Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Written Statements

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

Transforming children’s social care is central to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. It is fundamental to ensuring that every child grows up safe, supported and able to thrive. Today we are publishing the enduring relationships strategy, which sets a clear direction for children’s social care in England by placing relationships at the heart of the system’s purpose.

This publication builds upon our recent work to legislate for social care reform, reset how the system operates and give our partners clarity on delivery. The enduring relationships strategy establishes a guiding principle, bringing coherence to reforms by placing relationships at the heart of the system. The independent review of children’s social care called for a relentless focus on family networks, reunification and other forms of permanence that promote lifelong relationships to support the best outcomes for care-experienced children that endure into adulthood.

The evidence is clear: a single stable, trusted and loving relationship can transform a child's life, improving resilience, health, education and their long-term outcomes. There are professionals across the sector working tirelessly to support children to build and sustain trusted relationships.

However, this is too often dependent on individual commitment rather than reliable structures. Children can experience multiple moves, separation from family and community, and too often leave care without the networks of support that most young people rely on. The enduring relationships strategy addresses this directly. At its heart is a simple but fundamental idea: the purpose of the children’s social care system must be to build, protect and sustain children’s enduring relationships, so that they can feel safe, supported and able to thrive.

To enable this, our reforms are aligned to four key outcomes, and supporting enduring relationships is the golden thread that runs between them.

First: focusing practice on enduring relationships

Relationships should be treated not as an add-on, but as the core purpose of practice and the lens through which all professional judgment is exercised. This is reflected in the families first partnership programme, where mandatory family group decision making will ensure that children’s families and wider networks are involved in decisions about their care at an earlier stage. In addition, the Government have strengthened local authorities’ duties to promote sibling contact for children in care.

At every stage of decision making, the system should consider not only whether a child is safe, but who matters to that child and how those relationships can be enabled and sustained.

Second: creating homes for enduring relationships

All children should have a home that meets their need for love and support. Homes for children in care are not simply placements; they are where relationships are formed, sustained and strengthened. The system must create the conditions for those relationships to flourish, rather than contributing to their breakdown.



The majority of children should be supported in family-based homes. The Government are investing £88 million to reform fostering and recruit 10,000 new foster carers, working with fostering hubs and the sector, as set out earlier this year in the fostering action plan. Kinship care is also being strengthened, with every local authority required to publish a local kinship offer, supported by £126 million to pilot seven kinship zones, including family network support packages to help families step in and care for children within their networks.

Residential care should be used for far fewer children and only where it best meets their needs, with a focus on maintaining and restoring family connections. To address gaps in provision, the Government are rolling out regional care co-operatives to improve planning and commissioning. In addition, I have commissioned Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang to review professional development for staff in children’s homes, ensuring that the workforce can better support children to build and sustain meaningful relationships.

Third: supporting the transition to adulthood through relationships

Young people leaving care should be supported to move into adulthood with strong, lasting relationships in place. Too many leave care without the network of connections that most young people rely on as they begin adult life, and this must change. The Government are strengthening support for care-experienced young people so that they can move towards interdependent living, underpinned by trusted and enduring relationships.

Programmes such as Staying Put and Staying Close are ensuring continuity of care and connection beyond the point of leaving care, while strengthened corporate parenting expectations mean that public services play a more active and consistent role in supporting care leavers.

Recognising that many children in care have already lost important relationships, a national roll-out of Family Finding will be taken forward across all local authorities, with the aim of helping children identify and reconnect with the people who matter most in their lives.

Fourth: embedding relationships through accountability and inspection

The importance of children’s long-term relationships must be embedded through accountability and inspection. Care should be judged not by placement numbers or types, but by children’s experiences and the strength of the relationships they are able to build. To support this, the Government will introduce an enduring relationships measure to gauge improvement and provide accountability, alongside working with Ofsted to ensure that inspection frameworks reflect this priority.

We will take forward this work in close partnership with local authorities and the wider sector. Local authorities will be engaged as learning partners, reflecting their central role in leading practice and driving improvement. We will work closely with Coventry, Dorset, North Yorkshire and York local authorities, with the aim of publishing a best practice guide next spring.

This is a call to action for practitioners and leaders working with children in and leaving care to ensure that every child leaves with a network of enduring relationships. We ask the sector to strengthen how services support these relationships, engage in sharing what works, and act now by building on existing knowledge and good practice.

The publication of the enduring relationships strategy marks an important step in establishing a clear and consistent purpose for children’s social care. Every young person should be able to rely on children’s social care to meet more than their material needs. They should have a community of people who know them well and the confidence that someone will always be there for them. We cannot accept a system that does not provide this for our most vulnerable children. That is why these reforms are designed to support children’s futures beyond their time in care, ensuring that they have the love, stability and opportunity they need to thrive.

A copy of the enduring relationships strategy will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS89]

Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

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

With permission, I shall make a statement on the Government’s progress to reform children’s social care.

Transforming support for families and protection for children is central to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. That is why we introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which received Royal Assent in April. It has enabled the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. The whole-system reset that is needed to shift money, staff and attention to earlier intensive help for families, rather than late-stage crisis management, is under way, supported by over £3 billion in funding. I want to use this statement to focus on the care and leaving care systems that form an essential part of children’s social care. I am publishing the enduring relationships strategy that sets out how we will deliver that change.

In 2022, I published the independent review of children’s social care, a review that was informed by listening directly to thousands of people with experience of the care system. What I heard then, and have heard since, is that our care and leaving care systems are too often breaking rather than building lifelong loving relationships. Care can leave young people isolated, lonely and lacking belonging. This heightens vulnerability to poor mental health, unstable housing and unemployment. In that review, I called for a system where every young person would leave care with someone who loves them—a simple goal, but one that is not the central focus of our current system.

At present, care often prioritises the management of professional anxiety over the nurturing of lasting, enduring relationships that care-experienced people need in order to feel loved and safe. We see this in children being sent to grow up in homes far away from their community, thereby rupturing their school career, their friendships and their family relationships. We see this in the rules that mean foster carers are not trusted to make day-to-day decisions about whether the child they have in their care can have an overnight stay with a friend or have a haircut without seeking permission from a social worker. We see it when the young person turning 18 is pushed towards living independently, when what they really need is a housing and social support model that helps them build community.

The strategy I have published today sets out how we will make creating a loving tribe around every care-experienced young person the central obsession of the care system. To enable this, our reforms cover four key areas. First, all of children’s social care—not just the care system—must prioritise relationships. That means working to bring about change in families for children by strengthening the bonds found in existing family networks. This is at the heart of the Families First Partnership programme, where family group decision making and family network support packages are bringing children’s families and their wider networks into their care decisions at an earlier stage.

It also means unlocking the potential of kinship care. Every local authority will be required to publish a local kinship offer, giving families the clarity and support they need. We have also committed £126 million to seven kinship zones, which are now up and running, that will test the impact of a non-means-tested allowance, equivalent to the fostering allowance, for kinship families with a legal order.

Secondly, we must create more stable and loving homes for children in care that support long-term relationships. A shortage of foster homes is leading to too many children being moved far away from their communities and the people they know. It is putting pressure on existing foster carers to be matched with children where their needs and their relationships with brothers and sisters often cannot be met. It is leading to children being placed in residential care inappropriately, at great cost in terms of both money and poorer outcomes.

We are therefore on the cusp of dramatically expanding a new approach to running our care system. This is made up of new end-to-end fostering hubs, where we will pull together individual local authority fostering teams into larger and more specialised fostering services, with more resource and higher expectations on recruitment and support for carers. This is the main action that will deliver the 10,000 additional places in foster care that we need by the end of this Parliament. It is backed with £88 million and includes funding for new innovation, grants to build extensions and home improvements for existing carers, and modernisation of the foster carer recruitment process.

This new system also depends on expanding regional care co-operatives so that the majority of England will be covered by an RCC by the end of this year. RCCs will give areas the scale to create the types of homes that children in care need and the leverage to drive out profiteering and poor quality practice. My Department will use RCCs as the vehicle to roll out a new approach to wrap around children who are on or at risk of a deprivation of liberty order. This programme, called Home Again, will de-escalate crises and be delivered in partnership with health services. I will share more information about this in the coming weeks.

I have also been concerned about the lack of support and attention that has been given to those working in residential care. That is why we have launched an expert-led review to assess the professional development offer to staff at children’s homes and set out instructions for change that we will action this autumn.

Thirdly, we must support care-experienced children who are transitioning into adulthood by ensuring that we nurture and expand their long-term relationships. This is not to be confused with supporting their relationships with professionals, although that is important, but instead is about the relationships with people who can form a lasting family and tribe around care-experienced people. That starts with what the system measures and how it is inspected. Later this year, a new metric to track the quality of enduring relationships at an individual level will be rolled out in the care and leaving care systems because, whether we like it or not, what gets measured is often the thing that gets done. If we are serious about putting enduring relationships at the heart of the system, the performance of the system itself needs to be judged on whether the relationships around those in and leaving care are getting stronger or weaker. This will, of course, have implications for Ofsted’s inspection regime.

