Services for Children in Care
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Paul Waugh)
I thank Members for attending and contributing to this debate. This is a deeply important subject, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for bringing it before us today. As has already been noted, he is a doughty champion for his constituents and an excellent constituency MP. I had the privilege of knowing his Labour predecessor in Cannock Chase, Tony Wright, and my hon. Friend is more than living up to his example.
This Government are clear that children in care should grow up safe, supported and able to thrive, regardless of their background. Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 and our children’s social care reset, we are delivering the biggest overhaul of children’s social care and child protection in a generation. We are delivering the change that we promised.
We are building a children’s social care system that puts families at the heart of our work. My hon. Friend has already referenced kinship care, which is really important in that. We know that keeping children in their immediate and wider family network is key for improving outcomes, but we want a system that builds rather than breaks relationships, ensuring that every care-experienced young person starts adulthood with loving, enduring relationships.
Let me address directly the questions that my hon. Friend put to me. On what steps the Government are taking to ensure that local authorities meet their existing statutory duties when placing children out of area and what happens when those duties are not met, let me be clear: if a local authority has to place a child outside their area, not notifying the incoming local authority is a breach of the law. It is imperative that that happens so that ongoing support can be arranged in the new area.
We know that far too many children are currently placed out of their local area when they come into care or are moved during their time in care. In 2025, 22% of children in care—that is 18,000 children—lived more than 20 miles from their home community. Sometimes, that distance is for a good reason—children might be moving to live with their wider family network—but too often, children are placed far from home, which disrupts their relationships with family and friends, their education and their access to the services that support them.
Where concerns arise that duties are not being met, as has been indicated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase, they should be escalated through local safeguarding arrangements, with relevant partners working together to identify risks and co-ordinate action. Furthermore, Ofsted takes account of whether local authorities are complying with that duty through its ILACS inspections—the inspecting local authority children’s services framework—including whether the placing authority promptly notifies the receiving authority when a child moves into its area and ensures they can access services that meet their needs. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 strengthens the information sharing between agencies, while multi-agency safeguarding arrangements support safeguarding partners in identifying risks, sharing intelligence and co-ordinating action for children placed outside their home area. Additionally, as part of a wider communication, the Department wrote to local authorities earlier this year, reminding them of their statutory duty to inform host local authorities when placing children out of area.
My hon. Friend asked about working with health partners. Statutory guidance is clear that relevant services, including integrated care boards, should be notified before a child moves between placements, so that arrangements can be made to meet their needs. Where a move is made in an emergency, notification must follow within five working days. The guidance also recognises that identifying the right contact can sometimes be difficult, and it suggests practical steps, such as using generic inboxes to help ensure that information reaches the right organisation. More broadly, though, the new information-sharing duty strengthens the requirement on safeguarding partners, including in health, to share relevant information when a child relocates, so that important information about their safety and welfare is never lost. Importantly, the absence of a formal data-sharing agreement should not prevent information from being shared, where that duty applies. The Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS are working closely together to improve health outcomes for looked-after children and care leavers, and to ensure that information flows effectively between services and that there is no barrier to children receiving the support that they need.
Our reforms to children’s social care strengthen multi-agency working and information sharing, and the Home Again programme will bring social care, health, education and youth justice together around a single plan for children with the most complex needs. Just last week, we announced the new mental health pilot in Greater Manchester, which embeds mental health professionals in children’s social care teams. That pilot, which is called Care Together, replaces fragmented provision with faster access to expert, needs-led mental health support, including family therapy and support for parents and primary care-givers. I am excited to see the impact that this £9.4 million pilot will have on 7,000 children and their families across my constituency of Rochdale, as well as in neighbouring Stockport and Tameside.
Turning to my hon. Friend’s question about how the Government will ensure that their regulatory and inspection framework provides effective oversight of children’s homes, the Minister for children and families, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), keeps the adequacy of the regulatory framework under regular review. In April 2026, Ofsted introduced updates to the social care common inspection framework to promote high-quality inspections for children’s homes and other settings. That focus on the impact of services on the lives and relationships of children and families is crucial. Ofsted has recently consulted on further improvements to its inspection framework for children’s social care, and will set out plans for 2027 in due course.
