Munira Wilson MP: speeches 2024

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Speeches

19 Dec 2024 · Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances · Hansard source
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4. Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of putting the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s guidance on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances on a statutory footing.
19 Dec 2024 · Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances · Hansard source
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Happy Christmas, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for her answer and for offering me a meeting on this topic earlier this week—I look forward to pursuing it with her. Given the wealth of authoritative evidence on the harmful impact on human health of PFAS in our drinking water, and that Scotland, the European Union and the United States have all put PFAS guidance on a statutory footing, why do this Government appear to have no plans to do the same for England and Wales? Will the Minister consider amending the Water (Special Measures) Bill to that end?
18 Dec 2024 · Internet Service Providers and Suicide-related Content · Hansard source
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The problem is that the sites that the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) referred to—and there are many others like them—do not necessarily fall into the illegal category, although they still have extremely dangerous and harmful content. Despite a cross-party vote in Parliament to include in the Online Safety Act these very small and very dangerous sites in category 1, there has been a proactive decision to leave them out of the illegal harms codes, which were published yesterday. Can the Minister put on record exactly why that is? Why can these sites not be included in that category? There is all sorts of content glamourising suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and other hate speech that is being promoted by these small sites. They should be regulated to a high level.
18 Dec 2024 · Internet Service Providers and Suicide-related Content · Hansard source
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. My constituent David Parfett has been in the news speaking about his son Tom, who sadly took his own life following his visits to a very harmful site—quite possibly the same one that the hon. Gentleman is talking about—that promotes how people can take their own lives. He sourced poison that way and took his own life. There are 97 Britons who have lost their lives after using this website. We need to take action on these very small but very harmful websites. The Online Safety Act contains a provision for such websites to be included in category 1, the most highly regulated category, yet the illegal harms code published yesterday does not include them. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a massive oversight, and that these websites should be included in category 1?
18 Dec 2024 · Creative Arts Education · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on securing this important debate, and I have enjoyed learning a lot about her illustrious background. I cannot claim to be anywhere near as accomplished as she is, but I used to love doing amateur dramatics at school and university, so I can see a Lib Dem drama club emerging at some point soon. Anyway, I will now move on to the serious part of the speech. The Beatles, Damien Hirst, Amy Winehouse, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench and Vivienne Westwood are just a few examples of the brilliant artists who our country has produced over the past century. Our creative industries are renowned throughout the world and, as we have already heard, they contribute enormously to our economy, employing more than 2.3 million people every year. It is vital that we preserve and grow our arts, which starts with promoting creative education in our schools. As we have already heard, the benefits of creative education are numerous, from developing a lifelong passion to helping children and young people with their mental health and equipping them with important life skills. Sadly, however, creative education has not been treated with the priority it deserves and teaching in schools has suffered as a result. There are now 15,000 fewer full and part-time teachers of arts subjects in schools than in 2010. With fewer specialised teaching staff and increasingly constrained budgets, we have seen a drop in the number of children taking arts subjects, with enrolment at GCSE level falling by almost a half and at A-level by a third between 2010 and 2023. That means too many children are missing out on the opportunity to broaden their horizons and learn new skills. At the heart of this issue is the fact that the arts have wrongly been labelled as unimportant and trivial. As a result, in the context of overstretched budgets and limited resources, arts subjects are the first to be cut back, with schools increasingly focusing on their core curriculum offer and extracurricular activities in the arts having to be scaled back. The Liberal Democrats believe that our children’s education should be rounded and varied. Too often, Conservatives think that creative education is the sacrifice we must make for strong academic standards, but it should not be an either/or situation—it is always both/and. