Free School Meals

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I, too, thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.

I warmly welcome this announcement, which will make such a difference to the lives of children up and down the country. We know the impact that free school meals can have. A hot, healthy meal in the middle of the day helps children to learn, concentrate and thrive. Making sure a child does not go hungry in school can truly change their life. That is why Liberal Democrats have for so long championed free school meals. That is why we have long called on successive Governments to take this step. That is why this policy was in our election manifesto last year. I am delighted that, even though it was not in Labour’s manifesto, they are taking our idea today. The Liberal Democrats introduced universal infant free school meals when we were in government, and we are today sharing in the joy of the tireless campaigners and struggling families for whom this announcement is such as victory. For far too long, far too many children in this country have gone hungry through the school day. The previous Conservative Government ignored the advice of their own food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, and even Michael Gove, to leave children in poverty without the meals they deserve and need.

This announcement can only be the start. We need to see the policy fully funded and properly implemented. We need to see auto-enrolment, as the Chair of the Select Committee said, so that every child receives the meals they are entitled to, because thousands of eligible children currently miss out. Now we know that the Government are finally looking to the Liberal Democrats for policy ideas on tackling the cost of learning, may I urge them to look again at capping the cost of branded uniform items, not the number of branded uniform items? Lastly, if the Government are serious about tackling the scourge of child poverty, will they finally scrap the two-child benefit cap?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Member for welcoming so positively the announcement today. She has been, like so many others in her party, a real champion on these matters. She has made clear in this place how important the policy will be to children’s wellbeing, attainment and attendance, and I of course wholeheartedly agree with her. I note her call for auto-enrolment. She made those points at various intervals during the Committee stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and I look forward to working with her to hear her views going forward. We will, of course, continue to improve ways of registering children for free school meals, as I set out earlier, and today’s announcement makes that easier for families and schools. I also pay tribute to school food campaigners, who I meet on a regular basis, for helping to get us to today’s announcement. I look forward to continuing to work with the hon. Lady through the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and to work constructively to improve the life chances of children and young people across our country.

School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Each and every week, I hear from teachers and school leaders in my constituency and across the country. In my time in this place, never has their outlook been as gloomy as it is right now. After years of underfunding and neglect from the Conservatives, schools now face a double blow of underfunded national insurance increases and unfunded teacher pay rises, if the reports are to be believed. Together, these represent massive cuts to school budgets. Frankly, schools expected better from Labour.

School governors in my constituency recently told me that they are all setting deficit budgets, which one described as “beyond imagining”. That is why teachers are so desperately worried. Parents are, too, because ultimately it is our children who will suffer—and the most vulnerable, at that. The Government’s claim that schools can find the money through efficiencies simply does not stack up; budgets are already cut to the bone, with schools relying on parents to buy them the basics, such as glue sticks, through Amazon wish lists. They are already cutting back subjects, cancelling trips and cutting back on teaching assistants—meaning that children with special educational needs and disabilities will suffer the most—and now they are planning redundancies. Budget decisions for next year are already being made. We need urgent clarity about whether the pay rise will be funded, so will the Minister tell schools across the country where exactly they are expected to find this money?

[Catherine McKinnell]

There was an awful lot of imagining in the hon. Lady’s question, and understandably so—less understandable, though, in relation to some of her comments. The statement is due today, and the hon. Lady will have to await it, as will all Members of this House and those who are keenly looking at their schools’ budgets to ensure they can provide the best education possible. I know that is what schools are rightly focused on doing, and we are focused on supporting them to do that.

I gently remind Opposition Members that this is the earliest STRB announcement in a decade, because we recognise how important budgeting is for schools and how important it is that they have this information in a timely way. That was not respected under the previous Government. We want to provider this information in good time and give notice as early as possible, so that schools can plan the excellent outcomes for children that I know they are striving for. We will also support them to use their funding as efficiently as possible. The Department has worked on a whole suite of productivity initiatives, as well as support for schools to manage energy costs and banking costs and to minimise any expenditure that is not on the frontline, supporting children. That is what we will continue to do.

Adoption and Kinship Placements

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) on securing this important debate; she and I are both passionate about this issue, and I know she cares about it deeply.

I will start by reminding colleagues—as many have done already—about who the children we are talking about are. These are children who have experienced the kind of trauma that none of us should ever have to experience in our life. After I first brought up the adoption and special guardianship support fund with the Prime Minister in March, a lady from Lincolnshire wrote to me. She is a special guardian for a child who witnessed her mother being murdered by her father at the age of two. For some reason that child does not qualify for child and adolescent mental health support, and has been able to access only a limited amount of counselling. That is the sort of child the ASGSF is for.

These are also children who have been abused and neglected. When I spoke to the Purple Elephant Project, a therapy provider in Twickenham, its chief executive officer Jenny, who has worked with adopted children for many years, spoke to me about children she had worked with who had been made to sleep in the garden, or who had ingested heroin. Those are the sorts of experiences these children have been through. They need our collective help and support to overcome that trauma, as do the amazing people who step up to care for them, whether through adoption or often as kinship carers overnight.

As one adoptive parent in my constituency said to me, these children deserve

“the absolute best second chance in life.”

I implore the Minister, who has a professional background in this area and cares about this issue deeply, to please listen to the pleas from those on all Benches about the support that is desperately needed.

Before I talk in a bit more detail about the ASGSF, let me say a couple of words on kinship carers, given that I have been proud to campaign alongside my party for kinship carers for a number of years. I welcome the limited progress we have seen under this Government and the previous one on support and recognition of kinship carers, but as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we have to go much further. We have to roll out allowances on a par with those for foster carers across the country to all kinship carers, extend employment leave to kinship carers and ensure that children in kinship care are given the support that they need in education through pupil premium plus and priority school admission.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) said in a recent debate, adoptive parents make a “lifelong commitment” to children. We heard from the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who has also adopted, that the state needs to give them a lot more support. One constituent said to me that the ASGSF is the only post-adoption support there is for these children.

That brings me to the ASGSF. I cannot begin to describe my anger and dismay at what has happened. I will try to contain that emotion as I speak. The stories that have been sent to me, and that I have heard face to face as I have been working on this issue in recent weeks and months, have on a number of occasions moved me to tears. These families faced months of uncertainty. The Minister had to answer a litany of written questions and letters from Members from all parties on whether the ASGSF would continue for this financial year. Those Members were stonewalled.

I have explained the trauma that these children have experienced. They have had a huge amount of uncertainty and instability in their lives, and the Government added to it. We were all stonewalled. It took me dragging the Minister kicking and screaming to the House of Commons Chamber to answer an urgent question the day after the fund expired for her finally to commit to renewing it for this financial year. There was a sigh of relief among carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers and charities across the sector that the uncertainty had ended, despite the backlog that had built up in the meantime and the interruption in therapy for so many children who had had to stop therapy because they had run out of money from last year’s fund.

