Higher Education Funding

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As always, Ms Vaz, it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing the debate, setting the scene so well and enabling us to make a contribution on this incredibly important subject. It is a matter of grave concern for the future of our people, our youth and our economic prosperity in Northern Ireland. The Minister has no responsibility for Northern Ireland, but I always like to bring a Northern Ireland perspective to debates, because what is happening on the mainland is happening to us as well. We are debating the broader systematic challenges facing higher education funding across the United Kingdom, yet, as is so often the case, the view from Northern Ireland reveals a distinct and far more perilous landscape. It is good to see the Minister in her place; I look forward to asking her at least one question, which I hope she will be able to answer.

While universities in England and Wales adjust to tuition fee caps rising to £10,000, our local institutions remain strictly bound by the Department for the Economy. We deliberately keep undergraduate tuition fees lower, at £4,750, to ensure accessibility for our working-class communities. It is important to me as an MP and to our Assembly that we look after them and give opportunity for all. The Labour party wants opportunity for all, I have no doubt, and I wholeheartedly support the motivation of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central.

We need look no further than the devastating crisis that is currently unfolding at Ulster University, where some 735 members of staff—nearly 24% of the entire workforce—have applied for redundancy. The university is forcing through a planned reduction of jobs to plug a catastrophic £25 million deficit. Dedicated lecturers, researchers and support staff across Belfast, Coleraine and Magee are watching their livelihoods vanish. It is gutting our regional skills base, cutting away the fabric of Northern Ireland’s future and threatening the long-promised expansion of the Magee campus in Londonderry.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue of the Magee and Coleraine campuses needs to be addressed, particularly the maximum aggregate student number cap, which restricts the numbers that universities in Northern Ireland can take? We have to review that urgently.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for bringing that issue forward and for backing up practically what he sees on the ground, as I do, from the Northern Ireland perspective. Any decision against the Magee campus in Londonderry means telling the local businesses crying out to fix the skills deficit that the talent will simply not be there. That worries me greatly.

The Provost of Ulster University warned just days ago that those consequences are not abstract, nor are they years away. They are happening at this very minute, as we sit here, and they are affecting student places and long-term investment. Once the intellectual capacity is lost to redundancy, it is incredibly difficult ever to build it back up. Our institutions create value far beyond their campus walls. These are difficult times, and when the Minister responds it is important that we hear of a strategy. Please will she discuss policy changes and strategy with the relevant Northern Ireland Assembly Minister to ensure that we can move forward towards a positive future, even though it looks incredibly black at the moment?

Unlike England, which boasts well over 100 higher education institutions, Northern Ireland has only two for our population: Queen’s University and Ulster University. In a region with only two distinct academic employers, the impending job losses at Ulster University represent not a standard corporate restructuring, but a catastrophic hollowing out of nearly half of Northern Ireland’s university network. Academics and researchers have practically nowhere else to turn locally. These cuts create an inevitable brain drain, forcing elite talent to flee across the water to Great Britain, while triggering course closures that push local students to follow them.

I will conclude, because I am conscious that others want to speak. When one of only two pillars of a higher education framework is forced to cut a quarter of its applicants through redundancy, the structural integrity of the entire region’s skilled economy faces immediate collapse. That is the serious issue we face in Northern Ireland, and that is why I seek the Minister’s help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this debate.

As remarkable as it is to imagine, I also began university under Margaret Thatcher.

[Jim Shannon]

You are really looking well.

[Perran Moon]

Thanks, Jim.

The higher education funding settlement is currently failing both universities and young people in Cornwall. Institutions such as Falmouth University, based largely in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, are central to our local economy and our skills base, yet they are increasingly being asked to educate students at a loss. Delivering a full-time degree costs more than £12,000 a year, so even when the maximum tuition fee rises past £10,000 next year, it will still fall well short.

No sector can remain sustainable if growth depends on losses, and the funding gap is particularly acute for regional and specialist institutions. Universities, therefore, are forced to compete for short-term grants and rely on international student income to balance the books. But when that income falls, courses and jobs are at risk. We have seen that play out over the summer at the University of Exeter’s Tremough campus, also in my constituency, with voluntary redundancies and the closure of its geography course.

The system is not working for students either, especially those from lower-income backgrounds. In my constituency, less than 23% of 18-year-olds went to university in 2025, compared with 51% in London. That is not because young people in Cornwall lack talent or ambition; it is because in one of the poorest regions of northern Europe, the costs of pursuing a degree with the associated debt are too great to even consider. The barriers to higher education are simply too high. Even students who remain in Cornwall but rightly want to live on campus find that the rent for a single room consumes almost their entire maintenance loan before they have spent a penny on food, travel or other essentials.

The loan system does not make things any better. Those from wealthier families may avoid taking out a loan altogether, while low-income students have no such option. A low-income student on a three-year course could be left with a £67,000 debt the moment they graduate. The interest on the debt often accumulates faster than repayments, leaving poorer graduates paying a higher effective rate for their entire careers.

Higher education should expand opportunity and drive growth in places such as Cornwall. Instead, we have a system that asks universities to do more with less while operating a student loan system that, for all intents and purposes, functions as a regressive graduate tax. We cannot build a fairer, more productive country on that foundation. I ask the Minister: what steps are the Government taking to make higher education funding fairer for students and more sustainable for universities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

We want two thirds of young people to participate in higher-level learning, whether that is going to university, pursuing an apprenticeship or a technical route. We see all of those as deeply connected.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for her helpful response. She has outlined a very clear strategy to try to address the issues that we have all raised. I ask her a specific question: would she consider sharing the strategy with the relevant Minister back home?

Services for Children in Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I would like to take this opportunity, as I have not yet had one, to warmly welcome the Minister to his place. I know that he is covering tonight for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), but I am sure that he will do a fantastic job. I know that in his role on early education, which is also an area of interest for me, he will be a steadfast champion and a fantastic member of this Government, so I welcome him.

I first applied for this debate after a conversation I had at the West Chadsmoor NHS clinic back in June. I had gone there to talk to the team about the fantastic Pride in Place funding coming to our area and to meet some of the brilliant clinicians based there who specialise in areas such as child and adolescent mental health services, paediatric podiatry, occupational health and various forms of family support. As I am sure Members across the House will have experienced, I often leave a visit in my constituency with much more work than I walked in with, but that is of course what I was elected to do, and it is a pleasure to do that work.

One of the conversations I had at West Chadsmoor raised an issue I felt needed to be brought to this House. It was about vulnerable children being placed in Staffordshire by local authorities elsewhere in the country and the problems that arise when the right people are not told that those children are coming. I heard from clinicians that increasingly they are coming across young people who have been placed in our area without Staffordshire county council being notified. Sadly, CAMHS staff sometimes encounter those children for the first time when they are in a serious mental health crisis. The doctors I spoke to described young people who might be self-harming or experiencing suicidal thoughts. These are children who will almost certainly have already experienced deep trauma, family breakdown and considerable instability. Then they are moved miles from home—sometimes hundreds of miles—and the support that they had, we hope, been receiving does not always follow them.

The statutory requirement is for the responsible local authority to notify the host local authority when a child or young person in care is placed within its area. but I am hearing that this does not always happen and does not always include the relevant information regarding identified risks and support needs. Consideration should also be given to the suitability of the placement, such as the availability of local services. When a local authority decides to place a child in another part of the country, that child arrives with their own history, their own vulnerabilities and, often, an established package of support. Yet the authority responsible for receiving them may not even know they are there.

The clinicians who want to do their best to replicate that support are sometimes left on the back foot. They may only discover the child when something has gone wrong and they come to them in a very bad way. That is not a sensible way to organise care for any child, let alone one who is already vulnerable, which is why, of course, the legal duty to inform exists.

