Supported Internship Provision

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered supported internship provision.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner.

Yesterday, we heard some dreadful statistics about the stifling of the ambition of people with additional needs who would choose to work but face too many barriers and limited opportunities. The most striking statistic that I heard yesterday was that only 1% of people with health issues who have claimed limited capability to work benefits actually return to work.

I know people with significant disabilities who have thrived in truly exceptional and inclusive businesses, such as the King’s Award-winning Nuneaton Signs, which is not only one of the biggest manufacturers of road signs in the country but boasts a workforce of whom an incredible 70% are disabled, including those with learning difficulties.

We know that as many as 86% of those with learning difficulties who are not in work would like to be, but workplaces need to make the adjustments that our young people need, and they need to be ready for work. We must break down the barriers, and supported internships are a way to do that, both for those wishing to enter the workforce and for businesses wishing to provide a more inclusive employment offer.

Previously, the Department for Education has recognised the value of supported internships. It provided grants for local authorities and partner organisations to double the number of internships between 2020 and 2025 under the Internships Work consortium.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. She clearly has a heart for her people, including her young people, and I commend her for that. I thank her for getting here on time, too; I am not sure how fast she ran, but well done to her. Does she agree that supported internships provide not simply confidence for our young people, but valuable assistance for businesses, and that more businesses perhaps need to be aware of the potential to recruit skilled permanent staff through a different avenue, offering those staff a different opportunity?

[Jodie Gosling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and note that only 23% of businesses have applied for adjustments to accommodate disabled people to enter the workforce. These internships are crucial, and they are a really good, supported way into work.

There are four key principles to the supported internship programme. First, the majority of the intern’s time is spent at the employer’s premises in a work placement, allowing a structured introduction to the work environment. Secondly, alongside their time at the employer, the intern follows a personalised study curriculum, including in key skills such as maths and English, which creates a bespoke package to support young people and enable them to progress into paid employment. Thirdly, a job coach is central to the study programme. They support the young person to access training in line with the national occupational standard for supported employment, and provide crucial support for the employer to make necessary adjustments and reflect on their inclusivity practices.

Free School Meals

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) for setting the scene and for delivering a debate that is so important to us all.

Obviously, I will give a Northern Ireland perspective. Although Northern Ireland is not the Minister’s responsibility, I know—or at least I think—he appreciates my comments and the perspective I give, which in this case replicates what is happening in the rest of the United Kingdom. I always think it is important to bring that interpretation to these debates, because that hopefully adds to how we do things together in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and ensures that we do them in a better way. Listening to hon. Members so far, it is evident that there are similarities, despite education being devolved. It is important that there is provision for all children to have a decent, balanced meal while in school. For that reason, I am pleased to be here.

I know that the team of the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) lost on Sunday, but the premier league is still ahead of him and that is the important one, so he should not worry about the Carabao cup; the premier league means a whole lot more, although the Carabao cup means a lot to Newcastle, because they have not had much success in the past few years.

It is a pleasure to see the Minister in his place, and I look forward to his contribution. He comes to these debates, and indeed to Question Time in the Chamber, to genuinely try to answer our requests, and he always does that in a way that helps me have confidence in what he does and in the relationships he has with the Northern Ireland Assembly and particularly with the Minister there.

I am also pleased to see the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), in his place. He always brings his knowledge to these debates, and he brings it in a fair way. That adds to our debates, because they are about how to make things better. That is what I always say about the shadow Minister and what he does.

To give some background, free school meals are managed and allocated by the education authority back home, and parents can check their eligibility and apply accordingly. The most recent figures I could get are from 2021, when 98,000 pupils in Northern Ireland were entitled to free school meals. I thank the hon. Members for Liverpool West Derby and for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) for referring to those in poverty, because a great many are in poverty. There is no doubt that there are children who are eligible but who are not claiming, so more must be done to make parents aware of the criteria. I am keen to see how we can cast the net wider and gather those who should be eligible but who are not applying, whatever their reasons may be.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about those who are eligible. Schoolchildren in my constituency are complaining about bus services in Epsom and Ewell. They cannot get on to some of the buses, which means they are incredibly late for school. That is one of the reasons why they miss the breakfast option. While I welcome the introduction of free breakfast clubs, does the hon. Gentleman agree that free hot lunches are key to helping those who need them most? Those who are not there for breakfast also cannot get lunch. However, if they had a free hot lunch, even if they are late to school, they would still be able to have a hot meal.

[Jim Shannon]

As the hon. Lady says, there will always be children who miss out. How do we bring them into the system? The Minister has, no doubt, listened to her question, and hopefully his answer may be of some help.

In March 2024, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health revealed that 109,000 children in Northern Ireland were in relative poverty. Given that 97,000 to 98,000 children are receiving free school meals, there could potentially be around 11,400 children eligible for assistance and not claiming, some perhaps for the very reasons that the hon. Member for Eastleigh highlighted. More must be done to recognise that.

Some 89,000 children in Northern Ireland are said to be in absolute poverty, which is awful to think about. What a fine line there is between relative and absolute poverty. However, the fine line means that they either get a meal or do not get a meal, and it is important that they get one. I am being constructive in my questions, and I ask the Minister what we can do to address those issues.

Free school meals are a fantastic way to support parents, and they take a bit of pressure off them. Parents do not want to send their children to school without a meal; they want to make sure their children have a meal and a full stomach. Children’s inquisitive minds work better when they are not worrying about getting fed.