However, there was no hint from the Minister during her response to my urgent question of the cuts that were to come. Instead, the Government waited until the depths of the Easter recess to sneak out a private letter to local authorities and charities about the 40% cut to grants, the removal of the assessment grant and the scrapping of the match funding. An adoptive mother I met at the drop-in organised by Adoption UK and Kinship yesterday told me that that felt very underhand. She said, “It felt like the Government didn’t care as I was dealing with my adoptive son, who was dysregulated and trying to hurt me.”

There was no consultation with the sector, despite the fact that the Government have reference groups, such as the kinship care reference group, that they talk to on a regular basis. There was no consultation with them and no formal public announcement. Even the Government website on the ASGSF remained out of date for several weeks, until our first day back after recess, when the Minister issued a fairly scant written ministerial statement. My first question to her is: when she answered my urgent question on 1 April, was she aware that these cuts were coming, or did she inadvertently mislead the House on that occasion?

The impact of the changes to the ASGSF means that we have a backlog. Everybody who had previously applied—some 46% of applications for grants for this financial year exceed the £3,000 limit—has to reapply. There will now be a delay and an interruption in therapy. The mum I met yesterday told me that she is borrowing money from friends and family to continue therapy because, in her son’s last therapy session, they finally achieved a breakthrough and she cannot bear to stop it. Purple Elephant in Twickenham is desperately fundraising to try to make sure that there is no interruption in therapy for the 40 or so children that it supports.

We know that, with smaller grants, providers will struggle to provide adequate therapy. Given the sorts of trauma that we have talked about, these children’s brains need rewiring and they need time to build trust. Often, therapists have to run several sessions before a child will even come through the door. That takes time; it will not be done in the few short sessions that the grants will cover. Given that the assessment costs will now have to come out of the reduced grant of £3,000, after a bespoke assessment is made there will be very little, if anything at all, left for the actual therapy.

In addition to the impact on the children and the carers who are desperately trying to look after them, the changes will undermine and destabilise the charities and other providers that offer support in this area. As many hon. Members have said, we are talking about children who are dysregulated and exhibit challenging behaviours, and the changes will lead to adoption and kinship care placement breakdown, which will result in extra costs for the taxpayer, because more children will go back into care. We will probably also see more school exclusions as a result of dysregulated behaviours, and therefore poorer educational and employment outcomes. Sadly, care-experienced children are four times more likely than other children to end up with a criminal conviction by the age of 24.

The costs to the taxpayer of the changes, in the short term and the long term, are exorbitant, yet the fund is only £50 million; in the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge amount of money. If the Government wanted to extend the fund, say by 50%, I could tell the Minister exactly where she can get the money from. In her written ministerial statement, she suggested that the fund can be topped up from local authority children’s services budgets. I am not sure whether she is aware of this, but a lot of local authorities are on the brink financially, and many children’s services budgets are in huge deficit. However, where she can find the money is in the £46.5 million that the Department for Education spent on advertising, consultancy and marketing costs in the last year. I suggest that she halves that budget, and instead expands the ASGSF by 50%.

These cuts are entirely incoherent and contradict Government policy. The DFE has recently written to Adoption England calling for improvements in adopter recruitment, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill mandates the signposting of support, yet everything we have discussed today will go against those measures. I have three asks of the Minister: please apologise to carers and children up and down the country, reverse the cuts—I have told her where to get the money—and fight tooth and nail in the Treasury over the spending review for the next financial year, and make that announcement early. Carers and children will continue to campaign, and I will be alongside them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Addictive algorithms that serve up harmful content are fuelling the children’s mental health crisis, as well as worrying behaviour both inside and outside the classroom. With almost two thirds of children having a social media account by the end of year 7, will Ministers commit to working with their counterparts in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to support the Liberal Democrats’ amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which would stop tech companies trading on our children’s attention by raising the digital age of data consent from 13 to 16, so that they cannot process children’s data to feed toxic algorithms without parental consent?

[Stephen Morgan]

Protecting children from online harm is a cross-Government priority, and Ofcom’s draft code of practice for child safety sets out why it is so important that we continue with our efforts to protect children. From July, the child online safety regime will be fully in force, and Ofcom will be able to take robust enforcement action against those failing to comply with the child safety duties. I know the DSIT Secretary of State will want to look very closely at any future further proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Last year the Secretary of State said:

“There can be no goal more important and more urgent than extending opportunities to our most vulnerable children”.—[Official Report, 24 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 700.]

Actions speak louder than words, so will she commit to reversing her 40% cut to the grants available through the adoption and special guardianship support fund so that vulnerable children are not made to pay the price for the Conservatives’ financial mess?

[Bridget Phillipson]

The hon. Lady will know that we have confirmed £50 million for ’25-26. Further considerations will be for the spending review. We have made changes in order to maximise the number of children who can access the fund. In addition to the funding that is provided there, we are also trialling kinship allowances, investing more in foster care and investing another £0.5 billion in providing local authorities with the support they need to provide preventive services. I agree that it is important that vulnerable children who have been through the adoption system and beyond get the support that they need to thrive.

Relationship Education in Schools

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Jeremy, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this incredibly important debate.

As we have heard from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber today, it is vital that all children and young people are equipped to develop safe, healthy and happy relationships, and it is vital that they recognise what is inappropriate, unacceptable and abusive behaviour. Parents and carers, and wider family and friend networks, as well as schools, have an important role to play in developing this knowledge and understanding. However, we cannot take this knowledge for granted. As we have heard with the proliferation of harmful online content served up to our children and young people, they are at increased risk of encountering extreme and harmful content that distorts their understanding of how we should be interacting with each other.

According to Internet Matters, girls experience a disproportionate level of harm online, with three in four girls aged 13 to 16 reporting harmful online experiences. Sadly, this translates into inappropriate behaviour in real life. Despite some really excellent work that I have heard about from secondary schools in my constituency, worryingly, a survey by Kingston and Richmond Youth Council found that 40% of girls had been physically followed in a way that made them feel unsafe or uncomfortable and 50% had felt pressured into sending intimate pictures of themselves online, but 83% of those who experienced sexual harassment did not report it. The survey also found that over 20% of boys were not confident of knowing that exposure of body parts is a form of sexual harassment, and 69% were unsure whether they would intervene if they witnessed their friends sexually harassing someone.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council warned last year that young boys were being radicalised by influencers such as Andrew Tate, and talked of epidemic levels of violence against women and girls, driven in part by extreme online misogyny. That is why I was so shocked to hear the Leader of the Opposition be so dismissive of the issue on LBC today, saying that there were bigger problems that we should be focused on. We need a culture change in all aspects of society, and we need to encourage the men in our lives—our brothers, fathers, friends, boyfriends, husbands and sons—to stand up against toxic masculinity, to demonstrate to the young men in their lives what it means to be compassionate and kind in all relationships, and that this is a strength, not a weakness.

