Munira Wilson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Ten-year Infrastructure Strategy · Hansard source

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  The infrastructure plan reiterated the Government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow, a project that the Chancellor has repeatedly stated will be privately funded. However, given the vast amount of rail and road infrastructure that will be needed to support a bigger Heathrow, as well as the huge risk a private company would take on, which it would want underwritten by Government, could the Chief Secretary to the Treasury outline to the House how much taxpayer cash has been earmarked as needed to enable a bigger Heathrow?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Parental Leave Review · Hansard source

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  I welcome the review and, in particular, the fact that it will look at leave for kinship carers. The Minister knows that I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues have long campaigned for statutory paid leave for kinship carers, given their sacrifice and given how many fall out of the workforce when they take on those responsibilities. May I press him that within the 18-month timeline for the whole review, he might look to fast-forward kinship care leave? The economic case, both short and long-term, is so strong that, frankly, he ought to be able to move on that aspect quicker than some of the others he has to consider.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department for Education · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives’ decisions cast a long shadow over our schools and colleges. Although the Government trumpeted £4.7 billion for schools in the spending review, they failed to mention that school budgets will see an increase in real terms of only 0.4% over the spending review period. When I speak to school leaders, as I do regularly, they still express the same level of despair as I heard during the last Parliament, when the Conservatives barely mentioned children or schools. School leaders are tearing their hair out trying to balance the books while shouldering the double blow of an underfunded rise in employers’ national insurance and underfunded teacher pay rises. One school in my constituency has shared its budget figures with me in detail to show what is really happening. It has about a quarter of a million pounds of salary pressures as a result of the NI and pay rises, yet only an additional £30,000 to fund that hole. The result is that the most vulnerable children will suffer, with learning support assistance and inclusion staff most likely to go to protect teaching staff, who are obviously essential. Although prudence in previous years means that reserves can be drawn on and future capital projects cancelled to keep the lights on this year, the school is looking down the barrel of redundancies in 2026-27. Having seen figures from other schools’ budgets, I know that its situation is not unique. Following the spending review, the IFS said that schools would need to make efficiencies to the tune of £300 million to £400 million to afford the underfunded teacher pay rises and NI increases. When schools are facing ever-increasing pressures—special educational needs demand, student attendance challenges, behavioural issues and much more—it is ridiculous for the Government to ask them to find efficiencies. I know that school staff are already straining every sinew to find every penny possible, down to banning things like colour photocopying. It was frankly insulting, therefore, when the written ministerial statement came out just before the May recess, which lectured them on taking responsibility “to ensure that their funding is spent as efficiently as possible”, —[ Official Report , 22 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 48WS.] as if they do not already do that. Those so-called efficiencies are actually cuts, whether to staff, extracurricular activities, school trips or mental health support. To quote one headteacher from my constituency: “every year you think you’re going to go into bankruptcy”. I am not sure that was what the Government meant by their opportunity mission. After the Minister accused me last month of imagining these problems, I hope she will confirm to the House how she expects schools to cough up the extra money for the teacher pay deal and national insurance. If not, will she go into bat with the Treasury for more? I want to touch briefly on an issue that a number of my hon. Friends have spoken about: the cuts in grants to the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which are measures that will hurt our most vulnerable children. We know that the fund provides therapy for children who, in many cases, have been through deep trauma and who, without significant therapeutic intervention, will struggle to have a fulfilling childhood and life ahead of them. After the fund expired, Ministers were dragged to this place to confirm that it would continue, but they then snuck out announcements over the Easter recess of 40% cuts to the grants. I know that the Minister will come back and say that, at £50 million, the size of the pot remains the same, but that is simply not the point. If £3,000—that is what the grants have been cut to—cannot fund the therapy a child needs, it might as well be zero. Just speak to the professionals and the unsung heroes who have stepped up as adopters and kinship carers, who are dealing with the consequences of the trauma every day. They feel deeply let down by this Government. We are not dealing with massive figures here. Indeed, when we look at the billions in the departmental estimates, we are talking about small packages that will make a huge amount of difference, and not just to individual children but to the taxpayer in future, with money saved further down the track. It is not only immoral; it is short-sighted. Halving the Department’s spend on consultancy and advertising would allow Ministers to reinstate grants to previous levels by boosting the fund from £50 million to £75 million. As we debate these estimates, I once again call on the Minister to reverse those cuts. Also, now that the spending review is complete, I call on her to announce the ASGSF settlement for 2026-27 very soon, and by October at the latest, so that families and service providers can plan. I want to touch briefly on the welcome recent announcement to expand free school meals—a policy for which the Liberal Democrats have been calling and campaigning for many years, and for which we have campaigned alongside many others to ensure it was adopted. Even though it is a welcome announcement, there are a number of questions that need to be addressed. How many children are estimated to be losing out on free school meals as a result of the end of transitional protections? There has been some suggestion from some quarters that children currently in receipt of free school meals will now lose access to pupil premium funding, as well as home-to-school transport. Will the Minister clarify on the record to this House what the position is? We are also still in the dark as to where exactly the money for the free school meal expansion is coming from. In conclusion, while spinners in the Department for Education have made a good fist of ensuring that the headlines proclaimed that the Department was a victor in the spending review battle, there are still a number of crucial issues hidden beneath the top line. Our schools and our most vulnerable young people have been left struggling. The devil is in the detail. I therefore hope that the Minister can persuade us otherwise and convince us that she really believes in extending opportunity to every child and young person in this country.