Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I am proud that while this Government have made tough decisions, we have protected key education priorities. There is additional investment in breakfast clubs, we are rebuilding and improving our special educational needs and disabilities system, and we are doing much more. After 14 years of decline, dither and delay, we are putting education back at the heart of national life and breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child in every community.
In response to the hon. Lady’s specific question, exceptional funding will continue to be allocated through local authorities on a case-by-case basis.
Sarah Green
Chesham grammar school, in my constituency, has received exceptional funding from the Department for some years to facilitate the hire of the neighbouring leisure centre’s sports hall for PE lessons. This year, the school’s application has been denied, despite its circumstances not having changed; it still has no on-site sports hall, and it still needs to fund the £65,000 hiring fees each year. Will the Minister meet me to discuss this particular case to ensure that the students of Chesham grammar school have access to the PE curriculum the school is required to provide come September?
Catherine McKinnell
I would be happy to arrange a meeting for the hon. Lady to discuss this matter further. Buckinghamshire requested for a local authority-owned facility to be funded, and, in line with the published guidance, rental costs for local authority-owned facilities are out of scope of the exceptional funding. However, local authorities should organise such provision within the cost availability for schools. I would be happy to discuss the matter further.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Too many children in Southall go to school hungry, so I am delighted that the Chancellor and this Labour Government have chosen to triple investment in breakfast clubs, and that some of the first free breakfast clubs will open at Blair Peach and Wolf Fields primary schools in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that children learn better with a full stomach?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why we are focusing our investment on breakfast clubs, which will ensure that children get not only a good start to the day with a full belly, but the support of a club that will help them to achieve and thrive.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Under the Tories, young people felt underprepared for their futures, and employers agreed that too many were leaving school lacking the skills needed in the modern workplace and ill-equipped for an ever-changing world. Through the independent curriculum and assessment review, Labour will bring forward a cutting-edge curriculum that ensures that all our children leave school ready for work and for life. The interim report will be published in the spring.
Nick Timothy
Parents and pupils will think that Ministers are on another planet when they hear such answers. SATs in years 2 and 6 mean that primary schools can be held accountable, and that we can measure progress data through secondary education, but the National Education Union says that SATs “do not benefit learning” and wants the Government to abolish them. Will the Minister rule out abolishing SATs in primary schools—yes or no?
Catherine McKinnell
Assessment clearly has an important role to play in supporting achievement and development within schools. We will consider how the reformed curriculum and assessment will affect schools. We recognise the importance of supporting schools through any changes that come forward in the interim and final report.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
From the rise of Andrew Tate to the re-emergence of Tommy Robinson, lots of young people I speak to are concerned about the extremism and conspiracy theories that they are encountering online. Last month, an important report from Public First and the Pears Foundation highlighted the need to do more to empower schools and teachers to tackle those things in the classroom. How will we use the curriculum review to make the most of this moment to empower young people to feel safer in online spaces?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We already provide guidance and resources to help and support teachers to recognise some of those challenges, to intervene swiftly where necessary, and not to tolerate a culture that excuses harm and the experiences of women. Schools must be places where all young people can thrive and be ready for work and life. We will ensure that the curriculum and assessment review reflects that.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
One reason why England’s schools rose up the international league tables in recent years is that they spent more time on core academic subjects such as English and maths. Having fallen sharply under the last Labour Government, the share of pupils doing double or triple science at GCSE has also gone up from 70% to 98%. Can the Minister reassure the House that time will not be taken away from the core academic subjects, and that their content will not be cut back, as a result of the curriculum review?
Catherine McKinnell
The Government entered office to unprecedented challenges, including crumbling public services and crippling public finances. In the face of a significant financial black hole we are taking tough decisions to fix the foundations, but we are protecting key education priorities, rebuilding schools and rolling out breakfast clubs, and we will continue to do so.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Margaret Mullane (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
The Government inherited a “lose, lose, lose” SEND situation. The Tories even described it as such in their own words, with the Deputy Chief Whip saying that they should hang their heads in shame over what they left behind. Since entering government, Labour has restructured the Department to put SEND at its heart. We have invested £1 billion into services, and £740 million to create additional specialist places. But we are under no illusions that reform to the system is desperately needed, and we have brought in expert advisers to help us achieve that.
Bob Blackman
In London alone, the deficit for this year is estimated to be £313.8 million, but that will grow to £502 million next year unless more money is put in. Clearly, there is a problem that we need to address. Ideally, those with special educational needs should be taught in mainstream education. However, it is much cheaper for local authorities to have in-house provision and special needs schools in the borough, rather than send children to another more expensive borough. Harrow was granted a new special educational needs school under the last Government. Will the Minister confirm that it will proceed? It has the support of all the headteachers and cross-party support.
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman described the challenge that resulted from 14 years under the previous Government. We recognise the strain that the rising cost of SEND provision is putting on local government, which is why we will be setting out plans to reform the SEND system, with further details to come this year, including how local authorities will be supported to manage their historical and accruing deficits. Decisions on new school provision and buildings will also be made in due course.
Margaret Mullane
Has the Department give due consideration to updating the allocation policy? It is currently based on historical funding, which leaves boroughs such as Barking and Dagenham at a disadvantage for SEN provision compared with inner-London boroughs.
Catherine McKinnell
The structure of the high needs funding formula is largely unchanged in 2025-26, as we take time to consider what changes might be necessary to ensure a fair system that directs funding to where it is needed and that will support our future SEND reforms. We will continue to consider where changes to the formula will be required. The Secretary of State visited a school in Dagenham in December and saw at first hand its excellent work and the difference it is making to children with special educational needs in my hon. Friend’s area.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I draw the attention of Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have a school in my constituency that is very good at helping students with education, health and care plans—so much so that it is struggling with the number of students who have EHCPs. Will the Minister meet me to discuss this issue and wider SEND issues in my constituency?
Catherine McKinnell
The Government want to ensure that education, health and care plans are issued quickly, to help children and young people achieve and thrive. Officials work continuously with local authorities to offer support where there are issues with timeliness, to ensure that effective recovery plans are in place. I am sure that a meeting could be arranged for the hon. Gentleman to discuss his particular concerns in more detail.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The deep crisis in our SEND system, which is one of both funding and delivery, is letting down far too many children, and requires urgent action. Will the Minister update the House on the timing of the Government’s plans for SEND, and provide assurances that there will be full engagement with parents, professionals and young people with SEND on any such plans?
Catherine McKinnell
We recognise the unprecedented pressures that local authorities are under and that the system does not currently deliver the best education possible for families, who want the best for their children, as quickly or thoroughly as it should. We will be announcing more details of reform plans this year. We consult continuously with families, representatives of families and local authorities, and we will work closely with my hon. Friend’s Committee.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Across the 46 schools in Mid Norfolk, SEND provision is the No. 1 issue for parents, teachers and staff. Contrary to the party political broadcast from Ministers, in the last 14 years I was lucky to secure £7 million from the Conservative coalition for a new school and Conservative county council funding for a new school in Swaffham. Officials in the Department for Education have also been constructive in working on a pathfinder for rural hub-and-spoke support. Parents in rural areas really struggle. What are Ministers doing to take that forward to support small rural schools to access specialist help in hubs?
Catherine McKinnell
I know that the hon. Gentleman raises his concern in all sincerity. We will continue to work with all partners, parents, teachers, local authorities and indeed the NHS on how we reform our SEND system and ensure that the support that is needed reaches every part of every community. Our ambition is for a more inclusive mainstream school system that draws on the right education and health specialists to ensure that every child receives the support that they deserve.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
Far too many children with complex learning disabilities and autism have been failed by the system and end up having a place not in their local community, but in institutions. That disproportionately affects black children, which is synonymous with the ’60s and ’70s when they were classified as “educationally subnormal”. Will the Minister explain what work is being done to identify the number of children who have been institutionalised? What work has been undertaken to review and amend those situations?
Catherine McKinnell
I know that this issue is important to my hon. Friend. She has, quite rightly, been raising it through a number of avenues. I will continue to work with her to ensure that we learn from the past, when far too many children were let down, and that, as we reform our SEND system, it is fit for purpose and serves every child.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Some of the huge cost pressures on SEND budgets are being driven by the lack of state special school places, with many councils forced to send children with complex needs to private special schools that can cost two to three times more than local authority provision. There are many brilliant independent special schools providing value for money, yet we know that some private equity firms are profiteering with upwards of 20% profit margins from the schools that they run. Why will Ministers not back Liberal Democrat amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to include special schools in their proposed profit cap backstop for children’s social care providers?
Catherine McKinnell
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a landmark piece of legislation that the hon. Lady knows brings forward really important changes that will keep children safe as well as reform our school system so that it serves all. We are focused on improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and ensuring that we do have special schools that can cater for those with the most complex needs. Our priority is restoring the trust that parents should have that their child will get the support they need. We will do all that is necessary as part of our SEND reforms to ensure that that is delivered.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
High and rising school standards, and excellent foundations in reading, writing and maths, are a key part of our plan for change, which aims to ensure that every child gets the best start in life. Reading for pleasure is hugely important. Last month, Labour announced £2 million of investment in driving high and rising standards by embedding the success of phonics and ensuring that children and teachers develop reading skills. That includes children reading for pleasure.
Tulip Siddiq
When I was growing up in the 1980s, my nose was always buried in a book, and I let my imagination run wild. Nowadays, nine in 10 children have a mobile phone by the time they reach the age of 11, and statistics show that there has been a steep decline in the number of children reading for pleasure. Does the Minister agree that the likes of Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson should not be replaced by a smartphone, and will she prioritise children’s reading for pleasure in the school curriculum?
Catherine McKinnell
I am sure all Members joined in celebrating World Book Day in their schools. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and recognise how important it is to encourage children to read for pleasure. We know that reading for pleasure does happen in schools; teachers already encourage their students to listen to, discuss and read a wide range of stories, poems, books and plays. Importantly, this can also start at home, where parents can show how much they love reading. That is why I commend the LBC campaign, Kids Who Read Succeed, an excellent initiative to encourage reading and ensure that all children, parents and teachers get that message.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
In all four libraries in my constituency this week, Mid Sussex babies and toddlers will be enjoying themselves at rhyme time; I hope that will be the start of many happy years of reading for my youngest constituents. Will the Minister join me in congratulating West Sussex library service on its 100th birthday last month, and will she commit to lobbying the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister to ensure that my county council is sufficiently well funded to enable West Sussex to keep its 36 libraries open to the public for another 100 years?
Catherine McKinnell
I absolutely join the hon. Lady in congratulating the library service on its success. We all know how valuable our local libraries are in supporting and encouraging children and families to read. This is obviously a priority; we encourage reading for pleasure as much as reading for study, and it is something we clearly need more of—as is longevity, as she rightly says.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
I completely agree with the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq). What is displacing reading for pleasure among children is smartphones and social media, including in schools. The Department for Education’s own behaviour survey found that nearly half of pupils in years 10 and 11 report that in most or all lessons, mobile phones are being used when they should not be. The guidance is not working, so why are the Government continuing to block our proposals for a proper ban on smartphones in schools?
Catherine McKinnell
Last year, under the previous Government, we saw the steepest year-on-year drop in the number of children and young people enjoying reading. The hon. Member should look at the record of his Government before pointing the finger. Phones should not be out in schools; it is a simple as that. Heads have the power to impose rules that suit their school community. Just a year ago, his Government claimed that they were “prohibiting” mobile phones in schools, and that their guidance meant a “consistent approach” across schools. Those were their words. The then Secretary of State said:
“We are giving our hard-working teachers the tools to take action”.
Was that Secretary of State right back then, when they backed the Tory Government’s measures, or is the hon. Member?
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Accountability is non-negotiable for this Government, and we know that when standards slip, it is disadvantaged children who suffer. Through Ofsted reform, we are putting an end to high stakes, low information headline judgments, and in their place school report cards will provide clear detail on what schools are doing well, and where they must improve. High standards must be for every child in every school, so we are increasing the oversight of multi-academy trusts. Our focus remains on standards, not structures.
Jack Rankin
I have a case in my constituency where a governor feels that she was pushed out, having raised concerns about senior teaching staff. I understand from last year’s Sky News report that that may not necessarily be an isolated incident, as the accountability process potentially involves trustees marking their own homework. I am a strong supporter of academies, but there must be a balance. Will the Minister commit to bringing in a system of accountability and transparency to prevent such things from happening?
Catherine McKinnell
Where concerns about an academy are identified or raised, the Department works closely with the trust to ensure that all statutory requirements are being met. We are legislating in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill for a more proportionate route to intervention in the event of trusts not complying with legal duties, or acting in a way that is not reasonable. I appreciate the complexity of the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, and I would be happy to arrange a meeting to discuss it further.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
In my constituency of Camborne and Redruth, a small number of multi-academy trusts are contributing to a high level of suspensions and exclusions. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that as a matter of urgency?
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the concerns that my hon. Friend raises, and I would be happy to arrange a meeting to discuss them in more detail.
Catherine McKinnell
The right hon. Lady appears to have misunderstood both the aims and impact of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. We recognise that parents must have an opportunity to have good schools in their area, and that schools must be able to set admission numbers to meet the requirements of the local community. That is why we expect local authorities to co-operate with schools in their area, and expect all schools to co-operate with the local authorities, to ensure that the right number of school places are available in the areas where they are needed.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Yesterday afternoon, a group of five and six-year-old special educational needs children had great fun running circles around their Member of Parliament on the football pitch at Matthew Arnold school in my constituency. Can Labour Front Benchers please use their good offices to encourage Surrey county council to continue to fund the star player programme, which provides great fun for the children and great respite for the parents?
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
That sounds like a lot of fun, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for participating. When it comes to supporting what we know are brilliant projects, local authorities are increasingly challenged as a result of the funding deficit that the previous Government left them, but I am sure they are keen to support those projects. We will work with local authorities on a continuous basis to ensure that children with special educational needs and disabilities get the opportunities they deserve.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
Catherine McKinnell
The Government are working closely with local authorities to ensure that consideration is given to all options for utilising space, whether that is for early years provision or SEND provision, including merging provision where that is in the best interests of the community, and we will continue to do so. I or the early years Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the proposals.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Will the Secretary of State confirm how many SEND children are forecast to have to leave the independent sector and go into the state sector because of the imposition of VAT on fees? What will be the cost of that to the taxpayer?
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
Catherine McKinnell
The Department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to ensure that no child is prevented from accessing education due to a lack of transport. I am keen to understand how well home-to-school transport is supporting children to access educational opportunity. I am working closely with officials on that, and I will bear my hon. Friend’s comments and concerns in mind as that work continues.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I start by wishing you, Mr Speaker, and the House a happy Commonwealth Day.
Conservative-led Hertfordshire county council has done excellent work in supporting children with SEND, in my constituency and across the county, while seeing a 27% increase in requests for EHCPs in 2024. How is the Education Secretary directing her Department to provide further assistance to councils such as Hertfordshire, which is having to find more and more money from its budget to support students with SEND?
Catherine McKinnell
We recognise the challenges in the area that the hon. Gentleman represents. A SEND improvement board chaired independently by Dame Christine Lenehan oversees progress and provides challenge. We know that the system needs wholesale reform; we are working at pace and will make an announcement as soon as possible.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
What resources are being provided to schools to support restorative justice initiatives in relation to knife crime, especially victim-led approaches such as workshops or peer mentoring to engage young people in conversations about its prevention?
Catherine McKinnell
We hear about far too many cases of young people being affected by knife crime, and I will take away the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised. We are undertaking a curriculum and assessment review, looking closely at relationships, sex and health education, and considering how we can empower young people to be discerning and respect one another and create a society based on values and tolerance.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
In each of the past two years, 40,000 teachers have left the profession owing to burnout and excessive workloads. What concrete steps will the Government take to address that, and how can we reverse the exodus from this fantastic profession?
Catherine McKinnell
Under the Tories teachers were overstretched and undervalued, so Labour is resetting the relationship with the profession. We are properly remunerating teachers by accepting the 5.5% pay rise that the last Government sat on. We are also keen to cut unnecessary burdens on teachers, harnessing artificial intelligence and supporting children with their mental health. The child poverty taskforce is determined to alleviate the burdens that originate outside the school gates.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What steps are being taken to support voluntary organisations across the United Kingdom, such as AWARE in Northern Ireland, that offer education programmes to target depression and related mood conditions as part of mental health education in schools?
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
School staff in North East Hertfordshire work tirelessly in dilapidated facilities to support students with special educational needs while parents face absurdly long journeys to reach specialist schools, and in the meantime the old Roysia school site in Royston lies vacant. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the school estate in my constituency, and how we can use the Roysia site to meet local special educational needs?
Catherine McKinnell
We are very open to ideas for how we can best use the school estate to meet the needs of young people, including those with SEND. We are determined to deliver a wide range of reforms, and I—or, indeed, the early years Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan)—would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss how we can best use the resource in his constituency for the benefit of all the children who need it.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Last week the Department announced that colleges would receive only two thirds of the funding that they were promised for the 35,000 additional 16 to 18-year-old students enrolled last autumn, a decision that could lead to thousands of prospective students being turned away this September. That follows a cut in the adult skills funding. Can the Secretary of State explain how cutting promised funds will help to address skills shortages in the economy and help to deliver the Government’s growth mission?
Education
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Written CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell
On 7 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, making grooming an aggravating factor to toughen up sentencing and introduce a new performance framework for policing.
On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that before Easter the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations in the final IICSA report, which my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North powerfully set out. All of those recommendations were for the Home Office, including on disclosing and barring, and work on them is already under way.
The Government will implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, and as part of that we will update key Department for Education guidance.
[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 11 February 2025; c. 514.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
On 6 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, making grooming an aggravating factor to toughen up sentencing and introduce a new performance framework for policing.
On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that before Easter the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations in the final IICSA report. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North spoke powerfully about a previous report.
The Government will implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, and as part of that we will update key Department for Education guidance.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill
The following extracts are from the eleventh sitting of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee on 6 February 2025.
Catherine McKinnell
Where the adjudicator upholds an objection to the published admission number, I cannot foresee a circumstance where that might be the case—
Catherine McKinnell
It will very much depend on the local context. Obviously, it will be for the adjudicator as an independent professional to take that decision for maintained schools. To be clear, for academies it will be for the Secretary of State to end a funding agreement, and for maintained schools it will be for the local authority to determine.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 430.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
It will very much depend on the local context. Obviously, it will be for the adjudicator as an independent professional to take that decision on schools’ PANs, following an objection. To be clear, for academies it will be for the Secretary of State to end a funding agreement, and for maintained schools it will be for the local authority to determine closures.
Catherine McKinnell
The fundamental point is that school closures need to be managed very carefully through significant change or prescribed alteration processes.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 432.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
The fundamental point is that school closures need to be managed very carefully through published closure processes.
Catherine McKinnell
It is the local authority that has the responsibility to agree published admission numbers with the schools in its area.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 436.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
It is the local authority that has the responsibility to agree published admission numbers for the community and voluntary controlled schools in its area.
Catherine McKinnell
For other possible scenarios, we will provide guidance on the factors that we expect decision makers to take into account in the variety of decisions that may be required. That will be based on the existing guidance for opening new schools and will include the vision for the school, whether it is deliverable and affordable, the quality of the education, the curriculum and the staffing plans. Those are all the factors taken into account when determining the opening of a new school.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 438.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
For other possible scenarios, we will provide guidance on the factors that we expect decision makers to take into account in the variety of decisions that may be required. That will be based on the existing guidance for opening new schools and will include the vision for the school, whether it is deliverable and affordable, the quality of the education, the curriculum and the staffing plans. Those are all factors taken into account when determining the opening of a new school.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill
The following extracts are from the twelfth sitting of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill on 6 February 2025.
Catherine McKinnell
Regardless of the admissions policy set by the admission authority, faith schools remain subject to the same obligations as any other state-funded school to actively promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs, and to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. That will apply to all schools as part of the changes introduced by this Bill.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 454.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
Regardless of the admissions policy set by the admission authority, faith schools remain subject to the same obligations as any other state-funded school to actively promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs, and to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. That already applies to all schools.
Catherine McKinnell
This Government take corporate parenting seriously, and recognise the key role that local authorities play in providing care, stability and support to care leavers—like any parent would. We are introducing the new clause to ensure that, where a council is their corporate parent, no care leaver can be found to have become intentionally homeless.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 467.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
This Government take corporate parenting seriously, and recognise the key role that local authorities play in providing care, stability and support to care leavers—like any parent would. We are introducing the new clause to ensure that, where a care leaver is in scope of the corporate parenting duty, they cannot be found to have become intentionally homeless.
Catherine McKinnell
In response to the question from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, the amendment will impact children classed under the Children Act 1989 as relevant children or former relevant children who present for homelessness assistance. That would cover young people aged 16 to 24 who have been looked after by a local authority for a period of at least 13 weeks, or periods that amount to 13 weeks, since their 14th birthday, at least one day of which must have been since they attained the age of 18.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 6 February 2025; c. 468.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
In response to the question from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, the amendment will impact children classed under the Children Act 1989 as relevant children or former relevant children who present for homelessness assistance. That would cover young people aged 16 to 24 who have been looked after by a local authority for a period of at least 13 weeks, or periods that amount to 13 weeks, since their 14th birthday, at least one day of which must have been since they attained the age of 16.
