Care Leavers

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today marks the first sitting day of National Care Leavers Month, and what a way to begin. I am grateful for the opportunity to come to the Chamber and talk about the challenges facing young people once they have left children’s social care, and I very much hope that this month Members from across the House can join together in the spirit of raising awareness of these challenges and working together to bring forward solutions. I welcome the fact that the Minister was the chair and author of the independent review into children’s social care over three years ago. I know that he feels deeply about this area and I am sure he will bring a wealth of experience to his role on the Front Bench.

The theme of National Care Leavers Month 2025 is “Rising as Me: Overcoming challenges, transforming, and finding your identity”. The ages of 16 to 25 are a formative time in the lives of many young people, and care leavers should have the same opportunities to enjoy and explore this period; instead, many face a cliff edge of support and services.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Care leavers need support; they need the state to deliver for them when family is sometimes not there in the way that it is for many young people. Does she agree with me and my Select Committee that we need to iron out the differences in support for care leavers across the country and that we should have a national offer for care leavers so that they can rely on support wherever they are in the country?

[Sally Jameson]

I completely agree. As we move through this debate today, I think a theme that will shine through is the need to get rid of what is often a postcode lottery for care leavers.

I want to recognise some of the good work that the Government have already done in this area. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill marks an important step forward in ensuring that support for care leavers endures beyond the age of 18. I welcome the requirement for local authorities to publish a full care offer for care leavers, which will offer clarity and direction. I know that there is already some good practice from my own council in Doncaster, with comprehensive offers of support, including the Staying Put and Staying Close initiatives.

Children’s Social Care

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Education Committee, Children’s social care, HC 430, and the Government response, HC 1350.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the Liaison Committee for granting time for this debate on the Education Committee’s report on children’s social care and the Government’s response. I am particularly pleased that the debate is taking place on the eve of Care Leavers Month, a time of more intensive focus on children’s social care and the support provided to care leavers.

The inquiry was launched by our predecessor Committee in December 2023 to take a comprehensive look at the children’s social care system as a whole. It was interrupted by the general election, but the new Committee decided that the work was too important to drop, and agreed to progress the inquiry to a conclusion. In total, the Committee held eight oral evidence sessions. We heard from a range of experts across the sector, and I am particularly pleased that we held an oral evidence session with four care-experienced young people, who spoke powerfully of their experiences of children’s social care and their hopes for reform.

Children’s social care comprises a set of vital services that support some of our most vulnerable children. Those services include early help and support for families, safeguarding, the care of looked-after children, support for disabled children, and a range of other services. They encompass some of the gravest responsibilities of the state, yet we know that they are under intense pressure.

The erosion of funding, combined with increasing need, has resulted in a situation in which many services are struggling to deliver in a way that is genuinely child-centred. All too often, looked-after children are placed far from home. The outcomes for care-experienced young people are shockingly poor. In 2022, the current Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who was responsible at the time for the independent review of children’s social care commissioned by the previous Government, said that the system was in need of a total reset.

Although the situation is very serious, that is in no way to deny the extraordinarily hard work and commitment we see among those who work to support children in the care system, and I pay tribute to them at the start of the debate. Social workers, support workers, advocates, foster carers, kinship carers and many others step in to support the most vulnerable children and to try to deliver a secure and solid foundation for their childhood.

However, our inquiry found that many of the problems highlighted by the independent review of children’s social care persist and, in a significant number of cases, have worsened since the review. Witnesses criticised the piecemeal approach to reform, which has focused on new short-term initiatives in a small number of areas, rather than comprehensive change.

There has been a rising need for children’s social care over the past decade. The number of looked-after children has risen by over 20% in the past 10 years, standing at 83,630 in 2024. Over the same period, the rate of looked- after children has increased from 60 to 70 per 10,000 children in the population. The number of section 47 inquiries per year in response to child protection concerns has risen by 57% over the past decade.

That rising need has been in direct correlation to the erosion of funding for early help and support services, such as Sure Start, which played such a critical role in preventing families from reaching crisis point. That is leading to a severe shortage of placements for children in care. In 2024, 45% of looked-after children were placed outside their local authority, and 22% were placed over 20 miles from home. The inquiry heard distressing accounts from care-experienced young people who had been placed far from home. One young person had experienced racism for the first time when she was placed in an area with a very different demographic from her home area. Another had had to get up at 4 am and take long-distance trains to school while on a respite placement because her foster family were on holiday. Another had chosen not to pursue higher education, having experienced such frequent moves during her time in care.

There is an acute shortage of foster care placements. The need for 6,500 new foster carers in England has left local authorities over-reliant on expensive private children’s home providers, despite evidence of disgraceful profiteering in parts of the sector. We found that some local authorities do much better than others at keeping their looked-after children close to home and avoiding the spot purchasing of expensive and often poor-quality private residential places. Our report recommended that the Department publish a national sufficiency strategy for children’s social care and require all local authorities to develop and publish strategies for reducing the number of out-of-area placements.

