Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

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.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member mentions answers to written parliamentary questions. Would she have been as surprised as I was to see the answer to a written PQ of mine saying that if a school specified that a badge be sewed on to an otherwise generic blazer, that badge would count as an item of branded uniform?

[Munira Wilson]

I am shocked, because I was about to come to that as a possible solution to staying within the price cap. Apparently that will not be allowed either—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. If the statement that the hon. Lady has made about a potential drafting error is indeed the case, has she made arrangements to ensure that the correct version of the amendment has been published?

[Munira Wilson]

Yes, we have been in touch with the Clerks, who have corrected the amendment online. The printed version is incorrect, but in the online version amendment 1 amends clause 24 instead of clause 23.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We will ensure that that process has indeed taken place.

[Munira Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

In Committee, the Minister said that a cost cap, rather than an item cap, would be too complex and risked reducing choice for parents by increasing schools’ reliance on specific suppliers. She also suggested that there would be regional variation in uniform pricing. Again, having tabled a PQ, it is clear that there has been no analysis by the Government to show regional variation in uniform prices.

I was going to suggest that schools that wanted more branding on items under a cost cap could sew or stick logos on plain jumpers and other items bought cheaply in supermarkets. I believe the Government want parents to have choice. My suggestion would give parents the choice of going to a well-known supermarket brand and then applying the school logo. I am shocked to hear about the answer to the PQ tabled by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and I will have a look at it afterwards. Our amendment 1 would put pounds and pennies back into parents’ pockets and avoid top-down meddling from Whitehall on school uniform policy.

Also on school uniforms, new clause 12 concerns a simple matter of fairness. The zero rate of VAT applies only on clothing for children up to the age of 14, and parents have to pay VAT on school uniforms for children who are larger or over the age of 14. In Committee, the Minister cited the cost to the Exchequer of making the change, but if the Government’s stated aim is to bring down uniform prices, I humbly suggest that she presses the Chancellor to look at this amendment, because it is a simple change to make.

Turning to special needs, as I said at the outset, this is probably the biggest burning priority for the school leaders I speak to up and down the country. It certainly is across this House, given the number of Members involved in SEND debates. New clause 10 in my name would establish a new dedicated national body for SEND, which would fund high-needs provision and ensure that children with particularly complex needs receive tailored support. With high-needs spending having tripled since 2015 and, as the Minister herself pointed out, educational outcomes for SEND pupils remaining stagnant, we need to reform the system. I know she is busy working on this, but a national body would help reduce the postcode lottery for those with the highest needs. Indeed, a growing body of experts in the sector are starting to suggest that a national body could gather evidence on the efficacy of various SEND interventions.

Yesterday I said it was surprising that a Bill so entitled had little content on wellbeing. Given the huge and growing mental health crisis among our children and young people, new clause 9 in my name would place a duty on school governing bodies to ensure that every school in England, whether primary or secondary, has a dedicated mental health practitioner on site. The Government have repeatedly said they are committed to providing mental health support in every school, but it was clear when I pressed the Minister in the Chamber during a debate last Thursday that the support the Government are committed to providing will certainly not be the equivalent of a full-time person in every school. Mental health support teams, which the Government are looking to expand, do great work but are spread far too thinly. Our children and our schools are crying out for more dedicated mental health professional time.

Let me turn to the issue of academy schools. I fear that the Government are mostly trying to fix a problem that does not really exist, rather than focusing on the real challenges in education. My biggest concern here is that Ministers are putting the cart before the horse by writing into legislation that all schools must follow a curriculum of which we do not yet know the content because it is under review. New clause 51 in my name would ensure that we have a core common curriculum with local flexibility built in. New clause 52 would ensure parliamentary oversight, given that we do not know the results of the ongoing review. Although we Liberal Democrats have always maintained that the automatic academy order is not a silver bullet for turning around failing schools, until such a time as Ofsted and Government have settled on a swift and robust new accountability and inspection regime to ensure high standards in all our schools, removing the automatic academy order for schools that are causing concern is certainly very risky. Amendments 223 and 225 in my name would ensure parliamentary oversight and attempt to mitigate some of those risks.

Let me turn to home education. On Second Reading, I stated that we Liberal Democrats strongly support a register of children not in school to ensure that vulnerable children do not disappear from the system. We also strongly support the right of parents to choose to home educate where that is the best option for their child. However, in evidence to the Bill Committee, even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was circumspect about the amount of information that parents will be expected to supply, as set out in clause 26. That level of detail risks becoming intrusive and unnecessary. Ministers must think again.

New clause 48 calls for, at the very least, a review of the register’s impact on home educators to be carried out within six months, to ensure that only reporting requirements that are strictly necessary for safeguarding purposes are retained. Amendment 224 would remove the requirement for carers of children in special schools to secure local authority consent to be home educated. New clause 53 would ensure that home-educated children are not excluded from national examinations because of financial or capacity constraints.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

On home education, does the hon. Lady agree that not only is it a case of getting the balance right between privacy and the right to educate at home, but it is important that home educators do not feel stigmatised by the ability of the state to enter private property under less-than-forthcoming means that enable it subsequently to make an assessment of home education that is completely contrary to the reality experienced by the child in their own home?

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman expresses concerns that those of us on the Bill Committee found in the written evidence we received from families who home educate. My inbox certainly has such correspondence from home educators in my constituency.

There is a real fear that this legislation, which is seeking to safeguard children who go missing from education, will over-police home educators, most of whom are doing a great job. In fact, a lot of them home educate their children not because they want to but because they feel forced to. That comes back to what I was saying about the crisis in our special needs system, and the fact that so much special needs provision just does not meet the needs of children, so parents give up work to be able to home educate their child. By virtue of their children’s needs, parents tend to be much more flexible in how they home educate. The very onerous reporting mechanisms will interfere with the flexibility that parents need to provide to their children.

In conclusion, I say respectfully to Ministers that part 2 of the Bill is a bit of a muddle, because the second half of it was bolted on to some well-trailed measures that largely have cross-party support. I hope Ministers have heard the strength of concern from school leaders about the unintended consequences of some of their measures. If they are serious about helping families with the cost pressures they face, I trust they will listen to cross-party calls on free school meals, whether that is introducing auto-enrolment or raising the eligibility threshold, as well as to the more effective approach to managing the cost of school uniforms that I have set out.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The debate on this Bill has been comprehensive. I rise to support a number of amendments to this Bill that hon. Friends have tabled, but I open on a point that has already been much debated, not only yesterday but during the Bill’s earlier stages. The Minister has said from the Dispatch Box that she regards the safety of children as being the Government’s highest priority, but the Government’s absolute refusal to countenance the amendments and proposals on equal protection demonstrates a lack of will to follow most other countries in implementing laws that provide that level of protection to children. That remains enormously disappointing, and will be an outstanding issue, in terms of child protection, for the foreseeable future.

The measures before the House are primarily concerned with schools. I would like to back up a number of colleagues who have set out the long-standing cross-party nature of the measures that underpin the success of the education system in England. I was a governor at one of the first schools to ever become an academy. It was sponsored by a significant Labour party donor, who came forward to support a Conservative local authority that engaged with that programme.

I also pay tribute to the work done by the Liberal Democrat Minister David Laws. He attended Cabinet as the Minister for school standards when the Academies Act 2010, which underpins everything structural that has driven forward academy standards, was implemented under the coalition Government. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) disowning the contribution that the Liberal Democrats made, on a cross-party basis, to driving up school standards in England over the years.

[Munira Wilson]

I chose my words carefully. I talked about the past decade, during which the Liberal Democrats were not in government. The Conservatives had seven or eight Education Secretaries in that period. That carousel of constant change demonstrates how little those Education Secretaries valued education. The state of our school buildings, and of our special educational needs and disabilities system, tells us all we need to know about how much the Tories value education.

[David Simmonds]

It is important that we pay tribute to the work that David Laws did. As a key part of that coalition, he shaped the legislation that underpinned all the actions that followed, by the coalition and by Conservative Education Secretaries in majority Conservative Governments. We all need to recognise not only that education is a shared priority, but that all parties contributed to driving things forward and creating these structures over the years.

I have a degree of sympathy with the Government on an issue that they are trying to address. It has always been a legal conundrum that successive education Acts have place detailed, specific legal obligations on local authorities regarding the provision of school places in general, and the provision of education to individual children to whom they owe a duty, but there are times when that is in conflict with the fact that academy schools are their own admissions authorities. That is not new; it has been true of faith schools for many years.

Most of us in this House will have had casework arising from parents being frustrated about the difficulties in their relationship with their child’s school. However, a number of my hon. Friends have made the point that most of the measures in this Bill are not about relieving those issues that can be burdensome for families and children, but are about imposing much more centralised control over what goes on in the education system in England, where school standards have powered ahead of those that we see in other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly in Labour-run Wales.

The outset of my journey on this issue was in the dying days of the last Labour Government, when I was a member of, and then chair of, the National Employers’ Organisation for School Teachers. That body, as an employer, provides evidence to determine pay and conditions for school teachers. We might generally conjecture, as members of the public or as members of the political establishment, that that would be a fairly light-touch responsibility—that we would take a strategic interest in the workforce, and occasionally give advice and guidance. I was surprised to discover that we were to attend, with 17 unions, a weekly meeting with the then Secretary of State, Ed Balls, and his deputy Jim Knight, at the then Department for Children, Schools and Families, in which those unions would provide Ministers with a detailed list of their expectations for how every aspect of education policy would be micromanaged. Those regular weekly meetings came to an end with the election of the coalition Government, but I am aware that they have resumed since the election last year.

We have heard admissions from Ministers about how rarely they have engaged with school leaders, and have noted a great reluctance to say how often they engage with those who represent the union interests.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

In Surrey alone, spending on private special educational needs schools has risen from £48 million in 2018-19 to £74 million in 2021-22. These schools are often backed by private equity firms, and they are charging local authorities extortionate fees—on average double those in the state sector. They are draining public funds, but councils have no choice but to place children in these schools due to a lack of state provision. Does my hon. Friend agree that extending the profit cap to independent schools is essential to protect public finances and ensure fairer funding for children with special educational needs?

[Munira Wilson]

I had not shared my speech with my hon. Friend, but she has anticipated the next couple of points that I was about to make. I agree with her strongly. I preface my comments by saying that there are many independent special schools run by private or voluntary sector providers that do an excellent job and are certainly not profiteering in the way that I am about to set out. Clearly, however, that is not the case across the board, with some firms making upwards of 20% in profit on what they charge. We must challenge whether that is justified. The crisis in state special educational needs and disability provision and the lack of specialist places have led to a growth in private provision that is crippling local authority finances, as my hon. Friend just said.

In 2021-22, councils spent £1.3 billion on independent and non-maintained special schools—twice what they spent just six years previously. The average cost of one of those places was £56,710, which, as my hon. Friend said, was twice the average cost of a state-run special school place. Many of the companies running these schools are the very same private equity companies running the children’s homes and fostering agencies that clause 15 is designed to deal with, so I am at a loss as to why the Government have not included independent special schools in the clause. I urge them to think again and accept our amendment.

My new clause 29 would impose a requirement on the Secretary of State to introduce a national wellbeing measurement programme for children and young people throughout England. I pay tribute to #BeeWell, Pro Bono Economics and the wider Our Wellbeing Our Voice coalition for their hard work in this area. As I have said several times during this Bill’s progress, I am more than a little surprised to find so little about children’s wellbeing in a Bill with this title. One in four children in the UK reports low wellbeing, and according to the programme for international student assessment data, our country is the lowest ranked in Europe on that head. Data on children’s wellbeing and mental health is fragmented across the NHS, schools and local authorities. It is crucial that we collect data to understand the challenges that young people face and to develop solutions, and that we seek to understand the efficacy of those solutions through the use of robust wellbeing data.

I welcome the Conservatives’ new clause 36 on wellbeing, phones and social media, both as a parent and as a parliamentarian. In this unprecedented digital age, we need to treat children’s social media and phone addiction as a public health issue. We have long supported the last Government’s guidance that schools should try to restrict mobile phone use during the school day, with—importantly—proper mitigations that teachers and heads can employ for young carers and those with medical conditions who use their phones as medical devices, and in other local circumstances that teachers and heads are best placed to identify.

[Jim Shannon]

Is the hon. Lady aware of the pilot scheme introduced in Northern Ireland by the Education Minister, Paul Givan? In some schools, all the children’s mobile phones are placed in pouches, so that they are never on show. This could make the Conservatives’ proposal acceptable to all, and there is still provision for carers to keep their phones with them. Northern Ireland has shown what can be done with a pilot scheme, and it is great that the House is following our lead.

[Munira Wilson]

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.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments on the new clause, and also the cross-party support that demonstrates that this is a cross-party issue and is not about party allegiance. Does she agree that the data and the evidence promoted by specialists such as Jonathan Haidt show that problems with literacy, numeracy and focus among children have accelerated since the early 2010s, which coincides with their access to phones? When it comes to what this Government should be doing, it is an open-and-shut case.

[Munira Wilson]

The data in the book to which the right hon. and learned Lady has referred is alarming. Last week in Hampton, in my constituency, the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign organised a public meeting with local parents. It was pretty full, and the data shared there was also extremely alarming. I attended as both a parent and the local Member of Parliament, and I am afraid I came away feeling even less of a liberal than before I went in, and slightly more authoritarian. However, that was mainly because allowing our children to grow up with the freedom of being away from such a toxic environment is the right, liberal thing to do.

Let me say gently to the right hon. and learned Lady, and to those on both the Conservative and the Labour Benches, that being at school is only a small part of a child’s life—it is only a small fraction of that child’s time—and we need to look at much broader measures than restricting phone use in schools. It is disappointing that during the Committee stage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, neither Labour nor Conservative Members supported Liberal Democrat proposals to make the internet less addictive for children. After the Government decided to gut the “safer phones” Bill—the Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill, promoted by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which had a great deal of cross-party support—a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill offered Members an opportunity to protect young people from the doom-scrolling algorithms that are making such powerful changes to the way in which they live and interact. It is disappointing that Ministers did not seize that opportunity with both hands, and I hope they will think again as that Bill progresses through the House.

I welcome new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), which would abolish the common law defence of reasonable punishment. We need to ensure that all children are properly protected in law, so that they can grow up safe, happy and healthy. The Liberal Democrats have been calling for this for more than 20 years. We supported the law change in Scotland and Wales, and it is long overdue in England.

There is much in Part 1 of the Bill on which there is cross-party consensus. A number of amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House seek to ensure that the Government go further in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of our children, which is surely one of the most important roles of Government. I hope that Ministers are in listening mode, and that even if they will not take on board some of the new clauses and amendments today, they will do so as the Bill progresses to the other place. After all, it is our duty to ensure that every child in the country not only survives, but thrives.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak about some very important amendments and new clauses, but also about a body of work that moves forward the country’s protections and support for some of the most vulnerable people in society, which has not been done for a long time.

Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of being the children’s lead for the local authority on which I served. Many Members here may be the grandparent or parent of a handful of kids, but as any local authority lead will know, we are a corporate parent to many hundreds. In that role, it is impossible not to be moved by the testimonies of the young people with whom we are working. They have often undergone real moments of trauma and difficulty that would knock any of us for six. In the face of that, their resilience and their determination to better themselves should inspire us all. As guardians of the country’s collective obligation to young people in care, we owe it to them to fulfil our side of that corporate parenting role.

I am therefore extremely happy to see Government amendments 18 to 22, which widen the role of corporate parenting to other local stakeholders. As a local authority lead working with the care-experienced campaigner Terry Galloway, I was happy to take on some of that work locally. I worked with fantastic local stakeholders to broaden our obligations as corporate parents, and to bring other local government bodies into the sphere of those who were trying to do best by the young people in our care. However, it is clear that acting in isolation cannot be good enough, and that without clear legislation requiring more local stakeholders to take on that important role, we can never involve all the partners who can have such a transformative impact on young people in care at that crucial early stage. No parent would think of caring for a child as just a narrow subset of his or her role, and the state, and our obligation as a corporate parent, should be no different.

I am very glad to see these amendments; many in the House and beyond have been campaigning for them for some time, including my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who recommended some of these measures in his report on social care a few years ago. We saw very little action in this area under the last Government, but I am delighted that this Government are wasting no time in widening that obligation, and therefore widening the scope of the corporate parents who have the back of some of our young people in care throughout the country.

I am also glad to see the Government amendments that strengthen information sharing. I have had to read a great many difficult serious case reviews involving young people all over the country, so I know that there has been tragic incident after tragic incident owing to failures in information sharing, and the failure of agencies to work together effectively. Strengthening information sharing and multi-agency working must be a core element of bettering our obligation to safeguard young people in all local authority areas, and it will be truly welcome to see that in the Bill.

Clauses 8 and 9 of the Bill will strengthen our obligation to care leavers. No parent would expect their obligation to young people in their care to end when they reached the age of 18, and the state should be no different. Perversely, a child leaving care could be ruled intentionally homeless, but a stronger and more widely available care offer for those who are leaving care will empower local authorities throughout the country to do more to live up to the obligation that we all have, as parents, to do right by young people long into adulthood. A number of amendments could be made to strengthen that provision; the Government may not be bringing them forward today, but I am sure that we will continue to revisit proposals as we monitor how this new obligation for local authorities plays out.

The need to do right by young people cannot end when they turn 18, so we must think about how we can continue our role as corporate parents long into children’s lives, when they are young adults. Many of the young people with whom I worked as a local authority lead would welcome extra support, and I am sure that many will welcome the start that the Bill is making today.

Alongside that, it is a fact pretty well appreciated across the House that the overly bureaucratic care system has not always done enough to recognise the importance of wider family networks at really important moments in young people’s lives, so the clauses bringing forward stronger commitments on family group decision making, recognising the important role of kinship carers, and strengthening the educational support available to those in kinship care, are truly welcome. So too—although not in this Bill—is the Government’s record financial commitment to expand the kinship care pilot and ensure that we start to understand the value that wider financial support could have in enabling more young people to be looked after by members of their wider family network, rather than falling into more formalised care.

Mental Health Support: Educational Settings

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion of looked-after children. We will certainly look at those proposals and at all the work the Education Committee does to support the most vulnerable children in society.

Prevention is vital, and schools and colleges can naturally play a preventive role in what they do from day to day. Attainment is a vital factor in longer-term mental health, as it helps young people to access the things they want to do in life, in further study and in jobs. The best schools and colleges set high standards and expectations, and support children to overcome barriers to their learning, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. We also understand that a child’s experience of school helps them to both achieve and thrive. Education settings also support the social and emotional development of their pupils through what is taught in lessons, extracurricular activity and pastoral support.

