Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

There are several things to say about that. The first is that the overall number went up: the hon. Gentleman said that some were leaving, but the overall number went up by 27,000. He makes a good point about early career teachers and that is why we put in the early career framework, which I do think is a big improvement. It is not that there is nothing in what the hon. Gentleman said, but I do think it is funny for him to stand up and talk about gaslighting when the Government are pumping out glossy propaganda saying that there are more teachers, even though their own Department for Education website says that there are 400 fewer teachers. So do tell me all about gaslighting.

My broader worry about the Government’s approach to giving every child the best start in life is that it misses the wood for the trees. Ministers like to talk about some of the small interventions they are making, such as the £33 million they are spending on breakfast clubs and the “best start in life” centres and the increases in spending there. But on the other side of the ledger, how is this being paid for? It is being paid for with a £25 billion increase in national insurance, and, unbelievably for a notionally social democratic Government, that national insurance increase is brutally targeted on the lowest income workers. It is incredible.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I should say that the hon. Member is a shadow Minister, before you give him with a promotion.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask the shadow Minister how his party would fund the investments in early years proposed by the new Government?

[Neil O’Brien]

I am very grateful to be put right back in my box by Madam Deputy Speaker, and rightly so.

I would not fund that by increasing taxes on low income workers by £25 billion. That means that someone who is earning £13,000 a year loses £500. It means someone earning £9,000 a year is losing 5% of their income. Ministers like to talk about the distributional impact of things like breakfast clubs and so on—they say 100,000 kids will be lifted out of poverty by something they are doing—but they will not produce any poverty analysis or any distributional analysis of the £25 billion. They are happy to talk endlessly about the distributional impacts of tiny measures, but not the £25 billion takeaway from low income working people in this country. I think it is astonishing—and I think a lot of Labour MPs will regret it later—that this is the way they have chosen to raise all this money.

Let me ask a few specific questions while we are here. The Department for Education has confirmed to the specialist media that it does not hold any information on the number of children who will lose entitlement to free school meals as a result of the end of the universal credit transitional protection, yet it claims to be confident that it knows that the changes it is making will reduce child poverty by 100,000. How can the Department not know how many kids are going to be on free school meals yet be confident that it will have a positive effect? I ask the Minister to answer the question very simply: what proportion of pupils will be eligible for free school meals this year and in all future years across the forecast? How much will we be spending in real terms in each of those years? I like lots of things about the “best start in life” programme—it is a continuation of our family hubs programme—and I wonder whether the Minister could set out exactly how much will be spent on that programme in the ’26-27, ’27-28 and ’28-29 financial years. It is not a bad programme at all and we do not dislike it at all; the only thing that is not right is to pretend it is a completely new thing, when in fact it is a continuity of something that already existed.

Something that is new that Ministers promised was two weeks of work experience for every child at secondary school. Can the Minister tell me how that pledge is going? It was made by the Prime Minister and was the big highlight of his ’21 conference speech. How many schools currently offer two weeks of work experience each year?

Finally, I have a question of principle really. The Minister quite rightly talked about SEND, and we had an important report from the Education Policy Institute this morning about the overlap between SEND and school achievement, and the Government have said two things. We heard from a Health Minister that the Government want to see a smaller proportion of children in special schools, and we have heard from the Minister’s adviser on SEND that she thinks that they are having a conversation at the moment about not having education, health and care plans for children outside special schools, which covers about 300,000 children at the moment—60% of all children with an EHCP.

Those are huge changes, but is it not the case that those two policy reforms are potentially in tension? If we tell people that they cannot get an EHCP outside a special school, more parents will want to go to the special school. Ministers have talked about there always being some kind of legal right to support for special needs, but what does that mean: if the support is not being delivered by an EHCP, how will it be delivered? I ask these questions because a lot of special needs parents are worried about that; they are concerned about what the Government are planning. Maybe they are wrong and maybe the Government have a brilliant plan on all this, and we are not against reform, but at the moment, there are big questions about the ideas that are now sloshing around in the public domain, worrying people. I encourage Ministers to move quickly to certainty on these questions so that people’s minds could be put at ease.

To conclude, we are all in favour of giving each child the best start in life. We have a proud record, we made great progress, and we wish all the Government all the best, but we worry that they are too often missing the wood for the trees.