With a new measure of relationships sitting at the heart of the system, we also need to support practitioners to change what they do so that enduring relationships are strengthened. That is why today I am launching a national sprint to roll out family finding services across England by the end of the next two years. We know the impact that “Who Do You Think You Are?”-style services can have on building stronger tribes around young people, and we have already seen the impact of programmes like Lifelong Links. These services need to become the mainstream offer, rather than pilots on the fringe of the system.

In the coming months, I will launch the new Staying Close programme, which will shift the system away from its current focus on preparing young people for independence and instead focus on providing homes for care leavers that build interdependence and connection. This will mean fewer teenagers dropping off the care cliff at 18 and being forced to live in a flat, lonely and isolated.

Finally, I am particularly proud that we will work with faith and belief organisations to design a new lifelong relationships ceremony to recognise the important bonds between care-experienced adults and those who love them. Just as we have Christenings and naming ceremonies, Britain is generous enough to also mark these wonderful and unique relationships that give hope and meaning. I want these to start being offered this year.

The most important thing for us in life is our relationships. The state often finds it hard to put itself at the service of building these loving relationships. In fact, too often it blocks or weakens them. That changes today by making one thing very clear: the purpose of our care system, above all else, is to build enduring loving relationships. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is an honour to respond on behalf of His Britannic Majesty’s most loyal Opposition, particularly as we welcome much in the direction that the Minister has outlined in his statement on behalf of the Government today.

Too often, children’s social care is discussed only when tragedy strikes, yet for thousands of children, foster carers, kinship carers and care-experienced adults, these issues are daily realities. They deserve serious and sustained attention from those in all parts of the House. As Conservatives, we believe that strong families, strong communities and strong relationships are the foundation of a flourishing society. The Government have a duty to protect vulnerable children, but we must recognise a simple truth: the state can never replace the love, commitment and sense of belonging that family provides.

One of the most powerful conclusions of the independent review of children’s social care was that every young person should leave care with at least one loving, enduring relationship in their life. That is not a party political aspiration; it is a profoundly human one. It should concern us all that so many care-experienced adults report having felt lonely and isolated during their childhood.

Many of the themes in today’s statement build on reforms that have enjoyed cross-party support for some time, such as greater recognition of kinship care, stronger family networks, increased placement stability and better outcomes for care leavers. Those are objectives that Members across the House can unite behind. I particularly welcome the focus on kinship care. Having recently met kinship carers in my constituency, I have seen at first hand the remarkable role that they play. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and family friends step forward in difficult circumstances to provide not only a home, but continuity, identity and belonging.

I am proud that the last Conservative Government launched England’s first kinship care strategy. Kinship carers make extraordinary sacrifices to ensure that children receive the love and support they need, and they deserve recognition for that contribution. May I ask the Minister about the adoption and special guardianship support fund? Families rely on it and worry about its future. Will we see the results of that consultation? How will it interact with today’s announcements?

We also welcome the focus on foster care. For too long, we have relied on the dedication of foster carers while asking them to navigate systems that can be fragmented and bureaucratic. If fostering hubs can improve recruitment, strengthen support and increase placement stability, they deserve serious consideration. Perhaps the Minister could comment on how those hubs will be distributed across the country.

Likewise, the ambition to reduce the number of children placed far from communities is one that we strongly support. Every unnecessary move risks disrupting education, friendships and family connections. Stability matters. Almost half of foster carers say that they have had an unfilled space for a child in care in the past two years, often because they are waiting for a suitable match. What will today’s strategy do to improve matching and make the system easier to navigate for carers who are ready to provide a home?

Conservatives have long understood the importance of society’s little platoons—the families, communities, faith groups and voluntary organisations that sit between individuals and the state. Many charities and community groups already provide extraordinary support to vulnerable children and care leavers, and their contribution should never be underestimated.

We on the Conservative Benches also welcome the Minister’s determination to improve outcomes for care leavers. Too many still face a cliff edge when they leave care, with disproportionately poor outcomes in housing, employment and mental health. I would welcome further detail on the new metric to track the quality of the enduring relationships built by children in care. How will the Government measure such relationships? How will that be reflected in Ofsted inspections?

Ultimately, the success of these reforms will be judged not by strategies or structures, but by outcomes. Will more children experience stable placements? Will fewer children be moved repeatedly? Will more young people leave care with secure housing, employment opportunities and strong relationships? Will local authorities have the workforce capacity to deliver these aspirations?

Children who enter care have often experienced circumstances that most of us would struggle to imagine. They deserve not just safety, but hope; not just protection, but belonging. Where the Government act to strengthen families, support kinship carers, improve foster care and build lasting relationships, they will find us to be willing partners.

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank the hon. Member for the spirit in which he shared his remarks and the questions that he put to me. He is right to say that this issue requires serious and sustained attention from the House and from parties across every corner of the Chamber.

It is worth highlighting to people the disparity between what care-experienced people tell us about their experience and the experiences of the general population. Some 22% of care leavers are always or often lonely, and 15% of care leavers do not have a really good friend. Compared with the general population, those numbers are so much higher, which illustrates why this issue is so important.

Let me turn to the questions asked by the hon. Member. The adoption and special guardianship support fund is hugely important, which is why we have increased the fund by 10% this year to ensure that we can reach more families and young people with that support. The consultation response will come later this year. At the moment, the Department is focused on implementing the changes and improvements that we set out in the consultation a few months ago.

The fostering hubs will be allocated in the next few weeks, and I hope to make an announcement next month on the fostering hubs and RCCs that will be rolled out and extended further. In terms of improving matching, regional care co-operatives will play an important role in the future system in enabling us to get a much better sense, looking ahead at the years to come, of the actual sufficiency required for children in their areas.

Finally, let me turn to the new metric. The Department has worked with foundations to set out a shortlist of options of standardised measures that are valid and can be used at a practitioner and young person level but do not create undue bureaucracy or distract from the important relationships that are needed in those conversations. I am confident that we can find and roll out a measure this year that will achieve that goal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister on his commitment to making a difference for children in the care system and for care leavers. It is a shocking reality that our care system has, over a long period of time, become so far removed from putting the essential needs of children and young people for secure, loving relationships at the heart of everything it does.

May I acknowledge the magnitude of the shift that the Minister has announced today? We do not often have moments like this in the House—we should have them more often. Having spoken to many, many care leavers over a long period of time, I know the difference that what the Minister has announced today has the potential to make for them. I welcome the fact that many of his commitments are consistent with recommendations from the Education Committee in our report.

May I ask the Minister for further detail on two areas? First, can he give an assurance that, as he works to deliver this transformation of the care system and support for care-experienced people, he will retain a focus on restoring the early intervention and family support that prevents children from entering the care system in the first place? Secondly, with the focus on regional care co-operatives, may I press him on their geography? They cover quite large geographies, and it is possible for a child to be placed in a regional care co-operative and still be placed a long way from home. In delivering on the detail of regional care co-operatives, will he give his attention to that issue and pay attention to the distance that children will need to travel within them?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, not just for those remarks, but for the Committee’s work over the last few years in keeping a focus on these issues. I also thank her for her support for the Government always going further and taking more actions to improve outcomes for children and their families.

In answer to my hon. Friend’s first point, the fundamental shift required in this Parliament is that we start to see funding across the children’s social care system being rebalanced away from late-stage crisis spending towards earlier, intensive support for families. We are not leaving that to an annual check-in. Every quarter, my officials and I are monitoring the pounds being spent by children’s social care across the country, and we will be prepared to support and, if necessary, to intervene if the system reset that we expect is not being seen on the ground in how spending is done.

The geography of RCCs will be large. In some areas, they will have the footprint of a mayoral combined authority or multiple mayoral combined authorities, but there will be a specific target for creating homes that keep children in close proximity to their existing communities.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I have no doubt that it is a moment of immense pride for the Minister to be able to announce as Government policy many things that he recommended in his own independent review, and we welcome them.

Every child deserves to have deep, trusting, lifelong relationships, yet, as we have heard, too many children in care are torn away from those whom they are able to trust, unable to keep in touch with them for the stability they need to enter adulthood. We know from the Milburn report, published last week, that care-experienced children are five times more likely not to be in education, employment or training at the age of 17 than the general population. As Milburn says, the care system produces an intense concentration of changes

“at precisely the ages when continuity matters most.”

The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome today’s announcement—the strategy, the accompanying investment, and the marked shift away from harmful short-term thinking and a transactional system towards a holistic approach that puts the child front and centre of decision making, alongside long-term relationships. The Minister will know that my noble Friend in the other place, Baroness Tyler, campaigned hard to close the loophole that prevented children in care from being able to contact siblings not in care, and we hope that today’s announcement will build on her brilliant campaigning.

As the Minister alluded to, the number of children in care living more than 20 miles away from home has increased by 41% over the past decade, and that has a damaging long-term impact on those children’s relationships. When will we see a reduction in the number of children in care living far from their families and friends? What are the current accountability measures when children are moved to the other side of the country although that is not in their best interests, and how can that accountability be improved through the regional care co-operatives?

