Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I will call Chris Hinchliff to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered financial support for parents caring for seriously ill children.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Ms Jardine.

I begin by paying tribute to my constituents Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who are in the Public Gallery today. Their tireless advocacy, following the tragic loss of their six-year-old son Hugh to cancer in 2021, is an inspiration to me, and I know this feeling is shared by colleagues across the House.

Ceri, Frances and the charity they set up, It’s Never You, have highlighted the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children. When a child is born, there is a support system in place for parents. Maternity pay provides a safety net for those who must stop work to care for their child, and the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 covers the parents of babies who are admitted to neonatal care within 28 days of birth. However, if a child falls seriously ill outside those periods, parents must navigate burdensome and insufficient systems that were not designed for families facing what is, for most, the very hardest time of their lives.

Ceri and Frances experienced this unfairness at first hand during the 100-mile round trips they had to make to be with Hugh during his treatment. Thankfully, they were financially stable, but they witnessed the harsh reality of our benefits system as they saw other parents being forced to sell their homes and give up work to care for their seriously ill children. Of course, these issues are compounded by the cost of living pressures that all families face, even without family emergencies piling on.

Approximately 68% of women and 57% of men with mental health problems are parents, which highlights the emotional strain that families across the country already face. Last year, a quarter of parents with children aged 18 and under said they struggled to provide sufficient food for their children, and Shelter estimates that 1.7 million private renters do not have enough savings to pay their rent if they were to become unemployed.

Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing the debate, and I pay tribute to the many women who have come along.

I would love to say that it is a pleasure to take part in this debate, but it is not. After eight years of taking part in debates, protests, meetings, all-party parliamentary groups and proceedings on private Members’ Bills about this issue, and waiting on the ombudsman’s report, it is above all frustrating that we have to do it yet again because the Government have failed in their responsibility to uphold the ombudsman’s recommendations.

For me, there is a particular irony in that. Last week, I was in New York at the Commission on the Status of Women, and I come back here and wonder exactly what this debate, and the situation that the WASPI women find themselves in, says about the status of women in this country. As has been said, this generation worked hard, and paid their taxes and national insurance; they are now finding that there is no compensation, even though the Government admit that they let them down.

Looking at the Labour Benches, I am also struck by hope: if so many Labour MPs recognise the failing in this Government’s stance on WASPI women, perhaps the Government will listen. They are not listening to the Opposition or to the WASPI women, but perhaps they will listen to their own MPs when they say, “You’ve got this wrong; you’re letting these women down,” and we will have an end to this.

I admit that when I was elected, almost eight years ago now, I did not know much about the WASPI women and their case. However, one of the first women who came to me after I was elected had been affected. Her letter from the DWP was late, and she had made financial decisions about her future before it reached her; she was less than two years away from retirement when she was told that she would have to wait an additional five years. Like many women, she lost out financially. Many women will also have been let down by this Government’s decision not to award compensation.

The previous Government were criticised for kicking the issue into the long grass, and they did, but this Government had an opportunity to overturn that. They have not taken it, despite the promises that many of them, including Cabinet Ministers, made before the general election. Instead, they turned their back on the millions of pension-age women who were wronged, through no fault of their own.

For years, we have pushed the Government to do something. I suspect that the WASPI women, not just in the Gallery but up and down the country, felt that a corner had been turned in July of last year: that the ombudsman’s report would be upheld, and that a Labour Government would stand by them. The time has come for the Labour Government to be as good as their word to the WASPI women, and take action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

I will come to exactly that point shortly.

The 2014 research was not properly considered by the ombudsman. The same research is now the subject of live litigation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) noted. In addition, there was considerable awareness that the state pension age was increasing. Research from 2004 used by the ombudsman shows that 73% of people then aged 45 to 54 were aware that the state pension age was going up. Further research from 2006 reinforced that finding and was given to and used by the ombudsman. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) focused on the widely used 43% figure, but that figure refers to all women, including some aged 16 at the time of the survey, not just those who were affected by the state pension age changes.

[Christine Jardine]

I take on board what the Minister says about the research, but the fact that 73% of people knew that there were would be changes to the pension age does not tell us that 73% of women, or any percentage, knew that it would affect them. That is not what the evidence tells us.

[Torsten Bell]

The fact that people were widely aware that the state pension age was rising is indicative that it was not news to most people, even if they had not got the details on their specific circumstances. The 2006 research is now also the subject of live litigation, so I will resist the temptation to dive into the details, beyond directly addressing the point raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on the sample sized used in that survey. Returning to my old expertise in this area, the confidence intervals provided in that survey are certainly small enough to make it clear that a clear majority were aware that the state pension age was changing, so I do not think it is right to cast aspersions on that survey.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I suspect that was a statement rather than a question. He knows that the Government will not comment on a live litigation. In answer to questions asked by other Members, I will, of course, be happy to meet with the chairs of the APPG, subject to the constraints of that live legal case. As a Department, we must and will learn the lessons from this case.