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[Iqbal Mohamed]

Before coming to the Chamber, I attended a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on care-experienced children and young people, where I learned that, in the 2023-24, over 15,000 children in care moved home, which is 34%, and nearly 5,500 in care moved school, which is 12%. Does the hon. Member agree with me that, as part of the Government’s strategy, we need to support children in care and minimise the disruption to their lives that we can control?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member very much for his intervention, and our report, which we published last week, says exactly that. We have a system of children’s social care that is under so much pressure that it all too often fails to put children at the centre of the services that are supposed to be delivered to give them more stability and security in life, and many things about that system urgently need to change.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to invest in Best Start family hubs, providing better early help and support services in more areas of the country. We need investment that can tip the balance over time from crisis spending to spending on more preventive services that can deliver genuinely good outcomes for children. Our Committee’s report, which I was proud to launch last week, points to some of the further steps that are needed, including creating a national offer for care leavers, improving mental health support for looked-after children and addressing the practical barriers, such as housing, that currently prevent the effective recruitment of foster carers.

On early years, the Government inherited the previous Administration’s commitment to expand funded hours of childcare, predominantly for working parents. This is a very challenging commitment to deliver. We know that quality early years education has the most potential to break down barriers to opportunity, yet the previous Government’s approach was designed to deliver more hours of care, without any specific focus on quality. The early years sector is fragile and fragmented, and providers continue to close. The expansion of school-based nurseries is a very welcome first step, but there is undoubtedly a tension between a funding system designed to support working parents and the early years sector’s ability to reduce the impacts of disadvantage for the poorest children. The Government must address this tension in the forthcoming child poverty strategy.

Our Committee’s second big inquiry is on the system of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The SEND system is the single biggest crisis in the whole of the education system, routinely letting down children and families, putting professionals working with children in an impossible position, and driving more than half of local education authorities to the edge of bankruptcy. Children with SEND should be able to thrive in education, and education should equip them well for the next stage of life, yet for far too many children, the failure of the SEND system results in absence from school, poor mental health and low attainment.

There have been many rumours about what the Government may do to reform the SEND system, and I must say that these rumours are really unhelpful and traumatising for families who already have far too much to contend with. My Committee will report after the summer recess, but I am clear that the Government should be setting out a clear process and plan for SEND reform, and that any reforms must engage parents and professionals and ensure clear and effective accountability mechanisms. I think the Government are right to start with increasing the inclusivity of mainstream schools, but if they are to do that effectively, there must be proper investment to resource mainstream schools to become more inclusive, with clear definitions of what an inclusive school is and strong accountability.

Finally, a priority that runs through all these issues is tackling child poverty, which rose to shamefully high levels under the last Government and is perhaps the biggest barrier to opportunity of them all. I am delighted that the Government have announced an expansion of the eligibility criteria for free school meals to include all children whose families receive universal credit. As a local councillor in Southwark, I was proud when we introduced universal free school meals for primary children in 2010, and over many years we have seen the benefits of providing children with a nutritious hot meal.

Universal free breakfast clubs will also make a big difference. Hungry children cannot learn, so together these measures will ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, and that the children who need it most get a nutritious hot meal at lunch time. They will boost learning while also easing costs for parents. However, our Committee has recommended that the Government implement auto-enrolment, so that every child eligible to receive the new expanded free school meals offer receives it automatically and no child misses out.

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[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams); it has been a while since I have heard the words “Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke”, which used to be bellowed out by our former hon. Friend and his predecessor Jonathan Gullis, who was a great schools Minister—briefly—in a previous Government. I pay tribute to him and his memory—much lamented. I also pay tribute to David Johnston, another former Member, who was children’s Minister in the last Government and was responsible for many of the important reforms that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) mentioned.

I welcome this debate on what I think is a cross-party agenda. I recognise much of what the Minister said about the importance of early years and the sorts of interventions that the Government are talking about. I welcome the impending child poverty strategy, which is an important step forward for us.