The Minister also referenced the new financial allowance pilot for kinship carers. He knows that my party and I have long campaigned on that issue, and I very much hope that he will move at pace, working with the Treasury, to scale those pilots up quickly nationwide. He knows how beneficial it is to put kinship carers’ allowances on a par with foster carers’ allowances. I also urge him to work with Ministers in the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that statutory leave for kinship carers is part of the parental leave review.

Finally, the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been mentioned. I note that the Minister has increased the fund overall, but the cuts to the individual grants persist. He knows that those cuts are damaging to the families affected, so will he please consider reinstating those grants?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank the hon. Member for her questions and, again, for the spirit in which she has made her contribution. I also thank her for her leadership on this issue—she has spent a lot of time in this place raising many of these points time and again. She is right to highlight the work of the noble Baroness Tyler in the other place, and I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) in this place; both of them, working cross party, have long highlighted the importance of brothers and sisters in the care system. The most important relationships can often be relationships with siblings.

I want the number of distant placements to start to come down in this Parliament. The leading indicator of that would be an expansion of fostering, and we are monitoring that at the moment. We need to start seeing those numbers go up in a big way so that the homes are created close to where children already live, and there is not a need for distant placements.

Turning to accountability, we definitely need greater visibility on those numbers in the system; if the metric I talked about in the statement is embedded across the system as well, we will start to see the strength of those relationships. We speak to young people who have been moved two hours away from their home community; earlier this week, I spoke to a young woman who that had happened to. It was impossible for her to keep the quality of relationship that she wanted to with her father, which was safe. We need to measure that. That needs to be the central focus, and then everything else will flow from it, including the location of placements.

Finally, on kinship allowance, the take-up has been impressive already; it is only a few weeks into the roll-out, and I have looked at the data. I look forward to going to Grimsby soon, hopefully, with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) to see one of the areas that, at the moment, is more successful than the others—there is a competition under way—and see the success of that programme.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

There are wonderful kinship carers down in Sussex Weald, and the Minister is more than welcome to visit.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement today and pay tribute to him for his enduring commitment to this issue, which started long before he came to this place. Improving the lives of children in care and care leavers must be our highest priority, and Hartlepool’s previous Labour council stood four-square behind the Minister’s intent to rebalance the system. As he knows, though, I am really concerned about the legacy of this broken system—the firefighting that councils are having to do, the financial pain it has caused them, and their inability to make that rebalancing happen. Can the Minister give me a little more information about how he is working with his colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support those councils, which are under such huge financial pressure?

[Josh MacAlister]

The Government have prioritised this issue, with £2.4 billion of funding for the Families First programme over the next three years to get some up-front spending into the system and achieve the rebalancing that is needed. For a smaller number of local authorities, the scale of the care population and the legacy of the erosion of services makes that a challenging transition. I am committed, alongside MHCLG Ministers, to taking representations from local areas and—where we can—to going further in resourcing the changes that are required.

However, this applies to every local authority across the country, so I will say that although that transition is not an easy one, it is one that many areas have undertaken. Over the past few years, there have been councils across England that have been very successful—in some cases without any Government support—in bearing down on the need for late-stage crisis costs, holding their nerve as both elected members and directors of children’s services, and have seen that shift towards keeping more families safely together. This is a resource question, but it is also a question of leadership and culture.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that, apart from the time when I was sitting on it, I have been unsparing in my criticism of the occupants of the Treasury Bench, irrespective of their party. Every now and again, however, there is a Minister who has a record of expertise and commitment to their brief. That was on display today, as it was when the Minister came before the Joint Committee on Human Rights yesterday.

[Josh MacAlister]

I am blushing, Madam Deputy Speaker—the right hon. Member is very generous. There are politicians on all sides of this House who come to this place with a good cause and dedicate huge amounts of time, often behind the camera and unseen, to making real and lasting change happen. There are more of us doing that on all sides of the House than we are sometimes given credit for.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement on enduring relationships for children in social care, and for his emphasis on the need for both elected politicians and officers in local authorities to be resilient in pushing this through. Will he join me in congratulating Luton council’s children’s services on improving from inadequate six years ago to good at the last inspection, just a couple of months ago? I particularly thank deputy leader Councillor Umme Ali for all her hard work and leadership. She has worked with officers to drive forward that improvement in provision and support for some of our most vulnerable —but also some of our most resilient—children and young people in Luton.

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I am delighted to extend my congratulations to Councillor Ali and the whole team at Luton, which is one of the pathfinder local authorities for the Families First programme and the changes we are trying to make. As a result of that programme, local authorities are focusing more on earlier and intensive support for families, which is keeping more families safely together. It also means that we are able to act more sharply and decisively when there are child protection concerns—those two things need to go together.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for the work he has done. It was a pleasure to work with him when I was at the Department for Education, and it is great to see the development of his findings and the effort that has been put into them.

The Minister raised the important issue of kinship care and the extra support going to local authorities. My one slight concern is that we might start to see a real divergence in the level of support offered to kinship carers in different local authority areas. Could the Minister expand a little bit on how he will take action to ensure there is not too great a divergence?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question, and for giving me the job of doing the independent review of children’s social care in the first place; I would like to think he made a good decision, but time will tell.

The problem is that at the moment, the provision of support with kinship care is very uneven across the country, and it is quite hard to tell the variation in the rates of support that are offered from place to place. The same is true for allowances and fees for foster carers, so there is something to be done about transparency in the existing system. However, the kinship zones programme, which includes the allowance pilot—it has been supported by colleagues in the Treasury to ensure that it does not impact on universal credit, and it is genuinely non-means-tested—means that we will have a good-quality impact evaluation to assess in seven different areas what impact that has overall on the flow of families. Sometimes that flow is rightly away from the fostering system—which puts children into care even though they are living with relatives—and keeps them in the right place, which is with the people who already love them, supported through an SGO or a kinship child arrangement order. I am hopeful of the findings from that evaluation. If they are positive, I will be doing everything I can to ensure that it gets support across Government.

[Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome today’s announcement, as many colleagues have done, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his commitment to ensuring that children in care and care leavers have the same opportunities for love, support and belonging as every other young person. I know that it has been a personal endeavour of his for many years. As he will know, Blackpool has a significant number of children in care, and we know that strong, enduring relationships can be life-changing. Will he say a little more about how this programme will help local authorities, such as Blackpool, identify and reconnect young people with trusted adults in their lives and ensure that those relationships can continue to support them as they move into adulthood?

[Josh MacAlister]

Blackpool faces some real challenges, and I thank all the practitioners on the ground and the council for contending a situation where they have some of the highest rates of children in care. Blackpool is also a destination for distance placements, because of property prices. It means that many children who are in care are sent to Blackpool, which adds additional pressures. I was lucky enough earlier this week to meet Poppie, Hannah, Mackenzie and Tia. Those young people have benefited from one of the Family Finding programmes that this Government have funded called Lifelong Links. It demonstrates what should be the core purpose of the system, rather than a pilot programme or an innovation sitting on the edge of the system. I point to the type of practice done by Lifelong Links, supported by the Family Rights Group, and others, as the core work that we should see the care and leaving care systems doing. It would mean, for want of a better phrase, a “Who Do You Think You Are?”-style process, as seen on TV. This process looks back through the whole history of that child’s experience with important adults, and then gets those people back into the young person’s life.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

The Centre for Social Justice found that up to 57% of care leavers struggle to stay out of debt and struggle to manage their money. That is why I have got my two local authorities, Surrey county council and Woking borough council, to take young care leavers out of the council tax system altogether to help ensure that they can successfully transition to independent adulthood. Will the Minister agree to work with his colleagues in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that local authorities have the funding and guidance to extend that support across the country?

[Josh MacAlister]

I welcome it when councils create local offers, which includes the example that my hon. Friend mentions of council tax exemptions or discounts. It can also include support with public transport and making bus travel free. I welcome all of that. What we are saying with this new strategy is that although all of that is important, it is second order to the bigger issue that drives a lot of that vulnerability of debt, homelessness, tragically early deaths and completed suicides from young care-experienced adults, which is that sense that they do not have people in their life who love them. I am convinced that if we can get that bit right and make that the focus above all else, everything else will become easier, and the outcomes for this important community will get better.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement today, and I also welcome the remarks of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin). I agree that all too often when we debate these topics, it is in the context of a tragedy, and it is refreshing that we are here today celebrating some fantastic news for young people in care. The remarks from both Front Benchers stand in contrast to the disgusting remarks from a Reform councillor last year, who described young people in care as “evil”. I think we can all be unified in condemning that view.

The Minister will know, because we share the same local authority, that Cumberland has made great strides in recent years in achieving exactly what we want to achieve, by ensuring that young people have those stable relationships. I commend the work of the Family Rights Group in this area—I should declare that I did some work with it prior to entering this place. Can the Minister share with the House his ambition for how other councils, such as Cumberland under the leadership of Councillor Emma Williamson, can do what Cumberland has done in a few years during this Parliament?

