Local Authority Children’s Services

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, for what I think is the third time in three days—I feel very blessed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) on securing this important debate, on his incredibly moving speech and on all his hard work and advocacy in this area. Woking is extremely lucky to have somebody fighting its corner as he does.

Too many families in rural areas face a system that they feel is too distant, too fragmented and increasingly under strain. Local authorities’ budgets are under immense pressure, particularly in rural areas, where delivering support is inherently more expensive. Delivering children’s services in rural areas costs more, sustainable buildings are harder to find, connectivity is weaker and long distances make everything from early intervention to crisis support more complex and expensive.

The funding formulas rarely account for those challenges. Per child expenditure varies hugely between authorities, with some spending three and a half times more per child than other areas. I welcome the Government’s commitment to invest £500 million to rebuild family services under the Best Start umbrella and the creation of Best Start family hubs, but children in rural constituencies like West Dorset need safe, accessible family spaces for children’s services to take place. Local authorities should be empowered to retrofit vacant buildings, such as the stationmaster’s house at Sherborne station, into family hubs that meet local needs, rather than centralised services that can be miles away.

I also welcome the extension of the adoption and special guardianship support fund into 2026-27, but short-term extensions are not enough. Children with complex needs cannot thrive without the certainty of long-term therapeutic support. The Koru Project, a local charity providing vital support in Dorset, warns that without long-term funding, children cannot receive the care they need. It has shared heartbreaking cases: a young girl in her fourth care placement who relies on her therapist as her only stable relationship; and another child, with severe additional needs, who sees therapy as her only safe space.

Professionals agree that, in complex cases, long-term Government support is vital. One constituent, Brenda, is a blind adopter raising a teenager with FASD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and developmental trauma. Specialist therapy funded through the scheme has helped her daughter to regulate her emotions and engage with her education, health and care plan. Kate and Dave, who care for two children with overlapping needs, face constant anxiety because, although assessments can be funded, the ongoing therapy that professionals say is essential cannot.

Local authorities must have stable, predictable funding and proper support and guidance from central Government to meet those challenges. That means recognising rurality in the funding formula, ending short-term fixes and ensuring that access to services does not depend on a postcode. Children in West Dorset and in rural communities across the country deserve services that are stable, accessible and fair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) for securing this important debate and for his tireless dedication to ensuring that what happened to Sara Sharif never, ever happens to another child again.

We have heard a range of contributions today, and I want to start by saying that children’s services in local authorities across the country play a vital, statutory role in ensuring that all children, including the most vulnerable, receive the support and education that every child deserves and needs. Like the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), I pay tribute to those working on the frontline, who are often overworked, underpaid and under-thanked. They deserve our thanks, notwithstanding the systemic and structural failures.

As many hon. Members said, many local authorities face deep funding challenges. For some local authorities, that is exacerbated by what has been called the fair funding review. I fear we will see short-term decisions that ultimately cost the taxpayer more in the long run. The Liberal Democrats have always argued that we should see spending on supporting our children as an investment in our future—our society’s future and our economy’s future.

I will return to funding, but I now turn to where my hon. Friend the Member for Woking started. I listened to his powerful words about Sara’s story with tears in my eyes, and I was reminded that I felt similarly in May 2022, when the then Education Secretary—one Nadhim Zahawi—gave a statement in the main Chamber following the brutal deaths of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. As is always the case after such horrendous stories, we said, “Never again,” and he promised that lessons would be learned.

When the Children’s Commissioner gave evidence to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee last year, she said:

“Every time a child dies, we give exactly the same set of recommendations, including better multi-agency working and better join-up, yet time and again”—

including after Victoria Climbié, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Sara Sharif—

“we find ourselves saying the same things.”—[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 44, Q94.]

The Government must take action, and I welcome the fact that they are taking a number of steps in the right direction—I am very happy to acknowledge that. Last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and I met Professor Alexis Jay to discuss the findings of her review into child sexual abuse. She impressed upon me two points: the importance of a child protection authority and the importance of data sharing.

I am grateful that the Minister has now announced a child protection authority, and I hope he will set out a bit more on the timelines and implementation. On data sharing, which was so critical in Sara’s case, I welcome some of the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, not least the introduction of a single unique identifier. The Liberal Democrats strongly support that because we believe that proper data sharing between services will improve child safeguarding. I hope the Government will continue to address some of the concerns that have been raised about privacy and data sharing, given the Government’s record at times of data loss and being hacked. I raised with the Home Secretary a few weeks ago my fear that there are people outside this place who are scaremongering and suggesting that this is digital ID for children, when actually it is about how we safeguard children, provide better services, and commission better services and research to support them.

