Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Our education system and the wider network of services that support children and families offer unparalleled opportunities to make a critical difference to the life chances of the next generation. If Governments get the policy framework right, they can support every child to thrive in their education, close the disadvantage gap and lay the foundations for good mental health and wellbeing, which will set a child up for life. However, the situation that this Government inherited in July was overall very far from that.

There are, of course, many schools, teachers and other professionals who work with children and young people who are doing an exceptional job and achieving good results. As we consider this important legislation, I want to pay tribute to everyone who works to give our children and young people the best possible start in life—a great education, support where they need it and access to opportunities—and those who do the very difficult work of keeping the most vulnerable children safe. The challenges in our system are not down to them; they are the consequence of layer upon layer of policy decisions taken since 2010 that have made the context in which they work immeasurably harder.

I shall mention just a few of those policy decisions. The decision to cut the funding for early help and support for families, resulting in the closure of 1,300 Sure Start centres, stripped away vital support that can prevent families from reaching a crisis. While funding for early help and support has reduced, expenditure on child protection and on children in the care system in crisis situations that can often be prevented has gone up.

The decision to make academy schools directly accountable to the Secretary of State and responsible for their own admissions policies, and to make free schools the main delivery method for new schools, has left local authorities, which retain the statutory duty for providing a school place for every child who needs one and for SEND provision, without the tools and levers to deliver them, creating an unaccountable and unmanageable wild west of admissions in many areas. The neglect of the SEND system has allowed it to reach breaking point, and children are routinely let down; the capacity of schools to meet their needs has been eroded, and there is a lack of accountability for the role of health services. Local authorities are being pushed to the edge of effective bankruptcy; school attendance has been falling at a completely unacceptable rate; and our children and young people have the worst mental health and wellbeing in Europe.

Where we should have a system of many parts all working together in the best interests of children and families, we have a broken system where some parts are missing entirely and others are buckling under the pressure. Far too many children—particularly those with SEND—are being let down. In too many cases, either children are not protected from harm as they should be, or the outcomes of the attempts of the system to protect them are shamefully poor. We need only to look at the shocking over-representation of care-experienced people who are homeless or in the criminal justice system to know that our systems are failing. We need only to reflect on the names of the children who have been tragically killed at the hands of those who should have protected and nurtured them—Star Hobson, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Sara Sharif, among others—to know that child protection urgently needs to be strengthened.

I welcome the Bill, which begins the work of stitching back together a support system for children and families and places children once again at the heart of Government policy. Measures such as the creation of a single child identifier and a register of children not in school, restoring the ability of local authorities to deliver new school places and intervene on admissions, tackling profiteering by providers of children’s homes, delivering free breakfast clubs, reducing costs of uniforms and many other measures in the Bill will make a big difference to children and their families.

The Education Committee is taking a close interest in this legislation, which is relevant to our ongoing inquiries on children’s social care, SEND and many other aspects of our work, and there are a number of areas on which I would like to press Ministers today. The measures to improve children’s social care are welcome, but it is well established that local authorities face huge cost pressures, which means that the system does not function as well as it should. Local authorities that are currently trapped in a cycle of spot-purchasing residential places for looked-after children from expensive out-of-area providers will need support and funding to make the transition to more positive ways of working, even if those new ways of working can bring down costs in the longer term. What investments will the Government make in children’s social care to ensure that the changes in the Bill can be fully delivered with the maximum impact?

The £30 million of funding for breakfast clubs provided in the autumn Budget will extend the existing breakfast club scheme from around 2,700 schools to around 3,450 schools, but there are more than 16,700 state-funded primary schools in the UK. Can I therefore press the Government on the need to set out the costs and funding for delivering this policy in every primary school, and for a clear timescale for doing so?

Parents of children with SEND often find it hardest to find childcare for their children. Many have expressed concern at a clause in the Bill that will allow for exemptions from the requirement to provide breakfast clubs for disabled children. Some disabled children will also be able to access a breakfast club only if they have home-to-school transport to arrive at school earlier. Will Ministers confirm that the Bill will ensure equal access to breakfast clubs for children with SEND in mainstream and specialist settings, with support where needed to enable children to attend them?

Breakfast clubs ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, which will be transformative. However, school lunches also really matter, as the most effective way to ensure access to a nutritious hot meal for the most disadvantaged children. Will Ministers therefore consider whether auto-enrolment of children already eligible for free school meals can be incorporated into the Bill? As a minimum, we should ensure that all children who are currently eligible receive a free school lunch.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

The hon. Lady mentions school breakfast. Child obesity is up by a third and diabetes is up by a fifth. Does she agree that, while free breakfast clubs are a great opportunity to ensure children are fed, we must also ensure that school meals are healthy and nutritious; and that, alongside the Bill, school food standards need to be updated in line with the most recent nutritional advice, making it clear that they apply to breakfast?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. We have a very long speaking list, so interventions must be short.

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Lady that school food, in whichever setting it is delivered, should be of the highest quality. She will know about the pressures on school budgets. My constituency has experienced among the highest drops in funding for local schools of anywhere in the country. That has eroded the money that schools have to spend on high-quality food. I know that that is one of the areas on which those on the Government Front Bench will be anxious to deliver over time as public finances permit.

The measures to support care leavers are welcome, but are limited to extended Staying Close support and requiring local authorities to publish the details of their offer. What further measures does the Minister intend to take to improve outcomes for care leavers and to ensure they get the same opportunities as their peers? Only 14% of care leavers go to university compared with 46% of non-care-experienced young people. What further measures will the Government take to support care leavers to access and stay in higher education? Why are the Government not proposing a national offer for care leavers to address the postcode lottery in care, in particular to provide care leavers with the confidence that if they choose to attend university away from home, because that is the best option for them, the same support will be available to them wherever they study?