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that there is a link between participation in the arts and higher attainment. I hope that the Government’s ongoing curriculum review and the upcoming reform of Ofsted inspections ensures that all students can access a broad curriculum, including art, music and drama subjects, alongside a strong focus on high academic standards in other subjects. As the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) pointed out, the growing lack of arts provision in our schools, colleges and universities has widened inequalities between disadvantaged students and their peers. It is often only more privileged families who can afford private tuition, extra classes outside school or an independent education, because, as we have heard, the facilities of independent schools are often second to none in terms of the creative arts, thus disadvantaging children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. That has a direct impact on who goes on to work in the creative industries, with data showing that there are four times as many individuals from middle-class backgrounds in creative occupations as there are from working-class backgrounds. The arts should not be accessible only to the most privileged. If we want to harness the full talent of our children and young people to ensure that we continue to make the creative industries a powerhouse for our economy, we need to widen opportunities to the arts at every level. It is not only schools that have seen the take-up of arts subjects plummet but further and higher education institutions. According to the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, over the past decade there has been a 57% drop in the uptake of creative courses in further and higher education. As we have heard, the exclusion of arts subjects from the English baccalaureate and cuts to funding for creative arts subjects at university by the previous Conservative Government have fuelled this decline. That is why the Liberal Democrats would like to see arts subjects being included in the English baccalaureate to boost access to the arts. We also need to stop talking down and defunding creative arts degrees and vocational courses, and to drive up high-quality apprenticeships in this area. Let us be proud of our world-leading institutions. Earlier this year, I visited Wimbledon College of Arts with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), and I saw the amazing work that its students do in costume and set design, puppetry and performance. The college is part of the University of the Arts London, which is second in the world for art and design; we should celebrate that. In my own backyard, I went to the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in Twickenham last week, where the students put on the most incredible show. I know that many of them will go on to be talented performers in their own right. The creative arts enable all of us to lead a fulfilling life, and they are also one of our country’s finest and most recognisable exports. Let us give our children and young people the opportunity to flourish fully, and let us develop a pipeline of talent into our arts sector to ensure that children and young people get the widest opportunity possible at school, college, university and beyond.
18 Dec 2024 · Creative Arts Education · Hansard source
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16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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As the Bill seeks to strengthen the regulation of our water companies, is this not an opportunity to finally regulate the existence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in our water? Those highly toxic chemicals can be linked to serious health conditions. Scotland, the European Union and United States have put guidance on a legal footing. Why is the Secretary of State not using this opportunity to regulate the presence of PFAS in our drinking water, and to protect our health and that of our children?
16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source
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Does the hon. Gentleman agree that now is the time to provide hope to Palestinians? If we are to have any hope of a political solution, this country must follow our allies in recognising the state of Palestine—not least when extremists such as Smotrich in the Israeli Government are looking to annex the west bank.
16 Dec 2024 · Parental Leave: Pay and Allowances · Hansard source
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At less than half the rate of a full-time national minimum wage, maternity and paternity pay is so low that most parents simply cannot live on it, and they are often forced into debt, or forced back to work sooner than they would like. A poll of fathers found that two-thirds of them would take more leave if paternity pay were higher. If we want to give families choice in how they care for their children in those precious early months, will the Minister discuss with colleagues in the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade how we can boost rates of maternity and paternity pay?
16 Dec 2024 · Parental Leave: Pay and Allowances · Hansard source
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10. What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of levels of maternity and paternity pay and allowances.
12 Dec 2024 · Paid Employment Leave: Kinship Carers · Hansard source
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I am sure the Minister will agree that kinship carers are unsung heroes, who often step up at a moment’s notice to look after a child whose parents cannot, but four in 10 are forced to give up work to do so, which means they often struggle to pay the bills or put food on the table. Will the Minister look to right that wrong through the Employment Rights Bill, and introduce a right to paid employment leave for kinship carers, given the savings to the public purse and the better outcomes for children that arise from kinship care?
12 Dec 2024 · Paid Employment Leave: Kinship Carers · Hansard source
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4. If he will make an assessment with the Secretary of State for Education of the potential merits of introducing a right to paid employment leave for kinship carers.
