Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

With permission, I shall make a statement on the Government’s progress to reform children’s social care.

Transforming support for families and protection for children is central to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. That is why we introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which received Royal Assent in April. It has enabled the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. The whole-system reset that is needed to shift money, staff and attention to earlier intensive help for families, rather than late-stage crisis management, is under way, supported by over £3 billion in funding. I want to use this statement to focus on the care and leaving care systems that form an essential part of children’s social care. I am publishing the enduring relationships strategy that sets out how we will deliver that change.

In 2022, I published the independent review of children’s social care, a review that was informed by listening directly to thousands of people with experience of the care system. What I heard then, and have heard since, is that our care and leaving care systems are too often breaking rather than building lifelong loving relationships. Care can leave young people isolated, lonely and lacking belonging. This heightens vulnerability to poor mental health, unstable housing and unemployment. In that review, I called for a system where every young person would leave care with someone who loves them—a simple goal, but one that is not the central focus of our current system.

At present, care often prioritises the management of professional anxiety over the nurturing of lasting, enduring relationships that care-experienced people need in order to feel loved and safe. We see this in children being sent to grow up in homes far away from their community, thereby rupturing their school career, their friendships and their family relationships. We see this in the rules that mean foster carers are not trusted to make day-to-day decisions about whether the child they have in their care can have an overnight stay with a friend or have a haircut without seeking permission from a social worker. We see it when the young person turning 18 is pushed towards living independently, when what they really need is a housing and social support model that helps them build community.

The strategy I have published today sets out how we will make creating a loving tribe around every care-experienced young person the central obsession of the care system. To enable this, our reforms cover four key areas. First, all of children’s social care—not just the care system—must prioritise relationships. That means working to bring about change in families for children by strengthening the bonds found in existing family networks. This is at the heart of the Families First Partnership programme, where family group decision making and family network support packages are bringing children’s families and their wider networks into their care decisions at an earlier stage.

It also means unlocking the potential of kinship care. Every local authority will be required to publish a local kinship offer, giving families the clarity and support they need. We have also committed £126 million to seven kinship zones, which are now up and running, that will test the impact of a non-means-tested allowance, equivalent to the fostering allowance, for kinship families with a legal order.

Secondly, we must create more stable and loving homes for children in care that support long-term relationships. A shortage of foster homes is leading to too many children being moved far away from their communities and the people they know. It is putting pressure on existing foster carers to be matched with children where their needs and their relationships with brothers and sisters often cannot be met. It is leading to children being placed in residential care inappropriately, at great cost in terms of both money and poorer outcomes.

We are therefore on the cusp of dramatically expanding a new approach to running our care system. This is made up of new end-to-end fostering hubs, where we will pull together individual local authority fostering teams into larger and more specialised fostering services, with more resource and higher expectations on recruitment and support for carers. This is the main action that will deliver the 10,000 additional places in foster care that we need by the end of this Parliament. It is backed with £88 million and includes funding for new innovation, grants to build extensions and home improvements for existing carers, and modernisation of the foster carer recruitment process.

This new system also depends on expanding regional care co-operatives so that the majority of England will be covered by an RCC by the end of this year. RCCs will give areas the scale to create the types of homes that children in care need and the leverage to drive out profiteering and poor quality practice. My Department will use RCCs as the vehicle to roll out a new approach to wrap around children who are on or at risk of a deprivation of liberty order. This programme, called Home Again, will de-escalate crises and be delivered in partnership with health services. I will share more information about this in the coming weeks.

I have also been concerned about the lack of support and attention that has been given to those working in residential care. That is why we have launched an expert-led review to assess the professional development offer to staff at children’s homes and set out instructions for change that we will action this autumn.

Thirdly, we must support care-experienced children who are transitioning into adulthood by ensuring that we nurture and expand their long-term relationships. This is not to be confused with supporting their relationships with professionals, although that is important, but instead is about the relationships with people who can form a lasting family and tribe around care-experienced people. That starts with what the system measures and how it is inspected. Later this year, a new metric to track the quality of enduring relationships at an individual level will be rolled out in the care and leaving care systems because, whether we like it or not, what gets measured is often the thing that gets done. If we are serious about putting enduring relationships at the heart of the system, the performance of the system itself needs to be judged on whether the relationships around those in and leaving care are getting stronger or weaker. This will, of course, have implications for Ofsted’s inspection regime.

With a new measure of relationships sitting at the heart of the system, we also need to support practitioners to change what they do so that enduring relationships are strengthened. That is why today I am launching a national sprint to roll out family finding services across England by the end of the next two years. We know the impact that “Who Do You Think You Are?”-style services can have on building stronger tribes around young people, and we have already seen the impact of programmes like Lifelong Links. These services need to become the mainstream offer, rather than pilots on the fringe of the system.

In the coming months, I will launch the new Staying Close programme, which will shift the system away from its current focus on preparing young people for independence and instead focus on providing homes for care leavers that build interdependence and connection. This will mean fewer teenagers dropping off the care cliff at 18 and being forced to live in a flat, lonely and isolated.

Finally, I am particularly proud that we will work with faith and belief organisations to design a new lifelong relationships ceremony to recognise the important bonds between care-experienced adults and those who love them. Just as we have Christenings and naming ceremonies, Britain is generous enough to also mark these wonderful and unique relationships that give hope and meaning. I want these to start being offered this year.

The most important thing for us in life is our relationships. The state often finds it hard to put itself at the service of building these loving relationships. In fact, too often it blocks or weakens them. That changes today by making one thing very clear: the purpose of our care system, above all else, is to build enduring loving relationships. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank the hon. Member for the spirit in which he shared his remarks and the questions that he put to me. He is right to say that this issue requires serious and sustained attention from the House and from parties across every corner of the Chamber.

It is worth highlighting to people the disparity between what care-experienced people tell us about their experience and the experiences of the general population. Some 22% of care leavers are always or often lonely, and 15% of care leavers do not have a really good friend. Compared with the general population, those numbers are so much higher, which illustrates why this issue is so important.

Let me turn to the questions asked by the hon. Member. The adoption and special guardianship support fund is hugely important, which is why we have increased the fund by 10% this year to ensure that we can reach more families and young people with that support. The consultation response will come later this year. At the moment, the Department is focused on implementing the changes and improvements that we set out in the consultation a few months ago.

The fostering hubs will be allocated in the next few weeks, and I hope to make an announcement next month on the fostering hubs and RCCs that will be rolled out and extended further. In terms of improving matching, regional care co-operatives will play an important role in the future system in enabling us to get a much better sense, looking ahead at the years to come, of the actual sufficiency required for children in their areas.

Finally, let me turn to the new metric. The Department has worked with foundations to set out a shortlist of options of standardised measures that are valid and can be used at a practitioner and young person level but do not create undue bureaucracy or distract from the important relationships that are needed in those conversations. I am confident that we can find and roll out a measure this year that will achieve that goal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister on his commitment to making a difference for children in the care system and for care leavers. It is a shocking reality that our care system has, over a long period of time, become so far removed from putting the essential needs of children and young people for secure, loving relationships at the heart of everything it does.

May I acknowledge the magnitude of the shift that the Minister has announced today? We do not often have moments like this in the House—we should have them more often. Having spoken to many, many care leavers over a long period of time, I know the difference that what the Minister has announced today has the potential to make for them. I welcome the fact that many of his commitments are consistent with recommendations from the Education Committee in our report.

May I ask the Minister for further detail on two areas? First, can he give an assurance that, as he works to deliver this transformation of the care system and support for care-experienced people, he will retain a focus on restoring the early intervention and family support that prevents children from entering the care system in the first place? Secondly, with the focus on regional care co-operatives, may I press him on their geography? They cover quite large geographies, and it is possible for a child to be placed in a regional care co-operative and still be placed a long way from home. In delivering on the detail of regional care co-operatives, will he give his attention to that issue and pay attention to the distance that children will need to travel within them?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, not just for those remarks, but for the Committee’s work over the last few years in keeping a focus on these issues. I also thank her for her support for the Government always going further and taking more actions to improve outcomes for children and their families.

In answer to my hon. Friend’s first point, the fundamental shift required in this Parliament is that we start to see funding across the children’s social care system being rebalanced away from late-stage crisis spending towards earlier, intensive support for families. We are not leaving that to an annual check-in. Every quarter, my officials and I are monitoring the pounds being spent by children’s social care across the country, and we will be prepared to support and, if necessary, to intervene if the system reset that we expect is not being seen on the ground in how spending is done.

The geography of RCCs will be large. In some areas, they will have the footprint of a mayoral combined authority or multiple mayoral combined authorities, but there will be a specific target for creating homes that keep children in close proximity to their existing communities.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I have no doubt that it is a moment of immense pride for the Minister to be able to announce as Government policy many things that he recommended in his own independent review, and we welcome them.

Every child deserves to have deep, trusting, lifelong relationships, yet, as we have heard, too many children in care are torn away from those whom they are able to trust, unable to keep in touch with them for the stability they need to enter adulthood. We know from the Milburn report, published last week, that care-experienced children are five times more likely not to be in education, employment or training at the age of 17 than the general population. As Milburn says, the care system produces an intense concentration of changes

“at precisely the ages when continuity matters most.”

The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome today’s announcement—the strategy, the accompanying investment, and the marked shift away from harmful short-term thinking and a transactional system towards a holistic approach that puts the child front and centre of decision making, alongside long-term relationships. The Minister will know that my noble Friend in the other place, Baroness Tyler, campaigned hard to close the loophole that prevented children in care from being able to contact siblings not in care, and we hope that today’s announcement will build on her brilliant campaigning.

As the Minister alluded to, the number of children in care living more than 20 miles away from home has increased by 41% over the past decade, and that has a damaging long-term impact on those children’s relationships. When will we see a reduction in the number of children in care living far from their families and friends? What are the current accountability measures when children are moved to the other side of the country although that is not in their best interests, and how can that accountability be improved through the regional care co-operatives?

The Minister also referenced the new financial allowance pilot for kinship carers. He knows that my party and I have long campaigned on that issue, and I very much hope that he will move at pace, working with the Treasury, to scale those pilots up quickly nationwide. He knows how beneficial it is to put kinship carers’ allowances on a par with foster carers’ allowances. I also urge him to work with Ministers in the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that statutory leave for kinship carers is part of the parental leave review.

Finally, the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been mentioned. I note that the Minister has increased the fund overall, but the cuts to the individual grants persist. He knows that those cuts are damaging to the families affected, so will he please consider reinstating those grants?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank the hon. Member for her questions and, again, for the spirit in which she has made her contribution. I also thank her for her leadership on this issue—she has spent a lot of time in this place raising many of these points time and again. She is right to highlight the work of the noble Baroness Tyler in the other place, and I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) in this place; both of them, working cross party, have long highlighted the importance of brothers and sisters in the care system. The most important relationships can often be relationships with siblings.

