Reform of Children’s Social Care

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. The independent review of children’s social care rightly called for a “radical reset” of a system it described as

“skewed to crisis intervention, with outcomes for children that continue to be unacceptably poor and costs that continue to rise.”

The review was necessary because we have had more than a decade of the erosion of services for children and young people in which poverty and inequality have been increasing; preventive services have been stripped away, while the need for crisis interventions has rocketed; and Sure Start centres have closed, while private providers of children’s homes and foster placements have raked in huge profits and teenagers have been placed in unregulated care settings, where 29 have tragically died in the last five years.

I pay tribute to social workers, foster carers, kinship carers, youth workers, directors of children’s services and all who work with the most vulnerable children and their families and advocate for them, especially those who use their own, often painful, experiences of the care system to give voice to the needs of others. Across the country, they will be left asking of today’s plan, “Is this really it?” While some additional funding is welcome, this is not the radical reset that the review demanded and that we need. There is no vision for the direction of children’s social care. There is no ambition for our most vulnerable children. There is no cross-cutting commitment from the top of Government to deliver better for every child and every care-experienced person in every part of our country. This Government have spent months legislating to restrict the fundamental rights to protest and to strike, but they have chosen not to make time to legislate to strengthen protections for children.

The disadvantage and discrimination suffered by care-experienced people is a deep injustice, yet there is no plan of the scale and ambition needed to address the structural issues that fail them so appallingly. Kinship carers have been badly let down by a system that has never properly been designed to support them. While more support for kinship carers is welcome, this plan falls far short of what they need.

There is a workforce crisis in children’s social care, but there is no commitment to a broader workforce plan. Last year, the 20 biggest private providers of children’s homes and private foster placements made £300 million in profits. The Government’s own data shows that six in 10 councils are spending more than three quarters of their funding for residential placements with private providers—providers such as the Hesley Group, where a placement costs £250,000, but instead of high-quality care and support, children were subjected to horrific abuse. I welcome the consultation on national rules for the use of agency social workers, but where is the plan to end the grotesque profiteering in children’s social care and ensure that funding is always spent on the best-quality care and support?

Thirteen years of Conservative Government have been a disaster for our most vulnerable children and their families. Hundreds of thousands of children have grown up in a care system that has failed them. They will not get their childhood back. Does the Secretary of State think that today’s announcements will support improvements in the 43% of children’s services departments currently rated inadequate or requiring improvement? What will the impact be on kinship carers currently gripped by the cost of living crisis? How will the measures announced today deliver meaningful support to 16 and 17-year-olds currently placed in unregulated settings? What meetings has she had with other Government Departments whose policies play a role in the disadvantage and discrimination suffered by care-experienced people?

When will profiteering by providers of children’s homes and foster placements end? How will these piecemeal measures ensure that we see a transformative change in the way we support our most vulnerable children and that the aim of long-lasting, loving relationships for every child is the driving force at the heart of children’s services everywhere? Finally, does the Secretary of State really believe that this is enough?

[Gillian Keegan]

I think I made it clear that this is the start of the journey, to lay the foundations for wider whole-system reform. Many people have had good intentions in this area. Many initiatives have been started after a review. Many things have been tried, and many things have not worked. We need this to be evidence-led. These are very complex cases and situations, and we need evidence to see what really works, not just good intentions, which everybody has in this area. This is the start of that, through the implementation plan. We must put families at the heart of that and change the whole purpose of the system, which is not really focused on trying to get people the help they need, as opposed to just intervening and telling them what they ought to be doing. We need to help people in the first instance to stay with families.

The hon. Lady mentioned the work that had been done on local authority intervention and improvement. Every local authority has specific needs and circumstances, but we have done a lot of work in this area, including a programme to improve the performance of local authorities, which are key to delivering these services on the ground. Since 2017, the programme has provided immediate support to local authorities. The number of inadequate local authorities has gone from 30 down to 14, and the number of local authorities that are good or outstanding in this area has gone from 54 to 85.

For the first time, there is an investment in kinship carers, specifically in training and help to support them, and of course local authorities currently provide a wide range of support to kinship carers. The hon. Lady mentioned excessive profiteering by some children’s homes. We will be introducing a new financial oversight regime, because we are determined to make sure we cut that out. It is unacceptable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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

Childcare is essential social infrastructure that underpins our economy by supporting parents to work. Yet in 2022, more than 5,000 childcare providers closed, and more than half of all local authority areas saw a net loss of childcare places. The Government have admitted that they pay providers less than it costs them to deliver so-called free childcare places, and with energy bills and wages going up from April, many more providers are at risk of closure. A crisis in our early years sector is happening right now. What are the Government going to do to stop further childcare providers closing?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Actually, Ofsted data shows that the number of childcare places has remained broadly stable at 1.3 million since August 2015. At the spending review in 2021 we announced additional funding of £160 million in 2022-23, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25 compared with the 2021-22 financial year. That will allow local authorities to increase the hourly rates paid to childcare providers.

Childcare: Affordability and Availability

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate. The availability and affordability of childcare is a pressing issue for families right across our country, and it is right that we debate it in the House.

I am grateful to all the hon. Members who have attended this debate, especially the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who has spoken from his extensive experience as a former Cabinet member for children’s services. I am confident that had this not been the final Westminster Hall debate on the last sitting day before Christmas, more colleagues would have joined us. I know that this issue is presenting itself in Members’ inboxes and surgeries in many parts of the country.

Childcare is vital social infrastructure. It helps parents to work, it delivers early education to the youngest children and it underpins the growth of our economy. However, under this Government we have seen the cost of childcare rise, increasing numbers of providers closing their doors and an increasingly complex funding system for parents to navigate, resulting in low take-up of both subsidised two-year-old places and tax-free childcare.