In my constituency, we have seen rapid growth in independent children’s homes in recent years, partly because of the relatively low property prices but also, as we know, because of a chronic lack of foster carers. As a former foster carer myself, I very much welcome the recruitment campaign that the Department launched last week.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward the debate. He always brings incredibly important debates to Westminster Hall and the Chamber, including on the Adjournment, and I congratulate him on their standard and the contribution he makes to this House on behalf of his constituents, which is appreciated. He mentioned fostering. The Fostering Network found that only 33% of foster carers report that their allowances fully cover the cost of raising a child. Approximately 66% of people believe that they could be a good foster carer if there were no practical barriers. During this cost of living crisis, does he agree that we must recognise the additional pressures and that more must be done to financially support those who have a heart for fostering children to both take this on and be equipped to do so?

[Josh Newbury]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. He always has a kind word to say and a valuable contribution to make to any debate on any topic, which is quite impressive. He is absolutely right to highlight the fact that there are so many people in our country who would love to foster and have the attributes and the motivation to do so, but who simply cannot afford to because the costs they would have to meet exceed the payment they would get. We need to raise awareness of the fact that fostering is paid for—many people do not realise that—and we need to bring those stories to the House, as he has rightly done, to highlight the need to do far more to support our foster carers, who do an incredible amount.

SEND Provision: Rural Communities

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND provision in rural communities.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, and I am delighted to have secured this debate. Discussing this subject in detail will be hard in a 30-minute debate, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for her positive engagement with it. Given the time constraints, I will be able to accept only a few brief interventions, largely from those hon. Members who indicated in advance that they will intervene.

I will begin by thanking the parents, carers and families of children with special educational needs and disabilities who have contacted my office and shared their experience of the realities of SEND provision in rural communities. Many of the conversations I have had with those constituents in South West Norfolk have been incredibly difficult. The same themes arise time and again: frustration, exhaustion and a profound fear for their child’s future.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. Travelling long distances to attend schools creates anxiety, distress and sensory overload, potentially affecting children’s ability to engage in learning when in school. Does he agree that we must invest in developing SEND provision in mainstream schools to ensure that children can access appropriate support closer to home, with less travelling, less anxiety and fewer problems?

[Terry Jermy]

I entirely agree, and I am sure the Minister will speak about that.

Prior to serving as a Member of Parliament, I spent many years as a county councillor in Norfolk, so I was aware of the SEND system and its difficulties from my councillor casework, but nothing could have prepared me for the avalanche of SEND-related cries for help that have arrived from right across my constituency. Since I was elected in 2024, more than 250 families have contacted my office to express serious concerns about the way their children’s needs are being assessed and met by schools and local authorities.

School Funding: Stockport

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school funding in Stockport.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. I start by declaring an interest: I am in my 20th year of being an unpaid primary school governor. I am currently at the wonderful Fairway primary school in Offerton.

I am sure that we all agree that being an MP is a real privilege, and one of the best things that we get to do in this job is spend time in schools. Young people get to the nub of issues. They have very little filter, and they always leave me feeling much more positive about the future of our country. However, the school visits that I have made since being elected have included conversations with headteachers who—while they are doing remarkable things for their pupils and their school communities—are having to explain which posts they cannot fill, which support they have had to cut and which requests from parents they have had to turn down because the money is just not there.

The chief executive of the Honeycomb education trust, which includes Mellor primary school in my patch, told me that he had recently been left with three choices: lose three or four members of staff, lose a headteacher or take early retirement himself. He chose retirement. That is what the funding position is doing to experienced and celebrated school leaders such as Jim in my constituency.

Schools across Stockport are expected to provide the same educational experience for students as the rest of the country. Yet schools in my constituency and across the borough are funded at disproportionately lower levels per pupil compared with other places, including neighbouring Manchester. That is the case for much of the rest of the country.

Funding for our education system can be complex. Education has two core funding streams: the education cash limit budget, which comes through the council, and the dedicated schools grant, which is the core funding provided by central Government through the Department for Education for education purposes. That budget reaches schools mainly according to the number of pupils that are enrolled. Other considerations are also taken into account, including deprivation, number of children on free school meals, number of children with English as an additional language and low prior attainment.

The rate attached to each child, and the number of children in the school, decides almost everything about a school’s budget. The primary schools’ unit of funding in Manchester is £6,404. In neighbouring Stockport, it is £5,623. It does not cost almost £800 more to educate a child in Manchester than it does in Stockport, and it is hard to justify that big gap.

At secondary schools, the funding in Manchester averages £8,452. Stockport receives £7,320. That is a gap of £1,100 for every pupil and is £350 less than the national average. We are not just a little bit below the average in Stockport. Among all the authorities in England, Stockport’s secondary rate is one of the lowest in the country. At the top of the table are the inner London boroughs, some of which receive over £10,000 per pupil. The distance between the top of that table and those areas near the bottom is hard to defend.

Those differences in funding are having a dire effect in Stockport. I have been told that 68 of the 78 schools in Stockport are heading for a deficit, and that school reserves have fallen from £11 million to around £5 million. The schools that are attempting to remain financially resilient are joining multi-academy trusts based outside Stockport, and others are being pushed towards mergers.

When speaking to Jim from the Honeycomb education trust, he laid out the additional burdens that school leaders are facing in addition to limited funding. Those include the removal of the trust capacity fund, national insurance contributions that were not fully funded, long-term staff sickness absence and a growing number of children with special educational needs.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. On special educational needs in particular, it is a very similar story in Northern Ireland where there has been historical underfunding. Does she share my concern about how some of the press are carrying stories about the number of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? They are almost suggesting that the ADHD numbers are not correct. In my constituency, I can see clearly that the number of people with ADHD is rising. I have six grandchildren, and three have some educational challenges. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the ADHD figures are rising and are correct?

[Lisa Smart]

I, too, have family members with ADHD diagnoses. We as a society have got much better at understanding neurodiversity. We understand the strengths of those who are neurodiverse and how best to educate and work with them. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a better understanding of our fellow citizens is a good thing, and if that comes with a diagnosis, let us welcome that.

Councils receive a high-needs budget to pay for specialist places and extra support in mainstream schools. In Stockport, that came to just over £56 million this year, with more than 1,100 students holding high-needs places last year. That brings me to the deficit on the high-needs budget, which hangs over councils across England, and which Stockport knows well.

By March 2027, the cumulative deficit on Stockport’s dedicated schools grant is expected to reach about £68 million. Because of the statutory override, that sum sits in an unusable reserve, rather than on the council’s balance sheet, where it could be put to better use. The Government have said that, as part of their wider reforms to special educational needs provision, they will write off 90% of the accrued deficit at March 2027. For Stockport, that is an estimated £61 million, so of course I welcome that. It is the right thing to do, and councils have been asking for it for years. However, the override is due to end in March 2028, with a new funding model due to begin in April 2028. In between, Stockport expects to build up a further deficit of about £60 million across 2026-27 and 2027-28. The Government have said that more support will be confirmed, but that puts councils and schools in a difficult position, as they have to set budgets without knowing whether a sum almost as large as the first write-off will be covered. Schools and councils want to work with a clear understanding of what they should expect.

The council and families across the borough deserve better than that uncertainty. Parents of children with special educational needs should be provided with the certainty that school places will be available to them and that they do not have to worry about whether they will be funded. They should not be told that it depends on a funding model that is yet to be published. I would be really grateful if the Minister can update us on when schools should expect publication of the new funding model.