I want the number of distant placements to start to come down in this Parliament. The leading indicator of that would be an expansion of fostering, and we are monitoring that at the moment. We need to start seeing those numbers go up in a big way so that the homes are created close to where children already live, and there is not a need for distant placements.

Turning to accountability, we definitely need greater visibility on those numbers in the system; if the metric I talked about in the statement is embedded across the system as well, we will start to see the strength of those relationships. We speak to young people who have been moved two hours away from their home community; earlier this week, I spoke to a young woman who that had happened to. It was impossible for her to keep the quality of relationship that she wanted to with her father, which was safe. We need to measure that. That needs to be the central focus, and then everything else will flow from it, including the location of placements.

Finally, on kinship allowance, the take-up has been impressive already; it is only a few weeks into the roll-out, and I have looked at the data. I look forward to going to Grimsby soon, hopefully, with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) to see one of the areas that, at the moment, is more successful than the others—there is a competition under way—and see the success of that programme.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

There are wonderful kinship carers down in Sussex Weald, and the Minister is more than welcome to visit.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement today and pay tribute to him for his enduring commitment to this issue, which started long before he came to this place. Improving the lives of children in care and care leavers must be our highest priority, and Hartlepool’s previous Labour council stood four-square behind the Minister’s intent to rebalance the system. As he knows, though, I am really concerned about the legacy of this broken system—the firefighting that councils are having to do, the financial pain it has caused them, and their inability to make that rebalancing happen. Can the Minister give me a little more information about how he is working with his colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support those councils, which are under such huge financial pressure?

Pride Month

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Bailey]

I hope the hon. Member has gathered from my remarks that I am absolutely focusing on this very important ban with speed and determination.

Before I conclude, I want to recognise that while the Government have an important role to play in protecting LGBT+ rights, lasting change is delivered every day by people and organisations working in communities across our country, and I am sure that we will hear lots of examples of that in the debate. I have had the privilege of meeting remarkable organisations, including Stonewall, Galop, the LGBT Foundation, the LGBT Consortium and the Terrence Higgins Trust, among many others. These organisations help people through some of the most difficult moments in their lives, challenge injustice and build stronger communities. We owe them our gratitude and we have a responsibility to support their work.

That is why this Government are taking Pride Month so seriously, being loud and proud about our commitment to the LGBT community. Throughout this month, Departments across Government will be hosting events and activities that celebrate LGBT+ communities and highlighting the issues they face. From the Ministry of Justice engaging with LGBT legal professionals to the work of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs exploring the experiences of LGBT+ people in rural communities, colleagues across Government are playing their part.

Our commitment to Pride is not confined to a single month. We will stand with the LGBT+ community year-round, because that is what this Labour Government stand for: hope and unity over division and hate. It is a simple principle that I hope Members across this House can agree on: every person in this country should be able to live freely, safely and with dignity, regardless of who they are or who they love. That is the principle we reaffirm today and that is the commitment this Government will continue to defend.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

Do you know, I am going to cry in a minute! I thank the hon. Gentleman, although that is the second opportunity he has missed to mention Harlow—I am getting worried about him! [Laughter.]

As I was saying, that experience has stayed with me; it reminds me why progress matters and can never be taken for granted. Prejudice may look different today, but it has not vanished. There are still people around the world, and some people in this country, who cannot come out or live the life they want to live. That is why Pride is not just a month in the calendar; it is a statement that those people are not forgotten. It is also why what happens in this House matters. The law can change lives. It can tell people whether they are recognised, protected and valued. That is why the passage of the equal marriage Act in 2013—the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act—remains one of the proudest moments of my time in Parliament.

No party has a monopoly on progress. People from all parties and none have fought for the rights and dignity of LGBT people. I am proud that Conservatives played a part in delivering equal marriage and I am proud of the progress that Conservative Governments made on HIV prevention, testing and treatment, including HIV Testing Week and the legalisation of HIV self-testing kits.

I also want to pay tribute to the Terrence Higgins Trust and its CEO Richard Angell, and all those who have been campaigning to end new HIV transmissions by 2030. As the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, I absolutely back the Government in their ambition to see that happen. When I was growing up, I never thought that we would see the end of it. It was so terrifying at the time and the fact that we now have that goal in sight is truly remarkable and wonderful.

I also want to say clearly as the shadow Secretary of State for Health that LGBT health matters. That means keeping a strong focus on HIV prevention, testing and treatment, making sure that stigma continues to be broken down, recognising the particular mental health pressures some LGBT people face, and ensuring that everyone can use the NHS without fear, shame or discrimination. It also means remembering older LGBT people, including those who lived through the AIDS crisis, who should never feel forced back into the closet when they need social care or support later on in life, or if they end up in residential or nursing homes. I know that that has been happening and it is something we need to address. I hope the Minister, when winding up, might be able to update the House—she mentioned some of the continuing work on HIV prevention—on how that progress will be maintained, because the clock is ticking and I am conscious that there is still quite a bit to do, and update us on what work the Government are planning to do on older LGBT people as we think about their care needs in the future.

I, too, want to address the Equality Act code of practice and the Supreme Court ruling, because they have been very prominent in recent days. The law is now clear that for the purposes of the Equality Act, sex means biological sex. Single-sex spaces must be protected where they are needed, particularly where privacy, dignity and safeguarding are at stake. That clarity matters for women, service providers, staff who need to know what the law requires of them, and the NHS. Decisions about female wards, intimate care, changing rooms and women-only services cannot be left to confusion or inconsistent local interpretation.

We should also be able to and capable of saying two things at once. We can say that sex means biological sex and that single-sex spaces must be protected, and we can also say that trans people must be treated with dignity, respect, compassion and love. Those positions are not mutually exclusive. They are both part of a serious, humane and lawful approach. I hope the Minister can set out what the code of practice means in practice for the NHS, including for female wards and the other issues I have mentioned. NHS staff, patients and trusts need clarity on how the law should be applied.

This House should be able to approach these issues without pretending they are simple, and also without pretending that clarity is unkind. That is why I think it is a mistake when Pride events suggest that political parties should have no place in them. The banning of political parties from some Pride events is disappointing, because Pride does not belong to one political tribe. The people elected to this House, and the LGBT organisations in all our parties, have helped to deliver real change. I pay tribute to them all and thank them for what they have done. LGBT people are Conservatives, Labour members, Liberal Democrats, Greens, nationalists, independents, and people of no political party at all. They should not be made to feel unwelcome. In fact, I want to see more gay and lesbian people in politics. Banning political parties from Pride flies in the face of its meaning, in my view.

I want to mention lesbians specifically, because too often their voices are treated as an afterthought in debates about LGBT rights. Lesbian women have been central to the history of Pride, activism and community life. Their experiences matter in debates about healthcare, safety, dignity and sex-based rights. Pride Month should never allow the L in LGBT to become silent.

No one should have to hide who they are in order to feel safe. That means taking anti-LGBT hate crime seriously. Too many incidents still go unreported because people think they are too minor or worry they will not be taken seriously. They should be taken very seriously indeed, and that is true in sport, schools, workplaces, healthcare, families and public life.

Pride is a celebration of how far we have come, but it is also a promise that we will remember those who came before us, stand with those who still feel alone, and help the next generation live more freely, safely and honestly than the last. That is what Pride Month means to me, and that is why this debate matters.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a real honour to follow the speeches made by the Minister and shadow Minister. The commitment of both to furthering LGBTQ+ rights, in this place and outside it, should be honoured. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince)—I got Harlow in—that they are both an inspiration to everyone in this House now and to future generations. I hope that we see more diversity in this place—because, boy, don’t we benefit from it.

This is another equalities debate that has been pushed to a Thursday, when many MPs have returned to their constituencies and the press are focusing on the Sunday news stories. It is disappointing to know that there are so many people who wanted to be here but cannot be. It is pretty embarrassing that there is not a single Back Bencher from the Conservatives, and that there is only one representative from the Lib Dems, Greens and the SNP, when I know there are more voices that would be willing to be here if Parliament gave the time to equalities debates that it should give. I have written to the Procedure Committee, because these debates should be a priority across all Departments and all the work that we carry out in this place. They are not an add-on at the end. If we are only working for some of society, we are not working for all.

I am usually excited about Pride Month. I usually love a good party, and, unlike the Minister, I like a bit of dancing—I am rubbish at singing, but I will do it. Pride is a chance to celebrate and come together—absolutely—but it is also a chance to understand, grow and learn. Sadly, Pride is more of a protest this year than a party. I always say that progress is not inevitable, but I hoped that it would never regress as quickly as I have seen. It is a disgraceful environment where people’s genitalia are up for debate, UK politicians proudly question the ability of same-sex couples to provide loving and safe homes for children, and a tiny vulnerable part of our society is blatantly demonised under the guise of protecting women and girls.

I have said it before in this House and I will say it again that my safety, both physical and emotional, has only been threatened by men: men who were born men; men with power; men unaccountable for their actions; men who have never faced justice; men who would never be stopped by a sign on a toilet door. Those are the people who threaten our safety and society, and until they are the focus of the debate about women and girls’ safety, no amount of single-sex spaces is going to save any of us. Scapegoating the trans community will not work; it will not make any of us safer.

The inconsistencies in the latest iteration of the EHRC code of practice make it unworkable and unjust. “Challenge someone, but do not cause harm or embarrassment by challenging them”—how is that possible? How does someone prove or disprove that? “Ask trans people to use a third space but somehow keep their right to a private life.” The Women and Equalities Committee will be questioning the EHRC chair next week, so I am minded of the remarks of the Minister for Equalities earlier this week that we must ask the chair about those details.

The Government, as well as the EHRC, have to provide answers to the trans community, businesses, organisations and the general public on how this sorry saga ends without things being further inflamed. All I see is more litigation, pain, uncertainty, time and money being spent solving a problem that most people did not prioritise above the actual problems that this country should be dealing with, such as the 97% of reported rapes that go unpunished.

Cis-male perpetrators do not have to disguise themselves as anyone or anything to get away with the most hideous of crimes in this country, because they are already committing them and, on the whole, getting away with it, unfortunately. The distortion of the arguments about women’s safety has had a devastating impact on trans people, with the focus on trans women, but with trans men completely forgotten from the conversation—not to mention non-binary and intersex people.

