Budget Resolutions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

In this Budget debate, I want to focus particularly on schools, children and young people, and the pressures facing headteachers and local authorities in struggling to balance their budgets. We get one chance at getting a child’s primary education right: they will not get those years back and we will not get that opportunity back. It is the one and only chance to set the foundations for their future, and every child is a building block on which our hopes and aspirations for the country rest.

In January this year, the local campaign group Calderdale Against School Cuts conducted an anonymous survey of all Calderdale primary headteachers about their budgets and how they were managing school funding. Some 65% of the schools contacted completed and returned the survey representing a broad cross-section of schools, from right across Calderdale’s communities.

The survey revealed that in this financial year half of all headteachers had made reductions to teaching staff, while 84% had not replaced staff who had left. Some 73% had reduced support staff and 47% of primary heads were planning to make staff redundant to balance the books. Some 80% of schools had been forced to cut back on maintenance and building repairs. Perhaps most worryingly, 100% of the heads who responded anticipated that their school would be struggling to cope in the near future, with concerns about balancing the school budget for the next three years.

An ever-increasing number of schools now face the prospect of deficit budgets, forcing them to make redundancies within both their support and teaching staff. The results show that because of financial constraints, the non-replacement of staff is no longer a choice but a necessity, which places even greater demand on the already stretched remaining staff. Headteachers were keen to stress that it has become increasingly difficult to recruit support staff to work in schools, given that they can earn more working in local supermarkets, for example.

In addition to the financial pressures facing all schools, there has been what we can only describe as an explosion in the numbers of children with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties, and schools are especially struggling with resources, funding and specialist support for that cohort of children. Calderdale Council has a predicted £5.9 million overspend on high-needs children. It also reports a 150% increase in the number of children with education, health and care plans since covid. When a school has a child with additional needs recognised by an EHCP, it has to find from its existing budget the first £6,000 to provide support for that child. In reality, the only way that is achievable is by diverting money away from the day-to-day provision of teaching and learning.

The Halifax Courier ran the survey results on its front page with a headline about how cuts were pushing schools to the edge. The article included this quote:

“Our survey confirms that cuts to funding, rising poverty and SEND are pushing schools to breaking point.”

Nationally, according to the Department for Education’s own figures, one in eight local authority maintained schools was in deficit in 2022-23—the highest number of schools in deficit on record. The Observer also ran the survey results, with a quote from a Yorkshire primary head teacher:

“We are approaching a time when it isn’t safe to open. There will be children who are being violent and there won’t be enough staff to manage.”

She said that she had not been able to justify replacing teachers and support staff who had resigned over the past year and that in September she will be forced to merge a year of children containing many who are vulnerable and have additional needs with the year above, because they are losing yet another teacher. She said:

“You have to do it to make your budget work, but what about the impact on the children?”

Mungo Sheppard, the truly outstanding headteacher at Ash Green Primary School, which serves the Mixenden area of Halifax in my constituency, told The Observer:

“Heads are forced to balance the books rather than saying ‘How many staff do we actually need for our children?’ It’s terrifying.”

He said that some local schools are having to cut pastoral roles as well as teaching jobs, and that many no longer have enough classroom support staff

“to cater for the ever-growing needs of children”.

He added that despite being over-subscribed, his school will have a “large” deficit by April next year and

“other local schools are already in perilous situations, running out of money”.

Ash Green serves one of the most deprived parts of my home town. Led by Mr Sheppard, the staff delivered food and vouchers during covid, just to make sure that children and their families had at least some food on the table. Just when staff were starting to get some respite from the soul-destroying challenges of covid, the school was hit by deliberate arson, which tore through several classrooms. The school runs a breakfast club because so many children were going without, and it has also set up a lending scheme for families and parents who have nowhere else to turn. The staff at Ash Green represent school staff up and down the country, who have to overcome so many challenges before they can start the school day. It is just not right that the staff and headteacher spend so much time worrying about how he will balance the books in order to cover the basics of paying the staff’s wages and keeping buildings and children safe.

Schools are increasingly picking up the pieces of our broken society. The Government have finally woken up to doing something about non-dom tax status, adopting our long-standing policy, and we are still 100% committed to funding breakfast clubs, additional teachers and mental health specialists in schools—pledges that we know are necessary and that we are incredibly proud of. There was nothing in yesterday’s Budget for councils, which have limited means of providing any additional support to schools.

The Labour leadership of Calderdale Council and some truly dedicated officers are working their socks off to balance its budget. They will find a way, but they are struggling financially and morally to do so. In the last financial quarter, Calderdale Council’s budget for children and young people had a £7.8 million overspend, which has increased by £1.7 million this financial year. The biggest driver of that overspend is the rising number of required placements for children in care, with the costs rising significantly. The lack of placement availability nationally and locally is a key factor, as it is everywhere.