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Social Mobility: Careers Education · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) on securing this important debate. There is general consensus in the Chamber that every young person, no matter their background or needs, should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. They should be able to get the information and advice that they need to pursue a variety of career options for the many jobs and careers of the future. The options are growing by the day, and many of us do not even know about them yet. We know, however, that 12.5% of all 16 to 24-year-olds are not in employment, education or training, and that 37% of gen Z feel they will be financially worse off by the time they reach their parents’ age—a sobering statistic. We know, as we have heard clearly today, that many people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds cannot rely on the parental networks, role models, advice and guidance that so many of us—including many of my constituents—are able to benefit from. It is important for the Government and us, as parliamentarians and policymakers, to find ways of trying to even out those inequalities. That is challenging, but there are steps we can take to address them. As things stand, careers information, guidance and advice often comes too late in a young person’s academic career, and when it does, it can be quite generic and inconsistent. It is not even a compulsory element of all schools’ curricula. When it comes to thinking about higher education post school, students from more affluent backgrounds are 1.4 times more likely to think about higher education at primary school, say, than their disadvantaged peers. UCAS notes: “Disadvantaged students are more likely to consider higher education later, which can limit their choices, especially for more selective subjects and higher tariff providers.” The problem is not limited to just those who want to go to university. The Social Market Foundation reported in 2022 that support for students pursuing vocational options was weaker than for those pursuing academic options, with university often presented as the “default option”. One child told SMF that it was not until they got to year 12 that they realised there were other options besides university, with another saying that, “Help isn’t given to you,” if people do not want to go to university. It is high time that we level the playing field and put forward the full range of options—whether that is apprenticeships or other vocational training—on a par with going to university. How can we excite our children and young people about the wide variety of futures that could lie before them if they do not feel they have the options? When high-quality and effective careers guidance is offered, the benefits to young people are immediately tangible. Students in schools that meet all eight Gatsby benchmarks for careers guidance are 8% less likely to not be in education, employment or training, and that figure increases to 20% for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We know that schools and organisations that engage with local employers and businesses also score well on the Gatsby benchmarks. That is where I would like to pay tribute to the south London careers hub, which works across five boroughs of south London, including my own. It works with 80 business volunteers and has provided meaningful experience in the world of work for students in 95 schools across those five boroughs. It has held themed events focused on certain sectors of the economy, such as the green economy. I opened an event for the hub in my constituency a couple of years ago that focused on entrepreneurship and showed young people how they could create their own work and business opportunities in the future. Critically—to speak to some of the points already made—it also focuses on SEND provision, because we often overlook those with particular needs. At the other end of the country, I visited South Durham university technical college a couple of years ago. UTCs are different from mainstream schools and colleges because they focus on vocational skills. I was blown away by the partnership that that UTC—I know this is also true for other UTCs across the country—has developed with local major employers to provide meaningful experiences for the young people it is working with. For example, its careers guidance people accompany young people to meetings and events with employers. Clearly, schools do not have the capacity and resources to do that kind of intensive careers guidance, but there is a lot for mainstream schools to learn from UTCs. I have several asks of the Minister. As the Government are looking at the curriculum and assessment review, will they ensure that high-quality, age-appropriate careers education, starting from primary school, is part of the curriculum? Will they look at including financial literacy, as recommended by the Education Committee? The hon. Member for Wrexham talked about soft skills; I would not call such skills—communication, teamwork and so on—soft; they are life skills that are critical to success in the world of work. They are key to securing a job, being able to navigate interviews and networking, and then holding down a job in the workplace. Have the Government considered expanding the National Careers Service to ensure more face-to-face time for careers guidance for adults, particularly now that we know that so many people will be changing careers and going into new and emerging sectors of the economy? What plans do the Government have to strengthen the professional careers guidance workforce, as well as to ensure that our main teacher workforce is recruited from a diverse range of backgrounds, to share those experiences with children and young people? I will end with the elephant in the room: none of this will be possible until we fix school funding. I know from talking to headteachers across the country, including those in my constituency just yesterday, that school budgets are absolutely at breaking point. With neither the rise in employers’ national insurance nor the teachers’ pay rise being fully reimbursed, they are having to make all sorts of cuts, and some of them are planning teacher redundancies. Careers education will be one of the first areas that they look to cut, because they do not want to compromise on teaching the core subjects that they have to get children through. I therefore ask the Minister, when she responds, to address some of those questions. How will she fund schools so that they can provide the careers education and guidance that our children absolutely need and deserve?