The policies and practices of other Departments also have a profound effect on the experience of care leavers. Can the Minister confirm whether, outside of the Bill, the Government are still considering the expansion of corporate parenting duties, so that every part of the state is required to take seriously its duty to looked-after children and care-experienced people?

Finally, to deliver on the commitments in the Bill, those who work with children and families will need support. There are challenges in recruitment and retention across many of the professions, from social work to teaching to the early years. Will the Government set out a workforce strategy to ensure that training places, continuing professional development and effective recruitment strategies are in place to secure the staff we need to deliver the transformation our children deserve? The Bill will introduce a series of measures that will start the process of rebuilding support for children and their families, and that is very welcome. My Committee will continue to take an interest in the detail of the Bill and seek to ensure that it is as effective as it can be in delivering a system that can support every child to thrive, and in contributing to the debate about the further steps, beyond the scope of the Bill, that will also be needed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 3 and 4, which both stand in my name.

The Education Committee was afforded little time to undertake scrutiny of this important Bill, but we worked hard to do so, refocusing our ongoing inquiry on children’s social care to focus on part 1 of the Bill and holding an additional evidence session to look at part 2. I am grateful to all the witnesses who came to give us their evidence.

We have published a report for the Secretary of State setting out recommendations based on the evidence we received. Broadly, the Committee welcomes the scale of the Government’s ambition as expressed in the Bill, which is a key plank of the Government’s opportunity mission to break the link between young people’s background and their future success. We join the Government in wanting to see high and rising standards in our education and care systems to protect vulnerable children and ensure educational opportunity for every child.

We welcome the measures in the Bill to strengthen child protection, particularly the provisions to establish multi-agency child protection teams, including education in safeguarding arrangements and a single unique identifier for children, which has the potential to be genuinely transformative for the delivery of many of the services that support children and young people. We support the measures to improve the children’s social care market through regional commissioning and a financial oversight scheme. Action to remove profiteering in the children’s social care sector is long overdue.

The Committee welcomes the measures in the Bill that will enable more children to remain within their kinship network or, where a residential placement in kinship care is not possible, in contact with family and friends.

The Committee also made some recommendations on ways in which the Bill could be strengthened, based on the evidence we received. The amendments tabled in my name relate directly to our recommendations, and I will now turn to each recommendation that is relevant to part 1 of the Bill.

New clause 3 would require the Government to publish and consult on a draft national offer for care leavers within 18 months of the Bill coming into force. A national care offer would set minimum standards for local care offers and ensure greater consistency between local authority areas. A national offer would act as a floor, not a ceiling. It would not be designed to prevent innovation at a local level or to stop additional commitments being made by individual local authorities, but we believe that greater national consistency, driven by Government, would make a big difference.

The evidence of the unacceptably poor outcomes for care-experienced young people is shocking. Some 39% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training, compared with 13% of all young people in the same age group. Some 14% of young people with care experience go to university, compared with almost half of their peers, and care leavers are 38% more likely to drop out of university. A third of care leavers become homeless within two years of leaving care, and 25% of homeless people have been in care. Care leavers are hugely over-represented in the criminal justice system. These are young people whose corporate parent has been the state, and these statistics are clear evidence that for many of them, the state is not a very good parent.

I welcome the Government’s amendment of the Bill to introduce additional corporate parenting responsibilities, but the Committee heard that there is significant disparity in the support that different local authorities offer to care leavers. We heard about the differences in support with bursaries to pay for university accommodation, access to wi-fi to be able to study and ringfenced apprenticeships for care leavers in local authorities.

In a powerful evidence session in which the Committee heard from young adults with recent experience of the care system, one witness told us that

“there needs to be a national offer for care leavers. The postcode lottery is profound”.

Another pointed to a lack of awareness of the needs of care-experienced people across the wider network of public services. She told us that

“when I had gone to the jobcentres they were very ill-prepared. They did not know any support for care leavers. There were certain grants I could have had to get back into education; they did not inform me, in fact, everything that I have done now is from me Googling it…or asking people. That should not be the case.”

A national care offer would be the foundation for building better, more consistent support for care leavers everywhere in the country. It would provide the Government with an effective mechanism for holding local authorities to account on the quality of their provision, making it much easier for care-experienced people to understand what support should be there for them and stopping the current disincentive to leave home to go to university because of uncertainty about the support when they get there. I urge the Government to support new clause 3.

New clause 4 would require health assessments of children in the care system to include assessment by a mental health practitioner. It would make assessing the mental health of children in care a core part of the health assessment of those children by ensuring that a mental health practitioner is involved. Children in care are significantly more likely to have experienced trauma and abuse than their peers, and they are consequently more likely to experience mental ill health. In 2021, 45% of children in care had a mental health disorder—rising to 72% among those in residential care—compared with 10% of all children aged five to 15.

The care-experienced young adults who gave powerful evidence to the Committee spoke strongly about the urgent need for better mental health support and suggested that local authorities are not always fulfilling their obligations to include emotional and mental health in their health assessments of children in care. One of our witnesses told us:

“Growing up it was only physical assessments; we did not have mental health check-ins at all…I think if my mental health was taken more seriously from a young age, if I had that person to check-in with me…I would probably be so much better. I would not have mental health problems growing up. I do think that mental health check-ins are equally as important—if not more important—as physical check-ins for children in care.”

Another witness said that

“looked-after children should get mandatory assessments, as with physical health. Also, if they are referred to CAMHS the waitlists are horrific right now…looked-after children should have fast tracks and there should be more funding for specialist teams.”

We heard very movingly from a witness who spoke about the need for more trauma-informed training for foster carers and other professionals working with children in care. She said:

“I feel a lot could be explained if they understood the experience of trauma. It will take time. It will not go away at night, and sometimes before it gets better it could get worse. No one talks about that. You will not be okay if you are going into care; there is a reason why you are there, and so it is important that the minute you go into care every child should have a mandatory assessment, physical and mental, and there should be that on-call support for them”.

