Laura Trott MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I really have to make some progress. Sextortion is also a huge issue on social media. In 2022, there were 10,000 reports of sextortion by snap. That was not in a year, but in one month, and those are just the ones we know about. Most horrifyingly of all, social media is culpable in dozens of children’s deaths. To give just one example, Ellen Roome’s son Jools took part, she believes, in a TikTok blackout challenge. That is where young children and teenagers are encouraged to hold their breath until they pass out. Jools died as a result in April 2022, and that was two years after the challenge had supposedly been removed from the platform. When I met Ellen and other bereaved parents, they said that, tragically, their bereaved group just keeps on growing. In the face of that, do Members know what the Government’s consultation says? It says that children like using TikTok to post dance videos. This misguided view that social media is in some way good for children, or that its benefits outweigh the harms I have spoken about, is what has got us into this position.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  As ever, my right hon. Friend is the voice of reason in this Chamber. Turning to our amendment that deals with pupil admission numbers, Lords amendment 102, I hope the Government will try to explain why they think good and outstanding schools should be made smaller when they are oversubscribed. To be clear, that is exactly what the Government are asking Back Benchers to vote for this evening. Parental choice has been the great driver of school improvement in this country—it empowers parents to vote with their feet and encourages excellent schools—yet the Government want to turn that principle on its head. They want to cut good school places, which is bad for parents, bad for schools and, above all, bad for children. School standards are on the Order Paper this evening, and the Government want to vote against them.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I must make some progress. I have heard Ministers argue that vulnerable children or children who are isolated need to find their community online, and I want to put that argument to rest once and for all. All the evidence shows that these children are the most likely to be exploited, groomed and harmed by social media. If a child is scared or isolated, the last thing we should do is put them on social media. It is a terrible argument, and I hope it is not repeated today. The other options that the Government present in their consultation simply do not meet the scale of the challenge. A curfew so that children can only get damaged by social media during the day does not help. Time limits so that children still see the content, but just for fewer hours, are not good enough. Getting rid of scrolling is fine, but how does that stop children being groomed? So far, three senior Labour figures have managed to grasp the seriousness of the situation: the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the Health Secretary and the Labour leader in Scotland. They have judged this policy on its merits, and I hope the House manages to do the same tonight, because we are in a crisis. If Members across the House agree, they need to add their voices and vote for change.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to address the 13 amendments sent back to us by the other place this evening. The volume of Lords amendments reflects the strong feelings in both Houses about the deficiencies in the Bill, but there is a chance tonight to make change for the better. At the moment, the Government seem to do their utmost to oppose anything that they did not come up with—not on merit, but because they have retreated into a tribal bunker in which only ideas emanating from Labour special advisers or union bosses are deemed acceptable. May I suggest that this is not serving the Government very well? Let us take the phone ban. The Education Secretary has turned into a contortionist. First, she told me that a statutory ban on phones in the classroom was a “gimmick”. Then, the Prime Minister slammed it as “unnecessary”. The Education Secretary later admitted that there is a problem, but she said that more guidance can fix it. Finally, she is now consulting on whether to do a statutory ban but refusing to back our amendment, in Lords amendment 106, which would actually deliver one. I am flattered by the energy that the Education Secretary is putting into avoiding agreeing with me, but this is getting ridiculous. If the Government cannot properly argue the merits of their case, we get bad legislation. We had that problem with the Bill when it first came in. The Government still cannot justify the rationale for taking away academy freedoms—the very same freedoms that have delivered improved school standards in this country. Indeed, we now have the absurdity of the schools White Paper rightly saying that academies are the driving force behind school improvement, while in this Bill the Government are destroying academies in all but name. This is palpable nonsense. Do not try to make any sense of it—it is not possible.