12 Dec 2024 · Qualifications Reform Review · Hansard source
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I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. In the years since the Conservatives’ first botched moves towards prematurely scrapping a range of vocational qualifications, the Liberal Democrats have repeatedly warned of the consequences of that ill thought-through, counterproductive policy, so it is to be welcomed that the Government have heard our and the sector’s concerns. The announcement is a welcome step forward to protect student choice and local decision making, and it is a more pragmatic, rather than ideological, approach. It was clear that the decision to defund was premature. T-levels, while a welcome innovation, had not had enough time to bed in to allow an informed decision, and that risked too many young people being left without appropriate options. Now the Government are providing clarity up to 2027, will the Minister lay out the processes for monitoring and reviewing the impact of those changes until then? Will she lay out the timeline for the longer-term curriculum and assessment review in greater detail? I have one particular area of concern in the statement, and that is around early years education. Research last year showed that rather than embracing the T-level in education and early years, students overwhelmingly opted for the overlapping qualifications earmarked for defunding. Now we hear the Government will go ahead and proceed with that defunding. Given that reality, how does the announcement square with the Government’s focus and rhetoric around prioritising early years? How will the Government improve recruitment and training in that sector if it is not meeting students’ needs where they are? The point is reflective of a broader question on the announcement, which is: what are the Government’s overarching guiding principles as to which courses will be funded and which will not? The rationale laid out by the Minister suggests they are working on a case-by-case basis, but in the interests of long-term stability and clarity, should the Government not be laying out their principles for how they will approach those decisions more strategically? Finally, as students face a welcome range of post-16 options—as we have heard, it is a confusing landscape—it is essential that they have excellent support in making those important decisions. How will the Government ensure that all students have access to high-quality careers guidance?
11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source
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rose—
11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman says that I am describing a failed system, and I am; I set that out. The SEND system is failing many children across this country, but I say to him gently—I made this point to the Minister in a similar debate a few weeks ago—that I do not think the level of investment that this measure will make in our state SEND system will fix that system. That will take many years and many billions of pounds, which I suspect that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not have, and I do not think the answer to that is to penalise those who have scrimped and saved to be able to offer their children opportunity. If I may, I will give the hon. Gentleman an example of another constituent who emailed me. She remortgaged her home, cashed in her pension plan and is struggling to be able to send her children to a local independent school after the local state school could not meet her children’s special needs. She said something that I think partly echoes what he is saying: “Is this fair when other children with the same difficulties as mine are not able to access the same level of help? No. Definitely not. Believe me, I would never have chosen this route but I have been left with no choice. Is it fair to punish us further financially for the failings of the state education system? No!” So I think the hon. Gentleman and I are in agreement, but I do not think the state SEND system is going to be fixed quickly or adequately enough, and I do not think the answer to that is to level down everybody’s opportunities. We need to level up opportunities for all and not penalise the parents who have made the often very difficult choice to ensure that their child has the opportunity that they wish to give them.
11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source
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I rise to speak in support of new clause 9, tabled in my name. It would require the Government to produce an impact assessment of the effect of the imposition of VAT on school fees on pupils who have special educational needs, but who are without an education, health and care plan. The Liberal Democrats have been absolutely crystal clear: we are opposed to this tax on education, and we call on the Government to rethink their decision. It is an unnecessary, unfair and counterproductive policy. In our manifesto for the general election, we laid out our ambitious plan for education, from putting a dedicated mental health professional in every primary and secondary school to expanding free school meals to all children in poverty and tripling the early years pupil premium. At the heart of that vision was the principle that education is the single best investment we can make. All our children deserve the opportunity to reach their potential, yet too many children are not being supported to achieve that potential. In our manifesto, we set out a whole host of fair tax rises to pay for our ambitious plan, which did not penalise parents for choosing to invest in their children’s education. I gently point out to Conservative colleagues—who have rightly pointed out that this is the first time we are seeing a tax on education, which is quite wrong in principle—that the only reason why the Labour Government are able to do this is Brexit. The Conservatives supported the Brexit deal, so I gently point out to them that this is something that they supported in principle.