Let us look at the real-life impact that this is having on the people we represent. I want to share a conversation that I had yesterday. It was with my constituent and friend, Teraina Hird, an 83-year-old trans woman. We chatted yesterday; I did not know this at the time, but she had discharged herself from hospital so that she could speak with me. Teraina told me that that was how much it meant to her to get her experience and questions across to me and fellow parliamentarians. I did have a go at her—I told her that I would rather she had stayed in hospital and that her health was more important. She disagreed, and said, “I’m 83. I have lived my life. This is about the future generations and the others who come next.” This debate was more important to her than her own health.

Teraina put her health at risk to speak with me—that is how existential it feels right now for the trans community. She has always fought hard against bigotry. She is one of the most talented people with her hands that I have seen. She is a woodturner, and she makes beautiful pens. She does so many fantastic things with pieces of wood—things I could never have imagined people could do without heavy machinery. She was a mechanical engineer and owned her own business in Luton.

When Teraina transitioned, the local media covered it in a matter-of-fact way. But The Sun phoned up and said, “We’d love to cover it. Don’t worry, we’re not going to send a reporter. We’ve got everything that we need from the local news. We’ll just send a photographer.” They took a photo of her, and plastered on the headline, “Mechanic loses nuts…and customers bolt”. That is disgusting, but to be honest, it seems almost mild when compared with the vilification of the LGBTQ+ community in some parts of the media nowadays.

Teraina asks these questions of the Minister and everyone in this place. How can the safety of trans men and trans women be protected when using the toilets of the opposite gender? How is it going to be policed? Are there even enough cubicles and toilets to deal with the proposed change? Teraina discharged herself to share those questions with me, but she was also terrified of being put on a men’s ward. Her last question is: where would she have been put to be treated? Which ward would she have been put on? She would never have felt comfortable on a men’s ward. Would it have been dignified for her to receive treatment on a men’s ward?

These are Teraina’s words:

“I was born a male but I have never been a man. I tried but I failed. I always have felt female. Even at school as a boy, I was bullied for being”—

in her words—

“a ‘sissy’ so I left.”

This has had a lifelong impact on Teraina.

Another Luton constituent is now having to walk considerable distances to use a toilet outside of her place of work, which is causing not just an emotional impact, but a physical one—and potentially a financial impact, too, if she cannot remain in her place of work without being outed against her will. Where is her right to privacy? The Minister spoke about the Supreme Court being very clear that the ruling should not impact a trans person’s right to privacy, but is my constituent’s right to privacy being protected? Currently it is not.

I have always believed that unless we are all enjoying progress, none of us truly is. If we care about human rights, we do not get to pick which human rights we care about and which we do not.

LGBT rights and women’s rights should be able to go hand in hand. The Select Committee heard from the Spanish Ministry of Equality about how Spain is leading the way in LGBT+ rights, ranking No. 1 on ILGA-Europe’s rainbow map. I am not just jealous of Spanish weather; I am jealous of Spanish equality. Spain has set up a helpline to provide support to LGBT people in instances of abuse and is providing world-leading fertility treatment, which is benefiting the LGBT+ communities. It also recently appointed its first global LGBTQ+ rights envoy to advocate for the decriminalisation of same-sex relations internationally. We can look to Spain as a leader not just in Europe, but across the world.

Add to that the fact that Spain is highly progressive in its approach to women’s rights. It is not one or the other; it is both. It has developed an advanced monitoring system that police use to risk assess and track cases of gender-based violence and provide tailored protection to victims. Since the introduction of the VioGén system, the rate of femicide by a partner or ex-partner has decreased year on year in Spain.

These international examples make it abundantly clear that despite what some of the loudest voices inside this place and outside will say, it is not a case of women’s rights versus trans rights or women’s safety versus LGBT freedom. No, we can and should all live alongside each other—not just with dignity, but with joy, proper celebration, proper understanding and proper love. When we take male violence against women seriously, we are protecting all women and girls, and we are acknowledging the real villain behind this crisis rather than scapegoating the trans community.

It is hard sometimes to find reasons to be cheerful, but the world of sport may offer some—it is full of LGBT+ legends after all, just like our Parliament. Women’s football and rugby continue to provide incredible role models for young women—actually, women of any age—who are grappling with their sexuality. Across the Women’s super league, the Lionesses, the Red Roses and English cricket, there are women living their truth in loving relationships with each other—married, raising children and being themselves publicly and proudly. They are absolutely knocking it out of the park.

For the majority of male footballers, displaying their girlfriends and wives online alongside their family seems completely normal—they take it for granted that society accepts and celebrates their personal lives. But for our lesbian and bisexual athletes in same-sex relationships, each time they do an anniversary post or kiss their partner in the stands, they are unwittingly making a statement and risking abuse. I want to thank them for their everyday bravery. I also hope that it will not be a brave act for very much longer, and that it will just be normal.

We need to acknowledge once again that there are still no out male premier league footballers. To be honest, who can blame them? Homophobia, alongside racism and misogyny, continues to be a rampant disease among both match-going fans and trolls online. Hatred does not stay in one lane; it never does. If hon. Members want to see an example of that, look at what Reform councils are doing with Pride flags. They are not stopping with Pride flags; they are going after Ukrainian flags, too. There will always be somebody—when people do not have the answers to the problems facing them, it is easier to blame somebody else than to really look inwards, at themselves, and at how we can further our country together. This week, Millwall FC released a Pride playbook to advise on connecting with LGBT+ teams. I hope that this is the beginning of a new era of inclusivity in men’s football, but I know that we have so much further to go.

There are seeds of hope for LGBT people across our culture and society, and I want to end with some of them. February saw HBO drama “Heated Rivalry” break viewing records across the world—I am sure that a lot of us enjoyed watching it. It celebrates a particularly fiery LGBT love story while also channelling new fans into winter sports. I love ice hockey. I am so up for all full-contact sports, but roll in a good love story too? Happy days.

Durham Pride has raised enough money to throw the biggest Pride in its history, with support from the local trade union movement. If there is an example of love winning, this is it. Especially in the face of hatred, love will always win. It is an example of what we must all fight against in the future.

Last October, King Charles unveiled the first mural dedicated to LGBTQ+ members of the British armed forces. Named “An Opened Letter”, it honours servicemen and women who experienced homophobic abuse.

Rates of adoption among LGBT people have quadrupled over the past decade, with at least 20% of all adopted children now finding a loving home with a same-sex couple. How dare any politician—how dare anybody—say that that is not the best place for a child? The best place for a child is always in a loving home.

And, as we have heard today, our Labour Government are set to finally bring in an end to the painful, arcane practice of conversion therapy with the trans-inclusive draft conversion practices Bill included in the King’s Speech. I cannot wait to support it when it is introduced.

While the light behind the clouds may be hard to find, and the rainbows may be really far in the distance from all the rain, it is important that we do find that glimmer of light and those rainbows this Pride month. I want to end with the words that Teraina said to me yesterday. It is what her grandmother and family had always said. It is also something my grandma always said to me:

“Treat other people the way you would like to be treated.”

It is not that hard.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords message

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I can inform the House that Lords amendment 38X engages Commons financial privilege. If the Lords amendment is agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

After Clause 26

Power to require internet service providers to prevent or restrict access by children to internet services

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)]

I beg to move,

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendments 38V to 38X to Commons Amendment 38J, and proposes Amendments (a) to (j) to Commons Amendments 38J and 38K in lieu of the Lords Amendments.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following Government motion:

That this House agrees with the Lords in their Amendment 105C.

[Olivia Bailey]

I am pleased to speak once again on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and I will start by reminding colleagues why it matters. First, and most importantly, this Bill is about keeping children safe, ensuring that no child is let down by the system, and ensuring that children in care get the support and love that they deserve. This Bill is about high standards in schools for all our children, so that every child can get on in life and succeed; it is about excellent teachers in every school following our modern, world-leading national curriculum; and it is about removing barriers to opportunity and lifting 100,000 children out of poverty through our expansion of free school meals.

There will be no more eye-watering uniform bills, and there will be free breakfast clubs in every primary school. We are already seeing the difference that this is making: children enjoying not just a healthy breakfast, but a wonderful, supportive start to the school day. That is driving improvements in attendance and behaviour, and saving parents time and money, as this Government continue to do everything we can to support people with the cost of living. The Bill ensures safety and opportunity for all children in this country, and as my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary said when she introduced it, this Bill is for them.

I am grateful to everybody who has engaged with the passage of this legislation in both Houses, and I am glad that on the issues we have most recently discussed—admissions and particularly phones in schools—we have found a way forward. I thank the noble Baroness Barran, the Opposition spokesperson in the other place, for meeting me this afternoon to discuss our shared ambition to ensure that children should not have access to mobile phones at any point in the school day. I am glad that Members of the other place have supported that position today.

Lords amendment 105C is a minor amendment to adjust the Bill’s long title, to reflect the addition of the allergies measures.

On the remaining question of access to social media, we have listened carefully to the concerns raised across both Houses about the importance of the Government acting swiftly once the consultation has concluded, and we have significantly strengthened the power. The Government have said repeatedly that it is a question of how we act, not if, but to put this beyond any doubt, we are placing a clear statutory requirement that the Secretary of State “must”, rather than “may”, act following the consultation. That brings forward regulations without pre-empting the consultation’s outcomes, and does not ignore the tens of thousands of parents and children who have already engaged with us.

Let us be clear: the status quo cannot continue. We are consulting on the mechanism, which is the right thing to do, but we are clear that under any outcome we will impose some form of age or functionality for children under 16. I can also confirm that consideration of restrictions such as curfews will be in addition to that, not instead of it. As the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has said, we are focused on addictive features, harmful algorithmically-driven content and features such as stranger pairing, which we know can be most damaging to children’s safety and privacy.

The Government have committed in legislation to publishing a timeline as part of the statutory progress report already set out in the Bill. Recognising the strength of feeling and our shared determination to reach the quickest possible action, we are reducing the timeline further this evening. Our statutory progress report must now be made three months after the Bill receives Royal Assent, reflecting our intention to quickly produce a response following the consultation. Following that report, we will have 12 months to lay regulations, but our firm intention is to move faster, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has been clear that we aim to do so by the end of the year.

In exceptional circumstances, the Government have the option to extend the timeline by a further six months. To be clear, we have no intention to use this six-month backstop, except for in serious and unforeseen circumstances. In that event, we would need to return to Parliament to explain why the extension was needed. In recognition of the strong concerns expressed about harmful and addictive design features, we have further specified that the Secretary of State must have due regard to such features when deciding how to exercise the power and making future regulations.

We all share the same objective: keeping children safe online. These changes give us the strongest foundation for quick and decisive action.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

You talk about swift action, but actually what you talked about—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I have not spoken about swift action. Would the hon. Member like to make another short intervention appropriately?

