Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 1, new clause 2 and amendment 2, all in my name. The amount of time afforded to the Education Select Committee to undertake detailed scrutiny of the Bill was very limited. We were able to undertake just one evidence session on part 2, and we deliberately sought not to duplicate the evidence taken by the Public Bill Committee. We therefore took limited evidence on the changes to the role of local authorities in school place planning and admissions.

I speak, however, as an MP whose constituents have suffered the consequences of the fragmentation of admissions policies and place planning over the past 14 years. That has resulted in school places sometimes being delivered in areas where they were not needed, undermining other local schools; our councils struggling to ensure the delivery of school places that were needed, particularly for children with special educational needs and disabilities; and local places at a very popular local school being allocated not to local families but to children across a wide area of south-east London. I therefore wholeheartedly support the attempts in the Bill to restore coherence to admissions and place planning through the role of local authorities.

I also support the measures to reduce the cost of school uniform for families by limiting the number of branded items, which are a really significant cost of living pressure for families. However, I encourage the Government to keep a careful watch on how this requirement is being complied with, particularly in relation to the cost of blazers, having heard of one appalling example in my constituency of a very vulnerable child who had been allocated a place at a good school but was told she could not attend until she was wearing a blazer, the cost of which was over £100—way beyond the means of her family. I know the Minister will agree that no child should be shut out of the classroom because their family cannot afford the right clothes for them to wear, and that that is the intention of the Bill, but the monitoring of the detail will be important.

I also welcome the measures in the Bill to introduce a register of home-educated children. While home education is the right option for some children who are well supported to receive education at home, the number of children going missing from the education radar, out of sight and without any regulation of the quality of the education they are receiving, and sometimes coming to harm, as in the horrific recent case of Sara Sharif, is deeply concerning. The measures in the Bill will help to address this.

The Education Committee welcomes the introduction of breakfast clubs in the Bill, which will help to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, but we also heard compelling evidence of the importance of school lunches for the poorest children. Around one in 10 children who are eligible for free school meals do not claim them because their parents or carers do not complete the administrative process. This can be because of difficulties with the administrative process itself, lack of awareness about the entitlement, or language barriers. Children from non-white backgrounds are more likely to be unregistered.

This under-registration has impacts on schools too, since the ability of schools to draw down pupil premium funding is linked directly to the registration of eligible children for free school meals. I am talking about the existing entitlement, not a new spending commitment. The benefits of free school meals for children’s health and wellbeing and their ability to learn are clear, and are being seen in local authorities that are already auto-enrolling eligible children, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and some London boroughs. In London, the benefits are pupil premium receipts for schools because the Mayor of London is already funding universal free school meals.

Research from the Food Foundation found that, while local authorities were successful in their mission to reduce the number of eligible children missing out on free school meals, it was a difficult and resource-intensive task, and the data sharing between relevant authorities necessary to register children automatically was not straightforward. The local authorities piloting auto-enrolment have called for central Government to step in and help. The Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for children already eligible for free school meals. This recommendation would ensure that between 200,000 and 250,000 additional families with the poorest children in our country, who are already eligible, will receive the meals to which they are entitled. That recommendation is reflected in new clause 1, and I hope the Government will choose to support it today.

I turn to amendment 2. The Committee took evidence on breakfast clubs. We heard about the benefits of them both in ensuring that children do not start the school day hungry, and in relation to the opportunity afforded a child to settle gently into the school day and play with their friends. We also heard about the need for breakfast to be provided on a flexible basis, so that children whose families are unable to get them to school early. who may be among the most vulnerable children, do not miss out on this vital meal.

The Committee has heard extensive evidence in our inquiry on special educational needs and disability about the difficulties that families of disabled children have in finding childcare and accessing extracurricular activities. To that end, it is vital that children with SEND can access breakfast clubs on an equal footing with their peers. This may involve additional costs, particularly in relation to home-to-school transport and the need to have specialist staff on site at the time of the breakfast club. I welcome the fact that the early adopters programme includes about 50 specialist schools, but the inclusion of children with SEND in breakfast clubs in mainstream schools is also essential, and I hope the Government are looking closely at the early adopters and at any additional support that may be needed to ensure that. Amendment 2 would ensure that children with SEND were able to access breakfast clubs, and I hope the Government will support it.

Finally, I turn to new clause 2. This is a very large Bill covering many areas of policy, and it is being taken through this House very quickly and was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. There have been a large number of Government amendments at a late stage, and a number of measures in the Bill will be contingent on Government policies that are not in the Bill for their success, including the curriculum and assessment review, the reforms to the Ofsted assessment framework and the work of the child poverty taskforce.

New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to conduct regular reviews of the impact of this Act and to publish reports. I would anticipate that such reviews would show a positive impact of this legislation. Having a clear monitoring and reporting mechanism is good practice, particularly for a Bill of this size that has been delivered so quickly. I welcome the intention behind this Bill and the measures it contains. I look forward to supporting it this evening, and my Committee looks forward to playing a constructive role in scrutinising its impact in the months and years to come.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, some of which have been well considered and delivered powerfully—others less so. This Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards. That has to be the right of every child, delivered through excellent teaching and leadership, a high-quality curriculum, and a system that removes the barriers to learning that hold too many children back, all underpinned by strong and clear accountability. This Bill delivers the legislative elements of the broader vision that we are determined to deliver. As part of that, from next term free breakfast clubs will start being rolled out in early adopter schools across the country, including special schools and alternative provision settings. Members who tabled amendments 2, 219 and 220 are right that it is critical that the new breakfast clubs are accessible for children with special educational needs and disabilities. All pupils, including those with SEND and those in special schools, are already in the existing drafting of the clause. The need to get this right is why we are testing, and learning through, the early adopter programme.

