Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,829 lines we hold for Graham Stuart, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 117.
“The hon. Lady is two things: she is quite right, and she is tempting me down a path I do not want to go down—I want to focus on the distribution, because it does not get the attention. However, she is absolutely right. Labour criticises the performance of the then Conservative Government, but I think funding for SEND actually grew 60% from 2019 to 2024. She is right that it is not about who is in government—somehow, we need to find ways of capping this demand, which will outstrip any Chancellor, however well intentioned. That is an issue. I will turn back to the point on which I am focusing, which is distribution. If demand in a system is growing at a scale that no Government can meet, distribution, although ignored, becomes even more important.”
“At St Mary’s school in Beverley, headteacher Laura Wallis expressed her deep concern at the growing gap between pupils’ needs and the resources she has at her disposal, making it ever-more difficult to provide the tailored support every child deserves.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a capacity issue, as I say, relating to demand. Getting people—not just specialists, but the whole system and everyone in it—to have a better understanding is really important. The hon. Gentleman will see that in his constituency, as I do in mine. It is not enough just to have the SENCO; it is about getting the leadership, the training and the right protocols in place to ensure that the whole system is better able to meet the needs of children, and that will then reduce some of the other impacts, including cost impacts, on the system. In recent weeks, I had the privilege of visiting Inmans primary school in Hedon, where staff spoke candidly about the mounting pressure created by soaring demand for SEND provision—pressures that far exceed the funding currently available.”
“I have to agree with the hon. Gentleman, who makes a powerful point. My appeal to colleagues in the Chamber—particularly, perhaps, to newer Members —is to focus on the distribution. It can be quite hard to get one’s head around the many issues that are involved—the overall national issues of quantum, service delivery, training and the rest of it—and distribution can easily get left behind, yet it is vital. I cannot say that it brings a great deal of joy or satisfaction to Members of Parliament to pursue it, because so many people look blank when it is mentioned, but distribution is important, and I hope that colleagues will want to take on the issue.”
“As usual, the hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. Many across this House will recognise the stories of the schools I have just mentioned, because the same thing is playing out in constituencies across the country. Parents are becoming de facto care co-ordinators; schools are dipping into ever-shrinking budgets to fund specialist provision; and local authorities are caught between legal responsibilities and budgetary reality.”
“With the best will in the world, local authorities will end up being defensive and saying no as a matter of course, and will give way only when they are forced to. Am I going on too long, Madam Deputy Speaker?”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I was chairing the Education Committee when the coalition Government introduced the reforms that brought in EHCPs as a replacement for statements. I remember thinking then that lots of good improvements were made—there were very sincere Ministers working hard at it, and they brought in a better system—but the fundamentals remained as they were. One of the aims was to get away from an adversarial, legalistic process, in which articulate and typically better-off people were able to use sharp elbows to get their child what they needed, but pity the inarticulate single mother unable to engage with the system. What would she get? The then Government’s promise was to make that better, but the fundamentals remained. If demand is so much bigger than supply, this is what we will get.”
“If we believe in a truly inclusive education system, we cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the structural inequities built into the funding model. We owe it to our constituents, our schools and, most importantly, the children to fix this.”
“It would create better accountability mechanisms, so that areas that are underperforming on delivering SEND provision can be supported and, where necessary, challenged. At the very least, I ask that the Government recognise the injustice of the system and the inequality that it produces. Those are not radical asks; they are practical, deliverable reforms that would make a meaningful difference for my constituents in Beverley and Holderness—and, I believe and hope, across the rest of the country. We have a duty as parliamentarians to ensure that every child, regardless of background, diagnosis, or postcode, has the support that they need to thrive. The disparities in SEND funding undermine that duty.”
“The issue is not simply how much money is available; it is also how accessible and responsive the system is. Families are forced into adversarial processes, schools are burdened with bureaucracy, and children are too often treated as numbers on a spreadsheet, rather than individuals with potential. We need a system that is focused on early intervention, not crisis management. I am here not simply to raise a problem, but to call for action. That action would ensure a fairer, more transparent funding formula that reflects real-world costs across the country, accounting for rurality and discounting historical spend. It would establish a clear baseline per-pupil cost for delivering effective SEND support, and ensure that every local authority was brought up to that level—if not quickly, then at least over time.”