Pupils who are thriving, with positive subjective wellbeing and a strong sense of belonging, accomplishment, autonomy and good health, achieve better educational outcomes and are more likely to attend school. They are better equipped to face issues in their lives, which is important. Not every child facing mental health issues will need clinical interventions; the support that they get from their friends, families and school or college staff can be what they need. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge), I acknowledge and recognise the many thousands of school leaders, teachers and staff who are committed to promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils every day through the things that they do to make school a safe, supportive and inclusive place for children, by supporting their specific needs and by working with parents, families and other community services.

We know that as many as nine in 10 schools have a designated lead for students’ mental health and that more than three quarters of them have benefited from DFE-funded training, helping leaders to embed effective whole-school or whole-college approaches to mental health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, schools and colleges themselves need support with what to do and cannot deal with every issue that pupils have.

That is why, as a Government, we have committed to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so that every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. That commitment will be delivered through the expansion of NHS-funded mental health support teams, which will work in schools and colleges to offer early support through evidence-based one-to-one and group interventions. They will liaise with specialist services and support leads to develop their holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing. Those functions, supervised by a clinical professional, are what make mental health support teams such a valuable resource. I have seen that important work at first hand on visits to education settings in Brighton, Manchester and Rugby. By April 2025, we expect those teams to cover over 50% of children and young people in schools and colleges, and plans for further expansion are being drawn up with the NHS to achieve 100% coverage as soon as is practically possible.

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister has referred to access to specialist mental health support. For the benefit of the House, could he clarify what level of resource he expects that to be—will it be half a day a week, a day a week, or full-time equivalent? The previous commitment had been a counsellor in every school.

[Stephen Morgan]

I can assure the hon. Member that there will be access to mental health professionals in every school. We are working on the detail of that as we speak, and will announce more in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Some of the huge cost pressures on SEND budgets are being driven by the lack of state special school places, with many councils forced to send children with complex needs to private special schools that can cost two to three times more than local authority provision. There are many brilliant independent special schools providing value for money, yet we know that some private equity firms are profiteering with upwards of 20% profit margins from the schools that they run. Why will Ministers not back Liberal Democrat amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to include special schools in their proposed profit cap backstop for children’s social care providers?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a landmark piece of legislation that the hon. Lady knows brings forward really important changes that will keep children safe as well as reform our school system so that it serves all. We are focused on improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and ensuring that we do have special schools that can cater for those with the most complex needs. Our priority is restoring the trust that parents should have that their child will get the support they need. We will do all that is necessary as part of our SEND reforms to ensure that that is delivered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that the parent of a child in secondary school spends, on average, over £480 a year on school uniforms. The Government’s move to limit the number of branded uniform items to three or four is well intentioned, but there is nothing to stop the overinflation of the price of those items. A cap on costs, reviewed annually, would not just guarantee pounds and pennies saved for parents, but give schools the freedom to set their own uniform policies, rather than Ministers in Whitehall telling headteachers and school governors what to do. Will Ministers think again and back the Liberal Democrat amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill next week?

[Stephen Morgan]

School uniform plays a valuable role in creating a sense of common identity and reducing visible inequalities among pupils. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson made a number of points in the Bill Committee, and the Department will certainly take forward her views and ideas.

SEND Education Support

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) on securing this important debate.

Another week, another debate on SEND. Since the start of this Parliament, barely a week has gone by when we have not had questions or debates, either in this Chamber or the main Chamber, on special educational needs and disability provision. From what we have heard today—I particularly thank the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Jodie Gosling) for her courage in sharing her constituent’s moving story—we know that every Member’s inbox is bulging with casework from constituents about the dire crisis in SEND, which is why these debates are so oversubscribed. We are also getting report after report. In the last few months, the National Audit Office, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Public Accounts Committee have all come out with the same damning verdict about a broken system, with money coming in but outcomes for children going down.

These are some of our most vulnerable children and young people, and we as a society must do our best to meet their needs. We know that families face a postcode lottery, with delays that can last months or even years and vulnerable children missing out on the support that they deserve and need. With special schools full, mainstream schools struggling to provide appropriate support because their budgets are so overstretched, and spiralling high-needs deficits leaving many local authorities on the brink of bankruptcy, it is clear that urgent reform is needed.

As we heard in a Westminster Hall debate just a few weeks ago, the process to get an education, health and care plan is often far too lengthy and far too adversarial. Families are increasingly forced to take their cases to tribunal, with the number of cases doubling since 2014. Local authorities lose almost all those cases, wasting annually over £70 million of public money that could be spent on supporting children and young people rather than fighting unnecessary legal battles. Given the huge rise in demand for support, and the previous Conservative Government’s failure to keep up with that demand, local authorities are too often struggling to meet their statutory responsibilities, forcing families to navigate a broken system to secure even the most basic support. As the former Education Secretary Gillian Keegan described it, it is a “lose, lose, lose” system for all.

Ministers have repeatedly, and quite rightly, stressed the need for mainstream schools to be more inclusive in order to meet the rising need for special needs support. I recently visited Stanley school in my Twickenham constituency which, like two other nearby primary schools, has a specialist resource provision. Children with complex needs are able to spend time with dedicated teaching assistants for support, but they have the opportunity to play, socialise and participate, where appropriate, in lessons and other activities with children in the school who are not part of the SRP.

As the hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) referenced, we are seeing falling rolls in schools and space opening up. SRPs will be a key intervention in our approach to ensuring that mainstream schools can be more inclusive. However, finding and keeping the staff to support children in SRPs or other mainstream settings—or indeed in special school settings—is an ongoing challenge. SRPs need to be properly funded but, as things stand, the headteacher at Stanley explained to me, the maths just does not add up for him. He explained that his wider school budget is having to plug the shortfall in SRP funding. If we are to tempt schools to have SRPs, we are going to have to make sure that they have the resources to provide that SRP.

Support staff costs have risen over the past two years, with unfunded pay increases and increases in employer’s national insurance contributions on the horizon. We know that local authorities, health services and schools are all struggling to recruit the number of staff that they need to meet growing demand—both to undertake assessments in the first place, when a child might be eligible for an EHCP, and then to meet that need in school.

A national survey of headteachers found that only 1% of senior school leaders believed that they had enough funding to meet the needs of pupils with SEND. A report by London Councils on SEND inclusion in schools found that stakeholders from across the sector said that they would be able to be more inclusive if they had more funding. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for increased funding for local authorities to reduce the financial burden on schools. We know that the £6,000 per pupil notional SEND budget, which each school is meant to allocate before applying for an EHCP, is, frankly, a fiction in today’s school finances, given the pressures on budgets up and down the country.

When I visited Stanley the other week, and when I visited a beautiful new school, Belmont school in Durham, last week, I was told by both headteachers that for many mainstream schools, the disincentive to take on children with SEND is the way that standard assessment tests and other public exam results are reported. Frankly, certain young people in those mainstream settings are not in a position to sit their SATs or GCSEs, yet their results, which will essentially be nil, are reported in the schools’ performance measures, which are available publicly. In a competitive schooling environment, where parents vote with their feet for the schools that typically have the highest grades, that sadly results in an incentive for too many schools to actively avoid taking SEND children on to their rolls. There are schools that are doing the right thing and including those children, but, as the Minister is considering how to make mainstream school more inclusive, I wonder what consideration she and other Ministers have given to this issue.

I would like to spend a moment focusing on special schools. For children for whom a mainstream setting is not right, special schools should, and in many cases do, provide the necessary educational support. However, we know that in May 2023, two thirds of special schools were at or over capacity, and the impact of that is children with complex needs being inappropriately accommodated in the mainstream, where their needs cannot be met, which sometimes has a detrimental impact on other pupils and, indeed, staff. Many parents in those situations feel forced to home school. We know that parents who feel that they have had no option but to home school are concerned about what some of the provisions of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will mean for their being able to ensure that their child is in an appropriate environment.

The lack of specialist provision is being played out in the eye-watering SEND transport costs that local authorities are having to fund to send children out of area. Add to that the cost of private special schools, which are being funded by the taxpayer. I will return to that subject in a moment, but I want to take this moment to welcome the provision in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that will allow local authorities to open new special schools. For too long, local authorities that have identified a need, and that want to bid for funding and open special schools, have been turned down. A number of applications from local authorities that wanted to open special schools were turned down during the previous Parliament by the previous Government, so I welcome that change in the Bill.

Returning to private special schools, many private SEND schools provide an excellent education and are run as not-for-profit charities. However, the Minister is aware—I have raised this issue previously, not least in Committee on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill—that private equity firms and other profiteering companies are increasingly entering the special school market, as they see it, at an extortionate cost. Councils are spending £1.3 billion on independent and non-maintained special schools, which is more than double what they spent just a few years earlier. The cost of an independent special school place is, on average, double the cost of a state special school place. Some private equity companies running these schools are making a profit of 20%-plus. Typically, the private equity-owned providers, not the other private sector providers, have the highest level of profitability in the sector. I feel that our most vulnerable children and our local authorities are being held to ransom by some of these companies, which are not behaving in the best interests of our children.

[Mr Mohindra]

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we ban private equity companies from being involved in the sector?

[Munira Wilson]

No. As a Liberal—I have said this many a time—I believe in a mixed economy in many of our public services. I was about to make the point that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains important measures to stop profiteering in children’s social care. When I proposed an amendment in Committee to extend the profit cap to special schools, I explained that the private equity companies that are making a ridiculous amount of profit in the children’s social care sector are also running private special schools. Some are not making a huge profit, but I do not think a 20%-plus profit margin in a taxpayer-funded system is acceptable, which is why my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I proposed an amendment to the Bill to extend the profit cap to special schools. I was disappointed that Labour Members and Ministers voted against it, but I again urge them to consider the proposal. We know we are in a cash-constrained environment—we hear every day from Ministers, not least the Chancellor, about how little money there is—but savings can be found in this area, and we can invest them back into our most vulnerable children.

My final proposal for Ministers, which the Minister has heard me talk about before, is that for our most complex children, we need a national body for SEND to fund those with exceptionally high needs who face a postcode lottery of provision across the country, and pose a particular risk to local authorities where those needs arise. That body could also have oversight of standards and budgets across the country.

I know that SEND is high on the Minister’s agenda. We are still waiting to hear how the £1 billion announced in the Budget will be allocated, but I fear that, given the £2.7 billion of local authority SEND deficits, it will disappear into a black hole. We have been promised reforms later this year, but our children cannot afford to wait. Children missing out on an education will never get that time back. Every child, no matter their needs or background, should be given the opportunity to thrive and fulfil their potential, yet too many children with SEND are simply not getting that right now.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O'Brien]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Around my constituency, we have seen the closure of a couple of local independent schools, which have blamed the decision to introduce VAT. This will mean more people looking for places in local state schools that are already oversubscribed and, in turn, fewer people getting their first choice. New clause 25 is not about the principle of the tax, but about having a proper mechanism to monitor the impact on the state system, among other things.

An importance piece published in The Times over the weekend found, based on freedom of information requests, that at least 27 local authorities have no spare school places in certain year groups, which will make it difficult to find places for children forced to move schools. Those are exactly the kinds of issues that we need to monitor very carefully, which is why this new clause calls for a report on the impact of the policy.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 25, which seeks to monitor the impact of VAT on private school fees. There is, however, something missing in the new clause, which I have urged Ministers repeatedly to look at. I hope that even if they will not publicly talk about it, they are looking privately at the impact of this policy on the 100,000 children with special educational needs in private schools who do not have education, health and care plans, and may be displaced into the state sector. That will have an impact on the state sector and the demand for EHCPs, which is already in crisis. When Ministers respond, I hope they might address that point.

[Stephen Morgan]

New clause 25 would introduce a requirement for the Government to publish a report within two years of passing of the Bill on the impact of removing VAT exemption on private school fees. The report would need to provide details of any private school closures, the number of pupils from private schools who have moved schools, the availability of state school places at local and national level, what percentage of children are offered a place at their parents’ first-choice school, and whether any admissions authorities have increased their published admissions numbers as a result of VAT policy.

Before proceeding any further, I would like to note that the issue of VAT on private school fees has been subject to extensive debate during the course of the Finance Bill and the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill. As the Government have noted on many occasions now, a thorough impact assessment of the removal of VAT exemption has been conducted. A comprehensive tax impact and information note was published alongside the autumn Budget and provides much of the information sought by the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. This policy, as Members will be aware, took effect from 1 January 2025.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

I think it is clear from the Minister’s response that there are certain things we will not be able to find out in the absence of this new clause. We will not be able to see the numbers moving from the private sector to the state sector. In particular, as the hon. Member for Twickenham raised, we will not be able to see the critical flow of those with undiagnosed or unofficially recognised special needs, as they potentially move into the EHCP process and into state schools. Nonetheless, we will continue to monitor the impact of this policy over time, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 30

Publication of details of preventative care and family support

(1) Every local authority, must within six months of the passing of this Act, publish details of all preventative care and family support available to people in their area.

(2) Information published under subsection (1) must be made available—

(a) on the authority’s website, and

(b) in all public libraries in the authority’s area.”—(Munira Wilson.)

This new clause would require all local authorities to publish information about preventative care and family support and to ensure it is freely available to people living in the area.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

New Clause 72

Duty on local authorities to provide family support services

(1) In the Children Act 1989, after section 19 (review of provision for day care, child minding etc) insert—

“19A Duty on local authorities to provide family support services for children and families

(1) A local authority has a duty to provide, so far as is reasonably practical, family support services to all children and parents residing in their area.

(2) Family support services provided by a local authority must—

(a) be provided within the authority area;

(b) seek to improve the health and educational outcomes of children in the relevant area; and

(c) seek to reduce the number of children in their area who suffer ill treatment or neglect.

(3) In this section, “family support services” refer to services which provide children and parents with—

(a) advice, guidance or counselling;

(b) social, cultural or recreational activities; or

(c) accommodation while receiving services provided under subsections (3)(a) and (b).

(4) In fulfilling its duty under subsection (1), a local authority must have regard to—

(a) the availability of and demand for family support services in its area;

(b) the availability of and demand for family support services in its area which are capable of meeting different needs; and

(c) the location of family support services and the equality of access across the authority area.

(5) A local authority must publish information about family support services—

(a) on the authority’s website, and

(b) in all public libraries in the local authority area.

(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision relating to the provision of family support services by local authorities.

(7) In this section—

“local authority” means—

(a) a county council in England;

(b) a district council in England;

(c) a London borough council;

(d) the Common Council of the City of London (in their capacity as a local authority);

(e) the Council of the Isles of Scilly;

(f) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009;

“children and parents” means—

(a) a child under the age of 18;

(b) a young person aged 18-25 who has a diagnosis of special educational needs;

(c) the parents of a child or young person;

(d) a person who has parental responsibility for a child or young person; or

(e) a person who is pregnant.””

This new clause would introduce a requirement on local authorities to provide family support services for all children and parents in their area.

[Munira Wilson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Betts. New clause 30 is a simple clause that would put into statute the duty on every local authority to publish the details of their available preventive care and family support, because we know that those are crucial forms of early intervention for children who may be at risk of going into care or where families are struggling. They can prevent things getting to crisis point for families and children.

We know that a huge amount of good work is going on in local authorities up and down the country. Spending on preventive care is falling, while late intervention spend is rising, so it would be good practice for all local authorities to make that information freely and easily accessible to all families in the way that we have already legislated for, for instance, with the kinship care offer. I hope Ministers will seriously consider this simple new clause.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I rise to speak in particular to new clause 72, which is on a similar topic to new clause 30, although arguably is not quite as simply drafted. The number of children in care is at an all-time high, and outcomes for those children remain poor. Evidence from the children’s charity Action for Children shows that children who have any interaction with social care are twice as likely to fail an English or maths GCSE than their peers. We need to change those outcomes, preferably through early intervention.

We have spent much time in Committee discussing the Bill’s provisions on improving care for children who need to live with a foster family or in a residential home. It is important that the best possible support is available for those children who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their birth families. However, to significantly improve children’s social care, we need to radically reset the system with a much greater focus on helping families earlier on.

I welcome the Ministers’ comments in our previous debates that the Government are committed to helping children growing up in our country to get the best start in life through wider investment in family hubs and parenting support. However, as drafted, the Bill does little to do this. Only one section of the Bill, which covers family group decision making, and which we discussed right at the start, directly addresses the need for more early intervention. Unless we amend the Bill to go further, we will continue to have a system heavily balanced towards working with families when they reach crisis point, rather than one that seeks to prevent problems before they start.

As we have discussed, families in England face mounting pressures from the lingering effects of covid-19, the high cost of living and economic uncertainty. At the same time, there have been significant cuts to services to support families. I find this statistic shocking: between 2010-11 and 2022-23, spending on early help, such as family homes and children’s centres, decreased by 44%, while spending on late intervention, including children in care, increased by 57%. The skew is going the wrong way, and it does not have to be this way.

Since the late 1990s, several initiatives have been aimed at providing support to families in their communities. That includes the Sure Start centres—first established in 1997, with more than 3,500 children’s centres having been developed by 2009—and the latest family hubs, which provide support to parents from pre-birth all the way through to 18. These centres provided welcome, non-stigmatising support for families. The services they offer and have offered are varied, but often include provisions such as stay-and-play sessions, speech and language support or benefit and employment advice for parents.

While welcomed by families themselves, too often such services are seen as a “nice to have” and subject to cuts when funding is short. It is perhaps not surprising that evidence suggests that around 1,000 such centres have shut since 2009, but we know that cutting early support for families is a false economy. It does not benefit children and families, who are too often left to struggle alone, and it does not save money in the long term. In fact, spending on early intervention programmes has repeatedly been shown to be cheaper than spending later. And this is not just about the finances; it is about the wellbeing of children and families.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for Twickenham in tabling new clause 30, and I agree that local authorities should be transparent about the services available to support children and families. However, our statutory guidance, “Working Together to Safeguard Children,” already requires local authorities and their statutory safeguarding partners to publish accessible information about the services that they offer children and families, including preventive services and family support.

I welcome the reference that the hon. Member for Twickenham made to preventive services and family support. The Government are committed to rebalancing the children’s social care system towards earlier intervention and reversing the trend of unsustainable spending at the crisis end of the system. Ou reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, backed by over £500 million of investment in the next financial year, will improve access to early intervention services and ensure that more children and families can access the help and support that they need at the earliest opportunity.