Funding disparities can disproportionately affect students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Stockport is one of the most polarised boroughs in the country. We have communities that are among the most affluent in the region, and we also have the most deprived ward in the whole of Greater Manchester. Children in that ward start school with disadvantages that, on average, will never pick up. A funding system that sees only the prosperous areas of a borough and sets the rate to match lets down those children. That is why Stockport is a founder member of the f40 group—the campaign of the lowest-funded local authorities—which has pressed for years for a fairer distribution of education funding. The case has not changed. The gaps mean that an average one-form-entry primary school in Stockport receives about £164,000 less each year than it would if it were based in Manchester. Headteachers in my constituency cannot simply absorb such a gap.

The pressure is not only on budgets. In Marple and the surrounding villages, families living in the catchment area of Marple Hall school find that their children are not offered a place because the school is oversubscribed.

Pica Eating Disorder: SEND

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Mullane (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Pica training within SEND provision.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. Before I go any further, I want to make an admission. Until last year, I had not encountered pica, either in a personal capacity or through my work in Parliament. I had never heard of the condition. My first awareness of it was at a special educational needs and disabilities roundtable event that I organised last year, the purpose of which was to hear the experiences of parents and professionals across my Dagenham and Rainham constituency so I could feed their voices into the Government’s consultation on SEND reform.

At the event, I heard a brave story from a young woman and her family living with the realities of pica. There are many moments in a MP’s life that really move them, and despite the thousands of cases that we deal with on behalf of our constituents, there are ones that truly stick with us. The brave young woman at that SEND roundtable was Suzy Read, and she is here today. I can honestly say that her story, her journey, her perpetual struggle and the fight she has had to get her daughter the care she needs and deserves hushed the room.

Suzy told us about her life, where she constantly risk-assessed every room, setting and experience, and how the lack of help, combined with the failures of the system, took a toll on her mental health and the physical wellbeing of her child. We heard how the failure to provide access to a safe educational setting for her child resulted in daily anxieties, daily struggles and, because of the lack of pica recognition, understanding and training, daily explanations of why her child required bespoke care. The room was moved to tears.

Something Suzy said has stuck with me ever since:

“Pica is not rare. It is just rarely spoken about.”

That is why I am here today, to make the case for pica training to be a statutory requirement across educational settings under SEND provision.

What is pica? It is an overwhelming compulsion to eat non-food and non-nutritional items such as glass, soil, clay, lead, ice and much more. It can include items that poison, puncture organs, choke, and end a child’s life. It is important to note that while the debate will focus on training in schools and other educational settings, pica also affects adults who have lived with it from an early age or whose condition has presented late.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this issue forward; she is right that the ailment is not well recognised. Like her, I did some research on the issue and found out that it is a UK-wide problem. Last year in Northern Ireland, there was a tragic incident involving a care home resident with a cognitive impairment who exhibited some pica behaviours. Sadly, he died after choking on a non-food substance. Does the hon. Lady agree it is not just schools where training is needed; it is also essential for staff in care homes and residential settings, and it could prevent potentially dangerous behaviours, which often go unnoticed?

[Margaret Mullane]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I thank him for raising that matter. While this debate will focus on training in schools and other educational settings, it is important to note that there is a desperate need for pica recognition and training across the NHS, local authorities, care providers and even housing providers. However, that is not the focus today.

Sadly, pica is still not fully understood, which often results in people being dismissed or the condition being treated as a behavioural issue. While there is a growing consensus that pica must be treated as the serious medical and safeguarding issue that it is, the lack of awareness means the condition is overshadowed. As such, it is not considered by policymakers. That has to change.

Independent Schools: Regulation of Proprietors

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention. I completely agree. The way in which the company has acted towards pupils, parents and staff is outrageous. The least it could do is to provide some clarity and support going forward. Later in my speech, I will ask the Minister about some lessons that can be learned.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She has brought to the attention of the House and the Minister to something that is incredibly important: the takeover of any school with little or no discussions with the staff, the principal, or the board of governors, little or no contact with the parents, and certainly no talk or discussions with those who have input into the school. Does she share my concern—I believe that she will—that when influences from outside this country have bought a school, through whatever the allegedly nefarious process may be, the only way in which that can be stopped is for the Government and our Minister to bring in legislation that ensures that it cannot happen over the heads of local people at a school of historical importance?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It seems that this overseas company had no intention of educating our children in the UK, and legislation should be strengthened or put in place to stop this happening again.

It is as though GGE saw the fallout of their decision to inform Malvern in advance and attempted to hide from any further scrutiny by giving the other schools zero notice. It is abhorrent. When I contacted GGE’s directors to demand answers, they were at pains to point out to me that they have done all they can to support staff and families. They even alluded to the Government’s introduction of VAT on independent school fees. That is nonsense. Since the VAT changes were announced, Durham high school’s roll only dipped from 288 to 281—a net loss of just seven pupils. The school has a physical capacity for 650 pupils, and a financial break-even point of roughly 350. A senior staff member said in their parting message:

“Whatever you read, this isn’t a VAT story. It isn’t a falling rolls or unstoppable decline story. The truth is deeper, and more complex, and eventually truth will out.”

It seems clear that there was never any genuine effort by GGE to make this school a success. Speaking to union representatives at the school, I am told that repeated requests to see even a basic plan for how the company would secure the school’s future were rebuffed.

What do we know about GGE? Very little seems to be the answer. It was only incorporated in the UK in April 2025, and I understand that it has not yet been possible to assess its level of available cash, debt levels, profitability or inter-company lending. The structure of the company seems equally opaque, spread across several companies, school-operating companies and overseas interests. One of those beneficial owners ultimately traces back to the Cayman Islands, with no transparency at that point.

What is clear is that one person holds a significant amount of power, and they were the person with overall control of the school until its closure. Shangqin Gao, a Chinese national, holds roughly 75% of GGE’s shares. As I understand it, the school has had no contact with this person. The House may note that this individual is also linked to two other businesses: Shine Space Management Ltd and Galaxy Capital Real Estate. The latter was incorporated only two years before the purchase of Durham high school.

All this background leads us to the crux of the situation: more than 280 children have been left stranded without a school, staff have been left without jobs and young women who sat their public exams this summer may not even be able to collect their results in the school where they studied. Local suppliers have been left facing significant losses due to unpaid invoices. Crucially, children with additional needs who thrived in this intimate environment have been thrown into limbo. They must now search for alternative specialist provision potentially miles away from home, or face being absorbed into mainstream settings.

Our local secondary state schools that provide top-class education and often win prestigious awards—such as St Leonard’s, Durham Johnston and Belmont—are all just about full. There is not enough capacity to easily absorb these pupils. As well as throwing these families into crisis, GGE has also heaped pressure on the local authority. Will the Minister liaise with Durham county council to ensure that the admissions team is appropriately supported?

The conduct of GGE in the final days, weeks and months of the school’s operation reveals the true nature of this business.

As the company ran down the school, the financial team carefully managed the remaining funds to ensure they could pay staff salaries for June, despite GGE blocking the school from paying suppliers. Yet days before payroll was due, an unexpected invoice was received from GGE that would have wiped out those payments entirely, and GGE required the massive bill to be paid that same day. Thankfully, the school business manager prioritised the livelihoods of the hard-working staff, paid the wages and ignored the demand. However, in a final blow to devastated staff, I heard just yesterday that the administrators have informed them they cannot claim unpaid salaries for July and August, despite already carrying out their work for the academic year.

A cynical mind would look at how Durham Education Limited was put into administration and conclude that it benefits a parent company to position itself as a major debtor upon any future sale, especially when the ultimate ownership of the land is in doubt. Despite assurances from GGE, the entire debacle bears the hallmarks of a land grab. In Durham, the prime real estate on which Farewell Hall sits is estimated to be worth around £10 million. That brings me to the core question: what can the Government do to stop predatory overseas companies asset-stripping our educational institutions and treating our children’s futures as real estate speculation?