Another measure in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently in the other place, is the children not in school register. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking said, the Liberal Democrats have long supported such a register, so that vulnerable children do not disappear from the system. However, during the passage of the Bill we have repeatedly set out our concerns about the amount of information that has to be collected for that register. This is not just about the impact and intrusion on families; even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, in oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee, was circumspect about the amount of detailed information that home-educating parents will be expected to supply. I have talked to councillors and local government officials, and they are worried about the huge burden this will put on local authorities in meeting their new duties. If the Government are going to put these duties on local authorities, funding needs to follow, so that they are properly resourced to collect the data and implement the register.

That brings me back to funding. As we have heard, underfunding is a consistent theme in children’s services. I talked about children being an investment. Unfortunately, politics is such that Governments think in electoral cycles. The return on an investment in a young child is often not seen for 15 or 20 years, so it is very hard to make the case for that investment to the Treasury. The Minister has my sympathy and support in that.

In his independent review of children’s social care, the Minister said:

“What we have currently is a system increasingly skewed to crisis intervention, with outcomes for children that continue to be unacceptably poor and costs that continue to rise.”

I recognise that the Government announced a children’s social care prevention grant last year, but I am afraid that money pales into insignificance when we hear so starkly today from my hon. Friends, many of whom represent rural constituencies that are seeing deep funding cuts through the reallocation of local government funding following the fair funding review, that the most vulnerable will lose out.

It is not just rural areas, but London constituencies, too. Government Members often say to me, “You represent an affluent area.” Yes, on the whole I do, but that does not mean that deprivation, need and vulnerable children do not exist. My local authority in Richmond is one of the worst hit in the country—it will lose about £47 million of Government funding over the next four years—and it is those vulnerable children who will miss out. The pots of funding the Government are making available for children’s services are welcome, but when we offset that against the losses, we are going to see children suffer. It is a real shame that we are seeing this money taken away in London, because between 2010 and 2023, London boroughs saw an 11% reduction in the number of looked-after children, while England as a whole experienced a 30% increase. The changes to the children and young people’s services formula in London risk undoing the very good work we have seen London boroughs do to give our children the best start in life.

Obviously, I will always argue for more money to be spent on children’s services, but I recognise that there is not a magic money tree, and we face a difficult fiscal situation, not least as a result of the previous Conservative Government. There are ways that savings can be made. Early intervention is one of them, and I know the Minister is very supportive of that approach. There are a number of great measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, such as family group decision making. I ask the Minister to look at the amendments tabled in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness Tyler, who wants to ensure that local authorities have a duty to support parents after a child is taken away from them, so that they not only overcome the trauma and grief but make a lasting change. The data shows that half of newborns in care proceedings are born to mothers who have already been through proceedings with another child. We need to take action early to prevent the same thing from happening again.

A number of Labour and Liberal Democrat Members have talked about the eye-watering cost of private social care providers and fostering agencies, which are bleeding local authorities dry. I welcome the backstop power in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill for the Government to put a profit cap on children’s social care providers. I urge the Minister, as I have again and again: please extend the profit cap to private special schools, which are also bleeding our local authorities dry. When one school charges more than £100,000 a year in fees plus transport, while state-maintained alternatives do it for £25,000 for the same cohort, that is an obvious place that the Government can save money. The answer is capital investment in state-run specialist provision, in the same way that it is in state-run children’s care homes. I know the Government have already started on that, but they need to go further.

[Edward Morello]

My hon. Friend is making a wonderful point. It reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my council about a group of 10 to 15 parents with autistic children who definitely did not need to be in specialist schools and needed local provision. Because of the different pots of money, it was easier for the council to pay a private provider £100,000 and have the children travel 20 to 30 miles, because it could not afford the capital cost of £1.5 million to set up a local school. It wanted to do that, but it did not have the money, which disadvantages parents who now have kids travelling vast distances.

