Oral Answers to Questions
Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
The Minister for Schools and Childhood (Kelly Tolhurst)
The Government remain committed to improving uptake of Ebacc subjects, specifically languages. Building on our modern foreign language pedagogy pilot, we will establish a national network of language hubs from autumn 2023. We are also expanding the successful Mandarin excellence programme, as well as exploring an Arabic language programme.
Mr Walker
The Ebacc pioneered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) has been highly successful in driving uptake of mathematics, sciences and humanities, but there is much further to go in reaching our targets in modern foreign languages. What progress have Ministers made on the development of an Arabic language programme for schools and on ensuring that more pupils have the chance to study world languages?
Kelly Tolhurst
My hon. Friend raises an important question about the availability of more world languages, which are important for our young people because the United Kingdom operates in a global market. I can confirm that we are exploring an Arabic language programme, which will aim to build on the existing infrastructure of Arabic teaching. Our language hubs programme will also increase support for home, heritage and community languages.
Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Schools and Childhood (Kelly Tolhurst)
We are making a transformational investment to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025. That investment will deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or those who require alternative provision, as well as establishing up to 60 new special and AP free schools.
Ian Levy
Over the last few months, I have been working closely with schools in some of the most deprived areas of Blyth Valley. Although schools are doing an amazing job, there is a need for increased special educational needs provision to support the most vulnerable young people. While a new special educational needs school is to be built in Blyth Valley, progress is slow, and I feel that more could be done to address the situation. Will my hon. Friend please meet me to see how we can progress this matter?
Kelly Tolhurst
I share my hon. Friend’s commitment to improving special educational needs provision in Northumberland, particularly in his constituency. The Department is working closely with stakeholders to develop a sustainable solution. The opening of the new free special school has encountered several challenges, but we expect to deliver the school places in the 2023 academic year. As part of our investment in school places for children and young people with SEND, Northumberland is receiving £3.7 million from the fund between 2022 and 2024. I will happily meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I recently held a roundtable of headteachers in my constituency. We talked for almost two hours but, sadly, very little of the conversation was about teaching. Instead, we discussed serious issues around recruitment and retention of staff; inadequate funding and severe pressures on budgets; online safety; mental health—theirs and the children’s—and SEND pressures. What are the Government doing to ensure that all schools have the resources they need to provide pupils with special educational needs and disabilities with the support they need while also being able to maintain high-quality teaching and manage the huge range of other pressures that they face?
Kelly Tolhurst
As I mentioned, we are investing £2.6 billion over the next three years in new spaces for SEND and alternative provision. We have also implemented £1.4 billion in high-needs provision capital allocations for local authorities, and £9.1 billion—an increase of 13%—in high-needs funding. The hon. Lady will know that we launched the Green Paper on SEND and AP back in March. We are currently looking at the responses and we hope to respond by the end of the year.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to her place. She inherits the Government’s SEND review, which has caused widespread concern among parents of children with SEND that the Government are seeking simply to reduce expenditure and erode the rights of parents and children to access the support they need. As the Chancellor trawls for departmental cuts to pay for the Government’s reckless economic experiment, can the Minister confirm that the SEND review will not be used as an excuse to erode further the resources that children with special educational needs and disabilities rely on?
Kelly Tolhurst
I can confirm that the SEND and AP Green Paper—the SEND review—was not and is not an opportunity for us to reduce the support that children with special educational needs require in this country. As I have already outlined, we have increased our high-needs funding by 13% to £9.1 billion, and we have also designed a package to support the delivery of any of our reforms. That is a £70 million programme that will test and refine measures in order to ensure that children get the support and education they need, and that parents feel that they have a choice in the matter and are well supported.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
The Minister for Schools and Childhood (Kelly Tolhurst)
I am sorry to hear of the issues that my hon. Friend’s constituents have been having and the distress that that is causing for those families. In March, the Government published the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper, which sets out a number of the proposals, including on the education, health and care plans. Those proposals aim to improve the experience and outcomes for those with SEND. The consultation has closed and we plan to publish an improvement plan later in the year.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Kelly Tolhurst
I do sympathise with Brackenfield School’s predicament. Supporting children and young people with SEND to live fulfilling lives is of paramount importance. The local authority is responsible for deciding on the age range at a maintained school, but I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and I will investigate what is going on.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Why are adoption figures continuing to fall?
