Oral Answers to Questions
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Thank you, Mr Speaker—I will clear my throat. Maintained nursery schools support some of our most disadvantaged children, and they do experience higher costs than other providers. We will therefore be providing local authorities with supplementary funding of about £60 million a year up to 2020.
Matthew Pennycook
With the two-year transitional funding ending soon and the comprehensive spending review not expected until the summer, maintained nursery schools in my constituency are desperately struggling to plan and budget for the future. Until secure and sustainable funding arrangements are put in place, will the Minister at least commit to further additional transitional funding to protect maintained nurseries across England?
Nadhim Zahawi
The early years national funding formula for Greenwich has increased from £4.86 in 2016-17 to a provisional £6.17 in 2018-19. On top of this, in 2018-19, Greenwich will receive about £690,000 for its three maintained nurseries. My message to all local authorities is: do not do anything premature but wait for the spending review.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The law is clear: only children who are suffering, or at risk of suffering, significant harm receive child protection interventions. When it comes to support for children and families with wider needs, the statutory safeguarding guidance is also clear: local authorities should make a range of services available, including early help.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Looked-after children in secure accommodation have been subjected to more than 30,000 hours in solitary confinement over the past five years, in some cases for up to 23 hours a day. Leading medical experts have called for the Government to cease the practice immediately. Will the new secure academy schools be adopting it, and why is the Minister allowing such a contravention of children’s human rights to continue apace?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady has raised an important issue, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also sought to address, and of which there has been some media coverage. Looked-after children are our responsibility: we are, ultimately, their parents. This is wrong, and should not be happening.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Nadhim Zahawi
I echo the Secretary of State’s words; he has put on the record that every school should be a special educational needs and disability school. Investment in SEND has risen by £1 billion since 2013 to £6 billion. We have opened 34 new special free schools and 55 special free schools are due to open. In July, we gave local authorities the opportunity to bid for new special alternative provision schools in their areas.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Sixty-four per cent. of maintained nursery schools are in deprived areas, such as Sandbank in my constituency. Will the Minister give special consideration to this fact when deciding future funding?
Nadhim Zahawi
We will certainly give that point special consideration. We are working with the sector to look at the additional value that it provides, and I thank all local authorities who are helping us with the work to look at the economic model before the SR.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
There was not a single penny in the Budget for further education—a sector that has lost a quarter of its funding since 2010. What does the Minister say to Greenhead College, which serves my constituency and has written to me to say that it fears it will not be able to provide the education that our young people deserve if cuts continue?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Was the Minister as concerned as I was when Warwickshire County Council recently brought forward a strategy document stating that dyslexia would not constitute a special educational need? Is he as pleased as I am that that document has now been withdrawn?
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State share my concern and that of Members across the House that The Observer identified a £195 million overspend by councils on high needs in the last year? Will he actually respond to my request that he agreed to in the summer to meet me to discuss special educational needs and problems in Derbyshire?
Nadhim Zahawi
We recognise that local authorities are facing cost pressures on high needs, and I assure the hon. Lady that we are monitoring the impact of our high needs national funding formula on local authority spending decisions. We are also keeping our overall level of funding under review in the context of the next spending review.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating our schools, rather than running them down, on the excellent work they did around Remembrance Day parades this weekend? Across the country, schools did fantastic exhibitions. I do not know about other Members, but I saw more children on Remembrance Day parades this year than I have ever seen before, and I am sure that that has a lot to do with the schools.
Holiday Hunger Schemes
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) on securing this important debate. I know that she is passionate about this matter and was instrumental in establishing the Fit and Fed pilot scheme in Stoke-on-Trent in 2017. I will embarrass myself by attempting the accent, but hearing about Ay Up Duck was truly inspiring.
I also thank the many colleagues who have spoken. I think the local paper of the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) is already writing the headline, “The Sandwich Lady has DVLA on her hit list”. I have to say that for her, her team and her constituents to have delivered 10,000 meals this summer is truly admirable. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) contributed, and I am grateful for her courtesy in sending me a note to explain why she was slightly delayed in joining the debate. There were also many interventions from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is no longer here. I did not agree with all of them, but some were worth noting, including those on his work in local government.
I reiterate the Government’s commitment to delivering a country that really does work for everyone. For most children, the school holidays should mean fun experiences and a chance to make memories with friends and family. We want to make sure that those opportunities are available to all children, regardless of their background.
Let me first set out what the Government have done on our key priority of tackling poverty and disadvantage. In 2017, we published the “Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families” strategy, which focused on measures to tackle the root causes of poverty and to improve children’s welfare. For most people, work represents the best route out of poverty. Unemployment has not been lower since 1975, and the proportion of workless households is at its lowest since records began.
However, we recognise that there is more to do. One of the Government’s guiding principles is to promote social mobility and to ensure equality of opportunity for every child. My Department plays a leading role in ensuring that a package of support for disadvantaged children is in place to help them reach their full potential.
We recognise the benefits of providing healthy food to disadvantaged children. Through our free school meals policy, more than 1.1 million disadvantaged children currently benefit from a free meal at school. In September 2014, we extended that to include disadvantaged further education students—that has not been raised in the debate, but it was clearly an area that we needed to extend to policy to—and to give free school meals to all children in reception and years 1 and 2 in England’s state-funded schools.
To get the best out of their time at school, children need a healthy breakfast. We have invested up to £26 million from the soft drinks industry levy to support the national school breakfast programme, delivered by Family Action and Magic Breakfast. Through that programme, we will set up or improve more than 1,700 breakfast clubs in the most disadvantaged areas of our country, focusing on our 12 opportunity areas. Last week, I visited St Mary’s Primary School in Battersea, 50% of whose children are on pupil premium, and saw for myself the advantage of a nutritious breakfast and activities, whether we are talking about maths, English or just running around the yard. One bonus, one upside, that the headteacher told me about was that attendance had increased.
I shall now talk about the subject of this debate—the holiday activities and food programme of work that my Department has committed to. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North that “holiday hunger” is the wrong title, which is why I prefer to talk about holiday activities and food. Earlier this year, in response to the private Member’s Bill mentioned by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and promoted by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), I announced work to investigate how to support the most disadvantaged children to access free healthy food and enriching activities during the school holidays. The purpose of that is to allow us to gather more evidence about the scale of the issue, the most effective ways of tackling it, and the costs and burdens associated with doing so. As a result, we will be able to make an evidence-based decision about whether and how we should intervene in the longer term.
As part of our 2018 programme of work, my officials have reviewed the available research evidence and engaged with national and local delivery partners. We have learned that the evidence base for the schemes, although still in its infancy, shows that they can have a positive impact on children and their families. We have learned that the most effective forms of provision seem to be those that deliver consistent and easily accessible activities and involve children and parents in the preparation of healthy food. Throughout that programme of work, we have engaged with those on the ground delivering this type of provision, those building the evidence base and those supporting providers. I am referring to people such as Carol Shanahan—she is absolutely brilliant and truly an inspiration and, alongside the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, set up the Stoke-on-Trent pilot in 2017—Lindsay Graham and Professor Greta Defeyter.
Our stakeholders have told us that providers want to work better with other stakeholders to improve targeting and referrals, and link up with other people who could support them, such as food providers. They told us that they want greater co-ordination across the sector to help to raise awareness of provision and to ensure that provision exists where it is most needed, so it is targeted. Providers need support to improve the quality of provision through the introduction of minimum standards, guidance, training and support. I think you will agree, Mr Stringer, that this is enormously powerful stuff.
In March, I announced a £2 million fund to support organisations to deliver healthy food and activities to children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the country during the 2018 summer holidays. We awarded funding to seven organisations, which told us that, with that money, they were able to support about 280 clubs—including three in Stoke-on-Trent—reaching about 18,000 children. The information that we have gathered from the projects—from data on attendance reported by the projects, from visits to a small sample of clubs and from conversations with the organisations that we have funded—has helped us enormously in thinking about how we as a Government can add value in our 2019 programme.
We have today published figures evaluating the performance of the clubs. I am aware that there was some confusion about the number of people helped by the programme. Today’s figures relate to the number of children who have been helped by the scheme. They show that thousands of children—approximately 18,000—have benefited from the programme. In July, a figure of 30,000 was used. However, for one supplier, the figure estimated the number of times that children would be helped by the programme, so it was slightly misleading. I wanted to set the record straight on that.
We will be able to say more about what we have learned from the 2018 projects later this autumn when we announce our plans for the 2019 programme, but for me, the key messages from the projects that we funded this summer have been as follows. First, I want to pay tribute to and thank all the staff and volunteers involved in the clubs for what they achieved with limited time, resources and people. Secondly, there was huge variation in the types of provision on offer. For example, some clubs were open all day, every day over the holidays, but others opened for an hour or two over lunch a couple of days a week; my officials saw clubs in a range of venues that offered a range of activities. Thirdly, we want to preserve that variety and ensure that clubs can operate in a way that responds to the needs of those attending. However, it was clear that there are areas where the sector needs support and where a more strategic and co-ordinated approach could add real value and achieve real efficiencies, and that is what we want to focus on during the 2019 programme.