Education
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Written CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell
As hon. Members have rightly said, it is really important that care leavers are supported to get into education, employment or training—the right hon. Member for East Hampshire clearly said that as well. That is why a care leaver who starts an apprenticeship may be entitled to a £3,000 bursary, why local authorities must provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go to university, and why care leavers may be entitled to a 16-to-19 bursary if they stay in further education.
[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 28 January 2025; c. 189.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
As hon. Members have rightly said, it is really important that care leavers are supported to get into education, employment or training—the right hon. Member for East Hampshire clearly said that as well. That is why a care leaver who starts an apprenticeship may be entitled to a £3,000 bursary, why local authorities can provide a £2,000 bursary for eligible care leavers who go to university, and why care leavers may be entitled to a 16-to-19 bursary if they stay in further education.
SEND Education Support
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) on securing this incredibly important debate, and on the way in which she set out her constituents’ case. Like many other hon. Members in the Chamber, she clearly has a keen interest in the support and services that are made available to children and young people with SEND.
I also thank hon. Members from both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for recognising that work is needed to put right the terrible situation currently faced by far too many children in the system, and that we need to improve it. Doing so is a vital part of the Government’s opportunity mission. We want to break the link between background and opportunity, and that means giving every child, including children with special educational needs and disabilities, the very best start in life.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
On the point about giving children the best start at the earliest stage, what are the Minister’s thoughts on properly integrating family hubs into education, health and local authorities, to ensure seamless support for children with SEND?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important point. The Government are committed to expanding the work of the family hubs to ensure that every community has support to create that earliest intervention. Many hon. Members have mentioned the importance of early intervention. We agree that it is vital, but I will come to that in more detail. She tempts me down a different path from the one I was going down.
I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal that addressing challenges in the SEND system is a priority for me, for the Department for Education and for the Government. We recognise that this is a whole-Government effort, including the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport. Many hon. Members raised challenges around school transport. It is a priority to fix that system and get the best outcomes for every child. I also reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal that I would be delighted to visit her constituency, which I hope can be arranged.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
More than one in three SEND children in Oldham is diagnosed with autism or a neurodivergent condition, which is above the national average. We know that there are implications for educational attainment and work. Has there been an assessment of the increase in children with autism or neurodivergent conditions? If so, what were its conclusions?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important point. The additional recognition of special educational needs and disabilities has highlighted not only the extent of the challenge to ensure the best offer for all children, including those with SEND, but that we should give every child the best education, regardless of their special educational needs and disabilities. Our ability to identify aids us to have the infrastructure and support in place to ensure that every child has the best start in life. I will talk in more detail about how we do that, as many hon. Members have asked.
We have reached the point of recognising the challenge, although the surprising contribution of the Conservative Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford), was a caveat to that. In the context of this debate, where we recognise that there is a shared challenge, his contribution seemed to skip from 2014 to the present day, as though the previous 10 years had not happened. It bore no recognition of that, despite his former Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, acknowledging that the system presided over in the10 years prior to 2024 was “lose, lose, lose”. I agree that we should not be arguing about who created the challenges; we should be getting down and resolving the challenges together. I did not think that the hon. Gentleman’s contribution was respectful of the positive contributions that other Members from both sides of the House had made.
Alex McIntyre
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for having the confidence and courage to accept interventions, unlike some hon. Members. Does she agree that the shadow Minister’s comments showed how out of touch the Conservative party is? Parents have been in tears in my surgeries due to the system that the Conservatives left behind.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate what my hon. Friend says. I am happy to take interventions, but I have to cover a lot of issues that hon. Members have raised. I hope that, in the time we have left, I have the opportunity to do so.
I know we all agree that every child deserves the opportunity to achieve, thrive and succeed. Where possible, as highlighted by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), that should be within a mainstream setting with their friends. However, we are aware that there are significant challenges currently in achieving that. That is why we are prioritising early intervention, which a number of hon. Members have raised, and inclusive provision within mainstream settings.
We know that providing early intervention prevents unmet needs from escalating and supports children to achieve their goals and thrive alongside their peers. We are really committed to working to deliver that for every child in every community. We are doing so by increasing high needs funding by £1 billion, which brings the total funding to £11.9 billion. Suffolk county council is allocated £124 million through the high needs funding block. That is an increase of £10.3 million and a 9% increase per head for two to 18-year-olds.
We know that the high needs funding formula needs to be looked at. It has been largely unchanged because we needed to prioritise making sure that we create a fair funding system, and direct funding to where it is needed and can make the biggest impact. That is why we are allocating funding towards capital to ensure that we have places available where they are needed. The £740 million of high needs capital can be used by local authorities—we will announce the allocations in due course—to deliver new places within mainstream settings, special schools and other specialist settings, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of current buildings. It will also help to tackle the issue of transport, which many hon. Members have raised. If we have mainstream availability of specialist support within a local community, there will be no need to travel such distances.
Catherine McKinnell
I am sorry; I will not be able to respond to hon. Members’ queries and concerns if I give way again.
EHCP timeliness was raised by a number of hon. Members, including by my hon. Friends the Members for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) and for Dartford (Jim Dickson), whose contribution was excellent, and the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). We monitor the timeliness of ECHPs, but there is a balance to be struck between issuing them within the timeframes required, which we need to see, and making sure that they achieve the outcome that we want—namely, better opportunities for the children that they are intended to serve. We will continue to monitor that and work with local authorities to improve it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal will be aware of the key role that alternative provision settings such as pupil referral units play in supporting vulnerable children and young people with SEND. We want them to work together with mainstream settings to make sure that we have targeted interventions and support to improve behaviour and attendance and to reduce the risk of exclusions, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin raised.
Speech and language is an important opportunity to intervene at the earliest possible stage for children. We know that children need to find their voice and that an increasing number of children are starting school without having had the support to do that previously. That is why we have prioritised the early language and support for every child programme. We are trialling new and better ways to ensure that we can reach communication needs in early years and primary schools.
I am very conscious of time. I want to let the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) know that I take on board the concerns that he raised. The abuse that he described is abhorrent and disturbing, and not within the current regulations or rules. We are running a consultation on the use of reasonable force, which is open until 29 April 2025 and contributions are welcome.
I am afraid that I have to draw to a close. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed; they made the case for their constituents well. I recognise the work of all those in our education, health and care systems who work with our children and young people with SEND in Suffolk and across the country. We need to deliver the very best for our children and young people, and to give them the best start in life. I am sure that, together, with this determined effort, we can do that.
SEND Provision: Derbyshire
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) on securing an Adjournment debate on this important subject, and on her powerful and heartfelt speech. I know that she, like all Labour Members here today, has a real interest in and passion for supporting families in her constituency who are navigating the special educational needs and disabilities system, and all the challenges that clearly presents.
I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby), for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for their interventions, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Jon Pearce), for Erewash (Adam Thompson), for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett), for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) and for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for their powerful speeches. Hon. Members have spoken incredibly powerfully for their constituents, and they are very much heard.
As hon. Members recognise, improving the special educational needs and disabilities system across the country is a priority for the Government. We want all children to receive the right support to succeed in their education, and to lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives. Every child, regardless of their individual needs, deserves the opportunity to achieve, thrive and succeed. At the moment, we know far too many children are not being given that chance, and far too many families have been let down, year on year, by a system that is not meeting those needs.
Over 1.6 million children and young people in England have special educational needs, a figure that is increasing year on year, with more children requiring SEND support, and even more children and young people being identified as having a specific need that requires an education, health and care plan. As the Education Secretary mentioned in her keynote speech at the Centre for Social Justice just last week, the recognition of those additional needs and the debate around how we support children with SEND is a sign of progress, but clearly there is much more to do.
Jonathan Davies
One of the reasons the county council has got into this mess is because it was around a decade since Ofsted’s previous inspection of its SEND provision. When I approached Ofsted, officials said the reason is that that was what Ofsted had been contracted to do by the Government. We need more agile regulation, as we discussed on the Second Reading of the Data (Use and Access) Bill today, but does the Minister have plans to look at Ofsted’s regulatory model and the frequency with which it inspects? If the provision in Derbyshire had been inspected earlier, we might have less of a problem to deal with now.
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are looking across the system at how to reform it to make it better for families and for children who experience the need for additional support, and to improve outcomes. To assess all those issues, we need an inspection and accountability framework that drives improvements. I will come to the specific issues raised in the inspection of Derbyshire county council. It was inspected under a new inspection framework that threw significant light on the current situation, as exemplified by the various heartbreaking stories hon. Members have shared today.
Improving the SEND system is a vital part of the Government’s opportunity mission. We are determined to break the unfair link between background and opportunity by giving every child with SEND, along with all other children, the best start in life. We are prioritising early intervention and inclusive provision in mainstream settings, as we know that early intervention prevents unmet needs from escalating. That will support all children and young people to achieve their goals alongside their peers.
We know it takes a vast workforce, from teachers to teaching assistants, early years educators to allied health professionals, to help all children to achieve and thrive. We are investing in each of those areas to improve outcomes and experiences across the country. We are committed to working with the sector and our partners to ensure that our approach is fully planned and delivered in partnership.
We have already begun the work by appointing a strategic adviser on SEND to engage with sector leaders, practitioners, children and families. We have established an expert advisory group for inclusion, to improve the mainstream education outcomes and experiences for those with SEND, and we have set up a neurodivergence task-and-finish group to provide a shared understanding of what provision and support in mainstream educational settings should look like for neurodivergent children and young people within an inclusive system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley understandably raised concerns about education health and care plan timelines. The plans have significantly increased in number, year on year, since their introduction in 2014, with nearly 600,000 children and young people with an EHCP as of January last year. Over time, flaws and a lack of capacity in the system to meet lower-level need have added additional strain on specialist services, and that has had a detrimental impact on the experience of those accessing the EHCP process. There has been late identification of need and intervention, low parental confidence in the ability of mainstream settings to meet that need, inefficient allocation of resources across the system, and inconsistency in practice and provision based on location. Hon. Members have expressed the particular challenges in Derbyshire that have clearly manifested over many years. Those have all contributed to pushing up costs and have created an increasingly unsustainable system.
The latest data shows that in 2023, just 50.3% of EHCPs were issued within the 20-week statutory timeframe. That is leaving young people and their families without appropriate and adequate support. The Government want to ensure that EHC needs assessments are progressed promptly and plans are issued so that children and young people get the support they need to help them achieve positive outcomes. We know that local authorities have been struggling to meet the increased demand for EHCPs, so we are constantly working with them to improve those response times.
The Government are acutely aware of the challenges that families face in accessing the support their children need—and actually, of how adversarial the EHCP process can be. Independently commissioned insights that we published last year showed that if we can get those extensive improvements to the system, if we can use early intervention better and if we can better resource mainstream schools, that will have a significant impact. More children will have their needs met without having to even go through an education, health and care plan process, because their needs will be met in a mainstream setting with their peers. We are listening to parents, local authority colleagues and partners right across education and, as hon. Members have rightly identified, across health and social care, because we need to work out how to address and improve the experience of the EHCP process for families, and reflect on how we can roll out practice that will be more consistent nationally.
Every child and young person should have access to high-quality services to set them up for life, for work and for the future, and local authorities and their partners are key to ensuring that children can access the support they need. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly inspected Derbyshire in September 2024 and found widespread and systemic failings. That led to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND across the county of Derbyshire. The published report made it clear that the local area partnership, which consists of the local authority and the integrated care board, must address those concerns urgently and identified six areas for priority action. As a result of the inspection, His Majesty’s chief inspector required the local area partnership to prepare and submit a priority action plan to address the identified areas.
A team has been put in place to track those outcomes against the action plan. Progress is being monitored and the Department for Education has appointed a SEND adviser to work collaboratively with an NHS England adviser to challenge, support and work with Derbyshire county council and the integrated care board to drive those improvements. I am sure that that is good news for hon. Members to hear, but clearly that progress needs to be made as quickly as possible, because as hon. Members rightly set out, families cannot wait any longer for the support they need.
We absolutely want more children and young people to receive the support they need, and ideally to thrive in their local mainstream settings with their peers, so that they do not need to travel long distances to find specialist places that can accommodate them and they can have their needs met with their friends in their local school. We know that many mainstream settings already go above and beyond to deliver that specialist provision locally through resource provision and SEN units, and we know as well that there will always be a place for special schools and colleges for children and young people who have the most complex needs. It is vital that we see the investment that is needed to create the new places in mainstream and special schools and in specialist settings. That is why we have announced £740 million of high needs capital for 2025-26. We will set out those allocations to local authorities in due course.
Hon. Members have raised concerns about the underspend in Derbyshire county council and we really need to see that money invested in those specialist places, whether in mainstream or special schools, to make sure that places are available with the support that children need. The Government are absolutely committed to working with Derbyshire county council, and with school leaders and sector partners locally and nationally, to develop and improve the inclusive education within mainstream settings that every child deserves.
James Naish
I thank the Minister for speaking so clearly on this important issue. On the intervention I made earlier about empty classrooms, we are seeing in Nottinghamshire that there is not the demand for nursery places that there desperately is in other parts of the country. Does the Department have any appetite to think about how those spaces could be used to try to deal with the issue we are talking about today?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises a really important point that manifests itself in many parts of the country: we have a shift in demographics and, as he identifies, early years places are opening up more quickly in some parts of the country than in others. That is why the Secretary of State announced the funding to create early years places in particular, but it is also why we have this capital funding that will be allocated to local authorities so we can utilise all the available space to make sure that we can provide these specialist places. Obviously we want local authorities to be able to apply the funding in the way that will best meet the needs in their local area. That might mean repurposing space to create a specialist unit within a mainstream school, creating a more accessible space within a mainstream school or creating specialist places in whatever way a school is able to. If a local authority is able to support them, that funding will be available to create those spaces. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley for bringing this debate forward. Members here tonight are clearly very grateful for the opportunity to air their constituents’ concerns and for this issue to be highlighted, and it is absolutely right that it is, because SEND outcomes in Derbyshire and nationally are an issue we all care passionately about. I acknowledge the challenges that far too many families face when seeking to secure the right support for their children with special educational needs and disabilities, and that the system absolutely needs to improve, and we are determined to make progress and to make the change.
I want to conclude, as always, by recognising all those who work in our education, health and care systems in the interests of our children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, in Derbyshire and right across the country. We need to deliver the very best for all of our children and young people, including those with SEND. We need to give them the very best start in life, and prepare them for life, work and the future. I thank all who work to deliver that tirelessly day in, day out. Despite the challenges set out tonight, I am confident that together, with determination, we can see that change.
Question put and agreed to.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting)
Catherine McKinnell ExcerptsTuesday 11th February 2025
(7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2025 - (11 Feb 2025)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for Twickenham in tabling new clause 30, and I agree that local authorities should be transparent about the services available to support children and families. However, our statutory guidance, “Working Together to Safeguard Children,” already requires local authorities and their statutory safeguarding partners to publish accessible information about the services that they offer children and families, including preventive services and family support.
I welcome the reference that the hon. Member for Twickenham made to preventive services and family support. The Government are committed to rebalancing the children’s social care system towards earlier intervention and reversing the trend of unsustainable spending at the crisis end of the system. Ou reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, backed by over £500 million of investment in the next financial year, will improve access to early intervention services and ensure that more children and families can access the help and support that they need at the earliest opportunity.
I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for North Herefordshire in tabling new clause 72, and I agree that local authorities should have a range of services available to support all children and young people and their families, but we have already planned investments of over £600 million for family services, across the spectrum of need—from universal services through to children’s social care interventions—in 2025-26. Through the family hubs and Start for Life programme, 75 of the most deprived local authorities in England have received funding to set up family hubs with integrated Start for Life services at their core. An additional 13 local authorities have been supported in opening family hubs through an earlier transformation fund.
By joining up and enhancing services, family hubs provide a welcoming front door to vital support to improve health, education, and the wellbeing of babies, children, young people and their families. More than 400 family hubs are funded through that programme. In 2025-26, local authorities will receive a further £126 million of combined funding from the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care.
Our reforms to family help and multi-agency child protection, backed by over £500 million of investment in the next financial year, will improve access to early intervention services and ensure that children and families with multiple and/or complex needs can access the help and support they need at the earliest opportunity. I hope that that response is reassuring and that the hon. Member for Twickenham feels able to withdraw the amendment.
Munira Wilson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 31
Eligibility for free school lunches
“In section 512ZB of the Education Act 1996 (provision of free school lunches and milk), before paragraph (a) insert—
‘(za) C’s household income is less than £20,000 per year;’”—(Munira Wilson.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the hon. Member’s concern, and I thank her for raising this issue. We believe that schools are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and should be able to choose from a range of options to best suit those needs, with tutoring being one option, but not the only one.
Although the national tutoring programme ended on 31 August 2024, schools can continue to provide tutoring through the use of their pupil premium and other school funds. The pupil premium is funding to support the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, and schools can direct spending where they think the need and impact is greatest. The Department for Education has already published guidance, based on evidence gathered through the national tutoring programme, on how to plan and deliver tutoring to pupils to support schools that wish to use this option. Pupil premium guidance sets out approaches, including tutoring, that can be used to support disadvantaged pupils, including those in the groups identified in the new clause. With that in mind, I kindly ask the hon. Member for Twickenham to withdraw the clause.
Munira Wilson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 36
Establishment of a National Body for SEND
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, establish a National Body for SEND.
(2) The functions of the National Body for SEND will include, but not be limited to—
(a) national coordination of SEND provision;
(b) supporting the delivery of SEND support for children with very high needs;
(c) advising on funding needed by local authorities for SEND provision.
(3) Any mechanism used by the National Body for SEND in advising on funding under subsection (2)(c) should be based on current need and may disregard historic spend.”—(Munira Wilson.)
This new clause would establish a National Body for SEND to support the delivery of SEND provision.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Munira Wilson
I will pick up where I left off, on the third of the three key functions that this national SEND body would have. Those functions are advising on funding for local authorities, offering guidance based on current need and moving away from outdated spending models.
The second function provides families and local authorities with the assurance they need that, when a child with very high needs is identified, funding for those needs is available and can be met through a central pot. When I am asked about that, I liken it to highly specialised NHS commissioning for rare conditions. It would eliminate the postcode lottery for families and the funding risk for local authorities; when a local authority comes across a child who has very, very complex needs and requires support, it can put a big pressure on its high-needs block.
This body would ensure consistency in standards across the country and drive continuous improvement. It is an important piece of the puzzle in reforming a SEND system that was described as “lose, lose, lose” by the previous Conservative Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue. As she knows, we are absolutely aware of the challenges in the SEND system and how urgently we need to address them, but, as I know she appreciates, these are complex issues and need a considered approach to deliver sustainable change. We do not believe that the SEND system needs another body that would add to the bureaucracy in the system. The focus is on making the system less bureaucratic and getting support to children and young people who need it quickly and efficiently.
The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to work with a wide range of partners, including schools, colleges, health and, crucially, parents and young people, to develop their local offer of services and provision for special educational needs and disabilities. That recognises the differing circumstances of each local area and places decision making with the local authority. Crucially, decisions about provision for individual children and young people with statutory education, health and care plans are currently made by the local authority, which will know its schools, colleges and settings and the provision that they can offer in a way that a national body could not.
I absolutely recognise the challenges of supporting children with very high needs, particularly those who require highly specialist provision. Local authorities have statutory responsibilities to make joint commissioning arrangements about education, health and care provision for all children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability in the local authority’s area. We do not believe that a new body is required to support local authorities to deliver on those duties. The Government keep the funding formula and other arrangements that the Department uses to allocate funding for children and young people with SEND under review, and it is important that there is a fair education funding system that directs funding where it is needed. The input of stakeholders will be invaluable as we review current arrangements, but there is no need for a new national body to do that. Although I absolutely take on board the intentions and concerns of the hon. Member for Twickenham, I kindly request that the new clause be withdrawn.
Munira Wilson
I shall disappoint the Minister: I would like to press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Ian Sollom
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I move this new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), who is herself a school governor, to highlight the severe shortage of school governors and the increasing responsibilities they face. The recruitment of governors has become increasingly difficult. Indeed, the National Governance Association estimates that in 2022 vacancies hit a six-year high at 20,000. Its latest report last year revealed that 76% of schools found it difficult to recruit governors, while 44% of boards had two or more vacancies, up from 33% three years ago. Moreover, 30% of governors considered resigning because of an inability to balance their governance responsibilities with their jobs.
Evidence shows that the responsibilities of school governors have significantly increased over time, and Ofsted said that since schools’ autonomy increased, starting with the Education and Inspections Act 2006, the role has become more important but also more complex. Historically, school governors provided formal oversight, but they are now also expected to ensure regular performance reviews and financial oversight, and to hold school leadership accountable. The position has become increasingly professionalised, and Ofsted has identified that growth in responsibility as a key factor in many schools struggling to achieve a good or higher rating. That is largely because governors fail to focus on holding school leadership accountable, and have that split responsibility with other aspects of the role. The new clause seeks to probe that issue more, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Catherine McKinnell
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss governance structures in schools and academies. I sincerely thank the incredible volunteer force, which is a vital part of our system. I have such admiration for those in our communities who step up and invest their precious time and energy in our schools and young people. Governors and trustees work tirelessly in the interests of pupils and students in what we recognise is an often challenging environment. We really do owe them a debt of thanks.
