Young People not in Education, Employment or Training
2. What steps she is taking to support young people not in education, employment or training.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Young People not in Education, Employment or Training
I associate myself with your comments, Mr Speaker, and those of the Secretary of State. Figures quoted today by the BBC suggest that as many as one in five young people in education may not be attending college courses regularly, so the situation may be even worse than outlined in the Milburn report. While I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to a fundamental encouragement of technical education, does she think we are approaching a crisis and that we need to rethink exactly what it is that will engage our young people in education, because they are not getting from it what they need to feel prepared for their future life? If so, how will she go about that?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
The sewage literally flows outside the King of Prussia in Kingsbridge, and customers have to be really careful when they step outside it every time we have heavy rain. Does my hon. Friend agree with me and the more than 800 people who signed the petition from my constituency that we have to look again at the water ownership model? It is just not working: bills are going up and up, while shareholders are still extracting money from the water companies rather than it going into upgrading infrastructure.
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Curriculum and Assessment Review
4. What steps she is taking to implement the recommendations of the curriculum and assessment review.
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Curriculum and Assessment Review
The Government have committed to providing an enrichment entitlement for every child, including access to nature. Evidence shows that outdoor education can be part of the solution to some of the biggest issues facing our young people, such as the mental health and obesity crisis, the rise in NEETs and a failing SEND system. However, when a fifth of children in the most deprived parts of the country never spend meaningful time outdoors, something has to change. A framework for schools is not enough; we need a step change. Will the Secretary of State back my Outdoor Education Bill so that every child can grow up outdoors with better mental wellbeing, physical health, attainment, attendance and employability?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
My constituents have strongly supported this petition because they feel ripped off by Thames Water. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s refusal to consider special administration for Thames Water sends a signal to all other water companies that investing money in paying off bondholders is more important than sorting out the mess that is their infrastructure?
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Israel and Palestine
Many across the House, like me, welcome the Foreign Secretary’s announcement of a ban on products from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Back in the early ’80s, I was a kibbutznik based at Kibbutz Re’im in the Negev, where I was conducting agricultural research. In those now far-off days, I would go with my Israeli friends to meet their Palestinian friends in Gaza—to meet, to trade, and to drink strong black Arabic coffee. Re’im was one of the kibbutzim attacked on 7 October 2023, so I can say that I understand something of the area and the tensions, and I can also say that peace is possible. I would like to talk about a topic raised by one of my constituents at a constituency surgery in Melksham and Devizes last Saturday: the closure of the unit tracking potential law breaches, as announced in The Guardian on 24 April. The closure of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s international humanitarian law cell is doubly worrying at this time, especially when it means that funding for the conflict and security monitoring project run by the Centre for Information Resilience will come to an end.
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Israel and Palestine
I heartily agree with the hon. Lady. The centre’s work for the FCDO included the world’s largest open-source monitoring of incidents across Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. It is the only programme in the UK that collects, verifies and analyses human rights and conflict incidents in Israel and the occupied territories. The closure of the monitoring programme will mean that the Foreign Office will lose access to a database of 26,000 and counting incidents in the middle east, stretching back to 7 October 2023. The database also helps FCDO teams decide whether arms export control licences to Israel should remain suspended, and it is used by officials discussing whether international humanitarian law—for example, rules on proportionality—is being breached. The head of the Metropolitan police’s war crimes team in the counter-terrorism unit underlined the importance of CIR’s work in helping the Metropolitan police to consider war crimes allegations, including the unlawful shooting of minors in Gaza. I hope the Minister can clarify whether these cuts have been reversed. For the Government to be operating blind at this time would be extremely concerning. Furthermore, this issue casts light on the importance of the FCDO’s work and the self-defeating nature of the Government’s cuts to our aid programme, which those in my party, and I suspect many Members across the Chamber, condemn.