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is right to highlight the leadership of Councillor Emma Williamson, who is herself care-experienced. She has brought that experience to political office in a way that is making real change happen across Cumberland. One of the things I was proudest to attend as a Member of Parliament, and as the Minister for Children and Families, was the launch of the enrichment event in my constituency last year. It is what Emma refers to as the bank of mam and dad. It is a fund that Emma and the team at Cumberland have set up to create an account with money that can go to young people who have something happening in their life. It could be to buy them a vehicle or to put down a deposit on a house. It is about having that flexibility through family finances that many of us benefit from but take for granted. Those who are care leavers often do not have it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister so much for his positive statement—I do so not in the salubrious way that the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) did, but with the same sincerity. I also thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for all that she has done in this House for children. It is perhaps not always recognised, but it should be, because her contribution has been significant.

This is a massive issue back home in Strangford and across Northern Ireland. The Minister will know that Northern Ireland heavily outpaces England in keeping children within their wider family circle, with kinship and friends care at more than 50%. It is clear that children are happier if kept with siblings and in familiar circumstances, so how will the Minister and the Government further support those who would consider kinship care but are hampered in their ability to access appropriate housing for family care and need bigger houses? How can the Minister ensure that larger family homes are available UK-wide for those truly in need?

[Josh MacAlister]

That is a great question, because it gets to the heart of how the system behaves when it finds a parent who is perhaps struggling with a substance misuse problem, or is in a violent relationship, or has mental health needs and cannot continue to look after the child by themselves, but could be an important part of that child’s life for the foreseeable future, and when there are relatives saying, “We can help. We can be part of the solution. We do not need this child to go into the care system.” There needs to be a mechanism to fund those solutions, and that is what family network support packages do. The £2.4 billion that I referred to is available to fund those family network support packages. In the kinship zones, we are expecting much higher use of those FNSPs so that we can properly evaluate things. When I looked at the differences in the care population around the UK in the review, it was striking that the strength of civil society in Northern Ireland was one of the reasons, perhaps—this is just an idea—why communities were better able to come together around those children who might be at risk of going into care.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on managing to unite the whole House around this issue—a rare moment. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, for which the Family Rights Group acts as the secretariat. I also reference the Lifelong Links programme, as the Minister has done. It has been a game changer, and it is a proof of concept for the ambitions that he has set out today. This approach can make significant changes for young people as they go through their lives. One of my questions is about the Family Finding approaches that the Minister mentioned. There is £8.4 million to roll that out. Does he have any more information on the timescales for that?

The Minister mentioned DoLs—deprivation of liberty orders—in his statement. On Tuesday, there was a Supreme Court judgment on deprivation of liberty and the changes to the acid test set in the Cheshire West judgment. Is that going to have any bearing on the roll-out of the strategy? Will any further guidance come out between now and the review that is expected to take place at the beginning of next year? And will he join me in congratulating North East Lincolnshire council’s fostering team, who have made enormous efforts to support foster-friendly employer schemes? All across the borough are orange stickers declaring that people are foster-friendly employers. That has raised awareness and done a huge amount to boost fostering in north-east Lincolnshire. Of course, he is welcome to come to my constituency any time.

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her questions. We are announcing today that the Family Finding programme will be extended and taken further, and the aim is to have it rolled out across the whole of England within the next two years. The procurement for that starts today, and it will be swift. We are looking to find an organisation that will not just support us to deliver a pilot or programme that sits alongside, or on top of, existing services—as has been done over the last few years—but work with local areas to embed in the core of how social workers and PAs are currently operating the features of those sorts of models, so that this becomes completely mainstream within the next two years. That is a bold goal, but we absolutely need to help shift the time and practice of social workers and PAs. We will need to make changes to some of the statutory guidance and regulation in order to free up social workers and PAs to be able to do that, but that is absolutely the right decision.

On deprivation of liberty orders, we will look really closely at the Supreme Court judgment earlier this week, but we do not expect that it will have any material impact on the Home Again programme that we are looking to roll out this summer. Finally, I would be delighted to congratulate the fostering team in my hon. Friend’s local authority. I was inspired when I saw their videos.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think the Minister will achieve great things in his role, and he has already achieved great things, but this could be the most significant. The difference that the strategy is going to make—not only to young people leaving care, but to kinship carers—is absolutely massive. His dedication is borne out not just by the actions that he is taking, but by the short timescale in which he wants to achieve these things, and I give credit to him. He is someone who knows the difference between a care leaver and a young carer—the number of people who do not is shocking. I talk to a lot of young people leaving care in my constituency of Harlow, and it strikes me that they are running the race of life but starting at least 10 metres behind everybody else. As this is the final question, can the Minister do a pitch to care leavers in Harlow about the difference that the strategy will make to their lives?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for getting Harlow into his question. It is a really good question to end on, because I want young people in care, care leavers and care-experienced people in this country to know that we are now working towards a common goal that is supported across the House. We will ensure that they get people in their lives who love them—not lanyard-wearing professionals, who are important, but their own tribe. We need to get that right as a country, and I absolutely believe we can, because all the examples I have shared, and all the things in the strategy, are already happening across England. It is a case of spreading and mainstreaming them. If we can do that, it will completely transform outcomes—for example, for young people not in education, employment or training. It will improve mental health and bring down the number of young care-experienced people who complete suicide, and it will mean that we are lucky enough as a country to have these brilliant young people celebrated and achieving.

Children’s Social Care Reform

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Written Statements

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

Transforming children’s social care is central to this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity for all children. It is fundamental to ensuring that every child grows up safe, supported and able to thrive, and is key to putting our public services and our public finances on a sustainable long-term footing.

In November 2024, this Government published “Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive”, which set out a clear and ambitious vision for reform to support more children to remain safely with their families, to strengthen wider family networks where children cannot live at home, and to ensure that those who need care receive stable, enduring relationships.

We have laid strong foundations for whole-system reform through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which is the most significant overhaul of children’s social care legislation in a generation. This Act strengthens multi-agency safeguarding, oversight and accountability across the system. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 has further strengthened our response to child sexual abuse and criminal exploitation, with tougher offences, modernised enforcement powers and a clearer focus on protecting victims. Our reforms to children’s social care are also backed by sustained investment, including £2.4 billion for the families first partnership programme.

Today we are publishing an implementation plan to support local partners to deliver reform. This plan builds on activity to reset the system, through prioritising intensive, earlier family help, renewing the focus on family-based care, strengthening child protection, and reforming the care market and workforce. It also follows recent work to update the children’s social care national framework, Working Together To Safeguard Children, and the families first partnership programme guide. As we drive forward delivery of reform, we will focus on three areas.

First, by 2026-27, every local authority will be embedding a single, seamless family help offer, ending the divide between early help and child-in-need services. Safeguarding partnerships will establish multi-agency child protection teams, bringing together social workers, health professionals, police and education, while new statutory duties on family group decision making will ensure that families are involved earlier and in decisions about their children. Alongside this, we will strengthen kinship care, recognising that children do best when cared for by people who know and love them. From 2026, every local authority will publish a clear local kinship offer underpinned by national standards, alongside targeted investment through kinship zones and pilot programmes to address practical and financial barriers for carers. We are also improving the evidence base through new data, robust evaluation, and the first Government-led study of kinship care.

Secondly, we are placing a renewed emphasis on the importance of stable, lifelong relationships for children in care and care leavers. We will expand foster care capacity from 2026 by strengthening support and financial stability for foster carers and simplifying fostering standards by autumn 2026 to ensure a greater supply of high-quality placements. In parallel, we will scale regional care co-operatives from spring 2026 onwards to deliver more homes, improve commissioning and enhance forecasting. This will be underpinned by enhanced financial oversight of the children’s homes market, including the introduction of the first provider oversight scheme for groups of children’s homes, targeted capital investment to build provision in the right locations, and tighter regulation of unregistered homes. Care leavers will continue to benefit from support through Staying Put, while Staying Close will become a national offer in spring 2029. In addition, new corporate parenting responsibilities for Government Departments and relevant public bodies will be introduced from autumn 2027, ensuring a more consistent and joined-up approach to supporting young people as they move into adulthood.

Thirdly, adoption support is a key element of reform. We will continue to provide vital therapeutic support through the adoption and special guardianship support fund, to consult on the fund’s longer-term future, and to introduce a new universal parenting offer from autumn 2026 to support families and children as they transition to secondary school. Adoption England will also work with local authorities and regional adoption agencies to improve adoption practice, Ofsted will undertake a thematic review of regional adoption agencies, and we will strengthen adoption record retention by establishing a consistent 100-year standard.

Finally, supporting the whole workforce is a central aim of this programme. Our plan sets out a comprehensive package of actions to strengthen capability, stability and professional standards. This includes enhancing training and standards for children’s homes staff from spring 2026, streamlining Ofsted registration processes for children’s home managers, and investing in the early career development of social workers. Alongside this, we will work in partnership with local authorities to embed a strengthened professional development offer for social workers, underpinned by clear and consistent standards. We will also take steps to improve workforce stability by strengthening the regulatory framework for agency workers from spring 2028, supporting more expert practice for children and families.

I am also pleased to inform Parliament that Foundations—What Works Centre for Children & Families, is today publishing an implementation framework for designing and delivering services for children and families. The framework supports the implementation plan published by the Government today, and sets out a clear, consistent and evidence-based framework to support local authorities and their partners to map local systems, identify strengths, convene key stakeholders, and follow defined steps to design and deliver evidence-informed children’s services.