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is arguing for things that are outside the scope of the Bill. What we know is that the change made by Lords amendment 44 would have helped Sara in a way that the unamended Bill would not have done. I am not going to push Lords amendments 2 and 21 to a vote this evening, but I reserve the right to come back to them if the Government do not engage constructively in the other place. I am grateful to the noble Lady Baroness Barran for her brilliant work on those amendments and on the wider Bill. Turning to phones, I really want Members to understand how bad things have got with phones in schools, and why a statutory ban is necessary. I know that the Government have issued revised guidance and have asked Ofsted to enforce it, but Ofsted’s guidance on this topic still allows phones to be present in schools. I cannot overstate to Members how damaging and dangerous that is. I was thinking about how to communicate this most effectively, and given that the Government are not listening to me, to parents or to teachers, I thought that first-hand testimony from a young person might get through. I warn you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the following account from a former pupil involves some graphic content that I sincerely wish I did not have to talk about. However, I refuse to shy away from it, because if we are exposing 13-year-olds to such content in schools, we need to be able to talk about it in this Chamber. This is testimony from a girl who was at an outstanding girls’ school that had a “not seen, not heard” phone policy. Such policies are common in many schools across the country and count as a phone ban under the Government’s definition. The Minister says that children’s voices are rarely heard—well, I hope she listens to this testimony today. “When I was around 13 or 14 years old, one of my classmates would pull out her laptop at lunch times. She would connect her laptop through her phone’s hotspot, because the school wi-fi would block any social media, and launch up social media, because some thought it was funny to see how long it took to find an old man wanking—it was never long—or how long it took for somebody to ask them their age, and when they replied with ‘14’, they would send their Snapchat for you to add. The teachers never knew, because we were alone in our forms. “Some of my friends had access to Snapchat from very young, some even primary school, but I did not. I got Snapchat when I was 12 or 13, but I remember before, my friends talking about dick pics in the changing rooms, and one said she got at least 10 in the morning. She’d put up her phone and show us by scrolling through them, just because it was funny that they would just send it. This happened after she added someone on Snapchat that she didn’t know. Others had them too. “Looking back now, I remember pretending to find everything funny, just to fit in, but actually I felt really confused and grossed out at some of the content being shared. All of this happened at school, and we probably should have talked to a teacher, but as an 11 to 14-year-old girl, you’re not going to tell your male form tutor that people were being sent dick pics in school, or that your classmates were sending porn in the form group chat. I didn’t even tell my parents until recently, because I was embarrassed, or maybe because it just seemed normal, but my mum was already pretty strict with my phone usage and if I told her what was being sent around at school, I felt like I would be in trouble and she’d take the phone away. The phone was how everyone connected, so I needed to protect it. Over time, all the sexually explicit stuff just became normal.” I remind Members that this is happening at school and, in this case, at an outstanding girls’ school. It is so far from being an isolated incident—in fact, it is the opposite. It is approaching a norm.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  This is a safeguarding issue, and we have always taken steps when it comes to safeguarding young people. Let me be clear to Labour Members: the Government can choose to do nothing based on this amendment. Ministers do not have a view on whether social media should be banned, and they have put forward an amendment that does not tell us what they will do. It is extraordinary.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Supporting Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  Last week, I asked the Secretary of State a specific question about SEND funding during her statement, which she failed to answer, so I will try again with the Minister today. The £4 billion for SEND announced last week, to be paid over three years, which the Secretary of State described as “new money”, is actually from within the Department’s existing spending review settlement, isn’t it?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Under what circumstances does the Secretary of State think it is appropriate for a five-year-old to socially transition?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The answer should have been “never”. That is what our guidance said, and that is what the Government’s guidance should have said. In our universities, gender-critical feminists have been kicked off campus, while today the ayatollah is being celebrated as a martyr at University College London. This is completely unacceptable, so what is the Secretary of State doing to crack down on this two-tier system, or is she going to sit on her hands while an enemy of Britain is celebrated?

• 26 Feb 2026 · Bereaved Children: Government Support · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making a powerful speech, and we are all honoured to hear it.