[Munira Wilson]

It is a familiar story, and I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

I am getting an indication from the Chair that I am already overrunning, so I will try to cut my last points short. The Minister is aware that I have long campaigned on kinship care. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill takes welcome steps forward, but there is much further to go. As he knows, putting a child with a family member in the short term is not just better for their long-term outcomes; it would save local authorities around 50% of the cost of putting them in care, even if they gave kinship carers allowances on a par with foster carers. That has to be an urgent cost-saving intervention. The Minister must also restore the adoption and special guardianship support fund grants, as we heard so clearly from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), who talked about the long-term impact.

I will conclude by quoting the Minister’s own words at him. In his review, he stated:

“How we care for our children is nothing short of a reflection of our values as a country.”

We have heard today that we are falling short on that. We stand ready to work across parties to ensure that his vision becomes reality.

Village Schools

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) for securing a debate on this important matter. I share her commitment to investment in education; it is at the core of our opportunity mission, which is why we continue to invest in schools.

We have heard from the hon. Member and others about the importance of rural schools. We recognise the essential role that rural schools play in their communities. We know that to preserve access for young children, local authorities may need to maintain more empty places in schools in rural areas than in urban areas. Small schools generally receive more funding per pupil than larger schools, in recognition of the circumstances that they face.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

The Minister says that rural schools receive more funding per pupil than urban schools, but one of my local headmasters, who previously taught in London, tells me that he received £10,000 per pupil in London but only £5,000 in West Dorset. That suggests that the Treasury funding model simply does not reflect the increased cost of living and of providing services in rural Britain. Will the Minister have conversations with the Treasury to get rurality included as a metric in its funding model?

[Georgia Gould]

The national funding formula accounts for the challenges faced by small schools in rural areas, both through the lump sum and through the sparsity factor. In 2025-26, primary schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £57,400, and all other schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £83,400. However, if the hon. Gentleman writes to me about the particular circumstances he raises, I will be very happy to look into them.

Today’s discussion has focused on the future of Great Alne primary school, a small rural school located on the edge of Great Alne, a village in Warwickshire. As I think the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon pointed out, it has been at the heart of the village for over 180 years, educating generations of families. It is known for its small class sizes and close-knit environment and offers a setting in which pupils receive individual attention. Its ethos, “responsible, respectful, ready”, reflects a commitment to nurturing well-rounded learners and positive values.

We believe that decisions about school closures always need careful reflection. They affect pupils, families and communities deeply. As part of this Government’s commitment to supporting every child to achieve and thrive, we want to ensure that every child has access to high-quality education in a sustainable setting. Great Alne primary school serves children aged between four and 11. It has an operational capacity of 105 places, but currently only 21 pupils are on roll, so just 20% of the available places are being used.

The Department has set out guidance to local authorities to support them in carefully considering whether school closure is appropriate. The local authority considers that it has followed the guidance and has actively sought to keep the school open. As the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon knows, the local authority has now progressed to the stage of consulting stakeholders on potential closure proposals.

Local authorities must ensure sufficient school places and manage the school estate efficiently. When school capacity data shows limited capacity in the immediate area for some year groups, the local authority has confirmed that spaces are available in neighbouring areas for any displaced pupils.

Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

Edward Morello Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Bennett]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he makes an excellent point. A lack of long-term funding will put people off adopting children or taking children into kinship care. It also risks putting providers off providing support.

Ministers have insisted that the fund has not been cut, but that is because the overall pot has remained unchanged. For children and families, however, the reality is very different. Individual allowances have been reduced. The per-child therapy limit has been slashed from £5,000 to £3,000, which is a 40% cut, and the separate £2,500 allowance for assessments has gone. Match funding for complex cases has ended.

Families now face impossible choices; they can have therapy or assessment, but not both. One provider put it bluntly, saying:

“It’s like asking a garage to fix a car without first checking what the problem is.”

This situation is a waste of time and money, and the consequences are already being felt. Children have had their therapy stopped abruptly while applications were resubmitted. Families have endured months-long gaps without support. Parents describe sharp declines in mental health, rising violence in the home, and children losing trust in professionals. One provider told me of a young child who was heartbroken to learn that their therapy was ending. They asked:

“If I save up my pocket money, can I keep seeing you?”

That question should haunt us all; it certainly haunts me. It shows just how fragile trust is for children whose lives have already been shattered by trauma, and whose early years have been defined not by making the secure attachments that are so important for getting the right start in life. Relationships are everything; to pull away support is profoundly damaging.

