Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting)

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

Q Good morning. The first question is to you, Carol. On introduction of the Bill, Coram said:

“This Bill presents a new opportunity for services and agencies supporting vulnerable children to work together and make this a reality.”

Will you outline the key measures that you feel support that in the Bill?

Dr Homden: Clearly, there are a number of ways in which the Bill seeks to do that. Quite often what we are looking for here is a strengthening of approaches that reinforce integrated working in local arrangements. There is a question in our mind, which you have clearly considered, about whether it is essential for education to be treated as a core partner in safeguarding. Our consideration is that under article 4 of the European convention on human rights, schools have a protective duty, but this should not diminish the clarity and reinforcement of the importance of roles being defined locally and of the activation of best practice in those circumstances.

I repeat that in many areas, and especially in relation to school exclusion, where it is particularly critical that the roles of schools are appreciated in relation to criminal exploitation, our suggestion to you is that direct access to advocacy for these young people may be a more timely and potentially more sufficient approach, to complement local arrangements in supporting young people’s safeguarding.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Q What consideration have you given to the impact that creating a duty for safeguarding partners to make arrangements to establish multi-agency child protection teams will have?

Dr Homden: Having a duty most generally would be reinforcement of the fact that these arrangements are expected and required. The duty does not in itself necessarily prejudge the nature of those local arrangements, but it does place a really clear focus on the need to have those arrangements and to make sure that they are functioning properly. We would be pleased to send you some additional reflections on that, if that would be helpful.

I do want to raise one point in relation to safeguarding, which is that we are concerned because the Bill does present an important opportunity, potentially, to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement for children, and in our view, this opportunity should not be missed.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Q Anne, the Centre for Young Lives has welcomed the Bill, stating:

“It addresses issues we have been very concerned about over many years, including vulnerable children falling through the gaps and into danger.”

Will you elaborate on how you feel the Bill better protects children and keeps them safe?

Anne Longfield: I am pleased to say that safeguarding does clearly run through the whole Bill. Engagement in the kind of activities around school in the community is one of the ways that children will be safeguarded. The register is something that I campaigned for and has been committed to for some time, so I am very pleased to see that in there. It is not a silver bullet when it comes to children who are out of school, because they are often out of school for a reason and that does not divert from the root causes. But none the less, that is a very welcome move.

On the link between poverty and non-attendance in school, in our experience there is a great link to parents being very worried about not being able to afford branded uniform. That, again, is supported in the Bill. There are various measures around children’s social care as well, including the partnerships that we have just discussed.

There is a clear reset around early intervention, which we very much welcome, and around a much greater co-ordination and relationship between schools—whatever their structures—and local partners. That can only add to the safety of children. There is a lot of interest in the potential to add a wellbeing measure, which would further strengthen the Bill’s ability to be able to identify those children who are vulnerable, and enable those partnerships and services to be able to respond. That would be a very welcome addition.

That would also support the whole ambition around belonging for children. For those children who are falling through the gaps, it would give them an opportunity to have their voices heard. I am thinking, for example, about the almost a million children who end up NEET—not in education, employment or training. None of us wants to see that for them at that early age. Their involvement in advocating for their own experience of careers and other services would be very welcome. That is part of the engine that would drive many of the ambitions in the Bill, so that addition in itself would be very much welcomed.

Dr Homden: I would support that. Coram also supports the introduction of the register for home-educated pupils as the critical protection to children’s right to education and safeguarding. That should include children with special educational needs and disabilities, since all too often, home education feels like the only option available in the context of risks to the child from their anxiety, self-harm or bullying and, where appropriate, school places being not available or, commonly, not resourced.

We would also further support the reintroduction of the national adoption register to ensure that all children waiting receive a proactive matching service without sequential, geographical or financial decision making being involved in that.

I reinforce and support what Anne said about the importance of measurements of wellbeing. It is clear from our research that young people’s wellbeing is associated with being included in decision making. That needs to be thought about in relation to the family group decision-making process for older young people. It gives them a much greater sense of traction and optimism for the future.

[The Chair]

My main objective is to try to get all the Back Benchers in, so we want crisp questions. It is very important that everybody feels they can get in. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

Q What do you think the problem is that that measure is trying to solve?

Julie McCulloch: In our view, it is right that there should be a core national entitlement curriculum for all children and young people; we think that is the right thing to do. The devil is in the detail—we are going through a curriculum review at the moment. Our view is that that entitlement is important—on the ground it might not make an enormous amount of difference, but it is still important.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Q When it comes to school admissions, do you think the measures in the Bill will help local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties? Could you comment on how you think it will impact on children and schools?

Paul Whiteman: We do think it will help local authorities—we think there has been a gap in terms of their ability to ensure that their admissions duty is fully met. To that extent, the difficulty of some parents to find the school that their children really should go to has been fettered. Therefore, we think these provisions are broadly sensible and to be welcomed.

Julie McCulloch: We agree. The more join-up we can have between local authorities and schools on admissions the better; there are some areas where that is working really well already, and there are others where that statutory duty might help.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Q Great. From your experience, do you think it is important that a school’s individual circumstances are taken into account when you are determining the best and appropriate action to drive school improvement where a school may be under--performing, such as whether it is a maintained school? Do you consider that conversion to an academy by default might not always be in the best interests of every school and the children within it?

Paul Whiteman: It is important to preface my answer by saying that the success of academies can be seen, and the improvement is very real, but it is not always the only way to improve schools. We have held that belief for a very long time. With the extent to which we rely on data to support one argument or the other—of course, it has been the only option for so very long, and the data is self-serving in that respect.

Academisation is not always a silver bullet, and does not always work according to the locality, status or circumstances of the school. We absolutely think that different options are available. The introduction of the Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence teams to offer different support and different ways of support is to be welcomed to see if that is better. Academisation has not always been a silver bullet, but it is really important to preface by saying that that is not an attack on the academy system—there are very good academies and there are excellent local authority maintained schools as well, and we should make sure that we pick the right option for the schooling difficulty.

Julie McCulloch: I would start in the same place. It is important to recognise the extent to which the expertise and capacity to improve schools does now sit within multi-academy trusts—not exclusively, but that is where a lot of that capacity sits at the moment. It is important to make sure that we do not do anything that undermines that, but our long-standing position is that accountability measures should not lead to automatic consequences, and that there does need to be a nuanced conversation on a case-by-case basis about the best way to help a struggling school to improve, which we welcome. There are some challenges. I think some members have raised some questions about whether that slows down a process to the detriment of the children and young people in those schools who most need support; clearly that would not be a good place to find ourselves. However, in principle that sort of nuance is welcome.

Paul Whiteman: It is worth adding that we do have examples of schools that are in difficult circumstances where an academy chain cannot be found to accept them, because the challenge is too difficult for an academy to really want to get hold of them.

[Munira Wilson]

Q Leaving aside the register, looking at the schools part of the Bill—and knowing the challenges your members up and down the country face—do you think it has the right priorities in terms of the issues we need to be tackling across schools and colleges?

Julie McCulloch: I think it has some important priorities, and the ones you highlighted are first among them—the register, for example. There are certainly other issues that our members would raise with us as being burning platforms at the moment. SEND is absolutely top of that list, with recruitment and retention close behind, and probably accountability third. Those are the three issues that our members raise as the biggest challenges. There are some really important measures in the Bill that talk to some of those concerns. Certainly, there are some things in the Bill that might help with recruitment and retention. But it is fair to reflect the fact that our members are keen to quickly see more work around some of those burning platforms.