We must remember that our schools promote healthy eating and encourage parents to pack healthy and balanced lunches. While that is a wonderful initiative in principle, the cost of food has risen, as other hon. Members have outlined. The figures are very clear: it is impossible to produce a meal for 69p or 78p, and we need to remember that when it comes to producing helpful and nutritious meals.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. However, as a new Member who strongly welcomes the new breakfast club initiative, I point out that in my constituency, like many others, only one in 10 schools currently offers a free breakfast club to children. Many of the schools that do offer one rely on companies such as Greggs, and the generosity of parents and teachers to put on the clubs. While I understand that there may be some kinks in the system as we roll out the early adoption scheme, is it not better that the Government are stepping forward, providing funding and working with teachers and schools, rather than relying on the generosity of private businesses and the teachers themselves?

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I am not here to deliver a bad message to the Minister. I welcome the scheme, because it is a good scheme. Any scheme is a good scheme if it helps.

I was about to mention Greggs, Kellogg’s and other companies that do deals with schools. Just in the past week, Asda and Tesco have come up with pilot schemes across the United Kingdom through which food that is about to expire will be given to certain groups. And schoolchildren are a group that it could be given to.

There is nothing wrong with the food. I am of a certain generation, and in my house, when I was growing up, nothing was ever thrown out—nothing. I mean that. If the potatoes were old, they were roasted. If the cheese had a bit of blue growth around the edge, it was cut off or wiped off and we ate it. It has not done me any harm. I am shortly coming to a significant age, and perhaps those foods helped me live longer.

My point is that we need to take advantage of opportunities, and the pilot schemes set up by Asda and Tesco are opportunities. The hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) is absolutely right that there are other ways of doing things, but we welcome the Government’s positive initiative—if something is good, it is good; it is never bad just because it was proposed by another party. Let us include it in our agenda.

It is no secret that fresh, healthy food is more expensive than the easier alternative, so providing something at school will benefit so many families—parents want that as well. There have previously been calls to provide free school meals for all children. Many MPs, celebrities and organisations backed the No Child Left Behind campaign to provide universal free school meals. Such initiatives and partnerships could be developed to help us deliver for our children.

There is proof that nourishing and healthy meals support children in performing academically. They have better concentration, better memory and better energy, which boosts their educational performance and increases the likelihood of a successful future. That is what we all want, and it is what the Government and the Minister are aiming for.

The initiative is similar to the free milk scheme, which I am old enough to remember from when I was a boy back in the 1960s. It was launched after world war two and was still going when I was at school, and indeed after that. It was designed to combat malnutrition and ensure that all schoolchildren under the age of 18 had free access to a good source of protein and calcium to aid their diets and growth.

I have spoken on this topic many times in this Chamber, but I want to emphasise its importance. Some pupils with special educational needs thrive on routine and perhaps live by a very strict diet. We have heard about children with special diets, and we should think about how they are catered for. If there were a SEND debate in this Chamber, it would be full because everybody would come along with their stories, and I would add my stories and examples too. Schools need to provide meals that cater to those children’s needs. No child should suffer or be left behind. Will the Minister offer some clarity on the current guidelines on this issue?

The free school meals system is fantastic. The Government’s initiative is fantastic, and nobody here will ever be churlish about it. I have made some constructive suggestions for how we can move forward in partnership with businesses such as Greggs, Kellogg’s, Tesco, Asda and others. As I said, there is more to do to recognise all the children and parents who could benefit from this scheme. Furthermore, perhaps the Minister and his Department could consider universal free school meals for the betterment of all children’s futures.

Again, constructively and positively, I look to the Minister to ensure that he has those conversations with the devolved nations—he makes it his business to do that, which is constructive and very welcome—and to ensure that adequate funding is always there to support suffering children and parents who are on the breadline, which makes it difficult for them to cater for and look after their children.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

I start by thanking all hon. and right hon. Members for their valuable contributions during the passage of the Bill to date, and in particular, members of the Public Bill Committee for providing substantial debate and scrutiny.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a landmark Bill and a key piece of legislation that will enable us to deliver the Government’s opportunity mission and our determination to break the link between people’s background and their future success. It will protect children from abuse, it will stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in services and it will deliver a core guarantee of high standards with space for innovation in every child’s education. It will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout education and throughout children’s social care so that every child can achieve and thrive.

Reforming children’s social care is critical to giving hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life that they deserve. Our approach to reform will break down barriers by shifting the focus of the children’s social care system to early support to keep families together. We will ensure that children can remain with their families where appropriate, support more children to live with kinship carers or in fostering families and fix the broken care market to tackle profiteering and put children’s needs first.

The previous Government bequeathed to us a bitter inheritance of not only child poverty across great swathes of our country, which affected one in three, or even one in two, of our young people, not just record numbers of children out of school or not turning up to school, not merely a children’s social care system at breaking point, but—bitterest of all—a fiscal blackhole. That blackhole must be tackled to get this country’s finances and future back on track, but it limits the speed at which we can deliver the ambition that all Labour Members have for a brighter future for Britain’s children.

Let me speak to our Government amendments. New clauses 18 to 22 introduce corporate parenting duties for Departments and relevant public bodies. A previous Labour Prime Minister observed, following Tawney:

“What a wise parent would wish for their children, so the state must wish for all its children.”

