tackling the crisis in the criminal justice system, they must turn their attention to the plight of care-experienced people, who are so vastly over-represented in both those populations. They are far less likely to be in education, employment or training than their peers, and far more likely to have poor mental health.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his contribution to the Committee’s report. He is right—he will recall the distressing evidence that we took, which came in the short aftermath of the verdict in the case of Sara Sharif, who was so badly let down by services that had multiple opportunities to intervene and keep her safe but failed to do so. We welcome the steps that the Government are taking through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to strengthen joint working, particularly through the single child identifier and other measures around multi-agency working practices. We are calling for the Government to go further, though, because none of us can tolerate seeing any more of those tragic cases in the headlines—the names of children who we remember and who were failed by services that should be there to protect them.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her question and for all her interest and work in this important area. The report makes strong recommendations for the Government to make the adoption and special guardianship support fund permanent, to evaluate the impact of the cut in the short term, and to review and make changes to the level of funding if necessary. We know that the Government are looking at changes and improvements, particularly in access to mental health services, so that more children who are adopted can get support through mainstream health services without having to rely on specialist funding as a supplement for that. We think the Government should look carefully at how that goes but not be hesitant to restore the fund if that is needed following monitoring.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and his interest in this area of work. My Committee is looking separately at the issue of special educational needs and disabilities, and we expect to report shortly on that. It is an expansive and lengthy inquiry. He is, of course, right to say that there is some overlap. In relation to children’s social care, we heard from families with disabled children about the multiple difficulties they face with different parts of a system that is not joined-up enough to support them. His question about parenting speaks directly to our recommendation about the need to shift to early intervention, and help and support. In that vein, I welcome the Government’s announcement this week about Best Start family hubs and the expansion of those services, which I believe are trying to do exactly that. We will keep a close watch on how that goes over the coming months.