Kelly Tolhurst
This past year adoptions have gone up, but it is on a lower trajectory. One potential reason for that is that in 2013 a court ruling confirmed that adoption orders should be made only when there is no alternative provision. That has led to an increase in special guardianships. We will obviously keep the issue under review. The time that it is taking for children to be adopted has reduced, and we want to ensure that no child remains in care any longer than they need to be, and that we find supportive parents for them.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Off-rolling is a hidden crisis happening in some of our schools, with black schoolboys being disproportionately affected by the practice, and many being given only a few formal hours of teaching, if any at all. We should be outraged at that, given the attainment gap and the disproportionate numbers of black children who are being excluded from school. What action is the Secretary of State taking to tackle the crisis of off-rolling, and will he ensure that all schools that engage in that practice are recording the numbers affected, including their ethnicity, age and gender?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The independent review of children’s social care highlighted the cost of the failure of residential care settings—both the financial cost and, most importantly, the cost to children of failed care. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to improve that care and to ensure that we move from a marketised system to a regional system, as suggested?
Kelly Tolhurst
As the hon. Lady is aware, we are currently evaluating the three reports issued earlier this year, in particular the independent review of children’s social care. I have been working flat out since I was appointed to this role to make sure we are able to bring forward a response to it with an implementation plan to ensure that all young people in our care system are looked after, but also that there are answers and options to move forward.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Children from all over the country, quite a few of whom are in my constituency, are being home educated by parents who, unfortunately, cannot themselves read or write. What are we going to do to ensure we value the education and life chances of every single child, and do not leave home educated children behind?
Kinship Carers
Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Kelly Tolhurst)
It is a great honour to be here today responding on behalf of the Government in my new role. I want to start by thanking the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing what is an important debate. I agree 100%. Also, I have never had the opportunity to say this directly to him, but let me say in my role here that what the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and his wife Allison have done for their grandchild is just fantastic and to be commended. He is a fine example of how kinship can work, so well done.
All hon. Members who have joined today’s debate will agree that kinship carers are an untapped and undervalued asset. Their value to the children’s social care system and the lives of children up and down the country cannot be overstated. A fortnight ago, we celebrated national Kinship Care Week, which recognised the important role that such carers play in children’s lives. As part of those celebrations, we invited a group of kinship carers into the Department to hear their stories and inform the work we are doing to produce a children’s social care implementation strategy by the end of the year. I also wish to thank the APPG for the work it has done in this area, as well as charities such as Kinship and other organisations in the sector, which have been doing so much for this cohort of carers.
Hon. Members may be aware that I have a deep personal connection to this issue. My own sister is a social worker, and I have been an independent visitor for a looked-after child for many years. I have seen many children thrive in the care system but then face significant challenges when they reach the age of 18 and are often left with few loving relationships to sustain them throughout adulthood. Kinship care can be the antidote to a lifetime of isolation and loneliness. It allows young people to remain safely rooted within family networks and local communities, which provide us with the mental, emotional and physical support we all need. The need for family and community was acutely demonstrated during the recent covid-19 pandemic.
I am passionate about improving the lives of children. That is why I was honoured to become the Minister for Schools and Childhood last month. Supporting kinship care is a route to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to grow up in a loving, safe and stable environment and to maximise their potential. I welcome the opportunity to set out what we are doing as a Government to make that vision a reality.
This year, we have seen the publication of three reviews that, in their own way, call for a reset of the children’s social care system. As we know, they were the independent review of children’s social care, the national child safeguarding practice review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson and a report by the Competition and Markets Authority into the children’s social care market. In Prime Minister’s questions on 7 September, in response to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), the Prime Minister told the House that the Government would publish a response to those landmark reviews before the end of the year. We are still committed to that timeline, and that has been a major part of my work since being appointed to the Department. Hon. Members will understand that I cannot give full details of the response today, but I am glad to be able to update the House on the progress so far.