That culture change must come in part from the education that we provide in the classroom. Age-appropriate relationships and sex education at school has a crucial role to play alongside the role of parents and carers. The Liberal Democrats believe that an age-appropriate RSE curriculum should be led by a qualified teacher and delivered in a safe, non-judgmental setting, and should include teaching about sexual consent, LGBTQ+ relationships and issues surrounding explicit images, because all young people deserve access to high quality education that empowers them to make safe and informed choices. In addition, ensuring children learn about consent, healthy relationships, and online risks such as pornography and sexting is essential for safeguarding.

Schools and teachers need proper funding, training and support as well as resources to deliver high quality RSHE. Therefore, we Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign for specialist RSE training to ensure that teachers feel confident in delivering sensitive topics effectively. I hope the Minister will confirm when she plans to publish the updated RSHE guidance. She responded to a written question from me today, but again it did not set out the timelines; I do not know if she can fill us in when she gets up to speak.

Before I finish, I will touch on what we must press the social media giants to do; they need to be regulated much more toughly. Sir Jeremy, I know you were pretty active on the Online Safety Bill when it was going through Parliament, and have been active since. We must see it implemented vigorously. The Liberal Democrats want to see the digital age of consent raised, and will push for that change through the Data (Use and Access) Bill.

Seriously tackling violence against women and girls has to start with prevention. We have got to tackle the online giants, but schools must also play a key role in education. We must support an education system in which every child is free to be themselves and reach their full potential, unencumbered by fear and abuse, and receiving the support they need to thrive.

Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on whether the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund will continue.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)]

I welcome the opportunity to respond to this urgent question. The adoption and special guardianship support fund has for many years provided valuable therapeutic support to adopted children and special guardianship children who were previously in care.

I very much recognise that funding over that period has supported many children and families and helped them towards a stable family life. I have in recent weeks heard many more stories of how important the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been to many, and I pay tribute to the Members from all parts of the House who have been advocates and champions for adopted children and children in special guardianship placements in their constituencies.

I very much appreciate that the delay in confirming the continuation of this fund has been a very difficult time for many. I am especially concerned about children and families, because many of those whom the adoption and special guardianship support fund supports are in great need of continued help.

I also recognise that there has been an impact on providers of therapy, who have not been able to plan and prepare for the year ahead in the way they would have liked. However, the Department has been clear with local authorities and regional adoption agencies about transitional funding arrangements, which means that therapy that started in the last financial year can continue into 2025-26, even ahead of full 2025-26 budget announcements.

Appropriate transitional funding has been agreed for a significant number of children. I regret the delay in making this announcement, but I am happy to confirm today that £50 million has been allocated for the adoption and special guardianship support fund this year. We will be announcing further details to the House in the coming days and opening applications to families and children across our country as soon as we can.

[Munira Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this urgent question; I thank you especially on behalf of the thousands of vulnerable children, their adoptive parents and kinship carers who rely on the adoption and special guardianship support fund. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care and co-chair of the APPG on children.

I welcome the Minister’s announcement, which none of us were expecting, because many Members on all sides of the Chamber have spent the last few months asking question after question only to be being batted away time after time and told that answers would be forthcoming. This vital fund is there to help the most vulnerable children who have experienced the deepest trauma. Those who have been looking to renew applications for this coming financial year, like the constituent I mentioned in my question to the Prime Minister last week, have been left hanging in limbo. While I am grateful for today’s announcement, has the Minister considered what impact there has been on those families?

In the case I mentioned of my constituent Sarah, she said that her daughter has started to regress in the period between finishing her last lot of therapy and being able to secure the next lot of therapy. Another woman contacted me to tell me that she is special guardian for a child who at the age of just two witnessed her mother being murdered by her father, and she has been unable to access the right level of support.

The Minister mentioned the impact on providers. The Purple Elephant Project in my constituency of Twickenham is desperately fundraising to continue providing support, while others are taking their support elsewhere. Therefore, there are concerns about whether there will be sufficient provision. While I am grateful for the announcement, can the Minister confirm how long the £50 million will last, and whether Ministers are considering expanding the eligibility criteria for the support fund to include all kinship carers, not just special guardians? It is the least we can do for these most vulnerable children.

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Member for her points. I very much appreciate the concern caused by the delay in this announcement, and I recognise the potential impact on children and families, as well as local authorities, regional adoption agencies and providers of therapy. Under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, there is a statutory duty for local authorities to have support services in place for adopted children. The Government very much support that. To her questions about kinship carers, the plan is for the support fund to open to kinship carers as well, and that £50 million is for the year. Further information will be provided shortly about those arrangements.

Free School Meals

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I hope you will forgive my heckling earlier—I could not resist when Sunday’s football match was mentioned. I am married to a proud Geordie and Newcastle United fan, and it was a day of high emotion in the Wilson household—although I am a Londoner and therefore a Spurs fan., but the less said about that, the better. I hope the Chair will indulge my teasing the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne).

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) on securing this important debate, especially as we head into the second day on Report on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. We will be talking about free school meals and breakfast clubs later.

I am incredibly proud that the Liberal Democrats have a very strong record of championing and delivering free school meals. Let us not forget that universal infant free school meals were delivered as a result of Liberal Democrat efforts in the coalition Government. If not for our presence, it is clear that they would not have happened—Labour Members have previously put that on the record. I am proud to continue my party’s campaign to ensure that more children benefit from free school meals.

Frankly, as many hon. Members have said, in this day and age, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we should not have to campaign on this issue. It is shocking that the Food Foundation has reported that one in five schools runs a food bank, and that as of January 2025, 18% of households with children live in food insecurity, meaning that family members are skipping meals or having smaller meals because they simply cannot afford to put enough food on the table.

I want to make the case for why more children should receive free school meals, both through the eligibility threshold and auto-enrolment, and for ensuring that is properly funded, given the challenges our schools face.

Why are free school meals so great? Well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) powerfully outlined, we know that well-fed children have better educational outcomes; children who took part in universal primary free school meal pilots in east London and Durham achieved on average two months more progress in their SATs. We also know that children’s concentration and behaviour improve. Behaviour is a real challenge at the moment for teachers up and down the country. We know that children end up eating healthier, because packed lunches tend to have more calories from fat, as opposed to carbs and other sources of calories, and they are higher in sodium and sugar. We know that free school meals help parents to save time and money—on average £10 per week—and, as we have heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby and my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, analysis by that well-known left-wing think-tank PricewaterhouseCoopers shows there is a huge economic benefit: for every £1 invested, there is £1.38 return.

Why do we need more children to be eligible for free school meals? We know from the Child Poverty Action Group that some 900,000 children living in poverty are currently missing out on free school meals. The threshold that is used at the moment—£7,400 of family income—is shockingly low. It was last uprated in 2018; we are now in 2025, and we all know about the inflationary pressures and the cost of living crisis that we have faced. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), who is no longer in his place, mentioned in his intervention, about a million children are set to lose out on free school meals as a result of the migration of legacy benefits to universal credit. The temporary extension to the arrangements is due to expire at the end of this month. I really hope that Ministers will take urgent action on that, because we cannot afford to see yet more children losing out on free school meals.