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Sovereign Grant Bill
The Liberal Democrats understand the purposes of this Bill and accept some of the Government’s conclusions about how the grant needs to change, but we continue to be concerned about transparency. It is important to make it clear at the start that the sovereign grant provides no personal income to the King or Queen or any member of the royal family; the funding is tied entirely to the running of the institution. We recognise that the household’s budget has increased, but the bulk of that increase is earmarked for a maintenance backlog across the royal palaces, green infrastructure, and cyber-security in an increasingly hostile international landscape. We agree that it is right for the grant to be reset now that the Buckingham Palace programme has finished. However, taxpayers will rightly have questions about where and, importantly, who this money goes to. The Government must ensure that not a penny of this grant goes to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who disgraced his title in office —
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Sovereign Grant Bill
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will move directly on to our amendment, which would insert a new subsection stopping the royal trustees from proposing any future increase to the percentage of Crown Estate profit used in the grant formula unless three conditions are met first: the National Audit Office must be commissioned to carry out a value-for-money assessment of the proposed change—
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Sovereign Grant Bill
Clearly, I have been very well briefed. I think my comments at the beginning were probably sufficient. We understand the purpose of the Sovereign Grant Bill. We have some concerns about transparency, but I will return to those later.
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Sovereign Grant Bill
The Liberal Democrats support the thrust of the Bill. We understand why the royal household budget has increased and agree that it is right for the grant to be reset now that the Buckingham Palace programme has finished. However, we remain concerned about transparency and have put forward an amendment to that effect. Our amendment would insert a new subsection that would stop the royal trustees proposing any future increase to the percentage of Crown Estate profit used in the grant formula unless three conditions are met first. The National Audit Office must be commissioned to carry out a value-for-money assessment of the proposed change; that NAO report must be laid before both Houses; and finally, the House of Commons must debate and approve the change by resolution. This contrasts with the Bill as drafted, which sets the figures straight into primary legislation on the strength of the royal trustees’ own conclusions, with no separate independent check built in for the next time that the percentage is revisited. That matters because it is the royal trustees who produce that report—the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Keeper of the Privy Purse. In other words, the people proposing the change are marking their own homework, with no independent body or vote required to test whether it represents good value for the taxpayer. Our amendment is not about opposing the grant or blocking today’s readjustment, which the Liberal Democrats accept is right now that the reservicing works are complete. Instead, it is about ensuring that if a percentage increase is proposed again in the future, taxpayers get an independent, NAO-assessed value-for-money check, with their elected representatives getting an actual vote on it, rather than the change simply following through the trustees’ own formula. To conclude, the Liberal Democrats believe that greater transparency and independent scrutiny of taxpayer money must be built into the system for the future, not treated as optional, and that that is best guaranteed by external checks, not simply taking the Government’s word for it.
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Sovereign Grant Bill
I thank the Minister for his comments on the Liberal Democrat amendment that was discussed earlier, and we recognise the arguments that he made in response. I support the Bill. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
We have heard a lot about constituents getting sick; one of my Padstow constituents was hospitalised just a few weeks ago. On the hon. Member’s point about the Environment Agency’s ratings, Surfers Against Sewage says that 80% of hospitalisations come from bathing waters judged “good” or “excellent” by the Environment Agency. Does he agree that it is a nonsense to have a regulator like that?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
On that breach of public trust, my Mid Sussex constituents tell me they do not trust South East Water because it does not take part in planning consultations and does not say if it can supply the water that new housing will inevitably require. Does the hon. Member agree that water companies must contribute to planning consultations for the new housing that is needed?
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Neurodivergent Pupils: Mainstream Schools
For some neurodivergent children, mainstream school is not a place where they can succeed. One such child is Livvi, who is 14. Following autistic burnout and a period of not being in education, education otherwise than at school has been an absolute godsend for her, but her amazing mum, Carrie, is worried about the Government’s proposed changes to EOTAS provision. Carrie is coming to Parliament this evening; when I meet her, what should I say about whether people who have fought for their kids, like her, will get a say in what future EOTAS provision looks like?