Education Provision: South Buckinghamshire

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) on securing this important debate. She has been a champion for children in south Buckinghamshire and for every child to secure a school place that allows them to achieve and thrive. This Government recognise how important it is that every child gets a great education at a good school in their area. We work closely with our local authority colleagues to achieve that, including in Buckinghamshire.

Local authorities, including in Buckinghamshire, have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places for children in their area, as the hon. Lady referenced. To support local authorities to deliver on that statutory duty, the Department provides capital funding through the basic need grant for mainstream school places. Funding is based on local authorities’ own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They also receive the high needs provision capital allocation to invest in places for children and young people with special educational needs or who require alternative provision—the hon. Lady mentioned that specifically and I will come to it shortly.

The Department engages with local authorities on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional primary and pre-16 secondary school places, and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities experience difficulties, the Department offers support and advice, including through the pupil place planning adviser. I hope the hon. Lady finds it reassuring that all that support is in place.

At local authority level, Buckinghamshire is forecast to have an increasing surplus of primary places, especially in the year of entry—reception—and in key stage 1. There are, however, some areas of primary place pressure, including at Gerrards Cross and the Chalfonts in the south of the county. At secondary phase, Buckinghamshire is forecast to have a small, slightly declining surplus. However, in common with the primary phase, underlying the local authority-wide picture there are variations in place pressure. The academically selective element of secondary education in Buckinghamshire adds an additional element of complexity in place planning, as does cross-border movement into schools in neighbouring local authorities, which the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) referenced.

Nearly £1.5 billion has been announced to support local authorities to create the mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year beginning September 2026. The funding is not ringfenced, subject to the conditions set out in the published grant determination letter, and nor is it time-bound, meaning that local authorities are free to use it to best meet their local priorities. They can use it to fund places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools, and they can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.

[Mr Dhesi]

We have a hugely increasing population in Slough and south Bucks, as well as a high need for SEND provision. I just want to ascertain whether the Minister and her Department will factor those considerations into their determination over a new school in Burnham, on the boundary of Slough and south Bucks, to ensure that the right decision is reached for a new school.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend raises some important points, both of which are factors that the Buckinghamshire and Slough local authorities, where relevant, will have to take into consideration when determining how to use their allocation.

Buckinghamshire council has been allocated just below £11.3 million to support the provision of the new mainstream school places that it feels it will need over the current and next two academic years, up to and including September 2026. We have also announced £740 million in high needs capital for 2025-26 to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or who require alternative provision, and we will confirm the specific local authority allocations later in the spring. The important point is that this new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to make them more accessible for children with special educational needs. It can be used to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that could deliver more intensive support, to adapt them to meet pupils needs, alongside continuing to provide places to support the pupils in special schools with the most complex needs.

[David Simmonds]

Will the Minister commit to working with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to review the impact of home-to-school transport rules on the situation? In Hillingdon, there is around a 20% vacancy rate due to falling pupil numbers. All London boroughs contribute to Transport for London, and therefore transport to school on London public transport is free. However, if Buckinghamshire wished to take advantage of those vacancies, bringing those children to schools in Hillingdon would be a general fund cost to council tax payers. Clearly, in efficiently providing those places, it may well be that by looking at those cross-border transport issues we could produce a beneficial outcome for my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), and for the schools that would thereby benefit from additional pupils.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman raises an import point, which is something the Department is very focused on. Indeed, we need to work with local authorities to deliver on that. The aim of the Department’s home-to-school travel policy is to ensure that no child is prevented from accessing education because of a lack of transport. Local authorities are required to arrange free travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school but cannot walk there because of the distance or because of a special educational need, disability or mobility problem, or because the route is not safe. There are also additional rights to free travel for low-income households, to ensure that they can exercise school choice.

However, I recognise the challenge that the hon. Gentleman raises. It relates to the investment that we would like to see in mainstream provision—indeed, it is why he jumped up as I was talking about this—to make it more suitable and to adapt it where necessary, in order to have much greater inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities, so that they can be educated in their local area, wherever possible, with their peers. That will ensure better outcomes for those children, but it will also tackle some of the growing challenges that he quite rightly identifies with school transport.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield mentioned a specific request for confirmation on a local special school application—she tempts me to get ahead of announcements that will be made in due course. They are under consideration. Where children have highly complex needs, it is obviously important that we have those specialist school places available in the right place for the children who need them.

We are committed to ensuring that all schools co-operate with their local authority on school admissions and place planning to ensure there are sufficient school places where they are needed. Schools and academy trusts are expected to work collaboratively and constructively with local authorities and other key partners on place planning. We recently reinforced that expectation through the revised “Making significant changes to an academy” guidance. To strengthen it further, we are legislating to require all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning. This new duty will aim to foster greater co-operation between schools and local authorities in these important areas, as well as providing a backstop for addressing serious failures when co-operation is simply not happening.

We are also legislating to make changes to the legal framework for opening new schools. We will end the legal presumption that they should be academies in favour of prioritising any local offer that meets the needs of children and families, allowing proposals for other types of schools to be put forward where a new school is needed, including proposals from local authorities themselves. These changes better align local authorities’ responsibility to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools.

The Government are entirely focused on the quality of education and experience that children are receiving at school, rather than the name above the door. All schools have an important role to play in driving high and rising standards so that every child can thrive, and, indeed, that will help local authorities to make the decisions that are right for the children in their areas. We want all children to be able to attend a high-quality school of their parents’ choice whenever possible. In 2024, 98.5% of children in Buckinghamshire were offered a place at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred primary schools, and just over nine out of 10—91.1%—received an offer of their first preference. At the secondary phase, 91.2% of pupils in Buckinghamshire received an offer at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred schools, with about three quarters—75.8%—receiving an offer of their first preference.

I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for bringing this matter to the House’s attention, and I thank the other Members who contributed to the debate. It is obviously important for children to be able to gain access to school places—ideally in their local communities—that will enable them to achieve and thrive. I appreciate the case that the hon. Lady has made, but it is clearly to Buckinghamshire council that the case must be made. The Government will continue to work with our local authority colleagues, who have a statutory duty to ensure that enough mainstream school places are available. That includes providing funds through the basic need grant and continued support through our pupil place planning advisers, and introducing new legislation requiring all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning, so that every child in every community can have a good local school.

Question put and agreed to.

Dedicated Schools Grant Allocations 2025-26

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

Today the Department for Education has published local authorities’ allocations through the dedicated schools grant (DSG) for schools, high needs and early years for 2025-26.

Overall, core schools funding is increasing by £2.3 billion in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25. This means that overall core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next year, including a £1 billion increase in high needs funding for the costs of complex SEND. The publications today confirm the funding increases that each local authority will see in 2025-26.

The DSG allocations to local authorities consist of four blocks: a schools block, a high needs block, an early years block, and a central school services block. The DSG allocations are calculated from the latest pupil numbers, and therefore update the provisional national funding formulae allocations that were recently published.

Nationally, mainstream school funding in the DSG is increasing by 2.15% per pupil in 2025-26, compared to 2024-25, bringing total funding through this block of the DSG to £48.7 billion. This includes funding to ensure that the 2024 pay awards are fully funded at a national level in 2025-26, and further increases in the schools national funding formula on top of this.