I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for North Herefordshire in tabling new clause 72, and I agree that local authorities should have a range of services available to support all children and young people and their families, but we have already planned investments of over £600 million for family services, across the spectrum of need—from universal services through to children’s social care interventions—in 2025-26. Through the family hubs and Start for Life programme, 75 of the most deprived local authorities in England have received funding to set up family hubs with integrated Start for Life services at their core. An additional 13 local authorities have been supported in opening family hubs through an earlier transformation fund.

By joining up and enhancing services, family hubs provide a welcoming front door to vital support to improve health, education, and the wellbeing of babies, children, young people and their families. More than 400 family hubs are funded through that programme. In 2025-26, local authorities will receive a further £126 million of combined funding from the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Our reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, backed by over £500 million of investment in the next financial year, will improve access to early intervention services and ensure that children and families with multiple and/or complex needs can access the help and support they need at the earliest opportunity. I hope that that response is reassuring and that the hon. Member for Twickenham feels able to withdraw the amendment.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 31

Eligibility for free school lunches

“In section 512ZB of the Education Act 1996 (provision of free school lunches and milk), before paragraph (a) insert—

‘(za) C’s household income is less than £20,000 per year;’”—(Munira Wilson.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

There has been an explosion of mental health issues among our children and young people. The need and waiting lists for support were already high and growing prior to the covid pandemic, and the impact of lockdowns only made that worse. The demand for services—whether they are school-led, community-led or health service-led—is rising, and those services are struggling. The NHS estimates that one in five students under the age of 16 has a probable mental health disorder, and that figure rises to an astonishing 23% of students between the ages of 17 and 19, so we need urgent action.

I note that the Labour party manifesto committed to having a mental health professional in every secondary school, and in recent months Ministers have intimated that they intend to expand existing mental health support teams established under the previous Government. The roll-out of mental health support teams is far from complete, however. I do not have the latest data as of today, but I know that it was previously projected that by the end of 2024, only about half of secondaries and a quarter of primaries would have access to a mental health support team. With half of all lifetime mental health conditions arising before the age of 14, early intervention is key.

The new clause would place a duty on school governing bodies to ensure that every maintained and academy school in England, whether primary or secondary, has a dedicated mental health practitioner on site, with collaborative provision in place for smaller schools where it would perhaps not be sensible to have a dedicated person. That may particularly be the case in small schools. These dedicated practitioners would be trained to a graduate or postgraduate level through sources commissioned by NHS England.

There is growing evidence linking mental wellbeing to academic success. Many schools are already working incredibly hard and stretching their limited resources to provide support, but too often heads and governors tell me that they desperately need to do more. With ever-tightening budgets, mental health provision in many schools is in line to be cut. The duty that we have set out in the new clause would be accompanied by funding from central Government. The Liberal Democrats propose to fund this by trebling the tax on big tech giants and social media companies, which we know are fuelling the growth in poor mental health among our young people.

Having a dedicated mental health practitioner in all schools, both primary and secondary, would ensure that students received timely and professional support. It is the right thing to do for our children and young people.

[Stephen Morgan]

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss access to mental health practitioners in schools—something this Government obviously support. We know that having the right mental health and wellbeing provision in schools is key to ensuring that children and young people can achieve and thrive, and that access to early support can address problems before they escalate.

Already, 44% of children and young people have access to an NHS-funded mental health support team in school, and we expect that to increase to around 50% by April. These teams include a new workforce of education mental health practitioners with qualifications earned through an NHS-commissioned course, as the hon. Member for Twickenham has previously referenced. However, that is still not enough, and I want to reassure the hon. Lady that outside of this Bill, the Government are committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and that progress is being made to achieve this.

The Government are clear that it would be impractical for schools to pay for and oversee NHS-trained mental health practitioners, especially when workforce recruitment, training, pay and conditions, important clinical supervision arrangements, continuous professional development and established systems for reporting and evaluating outcomes already exist within the NHS. This new clause would not add to the provision of mental health professionals, but would in practice switch the responsibility for an NHS-trained health service from the NHS to schools. Mandating this responsibility for schools would add a further unnecessary burden on them, as the health sector is better placed to make arrangements for education mental health practitioners in school.

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister said “every school”. Will he clarify on the record that he means every primary and secondary school?

[Stephen Morgan]

Yes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

Will he give us a timeline for that? This commitment has been made repeatedly, but we have heard nothing about when the services will be expanded.

[Stephen Morgan]

I am very happy to take the hon. Lady’s intervention; she will know that the Bill delivers a range of measures that will support children’s wellbeing. The Government are obviously committed to improving mental health support specifically, which is why we introduced the Mental Health Bill last November, which delivers on our manifesto commitment to modernise mental health legislation more broadly. We are committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and we are working through that at pace, alongside the existing work of the mental health support teams.

We will also be putting in place Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and are recruiting an additional 8,500 new mental health staff members to treat children and adults. With that in mind, and with my assurance that we will deliver on our important manifesto commitment, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her new clause.

[Munira Wilson]

I wish to press the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause seeks to introduce a tutoring guarantee so that every disadvantaged pupil who may have fallen behind gets the extra support they absolutely deserve. Members across the House will recall that on the back of covid, we had the national tutoring programme, which, according to all evidence, despite being beset with all sorts of challenges when it was rolled out, helped to boost attainment, confidence and school attendance. Sadly, the money for the national tutoring programme and the 16 to 19 tutoring fund ran out in July of last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the hon. Member’s concern, and I thank her for raising this issue. We believe that schools are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and should be able to choose from a range of options to best suit those needs, with tutoring being one option, but not the only one.

Although the national tutoring programme ended on 31 August 2024, schools can continue to provide tutoring through the use of their pupil premium and other school funds. The pupil premium is funding to support the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, and schools can direct spending where they think the need and impact is greatest. The Department for Education has already published guidance, based on evidence gathered through the national tutoring programme, on how to plan and deliver tutoring to pupils to support schools that wish to use this option. Pupil premium guidance sets out approaches, including tutoring, that can be used to support disadvantaged pupils, including those in the groups identified in the new clause. With that in mind, I kindly ask the hon. Member for Twickenham to withdraw the clause.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 36

Establishment of a National Body for SEND

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, establish a National Body for SEND.

(2) The functions of the National Body for SEND will include, but not be limited to—

(a) national coordination of SEND provision;

(b) supporting the delivery of SEND support for children with very high needs;

(c) advising on funding needed by local authorities for SEND provision.

(3) Any mechanism used by the National Body for SEND in advising on funding under subsection (2)(c) should be based on current need and may disregard historic spend.”—(Munira Wilson.)

This new clause would establish a National Body for SEND to support the delivery of SEND provision.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

We all know across this House that the special educational needs system is in absolute crisis across the country. Ministers have recognised the need for reform on multiple occasions. We have been assured that Ministers are working on it, and I have no doubt that they are working incredibly hard. New clause 36 provides them with a first step on that road to reform.

The new clause would establish a new dedicated national body for SEND, which would act as a champion for children with complex needs. It would also ensure that standards are being met across the country and that children are receiving the tailored support they need. We know that spending on high needs has trebled since 2015, but as the schools Ministers herself has pointed out on a number of occasions, educational outcomes for SEND pupils have remained stagnant, with only 8% meeting expected standards at the end of primary school.

The proposed body in the new clause would have three functions: national standards for SEND provision, ensuring consistent and equitable support for children across all the regions; supporting the delivery of SEND support for children with very high needs, providing targeted assistance to those requiring intensive support; and advising on funding for local authorities, offering guidance based on current need—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. A Division has been called in the House. We will suspend the sitting for 15 minutes if there is one vote, and 15 minutes extra for every other vote. I hope—going back to our primary school education—we can all work those sums out.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Munira Wilson]

I will pick up where I left off, on the third of the three key functions that this national SEND body would have. Those functions are advising on funding for local authorities, offering guidance based on current need and moving away from outdated spending models.

The second function provides families and local authorities with the assurance they need that, when a child with very high needs is identified, funding for those needs is available and can be met through a central pot. When I am asked about that, I liken it to highly specialised NHS commissioning for rare conditions. It would eliminate the postcode lottery for families and the funding risk for local authorities; when a local authority comes across a child who has very, very complex needs and requires support, it can put a big pressure on its high-needs block.

This body would ensure consistency in standards across the country and drive continuous improvement. It is an important piece of the puzzle in reforming a SEND system that was described as “lose, lose, lose” by the previous Conservative Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue. As she knows, we are absolutely aware of the challenges in the SEND system and how urgently we need to address them, but, as I know she appreciates, these are complex issues and need a considered approach to deliver sustainable change. We do not believe that the SEND system needs another body that would add to the bureaucracy in the system. The focus is on making the system less bureaucratic and getting support to children and young people who need it quickly and efficiently.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to work with a wide range of partners, including schools, colleges, health and, crucially, parents and young people, to develop their local offer of services and provision for special educational needs and disabilities. That recognises the differing circumstances of each local area and places decision making with the local authority. Crucially, decisions about provision for individual children and young people with statutory education, health and care plans are currently made by the local authority, which will know its schools, colleges and settings and the provision that they can offer in a way that a national body could not.

I absolutely recognise the challenges of supporting children with very high needs, particularly those who require highly specialist provision. Local authorities have statutory responsibilities to make joint commissioning arrangements about education, health and care provision for all children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability in the local authority’s area. We do not believe that a new body is required to support local authorities to deliver on those duties. The Government keep the funding formula and other arrangements that the Department uses to allocate funding for children and young people with SEND under review, and it is important that there is a fair education funding system that directs funding where it is needed. The input of stakeholders will be invaluable as we review current arrangements, but there is no need for a new national body to do that. Although I absolutely take on board the intentions and concerns of the hon. Member for Twickenham, I kindly request that the new clause be withdrawn.

[Munira Wilson]

I shall disappoint the Minister: I would like to press the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Sollom]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 39

Establishment of Child Protection Authority

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, establish a Child Protection Authority for England.

(2) The purpose of such an Authority will be to—

(a) improve practice in child protection;

(b) provide advice and make recommendations to the Government on child protection policy and reforms to improve child protection;

(c) inspect institutions and settings at some times and in such ways as it considers necessary and appropriate to ensure compliance with child protection standards; and

(d) monitor the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and other inquiries relating to the protection of children.

(3) The Authority must act with a view to—

(a) safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children;

(b) ensuring that institutions and settings fulfil their responsibilities in relation to child protection.”—(Munira Wilson.)

This new clause would seek to fulfil the second recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in establishing a Child Protection Authority for England.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I rise to speak to new clause 39, in my name and those of a number of my hon. Friends, which seeks to fulfil the second recommendation of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse by establishing a child protection authority in England, which would be an arm’s length body of the Government on a par with organisations such as the National Crime Agency. As the inquiry set out, its role would be to

“improve practice in child protection by institutions, including statutory agencies;…provide advice to government in relation to policy and reform to improve child protection, including through the publication of regular reports to Parliament and making recommendations; and…inspect institutions as it considers necessary.”

I recently met Professor Jay and a member of the panel who was involved in that review, and they felt that there are certain gaps in the inspection regime across the country, so having this overarching national body with a focus on child protection is a really important recommendation and step forward. Indeed, it was the report’s second recommendation. The child protection authority would monitor the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations.

I am very grateful that the Government have already committed to implementing the recommendations, but I gently say to Ministers that this Bill, which we have spent several weeks going through in detail, already focuses on a number of safeguards and child protection measures. One of the many reasons that the previous Government gave for not implementing some of the recommendations was a lack of legislative time, which I struggle to understand given the number of times the House rose early in the previous Parliament. Given that the IICSA recommendation requires legislation and we are considering a very relevant Bill, I am not entirely sure that the Government are committed to implementing it as they are not legislating for a child protection authority.

When we discussed new clause 15 this morning, the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen said that many of the crimes explored in the report are undoubtedly ongoing. Therefore, what could be more important than putting these provisions in place? I very much hope Ministers will seriously consider implementing this recommendation quickly and using the legislative opportunity. Even if they will not accept my new clause, there is time as the Bill progresses through Parliament to put into legislation one of Professor Jay’s key recommendations.

[Catherine McKinnell]

As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are focused on delivering the change and justice that victims deserve. As I set out earlier in response to new clause 15, on 6 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament the commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, making grooming an aggravating factor to toughen up sentencing, and introducing a new performance framework for policing.

On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that before Easter, the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse report. Four were for the Home Office, including on disclosure and barring, and I know that work is already under way on those. As the Home Secretary stated, a cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations, and that group will be supported by a new victims and survivors panel. Again, as I mentioned, the Government will also be implementing all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, and as part of that we will update key Department for Education guidance.

This landmark Bill will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout our education and care systems, so that every child can achieve and thrive. It will protect children at risk of abuse and help to stop vulnerable children falling through cracks in service. I therefore urge hon. Members to support the Bill and the measures, and to withdraw the new clause.

[Munira Wilson]

I am still at a loss to understand why, if the Government support the recommendations, they are not using this legislative opportunity. I will therefore press the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 42 would impose a requirement on the Secretary of State to introduce a national wellbeing measurement programme for children and young people throughout England. I set out the need and the case for mental health support provision during our debate on new clause 33, and I pay tribute to #BeeWell and Pro Bono Economics, which have done a lot of work on the national wellbeing measurement. As we heard from witnesses in oral evidence a few weeks ago, despite having the word “wellbeing” in the Bill’s title, the legislation lacks measures that will improve the wellbeing of this country’s children and young people.

England’s young people have the lowest level of wellbeing in Europe and are in the bottom 5% worldwide, according to the OECD’s programme for international student assessment survey. During our oral evidence sessions, Anne Longfield, Dr Carol Homden from Coram and Mark Russell from the Children’s Society all made the case for the systematic national measurement of children and young people’s wellbeing.

Many of us are well aware that data on children’s wellbeing and mental health is fragmented across the NHS, schools and local authorities. Indeed, in the last Parliament, I sought to introduce a private Member’s Bill to address that gap, with regular annual reporting to Parliament on mental health and wellbeing data. Sadly, it was rejected by the Conservative Government at the time and talked out.

On the other hand, and given the Minister’s already stated commitment to improving the mental health of our children and young people, I hope that the Labour Government will take the opportunity to introduce a national wellbeing measurement to focus efforts and provide a measurable standard from which we can mark progress. That would give all children and young people a voice on the issues that matter to their mental health and wellbeing, allow regular tracking of national progress, support detailed service planning within local communities, enable targeted support for groups of young people struggling the most, help school leaders to understand how they are performing and support the development of new evidence on what works for improving children’s wellbeing.

[Stephen Morgan]

New clause 42 is intended to require the establishment of a national children and young people’s wellbeing measurement programme. The Government are committed to improving the wellbeing of children and young people. Alongside improving health outcomes, we will break down barriers to opportunities, supporting all children to achieve and thrive. We know that elements of thriving, such as positive school belonging and childhood physical and mental wellbeing, are associated with academic attendance and the development of key life skills. The Bill, and our plan for change, will help us to achieve that.

We acknowledge the value of understanding wellbeing. A wide range of data on children and young people’s wellbeing is already collected nationally to inform policy development. That includes DFE and Government-funded surveys such as the Office for National Statistics data on children’s wellbeing; the DFE parent and pupil voice panel surveys and recent national behaviour survey reports; the Department of Health-funded survey of the prevalence of mental health disorders, which is currently paused; and the health behaviours of school-aged children study, which is currently seeking funding. Surveys also include the Children’s Society “Good Childhood Report” and international data from PISA.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I will certainly take away that point. I know that the right hon. Member cares passionately about the wellbeing of children and young people, and I am happy to explore that further.

We know that many good schools and local areas already measure pupil wellbeing to inform local action. The Department encourages that, with identifying need and monitoring impact being one principle of an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Although we do not currently have plans to introduce a standardised national wellbeing measurement programme, we continue to engage with schools to increase the understanding of wellbeing measurement approaches and impact.

It is not clear that the benefits of a national programme would outweigh the burdens on schools, or the reduction in their ability to select tools to suit their cohorts. We would also need to consider the potential effect of a national measure on school accountability. Should the case for a national measure be made, there is likely to be scope to introduce the kind of voluntary participation programme envisaged in the new clause without recourse to primary legislation. On that basis, I invite the hon. Member for Twickenham to withdraw the new clause.

[Munira Wilson]

I wish to press the new clause.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

The hon. Lady makes a thoughtful point. There is a fantastic meta-analysis published by the London School of Economics and the 5Rights Foundation of all the different studies that have been done on this around Europe. The hon. Lady referred to a specific study, which I hope to speak to the authors about. It is a good study, and perfectly sensible, but the issue is that it cannot find anything statistically significant because it looked at only 30 schools, with a sample size of about 1,200 pupils. It does not look at any natural experiments either, so it does not look at schools that are changing their policies.

Where we have good RCT-like evidence, like in the great study in Spain, where they looked at a province that changed its policy wholesale, we can see from those natural experiments the really powerful effects of in-school policies. I agree with the hon. Lady that this is not the only thing that we should do. The study she mentioned was not wrong; it just could never show us the things that people are interested in. Indeed, there is plenty of other evidence out there in these meta-analyses, and from Jonathan Haidt’s website, of really powerful in-school effects.

A study in the US shows that a class time-only rule does not give teachers as much benefit as they might expect. Research from the National Education Association found that 73% of teachers in schools that allow phone use between classes find that phones are disruptive during classes. The same is true here. The Department for Education’s national behaviour survey, published in April 2024, found that 35% of secondary school teachers reported mobile phones being used during lessons without permission. The problem is more pronounced for older children, unsurprisingly. Some 46% of pupils in years 10 to 11 reported mobile phones being used when they should not have been during “most or all” lessons. That is nearly half of pupils in most or all lessons reporting disruption, so the problem is absolutely there in the DFE’s data.

The idea that guidance has done the trick and that there is no longer a problem to solve is contradicted by the Department’s evidence. Work by the company Teacher Tapp, also known as School Surveys, similarly finds very high levels of problems and no signs of progress. Instead of guidance, all schools should be mandated and funded to have lockers and pouches, and to get kids to put smartphones away for the whole day, including breaks. Schools should be the beachhead and the first place that we re-create a smartphone-free childhood—seven hours in which we de-normalise being on the phone all the time for young people.

Why do we need a full ban, and not just guidance? I already gave some of the data showing that the guidance has not worked, but there are two other reasons. First, we need to support schools and have their back. From speaking to teachers and school leaders, I know that the pressures from parents to allow phones can be really severe on schools. Some parents, unfortunately, can be unreasonably determined that they must be able to contact their child directly at any minute, even though they are perfectly safe in schools. In the sorts of places where three and four-year-olds have smartphones, that is, I am afraid, normalised now, so a national ban would make things simpler and take the heat off schools.

