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.

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.

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?

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.

Educational Attainment of Boys

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. As the Chair of the Education Committee, I want to see every child and young person engaged in learning throughout their time in education, and helped to find their individual interests and passions, whether they are academic, vocational or a mix of both, and to have built a strong foundation on which they can thrive beyond their time in education and into adulthood.

In their work, my Committee and its predecessor Committee have heard about the many and varied differences between groups of children and young people and the need to do more to close those gaps in participation and attainment. Our immediate predecessor Committee launched an inquiry on the topic of the educational attainment of boys, but the calling of the snap general election last summer meant that the Committee never met to discuss the evidence received from stakeholders. I have drawn on that evidence in preparing for this debate.

The Association of School and College Leaders is clear that it is important not to generalise about boys’ educational engagement and attainment. Many boys achieve well in education, demonstrating good engagement and achieving qualifications that allow them to move on to the next stage of their education, or into an apprenticeship or their first job. However, there are particular groups of boys who perform less well than similar groups of girls. Digging into and understanding this detail is an important part of addressing those disparities.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am fascinated by what I am hearing today. I met Tony Bury, my Bath constituent, who is working with the Centre for Social Justice on improving outcomes for boys—I encourage everybody who is interested in this issue to read its latest report, “Lost Boys”. Does the hon. Member agree that we need a national strategy to address the underachievement of some boys?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. To reflect on what my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland has said, I believe there is a need for a strategic approach to this issue, but as I will talk about later, my Committee is looking at inclusive education and how we can make changes in the system that help schools to respond in a more defined way to the needs of individual children. I believe that, through some of those techniques, we can create an education system that works for everybody.

In particular, when we think about the groups of boys who do not thrive so well in education, we know that white British boys, black Caribbean boys and mixed white and black Caribbean boys eligible for free school meals have particularly low levels of attainment, as do those from Gypsy or Roma backgrounds or Travellers of Irish heritage. Differences between girls and boys emerge in the early years and pre-school phase and continue right through to higher education. There is a difference in speech and oral language development between boys and girls from the earliest years, which is reflected in a gender gap in phonics performance in year 1. With the exception of maths, girls outperform boys at key stages 1 and 2, particularly in reading and writing. At the end of reception year, aged around five, three quarters of girls have a good level of development, while less than two thirds of boys do.

At key stage 4, girls outperform boys on all of the headline Department for Education measures. Some 68% of girls in state-funded schools achieve both English and Maths GCSEs at grade 4 or above, which is 5% higher than the rate for boys. Progression to higher education at the age of 19 is higher for young women than it is for young men, and among those who do take up a place at university, young men have higher rates of drop-out than young women. However, despite entering the workforce with lower qualifications than women on average, men still earn more on average, with the gender pay gap growing over time. As such, this is an area of policy that requires complex and nuanced consideration.

Is the difference between girls’ and boys’ attainment due to a continued improvement over many years in the attainment and engagement of girls, challenges for specific groups of boys, or a mixture of both, and what can and should be done to address those disparities? The evidence that the Select Committee has received reveals different views on what steps should be taken to address these persistent differences throughout school and university. One viewpoint is that taking steps to improve engagement and attainment for every pupil will naturally help improve the engagement and attainment of those groups of boys demonstrating the biggest gender gap. The OECD report, “Gender, Education and Skills: The Persistence of Gender Gaps in Education and Skills”, published in 2023, stated that

“gender disparities in school performance and the resultant career choices do not stem from innate differences in aptitude but rather from students’ attitudes towards learning and their behaviour in school, from how they choose to spend their leisure time, and from the confidence they have—or do not have—in their abilities as students.”

Reading ability is a key cornerstone of many other aspects of education, and the seemingly continual decrease in the proportion of boys reading for pleasure over the years is one important issue to tackle. I commend BookTrust on the work it is doing with children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce to promote the importance and the joy of reading for pleasure, and to encourage and support more children to find their love of books.

We know that screentime and the use of smartphones are having profound impacts on children and young people from an increasingly young age. Among the many harms that children are exposed to as a consequence of their engagement online, teachers, parents and young people themselves report exposure to toxic masculinity. We also know that excessive screentime harms young people’s sleep, reduces their attention span and affects their ability to concentrate. These are complex and difficult areas, but I am clear that urgent action is needed to protect children from online harms, and that taking steps to promote positive role models and challenge unacceptable monocultures on social media should be a priority.

There is also a big difference in the proportions of male and female teachers, particularly in primary schools. It is important that we continue to support and encourage more men to teach younger children. Evidence to the Select Committee suggests that a quarter of all state-funded primary schools do not have a single male classroom teacher. It is clearly important that we have women role models to encourage participation and engagement among girls, particularly in STEM subjects, but the same applies to boys seeing male teachers in the classroom and in other educational roles, such as learning support assistants.

There is a difference between boys and girls in the presentation and diagnosis of special educational needs and disabilities, and our work on the Education Select Committee is clear about both the failures of the current SEND system—described as “lose, lose, lose” by the last Conservative Secretary of State for Education—and the need to drive early identification of need, instead of allowing children to go unsupported in education.

