Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate and for her tireless work campaigning of this issue. It is really encouraging to be joined by so many colleagues from across the House to speak about issues relating to SEND.

I rise to highlight some of the shocking stories that families locally have shared with me about the challenges and pressures that special educational needs and home-to-school transport are causing for them in their day-to-day lives. It cannot be right that so many are not getting the support they need, whether they sit in or outside the statutory framework, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock highlighted.

In Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, the rural context has been exacerbated by both authorities’ failure to appropriately place-plan at a local level. That has created difficult choices for the authorities and heartbreaking realities for families and young people, who are travelling too far at too great a cost to access the schools they need. Some are being shut out of the transport support that they need due to their age.

I welcome this debate and the possible reforms to the statutory framework. I look forward to working with colleagues right across the House to ensure that we bring about the holistic reform the area desperately needs.

Kinship Carers

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Alistair Strathern will move the motion and then the Minister will respond. I remind colleagues that, as is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up the debate.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for kinship carers.

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I start by welcoming my hon. Friend the Minister to her place. It is a real pleasure to see her in this role. Not only does she bring experience as someone who has worked in children’s social care, but her compassion and drive to improve situations for young people right across the country will be a powerful motivator to ensure that we deliver the change we have committed to as a Government, and will benefit of kinship carers in my constituency and right across the country over the coming years.

I am delighted to introduce my second debate on kinship care, having held one in the immediate aftermath of the last Government strategy earlier this year. As MPs, we get to meet, I think it is fair to say, quite a wide range of campaigners, all of whom are very powerful. I have to say that some are more convincing than others, but there can be no group more powerful or moving to work with than kinship carers. I was privileged, before I was even an MP, to be grabbed by Carol and Amanda, two kinship carers in the then constituency, to talk through some of the challenges they were facing. It was impossible not to be moved by their determination to do right by the young people in their care and young people in kinship care right across the country, so we stepped forward and agreed to work together.

I was soon to find that kinship carers are, rightly, an incredibly tenacious group of campaigners. One week after I was elected, Carol and Amanda pitched up at my surgery to ask what I had managed to do so far, and what I would be doing in the next week, to take their cause forward. It should have come as no surprise, then, that one month after my re-election—albeit in a slightly different constituency—they were beating down my door again. They did so because this is a cause that matters. Kinship carers do amazing work on behalf of the young people in their care right across the country. They step up at a moment of real trauma for a young person and ensure, through love, compassion and dedication, that everything possible is done to give that young person the stability, the common identity and the compassion they need to thrive.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, who is equally tenacious, and so is everyone else in this room. Last year in Northern Ireland, there were 3,801 children in care. We welcomed the boost for foster carers earlier this year, but we did not see a boost for kinship carers. Does he agree that there must be more financial provision for kinship caring across all of this great United Kingdom?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for making incredibly poignant remarks, as he always does in these debates. I think I have yet to attend a debate here where he has not brought something to the table, and I could not agree more that we need to be thinking about the breadth of support that kinship carers get. I hope to touch on some of those points later in my remarks.

As a former councillor and lead for children’s services, I was also privileged to work closely with kinship carers and see at first hand the impact they could have in transforming the outcomes of the young people in their care. They were making sure, in those difficult moments, that the young people had the stability of place, the familiar face and the retention of their identity needed in order to be as resilient as possible in the face of more traumatic circumstances than many of us will ever have to comprehend or grapple with personally. It came as no surprise, then, that the independent review of children’s social care a few years ago remarked clearly that kinship carers deliver far better outcomes than many other parts of the care sector, but are often underserved by a care network that just is not set up to fully consider them, fully recognise their needs and fully embrace the role they can play in supporting young people through that really difficult moment.

[Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that kinship carers like David and Pamela in my constituency not only should have equal access to vital financial allowances, but should get the training and support they need when they take on this vital role?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. It highlights the breadth of support we need to be considering for kinship carers—not just the pilots that have already been announced, but some of the wider training and therapeutic support needed to ensure that they are equipped to support the young people they are taking on caring responsibilities for.

This debate comes at a critical time for kinship carers across the country. They are finally having their voice heard, and we as parliamentarians owe it to them to live up to the commitments we have made over the last few years. It was fantastic at a recent reception to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education listening so attentively to one of the kinship carers, Poppy, talking through some of the challenges she faces and what she would like to change so that kinship carers and those in kinship care across the country are finally fully supported by the Government and their local authorities.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I compliment my hon. Friend on securing this debate and being a champion for kinship carers, not just in this Parliament but previously. Does he recognise that the situation for kinship families is urgent and that the inaction that we saw from the previous Government means that many kinship carers are unable to continue? If they could not continue, it would push more children back into an already overstretched care system. Does he agree that though the 10 pilots are welcome, the best way to support families would be a non-means-tested mandatory allowance for all kinship families?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful intervention. It is important to recognise the urgency. We have inherited a situation in which one in eight kinship carers are worried that they might not be able to carry on their caring responsibility, while thousands of other young people across the country could be placed into productive, meaningful and nourishing kinship care placements but are currently denied that by our antiquated children’s social care system.

[Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)]

As has just been mentioned, many kinship carers are on the breadline. They are not managing. Is it not right that instead of just patting them on the back and putting our arm around them, we should ensure that they receive adequate allowances to give the children they are looking after the best chance in life?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful point. He rightly highlights that financial support is a crucial part of the package that kinship carers need. I am really excited that the Government are finally bringing forward the £44 million needed to get on with the pilots. However, it is important that we do not just put an arm around kinship carers, but provide a wider range of therapeutic support and advice. Both financial and non-financial support will be crucial.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £44 million and the 10 pilots are a groundbreaking initiative on the part of this Government—something that kinship care families have long awaited and campaigned for? This is just the start, but we cannot have everything that we might want right now.