The data backs that up. This year’s adoption barometer found that 42% of families reached crisis point in 2024; 77% said that it feels like a continual struggle to get the help their child needs; and 65% experience violent or aggressive behaviour from their child. I know that there are parents behind me in the Public Gallery who have experienced violence from their children this very week. And in Kinship’s 2024 survey, more than one in eight kinship carers expressed the fear that they might not be able to continue caring for their children.

Meanwhile, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy has warned that these 40% cuts per child will have a

“negative and long-lasting impact.”

That seems to be putting it mildly. Families, providers, experts and children themselves all say the same thing—these cuts are devastating. It is not just the children and their families who will pay the price; the Treasury will, too. There will be placement breakdowns, more children in care, more exclusions, more antisocial behaviour and more long-term damage. All these things cost the state money. The cost of withdrawing support is far higher than the cost of sustaining it.

On top of the cuts there is the uncertainty, even with the extension announced today. Providers cannot plan and families are turned away. Experienced therapists have warned me that that will

“replicate the cycle of deprivation and abuse”

that these children have already suffered. What message do we send if we withdraw the one source of essential therapeutic support that children and families rely on?

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for the passion with which she speaks about this subject.

I wanted to raise the case of my constituent, Jean, an adoptive mother who cared for a son who has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and developmental trauma. I wanted to raise her case because, very sadly, Jean has died. Before she died, she had managed to arrange long-term support for her son. She obviously does not know it, but her son will lose that support in a year’s time. My question, on behalf of Jean and others in a similar situation, is this: what happens to her son, and to children in a similar situation, now?

[Alison Bennett]

My hon. Friend makes a profound contribution about how we treat the most vulnerable in our society. I do not think I have the answers to that question, but I thank him for raising it.

Adoption England has suggested reform to the fund. Devolving it to its regional agencies or local authorities is a possibility, but no consultation has taken place and pilots have not even begun. It would be reckless to make major structural changes before the evidence is in, and it would risk leaving children and families in deeper crisis. That is why we were particularly glad to hear this morning that the Department will engage with families and providers.

Charities such as Adoption UK, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies UK, Coram, Kinship, Barnardo’s and the Family Rights Group are calling for urgent action. They are calling for, first, a permanent ringfenced fund; secondly, a comprehensive review of the April changes; thirdly, a full public consultation on any future reforms—the engagement promised must be meaningful; and fourthly, a two-year moratorium on further changes so that reforms can be evidence-based, not rushed. We should be supporting vulnerable children and encouraging adoptive parents to keep doing what they are doing by providing the necessary support for therapy—not least because in 2021 alone adoptive parents saved the UK economy £4.2 billion.

I will end with four questions for the Minister. First, what concrete reassurance can she give children, families and providers about the long-term future of the fund? April’s announcement came too late and caused avoidable harm, and today’s remains short term. Will the Government commit to doing better this time?

Secondly, can the Minister assure us that the equality impact assessment was considered as part of the development process for the changes made to the fund that were announced in April, as per the requirements of the Equality Act 2010? Will she undertake to share the relevant documents to support that?

Thirdly, can the Minister explain how the decision to cut funding available through the ASGSF aligns with the Department’s wider efforts to increase the uptake among eligible kinship families and grow the use of the kinship care arrangements?

Fourthly, will the Minister acknowledge that cutting the support will cost far more—socially, emotionally and financially to the taxpayer—in the years to come? The adoption and special guardianship support fund is a vital lifeline for vulnerable children and their adoptive families. It is not a luxury. The Government must change course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Morello Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

We are investing record sums in our state schools. The Conservative party, however, wants to take money out of our state schools to give tax breaks back to private schools. That tells us everything we need to know about their priorities.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

The headteacher of the Thomas Hardye school in West Dorset previously worked in a London school. He told me that in London he received nearly £10,000 per pupil, but in West Dorset nearly £5,000—yet the challenges of rural education are no less complex, not least in the recruitment of teachers. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to address the funding inequalities facing rural schools, to ensure that all pupils receive the teaching they deserve?

Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

Absolutely; we need to make sure that there is full consultation and involvement so that people and parents feel that their voices are being heard. My hon. Friend has pre-empted me: I am now moving on to EHCPs, which is convenient.

