Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Welfare reform is important because the current system is not working and because it has a huge impact on the lives of so many individuals and families across the country. For the past 10 years in this place, I have seen so many of my constituents trapped in poverty with the constant fear and insecurity the current system brings, but we should not be in a position in which the Government are scrambling at the last minute to make changes to improve proposals that were not good enough when the Bill was tabled. While there are many positive measures in the Bill, we should not be here because the Government have had evidence since April of the extent of concerns from right hon. and hon. Members. Those concerns have been patiently and respectfully expressed in private and in public, but it appears that the extent of those concerns was simply ignored for a long time, until it became clear that the Government might lose the vote. We are now reaching for solutions at the final hour, which should have been better considered over a longer period of time as part of a rational and respectful response to feedback. I regret the situation deeply, and I say to Ministers that, whatever happens today and in the coming days, there must be a profound change in the approach to engagement with MPs, whose primary duty is to their constituents and especially to those who rely on the services we design and govern. On where we are with the Bill, I welcome the substantial changes agreed to in discussions last week to which I was a party. The protection of existing PIP and universal credit health top-up claimants will alleviate the anxiety so many of our constituents have been experiencing for months that they would see their incomes drop, with no additional support, without any change in their condition. The commitment to co-produce the Timms review with disabled people is significant and welcome. I hope that the Government will put that commitment on the face of the Bill before we get to Third Reading and that more detail will be provided about how co-production will be done so that disabled people and their organisations can have confidence that they really will be true partners in the process, and that engagement will be properly resourced. The commitment to bring forward employment support is also helpful. The last Labour Government sought to address unemployment and the size of the welfare bill, and they did so by front-loading employment and health support. That should have been part of the plans from the start, because addressing the barriers to employment that many sick and disabled people face is the best way to address the challenges that the Government are seeking to tackle.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the bringing forward of employment support, and I know how effective that support can be, but we have yet to see it bed in. I have further concerns that have not yet been addressed. I am concerned about the impact of the Bill on young people, and care-experienced people in particular. We need further detail on the support that will be provided for 16 to 22-year-olds, particularly with their mental health, to enable them to participate in the workplace. There is one further concern that has not been addressed and on which I want to press the Minister, which is the lack of alignment between the conclusion and implementation of the Timms review and the implementation of raising the threshold for PIP to four points. I believe that the Secretary of State made some movement on that point in her opening speech, but so far, it is not clear that we will avoid a situation in which there will be a category of new claimants—people who become disabled after November 2026 but before the implementation of the Timms review—who will face an increased threshold without any of the mitigations that will come from a revised assessment process and descriptors that are co-designed with disabled people. That would be unfair and unequitable, and I believe that it makes the policy and putting four points in the Bill incoherent. We must have a system that aligns the implementation of the new system with the review process, co-designed with disabled people, that defines it. I believe that the Government must also set out further detail on the impact assessment between today and Third Reading. That the Bill will plunge 150,000 people into poverty is an unacceptable consequence. If the Government are confident that their mitigations and the additional support mean that that will not be the case, it must provide this House with credible evidence so we can believe that. At the moment, we have to base our judgments on the evidence that is in front of us and that says that 150,000 people’s lives will be made worse as a consequence of the Bill. One of the most regrettable aspects of the process is that it has harmed the trust and confidence of disabled people. Full alignment of the Timms review with the introduction of the new system is an essential requirement of beginning to rebuild that trust. I will listen carefully to what the Minister says from the Dispatch Box in closing the debate.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the expansion of the free school meals entitlement. It is an evidence-based approach for which many of us have campaigned for a long time. It will help to close the disadvantage gap in our schools, tackling child poverty, benefiting children’s health and supporting children to learn. I hope the Government will agree that every child who is eligible for this expanded entitlement should be able to receive that entitlement. Whether or not children get a free school meal to which they are entitled should not depend on somebody else making an application for them through a complicated process. The Government know which families are in receipt of universal credit, so is the Minister considering auto-enrolment for this expanded entitlement? That would be easier to achieve than auto-enrolment under the previous entitlement, and every child really should be able to benefit. Can I seek the Minister’s assurance that this very positive announcement is not an indication that other measures to reduce child poverty, such as scrapping the two-child cap, have been taken off the table? Finally, as a London MP and a former Southwark councillor who was very proud to be part of a council that introduced universal free school meals in 2010—we have seen the benefit of that policy, and I am proud we have a Mayor who is funding universal free school meals for all primary schoolchildren in London—can I ask for confirmation that London will also receive the funding for this expanded entitlement, so it can be put to the benefit of further reducing child poverty in London?

