Adoption and Kinship Placements

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Smith]

Absolutely: the goalposts have completely shifted. As we saw with farming, it happened overnight, so there was no warning for families and no ability for them to come up with other ideas.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. Following the announcements in April, a constituent got in touch. She has two adopted granddaughters who, given their traumatic start in life, rely on specialist support. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that diminishing the support fund will have long-term financial impacts on the Government’s budget?

[Rebecca Smith]

I agree with the hon. Member that there is definitely a concern around that issue. I will touch on it more later, but it has already been brought up this afternoon.

I turn to what some of my constituents are saying. My constituent CA said:

“These children are slipping through the net and it is the parents who are dealing with the fallout— excessive child on parent violence, total exhaustion from managing needs at home and constant battling with professionals.

I myself have had to give up my career—”

incidentally, she was a teacher—

“in order to maintain the daily battle of getting her to school, then constant meetings to get her any sort of education that meets her needs. It’s exhausting!”

Similarly, Joanne said:

“Myself and my husband adopted our daughter 12 yrs ago and our son 6 yrs ago. They both have Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder alongside Autism Spectrum Disorder.

My son is 6 yrs old and because of the trauma he endured in utero, he also has complex needs and has suicidal ideation with intent and wishes he has never been born—we were lucky enough to secure vital match funding last year to enable the sensory OT”—

that is, the sensory occupational therapist—

“to have weekly sessions to support him in controlling his emotions and to create a specific sensory diet which school will be able to use”

to support him in accessing school and supporting his needs. She continued:

“To hear that the fund is being reduced to £3,000 is truly terrifying. As a family, we have been in crisis and at risk of family (placement) breakdown, as having 2 complex children is exhausting, physically, mentally and emotionally, and my husband and myself had nothing left in the tank to carry on. I have been unable to work for 6 yrs due to my daughter being unable to access education as her needs were not understood or being met.”

The Labour Government promised to be different, to be bold and to put children first. However, when it came to one of the most vulnerable groups in our society—children who have experienced trauma, neglect and loss—they hesitated, they wavered and they failed to provide the leadership that we had been told to expect.

The Government say that the changes to the fund have been made to “maximise the number” of children supported, but how can they claim to support more children by offering them less? How can they ask families to step up and adopt or become guardians, only to pull the rug out from under them when they need the most support? Nearly 20,000 children received support through the fund last year. That is 20,000 stories of resilience and of families holding on through the hardest times. Now, however, many of those families are being told, “You’re on your own.”

Another constituent wrote:

“I am in the final months of a doctorate to become a Clinical Psychologist and much of my work…is with families who rely on this fund. Children and young people who are adopted have almost all experienced developmental trauma and are left with many relational and neurodevelopmental complexities that require long term specialist support and intervention in order to heal. Parenting these children is usually not straightforward and can be incredibly challenging and draining, requiring specialist support. I have little doubt that with the reduction of the fund, we will see a significant increase in adoption break downs…This is not only incredibly traumatic for all involved, but is also incredibly expensive—far greater than the costs that will be saved through the reduction in the support fund. The cost of keeping a child in care has been estimated at around £280,000, significantly more than the £2,000 that has been cut.

We know that that is not the only cost that will increase. As well as the risk of returning to care, adopted young people face tougher educational and employment outcomes and their mental health and wellbeing is significantly impacted, especially as they transition to adulthood. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has just progressed through the Commons—why undermine its aims by severely limiting the support in the ASGSF?

In the past few months, it has become clear that this decision should not be binary. It should not be about spreading funding thinly to go further; it should be about extending the funding to its previous levels. We need to see a return to the £5,000 fair access limit, to reinstate the £2,500 allowance for specialist assessments and to allow for match funding. We must make the funding permanent—not subject to annual spending rounds—provide it for more families and recognise that if it is not provided and ringfenced by the Government, it will fall to local authorities to find it, and we know how that tends to end up.

To conclude, I will quote from a constituent who works as a professional in this field and has raised some serious questions that I hope the Minister can address. She says:

“There has been no consultation process at all...how can this be fair or legal as adoptive & kinship families have access to therapies in their adoption and special guardianship order paperwork and in their EHCP agreements?”—

that is, education, health and care plan agreements. She continues:

“Who will adopt disabled children where lots of intervention and support is necessary? How many children will return to care? What will families do without multi-disciplinary assessments where it is beyond negligence to take this away as it is often the only thing that triggers considered recommendations for adopted children in EHCPs for case reviews, for providing carefully managed intervention plans.