On amendments 214, 215, 217 and 218, it is important to be clear on the distinction between food-only options being “alongside” or “instead of” the breakfast clubs. The club is as important as the breakfast. It gives children a settled start to the day and will secure improvements in attendance and behaviour, so the right approach is to legislate to give schools certainty of the minimum they need to provide and to work with early adopters to see how schools can maximise attendance at these clubs. To promote food-only offers may risk undermining the club element.

Let us be clear: we inherited a shameful legacy from the previous Government. Compared with when Labour last left office, 700,000 more children are growing up with their lives and life chances scarred by poverty. Children cannot achieve or thrive if the stressors and strains of growing up in poverty—of seeing their parents worried about putting food on the table, of being concerned about their younger siblings or whether their friends will judge them for not having the basics—are put on their shoulders. I know my hon. Friends share the Government’s concern for those children and their futures. We have set up the child poverty taskforce chaired by my right hon. Friends the Education Secretary and the Work and Pensions Secretary to look at how we can work across Government to tackle the causes and impacts of poverty on children’s lives.

The support the Government provide through their school food programmes to enable families to access healthy, nutritious food is being considered as part of that work. It is right that these considerable reforms, such as extending universal infant free school meals to all primary pupils, are considered through this route in a holistic way. Alongside the work of the taskforce, we are making progress to make it easier for families to access their entitlements, and I recognise the concern that right hon. and hon. Members have for children missing out.

The Government are pressing ahead with making it quicker and easier for families and local authorities to get children signed up for free school meals with our new eligibility checking system, which allows parents to check their eligibility and supports the local efforts we have seen to ensure that children receive that support. Further, I can confirm that our officials are working with the Government Digital Service in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore options on further data sharing to get more families signed up for their entitlements. We expect to have those provisions in place from next year, well ahead of the academic year beginning in September 2026.

Our officials are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to explore options on supporting enrolment through universal credit. My Department will monitor the impact of those policies and engage with local authorities to assess the impact of the changes on the uptake of free school meals. I would be happy to update the House on that work and write to the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), by way of doing so.

[Helen Hayes]

The Minister has set out the Government’s commitment to increasing the take-up of free school meals for children who are already eligible, as well as a number of practical measures the Government are taking to make registration easier. On the basis of what she has said today, I am content not to push my new clause 1 to a vote. However, the Select Committee will continue to closely monitor the take-up of free schools meals. Should the progress that the Minister expects to see be lacking, we will come back and press the issue of auto-enrolment again with her and expect that she looks at it again.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her diligence both in her role as Chair of the Select Committee and on this issue in particular. We want children to receive the entitlements that will transform their life chances. Indeed, we will work closely with her Committee to ensure that we communicate well with the House on those important issues.

Our determination to deliver better life chances for our children does not stop there. As well as free breakfast clubs, we are delivering the holiday activities and food programme, enabling disadvantaged children and children identified by their local authorities to access healthy food and enriching activities in the school holidays. We will go further by supporting every child to achieve and thrive, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, and by putting money back in their parents’ pockets.

Another part of that picture is the sad increase in childhood obesity, which, unfortunately, the Conservative party did very little to address. We must ensure that, alongside clubs and activities, the food that children have at school is healthy and balanced, and embeds healthy eating habits. We must ensure compliance with school food standards. With reference to new clause 6, we are working with the Food Standards Agency to take forward the findings of the 2022-23 compliance pilot on how best to tackle the barriers identified. On new clause 54, I can confirm that the Government will continue to publish comprehensive data on free school meals, and on the holiday activities and food programme, to ensure that our approach is informed by the best available evidence.

Tackling child poverty is imperative for the Government and for our society. It goes beyond the provision of food to putting money back in families’ pockets, giving them choice and agency in ensuring that their children are set up for the future. Our action to cut the cost of school uniform is just another part of that picture. We are taking steps to cut the cost for families and put money back in their pockets. I know that hon. Members share the desire to reduce the cost of sending children to school, but a monetary cap, as proposed in amendment 1, would increase burdens and could create new financial penalties for schools.

For schools, that would mean having to review uniform policies annually to ensure that branded items are still within the cost cap, and, as a result, it could mean that they change their uniforms more frequently to remain within the cap. They would also have to review and possibly renegotiate contracts with suppliers more frequently. For parents, more frequent changes in uniform could increase the overall number of branded items that they have to buy while their child is at school. It could affect their ability to pass uniforms down as second-hand, and could increase their reliance on specific suppliers.

Our proposals provide clarity and certainty for schools and will enable parents to have greater choice in where they buy uniforms. Amendment 191 risks undermining that parental choice. Nothing prevents schools from providing branded items at a lower cost than generic alternatives and offering them as optional items. Under current VAT rules, all children’s clothing and footwear designed for children under 14, including school uniforms, already attracts a zero rate of VAT, which covers the intention of new clause 12.

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), we encourage schools to use sew-on badges, with a school name or logo, as a cost-effective way to brand uniform items. We want to give parents absolute clarity on what the limit means for them. That is why we have included those items, plus a tie, in the three-item limit for secondary education.

Let me turn to amendments 4, 13 and 14, and 16. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for her intention to provide clarity on the interpretations of “suitable education” and “suitable arrangements”. It is important that there be consistency across local authorities in how they approach that. However, the amendments are not needed. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 is already clear that education must be suitable to a child’s age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they have. I want to reassure Members that we will make clear in statutory guidance for local authorities everything that they have to consider under section 7 when they are making decisions about the suitability of education.