Josh MacAlister MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Dec 2025 · Self-employed Adoptive Parents: Statutory Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) for securing this debate and highlighting these important issues. Having spoken to her in our first week in this place as newly elected Members of Parliament, I know she cares deeply about these issues, and I welcome her bringing them to the attention of the House in this Adjournment debate. I will open my remarks with a word of special thanks to everybody in our country who has stepped up to adopt children. It is an extraordinary act that makes a transformational difference for children and families right across this country. I recognise that self-employed adopters do not have access to statutory adoption pay. I appreciate, too, that they do not qualify for statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Self-employed Adoptive Parents: Statutory Support · Hansard source

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  I am pleased that the parental leave and pay review is looking at these issues as part of its work, and I encourage Members to engage with the review as it continues. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance is clear that where self-employed adopters do not qualify for any statutory payment, local authorities can consider making a payment that is equivalent to the maternity allowance.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question. My noble Friend the Minister for Skills is working across both Departments to ensure that we bring the very important work on careers and early entry to work programmes together across the Government. I have myself seen great collaboration between both Departments in my own constituency. The Government are still committed to improving work experience for children in secondary schools and early careers education as well.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As I have previously said to the House, it is really important that we get the policy regarding special educational needs and the future of the schools system in exactly the right place. We are getting there, and very soon I will be able to share an update on those projects. I would be happy to meet the hon. Member in the near future.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend himself was an apprentice before entering this place, and he welcomed the Secretary of State to his constituency to open a construction technical excellence college not that long ago. The main thing that I took away from the Budget last week, which is extremely welcome, is that we will fully fund apprenticeships at small and medium-sized enterprises for people aged 16 to 24 from the next academic year, which will do a lot to answer my hon. Friend’s question.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  If my hon. Friend writes to me with the details, I would be very happy to speak to colleagues at the Department for Transport.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Strengthening our child protection system is a key priority for this Government. Very soon we will bring forward plans for the child protection authority. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains a number of measures that would make a big difference to the safety of children across the UK, although those measures are unfortunately being blocked and frustrated by colleagues in other corners of this House.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Eton Star Sixth Form: Oldham · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. As somebody who was a teacher in Oldham, I know many of the institutions he is referring to, and I particularly know about the great work that is done by Oldham sixth-form college and the secondary schools in his constituency. We want to make sure that where we are spending significant sums on capital investment, which the Budget and the spending review allow us to do, it reflects the Government’s priorities around special educational needs and extra school places. We want to get that right, and we will provide an update very soon to my hon. Friend and others.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Eton Star Sixth Form: Oldham · Hansard source

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  In 2017, the Government’s spending watchdog estimated that free schools would create 57,500 surplus places. This Government took the sensible, pragmatic decision to pause a number of proposed free schools due to real concerns about value for money. We recognise the need for clarity, and we will provide a substantive update on this project and others in the mainstream pipeline review very soon.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Defence Technical College: Swindon · Hansard source

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  Rolling out technical excellence colleges is one way that Labour is rewiring our skills system, to unlock opportunity for our young people and drive growth for our country, and alongside techs for construction, clean energy, digital and advanced manufacturing, they will build the talent pipeline to deliver our industrial strategy. Applications for defence technical excellence colleges will open shortly, creating pathways for engineers, cyber-experts, and technicians.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Defence Technical College: Swindon · Hansard source

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  I appreciate my hon. Friend championing the work of local businesses such as Rowden’s, and other defence industries across the UK, and I will gladly ask my noble friend the Minister for Skills, who I am sure would welcome the opportunity to meet him in the coming weeks.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Post-16 Vocational Qualifications · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for this timely question, following the Budget last week, when the Government made the welcome decision to change the apprenticeship system by fully funding apprenticeships for small and medium-sized enterprises, which will open up opportunities for many more. The latest data shows that under this Government, apprenticeship starts, progression and completion are up, up, up.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Post-16 Vocational Qualifications · Hansard source