This Government are clear that the current SEND system is difficult for parents, carers and young people to navigate and is simply not delivering the outcomes we want. While we have announced that the details of our long-term approach to SEND reform will be set out in the schools White Paper in the autumn, we are clear that any changes we make will improve the support available to families, stop parents having to fight for support, and protect the effective provision that is currently in place.

We know that many parents feel the only way their child can get the support they need is through EHCPs. However, independently commissioned insights published last year showed that extensive improvements to the system using early intervention and better resourcing of mainstream schools could have a significant impact.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I am grateful for the Minister stressing the importance of support for children with SEND. At Dorset studio school in West Dorset, 52% of children have SEND—children who would struggle in mainstream education. Funding for improvements to its site was agreed in 2023, but has still not been released. Could the Minister say anything about that?

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Member for sharing that information. I will ask the Minister for Early Education to contact him.

There will always be a legal right to the additional support that children with SEND need, and it will be protected. This Government are prepared to grasp the nettle and reform a broken system set up by the Conservatives, which, as we heard, they themselves described as, “Lose, lose, lose.” We will ensure that every child in this country gets the opportunity to achieve and thrive at school and to get on in life. We are carefully considering how to address and improve the experience of the EHCP process for families and are reflecting on what practices could or should be made consistent nationally. We are fully committed to working with families, experts and the sector to ensure that our approach is fully planned and delivered in partnership with them.

Further Education Institutions

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Anna Dixon]

I want to make some progress. There have been recent innovations in further education with the introduction of T-levels. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I contributed to the inquiry that found that T-levels are a great option for many students, and it would be great to see them rolled out further, but that there are significant teething problems. T-level students attend three full days at college and, generally, two full days in placement. It is, in my view, far more demanding than three A-levels. However, finding suitable work placements can be challenging. While colleges welcome the greater flexibility that is given in where and how these requirements are fulfilled, there is a clear need for employers to be incentivised to offer such work placements to students.

Teacher shortages are also a huge problem for colleges, particularly when trying to attract people from the high-priority skill sectors that we have mentioned, such as digital and construction. The Public Accounts Committee also looked at teacher numbers and concluded that further education teacher shortages put the achievement of the Government’s missions for opportunity and growth at risk.

[Edward Morello]

rose—

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

rose—

[Anna Dixon]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello).

[Edward Morello]

The hon. Member mentioned two points relating to staffing that are extremely important. Often, further education colleges, such as Kingston Maurward college in my constituency, also provide higher education qualifications, but pay for staff, especially specialist staff, tends to be higher in higher education institutions than in further education, which makes it difficult for them to recruit. Does the hon. Member think the Government need to address that pay disparity?

[Anna Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point—I was about to come on to the pay gap between teachers in schools and those in further education colleges. Teachers in further education colleges earn an average of £8,000 a year less than schoolteachers. I was not aware of the gap with higher education, but it is clearly important that there is a level playing field so that they can attract and retain teachers.

Early Years Providers: Government Support

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for securing this important and timely debate—I am sure she intended it to fall in the week when the Secretary of State announced the roll-out of Best Start centres. I also pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her ongoing advocacy for children, parents and early years providers up and down the country, often using her personal experiences to impress the importance of getting this right. Her commitment to the early years is noted across the House. She has also highlighted that early years providers span not just nurseries, but pre-schools, maintained nurseries, childminders, independent nurseries and in-school nurseries as well.

Quality early years education is the single best investment that any Government can make in the future of our society. It supports children’s development at a critical stage of their lives and lays the groundwork for future educational attainment, wellbeing and opportunity. It also matters enormously for families. Flexible and affordable childcare is not just a convenience; it is a vital part of the country’s economic and social infrastructure. With the UK’s statutory parental pay among the lowest in the OECD, parents are often having to choose an early years provider earlier than they might like in order to return to work.

The Government’s plans to expand the 30 hours free childcare entitlement have received broad support across the House, and rightly so. However, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether the ambition will be matched with realism. Is he confident that the promise will be delivered? Many providers are already struggling to keep their doors open. In 2023, half of them reported that their income did not cover basic operating costs, and that is before factoring in the Government’s increases to national insurance contributions and the national living wage.