I want to make a simple and straightforward point. I have heard a lot in this afternoon’s debate about the importance of investment and support for the different professionals who support children and families. That is all absolutely right, and I agree that that is important. Nevertheless, surely the most important resource available to us to support children and young people is their families and the communities that they grow up in. I implore the Government to think very seriously in preparing their strategy to support the conditions for success in childhood, which is about not simply the public sector professionals, agencies and institutions that are available but the strength of the informal social institutions that children and young people grow up in.

I welcome the Minister’s mention of the importance of social investment, philanthropy and civil society in providing support for children and young people. This is a big boast, but I can claim some credit for the announcement that the Chancellor made on Monday. She happened to be at a charity called AllChild in Wigan, which I claim credit for having founded—although that was not on the press release, I note. The charity began life as the West London Zone, which supports children and young people and which I started back in the early 2010s, having visited the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York with the then Secretary of State Michael Gove. The Harlem Children’s Zone is a tremendously successful project aiming at much of the agenda that we are debating this afternoon, including early identification of children at risk, the provision of intensive support for those children and their families on a community basis, and a place-based model for support for children and families in disadvantage.

We set up the West London Zone with the help of significant philanthropy from Paul Marshall, noted philanthropist and founder of the Ark school chain, who said that we should start one here. We did it on a slightly different model from Harlem’s, which is a monolithic, single entity that provides all services for children and young people. The model we introduced in West London and is now being expanded across the country under the banner of AllChild. I pay tribute to the AllChild team, including Louisa Mitchell, who I got in early to deliver the project, because I would not have been very good at actually running it. Louisa has been a genius, and she is still running it now. This goes to the point I am trying to make: what Louisa did was recognise that in our communities there is an enormous array of really amazing resources in the form of local projects—large and small, formal and informal—that can help with the great task of bringing up a child as a village should.

The mission of the project is to identify in schools—with the help of teachers and, crucially, by using the data available on attainment and attendance—those children who are likely to struggle later. Then it is about ensuring that they get the support that they need, and very much on a personalised basis. That support should come not just from the statutory system around the school—because that will never be adequate for the range of needs and different challenges that a population of children will have—but draw on the resources of the community. We started in west London, which obviously has lots of pockets of wealth but significant pockets of disadvantage as well. Even in those disadvantaged places, and certainly across the country—the project is working in Wigan and elsewhere now—we see tremendous institutions that can support children and young people. The challenge is to do so in a co-ordinated way.

There is a huge opportunity not just to look to the state, schools, local authorities or health—even though bringing all those agencies together around children is important—but to think about the real resource we have, which is in our communities. We should put in place real support and resource for those foundations, whether faith groups, professional bodies of all sorts or community organisations.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Does the hon. Member agree that the foundation of early years starts in the home with parents and the mother’s antenatal and post-natal health, and that the Government should include in their strategy a review of current services and what support can be provided to improve children’s outcomes?

[Danny Kruger]

It is funny: I often find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman, which is great, and not what I expected when he was elected to this place.

I was about to come to my final point: the importance of family life. I do not know to what extent that really is on the Government’s agenda when it comes to the child poverty strategy. There will obviously be lots of talk of families, maternal health and so on, but the crucial determinant of success for children is the quality of the relationships they grow up in.

We know that from all the research done into children’s brain development. Human beings are unique among mammals in that we emerge very unformed: our brains are really blank as we emerge from the womb. The strength and health of our brains and our futures are laid down in those early years by the quality of the relationships we grow up with and experience. I know the Government recognise that because of their emphasis on early years, but the quality of the relationship in the home matters so much. I really hope that the Government will be brave enough to recognise the value of stability in the home and the value of two-parent families as a source of real strength. They are a protective factor and a predictor of success for children and young people.

We should, of course, do all we can to support single-parent families—they are crucial and necessary and do amazing work, and we should give them all our support—but to tackle child poverty we must do more to support family formation and family stability. That means recognising the household as a unit. We are way too individualistic in our approach to public policy. We need to think about family health and family strength, and that means supporting couples. I welcome what the Government are trying to do, and I hope that there will be recognition of the importance of community and family life in the child poverty strategy.