[Victoria Collins]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister talks about swift action, but the timelines put forward in the Lords still add up to 21 months before there is action. Does the Minister believe that that is at all swift? I do not think that parents will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I remind Back-Bench colleagues who wish to contribute that their contributions must relate to the amendments in front of us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fred Thomas]

I politely disagree about dithering and delay. The Government are getting on as quickly as possible. The consultation was launched rapidly and is taking place right now, and the Government have committed to implementing the findings of the consultation as quickly as possible. I can assure the hon. Lady and the whole House that Back Benchers such as myself and my colleagues on the Government Benches will be holding the Government to account to ensure that they do that as quickly as possible. I have been assured that they are going to do so, and I take them at their word. It is really important that the House gets behind these measures, and I am extremely grateful to Ministers for making this happen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I am dismayed that we find ourselves here yet again on this Bill. I remind the House that this is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and currently one of the biggest threats to our children’s wellbeing is online harms, not least as a result of harmful social media, alongside other online harms such as addictive gaming and chatbots.

I recognise and welcome that the Government have moved a little since we last debated amendments to the Bill last week: Ministers have finally made the commitment in legislation that the Government must take action, rather than may take action. There has also been some limited movement on the issue of addictive by design—a key principle that the Liberal Democrats have been pressing—although clearer and stronger wording on this point would be helpful, not least in view of the recent court cases in the US.

Critically, we have been pressing for a clear time-bound commitment to action. I must say that the initial timeline put forward by the Government in the other place this afternoon was, frankly, laughable. When parents and carers, young people, grandparents and teachers in their tens of thousands are demanding urgent action on teenagers’ access to harmful social media, setting out a three-year timeline for introducing regulations to this place—let alone implementing them—was ludicrous. I note that this evening the Government have shortened that period to 21 months.

Ministers have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box that the current consultation is very short and sharp. I welcome the fact that they have committed to bringing forward a report in three months’ time, whereas previously they had said that it would take six months, but why do they need a further full year to lay regulations, and then a further six months’ buffer? Countries around the world are taking action right now. This Government have shown that when they want to move quickly on an issue, they have the means to do so. The compromising of children’s wellbeing and safety online every single hour of every single day is a damn good reason to move quickly and to bring forward amendments acceptable to both Houses of Parliament and, most importantly, to the people of this country.

In the debate in the other place this afternoon, we heard excellent speeches from across the party divides—Labour, Conservative, Cross-Bench, Liberal Democrat—all calling for urgent action. A number backed Lord Nash’s amendment again, even though many, including the Liberal Democrats, are unhappy with his particular approach, all because we want to ensure that the Government move further and faster.

May I draw the Minister’s attention to the noble Baroness Kidron’s excellent amendment that was considered in the other place this afternoon? As the Government will know, she is widely respected on the subject of online safety. Her amendment deals with all these important issues: safety by design; a harms-based approach with variable age-gating; and allowing the Government eight months to lay regulations and up to 12 months in total to enact them. Indeed, Lord Nash’s amendment, which the Government are choosing to vote down, committed to action within eight months, instead of this three months, plus six months, plus 12 months, plus another six months, adding up to 21 months before we might see any action. My noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones set out clearly that the Liberal Democrats support the approach set out in Baroness Kidron’s amendment, and I strongly agree with him.

I would like to repeat my noble Friend Lord Mohammed’s offer: we stand ready to come together, cross-party, to act together, legislate together and protect our children from online harms and ensure that teenagers do not have access to harmful social media. The time is now. We will keep pressing through the night if necessary, until Prorogation, to ensure that our children and young people are not let down by this Government at this critical moment.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)]

I beg to move,

That this House insists on its amendment 38J and disagrees with Lords amendments 38V to 38X to amendment 38J.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following Government motions:

That this House insists on its disagreement with Lords amendment 102, but does not insist on its amendments 102C to 102G and proposes amendments (a) to (d) in lieu of the Lords amendment.

That this House insists on its disagreement with Lords amendment 106, but does not insist on amendments 106C to 106E and proposes amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of the Lords amendment.

[Olivia Bailey]

I am pleased to speak on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill for our third consideration of Lords amendments. The Bill is the biggest single piece of child protection legislation in a generation, and it will put in place a package of support to drive high and rising standards throughout our education and care system, so that every child can achieve and thrive. Today, I ask the House to again reaffirm its support for this landmark legislation.

I turn first to Lords amendment 102 on the circumstances in which the independent adjudicator can specify a lower published admission number following an upheld objection. In this age of declining roles, it is important that these powers exist to ensure that every child has the opportunity to have a great school place. But the Government have been clear throughout this process that school quality and parental choice must be at the heart of PAN decisions. As committed to by my noble Friend Lady Smith in the other place, we have tabled amendments in lieu reflecting this. These amendments place a requirement on the face of the Bill for adjudicators to take account of school quality and parental preference before deciding a PAN following an upheld objection. They will also require the adjudicator, before making a decision to reduce the school’s PAN, to consult key parties about alternatives to lowering the school’s admissions number. Those parties are the admissions authority, the local authority and the Secretary of State, which in practice means consulting the relevant Department for Education regional director.

We are also taking a power to make it clear that we can require the adjudicator to consult additional parties in line with commitments in our policy paper. Through the Bill, we will ensure that a robust decision-making framework is in place to protect high-quality education and parental choice, and we will continue to engage with stakeholders, such as the Confederation of School Trusts, on this measure, including on proposed changes to regulations and the school admissions code.

I now turn to Lords amendments 38V to 38X on children’s access to social media. There is a clear consensus across this House on the need to protect children online, but our consultation goes further than these amendments, considering a wider set of options, including risks beyond social media, such as gaming and AI chatbots. Hon. Members should have no doubt that it is not a question of whether the Government act but how they act to deliver strong and enduring protections for children online. The House should also be clear that the Government will act quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I am surprised to not see Mr Adam Jogee on his feet, considering the level of chuntering he has been doing from a seated position. You do not wish to contribute formally?

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Unfortunate. I call Helen Hayes.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

First, I welcome the Government’s decision to introduce a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools. I appreciate that the guidance previously proposed was clear and that schools must take account of Government guidance, but where an issue is unequivocal—and I think the need for mobile phones to be absent from schools unless there is a clear need for an exception is unequivocal—putting the matter into legislation is the most straightforward way to ensure compliance, and it provides clarity for the public.

However, what approach will the Minister take to the guidance accompanying this ban, particularly with regard to exceptions? There will be children who still need to have a phone in school for a variety of different reasons—for example, because they are young carers or because they rely on phone-enabled software for support with a disability or special educational need. At the Education Committee yesterday, one of our witnesses made an important point about how exceptions are to be treated when implementing a ban, which was that care needs to be taken regarding how the wider issues in the classroom are managed for children who have an exceptional need for a phone. Those issues include who gets to use the phone, what apps are allowed to be on that phone, and how children are kept safe from bullying in this context.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Carling]

My hon. Friend is citing some shocking evidence, and I will be sure to listen to the Committee session later. On her comments about Meta not believing that its platforms are addictive, does she agree that the problem goes more broadly than just children? Lots of adults have issues with social media addiction, and a social media ban for children would not necessarily solve that. We need to look at broader solutions.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before the hon. Member gets to her feet, I remind her that we have to conclude at 4.16 and I need to get five or six more Members in to contribute. I hope that she will be coming to a conclusion soonish.

[Helen Hayes]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. One of the reasons for the incredulity among those listening to the evidence yesterday was precisely that we recognise the addictive nature of social media. Frankly, the discussion yesterday felt like how a discussion about tobacco might have felt in the 1940s. The harm is so evident as to be undeniable, but the companies responsible for it continue to argue that the harm is minimal or non-existent and that anything in moderation is fine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

To enable all Back Benchers to get in, there will be a speaking limit of three minutes. We now come to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, who has kindly said that she will speak for less than five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I do understand what the hon. Lady is saying. Those cases are very few and far between, and there can always be exceptions, where they are medically necessary. I do not believe that is a problem. I am saying to the Minister that we have an opportunity today to legislate. Do not prevaricate; do it!

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Patience is a virtue, and as we have made up time, the final Back-Bench speaker will get five minutes. I call Damian Hinds.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to have heard the last few speeches, which made very important points, but even with five minutes, time is still short for me. I will speak briefly about a couple of aspects of social media and mobile phones.

On social media, let us get on with it. We have had this issue come back from the Lords multiple times, and we can do this. There is a glaring logical flaw at the heart of the Government’s argument for not taking action—we have also heard it from a bunch of Labour MPs today—which is, “We can’t do this one thing, because there are some other things we could do as well.” That just does not hold water. All those other things—around gaming, other types of applications, chatbots, addictive features and so on—could be additive to a ban on social media for children under the age of 16. They would still, by the way, be very relevant to child safety. I remind the House that our duty to children extends to those aged up to 18, as per the Children Act 1989 and our commitments to the United Nations.

There are issues to resolve about a ban—exactly where the lines should be drawn; exactly what is in and what is out—and yes, of course, the Government have to consult on those issues, but they do not need to consult further on the principle of whether the country and the House of Commons want a ban on young people under the age of 16 accessing social media, a conclusion that so many other countries are also coming to.

On mobile phones, throughout the progress of the Bill, I have found a remarkable contrast. The Government said for so long that they would not ban phones in schools because there should be some discretion for headteachers, but they are going to tell them precisely how many items of branded school uniform they are allowed to specify, and will tell them that in secondary schools that could include a tie, but in primary schools, for some bizarre reason, it cannot.

I am pleased that the Government have partly seen the light. The Minister, whom we all like and respect, said last week that the problem had already been solved—and presumably it has now been re-solved, as the Government have come back to the issue—but I have to say that that is not what children say. What children tell us, both informally and when they are answering surveys about the actual use of mobile phones in schools, is how often lessons get interrupted, teachers are filmed, and bullying and other stuff happens at break times and lunchtimes. We need to act. Of course, there can be individual exceptions for those using assistive and adaptive technology, for young carers, and for others, but the one exception that we must not have is on the type of ban.

The critical question is about having a policy of “not seen, not heard”. Every school in the country, pretty much, already has at least that, but I am afraid that it is not effective as a ban. If you have this thing in your pocket, or in your bag at your foot, it is still there, and you feel its presence. If it vibrates, you might actually feel it, physically; but even if you do not, you feel that compulsion towards it. The only way to make a school truly free of the scourge of mobile phones is to have them away from the child. The “not seen, not heard” approach does not work.

The main argument for saying that we have to allow “not seen, not heard” is about cost. I understand that. Pouches, which a couple of colleagues have mentioned, do have a cost, but we do not have to do pouches. There are other ways of doing this. I mentioned the Petersfield school in my constituency, which has a phones-away-from-children ban, and which uses a simple device—a plastic box that can be purchased in most large-format Swedish retailers. That is locked away in a cupboard, along with a number of other boxes, until the end of the day. The biggest cost has been the foam inserts, with numbered slots in which each child puts their phone, but the sum total cost is very reasonable.