High needs funding will increase to £11.9 billion in 2025-26, a 9% cash increase compared to this year. The vast majority of this will be allocated to local authorities through the high needs block of DSG. Every local authority will receive an increase in funding of at least 7% per head, of their population aged 2 to 18, with some local authorities seeing increases of up to 10%.

Alongside their DSG allocations, local authorities will also receive a separate core schools budget grant in 2025-26 to pass on to special schools and alternative provision to continue helping with the costs of teachers’ pay and pension increases, and other staff pay increases, from 2024. This grant consolidates the separate grants for pay and pensions that are allocated for these settings in 2024-25. Further detail on the grant for 2025-26 is published at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-schools-budget-grant-csbg-2025-to-2026-for-special-schools-and-alternative-provision

Indicative allocations for the 2025-26 early years entitlements, totalling more than £8 billion, have been published. On top of over £8 billion through the core funding rates, we are providing an additional £75 million grant for 2025-26 to support the sector in this pivotal year to grow the places and the workforce needed to deliver the final phase of expanded childcare entitlements from September 2025.

The dedicated schools grant allocations are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2025-to-2026

Pupil premium rates will be announced shortly in the new year.

[HCWS337]

SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) ended with the words of Desmond Tutu, and I could not agree more. I congratulate her on securing this debate on an incredibly important subject, and I congratulate hon. Members on their valuable contributions to it. I know that, as a former teacher, she is really aware of the critical role that education plays in breaking down barriers to opportunity, and how vital it is that we get our education and health services right to support the most vulnerable in our society. She described incredibly eloquently and powerfully the difference that good, inclusive education provision can make, and the significant challenges in providing it. She also mentioned the challenges that many children face at transition points, which can undermine some of the incredible work that teachers are performing up and down the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) rightly pointed out.

Like others present, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire will have been inundated with letters and emails from concerned families in her constituency. I am sure she has been helping them to navigate the incredibly challenging special educational needs and disabilities system. So many of us are faced with this issue, which is why we need to reform the system. It is a priority for the Government. We want all children, regardless of where they are in the country, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and lead happy, healthy and productive lives. In far too many cases, we have simply lost the confidence of families that children with special educational needs and disabilities will be supported, because they are being failed by every measure.

Despite high needs funding for children and young people with very complex special educational needs and disabilities rising to higher and higher levels, the system is simply not delivering the outcomes that those children deserve, so we desperately need to reform the system. Our message to families is that we are committed to improving the SEND system and regaining their confidence.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I completely agree with the Minister’s comments. Part of ensuring that we provide the correct support to children is ensuring that the education, health and care plan assessment process is effective. I was told by a charity worker in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley that 95% of appeals in Kirklees against a conclusion that SEND support is not needed are successful. Does she agree that this is a terrible waste of council resources, and that EHCP assessments must be done properly and got right the first time, so that children can be given support as soon as possible?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely recognise the challenge the hon. Gentleman has outlined, but it very much speaks to the point I was making, which is that we have published independently commissioned insights that suggest that if the education system as a whole was extensively improved, and if we had much better early intervention, which the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire rightly referred to, and better resourcing within mainstream schools, that could lead to tens of thousands more children and young people having their needs met without an education, health and care plan. Their needs would be met within a mainstream system and with their peers, without needing a specialist placement. Clearly, we need specialist places for children with the most complex needs, but to ensure we have those places, we need to improve inclusivity and expertise within mainstream schools, while ensuring that those special schools and places can cater to children with the most complex needs.

I come back to the hon. Lady’s point about transition points for young people and how important it is for the whole system to be reformed. It is not good enough to reform just part of it, and for that great work to then be undone when a child or young person moves on to a new educational setting that does not provide the right support and environment for them. My point is that this situation is huge and complex. There is not a magic wand, and there is no overnight quick fix, but we are determined to change it, and we cannot do it alone. We need to work in partnership to achieve this.

[Alison Bennett]

I thank the Minister for her response. So much could be said about special educational needs across the country and in my constituency of Mid Sussex. The Minister mentioned how we all as Members of this place are undoubtedly trying our best to help families navigate the special educational needs system. I am sorry to say that when families come to me and I ask, “How can I help you?”, they say, “We don’t think you can help us. We just want you to witness and listen to what we are saying,” because the system is so broken. I met the family of Annabel in Mid Sussex. She has been out of school for several years, has been sectioned and has had multiple suicide attempts because her autism was not being managed in the schooling system. Her family just wanted me to bear witness to them, and I am so sorry that there is not more that we as parliamentarians can do.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady has borne witness today to that family and young person facing that challenge. It is vital that we work together with parents, schools, councils, the health sector and expert staff, who we know go above and beyond to support children within education settings to achieve the changes that are clearly desperately needed.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire specifically focused the debate on support for autistic children and young people and those with ADHD. She will know from the work she has undertaken that we are seeing significant increases in the numbers of children and young people identified as autistic or with ADHD, and that is something we share in common with other countries around the world. We know families are facing significant challenges and that support needs to be in place, as she outlined, to ensure that those children can thrive in school.

We absolutely recognise the long waiting times across the NHS for autism and ADHD assessments, and we are working to address them. As the hon. Lady identified, we need to ensure that mainstream schools and colleges can identify those needs and put support in place early, because the earlier a child gets the support and right environment in which to learn, the more chance that they will thrive and that some of the challenges they face will be mitigated.

Ensuring that we have knowledgeable professionals in our schools and colleges is a key part of this. All teachers are teachers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, but we need to make sure those teachers have the skills and support to help all pupils succeed. As such, we are implementing a range of teacher training reforms that begin with initial teacher training and continue through early career teaching to middle and senior leadership.

We have a universal SEND services contract, which provides SEND-specific courses and professional development for school and college staff. Through that contract, the Autism Education Trust offers a range of training and support for staff on how to support autistic children and young people. The contract began in May 2022, and over 200,000 professionals have received training from the Autism Education Trust and training partners. On 1 September 2024, this Government introduced a new mandatory leadership-level national professional qualification for SENCOs. We are making the changes, but it will take time for them to work through.

Our partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools programme is also running in around 10% of schools, which is approximately 1,600 mainstream primary school settings. It is deploying specialists from both the health and education workforces and building better teaching and staff capacity to identify the needs of neurodivergent children. It provides opportunities to enhance support and improve outcomes for all children, taking a whole-school approach. It is a cross-Government programme backed by £13 million of investment, and it is a collaboration between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and NHS England.

Additionally, we have just established a neurodivergence task and finish group, bringing together a group of experts from various backgrounds to help us understand how to improve inclusivity in mainstream schools in a way that works for neurodivergent children and young people. We know that listening to children and young people and their families and understanding their experiences is a really important part of this work. That group met for the first time this week, and I look forward to seeing their recommendations on the best way that we can support these children’s needs. This is happening alongside our expert advisory group on inclusion and the work being done by Dame Christine Lenehan, our new strategic adviser on SEND. We are looking at all of these issues strategically across Government, as we urgently need to turn this situation around.

I could go into the details of high needs funding, but I am very conscious of time. I appreciate the concerns that have been raised about the national funding formula. We prioritised speed over change this year—we needed to get the formula processed and out to schools and educational institutions—but we will obviously keep it under review to make sure the money is being spent in the most effective way to deliver the best outcomes for children. We have also allocated £740 million for high needs capital funding to support mainstream schools to adapt, if needed, to create more inclusive mainstream settings.