Schools such as Durham high served as a safety valve for the local authority's overstretched school place allocations. Despite that, entire families have been thrown to the wolves so that an overseas corporate entity can access prime land on the edge of a historic city centre. Section 128 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 rightly gives the Secretary of State for Education the power to bar unsuitable individuals from managing independent schools. Yet with the opaque structure of the business and the fact GGE has been able to rapidly churn through directors at Companies House, shuffling responsibilities and moving its statutory administrative offices to anonymous London addresses, it seems that oversight on such businesses is patchy. How can we ensure in the future that what has happened in Durham, Malvern and Ruthin does not happen elsewhere?

To be clear, my key asks of the Minister are as follows. Will the Minister help families in Durham, Ruthin and Malvern get clarity on what steps were taken by the Department for Education, Estyn and Ofsted to ensure the suitability of GGE? Will the Minister commit to reviewing the governance structure of all the affected schools? Will she advise me whether an independent investigation could be called into GGE’s management of Durham, Malvern and Ruthin to establish exactly what happened? Will she advise me on efforts that the Government, the local authority or the school community can take to preserve the Durham high school site for educational use, rather than allow a historical education asset to disappear? Finally, will the Minister take steps to close corporate loopholes and ensure proper regulation is in place for foreign investors in UK schools? We need robust legal mechanisms within the DFE to prevent foreign capital from severing historical school properties from their educational purposes. We need statutory protections that stop predatory owners transferring freeholds out of educational charities into private, for-profit shell companies.

What happened at Durham high school will not simply go away. My constituents may be down but they are certainly not out, and they are driven by a desire for justice. Though they understand it may be too late for their beloved school, they wish no other family or hard-working member of school staff to have to go through the pain and uncertainty that they have felt.

Last Friday, my team joined families, pupils, staff and trade unionists outside the school gates for a final act of solidarity. The compassion, mutual respect and dignity that was on display is something that GGE would do well to learn from. I am sure that all of us across the House might agree that no matter the nature of the establishment, the education of our children is a public good, not a real estate portfolio. What happened to Durham, Ruthin and Malvern cannot be allowed to happen again.

I will close with the words of Mrs Middleton, the acting head for the school’s final weeks, who has been highly commended for the compassion and dedication that she has shown to the entire school community during the most horrendous circumstances:

“On the final day we came together. Of course, there was sadness. There were tears. But there was also laughter, celebration, joy, and a deep sense of knowing one another. The hardest words I have had to say over these past few weeks were: “It’s time to go.” No one moved. So I left the stage, and Mrs Rochester and I walked the children out. Senior Leaders had planned to stand outside, greet parents and clap the children out. All the staff joined us. And for over an hour we clapped, talked, cried, hugged and clapped again. In that hour there was no complaining. No anger. Just togetherness. A community to the very end.”

Early Years Funding: Hampshire

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the adequacy of early years funding in Hampshire.

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. A Hampshire nursery manager recently told me:

“Sometimes the funding arrives so late that we are genuinely worried about making wages.”

That sentence has stayed with me, because it captures something that the national conversation about “free childcare” too often misses. The question is not simply whether Hampshire has enough childcare places on paper. It is also whether every family can access suitable, affordable and high-quality early education and childcare when they actually need it and whether providers have the funding and workforce to deliver that sustainably. Those are two very different questions, and today I want to address them both.

Let us be clear about the scale of the pressure that the sector is under. Providers are being hammered by rising costs: increased employer national insurance contributions, rising energy costs just to keep the lights on, business rates and more. One nursery provider in my constituency of North East Hampshire told me that their liability insurance had risen by 19% this year alone, and that was on top of a 59% jump in business rates.

Department for Education analysis published in May found that on average providers took in just £1.01 for every £1 that they spent in 2025, and nearly half of providers reported income that fell short of covering their costs. I am aware that one nursery in my constituency is required to subsidise the Government’s funded offer by more than £51,000 in this academic year alone. It cannot be right that a sector that is already operating on wafer-thin margins is left to absorb more and more tax rises.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this matter forward. She is right to highlight the funding shortfall, which is present across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is forcing nurseries to close, driving up childcare costs and stopping parents returning to the workforce. Does she agree that the Government need to make this issue a priority in education to ensure that children are educated and parents can cope with the pressures that they are under?

[Alex Brewer]

Yes, I absolutely agree; that is a precise summary of the current position. When we think of early years, most of us automatically think of nurseries, but in many areas of the country, and especially North East Hampshire, many families rely on local childminders. Earlier this month, a constituent of mine, Lorna, told me that after almost 26 years of running her childminding business, she must close it because of mounting financial pressures. She has loved the job, but the lack of any promise of a better financial future has left her with no choice.

Every ambition that we hold for this system—more places, better outcomes and proper support for children with additional needs—depends on a stable, skilled and well-supported workforce. Parents do not use the language of workforce policy, but they feel its consequences all the same, including in high staff turnover, longer waiting lists, reduced flexibility and the particular difficulty of finding a place for a child with additional needs.

A Hampshire nursery manager put the underlying cause to me plainly: rising costs have not come with a matched uplift in the funding rate. Staffing alone accounts for three quarters of costs in the early years sector. That leaves early years settings particularly exposed to sudden changes, such as the increase in employer national insurance contributions. Providers cannot compete for the experienced senior staff necessary to deliver high-quality support, and high staff turnover leads to higher training costs.

Every parent stuck on a waiting list is living with the downstream consequence of a workforce crisis that starts with underfunding, and Hampshire reflects many of the challenges in microcosm. It is a large county, spanning urban, rural and coastal communities. Hampshire county council’s childcare sufficiency assessment points to the same challenges: expanding supply to meet the extended 30-hour entitlement; tackling recruitment and retention; and ensuring that rising demand does not squeeze out children with special educational needs or from disadvantaged backgrounds—the very children who stand to gain the most from a good-quality early years setting.

Free childcare makes for a great headline, but it has to be deliverable. As of September 2025, the county council projected that Hampshire would need an additional 2,100 childcare places in wards where supply is already limited just to meet the promise of 30 hours a week. This promise is not all it is made out to be. The figure of 30 hours is based on term-time care only, so for those parents who work full-time, that is spread out over 52 weeks, not 38. The rate for three and four-year-olds that is paid to settings is lower than the cost to provide the service, so those paying for additional hours are, in effect, subsidising the free provision. For those families who are barely getting by, with high living costs and stagnant wages for their own work, it is often more expensive for both parents to work. That is not good for our economy.

As with any business, cash flow is key, and providers across my North East Hampshire constituency tell me that they are paid in arrears, with funding for a month’s care landing in the last three days of that same month, compared with other counties that pay before the month even starts. So Hampshire nurseries are covering an entire month of wages, rent and bills with private fees. When that is combined with low or no profit margins, it sets the scene for instability and uncertainty. Young children, working parents and childcare providers all need stability in the sector to thrive, but the circumstances are far from ideal for that.

Nowhere is the funding gap starker than for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Before entering this House, I served as a school governor and ran a charity supporting children and young adults with Down’s syndrome and their families, so this is an issue I have seen up close from both sides of the school gate. Providers tell me that the pathway to secure support is long and difficult to navigate. By the time a child is identified, their needs are often already very high.

What funding does arrive frequently pays for only an enhanced ratio, which is no substitute for the one-to-one specialist care that many children need, and staff often lack the specialist training required. Indeed, in my previous line of work, it was the charity that stepped in to provide the training—a service with the uncertainty of being funded solely through donations and simply not available everywhere in the country. A child’s future should not be a postcode lottery.