Our previously looked after children are being discriminated against due to their complex needs where families face yet another closed door.”

I call on the Minister to reverse her decision and to acknowledge that failing to do so risks an uncertain future for these special children and young people, and their families.

Dedicated Schools Grant

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Dedicated Schools Grant.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the f40 group for its assistance with this issue, as well as all those in attendance, including the Minister, whose presence is greatly appreciated. I bring this debate forward on behalf of the headteachers, teaching staff, support staff and young people across Gloucestershire and the other local authorities that are among the lowest-funded councils by the Department for Education across England.

In its 2024 manifesto, Labour pledged to

“transform our education system so that young people get the opportunities they deserve.”

There is a clear alignment between that and the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to increase per pupil funding above the rate of inflation every year. Our goal is to support all pupils and expand educational provision, not to shift resources away from more disadvantaged counties like Gloucestershire. Schools in my constituency are faced with increased pressure right now, owing to the inequitable dedicated schools grant, combined with the rising cost of special educational needs provision.

Consecutive Governments have failed our children. With short-term mindsets, they have not adequately resourced education through which our children could otherwise go on to boost every workplace across the country. Those Governments left our children to emerge into a country where every public service is crumbling, but in which they need a university degree to become a police officer. Brexit took away their access to Erasmus and left a bitterly divided society, which is still struggling to readjust following the covid-19 pandemic.

When Sir Kevan Collins recommended a £13.5 billion covid catch-up fund for our children, Boris Johnson’s Government fielded only one tenth of that figure, after thoughtlessly spending billions on botched contracts for personal protective equipment. Our children continue to suffer the consequences of that decision through a mental health crisis; an explosion in demand for special educational needs and disabilities provision; and almost a million young adults not in work, education or training. I entered politics because I believe in fairness. Whatever else we do in this place, I believe there are two routes through which we can improve the future of our country—political, including electoral reform; and education, education, education.

Within every child lies the potential for greatness—the potential to solve tomorrow what seems impossible today. Our children represent our hope for the future. They are yet unburdened by the decades of dogma, societal pressure and institutional inequity that weigh upon us, and dilute our own potential. In every aspect of our lives, we must strive to prepare the ground ahead of them, and leave them a better country and a better world than was passed to us.

Our teachers recognise that more clearly than any of us. They dedicate their careers to the fulfilment of our children’s potential, because there is no more rewarding pursuit than to help others to develop. No salary compares to being thanked in the street by those you have helped, and watching with pride as they go above and beyond what they imagined they could. Labour’s 2024 manifesto described teaching as a “hard-earned and hard-learned skill” and pledged to work to “raise its status.” I commend the observation that we are continuing to fail our teachers, and the commitment.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that teachers and teaching assistants in schools were the first line of defence against cuts to public services from the last Conservative Government, and that, when the Department for Education is asking schools to make efficiencies alongside the extra funding they have received, that means that some TAs will lose their jobs? Last week, in my constituency of Esher and Walton, I walked into a school on a visit and the headteacher had just had to let two TAs go because his school is facing a deficit of £200,000.

[Cameron Thomas]

I wholeheartedly agree, and will come to that point shortly. I hope my hon. Friend will pass on my empathy to her headteacher.

Our teachers are no longer simply expected to educate our children according to the curriculum. Governments and society continue to expect more and more of our already overburdened teachers. Increasingly, four-year-olds are being introduced to school non-verbal, unable to use cutlery, and sometimes wearing nappies—but those are just the headlines. Discipline, time management, self and social awareness, self and mutual respect, moral courage, honesty, work ethic, public service and charity are soft skills and attributes that should be introduced in the home and honed within society as well as at school. This Government, with honest intentions towards our children’s healthcare, now have teachers cleaning their pupils’ teeth—just one additional straw upon the camel’s back. It is no wonder that teaching assistant posts are vacated or lie empty when people can earn more working in the local supermarket.