By reforming children’s social care, we are investing in children’s futures. I would like to thank all those across children’s social care, policing, health, education and wider public services who are working tirelessly alongside the Government to bring the change that our children need and deserve.

I will deposit copies of the implementation plan in the Library of each House.

[HCWS54]

Lifelong Learning Entitlement Regulations

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Written Statements

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

I am today laying before Parliament the Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026, the first in a package of secondary legislation needed to implement the lifelong learning entitlement, ahead of its launch in September 2026 for courses and modules starting from January 2027.

The LLE will transform the post-18 student finance system in England by creating a single funding system for levels 4 to 6 that supports people to learn, upskill and retrain across their working lives. It will broaden access to high-quality, flexible education and training, support learner mobility, and help ensure that our colleges, universities and other providers can meet the skills needs of learners, employers and the wider economy. This supports the Prime Minister’s target for two thirds of young people to access higher-level learning by age 25, alongside increasing participation in high-quality technical education. The Government are committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and driving economic growth, and the LLE is a central part of that mission.

The package comprises three sets of regulations:

The Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026,

The Lifelong Learning (Student Support) (Amendment of Fees and Awards etc.) Regulations 2026, and

The Education (Student Loans) (Repayment) (Amendments for Lifelong Learning) Regulations 2026.

Pending Parliament’s approval of the fee limit regulations, I will then make and lay the second two sets of regulations. In the meantime, to allow Parliament sight of the full LLE policy while scrutinising the fee limit regulations, draft copies will be made available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lifelong-learning-entitlement-lle-overview/lifelong-learning-entitlement-overview

Together, these regulations establish the fee limits, student support and repayment framework required for the LLE. They will create a credit-based fee limit system, allow funding to be used more flexibly for modules as well as full courses, and put in place the student support and repayment arrangements needed to operate the new system from launch.

Under the LLE, new learners will be able to access a lifetime entitlement equal to four years of full-time tuition, which can be used more flexibly than the current system allows. Eligible learners undertaking designated in-person study will also be able to access maintenance support for living costs, representing an important expansion of support for part-time and technical learners. The LLE also removes the equivalent or lower qualification restriction, helping adults with prior study to retrain and reskill.

The LLE marks a significant step forward in modernising the student finance system so that it works better for young people and adults in a changing economy. It will give learners greater flexibility in how and when they study, support providers to offer more responsive provision, and help ensure that people across the country can access the education and training they need to unlock opportunity and succeed.

[HCWS25]

Education

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Written Corrections

The following extract is from Education questions on 20 April 2026.

[Josh MacAlister]

The Secretary of State has made a written statement to the House this morning confirming the timing of the commencement of the higher education free speech complaints scheme and the regulatory conditions. The complaints scheme will be commenced from 1 September this year, and the regulatory powers of the Office for Students from 1 April 2027.

[Harriet Cross]

I thank the Minister for that update. The scheme is long overdue, but of course it does not go far enough. Let us take, for example, the case of Brodie Mitchell, who was suspended from Royal Holloway for a spat at a freshers fair. Under the new guidelines, he would not be able to complain directly to the Office for Students. Why is that?

[Josh MacAlister]

The OfS system in place at the moment allows for students to complain about breaches of freedom of speech. The written statement laid this morning by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is all about expanding that coverage to staff, visiting lecturers and other speakers, as well as ensuring we have a system under which the OfS can go back to institutions and hold them to account.

[Official Report, 20 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 16.]

Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister):

[Josh MacAlister]

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education system in place at the moment allows for students to complain about breaches of freedom of speech. The written statement laid this morning by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is all about introducing a new scheme for staff, visiting lecturers and other speakers, as well as ensuring we have a system under which the OfS can go back to institutions and hold them to account.

[Jack Rankin]

…Why can academics and visiting speakers complain under this proposal, but not students? It is called the Office for Students, or is the Minister planning to rename it “the office for everybody on campus except students”?

[Josh MacAlister]

As I have said, at the moment students have a route of redress through the Office for Students. The Government have been focused on pulling together an enforceable regime, and it is welcome that both Labour and Conservative Members, across the House, are supportive of action to protect freedom of speech at our universities.

[Official Report, 20 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 17.]

Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education:

[Josh MacAlister]

As I have said, at the moment students have a route of redress through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. The Government have been focused on pulling together an enforceable regime, and it is welcome that both Labour and Conservative Members, across the House, are supportive of action to protect freedom of speech at our universities.

Young Adult Carers: Education and Training

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) for securing this debate, the second Westminster Hall debate he has instigated. He continues to be a fantastic champion for these young people and does a brilliant job of putting the spotlight firmly where it should be in this place. I also recognise the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who did a wonderful job of explaining the reality of what it means to be a young adult carer or young carer using personal stories, which are often what move parliamentarians the most.

I fully recognise the difficulties that young carers and young adult carers face. They make an often overlooked and misunderstood contribution supporting family members and friends. The sacrifices they make at such a young age can be immense. Earlier this year, my noble Friend the Minister for Skills met a group of young carers at the launch of the report on the barriers to education for young adult carers by the APPG led by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), mentioned the role of the Minister for School Standards, who also has a lead responsibility for this. I reassure Members that the issue cuts across a number of portfolios in the Department and is an interest and focus for all of us.

The APPG chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow is driving important work to support young carers across the country. The stories of young carers, including those I have heard as a Member of Parliament, are inspiring and bring to life the challenges they face when caring for loved ones, supporting themselves and their family financially, and accessing education and training, which is the focus of this debate.

This Government offer a wide range of high-quality education and training opportunities for young people so that they can get on in life and get the skills they need for a chosen career. The Government’s mission is about breaking down barriers to opportunity, which applies particularly to groups such as young carers. However, we know that group often faces more difficulties and challenges in accessing such opportunities than their peers. That is why the Government are actively working to ensure that changes under way across education and social care, which apply to many groups of young people, deliberately improve outcomes for young carers specifically—be that through better inclusion in education or a focus on better whole-family support and family help through changes to the children’s social care system.

We are making progress. There were a number of references to the importance of data. We are shining a light on the educational disadvantage faced by young carers by publishing, for the first time, attainment data at both key stage 2 and key stage 4 last autumn. I recognise that that piece of work has carried over between Governments; it is a good example of important work continuing regardless of party stance and despite the colour of the Government at any given moment. That evidence is driving change. For example, the new Ofsted education inspection framework introduced last November will put a direct focus on the needs of young carers. As Ofsted can be important as a motivating force for decisions by schools, although it has limitations at times, that also means that by putting it firmly in the framework, school leaders are attending to it in the way that is needed.

The Minister for Care chairs a regular cross-Government meeting with Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Education to consider how best to provide unpaid carers of all ages with the recognition and support they deserve. As has been mentioned, we are preparing a cross-Government action plan for unpaid carers, which will be published later this year. It will include action specifically to strengthen further support for young adult carers. We are also committed to providing bursaries for further education students aged 16 to 19 so that young carers can seek support for essential costs, such as books, equipment and travel, to help them stay in education. For those going into higher education, we are providing adult dependants’ grants for carers, and new maintenance grants will be available for students from low-income households.

Hon. Members have mentioned the Milburn review. I have had the chance to speak to Alan Milburn specifically about concerns to do with NEET rates for care-experienced young people. When I next have the opportunity to speak to him about his work, I will raise the importance of young carers, too.

A number of hon. Members have mentioned carer’s allowance. I recognise the issues around the 21-hour rule, which I appreciate can be a source of genuine frustration for young carers and their families. It is a long-standing principle that the benefits system does not normally support full-time students; rather, they are supported by the educational maintenance system. Part-time students can receive carer’s allowance if they meet the entitlement conditions.

I recognise the issues for a number of students finishing school and in programmes of study that are more than 21 hours. That means that many young carers who are also full-time FE students cannot claim carer’s allowance as a result of the 21-hour rule. The Minister for Social Security and Disability has taken a strong interest in this issue, including by meeting with Carers Trust, Carers UK, and the Learning and Work Institute to discuss it, and I am happy to follow up with him after this debate. How we can best identify and support young carers to combine study with their caring responsibilities where they can, including taking account of changes in the education system, will be one of our priorities going forward for this group of young people.

[Jim Shannon]

Not to interfere with the flow of the Minister’s reply—he is saying positive stuff, and I thank him for that—but perhaps the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) should be at that meeting and the follow-up, if that would be agreeable. The hon. Member could feed back to us, as participants in this debate, on how it went, if that is okay with the Minister.

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow will do a much better job of convincing people than anyone else in this room, so I will gladly make sure that he is the focus of attention in that conversation. It is very much my intention to follow up with the Minister for Social Security and Disability and ensure that a conversation takes place.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter. He has his London marathon bib sat next to him, and mine has just been delivered—on a whole range of fronts, he is raising attention and money for good causes, including this weekend. For this, for his many years of campaigning, and for his work as a teacher, we all thank him.