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[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this crucial debate. I welcome the announcements by the Secretary of State and the Government on the investment and the work they plan to do. We all agree that every child in this country—regardless of postcode, parent or circumstance—deserves the best possible start in life. That is not just a slogan; it is a moral duty and a political choice. It is the foundation for a fairer, stronger and more prosperous Britain, and a critical contributor to the Government’s growth mission.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunities afforded to me when I was a child. I am the eldest of six. My mother was a homemaker, and my father worked in a factory. He then fell ill and was supported by the state. I had free school meals and free school uniforms, and I had the opportunity to go to university without incurring tens of thousands of pounds of debt. I wish for those same opportunities and more for every single child in our country going forward. Yet today, far too many children are being failed by a system that is stretched, fragmented and underfunded. We are the sixth largest economy in the world, and yet we have rising child poverty, overstretched early years services, and a widening attainment and life expectancy gap between the richest and the rest. It does not have to be this way—we can and must do better.

If we are serious about giving every child the best start in life, we must start before birth. A child’s life chances are shaped long before they take their first breath. The health and wellbeing of pregnant women and new mothers is critical for not only safe delivery, but the emotional and physical development of the child. Yet, across the UK today, midwife staffing levels are dangerously low. Prenatal and post-natal support is patchy and inconsistent. There are real maternity service inequalities for ethnic minorities and in areas of deprivation, and maternal and health needs are too often ignored.

I urge the Government to take a holistic view and review the current state of maternity services across our nation and regions, and to put in the required investment to equalise those services and make them fit for purpose. This is not just a health issue; it is a social justice issue because the poorest women, who are often at the highest risk of complications, are least likely to receive the care they need. Investment in maternal care is investment in stronger families, healthier babies and a better future for all.

To continue where life continues—the early years—the science is clear, as has been mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members. A child’s brain develops faster from birth to five than at any other time. These years shape everything from health and happiness to educational success and economic opportunity, so why is it that access to high-quality early education is still a postcode lottery? Why are childcare workers, who do some of the most vital work in our society, paid less than supermarket staff? We must deliver universal high-quality childcare from the end of parental leave to the start of school, and I welcome the Government’s announcements and investment in this area. I fully support the Government’s plans to invest in the early years workforce, and we must make quality, not just quantity, a measure of success.

Family is the first and foremost influence on a child’s life, yet support for families has been dismantled over the past 14 years. Health visitors have been cut and Sure Start centres closed, and too many parents have been left to struggle alone. I welcome the Government’s plans to rebuild—rebuild family hubs in every community, rebuild our health visiting service, and rebuild trust by giving parents real support and not judgment.

Two of the biggest determinants of how well a child will do in life is where they are born and the income of their family. Across the UK, child poverty has been rising. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, 1.6 million children are now affected by the two-child benefit cap. That means 1.6 million children whose futures are being limited by a Government policy—not by anything they have done, or by anything their families have failed to do, but by a decision to deny them the support that they need to grow and thrive. In Dewsbury and Batley, over 11,800 children are growing up in poverty. More than half of them live in working households. Those families are doing everything asked of them—going to work and trying to save—but they are still unable to meet their children’s basic needs. One parent told me:

“We live in a two-bed flat with three children. I have to cycle to work because travel costs would push us into deficit. An extra £50 a week would make a huge difference.”

That £50 could mean a warm coat, a school trip or proper meals for a week. It could mean a child arriving in the classroom ready to learn, not hungry and anxious.

What kind of country does that to its children? We say that we want every child to have the best start in life, but how can that happen if policies deliberately push them into hardship from birth? Reducing child poverty is not just a moral obligation; it is a smart investment. It leads to better health, better educational outcomes, higher future earnings and increased tax revenue. Children are not a cost to be capped; they are our country’s future.

We must also tackle the mental health crisis affecting our children and young people. CAMHS, as we know and have heard many times in this Chamber, are overwhelmed. Children are waiting months, sometimes years, for help. We need in-school mental health support teams in every school. We need early intervention, not crisis firefighting. We must train staff across education and early years in trauma-informed practice.

Let me move on to education. I was blessed with the opportunity to go to school and cannot remember ever going on an empty stomach. The work that my father did, and the support that the Government provided in welfare and benefits, ensured that I did not go to school hungry. I had free school meals and came home to a warm meal. That, I am sure, made a huge difference to what I have been able to achieve in life. Education should be the great leveller, but in reality the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers is growing, not shrinking. We must strengthen the pupil premium, restore funding for early literacy and numeracy, and, yes, expand free school meals to every primary pupil, because no child should learn on an empty stomach. I welcome the Government’s announcement on providing free school meals to every child whose family is on universal credit, but I gently encourage them to consider expanding that benefit so that it is universal.