“The formula must reflect both complexity of need and the geography of the area in which that need arises. It needs to account for the added cost of providing services in rural areas. It is vital, too, that the formula moves away from the historical spend factor—the part of the formula that bases current funding on what a local authority spent on SEND provision in the 2018-19 financial year, and how it administratively described that spend. The formula means that a large section of funding is determined by pre-covid demand for SEND services, despite a post-pandemic spike. The Government have stated their intention to remove that factor, but progress has been painfully slow. Every year that we fail to act, we condemn another group of children with complex needs to struggling without the support that they deserve.”
“We could identify, through a mapping exercise, those who have been left behind, and we could say as a matter of principle that whenever there is an above-inflation increase in the Budget—such as the £760 million that the Chancellor came up with in the spending review yesterday—it will always be used first and foremost to lift up those below the line, while doing nothing to cause a below-inflation increase for those who are above the line. Even if the Minister agrees with that idea, there will still be crisis management. How do we begin to tackle systemic inequality? Above all, it is vital that we revisit the high needs national funding formula, because it does not sufficiently account for regional cost differences, or for the genuine cost of delivering services in dispersed or under-served areas.”
“For years, I have fought for a fairer distribution of SEND funding, and for years, I have got nowhere, as successive Governments—Labour and Conservative—have lacked the courage to rebalance the system. I hope Labour will not lack that courage again. I do not pretend to have all the answers to this problem, but I know that we must work out what fairness looks like and the minimum per-pupil cost required for SEND support, and commit to meeting that basic need, if not immediately, then at least over time. This Government need to be prepared to take from those above the baseline and give to those below. Would they be prepared to do that? No previous Government have been, but perhaps this one will. If not, we must find some other way.”
“Perhaps my question could go through the hon. Member to the Minister if he does not know the answer. The £740 million is very welcome, but as he says it is frontloaded in one year and then halves the following year, with no indication of where it is going thereafter. Although it may be a welcome short-term intervention, how is it part of a sustainable effort to improve SEN?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She will be aware that the title of this debate, despite what it says on the screen, is “Distribution of SEND Funding”. I hope, therefore, that she will focus primarily on that particular technical point. The distribution of SEND funding across the country is, according to f40 and campaigners across the House, unfair, broken and needs to change. Is that the Government’s view and the Minister’s view? That is the first answer, and then we can turn to how it can best be fixed. The most important thing is to recognise whether it is broken or not. I feel it is unfair and broken, and I would like to hear the Minister say so, if she agrees.”
“At the moment we have a system that from 2019 to 2024 was increased by 60%. The Government are putting in another £1 billion, and another £760 million was announced yesterday, and that is welcome, but if we do not find a way of stabilising the system, we will still have those who are sharp-elbowed getting something for their kids and those who are not losing out. That is not a system that anyone across the House should be satisfied with. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the distribution of SEND funding.”
“That is not to penalise those who might be technically overfunded today, but to make sure that every child has a fairer and better chance of getting whatever we can best provide from the system. That is an important element of the overall discussion about SEND. We will doubtless hear more about this topic. The Minister did not seem absolutely clear whether EHCPs were here to stay. Resisting my own strictures on sticking to the subject of distribution, I will use the few seconds that I have left to talk about the EHCP system. When a child gets an EHCP, they get a better outcome. Perhaps that is driving parents to push their children to get one, and that may be contributing to the financial unsustainability of the system that we have today. It would be enormously controversial to look to remove it.”
“We did not get an answer to that, because we did not get an answer to the first question. The Minister’s response morphed into what we talk about generally, which is SEN overall, what the Government are doing, the £1 billion extra and all the other things, many of which are welcome, but the question underneath that is whether the distribution is right. If it is not, are we going to do something about it, while making these other changes? We did not get an answer to that. My appeal to the Minister—I think colleagues across the House will welcome this; I might even get a nod from some on the Government Benches—is to make sure that, in the White Paper, there is an opportunity to make the distribution fairer, if not immediately, then at least over time. We must recognise the problem and look to level up over time.”
