Oral Answers to Questions

David Taylor Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

12. What progress she has made on improving support for children with SEND.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

17. What steps she is taking to improve SEND services.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

This topic is of interest to many colleagues across the House. The previous Conservative Education Secretary labelled the special educational needs and disabilities system that she left behind as “lose, lose, lose”, and the shadow Minister said that the previous Government should “hang their heads” in shame over their record. Just last week, a Schools Minister of 10 years said that they had “let down” thousands of children. We agree wholeheartedly. That is the system we inherited, but there is light at the end of the tunnel as this Labour Government work hard to reform and improve the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the worrying findings of the Public Accounts Committee on the situation we are in. As she rightly identifies, it is our ambition that all children receive the right support to succeed, where possible within mainstream schools. That will need education, health and care plans to be processed more effectively, but also for mainstream schools in and of themselves to be supported to become inclusive, so that children and their families are not left waiting. That will help to reduce the cost of transport, because far too many children are being transported to other local authorities over great distance and time, as they cannot be educated locally. All these measures will not only drive down the challenges for families, but get much better outcomes for the money being spent.

[David Taylor]

At a recent surgery, a constituent told me that she had fought Tory-led Hertfordshire county council to carry out an EHCP assessment for her son for well over a year. Since it concluded, she has been forced to go to tribunal six times in the past two years. She informed me that she met resistance from the school and the council throughout. After years of neglect by not only the previous Conservative Government, but Conservative local councils, I welcome the steps the Government are taking to reform the SEND system. What assurances can the Minister give to my constituent and others in Hemel that EHCP assessments will be a priority?

Antisocial Behaviour: Hertfordshire

David Taylor Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Christian Wakeford.)2.34 pm

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

There are people in Hemel Hempstead who live in constant fear; people who are too scared to leave their homes, or who fear for their children’s safety. Those people are not statistics, they are not numbers; these are their lives.

I wish to tell the House about someone called Tom—I have changed names and places for people’s safety. Tom served in the emergency services for 20 years, putting his life on the line for others. He served our community and kept us safe, yet now he is the one who lives in fear. Tom, who lives with his wife and four children, told me that he lives near a house that is used for drug dealing. Over 90 separate drug deals have been reported to the police and, thanks to his diligence, that is backed by hundreds of hours of CCTV footage and photos.

Drug dealing is a serious crime, but in its wake comes a wave of other antisocial behaviour, with the constant, endless noise of people coming and going at all hours, the slamming of doors, shouting, scaring children, motorbikes flying up and down the road, and the incessant smell of noxious drugs. Needles and paraphernalia lie strewn around the area that Tom is proud of—the area he protected for 20 years. Is that what Tom deserves, after protecting our community for so long?

Tom is not alone. Let me tell the House a story about Cassy—again, not her real name. Cassy has an eight-year-old son. He likes maths, football and playing outside. In recent months, however, he has been too scared to play outside, and even if he wasn’t, other children have also stopped venturing outdoors. Why is that? Because the communal garden where he once played his favourite sport lies littered with dog poo. People have tried to clean it up, but large, aggressive dogs let loose act as a deterrent to any community-minded people. The green space, once a makeshift football pitch, has turned into a place for people to smoke drugs, play loud music at all hours of the day, and shout abuse at any passerby. Cassy’s son, at just eight years old, lives in fear. Due to the ongoing stress, Cassy is on antidepressants and her husband Gary is in therapy. Their son is so fearful that he cannot sleep alone, scared that the thugs outside will make their way into their home.

It is not just drugs and aggressive behaviour, because another constituent at one of my surgeries, Maria, told me of her case. She and her partner, child and neighbours have been dealing with an abusive, unsafe and disruptive resident since June 2023, who has been letting intoxicated people into their building and threatening violence. Rubbish is piled high and attracting rodents, with smashed windows and alleged arson—those are just some of the things that Maria and her family have had deal with.

When considering Tom, Cassy, Gary and Maria, and the other 55 constituents who have written to me about this, as well as the others who are too scared to report their cases to me at all, there is a theme, but antisocial behaviour sits in a grey area. The hard-working police are often not resourced. The council often relays that it is a police matter, and housing associations are often limited in how they respond. Meanwhile, residents suffer.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. As a neighbouring Member from Hertfordshire, I know that this is an important issue for our constituents. I recent surveyed high street businesses in my constituency, and they said that one of their biggest issues is antisocial behaviour. Does he agree that this issue also impacts our high streets and businesses?