I recognise that I happen to represent a relatively affluent constituency, but that does not mean that there is no poverty there; in fact, it is often in more affluent constituencies that pockets of poverty tend to be hidden and overlooked. I was moved to tears a while back when a mother came to see me at my surgery. She had fled an abusive relationship and, as a result of the domestic abuse she had suffered, she was on mental health medication. She told me, “I have had to forgo my medication so that I can use the money I would have spent on a prescription to enable my daughter to have lunch when she goes to college.” Those are the sorts of decisions, dilemmas and choices that families up and down the country are having to face so that children and young people are well fed and can focus on their studies. That cannot be right.

I support the ambition, which a number of hon. Friends and other hon. Members have set out, of offering free school meals for all primary school children, but the Liberal Democrats recognise that money is tight at the moment. Therefore, extending free school meals to all primary school children is probably unachievable at the moment, and we should take a more targeted approach. That is why we are strongly committed to delivering the recommendation that Henry Dimbleby made to the last Conservative Government in his food strategy that the eligibility threshold for free school meals should be increased to £20,000, for children in both primary and secondary school. Let us remember that hunger does not end at the age of 11 and, where we have scarce resources, target them at the most needy children and young people at both primary and secondary. Welcome though the breakfast clubs are, we have heard time and again, not least from the children’s charities that gave evidence to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, that there are concerns that the most needy children will miss out and not take up the breakfast club offer.

Even with the current low eligibility threshold for free school meals, far too many children are missing out, but, shockingly, we do not know how many are missing out, because the last time the Government assessed how many children who were entitled to free school meals were actually taking them up was 2013—12 years ago. We know that at that point 11% of children eligible for free schools meals were missing out. Based on current numbers, the Liberal Democrats estimate that around 230,000 eligible children are missing out today. In a report published last week, the Education Policy Institute notes that those least likely to register are younger primary children, typically from the most deprived local authority areas. Although there are universal infant free school meals, it is still really important that parents register if their child might be eligible, because, as we have heard, that brings with it pupil premium funding for our schools.

I beg the Minister to look seriously at auto-enrolment. Last week, the House considered a private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb)—a Labour Member—that would introduce auto-enrolment. The Education Committee has strongly recommended auto-enrolment, and at least two amendments on it, including a Liberal Democrat one, have been tabled to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and will be debated this afternoon. In Liberal Democrat-led Durham county council this academic year, as a result of auto-enrolment, 2,500 more children are getting a free school meal and £3 million of pupil premium funding—money to help support our most deprived children to learn and thrive in their schools—has been delivered to schools in Durham.

In responding to Friday’s debate on the private Member’s Bill, the Minister said that he was talking to colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology about data sharing to enable more auto-enrolment at local authority level, but children cannot afford to wait. There are all sorts of challenges with data sharing, but this can be done nationally. If the Government are going to persist with the changeover from legacy benefits to universal credit, with more children missing out on free school meals as a result, this is one mitigation they can take right now.

Before I finish, I want to touch on funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett), who is no longer in her place, touched on the fact that we have to fund free school meals properly where children are eligible for them. I welcome the Government’s recent uplift in funding for universal infant free school meals, but it has increased by only 28p, or 12%, since the Liberal Democrats introduced the universal infant free school meal policy in 2014—at that point it was funded at £2.30 per pupil per meal; it is now £2.58—since when food prices have increased by 29%.

For most of that time, the funding stayed static. In the last Parliament, I and many other hon. Members campaigned hard for an uplift in per-meal funding. I was very pleased when Nadhim Zahawi finally moved a little bit on that, but the funding is still lagging behind inflation. Schools are having to find cost savings in other budgets to fund universal infant free school meals, which they have to deliver by law. As a London MP, before the Mayor of London introduced free school meals for all primary pupils, I heard from many of my primary schools that they were charging juniors more per meal in order to subsidise infant meals, because the Government were not giving them the requisite funding. If we want high-quality, nutritional meals for our children, they need to be funded properly. That is a very important lesson to learn as breakfast clubs are rolled out.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Eastleigh and for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) have pointed out, there are alarming stories of schools picking up costs of between 60p and 80p per breakfast. That is just not sustainable. Schools do not have the extra money to subsidise breakfast clubs. We need breakfasts that have nutritional value. I asked in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee whether breakfast club breakfasts will consist of just a piece of toast and a glass of water, or whether they will actually be nutritionally valuable for children.

We know that there are big logistical challenges for small schools of delivering breakfast clubs. My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) mentioned children who cannot get to school in time, particularly those in temporary accommodation. Families in temporary accommodation travel from Croydon, Slough and further afield to Twickenham, and some spend two hours each way travelling. Those are the children who most need a breakfast, and they are the most likely to miss breakfast club.

In conclusion, providing a hot, healthy meal in the middle of the day for every child in poverty is the right thing to do both morally and economically. The Government have the opportunity to do the right thing today by supporting new clause 7 tabled to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh. If they are serious about spreading opportunity—they tell us most weeks that they are—they have the chance to step up today to improve educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged, to boost their health and nutrition, and to help every child, no matter their background. If the Minister wants to deliver on that mission, I hope to see Labour Members marching through the right Division Lobby tonight when we call a vote on new clause 7 to raise the eligibility threshold for free school meals and auto-enrol every child that meets it.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

A number of measures in part 2 of this Bill are to be welcomed. However, after a decade of neglect by the Conservatives, I want to ask Ministers this: when our schools are crumbling, when we cannot find specialist teachers, when special needs provision is in crisis and when we have a huge persistent absence problem, why have the Government chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority education policy? The one strong message coming through from education leaders, including those who have no ideological axe to grind, is that the way that the Government have gone about part 2 of the Bill shows a lack of coherent vision for the school system, with no White Paper and no consultation with those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector.

I turn to some of the new clauses tabled in my name. With all the pressures on family finances, new clause 7 would ensure that free school meals were available to children from households earning less than £20,000 per year and automatically enrol eligible children into this provision. Liberal Democrats have long believed that this is an effective, targeted intervention that would help children in poverty at both primary and secondary school to concentrate, to learn and to thrive.

New clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to find out exactly how many children were eligible for, but not claiming, free school meals or were not registered for pupil premium funding. It beggars belief that, as spelled out in recent answers to parliamentary questions that I have submitted, the Government are flying blind on this issue, with the last proper study of uptake dating back to 2013. New clause 54 would require regular reviews of free school meal uptake.

As we discussed at length this morning in Westminster Hall, and as the Chair of the Education Committee pointed out, an estimated 230,000 eligible children are missing out on a free school meal. Where local authorities auto-enrol children into free school meals, it makes a real difference. In Liberal Democrat-led Durham, 2,500 additional children now benefit from a hot lunch, and their schools benefit from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding.

