Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that I know that constituency very well, having proudly represented it for 13 years—although I am afraid that the history of Worcestershire’s approach to special educational needs has not always been as effective as we would want it to be. There is a challenge to be made to local authorities to ensure that they are stepping up to the mark, given the considerable additional investment that we are putting into the system.

On the point about diagnostic labels, the important thing is that we should not be waiting for a child to receive a label to determine whether they have needs that need to be met, both through more inclusive mainstream teaching and through additional support being provided within schools. Even when we get to the specialist provision packages, they will be determined not by labels but by the needs that children have in order to make progress.

On the point about overdiagnosis, we need to be careful. The Secretary of State has been clear about that. He has commissioned further research into the nature of the diagnosis, particularly in the areas of mental health and other learning difficulties. That is an appropriate thing to have done.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will agree that great teaching is vital to great schools and great childhoods. We both shared the pleasure of working at the chalkface for many years. What will the Government do in the months and years ahead to ensure that great teachers stay in the profession and that they themselves achieve and thrive?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right—and also about the joy that teaching brought to us both. That is why, alongside the White Paper, we published the implementation plan for delivering an additional 6,500 specialist teachers in our secondary schools and colleges. It is why, through the already improved pay for teachers, we are providing incentives for them to stay; why we are continuing to look at the working conditions that teachers operate under; and why, for example, the White Paper extends maternity pay for teachers from a pretty low base. Using all those things, and the support for teachers to do the job that they love even better, we are already seeing some progress in keeping more teachers in the classroom. We will continue to ensure that we focus on that.

Covid-19: Work-related Cases

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am pleased to say that the Health and Safety Executive has had additional funding throughout the year along with enormous staff increases. This will continue to be worked on, and the HSE and the DWP continue to review and revise the resourcing arrangements as necessary.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, may I press the Minister a little further on her previous reply? The TUC report found that there was likely to have been significant underreporting in the number of work-related Covid deaths, arguing that it was just not credible that only 2.5% of working-age Covid deaths were down to occupational exposure. Does she believe that funding cuts of 46% to the HSE over the past decade, notwithstanding the short-term fix of a one-off payment, have impacted on reporting under RIDDOR as well as affecting the process of investigation?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

There have been cuts to the budget in the past. That has been rectified and an increased budget has been put in place, as has an increased resourcing budget. As of the end of April, it had 2,670 staff. There has been an extra £14.2 million available to the HSE on top of its regular government funding. Additional funding has enabled it to continue to inspect significantly more workplaces.

Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Consequential Provision) (Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we are here today because this statutory instrument will make consequential amendments to social security legislation in respect of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prevent payments of DLA, PIP and AFIP overlapping with the Scottish Government’s child disability payment. The Scottish Government are introducing the CDP, which will replace the disability living allowance for children, currently delivered by the DWP. This new child disability payment will be open in pilot areas for applications from 26 July this year in Dundee City, Perth and Kinross and the Western Isles council.

This is the first application-based disability benefit to be introduced by the Scottish Government, and the pilot will be followed by a full national rollout in the autumn. Families currently getting DLA for children will be transferred automatically to the new Scottish system. People who currently get disability benefits from the DWP will have their awards transferred to the new Scottish system in stages after the new benefits are introduced. We believe that the work will be completed by 2025.

We entered the pandemic with too many people living in poverty, and this poverty is endemic in many parts of the UK, in all the nations and regions. The Scottish Labour shadow Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Social Security has raised several matters about this issue with the Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison MSP and has asked her to consider making progress on tackling child poverty in Scotland by doubling the Scottish child payment immediately as well as to mitigate the two-child limit in Scotland. Projections show that this would cost just 0.2% of the Scottish Government’s total budget. Further ideas expressed to reduce poverty include removing the full-time study rule in carer’s allowance and moving from the safe and secure transition of disability benefits to transforming eligibility and rate, together with using procurement to enforce the living wage and end zero-hours contracts, bringing housing costs down by capping rent rises, and requiring businesses that get public money to pay the living wage and end zero-hours contracts.

Can the Minister confirm that no one will lose money by stopping any overlap between the DLA, PIP, AFIP and the new child disability payment? Also, is the Minister confident that the 13-week CDP run-on payment will take place? What happens if it does not? Finally, when does the Minister expect the national rollout of CDP to take place? Most importantly, is the DWP ready for it?