Department for Education

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), on securing this important debate on the Department’s estimate. Given the constraints you just mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker, and how the Department’s remit is huge, I want to touch on a couple of areas: day-to-day school budgets and funding to support some of our most vulnerable children. I also hope that the Minister might answer some questions on the recent free school meal announcement.

It is fair to say that since the Labour Government swept to victory a year ago there has been a huge amount of rhetoric about the opportunity mission and putting children at the heart of policymaking, but the reality on the ground feels a little different. Despite what the Government would have us believe, school budgets across the country are at best frozen and at worst falling into deficit. Years of Conservative mismanagement and underfunding from 2015 onwards—[Interruption.] Conservative Members chunter, but the figures are there. We all know that from 2015 onwards, their mismanagement—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order.

[Munira Wilson]

The Conservatives’ decisions cast a long shadow over our schools and colleges. Although the Government trumpeted £4.7 billion for schools in the spending review, they failed to mention that school budgets will see an increase in real terms of only 0.4% over the spending review period. When I speak to school leaders, as I do regularly, they still express the same level of despair as I heard during the last Parliament, when the Conservatives barely mentioned children or schools.

School leaders are tearing their hair out trying to balance the books while shouldering the double blow of an underfunded rise in employers’ national insurance and underfunded teacher pay rises. One school in my constituency has shared its budget figures with me in detail to show what is really happening. It has about a quarter of a million pounds of salary pressures as a result of the NI and pay rises, yet only an additional £30,000 to fund that hole. The result is that the most vulnerable children will suffer, with learning support assistance and inclusion staff most likely to go to protect teaching staff, who are obviously essential. Although prudence in previous years means that reserves can be drawn on and future capital projects cancelled to keep the lights on this year, the school is looking down the barrel of redundancies in 2026-27. Having seen figures from other schools’ budgets, I know that its situation is not unique.

Following the spending review, the IFS said that schools would need to make efficiencies to the tune of £300 million to £400 million to afford the underfunded teacher pay rises and NI increases. When schools are facing ever-increasing pressures—special educational needs demand, student attendance challenges, behavioural issues and much more—it is ridiculous for the Government to ask them to find efficiencies.

I know that school staff are already straining every sinew to find every penny possible, down to banning things like colour photocopying. It was frankly insulting, therefore, when the written ministerial statement came out just before the May recess, which lectured them on taking responsibility

“to ensure that their funding is spent as efficiently as possible”,—[Official Report, 22 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 48WS.]

as if they do not already do that. Those so-called efficiencies are actually cuts, whether to staff, extracurricular activities, school trips or mental health support. To quote one headteacher from my constituency:

“every year you think you’re going to go into bankruptcy”.

I am not sure that was what the Government meant by their opportunity mission. After the Minister accused me last month of imagining these problems, I hope she will confirm to the House how she expects schools to cough up the extra money for the teacher pay deal and national insurance. If not, will she go into bat with the Treasury for more?

I want to touch briefly on an issue that a number of my hon. Friends have spoken about: the cuts in grants to the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which are measures that will hurt our most vulnerable children. We know that the fund provides therapy for children who, in many cases, have been through deep trauma and who, without significant therapeutic intervention, will struggle to have a fulfilling childhood and life ahead of them. After the fund expired, Ministers were dragged to this place to confirm that it would continue, but they then snuck out announcements over the Easter recess of 40% cuts to the grants.

I know that the Minister will come back and say that, at £50 million, the size of the pot remains the same, but that is simply not the point. If £3,000—that is what the grants have been cut to—cannot fund the therapy a child needs, it might as well be zero. Just speak to the professionals and the unsung heroes who have stepped up as adopters and kinship carers, who are dealing with the consequences of the trauma every day. They feel deeply let down by this Government.

We are not dealing with massive figures here. Indeed, when we look at the billions in the departmental estimates, we are talking about small packages that will make a huge amount of difference, and not just to individual children but to the taxpayer in future, with money saved further down the track. It is not only immoral; it is short-sighted. Halving the Department’s spend on consultancy and advertising would allow Ministers to reinstate grants to previous levels by boosting the fund from £50 million to £75 million. As we debate these estimates, I once again call on the Minister to reverse those cuts. Also, now that the spending review is complete, I call on her to announce the ASGSF settlement for 2026-27 very soon, and by October at the latest, so that families and service providers can plan.

I want to touch briefly on the welcome recent announcement to expand free school meals—a policy for which the Liberal Democrats have been calling and campaigning for many years, and for which we have campaigned alongside many others to ensure it was adopted. Even though it is a welcome announcement, there are a number of questions that need to be addressed. How many children are estimated to be losing out on free school meals as a result of the end of transitional protections? There has been some suggestion from some quarters that children currently in receipt of free school meals will now lose access to pupil premium funding, as well as home-to-school transport. Will the Minister clarify on the record to this House what the position is? We are also still in the dark as to where exactly the money for the free school meal expansion is coming from.