In real terms, the average funding for three to four-year-olds is still below where it was in 2016. While the headlines about expanded entitlement sound impressive, and are no doubt welcome across the country, we have to ask whether it is enough to keep the sector afloat.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

Over the weekend, I was at a village fête. I will not name the primary school, but I was approached by the head, who told me that with the expansion of the number of hours and the rate that they are being paid, the school will close within 18 months. Even though, by the standards of its sector, it had a reasonable buffer going into this, the cost of delivering the service is not matched by Government funding. This village will lose a vital service as a result.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend raises a valid and important point that has been made in various contributions to this debate. At the start of this week, I spent my morning at Fishbourne pre-school. It does not have a lovely name like the Bears or the Acorns—I am quite jealous, actually—but it is a brilliant, popular, charity-run pre-school that is doing everything it can to serve local families.

I was covered in shaving foam the moment I walked through the door. There were activities, messy play and free play going on everywhere. We had a lovely “Wind the Bobbin Up” in the forest school, but I also took the opportunity to talk to the manager of the pre-school. She told me very plainly that, under the new arrangements, not only will their funding model be affected, but they will end up taking fewer children overall. The demand is there—they are already at capacity—but this change will mean that they can serve fewer families in the Fishbourne area.

I think that is what my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) was alluding to: in those rural areas where there is not a huge amount of choice, and just one local service provider, if they can take on fewer children, where are the others meant to go?

Department for Education

Edward Morello Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

The future of our country is being shaped every day in our classrooms, yet we are failing too many children, too many families and too many schools in places like West Dorset because the Government funding formula relies too heavily on deprivation as a metric, and fails to recognise the very real challenges that rural schools face with transport, staffing, access to specialist services, and the additional pressures of isolation.

I recently spoke to the headteacher of Thomas Hardye school in Dorchester, who had previously worked at a school in London. He told me that schools in London receive about £10,000 per pupil. In West Dorset, he has to manage with close to £5,000 per pupil, yet the challenges of delivering education in rural areas are not fewer. In many cases, they are far greater.

Dorset studio school in my constituency serves students from all over Dorset, and 52% of its pupils have special educational needs and disabilities—more than three times the national average. Some 11% have education, health and care plans. These children struggle in mainstream settings, and they need specialist support, skilled teachers and facilities that meet their needs, yet Dorset studio school operates in an outdated building without the most basic facilities. There is neither a hall nor a canteen, and there are no proper changing areas or specialist classrooms. Many pupils with EHCPs cannot access the one-to-one support that they require because of cramped, inadequate spaces, and children with physical disabilities cannot easily move around buildings. In February 2023, funding for the rebuild was finally secured, but delays—including a general election, revised costings and administrative hold-ups—mean that the money has still not been released. Contractors remain on hold, while the staff, parents and pupils remain in limbo. I urge the Government to release the funding, because every day that goes by is another day when these children are not getting the education they deserve.

Many families in West Dorset rely on the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which has been a lifeline for some of the most vulnerable children. These are children who have faced trauma, loss and instability, and who need specialist therapeutic support to heal and thrive, but even this fund has faced cuts and uncertainty. In recent months, adoptive parents, special guardians and kinship carers have feared that the fund would be scrapped, and it was only after sustained pressure that its continuation was confirmed. However, the fair access limit for therapy has been cut from £5,000 to £3,000, and funding for specialist assessments has been withdrawn entirely. Families who rely on consistent long-term care are now faced with an impossible choice, as multi-year funding is not available. We must prevent further cuts, and commit to supporting vulnerable children and their families properly.

Education spending is not just a budget. It is an investment in the next generation, in our country’s future, and in every child’s right to reach their full potential.

Adoption and Kinship Placements

Edward Morello Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Smith]

The hon. Gentleman takes the words right out of my mouth, and if he stays for the whole debate he will hear me say exactly that. He raises an important point: we are asking people to care for the most vulnerable children, and if we do not give them the tools to do that, they will not apply in the first place.

I am pleased to have secured this debate to shine a further light on the issue, highlight how the Government’s recent position is a false economy, and put further pressure on them to do the right thing and reverse the recent changes. Without access to the previous level of support offered through the fund, there is a real concern that the number of adopters will fall, and more children—including those with some of the most difficult and challenging stories—will face the long term in care, seeing their future massively impacted as a result.

Before I progress, I wish to pay tribute to the thousands of parents, guardians and carers across the country who have been fighting for children and young people in their care—those who are unable to live with their birth parents—and especially to those families in my constituency of South West Devon, some of whom I have met, and some who have written to me to share their experiences. They are all, rightly, incredibly worried about the impact of the cuts on the support that they previously received, and it is a privilege to be here to speak on their behalf.