The Department’s response states:

“While we do not believe a national sufficiency strategy would be responsive enough to children’s needs at a local level, we are working closely with the two RCC”

—regional care co-operative—

“pathfinder areas and supporting improved placement commissioning and forecasting”.

I would like to press the Minister on that. The purpose of a national sufficiency strategy would be to give the Government additional leverage in ironing out the significant variation in practice between local authorities. Local authorities should be adopting best practice on the provision of care placements. We know that some do that really well and therefore have very few children who are not in the borough. Without a national strategy, however, it is hard to see how the Government can grip the extent of the variation.

In response to the severe shortage of foster carers, we recommended that the Department put in place a national fostering strategy and consult on introducing a national register of foster carers. The Department’s response states that it is

“considering the potential costs and benefits of a national register of foster carers”,

but it does not commit to a national strategy.

For many years now, the only method of foster carer recruitment has been advertising, but that is simply not delivering. The conversion rate is shocking: only 6% of people who express an interest in fostering put in an application to do so, and only 32% of applications are eventually approved. That tells us that we need a more comprehensive approach that seeks not only to drum up interest but to seek proactively to address some of the barriers to fostering, particularly those in relation to housing, and to deliver better support and respite arrangements for foster carers.

The inquiry heard about the crucial role played by kinship carers, who step in to look after a child within their network of family or friends when the child’s biological parents are unable to do so. We heard from a young person who described kinship care as

“a loving, caring, beautiful environment where I felt nurtured and valued”.

Kinship care is often the best arrangement for children whose parents cannot look after them, as it helps them to maintain secure attachments within their family. However, the Committee also heard about the financial struggles faced by kinship carers, including the fact that 67% of children in kinship care live in a deprived household. Kinship carers act out of love, but they should not be forced into poverty for doing so. Our report recommended that the new allowance for kinship carers should be on a par with the allowance for foster carers, and that entitlements to kinship leave should be included in the Government’s review of the parental leave system.

The Department’s response states that the parental leave review will look at support for kinship carers, but it does not commit to setting the kinship allowance at the same level as support for foster carers. I press the Minister to look carefully at that. There are much higher costs, both to children and to the public purse, when a kinship arrangement breaks down and a local authority has to fund a foster placement or a children’s home placement for a child. Kinship carers are the unsung heroes of children’s social care, and they need to be properly supported.

Our report concluded:

“It is unacceptable that the continuation of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund was not announced until 1 April 2025, leaving families and children uncertain about the future of their support.”

We recommended that the Department end the annual cliff edge of uncertainty faced by adoptive families and make funding for the adoption and special guardianship support fund permanent. We also expressed our concern about the decision to limit the funding per child within the ASGSF and recommended that the Government keep a very close watch on the impact of that decision and reinstate the previous level of funding rapidly if there are significant adverse effects. The Department’s response confirmed that funding for the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been committed for 2026-27, but it did not commit to making the fund permanent.

Our inquiry heard that outcomes for care-experienced young people are far worse on many measures than for their non-care-experienced peers. That is a shocking indication of the failures of the children’s social care system. Some 39% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training, compared with 13% of all young people aged 19 to 21. Only 15% of care leavers go to university by the age of 19, compared with 46% of children who have not been in care. Approximately one in four—perhaps more—of the adult prison population has been in care, and between 30% and 50% of homeless people are estimated to have spent time in care.

Our inquiry heard about the financial difficulties faced by young people on leaving care. One young person, Jake Hartley, had to use food banks and borrow money to pay bills after turning 18. Louise Fitt told us that she had to drop A-levels after turning 18 due to the need to work and support herself financially. She said:

“I always wanted an education, but I had to sacrifice that because I have to eat, I have to have a roof over my head; that is so important. We should not have to choose between that. We should be allowed to study if we want to… It is not nice being left on your own at 18 to go into the adult world and to figure it out.”

The report recommended that the Department for Education develop a national care offer to harmonise support for care leavers across the country. In response, the Department stated that it had launched a new website

“which brings together all relevant information in an easily accessible format.”

I want to press the Minister on that point. Care leavers should not face a postcode lottery for support. There is simply no justification for that. A website with information about the inconsistent support available in different areas is not the same as a national care offer. My Committee is clear that the Government should commit to a national offer to ensure that no care-experienced young person falls through the cracks and that care-experienced young people can feel confident to move, go to university or take up employment without feeling that their aspirations are constrained by worries about whether they will be supported.

Our report also expressed concerns about the Government’s proposal to reduce support through universal credit for those aged under 22 who are care experienced, and recommended that care leavers be exempted. In its response, the Department said that

“no decisions have been made yet”

and that it would

“consider consultation feedback before implementing any changes.”

As the Government prepare to consider welfare reforms, I urge the Minister to make the strongest representations to his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury on this issue. It would make a huge difference.