It is the trauma that underlies the decision to take a child into care—the abuse, neglect, bereavement or exploitation—that often has the most profound impact on their lives. Our care system needs to place dealing with that trauma in a child-centred way at its heart. Ensuring that mental health assessments are properly undertaken is an essential requirement of such a system, because mental health must be assessed before treatment and support can be provided. New clause 4 would help to deliver that badly needed refocusing of the system, and I urge the Government to support it.

I wish to make two further points. First, I support new clause 14, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). It would introduce a requirement to notify a child’s school and GP when they are placed in temporary accommodation. As a constituency MP in south-east London, I see the horrific impact of poor-quality, unstable temporary accommodation on children in my constituency every week. Temporary accommodation is harming children, whether through the sleep deprivation of having to get up at 4 am to travel a long distance to their school, the lack of space to do homework, the fear and insecurity of sharing a kitchen and bathroom with strangers, the physical health impacts of living with damp and mould, or the impacts on gross motor development of being in a space that is too small to crawl or play in.

The impacts are profound, so it is completely right that there should be a statutory requirement to notify the public services that have the ability to help mitigate such impacts, and which have a responsibility for a child’s health and wellbeing when that child is placed in temporary accommodation. The Government should be taking urgent action to reduce the number of people in temporary accommodation, especially families with children. However, in the short term, the new duty introduced by my hon. Friend’s new clause would make a difference to the support those children receive.

Finally, at the same time as we are debating this Bill, the Government are preparing to announce reforms to the welfare system. I wish to emphasise the vital importance of considering the impact on children of any proposed reforms. Children do not get to choose the families into which they are born, but each one is equally deserving of economic security and access to the resources they need to thrive. It is not a justifiable outcome of changes to the welfare system to make life harder for the poorest children, or to increase child poverty by limiting the access to support that their parents receive. The Government must undertake and publish an assessment of the impact of their welfare reforms on children, and must ensure that children do not suffer as a result of any planned reforms.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend and near constituency neighbour makes a very important point, and I am sure she is running a very effective campaign. We look to the Government to come forward with what we know will be a large and broad special educational needs reform package. We do not yet know what will be in it or what the implications will be. Of course, we want all children to be wherever is right for them. For some children, that means being educated in a mainstream setting where they can benefit from that. However, we also know that for some children, it is right to be in special school. Having the full range of provision is therefore incredibly important.

There is a great deal in this Bill that I could speak about, and which we did speak about in Committee. However, in pursuit of brevity—as I know you would wish, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am going to limit myself today to talking about two aspects: one thing that is in the Bill, and another that is conspicuous by its absence. The thing that is in the Bill is a peculiar thing to raise on the Floor of the House of Commons, because it is something with which I have not yet heard anybody disagree, and on which there is no amendment to speak to —although, to remain orderly, Madam Deputy Speaker, I can speak with reference to Government amendment 114, which is right next to it in the legislation.

I speak neither in favour nor against the principle of what I am about to cover, but raise it for what is, I think, an important reason. In this House, it is sometimes precisely with measures on which there is no disagreement that the greatest dangers lie, because this House, with its oppositional layout, thrives on people finding holes in what is being proposed and objecting to them; when everybody is saying the same kind of thing, there is a real danger that things will get through without the proper attention.

I have not yet said what I am referring to, have I? I am referring to the provisions on unique identifiers. A couple of speakers have already mentioned the importance of these measures. The hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) was talking about a number of almost invariably serious case reviews identifying the problems that have occurred. A lot of that centres around the lack of proper data sharing, where different agencies both knew the same child, but did not join together what they knew about that child in order to be able to act in their best interest. Having what is, in the systems world, called an “index term”—a terrible way to refer to a child—or a unique identifier for every child, so that everybody knows when they are talking about the same child, is very important. The Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) spoke about the potential for this area to be genuinely transformational— I think that was the phrase she used. All of that is true.

Clause 4 allows for the creation of a single unique identifier for children and introduces new duties around data sharing. Here is my worry: sometimes when we legislate, something passes through without too much debate, and then, two or three years later, all sorts of other things start happening, and when we query why they are happening, people say, “Well, you lot voted for this. You passed a law about it. Perhaps these are some of the consequences.” I think something along those lines might have happened with GDPR, for example, and some of the things that we now see coming through on rules around children’s social media use and ages.

The creation of the single unique identifier is a massive change in the way we keep records on people in this country. With the potential to join up different databases, there are great positive implications for things like child safety, but there are other implications around privacy, data security and so on. It has been suggested that the NHS number would be the unique identifier used for each child, which, at first glance, seems an obvious and sensible thing to do. As a former Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that in the past, various projects have proposed using the national insurance number as a unique identifier for adults, which, at the time, also seemed like a sensible and clever thing to do. However, when it was prodded further, it turned out that the national insurance number database is not perfect, and I am afraid the NHS number database may not be, either—it just was not designed for this kind of purpose.

We are obviously not going to have a big debate on this issue today, although they may do in the other place when they talk about the Bill. However, over time, I think we will have to unpack what this whole new system may imply. For a start, is it talking about using the existing NHS database and the index term—the unique identifier for individuals—or is it talking about taking those numbers and putting them into a new database or system, which would have significant cost and time implications? If it is using the current NHS database, we need to think about the implications.

There has been a different debate going on about AI and the use of large amounts of data for academic research. What would be the implications of having this huge database with every child in the country potentially linked to all sorts of other databases, with details about them, for that kind of research? How secure would the system be? We can probably safely say that the system would not give the same number to two different children, but I am not 100% certain that we could say with total confidence that the same one child could not, at different times in their life, have different numbers, particularly with immigration and re-immigration, change in family structures and so on. What would that mean for the system?