[David Taylor]

I entirely agree, and I would point to some of the visits I have made to businesses in my constituency because, as the hon. Member will know, there are similar themes. It is a slightly different point, but I am grateful that this Government are planning to bring in new measures to crack down on shoplifting, which is also a big problem and often goes unpunished.

Hemel Hempstead, my community, is in a tough position. In January 2024 we were the worst major town in Hertfordshire for antisocial behaviour, with more than 200 reported incidents. The town centre is one of the most dangerous towns in Hertfordshire. Local stakeholders told me just this morning that Dacorum has the highest number of vulnerable children at risk of exploitation from drug dealers and county lines in the county. The overall crime rate in 2023 was 95 crimes per 1,000 people. Damningly, between 2014 and 2024, the crime rate doubled. On the doorstep and at my surgeries, many Hemel residents have asked me why we are in this mess. I tell them that we had a Conservative Government and, until 2023, a Conservative borough council; we have a Conservative county council and Conservative police and crime commissioner, and we had a Conservative MP.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member’s party has been in government for over six months now. What has changed in that time?

[David Taylor]

The hon. Member knows that I try to work with him locally in a constructive way, and I will in future, but the problems that we have in Hemel Hempstead are 14 years in the making. Some of them go back 20 years, because of long-standing issues. It is fair to point out that the people in charge of those issues at the time could have done more to help resolve them. He will know that I am trying to find solutions together and not point the finger or look backwards, but the numbers do not lie.

It is impossible to ignore the indisputable fact that in the time that the Conservatives were in power—14 years nationally and longer locally—local crime has skyrocketed. They ignored anti-social behaviour, cut our police force by 20,000 officers nationally and took 60p out of every pound from local authorities. Objectively, that is why we are where we are. It is their mess, and people in my patch are the ones dealing with it. In the time that the Conservatives were in power, crime in Hemel doubled. I defy anyone to defend that record.

[Mr Mohindra]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in allowing me to intervene again. Similar to parts of my constituency, Hemel has great transport links. County lines is a relatively new phenomenon, and one of the downsides of our road and train network is that crime is coming out of London. Has he worked with the London Labour Mayor to address those issues?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Taylor]

I am doing everything I can to work with the Labour Mayor, but he is subject to the same national cuts in police numbers that we have seen elsewhere. We all have problems with police resources.

As a candidate and again since my election to Parliament, I have been out with bobbies on the beat to see the issues that they face at first hand, as part of the Hertfordshire police ride-along scheme. After seeing them in action, I commend our police. I do not exaggerate when I say that they are heroes and heroines in our community. Thanks to the local police in Hertfordshire, we have seen some progress in tackling the plight of antisocial behaviour. I thank them again for their service. Operation Clear Hold Build in Grovehill and Operation Hotspot in the town centre have brought significant uplifts in patrols and prevention in both areas. PC Beresford and Sergeant Divney from the neighbourhood team have led the charge against antisocial behaviour from the front. They and their colleagues are an asset to their force.

I also pay tribute to Hemel’s Chief Inspector Dave Skarratts. He has been exemplary in his role, and today happens to be his last day. I wish him well in his new role with Bedfordshire police. When tackling antisocial behaviour, the police are key, but they need tools and the resources to do their jobs. While many of us flee from an incident, they rush towards it; I ensure, in my conversations with the Police Federation, that they do so safe in the knowledge that they have the support they need and deserve.

I have carried out an audit of the 55 cases that residents have reported to me so far. I have analysed them for themes, and one keeps emerging. Police are just one part of the jigsaw when it comes to tackling antisocial behaviour. There is a role to be played by local authorities and housing associations. In many instances, upstanding residents have gathered the information and evidence thoroughly, at their own risk and expense, and submitted it to the council or their housing association. However, in some cases they have seen no action.

In some instances, the council has refused to re-add them to the housing list because they are adequately housed, yet it has not acted against the troublemakers nearby. In others, communication between police and council teams has been not consistent enough or, in some cases, completely absent. I have had reports of housing associations simply not replying to their residents. All Members of this House have a responsibility to do their bit to tackle this issue.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent not just on us as Members of Parliament but on all constituents to work together to ensure that our young people growing up have positive role models around them in a community setting, so that they do not fall into a life of antisocial behaviour and they can see a way to get on in life?

[David Taylor]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. I myself benefited from Hertfordshire youth services as a Member of the UK Youth Parliament, which is sadly something that has had to be pulled back by Hertfordshire county council because of cuts to youth services. That is just one example of the ways young people can be offered a chance to build their confidence and skills, and is partly why I am able to speak to hon. Members today.