I understand that fixing the education system will be complex and expensive, and that action must also take place beyond the scope of the Department for Education, but something that can be addressed now is a more equitable allocation of funding. This would go a long way to remedying the situation for many schools in Gloucestershire and elsewhere. The dedicated schools grant is the mechanism through which the Department funds local authorities, which in turn allocate their resources to the schools within their jurisdiction.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

One school in my constituency has a £100,000 bill due to the national insurance hike, which is resulting in redundancies. Does my hon. Friend agree that the national insurance hike is exacerbating the inequity that many schools face in our local communities?

[Cameron Thomas]

I entirely agree. I have long spoken out against the short-sightedness of the national insurance hike, and I will come back to the short-termism that I think it important this Government escape.

The dedicated schools grant is allocated according to the national funding formula, which is outdated and puts schools such as mine in Gloucestershire under increased pressure. Mainstream schools in the lowest-funded local authority receive £5,000 less per pupil per year than they do in the highest-funded authority.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

In Oxfordshire, we receive an area cost adjustment of just 2%—that is to take into account the difference in the cost of living in different parts of the country. In London boroughs, that adjustment reaches 18%. It simply does not match the cost of living in Oxfordshire, where house prices are comparable to those in London. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this lack of funding is impacting the education of our children?

[Cameron Thomas]

As somebody who was—let us be generous—barely educated in Oxfordshire himself, I am very much aware of the issue.

My mainstream schools in Gloucestershire fall into the bottom 20% of DSG funding, earning £1,000 less per pupil than schools in the top 20. This means that Cleeve school, for example, with its 1,851 pupils, faces an approximate annual deficit of over £1.8 million compared with a similarly sized school in Middlesbrough.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I agree with all the points that my hon. Friend has made so far. This morning, I spoke to the headmaster of the Thomas Hardye school in Dorchester in my constituency. His previous job was at a London borough school in Croydon, where on average he received £10,000 per pupil; in West Dorset, that figure is £5,000. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s funding formula for schools does not take into account the added costs of rurality and providing services in places like West Dorset and, no doubt, his own constituency?

[Cameron Thomas]

With such gravity, my hon. Friend says it better than I could ever hope to. The inequity is there for all to see, and it is interesting that one of his teachers has experienced both ends of that scale.

My four-year-old daughter and her friends will begin their primary school education in Gloucestershire in September. I want them to have, as the Labour manifesto put it, the opportunities they deserve. To me, that means the same opportunities as every other child—but by the time they finish their GCSEs under this inequitable system, the dedicated schools grant will have invested between £10,000 and £50,000 less in our children than in those elsewhere in the country.

The Government might point to an upward trend in the dedicated schools grant in Gloucestershire since 2021, but on the current trajectory, it will take 15 years to achieve equity. By then, my daughter and her friends will have long since left school. Unless the Government act now, their potential will have been diluted by the dedicated schools grant as is. By the time we achieve equity, according to trends based on the Government’s own statistics, the vast majority of those teaching today will have retired. My headteachers have told me that, for most schools, approximately 85% of their funding is ringfenced for staffing costs, but that rises to over 90% in some particularly desperate cases.

The level of teaching experience in our schools is diminishing because our headteachers are having to make their most experienced and highly paid teachers redundant, so that they can recruit less experienced teachers on lower wages just to balance the books.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

In West Sussex, the deficit on our DSG grant is £130 million, and that will potentially double by next year. Despite that, SEND provision, which is the main driver of that deficit, is deficient across the district. So many schools approach me on this subject. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to not only find a way to wipe out the deficit but remove the fundamental cause, which is the ballooning cost of SEND provision?

[Cameron Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes eloquent points. Clearly, the SEND crisis is exacerbating the situation to a significant degree. What we look for from the Government is a long-term strategic plan to deal with this, rather than just pushing it down the line.

Since 2014, mainstream schools have been required to contribute the initial £6,000 of additional costs for SEND pupils from their own core budget. Owing to the inequity in the DSG, it is easy to see why that has a greater impact on those schools in lower-funded authorities. Resources have become so stretched many teaching assistants are available only to support pupils with the greatest SEND requirements. Underfunded primary and senior schools are taking drastic actions to balance the books. One primary school head I spoke with spends his holidays in school, completing the tasks of a caretaker he can no longer afford to employ. Across Gloucestershire there is nothing left to cut. Headteachers are overwhelmed and cannot afford to meet the cost of any pay rise that may arise from the Government’s negotiations with teaching unions. The impact of an unfunded pay rise, I have been told, would be ruinous.