We are concerned by the Government’s refusal to commit to a number of our recommendations. We recommended that the Department implement the recommendation of the independent review of children’s social care to develop universal standards of care that apply to all children’s homes, including supported accommodation, ensuring that children in all settings receive care where they live. In its response, the Department stated:

“Rather than prioritising development of a single universal set of standards, we are focusing on options for updating some of the most out-dated National Minimum Standards to ensure they reflect the latest ambitious goals we have for children and to bring them into better alignment with more recently developed standards.”

I urge the Minister to look again at that recommendation, which would represent greater ambition for the quality of accommodation and support that children receive.

The Committee recommended that the Department introduce national eligibility criteria for disabled children’s social care. The Department responded that it was waiting for the Law Commission’s recommendations on disabled children’s social care and would “set out any plans for reform in due course.”

Whatever the outcome of the Law Commission’s work, it is vital that the postcode lottery currently experienced by families with a disabled child is addressed.

We recommended that the Department take forward the recommendation of the independent review of children’s social care to introduce an opt-out model of independent advocacy for all children in care. In its response, the Department said that it would

“introduce new National Standards for Advocacy for Children and Young People and revised statutory guidance on Providing Effective Advocacy for Children and Young People Making a Complaint under the Children Act 1989 in 2025.”

I know that this topic is very close to the Minister’s heart. I urge him to go further than the response indicates and look at how access to independent advocacy can be maximised for all children in care.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to family group decision making in relation to children on the edge of the care system, but we recommended that the Department clarify the specific model of family group decision making in statutory guidance to ensure that best practice is followed in all local authorities. In response, the Department said:

“It is a local authority’s decision on which model of FGDM will best serve the families they support after considering the evidence.”

I urge the Minister to look again at producing guidance for local authorities. Family group decision making is a very effective tool for driving better outcomes for children, but only if it is properly understood and rigorously implemented. There are risks in an approach that does not guarantee the quality of this work.

Finally, the Committee recommended that the Department put in place a strategy for supporting children and young people at risk of extra-familial harm. The Department emphasised that it had strengthened the multi-agency response to extra-familial harm through updated statutory guidance. I encourage the Minister to pay further attention to this work. Extra-familial harm is a growing cause of children entering the care system, particularly as teenagers, and our evidence points to systems that are not joined up and are often ill-equipped to protect children from threats outside the home. Indeed, our evidence says that removing a child from their home can harm them further, rather than protecting them from the threats they are experiencing that do not come from within their family network.

By intervening in the lives of children and families through children’s social care, the state exercises some of its gravest responsibilities. The stakes are very high and the consequences of failure can be catastrophic, but there are also huge rewards if we get things right. More families would be able to thrive together, and more children would be able to overcome adverse childhood experiences and thrive in education. Disabled children would be able to access education and opportunities on an equal footing with their peers.

Even more importantly, the effectiveness of this work is fundamental if the Government are to meet some of their other challenges. If the Government are serious about tackling homelessness, or about tackling the intense crisis in the criminal justice system, they must also be serious about the outcomes for children in the care system. This work is of the utmost importance and my Committee supports the Government in their mission to break down the barriers to opportunity and to create a country in which every child can thrive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

On the work on extra-familial harms, what engagement is the Minister having with colleagues in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government? That very much reflects my perspective as a constituency MP and the heartbreaking cases I have seen in my constituency, where a family needed to move due to an extra-familial harm to a child. The social housing system is unable at the moment to protect the family’s tenancy rights. What happens is that families then move into temporary accommodation, and the whole stability of their life unravels as a consequence. In the previous Parliament, I put forward a proposal under the name Georgia’s law, which was named for one of my constituents who experienced exactly that, with utterly tragic consequences for her family. I wonder whether the Minister might pick that up with colleagues cross-departmentally.

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising what sounds like the very important idea for Georgia’s law. I would be really delighted to hear more from her about that. If there are aspects that I can take forward with Ministers in other Departments, I will do so.

Regarding information sharing, we are making big changes to set the expectations in different systems, so that they can confidently share information. We have a single unique identifier that enables that to happen. Those pilots are under way at the moment, and the Bill will allow for that.

We want to see support for care leavers that is consistent and strong. The Bill includes national Staying Close support, and we will set out soon more details about what that support should include and the expectations across the country for it. It will help care leavers to live independently, but I stress that one of the changes that I would like us to see as a Government is a shift away from always talking about getting care leavers to the point of independence, because what they actually need from the care system is not independence, but inter- dependence, connection, a sense of belonging and love. That should be the driving purpose of both care and the leaving care system. Many of the things we are trying to provide through a state function are much more naturally provided through organic family networks.

Specifically on the question about the Government’s recent announcement of support for higher education, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase, we will guarantee the maximum maintenance support for care leavers going to university, without a means test. That change, announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education at the Dispatch Box last week, has been widely welcomed.