Munira Wilson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I rise to speak to new clause 39, in my name and those of a number of my hon. Friends, which seeks to fulfil the second recommendation of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse by establishing a child protection authority in England, which would be an arm’s length body of the Government on a par with organisations such as the National Crime Agency. As the inquiry set out, its role would be to
“improve practice in child protection by institutions, including statutory agencies;…provide advice to government in relation to policy and reform to improve child protection, including through the publication of regular reports to Parliament and making recommendations; and…inspect institutions as it considers necessary.”
I recently met Professor Jay and a member of the panel who was involved in that review, and they felt that there are certain gaps in the inspection regime across the country, so having this overarching national body with a focus on child protection is a really important recommendation and step forward. Indeed, it was the report’s second recommendation. The child protection authority would monitor the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations.
I am very grateful that the Government have already committed to implementing the recommendations, but I gently say to Ministers that this Bill, which we have spent several weeks going through in detail, already focuses on a number of safeguards and child protection measures. One of the many reasons that the previous Government gave for not implementing some of the recommendations was a lack of legislative time, which I struggle to understand given the number of times the House rose early in the previous Parliament. Given that the IICSA recommendation requires legislation and we are considering a very relevant Bill, I am not entirely sure that the Government are committed to implementing it as they are not legislating for a child protection authority.
When we discussed new clause 15 this morning, the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen said that many of the crimes explored in the report are undoubtedly ongoing. Therefore, what could be more important than putting these provisions in place? I very much hope Ministers will seriously consider implementing this recommendation quickly and using the legislative opportunity. Even if they will not accept my new clause, there is time as the Bill progresses through Parliament to put into legislation one of Professor Jay’s key recommendations.
Catherine McKinnell
As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are focused on delivering the change and justice that victims deserve. As I set out earlier in response to new clause 15, on 6 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament the commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, making grooming an aggravating factor to toughen up sentencing, and introducing a new performance framework for policing.
On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that before Easter, the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse report. Four were for the Home Office, including on disclosure and barring, and I know that work is already under way on those. As the Home Secretary stated, a cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations, and that group will be supported by a new victims and survivors panel. Again, as I mentioned, the Government will also be implementing all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, and as part of that we will update key Department for Education guidance.
This landmark Bill will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout our education and care systems, so that every child can achieve and thrive. It will protect children at risk of abuse and help to stop vulnerable children falling through cracks in service. I therefore urge hon. Members to support the Bill and the measures, and to withdraw the new clause.
Munira Wilson
I am still at a loss to understand why, if the Government support the recommendations, they are not using this legislative opportunity. I will therefore press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Catherine McKinnell
I agree with the sentiments behind the new clause. Any form of violence in school is completely and utterly unacceptable and should not be tolerated. By law, schools must have a behaviour policy. In the most serious cases, suspensions and permanent exclusion may be necessary to ensure that teachers and pupils are protected from disruption.
Schools or trusts as employers already have a statutory duty, outlined in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of school staff at work. Where violence is involved on school premises, schools should take immediate and appropriate action. Should the incident constitute a potential criminal offence, it is for the school as an employer to consider involving the police, having followed the advice contained in the “When to call the police” guidance for schools and colleges by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, written in partnership with the Department for Education and the Home Office.
There are already appropriate provisions and guidance for schools to prevent and respond to violence on their premises. That includes guidance on when to involve the police, so the new clause is likely to impose an additional administrative burden on school leaders. Clearly, important points have been made, but, on the basis I have outlined, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw the clause.
Neil O’Brien
I absolutely agree with the Minister’s sentiment—of course she wants only the right thing for pupils and teachers. However, I will push the new clause to a vote, because we want to think about how we can go further on all these things to create the safe workplace that both teachers and pupils deserve.
In another part of the forest, there is an argument about non-crime hate incidents and logging them. The arguments made by the Government about logging them is that one thing leads to another. As I said before, we do not wish to criminalise children, but logging where actual acts of violence are taking place is an important resource for the police and other social services. We think that something along those lines would be useful, and I am keen to push this to a vote, but I know the Minister will think about everything extra that she can do to try to create a safe workplace.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Neil O’Brien
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Government are obviously reviewing the national curriculum at the moment. During our earlier debates in Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire pointed out that control of the national curriculum is an incredible power, yet, to date, it has operated really on precedent, custom, tradition and everyone being reasonable. This new clause aims to formalise that process a bit more.
At the moment, of course, the Government are taking advice from an independent review—very sensibly—but, legally, they do not actually have to take account of that; they could make whatever decision they wanted. In another Bill—the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill—the Government are centralising control over a whole bunch of stuff about qualifications and standards.
This new clause just sets up, for the first time, a proper process to formalise how the national curriculum is revised. It is an incredibly strong power and yet it is one that has operated—in one sense, nobly—on the assumption of everyone just behaving reasonably and people being “good chaps”, as it were, in the old parlance. This measure would put an actual formal legal process around such hugely important changes.
Catherine McKinnell
The current system for reviewing the curriculum works well, as the ongoing independent curriculum and assessment review shows, and has stood the test of time for successive Governments. The legislation gives Ministers the flexibility to review and develop the curriculum in the most appropriate way for the circumstances of the time, while requiring them to consult, and to provide Parliament with appropriate levels of scrutiny.
Requiring the creation of new organisations and processes is rarely the best way to improve outcomes. The proposed system would be inflexible and bureaucratic rather than helpful. New clause 55 would mean that, following any review of whether to change the national curriculum, such as through our curriculum and assessment review, the Secretary of State would have to set up another independent review to advise how to change the programmes of study.
Also, by requiring a positive, rather than negative, resolution of changes, and of any changes beyond the review’s recommendations, this measure could add unnecessary delays and uncertainty for teachers about what was going to be changed in the curriculum and when. On that basis, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.
Neil O’Brien
While our concerns remain, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 58
Right to review school curriculum material
“Where requested by the parent or carer of a child on the school’s pupil roll, a school must allow such persons to view all materials used in the teaching of the school curriculum, including those provided by external, third-party, charitable or commercial providers.”—(Neil O’Brien.)
This new clause would ensure that parents can view materials used in the teaching of the school curriculum.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Tom Hayes
I welcome that clarification. I continue to have concerns, because whether or not somebody is paying for their child’s education—I would obviously wish that they were not paying—I still think it is important to have quality education and critical thinking and to potentially use inspirational figures and history to make points. That goes across all types of educational provider, so my concern remains. Thinking back to the conversation I had recently with a teacher, the last thing I want is for them to go into a classroom feeling wary or in any way diminished in their ability to freely and critically educate and provide children with access to all kinds of information, and not just narrow viewpoints.
Catherine McKinnell
It is right that parents and carers should be able to access and understand what their child is taught at school, so that they can continue to support their child’s learning at home and answer questions. However, that should be achieved in a way that does not increase school and teacher workload.
The new clause could require schools to maintain and collate a substantial number of materials across various platforms, covering all subjects and school years, down to every single worksheet, presentation, planning document or text. That is not necessary. There are already many ways in which parents can engage with their child’s curriculum that would not add to teacher workload. The national curriculum, which will be taught in academies and maintained schools, is published on gov.uk. Maintained schools and academies are required to publish details of how a parent can access further information about the school’s curriculum.
Schools must also have a written policy for relationships and sex education, which must be developed in consultation with parents. The statutory guidance is clear that this should include providing examples of the resources they intend to use, to reassure parents and enable them to continue conversations at home. We will make sure that that is reinforced when we update the guidance. Finally, parents can be reassured that Ofsted reviews curriculum materials to ensure that they support pupils to achieve good outcomes.
The new clause is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. There is no evidence of a widespread problem that would justify the extra burden and bureaucracy it would create for schools. If parents have concerns, there are ways of dealing with them. On that basis, I urge the hon. Member to withdraw his new clause.
Neil O'Brien
I listened to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East and, broadly speaking, agree with everything he said. I am absolutely in favour of a balanced diet and the free exchange of different ideas, and nothing we are proposing in any way speaks against that. What we propose is in fact a way to ensure that that happens, by allowing parents to see what their children are being taught.
I find myself out of sympathy with the Minister’s argument that this is somehow a massive bureaucratic requirement. With state schools, there is FOI, so parents are able to access these materials. The problem has come with private providers using copyright law to escape the same transparency that we expect of schools normally, which is not right.
I do not accept that the new clause would require people to have 20 years-worth of materials. It simply states that
“a school must allow such persons to view all materials used in the teaching of the school curriculum”.
That is in the present tense, so this is not some huge bureaucratic burden. The school has the materials, and the only question is whether the parents can see them, take them away and talk about them to other people.
At the moment, free debate on such things is being stifled, and a hugely important principle is being denied to people. We have a right to see what our kids are being taught in schools. For that reason, we will press the new clause to a vote.
Munira Wilson
The end is in sight for all of us—we are on to the last column of the selection list. I will speak to new clauses 59 to 62, which are in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. The new clauses all refer to support for kinship carers and children growing up in kinship care.
In clauses 5 and 6 in part 1 of the Bill, we discussed and agreed a number of encouraging provisions on defining kinship carers, setting out the support they are eligible for and providing additional educational support for the subset of children growing up in kinship care. However, what we have already agreed in Committee falls far short of the ambition that I heard the Secretary of State herself set out at a reception for kinship carers just a couple of months back.
At that reception, the right hon. Lady—unusually for a Secretary of State—called on campaigners and policymakers to keep pushing her. I think that that was in order to give her the clout in Government to go further. The four new clauses seek to do just that, and I hope Ministers will receive them in that spirit.
New clause 59 would ensure that kinship carers are entitled to paid employment leave. New clause 60 would put into statute an entitlement to an allowance on a par with that for foster carers. New clause 61 would extend pupil premium plus to all children in kinship care, based on the definition the Committee has agreed. Finally, new clause 62 would prioritise those same children for school admissions.
Kinship carers are unsung heroes, often stepping up at no notice to look after a child they are related to or know, because the parents can no longer do so. In oral evidence, Jacky Tiotto of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service told us that
“the kinship carer’s life will not continue in the way it had before, in terms of their ability to work, maybe, or where they live.
We know that local authorities are under huge resource pressure, so there is going to have to be something a bit stronger to encourage people to become carers, whether that is related to housing or the cost of looking after those children. People will want to do the right thing, but if you already have three kids of your own that becomes tricky.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 34, Q78.]
Time and again, we hear from kinship carers that they want to do the right thing—out of love for those family members—but financial and other barriers often stand in their way. One survey revealed that 45% of kinship carers give up work, and a similar number have to reduce their hours permanently, putting financial strain on the family. Those carers are disproportionately women and are over-represented in healthcare, education and social care, which simply exacerbates our workforce crisis in public services. Extending paid employment leave would enable more people to step up and provide a stable, loving home.
On allowances, there are not just long-term savings to be made in terms of the well-evidenced better health and education outcomes for children; there are also immediate cost savings to be had for the taxpayer. Compared to the cost of the alternative—local authority care—the saving is approximately £35,000 a year. Every child we manage to divert from local authority care into kinship care can deliver that saving for the taxpayer immediately. Surely Ministers can tempt their colleagues in the Treasury with that immediate spend-to-save argument?
In Kinship’s 2022 “Cost of Loving” survey of more than 1,000 kinship carers, one third said they may not be able to continue caring for their child as a result of financial pressures. I spoke to one kinship carer in my borough who had avoided putting the heating on and skipped all sorts of things, including food for herself, so that she could put enough food on the table for her grandson. Her story is far too common. A national, non-means-tested allowance would end the system of patchy means-tested allowances that reflect the postcode lottery of support that councils can afford to provide.
Ministers have already recognised in the Bill the need for additional educational support for children in kinship care. Why are we not treating all children equally, so that it is not just those who were previously looked after who are entitled to additional pupil premium funding or priority admissions? The trauma and needs of children in kinship care are often similar to those of children who were previously looked after. We should extend the same provisions to all children in kinship care.
I know that Ministers understand the sacrifices that kinship carers make and the trauma that children in kinship care have been through. The Schools Minister herself headed up a parliamentary taskforce on kinship in the last Parliament, and she was very active in the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care. I know that she is very familiar with these issues, and I hope she is sympathetic to the call in these new clauses. I hope to hear something positive and that Ministers—even if, as we know, they never accept Opposition new clauses in a Bill Committee—will seek to address these inequalities and support these unsung heroes, kinship carers, and the children they look after.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Members for Twickenham and for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire for these new clauses. I want to start by emphasising how much I value kinship carers, who come forward to provide loving homes for children who cannot live with their parents. We absolutely recognise the challenge that many kinship carers face in continuing to work while dealing with the pressures of raising a child unexpectedly.
The support offered by the Government to kinship carers is a floor, not a ceiling, and we encourage employers to go further, where they can. One example of that is the Department for Education, which employs more than 7,500 public sector workers and has recently joined a small number of private sector employers, including Card Factory, Tesco and John Lewis, in offering a paid leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers.
Employed kinship carers may already benefit from a number of workplace employment rights that are designed to support employees in balancing work alongside caring responsibilities. Those rights include a day one right to time off for dependants, which provides a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with an unexpected or sudden emergency involving a child or dependant, and to put care arrangements in place. There is also unpaid parental leave for employees who have or expect to have parental responsibility, which we are making a day one right through the Employment Rights Bill. An employee may not automatically have parental responsibility as a result of being a kinship carer, but may do if they have acquired parental responsibility through, for example, a special guardianship order. If they are looking after a child who is disabled or who lives with a long-term health condition, they would also be entitled to carer’s leave, which would allow them to take up to a week’s leave in a 12-month period.
All employees also have a right to request flexible working from day one of employment. The Government will make flexibility the default, except where it is not feasible, through measures in the Employment Rights Bill. We have also committed to a review of the parental leave system to ensure that it best supports all working families. Work is already under way on planning for its delivery.
On new clause 60, again, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss financial support for kinship carers. In October 2024, the Government announced £40 million of new funding for a kinship financial allowance pilot, which will test the impact of financial support for kinship carers. This is the single biggest investment made by Government in kinship care to date. It could transform the lives of vulnerable children who can no longer live at home by allowing them to grow up with their families and communities, reducing the disruption in their early years so that they can focus on schooling and building friendships. The pilot will provide a weekly financial allowance to kinship carers to support them with the additional costs incurred when taking on parental responsibility for a child.
Our ambition is that all kinship carers get the support they need to care for their children and to help them thrive, but it is important that we build the evidence first to find out how best to deliver that financial support. Decisions about future roll-out will be informed by the findings of the evaluation. The Government will confirm the eligible cohort for the pilot as well as the participating local authorities soon, and we expect the pilot to go live in autumn 2025.
New clauses 61 and 62 would extend pupil premium eligibility to children living in kinship care, and provide those children admissions in preference to other children, in the same way as children who are or were looked after by a local authority in England are currently given preference. We are providing over £2.9 billion of pupil premium funding to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils in England, including looked-after and previously looked-after children. Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools do not have to spend the funding so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the criteria. Schools can direct funding where the need is greatest, including to pupils with other identified needs, such as children in kinship care. They can also use pupil premium on whole-class approaches that will benefit all pupils, such as high-quality teaching. There are no plans to change the pupil premium eligibility at present. However, we will continue to keep it under review to ensure that the support is targeted at those who need it most.
All state-funded, non-selective schools are required to provide the highest priority in their admissions over-subscription criteria to looked-after and previously looked-after children. Those children are among the most vulnerable in our society, and wherever possible, they should be admitted to the school that is best able to meet their needs. Some children in kinship care may share some of those characteristics. Indeed, many children in kinship care may already be eligible for the highest priority for school admission—for example, where a child is looked after by their local authority and then fostered by a kinship carer, or where they were previously looked after. We think that this approach is the best way of ensuring that the most vulnerable pupils of this cohort, who would benefit most from priority admissions, are able to access the school place that is right for them.
It is also worth noting that the school admissions code provides another protection to children in formal kinship care, irrespective of whether they have spent time in local authority care. The admissions code ensures that such children are eligible to be secured a school place through the fair access protocol, which is the local mechanism for ensuring that those struggling to secure a school place via the usual admissions processes are found one.
Given those existing protections, we do not consider it necessary at this time to extend the existing priority for looked-after and previously looked-after children in England to include all children in kinship care. We are also extending local authorities’ statutory duties to include promoting the educational achievement of all children living in kinship care within the meaning of new section 22I(1) of the Children Act 1989, which will be inserted by the Bill. We will also extend the duty of virtual school heads to provide information and advice to include all children living with a special guardian or under a child arrangement order where the child is living with a kinship carer within the meaning of new section 22I(6) of the 1989 Act. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Twickenham not to press the new clauses.
Munira Wilson
I thank the Minister for her response. It is obviously disappointing that Ministers will not go further, particularly on allowances. The pilots that were set out in a tiny number of local authorities with a very small subset of kinship carers were not ambitious enough. On that basis, I would like to press new clause 60 on allowances to a vote, but I am happy to leave the others. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 60
Kinship care allowance
(1) A person is entitled to a kinship care allowance for any week in which that person is engaged as a kinship carer in England.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a “kinship carer” has the meaning given in section 22I of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by section 5 of this Act.
(3) A person is not entitled to an allowance under this section unless that person satisfies conditions prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(4) A person may claim an allowance under this section in respect of more than one child.
(5) Where two or more persons would be entitled for the same week to such an allowance in respect of the same child, only one allowance may be claimed on the behalf of—
(a) the person jointly elected by those two for that purpose, or
(b) in default of such an election, the person determined by, and at the discretion of, the Secretary of State.
(6) Regulations may prescribe the circumstances in which a person is or is not to be treated for the purposes of this section as engaged, or regularly and substantially engaged, in caring for a child under an eligible kinship care arrangement.
(7) An allowance under this section is payable at the weekly rate specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.
(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may specify—
(a) different weekly rates for different ages of children being cared for, or
(b) different weekly rates for different regions of England.
(9) Regulations under subsection (7) must specify a weekly rate that is no lower than the minimum weekly allowance for foster carers published by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 23 of the Care Standards Act 2000.—(Munira Wilson.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Neil O'Brien
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
As Ministers look at new clause 63, they may think it seems strangely familiar, and I must confess that it is a piece of stolen intellectual property. As you will recognise, Mr Betts, it is a rip-off of new Labour’s Education Act 2002. Funnily enough, it is a part of that Act that was passed as legislation but never commenced. It is a good thing in itself, as it enables Ministers to set up areas of innovation in our schools, and it is a part of a wider good thing: the spirit of innovation and reform in our schools of the early Blair years, which we want Ministers to return to.
In the health service, there has been a 40-year discussion about why innovation is so hard and why innovations do not spread in the NHS. In schools, although the situation is not perfect, it is definitely better because of parental choice and the reforms under Lord Baker, Lord Adonis, the coalition and beyond. I commend to all members of the Committee Lord Adonis’s superb book “Education, Education, Education: Reforming England’s Schools”, which brilliantly captures the spirit of that era and what that Government were trying to achieve.
Although we think this would be a useful power, our purpose of drawing attention to it is as much about the spirit of what we want to see in our schools. There have been some changes of tone from Ministers during the course of this Bill Committee, and we hope we can persuade them to go further in the same direction. That is why we have discussed this new clause, but we will not be pressing it to a vote.
Catherine McKinnell
Things really can only get better—[Laughter.]
I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the existing provision in part 1 of the Education Act 2002, and his open admission that the new clause draws its inspiration from it. That Act, in the early days of academies, introduced powers to facilitate innovation that were designed to encourage schools to consider barriers to raising standards for their pupils in their particular circumstances, and to explore innovative options that might not previously have been considered. It provided a means of promoting school freedoms and flexibilities, and was an effective strategic tool that enabled schools, local authorities and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as it was, to test new ideas. It encouraged schools and local authorities to re-examine their existing practices and make use of freedoms and flexibilities that they already had. It was not designed to allow long-term flexibility, as this new clause is; rather any exemption is time limited.
The Act provoked consideration of real and perceived barriers to raising standards, and many schools discovered that not all innovative ideas require an exemption from legislation, because the necessary freedoms and flexibilities already exist. Annual reporting shows that only 32 orders were made between 2002 and 2010 using the power. We understand that the last order under the power was made in 2012. Since then, schools and trusts have innovated and tested ideas without the 2002 powers being necessary or used. Evidence-based practice and innovation is now the norm in many of our schools and trusts. There is a range of programmes, such as curricular hubs, behaviour hubs and teaching schools, geared to driving schools towards spreading evidence-based practice, and away from doing other things.
The Department works closely with the Education Endowment Foundation, which is independent from Government and trusted by the sector, to understand which interventions and approaches are most effective in terms of school improvement and raising attainment, and to provide guidance and support to schools on that. As part of that, it carries out trials of new approaches that look to have a high potential to improve outcomes. Where a new and innovative practice works, we want schools to be able to implement it. For example, based on robust EEF evidence of impact, programmes such as embedding formative assessments and mathematics mastery are being provided to the sector at greater scale, supported by Department for Education funding that subsidises the cost of participation.
The Bill guarantees a core provision for all children. Through it, we are providing a floor, not a ceiling, and the measures do not prevent schools and trusts from innovating and adapting above that framework. Our vision for driving high and rising standards centres on expert teaching and leadership in a system with wide freedoms, high support and high challenge, backed up by the removal of barriers, so that every child can achieve and thrive. We believe that more of the flexibility currently offered to academies should be offered to all schools, and we are working with teachers, leaders and the sector to design our wider reforms. If attempts to innovate are prevented by legislation, we want to hear about it, because we want all children to benefit from the best the system has to offer. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw his new clause.