[Christine Jardine]

The Minister says that the Department will learn the lessons of this case. Does he accept that the whole point of this debate was not, as he said, to change the minds of Members who have spoken or the women who have come to watch the debate, but to change the mind of the Government? That is the lesson we would like him to learn.

[Torsten Bell]

I fully understand the motivation of those who have come here today. Members are not just keeping their constituents happy in making their cases, but I have set out why the Government have come to a different view. That is the nature of a Government making a decision and then rightly being held to account for it. That is what hon. Members have done today and what I have endeavoured to engage in, which I think is the right way forward.

Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont]

The hon. Gentleman represents a part of Scotland where the proportion of young people going to independent schools is among the highest, if not the highest, in the country. I have had conversations with constituents and the teaching staff at a number of schools in his constituency, so I know how concerned they are. A number of parents are now considering taking their children out of the sector because they can no longer afford to pay the fees.

The hon. Gentleman knows from his discussions with those parents that they are not necessarily wealthy. During the last election, I spoke to parents who had made really tough choices about how they lead their lives to ensure that they can pay school fees—very often in schools in his constituency. They have made that choice about how they want their children to be brought up, and I think it is wrong that the Government are potentially taking that choice away or making it much more difficult for families to send children to the very good schools that he supposedly represents.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I represent a different part of Edinburgh, where one in four or five pupils goes to independent school. I have already received representations from parents who have had to take their children out of their schools and are concerned about where they can be placed in the city, given that the Labour council has already said that at least 15, and possibly 16, schools will be at capacity by the end of the decade even if there are no extra pupils.

[John Lamont]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. Many young people, particularly in the city that she represents, go to schools in the independent sector, so the effect of this policy will be disproportionately higher in her city and the constituency of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), than in other parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom. It is disappointing how dismissive Labour Members are of the concerns raised by the schools that the hon. Gentleman supposedly represents.

My fourth point, which really undermines Labour’s stated reasons for going ahead with this policy, is that there are huge potential costs to state schools arising from pupils moving out of independent schools. Every pupil who moves from an independent school to a state school will incur more cost to taxpayers. Those students did not cost the Government any money, but now their entire education will be met at a cost to the taxpayer.

The Government think that they have been clever by raising a tax to support public services, but they have not come to the obvious realisation that they are also raising the cost of providing public services. Just look at the number of students: there are 30,000 pupils in independent schools in Scotland alone. Survey data from the Independent Schools Council shows that, across the UK, 8,500 children have already left independent schools or did not start last September, and another 3,000 are expected to have left in January. The Independent Schools Council has stated that that is nearly four times the Government’s estimate for this year alone. The kicker is that the real test will come in September 2025, once this policy really hits parents hard. All those pupils will now have their education delivered by the state, and taxpayers will have to pay for it.

Now that I have outlined the great damage that the policy could do, let me turn to what the Labour Government have said in response and rebut some of their ridiculous claims. The Government stated in response to the petition that the policy

“will raise £1.8bn a year, helping to deliver the Government’s commitments for children in state schools.”

Except that may not be the case. It may not raise anywhere near that amount, because that is an estimate, not a hard fact. That claim also does not fully take into account the cost to the public finances of so many young people joining the state school system all at once. It is a big claim, and it does not really stack up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Taylor]

I think my point refers to the timing point that the hon. Gentleman has been making. I will carry on.

In Scotland, it is up to the national Scottish Government to decide how to use the significant additional funds that they receive through the block grant. As expenditure on education in England increases, so do the resources available to the Scottish Government, but despite Scottish families being taxed more than families in any other part of the UK and despite Scotland receiving the largest increase in the block grant since the Scottish Parliament was formed, there is little to show for those things in state schools in Scotland. In spite of the incredible hard work of teachers and support staff in schools in Scotland, the attainment gap continues to increase, and standards and results continue to fall.

[Christine Jardine]

I agree with the hon. Lady that the state of the education system in Scotland is appalling, and the blame lies squarely with the SNP, but how does she think the state sector will be helped to recover by putting extra pressure on it through forcing parents to move their children to places that do not exist?

[Alison Taylor]

As is well documented, this policy will raise £1.8 billion for the state sector. I will carry on.