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  Our curriculum and assessment review recommended the introduction of new V-levels, which will simplify the qualification landscape while giving students choice and flexibility. The Department for Education is now consulting on plans to introduce the qualifications. We are also proposing the introduction of new T-levels.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Post-16 Vocational Qualifications · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue, and I will be happy to ask my noble Friend in the other place to meet him. The qualifications that we are defunding are large qualifications that directly overlap with T-levels. The Government’s policy is very clearly to back T-levels as a good choice for students in colleges.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend has been a long-standing campaigner and champion for these issues. When I was doing the independent review of children’s social care, she was a powerful voice advocating for support for adopters, and has continued to be one. I will gladly speak to and meet the all-party parliamentary group.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the strength of feeling regarding the adoption and special guardianship support fund. Last month, I met campaigners, adopters and those running adoption services to discuss their views. This year, we have invested £50 million in the adoption and special guardianship support fund, and we have approved applications for nearly 14,000 children since April. I want to work with families and those delivering adoption support towards a positive and sustainable solution for the future.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for drawing the attention of the House to a very powerful radio documentary, which I listened to last week. We do not have perfect data on this issue, but the data that we do have shows that cumulative adoption breakdowns have been at a rate of 4.8% over the past 12 years. I think that is too high, and it is the view of the Government that it is too high. We want to ensure that we get adoption support right for families, and I will go through a process of engagement with those who work in the sector and families affected to ensure that we can make improvements to it in the future.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  We want to ensure a sustainable, long-term future for adoption support in this country. I will set out plans in the near future that will hopefully address a number of the concerns that the hon. Member has mentioned. That sits on top of the really quite widespread changes and improvements we are making to children’s social care, with £2.4 billion of investment over the next three years to ensure that earlier family help is there for all families, regardless of their legal status, whether they are an adopter or a birth parent.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Free School Applications · Hansard source

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  The reason this Government need to create a policy and a budget for this system is that it was left in a complete mess—not that many months ago, the former Education Secretary described it as a “lose, lose, lose” situation. Getting the special educational needs system right and fixing it will take time, but we have already put £740 million of capital into the system. As the hon. Member highlighted, there is a list of special school projects; we are looking through those projects now, and will make a decision very soon.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Free School Applications · Hansard source

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  As was mentioned earlier, the Government took the sensible, pragmatic decision to pause a number of free school applications in order to consider real concerns about value for money and to make sure new places are created in parts of the country that need them.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Free School Applications · Hansard source