I thank the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire again for bringing this matter forward. Ensuring that effective support is in place for young people is absolutely a priority of this Government. We know the hardship that far too many families have faced, and my final word of thanks goes to all those working in the interests of our children in our health, education and care systems. We will deliver the best for our children and young people, and I am confident that together we can achieve that.

Question put and agreed to.

Education

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Written Corrections

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Outcomes in some schools in Hastings are just not good enough. We are all determined to drive up standards. Department officials continue to work with the University of Brighton Academies Trust on that. We are committed to ending its current financial model and to collaborating with school leaders on future budget setting to ensure we can drive high and rising standards in every school, including in Hastings.

[Official Report, 9 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 667.]

Written correction submitted by the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell):

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Outcomes in some schools in Hastings are just not good enough. We are all determined to drive up standards. Department officials continue to work with the University of Brighton Academies Trust on that. The trust is now committed to ending its current financial model and to collaborating with school leaders on future budget setting to ensure we can drive high and rising standards in every school, including in Hastings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

6. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that SEN provision is adequately funded.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

The Government recognise that breaking down barriers to opportunity for children with special educational needs and disabilities will take a cross-Government approach. To that end, I recently met the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), to discuss how we can work together to solve some of the challenges. The Department for Education is committed to ensuring adequate support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and recently announced £740 million of capital funding to support children with SEN to learn and thrive in mainstream settings.

[Sarah Green]

A recent National Audit Office report makes it clear that, without reform, the SEN system is financially unsustainable. The Minister will know that, since 2020, local authorities such as Buckinghamshire council have been able to exclude their dedicated school grant deficits from their main revenue budgets. That statutory override means that local authorities do not breach their duty to set a balanced budget, but it is due to end in March 2026, and there is currently no identified solution. Can the Minister share more on what urgent conversations she is having with colleagues to ensure that local authorities get the certainty they need?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government regulations, which ringfence dedicated support grant deficits from councils’ wider financial position, were amended. The statutory override goes up to March 2026, when it expires, and we are currently considering how best to continue support for local authorities with deficits. Fundamentally, this is about reforming the system to ensure that more children can be educated within a mainstream setting, and that we have special school places available for those with the most complex needs.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Perranporth academy in my constituency plans to provide significant SEN provision, but it is one of 44 schools currently under a value-for-money review. As of last week, the head of Perranporth primary school had not been consulted on this. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the plight of Perranporth academy?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns, and we recognise the unprecedented pressures that local authorities are under. High needs funding, which we recently increased, will benefit both mainstream schools and special schools because we will ensure the funding reaches children who need it. However, I recognise the issues and concerns that he raises, and will be happy to arrange a meeting to discuss this further.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Last week’s announcement of capital funding to ensure that mainstream schools are more inclusive for children with special needs is, of course, welcome, but the Minister will know that, for many children with additional needs, even the most inclusive mainstream schools simply are not appropriate. With two in three special schools at or over capacity, can she provide a timeline for when the 67 planned special free schools will be delivered? Will she commit to looking favourably on local authority applications for such schools?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her recognition of the additional funding. We expect the funding to create thousands of new places, particularly in mainstream schools but also in special schools and other specialist settings. We will confirm the allocations for individual local authorities in the spring, as they know best how to invest in their local area. We are keeping the free schools programme under review and will provide that confirmation in due course.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps she is taking to improve support for kinship carers.

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[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to support creative education in schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

All children deserve a rich and broad education so that they do not miss out on subjects, such as music, art and drama. As part of our opportunity mission, we have launched an independent, expert-led curriculum and assessment review, and we are committed to ensuring that young people are supported to study creative subjects.

[Dr Opher]

Over the past 14 years, the amount of creative education, particularly at primary level, has been reducing and reducing, so I welcome what the Minister said. There is evidence that doing creative things and learning creative subjects improves our wellbeing, mental health and academic learning. Would the Minister support my campaign to bring musical instrument teaching to every primary school in the country, not just the more well-off ones?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend speaks with great wisdom. We have confirmed £79 million of funding for a national network of music hubs to give children and young people the opportunity to learn to sing or play an instrument, to create music and to progress their musical interests and talents. We have also launched the music opportunities pilot, with £5.8 million of funding over four years to support students with special educational needs and disabilities and those with less means to access the opportunities to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has made it clear that she would like more time spent on creative subjects, but she must ensure that does not come at the expense of an academic education. Last week’s international education stats found that English children are the best at maths in the western world. That is brilliant news and testament to the hard work of teachers and pupils. It is also down to a world-class curriculum put in place by the previous Government. Will she finally celebrate those results and instruct her curriculum review that it must not dilute academic standards and put that progress at risk?

[Catherine McKinnell]

From their shameless sense of pride, we would never know that the Conservative Government left England’s school standards getting worse. Conservative Members may be happy that half of disadvantaged pupils in state schools did not meet the requirements in reading, writing or maths at the end of primary school, but we do not think their record is anything to be proud of. Standards is the watchword for this Labour Government, and not just for some of our children but for all of them.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

12. If she will take steps to educate children about the harms of commercial sexual exploitation.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

Secondary schools are required to teach about sexual exploitation, and this Labour Government are committed to halving violence against women and girls within a decade. Education has a key role to play in addressing that.

[Catherine Fookes]

I agree entirely. As we near the end of the 16 days of activism, it is really important that we continue to talk about commercial sexual exploitation, which is the exchange of money, accommodation, services or goods for sex acts. It has an impact on all young people’s lives, including in my constituency of Monmouthshire, particularly through exposure to violent online pornography, as well as via the damaging message conveyed by the fact that there is legal impunity for running pimping websites. Does the Minister agree that schools should be supported in addressing these issues through a whole-school approach to combating sexism and sexual harassment, as advocated by organisations such as UK Feminista?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend that taking a whole-school approach to tackling sexual abuse and violence is incredibly important. The statutory guidance is very clear that relationship and sexual health education should be delivered through a whole-school approach. Through our safer streets and opportunities missions, the Government are considering how best to support schools in tackling this issue.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What progress her Department has made on its review of applied general qualifications.

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[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

22. What steps her Department is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

The Government’s ambition is that all children with special educational needs receive the right support to succeed, where possible in mainstream schools. We will strengthen accountability and improve inclusivity through Ofsted, and we will support professionals to develop their SEND expertise. High needs funding will increase by almost £1 billion in the next spending year.

[Helen Morgan]

Children with special educational needs and disabilities in Shropshire are relatively poorly funded compared with those in the rest of the country. Top-up funding for those with the highest level of needs is just £7,000, meaning that the schools that support them cannot even afford a full-time teaching assistant to help them progress. Can the Minister describe what she is doing to ensure that funding is fairly distributed across the country, so that children with special educational needs can get the help they need wherever they live?

[Catherine McKinnell]

We know that local authorities have been significantly impacted by increased demand for education, health and care plans, as well as challenges in workforce capacity. We expect the £740 million of additional investment to create thousands of new places in both mainstream and special schools and in specialist settings. We will confirm the allocations to specific local authorities, which know how best to invest in their local areas to increase capacity as needed, in the spring.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say to the hon. Gentleman that it is much easier if he gets to the question, instead of having all the preamble? I cannot get other people in. I think the question was clear.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Following the most recent local area SEND inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission in September 2023, the Department—working alongside NHS England—continues to track the progress that the Surrey partnership is making against the areas for improvement that were identified, offering support and advice to the local authority. I appreciate the significant concerns that the hon. Gentleman outlines, and we will continue to keep the situation under review.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Bradstow special school in my constituency supports some of the most vulnerable children across the south-east. More than half of those children are from families in Kent, yet Tory-led Kent county council has refused to pay £2 million in fees, contributing to that school now facing closure. Kent has been offered the school for free, including all of its land, yet it is refusing to keep the school open. Will the Minister join me in urging Kent county council to take responsibility and work with the governing body, staff and children’s families to ensure that we can keep this vital school open?