I want to answer the hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), who is no longer with us, so to speak. He asked why had we not taken this measure when we were in government. That is a perfectly reasonable question. There are two reasons: first, the issue has become more acute; and, secondly, the attitude of headteachers. It has changed. We have gone from headteachers and their representative bodies saying, “The best way for you to support me in this school is not to impose a national ban,” to them saying the exact opposite—that the best way to support schools and headteachers is to have a ban written into law.

--- Later in debate ---

That, at this day’s sitting, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Messages from the Lords relating to the Crime and Policing Bill shall have been received and disposed of, and any Committee to draw up Reasons which has been appointed at this day’s sitting has reported.—(Taiwo Owatemi.)

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I now suspend the House in accordance with the motion that we have just agreed. I will arrange for the Division bells to ring shortly before the sitting resumes.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords message

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that Lords amendment 38 and 105 engage the Commons’ financial privilege. If either of those Lords amendments are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving the Commons’ financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

After Clause 9

Sibling contact with children in care

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 17B.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following Government motions:

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 38, but does not insist on its Amendments 38A to 38D and proposes Amendments (a) to (f) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords Amendment.

That this House disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment 41B.

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 102, but proposes Amendments (a) to (e) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords Amendment.

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 106, but proposes Amendments (a) to (c) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords Amendment.

That this House agrees with Lords amendment 105B.

[Olivia Bailey]

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will cut the cost of sending children to school, drive high and rising standards in our schools, and is the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation. This Labour Government are ambitious for every single child in this country. This Bill will lift over 100,000 children out of poverty through our expansion of free school meals, deliver breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, and make our children safer, both in and out of school, online and offline.

Today I ask the House to reaffirm its support for this landmark legislation as we move through the latest round of parliamentary ping-pong. We have listened carefully to the concerns that have been raised, both in the Commons and the Lords. In response, we are offering, where appropriate, amendments in lieu. I will speak first to the two Government amendments made in the House of Lords.

Government amendment 17B, on sibling contact, strengthens the right of children in care to maintain contact with their siblings. It is a travesty that children in care can end up losing contact with their brothers and sisters, and we want that to change. I particularly acknowledge my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell), who has been campaigning for this measure for a long time and deserves huge credit. I also thank others who have campaigned on the issue, including Baroness Tyler of Enfield, for their continued championing of this hugely important topic.

SEND Provision and Reform

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and his kind words, and I agree that we cannot simply say that there is overdiagnosis. It has been said previously that there were not as many people with SEND before; the reality is that we do not know that, because for many years, SEND simply went unnoticed. People were not diagnosed, and were simply written off as naughty or backward. We must recognise how important these children are and how much support they need.

Dozens of parents in West Lancashire have contacted me to request that I come to the Chamber today to protect the rights they have under current legislation to enforceable provision based on a child’s particular needs. We all know the deficiencies that exist in the current EHCP system, but we must make sure that we listen to SEND parents. I know that this Government are committed to ensuring that these changes make life easier for SEND children and their families, not harder.

Twice, I have met a constituent who has a son with severe and complex special needs—he is nonverbal and has sensory challenges. Even when her son was offered a place at a special school, the local authority did not accept that place, despite it being cheaper than the local authority provision. It ignored recommendations and assessments, and my constituent’s son was out of education for seven months. My constituent had to use the rights that exist in current legislation to fight for the most basic right—for her son to have an education—and the issue was only resolved because of his legal right to legal enforceability and the tribunal power to name a school. Had that not been the case, her son might still not be in education. My constituent agrees with the Government that the system we inherited is not working, and she is not asking us to scrap these reforms, but we must ensure that the changes we are making to an unfair system support SEND children and their families as much as we possibly can.

Last year, Reform took control of Lancashire county council, the authority that makes decisions about SEND provision for my constituency. It is obvious that, despite claiming that it would tackle the issue, Reform has demonstrated no interest in it. Its national party does not care—as has already been pointed out, not a single one of its Members is present for this evening’s debate. Reform-led Lancashire county council has failed to provide tailored support for children in my constituency, and has failed to support families in my constituency who are fighting tooth and nail for their children to have the same opportunities that the rest of us rightly expect as standard. It would be an abdication of my duty to represent my constituents if I did not seek to give parents every tool in the box to defend the right of their children to a decent education, in the face of a local authority whose leadership turns its gaze away and plugs its ears.

I am proud that this Government are tackling this issue in a constructive way—parents have waited for these changes for far too long. As part of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s commitment to give every child the best possible start in life, I would be grateful if the Minister gave a clear reassurance today that the legal right to an EHCP or similar for those who need it will remain, and that the ability of families to enforce provision will not be weakened by reforms.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The speaking limit is now three minutes, and it is highly unlikely that most people will get in. I call Andrew George.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Interventions do not allow other colleagues to speak. I call Chris Coghlan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlotte Cane]

I agree; we must not set things up in competition.

I would like to ask the Minister three questions. First, what is she going to do to make sure that every school in every area has the specialist resources it needs to deliver for its children? How is she going to make sure that rural areas such as mine in Ely and East Cambridgeshire have access to those resources for all schools and all children? It takes longer and therefore it costs more to get those across the area. What is she going to put in place to make sure that parents retain the right to fight for and enforce their children’s rights?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I did not want to intervene, because I could see that the Member was going to speak very briefly, but interventions are not helping other Members in the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this debate. We have heard varying views on the question of demand, with some people saying that it has not gone up at all and that others saying it has. I have relied on the House of Commons Library to tell me that since 2015 demand for EHCPs has ballooned by 140% and that in 2025 there were 13 times more people waiting for an autism assessment than there were in 2019.

Hon. Members across the House have described very effectively the extraordinary diagnosis of a system that has been unable to meet demand, so I will not replay the tape. The 98% tribunal success rate is symptomatic of that, and it is pretty shocking. It shows that the system is having to be fought against systemically, which is deeply worrying. Members across the House have replayed case studies from their own inboxes, but I do not have time to go into the cases of child Y, child L, child F, child D and the many others, all of whom have finally come to their Member of Parliament because they could see no way through and because the computer had said no. It has come to that, for them, but that should not be the case.

In the time remaining, I want to take a strategic approach and look upstream. In March last year, the Secretary of State for Health said that he was sold on the idea that overdiagnosis was at the root cause of mental health illness. On 1 June, I asked the Secretary of State for Education whether any work was being done between her Department and the Health Department on what was causing the increased demand on the special educational needs system. She said that she was very concerned indeed about that. I then waited until 1 December before asking what she and the Health Secretary had done in the intervening seven months. I think it was the Minister for School Standards who kindly said that she was very concerned about it. Five days later, the Health Secretary announced that there was going to be a six-month study into the causes of the increase in demand on the special educational needs system, and that it would report in the summer. I do not think anyone is covering themselves in glory here. As a nation, we need to increase our understanding of this phenomenon that we are experiencing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Jen Craft.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. We have run out of time for Back-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

9.35 pm

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for introducing this debate. It is clear from the passionate contributions we have heard that the problems are widespread and the SEND system is completely broken. We have all heard the anguish of parents, and we have read the dreadful stories of desperate children who have lost their lives because of failures in this system.

In that context, I welcome the Government’s recent White Paper as an important step in the right direction. We have to address the growing need and, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) said so passionately, we cannot limit provision because there is too much need. The earlier we identify need and start addressing it, the better the outcomes will be for children, parents, families and society as a whole.

We have had to wait for this White Paper, but putting the delays to one side, we are here now and the Liberal Democrats welcome the central focus on inclusion through improving support in mainstream settings. If children with SEND can attend a local school, they can stay connected with their friends and be part of their local community, and their family can engage better with their school. Inclusion bases are welcome, and they include the one being opened at King Edward VI community college in my constituency, with a focus on bringing children back into school after dropping out, following a difficult transition into year 7, and helping them to become part of the school community again. This model has good potential to succeed if properly resourced. However, many questions remain about funding, children’s rights and staffing.

On funding, the £4 billion pledge to accompany the upcoming reforms, plus capital spending and the council debt write-off, are welcome, but we are worried that the Government are holding councils to ransom by tying this debt relief to restrictions on special school expansion. The Government must also provide clarity on where the new funding, including the council deficit write-off, is coming from. The Liberal Democrats are very concerned that other areas of the wider schools budget may be cut, even though there is nothing left to give. The Government have introduced some good policies but have failed to fully fund them, including breakfast clubs, the expansion of free school meals, even teacher pay rises, and, today, the healthy school standards. That will be more expensive, so will it be fully funded for schools?

[Caroline Voaden]

I am sorry, but I do not have enough time.

Schools and local authorities are already at breaking point and are now being asked to deliver even more, including running two SEND systems in parallel during the transition period.

On parental rights, parents have expressed deep concern about changes to the tribunal system. Removing power from SEND tribunals to direct a local authority to name a specific setting will give parents even less opportunity to choose a setting that suits their child. Given that currently 99% of tribunal cases are won by families against the local authority, how can we trust that local authorities will suddenly start getting it right under the new system?

The Liberal Democrats are clear that stripping back parents’ ability to challenge the system is unacceptable. The anxiety of parents is understandable. Many are worried that their child will lose existing support or not receive the support they need under the new system. Will the Minister guarantee that legal rights will not be stripped away, that settled placements will not be disrupted, and that accountability, including meaningful routes of appeal, will remain strong and effective? It is absolutely vital that children and families remain at the heart of these reforms and retain the key rights that they have.

On staffing, we welcome the Experts at Hand service to embed specialists such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists into mainstream schools, but we need a credible workforce plan to see how the Government are going to recruit and train all the staff needed and encourage trained specialists back into the profession. I am concerned about the need for more learning support staff—the people who are absolutely crucial to delivering these reforms and ensuring that mainstream inclusion works effectively. Schools are being forced to cut learning support staff due to the financial pressures they are facing, but a SEND system focused on inclusion simply cannot be implemented without them, so I would like to hear further detail from the Minister about how the Government believe schools can deliver an inclusive approach for all children without funding more support staff.

Away from budgets and staffing, there are other changes that we can make in the way that we run our schools that would make them accessible for all children. Curriculum reform is vital to inclusion. Learning how to express and process emotion through music, drama, creative arts, sport and outdoor play is vital not just for children’s mental health, but for their emotional development, and it simply must be given more space. We believe that the current direction of travel is the right one, but all these reforms must be fully funded, fully staffed and fully consulted upon with those who will be impacted most by the changes—the parents and the children with SEND who are so often not heard.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Saqib Bhatti]

I will.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Mr Vince, you have just stumbled into the Chamber—I don’t think so.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I will take your lead, Madam Deputy Speaker.