11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source
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I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was his Government who negotiated the Brexit deal. I want to put that on the record. Colleagues from across the House have spoken frequently in recent months about the crisis facing SEND provision in this country, and we have heard so many stories of struggling families fighting within a failing system to get their children the education they deserve. After years of Conservative neglect, the system is on its knees. Just this week, we have heard from the Institute for Fiscal Studies about the scale of the problem. Once again, its report laid out clearly the huge costs that have left local councils on the brink, while failing to deliver better outcomes for children. Two out of every three special schools are oversubscribed. Just half of education, health and care plans are granted within the statutory 20-week limit, and 98% of those rejected are granted on appeal when parents go to tribunal. It is clear that the system is failing families and our vulnerable young people, so is it any wonder that parents who feel that their children’s needs cannot be met in the state system are turning to the independent sector if they can just about manage it? Small schools of less than 100 pupils make up some 40% of the independent sector. In so many cases, those are the schools that struggle and strive each day to provide desperately needed support for SEND pupils—support that, sadly, is all too often unavailable in their local state school. Those are the schools that will be punished under this measure, and the families who will need to bear the load. The Government have said that pupils who have been placed by a local authority in an independent school to fulfil the terms of their EHCP will be exempt from the VAT hike. Taken in isolation, that is a welcome mitigation to this damaging policy, but there are a whopping 100,000 SEND pupils in the independent sector who do not have an EHCP, and their families will be saddled with this VAT hike. One such family came to see me in my surgery a few weeks ago. The parents were in tears in front of me. Their son has autism and various other needs. When he was in an excellent local state primary school, he was at risk of exclusion because of the behaviours that were manifesting as a result of his additional needs, which could not be supported in that state primary school. Those parents made the difficult decision to remove him and put him in a local private school, where he is thriving. He is coping well and his conditions are being well managed. His parents are not just paying the basic school fees; they are paying an extra £18,000 a year on top of the school fees for the additional support their child needs. All of that will be subject to VAT, which is why they were in my office in tears. They do not know how they are going to meet those costs to keep their child, who was at threat of being excluded from a state school, thriving. That is the individual human reality of this policy, which the Minister just waves away with numbers, as if these statistics do not have human stories and faces behind them.
11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for her important intervention. I am interested in how this money will flow back into the Scottish system, if at all. The point, raised not just by me but by a number of hon. Members in the various debates we have had on this issue, is that this will actually put a much greater strain on the state system, and particularly the SEND system. That is my real concern here. Faced with the coming price hike, many of the families I have described will be forced to choose between returning to the overstretched state sector, as my hon. Friend has just said, where their child’s needs may not be met, and trying to home-educate their child. This choice has wide-ranging implications not only for those individual families but for our economy and our society. My new clause 9 would force the Government to see through the implications of this damaging measure. I repeat that my party and I are opposed on principle to the imposition of VAT on school fees, but if the Government insist on pursuing this damaging and counterproductive measure, they should do so with their eyes open. They should be clear about the damage this measure will do, they should be clear about how it will affect parents, and they should be particularly clear about how it will affect children with special educational needs and disabilities. New clause 9 aims to ensure that by laying bare the impact of this measure on those families and children, who are already struggling with a broken SEND system. It would also require consideration of the additional children who will be coming forward to apply for an EHCP, so that their parents may be spared the fee hike the Government are imposing on them for trying, as any parent would, to do the very best for their child. I received an email from one parent who, when his child was in an excellent local state secondary school, was discouraged from applying for an EHCP because of the challenges involved. He made the decision to send his child quite far away to an independent school where his child is doing well. This gentleman emailed me to say: “Well, I am now thinking that we might try to get an EHCP because, over a seven-year period, it will save us an awful lot of money if our son is eligible for one.” We know the EHCP system is overloaded and in crisis, so how much more pressure is going to be put on that system? New clause 9 seeks to measure that. I urge colleagues on both sides of the Committee to support the new clause, and I urge the Minister once again to rethink this ill thought through policy.
9 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the most deprived areas have a third fewer childcare places than the most affluent. If the Government are serious about improving school readiness among our children, will the Secretary of State look at the Liberal Democrat proposal to triple the early years pupil premium so that we can tackle the disadvantage gap when it matters most?
9 Dec 2024 · SEN Provision: Funding · Hansard source
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Last week’s announcement of capital funding to ensure that mainstream schools are more inclusive for children with special needs is, of course, welcome, but the Minister will know that, for many children with additional needs, even the most inclusive mainstream schools simply are not appropriate. With two in three special schools at or over capacity, can she provide a timeline for when the 67 planned special free schools will be delivered? Will she commit to looking favourably on local authority applications for such schools?
3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source
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Let me pick up on the point about local authorities and public services. I pressed the Minister on that this morning during Treasury questions, and I fear he did not give me a clear answer. Richmond council, my local authority, delivers children’s services through an arm’s length body called Achieving for Children. As a result of these measures, with all the employees who deliver services for vulnerable children in Richmond upon Thames, it faces a bill of £588,000 in employer’s national insurance. Will the Minister assure local authorities up and down the country that operate similar models for delivering services that these arm’s length bodies will be exempt from the national insurance rise? Otherwise he will be damaging the very public services that he claims to be investing in today.