More broadly, though, once we had this unique identifier and a national database of this sort, we could use it for quite a few things other than child protection. Some of those things might be considered by many of us in this House to be pro-social things that are worth pursuing. We have been having debates about age verification and the use of electronic devices and social media, for example; such a database would probably be the most reliable identity system for under-18s.

What about after age 18? If children have grown up with this database and with a number and identifier attached to them, that would not disappear just because they pass the age of majority. In theory, they could carry on having a linked database that potentially links up child protection sources, NHS sources, police national computer and so on—who knows what else could be joined up. We might then find that we have a system of national identity cards without having sought that in the first place.

[Helen Hayes]

The right hon. Gentleman is raising a number of technical considerations about the implementation of a project that is no doubt very ambitious. But does he not hear the cries from parents of children with SEND who are so weary of having to tell their story again and again to different parts of the system that are supposed to help them, and are currently being hampered in those efforts by exactly this want for information about a child being held in a single place? Does he not think that, ambitious though this project is, and important though the technical considerations are, it is worth delivering, and that it is worth giving parents the confidence that we in this House will scrutinise it and do that job? There are big gains to be had from pursuing this course of action.

[Damian Hinds]

I think the hon. Lady was here for the first two or three minutes of my speech—that is broadly what I said. In fact, I quoted her talking about the transformational potential of this measure and its importance. I do not want to go through it all again, but I said that when we all agree on something, there is sometimes a danger of unintended consequences. I then said that we may not talk about all this today—we do not have to do so today—but I think the Government will probably have to come back multiple times for Parliament to be able to consider all the much wider potential implications of creating such a database. I think, not for the first time in our in our lives, we are not a million miles away from one another.

The other thing that I want to talk about, in a less consensual tone, is what is glaring in its absence from the Bill: new clause 36 on mobile phones and social media, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). There are four parts to it: the first two state that the chief medical officer should be commissioned to issue a report, and the Government will conduct research on the effects of social media on children and young people. That was in the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which we discussed a couple of Fridays ago.

The third thing was in the wider package, as colleagues will remember, but the Government did not agree to it: a phone ban during the school day. That is point of contention, although I know that many hon. Members across the House, including in the Labour party, agree on it. There are limits to the approach. An argument that is always made when asking, “Why not ban mobile phones at school?” is, “What about out of school?” That is a good question, but it is not a reason not to do the first part. I readily admit that most online harm happens outside school. We know from research, including the recent study from the University of Birmingham, that a school ban does not necessarily reduce the total amount of time that young people spend online—it just displaces some of it. That does not necessarily improve things such as sleep, which is a big worry for teenagers, nor does it address wider issues of attention span, eyesight and so on.

Rules are still important, for the sake of both children and schools, but three things in recent years have changed the context for behaviour in schools. The first is a set of things that happened around covid—a sort of attitude shift that seems to have happened to a large extent throughout society. The other two things are vapes and phones. Of course, there is a universal ban on vapes at school. That does not mean that they never get through, but pupils are not allowed to vape in any state secondary school in this country. Phones are the other thing. We know—I say that because it applies to us as well—that if we have a phone in our pocket, even if we are not looking at the screen in front of us, it is still something of a distraction, because it could buzz at any time. In fact, we might be wondering if it will buzz when someone replies or comments on a post or whatever it might be.

The school day in its entirety should be devoted to school. That means not just lessons and learning things, although that is the primary aim, but being a child or young person, being with friends and growing up without those distractions.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

I rise to speak in support of new clause 1, new clause 2 and amendment 2, all in my name. The amount of time afforded to the Education Select Committee to undertake detailed scrutiny of the Bill was very limited. We were able to undertake just one evidence session on part 2, and we deliberately sought not to duplicate the evidence taken by the Public Bill Committee. We therefore took limited evidence on the changes to the role of local authorities in school place planning and admissions.

I speak, however, as an MP whose constituents have suffered the consequences of the fragmentation of admissions policies and place planning over the past 14 years. That has resulted in school places sometimes being delivered in areas where they were not needed, undermining other local schools; our councils struggling to ensure the delivery of school places that were needed, particularly for children with special educational needs and disabilities; and local places at a very popular local school being allocated not to local families but to children across a wide area of south-east London. I therefore wholeheartedly support the attempts in the Bill to restore coherence to admissions and place planning through the role of local authorities.

I also support the measures to reduce the cost of school uniform for families by limiting the number of branded items, which are a really significant cost of living pressure for families. However, I encourage the Government to keep a careful watch on how this requirement is being complied with, particularly in relation to the cost of blazers, having heard of one appalling example in my constituency of a very vulnerable child who had been allocated a place at a good school but was told she could not attend until she was wearing a blazer, the cost of which was over £100—way beyond the means of her family. I know the Minister will agree that no child should be shut out of the classroom because their family cannot afford the right clothes for them to wear, and that that is the intention of the Bill, but the monitoring of the detail will be important.

I also welcome the measures in the Bill to introduce a register of home-educated children. While home education is the right option for some children who are well supported to receive education at home, the number of children going missing from the education radar, out of sight and without any regulation of the quality of the education they are receiving, and sometimes coming to harm, as in the horrific recent case of Sara Sharif, is deeply concerning. The measures in the Bill will help to address this.

The Education Committee welcomes the introduction of breakfast clubs in the Bill, which will help to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, but we also heard compelling evidence of the importance of school lunches for the poorest children. Around one in 10 children who are eligible for free school meals do not claim them because their parents or carers do not complete the administrative process. This can be because of difficulties with the administrative process itself, lack of awareness about the entitlement, or language barriers. Children from non-white backgrounds are more likely to be unregistered.