That principle lies behind the change that these new clauses seek to bring today, as we ensure that across the public sector we recognise the moral and necessary obligation to do all we can to level the playing field for children in care and care leavers. This group of young people faces significant disadvantages. Twenty-six per cent. of the homeless population are care-experienced, and around a quarter of the adult prison population were in care as children. Care leavers aged 19 to 21 are over three times more likely not to be in education, employment or training than their peers.

New clause 18 introduces corporate parenting responsibilities for Departments and the relevant public bodies, referred to as “relevant authorities”, listed in new schedule 1. New corporate parents will need to be alert to the needs of children in care and care leavers and assess the services or support they provide that are available to them. They will also need to provide them with the opportunities to participate in activities designed to promote their wellbeing or enhance their employment prospects.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome what the Minister says. Last week, some of us had the opportunity to attend an event where Jamie Oliver was present. He is dyslexic, and he made a point that I think we need to recognise: those with dyslexia, autism and challenging educational behaviours also need to be helped. Will a section of the population that need help like this one also receive it?

[Stephen Morgan]

The hon. Member is a tireless champion for children and young people, and he regularly writes to me even though education is a devolved matter. I will say a bit more later about the support available for children with special educational needs and disabilities. He will know that SEND is at a crisis point, and this Government are absolutely committed to reforming the system and are working at pace to do so.

New clause 20 introduces a duty for new corporate parents and local authorities in England to work collaboratively with each other when it is in the best interests of children in care and care leavers when undertaking these duties. That is to avoid siloed working or duplication of efforts, addressing the challenges that children in care and care leavers face holistically in the same way that parents do when supporting their children.

New clause 21 introduces a duty for relevant authorities to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. The guidance will set out how the duty relates to different corporate parents and how that will continue to contribute to outcomes we seek for children in care and care leavers. We will develop that guidance in partnership with the sector and with the relevant authorities listed in new schedule 1.

New clause 22 introduces a duty on the Secretary of State to report on their corporate parenting activity every three years, bringing accountability to the new duty and allowing us to monitor progress and the impact of implementation. New schedule 1 provides a power for the Secretary of State to amend the list of corporate parents by affirmative regulations. The purpose is clear: where children in care and care leavers can be further supported by the addition of new public duties as corporate parents, or where we need to make changes to existing ones, they need not wait for fresh primary legislation. We shall have the power to act swiftly and powerfully in their interests. I am sure that hon. and right hon. Members across the House share the Government’s ambition to drive a step change in the experiences and outcomes of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in society and that they will support these new clauses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

I had not shared my speech with my hon. Friend, but she has anticipated the next couple of points that I was about to make. I agree with her strongly. I preface my comments by saying that there are many independent special schools run by private or voluntary sector providers that do an excellent job and are certainly not profiteering in the way that I am about to set out. Clearly, however, that is not the case across the board, with some firms making upwards of 20% in profit on what they charge. We must challenge whether that is justified. The crisis in state special educational needs and disability provision and the lack of specialist places have led to a growth in private provision that is crippling local authority finances, as my hon. Friend just said.

In 2021-22, councils spent £1.3 billion on independent and non-maintained special schools—twice what they spent just six years previously. The average cost of one of those places was £56,710, which, as my hon. Friend said, was twice the average cost of a state-run special school place. Many of the companies running these schools are the very same private equity companies running the children’s homes and fostering agencies that clause 15 is designed to deal with, so I am at a loss as to why the Government have not included independent special schools in the clause. I urge them to think again and accept our amendment.

My new clause 29 would impose a requirement on the Secretary of State to introduce a national wellbeing measurement programme for children and young people throughout England. I pay tribute to #BeeWell, Pro Bono Economics and the wider Our Wellbeing Our Voice coalition for their hard work in this area. As I have said several times during this Bill’s progress, I am more than a little surprised to find so little about children’s wellbeing in a Bill with this title. One in four children in the UK reports low wellbeing, and according to the programme for international student assessment data, our country is the lowest ranked in Europe on that head. Data on children’s wellbeing and mental health is fragmented across the NHS, schools and local authorities. It is crucial that we collect data to understand the challenges that young people face and to develop solutions, and that we seek to understand the efficacy of those solutions through the use of robust wellbeing data.

I welcome the Conservatives’ new clause 36 on wellbeing, phones and social media, both as a parent and as a parliamentarian. In this unprecedented digital age, we need to treat children’s social media and phone addiction as a public health issue. We have long supported the last Government’s guidance that schools should try to restrict mobile phone use during the school day, with—importantly—proper mitigations that teachers and heads can employ for young carers and those with medical conditions who use their phones as medical devices, and in other local circumstances that teachers and heads are best placed to identify.

[Jim Shannon]

Is the hon. Lady aware of the pilot scheme introduced in Northern Ireland by the Education Minister, Paul Givan? In some schools, all the children’s mobile phones are placed in pouches, so that they are never on show. This could make the Conservatives’ proposal acceptable to all, and there is still provision for carers to keep their phones with them. Northern Ireland has shown what can be done with a pilot scheme, and it is great that the House is following our lead.

[Munira Wilson]

It is always an honour to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman, and it is great to hear about the pilot scheme in Northern Ireland. I have read that the Government in the Republic of Ireland have spent about €9 million on issuing those pouches to schools across the country. It would be useful and instructive for the UK Government to look at how that pilot goes, but I am not sure that we even need to wait for that. School leaders and parents are pressing us to go further now, and we must listen.