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. Since they took office, we have seen from the new Secretary of State, the Minister and the Government an urgency that, finally, is starting to meet the needs of the moment, and the needs of young people in kinship care and their carers. Whether it is making sure that we finally have a kinship care ambassador to actively champion the role of kinship carers and take to task local authorities that do not always provide the support they need, as some kinship carers in the room might be able to attest to; bringing forward statutory guidance and a framework to ensure that we have more in place to recognise the values of wider family networks in planning decisions for young people, and to do everything we can to remove the barriers to placing young people in kinship care; or—

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

As the previous Member for Mid Bedfordshire, the hon. Member knows how profoundly important this issue is to constituents like Amanda and Carol, who are tenacious. Does he agree that it is important to make sure that there is not a postcode lottery between local authorities and that there is equality of service across borders?

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. The new kinship care ambassador and the guidance for local authorities that was brought out earlier this year will be important in delivering that, as will making sure that local authorities are held to account for delivering the local offer for kinship carers. This is an incredibly important issue, and whether a kinship carer and a young person get the support they need cannot be left to the luck of a postcode.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Alistair Strathern]

I will give way to both my hon. Friends, then I will have to make some progress.

[Peter Swallow]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He makes a really important point about ending the postcode lottery. Does he agree that that extends to businesses and employers being more flexible when it comes to granting leave to kinship carers? Kinship carers often take on the responsibility at a moment of great crisis. It can be a really difficult moment, and we need to do more to ensure that they are supported to take the time off from work that they need to look after those in their care.

[Alistair Strathern]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who, with typically great foresight, has alluded to one of the points I hope to touch on later in my speech.

[Amanda Martin]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we must thank all kinship carers, in particular the 600 in my city, and that we must recognise that when children cannot be with their biological parents, it is often as a result of tragedy and trauma, yet kinship carers do not get the opportunity as often as adoptive parents and foster carers for training and preparation? That needs to be highlighted.

[Alistair Strathern]

I absolutely echo those sentiments. It cannot be right that young people who have gone through exactly the same level of trauma or difficulties early in their life can get very different levels of support depending on the statutory context in which they are looked after. We must consider that as part of the wider reforms to social care.

It would be fair to say that there is a consensus in the Chamber today that although there are exciting announcements coming from the Government on kinship care, there is a real desire to ensure that we do justice to kinship carers in thinking about how we can go further. I am really glad that in the Budget, the Government clearly set out the need to think about children’s social care reform more widely. It has been kicked down the road for too long. As the independent review of children’s social care rightly laid out, we are presiding over a system that is not delivering good outcomes for young people and their wider family network, at great cost to the taxpayer. That cannot be allowed to continue.

It is important to me and, I can see, to everyone in the Chamber today that kinship carers are a big part of how we put that right. We know that outcomes with kinship carers are better. We know that for every thousand people we place in kinship care, the taxpayer saves £40 million, and that that cohort, being better supported, will go on to earn up to £20 million more than if they had been placed in private social care. That is simple maths—a cold, hard, brutal underlining of the scale of the opportunity we are missing if we do not do right by kinship carers.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The economic point that the hon. Gentleman makes is powerful. This is not just about the long-term savings he alluded to from the improved outcomes for these children; there are short-term savings to paying kinship carers an allowance universally—not just in 10 pilots across the country—and extending employment leave through the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. Will he join me in pushing his party’s Front Benchers to be more ambitious? That will help the Chancellor find many of the savings she is looking for.

[Alistair Strathern]

I hope the hon. Lady knows that I will always be an ambitious advocate for kinship carers. I have met my match in the Minister, who is a very ambitious advocate for them too. I look forward to working with her and the Secretary of State, who I know has a real ambition for kinship carers and children’s social care more generally, to ensure that we do right by those who have been failed all too often by the system we have inherited.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Alistair Strathern]

Let me make some progress, in order to ensure that I give the Minister time to respond.

I will briefly highlight three areas where we would welcome further consideration and action. The pilots are fantastic news, and if we have not yet settled on where they will be, I cannot recommend Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire councils more. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is no delay and that the support is brought forward as quickly as possible. While I recognise the value of a compelling evidence base in policymaking, there is a clear case that this financial support will make a meaningful difference to kinship carers and potentially help to relieve the impact of further cost burdens in the system right now.

As other Members have alluded to, far too many kinship carers and their families cannot access the therapeutic support their young people and wider family networks need to navigate moments of trauma as effectively as possible. I know that there have been moves to rename the adoption fund, which has had positive benefits in improving some kinship carers’ access to it, but currently just one in seven of even those kinship carers who are eligible are benefiting from therapeutic support provided through that funding, and others are not eligible yet. Measures to widen access and put kinship carers on par with foster carers in other parts of the care system can only be welcomed.

I welcome the Government’s ambition to look again at things like parental leave. We have seen real action from the Government already, in their expansion of workers’ rights. It cannot be right that some of those who are least prepared to take on family responsibility, and have to do it at the shortest notice, in some cases with no planning at all, because of the very nature of the responsibility, receive no support at all. I urge the Minister to do everything she can to voice the need for consideration of kinship care leave as part of that wider allowance.

I am so excited to be part of a party that is taking this issue seriously and showing real leadership. I am looking forward to working with everyone in the Chamber to take forward our shared ambition to do right by kinship carers across the country, including those who have joined us here today. No one who meets a kinship carer or a young person in care can be under any illusion about the urgent case for change. We need to put right the things that they are experiencing and do all we can to support their love and determination to ensure that no other young person has to go through the challenges that the care system is currently forcing on them.