The costs are eye watering. The latest release from Coram reports that the average cost of 25 hours a week in a nursery in England for a child under two is over £140. The same amount of time with a childminder is over £124. The cost for a child of two and over is more than £135 at a nursery, and £122 with a childminder. Those costs are averages so they can be significantly higher, particularly in London. Analysis by the TUC estimates that the cost of childcare for a child under the age of two has increased by £2,000 a year on average since 2010.

A survey by Pregnant then Screwed of 27,000 parents found that 62% reported that their childcare costs are now the same or more than their domestic costs, rising to 73% for lone parents. More than four in 10 mums reported that childcare costs had made them consider leaving their job, and 40% said that they had to work fewer hours than they would have liked because of the costs of childcare. Another survey found that almost a third of new parents said that the cost of childcare was preventing them from having any more children.

The Women’s Budget Group estimates that 1.7 million women are being held back from taking on more hours at work due to the cost of childcare, and recent data from the Office for National Statistics has shown that for the first time in decades, the number of women leaving the workforce to look after family is increasing—it is up by 12.6% in the last year. The unaffordability of childcare is also placing strain on grandparents, many more of whom are now giving up work or reducing their hours—not simply to spend time enjoying their grandchildren but to step in effectively to provide formalised childcare.

The Government’s funding model is undoubtedly part of the problem. Parents can access help with childcare costs from a wide range of sources, depending on their circumstances and the age of their children. The subsidy for two-year-olds is means-tested, but some of the subsidy for three and four-year-olds is applicable only to working households. Some funding is provided through the benefits system, and some through the tax system. There is significant unclaimed funding for childcare because the system is so complicated and confusing for parents to navigate, and the Work and Pensions Committee report published today highlights serious flaws with the universal credit childcare costs element, which really is not working for the families who need it. The amount of funding claimed through tax-free childcare is far lower than was previously spent through childcare vouchers, and there is similarly low take-up through the benefits system.

The system does not work for the providers of childcare either. The Government have admitted that they do not pay providers what it costs them to provide the so-called free two-year-old and three and four-year-old places, so they have effectively created a cross-subsidy model for childcare. This drives up the cost for parents of under-twos and leaves childcare providers in areas of deprivation, where parents of very young children simply cannot afford to pay higher rates, really struggling. It also forces nurseries to charge parents for additional costs, such as for particular activities and for lunches, which really should not be the case when parents are already paying so much for the core costs of that provision. Providers are facing rising energy costs, wage bills and food costs, and many are finding it hard to recruit the staff they need, which has led to a tsunami of nursery closures this year. During the summer term, from April to July 2022, 65% more nurseries closed than in the same months in 2021.

I pay tribute to everyone who works in childcare and early years education. They are highly skilled professionals to whom we entrust our most precious little ones, yet they are under-recognised for the work they do. The best settings, such as the Early Years Community Research Centre in Shirecliffe, Sheffield, which I had the great pleasure of visiting recently, are a partnership with parents to support and care for young children, providing support to the whole family. Working with very young children should be a rewarding vocation and a lifelong career. It should offer the opportunity to develop expertise and specialisms, and to progress accordingly, yet all too often there is no opportunity for development or progression, and nurseries report that they end up competing with better-paid roles in retail or distribution.

After 12 years of Conservative government, our childcare system is failing families, failing children, failing providers and failing our economy. It is holding back parents from succeeding and progressing at work, and what is the Government’s response to this situation of such central importance to our economy and family life? The response is silence. There was not a single mention in the Chancellor’s Budget statement last month of the affordability and availability of childcare, which is holding back our economic growth. The main measure that the Government have mooted is the relaxation of childcare ratios to allow the same number of staff to look after more children. There is no evidence that this would have any impact on the costs to parents, but there are concerns that it reduce quality and compromise safety. That is not what parents or providers want, and it is not what is best for children.

Labour recognises the fundamental importance of childcare to parents, children and our economy. We also recognise that childcare costs do not stop when a child starts school, which is why we have announced our plan to introduce fully-funded breakfast clubs for every primary school in the country, supporting parents to work and helping to address food poverty. We will make sure that every child, wherever they are in the country, starts school ready to learn. Our children’s recovery plan proposes to increase the pupil premium for the early years to the same level as for reception, quadrupling the funding and ensuring that additional support is available in nursery settings for children who have suffered the impacts of the pandemic in their early development. We will address disadvantage and prevent it from becoming embedded for a lifetime.

Breakfast clubs are just the first step on the road. We are committed to building a childcare system that supports children and families from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school, as part of the vital infrastructure that underpins our economy. It is vital that the Government get a grip on this issue and show the vision and leadership that has been so badly lacking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Opposition spokesperson.

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

While this Government have been preoccupied with their own internal disputes, the trashing of the UK economy and an endless merry-go-round of ministerial reshuffles, children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families are left to suffer. It is now eight months since the publication of the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper and more than four months since the consultation closed. The Minister’s predecessor had promised a response to the consultation by the end of the year. Can the new Minister confirm when the full results of the consultation and the Government response will be published, because children with SEND and their families have already been waiting for far too long?

[Claire Coutinho]

If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would know that I just said we will be publishing early in the new year; if she was not just reading out a scripted question, she might have cottoned on to that point. This is an important area. I have many affected constituents so have seen all of this first hand, as I have in previous roles and from talking to parents across the country. We want to make sure that we are delivering for parents and children with SEND. We will set out that paper early in the new year addressing many of the challenges they are currently facing.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on securing this important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Set against the enormity of the challenges facing the children’s social care sector, the vital importance of the sector in seeking to support families and keep the most vulnerable children safe, and the urgency of the need for reform, far too little attention has been paid in this Chamber to children’s social care in recent months. In particular, it has been six months since the independent review of children’s social care was published. Aside from a short oral statement during publication, there has been no opportunity for detailed consideration and discussion of its contents. This debate is long overdue.