Neil O'Brien
It is nice to hear the Minister praising the resources that are there for school-led improvement, so we hope that Ministers will look again at the recent decision to cut or curtail things such as mathematics, physics, Latin, computing and the like. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 64
Pay and conditions of school support staff in England
“(1) A School Support Staff Negotiating Body shall be created to make recommendations to the Secretary of State about the pay and conditions of school support staff in England.
(2) The Secretary of State may by order set out the recommended pay and conditions for school support staff in England based on the recommendations of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.
(3) The Secretary of State may by order make provision requiring the remuneration of support staff at an Academy school to be at least equal to the amount specified in, or determined in accordance with, the order.
(4) Subsection (5) applies where—
(a) an order under this section applies to a member of school support staff at an Academy, and
(b) the contract of employment or for services between the member of school support staff at the Academy and the relevant proprietor provides for the member of school support staff to be paid remuneration that is less than the amount specified in, or determined in accordance with, the order.
(5) Where this subsection applies—
(a) the member of school support staff’s remuneration is to be determined and paid in accordance with any provision of the order that applies to them; and
(b) any provision of the contract mentioned in subsection (4)(b) or of the Academy arrangements entered into with the Secretary of State by the relevant proprietor has no effect to the extent that it makes provision that is prohibited by, or is otherwise inconsistent with, the order.
(c) In determining the conditions of employment or service of a member of school support staff at an Academy, the relevant proprietor must have regard to any provision of an order under this section that relates to conditions of employment or service.”—(Neil O’Brien.)
This new clause would mean that Academies could treat orders made by the Secretary of State in relation to pay and conditions for school support staff as a floor, not a ceiling, on pay, and would allow Academies to have regard to the conditions of employment for school support staff set out by the Secretary of State while not requiring Academies to follow them.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Neil O'Brien
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Minister just talked about the principle of having a floor, not a ceiling. Through our debates, we have now established that for teachers, but of course teachers are not a majority of the school workforce. The majority of the workforce are those who are sometimes called school support staff. These people are no less worthy than teachers of our praise and admiration. They fulfil all manner of roles, from the most essential to the most demanding.
Through this new clause, we ask that the same principles that are to be applied to teachers’ pay—we hope that those will translate into reality—should apply to the majority of school staff: school support staff. Although trust leaders anticipated the school support staff negotiating body, some were surprised about the proposal for it to cut across academy funding arrangements, and not all had anticipated that it would apply to them. A number have said to me that they will be very concerned if their freedoms to pay more to retain the best school support staff were, in effect, taken away from them, because that would have a devastating effect on their schools.
Legislation on this issue is being considered in another place, but I hope that we can establish that Ministers will maintain that vital freedom to pay more, particularly in high-demand areas, to retain good people in our schools. A person does not have to be a teacher to play a crucial part in the education of our children, and what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We hope that the same principles that Ministers say will apply to teachers can also be established for the rest of the school workforce.
Catherine McKinnell
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s celebration of school support staff. He is absolutely right: they are the beating heart of schools up and down the country. For that very reason, provisions to reinstate the school support staff negotiating body are currently going through Parliament as part of the Employment Rights Bill. That Bill’s clause 30 and schedule 3, which pertain to the SSSNB, were debated in Committee in the House of Commons on 17 December 2024, and the Bill is about to move to Report stage in the House. Any amendments relating to the school support staff negotiating body should therefore be considered as part of the Employment Rights Bill, and the issues that the hon. Gentleman outlined will be considered as part of the work of the school support staff negotiating body. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his new clause.
Neil O'Brien
I am glad to hear the Minister endorse the principle of a floor, not a ceiling, for school support staff. We will withdraw the new clause but press it elsewhere, so that we can establish that principle, on which I hope we can all agree. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 67
Registration of children eligible for free school meals
“After section 512ZA of the Education Act 1996 (power to charge for meals etc.) insert—
‘512ZAA Registration of children eligible for free school meals
(1) The Secretary of State must ensure that all children in England who are eligible to receive free school meals are registered to receive free school meals.
(2) The Secretary of State may make provision for children to be registered for free school meals upon their parents or guardians demonstrating the child’s eligibility through an application for relevant benefits.’”—(Munira Wilson.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Munira Wilson
I am moving the new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), who has raised the issue that summer-born children with SEND are often placed in the following year group at school, often at the request of their parents, but when they transfer into or out of special or mainstream school, they are then placed back into their chronological year and, as a result, end up missing a whole year of education. Guidance exists for summer-born children who do not have EHCPs but not, strangely, for those who do. New clauses 68 and 69 would simply require guidance to be published for local authorities and school admissions authorities on the admission of summer-born children with education, health and care plans and would require local authorities to collect and publish data relating to summer-born children.
Catherine McKinnell
The Government agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham that local authorities have important and complex decisions to make when parents ask for a summer-born child with an EHC plan to be placed outside the usual year for their age. The Department’s existing guidance for the admission of summer-born children without education, health and care plans sets out a recommended approach for those key decisions. Many of the considerations in that guidance will be similar for children with an education, health and care plan. Getting those decisions right can make a huge difference to the child’s outcomes and their experience of school, so such decisions need to be made thoughtfully and fairly, with due consideration given to what the parents want for their child. That is why, in July last year, in response to a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for St Albans, I committed to consider whether we should publish guidance on how these decisions are best made. We have been doing just that, and will confirm our decision in the coming months. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to pre-empt the content of any such guidance by confirming the details now. However, I can say that we have been giving careful consideration to many of the matters outlined in the new clause and deciding how best to proceed.
On new clause 69, the Department conducts a voluntary biennial survey of local authorities about the admission of summer-born children. That asks local authorities to include data, where they hold it, about all schools in their area. The Department publishes a report on the findings of the survey, those findings show that only a small proportion—1.5%—of parents of summer-born children ask for them to be admitted to reception at age five. The vast majority of such requests—nine out of 10—are approved. The first summer-born children admitted out of their normal age group are now transitioning to secondary school. Our next survey will ask local authorities for data about the number of children who remain out of their normal age group at that point. The survey does not currently ask local authorities to specify how many requests relate to children with an education, health and care plan but we regularly review the survey, and that is something that we may consider in the future. Given that the existing arrangements to collect data about the admission of summer-born children are working well, it would seem disproportionate to impose a new statutory duty to make the data collection mandatory. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Member to withdraw the new clause.
Munira Wilson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
Catherine McKinnell ExcerptsTuesday 11th February 2025
(7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2025 - (11 Feb 2025)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I thank the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire and for North Herefordshire for raising those important issues. Bereavement touches the lives of everyone, and it has a unique impact on each person. It is particularly important that children and young people who lose someone close to them are able to access support when they need it.
New clause 9 seeks to improve access to bereavement support services for children. It seeks to establish a duty to make regulations to establish a protocol to provide information on those services. The Government continue to consider how to improve access to existing support. The cross-Government bereavement group, chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care and attended by representatives from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office, continues to look at how we can improve access to support and options to improve data collection. There are many fantastic charities and community groups—the Childhood Bereavement Network, Hope Again, the Anna Freud centre and the Ruth Strauss Foundation, to name just four—that provide vital support, and schools and other public bodies perform vital roles in supporting bereaved children and families. A legislative solution would therefore not be the most appropriate way to ensure bereaved children and young people access the support they need.
On new clause 52 and the matter of requiring schools to publish a bereavement policy, including the approach to grief education, we know that teachers and other school staff do an excellent job in understanding the specific needs of their pupils and identifying what support is needed for a range of life experiences, including bereavement. To support them in that, the Department for Education provides a list of resources for schools on supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. That includes resources from charities and organisations, including those I just mentioned, and resources hosted on the Mentally Healthy Schools site for mental health needs, which includes supporting children dealing with loss and bereavement.
On the curriculum, following the consultation that ended in July last year, we are currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance, which sets out the content of what children and young people are taught about these subjects. It is also clear in the current RSHE statutory guidance that teachers should be aware of common adverse childhood experiences, including bereavement. We want to ensure that children’s wellbeing is at the heart of the guidance, and we are looking carefully at the consultation responses, considering the relevant evidence and talking to stakeholders before setting out next steps to take the RSHE guidance forward. It would not be appropriate to pre-empt our response to the consultation, nor the publication of the RSHE curriculum guidance. I hope the hon. Member for North Herefordshire is reassured that we will consider that as part of our work on RSHE. We will continue to provide support from the Department and right across Government to help schools support children and young people who experience bereavement and other significant adverse experiences in their childhood.
Ian Sollom
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Benefits of outdoor education to children’s wellbeing
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, conduct a review on the benefits of outdoor education to children's wellbeing.
(2) A report on the review must be published within six months of the conclusion of the review.”—(Ian Sollom.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Ian Sollom
I am moving the new clauses on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). Many hon. Members will know that he has long been a champion of the benefits of outdoor education. Academic research has shown that greater exposure to natural environments improves learning behaviour and emotional health. Studies have found measurable academic and wellbeing benefits from nature-specific outdoor learning. Even a single outdoor educational experience reduces anxiety, builds resilience and improves focus in the long term, especially for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or anxiety disorders.
We know that children’s wellbeing is suffering. Children are experiencing rising mental health concerns, reduced physical activity and limited access to nature, so there is a real need to support their wellbeing. Outdoor education is proven to improve physical, emotional and social health.
New clause 11 would require the Government to review the impact of outdoor education on children’s wellbeing, with the aim of providing a foundation to embed outdoor education into the curriculum. New clause 12 considers children in kinship care, or those with kinship care experience, and would give them at least one residential outdoor education opportunity and ensure that they are not left behind in accessing those benefits. We would like to hear from the Government about these new clauses.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for his campaign to promote the positive effects of outdoor learning on young people. He clearly has the advantage of living in and representing one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
We believe that all children and young people should have the opportunity to learn about and connect with nature. Access to green space has been shown to have positive impacts on the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of young people. The national education nature park provides opportunities for children and young people to benefit from spending time in nature, as well as to take positive climate action and to drive solutions to address the growing concerns about climate change and biodiversity loss. The nature park is a key initiative of the Department for Education’s sustainability and climate change strategy, which was launched in 2022.
In the light of progress in the past three years, we are now beginning a process of refreshing and updating the strategic vision for sustainability in the education sector. We are also working with the University of Oxford on research intended to assess the evidence of the impact of nature-based programmes, delivered through schools, on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Once those results are published, I will be happy to share them with the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire.
The Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people, and to giving them access to a variety of enrichment opportunities at school. Those are both important parts of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity, helping pupils to achieve and thrive in education.
There is no statutory requirement to offer extracurricular activities, but the majority of schools do because those activities complement a rich and broad curriculum. Schools include a wide range of activities, such as enabling students to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, supporting them to access local youth services, and building in trips to outdoor education settings. It is right that schools should be free to decide what activities to offer their pupils so as to best support their development, to help them work with others as part of a team, and to support positive wellbeing.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s adventures away from home fund provides bursaries for disadvantaged or vulnerable young people to participate in day trips and residentials to outdoor spaces. There are bursaries available for young people aged 11 to 18—or up to 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities—who face significant barriers to participation and are under-represented in the sector. We are also extending local authority statutory duties to include promoting the educational achievement of all children living in kinship care, within the meaning of the proposed new section 22I(1) of the Children Act 1989, which will be inserted by the Bill. We will also extend virtual school heads’ duty to provide information and advice to include all children living with a special guardian or a child arrangement order, where the child is living with a kinship carer, within the meaning of proposed new section 22I(6).
On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire to withdraw new clause 11 and not to press new clause 12 to a vote.
Ian Sollom
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 13
Foster carers’ delegated authority for children in their care
“(1) Where a child (‘C’) who is looked after by the local authority is placed with a foster parent (‘F’) by a local authority, F may make decisions on C’s behalf in relation to the matters set out in subsection (2) where C’s placement plan does not specify an alternative decision maker.
(2) The matters referred to in subsection (1) are—
(a) medical and dental treatment,
(b) education,
(c) leisure and home life,
(d) faith and religious observance,
(e) use of social media,
(f) personal care, and
(g) any other matters which F considers appropriate.” —(Ellie Chowns.)
This new clause would enable foster carers to make day-to-day decisions on behalf of the children and young people they foster.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Ellie Chowns
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am pleased to speak to new clause 13, which proposes that the Bill should provide a default delegated authority for foster carers to make day-to-day decisions for the children and young people in their care, which I think is quite straightforward.
Foster carers should have delegated authority to make these everyday decisions for children in their care—for example, about day-to-day activities such as school trips, holidays and sleepovers; about important appointments for their health and wellbeing or medical appointments; or indeed about haircuts, which is an issue that has been raised regularly by young people in care and their foster carers.
The guidance around delegated authority has not been strengthened since 2013. As a result, practice varies across fostering services, and foster carers are often unclear about which decisions they can take and which decisions they have to get permission for from elsewhere. Many foster carers report experiencing a lack of communication, clarity and information from social workers, with unnecessary paperwork and box ticking, and complicated processes.
In the Fostering Network’s 2024 state of the nations survey, less than a third of foster carers said children’s social workers are always clear about which decisions they have the authority to make in relation to the children they foster. That lack of clarity is clearly a huge issue for a large majority of foster carers. Only half of foster carers said that social workers are able to respond to requests for decisions in a timely manner; we all know social workers are under huge pressure. Foster carers reported that the most difficult decisions to make were around social opportunities, followed by healthcare, relationships and childhood experiences.
This new clause would set out in legislation that foster carers have default delegated authority on key everyday decisions where the child’s placement plan does not specify an alternative decision maker—and the placement plan can always specify that alternative. That default delegated authority would include decisions in day-to-day parenting, such as healthcare and leisure activities, and it would exclude routine but longer-term decisions such as school choice and significant events, such as surgery. It would provide more clarity, speed up decision making within foster families and for social workers, and provide foster carers with the confidence and autonomy that they need to make day-to-day decisions for the children who are in their care.
I urge the Government to take on board these points, and the content of this new clause, to make it easier for foster carers to make those decisions for children who, after all, they know best as they are caring for them. The new clause would ensure that children and young people do not miss out on the opportunities that they need to live a happy and healthy childhood.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the hon. Member’s concern for foster carers having delegated authority on day-to-day decisions for the children in their care. Foster carers offer crucial support to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. They provide love, stability and compassion to children and young people when they need it most.
All foster carers should have delegated authority in relation to day-to-day parenting of the child in their care, such as routine decisions about health, hygiene, education and leisure activities, and where that is not appropriate, the child’s placement plan should set out reasons for that. That is so that the foster carers can support the child in having a normal upbringing, full of the experiences and opportunities that any other child would have. For all decisions relating to the foster child, the foster carer has delegated authority only if it is recorded in the child’s placement plan. That means that if something is not listed on the placement plan, the foster carer does not have that delegated authority and they have to check with their social worker before any decision can be made.
Foster carers can take decisions in relation to the child in their care only in line with the child’s agreed placement plan and the law governing parental responsibility. New clause 13 would mean that foster carers would, by default, have delegated authority on day-to-day issues, except where an alternative decision maker is listed on the child’s placement plan.
The change outlined in the new clause does not require a change to primary legislation. Delegated authority is outlined in secondary legislation in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. We have begun conversations with foster carers and foster care providers about a proposed change, ensuring that all foster carers have delegated authority by default in relation to day-to-day parenting of the child in their care. We believe that reform to this policy area would benefit from a period of consultation with stakeholders to ensure that any change to delegated authority best reflects the interests of all parties.
Following consultation, we are committed to implementing the necessary amendments to secondary legislation. I hope that in the light of that, the hon. Member will feel able to withdraw the clause.
Ellie Chowns
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 15
National statutory inquiry into grooming gangs
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 3 months of the passing of this Act, set up a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
(2) An inquiry established under subsection (1) must seek to—
(a) identify common patterns of behaviour and offending between grooming gangs;
(b) identify the type, extent and volume of crimes committed by grooming gangs;
(c) identify the number of victims of crimes committed by grooming gangs;
(d) identify the ethnicity of members of grooming gangs;
(e) identify any failings, by action, omission or deliberate suppression, by—
(i) police,
(ii) local authorities,
(iii) prosecutors,
(iv) charities,
(v) political parties,
(vi) local and national government,
(vii) healthcare providers and health services, or
(viii) other agencies or bodies, in the committal of crimes by grooming gangs, including by considering whether the ethnicity of the perpetrators of such crimes affected the response by such agencies or bodies;
(f) identify such national safeguarding actions as may be required to minimise the risk of further such offending occurring in future;
(g) identify good practice in protecting children.
(3) The inquiry may do anything it considers is calculated to facilitate, or is incidental or conducive to, the carrying out of its functions and the achievement of the requirements of subsection (2).
(4) An inquiry established under this section must publish a report within two years of the launch of the inquiry.
(5) For the purposes of this section—
‘gang’ means a group of at least three adult males whose purpose or intention is to commit a sexual offence against the same victim or group of victims;
‘grooming’ means—
(a) activity carried out with the primary intention of committing sexual offences against the victim;
(b) activity that is carried out, or predominantly carried out, in person;
(c) activity that includes the provision of illicit substances and/or alcohol either as part of the grooming or concurrent with the commission of the sexual offence.”—(Neil O'Brien.)
This new clause would set up a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I want to start by agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen that leadership and action are needed. Indeed, leadership and action were needed three years ago in February 2022 when the IICSA report came out. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North for her knowledgeable insights and her forensic examination of the Bill, the recommendations and the report. I will spend a moment establishing for the record what exactly those 20 recommendations are asking for, which we as a Government have committed to implementing in full—albeit three years too late for some victims.
Let me list the headings of the report. The first is on a mandatory aggravating factor for CSE offences. The second is on statutory guidance on preventing CSE. The third is on data collection and analysis, and establishing a national database. The fourth is about strengthening the criminal justice response. The fifth is about training for professionals and requiring mandatory training for all professionals working with children, including social workers, police and healthcare staff, to help them recognise the signs of exploitation and act accordingly. The sixth is about a national framework for support, and developing a national framework for services to ensure that appropriate support is available for victims. The seventh is about supporting victims and improving the availability and accessibility of specialised support services for victims. The eighth concerns tailored responses to CSE victims, ensuring authorities provide a tailored response to the specific needs of children who are victims. The ninth is about launching a national public awareness campaign to raise awareness of CSE, educating the public and reducing the stigma that surrounds the victims. The 10th is to strengthen safeguarding in schools and introduce better protocols. The 11th is about tackling perpetrators of CSE, strengthening law enforcement’s abilities to target them. The 12th is for a Government review of safeguarding systems, conducting a review of the national safeguarding system to ensure current measures are sufficiently robust to address child sexual exploitation and victims. The 13th is to ensure adequate local authority resources. The 14th concerns independence for local safeguarding boards. The 15th recommends a review of the placement of settings for vulnerable children. The 16th calls for a stronger legal framework for CSE. The 17th is about increasing the use of risk assessment tools. The 18th is about rehabilitation and reintegration services. The 19th is on specialised support for parents and families and the 20th on a regular review of local authority practices. Each one of those 20 recommendations has the victims at its heart.
Catherine McKinnell
I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East, for Derby North, for Southampton Itchen and for Portsmouth North, and to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, for their thoughtful and measured contributions on this incredibly challenging issue. The Prime Minister has made clear that as a Government we are focused on delivering the change and justice that victims deserve.
On 7 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, making grooming an aggravating factor to toughen up sentencing and introduce a new performance framework for policing.
On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that before Easter the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations in the final IICSA report, which my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North powerfully set out. All of those recommendations were for the Home Office, including on disclosing and barring, and work on them is already under way.
The Government will implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, and as part of that we will update key Department for Education guidance. As the Home Secretary states, a cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations, and that group will be supported by a new victims and survivors panel.
Other measures that the Government are taking forward include the appointment of Baroness Casey to lead a rapid audit of existing evidence on grooming gangs, to support a better understanding of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country and to make recommendations on the further work needed; extending the remit of the independent Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel so that it covers not just historical cases, from before 2013, but all cases since, so that any victim of abuse will have a right to seek an independent review without having to go back to local institutions that decided not to proceed with their case; and providing stronger national backing for local inquiries by providing £5 million of funding to help local councils to set up their own reviews. Working in partnership with Tom Crowther KC, the Home Office will develop a new effective framework for victim-centred, locally led inquiries.
Neil O’Brien
The people who read the transcript of this debate or perhaps have been listening to it at home can judge for themselves whether what I said was a fair summary of the arguments put forward by Government Members.
Catherine McKinnell
On the point about putting words in people’s mouths, nobody has said this is job done—quite the contrary. What we have consistently said is that we do not believe another national inquiry is needed. The Alexis Jay report took seven years, engaged 7,000 victims and had 15 separate strands. In the last 12 years, we have had hundreds of inquiries, serious case reviews and 600 recommendations. It is time for action. It is time to put this into practice and provide the justice that these victims deserve. That is what this Government are focused on doing.