3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman keeps accusing those of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches of not supporting public sector investment. We have championed it, and we have said that the big multinationals—the big banks and the social media giants—should bear the brunt. Just yesterday, at the Small Business 100 reception here in Parliament, the owners of Shambles, a popular family-run restaurant in Teddington, told me that the impact of the Budget on them next year will cost £50,000 to £60,000. What are they doing? They are freezing all recruitment for the next few months. How will that deliver the growth that the Labour party is apparently desperate to achieve?
3 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Achieving for Children is the arm’s length body of Richmond council that delivers its vital children’s services, yet because of the rise in employer’s national insurance, it now faces a staggering bill of £588,000 because the employees are not directly employed by Richmond council. When the Chancellor looks at her local government settlement, will she build in reimbursement for councils such as Richmond, or indeed exempt arm’s length bodies?
2 Dec 2024 · Children and Bereavement · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) for opening the debate so eloquently, and for representing the views of many people who are present in the Public Gallery. I thank Mark and John for allowing their experiences to be shared today and for their campaigning on this incredibly important issue. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for speaking so bravely about their personal experiences. It is never easy to talk in this place about personal experience, in particular when talking about the death of a loved one, a parent or spouse. That is incredibly difficult and it was a privilege to hear their stories—I thank them. It is estimated that in the UK a child loses a parent every 20 minutes or so. In that moment, a child’s life is changed forever. The estimate does not include other losses, such as the loss of a sibling or a grandparent, which can be equally painful. I think back to the time of the covid pandemic, when talking to teachers and headteachers in schools in my constituency. They were dealing with an awful lot of grief, with children losing relatives they were close to, and they were having to cope with that grief in the school setting. Little data is collected on children’s suffering from such a loss, and I will come back to that in more detail. Losing a loved one is devastating, no matter what age you are. However, particularly when you are young, still growing and perhaps unable properly to understand the concept of death, grief can be especially difficult to manage. Bereavement can have an impact on every aspect of a child’s life, including their wellbeing, education and overall life outcomes. For this reason, it is critical that children get the practical and emotional support that they desperately need. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case for all children. There are no official statistics on the number of children who have been bereaved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) said, we do not know how many children are in that situation or where they live. It is important that both local and national services are aware of the scale of the problem and can identify the children who need our support. Like those who signed today’s petition and the Members who have spoken in the debate, the Liberal Democrats would like to see the establishment of a national register for bereaved children. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West for her campaigning on this issue. So many children slip through the net, and only some schools provide the support that pupils need. As we have been talking, I was reminded that 30 years ago, almost to the month, a girl in my class at school was killed with her family in a car crash. I remember that we came back after the Christmas holidays—they were killed while on holiday—and our class teacher brought us all together to have a conversation about it. I think back on how important that was. The school continued to work wherever possible with the girls who were closest to the girl who lost her life. As we have heard from the stories that hon. Members have shared, that certainly is not universally the case. It is important that we recognise the schools that do this work, but so many do not. There is no national mandate from the Department for Education for schools to have a bereavement policy in place, nor is there any national policy to support schools with this. That needs to be rectified, and I hope that the schools Minister will take that away to her Department. A number of national and local charities are trying to fill the gaps and support children and their families through grief, but lots of children are not being matched up with organisations that could provide them with support, and families are left scrambling. It is a difficult time. Other family members and parents are trying to deal with the grief too, so it is a stressful period. That is why my hon. Friend’s campaign, through her private Member’s Bill, for a legal duty for children to be informed of the support available to them following a loss is so important. I hope that the Minister will take my hon. Friend up on the offer to get this sorted before she has to bring it to the House yet again. The changes would help to improve join-up and ensure that the correct support was available as soon as it was needed. Even though not every child might choose to take up the support or feel the need to do so, it would still provide a much-needed safety net. Although we do not have the data to know for certain, it is estimated that one in 29 children and young people have lost a parent or sibling. That is almost one child in every classroom. Every child will be affected differently, and we know that many will struggle with their mental health as a result of the loss. Grief is messy and complicated. It