Young carers and young adult carers often put the needs of others before their own. They make an enormous contribution to the wellbeing of their families, their neighbourhoods, their communities and the country. They deserve to be championed, and to be assured that we will support them in return for their actions. However, the system needs to improve to meet the developing needs of children and young carers. They must be at the heart of our opportunity mission. I look forward to helping to progress some of these issues in the months and years ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking to promote apprenticeships as an alternative to university education.

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

Following a 40% drop in apprenticeship starts over the previous decade, we are now seeing them rise for those under 25, and achievement rates are also up. We want an extra 50,000 young people to benefit from apprenticeships. That is why we are introducing new grants for small and medium-sized businesses to take on apprentices, and why we have introduced new foundation apprenticeships.

[Lewis Cocking]

New figures reveal that 73% of teachers think there is not enough focus on preparing young people for employment while they are still in school. A good apprenticeship can bridge that gap, but the number of starts has fallen for those under 19 in the past year. Will the Minister change course and lead a real change, and shift away from dead-end university degrees to high-quality apprenticeships for every young person across the country who wants one?

[Josh MacAlister]

I agree with the hon. Member about the need for high-quality careers education in schools. The Labour Government are committed to ensuring that we bring back work experience for every young person, and we will be following the standards set out by other organisations to ensure that we get good-quality careers education and support the Careers and Enterprise Company. We do not need to set up this issue as a debate or a choice between higher education and technical further education. Both need attention, and there has been under-investment and a lack of support for apprenticeships—that we can agree on.

[John Cooper]

At an awards ceremony in Scotland last month, apprentices said time and again how they were told throughout their school careers that their grades were good enough to go to university, and that they should think again about going into an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships create not just jobs but careers, so what can the Department do to help in Scotland where the Scottish Government have wrecked so much of Scottish education? Can they be prevented from destroying apprenticeships as well?

[Josh MacAlister]

Education is a devolved matter, so the one thing I can do as a Minister in this Parliament is encourage people to vote for Scottish Labour and for Anas Sarwar to be the First Minister of Scotland. The hon. Member is right to highlight the absolutely shameful record of the Scottish National party on education, not only in its approach to the curriculum, teacher training and standards, but in withdrawing from PISA—the programme for international student assessment. The lack of progress that has been made on education north of the border is shocking. This Government are taking bold steps with SMEs to ensure that we create routes to apprenticeships for 50,000 more young people.

[Dr Johnson]

On Thursday this week an excellent apprentice in my office will graduate with a first-class degree. Unfortunately, no one will be able to follow in his excellent footsteps, because the Government have withdrawn funding for the chartered management degree apprenticeship. Given the benefits of degree apprenticeships, will the Minister please reconsider?

[Josh MacAlister]

This Government made changes to the apprenticeship levy and have introduced the growth and skills levy to focus the apprenticeship system where it should be focused. Most Members across the House would agree that with the apprenticeship levy—now the growth and skills levy—we needed originally to create routes for those who were not able to go to university to achieve level 4 and above qualifications. That is where this Government are focusing our attention and we will not apologise for that, because those are the young people who are missing out on opportunities at the moment and need an apprenticeship system that is focused on them.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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

I recently met a young constituent who is hoping to start a legal apprenticeship. He told me that he has had to research each apprenticeship opportunity himself and, unlike his peers who are applying to university, he is having to apply in the crucial weeks before his A-levels, when he needs to be revising. The Government rejected the Education Committee’s recommendation that information on apprenticeships should be available via UCAS, so that students have a single source of all post-16 and post-18 opportunities, and that the timescale for applications should be aligned with university applications. Will the Minister update the House on what the Government are doing to make apprenticeships available to young people on a more equitable basis?

[Josh MacAlister]

As someone who represents a constituency with one of the highest proportions of young people not going to university and going through apprenticeship or technical routes, I recognise the Chair of the Education Committee’s description of the complexity of the system of applications and the timing issues. I am happy to speak to her and ensure that there is a proper dialogue between the Committee and the Department on that issue.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I appreciate the efforts that Ministers and the Government are making to offer apprenticeships. In coastal towns such as Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate in my constituency, the growth sectors rely heavily on non-graduates, including in clean energy, ports and logistics, creative and cultural industries, nature protection, tourism, and leisure and hospitality, as well as health and social care. Will the Minister outline how “mission coastal” in the Education White Paper could address some of the skills and training gaps that are currently limiting the unleashing of our amazing coastal talent?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important point. There are a few ways to address this question. Too many of our coastal areas do not have the school standards in place to enable children to make the progress needed to access those opportunities. We need to ensure that there are real routes for young people to get into work opportunities, which is why the new deal that this Government are setting out will give a £2,000 grant for small and medium-sized enterprises taking on 16 to 24-year-olds who are new to work. There will be a new £3,000 youth jobs guarantee for hiring apprentices aged 18 to 24 who have been out of work and on universal credit for six months, and we are fully funding apprenticeship training in SMEs for young people.

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

Stafford college already delivers an outstanding apprenticeship achievement rate of 77.5%, which is an extraordinary 15% above the national average. Last week, it was announced that it will be one of the four new technical excellence colleges for advanced manufacturing. Its bid was built on its existing brilliant relationships with local employers, such as GE Vernova, Hitachi, Siemens and Moog. However, we know that there is always more to do, so will the Minister set out how the Government will support those extending colleges, such as the Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, and those employers already backing Britain by investing in skills here, so that more apprentices can go through our programmes?

[Josh MacAlister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her efforts in campaigning for that technical excellence college. We announced 19 TECs last week, and our package of measures to create another 50,000 apprenticeships for young people will give power to the elbow of institutions such as Stafford college, so that they can continue to make progress.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

Apprenticeships should be the building blocks of a stronger economy. That is why the Conservatives are pledging to double the number. If the Minister has done his homework, he will know that any increase in apprenticeship numbers is due to the last-minute rush to do level 7, which this Government cancelled. In fact, if level 7 apprenticeships are stripped out of the figures, apprenticeship vacancies are at their lowest since 2020. With youth unemployment at an all-time high and apprenticeship vacancies at their lowest, it is time for the Minister to come clean: this Government are failing young people, are they not?

[Josh MacAlister]

The Conservatives’ new deal is funded by cutting opportunities in higher education. The Tory plan—[Interruption.] The Opposition Front Benchers’ proposal—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is a question to the Minister, not about what the Opposition might be doing.

[Josh MacAlister]

I apologise, Mr Speaker.

The proposals we have set out as a Government are all about expanding opportunities so that we get young people out of worklessness and into job opportunities. That is why we have set out a new deal for young people. To put it politely, the shadow Minister’s proposals borrow from a number of the features that we have set out in our plan. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to help reduce the cost of living for students.

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

We know that students and graduates have been left facing the sharp end of the cost of living crisis. That is why we are making the system fairer for students, graduates and taxpayers by capping interest rates, future-proofing maintenance loans, reintroducing maintenance grants and making care leavers automatically eligible for maximum support. With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will share that we are concerned about students affected by providers’ misclassification of weekend courses. As Ministers, we have asked the Student Loans Company to collect any overpayments through normal student finance repayments and pause recoveries of overpaid grants until at least September while we consider the next steps.

[Abtisam Mohamed]

A recent cost of living survey by Sheffield Hallam students’ union shows that 82% of students are struggling, and many are working more hours at the expense of their studies. Too many are skipping meals and going without essentials, harming their health and their participation in university life. That is compounded by serious financial challenges at our universities, including staff cuts that are putting further pressure on the learning experiences of students. What action is the Minister taking across Government to review and widen financial support for students? Will he meet me to discuss the financial situation at Sheffield Hallam University?

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend is a vocal champion for higher education and students in her constituency. To help disadvantaged students, we are future-proofing maintenance loans by increasing them by forecast inflation every year. We continue to look for ways to make the student finance system fairer for students, graduates and taxpayers overall.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)]

The number of foreign students claiming fraudulent student loans is at a record high. That is making a mockery of the student finance system and costing the British taxpayer millions of pounds which could otherwise be diverted to support British students. What are the Government doing to reduce this fraudulent practice and fix our broken student loans system?

[Josh MacAlister]

We take this issue extremely seriously, but the description given by the right hon. and learned Member is of her own legacy in government as a Conservative politician. She is now a Reform politician. Nowhere in her question was an apology for the appalling track record of creating the plan 2 student loans system in the first place and administering it in a way that has led to the results that she describes.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

As the Minister said, on 23 March the Department told universities that weekend courses do not qualify for funding. The Student Loans Company’s own guidance changed only this year, and the issue affected 20,000 students, including those in key professions, such as nurses. The Secretary of State has been taken to court by nine universities, the National Union of Students is demanding that she halt her clawback, and Martin Lewis has said that this is an almighty mess. I heard what the Minister had to say, but I know that this Government always find someone else to blame, so will he confirm that any aggressive debt collection will absolutely be stopped and that payments will not be demanded from innocent students?

[Josh MacAlister]

I like the hon. Member, but unfortunately his question was written before I gave my earlier answer. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the Tory student loans plan would cost £4 billion and

“would not make an immediate difference to most graduates’ monthly repayments.”