Secondly, a full and total ban is needed as part of a wider resetting of social norms, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said, about children and smartphones. Smartphones and social media are doing damage to education even when they are not being used in schools. Our new clause 48 aims to be proportionate, and subsection (2)(b) would allow for exceptions as appropriate, having learned the lessons of what has been done in other countries.

To come to the hon. Lady’s wider point, when I was a Health Minister, I wanted us to get going an equivalent of the famous five bits of fruit and veg a day for this field—other Members might remember “Don’t Die of Ignorance” or “Clunk Click Every Trip”. We need some big things to reset the culture and wake up a lot of people, who are not necessarily going to read Jonathan Haidt’s book, to dangers that they may be unaware of. The heavy exposure of our kids to addictive-by-design products of the tech industry is the smoking of our generation. As with smoking, the tech industry comes up with fake solutions that do not actually make things safe. In the 1950s, it was filters on cigarettes, and now it is the supposed parental filters on social media. Just like with smoking, there is unfortunately a powerful social gradient to unmonitored internet access, with the worst effects on the poorest.

I do not know what Ministers will do about our new clause this time round, and I do not know what they will do as the Bill goes through the other place, but I hope that they will end up implementing this idea at some point. I will take my hat off to them when they do.

[Munira Wilson]

I come at this new clause first and foremost as a parent before I look at it as an MP. Looking at it with both hats on, though, I have long supported the previous Government’s guidance to schools to try to ban mobile phones during the school day. For a long time, I have needed convincing that a legislative ban was required, but I have finally concluded that we probably need to move towards one, partly for the reasons that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston outlined. Some heads and school staff come under a lot of pressure from parents to allow the use of phones during the school day, but if this were a statutory requirement, the Government would have to provide the support needed to implement it.

Just this week, I talked to the headteacher of a secondary school in my constituency. He is very keen to implement a ban on phones during the school day, and he is trying, but kids are getting their phones out at various times and not staying off them. It is a fairly new school, but for some reason it was built without lockers, so there are no lockers. He has looked into purchasing lockers or Yondr pouches—the phone pouches that I believe the Irish Government have bought wholesale for every school in Ireland—and he said that that would cost him about £20,000, which he did not have in his budget. Putting the ban into statute would give headteachers and teaching staff the clout they need with parents who particularly want their children to have their phones during the school day, and the Government would need to resource the ban so that schools could implement it.

I draw Members’ attention to subsection (2) of the new clause, which deals with exemptions, because that is a very important point. Proper exemptions are important for young carers or children with health conditions that need monitoring via apps. School leaders and teachers know their children best, and they know which children need exemptions. I would be interested to know what the consequences would look like—would they fall on the school? I do not think the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston touched on that, but I would be interested in discussing another time how he thinks this ban could be enforced. It is just one of a suite of measures that we as policymakers need to take now, given the harm that phones and access to social media are undoubtedly doing to our children and young people.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I have some sympathy with the point that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has made about the addictive quality of screen time. I also draw attention to the fact that the addictive nature of screen time is obviously a result of technology, but it is also due to a lack of competition from other uses of a child’s time.

As such, it still staggers me that the first debate in eight years on playgrounds took place only because I secured it. The Conservative Government did not call a debate on playgrounds in their 14 years in government, and the only strategy ever on national play was launched by Ed Balls and Andy Burnham in 2008, with £230 million made available. Several years later, the coalition Government drew a red line through that strategy. We have also seen a hollowing out of children’s centres and Sure Start centres—really, of the whole fabric of what a child’s early developmental years could be. The places where parents could get support—not just to be parents alongside each other, but to raise their children and help them to develop—have all been hacked away. We need to look at children’s wellbeing in that context.

I have reservations about the hon. Member’s proposal, partly because I think we need a clearer distinction between a mobile telephone and a smartphone. As somebody who was born in the 1980s and grew up in the 1990s, I see mobile telephones as typically restricted to SMS—I think that is what the kids call it these days—voice calls and maybe an alarm. A smartphone is something far more advanced, which has destructive social media, addictive apps, games and the like. Greater clarity about the distinction between mobile phones and smartphones might be helpful as we navigate this debate.

It was interesting to hear the Conservative spokesperson call for collective action. I am always a fan of that, and I encourage him to continue down that path. I am happy to have a cup of coffee with him as we discuss it.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 60—Kinship care allowance—

“(1) A person is entitled to a kinship care allowance for any week in which that person is engaged as a kinship carer in England.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a ‘kinship carer’ has the meaning given in section 22I of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by section 5 of this Act.

(3) A person is not entitled to an allowance under this section unless that person satisfies conditions prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State.

(4) A person may claim an allowance under this section in respect of more than one child.

(5) Where two or more persons would be entitled for the same week to such an allowance in respect of the same child, only one allowance may be claimed on the behalf of—

(a) the person jointly elected by those two for that purpose, or

(b) in default of such an election, the person determined by, and at the discretion of, the Secretary of State.

(6) Regulations may prescribe the circumstances in which a person is or is not to be treated for the purposes of this section as engaged, or regularly and substantially engaged, in caring for a child under an eligible kinship care arrangement.

(7) An allowance under this section is payable at the weekly rate specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.

(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may specify—

(a) different weekly rates for different ages of children being cared for, or

(b) different weekly rates for different regions of England.

(9) Regulations under subsection (7) must specify a weekly rate that is no lower than the minimum weekly allowance for foster carers published by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 23 of the Care Standards Act 2000.”

New clause 61—Extension of pupil premium to children subject to a kinship care arrangement—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, for the financial year beginning 1 April 2026 and for each year thereafter, provide that an amount is payable from the pupil premium grant to schools and local authorities in respect of each registered pupil in England who is who is a child living in kinship care.

(2) The amount payable under subsection (1) must be equal to the amount that is payable for a pupil who is a looked after child.

(3) In this section—

‘a child living in kinship care’ is to be interpreted in the same manner as given in section 22I of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by section 5 of this Act.

‘looked after child’ has the same meaning as in the Children Act 1989;

‘pupil premium grant’ means the grant of that name paid to a school or a local authority by the Secretary of State under section 14 of the Education Act 2002 (power of Secretary of State and Senedd Cymru to give financial assistance for purposes related to education or children etc).”

New clause 62—Admissions arrangements relating to looked after children and children in kinship care—

“(1) For section 88B of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (admission arrangements relating to children looked after by local authority) substitute—

‘88B Admissions arrangements relating to looked after children and children in kinship care

(1) Regulations may require the admission authorities for maintained schools in England to include in their admission arrangements provision relating to the admission of children who are—

(a) looked after by a local authority in England, or

(b) living in kinship care as may be prescribed.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may in particular include provision for securing that, subject to sections 86(3), 86B(2) and (4) and 87, such children are to be offered admission in preference to other children.

(3) In this section, “children who are living in kinship care” is to be interpreted in the same manner as given in section 22I of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by section 5 of this Act.’”

[Munira Wilson]

The end is in sight for all of us—we are on to the last column of the selection list. I will speak to new clauses 59 to 62, which are in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. The new clauses all refer to support for kinship carers and children growing up in kinship care.

In clauses 5 and 6 in part 1 of the Bill, we discussed and agreed a number of encouraging provisions on defining kinship carers, setting out the support they are eligible for and providing additional educational support for the subset of children growing up in kinship care. However, what we have already 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 couple of months back.

At that reception, the right hon. Lady—unusually for a Secretary of State—called on campaigners and policymakers to keep pushing her. I think that that was in order to give her the clout in Government to go further. The four new clauses seek to do just that, and I hope Ministers will receive them in that spirit.

New clause 59 would ensure that kinship carers are entitled to paid employment leave. New clause 60 would put into statute an entitlement to an allowance on a par with that for foster carers. New clause 61 would extend pupil premium plus to all children in kinship care, based on the definition the Committee has agreed. Finally, new clause 62 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 the parents can no longer do so. In oral evidence, Jacky Tiotto of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service told us that

“the kinship carer’s life will not continue in the way it had before, in terms of their ability to work, maybe, or where they live.

We know that local authorities are under huge resource pressure, so there is going to have to be something a bit stronger to encourage people to become carers, whether that is related to housing or the cost of looking after those children. People will want to do the right thing, but if you already have three kids of your own that becomes tricky.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 34, Q78.]

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 number have to reduce their hours permanently, putting financial strain on the family. Those carers are disproportionately women and are over-represented in healthcare, education and social care, which simply exacerbates our workforce crisis in public services. Extending paid employment leave would enable more people to step up and provide a stable, loving home.

On allowances, there are not just long-term savings to be made in terms of the well-evidenced better health and education outcomes for children; there are also immediate cost savings to be had for the taxpayer. Compared to the cost of the alternative—local authority care—the saving is approximately £35,000 a year. Every child we manage to divert from local authority care into kinship care can deliver that saving for the taxpayer immediately. Surely Ministers can tempt their colleagues in the Treasury with that immediate spend-to-save argument?

In Kinship’s 2022 “Cost of Loving” survey of more than 1,000 kinship carers, one third said they may not be able to continue caring for their child as a result of financial pressures. I spoke to one kinship carer in my borough who had avoided putting the heating on and skipped all sorts of things, including food for herself, so that she could put enough food on the table for her grandson. Her story is far too common. A national, non-means-tested allowance would end the system of patchy means-tested allowances that reflect the postcode lottery of support that councils can afford to provide.

Ministers have already recognised in the Bill the need for additional educational support for children in kinship care. Why are we not treating all children equally, so that it is not just those who were previously looked after who are entitled to additional pupil premium funding or priority admissions? The trauma and needs of children in kinship care are often similar to those of children who were previously looked after. We should extend the same provisions to all children in kinship care.

I know that Ministers understand the sacrifices that kinship carers make and the trauma that children in kinship care have been through. The Schools Minister herself headed up a parliamentary taskforce on kinship in the last Parliament, and she was very active in the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care. I know that she is very familiar with these issues, and I hope she is sympathetic to the call in these new clauses. I hope to hear something positive and that Ministers—even if, as we know, they never accept Opposition new clauses in a Bill Committee—will seek to address these inequalities and support these unsung heroes, kinship carers, and the children they look after.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Members for Twickenham and for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire for these new clauses. I want to start by emphasising how much I value kinship carers, who come forward to provide loving homes for children who cannot live with their parents. We absolutely recognise the challenge that many kinship carers face in continuing to work while dealing with the pressures of raising a child unexpectedly.

The support offered by the Government to kinship carers is a floor, not a ceiling, and we encourage employers to go further, where they can. One example of that is the Department for Education, which employs more than 7,500 public sector workers and has recently joined a small number of private sector employers, including Card Factory, Tesco and John Lewis, in offering a paid leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers.

Employed kinship carers may already benefit from a number of workplace employment rights that are designed to support employees in balancing work alongside caring responsibilities. Those rights include a day one right to time off for dependants, which provides a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with an unexpected or sudden emergency involving a child or dependant, and to put care arrangements in place. There is also unpaid parental leave for employees who have or expect to have parental responsibility, which we are making a day one right through the Employment Rights Bill. An employee may not automatically have parental responsibility as a result of being a kinship carer, but may do if they have acquired parental responsibility through, for example, a special guardianship order. If they are looking after a child who is disabled or who lives with a long-term health condition, they would also be entitled to carer’s leave, which would allow them to take up to a week’s leave in a 12-month period.

All employees also have a right to request flexible working from day one of employment. The Government will make flexibility the default, except where it is not feasible, through measures in the Employment Rights Bill. We have also committed to a review of the parental leave system to ensure that it best supports all working families. Work is already under way on planning for its delivery.

On new clause 60, again, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss financial support for kinship carers. In October 2024, the Government announced £40 million of new funding for a kinship financial allowance pilot, which will test the impact of financial support for kinship carers. This is the single biggest investment made by Government in kinship care to date. It could transform the lives of vulnerable children who can no longer live at home by allowing them to grow up with their families and communities, reducing the disruption in their early years so that they can focus on schooling and building friendships. The pilot will provide a weekly financial allowance to kinship carers to support them with the additional costs incurred when taking on parental responsibility for a child.

Our ambition is that all kinship carers get the support they need to care for their children and to help them thrive, but it is important that we build the evidence first to find out how best to deliver that financial support. Decisions about future roll-out will be informed by the findings of the evaluation. The Government will confirm the eligible cohort for the pilot as well as the participating local authorities soon, and we expect the pilot to go live in autumn 2025.

New clauses 61 and 62 would extend pupil premium eligibility to children living in kinship care, and provide those children admissions in preference to other children, in the same way as children who are or were looked after by a local authority in England are currently given preference. We are providing over £2.9 billion of pupil premium funding to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils in England, including looked-after and previously looked-after children. Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools do not have to spend the funding so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the criteria. Schools can direct funding where the need is greatest, including to pupils with other identified needs, such as children in kinship care. They can also use pupil premium on whole-class approaches that will benefit all pupils, such as high-quality teaching. There are no plans to change the pupil premium eligibility at present. However, we will continue to keep it under review to ensure that the support is targeted at those who need it most.

All state-funded, non-selective schools are required to provide the highest priority in their admissions over-subscription criteria to looked-after and previously looked-after children. Those children are among the most vulnerable in our society, and wherever possible, they should be admitted to the school that is best able to meet their needs. Some children in kinship care may share some of those characteristics. Indeed, many children in kinship care may already be eligible for the highest priority for school admission—for example, where a child is looked after by their local authority and then fostered by a kinship carer, or where they were previously looked after. We think that this approach is the best way of ensuring that the most vulnerable pupils of this cohort, who would benefit most from priority admissions, are able to access the school place that is right for them.

It is also worth noting that the school admissions code provides another protection to children in formal kinship care, irrespective of whether they have spent time in local authority care. The admissions code ensures that such children are eligible to be secured a school place through the fair access protocol, which is the local mechanism for ensuring that those struggling to secure a school place via the usual admissions processes are found one.

Given those existing protections, we do not consider it necessary at this time to extend the existing priority for looked-after and previously looked-after children in England to include all children in kinship care. We are also extending local authorities’ statutory duties to include promoting the educational achievement of all children living in kinship care within the meaning of new section 22I(1) of the Children Act 1989, which will be inserted by the Bill. We will also extend the duty of virtual school heads to provide information and advice to include all children living with a special guardian or under a child arrangement order where the child is living with a kinship carer within the meaning of new section 22I(6) of the 1989 Act. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Twickenham not to press the new clauses.

[Munira Wilson]

I thank the Minister for her response. It is obviously disappointing that Ministers will not go further, particularly on allowances. The pilots that were set out in a tiny number of local authorities with a very small subset of kinship carers were not ambitious enough. On that basis, I would like to press new clause 60 on allowances to a vote, but I am happy to leave the others. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 60

Kinship care allowance

(1) A person is entitled to a kinship care allowance for any week in which that person is engaged as a kinship carer in England.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a “kinship carer” has the meaning given in section 22I of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by section 5 of this Act.

(3) A person is not entitled to an allowance under this section unless that person satisfies conditions prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State.

(4) A person may claim an allowance under this section in respect of more than one child.

(5) Where two or more persons would be entitled for the same week to such an allowance in respect of the same child, only one allowance may be claimed on the behalf of—

(a) the person jointly elected by those two for that purpose, or

(b) in default of such an election, the person determined by, and at the discretion of, the Secretary of State.

(6) Regulations may prescribe the circumstances in which a person is or is not to be treated for the purposes of this section as engaged, or regularly and substantially engaged, in caring for a child under an eligible kinship care arrangement.

(7) An allowance under this section is payable at the weekly rate specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.

(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may specify—

(a) different weekly rates for different ages of children being cared for, or

(b) different weekly rates for different regions of England.

(9) Regulations under subsection (7) must specify a weekly rate that is no lower than the minimum weekly allowance for foster carers published by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 23 of the Care Standards Act 2000.—(Munira Wilson.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 69—Collection and publication of data relating to summer-born children—

“(1) A local authority must collect and publish data on—

(a) the number and proportion of summer-born children who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group;

(b) the number and proportion of summer-born children—

(i) with EHC plans, and

(ii) without EHC plans,

who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group and who have been required to join their normal age group; and

(c) the number and proportion of summer-born children with EHC plans who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group and who have been required to join their normal age group in a—

(i) special school;

(ii) mainstream school.

(2) The Secretary of State must annually—

(a) conduct a statistical analysis of, and

(b) publish a report on the data collected by local authorities under subsection (1).”

[Munira Wilson]

I am moving the new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), who has raised the issue that summer-born children with SEND are often placed in the following year group at school, often at the request of their parents, but when they transfer into or out of special or mainstream school, they are then placed back into their chronological year and, as a result, end up missing a whole year of education. Guidance exists for summer-born children who do not have EHCPs but not, strangely, for those who do. New clauses 68 and 69 would simply require guidance to be published for local authorities and school admissions authorities on the admission of summer-born children with education, health and care plans and would require local authorities to collect and publish data relating to summer-born children.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The Government agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham that local authorities have important and complex decisions to make when parents ask for a summer-born child with an EHC plan to be placed outside the usual year for their age. The Department’s existing guidance for the admission of summer-born children without education, health and care plans sets out a recommended approach for those key decisions. Many of the considerations in that guidance will be similar for children with an education, health and care plan. Getting those decisions right can make a huge difference to the child’s outcomes and their experience of school, so such decisions need to be made thoughtfully and fairly, with due consideration given to what the parents want for their child. That is why, in July last year, in response to a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for St Albans, I committed to consider whether we should publish guidance on how these decisions are best made. We have been doing just that, and will confirm our decision in the coming months. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to pre-empt the content of any such guidance by confirming the details now. However, I can say that we have been giving careful consideration to many of the matters outlined in the new clause and deciding how best to proceed.

On new clause 69, the Department conducts a voluntary biennial survey of local authorities about the admission of summer-born children. That asks local authorities to include data, where they hold it, about all schools in their area. The Department publishes a report on the findings of the survey, those findings show that only a small proportion—1.5%—of parents of summer-born children ask for them to be admitted to reception at age five. The vast majority of such requests—nine out of 10—are approved. The first summer-born children admitted out of their normal age group are now transitioning to secondary school. Our next survey will ask local authorities for data about the number of children who remain out of their normal age group at that point. The survey does not currently ask local authorities to specify how many requests relate to children with an education, health and care plan but we regularly review the survey, and that is something that we may consider in the future. Given that the existing arrangements to collect data about the admission of summer-born children are working well, it would seem disproportionate to impose a new statutory duty to make the data collection mandatory. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Member to withdraw the new clause.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

This new clause seeks to address the very real problem that up to 250,000 children, or approximately 11% of those eligible for free school meals, even under the currently very restrictive eligibility criteria, miss out on them because it is an opt-in process. It is simply not okay that so many eligible children are missing out on free school meals. That is in addition to the roughly 900,000 children who are living in poverty, but still not qualifying for free school meals because the eligibility criteria are so tight. I believe that we may be coming on to discuss that a little later.