• 26 Feb 2026 · Bereaved Children: Government Support · Hansard source

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  May I say what a privilege it has been to be part of this debate, and how much I admire all those who have spoken about their personal stories? I do not underestimate for a second how difficult it is, but suffering a catastrophic event and trying to make other people’s lives better is about the most admirable thing someone can do. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for putting it in place. She is so self-evidently right in what she says: there needs to be a general strategy, and we need data to be made available. It is worth thinking about why those things have not happened to date, and making suggestions about how we can overcome those barriers in future. Governments have historically been bad at cross-departmental data collection, as we know. That has been grappled with over time, but there has been no clear solution to date. I have seen such working function more effectively on occasion, such as in cross-departmental working committees on something specific. I offer that up to the Minister as a suggestion that might work. For example, in recent years there have been changes to implement a “no wrong door” policy on reporting a death. That took a lot of time. Previously, when reporting a death, as I am sure many in this Chamber have unfortunately had to do, people had to go to multiple Government Departments before the death could be recognised. That has been changed for the better, and I hope that something similar could be adopted in this case. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke), whose APPG does incredible work on these matters, mentioned good practice in schools. We should think about how to collate it more systematically. We are quite effective when it comes to education policy, through the Education Endowment Foundation, which picks up what works from an academic perspective and shares good practice among schools. By and large, that is missing in the special educational needs and disabilities space, but it is also missing here. We have heard about good practice, which I am sure exists up and down the country—the hon. Lady mentioned Oakwood primary school—but there is nowhere to share it effectively. Will the Department think about how to take that forward? I am sure that there will be guidance, and I am just as sure that it could be made better. On overall data collection, when a death is reported, it is linked to one individual rather than to a wider database. Change will need to be made on that, and the referral to the pathway is critical, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West said. She also mentioned that that now happens in cases of suicide. I hope the Minister will take that up today, because we have seen that it can work. It may take time, and I think we all acknowledge that government is difficult—it is not easy to wrangle different Departments together—but that could definitely be taken forward. Before preparing for this debate, I had not realised what the figures are for the outcomes for bereaved children, and I was quite shocked. If we have not gone through this catastrophic event, it is too easy to overlook the impact it has on young people. The statistic that the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) gave about the number of offenders who have suffered a bereavement was shocking. I hope and believe that this will be even more grist to the mill for the Education Minister to try to deal with this, because it is one of many areas across Government where early intervention—helping people—is not only the right thing to do but will benefit us and wider society. What we have heard today is that many children who go through this have amazing families—we have some examples of those amazing families here today—and they have people around them who will support them, help them and do whatever they can to ameliorate this catastrophic incident. But that is not true of every family. Of course, the state will miss things, but if we can set up a system that minimises the impact of this catastrophic event on young people, that is the right thing to do. I am very grateful to be part of this House today. It is these types of debate that take place in a relatively empty Chamber on a Thursday afternoon that can really make a difference to young people across the country. We have a very good Minister here, and I am sure he is about to tell us how he is going to sort this all out after many years. I commend the many voices who have spoken up today, and I am grateful to have been here for it.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement, and her officials and advisers for briefing me over the weekend. I pay tribute to those who have pulled together a 300-page document, which I will now attempt to scrutinise in the five minutes that I have available to me today. I turn first to SEND. The principles of more support in schools, evidence-led packages, early intervention, and more speech and language therapists are welcome, but despite the 300 pages there is still much that we do not know. We do not know exactly how children will qualify for an EHCP in the future, and no clear eligibility criteria for the so-called specialist provision are set out. There will be around seven packages of support when someone gets an EHCP, but we are not told what these packages of support are, how people qualify for them or how much money