Budget Resolutions
Helen Hayes Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. The economic inheritance from the last 14 years could hardly have been any worse. Conservative Governments have serially undermined our public services: they stripped them of funding, made it harder to deliver and demoralised dedicated public servants. The impact of their political choices could not have been clearer. In multiple crises, which spanned from our NHS and social care to local authority services, schools, prisons, policing and criminal justice, housing and universities, instead of reinvesting to rebuild, they promised billions of pounds of entirely unfunded tax cuts in a desperate bid to cling on to power. They have been the vandals of our public services and our economy, and they have left this new Labour Government with a colossal and daunting task to restore and rebuild.
I welcome the Budget, which seeks to fix the foundations and begin the restoration that is needed. I regret that the actions of the previous Government mean that the road to recovery is so long. The additional £1 billion in the Budget for SEND is as welcome as it is essential. The crisis in the SEND system is the biggest current challenge in the education system, with far-reaching consequences for children and families who are being let down, schools that cannot meet the needs of their pupils, and local authorities that are being driven to the edge of bankruptcy by the costs. I urge the Government to ensure that SEND remains at the forefront of discussions in the comprehensive spending review, because £1 billion, while welcome, is only a third of the current in-year deficit in the SEND budget. The statutory override, which protects local authority general fund accounts from SEND deficits, is due to come to an end in March 2026, and local authorities will soon need certainty about what will happen after that date. Without a clear plan, more local authorities will be issuing section 114 notices—that is not something that the Government can allow to happen.
As a constituency MP, I want to use my remaining time to raise two other issues arising from the Budget. The additional funding for the NHS is desperately needed. The allocation for individual areas and health trusts has not yet been made. I want to make a particular plea for capital funding for King’s College hospital. King’s is currently facing severe financial challenges, which it is working hard to address, but that is made harder by a lack of funding for the essential equipment that staff need to increase productivity and deliver the services that patients need.
Finally, while the additional injection of £100 million for social housing in London and changes to the regulations on right to buy are welcome, the crisis in London is so deep that the Government must turn their attention to the local housing allowance, which must keep pace with rents in London to avoid even more families being forced into temporary accommodation, with knock-on consequences for local authority budgets.
The Budget seeks to fix the foundations and undo the damage that the Conservatives have done. There is much more to do, but the Budget is a very welcome first step on the road. I am pleased to vote for it today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Hayes Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Gareth Thomas
As I have said in response to previous questions, we are looking at that with Treasury colleagues. In opposition, we made commitments to introduce a fairer business rates system. Work on that is being led by Treasury colleagues, who will bring forward proposals in due course.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Becky Gittins (Clwyd East) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)
Forty-seven per cent of the United Kingdom’s total trade is with the European Union, and improving trade is a central part of the Government’s ambition to reset our relationship with Europe. Ministers have already been engaging positively on trade issues with our EU and member state counterparts, including EU Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis, German Vice-Chancellor Habeck and Italian Minister Tajani. The Government are seeking the practical changes needed to ensure smoother trade between the United Kingdom and Europe—for example, on mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which have already been mentioned.
Helen Hayes
Goods exports to the European Union are still 11% lower than in 2019, before the Brexit agreement took effect. Can the Minister confirm that, in seeking to grow the UK economy, the Government will take an evidence-based approach to the UK’s trading relationship with our nearest neighbours, and will take all possible measures to remove the barriers to trade that are holding our country back?
Mr Alexander
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her observation on the character of trade in recent years. There has been better performance on services than on goods, but she is absolutely right to recognise the fall in goods trade with the European Union. Overall trade since 2018 has essentially flatlined. That is why the Government are determined to reset our relationship with the European Union more broadly. Within that broader objective, we will look specifically at the border in order to achieve less friction for trade.
Auditory Verbal Therapy
Helen Hayes Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Thank you for stepping into the breach this morning, Dame Maria. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for securing the important debate, and I pay tribute to AV UK for its work on supporting deaf children, children with hearing loss, and some of the families here today, who have had such a positive experience of auditory verbal therapy.