I thank the Minister for listening so attentively and colleagues for intervening so forcefully. I apologise to those from whom I was not able to take interventions in the end. It is so nice to see such interest in this issue, and I very much look forward to working with hon. Members and the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), in taking forward the exciting issues we have been discussing today.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

Our party wants to govern the whole country. In the election in July, we won many rural seats, and we will take the views and ambitions of rural communities seriously. If the hon. Gentleman wants to raise particular points with me to ensure that the roll-out works well in his constituency, I am very happy to meet him to discuss those issues.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

With so many families struggling to find affordable childcare across my Hitchin constituency, I really welcome the Minister’s announcement today, and I will encourage local schools to take part in the pilot scheme. I particularly welcome the focus on the exclusionary nature of top-up fees. Those fees run counter to the nature of the scheme, and all too often leave those most in need of affordable childcare unable to access it. Will the Minister assure us that as he takes the vital, robust action needed to clamp down on top-up fees, he will work with the sector more widely to ensure the viability of providers, who were all too often left on the brink by the previous Government’s mismanagement of childcare?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I have heard that message loud and clear from parents in constituencies up and down the country. Where providers seek to put up fresh barriers to access, we will not tolerate them. We will make guidance in this area as clear and consistent as possible to support hard-pressed families as we deliver this sea change in early years provision.

SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

As this is a 30-minute debate, I will call Alistair Strathern to move the motion, then I will call the Minister to respond. People can intervene on Alistair; that is the format for these debates.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND provision in Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Dr Huq. While I regret not being able to secure more time to discuss this important topic, I am very glad to see the keen interest across the House evidenced in the room today. I am particularly grateful to see many more Labour colleagues in this room than might have had quite such a geographical interest in the debate prior to the election.

I would like to start by welcoming the Minister to her new role. In my admittedly rather short time as an MP before the election, her energy, wisdom and reassuring positivity was a real source of comfort for me in what can be a pretty mystifying place to navigate. I have no doubt that young people across the country will be better off for her ability to bring exactly that same warmth and drive to her new role. As a former teacher and children’s lead, I am under no illusion of the scale of some of the challenges she will inherit. I am sure she will agree that fixing special educational needs and disability provision and the broken national system we have inherited is right up there with the biggest of them.

It is a near universally accepted truth that SEND provision across our country is simply not working. Indeed, the system had become so broken that, by the time of the election, the Conservatives’ own Education Secretary had to admit that they were presiding over a system that had become, “lose, lose, lose”. Vulnerable young people right across the country looking for the support they need to thrive at school are the ones who are losing.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

When discussing SEND provision with families in Hertfordshire, the phrases that most often resonate with me are people describing their experience as a fight or a battle. This is a consistent pattern. Parents spend months or even years pushing the system to get the support and care their children deserve, at huge personal and financial cost to their families. The fight can take many forms: securing an education, health and care plan in the first place, finding an appropriate school, or even fighting for recognition from the council that their child has additional needs at all. There is much that must change. It is of paramount importance that we reform the system so it is no longer characterised by defensiveness, but becomes one of empathy and support. I hope my hon. Friend agrees.

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more, because the sad reality is that Hertfordshire—a county we share—and Central Bedfordshire, which my constituency straddles, are far from exceptions to the national challenges we currently face. Both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire face real challenges in SEND provision, which is letting down schools, families and, crucially, the young people the system is meant to wrap around. Rather than providing support at the earliest possible moment of need, all too often it is pitting them as adversaries against the very stakeholders that are meant to support them.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is right that every constituency in this place is affected by the issue. Does he agree that without more trained staff, facilities and enhanced funding, it will not simply be SEND children who struggle, but everyone in that classroom? Does he agree that resources to meet the need in a long-term funding stream need to be delivered for all, because they are all affected?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing his keen interest to Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire today. He is renowned for that forensic insight across the House. He is, of course, quite right. When one young person in the classroom is let down, whatever their needs, the whole class is losing out. Putting that right is a fundamental challenge for our new Minister and new Government.

The Ofsted reports received by authorities in 2019 and 2022 across my constituency painted a damning picture of local provision and the challenges families were facing. It is important to acknowledge that since the reports were published, there have been some welcome steps forward. Increases in staff capacity were needed and are welcome. Moves to boost specialist school capacity, however delayed, have to be welcomed. The model that Hertfordshire is moving towards—a model of making SEND everyone’s business to ensure a breadth of ambition for those who look after young people with additional needs right across the partnership—is a novel and noteworthy approach. I am sure it is one that will be of interest to the Minister.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate and for starting it so well. He is right to say that there has been recent progress in the delivery of SEND in Hertfordshire, but much of that has started only since the most recent damning Ofsted report. Back in 2021, I invited the then Conservative leader of Hertfordshire county council to attend a ministerial meeting with me to discuss the funding formula and he declined. In 2023, the Conservative group refused to invest an extra £1 million in SEND services at Hertfordshire county council, as the Lib Dems had proposed, and only backtracked after that Ofsted report. This year, the Conservative education portfolio holder apparently decided to join the f40 campaign, but only after I had written suggesting they do so. I am pleased to see that there has been some progress, but does the hon. Member agree that Hertfordshire children have been really let down, not only by the Conservatives in Government but by the Conservatives in county hall?

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more. The way in which families and, crucially, young people in Hertfordshire have been let down typifies a challenge facing local authorities right across the country: in the context of a nationally failing system, how do we make sure our local leaders remain ambitious for our young people and do not become incredibly complacent about performance that cannot be justified? We saw that in Hertfordshire and, heartbreakingly, we see it today in other parts of the UK.

It is clear that even with the early signs of improvement there are significant challenges to address. Local statistics, including those published today by ITV Anglia, lay bare some of the shocking challenges that families and young people are still facing. It is evident that far too many young people are waiting far too long for an assessment, for the support that follows that and, shamefully, even for the school places that are most appropriate for their needs. Alongside that, far too many families are having to battle an appeals system just to secure confirmation of the support their young persons are clearly in need of and clearly entitled to.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Central Bedfordshire councillor, which puts me in a somewhat awkward position. I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. As my predecessor in Mid Bedfordshire, he knows all too well the challenges across the constituency, and I thank him for his work on the matter.