The Chancellor had something to say on this issue yesterday, stating:

“Too many children in care end up being looked after by unregistered providers that are much more expensive”.—[Official Report, 6 March 2024; Vol. 746, c. 848.]

He announced some new investment, with the Government pledging to develop

“proposals on what more can be done to combat profiteering, bring down costs and create a more sustainable market for residential placements,”

which they will publish later this year. I really struggle with the use of the word “market” to describe placements for children in care—it reveals everything that is wrong with children’s social care—but the announcement comes two years after the Competition and Markets Authority concluded that the profits of the largest private children’s home and fostering providers are higher than would be expected in a well-functioning market, with average margins of 22.6% in residential care between 2016 and 2020. That begs the question of why it has taken so long to do anything about this issue. Why have the Government allowed the system to become so broken, to the detriment of both local councils and some of the most vulnerable children in our society?

With that in mind, why on earth are the Government not doing more to support kinship carers? In 2021, it was estimated that there are 130,000 children in kinship care, but this figure accounts for just 15% of children in the care system. I urge Ministers to look again at the Family Rights Group’s call to extend the financial allowances pathfinder to more local authorities, and to remove the perverse criterion that children must have previously been looked after to be eligible. The pilot scheme for a new kinship financial allowance is under way in only a small number of local authorities, with very narrow eligibility criteria. We know that it could be a way forward for councils, carers and, most importantly, vulnerable children, so will the Government please accelerate that work, make this issue a priority and roll out support for carers beyond the pilot scheme?

The OBR has confirmed that this will be the worst Parliament on record for living standards, and the only Parliament on record in which living standards have fallen. The BBC reports that Nottingham City Council, Birmingham City Council and Woking Borough Council all went bust in 2023, following Thurrock Council and Croydon Council—for the third time—in 2022. It is even more harrowing that half of all councils are warning that, without reform, they will be effectively bankrupt within five years. Do the Government think that this is some kind of phenomenon, or could it be a direct result of their decision making and their actions?

The Budget will come as no relief to schools or councils that are desperately trying to undertake their statutory duties to educate children and keep them safe. We need to be in a position to deliver Labour’s commitments. We need a general election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

What I am certainly very willing to do is to provide further detail to the shadow Minister, separate from this afternoon’s proceedings. I am absolutely clear that the severe disability group has an important role to play, recognising the challenging conditions people have and that, for many, those conditions will not improve. I am keen to reduce the reassessment burden on people wherever we can, streamline processes, and ensure that people feel properly supported and properly cared for during the course of those processes. That is the right step to take. I am determined that we get this right. Exactly as I said just now, I want to work collaboratively and constructively as we move forward with the White Paper reforms. We have made commitments to test and trial various things, and we will get on and do that.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

4. What recent estimate he has made of the number of pensioners in poverty.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

19. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of pensioners living in poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

In 2022, there were 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty than in 2010.

[Holly Lynch]

Mr Brooke from my constituency is nearly 70. He contacted me when his application for pension credit was rejected on the basis that he is £2.55 over the threshold, which rules him out of not only pension credit but any other associated benefit. Mr Brooke signed off his letter to me saying:

“I just can’t afford to live. Yours, Truly Broken”.

What are this Government doing to help people such as Mr Brooke in that incredibly difficult position?

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

As we have heard, the Government’s plan to scrap the £20 UC uplift is causing a great deal of worry and concern for millions of working people across the UK and thousands of my constituents in Halifax. As the Leader of the Opposition outlined at today’s Prime Minister’s questions, this cut is punishing countless essential key workers, who through the weeks and months of lockdowns performed essential and frontline roles, while remaining exposed to the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

The Government may seek to present this as a post-pandemic return to normal, but only yesterday the Health Secretary made it clear in his statement that we are not yet at normal, that the need to manage the risks of the colder winter months was very real, and that further measures may continue to be sought as part of a plan B, as we all keep a very close eye on the data. Instead, this is in reality the biggest overnight cut to a benefit rate in the history of the welfare state, and it is having to be shouldered by working people.

According to analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on average 21% of all working age families in Great Britain will experience a cut of more than £1,000 to their yearly incomes, with the midlands and the north of England hardest hit. In Halifax, it is estimated that 56% of working families with children will be affected by the cut. The relationship between this cut and the financial resilience and wellbeing of those families, and the knock-on effect for the fragile, recovering, local economy, is desperately real. Those families do not have the money, meaning it is not spent in local shops or with local service providers. This is a double blow, coming at exactly the wrong time for families and for the economy.

Universal credit is an in-work benefit, and the prevalence of low-paid work is the elephant in the room here. I have long campaigned for an end to the youth rates of the minimum wage, which devalue work undertaken by young people. The Labour party would put a stop to that injustice. A report last year from the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission concluded that there are now 600,000 more children living in relative poverty than there were in 2012. Evidence published earlier this year by the Child Poverty Action Group, also based on Government figures, revealed that after housing costs are accounted for, about 3.8 million children, nearly a third of all children in the UK, are growing up in poverty.