Early findings from areas with which the Fix Our Food research programme are working show that children from non-white communities, or lone-parent households, are more likely to not be registered for free school meals despite being eligible. Again, inequalities are reproducing themselves when it comes to people accessing their statutory rights. Charities working to address this totally unacceptable situation point to several reasons for the under-registration rate: parents may struggle to fill out complex forms; there may be language barriers for parents; there may be a lack of awareness of free school eligibility; and there may be stigma or embarrassment. The current system is regularly described by schools and local authorities as “cumbersome” and “financially and administratively inefficient”. Receiving statutory benefits should be easy and straightforward for people who are eligible.

There are obvious benefits to the child from getting a nutritious, filling lunch, which we have discussed already today and also on our last sitting day, including reduced food insecurity, improved nutrition and health, and increased attainment and lifetime earning potential, as I set out when I spoke to new clause 2. There are also important wider benefits to the child. Struggling families also miss out on other benefits that free school meal registration would give them access to, including the holiday activities and food programme and uniform grants.

There are also benefits to schools. If children are not registered for free school meals, schools miss out on much-needed pupil premium funding, worth £1,455 per pupil. There are also benefits to local authorities. The Fix Our Food research programme is supporting 66 local authorities to implement an opt-out, or right-to-object approach to free school meal registration. It is identifying and writing to families using existing datasets to inform them that their children will be automatically registered unless they opt out.

As I understand it, in many cases, this has resulted in children, who were previously missing out, becoming successfully registered, and opt-out rates are extremely low. However, only a few councils have successfully adopted this new process. In some cases, despite local authorities’ efforts, data sharing barriers have not been possible to overcome. Some have even been threatened with legal action. The local work still does not capture all eligible children, with families falling through the gaps, as access to datasets is patchy. Further, my understanding is that this process is resource-intensive. Again, it is administratively intensive, incurring onerous governance and administration at council and school level.

Meanwhile, the Greater London Authority has put resource into auto-enrolment. Although that is positive for children in London, the same level of support is not available for most children in the rest of England.

Free school meal auto-enrolment would register eligible families to receive free school meals using benefits data, unless families decide to opt out. This requires data sharing between the Department for Work and Pensions, which holds the data that identifies which children should be eligible for these schemes, and the Department for Education, which administers the scheme. I really hope that, as part of this important Bill,the Government will seriously consider how they can introduce auto-enrolment for free school meals to ensure that all those who are eligible are in receipt of their entitlement. This is a fantastic opportunity to do so now.

As a statutory scheme, funding for the meals for these children should already be available. There is just an administrative barrier that stops far too many children getting what they are entitled to. In the meantime, until this is established, I hope the Government will instigate collaborative working across local government so that we can agree to make progress on this issue.

In conclusion, I want to underscore the fact that we should see this as a first step towards expanding eligibility for free school meals to more children to ensure that no child misses out on a nutritious hot meal at school every day.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Christopher, on our final day in Committee. I rise to speak to new clauses 31 and 67 on free school meals. New clause 67 largely mirrors the provisions of new clause 8, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire has just spoken to. I will address the issue of auto-enrolment in a moment.

New clause 31 seeks to expand the eligibility threshold for free school meals to children from households earning less than £20,000 per year, ensuring that no child living in poverty goes hungry at school. The Child Poverty Action Group currently estimates that some 900,000 children living in poverty are missing out on a free school meal, because free school meal eligibility in England is linked to specific benefits, with a household income threshold of just £7,400 per year, after tax, excluding benefits. That leaves many struggling families without support.

The threshold was last uprated in 2018. We know the huge cost of living crisis that households have had to deal with since then. For those on low incomes, that has often meant the difference between heating and eating, and children turning up to school with empty lunchboxes. I saw a mother at my surgery last year who was having to skip her mental health medication to use the prescription money she saved to pay for lunch for her daughter, who is now at college.

[Ellie Chowns]

The hon. Member makes an absolutely excellent point, not just about the excruciatingly low threshold for eligibility of free school meals, but about the fact that these thresholds, when set in law, get stuck at the numbers. Does she agree that thresholds should be set at, for example, a percentage of average household income, or a similar threshold that moves over time, so that we do not end up with children’s eligibility being squeezed and squeezed year on year as incomes rise but the threshold does not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

I certainly agree that there should be a principle in law that thresholds are uprated, by whatever mechanism or measure, because, as we have seen, the threshold has not moved since 2018 and more and more children in poverty are being left without a hot meal at lunchtime.

The threshold is far too low. Both the previous Government’s adviser on food strategy, Henry Dimbleby, and the former Conservative Education Secretary, Michael Gove, have said the threshold should rise, ideally to all those households in receipt of universal credit, but with the public finances so constrained, at the very least to £20,000.

Last week, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, when speaking to the new clause about universal provision of free school meals to all primary children, set out the moral and economic case for expanding free school meal provision. I will not rehearse all those arguments again, but I say to her and other hon. Members that hunger does not end at the age of 11. Every primary and secondary school child living in poverty should be able to access a hot, healthy meal at lunchtime.

All the evidence points to better concentration, better behaviour and better academic results for those children. While I would love to extend universal free school meals to all children in primary schools—that has long been a Liberal Democrat ambition and policy after we extended it in government to all infant children—we heard from a number of witnesses during the oral evidence sessions that resources would be better targeted at those most in need both at primary and secondary school.

New clause 67 mirrors new clause 8 to a large extent. Frankly, auto-enrolment for free school meals should be a no-brainer for Government. As we have heard, too many are missing out at the moment due to administrative barriers and an unwillingness to apply. These new clauses seek to ensure that no eligible child is left behind.

The exact number of how many children are missing out is unknown. In a recent response to a parliamentary question I tabled, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South, admitted that the Department for Education had not made an estimate of how many children were missing out on free school meals since 2013, although estimates suggest that about 11% of children are missing out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

Clause 31 is about the important issue of increasing the earnings threshold when it comes to families who receive free school meals. The Government have a central mission to break down barriers to opportunity for every child, which is why we would roll out a free breakfast club in every state-funded primary school so that children can start the day ready to learn. The continued provision of free school meals to disadvantaged pupils plays a crucial role in this mission, as well as in tackling child poverty.

The Government’s free school meal programme is more important than ever because we have inherited a trend of rising child poverty and a widening attainment gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers. Child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over 4 million children now growing up in a low-income family. Of course, that is the legacy of the previous Government, which the hon. Member for Twickenham has described as shameful. That is why we have committed to delivering a strategy to reduce child poverty through the new Child Poverty Taskforce. The taskforce will consider a range of policies, including free school meals, to assess what will have the biggest impact on driving down rates of child poverty.

I want to reassure the hon. Member for Twickenham about the reach of current programmes, under which 2.1 million disadvantaged children, accounting for 24.6% of all pupils in state-funded schools, are already eligible to receive benefits-based free school meals. A further 90,000 16 to 18-year-old students in further education are entitled to receive free school meals on the basis of low income. In addition, all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 in state-funded schools in England are entitled to universal infant free school meals, which benefits around 1.3 million children, ensuring that they receive a nutritious lunchtime meal.

The meals provide much-needed nutrition for pupils and can boost school attendance, improve behaviour and set children up for success by ensuring that they can concentrate and learn in the classroom, and get the most out of their education. In total, we already spend over £1.5 billion on delivering these programmes, and eligibility for benefits-based free school meals provides for the allocation of billions of additional pounds of funding for disadvantaged children.

We appreciate the continued engagement by the hon. Member for Twickenham with the issue of expanding the provision of free school meals to more pupils. We also recognise how important the issue is and want to ensure that free school meals are being delivered to the families who need them most. However, given the funding involved, this matter must be considered through the Child Poverty Taskforce and the multi-year spending review. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Twickenham not to press the amendment.

I turn to new clauses 8 and 67, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and the hon. Member for Twickenham respectively; of course, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire also spoke passionately to them earlier. The new clauses call for a system to be introduced that would increase registration for free school meals among families who meet the eligibility criteria for them, but are not currently claiming the entitlement.

At their core, we consider that the aim of these measures is to ensure that those who need it receive the support they are entitled to—a goal that we all support. We currently facilitate the process of claiming free school meals through provision of the eligibility checking system. That is a digital portal available to local authorities that makes verification of eligibility for free lunches quick and simple. That checking system is being redesigned to allow parents and schools to check eligibility independently of their local authorities. The system will make it quicker and easier to check eligibility for free school meals, and has the potential to further boost take-up by families who meet the eligibility criteria.

Further to that, we are aware of a range of measures being implemented by local authorities to boost the take-up of free lunches, as we heard earlier. Locally led efforts are more likely to meet the particular needs of the community, and we welcome local authorities taking action to ensure that families access the support for which they are eligible, subject to those activities meeting legal requirements, including those on data protection. In order to support those local efforts, my Department is working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore legal gateways that could enable better data sharing.

In the meantime, we will continue to engage with stakeholders to understand the barriers for households who meet criteria for free lunches but are not claiming them. We are also considering further work to improve auto-enrolment. Improved enrolment for meals is needed in the context of the spending review and through the work of the child poverty taskforce. I thank hon. Members for their continued engagement on this policy, but I ask that new clauses 8 and 67 be withdrawn while we continue to keep free meals under review.

[Munira Wilson]

I will press both new clauses 31 and 67 to a vote later.

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 9

Requirement to provide information about bereavement services

“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a protocol for the collection and dissemination of information relating to bereavement support services for children and young people.

(2) A protocol made under subsection (1) must—

(a) define the bereavement support services to which the protocol applies, which must include services provided by—

(i) local authorities;

(ii) NHS bodies; and

(iii) charities and other third sector organisations;

(b) place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish information, including online, about services to which the protocol applies;

(c) place a duty on specified public bodies and other persons to provide information to children and young people about services to which the protocol applies, including—

(i) specialist services for children and young people;

(ii) services provided online; and

(iii) accessible services for deaf and disabled children and young people;

(d) where a duty under paragraph (c) applies, require the identification of children or young people who may require a service to which the protocol applies.

(3) The Secretary of State must make regulations under this section by statutory instrument.

(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

(5) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft statutory instrument containing regulations under this section within 12 months of the passing of this Act.”—(Ian Sollom.)

This new clause would place a duty on the Secretary of State to establish a protocol for the collection and dissemination of information about bereavement support services to children and young people.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Damian Hinds]

As I said earlier, there are all manner of datasets. I do not have my full Excel complement with me today, but I can trade with the hon. Lady and counter what she said with other statistics. In particular, anybody who suggests that the intake of a Catholic school is higher up the socioeconomic scale than the average does not know a whole lot about the demographics of the Catholic population in this country. We have a remarkable amount of ethnic diversity because of immigration patterns.

By the way, there is no such thing as 100% faith selection; that happens only if a school is oversubscribed. If a state-funded school has spare places, at the end of the day, it is obliged to let anybody come along. However, if a school is oversubscribed and we lose the faith admissions criterion, the nature of the school will change. That goes to the heart of the hon. Lady’s question. There is something intrinsic to having a faith designation and a faith ethos in a school. Some people—I accept that the hon. Lady is not one of them—believe that such things contribute to what happens to those children, their education and their wellbeing, and they are reflected even in that small average premium in terms of results.

Back in the days of the free schools and before them, as the hon. Lady mentioned, a 50% cap was put in place, known commonly as the 50% faith cap. That reflected the fact that with free schools there was a different situation, because now any group could come along and say, “We want to open a school.” It seemed a sensible safeguard to have a cap. However, all the way through it has remained legally possible—not a lot of people know this—to open a voluntary aided school. That proposition was tested in law in 2012, after the coalition Government came into office, with the St Richard Reynolds Catholic college in the constituency of the hon. Member for Twickenham. Once a VA school is opened, it can convert to an academy.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech. Amendment 48 does not seek to prevent faith schools from opening. It would simply apply the cap to any type of school—academy, maintained, voluntary aided or whatever.

For me, the main driver for that safeguard is social cohesion and ethnic diversity. We have talked a lot about Church schools, but there are other faiths that seek to set up schools in certain areas of the country where, without the cap in place, they would not get much racial diversity. That is worrying for community cohesion. I say that as somebody who has a strong personal faith. I send both my children to a Church of England school—mainly because it is in front of my house, so they can leave the house 30 seconds before the gate shuts—but I feel uncomfortable with its level of faith selection. As we heard in oral evidence from Nigel Genders, it is important that state-funded schools be for the whole community and be open to everyone.

[Damian Hinds]

That is a view. It is a perfectly legitimate view that some people hold, but it is not a view that I hold, nor is it a view that we have held historically in this country. Going back to 1944, to 1870 and even further, we have said that we believe in diversity of provision. That includes the Church of England and the Catholic Church, but it also includes other faiths. Some of the top-performing schools in the country are Jewish schools or Muslim schools.

[Munira Wilson]

I think the right hon. Gentleman thinks I am arguing that we should abolish faith schools. I have not made that argument. He is saying that this is not how we have done things in this country, but since the coalition and before, we have had a 50% faith cap. All the amendment seeks is clarity in legislation that that 50% faith cap will remain in place for any new school that opens. I realise that it was the Liberal Democrats who forced the Conservatives to put the cap in place for free schools, which is probably why the right hon. Gentleman will oppose me. For me, it is about social cohesion and about honouring the fact that we should serve all our communities. I am not opposing the establishment of new faith schools; I am just saying that they should have a cap of 50% on faith-based admissions.

[Damian Hinds]

I assure the hon. Lady that on this occasion I am not holding her Liberal Democrat party membership card against her. That is not the basis on which I am making these points.

The hon. Lady said that whatever type of school opens, it should have a 50% cap. By definition, there is no such thing as a VA school with a 50% cap, because being a voluntary aided school means having control over admissions in that way. It is not true that we have necessarily had the 50% cap all the way through; I point to the VA school that opened in her very constituency, and there have been others since then. The reason why only a small handful of VA schools have opened over the past couple of decades is that there was no money for it. To get money to open a school, it had to be a free school.

In 2018-19, the then Secretary of State, fine fellow that he was, created a small capital fund for the voluntary aided schools capital scheme. The reason related to patterns of immigration, particularly Polish and eastern European immigration. In the old days, it was Irish immigration—that is where I come from—but there have been many other waves from different places. As a result of eastern European immigration, there was a demand for Catholic schools in certain parts of the country. Those people, who had come to this country and made their lives here, and of whom there were now generations, were not able to access such schools in the way they could have in other parts of the country. Under that scheme, there were applications from five different faiths; at the time, one was approved and one put on hold. I contend that it is a good system that we have the cap for that tranche of schools—they are not going to be free schools—to retain those safeguards, but it is still possible to open a denominational school, of whichever faith, in circumstances in which there is great need in a particular area.

We talked earlier about local authority areas and their difference in size. Birmingham, which is one massive local authority area, is very different from an individual London borough. For the consideration of faith school applications, it ought to be possible to look over a wider area, because travel-to-school distances are much longer on average.

I want to check with the Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North, that the Government’s proposals will not preclude the opening of new voluntary aided schools. I am afraid I must conclude by saying that, for reasons that the hon. Member for Twickenham will understand and that have nothing to do with her party affiliation, I cannot support amendment 48.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

I rise to speak only to clause 56, which is a big old Henry VIII power. I am sure that their lordships will want to explore it in detail. In the interests of time, I have not tabled an amendment to it at this stage and I will not go into lots of detail, but it is always important to note such things. It is no small thing to give the Government the power to amend primary legislation without coming back to the House. Of course, there are certain limits to what they could do by means of such measures, but it is a big deal.

I place it on the record that the Minister will be well aware of some of the concerns about the clause that are coming to us from civil society. I am sure that she will have seen the comments from Jen Persson, the director of Defend Digital Me, on the information powers in the Bill. When we make laws in this way, it relies on someone noticing and raising an objection to Parliament to get any kind of democratic debate, and we can only stop such things in hindsight.

As the Minister will know, Defend Digital Me has put forward 30 different areas and proposals that it has concerns about, particularly on the information side. On previous clauses, we debated the constant unique identifier and eventually using the NHS number for that, and other things that we have objected to, such as the requirement to give information about how much time a home-schooled child is spending with both parents.

I will not reconsider all the debates that we have already had, but all those important decisions will potentially be in the scope of this Henry VIII power. I am keen to move on to the new clauses, so I will not go any further now, but I am sure that the Government will receive lots of probing questions on this point as the Bill moves to the other place.

[Munira Wilson]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 10, adding the Liberal Democrats’ support for putting equal protection into law for children. I do not understand why we would have a different level of protection for adults versus children. They are the most vulnerable children in our society. The Children’s Commissioner and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children have been very clear that children should be protected. This is not seeking to interfere with parents in terms of how they discipline their children; it is about protecting our most vulnerable. The Children’s Commissioner has strongly called for this, particularly in the wake of the tragic case of Sara Sharif.

I really hope, when the Minister says that the Government will actively look at this during this Parliament, that that is the case. I suspect that there are Members in all parts of the House—I note that the new clause has cross-party support—who will continue to press her on this matter, because it is a basic issue of children’s rights and equal protection in law.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I rise to speak to demonstrate the cross-party support that has already been referred to for new clause 10 and consequential amendment 11 in the name of the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), and I would like to start by congratulating and thanking her for her important work on this issue over many years.

Giving children equal protection from assault cannot happen soon enough. Although we tabled amendment 11 as a probing amendment, I cannot urge the Government strongly enough to grasp this opportunity, in this Bill on children’s wellbeing, to take this forward and put it into law.

Taking the essential step of giving children equal protection from assault has very widespread support not only among the general public, but among all sorts of organisations that advocate and work on behalf of children, including the NSPCC, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Parenting and Family Research Alliance and the Children’s Commissioner, to name just a few. We heard from the Children’s Commissioner herself in oral and written evidence just how strongly she feels about this matter. I share her view that it is totally unacceptable that in 2025, children have less protection from assault under English law than adults do. The existence of the “reasonable punishment” defence perpetuates ambiguity in the law. It leaves children exposed to potential harm and undermines efforts to safeguard their wellbeing. New clause 10 would remove this outdated defence and provide clarity, consistency, and equal protection for children under the law.