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SEND Specialists: Schools
Children in Gorton and Denton are being left without suitable education while families wait for SEND tribunal appeals, but they are waiting for school places that do not exist. Does the Minister agree that we need an independent assessment of SEND school capacity? The Government reforms will not help if we do not first fix the capacity crisis.
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Topical Questions
I have been contacted by students, parents and teachers in my constituency telling me that the cost of transport is a key barrier to accessing education and other opportunities. A 19-year-old told me recently that it costs her more than £9 for a return fare to the county town of Hereford, and Hereford sixth-form college has told me that 21 young people dropped out last year because of transport problems. Does the Secretary of State recognise that the cost of travel is a big barrier to accessing education, training and work? Will she work with Cabinet colleagues and the Treasury to implement free bus travel for all young people, in order to invest in them?
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Israel and Palestine
I will use my contribution to do two things: first, to reiterate that international law and human rights are absolutely critical, and secondly, to reflect on the responsibilities that they impose on the UK and on our wider responsibilities as parliamentarians and citizens. International law and human rights frameworks are vital guiding principles. The terrorist atrocities of 7 October were a clear and obscene violation of those principles. Every single person responsible for those horrors must be held to account, and every life taken or damaged must never be forgotten. Equally, the collective punishment of the people of Gaza is also a clear and obscene violation of international law and breaches basic human rights. We see mass atrocities, displacement, deliberate starvation, the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, withholding access to water and medical supplies, and the targeting of journalists and aid convoys. We must call what has been happening in Gaza what it is: genocide. In the occupied west bank, we have seen the violent expansion of illegal settlements, ethnic cleansing, the execution of children, detention without trial, people forced to live under apartheid and settler terrorism. All of that has been happening for decades, but it is worse since 7 October, with Prime Minister Netanyahu emboldened by the current US President. Political leaders have largely fallen short when it comes to holding the Israeli Government to account for their human rights crimes and their flagrant disregard for international law, but policial leaders come and go. Meanwhile the international courts get on with their work upholding the standards and the UN resolutions that the world has collectively agreed. We need political leadership and we need it to be guided by international law and human rights frameworks, so it was hugely welcome to hear the Secretary of State last week recognise the 2024 ICJ conclusion that the occupation of Palestine is illegal, reiterate the illegality of expansionist settlements and take the vital first step of banning trade with and advertising of those illegal settlements. Their illegality is absolutely clear under international law. The UK has done the right thing in recognising the role of international law and human rights standards, and it is starting to act accordingly, but genuine respect for international law and human rights means we cannot pick and choose. Suspending the licences of some arms used by the IDF in Gaza and the licensing of other arms and exports that materially contribute to the occupation makes a difference, but the double lock that the Government have announced does not include components for the F-35 combat aircraft that, according to Campaign Against The Arms Trade, is the most substantive part of the UK’s arms trade with Israel. It cannot be beyond the wit of officialdom to find a way of tracing these parts, so that they are not used. The UK remains complicit in Israel’s genocidal war crimes until it ends its role in supporting Israeli forces. I urge the UK Government to be consistent in their commitment to the legal and human rights frameworks that underpin their recent decisions. I welcome the steps they have taken, but it is too little, too late and there is much more to be done. Secondly, I want to reflect on the wider responsibilities that we all have, especially as parliamentarians, in the context of rising hate crime and growing divisions in our communities. We each have a responsibility to show leadership, to stand against antisemitism, to stand against Islamophobia, not to conflate criticism of the Israeli Government with antisemitism and to call it out when we see others doing that, not to hold the Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli authorities or the ideologies that drive them, and not to hold Palestinians responsible for the actions of Hamas. We have a responsibility to recognise the many ways in which those who advocate for Palestine are defamed, often as antisemitic, as a way of shutting down or silencing their advocacy, and to recognise the damage that that does by distracting from critical work identifying and confronting antisemitism, which is so crucial at a time when attacks on Jewish communities and Jewish spaces in this country and around the world are increasing. We have a responsibility to recognise anti-Palestinian racism and the multiple ways it manifests itself in our politics and society: a responsibility to stop putting people in boxes, to stop defining them as either allies or enemies with nothing in between, and a responsibility to resist the whipping up of hatred