MPs have a duty to their constituents, the police and the many hard-working council officers who deal with antisocial behaviour, which is why I have made it a key priority. This week, I was lucky to have the opportunity to meet with the Minister for Policing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), where I raised Hosking Court, Livingstone Walk, Swallowfields and other hotspots across our area. I have also pushed for Hemel Hempstead to be considered as part of the pilot for the new respect order, which will give police new powers to crack down on yobs and thugs with zero tolerance and with 100% focus on victims.

I have been out with police for ride alongs, the purpose of which is to see at first hand what our officers are seeing and understand further the tools they need to do their job. I have had regular meetings with the chief inspector to understand the whole picture and raise residents’ concerns. I have also met the Police Federation reps, who are best placed to tell me about the strategic issues faced by officers. I will continue to do all that and more to support those on the frontline facing antisocial behaviour.

I have spoken today of the harrowing accounts of some of my constituents. I have set out why we are in this mess—because of 14 years of dereliction of duty by the previous Conservative Administration. Now, I want to talk about the way in which Labour is working to fix the problems we have inherited.

I very much welcome the new respect orders, which will give police and local councils the powers they need to ban persistent offenders, and I hope my patch will be picked to join the scheme when it is launched. I also welcome the action on boy racers, with Labour giving police stronger powers to seize vehicles involved in antisocial behaviour. The forthcoming policing and crime Bill, which will partially replace existing civil injunction powers for adults, will hit nuisance off-road bikes hard—another issue affecting my residents. I am particularly pleased to see enhanced powers to complement the Government’s commitment to restore neighbourhood policing in England and Wales.

For too long, people in Hemel have been let down. The new Government are showing leadership and, as the new MP for Hemel Hempstead, I pledge today to do all I can to ensure that these national changes are felt locally.

SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire

David Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for his commitment to working alongside everyone in the Chamber, whether in Central Bedfordshire or in Hertfordshire, to make sure our local authorities deliver the improvements in their gift and to make sure we support the new Government in finally getting a grip on the problems we have inherited.

I challenge anyone faced with the statistics we have been seeing over the past few months not to run the full gauntlet of emotions, all the way from despair to anger. For me, hearing the personal stories of the young people affected by the challenges has truly broken my heart.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Many of us have heard countless stories of families feeling dire frustration. For this debate alone I received more than 25 stories, each more harrowing than the one before. I will pull out a good example of a woman called Jane who has two children, both with SEND needs. One of them needs one-on-one support to catch up in English and maths, but the local authority has refused that. The consequence is that her son is now 14 years old and has not had an academic education for six years. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an all-too-regular example of the challenges we are facing?

[Alistair Strathern]

I absolutely agree and I thank my hon. Friend for rightly drawing attention to our collective shame for the shocking way in which that young person has been let down. My office has been blown away by the number of young people and their families who got in touch after our call for evidence ahead of this debate to share their own personal testimonies about the struggles they have been facing and the way those struggles have impacted their lives.

As my hon. Friend alluded to, many children across my constituency have had a chaotic and uncertain time waiting for school places. Some of them—like James, who got in touch with my office—have been out of school for years while they wait for a place. Others, like Mary, had secured a place only to find in the last week of the summer holidays that it had been withdrawn. Just imagine how a child must feel to be out of school, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Just imagine how a young person must feel to be so excited about going to a school that has finally been allocated to them, because it is right for them, only to find out the week before they were due to go there that they did not want them. That shames us all.

We have also heard from parents such as Sophie, who have been driven to despair by a system that they feel all too often forces them to fight every step of the way just to secure the very basics of support that their young person needs. Often, they have to sink thousands of pounds that they can barely afford into private diagnosis, representation and support after completely losing faith that local provision will be able to meet their needs.

We have also heard devastating stories from young people who have been pushed to the brink by the lack of appropriate support, including stories of those young people whose mental health has spiralled to the point that many of them felt they could no longer be in day-to-day education. Devastatingly and particularly heartbreakingly, we heard from the parents of Alice who, after feeling isolated and alienated by the delays in getting the right support in place at school, felt that she had no option available other than to attempt to take her own life. What more damning indictment of our failure could there be?