First, we have established a national implementation board, which will include people with lived experience of the care system and leaders who have experience of implementing transformational change. The board will oversee a programme to reform children’s social care. Secondly, we have made early progress on commitments that the Government made when the independent review of children’s social care was published earlier this year. On Thursday 6 October, we launched the data and digital solutions fund, to help local authorities to unlock progress for children and families through the better use of technology. That includes a project to better understand data on kinship care, and to scope options for improving its use.
Perhaps most importantly in the context of this debate, the independent review of children’s social care shone a spotlight on successive Governments’ lack of focus on kinship care and the children who live with kinship carers. The review made seven specific recommendations, which sought to prioritise and improve support for kinship carers and children, and we will respond to those in the upcoming children’s social care implementation strategy. Although I cannot announce the detail of the response today, I can commit that kinship care will be front and centre. It will get the focus and backing from Government that it deserves in the years to come. Our response will address many of the issues raised by hon. Members today, including the hon. Member for Twickenham—hopefully including financial support, entitlements for kinship carers and the creation of a new definition of kinship care, which was a specific recommendation made by the review.
Kinship carers play a vital role in looking after children who cannot be cared for by their birth parents. There are over 150,000 children in England living in kinship care, many of whom would be in local authority care if those families had not stepped in. It is clear that more needs to be done to build a system in which every child’s right to a family is safeguarded. We must give all children an opportunity to grow up in a loving kinship home when that is in their best interests and when they cannot be safely looked after by their parents.
Some local authorities already make greater use of kinship care placements than others. The proportion of children in care placed in kinship foster care ranges from 4% in some local authorities to 39% in others. It cannot be right that children’s opportunities to live with their families are based on their postcode, and I will use the response to the care review to begin to address that disparity.
Children growing up in kinship care achieve better outcomes than their peers who grow up in care. That includes achieving better GCSE results on average, and having a greater chance of being in employment than children who grow up in foster or residential care.
Jim Shannon
In my contribution, I referred to two figures. Some 28% of those in kinship care are educationally challenged—to use that terminology—as against a national average of 6%, which is a real anomaly. The figures to which the Minister referred are greatly encouraging, but can she confirm what extra assistance is available for kinship carers who are looking after young children who are educationally challenged?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We need also to look at this through the lens of our work in the Green Paper on special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision. In my experience, this issue affects not just children in kinship arrangements but looked-after children. My focus throughout this whole process is achieving better outcomes for children. That will always be front and centre of all decisions and all information that I receive.
Despite the good outcomes for children in kinship care, they still lag behind those children who have never had involvement with children’s services. There is much more to do, with greater Government focus and close collaborative working with local authorities, schools and colleges. I am convinced that we can reduce that gap.
As hon. Members will no doubt recognise, the theme underpinning many of my points today is that we have made progress but far more remains to do. Last year we announced £1 million of new funding to deliver high-quality peer support groups for kinship carers across the country. We know that becoming a kinship carer for the first time is often a frightening and bewildering experience, as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish illustrated.
The support of peers can act as a beacon to help people through. Those support groups are already building powerful communities and enabling kinship carers to connect with those in similar situations. The Government recently confirmed that we will invest a further £1 million next year to ensure that more than 100 peer support groups are established across the country by January 2024.
Hon. Members have raised with me, including in this debate, the issue of educational entitlement for children in kinship care. That area is important to me, and I recognise how much has been done, but there is more to do. Since 2018, virtual school heads and designated teachers have had a responsibility to promote the educational achievement of pupils who leave state care to live with an adopter or special guardian. Children who live with special guardians and were previously looked after by the state are eligible for the pupil premium, as the hon. Member for Twickenham outlined.
Kinship children who were not previously looked after but had been entitled to free school meals, at any point over the past six years, attract the pupil premium funding. We constantly review that and assess the effectiveness of the pupil premium, to ensure that it supports pupils facing the most disadvantage. Last year we consulted on changes to school admission codes to improve in-year admissions. Children in formal kinship care were in scope of those changes, which mean that kinship carers can secure an in-year school place for their child when they are unable to do so via other means. Those new measures came into force on 1 September 2021.