This Government have made the hard decisions, including introducing VAT on private school fees, that are necessary to improve education for all children. That is already starting to make a difference in England. I sincerely hope that the Scottish Government will take a short break from stirring up grievance within the UK and instead will focus their attention on meeting the real needs of families in Scotland.

In the past, I and other members of my family have spent all or part of our education in the independent sector, but currently I have no family members in the independent sector. Given how much time has passed, I honestly do not know whether the increase in fees would have resulted in my family making different choices. My comments today are informed by what I have been told by parents in my constituency who have been impacted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers, and to follow the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). I feel as if the speakers so far have been talking about me, because they have been talking about parents who are not rich but who send their children to independent schools. I no longer have a declarable interest, but my daughter did go to an independent school. We were not wealthy, and it was not easy, but it was our choice. We never regretted it, but we often struggled to finance it. I know that there are thousands of parents, many in my constituency, who face an even bigger challenge because of this change.

My daughter went to an independent school in the west of Scotland. It was originally the town school—anyone from Glasgow knows which one I mean—and it had a tradition of awarding a large number of bursaries every year. A lot of the children who were at her school and are now doing well would not have got that place otherwise. A lot of them faced challenges, and the school helped them. We need to remember that we are talking not about the Etons and the Harrows—the big schools—but about a lot of independent schools that often provide a service in communities. It is a choice made by parents who are not always rich.

My city of Edinburgh is one of the areas of the country with the highest proportion of children educated in independent school—it is one in four. That is reflected in the figures in the petition. There were 740 signatures from my constituency, which is a higher number than for any other petition that I remember from my almost eight years in this place. That fact is also reflected in my mailbox and in the concern that parents in Edinburgh regularly express to me. They do not always have their children in the independent sector; a lot of them have their children in the state sector. Every week, parents come to me who cannot get a place for their child in the local state school because it is close to capacity. That problem will only be made worse if many of those one in four children are forced, by this Government, into the state sector because their parents can no longer afford the choice that they made.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Lady and I were both girls in those schools, and she talked about her daughter. Does she accept that it is often the parents who want their daughters to have an all-girls education. There are figures from the Girls’ Schools Association. There is also the head of Dame Allan’s girls’ school, who said that girls thrive better in all subjects in all-girls environments and that they choose things such as physics and maths more when there are not boys around mucking about.

[Christine Jardine]

I accept that point and absolutely agree. It reminds me of the point that for a lot of parents, their children are in independent schools because they were struggling in the state sector. They moved their children into the independent sector, where they are thriving. Rightly or wrongly, that was the parents’ choice, and we—or, at least, the Labour Government—would be taking that choice away from them, because of the fee increase. I also find it difficult to understand a Labour Government who would support the principle of taxing education. As well as the practical issues with the policy, they are taxing education, which is surely not something that they would support.

Introducing the change halfway through the school year has caused issues for many parents, who have suddenly found that all the budgeting they have done is out the window. They may have more than one child at a school that they can no longer afford due to the increase in school fees. That is why so many people are writing to me every weekend to say that they are having to think about what they will do about their child’s education and where they will find a place.

[Dr Arthur]

I find it really interesting that Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members are talking about how wrong it is to place VAT on school fees, even though they thought nothing about introducing university fees, which place a huge cost on education, particularly for people from poorer backgrounds.

[Dr Arthur]

The massive rise in tuition fees came later. Hon. Members know exactly what I am talking about. [Interruption.] Can I speak, please? Nobody here is questioning the motives of parents—every single parent who sends their children to an independent school wants the best for their children—but what we are questioning is, if we were to scrap this policy, what would we cut instead? I am just not hearing an answer. This policy will generate additional income for the constituency of the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). Where does she want that to be cut from instead? What does she say to the majority of people in Edinburgh who voted for parties that supported this policy?

[Christine Jardine]

Like the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), I would like to see the evidence that half of the people in Edinburgh voted for this policy. I have to tell the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) that there are 311 signatories to this petition from his constituency. More than half of the people in Edinburgh West voted for me, so I would like to see where he is getting the figure that parents in the city have voted for the measure.

Where does the hon. Gentleman think that the City of Edinburgh council will find the places, when its own figures, produced by a Labour Administration before this policy was announced, showed that 16 schools in the city will be at capacity by 2030? The problem is that where there are places, they are not necessarily convenient for the children who will be forced, by this policy, to look for a new school place. State school rolls are already stretched in Scotland because of the SNP’s cuts to local government, and this change can only make that situation worse.