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

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  Each and every week, I hear from teachers and school leaders in my constituency and across the country. In my time in this place, never has their outlook been as gloomy as it is right now. After years of underfunding and neglect from the Conservatives, schools now face a double blow of underfunded national insurance increases and unfunded teacher pay rises, if the reports are to be believed. Together, these represent massive cuts to school budgets. Frankly, schools expected better from Labour. School governors in my constituency recently told me that they are all setting deficit budgets, which one described as “beyond imagining”. That is why teachers are so desperately worried. Parents are, too, because ultimately it is our children who will suffer—and the most vulnerable, at that. The Government’s claim that schools can find the money through efficiencies simply does not stack up; budgets are already cut to the bone, with schools relying on parents to buy them the basics, such as glue sticks, through Amazon wish lists. They are already cutting back subjects, cancelling trips and cutting back on teaching assistants—meaning that children with special educational needs and disabilities will suffer the most—and now they are planning redundancies. Budget decisions for next year are already being made. We need urgent clarity about whether the pay rise will be funded, so will the Minister tell schools across the country where exactly they are expected to find this money?

• 20 May 2025 · Vulnerable Families: Tax System Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his response, but what short and long-term assessments have Ministers made of the cost to the taxpayer of the deep cuts in grants for therapy for some of the most vulnerable and traumatised children in our country through the adoption and special guardianship support fund? Given the Treasury’s intransigence in putting more money into the fund to meet rising demand, it is likely that adoption and kinship care placements will fail, resulting in more children in the care system in the short term. In the long term, sadly, we know that care-experienced children are four times more likely to end up with a criminal conviction. There is a moral and economic case to support this fund properly.

• 20 May 2025 · Vulnerable Families: Tax System Support · Hansard source

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  13. What steps she is taking through the tax system to support vulnerable families.