Neil O’Brien
I wonder whether the Minister agreed with the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen, who said that the grooming gangs had been “fully investigated”. Does she agree with that? I am happy to take another intervention if she does. She does not want to stand up and say that she agrees with her hon. Friend, so the tension I pointed out is real. On one hand there is an argument that there is nothing more to be found out; everyone who should be held to account has been held to account; and we must not go back into it—there is no need to go back into it. On the other hand there is the Government’s admission that we need more local inquiries.
This whole discussion did not start with some person on social media. This whole conversation started because Oldham council formally asked for a national inquiry into what happened there, and it did so because it did not have, at local level, the powers needed: it cannot summon witnesses, take evidence under oath or requisition evidence. It was that request from a council—a good and sensible request—that started this discussion. I have already listed some of the Labour people who have argued for a national inquiry. I hope that in the end they will win the argument in the Labour party, but until then, I want to put the new clause to the vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Neil O’Brien
The proposed new clauses press the Government to restore some schemes they have cut, namely the academy conversion support grant and the trust capacity fund. The latter spent about £126 million over the last Parliament, helping to grow and deepen strong trusts, helping them to do more to help their schools, and helping to create a self-improving system. Unfortunately, the fund was ended on 1 January this year. Its closure is a real loss and there is uncertainty now about who is responsible for school improvement in the Government’s vision. Is that still to be trust-led, or will it be led by RISE from the centre? What happens if ideas from RISE conflict with those of a trust?
The removal of that funding sharpens the sense of a shift away from trusts as the engine for school improvement. The Confederation of School Trusts has said that this funding
“has been very successful in enabling trusts to support maintained schools that need help, especially in areas with a history of poor education outcomes…That will become more difficult to do now. Trust leaders will be especially angry that Ministers have scrapped this summer’s funding round: trusts spent considerable time and effort creating bids and have been waiting for a decision for four months…School trusts have a wealth of experience in school improvement but sharing that effectively takes time and money, and we need to make sure that the wider school sector doesn’t suffer from this decision.”
The confederation also says that it is “incredibly disappointed” at the decision to withdraw the academy conversion grant. It says:
“Ending this grant will leave, in particular, smaller primary schools very vulnerable and without the financial and educational sustainability that comes from being part of a trust. It is a short-sighted decision that will weaken the school system.”
It adds that that will have
“clear consequences for the strength and sustainability of our school system…This is not a neutral decision and will impact the capacity of the system to keep improving.”
Forum Strategy, another membership organisation for school trust leaders, has said of the decision to cut this funding:
“It is difficult to see the vision or strategy that leads to these decisions, or what it means for making the most of the capacity and expertise of the school-led improvement system.”
I hope that Ministers will listen to school leaders and reverse the decisions, as the proposed new clauses suggest.
Catherine McKinnell
We have made it clear that the Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity, by driving high and rising standards, so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive. The Government are focused on improving outcomes for all children, regardless of the type of school they attend. Our energies and funding are tilted towards that, including through the new regional improvement for standards and excellence teams.
Nevertheless, we want high-quality trusts to continue to grow where schools wish to join them and there is a strong case for them to do so. We know that where schools have worked together, sharing their knowledge and expertise, as happens in our best multi-academy trusts and best local authorities, we can secure the highest standards and best outcomes for our children.
We will continue to consider applications from trusts that want to transfer their schools to a high-quality academy trust, or where there is a need locally to form new trusts through consolidation or merger. In September, the Government were supporting a higher number of schools through the process of converting to academy status than at any point under the previous Government, since at least 2018. Voluntary conversion remains a choice for schools. The Government believe that the benefits, including the financial benefits, of joining a strong structure are well understood, and for most schools and trusts that will mean that the case for converting will still outweigh the costs.
It was the previous Government who decided to significantly curtail the availability of the conversion grant—a decision that did not have any negative impact on the rate of voluntary academisation. While I recognise that the sector welcomed the trust capacity fund, the truth is that most multi-academy trusts that expanded in recent years did so without accessing the limited fund, including those that applied to the fund but were unsuccessful.
The current financial health of schools and academies suggests that the cost of conversion, where there is a strong case to do so, is likely to be affordable for them. The latest published figures show that the vast majority of academy trusts and local authority maintained schools are in cumulative surplus or breaking even. We do, however, keep this under review.
Let me also make it clear that, where necessary, and in cases of the most serious concern, the Government will continue to intervene and transfer schools to new management, and we will continue to provide support and funding for trusts that take on those schools eligible for intervention.
For the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask the shadow Minister to withdraw his new clause.
Neil O’Brien
It is nice to hear from the Minister that, following our decision to increase funding per pupil by 11% in real terms over the last Parliament, most trusts are in surplus or breaking even. None the less, I hope that Ministers will reconsider this matter. There has been something of a change in tone in recent weeks from the Government, particularly regarding academisation, which they say is now going to happen normally in certain cases, so I hope that Ministers will rethink some of their decisions about funding to enable that to happen, and to enable the best trusts to grow, to become stronger and to do even more to turn around our struggling schools. However, on this occasion, we will withdraw the new clause. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 18
School Trust CEO Programme
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within three months of the passing of this Act, make provision for the delivery of a programme of development for Chief Executive Officers of large multi-academy trusts (‘the School Trust CEO Programme’).
(2) The School Trust CEO Programme shall be provided by—
(a) the National Institute of Teaching; or
(b) a different provider nominated by the Secretary of State.
(3) The purposes of the School Trust CEO Programme shall include, but not be limited to—
(a) building the next generation of CEOs and system architects;
(b) providing the knowledge, insight and practice to ensure CEOs can run successful, sustainable, thriving trusts that develop as anchor institutions in their communities;
(c) building a network of CEOs to improve practice in academy trusts and shape the system; and
(d) nurturing the talents of CEOs to lead and grow large multi-academy trusts, especially in areas where such trusts are most needed.
(4) The Secretary of State must provide the School Trust CEO Programme with such funding and resources as are required for the carrying out of its duties.”—(Neil O’Brien.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to provide a School Trust CEO Programme.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Catherine McKinnell
The Government are committed to supporting the development of leaders at all levels. As such, we have announced a review of national professional qualifications, which are evidence-based qualifications available to leaders at all levels. The review will include consideration of the training needs of those leading several schools, including large multi-academy trusts. However, committing to a specific service or provider in the Bill would contravene civil service governance procedures and public procurement legislation respectively, so we will not put in place a legal obligation to provide training or commit funding for the development of the chief executive officers of large multi-academy trusts. On that basis, I ask the shadow Minister to withdraw his new clause.
Neil O’Brien
The new clause makes it clear that there would be a choice about who would provide the scheme. We heard from the Minister that there is a review of national professional qualifications going on. I will be happy to take an intervention if she is happy to tell us a date by which we will find out the results of that review. I do not know when school leaders who are currently benefiting from, or hoping to benefit from, this very important programme, designed by the sector, will find out from Ministers what its future will be. It sounds like Ministers are saying that it will not be until the review is completed, so I now have a question about when that will be and when we will have a definitive answer one way or the other. I wonder whether the Minister will consider writing to me to tell us roughly when the review will be complete. She is sort of nodding, but I am not going to probe the point.
We will withdraw the new clause for now, but this is a wonderful scheme and a crucial part of the self-improving system, and I hope that, whatever happens at the end of the review, something along these lines will be maintained. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 20
Approved free schools and university training colleges in pre-opening
“The Secretary of State must make provision for the opening of all free schools and university training colleges whose applications were approved prior to October 2024.”—(Neil O’Brien.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to proceed with the opening of free schools whose opening was paused in October 2024.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Education
Catherine McKinnell Excerpts(7 months ago)
Written CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell
… Alongside a reformed Ofsted, we are creating the RISE teams, comprised of leaders with a proven track record of improving school standards. Those teams will draw on bespoke improvement plans for stuck schools, with significant investment. The previous Government made £6,000 available for stuck schools; under this Government, it will be more like £100,000 per school to drive that improvement.
[Official Report, 3 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 570.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):
Catherine McKinnell
… Alongside a reformed Ofsted, we are creating the RISE teams, comprised of leaders with a proven track record of improving school standards. Those teams will draw on bespoke improvement plans for stuck schools, with significant investment. The previous Government made £6,000 available for stuck schools; under this Government, it will be up to £100,000 per school to drive that improvement.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Catherine McKinnell ExcerptsThursday 6th February 2025
(7 months, 1 week ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 6 February 2025 - (6 Feb 2025)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I thank the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston for tabling amendment 85. When a local authority thinks that a new school is needed in its area, it will be required to seek proposals for a new school from proposers other than local authorities. That includes academy trusts, as well as other bodies such as charitable foundations and faith bodies. Local authorities will be required to seek proposals for different types of school, including academy schools, foundation schools and voluntary schools.
I appreciate that the hon. Member may be looking for assurance that proposals for new academies will be sought and welcomed as part of the new invitation process. I can absolutely reassure him on that. We are simply ending the presumption that all new schools should be academies and allowing proposals for all types of school, so that the proposal that best meets the needs of children and families in an area is taken forward. All types of schools have an important role to play in driving the high standards that we want to see in every school, so that all children are supported to achieve and thrive.
I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham for tabling amendment 48, which seeks to restrict the proportion of places that can be allocated on the basis of faith to a maximum of 50% for all new schools established following a local authority invitation to establish one. In practice, it would only make a difference to a new voluntary aided foundation and a voluntary controlled school with a faith designation.
I recognise that the hon. Member is seeking to ensure that new schools are inclusive and that all children have access to a good education. That is very much a mission that we share. The Government support the ability of schools designated with a religious character to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. This can support parents who wish to have their children educated in line with their religious beliefs. However, it is for a school’s admission authority to decide whether to adopt such arrangements.
The removal of the legal presumption that all new schools be academies is intended to ensure that local authorities have the flexibility to make the best decision to meet the needs of their communities. Decision makers will carefully consider proposals from all groups and commission the right new schools to meet need and to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve and thrive. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Twickenham will not press her amendment.
Clause 51 will end the legal presumption that new schools should be academies. It will require local authorities to invite proposals for academies and other types of school when they think that a new school should be established and will give them the option to put forward their own proposals. The changes will ensure that new schools are opened by the provider with the best offer for local children and families. They will better align local authorities’ responsibilities to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools. We are committed to ensuring that new schools are opened in the right place at the right time, so that all children have access to a core offer of a high-quality education that breaks down the barriers to opportunity.
I turn to hon. Members’ specific questions. There was quite a wide-ranging debate on the amendments, which is typical of this very assiduous Committee. As I said on the faith schools cap provision, we want to allow proposals for different types of school that will promote a diverse school system that supports parental choice. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire said, we have a rich and diverse school system. Our priority is driving high and rising standards so that children can thrive in whatever type of school they are in. We will work in partnership with all types of school, including faith schools, as part of that mission.
Proposers, including faith groups, will be able to put forward a proposal in response to an invitation from the local authority and where the local authority thinks that a new school should be established in the area. As is already the case, faith groups can put forward proposals for a new voluntary or foundation school outside the invitation process, for example where they think that there is a need for particular places to replace an independent school or to replace one or more foundations or voluntary schools that have a religious character.
Although designated faith schools that are not subject to the 50% cap are not restricted in the number of places that they can offer with reference to faith when oversubscribed, it is for the admission authority to decide whether to adopt such arrangements. Indeed, there is real variation: some choose to prioritise only a certain proportion of their places with reference to faith in order to ensure that places are available for other children, regardless of faith, while many do not use faith-based oversubscription criteria at all. Regardless of the admissions policy set by the admission authority, faith schools remain subject to the same obligations as any other state-funded school to actively promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs, and to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. That will apply to all schools as part of the changes introduced by this Bill.
Let me say in response to concerns about faith schools being less socioeconomically and ethnically diverse that, to be fair, it is not true of all faith schools. Catholic schools are among the most ethnically diverse types of school. Faith schools tend to have intakes that reflect wider intakes; they draw from a much larger catchment area, which can often create a more diverse intake. The Department does not collect data about the admission policies of schools with a religious character, and we do not have any data on the proportion of children admitted to a school on the basis of faith or how many are able to access a preferred place on the basis of their faith. That means that there is no data to support capping faith admissions on the ground that they are restricting children and parents from accessing the school of their choice.
On the role of the adjudicator, which I think the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston asked about specifically, we will set out details in regulations, but it is our intention that local authorities will be able to object to the published admission numbers in another local authority.
I hope that I have responded to all the concerns that have been raised. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Neil O’Brien
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 48, in clause 51, page 112, line 4, at end insert—
“(5) After section 7A (withdrawal of notices under section 7), insert—
‘7B New schools to allocate no more than half of pupil places on basis of faith
A new school for which proposals are sought by a local authority under section 7 must, where the school is oversubscribed, provide that no more than half of all places are allocated on the basis of or with reference to—
(a) the pupil’s religious faith, or presumed religious faith;
(b) the religious faith, or presumed religious faith, of the pupil’s parents.’”—(Ian Sollom.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 53 and 54 stand part.
Schedule 2 stand part.
Clause 55 stand part.
Catherine McKinnell
Clause 52 requires local authorities to publish proposals when they want to open a new maintained nursery school. It also sets out the circumstances in which local authorities or other proposers can publish proposals for other new schools outside of the invitation process described in clause 51.
Local authorities will be able to publish proposals for a new community, community special, foundation, or foundation special school to replace one or more maintained schools, or to establish a new pupil referral unit to replace one or more pupil referral units. They will not be required to follow the invitation process unless they choose to, or they have already launched an invitation process that they could publish the proposals in response to. It also allows other proposers to propose the establishment of a new foundation, voluntary or foundation special school at any time, unless there is a live invitation process that the proposals could be submitted in response to. Local authorities and other proposers will not need to obtain the Secretary of State’s consent before publishing proposals, as they do now in certain circumstances.
The clause also enables regulations to set out the action that local authorities must take to publicise proposals that have been published under these arrangements.
These provisions give local authorities the flexibility to decide which route to establishing a new school is most appropriate when they are replacing an existing maintained school or schools. They also preserve the ability of other proposers to put forward proposals to the local authority for a new school, for example to meet the need for a particular type of place.
Clause 53 applies a restriction on opening new schools under section 28 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to pupil referral units, so that pupil referral units can be established only by following the same statutory procedures, introduced by clauses 51 and 52 of the Bill, that apply to other types of school maintained by local authorities. That means that, where a local authority thinks that a new alternative provision should be established, it will be required to invite proposals from proposers for an alternative provision academy, and will be able to decide whether to publish its own proposals for a pupil referral unit to be considered alongside any academy proposals received.
Clause 53, along with clauses 51 and 52, brings pupil referral units within the statutory arrangements for establishing new schools, providing clarity and transparency about the process by which new pupil referral units can be opened, putting them on an equal footing with alternative provision academies, and better aligning a local authority’s responsibility for securing sufficient places with its ability to open new schools.
Clause 54 introduces schedule 2, which amends schedule 2 to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to ensure that there are clear and fair processes for the consideration and approval of proposals made under sections 7 or 10 of the 2006 Act, as amended by this Bill, for the establishment of new schools.
Where proposals for a new school have been invited, schedule 2 will ensure that any proposals are considered equally, without the preference being given to academy proposals that there is now. This will allow decision makers to select the best proposal that meets the needs of children and families, regardless of the type of school it is.
In situations where local authorities have chosen to put forward their own proposals alongside others, or there are proposals for a new maintained school to have a foundation that the local authority would have a role in, the Secretary of State will make the decision, to ensure a fair, unbiased outcome.
Schedule 2 also requires the local authority to refer any proposal to the Secretary of State that has not yet been determined, providing an effective backstop in case of concerns over any decision making or delay. Where a local authority put forward proposals outside of an interpretation process, or if there is a proposal outside the process where the authority would be involved in the proposed school’s foundation, they will be required, as now, to refer the proposal to the schools adjudicator for decision.
Schedule 2 makes it clear that, before approving proposals for an academy, a local authority must consult the Secretary of State and seek confirmation that she would, in principle, be willing to enter into a funding agreement for that academy. That mirrors current arrangements and ensures that local authorities can be provided with all relevant information from the Department for Education on an academy trust making a proposal.
Clause 55 puts in place transitional arrangements for moving from the current arrangements for establishing new schools to the new arrangements. Where proposals for a new school have been sought by a local authority or published by a proposer or a local authority under the existing provisions under the Education Inspections Act 2006, and a decision on those proposals has not yet been made by the time the new provisions come into effect, the new arrangements will not apply and the proposals will be determined under the old arrangements. The clause also allows consultation that has been carried out under the requirements of the existing provisions of the 2006 Act, and before the new requirements come into force, to satisfy the requirements to consult under the amended provisions.
Catherine McKinnell
Clause 56 contains a provision for the Secretary of State to make changes consequential on the provisions of the Bill to other legislation, as well as to existing primary legislation. It has been drafted to allow the Secretary of State to make consequential changes to other Acts preceding this Bill or those that are passing before Parliament in this Session. It is always possible that necessary changes to legislation may be identified after a Bill’s passage. Given the breadth of legal areas that the Bill covers, it is prudent to provide a failsafe should anything have been missed. Without one, there is a risk to the coherence of the legislative landscape that the Bill creates. The clause sets out that regulations making changes to primary regulation are subject to the affirmative procedure, and that those making changes to other legislation are subject to the negative procedure.
Clause 57 contains a financial provision necessary to the provisions of the Bill that require expenditure. It sets out the expectation that Parliament will fund any expenditure and any future increase in it incurred by the Secretary of State in relation to this Bill.
Clause 58 sets out the territorial extent of the provisions in the Bill. It is a standard clause for all legislation. As the Committee is aware, Westminster does not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the relevant devolved Governments. However, there are no provisions of this Bill that engage that process.
Clause 59 sets out when the provisions in the Bill come into force. The general provisions on extent, commencement and the short title come into force on the day of Royal Assent. Subsection (2) sets out the provisions that will come into force two months after the Bill is passed. All the provisions will come into force on a day or days to be appointed by the Secretary of State through regulations. Those regulations may appoint different days for different purposes or different areas. The Secretary of State may also make regulations that provide for transitional or saving provision in connection with commencement.
Clause 60 provides that the short title of the Bill will be Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2025. For the reasons outlined, I commend the clauses to the Committee.
On new clause 10, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss removing the common law defence of reasonable punishment. Keeping children safe could not be more important to the Government. We are already taking swift action through these landmark reforms to children’s social care. It is the biggest overhaul in a generation. The Government are committed, through our plan for change, to ensuring that children growing up in our country get the best start in life through wider investment in family hubs and parenting support. This landmark Bill puts protecting children at its heart.
To be absolutely clear, the Government do not condone violence or the abuse of children, and there are laws in place to protect children against those things. Child protection agencies and the police treat allegations of abuse very seriously. They will investigate and take appropriate action, including prosecution, where there is sufficient evidence of an offence having been committed. Local authorities, police and healthcare professionals have a clear duty to act immediately to protect children if they are concerned that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.
This Bill will put children’s future at the centre of rebuilding public services, requiring higher standards for all children in need of help and protection. It is a key step towards delivering the Government’s opportunity mission to break the link between a young person’s background and future success.
We do not intend to legislate on the defence at this stage, but we will review the position when we have evidence from Wales of the impact since it was removed. Wales will publish its findings by the end of 2025 and we will look at them carefully. We recognise that parents have different views and approaches to disciplining their children. We need to consider their voices, and those of the child, trusted stakeholders and people who might be disproportionately affected by the removal of the defence, in making any decisions.
Let us also be clear: those children who have been abused or murdered by their parents would not have been covered by the defence of reasonable punishment. Crown Prosecution Service guidance is very clear about what is acceptable within the law to justify reasonable punishment.
The Bill introduces many measures to keep children safe—for example, requiring local authorities to have and maintain children not in school registers; improving information sharing between agencies; making sure that education and childcare settings are involved in local safeguarding partnerships; and making it a requirement for every local authority to have multi-agency child protection teams. Nationally, we are rolling out the vital multi-agency family health and child protection reforms through the Families First partnership programme from April 2025, and we are delivering parenting support through our family hubs programme in several local authorities.
The protection of children is critical. The Bill takes important steps to improve safeguarding. On that basis, I invite the hon. Member for North Herefordshire not to press the new clause.
On amendment 11, I appreciate what the hon. Member has set out in relation to having a delayed implementation for the removal of the defence of reasonable punishment. As I mentioned in response to new clause 10, we do not intend to legislate at this stage, but we will wait for Wales to publish its impact report on removing the defence, which is due at the end of 2025. We will look at the evidence of the potential impact before making such a significant legislative change. When we review the position, we will ensure that due thought and consideration are given to ensuring that there is an appropriate implementation period. On that basis, I invite her not to press the amendment.
Neil O’Brien
I rise to speak only to clause 56, which is a big old Henry VIII power. I am sure that their lordships will want to explore it in detail. In the interests of time, I have not tabled an amendment to it at this stage and I will not go into lots of detail, but it is always important to note such things. It is no small thing to give the Government the power to amend primary legislation without coming back to the House. Of course, there are certain limits to what they could do by means of such measures, but it is a big deal.
I place it on the record that the Minister will be well aware of some of the concerns about the clause that are coming to us from civil society. I am sure that she will have seen the comments from Jen Persson, the director of Defend Digital Me, on the information powers in the Bill. When we make laws in this way, it relies on someone noticing and raising an objection to Parliament to get any kind of democratic debate, and we can only stop such things in hindsight.