As an example of where greater support and co-ordination could help, I would like to focus for a while on the food aspect of provision. Many clubs benefited from having the facilities, knowledge, experience and volunteers to be able to prepare and cook delicious, healthy and nutritious food and snacks. Others had arrangements with providers such as Brakes’ Meals & More, which delivered healthy and nutritious food to them, saving them time in the kitchen. However, other clubs were not so lucky. My officials visited clubs with no on-site catering facilities and clubs that relied on food donations through schemes such as FareShare. That meant that it was sometimes harder for them to provide a varied menu of healthy and nutritious meals across the summer holidays. Healthy meals are so important if we are to tackle issues such as childhood obesity, which has been mentioned and which disproportionately affects children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead has just joined us in the Chamber. It is a privilege to have you here, sir. You were namechecked earlier in my remarks.
We intend to do much more next year to support clubs to deliver the healthy and nutritious food that is the key to supporting children’s health and learning, as well as to tackling obesity. Throughout 2018 we have listened and learned and, as a result, for our 2019 programme we are exploring options for establishing a grant fund. I think that this was one of the questions asked by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. We are looking to establish a grant fund to set up local co-ordinators of free holiday provision for disadvantaged children in a number of local authority areas across the country. Our plans are not yet confirmed, but we envisage that those co-ordinators will fund, support and promote free holiday provision in their area, aiming to ensure that there is enough to meet demand—one of the issues raised by the hon. Lady—to improve its quality, to increase awareness, promotion and targeting and to implement a more efficient and joined-up approach locally.
The hon. Lady also mentioned safeguarding, which I know many groups find challenging. We recognise the importance of safeguarding and are looking at how local co-ordinators can support providers on that, including through the use of minimum standards. We will also look at how we can disseminate best practice after the 2019 programme. As I said, the plans are not yet confirmed and we will look to publish further information about the 2019 programme and invite organisations to bid to become involved later this autumn.
Before concluding, I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Members for Glasgow Central, for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East on universal credit. A strong economy is the best route to raising living standards and giving everyone people the opportunity to make the most of their talents and hard work, no matter who they are or where they live. Since 2010, we have supported nearly 3.4 million more people into work. That is more than 1,000 people a day, every day, producing a record rate of employment and, as I mentioned earlier, the lowest unemployment since the 1970s. The introduction of universal credit will mean an extra 200,000 people moving into work, because work will always pay. It will add £8 billion per year to the economy when fully rolled out. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East mentioned disabled people. Around 1 million disabled households receive an average of around £110 more per month under universal credit.
In conclusion, I again thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North for securing this debate, highlighting this important issue and speaking with pride about the team in her constituency who have delivered above and beyond. We know that the school holidays can be particular pressure points for some families. I think this afternoon’s debate has spanned our approach to tackling disadvantage more generally, as well as some of the specifics about work we have undertaken on support for disadvantaged children during the school holidays.
I am fully committed to taking forward work to explore how we can support disadvantaged children and their families during the school holidays, to complement the Government’s package of support in schools for disadvantaged children. That will ensure that all children have access to healthy food and are engaged and invigorated after the school holidays, so that they are ready for the new term.
I hope that I have left enough time for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North to wrap up.
Education
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I also remind hon. Members that childcare providers do not have to offer the free 30 hours —that is entirely up to them—although, since the roll-out of 30 hours of free childcare, we have seen a sizeable majority of providers increasing the number of free hours available to parents, with no evidence of an impact on their funding.
[Official Report, 10 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 102WH.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi):
An error has been identified in my contribution to the Westminster Hall debate on Nursery Sector: Sustainability.
The correct contribution should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
I also remind hon. Members that childcare providers do not have to offer the free 30 hours —that is entirely up to them—although, since the roll-out of 30 hours of free childcare, we have seen a sizeable majority of providers increasing the number of free hours available to parents, with no evidence of an impact on other funded provision.
Nursery Sector: Sustainability
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on a very thoughtful speech and on securing this important debate. We have heard some important contributions from both sides of the House, and I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to set out both the Government’s position on childcare support and our priority of ensuring that hard-working parents are able to access high-quality provision.
Evidence suggests that high-quality childcare supports children’s development, as many colleagues have said, and prepares young children for school. Affordable and convenient childcare gives parents the ability to balance work and family life, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of a job, safe in the knowledge that their children are in good hands. That is why—I am very proud of this fact—this Government are investing more in childcare than any other Government. By 2019-20, we will be spending around £6 billion a year on childcare support. That includes an extra £1 billion a year to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and pay our higher funding rates.
The Secretary of State and I announced that we have committed a further £30 million of capital funding to build more school-based nursery places in the most deprived areas. That supports our commitment to social mobility, ensuring that we provide more quality places for those that will benefit the most. We are also providing additional funding, worth around £60 million per year, to support maintained nursery schools at least until 2019-20. Time permitting, I will return to maintained nurseries in response to some of the comments from colleagues.
All three and four-year-olds, along with disadvantaged two-year-olds, are able to access 15 hours a week of free early education. We have just celebrated the first year since doubling the childcare entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week. The childcare service, which is the online application for 30 hours of free childcare, along with the information available through the Childcare Choices website and the childcare calculator, have helped 340,000 children to take advantage of more high-quality childcare and put savings of up to £5,000 back in their parents’ pockets. That is something to be celebrated.
The recent independent evaluation of the 30 hours free childcare found that over a quarter of parents reported that they had increased their working hours, and 15% of parents said they would not be working without the extended hours. One parent interviewed for the evaluation also noted the wider benefits, which sometimes go unnoticed, of being able to work more:
“By doing four days now instead of three...my company looks at my development and progression in a way that they wouldn’t if I was only doing three days”.
That is great news which genuinely demonstrates the real and valuable impact of 30 hours. At a celebration, I met one parent who came up to me and said, “I just want to thank you for this. We are not the poorest family in the country, but we are certainly not rich. The 30 hours have allowed my wife to retrain in accountancy and she has got a job in that sector.” Those are real lives that are being impacted by a policy that is truly delivering on the ground.
Nadhim Zahawi
I have so many things to say. The hon. Lady made a thoughtful speech, and I will try to get through as many of the questions asked by her and other colleagues as possible. I hope she will forgive me for not giving way.
In this research, parents also reported wider benefits for their families: a fantastic 86% thought that their child was better prepared for school, and 79% felt that their family’s quality of life had improved. The recently published “Study of Early Education and Development” report evidenced the beneficial impacts of high-quality early education for all children aged two to four on both cognitive and socio-emotional development at the age of four.
The introduction of 30 hours has been a large- scale transformational programme, and change can be challenging for everyone. But we have seen tens of thousands of providers respond magnificently—I want to thank them for that—because of their ongoing commitment to helping families. The evaluation of 30 hours found that three quarters of providers were willing and able to deliver the extended hours, with no negative impacts on their provision or on sufficiency of childcare places. As we have heard from colleagues’ local experiences, the childcare market in England consists of a diverse range of provider types, allowing parents to have choice over their childcare provider. The supply of childcare in England is generally of high quality, with strong indications that existing supply is able to meet parental demand for Government-funded entitlements.
Nearly 80,000 private childcare providers were registered with Ofsted in March this year, and we know that nearly 10,000 school-based providers offer early years childcare. While there are, of course, sad examples of providers closing—as some hon. Members have shared—there is no evidence of widespread closures in the non-domestic childcare market. [Interruption.] Well, let me share the Ofsted data if hon. Members do not believe me. The Ofsted data published in June 2018 showed that the number of childcare places has remained stable since 2012. It is normal for providers to join and leave the Ofsted register, as it is a private market, and it can happen for a variety of reasons.
Most significantly, we have not heard via local authorities, from hon. Members or in the media of eligible parents being unable to find a 30-hours place or a place for any of the free entitlements.
Tracy Brabin
I am so grateful to the Minister for giving way. He says that there is no evidence of parents not being able to access the 30 hours. I have spoken to providers and nursery owners who say that they are not offering 30 hours at all.
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is up to providers whether they want to offer the 30 hours or not. That is a choice for them to make, but we have seen no evidence of parents being unable to find a place.
As important as the availability of a place is, I am also pleased, and in many ways delighted, that the quality of childcare providers remains high, with more than nine in 10 rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. In January 2018, over 1.2 million children under the age of five were receiving funded early education in settings rated good or outstanding by Ofsted.