• 20 May 2025 · Adoption and Kinship Placements · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) on securing this important debate; she and I are both passionate about this issue, and I know she cares about it deeply. I will start by reminding colleagues—as many have done already—about who the children we are talking about are. These are children who have experienced the kind of trauma that none of us should ever have to experience in our life. After I first brought up the adoption and special guardianship support fund with the Prime Minister in March, a lady from Lincolnshire wrote to me. She is a special guardian for a child who witnessed her mother being murdered by her father at the age of two. For some reason that child does not qualify for child and adolescent mental health support, and has been able to access only a limited amount of counselling. That is the sort of child the ASGSF is for. These are also children who have been abused and neglected. When I spoke to the Purple Elephant Project, a therapy provider in Twickenham, its chief executive officer Jenny, who has worked with adopted children for many years, spoke to me about children she had worked with who had been made to sleep in the garden, or who had ingested heroin. Those are the sorts of experiences these children have been through. They need our collective help and support to overcome that trauma, as do the amazing people who step up to care for them, whether through adoption or often as kinship carers overnight. As one adoptive parent in my constituency said to me, these children deserve “the absolute best second chance in life.” I implore the Minister, who has a professional background in this area and cares about this issue deeply, to please listen to the pleas from those on all Benches about the support that is desperately needed. Before I talk in a bit more detail about the ASGSF, let me say a couple of words on kinship carers, given that I have been proud to campaign alongside my party for kinship carers for a number of years. I welcome the limited progress we have seen under this Government and the previous one on support and recognition of kinship carers, but as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we have to go much further. We have to roll out allowances on a par with those for foster carers across the country to all kinship carers, extend employment leave to kinship carers and ensure that children in kinship care are given the support that they need in education through pupil premium plus and priority school admission. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) said in a recent debate, adoptive parents make a “lifelong commitment” to children. We heard from the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who has also adopted, that the state needs to give them a lot more support. One constituent said to me that the ASGSF is the only post-adoption support there is for these children. That brings me to the ASGSF. I cannot begin to describe my anger and dismay at what has happened. I will try to contain that emotion as I speak. The stories that have been sent to me, and that I have heard face to face as I have been working on this issue in recent weeks and months, have on a number of occasions moved me to tears. These families faced months of uncertainty. The Minister had to answer a litany of written questions and letters from Members from all parties on whether the ASGSF would continue for this financial year. Those Members were stonewalled. I have explained the trauma that these children have experienced. They have had a huge amount of uncertainty and instability in their lives, and the Government added to it. We were all stonewalled. It took me dragging the Minister kicking and screaming to the House of Commons Chamber to answer an urgent question the day after the fund expired for her finally to commit to renewing it for this financial year. There was a sigh of relief among carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers and charities across the sector that the uncertainty had ended, despite the backlog that had built up in the meantime and the interruption in therapy for so many children who had had to stop therapy because they had run out of money from last year’s fund. However, there was no hint from the Minister during her response to my urgent question of the cuts that were to come. Instead, the Government waited until the depths of the Easter recess to sneak out a private letter to local authorities and charities about the 40% cut to grants, the removal of the assessment grant and the scrapping of the match funding. An adoptive mother I met at the drop-in organised by Adoption UK and Kinship yesterday told me that that felt very underhand. She said, “It felt like the Government didn’t care as I was dealing with my adoptive son, who was dysregulated and trying to hurt me.” There was no consultation with the sector, despite the fact that the Government have reference groups, such as the kinship care reference group, that they talk to on a regular basis. There was no consultation with them and no formal public announcement. Even the Government website on the ASGSF remained out of date for several weeks, until our first day back after recess, when the Minister issued a fairly scant written ministerial statement. My first question to her is: when she answered my urgent question on 1 April, was she aware that these cuts were coming, or did she inadvertently mislead the House on that occasion? The impact of the changes to the ASGSF means that we have a backlog. Everybody who had previously applied—some 46% of applications for grants for this financial year exceed the £3,000 limit—has to reapply. There will now be a delay and an interruption in therapy. The mum I met yesterday told me that she is borrowing money from friends and family to continue therapy because, in her son’s last therapy session, they finally achieved a breakthrough and she cannot bear to stop it. Purple Elephant in Twickenham is desperately fundraising to try to make sure that there is no interruption in therapy for the 40 or so children that it supports. We know that, with smaller grants, providers will struggle to provide adequate therapy. Given the sorts of trauma that we have talked about, these children’s brains need rewiring and they need time to build trust. Often, therapists have to run several sessions before a child will even come through the door. That takes time; it will not be done in the few short sessions that the grants will cover. Given that the assessment costs will now have to come out of the reduced grant of £3,000, after a bespoke assessment is made there will be very little, if anything at all, left for the actual therapy. In addition to the impact on the children and the carers who are desperately trying to look after them, the changes will undermine and destabilise the charities and other providers that offer support in this area. As many hon. Members have said, we are talking about children who are dysregulated and exhibit challenging behaviours, and the changes will lead to adoption and kinship care placement breakdown, which will result in extra costs for the taxpayer, because more children will go back into care. We will probably also see more school exclusions as a result of dysregulated behaviours, and therefore poorer educational and employment outcomes. Sadly, care-experienced children are four times more likely than other children to end up with a criminal conviction by the age of 24. The costs to the taxpayer of the changes, in the short term and the long term, are exorbitant, yet the fund is only £50 million; in the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge amount of money. If the Government wanted to extend the fund, say by 50%, I could tell the Minister exactly where she can get the money from. In her written ministerial statement, she suggested that the fund can be topped up from local authority children’s services budgets. I am not sure whether she is aware of this, but a lot of local authorities are on the brink financially, and many children’s services budgets are in huge deficit. However, where she can find the money is in the £46.5 million that the Department for Education spent on advertising, consultancy and marketing costs in the last year. I suggest that she halves that budget, and instead expands the ASGSF by 50%. These cuts are entirely incoherent and contradict Government policy. The DFE has recently written to Adoption England calling for improvements in adopter recruitment, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill mandates the signposting of support, yet everything we have discussed today will go against those measures. I have three asks of the Minister: please apologise to carers and children up and down the country, reverse the cuts—I have told her where to get the money—and fight tooth and nail in the Treasury over the spending review for the next financial year, and make that announcement early. Carers and children will continue to campaign, and I will be alongside them.