It is important for all the parents and grandparents in our constituencies that children with special needs get the right support, and I absolutely want to deliver that for the people of Mid Bedfordshire. I know there have been failures in the past; we need to move forward and find solutions. I want to do that in a cross-party way and I hope I can work with the hon. Gentleman, who is my neighbour, and with the Minister to do that. I think that is the right way to go. This has been too partisan for too long and some cross-party working would be valuable. The hon. Member has my support.

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for his commitment to working alongside everyone in the Chamber, whether in Central Bedfordshire or in Hertfordshire, to make sure our local authorities deliver the improvements in their gift and to make sure we support the new Government in finally getting a grip on the problems we have inherited.

I challenge anyone faced with the statistics we have been seeing over the past few months not to run the full gauntlet of emotions, all the way from despair to anger. For me, hearing the personal stories of the young people affected by the challenges has truly broken my heart.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Many of us have heard countless stories of families feeling dire frustration. For this debate alone I received more than 25 stories, each more harrowing than the one before. I will pull out a good example of a woman called Jane who has two children, both with SEND needs. One of them needs one-on-one support to catch up in English and maths, but the local authority has refused that. The consequence is that her son is now 14 years old and has not had an academic education for six years. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an all-too-regular example of the challenges we are facing?

[Alistair Strathern]

I absolutely agree and I thank my hon. Friend for rightly drawing attention to our collective shame for the shocking way in which that young person has been let down. My office has been blown away by the number of young people and their families who got in touch after our call for evidence ahead of this debate to share their own personal testimonies about the struggles they have been facing and the way those struggles have impacted their lives.

As my hon. Friend alluded to, many children across my constituency have had a chaotic and uncertain time waiting for school places. Some of them—like James, who got in touch with my office—have been out of school for years while they wait for a place. Others, like Mary, had secured a place only to find in the last week of the summer holidays that it had been withdrawn. Just imagine how a child must feel to be out of school, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Just imagine how a young person must feel to be so excited about going to a school that has finally been allocated to them, because it is right for them, only to find out the week before they were due to go there that they did not want them. That shames us all.

We have also heard from parents such as Sophie, who have been driven to despair by a system that they feel all too often forces them to fight every step of the way just to secure the very basics of support that their young person needs. Often, they have to sink thousands of pounds that they can barely afford into private diagnosis, representation and support after completely losing faith that local provision will be able to meet their needs.

We have also heard devastating stories from young people who have been pushed to the brink by the lack of appropriate support, including stories of those young people whose mental health has spiralled to the point that many of them felt they could no longer be in day-to-day education. Devastatingly and particularly heartbreakingly, we heard from the parents of Alice who, after feeling isolated and alienated by the delays in getting the right support in place at school, felt that she had no option available other than to attempt to take her own life. What more damning indictment of our failure could there be?

I know that not one person in this room will consider any of these stories acceptable, and I want to reassure every young person and their family experiencing the sharp end of the failing system in my constituency that my office and I never will. It is truly impossible to do justice to all of the stories—there are over 100 in total —that I have received in the time that we have available to us today, but I want each and every one who has reached out and each and every one who is struggling at the moment to be assured that I will carry with me the pain and the urgency of their testimony every day as I champion the changes that we need to see locally and here in Parliament. To those elsewhere—whether in Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire or elsewhere; I am looking around the room—I can say that they will not be short of advocates either.

We all recognise that every day a child lacks the support they need to thrive at school is a day’s potential that will forever have been wasted. When that support is lacking, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, everyone loses. Every time a parent has had to give up work to take on extra responsibilities because the state has fallen short on our promise to them is a moment when their career and indeed their whole family’s life has been forever narrowed by a systems failure. Every child who has given up hope that the system can ever work for them at all, and who has turned to despair or even worse, is a child we have all failed collectively to do right by.

I hope that colleagues here today will welcome Labour’s commitment to making sure that we finally put in place some of the actions needed to address this issue. There have already been early actions in this Parliament to bring consideration of SEND back alongside schools; we have announced potential reform of Ofsted to improve its approach to assessing inclusion, particularly around admissions; and we have ensured that we have an underlying commitment to a community-wide and reinvigorated approach to SEND. All of these actions suggest to me that we finally have a Government who understand the nature of the challenge we are dealing with.

However, as we move forward to tackle the system, I want to make sure that our approach shows that we have learned from some of the failings that are evident in the stories that we have heard locally. It is clear that our local systems were allowed to get to a truly dire place before action was prompted by Ofsted. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) pointed out, we have to do better. We have to make sure that our local partnerships are held accountable regarding the high ambitions we have for all of our young people regardless of the national context—that can never be an excuse for choosing to let people down day after day.

It is also clear in both the areas I have discussed that academisation has added to fragmentation locally and that we need to think through how we can resolve some of the challenges of creating a truly inclusive admissions system when the partnerships involved currently do not have the powers they need to compel all local stakeholders and all local schools to play their part. I am sure that there will be an important role for Ofsted to then hold schools accountable for delivering on their approach to inclusion.

In Central Bedfordshire, some of the challenges have been particularly exacerbated by the issues involved in the transition from a three-tier system to a two-tier system. This stalled transition has delayed the release of school capital sites, which are so important for us to be able to invest in localised specialist provision, meaning that sites that have been earmarked for much-needed special schools continue to be used in mainstream education for much longer than originally intended. I would welcome thoughts from the Department for Education about how it can potentially support Central Bedfordshire’s efforts to finally get this transition over the line.

More fundamentally, there is a big underlying question about how we can make sure that the funding formulas to allocate resource to match need right across our country, particularly in the two areas that I am talking about today, truly match the evidence of need that exists and address the challenges of doing so in a rural context. It is especially noteworthy that, in spite of all of the challenges we have been discussing, Hertfordshire still has one of the lowest high-needs block allocations in the country.