There is very little detail in the White Paper around deliverability. That concern has been raised to me by a number of council leaders, headteachers and parents. Even the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Government’s own independent watchdog, explicitly says that the impact of reform on underlying costs remains “uncertain”. It is for the Minister to provide that certainty, but the OBR is not convinced that the reforms will close the funding gap. When the Labour party was in opposition, it had 14 years to think about what it wanted to do, so I hope that the Minister can provide some of those answers today.

The issue of timelines was raised during the debate. We all agree that the reforms are urgently needed, but full implementation is not expected until 2028-29 at the earliest. Changes to EHCPs will not begin until around September 2030, so a child who is now six will be 10 or 11 before they and their family feel any difference from any reforms. For a family with a teenager, reform will never arrive in time. That point was made by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law). Will the Minister tell the House, according to her analysis, how many children will have left school entirely before a single EHCP reform takes effect?

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

I do not have much time, so I am not going to take interventions. I want to be able to answer the points that have been put to me.

Too many children have been left without provision, and parents try to explain to their children why they are not at school alongside their friends. Too many parents are having to battle—we have heard the word “fight” time and time again in this conversation. I say to the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) and to everyone else in the Chamber that I am committed to working constructively and on a cross-party basis on this issue. It is too important to not take all views into account and work together, so I really welcome opportunities to talk to individuals about the issues that have been raised in the debate. However, I will not apologise for taking longer to develop these reforms, because that time has been spent talking to thousands of parents, young people and teachers around the country to make sure their voices were embedded in what we put out for consultation. I also make no apology for taking time to transition into these reforms. As we have heard from so many Members across the Chamber, trust is low, and it is really important that we build the new system with children and families.

That does not mean, though, that we are not acting now. The investment we have been talking about is going into our communities straightaway, whether that is the £3.7 billion that we are already starting to invest in specialist places around the country or the £4 billion that we are investing in the services we have talked about today: Experts at Hand, the educational psychologists and speech and language therapists who will now be available to local schools; and the inclusive mainstream fund, which will be going directly into schools. Those are huge investments that this Government are making. The OBR made its projections before it had seen our reform plans and the huge investments we are making, including new investment going in during 2028-29, which I know the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East will have seen.

I agree wholeheartedly with everyone who has raised the importance of early intervention and of putting in as much support as possible as quickly as possible. So many families have told me that if support had been available much quicker, their needs would not have escalated—they would not be out of education and would not have needed to leave their local schools. We have also heard about the importance of inclusion. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) spoke powerfully about why it is so critical that children with special educational needs and disabilities are at the heart of the education system. They have so much to offer, and every school should be an inclusive school, but that does not mean that we do not also need special schools, and the £3.7 billion of investment I have talked about will create new specialist places.

Let me turn to the points made by the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon. First and most importantly, our intention in these reforms is to improve outcomes for children. That is our guiding principle—our No. 1 outcome. The hon. Member mentioned the long waiting lists to which so many families are exposed. Addressing those waits is the point of the reforms. We are putting in place educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, and so many others, so that schools can draw on them and children can access that support without a lengthy wait or a battle for an EHCP and a diagnosis. Under our reform plans, that provision will be available as part of the mainstream system.

Critically, education, health and care plans will remain, and they will be available for children who need them. We know that too many children are forced to apply to get an EHCP because their needs are not being met in mainstream schools. The majority of children with special educational needs and disabilities in our school system do not have an EHCP, but are on the SEND register. They are the children who are often being badly let down. Our reforms will extend rights for those children, including new statutory duties on schools to develop inclusion plans and individual support plans. There will be new layers of support with targeted and targeted plus, new national standards, and new duties on teacher training. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) spoke powerfully about the importance of teacher training, with every single teacher trained to support children with special educational needs and disabilities, so that every class is accessible.

As ever, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) talked expertly about the issue. We are grateful for the work of her Committee and the huge amount of time it put in to its report. I will address her points about transition and accountability within the transition. There are safeguards that I think will reassure parents: every child who is in a special school will remain in a special school, we will build the new system before anyone transitions into that new system, and somebody with an existing EHCP will move on to either an EHCP or an individual support plan, and that will be backed by the tribunal.

There were lots of questions about individual support plans and accountability. Ofsted will be looking at individual support plans and developing a new complaints process with an independent role. Importantly, if a family does not feel that their needs are being met by the mainstream system, they will still be able to request a needs assessment and that will be backed by the tribunal. There will still be access to the tribunal, and the tribunal will remain an important part of the system.

We do not want families to have to go to a tribunal, though. We want to deliver a system that works, where families’ voices are put at the heart of decision making and where accountability sits not on the shoulders of families, but that it is for us—the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Government—to hold local authorities to account. I was asked why we are we going ahead with local SEND reform plans and asking councils to develop them. We are clear that councils need to deliver today for children with special educational needs and disabilities; as we have heard in the debate, there is too much failure and we are determined to hold councils to account.

We are committed to a full consultation. We welcome comments on every aspect of these proposals, and I ask everyone in this Chamber to make sure that you are holding events, talking to your constituents and pointing them towards the consultation, because this is a generational opportunity to change the system. Families have been failed for too long, and it is only by listening to them that we will get this right.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

There were far too many uses of “you” and “your” throughout speeches today. Members need to check the language they use. I call Gregory Stafford to wind up.

LGBT+ History Month

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne]

I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the far right and others.

While we celebrate the trailblazers—the organisers, artists and campaigners; the nurses and carers who held hands in hospital wards when families would not visit; the friends who became family; the people who marched when it was dangerous; and the people who stood up when they were told to sit down—we also learn from their courage. We also remember that our history includes Pride marches and community groups, as well as trade union solidarity and working-class organising. One of the strongest lessons in our LGBT+ history is this: when working people stand together, we win change that reaches far beyond the workplace.

I declare an interest: I am a proud member of Unite the union. I take this opportunity to mention that, as well as LGBT History Month, this is Heart Unions Week. Trade unions are always at the heart of the fight for equality. They push employers to have policies on discrimination at work, and decades ago they brought about trans-inclusive policies. At a time when division is being weaponised, that lesson of solidarity is more important than ever.

In my beautiful Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, I am proud of the work done by Out North East, particularly Drew Dalton and Peter Darrant, and their fantastic community work with youth groups and older LGBT people. Just last week, they opened new, bigger premises for the One Centre, the first LGBT media and business centre in the UK—and it is in my constituency. The location is a brand new LGBTQ+ inclusive space, and its facilities are incredible. When I visited, I was honoured and moved to realise that I was featured on the icons wall, alongside Bowie, and that there was a room named after me and another after the wonderful Lord Cashman from the other place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

I am proud to have led the debate at the Council of Europe, and I am pleased to say that my report on banning conversion practices passed with support from across the political spectrum and across Europe. The report contains a framework for legislation that each of the 46 countries is expected to adopt in its own Parliament. Our Government should now adopt that framework, because conversion practices do not just happen in theory; they happen to real people, in real life. They happen under the guise of “therapy”, “guidance”, “deliverance” or “counselling”. Their message is always the same: “You are broken. You are wrong. And you need to be fixed.” Well, I am here to say that I am a lesbian, and nothing about me needs to be fixed, thank you.

I am afraid that, instead of learning from the stigma and prejudice of the past, here we are marginalising, discriminating, preventing vital lifesaving healthcare and support, and excluding trans and non-binary people from sport, spaces and society. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that future MPs, Ministers and possibly Prime Ministers will stand where we are right now to dish out the kind of apologies, compensation and retribution for the wrongs of yesterday that we see happening all too often today. Why do we not save ourselves, and, most importantly, the trans community, by stepping up for them right now, instead of capitulating to a small band of very loud and well-funded bigots? Let us not make today’s discrimination tomorrow’s inquiry, public apology and compensation scheme—that is exactly where we are heading.

Let me finish with a celebration of our history. We are here today in the gayest Parliament in the world—12% of this Chamber is LGBT—and I am delighted to be serving queer joy in Parliament for all Members to hear. To the homophobes who are still just about clinging on to their prejudices, I say: I have some queer joy for you, too. It is 2026; we are still here, we have always been here, we are out and proud, and there are more of us than ever before, so just get over it already.

I am here to reaffirm my commitment to fighting for equality. As the new chair of the APPG on fertility, I will continue to fight for IVF for all. As the chair of the APPG on women’s football, I was pleased to be at the launch of the Premier League’s new “With Pride” campaign. It is great to see the rainbow flag flying across every football ground in the premier league. Football is a great unifier, and the north-east is renowned for being a hotbed of football. Perhaps that is why I loved it so much when I moved there back in 1989, and why I have never left. Football transcends borders and brings together people from diverse backgrounds. It is for everyone, so my message to the Football Association is this: let the dolls play football!

I thank the Minister for her support, for the many productive conversations that we have had, and for her work to introduce a ban on conversion practices and make LGBT hate crime an aggravated offence.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a real honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne). I reiterate my congratulations on her fine work on the report on banning conversion therapy in Europe. That is greatly needed, and I hope that the Government will soon follow suit.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), who are both brilliant members of the Women and Equalities Committee, for their speeches. I note that other members of the Committee are here, too. My hon. Friends called out queer icons, but let me say that they are my icons. Not only do they serve the LGBT community, but they serve our movement—thank you.

Today, we are learning about history and how to learn the lessons of the past, so I am deeply disappointed that there are not more Opposition Members here. I am not surprised that Reform Members are not here—they are unwilling to learn, come together or bring people together—but I am surprised that there are no Green, Lib Dem or SNP Members. I have to say, I am pleased that the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), who was sitting next to the shadow Minister, has left his place. He did not listen with respect to the brilliant opening speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East. Instead, he rolled his eyes. I feel that, although we try to bring everybody together—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member possibly remembers and knows that when we refer to other Members of the House, we let them know in advance. Has she had time to do that?

[Sarah Owen]

I shall be doing so. I had expected the hon. Member to stay and perhaps learn from the subsequent speeches. Perhaps he could come back and learn a bit more.

In every year that I have spoken in this debate, it seems that the LGBTQ+ community has had a tougher year than the one before. That is sadly as true today as it was last year. The mainstream has moved dangerously further right, to focus not on what brings people together but on what tears people apart. That is not leadership. The politics of the right is one of fear—it is cowardly. True strength is shown in the ability to learn, understand and lead people to a better future. Progress is not inevitable; we will have to fight for it. I say to the LGBTQ+ community: “You are not alone in that fight.”