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of supported internships.

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[Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)]

9. What assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the progress of the school rebuilding programme.

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

We are fixing crumbling schools and colleges, which are a direct consequence of under-investment in our country. Labour is investing £20 billion in the school rebuilding programme, and more than 500 schools are already in the programme, with well over half in delivery. We will select a further 250 by early 2027, and we are also launching a new renewal and retrofit programme to modernise the school estate.

[Michelle Scrogham]

In January 2023, children at Sacred Heart Catholic primary school in my constituency were forced to evacuate their building after inspectors warned that it could collapse. I am pleased to welcome its headteacher, Simone Beach, to the Public Gallery today, and I know that the whole House will join me in thanking her for her exceptional leadership during three extremely challenging years.

This is one of the starkest examples of the consequences of under-investment in school buildings. I thank the ministerial team for their close engagement over the last 18 months, and for the investment to build a brand-new school which is due to open in September 2027. What further support can be provided as the school’s staff continue to face the financial impact of the evacuation three years later, working across a number of temporary sites?

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to Simone, who is sitting in the Gallery. She is a wonderful Cumbrian, and a fantastic example of the excellence of school leaders and headteachers throughout the country. She has stewarded the school through a tumultuous few years, and with our Government support we will ensure that the new school setting is there for children who will need it in the future. Renewing our school estate is a massive challenge for the country: it is not just about building new schools, but about getting ahead of the curve so that we can modernise and retrofit existing school buildings that would otherwise have needed rebuilding altogether in 10 or 20 years’ time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—has been an huge issue here in Britain, but we have some examples back home in Northern Ireland as well. It is important that we share the way in which we address these problems. The Minister is always helpful, and I thank him for that. Will he contact the Education Minister in Northern Ireland to ensure that he and the Government can share what they have learnt here with us in Northern Ireland, so that we can address the issue in a similar way?

[Josh MacAlister]

The RAAC crisis here in England highlighted wider issues with the legacy of the school estate that England is now having to reckon with. I believe that we are now on top of that issue, and the Government are committed to stripping RAAC out of all schools in the years to come and ensuring that we have the school estate that we need. We have learnt a huge amount through that process, and I should be very glad to connect the hon. Member with relevant colleagues in the Department for Education and with Ministers in the Northern Irish Government.

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

10. What steps she is taking to help increase levels of fostering.

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

We are undertaking a once-in-a-generation reform of children’s social care, which includes ensuring that children in care are surrounded by enduring, loving relationships close to their communities, their friends and their schools. Creating an extra 10,000 homes in foster care is my top priority as the children’s Minister, and we are now implementing an ambitious action plan to meet that target.

[Sally Jameson]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Can he outline how he will implement the expansion of foster carers so that more children can stay close to home and in their schools, reducing their vulnerability to sexual exploitation and county lines—something that disproportionately impacts children in residential care? Will he also set out what more he is doing to support foster carers to make sure that they have an independent voice heard in local authorities, but also practical help such as house extensions and modifications, so that they can continue to increase the number of children they support and provide a home to?

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that we need to take action on a whole range of fronts to transform our fostering system, so that we can expand it and retain the brilliant foster carers we already have in this country. That is why we are backing the plan with £88 million. We are taking action to bring local authorities together to create new end-to-end fostering hubs with clear targets. That process is currently under way, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight the really important action of the Room Makers programme. The Government will fund the extension and expansion of foster carers’ homes so that they can take in more children. That is important, because we are funding a residential care system in this country that is the size it is because we do not have the foster homes that we need.

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

Does the Minister accept that if we are to promote fostering credibility, we must move beyond simply running adverts saying that we need more foster carers and ensure that fostering is both financially realistic and backed by strong, reliable support for those who step up to care?

[Josh MacAlister]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight both of those issues. We are expanding and funding the Mockingbird programme so that foster carers can get wider, family network-like support when they undertake this really important role, so that they are not left isolated. We are funding that to expand it across the country. We are also undertaking a piece of research to look at the variation in fostering allowances and fees across the country, and to identify both the variation and the relationship between the amount paid and the retention of carers, to address the exact point that he raises.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

14. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of 30 hours of free childcare on early years providers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

16. What recent progress her Department has made on implementing the complaints scheme provided for in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.

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

The Secretary of State has made a written statement to the House this morning confirming the timing of the commencement of the higher education free speech complaints scheme and the regulatory conditions. The complaints scheme will be commenced from 1 September this year, and the regulatory powers of the Office for Students from 1 April 2027.

[Harriet Cross]

I thank the Minister for that update. The scheme is long overdue, but of course it does not go far enough. Let us take, for example, the case of Brodie Mitchell, who was suspended from Royal Holloway for a spat at a freshers fair. Under the new guidelines, he would not be able to complain directly to the Office for Students. Why is that?

[Josh MacAlister]

The OfS system in place at the moment allows for students to complain about breaches of freedom of speech. The written statement laid this morning by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is all about expanding that coverage to staff, visiting lecturers and other speakers, as well as ensuring we have a system under which the OfS can go back to institutions and hold them to account.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) is absolutely right. Whether it is Zionist views, gender critical perspectives, climate scepticism, or challenging the perceived wisdom that diversity is our strength with the need to put terrorism barriers around Christmas markets, there is a clear two-tier approach to free speech on our campuses, and students are the nub of it, which is exactly why the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act gave students the right to go to the Office for Students. Why can academics and visiting speakers complain under this proposal, but not students? It is called the Office for Students, or is the Minister planning to rename it “the office for everybody on campus except students”?

[Josh MacAlister]

As I have said, at the moment students have a route of redress through the Office for Students. The Government have been focused on pulling together an enforceable regime, and it is welcome that both Labour and Conservative Members, across the House, are supportive of action to protect freedom of speech at our universities.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

T3. A local employer—himself a former apprentice—tells me that his industry is now in crisis, with his firm’s apprentice intake falling from 60 to just 20 this year due to this Government’s decisions. Meanwhile, Reaseheath College is having to turn students away and restrict courses in agricultural engineering and construction due to a lack of funding. With nearly 1 million young people not in education, employment or training, does the Minister accept that this Government are failing young people, and will she instead back the Conservatives’ plan to create 100,000 more apprenticeships by lifting funding caps and supporting employers with up to £5,000 per apprentice?

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

The Conservatives’ legacy of almost 1 million young people being out of work and education is shameful, but we are cleaning up this mess. I am delighted to share with the House that we are introducing a new deal for young people that includes a £2,000 grant for small to medium-sized enterprises taking on 16 to 24-year-olds to work and a new £3,000 youth job grant for hiring apprentices aged 18 to 24 who have been on universal credit for more than six months. We are the Labour party, which means we are about getting young people into work.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Ind)]

Whistleblowers have raised serious concerns with me about the governance of academy trusts in my constituency. I have raised this matter privately with the Secretary of State, but I wonder whether she might arrange for a Minister to meet those whistleblowers so that they can have those concerns taken seriously, as I am seriously concerned myself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

T5. Some 25% of Selston high school has had to be closed down because of structural problems. It has submitted a bid to the school rebuilding programme. Can the Minister please ensure that it gets the funding it needs to reopen its doors?

[Josh MacAlister]

I was concerned to hear that the school needed to shut last Monday—[Interruption.] Cheering a school closure is no laughing matter. Of course, I am thankful that the children will be back in school on Tuesday. I would be happy to speak to the hon. Member about the situation, but of course it is a legacy of the party of which he used to be a Member.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Experts at Hand service and the £3.7 million that has been given to Cornwall to set it up. We struggle, however, to get occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists in rural and coastal areas. What incentives are there, and what is the Minister doing, to encourage people to come down to Cornwall and work in our services?

Further Education College Condition Allocation 2026-27

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Written Statements

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

I am pleased to announce £307 million of capital funding will be allocated to further education colleges and designated institutions across England in 2026-27 to help them maintain, improve, and ensure the suitability of their estate. This is the second year of the FE college condition allocation, providing colleges with funding certainty to strategically plan and manage their estates.

FE colleges will have the discretion to prioritise how best to use this funding over a three year period, supported by spend guidance the Department has published on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-college-condition-allocation-2026-to-2027



This funding forms part of the £1.7 billion investment announced in the UK’s modern industrial strategy to improve the condition of FE college buildings. It is also part of the Government’s education estates strategy, published in February 2026, which set out plans for an education estate that supports opportunity for all, backed by a 10-year plan to deliver a decade of renewal to transform schools and colleges. High quality and inspiring college buildings are essential for expanding opportunity, breaking down barriers, and ensuring clear pathways from education into skilled employment.

By investing in FE colleges, we are investing in the country’s future workforce and long-term growth.

[HCWS1495]

Disclosure and Safeguarding: At-risk Children

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for securing this debate, and for doing so in a way that builds on the important debate held in this Chamber on 14 October, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I also thank all the Members who have contributed to this debate today from across different parties and have recognised the amazing young children whose lives were tragically cut far too short.

I also want to reiterate what I said on 14 October because it underpins the whole debate: no child should ever suffer at the hands of someone who was entrusted with their care and

“no family should endure such a loss.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 94WH.]