and the way in which nuance, understanding and compassion are being bludgeoned to extinction in public discourse. All of us need to show leadership in our dialogue, in our constituencies, communities and our own parties, and to demonstrate in our words and our deeds that there is no competition or contradiction between supporting and defending Palestinian human rights, and supporting and defending thriving Jewish communities here in our country. I am making these points in this debate because the response to what is happening in Palestine and Israel is being used by some political actors here in the UK to whip up antisemitism; by some to advance anti-migrant and anti-Muslim agendas; by some to justify chilling restrictions on civil liberties and our right to free speech and to peacefully protest; and by some to stoke division between minoritised communities. Leadership requires being alive to those realities and risks and recognising how they might prevent the emergence of shared visions of justice, democracy, human rights and religious and political pluralism. That underscores the importance of defending and upholding the international legal and human rights frameworks that we already have fully and wholeheartedly. Twenty-five years ago, I took up a job co-ordinating the UK arm of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. I was an atheist working for a Christian organisation with Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities in the lands of Israel and Palestine to build peace. The spirit of working across boundaries is the only thing that will get us to peace and justice.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. After successive years of failure, we need a water sector that serves people, not profit. We in the Green party have long made a cast-iron pledge to support bringing water back into public ownership. During its passage, I attempted to expand the powers of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 to enable environmental failures—not just insolvency—to trigger Government intervention, and I backed a cross-party amendment on mutual ownership. The Government rejected both, and public ownership itself was denied any place in the legislation by the Minister. Over the last three and a half decades, we have seen companies ripping off consumers while failing to invest in our crumbling infrastructure. While investors receive billions in dividends, the system needs its biggest ever investment programme. More than £50 billion has been pocketed by shareholders since privatisation, while around £16 billion is needed in the next few years just to fix storm overflows and solve poisonous nitrate pollution. Instead of pouring money into profits and managing failures, we need to build a system that is fit for the future. It is no wonder that this privatisation experiment has failed: water is a public resource and a natural monopoly. Fantastical figures are used to scare people off the pursuit of public ownership as a solution. The figure of £90 billion was first cooked up in a Social Market Foundation report paid for by—oh!—four prominent members of the water sector. The Government could leave the debt with the debt holders and look at alternative models, such as Common Wealth’s economic assessment reflecting years of neglected infrastructure, companies struggling with insolvency, and debt leveraging for commercial survival. While costs would be incurred in facilitating the transfer, an honest valuation would put public ownership within reach. As we see company debt and statutory fines loaded on to bills, record sewage spills and billions in dividend payouts, I implore the Government to set out a timetable to restore our water to public ownership and end Thatcher’s failed 37-year privatisation experiment.
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SEND Training: Autism
9. If she will include different autism profiles as part of SEND training for school staff.
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SEND Training: Autism
I thank the Minister for her answer and for all the work she is doing on this. Following on from the question from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell), the issue of differing profiles is really important; pupils with a pathological demand avoidance profile of autism will require a totally different strategy from staff at the reception desk and teachers to get them into school and get them engaged with education. Will she keep pressing the Department on teacher training to really focus on these different profiles and the responses to them, and can she confirm that she is also working with the Department of Health and Social Care on the independent prevalence review, as all that amazing work by mental health experts across the UK should be feeding into this work?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
The hon. Gentleman is well known for his courtesy, as he has just illustrated by giving way. Even more shockingly, around 80% of water companies are foreign owned—in other words, the majority of their shareholders live abroad, in all kinds of places, including China. Most users of water would be shocked to hear that. The Government have an obligation not to allow key utilities to fall into foreign hands.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
It is apposite that the hon. Gentleman should do so, because Joe Chamberlain is a great hero of mine; indeed, his portrait sat in my office when I was a Minister. What Joe Chamberlain understood was the balance between private interest and the public investment and public accountability that the hon. Gentleman describes. That is entirely compatible with the views of people across this Chamber and should not really be seen in Chamberlain’s terms; it should be seen as doing what is right by the people and for the people.