[Dr Arthur]

My goodness me. If this policy generates the £1.8 billion we heard about earlier—[Interruption.] It could generate more. If it generates £1.8 billion, it will benefit schools in Edinburgh—of course it will. The hon. Lady made reference to school roll analysis, and stressed that it was conducted before the policy was introduced. Since then, there has been an update, and it shows more than adequate capacity in Edinburgh, particularly as we have only 55 students moving from the private sector to the state sector. She is well aware of that analysis.

[Christine Jardine]

Yes, I am aware of that analysis, and it does not show a healthier figure. The point that I was making in saying that it was conducted before the policy’s introduction is that the instant this Government came out with the policy, the Labour council went back and redid the figures. [Interruption.] No, I did not say that, but what I will say is that state schools across the country are stretched. If the hon. Gentleman is insisting that this £1.8 billion will go to Scotland, perhaps his Ministers will tell us how it will get to schools in Scotland, because they have no power to put that money into state education in Scotland.

This is a national policy. It is affecting families up and down this country, and it is putting more pressure on the state education system everywhere from Caithness to Cornwall. It is not just about Edinburgh; it is about the entire country. I am here to speak on behalf of my constituents, but I feel that their fears are reflected elsewhere in the country. If this Labour Government can tell us how they are going to make that money effective in protecting state education, and how they will get it into schools like ones in my constituency, then we might listen. The problem is that all they say is, “Find a different way of making the cuts.” Well, we did put forward different ways of raising money. They could have raised money by reforming capital gains tax. They could raise money for schools by putting a tax on social media platforms, which we suggested. The alternatives are there, and they would not be a tax on education—an ill-thought-through, ideologically driven policy that does not take account of the unintended consequences.

Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

My hon. Friend asks a reasonable question. The difficulty is we estimate that going through 3.5 million women to find out which ones knew about their state pension age increasing and would have made different decisions on that basis would take 10 times the number of staff who administer the state pension for 12 million people, and many years. We do not think that is an affordable or possible programme. The ombudsman himself goes through that point, and that is why he proposes a flat rate, but I have already said why we think that is not justified when 90% of those women knew their state pension age was increasing.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

One of the very first constituents who came to me after I was elected in 2017 was Helen, whose decision on her financial future was taken just before she received the letter, which came late—so it did have an impact on her. It also had an impact on the thousands of WASPI women in my constituency who have contacted me over the past seven and a half years. How does the Secretary of State think that any pensioner in this country, regardless of the triple lock, which was the creation of the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives, can have faith in a Government who have taken away their winter fuel allowance and now do not respect the injustice done to them in not compensating the WASPI women?

[Liz Kendall]

Our commitment to the pension triple lock, which will deliver an increase of £470 in the new state pension from this April and up to £1,900 extra over the course of this Parliament, backed by over £30 billion of investment, is a serious investment in pensioners. We believe that the basic state pension is the foundation for security in retirement. If the Liberal Democrats want to come up with a costed proposal to do what the ombudsman says, they are perfectly at liberty to do so, although we think that that is the wrong approach.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. The “Get Britain Working” White Paper is part of a much wider series of reforms that the Government are making to create more good jobs in every part of the country, including in green energy, through our modern industrial strategy, and through our plans, in the new deal for working people, to make work pay. Yesterday, I was at a college in Peterborough that is looking at how to upskill young people so that they can get the clean, green energy jobs of the future. That needs to happen in every part of the country, because we want the new jobs that we are creating to be available to those who need them most. We have not really managed to fit that together before—to get the DWP and our “Get Britain Working” plans underpinning our local growth plans. That is a big change that we have to deliver, if we are to make sure that everybody in this country benefits from the jobs we are creating.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I welcome much of what the Secretary of State has said, and I am delighted that she has assured us that there will be discussions with the Scottish Government about plans for Scotland. Throughout the past two or three years, businesses in my constituency have told me that they are concerned that they cannot get people to work for them, so this strategy will be welcome. However, does the Secretary of State appreciate that many of us see a contradiction between this policy and the national insurance changes? A major employer in my constituency tells me that the changes will cost it £250,000 extra a year, and it will not take on seasonal workers because it cannot afford to. How does that damaging policy for business go alongside trying to encourage more people back to work?

[Liz Kendall]

Of course businesses face these pressures, but I think many of them understand that the Government have to look at the fundamentals. We faced a problem with the public finances when we got into government. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor took the decision that the only way we could sort out the country for the long term was to get the public finances back on a more sustainable footing. The businesses that I have met, including Tesco in my constituency, raised concerns with me, but they also said that they really want to get more young people who have mental health problems into work. Tesco has a brilliant partnership with the King’s Trust to get those young people into work and help them stay there, because it knows that the key to those young people’s future is to get those skills, so that they can grow business and make the changes that this country needs.