In Committee, the Minister confirmed the Government’s intention to improve uptake by looking at auto-enrolment and data sharing between Departments. However, his suggestion that locally led efforts were more likely to meet the needs of local communities risks patchy action across the country. We believe that this requires a national response, and we therefore strongly urge the Government to look at auto-enrolment as well as increasing the eligibility threshold, to ensure that we are feeding some of our poorest pupils, whether they are at primary or secondary school.

Staying on the theme of the cost of living pressures on families, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches strongly support the objective of bringing down the cost of school uniforms for hard-pressed families up and down the country. However, we remain concerned that the Bill as drafted, in setting a maximum number of branded uniform items, is highly prescriptive for schools and will not actually rein in the costs of those items. As the Chair of the Select Committee has just pointed out, there is nothing to prevent items costing £100 or more each. Furthermore, an answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled stated that, on average, girls’ uniforms cost £25 to £30 more than boys’ uniforms. If we want to tackle these inequalities, the best thing to do is to support our amendment 1.

I want to put on record my thanks to the Clerks, because we picked up a drafting error in our amendment 1. The online version is correct, but the printed version is incorrect. Our amendment 1 actually amends clause 24 and proposes a monetary cap, rather than a cap on the number of items. That would be reviewed and updated in line with inflation through secondary legislation every year. It would also drive down costs as suppliers would have to compete for school contracts.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member mentions answers to written parliamentary questions. Would she have been as surprised as I was to see the answer to a written PQ of mine saying that if a school specified that a badge be sewed on to an otherwise generic blazer, that badge would count as an item of branded uniform?

[Munira Wilson]

I am shocked, because I was about to come to that as a possible solution to staying within the price cap. Apparently that will not be allowed either—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. If the statement that the hon. Lady has made about a potential drafting error is indeed the case, has she made arrangements to ensure that the correct version of the amendment has been published?

[Munira Wilson]

Yes, we have been in touch with the Clerks, who have corrected the amendment online. The printed version is incorrect, but in the online version amendment 1 amends clause 24 instead of clause 23.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We will ensure that that process has indeed taken place.

[Munira Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

In Committee, the Minister said that a cost cap, rather than an item cap, would be too complex and risked reducing choice for parents by increasing schools’ reliance on specific suppliers. She also suggested that there would be regional variation in uniform pricing. Again, having tabled a PQ, it is clear that there has been no analysis by the Government to show regional variation in uniform prices.

I was going to suggest that schools that wanted more branding on items under a cost cap could sew or stick logos on plain jumpers and other items bought cheaply in supermarkets. I believe the Government want parents to have choice. My suggestion would give parents the choice of going to a well-known supermarket brand and then applying the school logo. I am shocked to hear about the answer to the PQ tabled by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and I will have a look at it afterwards. Our amendment 1 would put pounds and pennies back into parents’ pockets and avoid top-down meddling from Whitehall on school uniform policy.

Also on school uniforms, new clause 12 concerns a simple matter of fairness. The zero rate of VAT applies only on clothing for children up to the age of 14, and parents have to pay VAT on school uniforms for children who are larger or over the age of 14. In Committee, the Minister cited the cost to the Exchequer of making the change, but if the Government’s stated aim is to bring down uniform prices, I humbly suggest that she presses the Chancellor to look at this amendment, because it is a simple change to make.

Turning to special needs, as I said at the outset, this is probably the biggest burning priority for the school leaders I speak to up and down the country. It certainly is across this House, given the number of Members involved in SEND debates. New clause 10 in my name would establish a new dedicated national body for SEND, which would fund high-needs provision and ensure that children with particularly complex needs receive tailored support. With high-needs spending having tripled since 2015 and, as the Minister herself pointed out, educational outcomes for SEND pupils remaining stagnant, we need to reform the system. I know she is busy working on this, but a national body would help reduce the postcode lottery for those with the highest needs. Indeed, a growing body of experts in the sector are starting to suggest that a national body could gather evidence on the efficacy of various SEND interventions.

Yesterday I said it was surprising that a Bill so entitled had little content on wellbeing. Given the huge and growing mental health crisis among our children and young people, new clause 9 in my name would place a duty on school governing bodies to ensure that every school in England, whether primary or secondary, has a dedicated mental health practitioner on site. The Government have repeatedly said they are committed to providing mental health support in every school, but it was clear when I pressed the Minister in the Chamber during a debate last Thursday that the support the Government are committed to providing will certainly not be the equivalent of a full-time person in every school. Mental health support teams, which the Government are looking to expand, do great work but are spread far too thinly. Our children and our schools are crying out for more dedicated mental health professional time.

Let me turn to the issue of academy schools. I fear that the Government are mostly trying to fix a problem that does not really exist, rather than focusing on the real challenges in education. My biggest concern here is that Ministers are putting the cart before the horse by writing into legislation that all schools must follow a curriculum of which we do not yet know the content because it is under review. New clause 51 in my name would ensure that we have a core common curriculum with local flexibility built in. New clause 52 would ensure parliamentary oversight, given that we do not know the results of the ongoing review. Although we Liberal Democrats have always maintained that the automatic academy order is not a silver bullet for turning around failing schools, until such a time as Ofsted and Government have settled on a swift and robust new accountability and inspection regime to ensure high standards in all our schools, removing the automatic academy order for schools that are causing concern is certainly very risky. Amendments 223 and 225 in my name would ensure parliamentary oversight and attempt to mitigate some of those risks.

Let me turn to home education. On Second Reading, I stated that we Liberal Democrats strongly support a register of children not in school to ensure that vulnerable children do not disappear from the system. We also strongly support the right of parents to choose to home educate where that is the best option for their child. However, in evidence to the Bill Committee, even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was circumspect about the amount of information that parents will be expected to supply, as set out in clause 26. That level of detail risks becoming intrusive and unnecessary. Ministers must think again.

New clause 48 calls for, at the very least, a review of the register’s impact on home educators to be carried out within six months, to ensure that only reporting requirements that are strictly necessary for safeguarding purposes are retained. Amendment 224 would remove the requirement for carers of children in special schools to secure local authority consent to be home educated. New clause 53 would ensure that home-educated children are not excluded from national examinations because of financial or capacity constraints.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

On home education, does the hon. Lady agree that not only is it a case of getting the balance right between privacy and the right to educate at home, but it is important that home educators do not feel stigmatised by the ability of the state to enter private property under less-than-forthcoming means that enable it subsequently to make an assessment of home education that is completely contrary to the reality experienced by the child in their own home?

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman expresses concerns that those of us on the Bill Committee found in the written evidence we received from families who home educate. My inbox certainly has such correspondence from home educators in my constituency.

There is a real fear that this legislation, which is seeking to safeguard children who go missing from education, will over-police home educators, most of whom are doing a great job. In fact, a lot of them home educate their children not because they want to but because they feel forced to. That comes back to what I was saying about the crisis in our special needs system, and the fact that so much special needs provision just does not meet the needs of children, so parents give up work to be able to home educate their child. By virtue of their children’s needs, parents tend to be much more flexible in how they home educate. The very onerous reporting mechanisms will interfere with the flexibility that parents need to provide to their children.