I would like to thank all hon. Members who contributed today. We have heard—at great length, if I may say—from Members with very significant experience of children’s social care. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central made a powerful opening speech, setting out clearly the pressures crowding in on families and the urgency of the need for change. She also highlighted the costs of doing nothing.

The hon. and learned Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), a former Minister well-respected for his time in Government, evidenced by the fact that he managed to remain in post for five years—that makes him a real veteran by contemporary standards, since the Minister’s post has been something of a revolving chair in recent months—spoke of some of the innovations that can help to drive improvement in children’s social care and the importance of improving support for care leavers. I certainly agree on both points. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke of the need for support for kinship carers and the importance of work to address childhood trauma.

The hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) mentioned some of the charities in her constituency that do important work with vulnerable children and young people. She spoke of the lack of progress in response to previous reviews. She also mentioned the death of Damilola Taylor. Madam Deputy Speaker, I feel I must correct the record on that point. She mentioned Damilola Taylor in a list of children who died due to safeguarding failings at the hands of parents and carers. Damilola Taylor was murdered by strangers on his way home from school. It happened very close to my constituency and I just feel I must, for his family, set the record straight on that point.

[Mrs Drummond]

indicated assent.

[Helen Hayes]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referenced the importance of training and support for professionals working with vulnerable children and young people, and the importance of independent advocacy. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is not in his place, mentioned the importance of recruiting foster carers and highlighted the very poor conversion rate from people who express an interest in foster care to those who eventually become foster carers.

The hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) spoke from his experience as a local authority lead member for children’s social care over many years and was right to highlight the transformative impact of high-quality youth work, as well as early help. Finally, another former Minister, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, made many points in his speech, but again highlighted the catalogue of reports and reviews produced over 10 years and the lack of progress in taking up the challenge of really delivering for children.

There is, as we have seen in the debate, a high level of consensus on children’s social care and the need for change is indeed urgent. The independent review’s “Case for Change” document, published in 2021, is unequivocal. The number of children, particularly the number of older children, in the care system is increasing and the outcomes for people with care experience are getting worse. Care-experienced people are 70% more likely to die prematurely than those who have not been in the care system. Care-experienced people are overrepresented in the prison system. Their educational attainment and levels of employment are lower, and they are far more likely to be homeless.

The appalling tragedies that have made the headlines in recent months, of children murdered by people who should have loved and nurtured them, remind us of the grave responsibilities that children’s social workers carry. Their decisions about the welfare of the most vulnerable children can literally be a matter of life or death. I pay tribute to social workers across the country who are working every day to support families, to keep children safe, and to provide stability and security for looked-after children, but they are all too often working in incredibly difficult circumstances. The most recent survey of social workers by the British Association of Social Workers revealed that more than a third reported that their caseload had increased since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. The Department for Education’s own analysis shows that the number of children’s social workers quitting children’s services altogether rose more than a fifth during 2021.

As many hon. Members have highlighted, the situation is very challenging for kinship carers—people who step in to care for a child who is a family member or close friend when their birth parents cannot do so. Kinship carers do an incredible job, maintaining family links that might be lost if the child was taken into the care of the local authority, providing love and stability. However, according to the most recently published survey by the charity Kinship, more than two thirds of kinship carers feel that they are not getting the support they need. That is surely not acceptable.

The past 12 years of Conservative Government have seen early help and support services for families decimated across much of the country. As many councils have lost more than 50% of the funding they receive from central Government, they have been forced to focus increasingly stretched resources on statutory services, including child protection. Over the 10 years from 2010-11 to 2020-21, investment in early intervention support fell by a staggering 50%, while spending on crisis and late intervention services has increased by more than a third. That loss of capacity is a disaster for child protection services. Without early help and support, more and more families struggle to provide appropriate care for their children. By failing to invest in early support, the Government are allowing families to fall into crisis, picking up the pieces only when it is often too late.

The independent review of children’s social care cites parenting in a context of adversity as the reason that the majority of families become involved with children’s social care. Many of the issues that cause families, and particularly children, to fall into a situation of vulnerability or danger have their roots in the poverty and inequality in our country that have deepened and widened on the Government’s watch. As we debate children’s social care and the interventions that exist to provide the safety net for children, we must not lose sight of the wider context, which has such a significant impact on the lives of children across our country.

While the policies of the Conservatives have fuelled the growing crisis in children’s social care, they have been complacent in responding to it. Across England, 50% of local authority children’s services departments are rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement” by Ofsted. That will be for a variety of reasons, including a lack of resources, but resources are clearly not the whole picture.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Southwark Council, one of my local authorities, on its “good” Ofsted rating for children’s services, which was published last week. The political and officer leadership team in Southwark have managed to continue to deliver good, child-centred services, despite the council as a whole experiencing among the highest level of cuts in the country.

The reasons for poor performance in some local authorities will vary, and I do not seek to lay the blame at the feet of hard-working frontline social workers. However, the lack of grip on the situation from the Government is inexcusable. The Government have been content to preside over a shocking level of failure in children’s services departments and that is simply not good enough.

[Edward Timpson]

I was hoping not to have to intervene on the hon. Member. She started off by talking about how much consensus there was on children’s social care, but I think she has to be a bit careful about suggesting that we somehow sat back and let this all happen with no care in the world. We have been one of the Governments who have intervened most in failing children’s services. I gave examples of when we had to take control of services off authorities and put them in a trust to try to bring about an improvement in performance. Labour-run Birmingham City Council is probably the best example.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for his intervention. If he thinks that 50% of children’s services departments across the country being rated as “inadequate” or “requires improvement” is an acceptable situation, I fear that he somewhat misses the point. The Government have, of course, intervened in some local authorities, and local authorities of all political hues experience challenges and are not performing as well as they should be. However, I see no evidence of a real grip from the Government. Where is the support and challenge programme? Where is the sharing of good practice? Where is the drive, every single day, to make sure that no local authorities children services departments are failing children?