As the Minister will know, Defend Digital Me has put forward 30 different areas and proposals that it has concerns about, particularly on the information side. On previous clauses, we debated the constant unique identifier and eventually using the NHS number for that, and other things that we have objected to, such as the requirement to give information about how much time a home-schooled child is spending with both parents.
I will not reconsider all the debates that we have already had, but all those important decisions will potentially be in the scope of this Henry VIII power. I am keen to move on to the new clauses, so I will not go any further now, but I am sure that the Government will receive lots of probing questions on this point as the Bill moves to the other place.
Catherine McKinnell
I will respond initially to the question raised by the hon. Member for—
Catherine McKinnell
On clause 56, it is always possible that necessary changes to legislation might be identified through a Bill’s passage. As I said, it is therefore prudent to have a failsafe should anything have been missed. This power is limited and narrow: it can be used only to make amendments that are consequential on the Bill’s provisions, which will be voted on, and it is in line with usual practice.
Regulations made under the power that amend or repeal any provision in primary legislation will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We have carefully considered the power, and we believe that it is entirely justified in this case. It is needed to ensure that we are able to deal with the legislative consequences that may flow naturally from the main provisions and ensure that other legislation continues to work properly following the passage of the Bill.
Damian Hinds
I have never been so warmly welcomed. [Laughter.] We talked a few sittings ago about the NHS number and the database of children, and there are a lot of wide-open questions about the scope of that. Is that all children? How will it be used? In turn, that could potentially affect a lot of other pieces of legislation.
Bearing in mind the massive controversies we have had in this country in the past over ID cards, privacy and so on, will the Minister write to the Committee setting out specifically what some of the issues in relation to that might be? We do not want find ourselves having agreed to do something that we did not realise we were agreeing to do.
Catherine McKinnell
I think I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the case. The inclusion of similar powers is common and well-precedented in legislation. Powers to make consequential amendments can be found in several other Government Bills, such as the Renters’ Rights Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, as well as in Acts presented under the previous Administration, such as the Health and Care Act 2022, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is fully supportive of.
I turn to new clause 10 and the contributions from hon. Members. I absolutely appreciate the case that is being made, which is why we are open-minded on the issue, but we do not intend to bring forward legislation imminently. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire spoke about the successful implementation in Wales. I am interested in how she knows that to be the case, because we are awaiting the publication of the impact assessment. We are very keen that legislation is evidence-based and has its intended effect. That is why we are waiting for the evidence that will come from Wales.
The hon. Member mentioned a number of international examples. I have an example from New Zealand, which removed the reasonable punishment defence in 2007. Data suggests that 13 cases were investigated between 2007 and 2009, with one prosecution. It is important that we look at how this measure works within the context of each country that it is applying it. Obviously, we will look very closely at the implementation in Wales—the impact it has and the difference it makes—and will also then look at how that will apply specifically within an England context before proceeding with legislation.
Ellie Chowns
There are two points that I would want to make. Is the Minister really arguing that whether we should protect children from violence depends on whether an impact assessment shows that there are a certain number of prosecutions or whatever? Is this not about the fundamental equality of protecting children in the same way that we give adults legal protection against assault?
Secondly, the impact of giving that equal protection is surely not something that should be measured in the sense of how many prosecutions there have been over how many years. This is not about getting more prosecutions; it is about shifting the culture as a whole to recognise that there is no justification for violence against children—none.
Catherine McKinnell
Keeping children safe could not be more important, and it could not be a greater priority for this Government. The question is how that is best achieved. That is the evidence that we are awaiting from Wales—to see how impactful the change made there has been.
I will give another example, from the Republic of Ireland, which removed the reasonable punishment defence in 2015. There is limited data on the impact, but a poll in 2020 suggested that a relatively high acceptance of slapping children remained.
Absolute clarity and an evidence-based approach is what the Government seek to take. That is why, within this legislation, we have absolutely prioritised real, tangible measures, which we can put into practice without delay, to significantly improve the chances of any harm coming to children being minimised. I listed those measures in my opening response on this clause. As the law stands, quite frankly, any suggestion that reasonable punishment could be used as a defence to serious harm to a child, or indeed death, as has been asserted, is completely wrong and frankly absurd.
Ellie Chowns
The Minister cited an example from Ireland. I do not think anybody is arguing that abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment will, in and of itself, stop all violence against children, but we are arguing that it is an important component of what must be done to stop violence against children. The Children’s Commissioner and all the other people I have cited have made very powerful arguments to that effect. Professionals working in the sector have talked about how the ambiguity of the current law is actively unhelpful to them in offering support and intervention to families in which this might be an issue.
Going back to the point about needing to wait for an impact assessment, does the Minister think there is any universe in which it could be more beneficial for children to keep the defence of reasonable punishment than it would be to abolish it? Surely it is logical to expect that ensuring equal protection for children will move things in a better direction, alongside all the family support required to make a sustainable long-term change.
Catherine McKinnell
As I have said, we need to wait and look at the evidence before making such a significant legislative change. The protection of children is critical. The Bill takes significant steps to improve safeguarding. The context in England is different from Scotland and Wales. Therefore, the changes would need to be considered very carefully in the light of the evidence and how they would tangibly impact the protection of children in England. We are awaiting the impact assessment and will take action accordingly.
Abusive parents are caught under the existing legislative framework. The challenge in this area is that parenting is complex. I can attest that it is one of the most difficult jobs anyone can do. Parents know their children, and they want to get it right with their children. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire acknowledges, parenting programmes and support is what we are focused on. We are putting in place support for parents to be good parents, because that is what the vast majority want to be. When that is not their intent, there are laws in place to prevent harm from coming to children. I absolutely accept the arguments being put forward today. We have an open mind and will look at the evidence and take a very careful approach to this. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 56 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 57 and 58 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 59
Commencement
The Chair
It is on the amendment paper—it is there for all to see. We debated it in a previous group, and I presume the Government now want to support it. If everybody is happy, I will call the Minister to move amendment 93 formally.
Amendment made: 93, in clause 59, page 115, line 17, leave out paragraph (h) and insert—
“(h) section (Pay and conditions of Academy teachers) and Schedule (Pay and conditions of Academy teachers: amendments to the Education Act 2002) other than paragraph 6 of that Schedule;
(ha) section 46;”—(Catherine McKinnell.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 92 and NC57.
Clause 59, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 60 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 6
Care leavers not to be regarded as becoming homeless intentionally
“(1) In section 191 of the Housing Act 1996 (becoming homeless intentionally)—
after subsection (1) insert—
‘(1ZA) But a person does not become homeless intentionally in a case described in any of subsections (1A) to (1C).’;
in subsection (1A), for the words before paragraph (a) substitute
‘The first case is where—’;
after subsection (1A) insert—
‘(1B) The second case is where the person is a relevant child within the meaning given by section 23A(2) of the Children Act 1989.
(1C) The third case is where the person is a former relevant child within the meaning given by section 23C(1) of that Act and aged under 25.’;
in subsection (3), in the words before paragraph (a), after ‘person’ insert
‘, other than a person described in subsection (1B) or (1C),’.
(2) The amendments made by this section do not apply in relation to an application of a kind mentioned in section 183(1) of the Housing Act 1996 made before the date on which this section comes into force, except where the local housing authority deciding the application has not yet decided the matters set out in section 184(1)(a) and (b) of that Act.”—(Catherine McKinnell.)
The Housing Act 1996 requires local housing authorities to assist persons with securing accommodation in certain circumstances and limits the requirement in relation to persons who have become homeless intentionally. This amendment would prevent the limitation applying in relation to certain young persons formerly looked after by local authorities.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Catherine McKinnell
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
As I am sure colleagues will be all too aware, homelessness levels are far too high. Homelessness can have a devastating impact on those affected. The Government are determined to address that and deliver long-term solutions to get us back on track to ending homelessness. Care leavers are particularly vulnerable to becoming homeless, with the number of care leavers aged 18 to 20 becoming homeless rising by a shocking 54% in the past five years. Young care leavers are also more likely to be found to have become intentionally homeless by local authorities, meaning that local authorities are not required to secure them settled accommodation.
This Government take corporate parenting seriously, and recognise the key role that local authorities play in providing care, stability and support to care leavers—like any parent would. We are introducing the new clause to ensure that, where a council is their corporate parent, no care leaver can be found to have become intentionally homeless. This is an essential step to ensure that those care leavers are not held back by their start in life and get the support they need to build a secure and successful future. I therefore recommend that the new clause be added to the Bill.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Become, the charity for children in care and young care leavers, strongly welcomes the new clause, as does the YMCA, which supports around 1,000 care leavers a year with housing.
In its written evidence to the Committee, Become pointed to a freedom of information request that it submitted to all tier 1 local authorities in England last year, which showed real variation in whether they disapplied homelessness intentionality assessments for care leavers. Become provided examples of hearing from care-experienced young people who have been assessed as intentionally homeless for moving away to university, not keeping in touch with their personal advisers or turning down offers of accommodation that was not appropriate for them. That contradicts local authorities’ duties as corporate parents, and contributes to the disproportionate risk of homelessness that care-experienced young people are subject to.
I thank Become for its evidence, which provides powerful insight and an argument in support of the new clause. I hugely welcome it being added to the Bill.
Darren Paffey
Briefly, I warmly welcome the new clause. Colleagues will be aware of my interest in this area. From years of working alongside those who fall foul of laws and principles on paper that they never see, but that make a material difference to their lives and outcomes, I know that this will be a positive change. It builds on years of work, including not only the work of various charities already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North, but the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) and no doubt countless others, and will be warmly welcomed. I am excited to be able to report to those in my constituency on the work of this Government in making sure that care leavers have better outcomes. I look forward to working with Ministers in the future to work out how we can get from this point to other areas that will make a positive material difference to their lives.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank hon. Members for their contributions, and absolutely agree on the importance of this measure and the difference it will make to children and young people as they move into the sometimes challenging transition to adulthood, having experienced care and on leaving care.
In response to the question from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, the amendment will impact children classed under the Children Act 1989 as relevant children or former relevant children who present for homelessness assistance. That would cover young people aged 16 to 24 who have been looked after by a local authority for a period of at least 13 weeks, or periods that amount to 13 weeks, since their 14th birthday, at least one day of which must have been since they attained the age of 18.
The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question would, therefore, be subject to those parameters, but I imagine that in most cases it would apply to young people leaving the criminal justice system. He is right to raise that as a concern. Indeed, the purpose of the measure is to disapply the intentional homelessness test for care leavers who are within that scope. Care leavers who have left the youth justice system would quite rightly be included, given that they will experience similar challenges to other care leavers in establishing themselves in a secure adult life.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I was struck by recent data that shows that care leavers are particularly vulnerable to homelessness, as we have heard in this Bill Committee. Latest Government data show that the numbers of care leavers aged between 18 and 20 becoming homeless have increased by 54% over the past two years. Can the Minister outline how this very welcome measure will enhance and strengthen joint working between the children’s and housing departments, and outline a bit more some of the impacts of homelessness on care-experienced people and care leavers?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is worth looking at the data: in 2023-24 there were up to 410 households that included a care leaver who was found to be intentionally homeless. We appreciate that disapplying the intentional homelessness test means that local authorities will have much greater scope and ability to work with these young people and to support them into a more secure adult life. That clearly involves having a secure home, so I hope that hon. Members are willing to support this clause.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 57
Pay and conditions of Academy teachers
“Schedule (Pay and conditions of Academy teachers: amendments to the Education Act 2002) amends Part 8 of the Education Act 2002 (teachers’ pay and conditions etc) in relation to the pay and conditions of teachers at Academies (other than 16 to 19 Academies).
Part 8 of the Education Act 2002”.—(Vicky Foxcroft.)
This clause replaces Clause 45 and introduces the schedule to be inserted by NS1.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 1
Implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, take steps to implement each of the recommendations made in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
(2) The Secretary of State must, after a period of six months has elapsed from the passing of this Act and at 12 monthly intervals thereafter, publish a report detailing the steps taken by the Government to implement each of the recommendations.
(3) A report published under subsection (2) must include—
(a) actions taken to meet, action or implement each of the recommendations made in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse;
(b) details of any further action required to implement each of the recommendations or planned to supplement the recommendations;
(c) consideration of any challenges to full or successful implementation of the recommendations, with proposals for addressing these challenges so as to facilitate implementation of the recommendations; and
(d) where it has not been practicable to fully implement a recommendation—
(i) explanation of why implementation has not been possible;
(ii) a statement of the Government’s intention to implement the recommendation; and
(iii) a timetable for implementation.
(4) A report published under subsection (2) must be subject to debate in both Houses of Parliament within one month of its publication.
(5) In meeting its obligations under subsections (1) and (2), the Secretary of State may consult with such individuals or organisations as they deem appropriate.”—(Munira Wilson.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Munira Wilson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I rise to speak to the new clause, tabled in my name and in the name of a number of my colleagues. Briefly, it goes without saying that, on all sides of the House, we are horrified by child sex abuse and what Professor Alexis Jay uncovered through her seven-year-long investigation. We are also horrified that so little progress has been made to date in implementing the 20 recommendations she set out. The new clause therefore seeks to create a legislative commitment, with clear timescales and regular reporting to Parliament, on progress in implementing that report. It is an attempt to approach the issue constructively.
I was disappointed, to put it mildly—in fact, pretty outraged—that Conservative colleagues sought to weaponise the issue on Second Reading to try to kill off the entire Bill. I hope that this is a much more constructive approach. However, I recognise that shortly after my tabling the new clause following Second Reading, the Government made further announcements, including that Baroness Casey will undertake a rapid review and that they will be setting out a timetable.
On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the new clause, but my party and I will continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. These girls have been abused, and I am in no doubt that the abuse is ongoing. That needs to be tackled, and justice needs to be served, so I hope that the Government will implement the recommendations and set out a clear timescale.
Ellie Chowns
I rise to speak in support of the new clause, while recognising what the hon. Lady who tabled it has just said. In doing so, I am particularly mindful of a constituent of mine who came to see me in January to tell me that she had given evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Frustrated does not even cover how she felt—she was incredibly upset at the lack of progress on implementation under the previous Government, and she was frustrated to find that progress now is still not fast enough.
We have a huge responsibility to all who suffer child sexual abuse, and in particular to those who have been brave enough to come forward and give evidence, trusting that that evidence would help to make changes. I hope that the Minister can clarify timetables for implementation.
Catherine McKinnell
As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are absolutely focused on delivering justice and change for the victims on this horrific crime. On 6 January, the Home Secretary outlined in Parliament commitments to introduce a mandatory duty for those engaging with children to report sexual abuse and exploitation, to toughen up sentencing by making grooming an aggravating factor and to introduce a new performance framework for policing.
On 16 January, the Home Secretary made a further statement to the House that, before Easter, the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final IICSA report. Four of those were for the Home Office, including on disclosure and barring, and work on those is already under way. As the Home Secretary stated, a cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations. That group will be supported by a new victims and survivors panel.
The Government will also implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA’s separate, stand-alone report on grooming gangs, from February 2022. As part of that, we will update Department for Education guidance. Other measures that the Government are taking forward include the appointment of Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid audit of existing evidence on grooming gangs, which will support a better understanding of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country, and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed.
The Government will extend the remit of the independent child sexual abuse review panel, so that it covers not just historical cases before 2013, but all cases since, so that any victim of abuse will have the right to seek an independent review without having to go back to the local institutions that decided not to proceed with their case. We will also provide stronger national backing for local inquiries, by supplying £5 million of funding to help local authorities set up their own reviews. Working in partnership with Tom Crowther KC, the Home Office will develop a new effective framework for victim-centred, locally led inquiries.
This landmark Bill will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout our education and care systems, so that every child can achieve and thrive. It will protect children at risk of abuse and stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in service. I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Twickenham is content to withdraw her new clause, and thank her for that. Allowing this Bill’s passage will indeed go a long way to supporting the young people growing up in our system and to protect them from falling through the cracks that may leave them vulnerable to this form of abuse. Indeed, across Government, we will continue to work to take forward the recommendations and to reform our system so that victims get the justice they deserve.
Munira Wilson
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 2
Provision of free school lunches to all primary school children
“(1) Section 512ZB of the Education Act 1996 (provision of free school lunches and milk) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph (4A)(b), after ‘year 2,’ insert ‘year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6’.
(3) In subsection (4C), after ‘age of 7;’ insert—
‘“Year 3” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 8;
“Year 4” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 9;
“Year 5” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 10;
“Year 6” means a year group in which the majority of children will, in the school year, attain the age of 11;’” —(Ellie Chowns.)
This new clause would extend free school lunches to all primary school age children in state funded schools.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Ian Sollom
I beg to move that the clause be read a Second time.
I am moving new clause 3 on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman). The Children and Families Act 2014 sets out timeframes for local authorities to decide whether to do an education, health and care plan needs assessment, and then for the resulting education, health and care plan to be issued. Local authorities have six weeks from application to decide whether to carry out an EHCNA, and a total of 20 weeks from application to issue an EHCP. Across England in 2023, however, only 50.3% of EHCPs were issued within that statutory 20-week deadline. Some places perform much worse than that—in Essex, only 0.9% were issued within the 20-week deadline.
New clause 3 is about reporting that. Transparency is a first key step in accountability, so publishing local authorities’ performance in relation to those statutory deadlines is the aim of the amendment as that first step. It is essentially a free change because local authorities already have the information gathered, so there should not be any additional resources needed. It could in fact help, because it would cut down on freedom of information requests, for example, which are a burden on councils. It will also cut down on the level of communication required with concerned parents constantly contacting to ask when their child is going to receive their EHCP.
Also included within new clause 3, local authorities will have the opportunity to explain any reasons and lay out their plans for improving performance. That kind of transparency helps direct resources well, and I think it is a good, sensible step,
Catherine McKinnell
I totally agree it is vital there is publicly available data regarding local authority performance on EHCPs. That is why we publish annual data on each local authority’s timeliness in meeting their 20-week deadline. Local authorities identified as having issues with EHCP timeliness are subject to additional monitoring by the Department for Education, which works with the specific local authority. Where there are concerns about the local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we have secured specialist special educational needs and disabilities adviser support to help identify barriers to EHCP timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.
Furthermore, when Ofsted and Care Quality Commission area SEND inspections indicate there are significant concerns with local authority performance, the Department intervenes directly. That might mean issuing an improvement notice or statutory direction or appointing a commissioner, deployment of which is considered on a case-by-case basis.
We are clear that the SEND system requires reform. We are considering options to drive improvements, including on the timeliness of support and local authority performance. We do not believe increasing the amount of published data and reporting on EHCP timeliness alone would lead to meaningful improvements in performance. We are working closely with experts on reforms. We recently appointed a strategic adviser for SEND who will play a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families, as we consider the next steps for future reform of SEND.
In response to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, I absolutely respect the intentions of his amendment and the desire to see much greater timeliness and support for children with SEND and their families. We are working incredibly hard—this is a priority within the Department for Education—to get much better outcomes. We do not believe that this amendment will achieve the desired outcome, although we share the intention behind the amendment.
Munira Wilson
I appreciate what the Minister is saying. I agree with her that this is not a silver bullet. This will not suddenly improve the system. This is about transparency and accountability where, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire pointed out, there are some councils that are missing the targets by such a long chalk, and is about setting out the reasons for doing so. We know in some areas that frankly NHS partners are not working constructively with local authorities to help deliver EHCPs on time.
As the Minister looks at reforming the system—and I know from my discussions with her and the Secretary of State that the Government are working hard on this—could I urge that they seriously consider this provision. It is about transparency and accountability for parents, which I think is really important.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire for the way in which he presented this clause. We share the ambition for children with special educational needs and disabilities to get much better service, from their local authority and on their education journey. We recognise there are significant challenges for those who seek to deliver that being able to do so, which is why we are looking at reform in a whole-system way. We are looking to drive mainstream inclusion within our school system and to reduce the waiting times for assessments, which we know is led by the Department of Health and Social Care. This is a cross-departmental effort involving the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, and clearly the Department for Education has a key role in achieving a much better outcome for children with special educational needs. We absolutely take away the intentions of this amendment, but would appreciate it not being pressed to a vote as part of the Bill. The conversation about special educational needs and improving the outcomes for children will, however, without doubt continue.
Ian Sollom
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Vicky Foxcroft.)
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Catherine McKinnell ExcerptsThursday 6th February 2025
(7 months, 1 week ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 6 February 2025 - (6 Feb 2025)
Neil O’Brien
We heard some concern about clauses 48 and 49 in our evidence sessions. One of the issues is the potential conflict of interest between the local authority being both the regulator of the local system and, at the same time, a provider of some of the schools but not others. Sir Dan Moynihan said,
“there is potentially a conflict of interest if local authorities are opening their own schools and there are very hard-to-place kids. There is a conflict of interest in where they are allocating those children, so there needs to be a clear right of appeal in order to ensure that that conflict can be exposed if necessary…Some of the schools we have taken on have failed because they have admitted large numbers of hard-to-place children…I think there are schools that get into difficulty and fail because there is perceived local hierarchy of schools, and those are the schools that get those children. That is why there needs to be a clear right of appeal to prevent that from happening.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 73, Q158.]
Luke Sparkes from Dixons also made roughly the same point.