This is not about short-term fixes; it is about long-term nation building and solutions. It is about a country that invests in its youngest, supports its mothers and refuses to accept inequality as inevitable. When we give children the best start in life, we all benefit, through lower crime, better health, stronger communities and a more productive economy, so let us rise to the moment. Let us stop managing decline and start investing in potential. Let us give every child, in every corner of this country, the best start in life.

SEND Funding

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this important debate. Given the limited time that has been allocated, I will speak about the state of SEND in my area and then suggest how the Government can address some of these challenges.

The Dewsbury and Batley constituency sits in the authority of Kirklees, which ranks very low in terms of funding per child in the high-needs block of the dedicated schools grant. According to recent reports, Kirklees is the second worst funded council for high-needs funding per capita. Kirklees has nearly 9,600 disabled children and young people between the ages of nought and 24. Since 2016, there has been a real-terms spending cut of £717,000 on services for disabled children in Kirklees. Given the lack of funding, it is not surprising that in June 2022 a joint SEND inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission reported two priority areas of action, which, as far as I am aware, are still unresolved. Without the necessary funding, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the council to address these challenges.

In Kirklees, one in eight EHCPs were processed within the 20-week legal timescale, compared with the national average of 50%, making it one of the worst rates nationally. Kirklees is part of the Department for Education’s safety valve programme, which helps local authorities with their SEND deficits, but that may pressure councils to limit EHCPs, adding barriers for families seeking essential support for their children.

I completely agree that the Government’s plans for major SEND reforms are necessary and overdue. However, current rumours and media leaks have alarmed many families. The Disabled Children’s Partnership, which represents 130-plus charities, royal colleges and parent groups and supports early intervention, has warned that reforms must not disrupt current placements or support arrangements; they must not remove EHCPs for children with complex or unmet needs; they must not abolish the SEND tribunal, which is a vital legal safeguard; they must not remove support after the age of 18 before young people are ready; and they must not redefine SEND in ways that narrow eligibility.

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[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman, which is why I and so many Members are passionate about this issue. Those who cannot articulate or fight for themselves need people to stand up and fight for them.

In many discussions I have had, I have worked with my constituents and with schools to come up with six key recommendations that we think will be innovative. We know there is a funding issue, and I welcome the Government’s investment and commitment to that. However, we need to relook at how we deliver special educational needs. Education, care and health plans are just one part of the problem, but fixing those will not fix the situation that parents are facing.

A school in Saxmundham closed down last summer, because of the declining population in that area, two years after more than £1 million was spent on its SEND unit. It is a great facility whose footprint could facilitate primary and secondary education. I have been urging the Government to look at that— I have written to the Minister, and I will continue to urge the Government to look at that provision and take it forward.

We need a national conversation about SEND and about funding. I welcome Members from across the House talking about the need to bring the voices of parents and young students to that national conversation. We must hear from them why it is failing, and how adversarial the system has become.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Statistics published today by the Government show that there are more than 482,000 children with ECHPs but 1.284 million children without ECHPs who require SEND support. Although the £750 million is welcome, does the hon. Member agree that it is a drop in the ocean and that the Government need to invest more?

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

Perhaps the hon. Member will agree with what I am about to say, which is that, yes, funding is part of the issue, but we need to look at the entire system to solve it at the scale that is needed.

In rural areas—the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness spoke about this at the beginning of the debate—the issues are different to those in urban areas. There are declining populations in many of my primary schools. One primary school has just 15 students and spare classrooms, because the population does not match the capacity. We have capacity within those schools. I have put forward a recommendation, which has been supported in principle by my county council, that where we have declining populations in rural areas, we could operate with a special educational needs unit alongside mainstream provision, acting separately but within the same infrastructure. That SEND unit could bid for separate funding, and have a separate, wider catchment area than the primary school.