In conclusion, I say respectfully to Ministers that part 2 of the Bill is a bit of a muddle, because the second half of it was bolted on to some well-trailed measures that largely have cross-party support. I hope Ministers have heard the strength of concern from school leaders about the unintended consequences of some of their measures. If they are serious about helping families with the cost pressures they face, I trust they will listen to cross-party calls on free school meals, whether that is introducing auto-enrolment or raising the eligibility threshold, as well as to the more effective approach to managing the cost of school uniforms that I have set out.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The debate on this Bill has been comprehensive. I rise to support a number of amendments to this Bill that hon. Friends have tabled, but I open on a point that has already been much debated, not only yesterday but during the Bill’s earlier stages. The Minister has said from the Dispatch Box that she regards the safety of children as being the Government’s highest priority, but the Government’s absolute refusal to countenance the amendments and proposals on equal protection demonstrates a lack of will to follow most other countries in implementing laws that provide that level of protection to children. That remains enormously disappointing, and will be an outstanding issue, in terms of child protection, for the foreseeable future.

The measures before the House are primarily concerned with schools. I would like to back up a number of colleagues who have set out the long-standing cross-party nature of the measures that underpin the success of the education system in England. I was a governor at one of the first schools to ever become an academy. It was sponsored by a significant Labour party donor, who came forward to support a Conservative local authority that engaged with that programme.

I also pay tribute to the work done by the Liberal Democrat Minister David Laws. He attended Cabinet as the Minister for school standards when the Academies Act 2010, which underpins everything structural that has driven forward academy standards, was implemented under the coalition Government. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) disowning the contribution that the Liberal Democrats made, on a cross-party basis, to driving up school standards in England over the years.

[Munira Wilson]

I chose my words carefully. I talked about the past decade, during which the Liberal Democrats were not in government. The Conservatives had seven or eight Education Secretaries in that period. That carousel of constant change demonstrates how little those Education Secretaries valued education. The state of our school buildings, and of our special educational needs and disabilities system, tells us all we need to know about how much the Tories value education.

[David Simmonds]

It is important that we pay tribute to the work that David Laws did. As a key part of that coalition, he shaped the legislation that underpinned all the actions that followed, by the coalition and by Conservative Education Secretaries in majority Conservative Governments. We all need to recognise not only that education is a shared priority, but that all parties contributed to driving things forward and creating these structures over the years.

I have a degree of sympathy with the Government on an issue that they are trying to address. It has always been a legal conundrum that successive education Acts have place detailed, specific legal obligations on local authorities regarding the provision of school places in general, and the provision of education to individual children to whom they owe a duty, but there are times when that is in conflict with the fact that academy schools are their own admissions authorities. That is not new; it has been true of faith schools for many years.

Most of us in this House will have had casework arising from parents being frustrated about the difficulties in their relationship with their child’s school. However, a number of my hon. Friends have made the point that most of the measures in this Bill are not about relieving those issues that can be burdensome for families and children, but are about imposing much more centralised control over what goes on in the education system in England, where school standards have powered ahead of those that we see in other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly in Labour-run Wales.

The outset of my journey on this issue was in the dying days of the last Labour Government, when I was a member of, and then chair of, the National Employers’ Organisation for School Teachers. That body, as an employer, provides evidence to determine pay and conditions for school teachers. We might generally conjecture, as members of the public or as members of the political establishment, that that would be a fairly light-touch responsibility—that we would take a strategic interest in the workforce, and occasionally give advice and guidance. I was surprised to discover that we were to attend, with 17 unions, a weekly meeting with the then Secretary of State, Ed Balls, and his deputy Jim Knight, at the then Department for Children, Schools and Families, in which those unions would provide Ministers with a detailed list of their expectations for how every aspect of education policy would be micromanaged. Those regular weekly meetings came to an end with the election of the coalition Government, but I am aware that they have resumed since the election last year.

We have heard admissions from Ministers about how rarely they have engaged with school leaders, and have noted a great reluctance to say how often they engage with those who represent the union interests.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure and a privilege to rise to speak on part 1 of the Bill, and in particular on the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name.

When the Bill had its Second Reading, I said that there was much in it that Liberal Democrat Members welcomed, alongside areas that we would seek to amend, probe and strengthen. Its progress in recent weeks has seen plenty of debate, discussion and opportunities to constructively strengthen the legislation, although the Government have failed to accept any amendments that were not their own, despite the Minister’s comments in his opening speech. I am grateful to colleagues from across the House who served on the Committee, in which we had some excellent debates. However, I was disappointed last week to see the sheer number of amendments tabled by the Government ahead of Report. I really hope that the Government do not make a habit of depriving Committees of their chance to properly scrutinise Bills, even if most of those measures are welcome and uncontroversial.

Turning to the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name, as the Minister knows, care—particularly kinship care—is a subject that is close to my heart and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. In Committee, we discussed a number of encouraging provisions that are included in the Bill, including those dealing with the definition of kinship care, setting out in law the support that kinship carers are eligible for, and providing additional educational support for children in kinship care.

However, what we agreed in Committee falls far short of the ambition that I heard the Secretary of State herself set out at a reception for kinship carers just a few months ago. At that reception, the Secretary of State—unusually for somebody in her position—called on campaigners and policymakers to keep pushing her. I believe that new clauses 25, 26, 27 and 28, which stand in my name, do just that. New clause 25 would ensure that kinship carers are entitled to paid employment leave; new clause 26 would put into statute an entitlement to an allowance on par with that of foster carers; new clause 27 would extend the pupil premium plus to all children in kinship care, based on the definition that is in the Bill; and new clause 28 would prioritise those same children for school admissions.

Kinship carers are unsung heroes, often stepping up at no notice to look after a child they are related to or know because that child’s parents can no longer do so. Time and again, we hear from kinship carers that they want to do the right thing out of love for those family members, but financial and other barriers often stand in their way. One survey revealed that 45% of kinship carers give up work, and a similar proportion have to reduce their hours permanently, putting financial strain on the family. These carers are disproportionately women, and they are over-represented in the healthcare, education and social care sectors, so this issue simply exacerbates our workforce crisis in public services.

In Committee, the Minister pointed to the kinship financial allowance pilots, which ran in a tiny number of local authorities and involved a very small subset of kinship carers. That was not ambitious enough. We must go further and give kinship carers parity with foster carers. That will help save money in the short and long term.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In Surrey alone, spending on private special educational needs schools has risen from £48 million in 2018-19 to £74 million in 2021-22. These schools are often backed by private equity firms, and they are charging local authorities extortionate fees—on average double those in the state sector. They are draining public funds, but councils have no choice but to place children in these schools due to a lack of state provision. Does my hon. Friend agree that extending the profit cap to independent schools is essential to protect public finances and ensure fairer funding for children with special educational needs?