Amendment 90 would require the Secretary of State to set out statutory guidance on
“how actual or potential conflicts of interest arising from the role of local authorities in directing admissions to schools they maintain and those they do not are to be identified and managed; and… how the best interests of children and young people are to be prioritised in all decision-making.”
New clause 45 would write into the legislation:
“A direction under this section may not take into account whether a school is a maintained school or an academy.”
Neither measure would fundamentally change the clause, but they require a solution to address that potential conflict of interest and ensure that things are fair, and are seen to be fair.
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
I rise to speak to amendment 90 and clauses 48 and 49. The clauses aim to strengthen local authorities’ existing powers to direct a school to admit a child and provide a more robust safety net for vulnerable children by ensuring that school places can be secured for them more quickly and efficiently when the usual admissions processes fall short.
Amendment 90 seeks to require the Secretary of State to publish statutory guidance as to how local authorities may exercise their direction powers impartially and in the best interests of children and young people. I note the concerns of the hon. Members that this new power may give rise to conflicts of interests in local authorities’ dealings with the schools that they maintain and those that they do not. I also agree that it is important that local authorities exercise their direction powers appropriately and in the best interests of children and young people.
I reassure hon. Members that legislation, as well as the school admissions code, already sets out mandatory requirements as to how local authorities may exercise their direction powers. They are intended for use only as a last resort and may only be used where admissions cannot be secured through the usual processes. To ensure that decisions are made in the best interests of a child, section 96 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 already requires local authorities to ensure that they choose a school that is within a reasonable distance of a child’s home and provides education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any specific educational needs that the child may have.
Furthermore, in considering which school to place the child, there are several other factors that local authorities are already required to take into consideration. For example, local authorities are unable to direct a school from which the child has been permanently excluded, or if it would mean that the school would have to take measures to avoid breaking the rules on infant class sizes. Furthermore, they are unable to direct a school’s sixth form if the child does not meet the relevant entry requirements.
In relation to a looked-after child, local authorities cannot direct a school where the child has been permanently excluded from that school previously or where the schools adjudicator deems the admission of the child would result in serious prejudice following an appeal by the school against the direction.
Furthermore, section 97 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 sets out further processes that a local authority must adhere to when considering exercising its direction powers. These include various requirements on consultation, including requiring the local authority to consult with the governing body of the school, the parent of the child and the child themselves, if they are over compulsory school age, before seeking to direct a school. Governing bodies are also provided the opportunity to appeal against any decision by the local authority to direct a child into their school.
Clause 48 enables the same requirements to apply equally in relation to a decision to direct an academy, including making it clear that academy trusts will have the right to appeal to the schools adjudicator against a local authority’s decision to direct their school. Those requirements will all be reflected in the school admissions code, which we intend to amend following Royal Assent. We also intend to work closely with the sector on any further changes that may be needed to fully implement the new powers.
Any change in the code will require a full public consultation and will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny before coming into effect, so I hope that the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich are reassured that we will take action to ensure that the statutory school admissions code will be amended accordingly and continue to set out clear guidance on how local authorities may exercise their direction powers following Royal Assent. We therefore do not consider the amendment necessary and kindly ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw it.
I turn to clauses 48 and 49. Local authorities have statutory duties to ensure that children in their area have access to a suitable education, but the levers are currently not available to them to achieve that, as they are not always effective. That can result in too many children, many of whom are vulnerable, being left without a school place for too long. Every day lost in a child’s education is one that they cannot get back. Powers of direction are intended to be used only as a last resort in those rare circumstances in which families are unable to secure a place through the usual admissions processes.
The purpose of clauses 48 and 49 is to create a more robust safety net for vulnerable children by giving local authorities the levers they need to secure school places for children more quickly and efficiently when the usual admissions processes fall short, ensuring that no child falls through the cracks. Clause 48 extends the current powers of local authorities to direct a maintained school to admit a child and to enable them to direct academies in the same way.
Although most children will secure a place through the usual admissions processes, vulnerable and hard-to-place children can sometimes struggle to do so. In circumstances in which those children have been refused entry to or have been permanently excluded from every suitable school within a reasonable distance, the local authority has the power to direct a maintained school for which they are not the admission authority to admit that child.
However, where a local authority wishes to place a child in an academy, it currently must request that the Secretary of State uses her direction powers under the academy’s funding agreement to compel the school to admit the child. That additional step can create further delay in getting a child into school. Enabling local authorities to direct academies themselves without needing to go through the process of requesting the Secretary of State to invoke her direction powers will ensure that school places for unplaced and vulnerable children can be secured quickly and efficiently. It does not make sense for local authorities to continue to need to ask the Secretary of State to make such direction for an academy.
Clause 49 further streamlines local authorities’ admission direction processes and makes them more transparent by enabling local authorities to direct a school where the fair access protocol fails to secure a school place for a child. The fair access protocol is a local mechanism for securing school places for children struggling to secure one through the usual admissions processes. The school admissions code requires all local authorities to have a fair access protocol in place that has been agreed with local schools and specifies the categories of children, including vulnerable and hard-to-place children, who are eligible to be considered for a school place under the fair access protocol.
Clause 49 will also enable future iterations of the admissions code to specify circumstances in which local authorities are able to direct the admission of a child where the fair access protocol has been exhausted and fails to secure a place for them. It will also allow the admissions code to set out a more streamlined directions process for children who have come out of care, so as to provide these often still vulnerable children greater parity with children currently in care. As mentioned, we intend to work closely with the sector in implementing the changes to the admissions code, which will include a full public consultation and require parliamentary approval.
I hope that I have reassured hon. Members that clauses 48 and 49 will provide a more robust safety net for vulnerable children by ensuring that places can be secured for them more quickly and efficiently when the usual admissions processes fall short, minimising time out of school and reducing the likelihood of children falling between the cracks. As I have mentioned, to ensure the powers are used appropriately, clause 48 will provide academies that disagree with a decision to direct admission with a formal route of appeal to the schools adjudicator, giving academies the same route of redress as is currently available only to maintained schools. That safeguard will ensure that local authorities use their powers appropriately and place children in suitable schools where they can thrive. I commend clauses 48 and 49 to the Committee.
New clause 45, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, aims to ensure that where a local authority is considering directing a school to admit a child, it does not take account of whether the school is a maintained school or an academy. The hon. Members appear to be concerned that a new power for local authorities to direct academy schools may give rise to potential conflicts of interest.
As I have mentioned, the power is intended for use only as a last resort, and may be used only where admissions cannot be secured through the usual processes. Under public law principles, local authorities are already prevented from taking irrelevant matters into consideration when taking decisions, and in most circumstances, whether a school is an academy is not likely to be a relevant factor in determining whether to direct a school to admit a child. Furthermore, as I set out earlier, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and the school admissions code already set out several requirements as to how local authorities may exercise their direction powers. Those include relevant factors that they must take into consideration when deciding to direct a school, as well as the processes they must follow when making a direction.
Local authorities can already request that the Secretary of State direct a pupil into an academy on their behalf, and we know from experience that local authorities use this route only where they consider that it is in the best interests of the pupil, and after careful thought and consideration about the impact on the school. However, the new right for an academy trust to appeal to the independent schools adjudicator where they disagree with a direction for them to admit a child will provide independent oversight of local authorities’ decisions to direct.
I hope that the hon. Members will be reassured that appropriate checks and balances will be in place to mitigate any risk of the misuse of the power by local authorities, and kindly ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.
While we were in Bill Committee on Tuesday, the Education Committee was meeting—there are many people with a lot of interest in the Bill, and rightly so—to hear from three panels of witnesses. I draw the Committee’s attention to the second panel. On the panel was Sam Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government who worked at the Department for Education from 2010 to 2013 as a senior policy adviser; she is also a senior adviser to Ark schools, although was appearing in a personal capacity. Also on the panel were Daniel Kebede, who is a former teacher and the general secretary of the National Education Union, and John Barneby, who is the chief executive of Oasis Community Learning.
The witnesses did not agree on everything, but all three commented on the benefits of these provisions. John Barneby said that Oasis follows
“local authority admissions at the moment, because we believe in equity of offer, and we want to work in partnership. That is not the case everywhere…My hope is that, out of this policy, we will get to a place where there is a fair distribution of children with special educational needs and disadvantaged children across all schools, so that all schools are truly inclusive and have the capacity to meet the needs of all children.”
He thinks the Bill will go some way to doing that. He also said that there has been a risk raised around the allocation of students, particularly with falling student numbers, but he thinks that
“on the whole, local authorities act responsibly around this.”
Neil O’Brien
Clause 50 is one of the elements of the Bill that we are most concerned about. The Government’s impact assessment says:
“Demographic changes mean there is an increase in the number of surplus places in primary schools...We want the local authority to have more influence over the PANs for schools in their area”.
For the benefit of people following the sitting, PAN is the published admission number—the number of pupils a school takes on each year.
The impact assessment continues:
“This would include scenarios where...a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school”.
In my mind, that line creates many questions. In a city like London, there are roughly 2,700 or 2,800 state schools, and cross-authority moves are very common. If I have an excellent and oversubscribed school, and someone else’s requires improvement and is struggling to attract pupils, how on earth are they to know that it is my school that is creating viability issues for their school, rather than one of the other hundreds of schools nearby? Indeed, how are we to know that the viability issues are not entirely to do with the struggling school, and how is the schools adjudicator to make such decisions? In reverse, how are the pupils from a thriving school to be shared out fairly if there are multiple struggling schools in the area? As soon as we start to think about it, these are massive questions.
The impact assessment makes it clear that this measure is a huge departure from the path we have been on since the reforms of the late 1980s, which gave good schools the ability to expand without the local authority blocking them. The impact assessment says:
“The Adjudicator will also have the ability to set the PAN for the subsequent year”
and
“some schools may find that their PAN is not set for them as they would wish. They may feel that they are able to take more pupils and thus receive greater funding. It could also limit the ability of popular schools to grow.”
Those are the Government’s words, not mine. They continue:
“If a school is required to lower their PAN, some pupils who would have otherwise been admitted will be unable to attend the school. This will negatively impact on parental preference, especially if the school was the parent’s first choice.”
The Confederation of School Trusts has pointed out that the impact assessment does not account for the potential risks of reducing PANs for popular and successful schools. Our amendments address exactly that point. Once again, rather than the normal split between the regulator and the provider, the local authorities will be both. Politicians in some local authorities—this is not a secret—have never much liked the academy programme or school freedom. It would be very tempting for them to try to push down numbers in academies, particularly to protect the schools that they run even if they are not the best ones or the ones that parents want. For all those reasons, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the former Labour leader, was positive about the clause on Second Reading. However, for the reasons that he is positive about it I am rather nervous about it.
Amendment 84 would write into the Bill:
“Where making a decision the adjudicator must take into account—
(a) the performance of the school; and
(b) whether the school is oversubscribed.”
It would make it clear that we need to deal with the issues now, at this point of democratic decision and transparency, and write those principles into law rather than leave it to Ministers and regulations, meaning that the handling of highly significant issues could easily later shift, with little scrutiny, under a different Secretary of State.
New clause 47 would stop objections to stable or growing PANs, and new clause 46 would at least exempt high performing schools and allow them to still expand. A striking thing about the clause is that it is not just allowing appeals against schools expanding for the first time—a massive move away from the principles of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998—but even allowing appeals against schools just staying the same and carrying on doing what they are doing. That can now be challenged, and the only reason to do that is to share out the pupils in order to help other schools be more viable.
Will the powers be used? Yes, absolutely they will, because the context, of course, is the forecast decline in pupil numbers. Indeed, the impact assessment gives that as one of the rationales in London and other urban areas. The declines are forecast to be quite steep. Often local forecasts turn out to be wrong, but in some London boroughs the forecast is for more than one in 10 or even one in eight pupils to disappear over the next four years. In that context, the temptation to prop up some schools by pressing for reductions in others will be very strong, particularly for local authorities that do not like school choice much, but even in others, too.
At present there is nothing in the Bill to reassure us or school leaders that this will be done fairly between local authority and non-local authority schools, or fairly reflecting how well schools are performing or fairly reflecting how popular they are. There is nothing but the suggestion of future guidance, which the House will not be able to amend and which can shift with the views of whoever is Secretary of State at the time. There is some deep history here. It was Mrs Thatcher who announced the reforms that the Government are starting to undo today. It was initially called the local management of schools. When Mrs Thatcher announced it, she said,
“We will allow popular schools to take in as many children as space will permit. And this will stop local authorities from putting artificially low limits on entry to good schools. And second, we will give parents and governors the right to take their children’s school out of the hands of the local authority and into the hands of their own governing body. This will create a new kind of school funded by the State, alongside the present State schools and the independent private schools. They will bring a better education to many children because the school will be in the hands of those who care most for it and for its future.”
Did those reforms work? Well, the former Education Minister, Lord Adonis, who wrote about the creation of the school freedom, concluded:
“Local Management of Schools was an unalloyed and almost immediate success…school budgets under LMS were based largely on pupil numbers, so parental choice came to matter as never before.”
Several times during our debates I have heard Labour Members say that they believe in “standards, not structures”. We heard it in the last sitting and I have heard it from Ministers. But let me quote from another great socialist thinker, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who says in his memoirs,
“We had come to power in 1997 saying it was ‘standards not structures’ that mattered. We said this in respect of education, but it applied equally to health and other public services. Unfortunately, as I began to realise, when experience shaped our thinking, it was bunkum as a piece of policy. The whole point is that structures beget standards. How a service is configured affects outcomes.”
This clause strikes at one of the most foundational school reforms of the last 40 years. It strikes at school choice by making the size of schools not a matter for parents in choosing and voting with their feet, but instead for local councillors and the schools adjudicator. You strike at parental choice and you strike at one of the most powerful engines for school improvement.
Although I understand what Ministers are trying to do, this is currently being done in the Bill without any of the basic safeguards we would expect on how they will make those decisions. I understand what Ministers are trying to do, but I think this is one of the worst clauses in the Bill, and I really hope that Ministers will rethink it.
Catherine McKinnell
Clause 50 covers the ability of the schools adjudicator to set the published admissions number of a school where the adjudicator has upheld an objection to it. This provides an important backstop to ensure that all children are able to access a place at a school where they can achieve and thrive.
Amendments 84 and 83 relate to the matters the adjudicator must take into account when deciding on a school’s published admissions number and the means by which those requirements are placed upon her. I will discuss each of these matters in turn, but there are clearly important connections between the two.
Amendment 84 would requires the adjudicator to take into account the school’s performance and whether it is oversubscribed when deciding on what the school’s published admissions number should be following an upheld objection. School performance and parental demand are clearly important factors that adjudicators should consider when determining objections to published admission numbers. Indeed, previous adjudicator determinations on schools reducing published admission numbers show that the adjudicator regularly takes these matters into consideration where they are relevant to a case.
However, specifying that the adjudicator must only take account of these factors and no other factors could hinder effective decision making and damage the interests of schools and communities. Although the expansion of good schools is to be celebrated, we know that in some areas schools are unilaterally increasing their admission numbers beyond what is needed, damaging the quality of education that children receive at nearby schools by making it harder for school leaders to plan the best education for their children.
Therefore, it is right that the adjudicator’s decisions about the level at which to set the admission number following an upheld objection should also consider the wider impact on the community. For example, this could include potential impacts on parental choice if the quality of education that children receive at other schools nearby is affected.
Furthermore, there are other factors that it may be important for the adjudicator to consider or that provide necessary safeguards for the school that is the subject of the objection, such as statutory financial or capacity requirements. For example, primary schools are required to comply with the statutory infant class-size limit and we would want the adjudicator to ensure that any published admission number they set enables the school to comply with this important duty.
Neil O'Brien
The Minister talks about schools expanding “beyond what is needed”. How will she determine whether a school’s expansion is “beyond what is needed”? Is it the presence of any “surplus” school places in that local authority area?
Catherine McKinnell
As I have set out, these are matters for the school adjudicator to determine on when objections have been raised with them. Schools adjudicators are independent, which is an important factor in this process. They have significant experience of considering objection cases and they are ideally placed to take objective, transparent and impartial decisions.
Neil O'Brien
It was the Minister herself who said “we know” that some schools had expanded “beyond what was needed”’; she did not say that an admissions adjudicator had determined that. In response to my challenge, she referred to the admissions adjudicator, but it was she herself who said “we know” that some schools had expanded beyond the point that was “needed”. How does she know that? On what basis does she say that?
Catherine McKinnell
Obviously, the purpose of the clause is to ensure that those decisions are made independently by the schools adjudicator. I think the hon. Gentleman should acknowledge that he is objecting to an independent adjudication on these matters, which is entirely the purpose of this legislative provision.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
We recently saw a case of a ghost school in Nottingham, funded under the previous Government, built but then never opened, because only two pupils applied to join. Does the Minister agree that that is an example of the current system failing?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Clearly, it is really important that we have good schools available to every child in every local area. That is clearly a challenge. A significant number of children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, are not having their needs met within their local school, and they consequently have to travel as a result. As constituency MPs, we have to deal with the families who get in touch because they cannot get a place at their local school and the challenges around that. It is clearly in the interests of everybody that we have a system that manages that, but also that we have an adjudicator that takes an independent view and decides on what would be the right outcome in a particular circumstance.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
Does this part of the Bill not go to the principle that local schools should meet local needs?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend puts it very well. Indeed, that is the case that we are making. That means having good and great schools, and that is the ultimate aim of all these provisions: to ensure that every child has a good local school in which they can achieve and thrive. There needs to be some way in which that is managed on a community-wide basis. I would be surprised if the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston were seriously objecting to that in principle.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I seek some clarity. The Minister seems to be saying, “Leave it up to the independent adjudicator. They will decide.” Is she saying that the Government will not issue guidance on the criteria on which an independent adjudicator should decide?
Catherine McKinnell
No, that is not what I said. I was responding to the specific question asked by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston.
These measures are being introduced to support local authorities with effective place planning. In answer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about how we know that this challenge needs action, a 2022 report commissioned by the Department for Education under the previous Government reported that
“unilateral decisions about PANs and admissions…was identified by 89% of LAs”
as a barrier to fulfilling their responsibilities for mainstream school place planning. Some 13% of local authorities reported that
“this occurred regularly, 41% occasionally, and 34% rarely”.
Local authorities were more likely to report that this barrier was more common when working with academies. Those are the findings of the Department’s own report, which was commissioned under the last Government.
To be clear, the measure is not about removing any and all surplus places from the school system, including where it is useful, for example, in ensuring parental choice and flexibility in the system to accommodate future demand for school places. This is about ensuring that the places on offer in an area adequately reflect the needs of that local community. Where there is large surplus capacity, that can have a detrimental impact on good schools. It could result in significant upheaval for children and damage local parental choice. This is about supporting local authorities to ensure that they have the right amount of school places in their local area. There is already a statutory obligation on that. This measure will support local authorities to achieve that.
Neil O'Brien
The Minister is talking about within local communities and within local authorities and so on. I raised the issue of how this is supposed to work in London. The Government talked about using this power where
“a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school”.
Local is not defined. How is the schools adjudicator to work out whether it is one school that is creating
“viability issues for another local school”
in a setting like London, where there are many schools nearby, or whether some of the viability issues are to do with the school’s own performance, perhaps, because it is not a very good school? How on earth is one to identify fairly in a city like this, with vast flows between boroughs, where the problem is coming from for a “failing” school?
Catherine McKinnell
I recognise the challenge of falling rolls in some London boroughs, which the hon. Member rightly identifies. It just goes to make the case even more strongly: partners have to work collaboratively to ensure that we manage demographic changes properly and that children are at the heart of all decisions.
The measures in the Bill will give local authorities more levers to help manage surplus capacity. For example, the Bill will ensure that if the schools adjudicator upholds an objection that the published admission number of a school is too high to support the community need, the adjudicator will then be able to set the published admission number for the school. Schools and local authorities will be under new duties to co-operate on school admissions and place planning as part of measures to the Bill already debated and passed.
Neil O'Brien
What share of “surplus places” is too high in the eyes of the Minister? Will she set out in guidance what “too high” looks like? What is her view on too high—is it 1%, 2% or 3% surplus places?
Catherine McKinnell
The guidance will set out how local authorities will determine their published admission number. It will also support local authorities with effective place planning, which will be set out in the admissions code. The new delegated powers will set out to adjudicators what they should consider when setting published admission numbers within that context.
I can reassure the hon. Member that adjudicators are experienced at considering these types of issues as part of their existing role. They already do this. They consider both objections to published admission number reductions and requests by maintained schools to vary their published admission number downwards in light of major changes in circumstances. They have an in-depth knowledge of admissions law and play an integral role in ensuring that school admissions are fair and lawful. Many have wide experience of the education system at a very senior level. The hon. Member should not be so concerned that these matters cannot be adjudicated, which seems to be what he is suggesting.
Neil O'Brien
I am not suggesting that they cannot be adjudicated. I am pointing out to the Minister that for them to be adjudicated in a completely new way will mean something very different will happen to our education system. At the moment, the adjudicator can be brought in if a school dramatically wants to cut its numbers. That is fair enough. We need to make sure that all pupils have a place to go to school. But this is something completely new. There is an objection not just to expanding, which is an attack on the principle of school choice, but to schools wanting to keep their published admission number the same.
This is a completely revolutionary change. The adjudicator is not dealing with these kinds of things at the moment for academies, so it is a huge change and a move away from the principles that have allowed good schools to expand and the voices of those who say, “There are too many surplus places; you can go to a worse school and not to your first-choice school” to be squashed by the process of school choice and competition.