Education, health and care plans are more than twice as prevalent for boys as for girls—as of the beginning of this year, 23% of boys were identified with SEN, compared with 13% of girls. Too many children struggle with dyslexia. The delays for assessing pupils with social, emotional and mental health issues are unacceptable, and ADHD is significantly underdiagnosed across the country.

My Committee has been looking in detail at SEND for several months now, and we will shortly publish our report. Our work has included visits to a number of schools and college settings that are already delivering inclusive practice for SEND. It seems clear that some of the techniques that can be used to ensure that every child’s needs are met in school would also deliver benefits specifically for boys who are underachieving. For example, at Aylsham high school in Norfolk, which we were pleased to visit just a couple of weeks ago, and at West Credit secondary school in Ontario, we saw vocational subjects, such as construction skills, horticulture and food production, on offer alongside academic subjects in a way that helped to secure the interest and engagement of a wide range of pupils.

We know that the previous Government’s changes to the curriculum have resulted in a sharp decline in the availability of some creative subjects and sport in our schools. We all appreciate the importance in education of people finding the things that they love to do and can succeed at, which can sustain their motivation to participate in some aspects of education that are more challenging. It is important that we have an education system that can deliver that for every child.

Every Member of this House will remember that special teacher who sparked a particular interest in a field of study, or a passion for an area that particularly enthused and engaged us. For me, it was my former headteacher, Tony Richardson of Ormskirk grammar school, which confusingly was actually a comprehensive school. He was my English teacher, and he taught me about debating and literature and took a close interest, and it made a huge difference. Tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, and helping teachers to commit to stay for the long term, also allows children to have that special relationship with staff, which is important.

This week, my Committee heard from Professor Becky Francis, who is leading the Government’s curriculum and assessment review. Professor Francis is clear on the importance and challenge of ensuring that every pupil, no matter their background, can find themselves in the curriculum they are taught across a wide range of subjects. Whether it is careful tracking of pupils, a rich and varied curriculum, exciting trips, making every lesson engaging, making sure there are opportunities to secure content that might not have been fully grasped on the first attempt, teachers whose enthusiasm and knowledge are matched by their pedagogical skills, improved teacher training, time for continuing professional development, strong leadership from school leaders, or the improved engagement of parents and carers, it will all help every child to achieve their full potential. That includes the groups of boys who are underperforming compared with their peers.

We must build an education system in which every child can thrive. That requires an honest acknowledgment of the areas in which our system is currently failing, including for some groups of boys; a forensic understanding of the reasons why; and the courage to deliver reform that can make a difference. This is a vitally important issue, and it is one in which my Committee will continue to maintain a close interest.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Early Years Providers: Government Support

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Mr Pritchard; it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on securing this important debate.

I want by paying tribute to early years providers across the country. The early years sector runs on a powerhouse of dedicated, skilled professionals, the vast majority of them women, who spend every day making a difference to the lives of children. As I pay tribute to early years professionals, I want to recognise the extraordinary work of Laura McFarlane, who sadly died this week. Laura dedicated the whole of her 40-year career to improving the lives of children, most recently as the director of the Lambeth early action partnership, known as LEAP, a 10-year national lottery-funded programme of early years support, and as director of the Liz Atkinson Children’s Centre just outside my constituency. LEAP made a difference to the lives of countless babies and young children in Lambeth, thanks to Laura’s leadership, vision and drive. She will be very much missed. Her legacy is immense.

The early years of a child’s life are vital. They offer a unique opportunity to lay the foundations for learning and development and for good physical and mental health, and to close the disadvantage gap. There is a wide variety of early years providers, including childminders, not-for-profit and social enterprises, private companies, school-based nurseries and maintained nurseries. That makes early years policy more complex than some other areas of education policy, and it also creates challenges, particularly in seeking to secure availability, consistency and quality in every area of the country.

The debate about early years providers can sometimes fall into a false dichotomy between childcare and early education. I have always been clear that these are two sides of the same coin: what is childcare for parents is early years education for children. We want every child to have the highest-quality early years education in whatever setting they are cared for.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that although expanding nursery-based provision in schools is unquestionably laudable in improving access to childcare, we must guard against inadvertently passing on to primary school teachers the responsibility for teaching basic life skills that could and should have been nurtured earlier, thereby stretching resources and risking the lowering of standards? Perhaps the Minister could outline what steps his Department is taking to correct the funding and support imbalance so that childminders who provide vital individualised care are not sidelined.

[Helen Hayes]

On the first part of the hon. Lady’s intervention, that is exactly what the Government are trying to do in establishing school-based nurseries: to ensure that across the country there are a range of settings that support children’s development so they arrive at school in reception year ready to learn.

I welcome the Government’s expansion of early years provision through the roll-out of funded hours and the delivery of 3,000 new school-based nurseries. That will make a huge difference to families, giving parents the option to return to work and helping with the costs of childcare, which under the previous Government resulted in many families spending more on childcare than on their rent or mortgage and, for the first time in decades, saw women leaving the workforce because the costs of staying in work were simply unviable.

