Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate the Bill. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for the briefing they gave us and the opportunity to express, in my case, the concerns I have about the resources and funds available to run the breakfast clubs. I declare my interest as a patron of the National Association of Child Contact Centres.

I welcome the provisions in the Bill setting out child protection and safeguarding and working towards keeping families together as far as possible. I also welcome the kinship care provisions. In my capacity shadowing early years in the other place, I was acutely aware of the role that grandparents and other close family members wished to play but in many instances were not able to do so.

In Committee, I would like to explore the opportunity and the increasing role that could be played by child contact centres and other venues, which offer space for parents to meet and spend time with their children in the event of a family break-up. I urge and encourage the Government to promote and support child contact centres and the vital role they play.

My other main comment at this stage relates to admissions policy—in particular, access to, and the cost of, school transport. Previously, rural counties such as North Yorkshire enjoyed good relations between local education authorities and schools, which is possibly why the take-up of academies was less in those education authorities than others. Recently, however, tensions have been created over the funding of home-to-school transport.

In my view, that is a direct result of the Government cutting the rural services delivery grant. In 2024, that grant provided £110 million to 94 rural authorities to help maintain essential public services. Ending the grant has deprived rural areas of around 40% of funds, so they have 40% less money to spend per head than urban areas. I hope the Government will take the opportunity of the passage of the Bill to urgently address the inequality of funding between rural and urban schools. Previously, that was addressed by policies such as rurality and sparsity of population, but that is no longer the case. We have the opportunity in the Bill to address that.

Finally, I admire hugely the role that academies have played in those areas where they have performed well. I pay tribute to successive Governments and former Secretaries of State, as well as those around the House, who have made these such a success. I hope the Government will listen very carefully to the comments that have been made today and will take them on board when it comes to the passage of this Bill. I hope these issues can be addressed and monitored and that the Bill can be improved, but I do wish it a swift passage through the House.