Finally, children living with special guardians who have previously been in state care can access therapeutic support via the adoption support fund, which has already been outlined. This year, we have also made that support available to those children who live with relatives under child arrangements orders. We are looking to improve local authorities’ engagement with the adoption support fund, to increase the proportion of eligible kinship carers who apply.
As hon. Members have eloquently outlined, I recognise the strain that kinship families are under, and will continue to work collaboratively with local areas to ensure that children, young people and families have access to the support they need to respond to the cost of living pressures. I am committed to supporting kinship carers. The independent review of children’s social care recommended a financial allowance for carers looking after children under a child arrangements order and those looking after children under a special guardianship order. My Department is considering each recommendation, and will respond by the end of the year.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I wanted to be part of this debate, but I had two meetings about my private Member’s Bill next week, so I could not be here at the beginning, for which I apologise. I wanted to implore the Minister, in considering the financial issues, to reflect on a situation in my constituency, where the grandmother ended up having to look after the grandchildren while the parents were having issues. The problem was that she had to spend her own money, and she did not have a lot of it. When we asked social services, they said, “Only if we place the children in her care will she get some financial funding, but not until then.” For weeks and weeks, nothing happened. This issue may have been discussed, but I wanted to raise it.
Kelly Tolhurst
I know that the hon. Lady is passionate about this area, and I recognise what she has illustrated. The stories that Members have told in this debate have alluded to similar pressures that they have come across in their constituency casework, and it is something that I have seen at first hand, prior to becoming a Member of Parliament. Given that we recognise the value of kinship carers, we are taking the recommendations very seriously, and I am doing my best to show that the Government are committed to looking at this area and taking reasonable decisions.
Kinship carers often develop strong bonds with children who have just entered their homes, and taking leave from work could play a role by giving those carers time to do so. There is currently a range of Government support for such carers and employers, and some employers provide significant support to employees without a legal requirement to do so. We would encourage employers to continue to respond with this flexibility, but we will be considering the case for extending parental leave to kinship carers as part of our response to the independent review of children’s social care later this year and—I hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—when I speak to my successors in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on this topic.
I also recognise the importance of making informed choices about the legal status of children entering the homes of kinship carers. The Ministry of Justice laid a statutory instrument yesterday to make legal aid available for special guardianship orders in private family proceedings, which will help prospective special guardians to get advice and assistance on the order before processing. My Department is working closely with colleagues in the MOJ on implementing the recommendations from the social care review, and on giving access to legal aid to some kinship carers.
Today’s debate has rightly focused on some real issues that we know kinship carers face. My hope is that we will be able to respond to the concerns and recommendations with the implementation strategy by the end of the year. I am absolutely committed to that, and to listening to and learning from kinship carers, who make the selfless decision to care for a child who cannot safely remain with their parents. I look forward to working with them and all hon. Members on this important issue, because it is important not only for many of us across this Chamber, but for our country and for how young people develop and thrive in the United Kingdom.
Free School Meals and Child Poverty
Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Kelly Tolhurst)
It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon, but I too would like to express my best wishes to Her Majesty the Queen and her family at this difficult time.
First, I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for securing this important debate at a crucial time, and I ask for her understanding as I was appointed merely a few hours ago. However, I will start by saying that I came into this role with great excitement, because I too care about my constituents and the young people in my constituency, and I absolutely agree that young children should go into school without experiencing hunger to be able to learn. I can assure the hon. Lady, immediately, that I look forward to working with her and others across the House as we move forward.
All Members have constituents who are struggling right now with the rising cost of living. It does not matter which side of the political spectrum we are on, we all know people who are currently finding it difficult. Like many hon. Members, one reason I came into politics was to change things for the better and help people, particularly in our constituencies. There can be no more deserving cause than making sure that a child has enough to eat. In this day and age, no one should accept the prospect of a child turning up, and trying their best to learn at school but being distracted by hunger. Children cannot learn properly if they are hungry, which is why plenty of safety mechanisms are in place to make sure that does not happen. I assure the House that the Government are totally committed to helping and supporting people who need support. That is part of our greater levelling-up ambitions.