[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.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments on the new clause, and also the cross-party support that demonstrates that this is a cross-party issue and is not about party allegiance. Does she agree that the data and the evidence promoted by specialists such as Jonathan Haidt show that problems with literacy, numeracy and focus among children have accelerated since the early 2010s, which coincides with their access to phones? When it comes to what this Government should be doing, it is an open-and-shut case.

[Munira Wilson]

The data in the book to which the right hon. and learned Lady has referred is alarming. Last week in Hampton, in my constituency, the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign organised a public meeting with local parents. It was pretty full, and the data shared there was also extremely alarming. I attended as both a parent and the local Member of Parliament, and I am afraid I came away feeling even less of a liberal than before I went in, and slightly more authoritarian. However, that was mainly because allowing our children to grow up with the freedom of being away from such a toxic environment is the right, liberal thing to do.

Let me say gently to the right hon. and learned Lady, and to those on both the Conservative and the Labour Benches, that being at school is only a small part of a child’s life—it is only a small fraction of that child’s time—and we need to look at much broader measures than restricting phone use in schools. It is disappointing that during the Committee stage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, neither Labour nor Conservative Members supported Liberal Democrat proposals to make the internet less addictive for children. After the Government decided to gut the “safer phones” Bill—the Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill, promoted by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which had a great deal of cross-party support—a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill offered Members an opportunity to protect young people from the doom-scrolling algorithms that are making such powerful changes to the way in which they live and interact. It is disappointing that Ministers did not seize that opportunity with both hands, and I hope they will think again as that Bill progresses through the House.

I welcome new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), which would abolish the common law defence of reasonable punishment. We need to ensure that all children are properly protected in law, so that they can grow up safe, happy and healthy. The Liberal Democrats have been calling for this for more than 20 years. We supported the law change in Scotland and Wales, and it is long overdue in England.

There is much in Part 1 of the Bill on which there is cross-party consensus. A number of amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House seek to ensure that the Government go further in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of our children, which is surely one of the most important roles of Government. I hope that Ministers are in listening mode, and that even if they will not take on board some of the new clauses and amendments today, they will do so as the Bill progresses to the other place. After all, it is our duty to ensure that every child in the country not only survives, but thrives.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak about some very important amendments and new clauses, but also about a body of work that moves forward the country’s protections and support for some of the most vulnerable people in society, which has not been done for a long time.

Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of being the children’s lead for the local authority on which I served. Many Members here may be the grandparent or parent of a handful of kids, but as any local authority lead will know, we are a corporate parent to many hundreds. In that role, it is impossible not to be moved by the testimonies of the young people with whom we are working. They have often undergone real moments of trauma and difficulty that would knock any of us for six. In the face of that, their resilience and their determination to better themselves should inspire us all. As guardians of the country’s collective obligation to young people in care, we owe it to them to fulfil our side of that corporate parenting role.

I am therefore extremely happy to see Government amendments 18 to 22, which widen the role of corporate parenting to other local stakeholders. As a local authority lead working with the care-experienced campaigner Terry Galloway, I was happy to take on some of that work locally. I worked with fantastic local stakeholders to broaden our obligations as corporate parents, and to bring other local government bodies into the sphere of those who were trying to do best by the young people in our care. However, it is clear that acting in isolation cannot be good enough, and that without clear legislation requiring more local stakeholders to take on that important role, we can never involve all the partners who can have such a transformative impact on young people in care at that crucial early stage. No parent would think of caring for a child as just a narrow subset of his or her role, and the state, and our obligation as a corporate parent, should be no different.

I am very glad to see these amendments; many in the House and beyond have been campaigning for them for some time, including my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who recommended some of these measures in his report on social care a few years ago. We saw very little action in this area under the last Government, but I am delighted that this Government are wasting no time in widening that obligation, and therefore widening the scope of the corporate parents who have the back of some of our young people in care throughout the country.

I am also glad to see the Government amendments that strengthen information sharing. I have had to read a great many difficult serious case reviews involving young people all over the country, so I know that there has been tragic incident after tragic incident owing to failures in information sharing, and the failure of agencies to work together effectively. Strengthening information sharing and multi-agency working must be a core element of bettering our obligation to safeguard young people in all local authority areas, and it will be truly welcome to see that in the Bill.

Clauses 8 and 9 of the Bill will strengthen our obligation to care leavers. No parent would expect their obligation to young people in their care to end when they reached the age of 18, and the state should be no different. Perversely, a child leaving care could be ruled intentionally homeless, but a stronger and more widely available care offer for those who are leaving care will empower local authorities throughout the country to do more to live up to the obligation that we all have, as parents, to do right by young people long into adulthood. A number of amendments could be made to strengthen that provision; the Government may not be bringing them forward today, but I am sure that we will continue to revisit proposals as we monitor how this new obligation for local authorities plays out.

The need to do right by young people cannot end when they turn 18, so we must think about how we can continue our role as corporate parents long into children’s lives, when they are young adults. Many of the young people with whom I worked as a local authority lead would welcome extra support, and I am sure that many will welcome the start that the Bill is making today.

Alongside that, it is a fact pretty well appreciated across the House that the overly bureaucratic care system has not always done enough to recognise the importance of wider family networks at really important moments in young people’s lives, so the clauses bringing forward stronger commitments on family group decision making, recognising the important role of kinship carers, and strengthening the educational support available to those in kinship care, are truly welcome. So too—although not in this Bill—is the Government’s record financial commitment to expand the kinship care pilot and ensure that we start to understand the value that wider financial support could have in enabling more young people to be looked after by members of their wider family network, rather than falling into more formalised care.

Mental Health Support: Educational Settings

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this incredibly important debate. I have spent much of the past five and a bit years in this place talking about children’s mental health, which, frankly, I do not think we can ever have enough debate about. It is so incredibly important.

We have heard many statistics from hon. Members today, to which I will add. OECD evidence, based on a survey of 15-year-olds, shows that UK students have the lowest reported wellbeing in western Europe. In 2024, the Children’s Society found that the happiness of UK children aged 10 to 15 was at its lowest since recording began in 2009-10. As we have heard, NHS reporting shows that a staggering one in five children—six in every classroom, on average—have a mental health disorder.

I would argue that it is not an exaggeration to say that we are heading towards a public health emergency as far as our children’s mental health is concerned. Yet, as is so often the case, children and mental health are both overlooked and low down on the priority list. The Darzi report highlighted that children account for 24% of the population but only 11 % of NHS expenditure. The latest evidence from Rethink Mental Illness states that people who need mental health are treatment eight times more likely to have to wait over 18 months than those seeking treatment for physical health. Despite that, the Government’s targets to bring down NHS waiting times exclude mental health. Given that more than 100,000 children are waiting for over a year to be assessed for mental health treatment, it is clear that children have been deprioritised, but as I have said repeatedly in this place, putting money into services that support children is the greatest investment we can make as a country. When budgets are tight, support for child and adolescent mental health should not be pushed aside.