Ofsted inspections will, and have already started to, provide a dedicated grade looking at the experience of care leavers, which means that there will be a focus on that.

On the question of the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase and the Front-Bench spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset, I am attracted to my hon. Friend’s idea about wider support. There are options for wider support. I met adopters and adoption support staff myself in recent weeks, and especially during National Adoption Week, and there are a number of options. I want to bring forward a longer-term plan for the ASGSF, to provide confidence and certainty, and I want to continue speaking to Members of this House, but also to members of the adoption community and to special guardians, who are part of that community. We will come back with more detail on that issue, but I recognise the importance of what it provides.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I thank all hon. Members for contributing to this debate on a Thursday afternoon. For the benefit of anybody watching these proceedings externally, I should say that Thursday afternoons are a challenging time for hon. Members, when many of them have constituency commitments. The debate has therefore been characterised by the quality of the contributions, but not necessarily their quantity. It has been consensual and constructive, and it is important that we have brought the issues affecting some of the most vulnerable children in our country to the attention of the House.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for sharing his experience of pursuing, at a local level, making care experience a protected characteristic. Important work is going on in many local authorities on that theme, and I look forward to undertaking further work in the Education Committee to look at the evidence coming from local authorities that have implemented that approach of the benefits that it brings. I too pay tribute to Terry Galloway for all of his campaigning work in that area.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), and pay tribute to him for the contribution he makes to the Education Committee. We are lucky to benefit from his experience of senior leadership in his local authority and his lived experience—they are valuable for the work of the Committee. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who also spoke powerfully based on his lived experience, and we have benefited from him bringing it to the debate.

Finally, I thank the Minister for his response. The Select Committee is pleased to see him in his place, with the depth of experience and commitment that he brings to this area of policy. We look forward to continuing to scrutinise work on it and to seeing some of the announcements he made bear fruit in the lives of children and young people across the country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Education Committee, Children’s social care, HC 430, and the Government response, HC 1350.

International Baccalaureate: Funding in State Schools

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing this important debate.

Post-16 education is a vital stage of a young person’s life. Whether they are following an academic, vocational or technical pathway, it is the stage at which they can focus more on the subjects they love, exercise greater choice over their learning, and begin to think more about where they want their education to take them, whether into further or higher education or employment. It is also a stage at which wider enrichment is vital, helping young people to develop broader transferable skills, find their talents, grow in confidence and expand into their growing freedom and independence.

However, funding for 16-to-19 education in schools and colleges has been significantly cut in real terms. Per-pupil funding had fallen by approximately 11% for colleges and 23% for school sixth form by 2024-25, compared with 2010-11 levels. That decline is the largest in any part of the education sector from nought to 19, and it has not been fully addressed, even with recent increases in funding. That has left many schools and colleges working hard to deliver a broad and enriched education for their 16 to 19-year-old students in the context of severe resource limitations.

There is no doubt that the international baccalaureate is a welcome development in 16-to-19 education. Its programme of study allows students to maintain a broader base, studying six subjects compared with the three of four that are typical for students taking A-levels. The IB also has a focus on broader skills and on creativity, as well as a more diverse range of assessment methods. It has many features that should be common to all post-16 education. But the IB is taught in just 20 of the 2,132 schools and colleges in the state sector that offer 16-to-19 education—less than 1% of those institutions—and in less than 10% of independent schools.

The Government’s decision to redeploy funding from the large programme uplift for the IB must be seen in the context of the broader challenges they face. Given the education funding landscape they inherited, how can they deliver an excellent education for every 16 to 19-year-old student across academic, vocational and technical pathways?

[Caroline Voaden]

The hon. Member talks about redeploying funding so that it can be spread across the landscape to improve 16-to-19 education, but we are talking about 0.004% of the education budget. Does she think that the tiny amount of funding that goes into the IB would make any difference at all if it were spread across the entire education landscape?

[Helen Hayes]

I think the Government are right to focus on how to improve education for every young person. If the hon. Member will bear with me, I will come on to some wider points about the importance of the IB, and the features of the IB that should be applicable more widely across the education sector. We need to be clear that we are talking about 1% of schools across the country, and that the other 99% of schools and colleges have many deep challenges. The Government are right to turn their attention to them as well.

How can the Government ensure that every young person has opportunities for enrichment and opportunities to develop broad transferable skills? Given the shockingly high figure of one in eight young people who are not in education, employment or training, how can the Government ensure that post-16 education is engaging, inspiring and exciting for all young people?

Where I take issue with the Government is in relation to the lack of consultation underpinning their decision to redeploy funding within the large programme uplift.

[Freddie van Mierlo]

In so many policy areas, the Government seem to be unable to break wind without consulting for 18 months. Does the hon. Lady agree that they should reverse their decision and hold a consultation before proceeding?