• 22 May 2025 · School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations · Hansard source

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  Teacher pay is absolutely vital for the status of the profession, for the quality of life of teachers and for recruitment and retention of the vital skilled and qualified staff who are the backbone of our education system. It is really important that the Government’s response this afternoon begins the work of restoring teacher pay after the last 14 years, when we saw, by any objective measure, a shocking erosion in teacher pay under the previous Government. That has affected recruitment and retention and had a devastating impact on teacher morale. Those on the Conservative Benches should take note of that, because we would all benefit from a little more humility in the context of the legacy that they left behind. Can I press the Minister on the extent to which the pay award will be funded? We know that there are already extensive pressures on school budgets, and schools are very anxious about that matter. Also, will this afternoon’s statement include support staff pay, and will it begin the process of restoring that pay? We know how vital our teaching assistants and other support staff in our schools are.

• 19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The review of the Mental Health Act 1983 is very welcome. It started its life close to my constituency with the work of Professor Sir Simon Wessely, who drew on the experience of many residents in south-east London, particularly with regard to his work on racial inequalities. As the Minister is talking about the implementation of the Bill, I wonder whether he can reassure my constituents, who want to know that this Bill will do the job of eliminating racial inequality from mental health services, by committing to putting the patient and carer race equality framework on the face of the Bill.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend co-chairs the child poverty taskforce. Can she tell the House what analysis she has undertaken of the impact on child poverty of the reforms she is announcing today? Will she publish that analysis, and can she assure the House that these reforms will not make child poverty worse for any child living in a family where their parents or carers are in receipt of benefits?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of new clause 1, new clause 2 and amendment 2, all in my name. The amount of time afforded to the Education Select Committee to undertake detailed scrutiny of the Bill was very limited. We were able to undertake just one evidence session on part 2, and we deliberately sought not to duplicate the evidence taken by the Public Bill Committee. We therefore took limited evidence on the changes to the role of local authorities in school place planning and admissions. I speak, however, as an MP whose constituents have suffered the consequences of the fragmentation of admissions policies and place planning over the past 14 years. That has resulted in school places sometimes being delivered in areas where they were not needed, undermining other local schools; our councils struggling to ensure the delivery of school places that were needed, particularly for children with special educational needs and disabilities; and local places at a very popular local school being allocated not to local families but to children across a wide area of south-east London. I therefore wholeheartedly support the attempts in the Bill to restore coherence to admissions and place planning through the role of local authorities. I also support the measures to reduce the cost of school uniform for families by limiting the number of branded items, which are a really significant cost of living pressure for families. However, I encourage the Government to keep a careful watch on how this requirement is being complied with, particularly in relation to the cost of blazers, having heard of one appalling example in my constituency of a very vulnerable child who had been allocated a place at a good school but was told she could not attend until she was wearing a blazer, the cost of which was over £100—way beyond the means of her family. I know the Minister will agree that no child should be shut out of the classroom because their family cannot afford the right clothes for them to wear, and that that is the intention of the Bill, but the monitoring of the detail will be important. I also welcome the measures in the Bill to introduce a register of home-educated children. While home education is the right option for some children who are well supported to receive education at home, the number of children going missing from the education radar, out of sight and without any regulation of the quality of the education they are receiving, and sometimes coming to harm, as in the horrific recent case of Sara Sharif, is deeply concerning. The measures in the Bill will help to address this. The Education Committee welcomes the introduction of breakfast clubs in the Bill, which will help to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, but we also heard compelling evidence of the importance of school lunches for the poorest children. Around one in 10 children who are eligible for free school meals do not claim them because their parents or carers do not complete the administrative process. This can be because of difficulties with the administrative process itself, lack