Investing in our future generations is the best investment we can make, for them, for families and for society. That is why Liberal Democrats are calling for early years providers to be exempted from the rise in employer national insurance contributions. Hampshire’s early years providers are not asking for handouts; they are asking for the funding that was promised to arrive, to be enough and to be on time. A place on a spreadsheet is not the same as a place a family can use. A free hour that no provider can afford to deliver is not free at all. Our children’s futures, and those caring for them, deserve nothing less.

Antisemitism: University Campuses

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) for introducing the debate, and I congratulate him on doing it so well. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken so far for their contributions highlighting the difficulties faced by our British Jewish communities and the work that needs to be done to protect them.

The StandWithUs UK “Voice of Students” report exposes a terrifying, deep-rooted national crisis across our higher education institutions. The traditional verbal hostility of recent years has escalated into raw intimidation, targeted harassment and physical violence against Jewish students.

I should have welcomed the Minister to his place, and I look forward to his contribution. I am sure it will be salient and will give us some reassurance, which is what we all seek from this debate.

It is no secret that I am a friend of the people and the nation of Israel—I have been all my life, and I continue to be. As I have said before and will say again, I recognise that Israel is not perfect, just as I am not perfect and nobody in this room is perfect. Israel does things that I have concerns about, but I stand by Israel whenever I get the opportunity, and today I will highlight the issue of antisemitism on university campuses.

When I visited Israel some two years ago, we had an opportunity to visit the Nova music festival site and the kibbutzim. If ever we needed to see man’s inhumanity to man and the hatred that the Hamas terrorists have for Israel, that was the day we saw it and that is why I am here to highlight the issue of antisemitism today.

As a Unionist, I believe fundamentally in the rule of law, the right to personal safety and the preservation of free inquiry, yet British universities are failing in their most basic legal and moral duties to protect a religious minority. Most damningly, academic staff are increasingly implicated in fostering, legitimising and actively participating in this marginalisation, which is the reason why we are debating the issue today.

I will highlight a few extracts from the testimony bringing this to light that most shocked me, and I am sure it will be shocking to every Member of the House. Forgive the terminology, but I am going to quote exactly the words used in a number of universities. These are direct quotes of the slurs being faced. Although they are disturbing, they must be put in the Hansard record. For that purpose, I will quote them exactly. At Royal Holloway, a student was subjected to jihadist threats to blow up the Jewish society and faced vile text messages calling him a “faggot Jew boy”. He was trailed by students taking photos to mark him out as a “Zionist”.

At the University of Birmingham, a lecturer told a student to shorten her name because it sounded “very Jewish”, while others performed Nazi salutes and created a group chat entitled, “No Jews allowed”. At King’s College London, a student faced a Kafkaesque punishment by the university to write a 1,000-word essay explaining why displaying an Israeli flag was wrong. He should come to my office, because I have one there and am proud to show that flag and let people know.

At City St George’s, a Jewish student was ambushed from behind and nearly pushed down a staircase, while campus protests featured Arabic chants calling for the literal killing of Jews. That is most outrageous.

[Steve Yemm]

I occasionally meet Jewish students at the University of Nottingham for dinner on a Friday evening, hosted by Chabad. Those students talk about being proud of their faith, but they frequently question whether they can be openly Jewish on campus. Does the hon. Member agree that no student should ever feel that they have to hide their identity on a university campus?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is another to add to the words of shame from some universities across the United Kingdom. I want to refer to Bangor University, where a professor physically confronted a Jewish student while screaming medieval blood-libel tropes and calling him a “baby killer”. If that level of targeted vicious harassment were directed at any other minority group on campus, the institutions would be shut down, funding would be stripped away and the perpetrators would be immediately expelled. That is what would happen if it were anybody else but, because it is Jews, what happens? When it comes to Jewish students, we see institutional paralysis and a culture of denial.

As an MP from Northern Ireland, I want to comment on Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University, which are by no means immune to this toxic atmosphere. We have seen a deeply alarming trend where extreme political activism on these campuses has crossed the line from legitimate debate into outright intimidation and the exclusion of Jewish and Zionist voices. I have spoken personally to some of those Jewish students who have given me their testimony and told me their stories. They told me that on occasion they are scared to be active on their own campuses.

When Jewish students in Belfast or Londonderry feel compelled to hide their identity, skip lectures, avoid campus spaces out of fear for their safety, the leadership of those universities has failed fundamentally. Higher education in Northern Ireland must be a neutral, safe and meritocratic environment for everyone. Vice-chancellors in our Province must not remain silent or indifferent. They must apply the exact same zero-tolerance approach to anti-Jewish racism as they do to any other form of sectarianism or discrimination, ensuring that all universities remain places of learning, rather than hotbeds of radicalisation and exclusion.

The report rightly underscores that modern antisemitism has evolved into a toxic political framework. I challenge anybody to say otherwise. Cowardly, it hides behind the shield of extreme anti-Zionism, denying Jewish self-determination and calling for the destruction of Israel. That is a cynical abuse of free speech, designed to make campuses “judenrein”, the German for “Jew-free”. God forbid that day should ever come to this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

We must draw a firm line in the sand, and I believe Members have done that today in this Chamber. These are my two asks of the Minister. First, the UK Government must state unequivocally that anti-Zionism, including calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, will be treated with the exact same seriousness and moral clarity as classical racial antisemitism. Secondly, we must follow the successful precedent set in the United States and summon vice-chancellors before a parliamentary Select Committee to look us in the eye and account for the catastrophic failures in all the universities I mentioned, and probably in many others, such as Nottingham. How many are there?

Our universities cannot remain safe havens for hate speech and terror sympathisers. I believe it is time to restore law, order and basic human decency to campuses. The first step must be the determination in this Chamber today to send a message that while the United Kingdom supports freedom of speech—I believe in that with all my heart and will stick up for it—we do not tolerate threats of violence. These examples show that the line has been crossed and that action must be taken. Let it start today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to make that point. To pick up one thread of today’s debate, a number of hon. Members have raised the power of algorithms, which feed off people’s fury and anger and the differences that exist between them. Many of the themes highlighted in this debate could equally apply to other groups in society where our attention is also needed.

Government-funded training is already supporting university staff and leaders to recognise antisemitism, support Jewish students and respond appropriately when concerns arise. Last week, we agreed to fund projects through our innovation fund to help students navigate misinformation, engage constructively with difficult issues and develop a deeper understanding of different faiths and communities. We are also developing a new community cohesion framework with students in partnership with the University of Salford and the National Union of Students. Alongside that work, we continue to support University Jewish Chaplaincy to provide pastoral wellbeing and practical support to Jewish students across the country.

In his opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley asked about the statutory framework. Given the time remaining, I will give the brief update that the Office of the Independent Adjudicator is due to update its good practice framework for higher education providers in handling reports of harassment later this year. In addition, we are working with the sector to improve transparency and accountability for tackling antisemitic abuse. We are also working with Universities UK to undertake a rapid assessment of institutional disciplinary and incident reporting processes and we will develop recommendations and priority actions in autumn this year.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for that very comprehensive answer. In my contribution, I suggested that when universities fall short of their obligations, their vice chancellors should be called in to answer to a parliamentary Committee as to why no action had been taken. Does the Minister consider that that would be an effective way of ensuring that universities protect Jewish students and those of Jewish faith? Could calling in vice chancellors be a way of squeezing universities—and squeezing them tight?

[Josh MacAlister]

The hon. Member is right to highlight the essential aspect of accountability. The Office for Students has been given additional powers in recent years. It is also true that the scale of the challenge that we see with antisemitism on university campuses, and the challenge that many universities are facing in meeting their obligations to uphold the freedom of speech while also creating the climate and culture necessary for freedom from intimidation, may lead a Select Committee to hold an inquiry on that. It would, of course, be a matter for Parliament and a Select Committee to do so, but if that were to happen, the Department for Education would be very interested in its findings.