[David Simmonds]

The children’s improvement board, which was set up as a partnership between the Department for Education, the Local Government Association and Ofsted, was the main vehicle that provided the drive. It is important to recognise, in respect of local authority judgments, that Ofsted has been clear that “requires improvement to be good” is an above-the-line judgment—that is, an authority that is performing “adequately”, in the old parlance, but which needs to be on the journey to be “good” to make improvements. We need to be clear that it is only authorities that are “inadequate” that can be considered to be performing less well than they need to be to serve the interests of children in that area.

[Helen Hayes]

We need to have a higher aspiration for children across the country to be supported by the best possible services. I welcome the Minister’s comments on the ongoing work to achieve that, but I believe much more can be done. That requires political will, and greater attention in this place, to drive improvements in performance.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Councils are struggling financially, although good and outstanding services are not all about finances. Does the hon. Lady agree that councils with the flexibility to spend a bit more money, such as Bath and North East Somerset Council, are in a much better position than those that are already in a difficult financial situation, usually in deprived areas?

[Helen Hayes]

It is indeed the case that local authorities with the flexibility to divert more resources into this area have that benefit, which can be significant.

The independent review of children’s social care was published six months ago. It called for a “total reset” of children’s social care and made a wide range of recommendations for reform. There is a high degree of consensus on many of those recommendations, such as the need to restore early help services, to provide better support for kinship carers, to end private profiteering in residential care and private foster care services, and to end the placement of children in unregulated settings. These things should be happening right now.

It is also essential that, as the reform of children’s social care is taken forward, the professionals working with children and families, care-experienced people, and the children and families themselves are placed at the heart of the process. None of this will happen unless and until the Government prioritise children and move this agenda forward. The previous Prime Minister, during her first Prime Minister’s questions, made a commitment in response to my question that the Government’s response to the independent review and an implementation plan will be published by the end of the year. There are just three full sitting weeks left before Christmas. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm the publication date of the Government’s response to the independent review, and to confirm that it will be before Christmas, as promised.

While Conservative Members have been arguing among themselves in recent months, taking an ideological sledgehammer to our economy and scrambling to reinvent themselves as a completely new Government with no connection to the last one, of which they were all a part, it is the most vulnerable children and young people, and those who care for them, who are being let down. Childhood is short, but its experiences last a lifetime. When will this Government stop letting children down?

Colleges Week 2022

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing the debate. He has a long track record of advocacy for the further education and skills sector, and he resolutely champions the cause of FE, often in a difficult environment, with great commitment.

I want to take this opportunity to apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), who was due to respond to the debate but is unfortunately unwell today. I know how disappointed my hon. Friend is to miss this important opportunity to speak up for the sector and outline Labour’s approach, but he feared that the entire room would end up with his very heavy cold if he were to turn up. However, I am delighted to have the opportunity afforded by my hon. Friend’s absence to celebrate the amazing work of colleges and I pay tribute to Lambeth College, Southwark College and Morley College, all of which provide a wealth of opportunities to learners from my constituency.

As has been said, last week was Love Our Colleges Week. Every one of us has an FE college serving our local areas, and they are incredibly important institutions, which Labour wants to see far better supported and utilised. We are hugely grateful to the Association of Colleges for all the work that it does all year round, and its Love Our Colleges Week celebrations continue to get better and better each year.

I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. The hon. Member for Waveney clearly set out the breadth of provision in colleges across the country, from post-16 qualifications to higher education, and the vital role that colleges have in building the skills that our economy needs for growth. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) talked about the excellent work of Exeter College and the impact that it has on the economy of Exeter and the wider Devon area. I should also say that Exeter College has been fortunate to have my right hon. Friend as its champion for the past 25 years.

The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) spoke of the terrible situation facing Malvern Hills College, and I wish her every success with her campaign to ensure that learners in Malvern and her wider constituency have access to the important opportunities that the college previously provided. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) spoke compellingly of her experience of teaching in further education colleges and the role that colleges play in helping women returners. That was certainly the experience of my mother, who was able to gain her GCSEs and A-levels, and ultimately to graduate as an occupational therapist, in exactly the same years that I did those same qualifications, thanks to the provision that a local college provided in her place of work, which was our local hospital at the time. The hon. Lady also talked about the role that colleges play in retraining workers who have faced redundancy, which is important work.

Further education colleges perform amazing work across their communities. Often colleges are the most visible places in a town or city, and people go there if they want to learn, retrain or improve their skills. Colleges are the brokers of second chances—the repair shop that gets so many people on the path to a better future. They literally change the lives and prospects of learners in every community on every single day of the week, and the funding cuts that they have experienced over 12 years has been a national act of destruction. After another tough year for our colleges, the theme of Colleges Week—staff, students and skills—really says it all, because colleges are all about people, with learners and staff at their centre.

The greatest advocates for our colleges are the learners themselves. Regardless of whether they are heading towards university or the workplace, or returning to the labour market, learners speak volumes for the value of our FE colleges. The learners in our colleges are inspirational. Some have had poor experiences in formal education, others want to retrain and change career, and some simply want to pursue a vocational path that academia just cannot offer.

The staff in our colleges never fail to impress with their dedication, hard work and love of the work they do. They are all too aware of the role that they play in their local area to support learners to get on in life, to increase in confidence and to achieve their goals. Just this month, Labour’s shadow FE and HE Ministers, my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), visited West Notts College and Nottingham Trent University to learn more about the exciting new collaborations between further and higher education institutions and how they can offer an holistic education experience to learners. Labour sees collaboration and working together as the right approach for the sector after years of market forces being allowed to dictate the direction. Neither FE nor HE should be placed as more important than the other. A Labour Government will facilitate partnerships that draw on the strengths of both sectors to improve learning opportunities in every community in the country.