does not go away, and it can affect children at different stages of their life. Studies show that some children may have a seemingly mild reaction following a loss but will struggle in subsequent years as the reality sinks in. That is why it is so important that mental health support is available continuously for bereaved children, not just immediately following their loss. I agree with what the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) said about ensuring that specialist bereavement counselling is available for children, but one reason why the Liberal Democrats have campaigned for years for a dedicated mental health practitioner in every primary and secondary school is to ensure that all children, including those who have been bereaved, have access to mental health support. There should also be community hubs available for children and young people right up to the age of 25, meaning that they can access support as and when they need it, on their own terms. After a loss, not only do families face significant emotional challenges, but they may also face a financial one. Overnight, a household income can shrink by half, or potentially even more if the person who died was the main breadwinner in the family. Alongside grieving for their partner, many widowed people suddenly have to pay their household bills and childcare costs, or put food on the table, with a sudden loss of income. Bereavement support payments can be a lifeline for families during that time, providing a source of income that might not be found elsewhere. However, in 2017, the previous Government cut funding for those payments by around 50%. Especially in a cost of living crisis, those cuts have been devastating to many families who have suffered a loss. According to the Childhood Bereavement Network, more than 75% of families are worse off than they would have been under the previous arrangements, with some going into debt and poverty as a result. That is why for some time, the Liberal Democrats have campaigned to double the funding for bereavement support payments. We would use the extra funding not just to increase the size of the payments, but to extend the period of time for which families receive them, giving those suffering from loss much-needed stability. I am proud that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), who has talked very openly about his own loss—first he lost his father as a child, and then he nursed his mum as she died of cancer in his teenage years—has campaigned so vociferously on this issue. I am pleased that he worked with other hon. Members to pressure the previous Government to extend bereavement support payments to cohabiting couples.
2 Dec 2024 · Children and Bereavement · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; she put across her points far more powerfully than I could, and I urge the Minister to listen. I hope that she and her fellow Ministers in other Departments will look at increasing the funding for bereavement support. At the very least, I hope they uprate it, because it has depreciated hugely in recent years. They should also increase the time period over which it is paid, because we have heard how important that is. I know that finances are stretched, but we are talking about a small number of children who have experienced the most horrendous loss. The implications of a loss can be especially complicated for certain families, especially single-parent families where the caring parent dies. The loss of a parent or guardian can often leave children with no one to look after them, and as a result, family members may step up overnight to take care of them. Such a situation accounts for almost one in 10 children living in kinship care. That was the case for my constituent, April—I call her that to anonymise her. She suddenly became a kinship carer for her nephew, who had no one else to look after him after his mum passed away from cancer. His stepfather had left the family shortly after his mum’s diagnosis. At the council’s request, April stepped up at very short notice to provide a caring and loving home to her nephew, but that came at great personal cost to her and her family. The Minister will be aware that I have long campaigned to ensure that kinship carers have the right support. Kinship carers such as April do their utmost to look after the children in their care, but they often need additional support because of sudden changes in their living arrangements, and because of the traumatic circumstances. Too many children in such situations simply cannot access the support they need, so we should provide better access to therapeutic support. We should also extend pupil premium plus funding to kinship children so that they are on a par with looked-after children and can access the support and wraparound care that they desperately need, inside and outside school. Unfortunately, too many kinship carers are desperately trying to get their children support, but to no avail. These problems affect not just the children but the carers. Talking about her family’s experience, kinship carer Levette said: “When my daughter passed away all I could focus on was keeping the children emotionally stable. Losing their mother was a traumatic experience for them and I wanted to make sure they were able to grieve. I wasn’t able to find time to grieve myself”. No one should have to feel that way after the loss of a loved one. Although we cannot take away a child’s pain and grief, as a society we owe it to them to do all we can to provide emotional, practical and financial support. That starts with having a register, ensuring that schools have policies for teaching about grief and bereavement in an age-appropriate and sensitive way within the curriculum, and addressing the lack of financial support. It is crucial that we give children in difficult circumstances the best possible chance to overcome their challenges and thrive, so I hope the Government will implement the changes that I and many others have outlined today.

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