This under-registration has impacts on schools too, since the ability of schools to draw down pupil premium funding is linked directly to the registration of eligible children for free school meals. I am talking about the existing entitlement, not a new spending commitment. The benefits of free school meals for children’s health and wellbeing and their ability to learn are clear, and are being seen in local authorities that are already auto-enrolling eligible children, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and some London boroughs. In London, the benefits are pupil premium receipts for schools because the Mayor of London is already funding universal free school meals.

Research from the Food Foundation found that, while local authorities were successful in their mission to reduce the number of eligible children missing out on free school meals, it was a difficult and resource-intensive task, and the data sharing between relevant authorities necessary to register children automatically was not straightforward. The local authorities piloting auto-enrolment have called for central Government to step in and help. The Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for children already eligible for free school meals. This recommendation would ensure that between 200,000 and 250,000 additional families with the poorest children in our country, who are already eligible, will receive the meals to which they are entitled. That recommendation is reflected in new clause 1, and I hope the Government will choose to support it today.

I turn to amendment 2. The Committee took evidence on breakfast clubs. We heard about the benefits of them both in ensuring that children do not start the school day hungry, and in relation to the opportunity afforded a child to settle gently into the school day and play with their friends. We also heard about the need for breakfast to be provided on a flexible basis, so that children whose families are unable to get them to school early. who may be among the most vulnerable children, do not miss out on this vital meal.

The Committee has heard extensive evidence in our inquiry on special educational needs and disability about the difficulties that families of disabled children have in finding childcare and accessing extracurricular activities. To that end, it is vital that children with SEND can access breakfast clubs on an equal footing with their peers. This may involve additional costs, particularly in relation to home-to-school transport and the need to have specialist staff on site at the time of the breakfast club. I welcome the fact that the early adopters programme includes about 50 specialist schools, but the inclusion of children with SEND in breakfast clubs in mainstream schools is also essential, and I hope the Government are looking closely at the early adopters and at any additional support that may be needed to ensure that. Amendment 2 would ensure that children with SEND were able to access breakfast clubs, and I hope the Government will support it.

Finally, I turn to new clause 2. This is a very large Bill covering many areas of policy, and it is being taken through this House very quickly and was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. There have been a large number of Government amendments at a late stage, and a number of measures in the Bill will be contingent on Government policies that are not in the Bill for their success, including the curriculum and assessment review, the reforms to the Ofsted assessment framework and the work of the child poverty taskforce.

New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to conduct regular reviews of the impact of this Act and to publish reports. I would anticipate that such reviews would show a positive impact of this legislation. Having a clear monitoring and reporting mechanism is good practice, particularly for a Bill of this size that has been delivered so quickly. I welcome the intention behind this Bill and the measures it contains. I look forward to supporting it this evening, and my Committee looks forward to playing a constructive role in scrutinising its impact in the months and years to come.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, some of which have been well considered and delivered powerfully—others less so. This Government’s mission is to break down barriers to opportunity by driving high and rising standards. That has to be the right of every child, delivered through excellent teaching and leadership, a high-quality curriculum, and a system that removes the barriers to learning that hold too many children back, all underpinned by strong and clear accountability. This Bill delivers the legislative elements of the broader vision that we are determined to deliver. As part of that, from next term free breakfast clubs will start being rolled out in early adopter schools across the country, including special schools and alternative provision settings. Members who tabled amendments 2, 219 and 220 are right that it is critical that the new breakfast clubs are accessible for children with special educational needs and disabilities. All pupils, including those with SEND and those in special schools, are already in the existing drafting of the clause. The need to get this right is why we are testing, and learning through, the early adopter programme.

On amendments 214, 215, 217 and 218, it is important to be clear on the distinction between food-only options being “alongside” or “instead of” the breakfast clubs. The club is as important as the breakfast. It gives children a settled start to the day and will secure improvements in attendance and behaviour, so the right approach is to legislate to give schools certainty of the minimum they need to provide and to work with early adopters to see how schools can maximise attendance at these clubs. To promote food-only offers may risk undermining the club element.

Let us be clear: we inherited a shameful legacy from the previous Government. Compared with when Labour last left office, 700,000 more children are growing up with their lives and life chances scarred by poverty. Children cannot achieve or thrive if the stressors and strains of growing up in poverty—of seeing their parents worried about putting food on the table, of being concerned about their younger siblings or whether their friends will judge them for not having the basics—are put on their shoulders. I know my hon. Friends share the Government’s concern for those children and their futures. We have set up the child poverty taskforce chaired by my right hon. Friends the Education Secretary and the Work and Pensions Secretary to look at how we can work across Government to tackle the causes and impacts of poverty on children’s lives.

The support the Government provide through their school food programmes to enable families to access healthy, nutritious food is being considered as part of that work. It is right that these considerable reforms, such as extending universal infant free school meals to all primary pupils, are considered through this route in a holistic way. Alongside the work of the taskforce, we are making progress to make it easier for families to access their entitlements, and I recognise the concern that right hon. and hon. Members have for children missing out.

The Government are pressing ahead with making it quicker and easier for families and local authorities to get children signed up for free school meals with our new eligibility checking system, which allows parents to check their eligibility and supports the local efforts we have seen to ensure that children receive that support. Further, I can confirm that our officials are working with the Government Digital Service in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore options on further data sharing to get more families signed up for their entitlements. We expect to have those provisions in place from next year, well ahead of the academic year beginning in September 2026.

Our officials are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to explore options on supporting enrolment through universal credit. My Department will monitor the impact of those policies and engage with local authorities to assess the impact of the changes on the uptake of free school meals. I would be happy to update the House on that work and write to the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), by way of doing so.

[Helen Hayes]

The Minister has set out the Government’s commitment to increasing the take-up of free school meals for children who are already eligible, as well as a number of practical measures the Government are taking to make registration easier. On the basis of what she has said today, I am content not to push my new clause 1 to a vote. However, the Select Committee will continue to closely monitor the take-up of free schools meals. Should the progress that the Minister expects to see be lacking, we will come back and press the issue of auto-enrolment again with her and expect that she looks at it again.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her diligence both in her role as Chair of the Select Committee and on this issue in particular. We want children to receive the entitlements that will transform their life chances. Indeed, we will work closely with her Committee to ensure that we communicate well with the House on those important issues.