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  There is a very simple answer to that question: the last Government left us with crumbling school buildings and a limited capital budget to allocate across the entire school estate. We have to balance rebuilding crumbling school buildings—which, as the National Audit Office and others have highlighted, were in a deteriorated state—with the need to prioritise extra school places in parts of the country that need them. That is what the country expects from us.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Sixth-form Provision: Bolsover · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) on securing this important debate on post-16 education in Bolsover, and on championing the needs of young people in her constituency. She is a tremendous advocate for the people who elected her. Every young person deserves access to high-quality post-16 education and training options. It is essential that we provide clear, ambitious pathways for all children across the country. By investing in diverse education and training options, we unlock the potential of our young people, and we meet the evolving needs of employers and the wider economy. I commend my hon. Friend’s continued advocacy for securing post-16 education in Bolsover. Her commitment ensures that local voices are heard loud and clear, and that her constituents get the best chance of meaningful change as soon as possible. From her speech, I recognise the strength of local feeling on this matter. Young people across England should have choices after their GCSEs, but those choices are currently unevenly spread across our country. The Prime Minister, at the Labour party conference earlier this year, announced a new ambition that two thirds of young people gain higher-level qualifications, which will set them up for a fulfilling career and life. This new ambitious goal will be challenging to meet for the Government and the country, but in meeting it, we will create incredible life chances for children and young people in progressing not just to university but to higher-level qualifications through other routes. Our skills strategy puts the detail on how we will go about achieving that to deliver fantastic outcomes for young people when they turn 16. It includes a targeted system that prioritises training pathways where skilled labour is needed and demand is growing. We will ensure high-quality routes for young people at all levels of attainment, including the new vocational level—the V-level—and the recently introduced T-levels, as well as A-levels, which have a really important role to play. Let me directly address the proposal for North Derbyshire university academy, which my hon. Friend put so well. I recognise her tireless support for the new academy in Bolsover, which would provide much-needed academic post-16 education in a town that currently has none. I also recognise that participation rates for young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency going into some form of education or training at 16 or 17 are below the national average. The anecdote she shared about £25 a week bus costs and 30-minute bus journeys resonates with me personally; I represent a constituency in rural, post-industrial Cumbria, where transport links to colleges and opportunities have a big impact on young people’s chances. The story of the young boy needing to run, or to consider running, to college paints a vivid image of the challenge faced by young people in Bolsover. I commend Redhill Academy Trust for its work and perseverance in developing its exciting proposals. I will now say a little about the mainstream free school review that we are undertaking. My hon. Friend will be aware that we are reviewing 44 free school projects that are in the pipeline, including the college in question. I understand that she and the proposers of the school—Redhill Academy Trust, Derbyshire county council and families in her constituency—want certainty about the project as soon as possible, and I thank everyone for their continued patience. Our review has a clear rationale: we want a school system in which all children and young people can achieve and thrive. The previous Government spent substantial amounts on free schools, despite evidence that they would create surplus capacity, diverting resources from much-needed work to improve the condition of the existing school estate. The image of crumbling roofs and the RAAC crisis was a vivid demonstration of the previous Government’s failure to keep on top of the school estate. We want children everywhere to have the excellent places they need, not extra places they do not. We must drive efficiency and reduce wasteful spending so that we get the best bang for every pound that we spend. That is why, in October 2024, the Secretary of State for Education announced a review of mainstream free schools planned by the previous Government that have not yet opened. We want to ensure that the places are needed in the local areas where they are proposed, and that they represent value for taxpayers’ money. We recognise that academy trusts play a vital role in fostering collaboration and improving education, especially in disadvantaged areas. They have an essential role to play in the future of new schools and colleges as well. We have been carefully evaluating evidence-based recommendations for all 44 projects in scope of the review, which has been a substantial exercise. In taking final decisions, we are considering all projects in the round. We are also taking into account the recent multi-year spending review and competing priorities across the Department. I am happy to personally assure my hon. Friend that I will provide her with an update on the matter before Christmas, and as soon as possible, so that we can answer the questions put by her and her community. I again commend my hon. Friend’s continued commitment to improving outcomes for those in her constituency, and her desire to see 16-to-19 provision in the town of Bolsover. Education is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity at every stage and give every young person the best start in life, no matter their background. We know that potential is spread right across the country, especially in places such as Bolsover, but that opportunity is not. We need to make sure that it is. Question put and agreed to.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  I am in the unusual position of having been commissioned to do a review for a Government, and of then being in a position to start implementing its findings. One of the things I called for was additional spending to help local authorities that are in exactly the situation that my hon. Friend described get out of that vortex with additional spending, and that is what this Government are doing.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. As a country, we must reset the children’s social care system. We must move away from the crisis-led approach that the system has been stuck in for far too long, and towards earlier effective intervention for families. Local authorities need help and support to do that. They will have my full backing in making that transition. We are rolling out a national programme that will leave no local authority behind in the pursuit of that goal. I will speak to local authorities at the end of this month to set out more detail of how they will get the Government’s full backing to make those changes. Further to that point, we must do much more to support the recruitment and retention of foster carers across our country. Much of what we see in the care system is a symptom of a fostering system that has been in decline for too long. Next year is the centenary of the fostering system in England, and I cannot think of a better time than now to reset how we do fostering.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. I first came across these issues as a secondary school teacher, and I see fully the impact that teachers, schools, colleges, and universities can have when these issues are spotted in the classroom and acted on. We absolutely should do more on that. I conclude by celebrating the extraordinary people who make up the care-experienced community in England. When I meet people who have grown up in care, I always sense a remarkable determination, and the special perspective that they have on humanity and relationships. It is often called a superpower by others, and we should do as much as we can as a country to tap into the incredible talents of that community—talents such as those of Tony Simpson, partner at Oliver Wyman; Meera Mistry, director of strategy at an NHS trust; Allan Jenkins, the award-winning former editor of The Observer “Food Monthly”; Ivor Frank, a barrister at Church Court Chambers; Jack Holton, a baritone opera singer; Lemn Sissay, author, poet, and former chancellor of Manchester University; Samantha Morton, Oscar-nominated BAFTA-winning actress; Kriss Akabusi; Fatima Whitbread; the noble Baroness Lola Young; the noble Baroness Floella Benjamin; and AJ, a young care-experienced person from Coventry whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago. He is embarking on his first few months of adulthood with the support of his grandfather, who the care system managed to find and reconnect him with. He has a bright future ahead of him. I will close with the words of Richard Henry Tawney: “What a wise parent would wish for their children, so the state must wish for all its children.” That is the spirit in which we should change the care system. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central for securing this important debate. We must all get to work for those in and leaving care. Question put and agreed to.