As the hon. Member said, auditory verbal therapy is an evidence-based approach, and I am grateful to her for setting out the evidence base for its effectiveness. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for setting out some of the detail of how the system for supporting deaf children and children with hearing loss works in Scotland.
There are an estimated 50,000 deaf children in the UK, with around 7,200 under the age of five. Given the right support and intervention, many deaf children can participate fully and thrive in mainstream schools, whether they choose to use spoken language, sign language or both. There is a particular responsibility to get our special educational needs and disabilities system of support right, especially by designing interventions to support children who need not suffer any other disadvantage in the education system if the support they need is provided appropriately from the start.
Unfortunately, as today’s debate has shown, that is not the case in many parts of the country. Research by the Education Policy Institute found a staggering attainment gap between deaf children and their peers. That gap already equates to 8.8 months of learning by key stage 1, and it grows throughout school to 17.5 months at the age of 16—almost a year and half of education. That translates into an average grade for GCSE English and maths that is 1.3 grades below the average grade for deaf children’s peers. Deaf children are also more likely to experience poor mental health, bullying and social exclusion, all posing further barriers to their education and personal development. Alongside each child are the parents and carers who all too often have to fight constantly for the support their child needs.
Although the number of deaf children in education has risen by more than 10,000 since 2011, the number of qualified teachers of the deaf in employment has fallen by 19%, according to the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education. Specialist teachers for the deaf and specialist teaching assistants perform vital work to help their students access education. I witnessed that on a recent visit to Jubilee Primary School in Lambeth, just outside my constituency, which benefits from a full-time teacher of the deaf. However, teachers of the deaf are facing ever-growing case loads, reducing the time they can spend with each individual child.
Labour wants to see a properly inclusive system that meets the needs of all children and young people, including deaf children and children with hearing loss. We have been clear that we would put inclusion at the heart of our education system, with a focus on providing the interventions that are needed earlier and on ensuring that school staff have the specialist skills they need to meet every child’s needs. It is also vital that families get the support they need as early as possible, before their children start school, to help them communicate with their children and to develop their children’s language and communication skills.
Help that is provided early in a child’s life can be transformative, avoiding the need for much greater support later, and helping more children to thrive in mainstream education. Across the country, guidance and support for parents varies greatly between local authorities. We know that deaf children in more disadvantaged areas experience a greater attainment gap than their peers elsewhere in the country. There is a wealth of low-cost interventions already being delivered in some parts of the country to give parents and families the skills they need to support their child’s development and communicate with them. This needs to happen everywhere. These include courses in British Sign Language offered by the National Deaf Children’s Society, and Auditory Verbal UK’s approach to developing spoken language through listening.
I know there are families and young people in the Gallery today who have really benefited from auditory verbal support. Labour wants to see the right support for every child, and it is important that we learn from evidence and best practice, and understand what is working for families in areas of the country that manage to achieve the very best outcomes. We are looking carefully at this, and we are looking at the wider framework of SEND support from early years throughout education, involving early intervention, especially with communication, speech and language skills. We are also looking at the skills available to professionals working in mainstream education and at how the Ofsted assessment framework for schools can be used to drive improved inclusivity across our system. Within a transformed framework for SEND support, we will look to ensure that evidence-based interventions are available wherever they are needed.
I want to use this opportunity to press the Minister on the wider issue of how the Government plan to improve inclusion in mainstream schools, as set out in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan. As I have set out, the Opposition share the ambition to improve inclusion in the mainstream, but the Government have not set out a clear plan to achieve it. There is no workforce plan or strategy to ensure that schools have the specialist staff needed, including teachers of the deaf, while much of the plan will not come into effect until 2026, leaving families waiting three years longer before they will see any reform. It will be helpful to know what the Minister is doing now to address the vacancy gap for teachers of the deaf.
The Labour party is clear that in government we would put children first and at the heart of our programme, and break down the barriers that hold far too many back from thriving in education and building strong relationships, including deaf children. We would be working with professionals, children and families to deliver a SEND system that works to support the needs of every child.