Putting the guidance into law will ensure that schools have the necessary support when they are challenged on their policies, and the resources to implement a mobile-free environment. A headteacher in my constituency told me that it would cost his school budget £20,000 to install lockers or issue the pouches described by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Children must be able to learn in an environment that is free from the distraction of phones and the threat of bullying. We have also seen a significant reduction in truancy in schools where restrictions have been robust.

Mental Health Support: Educational Settings

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered mental health support in educational settings.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and the MPs from across the House who supported its application. I also thank Emily Horsfall, my team and the staff at the Mental Health Foundation for their support in preparing for today’s debate.

There should be no doubt that good mental health and wellbeing are as critical to the progression of our young people as physical health is. Protecting mental health at an early age can have a defining impact on lifelong resilience and ensure positive mental health outcomes. At a time when young people up and down the country—especially girls and young women—face a barrage of challenges from what feels like a never-ending conveyor belt of demeaning and misogynistic content on social media, the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis, this is a timely debate, and I thank hon. Members who have stayed in the Chamber to contribute to it.

Much of what I will say today reflects my conversations with young people, parents, teachers and professionals in my constituency of Redditch and the villages. When they approach me on a visit, when I am food shopping in Tesco or at one of my surgeries, they display courage and determination to build a system that is fit for purpose and which will ensure that all children get the support they need to have the most fulfilling lives possible. I hope this debate can be about how we can support our schools and education professionals, who are not trained mental health professionals but are so often on the frontline, to ensure that our children get the best support they can at the most appropriate time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this issue. I was just looking at some of the stats for Northern Ireland in order to support his argument. In 2023, pupils with disabilities reported lower levels of general wellbeing across all measures than those who are not disabled. Does he agree that access to pastoral care teams, who are equipped and trained to help those with declining mental health due to disabilities, would be one way of addressing this very issue?

[Chris Bloore]

I think that is the first time the hon. Gentleman has intervened on me, so I feel very honoured. I absolutely agree with him, and I will talk about other affected groups later in my remarks. I thank him for his intervention.

I hope this debate can be about how we support our schools and education professionals, but I also hope that the discussion raises awareness about the challenges facing young people. I know that some people like to hand-wave away any discussion about mental health problems among children and young people. Since the announcement of this debate, I have read previous debates elsewhere, and a few people have whispered in my ear that they do not believe that children are resilient enough these days. Well, I simply do not buy that argument. I know it makes some uncomfortable when young people talk about their mental health challenges, but it can only be positive that awareness and the mainstreaming of mental health conditions have given so many across society the confidence to have honest conversations about how they are feeling and the impact that others’ actions can have on their mental health.

What do the statistics tell us about the state of our young people’s mental health? NHS statistics show us that about one in five children and young people aged eight to 25 had a probable mental disorder in 2023, and that the number of urgent referrals of children and young people to emergency mental health services has tripled since 2019. The uncomfortable truth is that waiting lists for children and adolescent mental health services can be a postcode lottery. For instance, in November last year, the average waiting time for a child to receive a referral for a first appointment in Hereford and Worcestershire was seven weeks, compared with the national average of five weeks. From freedom of information requests, we know that one child waited almost two years for an appointment. Referrals at the Hereford and Worcestershire health and care NHS trust have increased by 118% in the last five years—a trend that is reflected across the country.

Swann Report: 40th Anniversary

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)]

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking Swann report “Education for All”. The first of its kind, the report was commissioned to examine disparities in educational attainment and experiences among ethnic minority pupils, and made recommendations to tackle institutional racism in the education system. The inquiry, led by Lord Swann, was launched in response to a number of campaigns against racism in education, in particular the high-profile scandal of educationally subnormal—ESN—schools that disproportionately removed higher numbers of black Caribbean children from mainstream education settings, and wrongly labelled them educationally subnormal.

A mixture of education policy and racist attitudes was responsible for this shocking discrimination. The 1960s was a time of rising immigration, with the post-war British empire’s invitation to the Windrush generation of workers from the Caribbean and its other colonies to rebuild Britain. It was also a time of significant racist backlash, with the overt racism of Enoch Powell and the notions of racial superiority that gained traction in the political mainstream. These ideas worked their way into our national education policy, with the aim of creating and maintaining a two-tier labour force and a deliberately under-educated black population to fill all the menial jobs that white Brits did not want.

This significant miscarriage of justice took place in the 1960s and 1970s, and saw hundreds of black—mostly Caribbean—children wrongly sent to schools that were meant for pupils with severe physical and mental disabilities. These schools had existed since the 1940s, due to the provision, under the Education Act 1944, of appropriate schools for pupils with severe mental or physical disabilities. But by the late 1960s, almost 30% of pupils in ESN schools in London were black immigrant children, compared with 15% in mainstream schools.

It was clear that decisions were being made by teachers, educational psychologists and local education authorities to place these children in ESN schools for reasons other than mental or physical disabilities. Although parents were aware that their children were being forced to struggle against a racist system, most were isolated and not given the information that they needed to make informed decisions about their child’s education. It was not until an Inner London Education Authority report was leaked that the true extent of this shocking discrimination was revealed.

Grenadian educator Bernard Coard took the initiative to write and publish the groundbreaking pamphlet “How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British school system”, making the leaked ILEA information accessible to parents and communities. Mass community mobilisation as a result of Coard’s pamphlet inspired parents and community organisations to campaign against the now undeniable institutional racism in British schools. That forced the Government to respond, and these schools were eventually shut down in the early 1980s.