[Catherine McKinnell]

If we are to improve the situation that far too many children face in relation to special educational needs and disabilities, and to meet demand, which we know is outstripping supply, it is vital that areas work together in partnership. That is why we very much recommend that local authorities work together with health partners and local schools to solve some of those challenges together. The Department for Education will work closely with them to make sure that every child gets the education they deserve.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

A National Audit Office report published in October highlights that special educational needs places in independent schools can cost two and a half times as much as in state schools. Does the Minister agree that if we are to ensure that children get the support they need in future, we will have to assist local authorities in expanding their number of special needs places?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We know that the situation needs reform, and that we need much greater capacity within mainstream schools so that children with special educational needs and disabilities can be educated alongside their peers where that is the appropriate place for them to be, but also so that special school places are available where needed. That is why we have put in £740 million of additional investment to support mainstream schools to expand their specialist provision.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

T4. For 14 years, Governments have criticised teachers, and this has had a dreadful effect on recruitment and retention. Will the Minister please update the House on the measures she is taking to tackle this serious problem?

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

May I, too, take this opportunity to wish a merry Christmas to all of our teachers and school support staff when they finally get to the Christmas break?

We are working at pace to recruit 6,500 new teachers. We have fully funded the 5.5% pay award, we have removed reductive headline Ofsted judgments, and we are working to reduce workloads and ensure more flexibility. We have announced a £233 million package of recruitment incentives, and we are very committed to supporting our teaching workforce.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. My constituent Alison Duxbury is unable to finalise her divorce because of the delays to assessments in the teachers’ pension scheme, which her husband is part of. Alison is not alone; many others are suffering serious stress and unacceptable delays. Will the Minister meet me to unlock this bureaucratic logjam?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I recognise the difficulties my hon. Friend has outlined. Changes to pension entitlement have caused the significant backlog in processing that we have inherited, but good progress is now being made. The Department and the administrator are focused on speeding it up. I appreciate the concerns he has raised and he might want to write to me with more detail, or a meeting could certainly be arranged.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

T2. On a recent visit, I saw the benefit of the SEN unit in All Saints school in Sidley. Does the Minister think that SEN units have a bigger role to play, and will Ministers meet me to discuss the funding challenges such units face?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I recognise the issue the hon. Gentleman raises. It is important that we have the right balance between mainstream inclusion and specialist provision where it is needed. If it would be helpful for him to have a meeting to discuss specific concerns in his area, I would more than happy to arrange it.

[Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)]

T8. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on babies, I am delighted that the announcements on Thursday included a one-year continuation of the Start for Life programme, which provides funding for 75 local authorities. We would, however, very much like all authorities to be able to access this funding in future so that every child is guaranteed the best start. Is the Secretary of State willing to meet the APPG in the new year to outline her long-term vision for supporting child development at the youngest ages?

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

T5. What steps are under way to recruit and retain more educational psychologists so that children, including in Chesham and Amersham, do not have to wait as long as they currently are for the assessment they need?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. We are working at pace to ensure that we have more professionals, along with the Department of Health and Social Care, which is also ensuring that we have the right workforce to support all children with special educational needs. I will write to the hon. Lady with specific details of the steps being taken.

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

T9. After years of failure by West Sussex county council to plan properly for secondary school places, parents in Shoreham face another year of waiting to find out if their children will have to travel a long distance for their education. Will the Minister meet me to discuss their concerns?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient secondary school places and that children can go to school, and travel should not be a barrier to their getting to school. I know how important this issue is for parents, and I would be happy to arrange a meeting for my hon. Friend to discuss it further.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)]

T7.   My constituent, 14-year-old Lewis, has been out of school for two years and his education has been disrupted for four. He is yet another child whose parents have been told by Kent county council that he must attend a particular school despite the school saying that it is unable to meet his specific educational needs. This is typical of the battle that many families I see have to go through for years, costing them time and money and causing infinite stress. Will the Minister meet me and the parents to ensure that he is one of the last children to suffer from Kent county council’s continual neglect of SEN children?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady raises an important matter, which far too many people are having to raise. I would be happy to meet her not only to discuss this matter further, but to reiterate the steps we are taking to fix this broken SEND system.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

T10. I recently visited the excellent Haven SEND unit at Budehaven community school in North Cornwall, and I invite the Minister to visit so that it can be replicated elsewhere. Does she plan to extend the unit’s funding beyond February’s cliff edge, given that Cornwall council’s SEND deficit is currently £12 million and counting?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Local authorities normally support special units in schools with funding from their high needs budget, but officials would be happy to investigate the funding arrangements for this school. Cornwall county council is being allocated a provisional amount of more than £86.6 million in the 2025-26 financial year through the high needs national funding formula, but we are happy to take away the particular issue that the hon. Gentleman raises.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

Parents, teachers and students in my constituency were horrified to find out that the University of Brighton Academies Trust has been taking a whopping 20% of the Government grant meant for our local schools and education. What is the Minister doing to resolve these issues and make sure that every child in Hastings and Rye gets the best quality education?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Outcomes in some schools in Hastings are just not good enough. We are all determined to drive up standards. Department officials continue to work with the University of Brighton Academies Trust on that. We are committed to ending its current financial model and to collaborating with school leaders on future budget setting to ensure we can drive high and rising standards in every school, including in Hastings.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

Research shows that money habits are instilled in young people from the age of seven. What are the Government doing to improve financial education in schools, particularly in England, where that is not currently on the national curriculum?

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[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Rather than obsessing about structures and names over doors, we are determined to ensure that every child in every community has a good school and that schools work together in communities with their local authorities to co-operate on place planning and admissions, with every child getting the best education and every school having high and rising standards.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

At just £952, the East Riding of Yorkshire has the lowest high needs block funding of any local authority in the country. Ministers have committed themselves to looking again at the formula so that we can have the right one. Will they please commit to doing everything they can to bring it in for the next financial year so that we do not have another year of grossly unfair and disproportionate distributions of funding?

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I talk to special educational needs co-ordinators across Harlow and Essex on a regular basis, partly because my best friend is one. He tells me that a number of special educational needs co-ordinators—easy for me to say—are leaving the profession because of their high workload and the stress that it causes. What support will the Government give to ensure that special educational needs co-ordinators get the support, including mental health support, that they need?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is a strong advocate for special educational needs in his community. We know that SENCOs perform a vital function in making sure that children and their families get the support they need to access the education they deserve. He is right that they deserve support as well. We need to encourage more people to be trained up in and understand the needs of children with special educational needs so that everybody can play their part in creating an inclusive education system.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Businesses report that cyber-attacks are increasing, as is the amount of time they have to wait to employ someone to deal with those cyber-attacks. What is the Department doing to fill that skills gap?

Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this incredibly important debate—its importance clearly marked by the number of contributions. I know how passionate my hon. Friend is about the need to secure the right support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Indeed, she and I made a wonderful joint visit in her constituency to a fantastic school that demonstrates what brilliant education delivered inclusively for the whole community can look like. I know she works really hard in her area to make sure that that is available to as many children as possible. That is a vision that the Government very much share with her, because as a Government we are absolutely committed to creating opportunities for all children so that they can achieve and thrive.

I think we all agree that no child should struggle to get to school because of lack of transport. The testimonies that we have heard show the remarkable job that hon. Members have all done in putting forward so powerfully the voices of their constituents in only a minute. To be able to accommodate 30, or just under 30, speakers in a debate of just an hour on this incredibly important issue is quite a feat, so I think everybody should be commended. Their constituents will need to understand the constraints of these debates and that they have done an incredible job in the circumstances. It has come across so strongly how important it is that the transport system supports all young people to access educational opportunity. This is something that I am very keen to look at in the role I now have in the Government. I thank all Members for their contributions today, and you, Sir Mark, for keeping such good order.

I apologise in advance if I am not able to respond to all the individual issues raised. Some of them relate to local authorities and need to be addressed in the correct way to local authorities, where there are the right people to respond to these issues. Others will be for the Department, and we will do our very best to follow up—if we do not, please contact us, because I am really keen and genuinely committed to making sure that all the voices that Members represent here today are heard as we look at how this system is working and how we can fix it.

As has been mentioned, the Department’s home-to-school travel policy is aimed and designed to ensure that no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport, but the challenges in that regard are significant and have been well set out today. There are also particular rights for low-income households to have support in order to exercise choice. Local authorities are obliged to arrange free travel for children of compulsory school age—I appreciate that hon. Members have raised concerns about pre-school-age children and post-16 children, and I will do my very best to address those concerns in the time that we have available—but we know that local authorities are really struggling to fulfil their duty to provide free transport, even for currently eligible children, and the cost of doing so has escalated sharply in recent years.

We thank local authorities for the work they do to try to support children to get to school. We know they provide a valuable service for the children and the families who can access it, particularly if those children have special educational needs and disabilities.

However, there are many reasons for the steep increase in costs in recent years: fuel price inflation and shortages of drivers, passenger assistants and transport operators have all pushed up costs in the market. But we also know that this huge increase is related to challenges within the school system itself, and specifically the way that the school system currently educates children with additional needs.

More children have an educational, health and care plan, and more of those children have to travel long distances to go to a school that can meet their needs. In addition to their journeys being longer, which in itself obviously makes them more expensive, there is a reduction in opportunities for economies of scale. Fewer children are likely to travel on a particular route, which means that more individual journeys need to be made.

Local authorities also try to help young people aged between 16 and 19 to access education or training. That help is extended to the age of 24 if a young person has a special educational need. We recognise that there are similarly significant financial pressures on the transport budgets for post-16 students. The cost and availability of public transport can also be an issue for some young people between 16 and 19 if they are going to travel to sixth form.

[Anna Dixon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I would like to, but I also want to respond on many of the issues that have been raised, so I apologise that I am not able to take an intervention.

Many local authorities offer subsidised transport and there is also the 16 to 19 bursary, which is intended to provide support to young people in households with the lowest incomes. However, we know that for far too long far too many children have been let down by a special educational needs system that is not working. We are determined to fix it and to restore parents’ trust that their child will get the support to flourish and have their needs met within the education system.

As hon. Members have said today, we urgently need to improve the inclusivity and expertise of our mainstream schools, so that as many children as possible can go to their local community school with their peers. In and of itself, that would reduce some of those transport pressures. However, we must also ensure that support is available for those children who have more complex needs and need special schools. Fixing the system will also help to fix the home-to-school travel challenges that we are seeing. Ensuring that children can be educated locally will reduce that pressure, so it is a key priority for this Government.

However, there are no quick fixes. This issue is absolutely core to our opportunity mission; addressing special educational needs and disabilities must be part of ensuring that every child has the barriers to opportunity broken down for them. We need to work together with parents, schools, councils and the expert staff who we know go above and beyond every day to support these children, but we recognise the challenges in the system.

Home-to-school travel is obviously an absolutely core part of ensuring that children receive the education that they need and that will help them to thrive. However, we know that the eligibility criteria have been unchanged since the 1940s. Clearly, they are meant to ensure that children can access education and that lack of transport is not a barrier to children accessing education, but I am really keen to understand how they are working in the modern context and how we can change the education system to reduce the pressures and ensure that we have a transport system that is fit for the modern age.

Post-16 eligibility has been raised a number of times today. I have mentioned the bursary fund; more than £166 million of bursary funding has been allocated to institutions for the 2024-25 academic year. It is intended to support young people with travel, books, equipment and clothing, if needed. An additional £20 million is also specifically allocated to support vulnerable students: those in care, care leavers and those supporting themselves or in receipt of social security funds. Those funds should be available, but clearly they are not always getting to the children who need them. In addition, local authorities have discretion to make the transport arrangements that they deem necessary for post-16 students in their area, taking into consideration local circumstances, local budgets and local priorities.

I recognise all the challenges that have been identified today and I urge hon. Members to work with their local authorities to try to improve the situation on a local level, just as we are clearly working to do so on a Government level.

We know that children’s earliest years make the biggest difference to their life, which is why we recognise the importance of early years and early education. We know that that is how to deliver the best outcomes for children. Having access to those appropriate childcare settings in the early years is key to meeting those early years development goals and to breaking down any barriers that may arise later on in life. We know that special educational needs access in particular, and identifying needs at the earliest stage possible, is key; many Members have outlined the challenges that transport can pose to making sure that children have access to those opportunities.

We absolutely want children and young people to receive the support they need to thrive. We want local authorities to be able to provide suitable places for children and young people. We know that the capital funding for high-needs places is a key concern for Members, and we will set out plans on that funding shortly. I am out of time to respond, but if I have not addressed a particular issue, I ask hon. Members please to get in touch.

I thank hon. Friends again for bringing this matter forward, for ensuring that everybody had the opportunity to speak, for being so respectful in this debate, and for allowing everyone to put their constituents’ views forward. I know that this is a challenge that far too many face, and that we have to work together in our determination to fix this system to give every child the best start in life.

Children and Bereavement

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I thank the hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) for introducing this timely debate on an incredibly important subject in National Grief Awareness Week. It really is an honour to respond to my first Petitions Committee debate, a Committee I formerly chaired, from the position of a Government Minister with responsibility for issues that the petition raises. I have great respect for the work of the Petitions Committee and its importance in giving voice to people from across the country and the political spectrum to provide opportunities for important issues to be debated in a respectful way. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate, particularly those who have shared so openly and powerfully their experiences of dealing with bereavement.

I want to state my deep admiration and thanks to Mark Lemon for his tireless work to support children and families going through bereavement, including his work as an ambassador for Winston’s Wish, and his tireless efforts to ensure that the difficult conversation on bereavement can be helpful, open and constructive. It has brought about the discussion that we are having today. Bereavement touches everyone, but its impact is unique to everyone. It cannot be avoided—it should not be. It is crucial that those affected by bereavement receive the support that they need throughout their period of bereavement. It is particularly important for children and young people who lose someone close to them because it can have a profound impact on children and young people, and can affect their long-term health and wellbeing, particularly if left unaddressed.