We know that many of the conspiracy theories and hateful tropes that underpin antisemitism are also features of extremist ideologies. Left unchallenged, they can create an environment in which radicalisation becomes more likely. At their most serious, they can form part of a pathway towards terrorism. Prevent data shows that in the year to March 2025, there were 8,778 referrals, 21% of which were linked to extreme right-wing concerns and 10% to Islamist extremism. Although Prevent does not record antisemitism as a stand-alone category, those figures illustrate how antisemitic narratives can, and often do, form part of extremist worldviews that carry a risk of terrorism or serious harm.

Most antisemitic incidents fall well below the threshold for Prevent intervention. Nevertheless, the data demonstrates that, in the most serious cases, ideas rooted in historical antisemitic prejudice can become part of a trajectory towards terrorism. That is why, through our wider Protecting What Matters programme, we are taking action to challenge antisemitism and extremism wherever they arise. We are strengthening oversight of universities’ Prevent duties; updating guidance on external speakers and events, which is due to come out very soon; improving our ability to identify emerging extremist activity; enhancing whistleblowing protections; and increasing transparency around incidents of antisemitism.

Lifelong Learning: “University of the Air” White Paper

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for highlighting the wonderful work done by those institutions that are slightly off the beaten educational path, so to speak. Although the higher education sector has changed dramatically in the past 60 years, the Open University has continued to evolve, change and adapt while remaining true to its founding mission. From its inception, it has moved with the times. What began with television broadcasts, radio programmes and handwritten papers has now become a model of digital innovation and interactive online learning.

It is always a real pleasure to see the Minister in his place. We look forward to his answers to the questions we will ask, and I will have some in my contribution. The Open University came to the fore, if we are looking back just to the last few years, during the pandemic lockdown, when it led the way. Remote teaching was suddenly introduced in schools and universities, but the OU had already been delivering distance learning effectively for decades; it was leading the way at that time. Although many institutions were forced to rush and to improvise a remote learning model, the Open University was drawing on years of experience to support its students.

The Open University has given countless opportunities to working-class people who would otherwise never have had the chance to earn a degree. For many, the route to traditional universities had been out of reach, but the Open University offered a second, third or indeed fourth chance, producing graduates who have gone on to become nurses, teachers, engineers and community leaders, with many returning to the OU to complete their master’s degree and PhD. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) referred to the 65 who were on a course in his time as Health Minister and to the fact that it is now 600. That indicates just how many have been able to take advantage of this opportunity and to improve their life, improve their qualifications and improve life for others as a result.

The Open University’s commitment to inclusion was there from its inception. Long before diversity, equity and inclusion became a formal policy, the Open University had those values in place. Jennie Lee’s model has always welcomed students from every walk of life, judging them not on their past qualifications, age, sexual orientation, race or creed, but only encouraging them in their desire to learn—their motivation, their complete goal and purpose, and their desire to do more. It has been particularly transformative for women who put their ambitions on hold to raise families, meaning that they could return to education as mature students, often becoming the first in their family to graduate from university.

I can give one example. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) is away, but I know from his discussions with me that his daughter was one of those women. She wanted to have a family, so then returned to the Open University at a later stage to learn education. That mature student with a family took an Open University degree and is now head of her department. My hon. Friend’s daughter is one example that is replicated dozens or perhaps hundreds of times across Northern Ireland and thousands of times across the United Kingdom.

The Open University in Northern Ireland has delivered particularly impactful outreach in prisons and working-class communities. Those things are sometimes lost, but they should not be. I will share two examples of initiatives: the Shankill women’s centre in Belfast and the Kilcooley women’s centre, in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton). They do excellent work, not just in North Down but in Strangford, in partnership with the Open University. I have worked with them over the years as they have helped women to achieve goals they never thought they could.

The Open University has brought higher education directly into communities that have historically felt excluded from it. If we can do that—if women and men can see the opportunities, as I have witnessed over the years—that is good news. The OU’s scope is remarkable. Graduates include men and women from their 20s to their 90s; Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly; and fellow Members of this House, including the hon. Member for South Antrim. A member of my office staff, who took an Open University degree, achieved her goal with those qualifications and advanced what she is able to do. That demonstrates the depth of its impact.

In our prisons, the Open University has delivered life-changing opportunities. For many inmates, Open University courses have provided purpose and a pathway to a better future after release. At justice questions in the Chamber, we often ask, as I have done, to keep people away from the unsavoury parts of prison life and give them an opportunity to do something different when they leave. It is a wonderful opportunity for inmates to have the Open University in prisons across the land. I hope the Minister will confirm that what we have done in Northern Ireland can be done on the UK mainland as well. What is being done to encourage and enable those in prison to take courses and see a different future, one that they perhaps would never have seen if they had not been in prison? It is a golden opportunity to shape life and do better.

Today, a higher number of young people than ever are opting to enrol with the Open University after A-levels but, because it is not currently included in the UCAS system, the OU is a less visible choice than traditional brick universities. I ask the Minister to consider including the Open University in the UCAS system to ensure that it is a legitimate and visible post A-level choice for young people, alongside mainstream institutions. It should be, it must be, and perhaps the Minister will confirm that it will be.

The things that improve a society more than anything else are access to good healthcare, access to opportunities and a choice in education. The Open University continues to impact and change the lives of hundreds of thousands of students every year, who balance work, family life and life’s challenges with their studies. The OU offers no barriers to learning to anyone of any age. It is the very definition of lifelong learning, just as Jennie Lee envisaged many years ago. With the hon. Member for Southport and the hon. Member for South Antrim—and the party spokespersons and the Minister, whose speeches will follow mine—I celebrate the OU for its extraordinary and continuing contribution to people’s lives. It is lovely to see something that we Brits have done well.

[Robin Swann]

Reflecting on the contributions so far, it is also worth noting that the Open University supports the members of our British armed forces through its courses.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Member for reminding us that many in the armed forces have taken that opportunity. The opportunity is there within their busy lives, and the opportunity is clear. We must ensure that this proud and uniquely British success story keeps opening doors for generations to come. That has to be the ambition and the goal, and that is what we are doing.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on securing this very timely debate and on the characteristically thoughtful case he made. I also give credit to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), a graduate of the Open University himself, who reminded us of the analogue age of VCRs and the magic of Sir David Attenborough.

I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for highlighting the genuine inclusivity of the Open University from its inception. He was also right to highlight the importance of prisoner education. Although it is not within my area of responsibility, I am very passionate about it, and I believe that the Open University and other providers have a really important role to play, given the captive nature of the audience and the chance for prison to be a place where people can genuinely turn their lives around.

I want to answer the question about UCAS before I turn to the wider debate. The Open University chooses to manage applications directly, partly because of the need for flexibility beyond the normal academic cycle, but information about OU courses, including modular courses, is available on the UCAS website.

I am keen not to get drawn too far away from the topic of the Open University, but I will respond in short to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), who raised issues regarding level 7 apprenticeships. This is an area simply of disagreement on policy and on where the resources that sit behind the apprenticeships levy—which is now the growth and skills levy—should rest. I am really keen, as is the Education Secretary, for those resources to be targeted very much at those who might not have taken the university path and for those entry-level apprenticeship routes to be funded to the max. That is why that policy decision was made. I stand by it and believe it was the right decision on balance for the use of those resources.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southport speaks in this debate not just as an advocate for lifelong learning but as living proof of its potential. As he spoke about movingly, his example is of someone who enrolled with the OU at the age of 30, and five years later emerged with both an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree to their name. That, for me, is the Open University’s mission in a nutshell—not a makeshift second chance, but a genuinely world-class route to opportunity for people who were not on academic pathways at the age of 18. That is why his advocacy carries such weight. In Southport, he has carried that conviction into the community at the heart of his constituency, championing the learning festival that took place in the town last year and being a strong advocate for improving educational opportunities more broadly. I have been lobbied many times about school buildings by him, so I can attest to that.