• 7 May 2025 · United States Film Tariff · Hansard source

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  I am deeply proud that St Margarets in my constituency has been home to Twickenham Film Studios for over 100 years. The studios have been involved in production and post-production work for big-name films including “The Italian Job” and “Ghandi”, and most recently they did the Oscar-winning sound production for “Top Gun: Maverick”. However, they have been beset by financial challenges, from the US writers’ strike to the sky-rocketing business rates mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper). The tariffs could deal a fatal blow to studios such as Twickenham. Can I urge the Minister, as others have, to work with the Treasury and the Valuation Office Agency on bringing down the rateable value of film studios? Can I also invite him to follow in the footsteps of Tom Cruise and come to St Margarets to visit Twickenham Film Studios?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Just over three weeks ago, the Minister for children and families had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the Dispatch Box to be forced into extending the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which had expired the previous day, leaving thousands of vulnerable children and their adoptive parents and kinship carers in limbo. Not once during that 45 minute urgent question did she say, when she triumphantly announced £50 million extra to continue the fund, that the individual support grants were about to be cut by 40%. That information was snuck out in a private letter last week, during recess, to local authorities and charities. Will the Leader of the House demand that the Education Secretary comes to the House, makes a statement, and takes questions from hon. Members who feel that they were, I am sure inadvertently, misled by the children’s Minister that day, so that we can understand the impact on some of the most vulnerable children in our society?

• 3 Apr 2025 · UK-US Trade and Tariffs · Hansard source

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  The Business Secretary said in his statement, “True strength comes in making the right choices at the right time.” Will he assure parents, carers and young people up and down this country that he will show true strength with Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk, and make the right choice by refusing point blank to trade away our children’s safety online in watering down—in any way, shape or form—the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Research published by UNICEF shows that last time the overseas aid budget was cut, support for children—for their education and nutrition—was cut the deepest. Will the Foreign Secretary give assurances to this House that this time, children will not bear the brunt of his cuts, and will he commit to protect child-focused development programmes?

• 25 Mar 2025 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (changed to Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers) Bill) · Hansard source

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  I, too, begin by putting on record my thanks to the noble Lords in the other place for all their work on the Bill, in particular those on the Liberal Democrat Benches: Baroness Pinnock, Lord Shipley and Lord Fox. Business rates reform is long overdue and, while we welcome the proposal to permanently reduce business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure, in the meantime many businesses across my constituency, and indeed the country, are reeling as they see the impact of the reduction in rates relief in bills landing on their doormats. I have heard from a number of businesses just in the past few days. I am really concerned about pubs, restaurants and cafés in my constituency who are wondering how, with the national insurance rise and the reduction in rates relief, they will continue. The Liberal Democrats would like to see a fundamental overhaul of the business rates system, not just the sticking-plaster solutions proposed in the Bill that tinker around the edges. As I said, lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure are a step in the right direction, but there are countless small businesses outside those sectors that need their tax burden reduced too, for example manufacturing businesses. We tabled amendments on Report to improve the Bill and to ensure it gave consideration to whether there should be provision for manufacturing facilities, which can be big and built on expensive land but sometimes produce relatively low-value goods. Lords amendment 4 sought to do the same, whereby manufacturing premises would also pay new lower business rates under the Bill. Without that, light engineering and printers, among other businesses in our town centres’ mixed economies, could be priced out. A recent report by Barclays bank concluded that the words “made in Britain” were worth an additional £3.5 billion to UK exporters, so it is important that something is done to support the manufacturing sector. We have learnt the hard way in recent years, with the pandemic and wars, that we need to be much more self-sufficient as a country, yet there has been a big drop in confidence in the sector since autumn, with an increase in manufacturers’ costs and orders in general reported to be smaller in size. That comes on top of the additional Brexit red tape that those businesses have to contend with to export. Therefore, we support retaining this amendment in the Bill. As I have said, we want fundamental reform of business rates so we can boost small businesses and our high streets. We tabled an amendment on Report to require a review of the impact of the Bill on businesses, high streets and economic growth, so we support retaining Lords amendment 13, which would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of the Bill on businesses whose rateable value is close to £500,000 and so will be caught by the new higher business rates. Turning to our NHS, yet again we see the Government giving with one hand and taking with the other. As with national insurance contributions, so with the business rates changes: there are unintended but significant consequences for our health service. Lords amendment 1 sought to exclude hospitals and other healthcare settings from paying new higher business rates for properties with a rateable of £500,000 or more. Without the amendment, 290 local hospitals will be caught by the rates, an unacceptable new burden when the NHS is already struggling. As my noble Friend Baroness Pinnock pointed out in the other place, without the amendment the likes of Great Ormond Street hospital for children will have an additional burden of £600,000 per year on business rates alone, the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford has a potential business rates increase from £3.4 million to £4.1 million, and the Hull Royal Infirmary could see its bill rising from £1.8 million to £2.1 million. Those are typical figures for hospitals across the country. I do not believe it is the Government’s intention to reduce hospitals’ abilities to drive down their waiting lists, yet that is exactly what the impact of these changes and the consequent higher charges will be, so we support the amendment. The Bill also levies a tax on education by removing the business rates exemption for private schools that are charities, a measure that will be compounded by the Government’s move to levy VAT on private school fees and the increase to employers’ national insurance contributions. As I have said many times since the general election—and indeed before—the Liberal Democrats are opposed, in principle, to the taxation of education, as it is a public good. We strongly support and champion parents’ right to choose, on which both those tax measures are an assault.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (changed to Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers) Bill) · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was simply seeking to address the hon. Member’s point. I am coming in to land now. Time and again we see Government policy at odds with their stated objectives. They want to tackle NHS waiting lists but then slap business rates on to large hospitals and put national insurance rises on to our GPs, hospices and social care providers. They claim to drive growth but then slap business rates on to much-needed manufacturing and put a cliff edge on small businesses in our town centres. They want to extend opportunity to all but then go after charitable independent schools that are serving their wider communities—not to mention punishing parents who dare to make that choice for their children. Amid some good intentions, the Government have lost their way in parts of the Bill. I implore Ministers to genuinely consider the amendments before them in order to support our hospitals and allow businesses up and down our country to grow and flourish. Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (changed to Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers) Bill) · Hansard source