I know that not one person in this room will consider any of these stories acceptable, and I want to reassure every young person and their family experiencing the sharp end of the failing system in my constituency that my office and I never will. It is truly impossible to do justice to all of the stories—there are over 100 in total —that I have received in the time that we have available to us today, but I want each and every one who has reached out and each and every one who is struggling at the moment to be assured that I will carry with me the pain and the urgency of their testimony every day as I champion the changes that we need to see locally and here in Parliament. To those elsewhere—whether in Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire or elsewhere; I am looking around the room—I can say that they will not be short of advocates either.

We all recognise that every day a child lacks the support they need to thrive at school is a day’s potential that will forever have been wasted. When that support is lacking, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, everyone loses. Every time a parent has had to give up work to take on extra responsibilities because the state has fallen short on our promise to them is a moment when their career and indeed their whole family’s life has been forever narrowed by a systems failure. Every child who has given up hope that the system can ever work for them at all, and who has turned to despair or even worse, is a child we have all failed collectively to do right by.

I hope that colleagues here today will welcome Labour’s commitment to making sure that we finally put in place some of the actions needed to address this issue. There have already been early actions in this Parliament to bring consideration of SEND back alongside schools; we have announced potential reform of Ofsted to improve its approach to assessing inclusion, particularly around admissions; and we have ensured that we have an underlying commitment to a community-wide and reinvigorated approach to SEND. All of these actions suggest to me that we finally have a Government who understand the nature of the challenge we are dealing with.

However, as we move forward to tackle the system, I want to make sure that our approach shows that we have learned from some of the failings that are evident in the stories that we have heard locally. It is clear that our local systems were allowed to get to a truly dire place before action was prompted by Ofsted. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) pointed out, we have to do better. We have to make sure that our local partnerships are held accountable regarding the high ambitions we have for all of our young people regardless of the national context—that can never be an excuse for choosing to let people down day after day.

It is also clear in both the areas I have discussed that academisation has added to fragmentation locally and that we need to think through how we can resolve some of the challenges of creating a truly inclusive admissions system when the partnerships involved currently do not have the powers they need to compel all local stakeholders and all local schools to play their part. I am sure that there will be an important role for Ofsted to then hold schools accountable for delivering on their approach to inclusion.

In Central Bedfordshire, some of the challenges have been particularly exacerbated by the issues involved in the transition from a three-tier system to a two-tier system. This stalled transition has delayed the release of school capital sites, which are so important for us to be able to invest in localised specialist provision, meaning that sites that have been earmarked for much-needed special schools continue to be used in mainstream education for much longer than originally intended. I would welcome thoughts from the Department for Education about how it can potentially support Central Bedfordshire’s efforts to finally get this transition over the line.

More fundamentally, there is a big underlying question about how we can make sure that the funding formulas to allocate resource to match need right across our country, particularly in the two areas that I am talking about today, truly match the evidence of need that exists and address the challenges of doing so in a rural context. It is especially noteworthy that, in spite of all of the challenges we have been discussing, Hertfordshire still has one of the lowest high-needs block allocations in the country.

However, all the funding in the world would not make a difference without a trained workforce to deliver. Alongside thinking through how we best support local authorities and local partnerships to answer these questions, we need a workforce strategy to ensure that we are properly addressing the issues that we have been talking about. From educational psychologists to speech and language therapists, we just do not have the trained professionals to take on some of these vacancies currently.

In our patch, these challenges are exacerbated by the fact that our near-London context makes it even harder to recruit and retain for these specialties. Thinking through how we can make sure that we have a national workforce strategy, but with an eye to the specific challenges of outer London and near-London authorities, will be an important part of truly resolving the system for the young people we have been talking about.

Crucially, we must make sure that the heartbreaking stories of families and their children, and the painful misery of the appeals system, can finally be brought to an end. All too often, cases are appealed at great cost to everyone involved. Both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire have spent eyewatering amounts fighting appeals only to concede and often lose. How can we possibly see this as a good use of anyone’s time and resource? We need to think through carefully how we can reform the system to ensure that incentives are there in the right place to address these at the earliest opportunity, and that mediation is used robustly, fully, in good faith and exhaustively to make sure that expensive appeals are only necessary as a last resort, rather than as the default, for managing demand in a broken system.

I know that this Government are very aware of the challenges they are inheriting. Along with so many others, SEND provision will fall to this new Government to put right. I want to thank the Minister in advance for the leadership I know she will show on this issue, and I want to thank colleagues across the House, too, for their attendance. Whatever party, whatever seat, I look forward to working with all of them to hold our local partnerships to account to deliver on what is within their gift, and to work with our new Minister nationally to deliver on Labour’s commitments to finally get on top of SEND provision.