Do this Government believe these cuts will impact negatively or positively on these utterly depressing numbers? Polling published by Save the Children shows that three quarters of families with children on UC have a child under 10, and that 47% of UC claimants do not think they will be able to get by on a budget of £20 less a week. This cut will mean that during the formative years of children’s lives many families will have to make fraught decisions, where they are faced with making a choice about which essentials they can and cannot afford to pay for.

The comments made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about £20 being the equivalent of two extra hours of work per week do not reflect the reality of the situation in my constituency. My office has received a number of often frantic representations from people who have limited capability for work and limited capability for work-related activity, and are therefore not expected to undertake the work commitments expected of other UC claimants. These individuals are not required to work, let alone work extra hours, and yet are also having their payments cut. One constituent contacted my office, saying:

“Until I was forced on to UC, I was receiving ESA…My partner moved in with me and as he was working full time, we were moved onto UC in October 2017. However; my husband suddenly fell ill in April 2019 and was assessed as having limited capability for work. I have two teenage children who also live with us. I have heard the government discussing the withdrawal of this temporary support…today. Their response is that UC is designed to encourage claimants back to work and that they can make up the loss; but I’ve not heard anything about those of us who are unable to go to work due to ill health and what support there is in place for people like my husband and I who cannot work and who need to provide care for each other and financially support our family.”

As we have heard from so many today, the planned cut of the £20 to UC is nothing but a further development in this Government’s self-defeating attitude towards working people. Instead of lifting people out of poverty, they are content to allow the UC system to see claimants remain in a perpetual cycle of in-work insecurity.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s support for the scheme, particularly the holiday activities fund. On guidance to councils about the winter grant, I am sure that they will work with a number of public sector organisations in their areas, and get valuable knowledge from schools. I am conscious that take-up of the Healthy Start voucher is not 100%, but I will ask the Health Secretary to write to him about that particular issue.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

Like everybody in the Chamber today, I very much welcome this announcement. But will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to Calderdale Council, the Community Foundation for Calderdale, the Piece Hall and so many others in Halifax that came together to launch the Never Hungry Again campaign, which was made possible by donations from the general public and plugged the gap of free school meals over the recent half-term? Following her announcement today, will the Secretary of State commit to reimbursing Calderdale Council for the resources it had to invest to ensure that no child went hungry over the recent half-term?

Supporting Disabled People to Work

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am delighted to pay tribute to Brentwood Community Print. It has recognised that it can benefit from being an innovative business in terms of recruitment, and I hope that many other businesses will look and learn the lessons that it has set out.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

The head of the National Audit Office has said that it is “disappointing” that the Department for Work and Pensions still does not understand “what works” when it comes to helping disabled people into work. However, further to the point made by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), may I invite the Minister to visit the brilliant ISCAL factory in my constituency? ISCAL is a leading manufacturer of tissue coasters and napkins, and offers supported employment opportunities to people with mental and physical disabilities. It really is transforming lives.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The NAO welcomes the fact that we are offering precise and tailored support, and that we are using innovative methods and a test and learn programme. There is no global definition: there is nothing that we can take off the shelf and say “This will work for everyone.” There is no one size fits all. Everyone is an individual, and everyone has individual challenges and opportunities.

We are rightly investing in that innovative research, and will use our findings to share best practice and roll it out. We welcome the fact that the number of disabled people in work has risen by more than 930,000 in the last five years. I am thrilled to hear of the success of the hon. Lady’s local initiative, and I will certainly suggest to the Department a potential future visit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right: long-term unemployment can significantly damage anyone, particularly young people. I welcome the recent employment statistics, which show that 3 million 16 to 24-year-olds are full-time students, and another 3 million have left full-time education and are working. Together they account for 86% of all young people in the UK, the joint highest on record. She is right that there is always more to do, which is why, in April, we are introducing the youth obligation to ensure that young people are fully supported as they progress into work and while they are at work.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

20. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that personal independence payment assessments are undertaken fairly and efficiently.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

We are committed to ensuring that claimants receive high-quality, objective, fair and accurate assessments. The Department monitors assessment quality through independent audit. Assessments deemed unacceptable are returned to the provider for reworking. A range of measures, including provider improvement plans, address performance falling below expected standards.

[Holly Lynch]

My constituent Neville Cartwright is living with just one lung following a battle with lung cancer, yet he lost his Motability car when his PIP was cut last year. He began his appeal in June, but has still not had a tribunal hearing. Does the Minister agree that an eight-month wait to find out the result of an appeal is totally unacceptable?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do agree with the hon. Lady, which is why we have been trying to work more strategically with Motability, thrashing through the issues I am very aware of on appeals and on matters such as when an individual leaves the country. We are looking to reduce the amount of time that appeals take and at what we can do with the running of the scheme so that the precise scenario she outlines does not happen.