[Helen Hayes]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will elaborate on consultation and engagement in a moment, but I encourage Liberal Democrat Members to reflect on the role that their own Government played in the shockingly deep cuts to 16-to-19 education across the board from 2010, and the implications of those decisions in what the current Government are now trying to tackle.

Engagement with schools and colleges on the decision would have been helpful. Given the Government’s objectives for the economy, I understand the focus on STEM subjects and pupils taking four or more A-levels, but STEM subjects are not the only ones with a higher cost base to deliver. Some creative subjects with direct links to employment in the creative industries also carry higher costs, which can exclude students from lower-income backgrounds.

In the context of the Government’s objective of ensuring parity of esteem between vocational and technical routes and academic ones, it is possible to imagine how the redeployment of the large programme uplift could have helped to increase quality in vocational and technical courses. Evidence of consideration of a range of options and an understanding of the views of those working in the sector would have been helpful in the context of the decision.

The Government’s ambitious programme of education reform will have significant implications for post-16 education. The curriculum and assessment review, the post-16 White Paper, the introduction of V-levels, the youth guarantee and technical excellence colleges will all have potentially profound and positive implications for the opportunities available to young people and the quality of the education they receive.

[Caroline Voaden]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I am not going to take any further interventions.

The international baccalaureate is an important part of the landscape, and I am pleased that the Government have confirmed that all schools can continue to offer it if they wish, but the bigger challenge for the Government is to ensure that there is excellence and enrichment across the board for post-16 education, which is a challenged part of our education landscape. Every young person should be able to benefit from an engaging, inspiring and exciting course of study, whether they are on an academic, vocational or technical route and wherever they live in the country, and every school and college should have the resources it needs to deliver.

Holidays During School Term Time

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I start by recognising the strength of feeling on term-time absences from school, particularly among the almost 182,000 people who signed the petition. Family life is precious, and there are so many pressures bearing down on families that serve to make time spent together relaxing and enjoying one another’s company all the more important. Going away on holiday; major family celebrations; religious holidays not currently reflected in our school calendar; caring responsibilities; parental separation—a whole range of circumstances can seem like more important priorities than being in school every single day of the school year, but I will set out three reasons why I do not agree that 10 days of permitted absence a year is the right way to address these concerns.

First, and most importantly, all the evidence indicates that it is in children’s best interests to be in school with their peers as much as they possibly can. The link between attendance at school and attainment is strong: the Government’s data shows that key stage 2 pupils in year 6 who attended almost every day were 1.3 times more likely to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with pupils who attended 90% to 95% of the time. Missing 10 days of school a year reduced the likelihood of achieving the expected standard by 25%.

For key stage 4 pupils in year 11, the situation is even starker. Missing 10 days of school reduces the chance of gaining a grade 5 in English or maths by 50%. That is because education builds from the foundations of a subject upwards. Missing days of education results in gaps in knowledge and understanding, which can affect a child’s ability to grasp future concepts properly, meaning that they never fully catch up.

Secondly, a major concern of many petitioners is the excessive cost of holidays outside term time. Holidays are really important, and families should be able to go away. It is absolutely wrong for travel companies to exploit the constraints of families with children of school age by hiking up their prices during the school holidays. The practice is simply unfair—but the solution to the unfair pricing policies of travel companies is not to allow parents to remove their children from school to be able to afford a holiday; it is for travel companies to do the right thing and even out their pricing over the year, so that parents of school-age children are not penalised for doing the right thing and keeping their children in school.

Thirdly, I am concerned about the impact of a change in policy to allow authorised absence for some parents on the attendance of the most vulnerable pupils. We have an attendance crisis in our schools at present; more than 22% of children severely or persistently absent from school. My Committee has been doing some work on school attendance, and we know that persistent and severe absence is a complex problem with a number of contributory factors, including poverty, an increased level of social, emotional and mental health need following the covid-19 pandemic, and the crisis in the SEND system.

School leaders tell us that the pandemic broke the social contract between schools and parents, and that it has often been difficult to repair it. Introducing an entitlement to authorised absence would send entirely the wrong message to families at a time when the whole system should be pulling together to restore trust and confidence and to support children who are struggling to be in school to thrive.

For the most vulnerable children, school is a protective factor. It is where they can get a hot meal—thanks to this Government, they are able to get both a healthy and nutritious breakfast and a hot lunch—can forge positive relationships with trusted adults and can access not only education, but a wider range of enriching extracurricular activities. If we say it is fine for the children of parents who can afford a holiday to skip school for 10 days, what message are we sending about the importance of being in school to the families who may never have the opportunity to go on holiday, but who often encounter significant obstacles in getting their children to school, for a wide range of reasons?

The current challenges of severe and persistent absence demand multiple solutions. Schools must continue to rebuild relationships of trust with parents. The Government’s reforms to SEND and to the curriculum and assessment framework must ensure that school is an exciting, inspiring and engaging place for all children and young people. The child poverty strategy must remove the barriers to school attendance for the poorest pupils.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member’s argument, but does she agree that slapping on fines will make the relationship between parents and schools more adversarial, creating more problems than it tries to solve?