Our determination to deliver better life chances for our children does not stop there. As well as free breakfast clubs, we are delivering the holiday activities and food programme, enabling disadvantaged children and children identified by their local authorities to access healthy food and enriching activities in the school holidays. We will go further by supporting every child to achieve and thrive, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, and by putting money back in their parents’ pockets.

Another part of that picture is the sad increase in childhood obesity, which, unfortunately, the Conservative party did very little to address. We must ensure that, alongside clubs and activities, the food that children have at school is healthy and balanced, and embeds healthy eating habits. We must ensure compliance with school food standards. With reference to new clause 6, we are working with the Food Standards Agency to take forward the findings of the 2022-23 compliance pilot on how best to tackle the barriers identified. On new clause 54, I can confirm that the Government will continue to publish comprehensive data on free school meals, and on the holiday activities and food programme, to ensure that our approach is informed by the best available evidence.

Tackling child poverty is imperative for the Government and for our society. It goes beyond the provision of food to putting money back in families’ pockets, giving them choice and agency in ensuring that their children are set up for the future. Our action to cut the cost of school uniform is just another part of that picture. We are taking steps to cut the cost for families and put money back in their pockets. I know that hon. Members share the desire to reduce the cost of sending children to school, but a monetary cap, as proposed in amendment 1, would increase burdens and could create new financial penalties for schools.

For schools, that would mean having to review uniform policies annually to ensure that branded items are still within the cost cap, and, as a result, it could mean that they change their uniforms more frequently to remain within the cap. They would also have to review and possibly renegotiate contracts with suppliers more frequently. For parents, more frequent changes in uniform could increase the overall number of branded items that they have to buy while their child is at school. It could affect their ability to pass uniforms down as second-hand, and could increase their reliance on specific suppliers.

Our proposals provide clarity and certainty for schools and will enable parents to have greater choice in where they buy uniforms. Amendment 191 risks undermining that parental choice. Nothing prevents schools from providing branded items at a lower cost than generic alternatives and offering them as optional items. Under current VAT rules, all children’s clothing and footwear designed for children under 14, including school uniforms, already attracts a zero rate of VAT, which covers the intention of new clause 12.

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), we encourage schools to use sew-on badges, with a school name or logo, as a cost-effective way to brand uniform items. We want to give parents absolute clarity on what the limit means for them. That is why we have included those items, plus a tie, in the three-item limit for secondary education.

Let me turn to amendments 4, 13 and 14, and 16. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for her intention to provide clarity on the interpretations of “suitable education” and “suitable arrangements”. It is important that there be consistency across local authorities in how they approach that. However, the amendments are not needed. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 is already clear that education must be suitable to a child’s age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they have. I want to reassure Members that we will make clear in statutory guidance for local authorities everything that they have to consider under section 7 when they are making decisions about the suitability of education.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. With the exception of the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, there will be an immediate four-minute time limit.

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

I rise to speak to the Lords amendments to the Bill that are of most interest to the Education Committee, following our scrutiny work on the Bill and in relation to a number of other subsequent and ongoing inquiries.

I welcome the decision to place the expansion of the entitlement to free school meals in the Bill. The Education Committee welcomes that expansion, which will increase the number of children who can benefit from a nutritious hot meal in the middle of the day. Combined with the roll-out of free breakfast clubs, it will substantially reduce the scourge of hunger, which harms children’s health and holds back their learning.

My Committee has recommended that the Government introduce auto-enrolment for free school meals. The use of universal credit data, which the Government already hold, would make auto-enrolment much easier to achieve. I urge the Minister to ensure, by implementing auto-enrolment, that no child misses out on the meal to which they are entitled.

I welcome the introduction of a requirement to notify health and education services when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. I have seen at first hand many times in my constituency the destabilising impact of temporary accommodation on children’s lives. It is usually the worst quality accommodation and is the most likely to be overcrowded, damp and mouldy. It is often far away from school and friends, with no space to do homework, and brings the constant underlying insecurity of not having a permanent home. It can have profound consequences for children’s health and education, and the new duty to notify is an important first step in ensuring that children can be supported.

[Chris Vince]

I declare an interest, as a member of the Education Committee and a former teacher. I thank the Chair of the Committee for her passionate speech. Does she agree that it is hugely important that teachers are aware when young people in their care are in temporary accommodation, because of the huge impact it can have on their education, as she has suggested?

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. So often we hear from teachers that they recognise a drop in a student’s engagement or performance, but without understanding why.

I welcome the introduction of the new requirements on allergy safety in schools. As the parent of a child who had unexplained allergies in early childhood, I understand some of the fear and anxiety that parents experience when entrusting a child with allergies to a formal setting. There is anxiety about whether allergens will be properly managed, and anxiety about what will happen if their child experiences an allergic reaction. The new requirements will ensure that there is more consistency, improve knowledge and introduce better protocols for managing allergies in schools, so that parents and schools can have more confidence.

I turn to Lords amendment 17 on siblings and foster care. In the Education Committee’s inquiry into children’s social care last year, we heard directly from young people with recent experience of the care system. They told us about the profound impacts of sibling separation. Sibling relationships are very important for looked-after children, who often have experienced trauma and broken relationships with their parents and other family members. Yet far too often, siblings are separated by a care system that struggles, due to funding and lack of capacity, to deliver child-centred care. My Committee was shocked to discover that the Department for Education gathers no data on sibling separation. That is a first and necessary step in seeking to reduce it.