I have unfortunately seen and experienced the challenge that childhood bereavement can present at first hand. I know how important it can be to have the right support available in a timely way and to be given the space and time to process it, as so passionately and eloquently described by the hon. Members for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and for South Devon (Caroline Voaden). Many would say that it is brave, but I say that it is a real gift to share such powerful, personal testimony. Not only does it give a strong voice to the issues we are debating today, but it will be of immense help to others going through similar experiences to hear from hon. Members in this place in such a powerful way.

I agree that we all have a role to play in supporting bereaved children and young people. There are so 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. They all play a vital role and I want to put on record our thanks for everything that they do. Government also have a clear role to play and are committed to improving the support that all young children should receive in a variety of difficult and challenging circumstances that they may face.

Given my role as Minister for School Standards, I want to focus my remarks on the support that can be offered through schools to pupils going through a period of bereavement. But responsibility for bereavement and support does not begin and end with the Department for Education. Within England, numerous Whitehall Departments are crucial to that, and many have been mentioned in the debate: the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health and Social Care. Three of those—the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care—continue to work together to address the recommendations in the report from the UK commission on bereavement, “Bereavement is everyone’s business”.

That report put the spotlight firmly on bereavement and the gaps in support, and the impact that can have on bereaved people. The Department of Health and Social Care continues to lead the work on implementing the report’s recommendations and chairs the cross-Government bereavement working group, on which the Department for Education also sits, to improve bereavement support. It is important that they continue to look at the options for how we improve support for bereaved children and young people right across Government, including the issues around data collection and improving it, which has been one of the key asks today.

Going back to schools, they do a brilliant job at supporting their students, including through difficult times, but school staff cannot be expected to be experts in mental health. Teachers do a fantastic job in picking up on the needs of their students and identifying when support might be needed, and that is why the Department for Education provides a list of resources for schools on supporting mental health and wellbeing. That includes support from the Childhood Bereavement Network and Hope Again, and resources hosted on the website of Mentally Healthy Schools for mental health leads, which will include supporting children dealing with loss and bereavement where that is needed.

Our manifesto was clear on the priority we place on improving mental health support for all children and young people, because we know that is key to helping young people achieve and thrive in education. We know we can do more to improve mental health support within schools, and how crucial it is to breaking down the barriers to opportunity. That is why we will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. We will also be putting in place new young futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and recruiting an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat both children and adults. The Department has already offered all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025 to help schools to develop an effective approach to mental health and wellbeing, including for any child going through bereavement.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage for his questions on the curriculum and potential legislation around that. I want to touch on relationships, sex and health education within schools because it has a vital role in supporting children and young people to look after their emotional and physical health and build supportive and successful relationships. What is taught as part of relationships and health education helps children to prepare for a range of experiences that they will have during their lives, both happy and sad, and through love and loss. It is important that children and young people feel comfortable and see school as a safe place to talk about their feelings, for them to be able to identify where they might need support and know how to ask for it, and for schools to know where it can be found. It is vital that difficult issues such as childhood bereavement are not shied away from but are talked about, as the hon. Member for South Shropshire put incredibly powerfully when sharing his own experience. Teachers need to know about common adverse childhood experiences, which can include bereavement, and understand how they might affect pupils both while they are at school and in the longer term, if they go unaddressed.

Through the mental wellbeing topic in health education, pupils are taught about a range of content, including dealing with bereavement. That teaching includes recognising their emotions and accessing how they are feeling. There is a whole range of external expertise and materials, so that teachers can tailor their lessons accordingly. For example, the Anna Freud Centre provides valuable support to children and young people dealing with loss and bereavement.

We continue to look for opportunities to improve the teaching of relationship, sex and health education in schools. We had a consultation, which started under the previous Government, that ended in July, and we are currently reviewing the RSHE guidance, which sets out the content of what children and young people are taught. We want to ensure that children’s wellbeing is at the heart of the guidance that the Government offer. We are looking carefully at responses, consulting relevant evidence and talking to stakeholders. We will set out next steps to take forward the RSHE guidance, and this debate will contribute to the thinking on that.

Beyond schools, the Government are committed to supporting families through the most difficult times. Family hubs do great work, helping families across vital services to improve the health education and wellbeing of children, young people and their families. As has been mentioned a number of times, to support a child or young person is to support their family too. The 75 most deprived local authorities received around £300 million from the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care between 2022 and 2025 to set up family hubs with integrated Start for Life services. Following the October Budget, we confirmed an additional £69 million from the Department for Education to continue the delivery of family hubs in 2025.

Family hubs are important because they offer a single access point for families. They reduce the stigma around accessing services because they provide a whole range of services, including parent and infant mental health. They have a focus on relationships and whole-family working, so they harness the power of networks and bring that together under one roof. They provide thousands of families with access to support when they need it, including potential bereavement support. All 75 of those local authorities have opened at least one family hub in their area, creating a welcoming space for families with children aged 0 to 19—or 25, where they have a special educational need or disability. They are effective in bringing together a wide range of services for families. There are now 400 family hubs across 75 local authorities.

It is important that we consider how to improve access to existing support for bereaved children when they need it, and when their families have made a conscious decision to find that support. The cross-Government bereavement group is looking at how to better improve access to support, as well as options around improving data collection. We are considering whether a legislative solution is the right approach, ensuring that there is an evidence base that it is the best way to support children and families and that it would not have any unintended consequences. We need to consider any potential negative impact of collecting data at such a sensitive time. All those factors need to be considered, which is why the cross-Government bereavement group will consider the existing roles and responsibilities of registrars in signposting support to bereaved children and their families. We will continue to look at whether and how that could be improved, including potential training and guidance for registrars, so many of the issues outlined today are certainly part of the considerations.

I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage for bringing forward this matter, and I thank all those who have contributed to this debate. It takes great courage to be so candid about experiences of grief and loss. Although we will all experience bereavement in our lives, we will all grieve in our own way. We have a role to play, however, in ensuring that children and young people get access to the support that they need, whether in or outside school, and get it when they need it. I particularly thank all those who work across education, the health and care systems and the charitable sector in the interests of children and young people who experience bereavement and their families and provide them with much-needed support.

School Funding: Provisional 2025-26 Allocations

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

Today we are confirming provisional funding allocations for 2025-26 through the schools, high needs and central school services national funding formulae (NFFs). Overall, core schools funding (including funding for both mainstream schools and high needs) is increasing by £2.3 billion in 2025-26 compared with the previous year.

Within this £2.3 billion, high needs funding is increasing by a further £1 billion in 2025-26 to help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND. The majority of this increase will be allocated through the high needs NFF. Through this formula, local authorities will receive at least a 7% increase per head of their population aged two to 18, compared with their 2024-25 allocations, with some authorities seeing gains of up to 10%.

The overall high needs funding increase of £1 billion includes over £90 million to increase the high needs element of the 2024-25 core schools budget grant (CSBG) to a full-year equivalent of over £230 million. This will be incorporated with the other teachers’ pay and pensions grants into a single CSBG (totalling £480 million) for special schools and alternative provision in 2025-26.

Funding for mainstream schools through the schools NFF is increasing by 2.23% per pupil compared with 2024-25. This includes a 1.28% increase to ensure that the 2024 teachers and support staff pay awards continue to be fully funded at national level in 2025-26. The 2025-26 schools NFF includes funding for pay and pensions costs that was previously allocated outside of the NFF, but is now being rolled into the formula—the 2024 to 2025 teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG), teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) and core schools budget grant (CSBG). This ensures that this additional funding forms an ongoing part of schools’ core budgets.