Published in March 1985, Swann’s report confirmed Coard’s analysis: the persistence of racist stereotypes, biased IQ tests, a deep misunderstanding of culture and language, and biases in teacher expectations, disciplinary practices and curriculum content were creating significant barriers to education for black children. It challenged the racist myths that black children were less intelligent than their white counterparts, and recognised instead that the structural racism embedded in the British education system was disadvantaging them. Inadequate support for pupils with English as a second language, a lack of diversity in the curriculum, and a significant disconnect between schools and parents from ethnic minority backgrounds were identified as further barriers to black children achieving their full academic potential.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. I spoke to her beforehand to ask permission to intervene. I looked at the Swann report, which she has outlined very clearly. Does she agree that although substantial strides have been taken since that eye-opening report, the learning curve for the integration and understanding that we all wish to see must continue, as we strive to ensure that each of us can claim the best of British education, incorporating our own ethnic backgrounds and rich cultural history and heritage? Things are better, but there is still a lot more to do.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. However, as I will say later in my speech, I do not think that things have substantially improved, as he suggests, for lots of black children in our education system.

The report produced several key recommendations, including diversifying and decolonising the curriculum, more diversity in teacher recruitment, anti-racism training for teachers, more resources for language support, better data collection and monitoring, and a better approach to working with parents and communities to build trust and encourage active participation in pupils’ education.

Predictably, the Thatcher Government did little to progress those recommendations. However, the following Labour Government took some of the lessons learned as a framework for our Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, particularly the introduction of the duty for public institutions, including schools, to promote racial equality.

However, we know that many racist barriers still exist in education—from disparities in educational attainment to the school-to-prison pipeline, the adultification of black pupils, to the presence of police in schools and the need for a truly anti-racist curriculum. Today’s patterns of racism, segregation and exclusion in education have evolved directly from the policies and attitudes that drove the ESN scandal. The closure of ESN schools in the 1980s led directly to a rapid expansion in the use of school exclusions. We began to see higher numbers incarcerated in prisons, and the expansion of the use of sets and tiering in education, whereby certain groups of children are increasingly denied the opportunity to sit exams at certain levels and then the opportunity to progress in educational settings, including university.

The establishment of pupil referral units is recognised as another method of systematic exclusion from education. We must be clear: the use of PRUs and exclusions are a symptom of failure of the education system. The disruptive behaviour of a child is a cry for help, not a crime. An education system that does not respond with care and support is an education system that is broken. The number of exclusions have soared in recent years, with children as young as five being kicked out of school. Draconian behavioural policies disproportionately impact on poor children, those living in care, and those from black Caribbean, mixed and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller backgrounds.

Swann’s recommendations for an inclusive education system are more important today, and we must take this opportunity to update the lessons learned and apply them to our current system. The societal impact is still as relevant today as it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Lessons must be learnt on the 40th anniversary of the Swann report in order to put an end to this systemic discrimination. Evidence of the scale of the injustice of children being forced needlessly into ESN schools in the 1960s and 1970s is scarce, but we do know about the impact that misclassification as educationally subnormal has had on survivors, some of whom have joined us in the Public Gallery. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their work in exposing this scandal and campaigning to raise awareness of the racial injustice that they suffered. Their work has already made a huge difference, and they have my commitment to keep fighting for the justice and dignity that they deserve.

We heard from some of the survivors at the event I held yesterday in Parliament. We heard from Noel Gordon, who told us that he was wrongly misclassified as educationally subnormal after a chain of events starting with him being diagnosed at the age of four with sickle cell. He describes being bullied and abused by teachers, running away from school and his mum fighting tooth and nail to get him out, but to no avail. Through his determination, he has achieved several qualifications including a degree.

We heard from Maisie Barrett, who is a natural creative. She described how she needed support with her academic skills and her stutter, but those resources were and still are systematically denied to black children. She has said that her grandchild is a victim of today’s SEND system, just like she was a victim of ESN. She told us that if she had received a proper education, she might have pursued her dreams and migrated to Jamaica, and fought for recognition for being wrongly classified as educationally subnormal.

We heard from Rene Stephens, who was expelled from his mainstream secondary school after his teacher assaulted him and was sent to an ESN school that neglected his academic development. He left school with no qualifications. Deprived of education and support, he has now spent 18 years in and out of the criminal justice system due to his misclassification. He was forced to abandon his dream of becoming head chef at the Savoy hotel. He says he continues to struggle with societal participation as a direct consequence of being denied a proper secondary education.

We heard from Denise Davidson, who described how, even in her innocence as a young girl, she realised that her school was different to other schools. She remembers challenging her educational psychologist, and described how her experiences now help her as a children’s social worker to support vulnerable children in similar positions.

This is not only an historic injustice; it is a living one for all who went through it. Most left school at 16 or earlier, unable to read, write or count, and were denied the opportunity to thrive and achieve their full potential. The survivors of ESN still have significant problems with self-worth and with accessing meaningful, well-paid work after they were denied an education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

Under the Tories teachers were overstretched and undervalued, so Labour is resetting the relationship with the profession. We are properly remunerating teachers by accepting the 5.5% pay rise that the last Government sat on. We are also keen to cut unnecessary burdens on teachers, harnessing artificial intelligence and supporting children with their mental health. The child poverty taskforce is determined to alleviate the burdens that originate outside the school gates.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

What steps are being taken to support voluntary organisations across the United Kingdom, such as AWARE in Northern Ireland, that offer education programmes to target depression and related mood conditions as part of mental health education in schools?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the important contribution that voluntary and third sector organisations can make. Here in England, through the consultation about relationships, sex and health education, we are looking at what more we can do to ensure that all young people get the support that they need, including in the areas that he has identified.