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman has made his concerns known. I do not think he is making any new assertions. It might be helpful if I continue setting out why we do not accept the proposed amendments.
Catherine McKinnell
Perhaps at the end if there are still questions I would be more than happy to address them.
Damian Hinds
It is a different but related question. There are falling rolls, initially in primary over the next few years, and then it will happen in secondary. There will be some difficult choices that someone will need to make. Sometimes that will mean varying the numbers in every school, but I am afraid that the scale of the change in some local authorities, particularly in urban areas and this city, is such that some schools may convert and become special schools, for which there is demand and need. Some may become early years settings. It might be the case—I hope it will not be, as it is always a difficult thing to do—that total education capacity has to reduce. Will it be the schools adjudicator who decides the school that closes?
Catherine McKinnell
Local authorities make decisions about place planning within their local area. There will be a duty on all schools within a local area to co-operate with the local authority on place planning and admissions. The clause and the Bill extend to academies the ability to object to the school adjudicator, which gives them the ability to present their case where there is a challenge. Clause 50, which I will come to shortly, includes a delegated power that enables the Government to make regulations that set out factors that the adjudicator must consider when setting the published admission number of the school after it has upheld an objection.
Neil O’Brien
To be clear, is it the case that under the clause the schools adjudicator will have the power to set the published admission number to zero—in other words, to close a school?
Catherine McKinnell
Where the adjudicator upholds an objection to the published admission number, I cannot foresee a circumstance where that might be the case—
Catherine McKinnell
It will very much depend on the local context. Obviously, it will be for the adjudicator as an independent professional to take that decision for maintained schools. To be clear, for academies it will be for the Secretary of State to end a funding agreement, and for maintained schools it will be for the local authority to determine.
Amanda Martin
Will the Minister confirm that the power to set place numbers includes all schools in local authority areas? It is not just academies but maintained schools. There seems to have been an idea throughout the whole of this debate that maintained schools are somehow a lower echelon of education—
Amanda Martin
Thank you, Sir Edward. It seems to have been implied that only academies might want to expand, but local authority schools might also want to expand. If it is not right for the pupil numbers within the local authority area, it should not be allowed.
We were asked for examples of where it has happened already. In Hackney in 2024, the expansion of some schools and academies—[Interruption.]
The Chair
Order. That is very interesting, but it is an intervention. In a Committee, you can speak as often as you like, but I think we have got the point now and the Minister should carry on with her speech.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes powerful and important points relating to the challenges she has experienced in her local area. That is why the changes are necessary to ensure we have a fair system.
The usual approach from Opposition Members is to act as though this is a new thing that has just been invented. This is not a new role for adjudicators. They already consider these issues, not just in proposals to reduce admission numbers—
Catherine McKinnell
Can I finish making one point? Adjudicators do that when schools seek to vary their admission arrangements once they have been determined. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the theoretical prospect—
Catherine McKinnell
It is a hypothetical prospect of a published admission number being set at zero. That will be dealt with as part of regulations and we will set out more detail in those, but we will address that.
Catherine McKinnell
I can get back to the actual substantive response to the amendment, or we can carry on with this debate in the meantime.
Neil O’Brien
The Minister says that the Secretary of State can shut schools in other ways. The schools authority, under this law, will have the power to set a PAN to zero. I did not hear the Minister say that, according to guidance, that should not happen. Will she say that now?
Catherine McKinnell
To deal with the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises, he is wrong that this is a new power.
Catherine McKinnell
If the hon. Gentleman will let me a finish a sentence, he will see. The hon. Gentleman is repeatedly putting words in my mouth by taking snippets of sentences without listening to them entirely. He is concerned that this is intended to address simply matters that might affect London.
Neil O’Brien
Of course it is not. This is stupid. It affects the entire country.
Catherine McKinnell
That is the point I am making. These challenges affect local authorities right up and down the country. The research the previous Government undertook into this matter demonstrated that local authorities, which have a statutory obligation to provide suitable school places for all the children in their local area, face widespread challenges in meeting that obligation because of the challenges in the current system, which the clauses seek to address. Yes, this is a new statutory duty, which is why we are legislating, but it is not a new role for adjudicators. That is the point that I have made a number of times. I am not saying this is not a change, as we are legislating to change things, but it is not a new role for adjudicators. They are well experienced in managing many of these considerations.
The fundamental point is that school closures need to be managed very carefully through significant change or prescribed alteration processes. As I am sure the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston is aware, academies are maintained through contractual arrangements. The parties to the funding agreements are the Secretary of State and the relevant academy trust, and there are no third-party rights given to a local authority under that funding agreement. Any decision relating to the termination of a funding agreement sits with the Secretary of State.
The purpose of the Bill is to put a new requirement on schools, academy trusts and local authorities to co-operate on place planning and admission matters. We expect them to work together to manage the supply of school places and, where necessary, that may include making plans to close a maintained school or academy, if that is the right decision for a particular area.
Amanda Martin
I have already mentioned the three expert witnesses who commented on this issue. Although they probably have very different opinions on other elements of the education system, all were in agreement. Does the Minister believe that the clause, unamended, means that local authorities can perform fair place planning for all pupils, whether in rural, suburban or inner-city areas, to ensure that there is still access for all pupils and that it is done in a fair way, whether a school is maintained or an academy?
Catherine McKinnell
Absolutely, and it is right that where an objection is put to the adjudicator about a published admission number and the adjudicator upholds it, they consider the wider impact on the whole community—for example, how it might affect parental choice or the quality of education for children affected by any decision. The adjudicator should clearly consider other factors that may provide necessary safeguards for a school that is the subject of an objection, such as their financial or capacity requirements. As I will discuss when I turn to amendment 83, that is why clause 50 includes the power to make regulations that set out what the adjudicator must and must not take into account when taking a decision on published admission numbers that must be set where an objection to the published admission numbers is held. I hope that when we get on to the next clause, many of the concerns of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston will be allayed.
We are clear that the regulation-making power represents the best approach to ensuring that all relevant actors are given due consideration by the adjudicator and that the requirements placed on the adjudicator can still be amended easily to respond to the ongoing needs of the sector and of the schools and the communities they serve. Importantly, we want to work with the sector to ensure that we have fully considered all relevant factors of concern when we develop the regulations to set out requirements on matters that the adjudicator must and must not consider when deciding on the published admission number of a school. That will ensure that the requirements on the adjudicator are clear and comprehensive.
The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston tabled amendment 83, which would remove from the Bill a delegated power to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out factors that the adjudicator must and must not take into account when assessing the published admission number of a school or where they uphold a published admission number objection. That is relevant in the context of the hon. Member’s amendment 84, but, as I have tried to do in the discussion we have had—and as I would have already done if we had got to it—I will explain a little more our intentions for the regulation-making power and why we consider it the most appropriate way to address the issues raised in amendment 84.
It is important that the adjudicator, admission authorities and local authorities are all clear on what factors the adjudicator will take into account in her decision making, so that the decisions are made on a clear and transparent basis. In many cases, a school’s performance and parental demand for places, as the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston set out in amendment 84, will clearly be important factors for the adjudicator to consider when considering an objection to a school’s published admission number. However, as I have mentioned, there are many other important considerations, not just for the area but for the school itself, that must form part of the adjudicator’s decision making.
Let us be clear: these are difficult questions. They concern, for example, important matters such as the school’s capacity, the impact of the proposed admission number on the quality of education for children at neighbouring schools, and more practical matters such as compliance with regulations in terms of class sizes. Importantly, regulations to specify what the adjudicator must and must not take into account will ensure that any relevant impacts on the admission authority and school that are the subject of the objection are given due consideration before the adjudicator decides on the published admission number.
The complexity of the factors is best set out in regulations to ensure that they remain flexible and responsive to changes in any related legislation and in the wider context. For example, if we want to ensure that adjudicators take account of a school’s need to comply with infant class-size regulations, we want to be able to respond to any changes to those regulations. Similarly, if future demographic changes mean it is important for the adjudicator to think about how they consider issues such as a school’s capacity, regulations can be amended to ensure that the adjudicator takes into account all relevant considerations at that time and is not bound by outdated rules.
The regulations, and any changes to them, will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Including these matters in regulations will ensure that, if necessary, we can respond quickly to feedback from the sector, and where wider circumstances change, while ensuring that a clear level of rigour and parliamentary oversight can still be achieved. Given the argument I have set out, I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston not to press his amendments.
Clause 50 provides that where the adjudicator upholds an objection to a school’s published admission number, it can specify the new PAN, which must then be included in the school’s admission arrangements. That is vital to ensure that all communities have the places they need so that children can access a local school where they can achieve and thrive.
Broadly, the ability of admission authorities to set their published admission numbers works well. In many areas, published admission numbers work effectively, and admission authorities and local authorities co-operate well to support local need. The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has a concern about the clause’s impact on the ability of good schools to expand through an increase to their published admission numbers; I reassure him that the Government are absolutely in favour of good schools expanding where that is right for the local area.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
The Minister just mentioned areas where schools already collaborate well with local authorities, and I am pleased to say that St Helens is one of those areas. From my experience as council leader before coming here, and since then as a Member of Parliament, I am aware that maintained schools and academies work together collaboratively very well, both with each other and with the local authority. Does the Minister agree that the clause is simply about ensuring that that remains the case and that local authorities have the support they need to ensure that local schools work for local families?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The focus here has been on where it goes wrong, but actually, in the vast majority of cases, local authorities are collaborating well, because fundamentally everybody has the same goal, which is to provide an education that enables children to achieve and thrive. That needs to be delivered for every child in a local area, and clearly that is what this legislation is intended to achieve.
Where local authorities need more places in an area, we and they would clearly encourage high-performing schools to work in collaboration with local authorities to meet that need. However, where admission authorities act unilaterally, without recognising the needs of or impact on their local communities, that can cause problems, not just for local authorities or neighbouring schools but, ultimately, for children and parents.
In some areas, local authorities struggle to fulfil their responsibility to ensure sufficient school places, because the published admission numbers set by individual admission authorities do not meet local needs, despite there being physical capacity in schools. In other areas, schools are increasing their admission number beyond what is needed, risking damage to the education that children receive at nearby schools by making it harder for school leaders to plan the best education for their children. In the worst-case scenario, it could lead to perfectly good schools becoming unviable and therefore reduce choice for parents.
Where agreement cannot be reached locally, and a local authority or another body or person brings an objection to a school’s published admission number to the schools adjudicator, the adjudicator must, as now, come to their own independent decision as to whether to uphold the objection, taking into account the views of all parties, the requirements of admissions law and the individual circumstances of the case. It is important to note that the measure does not enable local authorities to directly change the published admission number of any school for which it is not the admission authority. The adjudicator, not the local authority, is the decision maker and they will take an independent and impartial decision. The provisions of clause 50 ensure that where they uphold an objection to a school’s published admission number—
Damian Hinds
So it is not the local authority; it is the adjudicator. I am wondering, as we are talking about serving communities, where the line of democratic accountability is.
Catherine McKinnell
The right hon. Gentleman is perhaps questioning the very long-standing process—it has been in existence for quite some time—for the role of the adjudicator in making these decisions where it cannot be decided within a local authority area on a collaborative basis. Obviously, the ideal situation is that local authorities and all the schools within the area are able to co-operate and collaborate to ensure that any individual admission number is set at the right level for the local community, taking into account the broader context. There is clear democratic accountability in that. Where that process breaks down, the adjudicator is there to be an independent arbitrator. Those requirements are set out in law; the framework that they work to and the factors that they consider are set out in guidance that is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. It is clear and transparent, and the adjudicator is bound by the laws in that case.
Catherine McKinnell
Does the right hon. Gentleman mind if I just finish? It may answer his question.
In the instances I just described, the powers in the clause provide a direct route for an independent decision, resulting in a clear outcome for parents, admission authorities and local authorities.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I do mean these questions genuinely, in the spirit of line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill and trying to ascertain unintended consequences, intent and so on. If the adjudicator now has responsibility for ensuring that the number of school places in an area is what is needed and is fair, does the adjudicator also have a say in allowing a school to open?
Catherine McKinnell
It is the local authority that has the responsibility to agree published admission numbers with the schools in its area. Obviously, academies are their own admissions authority, and will set their own published admission number. The adjudicator becomes involved in the decision making where appeals are made to a school’s chosen published admission number. The adjudicator is then required to come to a decision, based on a very clear framework of factors to consider, as to whether the published admission number is fair in the context of the particular school and the local community. What was the right hon. Gentleman’s specific question?
Damian Hinds
Does the adjudicator also have a say in allowing a school to open?
Catherine McKinnell
I cannot envisage a scenario where an adjudicator would adjudicate on the opening of a new school. If it adjudicates on the published admission numbers of existing schools, I cannot foresee a scenario where there would be an appeal to the adjudicator for a school that does not exist.
Neil O’Brien
If I can put it in my words, there is nothing in the Bill to stop the local authority applying to the adjudicator to stop the first year PAN of a new school. If I say, “I want to open my new school and the PAN is going to be X,” the local authority could say, “No, I think it should be half of X.” There is nothing to stop that, even in the first year. It could even be that the local authority says, “No, the first year number should be zero.” There is nothing in the Bill to stop that happening, so, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire says, it does apply to new schools.
Catherine McKinnell
I apologise, but I still do not see the relevance to how an adjudicator could open a new school. I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman after I have considered the issue further.
Damian Hinds
It may help if I say why I asked the question. The adjudicator will be worrying, “I need to make sure that a school over here isn’t creating unfairness or making another school unviable because there are too many school places in this area.” If someone else comes along and says, “I’m going to open a new one,” that will make the school even more unviable. Logically, if I am the adjudicator and the Government are tasking me with making sure that we are not making schools unviable, surely I should be able to veto a new school coming into the community.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that clarification. It is not that the adjudicator makes the decision about whether to open a new school, which is how the question was originally posed. The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the hypothetical outcome that the adjudicator’s involvement in a decision could result in—
Damian Hinds
No, I am asking directly: could the adjudicator stop a new school opening on the grounds that we have tasked the adjudicator with making sure that there is not excess capacity in an area, which might make one or more schools unviable? Logically, surely the adjudicator ought to be able to stop the problem getting even worse—in the eyes of Ministers—by refusing a new school opening.
Catherine McKinnell
I will have to take away that question, and I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman with a response. Obviously, the adjudicator currently has a role in certain cases—for example, where a local authority is involved in the foundation of a school. I will look at the specific example that he raises, and I am happy to write to him with a response.
Neil O’Brien
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her offer to write on this point. To avoid disturbing her flow any further, can I ask her to explain something? If a school is not happy with the decision of the adjudicator on its PAN, what will the appeal process look like for that school?
Catherine McKinnell
Adjudicators’ decisions are legally binding and publicly available. Ultimately, adjudicators are appointed by the Secretary of State, who is accountable for those decisions. That responds to the question from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire about democratic accountability.
I presume that the outcome in the case that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston raises would be a legal challenge to the decision. Obviously, he and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire are testing the possible outcomes of this measure to the very limit, which comes across as rather extreme in most cases. The purpose of the clause is to simplify, clarify and make more transparent the levers that local authorities will have to set planning numbers in their area, ideally to reduce the number of challenges and issues that arise.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Other than the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Lewisham North, I am the only London MP in the room. There has been a lot of discussion about London schools and the challenges that we have, and one of the reasons why I have been listening quietly is that I have a lot of sympathy for both sets of arguments that have been put forward.
I want to pick up on the point about new schools opening in areas where there may already be surplus capacity. In defence of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, I do not think that this issue is just theoretical. I talked to a director of children’s services about a borough —it neighbours the one containing my constituency—where there is already a funding application in the pipeline for a new free school. At the same time, an academy has just decided to expand its PAN. That director of children’s services was saying, “Actually, I welcome the duty to co-operate,” but it throws up the question posed by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire: would the adjudicator urge Ministers to turn down the application for the free school because an existing academy is already expanding its PAN? I do not say that to make a political point; it is a genuine question that will need some clarity from Ministers, albeit subsequent to this debate.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate that the hon. Lady refers to a real potential scenario, although I would certainly put it in the hypothetical category at this stage. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator can only take a decision where there has been an objection. That is the point I was making. It cannot decide whether to open a school; it can take a decision only where an objection is made specifically to the adjudicator on the basis of the proposed published admission number.
Subject to the passing of this Bill, new school proposals put forward by the local authority outside the invitation process—I do not believe we have got to those clauses yet; we are coming to a whole additional debate on that—will be decided by the schools adjudicator, to avoid any conflict of interest and to ensure that any objections to the proposals are considered fairly. Obviously, it will have the legal framework within which to operate in order to make those decisions. That is an established part of the current system.
For other possible scenarios, we will provide guidance on the factors that we expect decision makers to take into account in the variety of decisions that may be required. That will be based on the existing guidance for opening new schools and will include the vision for the school, whether it is deliverable and affordable, the quality of the education, the curriculum and the staffing plans. Those are all the factors taken into account when determining the opening of a new school.
However, I appreciate the challenge on published admission numbers, in particular, being a factor to be taken into consideration. As I said, I will confirm in more detail how that might work in practice, but the fundamental point is that it will be set out in guidance. If there is a challenge to a decision by an adjudicator, that will be by way of judicial review.
Moving on, new clause 46, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, seeks to ensure that where high-performing schools, as defined in his new clause, wish to increase their published admission number, their admission authority must reflect that in the determined admission arrangements. I can reassure him that, as I have said already, this Government support good schools expanding where that is right for the local community. We understand the importance of admission authorities being able to set their own admission arrangements, including their published admission number.
Admission authorities will consider a variety of factors in arriving at the most appropriate number for their schools and must consult where they want to make changes, taking the feedback into account before they make their final decision. Where, for example, a multi-academy trust or local authority is setting the PAN for an individual school for which it is the admission authority, it is right that it takes into account the views of that school, but that can be done by informal engagement or by a formal consultation process if necessary.
The school admissions code requires governing bodies to be consulted on changes to a school’s admission arrangements where they are not the admission authority. However, that does not mean that those views should override any relevant factors, such as budgeting or staffing, that a trust, governing body or local authority, as the school’s admission authority, may need to take into consideration as part of its final decision.
If the school feels that it has not been heard and the admission authority has reduced the published admission number where the school feels it should be able to offer more places, it would be open to the school itself, like any other body or person, to object to the adjudicator for an independent resolution. We expect most issues to be resolved locally, through engagement and collaboration, and, given the existing, effective routes for schools to influence the published admission number set for them by the local authority, we do not think the new clause is necessary. For the reasons I have outlined, I would ask the hon. Gentleman not to press it.
Finally, I turn to new clause 47, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, which would prevent objections from being made against an admission authority where it proposes to increase its PAN or keep it the same as the previous year. Through clause 50 we want to ensure that the number of places on offer in an area adequately reflects the needs of the local community. As the hon. Member is aware, at present, any body or person can object to the adjudicator about a school’s determined admission arrangements, including the school’s PAN. However, current regulations have the same effect as his new clause of preventing objections where a PAN is increased or retained at the same level as the previous year. We intend to amend those regulations to allow the local authority to object to the adjudicator where a PAN has been increased or has stayed the same as in the previous year. This is intended to facilitate the measures set out in clause 50 to provide a more effective route for local authorities to object to the independent adjudicator about a school’s PAN.
The current circumstances in which the system operates are complex. In some areas there is a surplus of places, whereas in others, some admissions authorities are not offering sufficient places to ensure that all children can access a local school That means that both PAN increases and decreases can impact on the local school system in different ways, and that even where a school’s PAN has not changed from previous years, changing demographics can mean that that number no longer meets the needs of the local area. However, local authorities often lack the levers to deliver on their duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places, or to manage the school estate effectively. So, if the PAN does not work in the interests of the local community, the local authority should be able to object to the adjudicator, regardless of whether the school intends to increase, decrease or keep the same PAN, and that will ensure fairness and the most appropriate decision on the allocation of places.
Our proposed changes reflect local authorities’ important role in ensuring that there are sufficient places, and that the number of places offered in an area meets the needs of the community. That is why we are proposing a limited change to the regulations to lift this restriction only for local authorities, not for all bodies or people. The route of objection will be a last resort for local authorities. We expect local authorities and schools to work together to set PANs that are appropriate, and we will update the school admissions code to support that.
As the House has previously confirmed in passing the relevant regulations, the flexibility of the current regulations has worked well, enabling the Government of the day to be responsive to changing circumstances in the interests of parents and communities. New clause 47 would prevent the Government from exercising the flexibility provided for by the existing legislative framework, leaving local authorities with limited ability to act in the interests of the local community and seek an independent decision on the PAN of a school where they consider it does not meet the community’s needs. The changes that the Government propose to make to the regulations will of course be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
In the light of those arguments, I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to withdraw his amendment, and I commend clause 50 to the Committee.
Neil O’Brien
I pay tribute to the Minister for the reasonable way in which we have conducted this important debate. We have a huge disagreement with clause 50, which we think is a major mistake. We also have concerns about the process. We believe that it is better for this House to debate these big issues about what fairness is and looks like, and for that to be dealt with through the transparency of primary legislation, rather than its being left to the Secretary of State at any given moment to pass these things in regulations. I am therefore keen to press amendment 84 and new clause 46 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.