Let me spell out in more detail what we are doing to support our most disadvantaged children and families. Free school meals are a vital means of ensuring that children get a decent meal if they come from families with parents who are out of work or on low incomes. Just under 2 million schoolchildren receive a free meal at lunchtime, under the benefit-related free school meal policy. That will relieve pressure on their families, and ensure that children get at least one healthy and nutritious meal a day. A further 1.25 million infants are also getting a meal through the universal infant free school meal policy. That brings the total proportion of schoolchildren getting a free meal at lunchtime to around 38%.
I said earlier that we all care about ensuring that children are well nourished, and thanks to cross-Government work we have permanently extended free school meals to children from all families with no recourse to public funds who meet certain income thresholds. That came into effect after Easter this year. The Department’s priority is to provide targeted support to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds who are most in need. Extending free school meals to all pupils would carry a significant financial cost. We are confident that the current provision enables children to benefit, and is still affordable and deliverable for schools. That is currently the right approach in England, targeting those who need it most. As I said, we spend around £600 million per year ensuring that around 1.25 million infants enjoy a free, healthy, and nutritious meal at lunchtime, following the introduction of the universal infant free school meal policy in 2014. All Members here will have heard arguments from some quarters that we should roll out free school meals for all, but it is right that provision is aimed at supporting the most disadvantaged.
Navendu Mishra
I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. Will she comment on the point about stigma when it comes to means-tested free school meals? We do not have a means-tested system for schools in this country, but the Government test the means of the parents for free school meals. There is stigma that comes with poorer children being offered the free school meal option when others are not, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) spoke about the nutritional gap between children from wealthier families and those from poorer families. Will the Minister comment on that stigma, and on that productivity and nutritional gap?
Kelly Tolhurst
I absolutely get the point about stigma, and I know that schools work incredibly hard to overcome it. Free school meal eligibility will be under review, and in this post I look forward to getting into the detail and speaking to stakeholders, schools, parents and children, as I do already in my constituency. I look forward to widening the scope of that.
Rachael Maskell
I, too welcome the Minister to her new position. Richard Titmuss famously said that services to the poor are poor services. As we look at that divide, we know that many parents do not claim free school meals because of stigma, so children go hungry and without. Of course, parents often make sacrifices, too. Will she look at the equation again and at how we can bring greater equality into the lives of our young people?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Lady for that point. As I said, I, like all Members of Parliament, absolutely care about our young people in school and want them to thrive, have great lives and enjoy their school years, and we must ensure that stigma does not exist for them. In my role, I will look at many things, and I am more than happy to look at that further. We do not have plans to extend the universal provision in England, but, as I said, we will continue to keep free school meal eligibility under review to ensure that those meals are supporting those who need it most.
Let us look at some of the detail. We currently have an earnings threshold of £7,400 for families on universal credit, but that does not include income from benefits—those payments are not included—so household incomes can be considerably higher than that threshold without children being excluded from a free school meal. Extending free school meals to all families on universal credit, for example, would carry a significant financial cost, quickly running into billions of pounds, and yet some of those households have incomes exceeding £40,000 a year. Those are clearly not among the most disadvantaged, and other households would have a greater need of our support.
As every family knows, it costs more to put a healthy meal on the table than it did even just a year ago, and it is no different for free school meal provision. We have therefore increased core funding for schools. This year, the free school meals factor in the national funding formula has increased to £470 per pupil to take into account inflation and other cost pressures that schools face. We are also providing extra core funding through the schools supplementary grant, which represents a significant increase of £2.5 billion for the 2022-23 compared with last year. We are also spending £600 million on universal infant free school meals each year as well as about £40 million on delivering free meals to around 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education. In addition to that, we will provide more than £200 million a year for the next three years to deliver healthy food during holiday periods through our holiday activities and food programme. We are also funding breakfast clubs in more than 2,000 schools, and the school fruit and vegetable scheme and Healthy Start vouchers add further support.
The Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackling poverty—especially child poverty—and supporting people on lower incomes. There are currently about 1.27 million job vacancies across the UK, and we believe that the best and most sustainable way of tackling child poverty is to ensure that parents get the right sort of help and support to move into work. We know that employment—I am talking primarily about a full-time job—offers the best chance of reducing the risks of poverty. Our multimillion-pound plan for jobs has protected, supported and created jobs, and will continue to help people across the UK to find work and develop skills to progress their careers and increase their earnings.
Kim Johnson
I thank the Minister for giving way. She makes the point about work being the route out of poverty, but as I pointed out in my speech there are vast numbers of parents who are working and are ineligible to apply for free school meals. Work is not the route out of poverty, and some work needs to be done on that.
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. In my new role, I have already committed to keeping eligibility under review.
Today, the Government set out decisive action to support people and businesses with their energy bills, tackling the root causes of the issues in the UK energy market through increased supply and ensuring the country is not left in the same position again. Under plans for the new energy price guarantee, a typical UK household will pay no more than £2,500 a year on its energy bills for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household £1,000 a year from October, based on current energy prices. That support is in addition to the £400 energy bill discount for all households. Together, they will bring costs close to where the energy price cap stands today. The new guarantee will apply to households in Great Britain, with the same level of support made available to households in Northern Ireland. The action will deliver substantial benefits to the economy, boosting growth and curbing inflation by between four to five points, reducing the cost of servicing national debt. This historic intervention comes after a failure to invest in home-grown energy and to drive reform in the energy market.
Kim Johnson
Again, the money being made available will not target the most vulnerable, because we know there are thousands still in crisis who are likely to pay an extra £500 on top of what they were already going to pay. We know that the most disadvantaged who have payment meters often have to pay more than those who have direct debits. How will the Government address those major, urgent issues for the vulnerable at this time?
Kelly Tolhurst
Ahead of today, we had already announced a significant package of support for those most in need—I outlined the extra £400. Local authorities also have the household support grant scheme, which is accessible by people who are in need and is an opportunity for those who have fallen through certain gaps to access funding they may require.
We need to invest in home-grown energy and drive reform in the energy market to secure the UK’s supply. Putin’s weaponisation of the energy supply has exposed the UK’s vulnerabilities to the volatility of global markets, coupled with a regulatory framework no longer fit for purpose which is driving up bills and holding back economic growth. A new six-month scheme for businesses and other non-domestic energy users, including public sector organisations like schools, will offer equivalent support to that being provided for consumers. That will protect them from soaring energy costs and provide them with the certainty they need to plan their business. After the initial six-month period, the Government will provide ongoing, focused support for vulnerable industries. There will be a review in three months’ time to consider where that should be targeted to make sure that the most in need get support.
Rachael Maskell
Let me bring the Minister back to the debate about free school meals, because that is really important and I want to make sure that we make the most of this time and opportunity. One of the issues that I raised was holiday hunger and the fact that many children go without food during the school holidays, and that still continues. What steps will she take to ensure that all children who experience food poverty get access to a hot meal every day?
Kelly Tolhurst
It was important to mention the announcement today about help with energy costs, because those costs are playing a large role in the pressures that all households face, and that absolutely feeds into this debate.
The hon. Lady raises an important question about free school meals over the summer period. For families who have been eligible for that support, the Government are investing more than £600 million in our holiday activities and food programme over the next three years. That funding is being distributed through 152 local authorities. This summer, our holiday activities fund again provided healthy meals, enriched activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families. That benefited their health, wellbeing and learning and contributed to the recovery from covid-19.
Over the summer of 2021, we reached more than 600,000 children and young people in England through the holiday activities fund, including more than 495,000 children who were eligible for free school meals. That meant that hundreds of thousands of children from low-income families benefited from healthy food and increased activities.