Future Skills Programmes: Universities

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for future skills programmes at universities.

It is really a pleasure to speak in your presence, Sir Desmond. I also thank the Minister, who knows that my aim in this debate is to give the Government a present—a present in the form of an idea that would revolutionise higher education, boost skills across our economy and be an engine of real growth. But it is more than that; it is an idea that could enhance the quality of life of millions of people, as it is also about social mobility and social justice—equality of opportunity in action. It is an idea that has already been fully and professionally researched, with thousands of businesses across the UK inputting into the completed research. This well researched idea has also been piloted and tested on real, live students. Moreover, it is an idea in its third year of practical roll-out. This is happening now, and it is being fully evaluated as it is put into action. It is a present that is, shall we say, oven ready.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Member for bringing forward the debate. I was saying beforehand that Queen’s University in Belfast is already doing this. It runs these online skills courses and programmes, through shadowing and other incentives. Does the right hon. Member agree that greater Government support could only help even more students to give those few hours per semester to achieve greater personal growth and better foundational skills—the very objective that he is trying to achieve?

[Ed Davey]

It is always a pleasure to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman, but I am going to push back a little bit, because I do not think any university is doing what Kingston University is doing—it might be partially —so I hope that he will listen to the rest of my remarks.

I think that this idea can be rolled out across England and, indeed, the whole UK and that it has the potential to help our schools, too. If that is not enough to intrigue and interest the Minister, I am not sure what is, but here is the icing on the cake: it will not cost very much. I hope I have got the Minister’s attention now. It is an idea that is very affordable. I am super-proud to say that this idea has been researched, developed, piloted, tested and rolled out in the fabulous university in my constituency—Kingston University.

I am about to unwrap this present, but in advance of the reveal, let me be clear that I have one main, simple ask of the Minister today. Please can she or her ministerial colleagues come to Kingston University to hear more from the academics involved, but above all to listen to the inspiring students who are already benefiting? And please come soon, before decisions are made in the spending review later this year, because I think students across the country can benefit from this.

Here is the present. Kingston University has developed a programme that it calls Future Skills, with the future skills being ones identified by business through a major research programme. There are nine skills in all. They are creative problem solving, digital competency including AI, adaptability, having a questioning mindset, empathy, collaboration, being enterprising, resilience, and self-awareness—something we could all do with in this House. The Minister will recognise, I hope, that these are essential life skills, but they are rarely taught, at least not directly. There is no undergraduate course with all these skills in the curriculum, yet they are the future skills that businesses say they want people to have.

Some people in other higher education institutions might say, “Well, we do that. We teach those skills, but in other ways. There’s nothing special to see here.” They would be wrong. Kingston University has developed modules for all these skills and insists that every single undergraduate takes these modules, whatever their main subject. They might be studying engineering or fashion—Kingston University, by the way, is in the top five in the UK, and is top in London, for fashion and textiles; I thought I would just get that in. They might be studying computer science or cyber-security, or nursing. Whatever the degree, students at Kingston University now study these nine future skills as well. What is more, Kingston University has structured the teaching of these future skills across three years of undergraduate study in phases called navigate, explore and apply. A first-year undergraduate will experience those future skills in a programme called navigate, which is designed to support the student’s transition into university life. It involves workshops that show that these future skills are not abstract but real skills with huge significance.

These workshops help students to navigate how they match up to the skills already. Are they naturally empathetic? Have they mastered AI? Are they good at collaboration and problem-solving? I guess the first-year undergraduate experience of the navigate phase of future skills could be described as self-assessment, where the student is offered relevant guidance and learning resources to develop all those skills. That first-year navigate phase was rolled out, after testing, for all Kingston University students in September 2023, reaching 5,300 students this academic year.

This September’s Kingston freshers will be the third cohort to experience navigate and future skills. Students in their second year take future skills forward in a phase called explore. That involves students working directly with employers to build their knowledge of these future skills and an understanding of what they mean in practice. They do that in a variety of ways: in mock assessment centres and live projects, and through placements and site visits. Some people would say they do that already, but they do not.

Explore has been tested for two years and rolled out for one. The full second year of Kingston students have been experiencing explore from last September, reaching more than 4,400 students. To take one example, an exercise developed with the John Lewis Partnership focused on Waitrose. Waitrose worked with Kingston students on actual questions and challenges that the business is facing, working with 600 second-year students from the university’s faculty of business and social science and the faculty of engineering, computing and the environment to help them to solve real problems.

Students are devising a system to make it easier for Waitrose to capture and interpret data from its suppliers. Other students are shaping a business-to-business marketing communications strategy for Waitrose to encourage suppliers to adopt appropriate use of artificial intelligence to support data insight.

SEND Education Support

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) on so passionately describing the issues for her constituents—but these are replicated for all of us. I will give some statistics from Northern Ireland to add to the support that I give to the hon. Lady and others. There are some 11,000 children in special education—an increase of 70% in the past 10 years—and 8% of those children have special educational needs.