will be associated with each. That makes it quite difficult to judge how effective the new system will be, let alone legislate for it. Many questions also spring from the individual support plans, or ISPs, which will take place in schools. It is not clear from the document what will trigger an ISP, nor the funding that will be associated with it. At the moment, schools generally have to cover the first £6,000 of support before an EHCP is triggered. What will be the new threshold for schools to cover? On funding, I note the £1.6 billion pot for inclusive mainstream provision over three years, which equates to £24,000 per year per school if divided evenly across every school in England. That is nowhere near enough for the extra work that schools will have to cover to write individually tailored ISPs for every SEND child. This is a mammoth burden to place on schools—one that I do not necessarily think is misplaced, but £24,000 a year is not enough to help them manage it. It is not a recipe for inclusion, but a recipe for disaster. Can the Education Secretary tell schools what additional funding will be available to help them hire extra SENCO support to help them deal with these pressures? Unbelievably, the workforce plan for 6,500 teachers—incidentally, it will not deliver 6,500 more teachers—says nothing about special educational needs provision within the workforce, perhaps because it tries to ignore primary schools altogether. On wider funding, the Government have still not said how the £6 billion black hole in SEND funding, identified by the Office for Budget Responsibility, will be filled. The latest I read today in the Financial Times is that the money will come from councils. Would the right hon. Lady care to confirm that? Are the funding pots announced today new money, or will they be coming from the Department’s existing overall budget? Has the DFE’s budget expanded beyond what was set out at the spending review at the Budget, and if so, by how much? Will these reforms save money, and if so, over what time period? Lastly on SEND, Ministers repeatedly failed over the weekend to give clarity on reassessments, so I will give the right hon. Lady one more opportunity. Will she rule out any child who currently has an EHCP having it removed—yes or no? Turning to the wider schools issue, we have the absurdity of a White Paper saying that trusts will be the main driver of system-led improvement, but the Department proposing, in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to remove the academy order by which underperforming schools are taken over by trusts. Either trusts are a driver for improvement of schools or they are not. I think they very much are a driver, and it seems the Education Secretary now agrees, so will she, with the zeal of a convert, disavow her earlier sins and reinstate the academy order? On that theme, the White Paper says: “Our best school trusts…innovate and drive excellence in standards”. Well, they used to be able to do that, but the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill takes away their ability to innovate in the curriculum, on who they employ, on the terms and conditions of employment, and even on uniforms. Again, I am delighted by the turnaround from the Education Secretary, but I ask that that is reflected in the legislation she is putting through the House. I fundamentally disagree with the proposal in the White Paper to emphasise inclusion when it comes to suspensions and exclusions. That is the wrong approach. If a pupil is behaving in a way that makes fellow pupils or a teacher unsafe, it is utterly wrong to hesitate to exclude because of inclusion. When pressure is put on schools not to exclude, we have seen tragic cases of how wrong it can go, such as that of Harvey Willgoose, and we must not make the same mistake again. There is much more to cover—funding reform, admission codes and work I would actually praise such as on maternity pay—but I dare not risk your wrath, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I close by saying that we support the principle of reform, but there is precious little clarity for SEND parents today.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

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  He also said, “Ban, ban, ban.”

• 19 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s words. Bristol NEU publicly celebrated the cancellation of the visit from the hon. Member for Bristol North East (Damien Egan), describing it as a “win” and boasting that it sent a “clear message”. Over the weekend, the head of the NEU claimed that the visit taking place “at the height of the genocide in Gaza” was a mitigating factor for excluding a British Jew from the school. That is inexcusable. I will gladly meet the right hon. Lady. Will she also back my call for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to look into the NEU, and will she ask it to investigate these outrageous statements?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is a disgrace that a Jewish Member of this House had his visit to a school cancelled following pressure and intimidation from pro-Palestinian protesters. That is abhorrent antisemitism. Over the weekend, the Secretary of State announced a welcome investigation into the trust, alongside Ofsted action. She said that she would “leave no stone unturned”. In that spirit, what is the right hon. Lady doing to address the role of the National Education Union in trying to prevent the visit?