We continue to support growth in the childcare sector. We have already invested £100 million in a capital fund to create extra high-quality childcare places in all provider types. We continue to work with councils to support the providers who deliver our free entitlements, through initiatives such as the £7.7 million delivery support fund and through our delivery contractor, Childcare Works.
I was not going to mention the NAO report or Frontier Economics, but I am pleased that the shadow Minister commended the thorough and wide-ranging review that the NAO report mentions—we will say a bit more about that later. Over the next year, Childcare Works will continue to work with local authorities to raise awareness and to support childcare providers to deliver the Government’s childcare entitlements, including the 30-hours offer.
The Government have introduced a range of business rate reforms and measures, which will be worth more than £10 billion by 2023—my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West mentioned the issues to do with business rates—such as raising the rateable value threshold for 100% relief from £6,000 to £12,000, which means that about 655,000 small businesses pay no business rates at all. A package of support worth £435 million over five years is available to those that have had a large hike in business rates. We are also increasing the frequency of property revaluations from every five to every three years following the next revaluation, to ensure that bills more accurately reflect property values.
We have provided powers under the Localism Act 2011 to enable local authorities to offer business rate discounts as they see fit. In 2015, my predecessor and the local government Minister asked officials to write to all councils to encourage them to use those powers to support access to local high-quality childcare provision. So far, I am aware of only two councils that have chosen to do that. Members could talk to their local authorities about joining in to do that.
On the work on costs—I want to address the issue of costs—funding is inevitably and understandably high on our agenda during any discussion about free early education entitlements. My Department continues to pay close attention to the matter. I do not want colleagues to go away with the impression that this Minister thinks funding is not a challenge. We are, however, clear that getting the funding right is critical to the successful delivery of free entitlements.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am coming on to something the hon. Lady raised, but I shall give way happily if I have time at the end.
This year, we shall be enhancing our annual survey of childcare and early years providers with more detailed research. Again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West on his research, and I am interested in getting deep into the evidence on provider finances and childcare fees for two to four-year-olds. We have also commissioned independent research that involved site visits to a representative sample of early years providers to provide us with robust, up-to-date evidence on the costs of delivering childcare, including operating costs such as business rates. That is part of our ongoing monitoring of 30-hours implementation, and we shall consider the next steps once we have the findings on costs.
I shall now turn to some of the comments made by colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West mentioned VAT. Under European law, registered childcare providers deliver an exempt service, which means that they do not charge VAT on their services. The exemption is obviously designed to ensure that tax does not fall on individuals using welfare services, such as nursery services. However, goods and services purchased by the providers are subject to VAT, which causes understandable frustrations in the sector, but the rules cannot be changed within the existing legal framework. There may be opportunities to make changes to the VAT system in the future, but our rights and obligations remain unchanged until negotiations on our departure from the European Union are complete.
On the point my hon. Friend and many colleagues made about nurseries going out of business, the Ofsted data in itself is interesting. It shows that the number of childcare places available has remained stable since 2012. I also remind hon. Members that childcare providers do not have to offer the free 30 hours—that is entirely up to them—although, since the roll-out of 30 hours of free childcare, we have seen a sizeable majority of providers increasing the number of free hours available to parents, with no evidence of an impact on their funding.[Official Report, 16 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 8MC.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and other Members mentioned the issue of nurseries charging parents. The Government have been clear that the funding is intended to deliver free high-quality, flexible childcare. It is not intended to cover the costs of meals, consumables or additional services, so providers can charge parents for such things. However, parents must not be required to pay any fee as a condition of taking up a place. Our guidelines state that providers should ensure that their charges are clear to enable parents to make an informed choice.
A number of colleagues mentioned financial support for parents in connection with disadvantage. I remind hon. Members that, in addition to the investment that we are making, under universal credit working parents may claim back up to 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared with 70% of costs covered under the outgoing tax credits system.
The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) raised another issue to do with disadvantage, pointing out that two-year-olds cannot access the disability access fund, the early years pupil premium or the SEN inclusion fund. In 2017, we increased the funding rates for all disadvantaged two-year-olds by 7%, and we pay a higher rate for them because we recognise the higher costs associated with two-year-olds. The two-year-old funding is, by its nature, already targeted to the disadvantaged in that age group.
Nadhim Zahawi
I shall give way later if I have time. The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) mentioned maintained nurseries. The Secretary of State and I have both seen the incredible work that maintained nurseries deliver for their communities, and we have made £60 million a year of supplementary funding available at least until 2020. My message to local authorities is: do not take premature decisions on maintained nurseries. Many colleagues have made representations to me about the quality of maintained nurseries in their constituencies.
The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), who is no longer present, spoke about nurseries in Salford being forced to close as a result of funding rules. I met the hon. Lady and other colleagues to discuss the matter, but it is for the council to manage its local markets and to ensure appropriate provision for children with special educational need and/or disability. Councils may request exemption from the high pass-through rule, but Salford chose not to do that. My officials continue to discuss the matter with council officers. I am pleased that there are no 30-hour sufficiency issues in Salford.
The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made a strong speech about the early years workforce and professional development. As she said, staff training and development is associated with quality, and I have announced that we are investing £20 million in professional development and training for practitioners in disadvantaged areas of our country.
The attainment gap was mentioned by the hon. Members for York Central and for Burnley. I would say that we were in agreement. More than a quarter of children finished their reception year still without the early communication and reading skills that they need to thrive. The Government have ambitious plans to halve that number over the next 10 years. The Department is working closely with the sector to deliver on our commitment to reform the early years foundation stage profile. We know that those gaps can emerge much earlier in a child’s life, as the hon. Member for York Central rightly indicated, well before the child enters the reception year. That is why we have recently launched a capital bidding round of £30 million, inviting leading schools to come forward with projects to create new high-quality nursery places for two, three and four-year-olds, which I spoke about earlier.
The hon. Member for York Central also spoke about the need to put the right investment in place for children with SEND. A high-needs funding system provides funding to local authorities for children and young people with complex special educational needs, from age zero to 25. The total high-needs block of funding now stands at a record high of almost £6 billion in England. Every local authority will attract at least a 1% increase in core formula funding per head in 2019-20 compared with 2017-18. The support is there for children with SEND, and our disability access fund is worth £615 per child. Local authorities should also establish an SEN inclusion fund. I think I shall end there, unless colleagues wish to intervene.
Rachael Maskell
The Minister was asked about funding. He has heard from Members across the Chamber that funding does not match need. Will he set out the discussions he has had with the Treasury ahead of the Budget to ensure that we have the right amount of funding for nurseries? Can we expect an announcement on 29 October?
Nadhim Zahawi
I hope that I conveyed to the hon. Lady, even if I did not convince her, that we are looking at funding very closely—a real deep dive. We have included our own additional survey questions for providers and have taken a representative sample of providers so that we can begin to understand it. My hon. Friends the Members for Rugby and for Bolton West and Opposition Members have offered evidence that we will look at very closely. I assure the hon. Lady that we are doing the work to ensure that there is continued sufficiency and that providers are able to deliver the excellent service that many thousands of them deliver.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West for securing this debate and for his thoughtful contributions.
Nadhim Zahawi
I think I have enough time, although my hon. Friend is allowed a few minutes to conclude the debate.
Rushanara Ali
I was particularly heartened by the Minister saying that local authorities should not make premature decisions about closing maintained nurseries. Will he say a little more about that? If he cannot now, will he write to me? My nurseries face imminent closure, so local authorities need that assurance to find alternatives. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I really hope that he appreciates just how serious this matter is and that the Government should not keep passing the buck to local authorities. To say that it is “sad” that local authorities have to do that is not good enough for families. I hope he takes that message to the Treasury in his campaigning, in which we will support him.
Nadhim Zahawi
I repeat, as I have done many times, that local government bodies—I hope many will at least read the transcript of this very good debate—should not make premature decisions on maintained nurseries at this stage. We have a spending review coming. The Secretary of State and I have been around the country looking at the great work that maintained nurseries deliver to the most disadvantaged parents in our country. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady to repeat that message so that she may share it with her local authority.
I am grateful for your patience, Mr Gapes, and to colleagues for their contributions.
Deaf Children’s Services
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and congratulate him on securing this important debate. Much of his speech rightly advocated for the National Deaf Children’s Society. I let him know at the outset that I will meet the NDCS on 29 October.
I thank the many colleagues who participated in this important debate, including the shadow Minister; they really brought home the voices of the different stakeholders. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) talked about his daughter, who is a teacher; the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) spoke of the Bolton and Ward families; and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke of his personal experience.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the hon. Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley). The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us that Thomas Edison achieved so much with such a disadvantage. I also thank my good friend, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for her intervention.