Josh Newbury
It is good to hear that Ofsted is adapting and growing its inspection regime to reflect the fact that many children’s homes are opening, and the variation in practice seems quite large. Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister for children and families to look into whether Ofsted’s capacity to carry out inspections matches the growth in children’s homes in certain parts of the country, such as mine? We are seeing rapid growth in a short space of time. We need to make sure that the situation does not run away from us in those areas, and to avoid poorer practice in areas where there are not as many inspectors as we need.
Paul Waugh
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will certainly pass that on to the Minister for children and families. He is right that we need the capacity to match the requirements that we are imposing.
My hon. Friend’s last point, which was about the impact of regional care co-operatives on improving sufficiency and co-ordination, is really important. We now have seven regional care co-operatives covering more than 100 local authorities, including his own, Staffordshire, through the west midlands partnership. I can confirm that regional care co-operatives are not simply about increasing placement capacity; as we have heard tonight, children in care can be involved with multiple services, across local authorities, health and justice, so co-ordinated regional planning and partnership working is a core requirement for these new regional care co-operatives. By bringing these partners together to forecast need and commission care more strategically, regional care co-operatives will help ensure that provision and wider support are better joined up around children’s needs—a point that my hon. Friend was right to make repeatedly. We should be focusing on the child; all the services around them should be child-centred.
I recognise the concerns about the distribution of children’s homes across England. They are legitimate, and they are shared cross-party. Some areas have a disproportionally high concentration of homes, while others have insufficient provision. That can contribute to children being placed further away from their support networks and can lead to poor outcomes. We know that can be driven by a focus on maximising profits; some providers are attracted by lower property costs. We know for sure that this is happening in the north, and in the west midlands.
We are taking action to reshape the children’s social care market and improve placement sufficiency to combat those problems. Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, we are rebalancing the market, increasing transparency, and helping local authorities to secure the placements that children need. We want the right homes in the right places, so that children, when it is in their best interests, are kept close to their communities. Our aim is to support provision where there is a clear need and the children’s needs can be fully met. We are also providing significant capital funding to deliver 540 new placements in local authority-owned children’s homes by March 2029, in 75 authorities. Two hundred will be specialist placements for children at risk of deprivation of liberty; 237 are already completed, registered and operational.
Several Members have mentioned the work that we are leading on fostering reforms to ensure that as few children as possible need to enter care in the first place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) rightly pointed out, there should be respite support for foster parents, but all too often, it is not there. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in the Chamber, was right to say that we should be removing the practical barriers to fostering. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase has personal experience of the impact of being a foster carer, and I want to put on record our thanks to him and all the foster parents who do such a marvellous job, day in, day out, and week in, week out, with some of the most vulnerable children in society. We owe them a deep debt of gratitude.
In March last year, 67% of all children looked after in England were living with foster families, but 46% of those children were placed out of their local area. That is why the Government have launched the fostering action plan that my hon. Friend mentioned. We are committed to creating 10,000 more foster places during this Parliament. The plan includes an England-wide recruitment campaign—I hope that Members have already read about it—which is challenging the myths that prevent people from considering fostering, and recruiting thousands more foster carers who can give children the loving, stable homes that they need and deserve. The plan is backed by an £88 million investment over two years, which includes funds for the expansion of dedicated regional foster carer recruitment hubs; support to enable foster carers to adapt their homes, so that they can care for more children; an increase in the number of Mockingbird peer-support clusters, which I know are greatly valued across the country; and the launch of a fostering innovation programme to support better outcomes for children.
We know that the best way to keep children safe and give them the best possible start in life is to support families before problems reach crisis point. Our “families first for children” pathfinders have tested that approach in 10 local authorities, bringing together earlier, more intensive family help, expert multi-agency child protection and wider family networks to identify problems sooner and help children to remain safely within their families, whenever that is in their best interests. We are now applying those lessons nationally through the families first partnership programme, backed by £2.4 billion over the next three years, including £853 million in 2026-27. This represents a fundamental shift towards prevention, strengthening families and ensuring that when serious safeguarding concerns arise, children benefit from co-ordinated expertise across agencies.
Let me again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase for bringing this important matter to the House, and reiterate the Government’s aim that every child in care should receive the same joined-up support, stability and opportunity that we would want for our own children. We recognise that local and national Government, health and education authorities, and every partner must work together for each child in our care. I know that my colleague the Minister for children and families—who has done such marvellous work in this regard, both inside and outside Government—will continue to push through the reforms we have discussed this evening, which the system needs so urgently, so that children are safe, supported, close to the people and places that matter to them most, and able to thrive.