I want to recognise Maya’s family, in particular Gemma and Rachael who I have had the privilege to meet and spend time with over the past few months. Their unwavering determination took the petition from more than 6,000 responses back in October to 110,000 when it closed in February. I am grateful to them for giving up their time to meet with not just me, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and officials from the Home Office. I am grateful for their ongoing, tireless campaign to bring about change.

Through their petition, they are calling for the creation of a child risk disclosure scheme known as Maya’s law, which would require statutory services to disclose relevant past history when a risk is identified, establish multi-agency responses with protocols, and empower professionals to raise alerts where known risks exist. Changes to deliver the goals of Maya’s law are, I believe, in train. We are taking a number of steps to further strengthen existing schemes and improve multi-agency working. I hope to set out in some detail how the Government are doing that.

At the moment, the Government are taking action to strengthen information sharing in particular in three separate but complimentary ways. First, through strengthening the child sex offender disclosure scheme, which been referenced throughout the debate; secondly, through the introduction of a child cruelty register, which was not something on the cards when we last had this debate in October; and thirdly, through introducing a new information sharing duty in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Those changes cover different aspects of sharing information; they are changes that will come into effect in law and some of them are new since the debate we had at the end of last year.

As referenced in the petition, Sarah’s law already allows members of the public to make an application to the police for information where they have a child protection concern, enabling the police to disclose information to those best placed to safeguard a child from harm. Although formally known as the child sex offender disclosure scheme, it extends well beyond those offences to the disclosure of any relevant information that the police hold that is necessary to protect a child. That may include previous convictions for child sexual abuse, a history of child cruelty, domestic violence or intelligence relating to violent or sexual offences. The maximum timescale for Sarah’s law applications to be completed is 28 days from start to finish unless extenuating circumstances justify an extension. Where an imminent risk of harm to a child is identified, the police must take immediate action to safeguard those at risk.

Sarah’s law does not rely solely on applications from members of the public; it also provides a framework for the police to make proactive disclosures when they believe a child is at risk of serious harm. For example, if the police become aware of an adult with a conviction, caution or charge for child abuse having unsupervised access to a child, they can and will disclose that information to the person best placed to protect that child—usually a parent, carer or guardian—whether or not a Sarah’s law application has been made.

That is the current situation, which goes far beyond just cases of child sexual abuse, but in the Crime and Policing Bill currently before Parliament the Government are going further by strengthening Sarah’s law and placing it on a statutory footing. The clauses in that Bill will mean that chief police officers will have a statutory duty to follow the Secretary of State’s guidance, which will be issued shortly after the passage of the Bill on Sarah’s law. In practice, that will reinforce and strengthen the police’s responsibility to make disclosures whenever necessary to protect a child.

In addition, the same Bill will establish a new child cruelty register. That will require adults convicted of child cruelty offences to notify the police of key changes in their circumstances in the same way that registered sex offenders need to at the moment. That improves the visibility of known risks and supports police to make informed decisions, including where disclosure under existing schemes, such as Sarah’s law, may be necessary to protect a child. At this point, I want to pay particular tribute to Tony Hudgell’s family for their campaigning on this specific change.

Finally, through our Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are addressing long-standing misconceptions about when information can and cannot be shared. We are introducing a new information-sharing duty and placing a clear legal obligation on police, children’s social care, health and other relevant agencies to share information to safeguard children. That responds directly to findings from, among others, the independent review of children’s social care, which I led before being elected to this House. It found that despite existing legislation there were both perceived and real barriers to sharing information between different agencies. We have worked closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office, practitioners and other Government Departments to ensure that the duty supports sharing across the full breadth of safeguarding or when promoting the welfare of children. That, along with the single unique identifier—which I referenced in the debate on this matter in October—will help professionals build a clearer picture of a child’s life.

Crucially, and relevant to Maya’s story, the information-sharing duty requires practitioners to share information with each other about other individuals in a child’s life where that information is relevant to safeguarding or promoting a child’s welfare. More robust information sharing will enable practitioners to act on and inform families of concerns appropriately. It also makes clear that any information that could protect a child should be shared at the earliest opportunity to prevent harm. Once the Bill is passed, I will be eager to fully involve Gemma and Rachael in the early drafts of the statutory guidance that would deliver on this commitment in the Bill. There will be an implementation plan published imminently after the Bill, and I am just as eager as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central to see that the Bill is passed soon.

I also want to underscore that there have been debates in this House about the issue of malicious allegations. These are often made and are a feature of the children’s social care system where we have complicated family circumstances and people coming forward with information that may not always be wholly accurate. With that being a large feature of some of the information that services have access to, we should note that we need to design information-sharing systems that account for those kinds of malicious allegations.

[Lewis Atkinson]

I thank the Minister for his response and the very welcome commitment that he has made to involve the family in the development of the statutory guidance. As he alludes to, family circumstances differ significantly and the person in the family best placed to keep a child safe may or may not have parental responsibility—in some cases, it may be a grandparent, an aunt or so on. Will the Minister ensure that the statutory guidance reflects that in terms of the wider disclosure beyond just parents?

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight that the question for children’s social care teams and anyone involved as a statutory safeguarding partner for these children needs to be: who is around this child who loves and cares about them? That will differ significantly among children. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) mentioned a case where it was the grandparent who was a really important part of a child’s life and was missing from the picture. We need to make sure the statutory guidance reflects that among children it will often be very different.

Strengthening child protection is this Government’s absolute priority, which means acting early so that the right support is in place before harms occur. That is why we are delivering landmark reforms by overhauling children’s social care, not just through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the ways that I have highlighted, but with £2.4 billion of investment in changing our family help and child protection systems. We are also introducing multi-agency child protection teams, which will be mandated through the Bill, enhancing the child sex offender disclosure scheme and introducing the new child cruelty register. Together, those reforms put learning into action.

I hope to continue working with Gemma, Rachael and other family members who have been affected by these awful tragic stories to strengthen the implementation of these reforms, as well as others in the future. They reflect the loud call for change that this petition rightly demands. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central for opening this debate, and all those who have contributed to it. Let us honour Maya’s memory with not just words but change as soon as possible, so that no child is left unprotected, and no family unheard.

Draft Further Education (Initial Teacher Training) Regulations 2026

Josh MacAlister Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 General Committees

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

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Further Education (Initial Teacher Training) Regulations 2026.

Thank you, Dr Huq, for chairing this Committee. Teacher training quality is critical across all phases of education, from early years through to adult education. In October 2025, the skills White Paper set out the vision for England’s skills system. The further education sector is central to that vision and requires high-quality teacher training to drive progress. The Government are acting to secure and improve the quality of FE teacher training; a high-quality, accessible and attractive teacher training offer will improve recruitment and retention in further education, support the commitment to recruit an additional 6,500 teachers and demonstrate a commitment to raising teaching standards across schools and colleges.

These regulations introduce a system across all types of providers of FE teacher training: universities, colleges, training providers and any other organisation offering specified FE teacher training courses. The regulations are based on clear expectations and quality standards and align with Ofsted’s initial teacher training education framework, which has been extended to encompass all publicly funded FE ITT.

Historically, the Government have regulated primary and secondary teacher training, but that has not applied to further education. Excellence does exist in parts of the system, but provision is inconsistent and some poor practice has been identified in recent years. Trainees in further education teaching have not always had the high-quality preparation that they require and employers cannot always be confident that their new teachers have the necessary knowledge and skills to perform their role.

Providers of FE teacher training courses specified by Government in this statutory instrument will be required to have regard to guidance on curriculum content and on delivery standards, to register with the Department for Education and to submit regular information and data to the DFE. We want the standards to be proportionate, but meaningful in terms of the shift they deliver. For the first time, Government, employers and prospective teachers will have transparency over what training is offered, where it is offered and who is offering it—transparency that supports a quality focus in the further education ITT system.

We want evidence-based standards that will help to drive consistency and improvement. Regulation will not constrain innovation and providers will retain flexibility to exercise professional judgment and expertise, as they do in initial teacher training in the schools space. The Department has engaged extensively with further education colleges and teacher training sector stakeholders; public consultations, a call for evidence and ongoing engagement have shaped the measures and there is broad consensus that the approach will drive up standards and maintain necessary flexibility. I give special thanks to the expert advisory group chaired by Anna Dawe OBE, principal of Wigan & Leigh college, a technical excellence college, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

There is an opportunity here for a brief respite from what might be happening in the rest of the building and to share some cross-party agreement, so let me say that we were delighted that the previous Conservative Government, and before them the coalition Government, continued many of the reforms that the former Labour Government initiated in the academies programme and the focus on evidence. Across the House, there has been some solid progress in the education system, which has benefited many young people. I hope this is an area where we can continue to work on a constructive, cross-party basis.

The focus on what is perhaps a less exciting political debate, the content of teaching for those who teach, is so important; it is probably one of the biggest single drivers of performance in our education system, whether in primary school, secondary school or colleges. It is right and timely that we are now making those changes in the further education system that have led to positive progress and made a difference in our schools system. I thank members of the Committee for their consideration and you, Dr Huq, for chairing the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.