As my hon. Friend explained, it will be 60 years ago next February since another Labour Minister, Jennie Lee, published the White Paper, “A University of the Air”. She did so in the face of immense scepticism. Whitehall was snooty, the press was cynical and much of the establishment argued that the money should be spent elsewhere, but Jennie Lee was, in Harold Wilson’s words, “a tigress”. At a famous Cabinet meeting at Chequers just before the 1966 election, she argued that while the national health service was the greatest creation of the post-war Labour Government, the “University of the Air” would make

“just as much difference to the country.”

The White Paper made a radical argument that higher education should be open to all, regardless of background or prior qualifications, that learning should be flexible, rigorous and lifelong, and that new technology would carry academic excellence far beyond the walls of traditional institutions. Jennie Lee won that argument, and 60 years on, every part of that vision—open access, flexibility and technology in service of excellence—reads less like history and more like a description of the task that sits in front of us today.

The Open University, the institution founded as a consequence of that White Paper, is today the largest academic institution in the UK, with students in all 650 parliamentary constituencies. Since 1969, it has taught more than 2.5 million students worldwide. Three quarters of its undergraduates arrive with no previous higher education qualifications. The open door that Jennie Lee promised is still open.

In the last five years alone, more than 15,000 people who began studying without any A-levels have earned higher education qualifications through the Open University. Two thirds of its students are working while they study. It is learning that fits around life—not the other way around. The OU was never second best: at the last assessment, 82% of its research impact was rated world leading or internationally excellent, and last year it was awarded gold—the highest ranking—in the teaching excellence framework.

[Jim Shannon]

We all, including the Minister, recognise that the Open University reaches out to those who are perhaps isolated and lonely. It gives them an opportunity to focus their attention on a degree, thereby giving them hope for the future. That is sometimes underestimated, but it is critical.

[Josh MacAlister]

I completely agree. I will turn now to the Government’s actions, which will take the Open University to its next chapter, so that those opportunities are spread even more across our great country.

Last October, we published the “Post-16 education and skills” White Paper. There is a powerful alignment between the Open University’s mission to widen access and our own vision, set out in that White Paper, for a world-leading skills system that breaks down barriers to opportunity. The strategy in the White Paper is the blueprint for delivering our new target for two thirds of young people to be participating in higher-level learning—academic, technical or apprenticeships. We are determined to break the damaging link between background and success, and we want more people from all backgrounds to be able to access higher education as part of that.

As part of our reforms, the lifelong learning entitlement —a policy from the previous Government that I am very pleased we are continuing, with cross-party support—represents one of the most significant student finance reforms in a generation. For the first time, it establishes a single, flexible funding system covering levels 4 to 6 across further and higher education, enabling people to learn, upskill and retrain throughout their working lives.

The rationale for the entitlement is clear. More than a third of vacancies go unfilled due to skills shortages, and around 80% of the 2030 workforce are already in employment. However, the current system was largely designed for younger, full-time students and lacks the flexibility that adults in work need. The LLE will expand access to higher-quality, flexible education and training, promote learner mobility and ensure that providers can respond to the needs of learners, employers and the wider economy.

Sixty years ago, a White Paper of just a few pages was dismissed as vague, insubstantial and impractical. Today, the institution it created has taught more than 2 million people, with my hon. Friend the Member for Southport among them. That is the test that Jennie Lee set us: not whether an idea is convenient, but whether it changes lives. She insisted that there could be no question of offering students a makeshift project, inferior in quality to other universities. Sixty years on, that standard still binds us.

From January next year funding will, for the first time, follow the learner, module by module, at any stage of life. Our ambition that two thirds of young people reach higher-level learning is matched by an entitlement that lasts to 60, because opportunity should not have a closing date. Jennie Lee’s revolution was to say that the door to education should never close behind someone. The task of the next 60 years is to hold that door open wider still, in Southport and in every community like it. When our learners thrive, our country thrives.

Home-to-School Transport

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tom Gordon]

I thank my hon. Friend for her diligent work as a member of the PAC, and for making that point about SEND, which I will come on to during my speech.

Local authorities in England spent £2.6 billion on home-to-school transport in 2024-25, which was a real-terms increase of 70% since 2015-16. SEND transport alone more than doubled in cost over that same period, and it now accounts for £2 billion of that total. These are enormous sums, but remarkably, the PAC found that the Department for Education does not know whether this spending is achieving value for money. It does not have the data needed to oversee the system effectively, and it cannot adequately measure the relationship between transport and school attendance.

The consequences of that failure are visible in other figures: some 1 million young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training, and one in five children of compulsory school age misses at least a day of school per fortnight, which rises to one in three at sixth-form age. The Department’s own assessment looks only at transport disruptions on the day they occur, not the wider issue of whether the system is keeping children in school. This is a serious blind spot, and one that the Government need to address.

This is not just a North Yorkshire problem; the County Councils Network has warned that three quarters of councils are expected to tighten mainstream transport eligibility in the coming years. What is happening in my constituency today, and across North Yorkshire, is a preview of what families across rural England will face if this direction of travel is not reversed. Nowhere is the picture more stark than in some of the stories that my constituents have told me, which is why I secured this debate today.

At the heart of the problem is a growing disconnect between two systems that are supposed to work together but increasingly do not. We have a school admissions system built around catchment areas and feeder school relationships, and a home-to-school transport framework that has been interpreted ever more narrowly as being for the “nearest school only”.

For many years, county councils bridged that gap pragmatically by offering transport to the nearest or catchment school. That reflects the realities of rural England, where many children live well beyond walking distance, where public transport is sparse or often non-existent, and where the geography means that the nearest school on the map is often not the most practical school to reach—sometimes there is a dale in the way, sometimes a river crossing, and sometimes a simple county boundary that bears no relation to how communities actually function.

As budgets tighten and authorities retreat towards the statutory minimum provision, councils are removing catchment transport and reverting to nearest school only. In rural areas like North Yorkshire, the consequences are severe and they are being felt right now. Within days of being elected, the issue of home-to-school transport was landing in my email inbox, and it has not stopped since. North Yorkshire council changed its transport policy to base eligibility on nearest school only, rather than the nearest or catchment school. The council says this is to address rising costs, which are now expected to exceed £52 million—one of the three largest areas of the council’s expenditure—with unsubstantiated claims of savings of up to £3 million over the next seven years.

I understand budgetary pressures, and I understand that local authorities are being squeezed from every direction, but understanding a pressure does not simply mean accepting the response to it uncritically, when the policy is clearly not working. The system that North Yorkshire council uses to calculate the nearest school is not publicly available, so families receive decisions with no ability to interrogate the methodology behind them. That opacity alone is a problem, but when we look at what the methodology is actually producing, it becomes something worse than opaque; it becomes absurd.

The council measures distance using the shortest available walked route to school, which sounds reasonable until we look at what counts as a “walked route”. That includes riverside paths, farm tracks, roads with no pavements or street lights, cliffside grass tracks and hiking paths over the dales. Campaigners have discovered that the council’s mapping tool has even been thought to include a private farm track and a ford crossing of a river as an available walking route to school. In reality, the ford is passable only by tractor and the track is on private land. One family appealed successfully against the use of the route, but it remains on the council’s mapping system, ready to be used again.