I would understand why many people feel alone right now, however. Between March 2024 and March 2025, more than 18,000 hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation alone, and there were more than 3,000 trans-related hate crimes. Although 2024 saw a slight dip in reported hate crimes, there has still been a 44% increase over the past five years, and horrifyingly, there has been an 88% increase in hate crimes against trans people in that time.

Those horrifying statistics make it clear that some elements of the public are taking their lead from the current political discourse. Reform’s candidate in Gorton and Denton wants tax cuts for people who have children, which is deeply offensive to not only people like me, who have struggled to have a child, but to many LGBTQ+ people as well. We know that Reform ultimately does not want LGBT people to have children. Reform’s leader has gone on record with his belief that children are better off brought up in heterosexual households, rather than just with parents who love them. They are not hiding how they feel; they are saying it with their full chest, and they are reaping the benefits of a culture war where everyone is a casualty apart from them—a culture war that none of us sees an end to without serious leadership.

We know that when they are done with trans people, they will go after the LGB part of the community, and I wonder how long it will be before Reform and some elements of the Conservative party call for an end to same-sex couples being allowed to adopt. What was unthinkable years ago is not just being muttered quietly under their breath any more; it is now a full-throated attack under the cynical guise of “safety”—all a smoke- screen for the abuse and real danger that women and children face.

I wish I could say that this toxicity only exists in the right-wing parties, but sadly not. I cannot express how disappointed I was when my own party took the decision to exclude trans women members from our women’s conference. It has led me to my decision, which is, sadly, not to attend women’s conference for the first time in a very long time. It used to be one of my favourite parts of the conference season—a place for inclusivity and sensible discussion; I have even chaired some of the debates, which are so memorable in my mind—but if all women cannot go, neither will I. I have attended every party conference and many trade union conferences for nearly 20 years—yes, I am that old—and my safety was never put at risk from trans women, trans men or the LGBTQ+ community, but it was by cis men with power. These men are unaccountable to anyone—something that many are slowly cottoning on to in this place and others.

Accountability is incredibly important—it matters—so where is it? Where is it for the people who consistently trade off one person’s rights for another’s, only to serve their own agenda? Does the Minister believe the Equality and Human Rights Commission is up to the challenge of this ever more toxic environment? Is it resourced properly? I hope it is, because we need a defender of all our rights. Otherwise, as we watch America tear itself apart, I fear we are just one sneeze away from catching the disease of state-sanctioned hatred that sees leaders openly attack gay people, disabled people and ethnic minority people. We can do so much better than that.

There are many questions for the Minister, but I want to pose one that has already been raised: when will we see the ban on conversion therapy? As many young trans people wait for the puberty blocker trials to go ahead, what support is being given to them and their families in this time of uncertainty? I know our Labour Government are so much better than what we are seeing overseas right now, and I know the British public are so much better than to want what they are seeing overseas right now, but I also know that we can do better. Our country is not just tolerant but at its best when we celebrate difference, learn from one another and come together to celebrate the brilliant country we are. That is the country I want back.

Early Education and Childcare

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

With permission, I will make a statement to update the House on this Government’s vital work to give every child the best start in life.

Within months of taking office we published our plan for change, a promise to improve the lives of working people and break down barriers to opportunity for people in this country. That plan set a target that a record proportion of children will start school ready to learn. Why? Because the foundations of the stronger society that we want to build must be laid down from the very beginning of children’s lives. In July, we published our “Giving every child the best start in life” strategy, setting out how we will achieve that target, and the Government’s vision for the future of the early education and childcare sector.

We have heard the calls of families and providers. Education begins long before primary school, and this step change will give our children the focus and priorities that they deserve during their critical early years. We will help our youngest children by increasing the availability of childcare, improving the quality of early education and boosting support for families, building on the best of Sure Start by rolling out Best Start family hubs in every local authority in England. Taken together, those three approaches will make the difference to families and set up children for success in education and in life. It is yet another example of this Government working, with promises made, and promises kept.

We promised to make childcare more affordable for parents and more accessible across the country. Today we are delivering on that promise, with hundreds of thousands of parents now getting 30 hours of funded childcare each week, from when their child turns nine months until they start school. For too long, families have struggled to get childcare places that match their individual needs, and provision has been either unavailable or unaffordable. The least well-off parts of our country often have far fewer childcare places per person than the most affluent, but wide provision of high-quality childcare and early education makes a huge difference to many lives. It helps parents by giving them the flexibility to balance work and family life, and it helps businesses and the economy by helping parents return to work and growing the childcare sector and employment.

This marks a fundamental shift in how we support families right from the start: reducing costs, increasing choice, and helping parents to balance work with family. Those making full use of the offer will save, on average, around £7,500 a year. For Victoria in Gloucester, the 30 hours is helping her to balance being a single mother and an educator. She works five days a week, and the extended Government-funded childcare hours will save her around £600 a month. They also mean that she can continue her career. As Victoria says:

“This roll-out is a significant step forward in women’s rights and workplace participation.”

We are on track to reach over half a million children who will benefit from the scheme this term, already exceeding initial estimates for delivery, and the roll-out is a major step forward in our ambition to give every child the best start in life. We know that that ambition is shared by our brilliant and dedicated early years and childminder staff who work hard day in, day out to make it possible for families. Private, voluntary and independent nurseries, as well as childminders, have helped the Government to reach this important milestone, and they have grown their capacity in response to increased demand for childcare places. More providers are delivering the entitlements, with the number up by 5,800 private providers.

The sector plays a vital role in supporting families and nurturing young children, so we must ensure that its provision is available where it is most needed. That is why we are also delivering tens of thousands more childcare places via new and expanded school-based nurseries. Schools have reported that 110 nurseries from phase 1 of the programme opened this week at the start of term, and they are providing 2,500 places for families in parts of the country where provision is needed. Those nurseries join a diverse childcare market that offers families different choices to meet their needs. School-based nurseries can strengthen ties between parents and schools, and ease the transition into reception. For families with children of different ages, they offer easier drop-offs and pick-ups. School-based nurseries also play a key role in inclusion by caring for proportionally more young children with special educational needs and operating in disadvantaged areas. We have already funded around 300 new and expanded school-based nurseries, and thanks to the hard work of schools, they are on track to deliver up to 6,000 new nursery places.

We are laying the foundations of success for tens of thousands of young children, and today I am proud to tell the House that we are launching phase 2 of the school-based nurseries programme. Backed by £45 million, it will deliver 300 more new or expanded school-based nurseries. It will focus on disadvantaged areas where places are needed, and where they can make a big impact. We will build on the success of the first phase of the programme, and as before, schools can apply to establish new nurseries in partnership with private, voluntary and independent providers and childminders.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Cinnamon Brow Church of England primary school in Warrington. It had collaborated with an existing local private nursery to refurbish an unused mobile unit, creating a new nursery on the school site. I was so pleased and impressed by the partnership between everyone involved. It is a great example of how schools can work with established nurseries to expand childcare provision and break down barriers to opportunity.

The programme is already making a difference to families in 66 local authorities, and we are looking ahead to further grow provision for future generations. Phase 3 of the school-based nurseries programme will launch in early 2026, and will focus on meeting the long-term needs of local communities. Local authorities will be invited to develop multi-year funding proposals, in collaboration with schools and childcare providers. Backed by over £400 million, the programme will deliver on our manifesto commitment to parents of more places in school-based nurseries, and more affordable childcare for parents.

Families know that childcare needs do not stop when children start school. That is why we recently extended the holiday activities and food programme, investing over £600 million in young people’s futures. The programme provides nutritious meals and enriching activities for children from lower-income households, it helps to close the development gap between those children and their peers, and it eases the financial pressure on parents during the school holidays. The holiday activities and food programme has already reached half a million children in the past year, and during that time it has saved families over £300 each. It is another part of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity, so that every child can get the best start in life.

Our “best start in life” strategy sets out how we will support this country’s children to thrive as they grow up. Alongside the £9 billion that this Government will be investing in early years, we will spend nearly £1.5 billion over the next three years to strengthen the childcare sector and revitalise family services. By expanding funded childcare and growing provision where it is needed via school-based nurseries, more children will arrive in reception ready to learn and succeed in education. The measures I have set out today reflect this Government’s deep commitment to ensuring that every family can access high-quality childcare and early education, and that all children can reach a good level of development and start school ready to learn. That will help families to save money, earn more and give children the best possible start in life. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Education Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I start by welcoming the shadow Minister to his place on the Opposition Front Bench, but it is shocking that even now the Conservatives cannot bring themselves to recognise the significance of Labour’s childcare expansion, nor can they celebrate the new school-based nurseries that make more affordable childcare places available across the country. Despite the Conservatives’ scaremongering, nine in 10 parents have one of their first choice childcare places. This Labour Government inherited a pledge without a plan but, once again, we are delivering for families, giving parents more choice and setting children up with the best start in life.

The people of this country are well aware of what happens when Conservative Members make pledges ahead of elections, such as 40 new hospitals or levelling up, and of the reality that Liz Truss crashed pensions and mortgages. What did Conservative Members do? They cheered her on. Let me spell it out to them and tell them a truth that the British public were keen to ensure that the Conservatives heard at the election last year: when they will not even take the blame for the things that they did, they certainly will not get the credit for the things that they did not do. Over 14 years, they dismantled the support for families. More than 1,000 Sure Start centres, which boosted early learning, provided healthcare and built communities, were ripped away from communities across our country. It is no wonder that the Conservatives do not want to admit that what we are rebuilding, they destroyed.

This Government are delivering on our promise of change: thousands of new nursery places, expanded childcare hours, Best Start breakfast clubs in every primary school across our country and support throughout the school holidays. Labour is delivering on our promises to parents. We are saving families thousands of pounds, giving parents work choices and improving children’s life chances. That is what the country expects and that is what I am proud this Labour Government are delivering.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement: the expansion of funded childcare hours this week; the future expansion of school-based nurseries; and confirmation of a further three years of funding for the holiday activities and food programme.

My Committee is today launching an inquiry on the early years. We will examine in detail the Government’s work in this area, looking at the sustainability of the workforce, families’ access to services across the country and the quality of outcomes for children. May I therefore ask the Minister what additional work he believes is needed to ensure that children in families who are not in work—who often have the most to gain from high-quality early years education—are not left behind by the expansion of funded hours for working families? How confident is he that the significant problems in recruitment and retention of early years practitioners will be addressed to secure the workforce needed to deliver on the Government’s commitments?

Finally, will the Minister join me in paying tribute to everyone in my constituency and across the country who has spent the past six weeks running holiday activities and food programmes? I know they are utterly exhausted this week, but they should know that their hard work has helped to tackle poverty and disadvantage, and to provide vital opportunities that keep children and young people safe and help them to thrive.