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Apprenticeships
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?
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
I call Becky Gittins. [Interruption.] Sorry, I have the wrong name on my list. I call Sarah Hall.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
I apologise again to the hon. Lady. I call Darren Paffey, I think.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
With gratitude for his patience, I call Lloyd Hatton.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
I thank the hon. Gentleman and all Back-Bench speakers for managing a very restrictive time limit.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
Order. The hon. Gentleman has made it perfectly clear he is not giving way. All points of view in this debate must be heard, and heard respectfully. If the shadow Minister is not giving way, there is little point in continuing to bob unless he changes his mind.
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Water Sector: Public Ownership
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and to everyone who has spoken. I also thank those in the Public Gallery for attending this evening. I know some of you had to be patient to wait for a seat, so thank you for that. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered e-petition 762640 relating to a referendum on public ownership of the water sector.
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Speciality Steel UK
We know that Speciality Steel has been severely impacted by high electricity costs, and we know just what that means from people in Scunthorpe, the constituency next to mine, which is a very heavy user of electricity. They are paying 50% more for their electricity than is being paid in France, for instance. However, the Government insist on phasing out the blast furnaces. Once we have electric arcs in Scunthorpe, people there will have to use twice as much electricity, paying much more. Does the Secretary of State agree that we cannot reindustrialise Britain simply through public ownership, but must reduce our energy costs? Will he take steps, over the next year or two, not to worry about green energy and all that, but just to reduce our energy costs to a level roughly equivalent to that in France?
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Student Loans
I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks regarding the Prime Minister’s father. Despite the Secretary of State previously calling the student loan system “egregious” and saying that reviewing that system was a top priority—she has just said that it is at the top of her in-tray—the Treasury’s response to the Treasury Committee rejected a series of recommendations that would have alleviated some of the burden on those on plan 2 student loans. What exactly is the Secretary of State’s plan to fix the student loan system?
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Pupils with SEND: Mainstream Schools
Six months ago, the previous Secretary of State revealed the Government’s plan to carry out SEND reforms. Since then, we have had a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State, who last week stated her intention to carry out those reforms. Yet there has been little detail on how the Government will fill the £2 billion black hole in the SEND budget, despite fiscal pressures on the Government continuing to increase, as we all know. When will the legislation come to the House, and where will the money come from? Parents, teachers and children deserve answers.
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Young People not in Education, Employment or Training
I thank the Secretary of State for her commitment to this issue, and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) for his focus on maths. On Friday, I visited Allerton Steel, a steel fabricator in Northallerton. That business does a great job of providing high-quality apprenticeships for young people every year, regardless of the cycle, and I was lucky to meet David, Oliver and Jacob—it was wonderful to see their passion and excitement about their futures. Will the Secretary of State join me in wishing them well, but also commend businesses such as Allerton Steel and the local companies up and down the country that are ultimately the ones providing these opportunities for our young people?