The School Transport Action Group has documented routes that children have been expected to follow, including climbing over metal barriers on the A64 and using paths that cross an active military firing range. I am interested to hear the Minister’s view of whether any of those constitute a “nearest available walked route”, in North Yorkshire council’s words. STAG, which was formed to fight the changes, has done determined and important work in documenting the human and financial cost of the policy. I pay particular tribute to Jo Foster, whose campaigning on the issue has been tireless and has helped bring the national attention that it warrants. STAG puts the situation plainly:

“North Yorkshire Council has lost the plot on home to school transport”,

and I am inclined to agree. More than 1,000 families have been affected, with more than 200 appeals and 20 ombudsman cases in the past year alone. A senior councillor who voted for this very policy has publicly admitted that it contains errors, and some families have been left as losers. This is not a rounding error; it is a clear policy failure.

STAG has completed a survey of families going through the process right now, the class of 2026. The group has 60 responses so far, and the findings are telling: nearly 59% applied to a school because it was their catchment school, more than a third already had siblings there, and 84% live in towns and villages that have a school bus going to their chosen catchment school, yet 73% will not be eligible for free transport. Nearly two thirds of those families have no back-up plan at all.

Some have told STAG what their options look like in practice. One parent said:

“My back-up plan is to leave my job so I can drive my child to school.”

Another said:

“We would have to consider driving, but we both travel with work and it wouldn’t allow us to do our current jobs.”

A single parent wrote:

“I would not be able to work. I am a single parent household.”

One parent captured the particular absurdity of sibling cases:

“I shall have to take extra overtime at work in order to pay for my second child to sit on a bus that my eldest child is already on.”

Those families who plan to buy a paid-for bus pass face a further cruelty. Those passes will not be confirmed until August. They will be subject to availability and can be withdrawn with one week’s notice. The council has made it clear that its intention is to phase out catchment routes entirely, as soon as possible. Families are therefore being asked to plan their working lives around a service that may not exist by the time that their child starts secondary school.

Those are not edge cases; they are predictable, documented consequences of a policy that has stripped the transport system away from the admissions system it is supposed to support. The costs have not disappeared; they have simply been transferred from the council to the rural families who can least afford them. Council officers have described the changes as ensuring “fairness and consistency”, but I will put some individual stories on the record and let Members judge that for themselves.

Leanne lives in a village outside Harrogate. Her daughter has been waiting three and a half years for a diagnosis, but is on the SEN register and has a PDA—pathological demand avoidance—profile with emotional-based school avoidance. There is no public bus through her village and no safe walking route. Leanne’s other child has Down’s syndrome and an education, health and care plan, and cannot travel to school safely alone. Both children need to be at school at the same time; Leanne and her husband both work full time. Under the new policy, they have been denied free transport to the nearest suitable school and are now paying £94 a month for a bus permit. She told me:

“The system is broken and does not take into account personal circumstances or rural villages’ needs.”

I agree with her entirely.

David lives in Upper Wharfedale. Every morning he drives in convoy with his neighbours, following the school bus past his house, because his neighbours qualified under the old policy, but he did not. For him, the bus goes to the nearest primary school, the only school that anyone in the local area has attended for 60 years, along the only safe route available. North Yorkshire council, however, is now saying that his children’s nearest school is Hawes, in Wensleydale. To get there, they would have to cross Fleet Moss, one of the highest and most remote routes in the country, which is treacherous in winter and frequently impassable. David and his family moved to the dales five years ago to run a farm diversification scheme, but they would never have come had this policy been in place then. He has told me that it will be

“the death of these communities, and that’s not hyperbole.”

I believe him.

Sophie, a friend I went to high school and college with, lives in one of the villages straddling multiple local authority boundaries, with a Doncaster postcode, North Yorkshire council oversight, an East Yorkshire postal address and a West Yorkshire phone number. Her children’s primary school cohort has been scattered across four secondary schools, in different local authorities and in four different directions. She made the point with her characteristic directness: it cannot possibly be more cost-effective to fund transport to four separate schools in four different directions than it would be to fund one bus to one school. The policy is not just unfair to families, but undermining the purpose that it is meant to be achieving.

There is also a wider consequence that is often not discussed. One in four small primary schools in North Yorkshire stands to lose pupils because of this policy. Small secondary schools in Settle, Whitby and Boroughbridge face an existential threat. When we hollow out the transport routes that sustain these schools, we do not just inconvenience rural families, but undermine the schools themselves and the rural communities they serve.

I also want to raise the issue facing SEND families specifically, and the additional injustice of a cliff edge at 16. I want to tell this Chamber about Noah, whose mother Catherine has shared his story with me. Noah deferred starting primary school by a year because he was unable to walk. After winning an appeal to attend St John’s, North Yorkshire council offset that deferred year and placed him in year 8. The consequence— I want colleagues to sit with this for a moment—is that Noah will now receive one fewer year of education than his peers, and four years of free transport rather than five because his transport entitlement ends at 16. He has already had more taken from him than other children, through no fault of his own, and the system’s response is to take even more.

Noah cannot walk independently and requires one-to-one support. His taxi to school has become the highlight of his day because it is the one moment where he does not feel dependent on his mum—when he can feel something like freedom. His family have one income, claim universal credit and have little to no savings; they cannot find the money needed to pay the monthly costs for school transport. When Noah turns 18, the assumption is that his mum will simply be able to drive him because she has a Motability vehicle, which will strip away his independence that took so long to build. This is not a bureaucratic edge case; the system does this to families like Noah’s without apology.

That is not an isolated experience. The Public Accounts Committee found that 40% of families with young people with SEND said that they needed to give up work because of transport provision ending when their child turned 16. Colleges report students failing to start courses because transport had not been agreed. I believe that there was an issue across the border in Leeds, where the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has already found the council at fault for its approach to post-16 SEND transport, identifying both individual injustice and systemic failure. However, families continue to report inconsistent decisions, inadequate assessments and personal travel allowances that do not cover the actual costs.

The charity Contact put it clear in evidence to PAC: the policy is simply not working post 16. The change in entitlement can feel like a cliff edge. For families who have spent years building routines and supporting a young person with complex needs, that cliff edge can be devastating for the young person and for every member of their family around them. We cannot have a system that claims to support inclusion and participation while simultaneously pulling the transport that makes participation possible.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I wanted to come along and support the hon. Gentleman in bringing this debate forward. He is a very assiduous MP in this House, whether it be on the Back Benches in the Chamber or leading debates in Westminster Hall, and I want to congratulate him on that. I also add my support to what he is hoping to achieve because, although this is not a responsibility for the Minister—this issue is devolved in Northern Ireland—we have similar problems when it comes to SEND issues, disabled children and road safety. In his quest to have a better system, I wish him well. I hope that, back home in Northern Ireland where it is devolved—the Minister here has no responsibility for it—we will see changes as well.

[Tom Gordon]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. As ever, he puts his point eloquently and passionately. I agree that, no matter where a SEND child is living in this United Kingdom, they deserve a lot better than they are getting at the moment.

I want to press the Minister on a number of specific points. The single most impactful achievable change that this Government could make is also the simplest. The statutory guidance on home-to-school transport should be updated so that the minimum provision becomes the nearest or catchment school, rather than solely the nearest suitable school. That one change would restore the alignment between admissions and transport that rural families depend on. It would give councils a clear framework and remove the incentive to reinterpret eligibility ever more narrowly. It would protect the community-school relationships that anchor rural life, and it would not even require primary legislation. I urge the Minister to give that serious consideration.

Secondly, I urge the Minister to impress on her colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government the need to reinstate the rural services delivery grant. The rural premium matters enormously for local authorities such as North Yorkshire, where distances are not a policy choice, but a geographical fact. Cutting that grant has had real consequences for the decisions that local authorities have to make, and those consequences are being borne by families in villages across the dales, across my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough, and in North Yorkshire more widely.