“I thank all colleagues for coming to the Chamber on this Thursday afternoon, because this issue is just so important. We have heard really interesting and reflective speeches from right across the House, as Members have sought to champion the children who probably most need help in our society, so it is right that we should be here. I thank the Minister for her response. I was slightly disappointed, because the title of this debate is “Distribution of SEND Funding”, and it is important to ask whether the distribution is right. Do the Government think that it is, or that it is not? I do not think that the system is defensible as it is, and it would be good to hear that said. Once one has recognised that the system is broken and unfair, the next question is: how shall we fix it?”
“People of all ages welcome Wales’s role in making this country a clean energy superpower, but pensioners in particular had to go through last winter freezing cold, and tens of thousands went to A&E. Will the Minister, who we all know is a decent Labour Front Bencher, do what the Chancellor refused to do, and apologise to those pensioners who lost the winter fuel allowance when they needed it most?”
“My hon. Friend will be aware that Governments of all stripes tend not to accept amendments in this House, enormously to the frustration of colleagues from across the Chamber who put them forward. Will he join me in encouraging the Minister and his ministerial colleagues to take the opportunity to think again on some of the amendments if the Bill is delayed in the other place? All of us want to see more houses built, but in a way that works with communities. As my hon. Friend said, there is an opportunity here to do something historic, so let us make sure that when the Bill goes to the House of Lords—if that is what is required—the Government listen and act.”
“In 2010, just 12% of homes had an EPC C rating or above, so those homes were too cold and had bills that were too high. It was 60% by 2024 when we left power. Will the Minister share with the House the ambition and give us a number for the percentage of homes that we should expect to have that basic EPC C rating by the end of this term, which I hope will be the only one the Minister has, so he should make a difference while he can? [ Laughter . ]”
“T6. I am confident that the Secretary of State loves the pub as much as you and I do, Mr Speaker, but the jobs tax and the slashing of business rate relief have delivered a hammer blow to pubs such as the Barrel in Walkington, owned by Thwaites, and to hospitality businesses such as the Beverley Arms hotel. Has the Secretary of State made representations to the Chancellor ahead of Wednesday to ensure that more landlords are not forced to call last orders?”
“The Minister seems unable to say sorry, but does he at least regret that more than 90,000 more elderly people went to A&E last winter than did the year before, in the last winter under the Conservative Government?”
“Senior figures in the Catholic Church and the Church of England were found to have conspired to cover up child abuse by priests. Senior figures in the Labour party are now opposing local inquiries in places such as Bradford, London and Wales, and Ministers here oppose a national rape inquiry. We have also heard from a former Labour Member of Parliament, Simon Danczuk, that he was told not to raise the issue of the ethnicity of some of the perpetrators. When will Labour put aside its electoral interests and stand on the side of the abused?”
“Secondly, will she meet one to one with the Prime Minister to express her clear opinion that what has happened is not acceptable? I would like specific answers to both those questions.”
“My constituents will wonder about a Government who promised to do things differently. They said that they would be transparent and be whiter than white—then they behave like this. One almost feels sorry for the Leader of the House, because she is trying to defend the indefensible. It is not enough to express regret that journalists were given access to the document in full before Privy Counsellors, the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, or that this trailing in full went on days ahead. What we need is action. Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), will the Leader of the House commit to looking into the issue, whether through a formal inquiry or not?”
“Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I suggest an informal four-minute limit to allow all those who wish to speak to do so.”
“I will call Anna Sabine to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. If anyone does not have that twin permission, they should not and may not speak. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”
“We have five Back-Bench speakers. I will call the Front Benchers at 5.23 pm, so I will let hon. Members make a judgment on that. We will start with the ever-succinct and effective Ed Morello.”
“Johnson’s of Hedon, a DIY store, has traded successfully for 56 years, but its owner Mike Brooke, who has run it throughout that time, says that the national insurance hike introduced by the Chancellor has finally made the business unviable. Was the cruel destruction of Johnson’s of Hedon, and the jobs that it provides, deliberate or an accident?”
