Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Debate between Janet Daby and Bridget Phillipson

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am certainly interested in hearing more about that approach. We have made big strides forward in initial teacher training. The extra investment we are putting in will support existing teachers and staff working in the profession. However, there is more to do. We are committed to continuing to review standards in initial teacher training. I would be very happy if the hon. Lady shared more details with me.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, for the White Paper and for all the hard work she and her team have put into it. In my previous profession as a children and families fostering social worker, I saw that one of the difficulties that foster carers had was the assessment of children with special educational needs. It often made the placement and their home very vulnerable, and sometimes caused a placement to break down. It would be really helpful if the Secretary of State said how she will measure success in this area for SEND children.

[Bridget Phillipson]

Not only did my hon. Friend have that role in a former life; she helped to shape what we are setting out today through the work she did in the Department. I am grateful to her for her passion, commitment and dedication to all children, especially those who have been through the children’s social care system, whose outcomes are often even worse than children with SEND. There is a clear overlap between those groups. In my view, what constitutes success is more children getting support put in place more quickly and, fundamentally, better outcomes for those children. That means better academic outcomes, better outcomes as they move out of education into adult life and, as far as possible, that they are able to live independent, fulfilling lives. At the moment, sadly, too many young people are denied that opportunity.

Child Poverty Strategy

Debate between Janet Daby and Bridget Phillipson

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

This is an ambitious strategy, which will see the largest ever reduction in the number of children growing up in poverty in a single Parliament since records began. No one can accuse us of lacking ambition when it comes to driving down those numbers. While I note the hon. Lady’s reference to the introduction of the two-child limit, I would observe that it was after 2010—under the coalition Government—that we saw, for example, the mass closure programme of Sure Start centres right across our country, even though the evidence was clear about the outcomes that they delivered and the difference they made to families. That is why I am proud that this Labour Government are bringing back Sure Start for a new generation with Best Start family hubs to ensure that all families and children get the support they need.

Running alongside that, as I have set out, we are investing £39 billion in social and affordable housing, the single biggest uplift in support in a generation, to build the social and affordable homes that people in London and across our country desperately need. That runs alongside all the measures in the Employment Rights Bill, the changes around universal credit and the expansion of free school meals; we are putting an extra £1 billion into supporting families. This Labour Government are investing to deliver the brighter future that all our children deserve.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Official figures show that over 4,000 children in my constituency are living in poverty, and many of those families have one parent in work. I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s child poverty strategy and all the work that she and her colleagues have done, as well as the lifting of the two-child limit, but would she agree that what we now need to see is children and families not needing to use food banks?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work that she did in the Department for Education and for all that she continues to do to champion the life chances of children in her community and across our country. She contributed a lot to the work that has gone into the strategy; I am grateful to her for that.

I agree with her: I want to live in a country where families have enough money to go to the shops to buy the food that they want for their children and to make the decisions that are right for them. I pay tribute to the amazing volunteers in our community organisations and churches who give their time freely to run the food banks, but I hope that in the years to come we can shut down those food banks and make sure that all families have a good level of income and do not have to depend on the good will of strangers to get by.