I appreciate that the Government are not yet content with the wording of the amendment on sibling contact, but I urge them to find a way to incorporate stronger requirements for sibling contact to be prioritised and maintained before the Bill reaches the statute book. It is a small change concerning something that should happen anyway, and has the potential to make a big difference to vulnerable children in the care system.

In the short time that remains to me, let me mention just two other matters. The first is the amendment relating to school uniform costs for families. I know what a strain those can be for families who are struggling with the cost of living, and I welcome the Government’s efforts to limit the costs, but I urge the Minister to give a further assurance about the risks of the high costs of specific items. I encountered an egregious case in my constituency, in which a child from an extremely low-income background had been given a place at a school but was told that she could not attend unless she had the appropriate blazer, the cost of which was £100. I hope the Minister can give an indication that the guidance for schools will be strengthened in this regard.

I support robust measures to protect children from social media harms, including raising the age of digital consent and a ban on some social media apps for under-16s, and I support a statutory ban in schools.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I will not, because of the time limit.

However, there are important differences of opinion between stakeholders on the best ways in which to regulate young people’s access to smartphones and social media, so I consider it right for the Government to consult. I welcome the amendments that will allow legislation to be introduced without delay. It would be helpful if the Minister could give some assurances about the timescale for the introduction of legislation following the consultation, which I believe will be necessary.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I warmly welcome Government amendment 17B, which strengthens obligations to support sibling contact for children who are looked after. As the Minister knows, this is often the most important relationship that those children have. I pay tribute to the Family Rights Group and Become, as well as the campaigners she mentioned, for their important work in this area. The Education Committee recommended that the Government collect data on sibling separation in the care system in order to drive improvements in this area. As part of the implementation of amendment 17B, will the Minister commit to data collection, so that we can be certain that this measure is having the intended effect?

[Olivia Bailey]

I echo my hon. Friend’s congratulations to other campaigners, including Become. On her point about data collection, my the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who is sitting next to me, is happy to meet her to discuss the issue further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. We have had significant and interesting contributions from both sides of the House so far. I will speak in support of Lords amendments 38 and 106. As the hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby) just set out in a powerful speech, social media is too often toxic in its effect on children, and parents who want to act—again, exactly as he just pointed out—fear isolating their children from their friends who are all online. Teachers, who want to protect children, spend their days investigating claims of cyber-bullying instead of boosting learning, which is their job. Our children struggle to escape the clutches of algorithms that are designed to be addictive.

That is why I will vote for Lords amendment 38, to save children from that toxic world and give them their childhood back. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) said, it is a “fight for childhood”. That is a good slogan, because unlike most slogans it has some real heart and substance to it.

We need to support parents like John in Beverley, who tells me that his children feel constant pressure to be online and compare themselves endlessly with others. John is right. Those of us who are parents know that sometimes the kindest word we can say to a child is no—only to hear the inevitable response, “But Billy’s mum lets him do it.” It is not fair that parents like John, who are doing their best each day, face that battle alone.

Lords amendment 38 sets a clear boundary so that parents are not isolated in their decision making, and when John’s children ask why they cannot go on Instagram, he can say, “Sorry, but that is the law.” Since MPs seem to get blamed for pretty much everything else, if parents say, “It’s because Graham says you can’t; it’s not my fault,” I will take that. If as a result one child is happier and healthier, that is something we can all be pleased with.

Parents are not alone in saying that the relationship with technology is broken; teachers say it too. Hannah, a teacher from Hedon in my constituency, tells me that she deals with the consequences of online harms every single day and she fears the long-term impact on her pupils. Teachers such as Hannah are spending their time investigating what pupils have seen on Facebook or X, when, as I say, they should be teaching physics or art.

In too many schools, smartphones are everywhere. I never seek to be rude, and in particular not to the Minister, but she suggests that the problem is solved. The problem is not solved. Smartphones are everywhere in too many schools, meaning that students are scrolling, not learning, and staff are policing, not teaching. That is why I will also vote for amendment 106, which would require schools to ban smartphones during the school day. It means that governing bodies, headteachers and parents—whoever—have absolute clarity.

I did not really understand the Minister’s argument, suggesting that passing it into law would not have effect. If we pass a law to ban smartphones in schools, in primary legislation, I would be pretty confident that that would mean that schools would not have smartphones during the school day. She has probably been put up to it by her Secretary of State, who will not let her do the obvious and sensible thing, which is to listen to colleagues on all sides of the House. The hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales studiously stuck to the party line but none the less made an emotionally powerful argument for action now, albeit just managing to say, “Well, if you have to do your consultation, get on with it.”

The arguments from the Minister do not really stack up. This is not political point scoring—I hope it is not —but children are suffering every single day and month that this goes on. If we know that it is wrong, if we know that it is harmful, if we know that it is damaging children’s futures and their mental health—we have parents in the Public Gallery who have lost their children as a result of this stuff—how can we say that we are just being thorough when there are no clear questions that we need an answer to and no clear questions were set out?

[Helen Hayes]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stuart]

I will happily give way to the hon. Lady, who is an expert in this area.

[Helen Hayes]

I believe that there is a consensus across this House, both about the harms of social media and smartphones for our young people and about the urgent need for action. I have listened carefully to the contributions from Opposition Members but have heard no acknowledgment that, on some points of detail, there is genuine disagreement between different important stakeholders—including bereaved parents—on what exactly the solutions should look like. The Government’s consultation is affording the opportunity, for example, to the Education Committee to undertake some really detailed questioning of those important stakeholders who have differences of opinion. That will help the Government get to the right and effective approach. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge that difference of opinion and the importance of probing it?

[Graham Stuart]

Again, with no disrespect to the Minister, I think the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) has made a stronger case, but lacking in the specifics. It would be important to understand exactly what it is that the Government wish to find out. Then we could better understand why there would be a cause for delay. I have not been able to understand precisely what that is.