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Sovereign Grant Bill
I thank the Minister for his speech. This follows a recent debate on ways and means that his colleague the Exchequer Secretary had with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild). I do not wish to repeat the points that were made on that occasion. His Majesty’s official Opposition are supportive of this Bill. As the Minister laid out, the 2011 settlement has run its course; it did well for its time, but some aspects of it were due for reconsideration. As he said, the recent significant programme of upgrades to royal residences for public purposes has now reached its conclusion—I think this year is the final year of the additional funds—so it is timely for us to look for a change in structure. I thank the Minister’s colleague the Exchequer Secretary, because on the 11th of this month, he wrote in reply to questions from my colleague, answering questions about some of the points that we may get into in detailed consideration of the Bill. One of the substantial changes of principle in this Bill is that the ongoing ratchets that were effectively put in place by the 2011 Act have essentially become a backstop of £99.9 million. In his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) about potential variability, the Minister has given us some confidence about the ability to plan; we know that there will not be an absolute reduction. However, questions remain about extraordinary circumstances in which the Treasury would be able to reduce the settlement in any one year. I think that the Liberal Democrats will be asking that question in reverse—about changes to the percentage that may occur—but those are matters that we can discuss in Committee. His Majesty’s official Opposition recognise the tremendous work that His Majesty the King and the royal family do on behalf of our nation. We understand the power that that provides our nation with in our international relations, and the comfort that it gives to the people of this nation, and we support the Second Reading of this Bill.
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Sovereign Grant Bill
I thank the Minister for his clear exposition of the Bill’s clauses. He emphasised the importance of the 2026 royal trustees’ review. The interesting thing is that it is their forecast of their needs over the next five years on which a lot of the mechanism rests. Notwithstanding some comments made by Government Back Benchers, a lot of the intention of the Bill is about financial restrictions on expenditure, rather than there being excess expenditure in the future. I am grateful for the Minister’s letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper); in his summing up, will the Minister give a bit more comfort and clarity on some of those matters? If I am right, the £99.9 million is the estimate of what is required this year, based on a review of what the forecast requirements may be through to 2031-32. Will the Minister explain how those financial assessments were made? What discount rate was used to work out what the estimates might be? I am not questioning it, and I do not need a precise figure; what I am looking for is some comfort from the Minister that he feels that those financial projections, that model and the work of the trustees give him adequate confidence in the baseline of £99.9 million. That leads, in turn, to why we have 20.5% variability over the next five years. In the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway, I was also interested to hear about the use of other income. In his letter, the Minister said: “The Household forecasts that this income will increase by around 25% over the review period, based on recent performance, detailed modelling and increased visitor capacity… If income were lower than forecast, there is no expectation that the Grant would increase above £99.9 million per year.” Can the Minister confirm that, essentially, the other income is being treated as supplementary to what we see as the duty of the sovereign grant? I would be grateful to the Minister for reconfirming what he put in his letter. In clause 3, I am interested in proposed new section 6(5) to the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, stating that the reserve fund will be: “no lower than 10% and no higher than 50%”. What is of interest there is the duty to change the amount of the sovereign grant. There is an issue about to what extent that reserve, at 10% to 50%, is going to cover reasonable expectations of expense. That gets to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway made earlier about long-term plans. If significant capital expenditures are due, then the reserve, by its very nature, will be quite variable during the period. I would like some comfort from the Minister that the range of 10% to 50%—which sounds, on face value, to be reasonable—was correct in the modelling. There is just one slight concern about the Treasury’s thinking on this. When my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) asked about powers to adjust the grant between reviews and the circumstances in which they might be used, the answer from the Treasury was: “These powers are intended for exceptional circumstances and are not expected to be used routinely”, which, of course, is the definition of exceptional. However, the letter does then go on to talk about major fire, flood and so on, saying that in those circumstances, “Any adjustment would require Parliamentary approval through secondary legislation.” Could the Minister advise on whether or not that approval will be subject to the affirmative procedure? I think that other Members may want to raise that as well.
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Sovereign Grant Bill
I thank the Minister for presenting the Bill, but most importantly I thank His Majesty the King for his gracious service, on behalf of all Members of this House and all people of this country and the territories and nations overseas. I hope that he will use the sovereign grant as wisely and sagaciously as his governance over us allows. I support the Bill.