What is incredibly exciting about that idea is that the provision does not need to stop in year 6. We know that small, cute primary schools with tiny populations have a huge challenge with students moving from year 6 into huge class sizes in secondary school in year 7. If we were to go ahead with the proposal, there is no reason why the SEND unit in a primary school could not hold students in years 7 and 8, enabling a much more gradual transition to a secondary school setting. That is something I have been pushing passionately. I have written a report about it, which I published in my constituency. I am having loads of conversations with my schools, and I will continue to have a conversation with the Government. I welcome everyone’s contributions today.

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[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

Schools in my constituency are among the lowest-funded in the country, and there is a lack of resource for early intervention work before children get to the point of needing SEND support or an EHCP, which means that more children will need a higher level of intervention later. It is a vicious circle. The lack of money to act early means that more money must be transferred from the schools block to the high-needs block, reducing still further the funding for early intervention.

South Gloucestershire is one of the local authorities that entered into a safety-valve agreement with the previous Government. It faces a cliff edge when that agreement ends next April, and as yet there is no certainty about what comes next. A great deal of work has been done by the council and schools working in SEND clusters, but the deficit has continued to increase. The agreement was signed pre-covid—we all know about the impact that the pandemic had on demand for additional support—and as a result the targets in the agreement are completely unachievable. Safety-valve agreements have not worked. Will the Government write off those historical deficits and find a new fairer funding formula?

I support the Government’s focus on inclusion, early intervention and preventive support to make that possible for more children. However, we need to recognise that there are children and young people already in the system who did not get that support, and schools need the funding to support them now. One of the reasons for the historical deficit in south Gloucestershire is the lack of specialist places locally, which has resulted in high numbers of expensive out-of-area placements. Those are bad for children, who would be better off being educated in their local community, so that they did not face excessive travel or need a residential place, and they are bad for the school budget.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The hon. Member makes a really important point about early intervention. The current funding models respond only to high-level need and EHCPs, which leads to an over-reliance on costly EHCPs and new special school places. Does she agree that we should look to allocate a ringfenced proportion of the high-needs funding to early intervention in mainstream schools?

[Claire Young]

That is one approach, but we need to ensure that it does not take away from the high-needs approach. The point is that we have to fund both early intervention and the high-level needs that have resulted from the lack of early intervention.

The previous Government declined to fund an additional 200 special school placements when they signed the safety-valve agreement. When I met the Minister for School Standards, she did so too, saying that the focus is on providing places in the mainstream. Increased inclusion is a sound ongoing policy, but pupils cannot make the switch overnight. We need a fairer distribution of capital funding as well as revenue funding.

Another issue with SEND funding is the notional £6,000. To give one example, a headteacher locally told me that more than 60% of their allocation goes on the high number of children with EHCPs they have on roll, leaving less than 40% to support all the other children on the record of need. School funding does not recognise that there can be great disparities between communities and schools, even in the same local authority area. Some acquire a reputation for being good at supporting those with additional needs and suffer financial consequences, and some communities in an authority have greater need than others. The formula for distributing SEND funding and more general schools funding does not reflect that, and it means that schools in different parts of the country with similar cohorts are treated very differently.

Workplace Pay Gaps

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

The happiest of new years to all. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) on securing this important debate.

Over 1,400 years ago, Islam placed a strong emphasis on justice and fairness in all aspects of life, including the workplace. The principle of equal pay for equal work aligns with Islamic teachings that advocate for equity, justice and human dignity. Several hadiths and Koranic verses highlight the importance of fair treatment and appropriate remuneration for employees. Islamic principles also stress that wage disparities based on race, gender, colour or nationality are unjust and contradict the core values of Islam and humanity.

In more recent times, it is remarkable that nearly a century after women gained equal rights to vote in this country, and half a century since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act 1970, significant gaps remain in pay for women—especially women from minority ethnic backgrounds—and for those with disabilities. I therefore welcome the measures in the Employment Rights Bill as an important step in the right direction to redress this wrong through proposals to extend reporting requirements on employers and for employers to develop and publish equality action plans, including measures to address the pay gap. However, as hon. Members have stated, action plans on their own are not enough; they must be implemented and enforced.