In delivering the roll-out, it is important that the Government pay close attention to the financial resilience of early years providers. Many providers have been flagging for a long time the fact that the hourly rate they have been paid does not match the costs of delivering funded hours. There have also been inconsistences in the way local authorities pass on the Government subsidy. The previous Government’s funding model created distortions in the costs of childcare, with parents of the youngest children paying very high rates to cross-subsidise the costs of providing underfunded funded hours for three and four-year-olds. Nurseries have also experienced rising costs in relation to energy, food and insurance, and they are also now having to adjust to increased employer national insurance contributions and the increase in the national minimum wage.

Sadly, we have seen far too many early years settings close in recent years because they cannot make their business model work. It is important that the Government pay careful attention to the financial resilience of the sector and take steps to ensure that nurseries do not close due to high costs and inadequate rates of funding.

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

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out the eye-watering cost of nursery care for parents. Parents in my constituency tell me that, like me, they spend thousands upon thousands a month, when in other countries it costs just hundreds of pounds a month. One of the most recent contributing factors is the rise in national insurance contributions, which for me increased nursery fees by 10%. Does the hon. Lady regret the Government not accepting Lib Dem amendments to exempt nurseries from the extra charges?

[Helen Hayes]

I do not regret the Government not accepting Liberal Democrat amendments that are not accompanied by any means of plugging the funding gap that would be left by the additional commitments they ask the Government to make, but it is important that the Government continually look at the resilience and sustainability of the early years sector in the light of what are undoubtedly additional costs and challenges that the sector is having to bear. That will be important for the delivery of the roll-out and for provision across the country.

Early years practitioners do such important work. We trust our most precious family members into their care, and they have the capacity to make an enormous difference. Yet there is a recruitment crisis in the early years. We do not value early education and childcare enough, staff are paid far too little, and there are insufficient opportunities to gain specialist qualifications and to progress. I visited the Sheringham nursery and children’s centre in east London, which has a large sign at the gate that reads “Building Brains Here”. The nursery’s work is just that: laying the foundations for the rest of a child’s life. We must find the ways to value early years staff more, promote the early years as a rewarding and vital vocation, and ensure that staff are appropriately paid, with good opportunities for progression.

In that context, I welcome the Government’s newly launched strategy to give every child the “best start in life”, and the commitment to expand the number of stronger practice hubs, such as Sheringham nursery school and children’s centre, which play such an important role in strengthening good practice across the area in which they sit, and to incentivise early years practitioners to work in areas of deprivation where their expertise is so important.

Childminders are often overlooked in the debate about childcare and early years education, but they are a vital part of the landscape of care and education for many families. They play a critical role in the lives of the children in their care and they are the option of choice for many parents and carers, particularly for very young children. The number of Ofsted-registered childminders has been declining for several years, and many earn unacceptably low levels of income.

I welcome the steps the Government are taking in the new strategy to try to stabilise the income of childminders and encourage childminding as a profession, as well as promote innovations in childminding practice, which would help childminders to work together across a local area and in partnership with schools. I also wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s commitment to expand Best Start family hubs, building on the success of the previous Labour Government’s Sure Start programme, the proud achievement of my late predecessor Dame Tessa Jowell.

Sure Start played a vital role in supporting the landscape of childcare, often with a nursery on site plus supporting networks of childminders in a local area, offering them training and development, and building relationships with parents. For the most vulnerable and disadvantaged parents, more is needed than simply making a child place available. Sure Start centres, by offering play-and-stay sessions and parenting classes, built relationships of trust with parents, boosted their confidence and often acted as the gateway to taking up a nursery place, which is beneficial for children, and to re-engaging with the labour market and education for parents. Best Start family hubs are badly needed, and I hope they will play a similar role.

I also welcome the focus in the strategy on the quality of early years provision and inclusion. It is an unacceptable reality that the parents who find it hardest to find childcare places are the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and that approaches to SEND inclusion vary widely across early years providers, which is not acceptable. I welcome the attention the Government are giving to that issue.

Finally, I want to draw attention again to the role of maintained nursery schools within the landscape of early years providers. Maintained nurseries are unique in being constituted as schools and required to employ a headteacher and qualified teaching staff, but they are excluded from the schools funding formula. Their funding has been dramatically eroded relative to their costs in recent years. Maintained nurseries are often beacons of good practice located in areas of deprivation, and are inclusive settings with an expertise in SEND.

The Minister will know that many maintained nursery schools have closed and many that remain are operating with unsustainable financial deficits. I say gently to my hon. Friend the Minister that the response of the Government to my inquiries on this topic, which is largely to push responsibility to local authorities, simply is not sufficient when local authorities are not fully funded to support maintained nursery schools. It cannot be right that, as the Government set out an ambitious new strategy for early years, some of the institutions with the greatest levels of expertise and the most successful track records of delivery are being left effectively to wither on the vine.

I call on the Minister to set out a plan for maintained nurseries, to reform their funding model and ensure their long-term sustainability. The Education Committee, which I chair, will turn attention to the early years in the coming months, and I look forward to making our contribution to scrutinising the Government’s work in this vital sector that makes such a difference.