[Helen Hayes]

I have not mentioned fines, but I agree that fining parents is a very flawed area of policy. I do not want to say it is always entirely the wrong thing to do, but fines are not a particularly effective mechanism for discouraging parents from removing their children from school for a holiday. The cost of a fine is almost always cheaper than the additional costs of a holiday outside term time. That is why I said that the solution to the imbalance in costs across term time is not to enable and authorise that absence, but to deal with the exploitative policies of travel companies. Fines, undoubtedly, are an imperfect mechanism.

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

My hon. Friend will recall that we in the Education Committee held an evidence session in July about school attendance. One of the witnesses stated that fines are

“simultaneously too harsh and too soft”;

too harsh, because they damage the relationship between parents and schools, but too soft to move the dial substantially on school attendance. Although, as a former teacher, I agree with the main thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument, does she have any further reflection on the need to look at the fines system again, to replace it or to come up with something more effective?

[Helen Hayes]

Fundamentally, we are talking about relationships in this debate, particularly between schools and parents. The best way to build strong relationships is not through punitive measures. We need to properly resource schools, through the wider policy work of Government, to rebuild the relationships that were so damaged by the pandemic, and to make progress in this area.

Finally, I come back to where I started. Family time matters, and family holidays are important periods of fun and restoration. I call on the Government to do more—to work with the travel industry to stop the exploitation of families with school-age children through unfair price hikes, perhaps by introducing a new family-friendly charter mark for companies that even out their pricing throughout the year—and to continue to ease the cost of living pressures that far too many families face, so that every child can thrive both in school and at play.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

My Committee’s recent inquiry on SEND found that, although support from health services is critical in enabling many children with special educational needs and disabilities to access education, health is often not represented at the table and there are no effective mechanisms to hold health services to account for the vital role that they play. What engagement does my hon. Friend the Minister have with her Department for Health and Social Care counterparts to ensure that health services play their full part in supporting and enabling children’s education?

[Georgia Gould]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her leadership of the incredibly detailed Education Committee report, which I read with interest. I know how much expertise went into that, and how many conversations there were with parents; there is so much rich information in it. I agree that the partnership with health is essential, and that is something I am focused on. To give children and young people the best opportunities, we must work across Government to support young people with special educational needs.

Educational Assessment System Reform

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Dean]

I could not agree more with the point my hon. Friend makes. I held a number of roundtables with parents and carers in my constituency over the summer as well. We were discussing the SEN challenges we face in Hertfordshire. At every session I held, parents and carers talked about the inflexibility of the system. Getting the reforms right to ensure that the system provides that flexibility and caters for all students could not be more important.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that, because everything we have talked about so far disproportionately impacts the most disadvantaged. Schools in the most deprived areas spend more time preparing for SATs; 76% of children with SEND do not reach the expected standards at the end of year 6, which rises to 91% of pupils with an education, health and care plan. Students with a history of poor mental health are at particular risk, which is even more acute for care-experienced young people, given the prevalence of mental health conditions in that group. Young people deserve a fairer, more balanced approach to assessment, where wellbeing and academic success are not at odds with one another.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and on his speech. Does he agree that it is an unacceptable feature of our education system that around a third of young people leave school without a recognised qualification, a grade 4 in English or maths? For many of those young people, the way that the system treats resits traps them in a cycle of demoralising continuous failure, just at the point when they should be discovering their passion—the thing they are good at—and should be preparing to get new qualifications and succeed in life? Does he agree that we need urgent work to stop that cycle of failure both upstream in schools and in post-16 education?

Children with SEND: Assessments and Support

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank everybody across the country who signed this important petition, and the Petitions Committee for granting time for the debate. It is no surprise that the petition attracted such interest. Across the country, children and their families are being failed by a SEND system that the previous Conservative Education Secretary described as “lose, lose, lose”. For too many children and their parents and carers, the system is slow, adversarial and fundamentally failing to meet children’s needs.

The Education Committee, which I chair, chose to focus its first full inquiry of this Parliament on solving the SEND crisis, because it is the single biggest challenge in the education system, from the early years all the way through to further and higher education. Many Members from both sides of the House heard directly from their constituents during the general election campaign, and subsequently—over and again—about the impact that the failing system has on their daily lives.

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

Four-year-old Maeve lives in my constituency and has cerebral palsy. She requires constant care, is unable to walk, has limited speech and has multiple ongoing medical conditions that require attention. Despite that, and despite the fact that her parents applied to Surrey county council almost a year ago, the council has refused to even assess her for an EHCP. She started last week, but still does not have an agreed plan in place. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must improve funding, tackle waiting lists and boost specialist care so that SEND families get the support that they need?

[Helen Hayes]

My speech will turn to some of the points that the hon. Member raised. I will not give way to further interventions, because many Members want to speak and it would eat into their time.