I do not know how many meetings I have attended with parents who are worried about their children. It has become an incredibly important issue. It is a mammoth take for the Minister here—it is good to see her in her place and I wish her well—as it is a mammoth take for those back home as well. I honestly believe that every child is a precious gift from God, born with a unique personality and a purpose to fulfil—each is valued, is important and matters. That is why I support the Minister in coming forward.

I want to put it on the record that the Education Department in Northern Ireland, which I represent, has committed to a vision where,

“Every child and young person is happy, learning and succeeding.”

That aspiration is no different for our children who face additional challenges to accessing learning. Reform is urgent and essential to deliver that vision, ensure inclusion, and improve outcomes for learners who require additional support. The SEN reform agenda is an ambitious framework for change and takes a whole-system approach to tackling the issues underpinning current challenges in the system.

What do we need? We need two things: first, early diagnosis for those who have educational issues, and secondly, plenty of staff members who can take on the issues and can respond quickly. My request to the Minister is—I know she probably does this without me asking her—will she discuss with our Education Minister back home to see how best we can deliver this for all of those in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? That was a five-minute speech done in two minutes.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Thank you for keeping to the two minutes, more or less. We should continue that trend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) and congratulate her on securing this debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my partner’s interests.

Given the time limit, I will focus on one case in my constituency, out of so many. It is not new, but a decade-long issue on which we have been fighting for one child. We tried to submit this child’s assessment when she was three years of age, but it was unsuccessful. Only following an Ofsted intervention at Warwickshire county council did she finally get a diagnosis of autism, six years later. No directives were made for other special needs.

She is now in secondary school and, eight years on, she is still awaiting diagnosis of and support for ADHD and other complex needs. Her mum constantly has to fight, and has engaged proactively with every intervention she has been offered, such as early help. When her mum last inquired to find out how long they would have to wait, she was told the waiting list is still measured in years, not in months or weeks. After first displaying diagnosable traits at three, there is every chance that this child may leave her education without fully understanding her needs.

The impact on the family has been profound, and the impact on the mental health of this child has been traumatic. Her mother found a notebook detailing her suicide plans when she was in year 6. After sleepless nights worrying, she finally got a mental health assessment weeks later and was told that she did not present a risk as she had not identified the tree or rope she would use to hang herself. This is disgusting and a complete failure. No family should have to go through this.

[Jim Shannon]

Everybody brings a personal story to this place, and the hon. Lady has brought a very personal story. It is obvious to all of us here that the hon. Lady is a compassionate MP and understands the issues for her constituents, and she has portrayed that very well. She is assiduous and honest, and we thank her for that.

[Jodie Gosling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me a moment to compose myself. Children should not be seen as a tick list of diagnosis criteria. We need a SEND system that deals with children and families holistically, that listens to their voices and that tackles the root causes.

SEND Provision: Derbyshire

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring forward this debate. I know that the Labour Government have inherited a broken system of special educational needs and disabilities provision—broken by 14 years of Tory under-investment, mismanagement and chaos. Even knowing this, I was shocked by the number of Amber Valley parents and carers who have reached out to me desperate for help. They have been let down by a national SEND system in measured decline and, in Derbyshire, by a county council demonstrating “widespread and/or systemic failings”. SEND provision throughout the country is in a bad state, but in Derbyshire it is at crisis point. This Government are committed to

“breaking down barriers to opportunity”.

Where previous Conservative Governments failed, we will succeed in rebuilding our SEND system and ensuring it is properly funded. In Derbyshire, however, we must go further. Derbyshire county council is failing our children. That is the story I have heard over and over from parents, carers and educators in Amber Valley.

It was therefore no surprise to read of widespread and systemic failings in Ofsted’s damning report on Derbyshire county council’s SEND provision. By the time Ofsted published its findings in November 2024, I had already heard about those failings at first hand through countless emails and surgery appointments. Wanting to get a true picture of the scale of the issue, I conducted a survey on SEND provision in Amber Valley. The results spoke for themselves, with 88% of respondents rating SEND provision in Amber Valley as poor and only 2% saying it was good. Some 83% complained of long waiting times, 81% said that provision in mainstream schools was insufficient, and 70% said that they had experienced problems obtaining an education, health and care plan, which is the first step in accessing support for their child.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on bringing this debate forward. I spoke to her beforehand. It is heartbreaking to hear what she is saying about her constituency, and I understand that, but the situation is replicated across this whole great United Kingdom. The number of Members who are here to speak is an indication of how many want to voice their concerns. She is right to talk about those who are waiting. Does she agree that early diagnosis and early intervention are all that really matters? If we can get that done early, we can save a child. It can give a child a future and an opportunity, and it can take the pressure off the parents as well.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention on a matter that I know is close to his heart. He is absolutely right. The delays are a real concern, and diagnosis at an early stage is important, but that is not what we are seeing in Derbyshire. That is the worry.

Financial Education

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) on securing this important debate, and I commend him for his sustained efforts to drive up the quality and availability of financial education offered to our young people. There is sometimes a tendency in this House—perhaps an understandable one—to gravitate towards short-termism. It is therefore a sincere pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, who, along with his colleagues in the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, has been doing such excellent work to promote reforms that take a longer view and are geared towards boosting the life chances of future generations.

Good financial education, delivered not only by schools, but by parents and families and within communities, has the potential to produce a generation wise to the dangers of credit card debt, alert to the practices of predatory payday lenders, and confident in their ability to open a bank account and budget appropriately. I believe that all of us in this place are truly committed to reducing inequality and ensuring that everyone has the best possible start in life, and I can think of few better ideas than ensuring that all young people enter adulthood with a sound grasp of how to manage their money.