However, all the funding in the world would not make a difference without a trained workforce to deliver. Alongside thinking through how we best support local authorities and local partnerships to answer these questions, we need a workforce strategy to ensure that we are properly addressing the issues that we have been talking about. From educational psychologists to speech and language therapists, we just do not have the trained professionals to take on some of these vacancies currently.

In our patch, these challenges are exacerbated by the fact that our near-London context makes it even harder to recruit and retain for these specialties. Thinking through how we can make sure that we have a national workforce strategy, but with an eye to the specific challenges of outer London and near-London authorities, will be an important part of truly resolving the system for the young people we have been talking about.

Crucially, we must make sure that the heartbreaking stories of families and their children, and the painful misery of the appeals system, can finally be brought to an end. All too often, cases are appealed at great cost to everyone involved. Both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire have spent eyewatering amounts fighting appeals only to concede and often lose. How can we possibly see this as a good use of anyone’s time and resource? We need to think through carefully how we can reform the system to ensure that incentives are there in the right place to address these at the earliest opportunity, and that mediation is used robustly, fully, in good faith and exhaustively to make sure that expensive appeals are only necessary as a last resort, rather than as the default, for managing demand in a broken system.

I know that this Government are very aware of the challenges they are inheriting. Along with so many others, SEND provision will fall to this new Government to put right. I want to thank the Minister in advance for the leadership I know she will show on this issue, and I want to thank colleagues across the House, too, for their attendance. Whatever party, whatever seat, I look forward to working with all of them to hold our local partnerships to account to deliver on what is within their gift, and to work with our new Minister nationally to deliver on Labour’s commitments to finally get on top of SEND provision.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Hertfordshire county councillor. It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Hertfordshire receives the third-lowest high needs funding in the country. I know that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the need to increase that funding. Will he join with us cross-party to lobby the new Government to increase that funding? Hertfordshire deserves the right funding to deal with the SEND issues, which will help us to increase our workforce to deal with capacity issues in Hertfordshire. I want to place it on the record that this issue is very important to me. I have a brother and a sister who have special educational needs, so I have grown up in a family on the frontline and am pleased to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting time to discuss this very important issue.

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for sharing that personal aspect of his story. In me, he will absolutely find an ally in ensuring that we get a funding formula that truly meets the needs of every authority, particularly our authorities. Many other hon. Members have pointed out some of the challenges of where the current formula is indexed, at a point where it was pretty clear that the local authority was not managing the full use of that budget to deploy and meet the very real needs that were already starting to build up underneath the surface.

I want finally to thank every young person, every parent and every teacher who is battling to do their absolute best across those two areas in a system that just is not set up to back them to succeed. A system that is letting down children with additional needs is a system that is letting down children full stop, and it simply should not be a system that any of us tolerate any longer.

Ofsted

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

The shadow Secretary of State was a Minister in the Department for Education, and he knows these issues well. He also knows that the work we are announcing today is about clearing up the mess that the previous Government left. The Big Listen was announced under his Government, and his former colleague, the previous Chair of the Education Committee, was persuaded of the case for reform of the single-headline grades. Labour is a party of high and rising standards for all our children in all our schools.

Reforming inspection to enable improvement in our schools is urgent. Inspection and accountability are crucial tools for achieving better outcomes for all our children. We will take no lessons from a party under whose watch one in four children left primary school without meeting the standards expected in maths and reading. One in five children are persistently absent from school, and it is not good enough. We are determined to fix it, and the announcement that we have made is the first step on that road.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

May I thank the Minister for taking swift action? As a former teacher and children’s lead at a local authority, I know how high-stakes and low-information Ofsted judgments had started to become for local families. Indeed, having spoken to parents in my constituency ahead of my Westminster Hall debate on education for children with special educational needs and disabilities tomorrow, I know that the lack of a focus on inclusive education is a real issue for a lot of parents. Can the Minister confirm that when looking at a new scorecard, we will make the most of this opportunity to ensure that Ofsted is holding schools to account on the breadth of their inclusion in the local area?

Support for Bereaved Children

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andy Carter]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points, and particularly the role the Church can play in supporting families. I say to anybody going through grief that there are people out there they can reach out to. The challenge is knowing where to reach out, and this debate is about helping people to find places they can go when they need support.

I will return to the speech written by Dan:

“It was a cruel realisation, but necessary. It allowed me to begin the process of healing, because grief is a bittersweet feeling; whilst you’re suffering your own loss, you get to share each other’s love and compassion for the person that you lose.

After months of not being able to cope and agonising over the loss I was finally directed to a charity called Child Bereavement UK.

The months following my dad’s death I experienced a communication breakdown. I was unable to talk about him and felt completely overwhelmed. I sought relief in my own solitude but to no avail. Feeling trapped in this sensation of anguish.

The charity then became a lifeline for me. It was the only place where I could feel safe to express my own feelings and where I was able to begin that complex journey of navigating through emotion.

What counselling did for me was allow me to talk openly and freely about my dad; however, the most helpful aspect of my time at Child Bereavement was the group meetings where I could speak to young people who had also been through what I had. The groups offered a comforting presence and with their guidance I was able to acknowledge my own feelings of grief.

It gave me the opportunity to talk about my own experiences but also to console those who had similar experiences. In doing so it created a sense of solidarity between myself and other grieving young people.

I had one particular issue when first attending Child Bereavement and that was not being able to comfortably talk about my dad openly. For months I had suppressed my own feelings, but now I cherish the moments that I had with him and I’m always keen to listen to the impact that he had on everybody else.

I would go once a month to one-to-one sessions and a group for young people, yet after a few months I felt comfortable talking about the memories that I built with my dad and the struggle that followed his death.

Looking back at this time it gives me great self-pride to be able to talk about my own experience openly and to know that to have been able to do that I overcame the most painful time of my life.

No one should ever face this journey alone.

And, having experienced this first hand, I feel an obligation to make sure that young bereaved people across the country have the accessibility of these services and are able to secure the level of support that I did.”