The Committee spent eight months examining evidence and hearing in person from a wide range of witnesses, including children and young people with SEND. I put on record my thanks to every person who took the time to submit evidence or who gave evidence to us in person. We also travelled to Ontario in Canada and within the UK to look at examples of good practice. We will publish our report later this week, so I cannot speak about its content today, but I am very much looking forward to sharing it with everybody.

I began the inquiry with only a sense of the overwhelming difficulty of the challenge, but at the end of it I am convinced that meaningful reform of the SEND system is possible and deliverable.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I will not give way again because of the time constraints.

I will point to a few of the big themes that came through in our evidence, to which our report will speak. There are major problems with accountability in the SEND system. Accountability is overwhelmingly loaded on to the statutory part of the system, which means that if ordinarily available provision is not there or goes wrong, there is no recourse for parents. That problem needs to be fixed.

There is a problem with how we equip teachers. There are children with SEND in every single school, in every classroom, up and down the country, but we do not routinely equip teachers to teach the children who are in front of them. The funding system is broken. There are problems about place planning, both in the inclusivity of mainstream schools and for specialist schools within the state sector.

Most importantly, the trust and confidence of parents in the system is utterly broken. In seeking to solve the crisis, the Government must turn their attention to the ways in which that trust and confidence can be rebuilt, so that children across the country who deserve far better than they get at the moment can access the education to which they are entitled.

Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing this important debate.

The introduction of the adoption and special guardianship support fund as part of the Children and Families Act 2014 marked an important recognition of our understanding of the impact of early childhood trauma and the increasing complexity of need of children in the care system. It is a vital acknowledgment of the reality that the impact of early childhood trauma does not always end with the stability of a loving adoptive home.

The fund also provides vital support to children in kinship care with a special guardianship order and to other children who have previously been looked after—for example, where family reunification has taken place. The fund has provided support to 54,000 children who have been able to access diagnosis and therapeutic support, and it is a vital source of support for families who are struggling as a consequence of early childhood trauma. It has been a lifeline.

However, the fund has never been established on a long-term footing, and that has left families in a state of continual anxiety about whether the support they rely on will continue. I know that the Minister is aware of this, but the delay in announcing the continuation of the fund until the day after it had expired, despite many weeks of requests for clarity, caused unnecessary fear and anxiety for many families. I hope that she and her colleagues are reflecting on how cross-Government decision making can be done in a more compassionate and child-centred way in the future.

My Committee recently published a report on children’s social care, for which we heard the concerns of parents and voluntary sector organisations about the decision this financial year to reduce the fair access limit for therapy from £5,000 to £3,000 per child. I understand that the Government have concerns in the sense that some of the services being paid for by the fund should be provided by the NHS. Will the Minister set out her assessment of the level of need, including the level per child, that the fund is seeking to meet? What work is she doing with the Department of Health and Social Care to improve access to mental health services via the NHS for looked-after children and previously looked-after children, including adopted children and those in kinship care?

My Committee recommended that the Government undertake urgent engagement with families on the impact of the reduction in the fair access limit and, if evidence of negative impacts is found, that urgent steps be taken to restore the level of funding per child, so what assessment is the Minister undertaking of the impact of the changes, and what engagement is under way with families?

Early Education and Childcare

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 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 welcome the Minister’s statement: the expansion of funded childcare hours this week; the future expansion of school-based nurseries; and confirmation of a further three years of funding for the holiday activities and food programme.

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

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

[Stephen Morgan]

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

Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Giving every child the best possible start in life should be a driving mission of every Government. Investment in the early years and in a high-quality education for every child delivers among the highest returns of any area of public spending; they are literally building the foundations of a child’s life. Governments who get policy right in these areas reap benefits in health and wellbeing, in economic growth and in lower crisis-related costs.

The previous Labour Government made huge strides in this area. The longitudinal studies now confirm that children who lived close to a Sure Start centre did better in their GCSEs, and that hospitalisation of children was reduced and so was the need for specialist support in education. But a year ago this Government inherited the legacy of a previous Government who had not prioritised the needs of children for 14 years. Sure Start had been largely dismantled and school and further education budgets cut, early years funding had not kept pace with inflation, key services like health visiting and midwifery were scaled back, and SEND provision and CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—were stretched to breaking point, with increasing numbers of children in the care system, who are all too often being failed.

Our children have been buffeted by the multiple blows of austerity, Brexit, the covid-19 pandemic and the Liz Truss mini-Budget bearing down on public services that support children, young people and their families, resulting in more of childhood being left to chance, with existing disadvantages and barriers to opportunity remaining in place and being allowed to perpetuate.

The Education Committee recently published our report on children’s social care. Children’s social care is a good place to start thinking about this Government’s opportunity mission, because it is where some of the most egregious barriers can be found—for the children whose families need the most support, those whose lives are scarred by abuse or neglect, and those for whom the state has both the gravest responsibility and a huge opportunity to make a difference.