The debate is timely, following my recent meetings with members of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness. I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including those who are deaf and hearing-impaired. It was great to see the percentage of pupils with a hearing impairment getting good GCSEs in English and maths increase last year, from 38% in 2011-12 to 46% in 2016-17. I congratulate those young people who received their results in August.
As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse pointed out, there is more to do, and I am determined that all children and young people who are deaf or have a hearing impairment receive the support that they need to achieve the success that they deserve. I think hon. Members will agree that the 2014 SEND reforms were probably the biggest change to the system in a generation. They are about improving the support available to all children and young people with special educational needs and disability. I am clear that this vision applies equally to deaf and hearing-impaired children and young people.
I think we all recognise that we are only part way to achieving our vision of the reformed SEND system. We know that there has been a steady movement of children with special educational needs out of mainstream schools and into specialist provision. We also recognise that the significant consequence of this trend of moving away from mainstream schools into specialist provisions is extra pressure on councils’ high needs budgets, as we have heard from many colleagues.
The Secretary of State recently spoke at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference, where he set out his core mission, which I absolutely share, to provide every child with world-class education, training and care, whatever their background or needs. Our plan to build on the 2014 reforms includes equipping and incentivising mainstream schools to work with all pupils— I will say more about that in a few moments—and supporting and challenging local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to become more effective planners and commissioners of provision.
In the current financial environment, both central and local government continue to face difficult choices. Local authorities are best placed to judge local priorities and to make local funding decisions, in consultation with local people and having regard to the range of statutory responsibilities placed on them. However, I fully appreciate that that is not easy in times of financial constraint. To support local authorities, the core school funding that the Government provide will rise to a record £43.5 billion by 2020—a 50% real-terms, per-pupil increase since 2000. Within that total, the high needs budget for young people with more complex special educational needs in schools and colleges is £6 billion this year, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse mentioned.
In answer to the hon. Gentleman, we will keep this level of funding under careful review and will of course discuss it with ministerial colleagues in the Treasury as part of the next spending review. I and my officials in the Department engage with local authorities and schools so that we understand what drives the increasing costs of provision and how we can support them in managing their high needs and wider special needs budgets.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the ring fence on the schools block and whether we can allow more flexibility for local authorities to fund schools more. I am sure he will agree that there is a balance to be struck in protecting spending on mainstream schools and making sure that local authorities have enough for high needs. We are keeping that under revision, as I mentioned. We are particularly interested to ensure that the financial incentives in the current system do not lead local authorities and schools to make decisions that are not in the best interests of their children and young people with special educational needs.
As the hon. Gentleman recognised, local authorities play a crucial strategic leadership role, both in managing the special educational needs provision in their area and in overseeing high needs budgets. Those responsibilities are discharged most effectively when there is a strong partnership between the local authority and education providers, good engagement with parents and young people, and a shared understanding of where different types of need are best met.
The Department has committed £23 million of additional funding to support local authorities to conduct strategic reviews of their SEND provision, and we are investing £265 million of additional capital funding specifically aimed at helping local authorities to develop provision for children and young people with education, health and care plans.
To respond to the hon. Gentleman’s specific point on funding for FE colleges, they also receive disadvantage funding, which provides funds to support students with additional needs, including moderate learning difficulties and disabilities. Disadvantage funding is not ring-fenced, which means that institutions are free to use that element of the funding to choose the best way to attract, retain and support those with additional needs.
Stephen Lloyd
I appreciate the reassurance that has just been given, but as the money is not ring-fenced, if the NDCS or anyone else can find any evidence that it is not being used properly for profoundly deaf students between the ages of 16 and 18, will the Minister be prepared to review the matter?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I will take up that point with the NDCS in our meeting on 29 October to understand the evidence in relation to that. In addition to high needs funding, colleges receive disadvantage funding, which provides funds to support students from areas of economic deprivation, based on the index of multiple deprivation—the IMD—and with additional needs, including moderate learning difficulties and disabilities. As I said, that funding is not ring-fenced and can be moved.
I am very supportive of local authorities working together and I know that many will be considering how best to support the sensory impaired children and young people in their area, including by working closely with neighbouring authorities to provide joint services. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney asked about joint working. To support that, we have established a national network for designated clinical officers, funded a local authority-led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review. We have also funded a SEND leadership programme and legal training for all local authorities and their health partners to ensure that they are clear on their statutory responsibilities.
I understand that many local authorities have provided information to the National Deaf Children’s Society, setting out their plans for sensory support services in the future. My hon. Friend raised particular concerns about provision in Suffolk. We have provided an additional £140 million in high needs funding this year and will provide an additional £120 million next year. In Suffolk, the local authority will receive £59.9 million in high needs funding this year. I understand that Suffolk has not indicated cuts to funding for deaf services this year.
Also this year, we have contracted with the Whole School SEND Consortium to deliver a two-year programme to help to embed SEND in school improvement and help schools to identify and meet their training needs in relation to SEND. That will of course include ensuring that schools, including mainstream schools, know where to access the expertise that they need to support pupils with a hearing impairment.
In addition, a team from University College London will be working with the SEND sector to understand better the supply, demand and drivers for SEND training and continuing professional development. That will enable us to target resources at addressing those areas, too. The National Sensory Impairment Partnership will feed the views of the sensory impairment sector into that work, and we will review the NDCS report on local authority funding as part of that work. We have also asked Ofsted to consider how our accountability system can sufficiently reward schools for their work with pupils who need extra support, and encourage schools to focus on all pupils, not just the highest achievers.
As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse stated, the vast majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents who have no prior experience of deafness. That is why the Government have separately invested in a number of programmes to support children and young people with hearing impairments, and their families. We have funded the development of an early support guide for parents of deaf children, available through the Council for Disabled Children website. In addition, we have funded the NDCS’s I-Sign project and the development of a family-orientated sign language programme, which is available free on the family sign language website.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether more can be done to ensure that school forums include more representation in respect of SEND. Local authorities are required to include at least one representative from a maintained special school, and a special academy, in their area. Many extend the representation of specialist providers by creating SEND subgroups to look specifically at issues relating to children and young people with SEND across the whole age range to 25. In some areas, there is strong partnership with parent groups so that they are engaged as well. We need to learn from those areas and spread that good practice.
I want to touch on a few issues that colleagues mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead and the hon. Member for Nottingham South talked about the lack of teachers for deaf and hearing impaired children. To be awarded qualified teacher status, trainees must satisfy the teachers’ standards, which include a requirement that they have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEN, and are able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them. Also, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) pointed out, we provided £900,000 of funding to the National Sensory Impairment Partnership between 2016 and 2018 to equip the school workforce. The new SEND schools workforce contract with the Whole School SEND Consortium, led by nasen—the National Association for Special Educational Needs—aims to equip schools to identify and meet their training needs.
There was a question on the specialist workforce and the report by the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education that there has been a 14% reduction in the number of teachers for deaf children over the past seven years. That is based on annual surveys of local authority specialist educational services, and we will look at it very carefully, especially in my discussion with the NDCS. As I understand it, the figures do not include teachers of the deaf in special schools, but I will take that up with the NDCS.
The hon. Member for Blaydon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead spoke about British sign language and the curriculum. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for School Standards has written to the NDCS. We are open to considering a proposal for a new GCSE at this stage—for possible introduction during this Parliament. The development of a new qualification is of course a lengthy process, but we are certainly open to that.
I shall conclude now to allow my very good friend the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse to wind up the debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
By 2019-20 we will be spending £1 billion extra annually to deliver 30 hours a week of free childcare and pay our higher funding rates. Those rates were based on our review of childcare costs, described as “thorough and wide-ranging” by the National Audit Office. We have commissioned further new research to understand providers’ current costs.
Liz Twist
Last Friday I visited Bright Sparks nursery in my constituency, which is rated “outstanding” and is long-established. The staff told me how difficult they are finding it to make ends meet under the new funding regime, and that is borne out by a report by the National Day Nurseries Association. Can the Minister tell us how nurseries are supposed to remain open when facing that shortfall? I am glad to hear that he is looking again at the costs, but I hope it will be a thorough look.
Nadhim Zahawi
We continue to monitor the costs and, as I said earlier, we have commissioned further research. The evidence that we currently have shows that the majority of providers are willing and able to deliver the extended entitlement. Some 340,000 children have benefited from 30-hour funding places in the scheme’s first year, so it is certainly a success story, but the hon. Lady is right that we have to monitor what pressures there are.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
On 31 August the Daily Mail ran a front-page story stating that a third of nurseries could shut because of school funding levels. Given that there are actually now more nurseries in other settings providing free childcare, does the Minister think it should apologise and issue a correction for gullibly following the lines being peddled by the Opposition Front Benchers and for misleading so many parents in such a worrying way?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my predecessor for that question. I think I will leave it to the Daily Mail to decide what it does. Suffice it to say that the number of non-domestic providers has remained stable.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure the Minister can guess what I am going to ask about.