Dan is only 17 years old, and he tells a story that is all too common for people of his age. Too many young people are unable to access what they need, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) said. For those who do lose a loved one, it is imperative that they know they are not alone and that they know where to turn.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for sharing such powerful testimony from his constituent, which shows that young person’s bravery in not just getting through that experience but sharing it to motivate change. I am privileged to work with some fantastic kinship carers in my constituency, who look after young people who have gone through real trauma and often deep bereavement. Those carers are not always able to access the adoption support fund, which provides access to therapeutic care, if their young person has not formally been through the care system. Does the hon. Member agree that removing the looked-after status requirement for the fund would be a powerful way to ensure that every young person can access the therapeutic support they need?

[Andy Carter]

The hon. Member has eloquently taken one of the asks that I was going to put to the Minster, so I am grateful for his intervention.

The issues that Dan’s speech provokes allow me to make one or two requests of the Minister. Will he look at the steps the Government can take to ensure that much-needed data on children who have lost loved ones is collected and released to help bereavement support practice? Last October, the Department for Education responded to an e-petition calling for a proper record to be kept of the number of bereaved children, to ensure that they are supported, and for responsibility to fall to the General Register Office, which oversees the recording of deaths. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on that and look into what other routes are available for recording information, separate from death registration by His Majesty’s Passport Office. I would also be grateful if he could comment on what further steps the Government are taking to ensure that young people who are unaware of the support services being offered are properly informed about where they can seek help and advice.

It cannot be beyond the Government, with today’s technology, to reach out to young people when they feel most lost and to ensure that those supporting them—those around them and looking after them—can give them guidance when they need it. To that end, I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what consideration the Government have given to the provisions in the private Member’s Bill from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West to expand the requirements for specified organisations and public bodies to inform young people of the local, national and online support services available to them following a bereavement.

I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for being here to respond to the debate today. I could not have asked for a better Minister to take up this debate. I am also grateful for his spending time with Dan just before the debate. I thank colleagues who have attended, particularly the hon. Member for Edinburgh West, who has been a real champion in this area. I am very happy to support her private Member’s Bill. I pay tribute to the many brilliant campaigners and charities that Members have mentioned, which do so much to support young people who experience bereavement at any age. Nobody should go through bereavement alone.

I congratulate and pay tribute to Dan Walsh, who I met and who talked to me about his deeply personal experience and showed great maturity. In that conversation, he talked about his interest in politics—he is studying politics at Priestley College —so I asked him to write this speech, which he did. I know his dad would be incredibly proud, and I encourage him to continue to pursue his political ambitions because I think he will go a long way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What steps she is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

18. What steps she is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gillian Keegan]

We need to do all we can to support children with special educational needs; they are vulnerable and need the support as early as possible. We have programmes in place to support local authorities, but the biggest thing that we are doing is increasing the number of special educational needs school places. This will be the largest increase in a generation—60,000 more school places—and it is in stark contrast to when Labour was last in power, when the number of places reduced by 4,000. That is something we are very focused on doing. Many of those have already been delivered, some are work in progress and some will be in the hon. Member’s area.

[Alistair Strathern]

Far too many families know what a battle it can be to secure an EHCP assessment for their child, but for forces families this battle can become a recurring nightmare, as they are forced to restart the process all over again if required to move base before it completes. It cannot be right that those who sacrifice so much for our country are so let down by the current assessment system. How can we put this right?

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course, we are always looking to improve the system and we do have an improvement plan in place. I will take away the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about people who move around from place to place, but the most important and fundamental thing is that we have increased the budget, which has now gone up to £10.5 billion—a 60% increase in the last few years. We are also investing in building the right provision, the number of educational psychologists and the workforce. We have a thorough plan in place and we are working to deliver it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend issues a timely and important reminder and we are very clear on that with schools. We also, of course, part-fund Educate Against Hate, which has materials available, and I know that schools also seek to go to lengths in most cases to make sure that when tackling controversial current affairs, they are doing so in an entirely impartial way.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

T10. While it is welcome that Ministers are finally investing in childcare, the scheme just is not working, with local providers telling me it falls far short of what they need to meet demand, exacerbated by the especially low rate paid in central Bedfordshire. Will Ministers change course to make sure that central Bedfordshire families can finally access the childcare they need?

[David Johnston]

Again, the first stage of this roll-out has gone incredibly well, with more than 200,000 children now benefiting. Labour MPs should spend less time criticising our roll-out and more in asking their Front Bench what their plan is, because it is supposed to be like the creation of the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend is right. Last week the Chancellor announced that we will be increasing rates until the end of 2027 for early years providers, which is something they have asked for. I cannot give my hon. Friend any reassurance about Labour’s plan, because it has no plan. The shadow Secretary of State says that childcare is her top priority, yet she has no plan for it. What does that say? Parents should be very worried about Labour getting into power, both for the childcare on which they rely and for every other area of education.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

Families right across my constituency are finding it increasingly hard to access affordable childcare locally. From speaking to two providers last week, it is clear to me that the current level and structure of free hours funding, even with the Government’s recent announcement, is not going to go far enough to allow these providers to expand, given the capacity and staffing costs that would entail. What reassurances can the Minister offer families in my area that, finally, the Government are going to get on top of the childcare crisis we are facing and make sure that families in my constituency will not have to go without?

[David Johnston]

We set our rates based on a survey of more than 9,000 providers, in order to get those right. Last year we saw a 13,000 increase in the number of staff in the sector and a 15,000 increase in the number of places. We work with every local authority to make sure that they have sufficient places, and I am confident that the hon. Gentleman’s area will have that too.

Kinship Care Strategy

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the kinship care strategy.

I could not be happier or more privileged to move this motion. There are so many campaigns that I am lucky enough to work with as an MP, but since well before I was elected one group has been a constant source of inspiration for me. From the number of colleagues in Westminster Hall today, it looks like I am far from alone in being touched by the story of kinship carers across the country.