I also place on record my thanks to the charities that have been campaigning against the recent changes to support for children in adoptive and kinship placements: Adoption UK, Coram, Kinship, Family Rights Group, and the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies to mention a few, as well as local adoption agencies such as Adopt South West, which serves families in my constituency and others in Devon and Cornwall. Their work has been especially powerful over the past couple of months as they have shared information with us and we have fought together.

The adoption and special guardianship support fund was set up under the Conservative Government in 2015 as a result of the Children and Families Act 2014, and it was designed to help families to access the specialist therapy services that they may need. Since the Adoption and Children Act 2002, adoptive families have had a right to an assessment of their adoption support needs by their local authority. However, the 2014 Act introduced a number of further measures to support adoptive families, including the fund. In 2023, the fund was expanded to include kinship care, enabling some children with special guardianship or child arrangements orders to qualify for support too. That was a solid legacy to work from.

Since July 2024, however, there has been a cloud of uncertainty over the future of the adoption and special guardianship support fund. Although it is a lifeline for thousands of vulnerable children, it was left hanging in the balance. Families were left wondering whether the therapeutic support that their children desperately need would vanish overnight.

In April, the Department for Education announced significant cuts to the fund. The annual therapy funding per child has been slashed from £5,000 to £3,000. The separate £2,500 allowance for specialist assessments has gone, match funding to support the most complex cases has gone, and the ability to carry support across financial years has also gone. That is a shocking 40% reduction in funding for the support that we all know is highly specialised and that, as a result, comes at a cost.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate, and I agree 100% with the point that she is making. Two constituents in West Dorset support two children with multiple needs—overlapping autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and significant trauma of the kind she mentioned. The funding for a one-off assessment remains, but the ongoing funding to support those children no longer exists, and that is a fundamental problem.

Educational Opportunities in Semi-rural Areas

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this important debate.

It should not be controversial to say that children and young people deserve an equal start in life, regardless of whether they grow up in a city, suburb or small rural village, but for those growing up in semi-rural or rural constituencies such as West Dorset, there are persistent and systematic barriers that too often get overlooked in national policy.

Young people in rural areas rely heavily on public transport to reach school, college, apprenticeships or work, yet bus services in rural Dorset are disappearing. Dorset received just £3.8 million in Government funding for the bus service improvement plan—less than a third of what Devon received, and the lowest funding in the south-west. For too many families, that means there is no bus at all.

That matters when we consider that, in 2023, 64% of children in rural villages, hamlets and isolated dwellings had to get to school by car, compared with just 28% in urban towns and cities. The cost of that travel is often unsustainable, particularly at the moment, during a cost of living crisis. For poorer families, in particular, the lack of affordable, reliable transport directly limits access to education.

Young people also need safe options to travel independently, but in rural areas that is often not possible. Although we need active travel and cycle to work and school schemes, we cannot ignore the fact that cycling on rural roads is disproportionately dangerous. Statistics show that cyclists are nearly twice as likely to be killed on rural roads than on urban ones.

Transport is only part of the picture. Children’s mental health matters too. In Dorset, CAMHS provision is centralised in one location—Dorchester. For a family living in Lyme Regis or Beaminster, that can mean travelling between 25 and 35 miles for help. That is not good enough. Poor mental health affects a child’s appetite to learn, make friends and participate in class. It can shape their entire educational experience.

Yet, rurality is not counted in the models that provide funding to our schools and services. The headteacher of the Thomas Hardye school in West Dorset previously worked in a London borough. He spoke to me yesterday and highlighted the difference: his previous school in London received approximately £10,000 per pupil; in West Dorset, it is closer to £5,000. Government funding formulas rely on deprivation metrics and overlook rurality, failing to reflect the challenges we face, such as transport, staffing and access to services. We are letting our parents, children and teachers down by not properly funding our schools.

Apprenticeships could help to fill the employment opportunity gaps in rural areas, but current funding arrangements do not take into account the additional costs faced by rural employers, such as transport and cost of materials.

Rurality should not be a barrier to aspiration. Young people in my constituency of West Dorset have every bit as much potential as those in cities, but potential needs opportunity, and opportunity needs investment. We must support our teachers, we must support our schools and we must support our children.