Sadly, as we celebrate Colleges Week and the work of colleges, many institutions still face uncertainty about rising energy prices. It is vital that colleges are able to plan for the future, and I urge the Government to end the uncertainty with regard to spiralling energy costs.

Another issue that has faced our colleges this year has been the Government’s obsession with axing BTECs and stripping away level 2 and level 3 qualifications. It would be helpful to get an early steer from the new Government as to what their approach is to the question of level 3 qualifications, because the new Secretary of State for Education was pretty critical of BTECs when she held the skills brief.

Labour has been proud to back the Protect Student Choice campaign, which saw an impressive collaboration between the FE and skills sector, businesses, student groups, and others too numerous to mention, in their attempts to salvage BTECs, which are held in high regard by employers. We welcomed the Government’s U-turn on level 3 BTECs and would be grateful to know today what the approach of this Government will be. We also share the concerns of many in the sector regarding the axing of valuable level 2 courses. We would be glad to know whether that policy will be reviewed by the new Minister.

While we celebrate the achievements of colleges and their staff and learners during this debate, we should acknowledge that the best approach for the further education and skills sector is collaboration and proper funding, with a well resourced further education estate working hand in hand with employers, learners, higher education institutions and devolved authorities in order to deliver world-class skills. I hope that the new team at the Department for Education heed this call. I thank all hon. Members for their interest in this sector, and I thank every single person working in our colleges for the life-changing work that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Sorry. I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw for discussing how important it is for us to build up strong relationships with our devolved nations. I will work on doing that with my counterparts. It was wonderful to hear the story of how FE has helped one of the hon. Member’s constituents. On T-level results day this summer, I went to a college in the north-west. It was amazing—I wish I could bottle that enthusiasm and spread it across the whole country. Students told me how the T-level and being at college actually changed their lives. That shows the great stuff that colleges do.

Colleges do fantastic work up and down the country, every single day. I have already mentioned some of the colleges I have visited. Darlington College had a fabulous robotics department; Leeds College had engineering and construction. They are amazing learning environments enabling students to flourish, get on in life and land the jobs they have always dreamed of.

FE colleges have a role like no other education provider; they reach parts that other education providers cannot reach. They deliver the skills a nation needs to support growth. That could be at level 1 or level 7. They support those who need a second chance and those who need to reskill and retrain. They support those who need higher-level technical skills, and they work with schools, other providers, universities and employers. They are a jack of all trades, and, importantly, also masters of them all.

All that is happening in colleges up and down our country, helping to level up the nation and support social mobility. That is why I see colleges as engines of social mobility, encouraging students to reach beyond what they thought was possible and smash expectations. Colleges focus on what can be achieved by every student who comes through the doors. As a former BTEC girl, I get that. I will touch briefly on what the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) said about BTECs. We need to get on the record that we are not doing away with BTECs; we are reforming the whole landscape to ensure that every qualification that anybody takes leads to good outcomes for the students. That is so important; outcome is everything for students because they invest so much time in their education.

[Helen Hayes]

Can I get some clarity from the Minister on her plans for level 2 and 3 BTECs?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I will cover those points later in my speech.

My BTEC experience—I studied for a BTEC national in business and finance—helped me on my way; importantly, I gained transferable skills. I fully recognise that others like me—and indeed not like me, which is a real beauty of the FE sector—will benefit from the provision that colleges deliver, as they offer so much in our communities, to our students and to our economy.

With the recognition of the value and worth of colleges comes the need to ensure that they are properly funded, which is why throughout this Parliament we have sought to substantially increase investment in post-16 education. We are investing: £3.8 billion more in FE and skills over this Parliament, including an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education in 2024-25; an extra £500 million for T-levels, when they are fully rolled out; £1.34 billion in adult education and skills through the adult education budget in 2022-23; and £2.5 billion over the course of the Parliament for the national skills fund to support eligible adults to upskill and reskill. We are also increasing apprenticeship funding to £2.7 billion by 2024-25.

We are also investing in facilities, as I mentioned earlier, with £2.8 billion in capital investment to improve the college estates, and over £400 million to ensure that they have the facilities and equipment needed for T-levels. We have big ambitions for colleges and the whole further education sector, but we cannot shy away from the challenges, which I know some hon. Members have mentioned.

Rising costs and the energy crisis are hitting everyone. Colleges are certainly no exception. The investments that I have outlined will help to support the sector to deliver on its ambitions against this backdrop. The energy relief scheme that the Government announced only last month will be a much needed help for colleges. We are working continually with the sector, and I have asked colleges to let us know about their cost pressures, so we can consider that in determining the next steps. I will listen carefully in order to fully understand the challenges and opportunities that the sector faces, and to understand the challenges that colleges face. We ask a lot of them, but we know that they can deliver what learners, businesses and the country needs. The whole nation needs to be thankful for what colleges do.

Regarding skills reforms, colleges play an important role in our ambition to develop one of the best technical education systems in the world. I am pleased to hear that the Opposition are on the same page as us. We value the importance of technical education, so it is great that we are in government and delivering on this. We are investing in the skills system so that colleges have the means and support to offer learners the chance to retrain, upskill and reskill anywhere in the country, so that they can get good jobs wherever they live.

Since the publication of the “Skills for jobs” White Paper in 2021, we have been working closely with colleges to improve courses and qualifications to ensure we are focused on giving people the skills they need to get into great jobs. Colleges have been pivotal in the delivery of new, high-quality provision, and we thank them for all their hard work these past few years in rolling out this significant reform programme.