Question put and agreed to.
Improving Children’s Outcomes
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Paul Waugh)
The Government have today published the early years foundation stage profile assessment data for the 2025/26 academic year.
The Government have set a national ambition for 75% of children in England to achieve a good level of development by 2028, as set out in the “Giving every child the best start in life” strategy. Achieving this ambition requires a collective effort across schools, early years providers, local authorities, health services and wider family support services, including Best Start family hubs, recognising that children’s outcomes at the end of reception are shaped by their learning and development throughout the early years.
Early childhood development is strongly associated with later outcomes, providing the foundation for achievements throughout school and beyond. Children who achieve a good level of development at age five are more likely to succeed at school and less likely to be not in education, employment or training later in life.
The latest data shows strong progress towards this ambition, with 72.3% of children reaching a good level of development, an increase of 4 percentage points on last year. This brings the country significantly closer to the 2028 target and reflects the dedication and hard work of teachers, early years practitioners, school leaders, local authority teams and wider partners across England.
While this progress is encouraging, the gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers widened slightly, underlining the importance of the whole system working together to ensure that all children benefit from continued improvement. Further progress will depend on schools, early years providers and local leaders using data and evidence to identify gaps, target support effectively and implement approaches proven to improve outcomes.
To support delivery of the national ambition, the Government have set local authority-level targets. Publishing these targets provides greater transparency and accountability, while enabling local leaders to focus action where it will have the greatest impact for children.
The Government will continue to support local areas through delivery of best start local plans, investment in teaching and learning across the early years system, and action to strengthen support for children and families. Working across education, health and family services will be particularly important in improving outcomes for disadvantaged children and those most at risk of falling behind.
Today’s results demonstrate the progress that can be achieved through collective effort. By building on this momentum and maintaining a focus on evidence-led improvement, we can move closer to our ambition of 75% of children reaching a good level of development by 2028—a first step to ensure that more children get the best possible start in life.
[HCWS405]
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Paul Waugh)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Apprenticeships are the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, but the Department for Education is supporting apprenticeships by introducing new technical and vocational pathways from 14 to 19 years, including new V-levels from 2027, new level 2 pathways and even more T-levels, from which young people can progress through apprenticeships and higher education. These new 14 to 19 qualifications will enable students to progress more easily and on to apprenticeships.
Bradley Thomas
I welcome the Minister to his place and congratulate him on his appointment. The Government are right to focus on the importance of parity between vocational education and academic education. However, when comparing the academic year 2025-26 with 2023-24, the number of people who have started apprenticeships has dropped by 9% and the number who have completed has gone down by 17%. With reference to the Minister’s point about vocational pathways, will he update the House on what steps the Government are taking to ensure that they are linked with the needs of industry, so that this in itself does not become an academic exercise?
Paul Waugh
May I return those congratulations by congratulating the hon. Member on his elevation to the shadow Front Bench, and may I congratulate him, too, on the work he has done on vocational skills, including in his jobs fare in Bromsgrove? It is worth saying that V-levels are precisely designed to tally with what employers want. That is exactly why we are reforming the system to ensure every child will have the right technical education. More broadly, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have said that the parity of esteem between vocational and academic education is exactly what everyone in this country wants.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
May I put on record my condolences to the Prime Minister on the sad loss of his father?
The Education Committee strongly agrees with the Government’s focus on expanding opportunities for apprenticeships and high-quality technical and vocational education across the country, but too often young people who want to pursue apprenticeships are left to do their own research across multiple different platforms with varying application timescales. Last year, the Education Committee recommended that to help young people understand the full range of opportunities available to them and provide parity of esteem, there should be a single point of access for information about apprenticeships alongside vocational, technical and academic courses. Will the new Minister look again at that recommendation and seek to ensure young people wishing to do apprenticeships and vocational and technical courses are just as well supported as their peers who are applying for university?