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  I respectfully say to the hon. Gentleman that a rise in employers’ national insurance contributions was not in his party’s manifesto, nor was a cut to the winter fuel allowance, nor was the farmers tax, yet these are all things Labour is implementing.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (changed to Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers) Bill) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Where we can make common cause is over the absolute mess in which the Conservatives left both our public services and our economy. I have no quibble in agreeing with him on that point. We Liberal Democrats set out a whole series of tax measures—actually we were the only party that was not afraid to put forward revenue-raising measures—but his Government are choosing not to accept any of them. They included taxing our big tech giants that are ruining the mental health of our children and young people— [Interruption.] Yes, in fact, they are planning to slash that tax altogether. We also suggested reversing the tax cuts that the Conservatives gave to the big banks, so that we can continue putting free school meals on the table for children, which, again, his Government are thinking of cutting. Then we suggested reforming capital gains tax—

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

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  A number of measures in part 2 of this Bill are to be welcomed. However, after a decade of neglect by the Conservatives, I want to ask Ministers this: when our schools are crumbling, when we cannot find specialist teachers, when special needs provision is in crisis and when we have a huge persistent absence problem, why have the Government chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority education policy? The one strong message coming through from education leaders, including those who have no ideological axe to grind, is that the way that the Government have gone about part 2 of the Bill shows a lack of coherent vision for the school system, with no White Paper and no consultation with those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector. I turn to some of the new clauses tabled in my name. With all the pressures on family finances, new clause 7 would ensure that free school meals were available to children from households earning less than £20,000 per year and automatically enrol eligible children into this provision. Liberal Democrats have long believed that this is an effective, targeted intervention that would help children in poverty at both primary and secondary school to concentrate, to learn and to thrive. New clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to find out exactly how many children were eligible for, but not claiming, free school meals or were not registered for pupil premium funding. It beggars belief that, as spelled out in recent answers to parliamentary questions that I have submitted, the Government are flying blind on this issue, with the last proper study of uptake dating back to 2013. New clause 54 would require regular reviews of free school meal uptake. As we discussed at length this morning in Westminster Hall, and as the Chair of the Education Committee pointed out, an estimated 230,000 eligible children are missing out on a free school meal. Where local authorities auto-enrol children into free school meals, it makes a real difference. In Liberal Democrat-led Durham, 2,500 additional children now benefit from a hot lunch, and their schools benefit from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding. In Committee, the Minister confirmed the Government’s intention to improve uptake by looking at auto-enrolment and data sharing between Departments. However, his suggestion that locally led efforts were more likely to meet the needs of local communities risks patchy action across the country. We believe that this requires a national response, and we therefore strongly urge the Government to look at auto-enrolment as well as increasing the eligibility threshold, to ensure that we are feeding some of our poorest pupils, whether they are at primary or secondary school. Staying on the theme of the cost of living pressures on families, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches strongly support the objective of bringing down the cost of school uniforms for hard-pressed families up and down the country. However, we remain concerned that the Bill as drafted, in setting a maximum number of branded uniform items, is highly prescriptive for schools and will not actually rein in the costs of those items. As the Chair of the Select Committee has just pointed out, there is nothing to prevent items costing £100 or more each. Furthermore, an answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled stated that, on average, girls’ uniforms cost £25 to £30 more than boys’ uniforms. If we want to tackle these inequalities, the best thing to do is to support our amendment 1. I want to put on record my thanks to the Clerks, because we picked up a drafting error in our amendment 1. The online version is correct, but the printed version is incorrect. Our amendment 1 actually amends clause 24 and proposes a monetary cap, rather than a cap on the number of items. That would be reviewed and updated in line with inflation through secondary legislation every year. It would also drive down costs as suppliers would have to compete for school contracts.

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

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  It is always an honour to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman, and it is great to hear about the pilot scheme in Northern Ireland. I have read that the Government in the Republic of Ireland have spent about €9 million on issuing those pouches to schools across the country. It would be useful and instructive for the UK Government to look at how that pilot goes, but I am not sure that we even need to wait for that. School leaders and parents are pressing us to go further now, and we must listen. Putting the guidance into law will ensure that schools have the necessary support when they are challenged on their policies, and the resources to implement a mobile-free environment. A headteacher in my constituency told me that it would cost his school budget £20,000 to install lockers or issue the pouches described by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Children must be able to learn in an environment that is free from the distraction of phones and the threat of bullying. We have also seen a significant reduction in truancy in schools where restrictions have been robust.