Successive reviews, including the Wolf review and the Sainsbury review, have found that the current qualifications system is overly complex and does not serve students or employers well. This is why we have undertaken a series of reviews of academic and technical qualifications at level 3, level 2 and below. As I said earlier, this is about outcomes for students. The reviews will ensure that every funded qualification has a clear purpose, is high-quality and will lead to good outcomes for students. We have already removed funding approval for over 5,000 qualifications that have low, or no, publicly funded enrolments at level 3. That is the right move. Although we want momentum, we want to introduce these reforms at a manageable pace, given the extent of change in the wider qualification landscape, including at level 3.

Let me turn to higher level technical education. Many colleges are already delivering excellent higher technical education, yet uptake of these courses is low compared to other levels of study internationally and previous figures in England, despite strong employer demand for higher technical skills. We are therefore delivering supply and demand-style reforms to grow uptake of high-quality higher technical education. Our reforms are focused on quality, to lay foundations for the long-term sustainable growth of higher technical qualifications.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney mentioned local skills improvement plans. Employer representative bodies have been appointed to lead on the development of local skills improvement plans in all areas of the country. That includes the Norfolk chamber of commerce, which is leading on the LSIPs across Norfolk and Suffolk, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

We have moved quickly since launching LSIPs in the “Skills for jobs” White Paper in January 2021. We piloted the plans and the development fund to see what worked well, legislated to put LSIPs on a statutory footing, and ran competitions to find the strongest employer bodies to lead on developing each employer-led plan. LSIPs place employers at the heart of our local skills, facilitating more dynamic working arrangements between employers, colleges and other training providers. Together with the strategic development fund, which supports providers to make changes to their curriculum, LSIPs make technical education more responsive to employers’ needs.

I know that the sector is facing challenges with the recruitment and retention of teachers; that is one of the main things that colleges around the country tell me. I recognise that great teachers are fundamental to the success of our skills system, which is why our “Skills for jobs” White Paper sets out our continuing support for the FE sector to recruit and train great teachers. We will support the sector through the national recruitment campaign programmes to recruit industry professionals into FE teaching roles, and upskill FE teachers to deliver new T-levels by improving the quality of FE initial teacher training education.

Let me turn to the Office for National Statistics reclassification. I appreciate that there are some concerns in the sector about this work, but we are continuing to work closely with the sector, and will provide information and guidance for providers in the event of a reclassification. We will ensure that any changes are managed smoothly, and that all in the sector are kept fully up to date at all stages so that providers can continue to deliver the best provision for learners. It is important to recognise that this is the moment that the FE sector remains classified as part of the private sector, and colleges should continue to operate as usual.

Most providers are doing a brilliant job of transforming the lives of people in their community, but our funding system does not always help them to do so. We want to change this and ensure that the system actively supports FE providers to work collaboratively with local providers, employers and other key stakeholders. Our reforms to funding and accountability for colleges will help us to ensure that colleges are better supported to focus on helping their students into good jobs. We have reduced the complexity of funding so that colleges can focus on their core role of education and training, and define clearer roles and responsibilities for the key players in the systems.

We want to build a world-class further education system that delivers for the whole nation. A key part of this is ensuring that colleges are fit for the future, with better facilities and great buildings. That is why, through the FE capital transformation programme, we are investing £1.5 billion over six years between 2020 and 2026 to upgrade and transform the FE college estate.

I am particularly proud of our skills bootcamps, and I pay tribute to colleges for the way in which they have embraced them, as one of the newest programmes. I visited a skills bootcamp on heavy goods vehicle driving, and I got to drive one of the big trucks myself. I saw a few people looking scared when I got behind the wheel, but I managed not to crash it, thankfully; it was amazing. I met a young chap with severe mental health problems, who was a real champion for a men’s mental health charity that helps with suicide prevention. He said that retraining through the skills bootcamp gave him a new lease of life.

Skills bootcamps have the potential to transform the skills landscape by helping local regions and employers to fill in-demand vacancies, and are an important block in the foundations of our skills reforms. I am therefore delighted that colleges are playing an integral part in supporting their delivery in local areas. They are helping to fulfil the aims of the programme by providing opportunities to adults and plugging the skills gaps. Funding for skills bootcamps from the last spending review will enable us to continue to grow that offer significantly with support from colleges. That will help tens of thousands of adults across the country to gain new skills.

We touched briefly on T-levels. We got off to a great start: our first cohort of T-levels achieved an impressive overall rate of 92.2%. I am a real advocate of them, because they are great for social mobility. Middle-class families can get work experience, internships and so on through their connections, but those from disadvantaged areas find it much more difficult to get work experience. It is excellent for young students to get that on their CV, as it helps them to climb the ladder and go on to a great career.

It is clear that the great work of providers such as colleges is setting students up for successful careers and equipping them with the skills the country needs. The numbers of T-level providers and students are increasing quickly, and we are confident that that will continue. In 2021 alone, 5,450 people took up T-levels. Students tell us that they favour these courses, especially when they have industry placements.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for securing this debate, and for supporting and promoting the sector. I also thank other Members for their equally valuable input. The debate has made it clear that FE colleges are held in high regard throughout the land. The Government and I believe colleges are important, and that is backed up by serious investment. This debate has not changed my position; I am even more convinced of it after hearing the great things that hon. Members have said about the FE sector.