I would like the Government to provide further clarification on two areas. I note the findings in the report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development for 2022-23 that nearly a fifth of large employers with more than 250 employees said that they had not carried out gender pay gap reporting, despite its being a requirement for all businesses with 250 employees or more in England, Scotland and Wales. Enforcement of the reporting regulations is a responsibility of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that sufficiently robust measures are in place to ensure that employers meet their reporting requirements, as well as ensuring the enforcement of the implementation of action plans?

I also note the TUC’s recommendation that the same reporting requirements be extended to businesses with 50 employees or more. Can the Minister explain why the Bill confines itself to businesses with 250 employees or more? Why does it not seek to cast the net wider? Taking comprehensive steps to address the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps is a moral and legal imperative that the Government must address in full, once and for all.

SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) ended with the words of Desmond Tutu, and I could not agree more. I congratulate her on securing this debate on an incredibly important subject, and I congratulate hon. Members on their valuable contributions to it. I know that, as a former teacher, she is really aware of the critical role that education plays in breaking down barriers to opportunity, and how vital it is that we get our education and health services right to support the most vulnerable in our society. She described incredibly eloquently and powerfully the difference that good, inclusive education provision can make, and the significant challenges in providing it. She also mentioned the challenges that many children face at transition points, which can undermine some of the incredible work that teachers are performing up and down the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) rightly pointed out.

Like others present, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire will have been inundated with letters and emails from concerned families in her constituency. I am sure she has been helping them to navigate the incredibly challenging special educational needs and disabilities system. So many of us are faced with this issue, which is why we need to reform the system. It is a priority for the Government. We want all children, regardless of where they are in the country, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and lead happy, healthy and productive lives. In far too many cases, we have simply lost the confidence of families that children with special educational needs and disabilities will be supported, because they are being failed by every measure.

Despite high needs funding for children and young people with very complex special educational needs and disabilities rising to higher and higher levels, the system is simply not delivering the outcomes that those children deserve, so we desperately need to reform the system. Our message to families is that we are committed to improving the SEND system and regaining their confidence.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I completely agree with the Minister’s comments. Part of ensuring that we provide the correct support to children is ensuring that the education, health and care plan assessment process is effective. I was told by a charity worker in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley that 95% of appeals in Kirklees against a conclusion that SEND support is not needed are successful. Does she agree that this is a terrible waste of council resources, and that EHCP assessments must be done properly and got right the first time, so that children can be given support as soon as possible?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely recognise the challenge the hon. Gentleman has outlined, but it very much speaks to the point I was making, which is that we have published independently commissioned insights that suggest that if the education system as a whole was extensively improved, and if we had much better early intervention, which the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire rightly referred to, and better resourcing within mainstream schools, that could lead to tens of thousands more children and young people having their needs met without an education, health and care plan. Their needs would be met within a mainstream system and with their peers, without needing a specialist placement. Clearly, we need specialist places for children with the most complex needs, but to ensure we have those places, we need to improve inclusivity and expertise within mainstream schools, while ensuring that those special schools and places can cater to children with the most complex needs.

I come back to the hon. Lady’s point about transition points for young people and how important it is for the whole system to be reformed. It is not good enough to reform just part of it, and for that great work to then be undone when a child or young person moves on to a new educational setting that does not provide the right support and environment for them. My point is that this situation is huge and complex. There is not a magic wand, and there is no overnight quick fix, but we are determined to change it, and we cannot do it alone. We need to work in partnership to achieve this.

Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark, and I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock for securing this important debate. In my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley, more than 300 pupils of sixth-form age with SEND are eligible to have their costs covered by the local authority. Unfortunately, council budget to cover their costs has just been slashed by £1.6 million. The result is that families will have to cover the shortfall themselves. That picture is repeated up and down the country because, as the National Audit Office warns, the current system of funding is unsustainable as a result of the crisis in local government funding. The situation will only get worse when we consider that the number of children in England with an EHCP has more than doubled over the past decade, and we can expect it to continue to rise.

I welcome plans to improve existing provision and build a more integrated system that includes the NHS, but we also need the funding streams to ensure that SEND children from all socioeconomic backgrounds can access improved services. If the Government listened to the teaching unions, local authorities and families who are calling for extra SEND funding, and for councils’ high-needs deficits to be written off, that would be a good start.