From the very start of my by-election campaign, which colleagues may remember was rather longer than expected, kinship carers were meeting with me to set out their concerns locally, and none more so than Carol and Amanda. They sat me down and talked to me about the battles they face, and how through their love and commitment to the young people in their care they had been able to fight and ensure that they could do everything to give their young charges the best possible start in life. I could not help but be inspired by those stories and their determination, and feel the need to do right by them to ensure that they have everything they need to take care of the young people they look after.

Carol and Amanda’s love and commitment was matched only by their tenacity. I found that out four days after being sworn in as an MP when, at my first constituency surgery, first through the door yet again were Carol and Amanda, asking me what I had done so far for kinship carers and how I would be championing the cause going forward. The truth is that I could not be happier to be held to account on this important issue, because it matters so much. Although I am afraid I have not quite been able to get Carol and Amanda their meeting with the Prime Minister yet—not through lack of trying—I hope that today marks the start of a continuing commitment from me to champion the issue of kinship care in Parliament and to ensure that we make progress in some of the important areas they have highlighted to me.

In the run-up to the debate, I have been truly moved by the number of kinship carers who have taken the time to write to me; I know that colleagues across the Chamber have been too. Indeed, Kinship told me that in the last week alone nearly 300 kinship carers from right across the country have written in to share their own personal, difficult and important testimonies. The fact that they have done so underlines why we are all here today.

At its heart, kinship care is all about supporting a young person who may have been through a really traumatic and difficult moment in life—far more traumatic and difficult than many of us would ever have to go through ourselves. Making sure that that young person and the people in their wider family unit have everything they need should be a matter of great importance to all of us. They step up to take on caring responsibilities at a really important time—a time of real trauma and need.

It could be a situation like that of Karen, who emailed me to tell me about the moment she had to take care of her grandson, when he arrived at the start of lockdown with only the clothes on his back after his father had cut off all communication. Angela wrote to tell me about the challenges she faced in carrying out her caring responsibilities to her grandson while his parents were battling through addiction. Those stories are all unique and important, but they share one fundamental truth: at a time of need, kinship carers across the country step up to provide love and care for a young family member at a really difficult time. They take on responsibilities, often at incredibly short notice, that they have not planned or saved for.

I fear that in the time available, and to ensure that as many colleagues as possible can speak, I will not possibly be able to do justice to the wide range of emails and stories that I have received. I hope, however, to be able to underline the passion and the urgency of their love and care, and highlight some of the clear areas where we can all work together to go further, faster for kinship carers in this country.

As a former councillor with responsibility for children’s social care, I got to see at first hand the moving and important work done by kinship carers to take on caring responsibilities and ensure that their young person could stay with a sense of place, with family and with familiar faces through difficult moments. It was as clear to me then as it is now that, where possible, kinship care provides an amazing and powerful way of ensuring that the traumatic moments in some young people’s lives have as little impact as possible on their development. It ensures that a young person’s true interests, and their need to stay with family and with a sense of identity and place, can be protected and supported.

It is no wonder that the independent review of children’s social care found that where young people across the country had been placed with kinship carers the outcomes were often far better. Those outcomes alone should be more than enough to justify the support that kinship carers need and are asking for. But if they are not enough to spur action, we should be clear: failing to support and maintain every viable kinship care relationship means propping up a broken and expensive care system that currently is all too often letting children down.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The north-east, where my constituency is, has the highest proportion of kinship care households in England, and many of my constituents have been in touch with me about the difficulties they face. Many children raised in kinship care have experienced loss and trauma; does my hon. Friend agree that we need to do more to support those children and provide spaces for them to socialise with peers?

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She highlighted a really important point, on which I would be keen to hear from the Minister in his response, about how we can all work together to make sure that support is put in place and that opportunities are provided for young people right across the country.

To return to what I was saying, in looking through the outcomes the independent review of children’s social care rightly found that despite the amazing work and commitment of kinship carers, we need to do far more as a country, and we need our Government to do far more to ensure that wherever kinship carers are taking on responsibilities, and wherever possible kinship placement exists, everything is done to support, nourish and champion those situations.

The children’s social care review set out a number of areas in which we could be going further. It was welcome to see some of the review’s recommendations being taken forward in the Government’s own strategy, announced in December last year. I thank the Minister for that, and look forward hopefully to hearing more about the Government’s action on those recommendations, and on further areas. Sadly, as welcome as some of the measures were, I have spoken to kinship carers and advocacy groups and it feels like they fell far short of the comprehensive support and recognition that those groups need to ensure that many significant recommendations from the review can finally be enacted in full.

I am sure there are lots of aspects that colleagues across the Chamber will want to focus on, so I will touch on just three, the first of which is the need for a clear and consistent local authority offer. One thing that came through loud and clear in the testimony is the postcode lottery that kinship carers currently face throughout the country in terms of the support on offer from their local authority. Amanda in my consistency faces a real battle. She potentially faces a cliff edge in support when she moves between local authorities and is rightly concerned about what that might mean for her and her granddaughter.

Shockingly, researchers found that over a third of local authorities do not even have a local family and friends care policy in place—something that legislation already requires. I am keen to hear more from the Minister about how the existing requirements are enforced and how the Government will commit to making sure that we have strong requirements on local authorities, including considering whether an active, outward-facing local offer, on a par with that for care leavers, might be helpful to compel some of the support we would like to see on this issue across the country.