The Minister talked about wanting to wait until we have evidence from Wales, and of course, as she acknowledges, it is only in England and Northern Ireland that children do not have this protection. Scotland and Wales have already passed legislation on this matter—indeed, Scotland did before Wales, in 2020. The Minister mentioned waiting for evidence to come from Wales as to the impact of this. There is very clear evidence—worldwide, in fact—on the benefits of giving children the same protection from violence as adults. I believe there are 65 countries worldwide that give that protection, and there are decades of evidence on that topic. I am sure she has received that evidence and I warmly invite her to peruse it very carefully.

Many studies show that physical punishment is not only ineffective at managing children’s behaviour, which is what some parents may intend, but actively harmful. It is associated with increased behavioural problems, increased risks of mental health issues and increased risks of more serious assault. The current, grimly outdated legal framework complicates the matter of addressing improving safeguarding efforts and makes it harder for professionals to assess and effectively address risks to children. The Minister referenced the roles of professionals in safeguarding children, and there is significant testimony from those professionals about how unhelpful this ambiguity in the law is. Fundamentally, there is an inequality here. If an adult hits an adult, it is assault; if an adult hits a child, they can claim the defence of reasonable punishment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is worth looking at the data: in 2023-24 there were up to 410 households that included a care leaver who was found to be intentionally homeless. We appreciate that disapplying the intentional homelessness test means that local authorities will have much greater scope and ability to work with these young people and to support them into a more secure adult life. That clearly involves having a secure home, so I hope that hon. Members are willing to support this clause.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 57

Pay and conditions of Academy teachers

“Schedule (Pay and conditions of Academy teachers: amendments to the Education Act 2002) amends Part 8 of the Education Act 2002 (teachers’ pay and conditions etc) in relation to the pay and conditions of teachers at Academies (other than 16 to 19 Academies).

Part 8 of the Education Act 2002”.—(Vicky Foxcroft.)

This clause replaces Clause 45 and introduces the schedule to be inserted by NS1.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 1

Implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, take steps to implement each of the recommendations made in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

(2) The Secretary of State must, after a period of six months has elapsed from the passing of this Act and at 12 monthly intervals thereafter, publish a report detailing the steps taken by the Government to implement each of the recommendations.

(3) A report published under subsection (2) must include—

(a) actions taken to meet, action or implement each of the recommendations made in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse;

(b) details of any further action required to implement each of the recommendations or planned to supplement the recommendations;

(c) consideration of any challenges to full or successful implementation of the recommendations, with proposals for addressing these challenges so as to facilitate implementation of the recommendations; and

(d) where it has not been practicable to fully implement a recommendation—

(i) explanation of why implementation has not been possible;

(ii) a statement of the Government’s intention to implement the recommendation; and

(iii) a timetable for implementation.

(4) A report published under subsection (2) must be subject to debate in both Houses of Parliament within one month of its publication.

(5) In meeting its obligations under subsections (1) and (2), the Secretary of State may consult with such individuals or organisations as they deem appropriate.”—(Munira Wilson.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I rise to speak to the new clause, tabled in my name and in the name of a number of my colleagues. Briefly, it goes without saying that, on all sides of the House, we are horrified by child sex abuse and what Professor Alexis Jay uncovered through her seven-year-long investigation. We are also horrified that so little progress has been made to date in implementing the 20 recommendations she set out. The new clause therefore seeks to create a legislative commitment, with clear timescales and regular reporting to Parliament, on progress in implementing that report. It is an attempt to approach the issue constructively.

I was disappointed, to put it mildly—in fact, pretty outraged—that Conservative colleagues sought to weaponise the issue on Second Reading to try to kill off the entire Bill. I hope that this is a much more constructive approach. However, I recognise that shortly after my tabling the new clause following Second Reading, the Government made further announcements, including that Baroness Casey will undertake a rapid review and that they will be setting out a timetable.

On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the new clause, but my party and I will continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. These girls have been abused, and I am in no doubt that the abuse is ongoing. That needs to be tackled, and justice needs to be served, so I hope that the Government will implement the recommendations and set out a clear timescale.

[Ellie Chowns]

I rise to speak in support of the new clause, while recognising what the hon. Lady who tabled it has just said. In doing so, I am particularly mindful of a constituent of mine who came to see me in January to tell me that she had given evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Frustrated does not even cover how she felt—she was incredibly upset at the lack of progress on implementation under the previous Government, and she was frustrated to find that progress now is still not fast enough.

We have a huge responsibility to all who suffer child sexual abuse, and in particular to those who have been brave enough to come forward and give evidence, trusting that that evidence would help to make changes. I hope that the Minister can clarify timetables for implementation.

[Catherine McKinnell]

As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are absolutely focused on delivering justice and change for the victims on this horrific crime. On 6 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, to toughen up sentencing by making grooming an aggravating factor and to introduce a new performance framework for policing.

On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that, before Easter, the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final IICSA report. Four of those were for the Home Office, including on disclosure and barring, and work on those is already under way. As the Home Secretary stated, a cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations. That group will be supported by a new victims and survivors panel.

The Government will also implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate, stand-alone report on grooming gangs, from February 2022. As part of that, we will update Department for Education guidance. Other measures that the Government are taking forward include the appointment of Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid audit of existing evidence on grooming gangs, which will support a better understanding of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country, and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed.

The Government will extend the remit of the independent child sexual abuse review panel, so that it covers not just historical cases before 2013, but all cases since, so that any victim of abuse will have the right to seek an independent review without having to go back to the local institutions that decided not to proceed with their case. We will also provide stronger national backing for local inquiries, by supplying £5 million of funding to help local authorities set up their own reviews. Working in partnership with Tom Crowther KC, the Home Office will develop a new effective framework for victim-centred, locally led inquiries.

This landmark Bill will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout our education and care systems, so that every child can achieve and thrive. It will protect children at risk of abuse and stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in service. I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Twickenham is content to withdraw her new clause, and thank her for that. Allowing this Bill’s passage will indeed go a long way to supporting the young people growing up in our system and to protect them from falling through the cracks that may leave them vulnerable to this form of abuse. Indeed, across Government, we will continue to work to take forward the recommendations and to reform our system so that victims get the justice they deserve.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 2

Provision of free school lunches to all primary school children

“(1) Section 512ZB of the Education Act 1996 (provision of free school lunches and milk) is amended as follows.

(2) In paragraph (4A)(b), after ‘year 2,’ insert ‘year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6’.

(3) In subsection (4C), after ‘age of 7;’ insert—

‘“Year 3” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 8;

“Year 4” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 9;

“Year 5” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 10;

“Year 6” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 11;’” —(Ellie Chowns.)

This new clause would extend free school lunches to all primary school age children in state funded schools.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 2 would extend the provision of free school lunches to all primary school children, from year 2 up to year 6. It was tabled in the in the name of the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher)—I thank him for his work on this—and has been supported by 43 hon. Members across the House. In addition to this high level of support from MPs, the No Child Left Behind campaign, which underpins new clause 2, is backed by more than 250 civil society leaders, from unions to charities, from medical bodies to faith leaders, and from mayors to councils. This widespread backing is unsurprising, because the case for universal free school meals is, in fact, overwhelming.

Let us start with the need, which is acute. I am sure colleagues remember how during the pandemic Marcus Rashford ignited the campaign for free school meals, pointing out that we could fill 27 Wembley stadiums with the 2.5 million children who were struggling to know where their next meal was coming from—a shocking indictment.

That shameful legacy of child poverty from the last Government continues, with hunger in schools still endemic. University of Bristol research shows that one in five schools runs a food bank. That figure, I am told, is higher than the total number of community food banks being operated outside schools by organisations such as the Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network.

The National Education Union explained that its members see the struggles of children in poverty every day. Some 80% of teachers asked said that they had provided food for hungry children out of their own pockets—is that not extraordinary? One of those teachers said:

“So many of our children arrive tired and hungry. I find the issue with food so awful. I stock my school kitchen every week with fruit, cereal, milk, biscuits...the number of children who pop in to see me and then ask for food has grown over the last two years. It is heart-breaking.”

It truly is.

New clause 2 is therefore a probing amendment to make the case for a universal approach as the best policy response for three key reasons. First, it is immediately good for children. Secondly, it is an effective long-term investment. Thirdly, it is basically just efficient. I will briefly explore those arguments.

Universal provision is good for children; it immediately helps children to learn, grow and thrive in school. For example, we have recently had the roll-out of free school meal provision to all children attending primary state schools in London. Initial research evaluating that roll-out, which was published a couple of months ago, found that the policy helped with children’s readiness to learn and ability to concentrate. It helps children to do what they are supposed to be doing in schools—learning.

The Department for Education evaluation of the pilot undertaken by the last Labour Government found that pupils in schools where all children received free school meals made four to eight weeks’ more progress in maths and English over two years. That is an extraordinary improvement in progress. In that pilot, the poorest children were those who made the most progress, reducing the attainment gap. In areas with means-tested provision, the effect on attainment was negligible, so we have strong evidence for the benefits of universality.

On the health benefits—this is really shocking—research by The BMJ found that less than 2% of packed lunches met the school food standards. That represents an extraordinary nutritional shortfall in what many children are eating. A policy of universal free school meals would be a major opportunity to increase healthy eating. Ensuring that every child in a school has access to the same food also helps to reduce the stigma and shame that comes from singling out pupils through means-tested provision, and gives pupils a better sense of belonging in school.

Those are the immediate benefits of universal provision, but there are also really strong long-term investment benefits from it. The evidence shows that these universal systems reduce inequality and deliver wider economic prosperity beyond the classroom. PwC—that well-known radical institution—produced an analysis showing that, for every £1 invested in universal free school meals, £1.71 is generated in core benefits, such as increased savings for the NHS and for schools, and increased lifetime earnings and tax contributions. Other expert research also shows that the provision of universal free school meals increases pupils’ lifetime earnings, with the biggest increase again for the most disadvantaged children, thereby reducing inequalities for a generation after school. It is such a powerful policy for reducing inequalities.

I have banged on in other Commons debates about the value of public procurement for investing in our wider UK food and farming sector. When food is sustainably sourced, there is a huge potential benefit; work from Food for Life demonstrates that every £1 spent creates £3 in social, economic and environmental value, mostly in the form of jobs in the local economy.

The third key argument for universal free school meal provision is simply that it is more efficient. We know that providing free school meals helps to end a situation where children fall through the gaps. Means-testing is always going to miss some children and families and, in England, the genuinely draconian eligibility criteria for free school meals means that one in three children living in poverty are still considered too well-off to access free school meals. That is extraordinary. Restricted eligibility, complicated registration processes and stigma also block countless families from accessing support. A universal provision would end this situation where far too many children fall through the gaps.

Free school meals, by the way, would also be massively more efficient in reducing administration. Schools would be able to get back administration time with all children’s meals being provided in the same way at the same time, as one mechanism, and we would get rid of problems around school lunch debts. These universal policies are also easier to defend and protect from erosion by future Governments, who might seek to freeze thresholds or restrict eligibility. In the UK, Wales and London are leading the way in the provision of free, universal, healthy meals at lunch time for every child in primary school as a means of reducing inequalities. England needs to catch up.

I sincerely hope that the Minister will consider new clause 2 ahead of Report to build on the excellent progress on breakfast clubs included in the Bill. Would it not be even more efficient and beneficial—nutritionally and economically, and for all the other reasons I have outlined—to ensure universal free school meal provision when children are already in school? It certainly would be at primary level, which is the case made by this amendment.

I and my party support a policy of extension of universal free school meals to all children, because hunger does not stop at age 11. This amendment focuses particularly on primary school-age children. We know children cannot learn effectively when they are hungry and school dinners help children to focus. They bring the community together and help children to connect with their peers and to build bright futures. Our children learn and play together—they should eat together, too.

[Munira Wilson]

Briefly, I very much support the ambition in this new clause. After all, it was the Liberal Democrats, in Government, who introduced universal infant free school meals; we have always had the long-term ambition of extending that to all primary school children. However, I recognise the cash-constrained environment that the Government are operating in. That is why, when we get to it, I will be speaking to new clause 31, which looks at increasing the eligibility for children to receive free school meals. However, I want to put on the record that we do support the intent of this provision in the long term, for all the reasons the hon. Lady has just laid out.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I turn to new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), on the important topic of expanding eligibility for free school meals, specifically universal provision, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire has moved today.

Under the current programmes, all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England’s state-funded schools are entitled to universal infant free school meals. That benefits around 1.3 million children, ensuring that they receive a nutritious lunch-time meal. In addition, 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils—24.6% of all pupils in state-funded schools—are eligible to receive benefits-based free school meals. Another 90,000 16 to 18-year-old students in further education are entitled to receive free school meals on the basis of low income. Those meals provide much-needed nutrition for pupils and can boost school attendance, improve behaviour and set children up for success by ensuring that they can concentrate and learn in the classroom and get the most out of their education.

In total, we spend over £1.5 billion on delivering free school meal programmes. Eligibility for benefits-based free school meals drives the allocation of billions of additional pounds of disadvantage funding. The free school meal support that the Government provide is more important than ever, because we have inherited a trend of rising child poverty and widening attainment gaps between children eligible for free school meals and their peers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I totally agree it is vital there is publicly available data regarding local authority performance on EHCPs. That is why we publish annual data on each local authority’s timeliness in meeting their 20-week deadline. Local authorities identified as having issues with EHCP timeliness are subject to additional monitoring by the Department for Education, which works with the specific local authority. Where there are concerns about the local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we have secured specialist special educational needs and disabilities adviser support to help identify barriers to EHCP timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.

Furthermore, when Ofsted and Care Quality Commission area SEND inspections indicate there are significant concerns with local authority performance, the Department intervenes directly. That might mean issuing an improvement notice or statutory direction or appointing a commissioner, deployment of which is considered on a case-by-case basis.

We are clear that the SEND system requires reform. We are considering options to drive improvements, including on the timeliness of support and local authority performance. We do not believe increasing the amount of published data and reporting on EHCP timeliness alone would lead to meaningful improvements in performance. We are working closely with experts on reforms. We recently appointed a strategic adviser for SEND who will play a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families, as we consider the next steps for future reform of SEND.

In response to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, I absolutely respect the intentions of his amendment and the desire to see much greater timeliness and support for children with SEND and their families. We are working incredibly hard—this is a priority within the Department for Education—to get much better outcomes. We do not believe that this amendment will achieve the desired outcome, although we share the intention behind the amendment.

[Munira Wilson]

I appreciate what the Minister is saying. I agree with her that this is not a silver bullet. This will not suddenly improve the system. This is about transparency and accountability where, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire pointed out, there are some councils that are missing the targets by such a long chalk, and is about setting out the reasons for doing so. We know in some areas that frankly NHS partners are not working constructively with local authorities to help deliver EHCPs on time.

As the Minister looks at reforming the system—and I know from my discussions with her and the Secretary of State that the Government are working hard on this—could I urge that they seriously consider this provision. It is about transparency and accountability for parents, which I think is really important.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire for the way in which he presented this clause. We share the ambition for children with special educational needs and disabilities to get much better service, from their local authority and on their education journey. We recognise there are significant challenges for those who seek to deliver that being able to do so, which is why we are looking at reform in a whole-system way. We are looking to drive mainstream inclusion within our school system and to reduce the waiting times for assessments, which we know is led by the Department of Health and Social Care. This is a cross-departmental effort involving the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, and clearly the Department for Education has a key role in achieving a much better outcome for children with special educational needs. We absolutely take away the intentions of this amendment, but would appreciate it not being pressed to a vote as part of the Bill. The conversation about special educational needs and improving the outcomes for children will, however, without doubt continue.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Catherine McKinnell]

Adjudicators’ decisions are legally binding and publicly available. Ultimately, adjudicators are appointed by the Secretary of State, who is accountable for those decisions. That responds to the question from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire about democratic accountability.

I presume that the outcome in the case that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston raises would be a legal challenge to the decision. Obviously, he and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire are testing the possible outcomes of this measure to the very limit, which comes across as rather extreme in most cases. The purpose of the clause is to simplify, clarify and make more transparent the levers that local authorities will have to set planning numbers in their area, ideally to reduce the number of challenges and issues that arise.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Other than the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Lewisham North, I am the only London MP in the room. There has been a lot of discussion about London schools and the challenges that we have, and one of the reasons why I have been listening quietly is that I have a lot of sympathy for both sets of arguments that have been put forward.

I want to pick up on the point about new schools opening in areas where there may already be surplus capacity. In defence of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, I do not think that this issue is just theoretical. I talked to a director of children’s services about a borough —it neighbours the one containing my constituency—where there is already a funding application in the pipeline for a new free school. At the same time, an academy has just decided to expand its PAN. That director of children’s services was saying, “Actually, I welcome the duty to co-operate,” but it throws up the question posed by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire: would the adjudicator urge Ministers to turn down the application for the free school because an existing academy is already expanding its PAN? I do not say that to make a political point; it is a genuine question that will need some clarity from Ministers, albeit subsequent to this debate.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady refers to a real potential scenario, although I would certainly put it in the hypothetical category at this stage. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator can only take a decision where there has been an objection. That is the point I was making. It cannot decide whether to open a school; it can take a decision only where an objection is made specifically to the adjudicator on the basis of the proposed published admission number.

Subject to the passing of this Bill, new school proposals put forward by the local authority outside the invitation process—I do not believe we have got to those clauses yet; we are coming to a whole additional debate on that—will be decided by the schools adjudicator, to avoid any conflict of interest and to ensure that any objections to the proposals are considered fairly. Obviously, it will have the legal framework within which to operate in order to make those decisions. That is an established part of the current system.

For other possible scenarios, we will provide guidance on the factors that we expect decision makers to take into account in the variety of decisions that may be required. That will be based on the existing guidance for opening new schools and will include the vision for the school, whether it is deliverable and affordable, the quality of the education, the curriculum and the staffing plans. Those are all the factors taken into account when determining the opening of a new school.

However, I appreciate the challenge on published admission numbers, in particular, being a factor to be taken into consideration. As I said, I will confirm in more detail how that might work in practice, but the fundamental point is that it will be set out in guidance. If there is a challenge to a decision by an adjudicator, that will be by way of judicial review.

Moving on, new clause 46, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, seeks to ensure that where high-performing schools, as defined in his new clause, wish to increase their published admission number, their admission authority must reflect that in the determined admission arrangements. I can reassure him that, as I have said already, this Government support good schools expanding where that is right for the local community. We understand the importance of admission authorities being able to set their own admission arrangements, including their published admission number.

Admission authorities will consider a variety of factors in arriving at the most appropriate number for their schools and must consult where they want to make changes, taking the feedback into account before they make their final decision. Where, for example, a multi-academy trust or local authority is setting the PAN for an individual school for which it is the admission authority, it is right that it takes into account the views of that school, but that can be done by informal engagement or by a formal consultation process if necessary.

The school admissions code requires governing bodies to be consulted on changes to a school’s admission arrangements where they are not the admission authority. However, that does not mean that those views should override any relevant factors, such as budgeting or staffing, that a trust, governing body or local authority, as the school’s admission authority, may need to take into consideration as part of its final decision.

If the school feels that it has not been heard and the admission authority has reduced the published admission number where the school feels it should be able to offer more places, it would be open to the school itself, like any other body or person, to object to the adjudicator for an independent resolution. We expect most issues to be resolved locally, through engagement and collaboration, and, given the existing, effective routes for schools to influence the published admission number set for them by the local authority, we do not think the new clause is necessary. For the reasons I have outlined, I would ask the hon. Gentleman not to press it.

Finally, I turn to new clause 47, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, which would prevent objections from being made against an admission authority where it proposes to increase its PAN or keep it the same as the previous year. Through clause 50 we want to ensure that the number of places on offer in an area adequately reflects the needs of the local community. As the hon. Member is aware, at present, any body or person can object to the adjudicator about a school’s determined admission arrangements, including the school’s PAN. However, current regulations have the same effect as his new clause of preventing objections where a PAN is increased or retained at the same level as the previous year. We intend to amend those regulations to allow the local authority to object to the adjudicator where a PAN has been increased or has stayed the same as in the previous year. This is intended to facilitate the measures set out in clause 50 to provide a more effective route for local authorities to object to the independent adjudicator about a school’s PAN.

The current circumstances in which the system operates are complex. In some areas there is a surplus of places, whereas in others, some admissions authorities are not offering sufficient places to ensure that all children can access a local school That means that both PAN increases and decreases can impact on the local school system in different ways, and that even where a school’s PAN has not changed from previous years, changing demographics can mean that that number no longer meets the needs of the local area. However, local authorities often lack the levers to deliver on their duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places, or to manage the school estate effectively. So, if the PAN does not work in the interests of the local community, the local authority should be able to object to the adjudicator, regardless of whether the school intends to increase, decrease or keep the same PAN, and that will ensure fairness and the most appropriate decision on the allocation of places.

Our proposed changes reflect local authorities’ important role in ensuring that there are sufficient places, and that the number of places offered in an area meets the needs of the community. That is why we are proposing a limited change to the regulations to lift this restriction only for local authorities, not for all bodies or people. The route of objection will be a last resort for local authorities. We expect local authorities and schools to work together to set PANs that are appropriate, and we will update the school admissions code to support that.

As the House has previously confirmed in passing the relevant regulations, the flexibility of the current regulations has worked well, enabling the Government of the day to be responsive to changing circumstances in the interests of parents and communities. New clause 47 would prevent the Government from exercising the flexibility provided for by the existing legislative framework, leaving local authorities with limited ability to act in the interests of the local community and seek an independent decision on the PAN of a school where they consider it does not meet the community’s needs. The changes that the Government propose to make to the regulations will of course be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

In the light of those arguments, I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw his amendment, and I commend clause 50 to the Committee.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

New clause 54 would allow academies to continue to exercise freedom in the matter of their curriculum where Ofsted is satisfied that the curriculum is broad and balanced. New clause 53 would allow ongoing curriculum freedom in academies where it is needed in the interests of improving standards. New clause 44 would extend academy freedoms to local authority maintained schools, allowing them to offer a curriculum that is different from the national curriculum, as long as it is broad and balanced and certified by Ofsted.

The imposition on all schools of the—currently being rewritten—national curriculum was raised in our evidence session right at the start of this Bill Committee. As Nigel Genders, the chief education officer of the Church of England noted:

“The complexity is that this legislation is happening at the same time as the curriculum and assessment review, so our schools are being asked to sign up to a general curriculum for everybody without knowing what that curriculum is likely to be.” ––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 64.]

There is a parallel here in that we are also being asked to sign up to sweeping reforms to the academies order at the same time as the Government are changing the accountability framework, as the hon. Member for Twickenham correctly pointed out in the Chamber yesterday. Several school leaders gave us good examples showing why it is a mistake to take away academy freedoms to vary from the national curriculum. As Sir Dan Moynihan, the leader of the incredibly successful Harris Federation, explained to us:

“We have taken over failing schools in very disadvantaged places in London, and we have found youngsters in the lower years of secondary schools unable to read and write. We varied the curriculum in the short term and narrowed the number of subjects in key stage 3 in order to maximise the amount of time given for literacy and numeracy, because the children were not able to access the other subjects. Of course, that is subject to Ofsted. Ofsted comes in, inspects and sees whether what you are doing is reasonable.

“That flexibility has allowed us to widen the curriculum out again later and take those schools on to ‘outstanding’ status. We are subject to Ofsted scrutiny. It is not clear to me why we would need to follow the full national curriculum. What advantage does that give? When we have to provide all the nationally-recognised qualifications—GCSEs, A-levels, SATs—and we are subject to external regulation by Ofsted, why take away the flexibility to do what is needed locally?” ––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 72.]

Luke Sparkes, from the also very successful Dixons Academies Trust, argued that:

“we…need the ability to enact the curriculum in a responsive and flexible way at a local level. I can see the desire to get that consistency, but there needs to be a consistency without stifling innovation.” ––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 79.]

Rebecca Leek from the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association told us:

“Anything that says, ‘Well, we are going to go slightly more with a one-size-fits-all model’—bearing in mind, too, that we do not know what that looks like, because this national curriculum has not even been written yet—is a worry. That is what I mean. If we suddenly all have to comply with something that is more uniform and have to check—‘Oh no, we cannot do that’, ‘Yes, we can do that’, ‘No, we can’t do that’, ‘Yes, we can do that’—it will impede our ability to be agile”. ––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 83.]

The Minister talked about Chesterton’s fence and gave us some lessons in Conservative history and philosophy, but I point her to the same argument: this is an example of Chesterton’s fence. These freedoms and flexibilities are there for a reason. They are there to defend us against the inflexibility of not being able to do what Sir Dan Moynihan needs to do to turn around failing schools. It is no good us saying, “Here is the perfect curriculum. Let’s go and study this incredibly advanced subject” if the kids cannot read or add up. This is a very powerful point that school leaders are making to us, one which I hope Ministers will take on board.

Since the Minister referred to a bit of Conversative history and Ken Baker’s creation of the national curriculum in the 1980s, she will of course be aware that there was a huge debate about it and a lot of concern, particularly from Mrs Thatcher, about what many described as the “nationalised curriculum”. There was concern that it would get out of hand, become too prescriptive, too bureaucratic and too burdensome. That debate will always be there, and the safety valve we have at the moment is that never since its instigation have all schools had to follow the national curriculum. Even though academies did not exist then, city technology colleges did and they did not have the follow the national curriculum. This is the first time in our whole history that every single school will have to follow it.

In relation to previous clauses, I have spoken about getting away from the dead hand of compliance culture and moving toward an achievement and innovation culture—a culture of freedom—in our schools. Pupils at Michaela Community School made the greatest progress in the whole country three years in a row—an incredible achievement—and they did that by having an incredibly distinctive and knowledge-intensive curriculum that was completely their own. Its head, Katharine Birbalsingh, has argued in an open letter to the Secretary of State:

“Clearly there needs to be a broad academic core for all children. But a rigid national curriculum that dictates adherence to a robotic, turgid and monotonous programme of learning that prevents headteachers from giving their children a bespoke offer tailored to the needs of their pupils, is quite frankly, horrifying. Anyone in teaching who has an entrepreneurial spirit, who enjoys thinking creatively about how best to address the needs of their pupils, will be driven out of the profession. Not to mention how standards will drop! High standards depend in part on the dynamism of teachers. Why would you want to kill our creativity?

Then there is the cost. Your curriculum changes will cost schools time and money. Do you have any idea of the work required from teachers and school leaders to change their curriculum? You will force heads to divert precious resources from helping struggling families to fulfil a bureaucratic whim coming from Whitehall. Why are you changing things? What is the problem you are trying to solve?”

That is a good question; perhaps the Minister can tell us the answer.

Nor is it just school leaders who are raising concerns about this clause. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) said that the proposal to make it compulsory for academies to teach the national curriculum was “of particular concern” to her. Our three new clauses reflect what school leaders have told us. We think the clause is fundamentally a bad idea, but we are trying to find a compromise.

New clause 53 responds to Sir Dan Moynihan’s point that freedom to vary from the national curriculum can be really important in turnaround situations: we cannot succeed in other things if children are unable first to read and write. New clause 54 allows freedom where schools are delivering a broad and balanced curriculum. That worries Ministers, although we heard from the head of Ofsted the other day that schools are delivering a broad and balanced curriculum, so once again it is not clear what problem Ministers are trying to solve. We do not learn the answer from the impact assessment either. If this is just about ensuring that all schools have the same freedoms, new clause 54 would give local authority schools the same freedoms as academies, but that is not what the Government are proposing.

I hope the Minister will tell us at some point what problem she is trying to solve. Where is the evidence of abuse? There is none in the impact assessment, and Ministers have not produced any at any point so far in the process. The Government’s impact assessment says that schools

“may need to hire additional or specialist teachers for any subjects not currently delivered or underrepresented in existing curricula”,

that they may need to make adjustments in their facilities, resources and materials to meet the national curriculum standards, and that they may need “additional or specialised training” to deliver the new national curriculum. It says:

“some academies may be particularly affected if their current curriculum differs significantly from the new national curriculum”.

Unfortunately, the impact assessment does not put any numbers on the impact. Will the Minister commit clearly and unambiguously to meet the costs, including for facilities, for any schools that have to incur costs as a result of this measure?

The Minister talked about Jim Callaghan’s famous phrase, his reference to a “secret garden”. We will come on to that on a later new clause, when we will advance the case against secret lessons in relationships, health and sex education. I hope the Minister will be as good as her word; I hope she is against the secret garden in that domain. On these new clauses, we hope the Minister will listen to the voices of school leaders, her own colleagues and people who are concerned about clause 41, and tell us what the problem is that the Government are trying to solve. The Government clearly like the idea of everything being the same—they like imposing the same thing on every school in the country—but what is the problem? Where is the evidence that this needs to happen? Why are Ministers not listening to serious school leaders who have turned around a lot of schools, who say that they need this freedom to turn around schools that are currently failing kids? Why do Ministers think they know better than school leaders who have already succeeded in turning around failing schools?

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. In the light of the discussion that we had before lunch, I want to put on the record that those who are questioning these measures—certainly on the Liberal Democrat Benches—are not trying to attack standards. We recognise that, like qualified teachers, the national curriculum is a very good thing for our children. It is important that children and young people have a common core. None the less, I come back to the question that I posed earlier and the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston just posed again: what is the problem that Ministers are trying to fix with clause 41?

In oral evidence, His Majesty’s chief inspector of schools, Sir Martyn Oliver, told us that there is very little evidence that academy schools are not teaching a broad and balanced curriculum. He said:

“the education inspection framework that we currently use significantly reduced the deviation of academies because it set out the need to carry out a broad and balanced curriculum…I would always want to give headteachers the flexibility to do what is right for their children”. ––[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 50, Q113.]

Given the Ofsted framework, given that our primary schools are preparing children to sit their standard assessment tests, and given that secondary schools are preparing pupils for a range of public examinations, not least GCSEs, all of which have common syllabuses, the reality on the ground is that most schools do not deviate very much from the national curriculum.

On the other hand, during the oral evidence sessions we heard that school leaders have sometimes used the freedom to deviate where children have fallen behind as a result of disadvantage, trauma, the covid pandemic or other reasons, to ensure they reach the required level to be able to engage in that broad and balanced curriculum. I ask Ministers: if an 11-year-old is struggling to read and write, does it make sense to expect them to access the full history, geography and modern languages curriculum immediately at the start of year 7? As much as I would want them to—I say this as a languages graduate who bemoans the death of modern languages in our schools—we cannot expect them to do those things until they have a basic standard of written English.

The Children’s Commissioner spoke powerfully of her own experience. She had to turn a school around by ditching the wider curriculum to get the children up to the required standard before opening up the curriculum.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

In schools that follow the national curriculum, there is nothing stopping teachers from differentiating and offering support to children who are not up to the required standard in reading and writing when they go from year 2 to year 3, for example. That happens now in thousands of schools up and down the country without issue. What is the problem with having the national curriculum in schools that would be expected to differentiate anyway?

[Munira Wilson]

I defer to the hon. Member’s expertise. He said earlier that he is a teacher—

[David Baines]

Was.

[Munira Wilson]

He was a teacher before he became an MP. School leaders are raising concerns about their freedom to deviate being taken away. They feel that they need a degree of deviation where children have fallen behind, or for good geographical reasons, or because a particular cohort needs it. I have nothing against the national curriculum—it is a very good thing.

The hon. Gentleman brings me to new clauses 65 and 66. My worry is that imposing the provision on all schools in the middle of a curriculum review means that Members of Parliament are being asked to sign all schools up to something when we do not yet know what it looks like. That is why I ask, in new clause 66, for parliamentary approval and oversight of what the curriculum review brings forward. We have no idea what the review’s outcome will be or what the Government will propose. New clause 65 would ensure that we have flexibility.

The Minister says that new clause 65 adds too much complexity to what is already in place, but I come back to my earlier point: what we are not talking about is not yet in place. The provisions will come into force once the new curriculum is implemented as a result of the review. Through my two new clauses, I am proposing a basic core curriculum to which every child is entitled, and sufficient flexibility for school leaders to respond to the needs and issues in their communities. They are the experts. The hon. Member for St Helens North is an expert because he was a teacher, but in general Members of Parliament and Ministers—I say this with all due respect—are not education experts, as far as I am aware.

I do not think it is necessarily for Whitehall to decide every element of the curriculum. My aim in the amendment is to put into legislation a basic core curriculum, with flexibility around the edges and parliamentary approval. We do not know what is coming down the tracks, but we will ask schools to implement it, so I do not think it unreasonable to expect Parliament to give approval to what comes out of the review.

I have a specific question for Ministers—one that I put to Leora Cruddas from the Confederation of School Trusts. I asked her how she thought the curriculum provisions would apply to university technical colleges, which by their nature stray quite a lot from the curriculum. I visited a great UTC in Durham in the north-east—the Minister may have visited herself—and was interested to see how much it narrows the curriculum. People might think that that is a good or a bad thing, but young people with very specific skillsets and interests have flourished in some UTCs. Will this provision apply to UTCs?

Nigel Genders, who has been quoted already, raised the same point I did—that we are being asked to make these provisions when we do not know what the curriculum will be. I respectfully ask that Ministers seriously consider new clauses 65 and 66, particularly the parliamentary oversight aspect.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The national curriculum is a vital part of our school system, but its centrality does not mean there is never space for deviation from it. A couple of hours ago I was saying that initial teacher training and qualified teacher status is a fundamental foundation of our school system, with 97% of teachers in the state education system having qualified teacher status. It was 97% in 2024, and as it happens it was also 97% in 2010. Similarly, we know that the great majority of schools follow the national curriculum the great majority of the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

We recognise the valuable contribution of UTCs in providing a distinctive technical education curriculum. However, we want to ensure that all children have access to a quality core curriculum. The curriculum and assessment review is helping us to make sure we have a broad, enriching curriculum from which every child can benefit. Once it is complete, we will work with UTCs to provide any support they need to implement the changes, because we recognise their particular offer.

[Munira Wilson]

It was me who asked about UTCs. In her answer, is the Minister suggesting that UTCs will be required to follow the full national curriculum, even if they have a very specific technical specialism?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire made a very interesting speech. As far as I could tell, it was not all entirely relevant to the clause, but it was an interesting description of a national curriculum and its purpose and core. Fundamentally, we want every child to have that basic core of rich knowledge and experience. Even if their school has a technical or other specialism, we still want them to have that curriculum. It is incumbent on us as a Government to create a curriculum and assessment framework that can accommodate variations, flexibility and innovation within the system. We will work with UTCs to ensure that the curriculum can be applied in their context.

This brings me to the question from the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about costs. As we plan the implementation of the curriculum, we will work with trusts and schools to consider what support they might need to implement the changes. That is my response to his question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

It is always a bad sign when someone has to misrepresent completely what their opponent is trying to say. Allow me to address that point directly by, once again, reading what Leora Cruddas of the Confederation of School Trusts told the Committee:

“We accept that the policy intention is one of equivalence in relation to maintained schools, but maintained schools are different legal structures from academy trusts, and we do not think that the clauses in the Bill properly reflect that. It is too broad and it is too wide. We would like to work with the Government to restrict it to create greater limits.” ––[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 81, Q169.]

That is what our amendments seek to do.

To take the temperature out of the discussion, let me say that I do not have a problem with the Government having a new power of intervention to cut across their funding agreements with academies—although that is a big step, by the way. My problem is with the completely unlimited nature of the power. I am thinking about the effect of getting away from micromanagement over time. The sixth-form college I went to had become brilliant because it had managed to use the freedoms in the 1992 reforms to take a huge step away from micromanagement, but some of the older teachers there still remembered the days when they had to ring up the town hall if they wanted the heating turned up. Imagine that absurd degree of micromanagement. Terrifyingly, some schools in Scotland are still experiencing that insane degree of micromanagement; teachers there are currently on strike because their concerns about discipline are not being taken seriously, so we can see that freedom has worked in England.

I do not think that this was the intention of the Ministers, but the drafting of the clause is far too sweeping. It gives an unlimited power. I see no reason why the Ministers should not accept the suggestion from the Confederation of School Trusts, which our amendments seek to implement, that we limit that power in certain reasonable ways. It is fine for Ministers to be able to intervene more, but we need some limits. I am sure that the current Secretary of State wants only good things, but a bad future Secretary of State should not be able to do just anything they want.

The Ministers started from a reasonable point of view, but it has gone too far. I hope that they will work with the CST to turn the unlimited power into a limited one. Perhaps they will even accept our amendments, which would do exactly that.

[Munira Wilson]

I was going to say largely the same as the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, although I think he was exaggerating slightly in suggesting that the power will lead to local authorities telling schools whether or not they can switch their heating on and off.

[Neil O’Brien]

I did not say that.

[Munira Wilson]

There was that suggestion.

[Neil O’Brien]

No, I said that that happened in the ’80s.

[Munira Wilson]

All right. I have a lot of sympathy with amendments 88 and 89, and I agree that the drafting of the clause seems at odds with the explanatory notes. There is a potential overreach of the Secretary of State’s powers over schools, so I look forward to hearing what the Minister can say to temper what is in the Bill. I have no problem ideologically with what I think are the Ministers’ intentions; it is just that the drafting seems to allow a level of overreach and micromanagement from Whitehall, which I think we all wish to avoid.

[Damian Hinds]

Clause 43 will give the Secretary of State a power to direct specific actions to comply with duties, rather than just specifying what those duties are. That is what brings it into a different category. It is a much wider set of powers than we would find in a funding agreement. In principle, it appears to include the power to dictate how individual schools are run, which is not to say that the present Ministers would ever do so.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, is there a mechanism to challenge or appeal a decision made in that way? Secondly, has the Department assessed how much extra work will be involved for it as a result of handling more complaints?

I want to say a little about academies and maintained schools in general. There is no conflict. Defending academy freedoms and what academies can do does not mean pushing down on maintained schools. I have had children at both, and I have both in my constituency. In fact, East Hampshire is relatively unacademised: particularly at primary level, it has a relatively small number of schools that are academies. I love them all, because they are places where children learn, but none of that takes away from the fact that the freedoms and flexibilities afforded to academies are good things to have.

On the question of academic studies, as with grammar schools or various other debates, I could find an academic who could give us any answer we want. In fairness, causality is really hard to prove with these things. What I can tell the Minister, however, is that I have a graph. He may have seen it; if not, I will be happy to send him a copy. It is a U-shaped graph of the performance of schools in England relative to their peers in other countries; it relates to the PISA study, but there are equivalents for PIRLS and TIMSS.

The graph shows how remarkably school performance in England has improved over the past decade and a half. Nobody should ever claim that a single factor causes these things, but a fundamental vehicle for schools improvement in that time—alongside the hub network and established and proven methods such as maths mastery and phonics—was the ability for schools to convert to academies, and for academy trusts to spread good practice through our system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

I am trying to get the Minister to de-conflate her own statistics. The Government want to present the statistic in a deliberately conflated way and I am trying to get it de-conflated. This is the Government’s statistic; I am not offering it. I would like to have some sense from them of how many schools—they must have the figure to make the claim—are going to go through structural interventions so that we can compare the future regime to the previous regime. The Ministers are the ones making the claim that this will intervene on more schools; I am not claiming that. I think it is reasonable to ask for the numbers behind the Government’s own claims, which they did not have to make.

There is an irony behind all this. Ministers have said that they worry about having different types of schools and they want things in the system to be generally more consistent. Currently, the school system is a sort of halfway house: about 80% of secondary schools are now academies, but fewer than half of primaries are—so just over half of state schools are now academies; most academies are in a trust and so on.

In the absence of this Bill we were gradually moving over time, in an organic way, to get to a consistent system based on academies and trusts, which would then at some point operate on the same framework. But the Bill effectively freezes that halfway: it is ending the academisation order and enabling local authorities to open more new schools again. I have never been quite clear about why Ministers want a situation where they do not end up with an organic move to a single system but remain with the distinction between academies and local authority maintained schools, particularly given the drive for consistency elsewhere in the Bill.

In the past, there have been people in the Government who have held anti-academies views, or at least been prepared to bandwagon with anti-academies campaigners on the left. When running for leadership of the Labour party, the Prime Minister said:

“The academisation of our schools is centralising at its core and it has fundamentally disempowered parents, pupils and communities.”

That was not long ago; there he was, on the bandwagon with the anti-academies people.

Likewise, the Deputy Prime Minister said she wanted to stop academy conversion and

“scrap the inefficient free school programme”.

We talked about the evidence that those programmes worked when Labour Members asked for it. The Deputy Prime Minister said that the free schools programme is inefficient, but the average Progress 8 score of a free school is 0.25. That is a fantastic score, getting a quarter of a grade better across all subjects, which is beating the national average. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister thought was so inefficient, but the opposite is the truth. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are not the only ones: the Culture Secretary spoke at an anti-academies conference. The Energy Secretary said that free schools were the last thing we need—but actually, for many kids they are the first. When Ministers in this Government say that they just want more options, and that they are still prepared to fight all the usual suspects to put failing schools under new management—even where left-wing local campaigns are against it—we start from a bit of a sceptical position, because of the relatively recent comments made by senior Ministers.

We do not have to imagine the future. The other day, we saw a choice: we saw a straw in the wind. Glebefields primary school in Tipton was issued with an academy order after being rated less than good twice. The DFE previously told Glebefields that the Education Secretary did not believe the case met the criteria to revoke academisation, despite the change of policy before us. The school threatened legal action and the Secretary of State changed her mind. I worry that there will be many such cases, as well as court cases, and that too many children will find themselves in schools that are failing them, and in need of new management that they will not get.

Ultimately, our amendments seek to limit the damage of this clause, but fundamentally we think that it is a mistake. We worry that, in a few years’ time, Ministers will realise what some of their Back-Bench colleagues already realise: why this clause is a big mistake.

[Munira Wilson]

On clause 44, Liberal Democrats have long supported the position that a failing school, or one that Ofsted has identified as requiring intervention, should not automatically be made an academy. That is our long-standing policy position, so when the Bill was published I welcomed that measure.

However, I felt the need to table amendments because, as I stated yesterday in the Chamber, I was concerned that we were being asked to take away the automatic provision of issuing an academy order without knowing what the school inspection regime would be, and were therefore being asked to legislate in a vacuum. I still think that it is wrong that this legislation started to be considered before we had yesterday’s announcements, but I recognise that the Government have now made them.

I was quite taken, in the oral evidence session, in which we heard from various witnesses, not least by Sir Jon Coles, who said he would like to see what Government policy is underpinning this particular measure, and what the Government’s school improvement policy is. I think the jury is still out on what we heard yesterday, but the fact that we have had a policy announcement negates, to some extent, amendment 95 in my name. It sought to ensure that there was something in place, so that if there were not an automatic academy order, the Secretary of State would invite bids from successful academy trusts that had a track record of turning schools around.

I say to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston that academisation is not a silver bullet. He has enjoyed quoting many times the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, who spoke out against her own Front Bench, but she even said herself on Radio 4 in the interview that he cited—which I listened to very carefully on the day it was broadcast—that academisation is not a silver bullet. I have not seen it in my own constituency, but I note that the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) pointed out on Second Reading that she worked in areas in the north-west where there were some schools with very vulnerable pupils that had not been improved by being switched from academy trust to academy trust. Clearly, it is not always the correct answer. I therefore think it is important that Ministers set out the whole range of options that are available to ensure that we can turn schools around—and turn them around quickly—because our children deserve the best possible opportunities to flourish and thrive.

Some questions were posed on that yesterday, and I am sure that Ministers will address it over the coming weeks—although I welcome comments today—but, with the RISE teams that are being put in place, the number of advisers is really quite small for the number of schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

The hon. Lady, in her speech, is talking a lot of sense. I would just point out to her that in the last Parliament, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, per-pupil funding, in real terms, went up by 11%. There will always be constraints. Indeed, the current Ministers have cut the academisation grant and the trust improvement capacity fund, and cut Latin, maths, computing, and physics support; lots of things have been cut. In fairness, schools funding, per pupil, went up a lot faster in the last Parliament than it did in 2010 to 2015, when the hon. Lady’s party was in government. But there are always—[Interruption.]

[Munira Wilson]

I am very happy to respond to that. The hon. Gentleman will know full well—[Interruption.] Sorry; if the hon. Gentleman wishes to make these party political jibes, I am very happy to come back at him on them. In 2010 to 2015, it was the Liberal Democrats in government who made sure that schools’ day-to-day funding was not cut. We were responsible for introducing the pupil premium, which, post 2015, was never uprated.

[Neil O'Brien]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[Munira Wilson]

In a moment. I will make this point, because I wanted to pick up on it in the oral evidence session when people were asking questions about attainment, but we ran out of time. The pupil premium was a Liberal Democrat front-page manifesto policy in 2010. That was implemented and it has helped disadvantaged pupils. After 2015 it was not uprated in line with inflation, and that is why our disadvantaged children up and down the country are now getting less money, in real terms, to support their education. We have seen a widening attainment gap since covid in particular.

So, I will take no lectures from the Conservative Benches on supporting disadvantaged pupils. It was our policy on free school meals, and our policy on the pupil premium, that came to bear. Actually, it was after 2015 that we saw funding cuts. The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston boasted that per-pupil funding was raised; the Conservatives only got it back to 2010 levels by the time they left government in 2024. I am sure that Members across this room, when they visit their schools, will hear stories about the funding pressures.

[Neil O'Brien]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Munira Wilson]

I think we are diverging somewhat from the clause and the amendments.

[Tom Hayes]

rose—

[Munira Wilson]

I will give way only if it relates to the clause and the amendments, because I fear we have veered on to school funding, as opposed to academy orders.

[Tom Hayes]

I was going to show some solidarity with the hon. Lady, which she may find useful. This is my second Bill Committee—the first was on water—and if it is any consolation to the hon. Lady, the Conservative spokespeople blamed 14 years of water mismanagement on the five years of coalition with the Liberal Democrats in that Committee, too. My question is, would she agree that, actually, it is unfair to blame the Liberal Democrats for 14 years of education failure, given that they were only in coalition for five of those failing years?

[Munira Wilson]

I think it is unfair because, as I have pointed out, we saw the most damaging cuts, and the lack of keeping up with inflation—in terms of schools funding—from 2015 onwards. As Liberals, it is core to our DNA to champion education, because we recognise that that is the route out of poverty and disadvantage for everyone. No matter someone’s background, that is how they flourish in life. That is why we had such a big focus on education when we were in government. Sadly, we never saw that level of focus after we left government.

I return to clause 44 and the amendments in my name. I share some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about judicial reviews. I do not share his concerns far enough to support his amendment, because a judicial review is sometimes an important safety valve in all sorts of decision making, but I recognise what he says: that all sorts of campaigns and judicial reviews could start up. Just the other day, I was talking to a former Minister who has been involved in a London school that needs turning around; they have had all sorts of problems in making the necessary changes, and were subject to a judicial review, which the governing body and those involved won. I recognise and share the shadow Minister’s concerns, and I look forward to hearing how the Minister will address them, but putting a bar on all JRs in primary legislation is possibly overreach.

[Amanda Martin]

I want to comment on judicial reviews. Opposition Members will be aware that the previous Government’s long-standing policy of issuing academisation orders to schools with two RIs was not in fact a duty, but can they set out on how many occasions those would have been challenged through a judicial review? Rather than them taking the time, I can tell them that there were numerous judicial reviews that held up the changes that we would have wanted to make, whether regarding governance or a change in leadership. The clause allows local authorities and local areas to choose which way to go.

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Lady posed a question and answered it herself, so I shall move on.

My amendment 95 is perhaps made redundant by yesterday’s announcements, but amendment 96 talks about parliamentary oversight. That comes back to the fundamental point that I made in the Chamber yesterday, which is that we will end up passing the Bill before we see the outcome of the consultations from Ofsted and the Government on school improvement. I therefore humbly ask Ministers to at least allow Parliament to have sight of what will replace the power that is being amended, our support for which is of long standing.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Amendment 80 would retain the existing duty to issue an academy order where a school is judged to be in a category of concern by Ofsted. However, it provides an exemption to the duty in cases where the Secretary of State is unable to identify a suitable sponsor trust for the school.

Amendment 81 would not alter the repeal of the existing duty to issue academy orders to schools in a statutory category of concern; it would replace it with a duty to issue an academy order to schools assessed as requiring significant improvement or assessed by a RISE team to be significantly underperforming in comparison with their peers. Where a school is judged as requiring special measures, the Secretary of State would have a choice as to whether to issue an academy order, to deploy a RISE team or to use another intervention measure.

The amendments acknowledge the spirit of our proposal, which is to repeal the duty to issue academy orders and so to provide more flexibility to take the best course of action for each school. We recognise that in some cases the existing leadership of a failing school is strong and, with the right support, has the capacity to improve the school. Repealing the duty to issue an academy order means that in such cases we will have the flexibility to provide targeted support to schools, for example through RISE teams, to drive school improvement without the need to change the school’s leadership. I acknowledge the spirit of amendments 80 and 81 and the support for greater flexibility, but they would undermine the objective of enabling greater flexibility when intervening in failing schools. I therefore ask the hon. Members not to press them.

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[Munira Wilson]

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 45, page 104, line 17, at end insert—

“(za) in subsection (1)(a), after ‘the’ insert ‘minimum’”.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 45 and 46 stand part.

Government amendment 93.

New clause 7—Power to prescribe pay and conditions for teachers—

“The Secretary of State must, within three months of the passing of this Act—

(a) make provision for the power of the governing bodies of maintained schools to set the pay and working conditions of school teachers to be made equivalent with the relevant powers of academies;

(b) provide guidance to all applicable schools that—

(i) pay levels given in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document are to be treated as the minimum pay of relevant teachers;

(ii) teachers may be paid above the pay levels given in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.

(iii) they must have regard to the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document but may vary from it in the best interests of their pupils and staff.”

This new clause would make the pay set out in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document a floor, and extend freedoms over pay and conditions to local authority maintained schools.

Government new clause 57—Pay and conditions of Academy teachers.

Government new schedule 1—Pay and conditions of Academy teachers: amendments to the Education Act 2002.

[Munira Wilson]

Amendment 47 would, very simply, make the Secretary of State’s recommendations on pay and conditions a minimum for all schools, whether maintained or academy schools, as the Secretary of State and Ministers have now confirmed was their intention with the Bill. I note that, since I tabled this, new schedule 1 has been tabled. I question why we need a separate order-making power, with all the complexities set out in the new schedule—I am sure the Minister will address that—but I think we are at one in saying that the recommendations should be a floor not a ceiling.

I return once again to the data laid out in the House of Commons Library document on the Bill, which suggests that there is very little variation in pay between maintained schools and academies. Again, I am not 100% sure why we need the new schedule; I just think we should have a floor for all schools. I think it is great that where schools have the means, they are able to pay a premium to attract teachers in shortage subjects, challenging areas or schools that may have had their challenges, but, as we all know, the reality is that most schools are massively strapped for cash—most headteachers and governors I speak to say that. The idea that they are all going to be able to pay a premium is for the birds. None the less, those schools that are able to should absolutely have that freedom.

[Neil O’Brien]

We have been on quite a journey on this clause. At the Education Committee on 15 January, the Secretary of State said that critics of the Bill were confused. She said:

“It has become clear to me that there has been some confusion and some worry about what I have said in this area, so today I want to be absolutely clear that all schools will have full flexibility to innovate with a floor and no ceiling on what that means.”

The fact that, subsequent to that, we have pages and pages of Government amendments to their own Bill suggests pretty powerfully that it was not school leaders and critics of the Bill who were confused.

This is a very significant measure. The impact assessment notes that an Employer Link survey conducted in 2021 found that over 28% of employers varied in some way from the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. Freedoms have been quite widely used. As Sir Jon Coles said in evidence to this Committee, just because people are using the freedoms does not necessarily mean that they know they are using them. Some of the innovations are great—they are things we all want for our teachers and schools. For example, United Learning, Jon Coles’s trust, was paying 6.5% on top of the national pay and conditions to retain good people. Dixons was innovating with a really interesting nine-day fortnight, so that teachers in really tough areas got more preparation time. This is really powerful innovation that we do not want to take away.

The Secretary of State called for a floor not a ceiling and said that she wanted

“that innovation and flexibility to be available to all schools regardless of type.”

We think that is a good principle and we agree about extending it to all schools. That is why our new clause 7 would extend freedoms over pay and conditions to local authority maintained schools as well. Given that the Government said previously that it would be good to have the same freedoms for everybody, we assume that they will accept the new clause so that we can have the floor not a ceiling for everybody, not just academies.

If a floor not a ceiling is right for teachers, surely it is right in principle for the other half of the schools workforce. Surely, school support staff—actually, they are the majority of the workforce in schools—are not worth any less than teachers, and the same principles should apply to them. This is critical. Lots of trusts are using the advantages of scale to make back-office savings and efficiencies, and ploughing them back into additional benefits and pay to support really good staff. I hope that Ministers will support our new clause 64, when we come to it, and accept that the principle that they have applied to teachers should apply to everybody else in our schools, too.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady has made her point. I will not comment on individual circumstances or individual trust leaders—I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to do so. But she has made her point and it is an important one that is reflected in the processes in the Academy Trust Handbook and the processes that are in place regarding these issues. We will keep it under review as a Department. Obviously the changes that we are bringing will have an impact in terms of setting a more equal balance between the approaches of academies and maintained schools in pay and conditions. That is the intention of the clause.

I hope I have set out clearly how our amendments to the existing clause 45 and subsequent secondary legislation will deliver on our commitment to a floor with no ceiling. It will enable good practice and innovation to continue and will be used by all state schools to recruit and retain the best teachers that they need for our children. I therefore urge members of the Committee to support the amendments, but in this context the current clause 45 should not stand part of the Bill.

[Munira Wilson]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 45 disagreed to.

[The Chair]

So clause 45 does not stand part of the Bill. Does clause 46 stand part of the Bill?

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[Munira Wilson]

I warmly welcome the provision in clause 47. The Liberal Democrats have long called for far greater co-operation between local authorities and schools on admissions and place planning. This is even more important now as we see falling school rolls, which is a particularly acute problem in London. It is the case in other parts of the country as well, but in my own local authority, eight reception classes were closed in primary schools in, I think, the last academic year. At the moment, we have high demand for our secondaries and falling demand for our primaries. Over the years, that will feed through into secondary schools, which is where most of our academies sit. We must ensure that academies or schools are working with the local authority on place planning. Having a massive surplus of places in such a cash-constrained environment is neither realistic or desirable.

I would add just one caveat from talking to the Confederation of School Trusts and the evidence we heard from Sir John Coles. They all welcome this particular provision, but Sir John Coles said that schools and local authorities need clear guidance on how this will work in practice. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what guidance will be issued.

[Ellie Chowns]

I too absolutely welcome this new duty to co-operate. It is really important in the context of the problems that competition over people’s heads has led to. I am, however, like others, a bit concerned about the vagueness of the way that it is specified in the legislation. I feel that it does not make it clear enough what the duty to co-operate actually means. Would the Minister consider making it more clear, such as specifying that the local authority becomes the admissions authority for all schools in the area? Would the Government also consider reforming the legacy of partial selection that is still there for some schools? Arguably, we should reform aptitude-based tests and other admissions tests, which evidence shows have led to inequalities in admissions.