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

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  It is a pleasure and a privilege to rise to speak on part 1 of the Bill, and in particular on the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name. When the Bill had its Second Reading, I said that there was much in it that Liberal Democrat Members welcomed, alongside areas that we would seek to amend, probe and strengthen. Its progress in recent weeks has seen plenty of debate, discussion and opportunities to constructively strengthen the legislation, although the Government have failed to accept any amendments that were not their own, despite the Minister’s comments in his opening speech. I am grateful to colleagues from across the House who served on the Committee, in which we had some excellent debates. However, I was disappointed last week to see the sheer number of amendments tabled by the Government ahead of Report. I really hope that the Government do not make a habit of depriving Committees of their chance to properly scrutinise Bills, even if most of those measures are welcome and uncontroversial. Turning to the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name, as the Minister knows, care—particularly kinship care—is a subject that is close to my heart and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. In Committee, we discussed a number of encouraging provisions that are included in the Bill, including those dealing with the definition of kinship care, setting out in law the support that kinship carers are eligible for, and providing additional educational support for children in kinship care. However, what we agreed in Committee falls far short of the ambition that I heard the Secretary of State herself set out at a reception for kinship carers just a few months ago. At that reception, the Secretary of State—unusually for somebody in her position—called on campaigners and policymakers to keep pushing her. I believe that new clauses 25, 26, 27 and 28, which stand in my name, do just that. New clause 25 would ensure that kinship carers are entitled to paid employment leave; new clause 26 would put into statute an entitlement to an allowance on par with that of foster carers; new clause 27 would extend the pupil premium plus to all children in kinship care, based on the definition that is in the Bill; and new clause 28 would prioritise those same children for school admissions. Kinship carers are unsung heroes, often stepping up at no notice to look after a child they are related to or know because that child’s parents can no longer do so. Time and again, we hear from kinship carers that they want to do the right thing out of love for those family members, but financial and other barriers often stand in their way. One survey revealed that 45% of kinship carers give up work, and a similar proportion have to reduce their hours permanently, putting financial strain on the family. These carers are disproportionately women, and they are over-represented in the healthcare, education and social care sectors, so this issue simply exacerbates our workforce crisis in public services. In Committee, the Minister pointed to the kinship financial allowance pilots, which ran in a tiny number of local authorities and involved a very small subset of kinship carers. That was not ambitious enough. We must go further and give kinship carers parity with foster carers. That will help save money in the short and long term.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Mental Health Support: Educational Settings · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this incredibly important debate. I have spent much of the past five and a bit years in this place talking about children’s mental health, which, frankly, I do not think we can ever have enough debate about. It is so incredibly important. We have heard many statistics from hon. Members today, to which I will add. OECD evidence, based on a survey of 15-year-olds, shows that UK students have the lowest reported wellbeing in western Europe. In 2024, the Children’s Society found that the happiness of UK children aged 10 to 15 was at its lowest since recording began in 2009-10. As we have heard, NHS reporting shows that a staggering one in five children—six in every classroom, on average—have a mental health disorder. I would argue that it is not an exaggeration to say that we are heading towards a public health emergency as far as our children’s mental health is concerned. Yet, as is so often the case, children and mental health are both overlooked and low down on the priority list. The Darzi report highlighted that children account for 24% of the population but only 11 % of NHS expenditure. The latest evidence from Rethink Mental Illness states that people who need mental health are treatment eight times more likely to have to wait over 18 months than those seeking treatment for physical health. Despite that, the Government’s targets to bring down NHS waiting times exclude mental health. Given that more than 100,000 children are waiting for over a year to be assessed for mental health treatment, it is clear that children have been deprioritised, but as I have said repeatedly in this place, putting money into services that support children is the greatest investment we can make as a country. When budgets are tight, support for child and adolescent mental health should not be pushed aside. I do not think it an exaggeration to call the situation a public health emergency. In public health, prevention and early intervention are absolutely key. That is where the role of schools, colleges and universities comes in. As we have heard, half of lifetime mental health conditions arise before the age of 14, so ensuring that mental health support is available in schools, from primary upwards, is a critical intervention. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a mental health practitioner to be placed in every primary and secondary school. In the light of the impact of online harms on our children’s mental health, we have made a strong case for the “polluter pays” principle, whereby big tech giants bear the cost burden of the measure. A trebling of the digital services tax would fund a practitioner in every primary and secondary school. I am slightly confused because, as the Minister said during the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, and as I have seen in Labour party material, the Government are committed to “introducing specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school”. However, Labour had previously committed to having a counsellor in every secondary school, and indeed the hon. Member for Redditch talked about having a counsellor in every school. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point of policy when he speaks in a moment. My impression during the Bill Committee was that the Government intended to build out from the mental health support teams that were established by the previous Government. The Minister confirmed in Committee that only 44% of children and young people have access to such teams, which will rise to 50% in April, but he did not set out a timeline or a plan for how or when the Government will meet their commitment by ensuring that every school has access to specialist support. MHSTs are brilliant. I have spoken to staff who work in those teams, both in my own constituency and in Carshalton, with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean). However, the reality is that MHSTs are spread far too thinly across a number of primary and secondary schools, with some schools only getting half a day or a day of support. That is not enough. Last year, one teenager in a secondary school in my constituency took their own life. Another school in my constituency had three teenagers end up in A&E in the space of about two months, having attempted to take their own lives. Clearly, that level of mental ill health requires much more acute intervention than therapy in school, but the reality is that if we start early—if we start young—with proper support, some of these truly awful incidents might be prevented. The MHST model may well be the best model for support in schools, but I urge the Government to be ambitious in the resourcing of those teams, so that every school has the full-time equivalent of one person in the provision of this support. I know that many schools are trying to top up the resource out of their own funds, but with budgets being stretched ever further, sadly, mental health support is one of the areas that headteachers and governors tell me they are having to start cutting back on. We know that the epidemic of mental ill health is driving the crisis of persistent absence in our schools. As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) said, we have heard a lot in recent days about the million or so young adults who are not in education, employment or training, often because of mental ill health. For the sake of those young people’s futures, our economy and our society, we must do better, and we must do more. I do not have time today to talk about school staff, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, but we have a recruitment and retention crisis in our schools, and that is because many teachers see themselves as the fourth emergency service. We have to support them with their mental health if we want to stop that flow out of our schools. In higher education, I hope the Government will look at introducing a duty of care, because we have heard too many tragic stories of students taking their own lives and their loved ones knowing nothing about their mental health problems. I pay tribute to the charities around the country that are plugging the gaps in mental health support. In my constituency, we have amazing charities such as the Purple Elephant Project and Off The Record working with children and their families. Anstee Bridge works across Richmond and Kingston with children who are no longer engaging with school. As I said, there have been a number of attempted suicide cases in my constituency, and when I have been to Anstee Bridge, I have heard many more stories of children attempting to take their own lives. These services are critical if we want to keep those children and young people safe and help them to recover. I want to touch on two more points. Childhood bereavement is a really important and often overlooked issue. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), who has long championed the need for a register of children who have been bereaved. We know that childhood bereavement has a terrible impact on children’s wellbeing, potentially their mental health and their educational outcomes. I hope Ministers will look seriously at introducing a register, so that we know how many of these children there are, where they are and what support they need, because that information is not available at the moment. Additionally, there is no national mandate from the Department for Education for schools to have a bereavement policy, nor is there any national policy to support schools with this. I hope that will be addressed. The hon. Member for Redditch mentioned children growing up in kinship care. The Minister will know that I have long been campaigning cross-party on support for kinship carers and children growing up in kinship care. Like other Members, my inbox has been filled recently with emails from constituents who have either adopted children or are kinship carers for children whose parents can no longer look after them and have benefited from the adoption and special guardianship support fund. It is a critical fund that carers often access to provide therapeutic support for children who have experienced terrible trauma, loss and instability. However, there has been no reassurance from Government about the future of that fund. I think at the moment we only have funding confirmed until the end of this month. There is a huge amount of uncertainty, and hon. Members from across the House have tabled written questions but there has been no clear answer on the future of this fund. I hope that when the Minister rises at the Dispatch Box, he will put on record the plans for the adoption and special guardianship support fund as it is crucial and we cannot lose it. Our children cannot thrive and cannot achieve their full potential if they are not happy and if they are not well, so I implore the Minister to work closely with his counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care to treat this public health challenge as an emergency. Our children and young people are only young once; they deserve the best future they can get. They cannot afford to wait; we need to prioritise this.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Could the Minister clarify for the House whether the provisions on the school support staff negotiating body will provide a ceiling as well as a floor on pay, or will it just be a floor? There are certainly a number of school and academy leaders who say they want to pay above what the Government might recommend for support staff and that this may limit them from doing so.