of awareness about the entitlement, or language barriers. Children from non-white backgrounds are more likely to be unregistered. This under-registration has impacts on schools too, since the ability of schools to draw down pupil premium funding is linked directly to the registration of eligible children for free school meals. I am talking about the existing entitlement, not a new spending commitment. The benefits of free school meals for children’s health and wellbeing and their ability to learn are clear, and are being seen in local authorities that are already auto-enrolling eligible children, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and some London boroughs. In London, the benefits are pupil premium receipts for schools because the Mayor of London is already funding universal free school meals. Research from the Food Foundation found that, while local authorities were successful in their mission to reduce the number of eligible children missing out on free school meals, it was a difficult and resource-intensive task, and the data sharing between relevant authorities necessary to register children automatically was not straightforward. The local authorities piloting auto-enrolment have called for central Government to step in and help. The Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for children already eligible for free school meals. This recommendation would ensure that between 200,000 and 250,000 additional families with the poorest children in our country, who are already eligible, will receive the meals to which they are entitled. That recommendation is reflected in new clause 1, and I hope the Government will choose to support it today. I turn to amendment 2. The Committee took evidence on breakfast clubs. We heard about the benefits of them both in ensuring that children do not start the school day hungry, and in relation to the opportunity afforded a child to settle gently into the school day and play with their friends. We also heard about the need for breakfast to be provided on a flexible basis, so that children whose families are unable to get them to school early. who may be among the most vulnerable children, do not miss out on this vital meal. The Committee has heard extensive evidence in our inquiry on special educational needs and disability about the difficulties that families of disabled children have in finding childcare and accessing extracurricular activities. To that end, it is vital that children with SEND can access breakfast clubs on an equal footing with their peers. This may involve additional costs, particularly in relation to home-to-school transport and the need to have specialist staff on site at the time of the breakfast club. I welcome the fact that the early adopters programme includes about 50 specialist schools, but the inclusion of children with SEND in breakfast clubs in mainstream schools is also essential, and I hope the Government are looking closely at the early adopters and at any additional support that may be needed to ensure that. Amendment 2 would ensure that children with SEND were able to access breakfast clubs, and I hope the Government will support it. Finally, I turn to new clause 2. This is a very large Bill covering many areas of policy, and it is being taken through this House very quickly and was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. There have been a large number of Government amendments at a late stage, and a number of measures in the Bill will be contingent on Government policies that are not in the Bill for their success, including the curriculum and assessment review, the reforms to the Ofsted assessment framework and the work of the child poverty taskforce. New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to conduct regular reviews of the impact of this Act and to publish reports. I would anticipate that such reviews would show a positive impact of this legislation. Having a clear monitoring and reporting mechanism is good practice, particularly for a Bill of this size that has been delivered so quickly. I welcome the intention behind this Bill and the measures it contains. I look forward to supporting it this evening, and my Committee looks forward to playing a constructive role in scrutinising its impact in the months and years to come.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We know that good quality early years education can play a significant role in closing the disadvantage gap, yet the Government have inherited a situation in which families who live in disadvantaged areas are the least likely to be able to access good quality childcare. How will the Secretary of State ensure that access to good quality childcare and early years education is at the heart of the Government’s child poverty strategy?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I welcome the action that the Government have announced today to improve children’s social care. The Secretary of State will know that families from the poorest neighbourhoods are 14 times more likely to be referred to children’s social care than those from the richest areas, and that there is a growing body of evidence linking child poverty to the rise in children entering the care system. How will she ensure that the upcoming child poverty strategy delivers more stability and safety for children and ensures that fewer families enter the kind of crises that result in their children being removed from their care?