I do not think it an exaggeration to call the situation a public health emergency. In public health, prevention and early intervention are absolutely key. That is where the role of schools, colleges and universities comes in. As we have heard, half of lifetime mental health conditions arise before the age of 14, so ensuring that mental health support is available in schools, from primary upwards, is a critical intervention. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a mental health practitioner to be placed in every primary and secondary school. In the light of the impact of online harms on our children’s mental health, we have made a strong case for the “polluter pays” principle, whereby big tech giants bear the cost burden of the measure. A trebling of the digital services tax would fund a practitioner in every primary and secondary school.

I am slightly confused because, as the Minister said during the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, and as I have seen in Labour party material, the Government are committed to

“introducing specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school”.

However, Labour had previously committed to having a counsellor in every secondary school, and indeed the hon. Member for Redditch talked about having a counsellor in every school. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point of policy when he speaks in a moment.

My impression during the Bill Committee was that the Government intended to build out from the mental health support teams that were established by the previous Government. The Minister confirmed in Committee that only 44% of children and young people have access to such teams, which will rise to 50% in April, but he did not set out a timeline or a plan for how or when the Government will meet their commitment by ensuring that every school has access to specialist support.

MHSTs are brilliant. I have spoken to staff who work in those teams, both in my own constituency and in Carshalton, with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean). However, the reality is that MHSTs are spread far too thinly across a number of primary and secondary schools, with some schools only getting half a day or a day of support. That is not enough. Last year, one teenager in a secondary school in my constituency took their own life. Another school in my constituency had three teenagers end up in A&E in the space of about two months, having attempted to take their own lives. Clearly, that level of mental ill health requires much more acute intervention than therapy in school, but the reality is that if we start early—if we start young—with proper support, some of these truly awful incidents might be prevented.

The MHST model may well be the best model for support in schools, but I urge the Government to be ambitious in the resourcing of those teams, so that every school has the full-time equivalent of one person in the provision of this support. I know that many schools are trying to top up the resource out of their own funds, but with budgets being stretched ever further, sadly, mental health support is one of the areas that headteachers and governors tell me they are having to start cutting back on.

We know that the epidemic of mental ill health is driving the crisis of persistent absence in our schools. As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) said, we have heard a lot in recent days about the million or so young adults who are not in education, employment or training, often because of mental ill health. For the sake of those young people’s futures, our economy and our society, we must do better, and we must do more.

I do not have time today to talk about school staff, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, but we have a recruitment and retention crisis in our schools, and that is because many teachers see themselves as the fourth emergency service. We have to support them with their mental health if we want to stop that flow out of our schools. In higher education, I hope the Government will look at introducing a duty of care, because we have heard too many tragic stories of students taking their own lives and their loved ones knowing nothing about their mental health problems.

I pay tribute to the charities around the country that are plugging the gaps in mental health support. In my constituency, we have amazing charities such as the Purple Elephant Project and Off The Record working with children and their families. Anstee Bridge works across Richmond and Kingston with children who are no longer engaging with school. As I said, there have been a number of attempted suicide cases in my constituency, and when I have been to Anstee Bridge, I have heard many more stories of children attempting to take their own lives. These services are critical if we want to keep those children and young people safe and help them to recover.

I want to touch on two more points. Childhood bereavement is a really important and often overlooked issue. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), who has long championed the need for a register of children who have been bereaved. We know that childhood bereavement has a terrible impact on children’s wellbeing, potentially their mental health and their educational outcomes. I hope Ministers will look seriously at introducing a register, so that we know how many of these children there are, where they are and what support they need, because that information is not available at the moment. Additionally, there is no national mandate from the Department for Education for schools to have a bereavement policy, nor is there any national policy to support schools with this. I hope that will be addressed.

The hon. Member for Redditch mentioned children growing up in kinship care. The Minister will know that I have long been campaigning cross-party on support for kinship carers and children growing up in kinship care. Like other Members, my inbox has been filled recently with emails from constituents who have either adopted children or are kinship carers for children whose parents can no longer look after them and have benefited from the adoption and special guardianship support fund. It is a critical fund that carers often access to provide therapeutic support for children who have experienced terrible trauma, loss and instability. However, there has been no reassurance from Government about the future of that fund. I think at the moment we only have funding confirmed until the end of this month. There is a huge amount of uncertainty, and hon. Members from across the House have tabled written questions but there has been no clear answer on the future of this fund. I hope that when the Minister rises at the Dispatch Box, he will put on record the plans for the adoption and special guardianship support fund as it is crucial and we cannot lose it.

Our children cannot thrive and cannot achieve their full potential if they are not happy and if they are not well, so I implore the Minister to work closely with his counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care to treat this public health challenge as an emergency. Our children and young people are only young once; they deserve the best future they can get. They cannot afford to wait; we need to prioritise this.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion of looked-after children. We will certainly look at those proposals and at all the work the Education Committee does to support the most vulnerable children in society.

Prevention is vital, and schools and colleges can naturally play a preventive role in what they do from day to day. Attainment is a vital factor in longer-term mental health, as it helps young people to access the things they want to do in life, in further study and in jobs. The best schools and colleges set high standards and expectations, and support children to overcome barriers to their learning, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. We also understand that a child’s experience of school helps them to both achieve and thrive. Education settings also support the social and emotional development of their pupils through what is taught in lessons, extracurricular activity and pastoral support.

Pupils who are thriving, with positive subjective wellbeing and a strong sense of belonging, accomplishment, autonomy and good health, achieve better educational outcomes and are more likely to attend school. They are better equipped to face issues in their lives, which is important. Not every child facing mental health issues will need clinical interventions; the support that they get from their friends, families and school or college staff can be what they need. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge), I acknowledge and recognise the many thousands of school leaders, teachers and staff who are committed to promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils every day through the things that they do to make school a safe, supportive and inclusive place for children, by supporting their specific needs and by working with parents, families and other community services.

We know that as many as nine in 10 schools have a designated lead for students’ mental health and that more than three quarters of them have benefited from DFE-funded training, helping leaders to embed effective whole-school or whole-college approaches to mental health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, schools and colleges themselves need support with what to do and cannot deal with every issue that pupils have.

That is why, as a Government, we have committed to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so that every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. That commitment will be delivered through the expansion of NHS-funded mental health support teams, which will work in schools and colleges to offer early support through evidence-based one-to-one and group interventions. They will liaise with specialist services and support leads to develop their holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing. Those functions, supervised by a clinical professional, are what make mental health support teams such a valuable resource. I have seen that important work at first hand on visits to education settings in Brighton, Manchester and Rugby. By April 2025, we expect those teams to cover over 50% of children and young people in schools and colleges, and plans for further expansion are being drawn up with the NHS to achieve 100% coverage as soon as is practically possible.

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister has referred to access to specialist mental health support. For the benefit of the House, could he clarify what level of resource he expects that to be—will it be half a day a week, a day a week, or full-time equivalent? The previous commitment had been a counsellor in every school.

[Stephen Morgan]

I can assure the hon. Member that there will be access to mental health professionals in every school. We are working on the detail of that as we speak, and will announce more in due course.