I was impressed and moved by the points that hon. Members made about the colleges in their constituencies and the great work that their constituents do. I have already said that the Government value the importance, impact and value of the FE sector, and our policies and investment back that up. I am honoured to be the Minister with responsibility for further education colleges. Hon. Members can rest assured that I will continue to be their champion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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

I welcome the Minister to her place. She inherits the Government’s SEND review, which has caused widespread concern among parents of children with SEND that the Government are seeking simply to reduce expenditure and erode the rights of parents and children to access the support they need. As the Chancellor trawls for departmental cuts to pay for the Government’s reckless economic experiment, can the Minister confirm that the SEND review will not be used as an excuse to erode further the resources that children with special educational needs and disabilities rely on?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I can confirm that the SEND and AP Green Paper—the SEND review—was not and is not an opportunity for us to reduce the support that children with special educational needs require in this country. As I have already outlined, we have increased our high-needs funding by 13% to £9.1 billion, and we have also designed a package to support the delivery of any of our reforms. That is a £70 million programme that will test and refine measures in order to ensure that children get the support and education they need, and that parents feel that they have a choice in the matter and are well supported.

Kinship Carers

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ali. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing the debate and on the work she does to raise the profile of kinship carers and the issues they face.

I want to put on record that, until late last year, I was an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). In the work of that group I met kinship carers regularly and was involved in the parliamentary taskforce on kinship, which made recommendations on the ways in which Government policy and practice should be changed to support kinship carers. I am grateful to all the hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, who spoke so movingly about his own experience as a kinship carer and on behalf of the APPG and kinship carers across the country about the poverty and intensely stressful processes that kinship carers have to endure. I have said it before in this Chamber and I will say it again today: little Lyle is very lucky to have such a wonderful grandad.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who spoke of the willingness of families to step up and care for children who need support if only they can be supported better to do so, and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who paid tribute to voluntary sector organisations in his community that work to support kinship carers. I am sure all of us would want to recognise the work of such organisations across the country, which—as he rightly said—often step into the breach and into the spaces where public services really ought to be. I pay tribute to kinship carers across the country, who step in to look after a child when a family member or friend is unable to do so, and to the Family Rights Group, the charity Kinship and the Kinship Care Alliance, who work to support kinship carers and advocate on their behalf.

Recently, during Kinship Care Week, I was glad to have the opportunity to meet an amazing group of kinship carers, and I am grateful to Kinship for arranging that meeting. It is always humbling to meet kinship carers. Everyone in the group I met wanted, first and foremost, to convey their unconditional love for the children they look after and the joy and pride they receive from being able to play a part in their lives, but they wanted to talk about the challenges too. Every single person in that group had had to give up work or reduce their hours to look after the children in their care. One had taken retirement and used her pension lump sum to provide for the everyday needs of her grandchildren. She spoke about her commitment to ensure that one grandson could keep on doing football, which he loved and which helped him to deal with some of the other challenges he faced, but football comes at a cost that simply cannot be covered from her regular income.

Another carer told me that contact arrangements had been really challenging, but when she approached her local authority for support, she was told that it regarded them as private and that it had no role to play. One told me how difficult it had been for her grandchild when they were making the transition to secondary school, but no additional support had been available. A fourth spoke movingly of the trauma the children she cares for have been through and of her fears for the long-term impacts it will have.

All those women were doing what the vast majority of us would do if a cherished niece, nephew, grandchild or child of a close friend was at risk of being taken into care; they were doing it gladly, but they really needed more help and support. Some 180,000 families across the country are in the same situation: they have stepped in to care for the children of a family member or close friend, but they find that enormous personal sacrifice and considerable extra cost are involved, with little meaningful support.

In thinking about the needs of kinship carers, we must also look at the reasons why the number of children who are unable to be cared for by their birth families is increasing. The Family Rights Group has highlighted the erosion in early help and support for vulnerable families. More than 1,300 Sure Start centres have closed since 2010, a loss that is not nearly matched by the paltry commitment to open family hubs in just 75 locations. The National Children’s Bureau estimates that Government the funding available to councils for children’s services fell by 24% between 2010 and 2020, and the pandemic is likely to have made it even harder for councils to offer early intervention for families. Now we are once again faced with the spectre of public sector cuts, which will most likely fall on local authorities up and down the country. The failure of this Government to ensure that early help is always available to the most vulnerable families, wherever in the country they live, has a direct bearing on the extent to which families are able to overcome challenges and avoid a crisis in which it becomes unsafe or impossible for children to remain with their parents.

Kinship carers are an essential part of the way in which our society looks after children. They deliver outcomes for children that are as good as, and often better than, foster care or children’s homes, and for a fraction of the cost. This Government have been failing children and their families for 12 long years now. It is absolutely right that the independent review of children’s social care included a focus on kinship care and set out recommendations for ways in which the system can be improved to provide more support to kinship carers. However, nothing will change until the Government set out their response to the independent review and their implementation plan for reform of children’s social care. I welcome the Minister to her place, but it is very hard to see how a Government so mired in a crisis of their own making will be able to find the space and time to prioritise the needs of vulnerable children. However, I hope they do.

During her first Prime Minister’s Question Time, responding to my question, the Prime Minister committed to publish a response to the independent review and an implementation plan before the end of the year. I hope the Minister will set out today how that will be brought forward for full scrutiny by the House, so that the reform that is so urgently needed to support vulnerable children and their families, including kinship carers, can be delivered with urgency. Labour put children first when we were in government. I can assure the House that we will do so again. In this place, the very least we owe kinship carers up and down the country for the job they do on our behalf of caring for the most vulnerable children is not to leave it a moment longer to deliver the reform they need.

Children’s Social Care Workforce

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Sharma.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) on securing this important debate. She spoke powerfully about the crisis in children’s social care: the difficulties of local authorities in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of social workers; the lifelong impact that the experiences of children who enter the care system can have if there is not that therapeutic, supportive and consistent intervention and support to help them address their challenges; the way that children are left vulnerable to exploitation; and the pressures on our social care workforce in terms of unmanageable caseloads. She spoke about the urgency of the need for a response to the independent review, the need for an early-career framework for the first five years of a social worker’s career and the fact that we really need and want social workers to be able to make a lifelong commitment to work in the profession, to develop their skills and to be able to progress. She also spoke about the urgent need for an end to profiteering in the children’s home and private foster agency sector.