Paul Waugh
I thank my hon. Friend for all the hard work the Education Committee has done on this topic. She is right that there should be parity of esteem, and the equivalent of a UCAS system for children who are going into technical education. Baroness Smith is looking at precisely that subject, and we aim to come up with some answers soon.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
You will recall, Mr Speaker—as will the Minister, from his earlier life—that when I was the Skills Minister, we had the biggest number of apprenticeships in modern history. I did that because I believe in elevating the practical, but, too often, careers advice and guidance delivered in schools drives people down an academic route to study degrees that have neither academic rigour nor economic value. Will the Minister look again at the advice and guidance given to people, so that aptitudes, talents and taste can be met by good-quality vocational and technical education?
Paul Waugh
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his hard work on this subject as the former Skills Minister. The House is in agreement on the issue. The Prime Minister rightly says that we should be focusing on problem solving rather than point scoring. Given that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned apprenticeship starts, it would be remiss of me not to point out that they have gone up by 8.7% under this Government, whereas apprenticeship starts collapsed under the last Government since 2020.
Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)
Further education colleges play a crucial role in apprenticeships and in supporting education. Will the Minister tell me what extra measures the Government are bringing in to ensure that further education colleges naturally provide a wide range of education and technical skills to apprentices?
Paul Waugh
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for FE in his constituency, as are many Members across the House. He is right about FE, and many specialists who are engaged in teaching further education and vocational skills are addressing the point he raises. That is why many of them support a move to V-Levels, because they are aligned with what employers want. Employers are telling us that they want those job skills to be more in tune with academic skills, and that is what we are delivering.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
Several of my constituents have contacted me about the broken SEND transport system. Several of them did not know what transport would be put in place for their children before the term started, as decisions were delayed. Some of them still do not know how their SEND children are going to get to school. What can the Minister do to help?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Paul Waugh)
The Government’s SEND reforms will create a more inclusive school system, with fewer children needing to travel to access the quality education that they deserve. I take onboard the hon. Member’s concerns, which we are listening to, but we want to make it absolutely clear that ensuring drivers and passenger assistants have received the training necessary to respond to all children’s needs is central to Government policy.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I welcome the announcements on school meals, but given that young campaigners at Bite Back last week identified that some three quarters of secondary schools do not provide meals that meet Government standards, what can the Minister do to boost enforcement?
Paul Waugh
The updated standards that we have announced today will ensure that school food is delicious, nutritious and practical for schools. I was proud to see Bite Back and a range of sector leaders welcome our standards, and I thank them all for the hard work they do to help schools achieve what we want.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
We all know that child safeguarding is non-negotiable, so does the Secretary of State share my concern that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s most recent schools briefing appears to put the safety of girls at risk, given that it has removed the express requirement that adult supervisors of pupils getting dressed should be of the same gender or sex? Does the Secretary of State agree that the NSPCC should clarify its guidance to comply with the law so that men and boys have no place in girls’ changing rooms?
School Food Standards
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Paul Waugh)
The Government today have published their formal response to the consultation on proposals to improve the school food standards in England.
Ensuring children have access to healthy and nutritious food at school is an important part of giving every child the best start in life. School food plays a vital role in supporting children’s health, wellbeing and readiness to learn. Yet too many children are not getting the nutritious food they need: children consume around twice the recommended amount of free sugars, over 90% consume insufficient fibre, and almost one in four children leave primary school living with obesity. Dental decay remains the leading cause of hospital admissions for five to nine-year-olds. Since the school food standards were last updated, nutritional evidence has evolved. The Government therefore launched a consultation on updating the standards for the first time in over a decade, with the aim of improving the nutritional quality of food and drink provided in schools and supporting healthier eating habits for children and young people.
The consultation ran from April to June 2026 and received 5,216 responses from parents, pupils, schools, caterers, local authorities, health professionals and representative organisations, alongside wider engagement across the education, health, catering, faith, farming and food sectors. Respondents were generally supportive of improving the nutritional quality of school food, particularly proposals to increase fibre, fruit and vegetables, strengthen drinks standards, introduce dedicated breakfast standards and improve school food governance and transparency. They also raised important considerations around affordability, implementation, meal uptake and inclusion. These views have helped to shape the Government’s final decisions and implementation approach.