On top of this rolled-in funding, the core factor values in the schools NFF are rising, to increase the funding available to schools. Through the minimum per pupil funding levels, every primary school will attract at least £4,955 per pupil, and every secondary school at least £6,465 per pupil.

Central school services funding funds local authorities for the ongoing responsibilities they continue to have for all schools, and some historic commitments that local authorities face. The total provisional funding for ongoing responsibilities is £342 million in 2025-26, which includes £4 million for additional costs of copyright licences for schools.

Across the schools, high needs, and central services NFFs, we have kept the structure of the formulae largely unchanged from 2024-25. This is to minimise disruption for schools and local authorities due to the shorter than usual timescales for the 2025-26 funding cycle, given the timing of the general election. For 2026-27 and beyond, we will consider changes to various funding formulae, recognising the importance of a fair funding system that directs funding where it is needed.

Updated allocations of schools, high needs and central schools services funding for 2025-26 will be published to the usual timescale in December through the dedicated schools grant allocations, taking account of the latest pupil data at that point.

[HCWS264]

Government and Democracy Education

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) on securing this timely debate on an incredibly important subject. He inspired us with his speech and the words of young people in particular. I know that education is a subject close to his heart, as he demonstrated clearly in his speech today. Having previously been a school governor and a trustee for Warwickshire Young Carers, I know that he shares our vision for ensuring that young people receive the right support to succeed in their education and to lead happy, healthy and productive lives.

I say that this debate is timely. It has been mentioned that we are celebrating UK Parliament Week this week, which is an incredible opportunity to get young people across the country to engage with Parliament and learn more about our democracy, our political system and how our country works. This Friday, I will be going to school assemblies across my constituency to speak to children about what I do as their MP and how they can engage in and shape their world. I am sure that many hon. Members will be doing the same. I had so many invites this year that it has been a real squeeze to fit them in. There are 35 schools from Newcastle upon Tyne North engaging in UK Parliament Week this year—I am not going to all of them—and it is fantastic that so many are getting involved.

From my own experience, some of the most powerful and persuasive engagement that I have had in my time in Parliament has come directly from children and young people in my constituency. I have lobbied previous Governments on their behalf on many different issues—the significance of now being on the receiving end of those requests is not lost on me. They have brilliant ideas that they express powerfully, so it is important that their voice is heard and their engagement supported.

[Melanie Onn]

The Minister is exactly right. In my visits so far this week, young people have raised serious and current issues, including knife crime, vaping and their impact on health. The idea that young people are divorced from the realities of society is not bearing out, but their connection with the political system is very separate. I am interested to hear her views on improving citizenship in schools.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The last Labour Government recognised the importance of citizenship and participation in our education system, which is why they introduced citizenship education to the national curriculum at key stages 3 and 4 for maintained schools. They set up a framework to prepare pupils to play an active part in society and a platform to discuss issues that are important to them, from conflict to poverty, climate change, crime and security in our society.

Although it is optional for primary schools—my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby raised that as a concern—they are supported by non-statutory programmes at key stages 1 and 2, and the teaching of democracy forms a central part of the citizenship curriculum. That requires that pupils are taught about parliamentary democracy, the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the power of Government, how citizens and Parliament can hold Government to account, and the different roles of the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary, and of course the free press. Pupils learn the skills of active citizenship through practical opportunities to address issues of concern to them and their wider community.

The Petersfield school in Hampshire and the Association for Citizenship Teaching delivered a joint parallel election project using real-life examples from the 2024 general election and involving nearly 30,000 students across 413 schools. It gave students hands-on experience of a democratic process—for example, asking them to work in teams to simulate election parties. It mirrored a real election, from analysing party manifestos to organising voter registration, holding hustings, holding elections and comparing the school results in the local constituency. Aside from that particular project, many schools will have engaged in the ’24 election in a similar way, which is fantastic.

It is right that schools have a statutory duty as part of a broad and balanced curriculum to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. The 2014 guidance supports schools in delivering that requirement. It acknowledges that people might hold different views about what is right and what is wrong, but a school’s ethos and teaching should support the rule of English civil and criminal law, and that means embedding those fundamental values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of people of different faiths and beliefs.

Schools embed those values most successfully when they do it right across the breadth of their provision. Whether they are taught specifically as part of a curriculum, reflected in behaviour policies, reinforced in assemblies or deepened through engagement opportunities—for example, experiencing the democratic process—we know that real experience can help young people to develop, engage in and assume those values in their own lives.

High and rising school standards are at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. We know that is how we can deliver the best life chances for every child, but we also know that too many young people go through their whole school lives without developing the communication and critical thinking skills that are so important for them to develop that democratic engagement.

That is why we are delivering our manifesto commitment with the independent curriculum and assessment review, as already mentioned. It is a good opportunity to look at how we deliver a curriculum that ensures young people feel represented, and helps them to develop the knowledge and skills required to thrive as citizens throughout their life. The review will look at the key challenges to attainment for young people and the barriers holding them back from opportunities and life chances. In particular, it will look at breaking down barriers for those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or those with special educational needs and disabilities.

The review has put out a call for evidence, which closes this Friday, so this is a good opportunity to encourage anyone with an interest in the issue to feed back as part of the review, because we are interested in views and we want to hear from as many people as possible. Anyone can also join live events on gov.uk and have their say in the curriculum and assessment process. Live events are being held around the country, so I encourage people to engage. The review will not decide what to recommend formally until after the call for evidence closes. An interim report will be produced in early 2025 and the final recommendations will be published in autumn 2025.

Generally speaking, schools have the flexibility to organise the content and delivery of their citizenship curriculum to meet the needs of their pupils. That might include a whole range of issues, ideas and materials, including challenging or controversial subjects, but they need to ensure political balance. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby made a specific point about the co-operative movement. Political movements and parties are not listed as part of the current citizenship curriculum, but schools can choose to talk about them as part of their democracy discussions.

The Department currently provides a range of support to the sector, particularly through the Educate Against Hate website, to help teachers discuss some of the really tricky issues. Support for curriculum delivery also comes from resources from the Oak National academy, which launched new curriculum sequences for secondary citizenship earlier this month. Obviously, there will be a full package of support in autumn 2025.

UK Parliament does fantastic work running educational tours for pupil, youth and community groups to see how Parliament works in action. It also produces resources, which can be downloaded or ordered for free and tailored to different age groups. This really is Christmas for UK Parliament. I thank staff for the work they do all year round, but particularly this week as we celebrate the level of engagement. I encourage all schools to engage and make use of the resources for young people.

On supporting the teaching workforce, the initial teacher training and early career framework sets out the entitlement of every trainee to get the necessary knowledge and skills. It is vital that teachers get support to do that important work of engaging and teaching young people about these issues.

I will take my hon. Friend’s comments on board, and I thank him again for bringing forward the debate. It is great that it happened in this week of all weeks. I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions. It is vital that pupils have a sound understanding of the fundamental values upon which our society is founded and operates, including democracy, and their relevance to the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living in modern Britain.

Schools clearly have a critical role to play in supporting pupils to develop those skills and attitudes. We know that many schools really embed an understanding of democracy, but we also know that the curriculum and assessment review is an opportunity to see how we can do that even better. I will finish by thanking my hon. Friend again for his fantastic opening speech. In giving a voice to his constituents, he is clearly embedding democratic values within his local area. I am sure that every MP will take the opportunity to do the same during UK Parliament Week.

Question put and agreed to.