• 4 Mar 2025 · NICs Increase: Impact on Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  20. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the planned increase in employer national insurance contributions on economic growth.

• 4 Mar 2025 · NICs Increase: Impact on Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  As the poor growth figures show, the Chancellor’s jobs tax is really hurting businesses, not least in our hospitality sector. In my constituency, pubs such as the Eel Pie and the King’s Head, as well as the family-run restaurant Shambles, are really struggling with soaring costs and putting off hiring people. If the Chancellor will not reverse her jobs tax, will she at the very least consider extending the current 75% business rates relief for hospitality until the new system that she has announced is in place?

• 3 Mar 2025 · Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief · Hansard source

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  It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell-Buck. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for introducing this debate and setting out the argument so eloquently. I also thank the almost 115,000 people who signed the petition, of whom 873 live in Twickenham. I start by apologising to you, Ms Lewell-Buck, hon. Members and people in the Gallery if I have seemed a little distracted over the past 45 minutes. I have just found out that my daughter got her first choice of secondary school—a state school, I should say—for this September, so I have been a little distracted. All her classmates’ parents have been messaging to find out, and I was trying to communicate with my husband to let our daughter know that she will be going where she wants to go. Forgive me, but I thought it was quite appropriate to mention that, given that we are talking about schools and independent schools. I am proud that my borough of Richmond upon Thames has outstanding secondary schools—in fact, all of them are outstanding or good—and some of the best primaries in the country, but that is not necessarily the case everywhere. It goes without saying that every person in this House, whatever their party affiliation, aspires for every child to receive an excellent education. Every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, yet too many children are not being supported to achieve it. We Liberal Democrats believe in creating state schools that provide a rich curriculum together with rich extracurricular options—schools so high performing that parents do not feel compelled to send their children to the independent sector. That is why we set out an ambitious education offer in our manifesto last year; we see education as an investment, not a cost. However, as we all know too well, that is very far from the current reality of our state system. For too many children, our school system is just not working; too many are simply not getting the support they need and are entitled to, especially if they have additional needs. Teachers and other school staff as well as school leaders are struggling with ever tighter budgets to hire and keep the staff they need, especially in maths and science, with crumbling school buildings, and with a SEND system that is utterly broken. Is it any wonder that many parents, for some of whom it is far from an easy financial decision, choose an independent education for their children? They want to invest in their children’s future in the same way that I argue the Government should invest in our children, yet it is in that context that this Government have decided to tax independent schools and penalise families for making that choice. We Liberal Democrats oppose in principle the taxation of education, whatever form it takes—whether it is tutoring, higher education, nursery fees or music lessons. Even more, we believe this measure is counterproductive. Since the policy was announced, pupil movement out of the independent school sector has been three times higher than the Government predicted, with the fall being highest in transition years of year 7 and reception, at 4.6% and 3.9% respectively. The Independent Schools Council’s survey last year found that there were already 10,000 fewer pupils in independent schools. According to the ISC, this fall in numbers alone cost £92 million in state pupil funding, which is more than the Government will raise from business rates on independent schools that are charities. The majority of independent schools are small: 40% have fewer than 100 pupils. With apologies to the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), we are not talking about the Etons and the Harrows here. What I really struggle with in this policy is that, as others have said, it is not the very wealthy who will be impacted by it. The Minister will be very pleased to hear that I have met some rather wealthy people who have told me that they agree with the policy—but they can afford it; they can absorb the extra cost. It is especially the parents who never deliberately set out to secure a private education for their children, but felt forced to for various reasons, who are bearing the brunt and will be priced out. The impact of Labour’s policy is to make our private schools yet more elitist, which is what the Government are waging a campaign against. I think the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made this very point. I wish to talk about two groups who are particularly harmed by the Government’s policy. The first is families of children with SEND. As we have heard, there are in our independent schools almost 100,000 children with special needs who do not have EHCPs, and who, under this Government’s policy, are not exempt from VAT. Often, their parents opted for private schools as a last resort, after being continually failed by the state system and even rejected. This policy penalises parents for trying to do right by their children. One family in my constituency came in tears to a surgery last year, after it was announced that this policy was going ahead and would be implemented in January this year. Their son was in a local state primary school, but his challenging behaviour, which had manifested as a result of his additional needs, which the school could not support, had put him at risk of exclusion. His parents made the very difficult decision to move him to a local private school, where he is now thriving. They are paying an extra £18,000 a year on top of the basic school fees for the additional support he needs to learn and thrive. All those costs—not just the basic fees but the additional support fees—are subject to VAT under the Government’s policy. They do not know how they are going to meet the cost, but they know that if their son goes back into the state sector and to the primary he was at, he will be at risk of being excluded. I ask the Minister: why are the Government punishing families such as these? Arguably, they have saved the taxpayer a lot of money in terms of not just the child’s schooling costs, but all the further knock-on costs that we know result from a child being excluded from school. We all know that SEND provision in this country is utterly broken. Our local authorities and state schools are buckling under the demand, yet this policy threatens to place an ever-greater burden on the state SEND system, as parents are incentivised to battle the system for EHCPs—which many children probably could get if their parents tried hard enough—in order to secure the VAT exemption. Indeed, some parents of SEND children are simply being priced out of the independent sector and back into state schools, where the additional needs will need to be supported. I have repeatedly asked Ministers to monitor and report to the House on that particular impact of the VAT policy, and I ask again: will the Minister monitor and report on the impact on SEND provision for those children who do not have EHCPs and are not exempt? The second impacted group that I will briefly touch on is military families. Statistics from the Boarding Schools’ Association reveal that the Government’s new policy will have an adverse impact on military families using the continuity of education allowance scheme. Under the scheme, parents must make a minimum 10% contribution to fees, but even with the Ministry of Defence’s recalculation in response to the Government’s policy, parental contributions will have to increase by a further 18% on average, rising from £14,000 to £17,000 for a child in senior school. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) pointed out, that will be unaffordable for many families, and will impact retention in the forces. Those serving our country should not be financially penalised for doing so, and we should endeavour to provide service families with continuity and stability. I hope that the Minister, alongside his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, will make a clear statement on how the impact of VAT will be monitored for CEA families, and the criteria by which they will decide to make further changes. I hope they will also commit to reviewing the CEA over the longer term to ensure that families are protected from the impact of VAT, or exempt CEA families from VAT all together. Aside from the two specific groups that I have talked about, who I think the Government have overlooked, I want to return to the wider principles. We Liberal Democrats would like to see independent schools routinely giving back to their community by way of recognition of the tax exemption they had previously benefited from, and that we believe should continue. Many of these schools already give back a huge amount to their communities through exemplary partnerships with local schools, where not only facilities but learning and experiences are shared between the state and the independent sector. Independent schools ran over 9,200 partnerships in 2024; each school involved in partnership worked with approximately 11 state schools and with 403 pupils in those schools. Examples of those partnerships include sharing sports facilities, theatre spaces, specialist teachers, mentoring schemes, cooking schools, higher education support and debating clubs, as well as bursaries and scholarships. The Liberal Democrats want to see that become the norm for every independent school, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) pointed out, the VAT policy will mean that greater partnership work is the first thing independent schools cut back on. In these debates, I have often referred to Hampton and Lady Eleanor Holles schools in my constituency, which have a brilliant partnership with a Reach academy in Feltham that is serving a disadvantaged community that has typically not had many children going into further or higher education. That school has seen its results soar and pupils accessing university and medical school as a result of the partnership. The headteacher of Hampton, Kevin Knibbs, said to me this morning: “While it’s too early to identify the immediate impact of the Government’s policies on our schools…it is deeply regrettable and a missed opportunity that independent schools elsewhere in the country will simply be unable to replicate the Reach-LEH-Hampton partnership model due to the new tax regime. Moreover, the imposition of a tax on education will compromise our and other independent schools’ ability to provide transformative, means-tested free places that are such excellent examples of social mobility in action.” I thought that was something that the Minister and his colleagues were all in favour of. We should be making the most of the benefits that independent schools can provide, opening them up to more children, not making them more exclusive and adding to the state system’s burden. I am coming in to land now, I promise. The Government have dismissed the stories of families affected by this tax, choosing to prize numbers over human experience. I fear they are being driven by ideology, but I am perplexed as to why Ministers have been hellbent on this particular policy, which hits parents’ pockets directly, and yet they have resisted my party’s attempts to amend the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to ensure that private equity companies that are profiteering from private special schools are not being subjected to the profit cap that this Labour Government are imposing on children’s homes and fostering agencies that are often run by the same companies. They are making eye-watering profits, with margins of more than 20%, which local authorities have to pay. The Labour Government do not want to do anything about that, but they are attacking parents who want to send their kids to private schools. It makes no sense to me, and I hope the Minister will address that point. I understand that the fiscal situation right now is hard. Unlike the Labour party, during the election campaign my party laid out a whole host of areas where taxes could be raised fairly in order to invest in our children’s education and our country’s future. Whether that is properly reforming capital gains tax, reversing the Conservatives’ tax cuts for bankers or increasing the tax on big tech companies, we are ambitious for every child. We want to put a dedicated mental health professional in every primary and secondary school, to expand free school meals for all children in poverty and to ensure that those children who have fallen behind are supported through tutoring. That vision can be realised without penalising parents who are choosing to do what every parent naturally wants to do: to invest in their children’s education and future.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement expressing the United Kingdom’s unequivocal support for President Zelensky and Ukraine. In view of the Prime Minister’s cuts to the aid budget, and with the eyes of the world focused on Zelensky, Ukraine and Russia, can he please reassure the House that he will not forget about the middle east, and in particular the decision by Netanyahu’s Government to block aid to Gaza? What representations is he making on behalf of the Government to reverse that? It is a breach of international law.