Having carefully considered the consultation responses, the Government will proceed with many of the proposed reforms, while taking into account stakeholder feedback on the practicalities of implementation. The revised school food standards will strengthen the nutritional quality of food and drink provided in schools by placing greater emphasis on fruit, vegetables, fibre and a wider range of healthy protein sources, while reducing sugar and further restricting foods high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. For the first time, dedicated breakfast standards will ensure that food and drink provided before the school day supports a healthier, lower-sugar and higher-fibre offer. The revised standards will also strengthen requirements relating to fruit and vegetables, fibre, protein and healthier drinks, while maintaining access to free drinking water throughout the school day. Some requirements affecting secondary schools, including changes relating to drinks, cheese and pulses, will be introduced on a phased basis to support deliverability and pupil acceptance.
Reflecting the views expressed during the consultation, the Government have refined some of the proposals to support effective delivery. These changes include greater flexibility in how vegetables can be incorporated into meals, adjustments to fibre requirements and wholegrain provision, limited flexibility for processed meat in secondary schools, and the retention of up to two sweetened desserts or baked products each week in secondary settings. The Government have also broadened the range of permitted products in several areas, including plant-based options and drinks, while retaining the overall ambition of improving children’s diets and supporting healthier eating habits.
The Government intend to lay regulations in October 2026, alongside the publication of supporting guidance. During autumn 2026, we will work with schools, caterers and sector partners to co-develop practical implementation materials and ensure that stakeholders across the supply chain are supported to understand and prepare for the revised requirements. This collaborative approach will help ensure that the guidance and supporting resources are practical, deliverable and responsive to operational challenges.
Most of the revised school food standards will come into force from September 2027, providing schools, trusts, caterers, suppliers and local authorities with time to prepare for implementation. A limited number of secondary school requirements, including specified changes relating to drinks, cheese and pulses, will be introduced from September 2028 following a transition period. This phased approach reflects consultation feedback on deliverability, pupil acceptance and meal uptake, while supporting practical implementation across secondary settings.
Alongside the revised standards, the Government will introduce a new national compliance framework from September 2027. This will include strengthening governance and transparency around school food, by expecting every school to appoint a lead governor for school food, and to publish their menus and school food policies online. We will also take forward the development of a national monitoring system on school food. This will form part of a wider package of resources, training and guidance accessible to all schools.
This work sits alongside other measures to ensure children have access to healthy, balanced food. We are rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary aged pupils in England. We have extended free school meals to all children from households in receipt of universal credit, providing over half a million children from disadvantaged backgrounds with access to a free, nutritious meal every school day, and lifting 100,000 children out of poverty. Together, these measures represent the largest expansion of school food provision in a generation, helping to improve attainment, behaviour and outcomes by ensuring more children have access to nutritious food throughout the school day.
We continue to work alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as it develops a new food strategy to ensure the food on children’s plates is good quality, accessible and affordable, as well as sourced locally where possible.
Taken together, these reforms will support healthier food provision across the school day and help ensure that children are well nourished, ready to learn and able to thrive.
A copy of the Government response will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS338]
Free School Meals
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Stephen Morgan
As I set out earlier, this is an intervention that is at once pro-learning and anti-poverty. We want to see high and rising standards in all our schools. Excellence should be for everyone. In complete contrast, the Opposition—their Members are not here now; I do not know where they have gone—want to see tax breaks for some schools for some children. The contrast has never been starker.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
As someone who grew up on free school meals in Rochdale, I know what a massive difference today’s announcement will make to more than 8,000 of my constituents. One of my constituents, Laura Popham, is a single mum who is in work and was previously ineligible for the free school meals benefit. Today she sent me an email saying,
“This is exactly what I was hoping for. I am over the moon. I want to shout from the rooftops how happy I am. Only Labour would have done this.”
Does the Minister agree that this is exactly the kind of change that people voted for last year?
Stephen Morgan
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is the difference that a Labour MP and a Labour Government can make. I pay tribute to Laura for raising these issues with us. Through constituents’ lobbying and by hearing their concerns, we are delivering positive change for our country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Waugh Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
I do recognise the challenge the hon. Lady sets out and the very real challenge the Government have inherited in the provision of places. Our approach of rolling out nursery space within primary schools is crucial to creating the places that are required. There is more that we need to do. The system and sector overall require reform, and we will set out more in this area before long.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
Catherine McKinnell
I recognise the difficulties my hon. Friend has outlined. Changes to pension entitlement have caused the significant backlog in processing that we have inherited, but good progress is now being made. The Department and the administrator are focused on speeding it up. I appreciate the concerns he has raised and he might want to write to me with more detail, or a meeting could certainly be arranged.