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who highlighted the work that social workers already do on a day-to-day basis, often battling in very difficult circumstances. She spoke about the need for a national pay framework to stabilise the workforce and stop different local authorities from competing with each other, and the parallels with the agenda for change in the NHS. She also spoke about the broken market in children’s residential care. I will return to that later in my remarks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) spoke powerfully for social workers in his constituency, who say they are on the brink of a catastrophe if the crisis in children’s care is not addressed, and about the urgency of the need for action.

Finally, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who spoke powerfully of his wife’s experience as a children’s social worker—about the immensely rewarding difference that social workers can make in the life of a child, but also the challenges of working in the most difficult circumstances, and the way that social workers across the country stand ready when tragedy strikes and children find themselves in unimaginably difficult circumstances. He highlighted the wider context of deprivation bearing down on families, affecting the wellbeing of children and adding to the pressures in the social care system, which we must not forget in this debate. He mentioned the shocking statistic from one of his boroughs that for every one new social worker, two are leaving the profession—that illustrates the importance of the debate, and why we are talking about the crisis in the children’s social care workforce.

The challenges that have been brought to the House by hon. Members from the north-west of England and from York are not unique to those parts of the country. The recently published independent review of children’s social care, written by Josh MacAlister, concludes that our children’s social care system is broken, and that a total reset is needed.

I pay tribute to everyone working in children’s social care, who strive day in, day out to provide safety, support and stability to children who are in need, or whose birth parents are unable to care for them. Their work is vital and it makes a huge difference. Social workers are highly skilled; they make carefully balanced decisions about what is in a child’s best interests, in a context where the risks are often extremely high.

It is no exaggeration to say that their work can all too often be a matter of life and death, but the statistics on children’s social workers tell a clear story of a workforce in crisis. In 2021, there was a turnover rate of 15%: the highest rate recorded in the past five years. In the same year, there was a vacancy rate of one in six, meaning that social workers across the country are stretched to the limit covering the workload of vacant posts. A third of those leaving social work left after less than two years of service and 36% after less than five years. Around 60% of children and family social care workers have been in service for less than five years.

The MacAlister review is damning. It describes a

“lack of national direction about the purpose of children’s social care”.

The review also highlights unacceptably high levels of agency staff, and observes that once a social worker moves to an agency

“they are more likely to move around, contributing to the instability children and families experience.”

Agency social workers are also much more expensive to local authorities, causing

“a loss of over £100 million per year”

that could be spent on children and families. The response from the Government to date has been utterly complacent. Half of all children’s services departments across the country are rated inadequate or requiring improvement, yet there is no urgency from the Government: no national programme for improvement and support, no strategy to ensure that good practice from the best-performing local authorities is rolled out across all local authorities and simply no plan to address the crisis. There is also no plan to stop the grotesque profiteering by private providers of children’s homes and foster agencies—the largest 20 of which made a staggering £300 million of profit last year.

Delivering effective children’s social work requires a stable workforce embedded in the local community that they serve, with individual workloads that are manageable and a supportive and professional management culture. While there is such a crisis in the children’s social care workforce, it is children in need and their families who suffer.

At the heart of the Government’s failure is the erosion of early help and family support to stop families getting into the crisis situations that result in the removal of children into the care system. That is demonstrated no more starkly than by the 1,300 Sure Start centres that have closed across the country since 2010.

I welcome the Minister to his place, but I hope that he recognises the urgency of the issues facing children’s care, and that a merry-go-round at the top of Government is the last thing that social workers, or the children and families they serve, need or deserve. I hope that he will set out today what he is doing to address the crisis in children’s social care. How is he progressing the Government’s response to the independent review? When does he anticipate the response being published?

What is the Minister doing to increase the urgency of the Government’s response to the crisis? What representations is he making to the Treasury on children’s social care funding? What representations is he making to the candidates in the Conservative leadership race, because I have heard no mention of children in that debate so far? When will he end profiteering in children’s social care?

What is the Minister doing to ensure that dedicated social work practitioners and social care workers across the country are recognised and supported, and that local authorities are fully supported to address the crisis in recruitment and retention? How is he ensuring that as the Government respond to the independent review, they work closely with social workers and trade unions, as well as children, young people and their families, to ensure that reform can really deliver the total reset that is needed?

Labour will always put children first—we did so in government and we will do so again—but our children cannot afford any more dither and delay from the Government. We will hold the Government to account every single day on the framework of support they provide and the outcomes that they deliver for our most vulnerable children. I hope that the Minister will give us some comfort that there is urgency within the Government on this important agenda.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

We intend to finish by 5.55 pm. I am sure that I do not need to remind the Minister, but he should allow the mover of the motion a couple of minutes to wind up, and give me about a minute to complete the sitting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Minister Helen Hayes.

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

Instead of delivering meaningful reform of their broken childcare system, the Government have announced a consultation on allowing staff in early years settings to look after more children. Pregnant Then Screwed reports that four out of five childcare providers said that changing ratios would not be of any financial benefit to their organisation, and only one in 12 said that any cost savings would be passed on to parents. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that this proposal will make a meaningful difference to the cost of childcare for families—yes or no?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

If the hon. Lady reads the announcement and the case study we put forward, she will see that if the cost is passed on to parents, it is about £40. Crucially, however, it is not a silver bullet. This is part of a package of measures we are taking, which includes making sure that the 1.3 million people who are not currently claiming their tax-free childcare, where they can get 20% of their childcare or up to £2,000 paid for them, or the childcare element of universal credit, do so. That will make a real difference to them, as well as the consultation—bearing in mind that the consultation is also about ensuring that we continue the drive for quality that this Government have delivered in the childcare system and that safety is paramount for every child.