In conclusion, while spinners in the Department for Education have made a good fist of ensuring that the headlines proclaimed that the Department was a victor in the spending review battle, there are still a number of crucial issues hidden beneath the top line. Our schools and our most vulnerable young people have been left struggling. The devil is in the detail. I therefore hope that the Minister can persuade us otherwise and convince us that she really believes in extending opportunity to every child and young person in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and I was about to respond to a question that she raised in her very good contribution to this debate. We will set out the details of our approach to SEND reform in a schools White Paper, which we intend to publish in the autumn.

We recognise that we need to support mainstream schools in providing much greater inclusion for children with SEND. We need to commence a phased transition process, which will include working with local authorities to manage their SEND system, including deficits. There will also be an extension to the dedicated schools grant statutory override until the end of 2027-28—an issue that many Members have raised on behalf of their local authorities. We will provide more details by the end of the year, including a plan for supporting local authorities with both historical and accruing deficits.

I turn to teacher training. I was very sorry to hear about the experience of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance). He is incredibly brave, and it is important that he has shared that. To respond to his question, high-quality teaching is central to ensuring that all pupils are given the best possible opportunities to achieve. To support all teachers, the Department is implementing a range of teacher training reforms that will ensure that teachers have the skills to help all pupils to succeed.

We are determined to make sure that every family is a stable, loving home, and that no child grows up in poverty, lacks food or warmth or is denied success due to their background. We are determined to turn things around, tackle child poverty and spread growth and opportunity to every family in every corner of the country. The Labour Government have announced that we are extending free school meals to all children from households in receipt of universal credit from September 2026. That will lift 100,000 children across England out of poverty and put £500 back in families’ pockets. We are supporting parents through that decisive action, which will improve lives—and that is before the child poverty strategy comes out later this year. Providing over half a million children from disadvantaged backgrounds with a free, nutritious lunch time meal, every school day, will also lead to higher attainment, improved behaviour and better outcomes, which means that children will get the best possible education and chance to succeed in work and life.

We will provide more detail in due course, but decisions such as expanding free school meals do not happen by accident, nor are they simply the outcome of hard work by campaigners outside this place. They are decisions about who we put first in our national life, and who has the first call on our country’s resources. Our Government put children first. Expanding free school meal eligibility is a choice made by this Government, who are determined to secure a brighter tomorrow for our children and ensure excellence everywhere, for all our young people. This Government know that delivering the most equal society—something that we Government Members are determined to make real—is a choice, not something achieved by chance.

On the points hon. Members raised about children’s social care, we are putting children first. This Government are committed to delivering children’s social care reform, to break the cycle of late intervention, and to help more children and families thrive and stay safely together. For 2025-26, the Department has allocated £380 million to deliver children’s social care reform, including £44 million of new investment to support children in kinship and foster care, as announced at the autumn Budget.

Because this Government are determined to ensure that all children have the best start in life, by 2028 we aim for 75% of children to reach a good level of development by the end of reception, which means that approximately 45,000 more children each year will start school ready to learn, thrive and succeed. That is ambitious. No progress has been made on this measure in many years. We are creating 6,000 nursery places in schools across the country through the first wave of 300 school-based nurseries; that is backed by £37 million.

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister talked about the Government making choices to prioritise children, and about keeping families together. How will the cuts to grants for therapies for some of the most vulnerable, traumatised children in our society help families stay together? Those children manifest the most challenging behaviours, which result in adoption placement breakdown, and that means worse outcomes for those families. How is that putting children first?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The changes that we have made to the fair access limits will ensure that more children have access to the fund, because year-on-year demands have increased. When we brought forward the legislation, which was the biggest overhaul in children’s social care in a generation, the opposition parties voted against it. We are determined to improve the life chances of children, to broaden access, and to ensure support for those that need it, despite our tough fiscal inheritance.

To return to childcare, at the spending review, we announced almost £370 million of further funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries. Despite the tough decisions we made to get our public finances back on track, we are continuing to invest in early years, and are supporting the delivery of entitlements. We will create a reception-year experience that sets children up for success, and are working with sector leaders to drive high-quality reception practice. We are increasing access to evidence-based programmes teaching early literacy and numeracy skills. We are delivering the largest ever uplift of 45% in the early years pupil premium to better support disadvantaged children at the earliest point in their school lives.

Unfortunately, having taken a couple of interventions, I have gone over my time. To summarise, we have inherited a challenging set of circumstances, but we are determined to change the life chances of children in this country. My final words are of appreciation for everyone working in our education system to support our children and young people. Our shared goal has to be providing the highest-quality outcomes for every child. The Government are investing in education, and we remain committed to renewing the entire system to make our ambitions a reality. We are putting our promises into action, and we are determined to change the lives of children across the country.