Among early years provision, the jewel in the crown for social mobility is our maintained nursery schools. The Minister will know from the conversations that we had before the summer that the supplementary funding that they receive from the Government is due to run out before the comprehensive spending review, so does he have an update for the House on what he and the Treasury are doing to ensure that our maintained nursery schools have a secure future beyond next year?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Maintained nurseries offer a valuable service to communities such as hers and others around the country, and we are conscious of the value that they provide. Both I and the Secretary of State have visited a number of them. Decisions about the future funding of maintained provision will be taken at the spending review, but I repeat that it would be premature for local authorities to make decisions about the future of their maintained nurseries before seeing the spending review outcomes.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The National Day Nurseries Association survey last week exposed the scale of closures caused by underfunding the 30-hour entitlement—a rise of nearly half over a year. Bright Beginnings in Stockport said that
“the reality is we can’t provide Outstanding nursery care on the funding provided.”
The Ark nursery in West Sussex said that it was
“closing because of a decade of underfunding.”
Windymiller, in my own constituency, on the estate where I grew up, closed its doors a few months ago due to funding pressures. Those are not outliers. Four in 10 providers fear that they will have to close in the coming year. These are viable businesses that just cannot square the circle of frozen funding and rising costs. If the Minister will not listen to us, will he at least listen to them?
Nadhim Zahawi
Let me attempt to address that point specifically. National average hourly funding rates for local authorities for three and four-year-old entitlements increased from £4.56 an hour to around £5 an hour in April 2017. Our rates compare very favourably with the published research on the costs of childcare by Frontier Economics, which shows that the mean hourly cost of delivering a place is £3.72 an hour. I know that this is technical, but it is worth listening to, because the hon. Lady keeps going back to points that she clearly has not followed the details of. The research also showed that the average cost of two-year-olds’ places was £4.30 an hour, and our average funding rate is £5.92 an hour. All local authorities saw a 7% increase in the two-year-old rate in April 2017. We continue to monitor this, but those are the facts, and I hope that she will look and them and think about what she is saying about them publicly.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Latest Ofsted data confirm that 94% of providers were rated as good or outstanding, up 20 percentage points since 2012. We have recently published new criteria to raise the quality of level 2 qualifications and are investing £20 million in professional development for early years practitioners working in disadvantaged areas.
Tom Pursglove
Will the Minister join me in congratulating the Pen Green Centre in Corby on recently winning The Times Educational Supplement overall best school award? Has he given thought as to how best practice at that particular setting can be shared more widely?
Nadhim Zahawi
Maintained nursery schools make an important contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. As I mentioned earlier, I have visited a number of these schools, as has the Secretary of State, and Pen Green is at the forefront of what maintained nursery schools do. Its award is well deserved and I offer it my warmest congratulations. Our research on the value offered by maintained nursery schools will inform spending review decisions about their future funding.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Children from the poorest families in this country are much more likely to suffer a major brain injury by the age of five. Nobody quite knows the precise reasons why that is the case, but the statistic is replicated by the figure for children between the ages of 14 and 21 from poorer families. That is a major reason why many children fall out of the education system and end up in prison. I urge the Minister to look at the new figures. Will he meet me and people from the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum to discuss what we can do to ensure that children, in particular from the poorest areas and the poorest families, get a better chance in life?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. I know that he does not come to the House without looking at the figures properly, and I would be very happy to meet him to look at them with him.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Legislation and guidance regarding looked-after children—for example, on such children having their own social worker—is vital to safeguarding their welfare. The recent guide for local authorities published by the Department refers to this legislation and guidance as myth, and actively urges local authorities to dispense with their statutory obligations, thereby cutting vulnerable children adrift. Worse still, only this morning the Minister responded to those criticisms by advising that statutory guidance is open to interpretation. Is it now the Department’s policy that statutory guidance in relation to vulnerable children no longer needs to be followed?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
I responded very clearly to the myth-busting document. We consulted directors of children’s services and with Ofsted before we published the myth-busting document, and we made it very clear this morning that no legislation has changed, or is going to change, in any way.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Nadhim Zahawi
We have allocated £1.5 million from the tampon tax fund to that and are looking at further evidence, to see whether there is a link to absenteeism from school.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
West Oxfordshire’s thriving high-tech businesses are in urgent need of employees with technical skills. What steps is the Department taking to provide STEM careers advice in schools?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Nadhim Zahawi
High-needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs, including those with autism, is £6 billion this year—the highest it has ever been—and an increase from £5 billion in 2013. We have increased overall funding allocations to local authorities for high needs by £130 million in 2017-18 and £142 million in 2018-19, and we will increase this further, by £120 million, in 2019-20.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the national assessment and accreditation system for children’s social workers?
Nadhim Zahawi
NAAS is progressing extremely well. In early results, it has had a satisfaction rating of something like 86% for those very excellent social workers who have been through the system, and we look to continue that success.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Following his meeting last week with the Family Rights Group to discuss the care crisis review, will the Children’s Minister now consider developing a long-term strategy for reducing the number of children being taken into care?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend had a debate on the care crisis review last week. We recognise that the number of care order applications and the number of children in care have risen, meaning more work for local authorities. That is why we are working across Government, as I articulated in that debate in Westminster Hall last week, to ensure that local authorities and the courts have the resources that they need.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Nationally, only 6% of care leavers make it to higher education in comparison with the nigh-on 50% of young people who go to university year on year. This is a tragically low figure. What steps is the Department for Education taking to ensure that those leaving care have the same life chances as any other young people?
Nadhim Zahawi
Care leavers are an important part of the overall strategy for support for children in need, which we have reviewed. Very importantly, we are also launching the care leaver covenant on 26 October, with which we will continue to maintain further support for care leavers; obviously, we have already extended the system of personal advisers to the age of 25.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State want to join me in congratulating North Yorkshire County Council children services department and its director, Stuart Carlton, on achieving the country’s first ever perfect score—outstanding in every area inspected by Ofsted? Furthermore, does he agree that that is very good news for the most vulnerable children in places such as Scarborough and Whitby?
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Under this Government, children with special needs are six times more likely to be excluded than their peers. In Norwich, headteachers have described provision for special educational needs as a complete mess because of a funding shortfall. Will Ministers commit to increasing funding support for these children to ensure that they get the education they do not just deserve, but is their right?
Nadhim Zahawi
The Government have launched the most ambitious SEND reforms in a generation and are committed to improving outcomes for children with special educational needs. More than 98% of statements of SEN were reviewed by 31 March deadline for introducing education, health and care plans. The hon. Gentleman talks about funding, but we have given £391 million to local areas to support implementation of the new duties in the Children and Families Act 2014.
Children in Need: Adulthood
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Buck.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on securing this important debate. He takes a keen interest in the subject in his valuable role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for looked-after children and care leavers. I echo the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in saying that this is such an important subject that we are here on a Thursday afternoon to debate it. I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), the hon. Members for Strangford and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) and my hon. Friends the Members for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for their contributions, and many other hon. Members for their interventions.
The Government are committed to ensuring that all vulnerable children receive the support they need to fulfil their potential, which means getting the support right throughout childhood and as they make the transition to adulthood. I will discuss children in need and care leavers, because both groups have been mentioned today. There are important, indeed fundamental, differences between children who are looked after and other children in need, for whom their parents still retain responsibility. We know that care leavers can experience extra barriers when making the transition into adulthood, including financial hardship and the difficulty of living independently at a young age. That is why we have extended the support that we provide to the children for whom we—the state—have corporate parenting responsibilities, where the baton of parenting has been passed on to us for all sorts of harrowing reasons. However, it is of course vital that we also support children in need to make a successful transition to adulthood. That requires the identification of needs and appropriate responses by a range of agencies working in partnership. Our key statutory guidance, “Working together to safeguard children”, describes how agencies should jointly agree on and deliver joined-up support for children in need.
We know that children’s needs may change as they get older and that older children are likely to have very different needs from younger children. The recent update to the “Working together” guidance is clear that local authorities should consider new approaches, such as contextual safeguarding for older children, if current approaches are not meeting their needs; some very good work on that has been done in the London borough of Hackney. The guidance also offers links to further advice regarding child sexual exploitation.
The update to “Working together” also makes it clear that known transition points for a child should be planned for in advance, including situations where children are likely to transition between child and adult services. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme challenged his two clinical commissioning groups on this issue, although I will not comment other than to say that I will ensure that his remarks are passed on to the relevant Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care. As I say, such work includes identifying the points where children are likely to transition between child and adult services. The local authority should hold a review around the time of the child’s 18th birthday to consider whether support services are still required, and to discuss with the child and their family what might be needed, based on a reassessment of the child’s needs.
For all children, getting the best possible education is a critical part of preparing for adulthood; the right hon. Member for Knowsley focused on that point. That is why this Government are delivering on our manifesto commitment to review the educational outcomes of children in need. We have already published significant new data and analysis on the educational achievement of children in need, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar for his remarks about the work we are doing. We have received submissions in response to our call for evidence from hundreds of professionals and organisations on what works in practice to improve outcomes. The review is now considering the responses to the call for evidence and conducting further analysis to understand what works in practice to improve educational outcomes for these children.
I want that review to be tightly defined, impactful and focused on evidence. These issues are complex ones, as I think has been demonstrated in the debate today, but if we open things out too widely and try to solve everything, we are in danger of solving nothing. Having said that, our data and analysis publication looks beyond education at NEETs’ outcomes. As part of the data strand of the review, we are examining the possibility of linking with other datasets to understand more about employment outcomes.
The pupil premium was mentioned by a number of colleagues. Children in need have additional needs, which are catered for through the education system. Already the majority of children in need receive support in schools through pupil premium funding. We have provided over £13 billion of additional funding since 2011, targeted at reducing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. Since 2011, that gap has been reduced at both the age of 11 and the age of 16.
Of all children in need, 49% receive support due to a special educational need or disability. The SEND code of practice explicitly states that all children and young people, whether or not they have an education health and care plan, should be prepared for adulthood and that this preparation should start early. For the 23% of all children in need on an EHCP, there must be an explicit focus from year nine onwards on preparation for adulthood.
Data published in the “Review of Children in Need” document has shown that children in need are more likely than their peers not to be in education, employment or training. We are determined to ensure that disadvantaged students are properly supported in their post-16 education. The Government have invested significantly—£7 billion in the last academic year—to ensure that there is a place in training or education for every 16 to 19-year-old. That is for all young people, regardless of whether they have had involvement with children’s social care. Local authorities have a statutory duty to identify and support all young people who are not in education, employment or training. We are extremely proud—I am extremely proud—that young people are now participating in education, employment or training at the highest levels since consistent records began, although we rightly recognise that there is still much more to do for some young people.
Regarding the funding for 16 to 19-year-olds, we want to make sure that vulnerable children are accessing education beyond the age of 16. In 2017-18, about £520 million was allocated to providers through the national funding formula to attract and retain disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-olds and to support students with SEND. We have also provided around £130 million directly to the young people who need the most help, to cover costs such as transport, which was mentioned in one of the interventions, and course equipment, through the 16-to-19 bursary fund. This fund is available to children who have vulnerabilities such as disability, or who are living independently without the financial support of their family.
Regarding wider outcomes, mental health was mentioned. Although education is of course critical to the long-term outcomes of children in need, in some areas that affect these children disproportionately we are working as a Government to improve services—specifically mental health, child sexual exploitation and of course homelessness services. Poor mental health can have a profound impact on the entirety of a child’s life, which is why we are investing an additional £1.4 billion nationally to transform children and young people’s mental health services.
Time is short and I would like to leave a minute for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to respond to the debate. The only other thing I will say now is that I was very pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar mention the troubled families programme, through which we are now spending £920 million to help 400,000 families. Given that a man with his experience is saying that that is the area we should focus on, I will certainly champion that programme and ensure that our voice is heard in the imminent strategic review.
I thank the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) for his passionate articulation of what is happening in Scotland. In England, we are also supporting care leavers. We have extended the support that we provide to the children for whom we, the state, have corporate parenting responsibilities, and the offer of support from local authorities now extends to the age of 25. In addition, personal advisers can help care leavers to get support from mainstream providers as well as provide, or help to facilitate, access to practical and emotional support.
As time is short, I shall end there. Suffice it to say that a number of colleagues made some other important points, including about care leaver accommodation. Of course, my great friend and passionate advocate for family hubs, the hon. Member for Congleton, who I look forward to visiting—
Nadhim Zahawi
I have no time left to give way, because I think we are ending at 4.30 pm and there is only a minute to go, which I want to give to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to respond—
Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)
I think that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is indicating that he may not wish to speak.
Nadhim Zahawi
If the hon. Gentleman is happy not to speak again, I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for South Shields.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for giving way. I am just a little confused about his response to the debate. Children in need are a distinct category from those requiring child protection, looked-after children and care leavers, but most of his comments in his response to the debate were about other distinct categories of children in need and not about the distinct category of children in need themselves. I am just a little baffled by his response. I appreciate that he does not have time now, but could he put in writing to me what the Department is doing about children in need—not looked-after children and not care leavers, but children in need?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am very grateful to you, Ms Buck, for allowing that intervention, but I suspect that the hon. Lady, the shadow Minister, may not have been listening to me, because I actually talked very specifically about our document, “Review of Children in Need”, to which we committed in our manifesto, unlike the hon. Lady herself, who could not answer my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar on the funding that she is asking for in order to spend more. I am happy to give her a copy of my speech, which was all about children in need.
Care Crisis Review
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(5 years, 12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is an honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing this important debate. I know she is concerned about the number of children being taken into care and that she is a firm believer in early intervention and family support services as a vehicle for lowering care demand.
I acknowledge the increase in the number of care order applications and the number of children being taken into care in recent years. The Government are acutely aware of the impact that that has had and is having on local authorities and the courts. We are also very conscious of the implications for children and families. I am immensely grateful to all those who have worked in child protection and the family justice system, whether they are social workers, court staff, CAFCASS guardians, judges or those in other roles. We want every child to be in a loving, stable home that is right for them. In most cases, children are best looked after by their families. Children are only removed as a last resort, which is why my Department is continuing to deliver a comprehensive reform programme for children’s social care across England. I will say more about our reforms later.
I recognise the sector’s care crisis review and acknowledge the work that the Family Rights Group and others involved invested in it. The review is an important contribution to the work being done across the family justice system to address the pressures caused by rising public law volumes for local authorities and the family courts. I am pleased to say that tomorrow the Minister for family justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who also has an interest in the report, and I are meeting members of the review team—Nigel Richardson, who chaired the review, and Cathy Ashley, who helped drive it—to discuss its findings.
In advance of that meeting, I can tell Members that officials in both our Departments have been carefully considering the options for change set out in the report, and we have taken action. The sector’s report sets out two specific options for change in relation to our “Working together to safeguard children” statutory guidance. First, it states that the guidance should be
“reviewed and amended so that the principles underpinning the legislation, including partnership and co-production with families, are clearly expressed and the processes for managing individual cases reflect the messages from research on the effectiveness of relationship-based practice.”
Secondly, it argued that the same guidance should be
“amended to place greater emphasis on the role to be played by key partner agencies, in addition to that played by children’s social care, in assessing and meeting the accommodation, health and educational needs of children and their families.”
I am pleased to say that we have addressed both those issues in the latest version of the statutory guidance, which we published in July. I hope Members and those who took part in the review welcome that. It is particularly important to recognise that the sector’s review stated that
“there are many overlapping factors contributing to the rise in care proceedings and the number of children in care. This complex picture means that there is no single solution.
That is in keeping with the Government’s own analysis and is why, in addition to the many reforms we are seeking to deliver, including those I will talk about shortly, we are working across Government to consider what more we can do. It includes the work that officials from my Department and the Ministry of Justice are doing with members of national and local family justice boards across England, through which we are seeking to understand the challenges in the family justice system better and consider with sector representatives what can be done to address them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford has an interest in early intervention. I assure her that, across Government, we are addressing the root causes of children’s needs early—be it by supporting children with alcohol-dependent parents or in families affected by domestic abuse, preventing young people from being drawn into serious violence, or investing in early years and children’s and young people’s mental health. Our “Working Together to Safeguard Children” statutory guidance is clear that local areas should have a comprehensive range of effective evidence-based services in place to address assessed needs early. The Government have also committed £920 million to the troubled families programme, which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families with multiple high-cost problems by 2020.
On the point that my hon. Friend made on funding for preventive support services, it is for local authorities to determine how to spend their non-ring-fenced income on the services they provide, including services for preventive support measures.
Tim Loughton
The Minister mentioned the troubled families programme, which has been a huge success in west Sussex. There is concern that the funding will not be renewed after 2020. Will he give a commitment now that that successful programme will be continued?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is one of my excellent predecessors—hon. Members mentioned Edward Timpson, but the work that my hon. Friend did in the Department has been a high bar for me to attempt to meet. I have seen first hand the effectiveness of the troubled families programme, and when it comes to the spending review, I will be a champion in ensuring that we continue to commit. In many of the cases that were highlighted to me by social workers in Islington and other parts of the country, a whole support system is required to help those families deliver stability for the family and the child.
Since 2016, we have been working to implement the reforms set out by my predecessor, Edward Timpson, in the “Putting children first” strategy. They centre on three key areas: people and leadership, practice and systems, and governance and accountability. I fully support the strategy and am committed to implementing it. “Putting children first” set out a five-year reform programme for children’s social care in Europe, which includes developing the social work profession, supporting innovation and improvement and establishing a new What Works centre. I will say something about them and the impact that our reforms will have.
On the social work profession, our successful Step Up to Social Work and Frontline programmes have brought new people into the profession and promoted social work as a desirable graduate career. Recently, I was pleased to be able to announce a further £25 million for Step Up to Social Work to bring a further 700 talented future social workers into children’s services. Through investment in professional development at key stages throughout their career, and the new national accreditation and assessment system, which the shadow Minister effectively dissed—[Interruption.] Not at all. The very good social workers who have been through it show very high satisfaction ratings. Hon. Members will hear more of that in the future. We are really helping to ensure that the quality of practice is consistently excellent.
Innovation and improvements are at the heart of the Government’s vision for children’s social care. The £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation programme has deepened evidence about what good social work looks like and about the potential for innovation. It has generated a portfolio of promising successful innovations, which we are rolling out more widely to understand the potential wider impact. I am also pleased to note that the sector-led report points out that many projects are doing effective and innovative work with families who are at risk of breakdown, including helping to reduce the numbers of children being taken into care. Information from the programme will form the wider bank of evidence going into the new What Works centre, which is currently in a testing and development phase, to improve outcomes for young people and learning for the sector. The What Works centre is pressing ahead with its research programme, including examining what works on reducing the need for children to enter care. We hope it will support the uptake of quality evidence in frontline practice in children’s social care.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am conscious that the Minister is about to wrap up, and I am concerned that he has failed to mention anything about the links between deprivation and rising care numbers, which all the research says is a massive issue. I am interested to find out from him what exactly local authorities have done through innovation money that they would not have been able to do if they were funded properly. Would it not have been better if they were all funded properly so they could all innovate, instead of it being piecemeal?
Nadhim Zahawi
Local authorities are spending a record £9.2 billion on children’s services. The hon. Lady raises an important point and I do not want to politicise this. Yes, budgets are tight, but where I have seen good children’s services being delivered, it is very much dependent on the quality of leadership and support offered to frontline social workers.
Nadhim Zahawi
I was going to mention the point made by the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) on kinship carers. I acknowledge the work that they do. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, we should remember to turn the statistics into real children and real families. The work that kinship carers do is incredibly important in delivering stability for those children.
We have developed an improvement strategy to identify local authorities at risk of failing and put in place targeted support to help them improve, so that the services families and vulnerable children receive get better faster. We have done that by working in partnership with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and the LGA to test the new regional improvement alliances. We believe that that will complement the new Ofsted framework, enabling a new phase of continuous sector-led improvement.
In March I announced that more than £15 million will go to eight new partners in practice, expanding our local authority peer support programme to improve children’s services. We know that some of our partners in practice are looking at what can be done to address the increased number of children entering care—this addresses the point made by the hon. Member for South Shields—and are working with them to understand what might work and how it might be used by other local authorities.
We are confident that this comprehensive reform programme will lead to better qualified and developed skilled social workers who are able to make difficult decisions, more confident local authorities and social workers that manage cases themselves including associated risks, and a children’s social care system that learns what works from evidence and applies it in practice. Ultimately, that should all lead to the right decisions being made for children and their families.
In addition, as I mentioned earlier, my Department is working with the Ministry of Justice, with which we share responsibility for public family law. We are committed to ensuring that local authorities and the courts have the resources that they need. For example, the MOJ has overseen a campaign to recruit more family court judges and to provide more court sitting days.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Telford for securing today’s important debate and express my gratitude for her ongoing interest. I want to address some of the points made by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) talked about social worker caseloads. Social workers have one of the hardest jobs in the world, and I am determined to do all I can to support them. We continue to attract high-quality recruits and we invest in fast-track and the frontline programmes. We are also establishing Social Work England as a new specialist regulator, which will set professional education training standards and provide assurances that those registered meet the standards.
The hon. Member for Coventry South made the point that the reforms came without additional funding. However, when new duties have been introduced, we have provided additional funding. For example, when the new “staying put” duty came into force in May 2014, we committed £40 million to help local authorities implement it.
It is important to address some of the questions asked by probably the most experienced Member of Parliament in the Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). He asked about early help being deprioritised after the Munro review in 2011 recommended an early help duty and the Government decided that such a duty was not necessary. Instead, as I am sure he knows, we strengthened the “Working together to safeguard children” requirement for early help assessment, as I mentioned. We made it clear that early help services should form part of a continuum of help in local areas.
My hon. Friend made a very good point about the postcode lottery. The Government are committed to making the reforms to improve decision making for children and their families throughout England. Alongside that, part of the joint work that my Department is undertaking with the Ministry of Justice is to understand better the basis of decision making in different areas so that we can consider what Government are able to do. For example, can we learn anything from how different local authorities use the space that precedes care proceedings and share that among all local authorities?
I shall end there, other than to say that, ultimately, in my book, everything we do and all the reforms that we deliver need to do two things: place the child at the heart of the process and deliver stability.
Family Hubs
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is truly an honour and a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing this important debate, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) and for Henley (John Howell) and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Upper Bann (David Simpson) for contributing.
I am grateful for this opportunity to set out the Government’s position on supporting families so that no community is left behind. Social mobility is a priority for our Department, as it is across Government, and we welcome local initiatives that support families—particularly those who are disadvantaged. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton called for a Cabinet-level Minister with the responsibility to ensure that family policy is prioritised and co-ordinated. I say to her that the Government are already committed to supporting families. That is why, as she knows, we introduced the family test in 2014 and continue to support its application to policy across government.
Nadhim Zahawi
Let me just make some headway. I will come back to my hon. Friend if time permits, because I have a lot to say about this subject
We share a common view about the importance of effective local support for families. That is why the Government’s legislation and funding is designed to give local authorities the freedom to decide the best way to deliver their services, based on their understanding of their local needs and the character of their areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned that, for every council that is not doing well, there is a very good example of one that has done well for its families. We welcome the development of family hubs as a way to meet local need. We encourage local authorities to adopt the family hub approach, which aims to build stronger relationships and co-locate services, if they believe it would deliver improved outcomes for their areas.
We already know that many councils are moving toward that model of support, working with local statutory, voluntary—as the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned —community and private sector partners. When I was promoted to Minister, one of the first meetings I had was with Lord Farmer and the team that put together the manifesto. I have already promised my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton that I would visit a family hub in Essex and I still plan to do so.
What we are discussing today is how we can ensure that strong, effective local services provide effective support for families and children. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the work that the Government are doing to deliver that. The strengthening families manifesto argues that Government should be working to put in place a nought-to-19 model across the country. We know others advocate for a sharper focus on younger children, proposing that children’s centres focus on a nought-to-two age range. The shadow Minister talked about that early intervention.
My view is that both of those models, depending on local circumstances, could work and provide much needed support to families, just as I am sure that there are other models that can work, too. Let me be clear, it is for local authorities to determine the model that they believe will work best for them, based on their area’s specific needs and on the history of local provision, local community circumstances and priorities.
Tracy Brabin
The difficulty for some councils—in Kirklees, for example—is that 50% of their budget has been cut since 2010, so they are having to slice the pie into even smaller slices. Should the pie not be bigger?
Nadhim Zahawi
We have provided £200 billion in this five-year review—this current spending round—to local government. Local government has increased spending on children services. Last year it spent £9.2 billion.
I recently visited Greater Manchester, where I met the Mayor, Andy Burnham. Greater Manchester, which includes 10 local authorities—as you, rightly, know, Sir Graham—is an excellent example of an area where powers and responsibilities have become more devolved, and the Mayor can take decisions in areas such as health. The Government’s role is to engage actively with the sector to find out what works and to support local areas to make the right decisions for their communities, which might include implementing family hubs.
That is why as part of the Department for Education’s social mobility action plan, “Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential”, we announced an early years social mobility peer review programme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned. We are partnering with the Local Government Association to deliver this initiative. Peer reviews will be led by multidisciplinary teams, and will support councils to identify actions and reforms to improve local outcomes in the early years. The programme will also look at what works, including the effective models for service provision, such as family hubs and children’s centres. That was something my hon. Friend called for in her speech. I think she is nodding away. I hope that she appreciates that that is an important part of this work.
I have asked my officials to ensure that the local government programme understands fully how the family hub model works and where the most effective practice is taking place. My officials would be happy to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton to do that.
An example of how we are strengthening local delivery to support families is the reducing parental conflict programme, introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions. Good quality relationships between parents are critical for setting children up for life. Recent evidence has shown that children who are exposed to frequent, intense and poorly resolved conflict can experience a decline in their mental health and suffer poorer long-term outcomes. The reducing parental conflict programme, again, puts local areas at the heart of its delivery, helping them to embed parental conflict support into wider services for children and ensure evidence-based interventions are more widely available to improve children’s outcomes.
The troubled families programme is an excellent example of how central Government can work with local authorities to strengthen local services, drawing on evidence of what works, but allowing for the development of local solutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned a similar programme that he witnessed. I was in Islington and witnessed some of the cases there, where the troubled families programme was exactly the sort of programme needed. It aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families—it started with 100,000—with multiple high-cost problems. The programme, delivered through local authorities and their partners, advocates a whole-family integrated approach across multiple services.
The programme’s focus on preventive services is already starting to show a positive impact in reducing demand on children’s social care. The emerging evaluation results show that, in families on the programme, six to 12 months after intervention, the proportion of children designated as children in need decreased by 14%, compared with the period just before the start of intervention. We know that many local areas have used programme funding to establish a family hub model, similar to that recommended by the strengthening families manifesto. Those hubs are being used to deliver their local programmes for complex families. Almost £1 billion has been committed to the programme from 2015 to 2020.
The hon. Member for Strangford talked about mental health. The Government’s Green Paper, “Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision”, announced ambitious proposals to provide earlier support for children and young people’s mental health. It recognises that secure attachment with a parent or carer is a protective factor for children and young people’s mental health, and commits to commissioning further research in that area. This includes supporting healthcare professionals to understand the importance of healthy, low-stress pregnancies and healthy childhoods, and increasing the capability of midwives to support women with perinatal mental health issues. We are also partnering with Public Health England, so that health visitors can do some work on speech and language therapy at the very early stage of intervention.
We are committed to incentivising every school and college to identify a designated senior lead for mental health, fund new mental health support teams, and trial a four-week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services. The Green Paper consultation response, which we aim to publish imminently, will set out the next steps in implementing the Green Paper.
The shadow Minister asked about children’s centres. I have to say that rather than doing another consultation or review, let us look at where things are really working well. Take Newcastle or Staffordshire, for example, where the local authority has taken an active role to close some of the children’s centres but focus on outreach and keeping those children’s services where the most disadvantaged families need that help. We have looked at the six local authorities where the most children’s centres have closed. Out of the six, four are doing better in closing the development gap, one is about flat and the other is oscillating. I suggest to the shadow Minister that it is not about bricks and mortar. I do not want to make this into a party political debate.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton for securing the debate. The Government are clear about the importance of improving outcomes for children, particularly the most disadvantaged in our communities. I entirely agree that strong local services are essential, and it is important that we continue to encourage and learn from innovations such as family hubs, and ensure that leaders have the information they require to design and deliver the services that will best address local need.
We have the ability to look strategically at the whole country—the whole of England, certainly—and to disseminate best practice. That is one of the things I passionately believe in. The Government have a key role to play in ensuring we deliver for those families. Finally, I would like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton that I do not need to be in the Cabinet to champion families and the wellbeing of all of our families in our communities.
Forced Adoption in the UK
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
I commend the hon. Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this important debate. No one can fail to be moved by the plight of the young mothers and their children whose lives have been blighted by the unacceptable practices of the past, and it is only right that this House acknowledges their unnecessary pain and suffering.
Many of my colleagues have spoken movingly about their constituents. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) spoke about Helen, and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) spoke about Jean Robertson-Molloy, who happens to be the step-mum of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. The hon. Member for Wirral South spoke emotionally and movingly about our former colleague, Ann Keen, and about Helen Jeffreys, and the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) outlined the excellent work done by Birthlink.
I wish to add my voice to those of my colleagues, and express my deepest sympathy to all those affected. These women were let down, in many cases by their families who would not support them, but also by professionals and organisations in the sector who allowed society’s moral attitude towards unmarried mothers at that time to influence their practice. As Members have described so eloquently in bringing to life those tragic stories, women were put under enormous pressure, and often faced the stark choice of returning home without their babies or fending for themselves. The devastating consequences for these mothers, and for their sons and daughters, are clear to see. Mothers talk of their feelings of loss, guilt and shame, of their unbearable grief for a lost relationship, and of not knowing whether their child is still alive. We know that many adopted children have suffered too, with overwhelming feelings of rejection, struggling with their identity and difficulties in bonding and forming attachments.
The hon. Member for Wirral South spoke movingly about the experiences of her constituent Sara and Sara’s mother, and the impact on their lives. It is truly shocking to hear how single mothers were treated at that time in our country. Adoptions during that period were generally handled through agencies run by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army—they have quite rightly apologised for their involvement in past poor practice.
It is important to recognise and accept that the legislation at the time was not robust enough to prevent what happened. I deeply regret that that was the case. Successive Governments have since taken action to strengthen the legislative framework so that it cannot happen again.
The hon. Member for Wirral South rightly said that it is important to understand what happened in the past and who was responsible. These issues were looked at closely by the Houghton committee in 1972, which covered the key issues of who arranged adoptions and the problems that brought, evidence about mothers being unable to give proper consent to relinquish their babies, and the lack of access to birth records to allow tracing later in life. It also covered the issue the hon. Lady raised about the role of the NHS and private nursing homes and reported that the British Medical Association had called for changes to how adoptions were made. I think it is unlikely that further research will bring new information. Evidence provided from birth parents suggests that record keeping during the time was poor, absent and often inaccurate.
Alison McGovern
The Minister is making a really worthwhile speech. He just mentioned a report, I think of a committee of this House. Will he be so good as to ensure that the report is made publicly available? He might ask the Library to do that, because it is very important to point to the work that has already been done. It sounds as though it was done a long time ago, so that is something we will want to discuss as we go forward.
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank the hon. Lady for that point, and I will certainly endeavour to do so.
Let me move on to why lessons have been learned from the past. We are confident that what happened to these mothers and their children could not be repeated today. Society now takes a very different attitude to single mothers. The legislative framework has been transformed beyond recognition. Today, the key principle is that children are generally best looked after within their family, with their parents playing a full part in their lives. Single mothers are given the support they need so that they can remain as a family. That is as it should be, as I am sure we all agree.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Can the Minister clarify that the report he has referred to was produced in 1972?
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes—I did say that when I referred to it.
Children can only be removed permanently by a court without the consent of the parents if the court is satisfied that the child is suffering significant harm or is likely to suffer significant harm if they remain with their birth family. Courts must consider all the evidence put before them, including evidence from the parents themselves, who will have legal representation. Adoption agencies and fostering services are now inspected by Ofsted, whose role is to ensure that practice is in line with the legal framework.
For the mothers who are at the heart of this debate, it is essential that they are able to trace their children and that their children can establish their parentage. The hon. Member for Wirral South called on the Government to work with organisations that support people who experienced the consequences of historical forced adoption to create a small service that will help with tracing family and support. Those affected by past adoption practices can already access intermediary services to help them to trace their birth children or birth parents and establish whether contact is possible.
Intermediary services are provided by registered adoption agencies, including local authorities, voluntary adoption agencies and registered adoption support agencies. When an intermediary agency finds a person, contact can be arranged if both parties agree. Birth relatives and adopted adults can also add their details to the adoption contact register at the General Register Office to find a birth relative or an adopted person. There is support for birth parents and adult adoptees who have suffered with mental anguish and illness. In addition to the NHS mental health services available for those with conditions such as stress and depression, a number of voluntary adoption agencies and adoption support agencies offer specialist birth family counselling, often under contract to local authorities.
I should like to thank again the hon. Members for Wirral South and for Liverpool, West Derby for today’s debate. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), asked specifically about a public inquiry. None of us disputes that these women were victims of poor adoption practice all those years ago, but I believe that it is unlikely that a public inquiry would uncover new facts. We believe that the lessons of the time have been learned and have led to significant change both to legislation and practice now. No child is removed from their birth family unless they have suffered significant harm or are at risk of such harm, and of course, parents have legal representatives.
Stephen Twigg
The Minister referred to a 1972 inquiry. Does he recognise that a lot of the mothers who have now spoken openly would not have done so at that time, and I imagine would therefore not have had an opportunity to have their voices heard in that inquiry? That is the case for some kind of process, be it a public inquiry or some other process leading to an apology now.
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I do take it on board. I am very happy to meet one or both hon. Members—the hon. Gentleman or the hon. Member for Wirral South—and if they bring the mothers with them, I can hear directly from them as well.
I hope that all those affected can take some comfort in the knowledge that what happened to them is so public and is on public record for all to see and understand. This House rightly acknowledges that this appalling historical practice has left a legacy of hurt and pain. I hope that where possible, many a mother and a child can be reunited and be given the comfort of building a family relationship.