Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

The very real and transformational merits of the Bill are clear. Measures on branded uniforms and free breakfast clubs will help families in Southampton Itchen and put money back in their pockets. Registering children who are not in school and having a unique number for every child will help multiple agencies to safeguard our children and work better together, more importantly.

Having already dealt with the Tory legacy of endless teacher strikes, Labour’s Bill will start valuing qualified teachers once again who inspire our next generation, and will be paying them consistently. The Bill will also ensure that all children, regardless of school model or structure, can be inspired by a refreshed curriculum that sets them up for life. Any Member who has worked in education or social care will not recognise the fanciful picture of the Tories’ record. If it was so rosy, they may want to reflect on why they are now on the Opposition Benches. Let us have a bit of honesty: what they left was inadequate funding and crumbling buildings. They were against fully qualified teachers; there were endless strikes over pay; and recruitment and retention were a complete disaster. Those are the inconvenient facts that some of them want to avoid, all because of an obsession with buzzwords and structures, not with children’s outcomes. They talk about educational vandalism, but they are guilty of it.

I want to focus my remaining comments on measures that will make a difference to a group whose voices are often not heard enough in this debate: children and young people who have experienced being in care. We have had the excellent independent review of children’s social care, carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which, we should remember, was commissioned by the last Conservative Government and then, inexplicably and unforgivably, put on the shelf and ignored. In that report, my hon. Friend warned that without a significant change of course, the number of children in care would exceed 100,000 in this country. This Bill can and must be that change of course.

Ensuring that local authorities offer family group conferencing is hugely welcome and will give opportunities for the children’s voices to be heard when planning potentially life-changing interventions, to ensure that those are the best possible changes. For some, living with a member of extended family will turn their life around, so I welcome the legal recognition of kinship care. That will ensure solid support and a home closer to their support networks for the 153,000 children and young people in that situation. I ask that the Minister perhaps reflects on the extent to which children and young people’s voices will be heard in designing those measures.

Support for care leavers is crucial, so I welcome the extension of the Staying Close support. It represents a transition to independence and steps to get decent housing and vital services for those young people, but it is not just a theory or a programme—it is already working. When I was cabinet member for children’s services in Southampton, we introduced it three years ago. It has been an enormous success in terms of the quality of support and the outcomes for young people.

In a rare moment of cross-party agreement, I reflect on the comments of the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). I agree that the supported lodgings scheme from the Home for Good and Safe Families charities is worth looking at. The results are impressive in terms of safety, good relationships, confidence and being more likely to be in education, employment and training.

The goal of this important Bill is to ensure opportunities for every child and young person—not just those in the Tories’ preferred model of school, but 100% of schoolchildren: a safe start for every one of them. The Government who take this seriously are those who act on it. That is this Labour Government—not posturing like the Opposition, or ideologically wrecking it, but taking action so that children can thrive in life.

[Several hon. Members rose—]