The second aspect is the need for fairness when it comes to care and parental leave. Kinship carers take on just the same responsibilities as other carers and parents, often at much shorter notice, but do not currently benefit from the same entitlement to parental care leave as others. As Clare, a passionate kinship carer, said powerfully at a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, this cannot be right, and it has a real impact on kinship carers and the child they support at a crucial moment. I am keen to hear more from the Minister about why a right to statutory pay and leave on a par with adoption pay and leave was not committed to in the national kinship care strategy, and about what barriers the Department for Business and Trade might face to working with the Department for Education on making sure that that measure can finally be introduced.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly to many kinship carers in the room today, is the issue of financial support. When it comes to financial support, the commitment to pilots is a welcome step forward, but at the same time for many kinship carers that feels like yet another delay that may mean support is never in place to reach them and their young person.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I declare my interest as chairman of the quality and safeguarding board of the National Fostering Group. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on a really important subject, concerning a really undervalued cohort of people in society. I want to add a fourth point to his list. All the points about practical support are absolutely valid, but what kinship carers also need is legal clarification as to their status, and how that fits in with special guardianship orders, family fostering and so on. In the absence of primary legislation, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it needs to be made really clear what the options are to kinship carers who want to step up and do that really important job? Does he agree that they should have the full backing of the law, and the status, in place of the parents, to do that job?

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. I hope the Minister might be able to shed some light today on whether the Government will bring forward, with haste and urgency, some of the primary legislation needed to give that formal legal definition, clarification and certainty to kinship carers throughout the country, who often find themselves in a very uncertain place in the bureaucratic and legalistic care framework that currently exists.

On financial support, Stuart, a kinship carer of two children, powerfully highlighted to me the fact that over and over again, whichever report or study one looks at, the economic case for kinship care is overwhelming. It is clear and is the right thing to do for the young people involved. Given the wealth of evidence already available, if we are to have pilots, how will they be delivered in a manner that ensures that a national roll-out can follow as quickly as possible? If the Government are looking for partner councils to help to support this effort, I am sure that some of our Bedfordshire ones would be keen to bite off the Minister’s hand.

We should also consider whether, by limiting the scope to children who have already been in the care system, the pilots risk reinforcing some of the factors that currently push children into the system that the strategy seeks to avoid the excessive use of. The measures required are not just important, but urgent. As is repeatedly raised with me, the young people in the care of kinship carers deserve help and support, not years down the line but now, when it can still make a difference for their families and, crucially, for the young person they are doing everything they can to support.

Every day that the kinship carer lacks a minimum standard of support from their local authority is a day their young person may not be receiving every bit of support they need to get the best start in life. Every month that the kinship carer takes on responsibilities without care or parental leave is a month when some of those precious early moments in a young person’s life may be forever missed. Every time that a potential kinship carer is unable to take on caring responsibilities because of financial barriers is a moment when a better outcome for that young person, who has suffered real trauma, may forever be lost. Every day that we do not provide support to our fantastic kinship carers is a day we are letting down young people right across the country.

I pledge to carry with me not just the importance of these issues and not just the wealth of factual evidence that has been presented to me, but the clear urgency of kinship carers’ love, commitment and call for action, today and every day that I am lucky enough to serve as an MP. I know that many colleagues here share that urgency, and will share their own stories of commitment to it. I hope that the Minister will be able to share more on how the Government can show urgency too.

We may not know when the general election will be—although I am sure colleagues would welcome clarification on that from the Minister—but we do know that kinship carers deserve help, and they deserve it now. They should not have to go a day longer without the required support. It should not have to come to a general election. This should not be—and clearly is not—a party political issue, and it does not feel like one in this debate. I look forward to hearing from others and the Minister about how we can work together during every day remaining in this Parliament to deliver for kinship carers across the country.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Before I call Ben Everitt, I say to colleagues that, as this debate is oversubscribed, there will be a time limit of three minutes, which might be shortened later in the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Strathern]

It has been a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful for the wide range of contributions we have had from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), as well as the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), for Worcester (Mr Walker), for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

It will be difficult in these two minutes to do justice to the wide range of issues highlighted today, but the range and sheer number of contributions gives me two important takeaways. First, we need to go further on a number of areas to do right for our kinship carers. Secondly, and more encouragingly, the sheer range of cross-party consensus around the House should hopefully mean that we can move with the urgency the issue demands over the remaining days of this Parliament. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for her contribution, showcasing and highlighting the important areas where we need to go further and underlining our party’s commitment to ensuring that they are tackled.

I thank the Minister for the work he has done on the issue and some of the things he has pushed along through the strategy. I want to flag, though, that the fact we have not even gotten to the point where the pilots have been chosen might cause some concern to carers, who fear that we are not yet in a position to even announce that. That underlines the sense that things are not moving with the urgency the issue demands. Similarly, the fact that we have had so many representations today on parental leave makes it clear that guidance is unlikely to be enough and that we will need to go further. I urge him to reconsider that.

Finally, I thank the fantastic kinship carers and advocacy groups in the Chamber today. Their love, commitment and dedication day after day as they look after their young people, breaking through so many of the barriers and issues that have often been put in their way, is truly inspiring. The fact that they do all that and then go beyond by advocating not just for themselves, but for future and potential kinship carers right across the country so that they and their young people do not have to face those same challenges is inspiring. I hope that today they have seen that they have parliamentary allies to their cause across the House. I look forward to working with everyone in this room to continue to champion the cause between now and the time when we can finally say the support they need and deserve is in place.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the kinship care strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

The temporary classrooms at St Andrew’s Junior School were delivered by Essex County Council, which I thank once again for its exemplary leadership managing RAAC in Essex. The Department is working closely with all parties to ensure that any concerns are addressed quickly. Work is ongoing today to fix a disabled access door. I can confirm that we will remove RAAC from all schools and colleges. Settings will be offered either grant funding or rebuilding projects. We are assessing the right solution for each case and we will update the House shortly.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

Swallowfield Primary School has a space-constrained site in my constituency, and relies on temporary accommodation to provide important special educational needs and disabilities interventions for pupils. However, because of an inadvertent breach of section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, it has had a loss of space and may lose that unit because of the compromising effect on outdoor space. Given that the space lost could never have been used for recreational purposes—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. These are topical questions.