[Stephen Morgan]

The Chair of the Select Committee is a real champion for maintained nurseries across the country, and I know that she shares the Government’s vision of ensuring that every child gets the best start in life and has the chance to succeed and thrive. As she knows, we set out our vision for early education in our landmark strategy in July. I look forward to receiving formal notice of her Committee’s inquiry and to working with her and the Committee in a constructive manner, putting the needs of children and young people first. I pay tribute to all those who worked over the summer to deliver for children and young people. As a former playworker, I see the huge value of the HAF programme. I commend all those who work so hard over the summer holidays.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

High-quality early years education is the best possible investment we can make in our future. Whether we are serious about tackling the SEND crisis or the attainment gap, or are simply concerned to give every child the best start in life, proper investment in the early years is one of the strongest levers we have.

We all know that for far too long the previous Conservative Government neglected the early years sector, leaving a legacy of sky-high fees and childcare deserts in their wake, particularly in disadvantaged areas. We Liberal Democrats therefore welcome the Government’s announcement of more school-based nurseries, alongside the extension of funded childcare hours—but let us not forget the deep problems facing the private and voluntary sector. Without addressing the massive financial strain on those nurseries and childcare providers, we can never hope to deliver for families. Their survival is absolutely central to supporting families up and down the country to thrive.

The Government’s jobs tax, I am afraid, has only added fuel to the fire. The financial pressures of underfunded hours, the national insurance contributions rise, and inflation have left many providers on the brink. Indeed, some nurseries are already telling parents that they may be unable to sign the new contract due to financial pressures. Earlier this week, in a letter published by the Early Years Alliance, a survey of more than 800 providers found that 44% could not meet demand this September, while one in six has already cut funded places. That is coupled with a crisis in recruitment and training of staff in the sector; if the providers and the staff are not there, how can the Minister expect his expansion to deliver for parents up and down the country?

Will the Minister commit to urgently reviewing the funding rates, so that they reflect the real cost of delivering high-quality early education? At the same time, will he work with his colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that we extend and fully fund parental rights so that families up and down the country have a real choice between whether they want to stay at home for a longer period in the early months, or go out to work full time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

Listening to the Conservative Front Bench spokesperson, one would think that everything was fine and rosy in education before the previous election, and that everything would have been fine if only the Conservatives had been given one more chance. Compare and contrast that with what we have delivered in our first year in Government: 30 hours of free childcare, actually funded; free breakfast clubs; cheaper school uniforms on the way; best start family hubs; and of course—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Mr Sewards, do you have an actual question? If so, go for it!

[Mark Sewards]

Will the Minister join me in encouraging parents in my constituency of Leeds South West and Morley to take advantage of everything this Government have done to make the lives of parents and children easier?

Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

We are obviously working through the detail of our commitments as I speak, but I will certainly take his point back to the Department—I know that officials are working very closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. What is really powerful is the fact that we will roll out family hubs to every local authority in the country to make sure that they make a real difference to every child’s life.

We are investing over £500 million to expand Best Start family hubs to every local authority in England, ensuring that wherever they live, families can access joined-up, high-quality support from pregnancy through to the early years. As part of this investment, we are providing dedicated funding to deliver evidence-based support for the home learning environment, with a particular focus on disadvantaged families and the quality of parent-child relationships. We want to support parents to create rich and nurturing home environments by encouraging them to chat, play and read more with their children, because we know that those everyday interactions are the building blocks of early development.

In order to help meet our ambition for 75% of children to achieve a good level of development by the age of five, we will fund more evidence-based parenting and home learning programmes so that more families can access those services before their children start school. That will be supported by a new national Best Start digital service, linked to “My Children” on the NHS app, which will bring together the trusted advice and guidance that all parents need in one place, and link families to their local services.

The Labour Government are committed to breaking down the barriers to opportunity, and the early years are where we do that most powerfully. Our ambition is clear: to make early years education the best it can be for children in all settings. This is the start of a decade of national renewal for families and the support that they receive. We will go further and faster to ensure that every child has the best start in life and the chance to achieve and to thrive.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

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

[Iqbal Mohamed]

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

[Neil O’Brien]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Chair of the Education Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and it is devastating to hear about those disparities across the country. Recently, I was at a secondary school in a very deprived area of my constituency, and a teacher told me that she noticed at an event for those from across the whole of her academy trust that her children were smaller than children who went to schools in more affluent areas of the country. That is an intolerable disgrace.

We expect the Government’s child poverty strategy to be ambitious and far reaching, and if it is to do so, it must have clear targets and there must be clear accountability in the strategy. I look forward to its publication, and my Committee, along with the Work and Pensions Committee, will play our part in scrutinising that important piece of work.

I am heartened to see this Government putting children and young people at the heart of their priorities after 14 years during which they were an afterthought. There is much more to do, and my Committee will continue to play our part by scrutinising the Government and making evidence-based recommendations. I want to see a clear vision for children and young people with real ambition for every child, and a plan for all parts of our education and care system, so that we can start to see the promise, in this Government’s agenda, of transformed lives and life chances being delivered in every part of our country.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Mr Jogee, are you now finally comfortable in the Chamber? Before, you wanted to swap. [Interruption.] Marvellous. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Free School Meals

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

I cannot believe that I did not hear the Opposition spokesperson welcome our announcement. It is a shame that when the Conservatives were in government tackling child poverty was not considered a priority. I feel a little sorry for the spokesperson, who claims to care about education, given that his only policy is to give private schools a tax break. Indeed, on the Conservatives’ watch, child poverty grew to record highs and they wore the increasing numbers in child poverty as a badge of honour. Frankly, that is shameful.

This increase in free school meals is fully funded, and that is possible thanks to the difficult decisions that this Government and the Chancellor have had to take to get the economy growing and put the public finances back on a stable footing. I am excited to hear the Chancellor set out more details next week. That is despite the mess we inherited from the Conservatives. Why has the spokesperson not taken the opportunity today to say sorry for his Government’s shameful record on child poverty? He has nothing to say on education for our country. Unlike them, we will not sit by and watch more children fall into poverty. Unlike them, we are not offering a tax break for private schools. We are delivering positive change for our country. We are giving children back the opportunity to achieve and thrive. With this announcement, we are ensuring that every child, no matter what their background, gets the best start in life. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the expansion of the free school meals entitlement. It is an evidence-based approach for which many of us have campaigned for a long time. It will help to close the disadvantage gap in our schools, tackling child poverty, benefiting children’s health and supporting children to learn.

I hope the Government will agree that every child who is eligible for this expanded entitlement should be able to receive that entitlement. Whether or not children get a free school meal to which they are entitled should not depend on somebody else making an application for them through a complicated process. The Government know which families are in receipt of universal credit, so is the Minister considering auto-enrolment for this expanded entitlement? That would be easier to achieve than auto-enrolment under the previous entitlement, and every child really should be able to benefit.

Can I seek the Minister’s assurance that this very positive announcement is not an indication that other measures to reduce child poverty, such as scrapping the two-child cap, have been taken off the table?

Finally, as a London MP and a former Southwark councillor who was very proud to be part of a council that introduced universal free school meals in 2010—we have seen the benefit of that policy, and I am proud we have a Mayor who is funding universal free school meals for all primary schoolchildren in London—can I ask for confirmation that London will also receive the funding for this expanded entitlement, so it can be put to the benefit of further reducing child poverty in London?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Select Committee Chair, for her constructive comments and for welcoming today’s announcement. Making all children in households claiming universal credit eligible for free school meals makes it straightforward for parents to know whether they are eligible. We are supporting that by taking forward a programme of work, including improvements to our own systems, which will make applying for free schools meals easier than it ever has been. As I mentioned in my statement, our proposals are fully funded. More broadly, we will set out more details in the forthcoming child poverty strategy around a number of the other measures she describes.

[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?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I am keen to ensure that we learn from the best in local government, as we have been on auto-enrolment activity especially. As I mentioned earlier, today’s announcement will make the whole process of applying for free school meals much simpler and easier for parents, but we will certainly take on board my hon. Friend’s comments. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss these issues further.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

After this, we have two Select Committee statements and two Backbench Business debates. If colleagues do not keep their questions short, they are just denying others the opportunity to speak.

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

Vulnerable children spend many weeks each year—during the holidays—not at school. My own Liberal Democrat-Labour partnership local authority provides funding in the form of vouchers during the school holidays. Will the Government take this opportunity to end holiday hunger and provide funding for food during the holidays?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

We of course want to ensure that all families that are eligible for this roll-out benefit from it. Working with other Government Departments, we want to make the process as simple as possible. We are determined to bring down child poverty. We appreciate that the issues are complex, and we want to get this right. We will set out more details in due course.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. There are 15 colleagues remaining. If you want me to get you all in, work with me and keep your questions short please. I call Yasmin Qureshi.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

This is really welcome news for families in my constituency, with up to 11,450 children now set to benefit from free school meals. I know from speaking with parents that this will make a real difference both in easing pressure at home and in helping children to focus and do well in school. Does the Minister agree that this is the kind of support that families have needed for years, and it is a clear sign that the Government are serious about tackling child poverty and giving every child a fair chance?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)]

In Colchester, this measure will benefit over 5,000 children, so it is wonderful news from a Government who are indeed determined to tackle child poverty. Would the Minister like to make a return visit to Colchester, this time to visit not a pioneering pre-school but a pioneering primary school—Unity primary academy in Greenstead—which has just opened a community kitchen that creates an amazing food culture for local families?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

As the Minister is on a tour, I assume that he will be coming to Sussex Weald shortly.

[Stephen Morgan]

I am not sure whether my office will be happy about that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am sure we can make it happen. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I also want to pay tribute to school support staff and teachers who do so much to ensure that children across our country can achieve and thrive. They will know that this Labour Government have their back.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I know that she will want to feed into the child poverty strategy to ensure that it is ambitious, but I assure her that that is our intention.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I see that two Joshes remain.

[Josh Dean (Hertford and Stortford) (Lab)]

Today, I am thinking of the teacher from my constituency who told me that they had to keep cereal bars in their office for children who came to school hungry. That is the legacy of the Conservative party, and I am not surprised that Conservative Members have not turned up to face the music. Research shows that people living with mental health conditions are twice as likely to be living in food-insecure households. Does the Minister agree that this announcement will make a huge change to our young people’s mental health, and that that is exactly what people voted for when they voted Labour?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

My hon. Friend will know that we are already committed to rolling out breakfast clubs in every primary school. We want to ensure that there is more money in parents’ pockets through our childcare entitlement roll-out. More broadly, the child poverty strategy will be ambitious on improving outcomes and life chances for every young person.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am personally delighted and looking forward to hosting the Minister in my constituency.