Navendu Mishra
The Minister is being very generous with her time. The figure of £600 million will effectively be significantly lower now, with inflation and the cost of living crisis. Will she address the need going forward, rather than sharing the Government’s numbers from last year, because £600 million will be a lot less—given that the rate of inflation is over 10% now—than it was last year?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Gentleman. However, one of the benefits of the holiday activities fund is that the decision making is given to local authorities, so that they can design systems that meet the need in their areas and make sure that they design tailored programmes and deliver services to meet the individual needs of the people they serve. He should understand that the amount is £600 million over three years, so there is £200 million a year.
In my constituency in other roles that I held, I spent a lot of time working with families and young children before I became a Member of Parliament. I am very passionate about this role and am looking forward to working with Members across the House. I do not have children but I have nieces. However, someone does not have to be a parent to find the idea of a hungry child plain wrong, as I think we all agree across the House. We can do—and are doing—something about it and I promise hon. Members that child wellbeing and nutrition is right at the top of my priorities.
Mike Kane
I welcome the Minister to her position. Having worked with her on the transport brief at the start of the pandemic, I know that she will be diligent in the role.
Even though my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) is a Liverpool fan, she mentioned Marcus Rashford—one of the most famous child hunger campaigners in the country, and a famous son of Wythenshawe in my constituency. He grew up just down the road; one of us is a great footballer, one of us is a great politician, and I am neither. If it were offered, would the Minister be prepared to meet him in her new role?
Kelly Tolhurst
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I very rarely refuse a request for a meeting. I am hoping to have many months to meet stakeholders, interested parties and people who feel as passionate as I do about these areas.
I am confident that the safeguards we have in place mean that once a child is through the school gates in the morning, the one thing that they should never have to worry about is where their next meal is coming from. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside for her patience with my being new to the post, and I look forward to working with her.
Question put and agreed to.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I declare an interest, as my sister is a social worker. I have, over many years, seen poor outcomes for young people who have travelled through our care system, so I welcome the review and some of what was in it, but this is a complex area. As my hon. Friend the Minister mentioned, we have seen a number of reviews, and the many barriers in children’s social care that we all know about have come up again in the review. On his implementation board and the plan that will be brought forward before the end of year, will he take social workers with him, so that they feed into discussions on what that the measures look like on the ground? Also, can we truly tackle, once and for all, these two basic issues: the case load that social workers face in our local authorities; and the need to enable local authorities to support foster carers, so that the private sector no longer needs to fill that gap?
Will Quince
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution, and I thank her sister for what she does as a social worker, as well as all social workers up and down our country. We are absolutely serious about reform and delivering the change that we all want. My hon. Friend mentioned two specific points. The first was about the case load, which is at the moment around 16 cases; that is down from about 20 in 2017, but the case load number is hugely misleading. I have rightly spent plenty of time with social workers up and down our country, and shadowed social workers in Cumbria, so I know that one case can take as long as 20. This is therefore not just about numbers. We have to look at the case load and social worker recruitment. On foster carers, it is absolutely right that we support them from the point at which they make an application or expression of interest to the point at which they become foster carers. Support should be ongoing, too, so that placements do not fail.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes
Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady raises an important point. I know from my time as children and families Minister that she has been campaigning on this issue and I know she is meeting the Minister for children and families on Monday, but I will certainly take a very close look at what she says and feed back to the panels.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I must declare that my sister is a social worker. No one can understand how beautiful little Arthur died at the hands of the people who were charged with caring for him. I have great respect for my right hon. Friend, and I know that he will be absolutely determined in his passion to get at exactly why this happened and the learnings we can take forward. However, does he agree with me that it is now finally time really to look at and deal with the case load that these social workers have to deal with? Some of them have excessive case loads with very complex cases. Can we finally give social workers the confidence, the safety and the time to be able to do the job that they love and get up every morning for to keep children safe?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s incredibly important question. She will, I hope, remember that, when I was children and families Minister, I was the champion of social workers, and I will continue to be the champion of social workers as Secretary of State. I am very confident about the MacAlister review—hence why it was such a priority for us for it to be in our manifesto. It is so important that we now get this right, and case loads are very much a part of that, as she quite rightly identifies.