I recognise that this Government inherited from the Conservative party an utterly broken country. That was a hospital pass but, almost a year down the line, my teachers remain on the frontline of a genuine crisis, to which they have been given no real answers. They do not have time for more politics as usual. They do not have another 15 years for this system to reach equity, nor do they need more short-termism. They need their Government to step up now with long-term solutions that do not simply pass the challenges down the line.

To support teachers and enable them to plan for the future, rather than simply stave off financial collapse, I ask the Government to review the national funding formula, and target funding to achieve near-term equity. Thank you, Ms Butler, for chairing this debate; I look forward to the contributions of others and the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cameron Thomas]

I thank all hon. Members for their speeches. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) equated the differential in funding to an entire teacher’s salary. The hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) contextualised the crisis faced by constituents with inadequate transport infrastructure and unfit buildings. I join him in thanking our teaching staff for their inspiring work ethic. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) explained how her diverse constituency suffers from not being rural enough and not being urban enough. Her young people do deserve more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) highlighted the legacy inequity locked into the current system. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) called for the national funding formula to reflect current need, not historical need. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) broadened the picture by explaining that families are having fewer children because they struggle to support even themselves.

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), who spoke of the postcode lottery perpetuated by a systemically flawed funding formula. I thank the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), who joined our call to review the national funding formula, even if her recollection of her party’s record differs from that of the rest of the country, not least my teachers.

I thank the Minister, who described her ambition to put education at the heart of the Government’s national rebuild. I am pleased that the Government will commit to reviewing the national funding formula. I am sure she will not mind if my colleagues and I chalk that one up to this debate. Once more, Ms Butler, I thank you for the honour of bringing this debate under your chairship.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Dedicated Schools Grant.

Young Carers: Educational Opportunities

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

The hon. Member makes a valid and important point about schools having a young carers lead, and I am proud to say that every school in Gloucestershire has one. My constituent Christian, who I met yesterday, has been caring for his grandmother from the age of six, but it was not until he was 11 that he was identified by his school as a young carer. Does the hon. Member therefore agree that, although it is an excellent endeavour to have more leads, more still needs to be done?

[Chris Vince]

As soon as the hon. Member mentioned Gloucestershire, I thought of the fantastic young carers from Gloucestershire I met yesterday. He is right that having a young carers lead is useful where a school has identified a student as a young carer, but we need to do more to identify young carers in the first place. I was previously a teacher, and teachers have a key role in identifying young carers.

There is also a lack of structured support in schools, particularly during the transitions from primary to secondary or from secondary to further education. One of our young carers told the APPG about his experience of applying to university, and how the university website did not provide any case studies that were relevant to him.

When we talk about transitions, we are not just talking about moving through stages of education; we are talking about how the caring role can change—often, sadly, for the worse. It is the responsibility of people in positions of authority to recognise that and to act. As a former teacher, I know only too well how easily young people can slip through the cracks. I am committed to changing that, which is why we need targeted training for educators to better identify young carers and to equip them with the tools to make their lives more manageable.

Other professionals can help, too. Action for Family Carers, for example, ran a project to reach out to GPs. It seems nonsensical that when a parent visits a doctor’s surgery with an acute medical condition, the question of their children’s caring responsibility is not even broached.

To support young carers, there should be a dedicated point of contact in education—a trusted person in authority who students can approach to discuss any caring responsibilities that might affect their studies. Whether it is about missing a deadline or arriving late to class, having one person to communicate with would ensure that the right people are informed and the student’s needs are met. This simple addition could make a world of difference, and there are some great examples of schools that do just that, but it is not universal. There should be mandatory training for teachers, so that they can all help with the task of identifying young carers.

Finally, transition periods, especially from primary to secondary school and on to college or university, are tough enough for everyone but even more so for young carers without support. As young carers highlighted to the all-party group, the leap to university feels unattainable due to the lack of provision. We know that a number of young carers do not go to university because they are concerned about leaving those they care for behind, and when they do go, they choose universities that are close to home, which potentially limits their options.

Education should provide hope and opportunity for all, regardless of background or circumstance. Resources must be in place for those facing disadvantage, ensuring that those challenges do not become insurmountable barriers. It is important that young carers have the opportunity to be children as well.