Let us take the issue of smartphones in schools. We have absolute denunciation from the Minister of the use of smartphones in schools, yet a kind of smokescreen has been thrown up that somehow passing into statute that smartphones cannot be in schools during the school day is somehow not the solution. If there is evidence to suggest that schools will disapply primary statute that says smartphones can never be used in schools during the school day, and that headteachers up and down the land will literally break the law, okay, let us hear it. That seems like nonsense to me. What case is there? What do we need to know about smartphones to not just put this in the Bill and, as soon as it becomes law, see every single school in the land ensure that there are no smartphones, with no argument? It is obvious, is it not? I will happily give away to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood again.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in giving way. I think he would find it helpful to listen to the Education Committee’s evidence session on Tuesday next week, which will afford two hours of questioning of experts and important stakeholders in the field. I believe that we will make a useful contribution to helping the Government get to the right and implementable solutions during the consultation process. I encourage him to tune in to that.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Chichester high school in my constituency has introduced Yondr pouches—I imagine there are many similar pouches. Children can take their phones to school, but then they have to put them in those lockable pouches. They do not have access to them throughout the day, and they can unlock the pouches when they leave school. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a potential solution, especially for children who need their phones for health reasons or who, for other reasons, need their devices to make sure they can be in school?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Member—and, indeed, with the Opposition Front Bencher, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott)—that the ban must be on the basis that phones are not in bags during the school day, but are removed from children while they are at school. The point I was making was really about children who need to have their phone with them. There will be some exceptions, and the question of how that is worked through in the guidance is important for protecting those children from the pressures that might come with being the only child in a classroom who has access to their phone. Drawing up a list of exceptions is more straightforward than deciding how those exceptions should be managed in a classroom environment, so I hope the Minister will be able to provide some assurance on that point.

I now turn to Lords amendment 38. Yesterday, in the first of two evidence sessions on screentime and social media that are designed to enable the Select Committee to contribute to the Government’s consultation, we heard from three companies: TikTok, Meta and Roblox. Next week, we will hear from Snapchat, which withdrew from yesterday’s session at very short notice, much to our disappointment. We also heard from academics undertaking research in this area.

It was absolutely clear from the evidence those three companies gave us that we cannot continue to rely on the companies whose platforms are causing the problem to regulate themselves out of it. I think that parents and carers across the country would have been incredulous had they listened to our evidence session yesterday. We heard Meta say that it did not believe that its apps were in any way addictive, when it has just lost a court case in the US on that precise point. We listened to TikTok say that it was horrified that children were coming to harm on its site, as if that was a rare exception, when a police investigation found that such harm is widespread. We heard Roblox express confidence that exploitation cannot happen on its site, when an independent expert recently said that the risks of children coming to harm on Roblox were so high that children should never be left unattended while using it.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I will not take any further interventions because of the time left, if that is okay.

The need for urgent action to take children off social media in their crucial formative years is clear, so I welcome the Government’s consultation, the measures in the Bill to enable a ban and other regulatory measures to be introduced via statutory instrument with no need for further primary legislation.

In our evidence session yesterday, we also heard from academics about some of the complexity that must be considered if we are get to get a ban and any further regulatory measures right. For example, we questioned Roblox. It is not a social media company, because the primary activity on its platform is gaming, and it appeals to very young children. On Roblox, children can contact each other via a trusted friends feature and they can create content, and we have heard examples of some very disturbing content. They can be absorbed on their screens for hours at a time, and we know that there have been examples of children being groomed and contacted by people who want to do them harm. Roblox is not included in the Australian ban, because it is not a social media site, but there should be at least some consideration of the extent to which social media harms also extend to some gaming platforms, and of how children can be protected from that.

One of our witnesses questioned whether, in the UK context, 16 is the right age threshold for a ban. In Australia, young people do not have major exams at 16, and there should be consideration about whether the exact time that our young people are preparing for their GCSEs is the right time to be diving into social media for the first time, or whether a slightly younger or older threshold would be better. Next week, we will hear from parents and parent-led organisations, including the Molly Rose Foundation and Esther Ghey, the mother of Brianna Ghey. It is important to note that these stakeholders have different views, and we will explore their disagreement and common ground through our questioning.

When—not if—we regulate to remove the pernicious influence of social media from children’s lives, it is vital that our regulation is effective, and I am frustrated by Opposition Members’ lack of acknowledgement of that complexity and the importance of not only acting, but getting it right.

Finally, will the Minister set out a clear timescale for regulation under statutory instruments, so that parents can be assured that there is an end point to the debate on this issue and that action—the right and effective action that we need to keep our children safe—is coming?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have a very personal interest in this: I have five grandchildren, ranging in age from 15 to nine, and there are another five Ukrainian children in roughly the same age group living with my family. I want to see all of those young people protected. I understand peer pressure only too well. I understand that if one child has a smartphone, every child has to have a smartphone, or they feel left out. However, I know from all the surveys that have been carried out that the overwhelming majority of young people are crying out for guidelines, and for the ban that will make them all feel the same, and not feel excluded.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) said, we have the opportunity in the House of Commons, through this vehicle that is available to us, to take action this day, not in three months’ time, six months’ time or two years’ time. If we do not take this opportunity, a generation of young people will suffer, and we will be responsible. There is no need for that to happen.

Geriatric though I may be, I understand the difference in definition between a smartphone and a brick phone. It is perfectly possible for any child who has to have a phone to have a brick phone, at very modest cost, so that they can communicate on medically essential matters, or if there are caring issues. That is not a problem. We are not talking about brick phones; we are talking about smartphones.

[Helen Hayes]

I hesitate to intervene, but I think the right hon. Member perhaps has not understood that children with a modern hearing aid, for example, use an application on a smartphone, which cannot be put on to a brick phone. That necessitates having a smartphone in the classroom.

[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!