The British public seem to share that assessment. A research survey of UK adults conducted by Santander revealed that a full 70% felt that better financial education in their younger years would have improved their ability to manage their finances through the ongoing cost of living crisis. Meanwhile, two thirds of young people believe that a lack of financial education has played a role in them amassing the debts that they hold.

Indeed, it is not just adults but children who are deeply concerned about financial matters. The London Institute of Banking and Finance reported in 2023 that 68% of children worry about money and their personal finances. That figure is hardly surprising when we consider that today’s children are the most digitally exposed in history; they face a constant barrage of offers to spend money in alluring but wasteful ways. Many of the apps downloaded on to the phones that our children spend so much time on are full of shining icons, inviting them to spend real-world money, with the tap of a finger, in exchange for worthless in-game currencies. Young players of online games are prompted to spend, in some cases, hundreds of pounds on loot boxes or so-called cosmetic items—that is, a virtual in-game weapon, or an outfit that is a slightly different colour from the default option. Financial literacy is clearly a skill that our children and young people need, to protect them and prepare them for the future.

Although there is undoubtedly still work to be done, I briefly draw the House’s attention to the solid foundations laid by successive Conservative Governments over the past 14 years. After all, the Conservatives left England as one of the top-performing countries in education. Under the Conservative Government, children in England were named the best in the west for reading, and were ranked best at maths in the western world in the 2023 TIMSS—trends in international mathematics and science study. It was a Conservative Government who created the national network of 40 maths hubs to support schools in improving their mathematics teaching. That network is a partnership between schools, colleges and other organisations that work together to provide support for maths teaching in their regions. The positive impact of those hubs on young people’s ability to manage and understand money and finance is obvious. We were clear that we intended to go further: at the last election, we set out a comprehensive plan to ensure that every child studied maths to the age of 18, so that they would leave school with good numeracy skills. That would help them to navigate their finances with confidence.

That is not to suggest that the entire burden of providing robust financial education can or should fall upon our schools. As is so often the case, families also have a central role to play in ensuring that children are imbued with good financial common sense. That does not need to be overly complex; simple measures, such as offering children small amounts of weekly pocket money, can help to normalise good habits such as saving and thinking carefully before making purchases. According to an ING survey of 12,000 parents across Europe, giving children pocket money reduces the risk of them getting into debt as adults.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am a great example of that. Whenever I was 16, my mum took me down to Northern Bank, as it was then, gave me £10—I could have bought a second-hand car for that in those days—and told me to put it in my bank account. Does the hon. Lady agree that if everybody had a mother like mine, they would be a lot better off?

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Member for that great contribution to the debate. I agree that all those small things add up and make a difference to our financial literacy. I am a chartered accountant, but that is not what made me financially literate; it was the lessons I was taught by my family, and the jobs that I did when I was young. Members have given great examples of how they came to understand finance. In an increasingly contactless world, it is important that children and young people physically see and feel cash. That is the way in which value is tangibly understood.

To return to schools, financial education is not, as has been noted, a statutory part of the national curriculum in primary schools in England, but in contrast, in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it is very much embedded at primary level. Given the way in which our children are relentlessly pressured to spend money that they may not even have, and in the light of Cambridge University research suggesting that habits and attitudes towards money are formed by the age of seven, there is much logic to the argument that financial education—whether delivered by schools, parents or even community hubs and other organisations—should not wait for the later years, and should be continuous.

Teachers also feel that starting good financial education early is important for the future wellbeing of young people. According to a 2020 survey, 82% of primary teachers consider teaching financial education to be very important. We may hear more about that when the Francis review of the national curriculum is complete. I urge the Minister to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham asked about the Government’s plans for the curriculum.

In secondary schools, the picture is somewhat different. In 2014, the then Conservative Government acted to ensure that financial education was placed on a statutory footing in local authority schools. However, the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people—which I once again praise as an outstanding example of everything an APPG should aspire to be—noted in its 2023 “Building Beyond Barriers” report that over half of teachers did not know that financial education was part of the curriculum at all. That is a matter of some concern.

It is certainly important that the topic of financial education is addressed in the classroom in an appropriate way. I have no doubt that our hard-working teachers are keen to play their part in delivering that content. The same report found that three in four teachers believed that they should play a leading role in imparting financial skills to children. The obstacles were reported to be inadequate training, limited funding and an understandable feeling that there is simply not sufficient time in the school year to deliver those lessons. In government, the Conservatives sought to mitigate the funding issue with an investment of over £1 million to embed and scale teacher training in financial education.

The Money and Pensions Service did excellent work developing and testing approaches to supporting teachers, and practitioners working with children and young people in vulnerable circumstances, to deliver financial education. Ultimately, though, we must acknowledge that the school timetable is already under intense pressure, and there are many competing calls on limited time. That is why I would argue that the good financial education that every child deserves is best delivered not only in schools, but in the family setting, in communities, and with the help of valuable resources.

I conclude with a simple message, which I hope underscores some of the excellent contributions that we have heard today: financial education is invaluable and transforms life outcomes. Research undertaken by Compare the Market tells us that today, just two fifths of young adults rank as financially literate. We can and must do better. Conservative Members will keep these matters under careful review, and I hope that the Minister will address the questions that have been raised. Once again, I thank all those who have spoken, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham.