Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
Daniel Francis Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important work of voluntary and community groups, which will have a central role to play, not least because they are often better able to access and support families who might otherwise find it difficult to go through the doors of a centre, and who might feel a certain kind of reluctance about statutory services. Their role and work is critical to what we will take forward. My hon. Friend is right that the last Labour Government did amazing things, and today’s announcement builds on the proud record of Sure Start.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
As a fellow SEND parent, I fully concur with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) about the system we inherited and the lack of humility from those on the Opposition Benches.
I thank the Secretary of State for visiting my constituency 10 days ago to see the incredible work carried out by staff at Peareswood primary school in Slade Green. Slade Green and the northern part of Crayford have real deprivation, and the Conservative council in the London borough of Bexley closed the Sure Start in both those wards. Does the Secretary of State agree that it was ridiculous not only that the council did that, but that it received no money from the previous Conservative Government for family hubs? Will she commit today to turning that situation around and finally giving my council money for family hubs?
Bridget Phillipson
Yes. As a result of today’s announcement, my hon. Friend’s local authority will now receive funding to roll out those services. I join in his sheer incredulity at the fact that such effective, brilliant services were closed. How short-sighted, and what an impact we have seen on children and their life chances! I know from my visit to Peareswood in my hon. Friend’s constituency how much brilliant work is going on, thanks to the amazing staff who work in our schools and in early years education. I also know what a brilliant Member of Parliament staff there have championing their cause in the House.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Daniel Francis Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
For the record, my wife is employed as a special educational needs co-ordinator in a local authority school in the London borough of Bexley.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the Bill on aspects relating to looked-after children and academies. On looked-after children, the Bill would make a series of changes on accommodation, as colleagues have commented, which include increasing Ofsted oversight of organisations that operate multiple children’s homes or independent fostering agencies, introducing a financial oversight regime for certain independent agencies and children’s home providers, and allowing the Secretary of State to cap the profits of children’s home providers and independent fostering agencies.
From my years as a local councillor, I know how badly those changes are needed. My local authority in Bexley, like many others, has struggled to control those areas with regulation and struggled with the financial aspects. Last year, we saw the largest children’s services overspend of any London borough as a result of those issues. I therefore welcome the measures to limit the profits of specified non-local authority, Ofsted-registered social providers of children’s homes and fostering agencies, which have continually raised their costs far above inflation to profit from the taxpayer and from the care costs of our most vulnerable children.
I welcome the changes in clauses 47 to 50 to school admission arrangements, requiring schools and local authorities to co-operate to manage admissions and giving local authorities the power to direct academy schools to admit pupils. In my local authority, we have schools where over 50% of the children do not live in our borough because of the admission arrangements that our academy schools have decided to put in place. In a borough where 79% of schools have been academised, we rely on their good will as to how many pupils they will admit each year from our local authority and how those applicants will be prioritised. That has resulted in the same Conservative councillors who cheer-led the roll-out of academies openly complaining to me and colleagues that they no longer have control over admissions criteria.
Today, we have the opportunity to give this landmark legislation its Second Reading. It will improve education standards and strengthen protections for the most vulnerable children in Bexleyheath and Crayford and across our country. It will drive high and rising standards in schools through common-sense reform, and it will prevent children from falling through the cracks by introducing landmark reforms to safeguard children’s social care.
The Bill is the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation. A vote for the amendment is a vote against the Bill and against the safety of our children, their childhoods and their futures. I urge all Members to vote with me and the Government and to give the Bill its Second Reading.