The independent review of children’s social care commissioned by the previous Government described the system they presided over as in need of a “total reset”. Spending on early help and support services—the preventive, nurturing support delivered by Sure Start centres, health visitors, community nurses and early years practitioners—has plummeted, while spending on crisis interventions, including out-of-area residential placements often at great cost, have spiralled.

The number of children entering the care system has been rising, and perhaps most telling of all is that the outcomes for care-experienced people are absolutely dire. This failure is so significant that, if the Government are serious about tackling homelessness and about tackling the crisis in the criminal justice system, they must turn their attention to the plight of care-experienced people, who are so vastly over-represented in both those populations. They are far less likely to be in education, employment or training than their peers, and far more likely to have poor mental health.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Before coming to the Chamber, I attended a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on care-experienced children and young people, where I learned that, in the 2023-24, over 15,000 children in care moved home, which is 34%, and nearly 5,500 in care moved school, which is 12%. Does the hon. Member agree with me that, as part of the Government’s strategy, we need to support children in care and minimise the disruption to their lives that we can control?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member very much for his intervention, and our report, which we published last week, says exactly that. We have a system of children’s social care that is under so much pressure that it all too often fails to put children at the centre of the services that are supposed to be delivered to give them more stability and security in life, and many things about that system urgently need to change.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to invest in Best Start family hubs, providing better early help and support services in more areas of the country. We need investment that can tip the balance over time from crisis spending to spending on more preventive services that can deliver genuinely good outcomes for children. Our Committee’s report, which I was proud to launch last week, points to some of the further steps that are needed, including creating a national offer for care leavers, improving mental health support for looked-after children and addressing the practical barriers, such as housing, that currently prevent the effective recruitment of foster carers.

On early years, the Government inherited the previous Administration’s commitment to expand funded hours of childcare, predominantly for working parents. This is a very challenging commitment to deliver. We know that quality early years education has the most potential to break down barriers to opportunity, yet the previous Government’s approach was designed to deliver more hours of care, without any specific focus on quality. The early years sector is fragile and fragmented, and providers continue to close. The expansion of school-based nurseries is a very welcome first step, but there is undoubtedly a tension between a funding system designed to support working parents and the early years sector’s ability to reduce the impacts of disadvantage for the poorest children. The Government must address this tension in the forthcoming child poverty strategy.

Our Committee’s second big inquiry is on the system of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The SEND system is the single biggest crisis in the whole of the education system, routinely letting down children and families, putting professionals working with children in an impossible position, and driving more than half of local education authorities to the edge of bankruptcy. Children with SEND should be able to thrive in education, and education should equip them well for the next stage of life, yet for far too many children, the failure of the SEND system results in absence from school, poor mental health and low attainment.

There have been many rumours about what the Government may do to reform the SEND system, and I must say that these rumours are really unhelpful and traumatising for families who already have far too much to contend with. My Committee will report after the summer recess, but I am clear that the Government should be setting out a clear process and plan for SEND reform, and that any reforms must engage parents and professionals and ensure clear and effective accountability mechanisms. I think the Government are right to start with increasing the inclusivity of mainstream schools, but if they are to do that effectively, there must be proper investment to resource mainstream schools to become more inclusive, with clear definitions of what an inclusive school is and strong accountability.

Finally, a priority that runs through all these issues is tackling child poverty, which rose to shamefully high levels under the last Government and is perhaps the biggest barrier to opportunity of them all. I am delighted that the Government have announced an expansion of the eligibility criteria for free school meals to include all children whose families receive universal credit. As a local councillor in Southwark, I was proud when we introduced universal free school meals for primary children in 2010, and over many years we have seen the benefits of providing children with a nutritious hot meal.

Universal free breakfast clubs will also make a big difference. Hungry children cannot learn, so together these measures will ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry, and that the children who need it most get a nutritious hot meal at lunch time. They will boost learning while also easing costs for parents. However, our Committee has recommended that the Government implement auto-enrolment, so that every child eligible to receive the new expanded free school meals offer receives it automatically and no child misses out.

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

One of the drivers of child poverty that has come through in my casework is the Child Maintenance Service’s lack of enforcement powers to hold to account parents who refuse their duties. Does the hon. Member agree with me that greater enforcement powers and greater scrutiny of the Child Maintenance Service are essential for reducing child poverty?

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Over my 10 years in this place, I have seen how it has become harder and harder for families to get resources and accountability out of the Child Maintenance Service. I agree that there is further work to do in that space, and I am sure the Government are similarly aware of the challenges.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way, especially as she is making such a powerful speech. Yesterday, I went to an event with Health Equals, which has shown that where a child is born can lead to a 16-year discrepancy in life expectancy due to poverty. Does she agree that some form of legally binding poverty reduction target scheme could be put in place, as in Scotland, so that we can measure our progress?

[Helen Hayes]

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

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

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

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

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