Rachael Maskell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jun 2025 · SEND Strategy · Hansard source

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  Given the sharp rise in diagnosis in York of children with SEND, we have established a SEND-focused family hub. We are also reviewing other services. I am particularly concerned about the culture within schools. We need nurturing and inclusive education, so that we have a therapeutic learning environment. Will the Minister say what she is doing to ensure that schools, local authorities and others can feed into the White Paper to share best practice and raise concerns?

• 13 Feb 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Belfrey in York is losing around £1.4 million through the changes to the listed places of worship grant scheme. The National Railway Museum was promised money by the last Government—I appreciate that it was not necessarily real money—but that has been taken away. Both those projects are midway through development. Will the Leader of the House make representations to the Chancellor to say that when projects are under way but have been stripped down after development has started, money should be put in place to ensure that they can be completed?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Listed Places of Worship Scheme · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Mr Western. Let me set the scene. There are around 80 places of worship in York, from York Minster through to a small Orthodox congregation who wrote to me this week and are seeking a new place—buildings young and old, including well-established places. The listed places of worship grant scheme is essential to their upkeep. I want to raise two matters that have not been mentioned yet. First, the Belfrey, which is adjacent to York Minster, is currently under tarpaulin. The windows have been removed, the walls have been stripped back to the stone, the roof is about to come off and scaffolding is holding everything together. The grant is central to the £8.5 million project continuing; I hope the Minister will explain what will happen to this gutted church and its community of 600 worshippers without it. The grant is worth £1.5 million to them. After a tumultuous fundraising effort by the church, they need the scheme to continue, and urge the Minister to at least confirm that existing projects will continue until their completion. This is about not just the church but the social infrastructure. Some £1.5 million is being invested in mental health support and children and youth services, as well as in making York a poverty-free city. The Belfrey is crucial for my community, as well as for the local economy, tourism and our fabulous heritage sector. It sits in the new cathedral precinct, which is part of the local neighbourhood plan. We must have the spec at the required standard, as 9 million visitors come to York, which is the second-most visited place in the UK, and to York Minster, which is the most visited place in the city. When it opens, it will be a place that not only explains the heritage but enables people to explore their faith. A 15% hole in the budget would stop the scheme. Secondly, York has developed its new international centre of excellence for heritage craft. From stonemasons to glaziers, it will preserve the traditions that many people in this debate will benefit from. In fact, people around the world are looking to the centre. It is unique in the crafts that it will maintain, and it will ensure that the traditions are preserved. Much of the centre’s demand will come from different projects funded by the listed places of worship grant scheme. I hope the Minister will help the centre to greater success as it embarks on this new journey by ensuring that the grant enables demand to be placed at the centre’s door. So many churches and other organisations have written to me saying that the scheme must continue.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A tourism levy in York could raise £125,000 through a voluntary scheme, but if there were a comprehensive scheme, £1.7 million could go to my local community. Will the Minister not consider such a scheme so that we can raise that revenue for York?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q14. York is an incredible city, but demands on tourist destinations such as York, which receives over 9 million visitors and 1.7 million overnight stays, place significant pressure on local public services and housing used as short-term holiday lets. What steps will the Prime Minister take to equip local authorities to better balance the benefits of tourism against the additional costs to our communities?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  I want to raise the issue of governance. There are too many minds controlling the system, which ultimately stymies local authorities’ ability to reform services in order to embed a culture of nurturing and to ensure that the best interests of children are represented. While reviewing the SEND system, will the Minister take a look at governance, and ensure that is there is one controlling mind, and it is that of the local authority?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Taxi Licensing: Deregulation Act 2015 · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the Deregulation Act 2015 needs to be repealed? It is deeply damaging in a place like York, where we have a tourism industry, so we need it to be repealed.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Exemptions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I have always had great concern about segregation in our education system, but parents in York say that due to the different pedagogy environment and culture, certain independent schools provide the only way that their children with SEN, anxiety or care experience can currently access education. It is through necessity, not choice. Does he agree that the Government should publish an impact assessment not only for this, but for the Budget, so that we can assess the full analysis of this policy?

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. What a mess—young people broken by a broken system. The Children and Families Act promised so much, but without people, money and the rest of the system to back it up, it could never deliver. When the wait for the diagnosis is over, the battle for the EHCP is won and masses of resources have been spent, the demand is still not being met. Staff do their very best, but still people are falling out of the system. I have spent the past year digging deep, looking at the local, the national and the international to bring best practice to this space. I have looked at the environment, the community and the child. On the environment, I say to the Minister, “Go back to the Department and rip up the behaviourist approach to education. It creates a world where neurodiverse children—those with anxiety or mental illness—and even the timid cannot survive.” Instead, we should adopt a therapeutic, nurturing approach so that all children can thrive. In York, where schools have done so, all gain from recognising the need for every child to be safe, valued and included. It is a happy place where a child will strive for excellence and the whole child will be able to navigate their way through this world, rather than an obstacle course of micro-traumas, stress and anxiety. Let us not build bigger and bigger schools, but create more therapeutic and intimate spaces that belong to the children and where they can thrive. We should bring children out of home schooling, out of their bedrooms, off the streets and back into the classroom. School must be safe for all those children. We also need to recognise, as the Government do, the failed nature of the curriculum. Let us build space for our brains and our bodies. Are we really shocked that young people are failing when only half of them is engaged? We have cut out arts, music, sports, nature, dance, play, exploration, wonder and fun. Yet all children, especially those with SEND, benefit from that balance. When I visited Sweden, I went into schools to hear about what they were doing. They brought people into the heart of the school, not prescribing from an EHCP but taking a whole-child and a whole-school approach, using the skills of psychologists, teachers, occupational therapists, physios and speech therapists for all children. Let us recognise that school community and ensure that we value its members. Our teaching assistants do so much of the work, yet their pay is so poor—that must be addressed.