“We need 15 billion barrels of oil and gas between now and 2050; we are currently expected to produce just 4 billion. New licences would support tens of thousands of jobs in this country and tens of billions in tax revenue. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the agreement on alignment on climate policies will not stand in the way of common-sense restoration of new licences in the North sea, so that we can produce the oil and gas we must consume in this country?”
“Has the Minister any sympathy with the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright)? The panel might struggle to get the evidence it needs to make a decision, and there is no mechanism to address a situation in which, in the absence of that evidence, the panel makes a decision, but evidence then comes forward that suggests that its decision was incorrect. Does the Minister have any workable ideas for addressing that issue?”
“Members will have noticed that the in-Chamber clock is not functioning, but the time can be seen on the annunciator—time is probably not of the essence in this debate. I remind Members that if they want to speak, they should bob, but I do not think that applies either.”
“I know how on top of her brief the Minister is, so will she confirm that fewer than a third of council homes had an energy performance certificate C rating in 2010 compared with over 70% by last year? Less than 12% of homes in the UK had decent insulation in 2010 when Labour last left office and when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), who is chuntering from a sedentary position, was in power, and more than 50% did by the time we left office. Will she commit to a faster rate of improvement under this Government than we ever saw under the previous Labour Government?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), but each child with special educational needs in the East Riding receives £968, whereas in Camden the figure is £3,564. I am sure she agrees that a child in Camden does not have four times the need of a child in the East Riding. Will she undertake to ensure, as part of the review, that in principle we will have fairer funding for children throughout the country with educational needs related to, for instance, dyslexia or autism at the end of that process, as opposed to where we sit now?”
“The Secretary of State has been most generous in giving way. It is reported that Manchester United, Liverpool and others have advertised posts that exclude applications by white men. Will she say on the Floor of the House today that any such policy is illegal in that it infringes the Equality Act 2010, and will she give a clear message that any such policy must be reversed?”
“My right hon. Friend will be aware that the new chairman of the Labour football regulator gave £5,000 to the hon. Gentleman who has just chortled from his seat, the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith), and another £70,000 to other Labour Members, and will be getting a return of £130,000 per year for a three-day week—half a million pounds of personal return on that £75,000 investment over this Parliament. If the Secretary of State was sitting on the Opposition Benches, she would be able to smell the hypocrisy and the stink of corruption. That is why we cannot accept this appointment: it does not ensure the independence that this position certainly requires.”
“This is not a Labour-leaning businessperson who is generally independent but decided to support Labour; this is someone who was a director of LabourList until just a few weeks ago. This is someone who is absolutely embedded in the Labour establishment, who funded Labour Members including the Chancellor, now being given this half-a-million-pound boondoggle for the next four or five years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the regulator clearly is not independent and that Labour needs to think again?”
“To be clear, is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the regulator should intervene on the issue of gambling ads rather than this House taking responsibility for doing so? I worry about the regulator’s reach spreading and about it forcing small clubs to engage with their communities over ticket prices and so forth; if there has to be a regulator, we must keep it highly constrained.”
“I do not need to remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate. We are busily counting how many there are. To get everybody in would effectively allow a little more than two minutes each. I do not want to go below that, because it becomes a bit meaningless. We will try to keep everything short, and it would help if interventions were minimised.”
“I will call Imran Hussain to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“I thank the Minister for her statement and her emphasis on the need for sensitivity and indeed good temper in dealing with this topic. In that spirit, may I ask her to salute the courage of J. K. Rowling, Sharron Davies and indeed the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield)?”
“I assume that applies after the warning, Mr Speaker. We have a Government who, I believe, are shipping coking coal just off the Lincolnshire coast today from Japan, when it was perfectly possible to have the world’s greenest production of coking coal in Cumbria, with thousands of jobs. Is it not a disgrace that this Government turned their back on jobs in Cumbria and, indeed, in the North sea because they put ideology ahead of practicality and even ahead of the environment?”
“The Government give themselves powers in the Bill to compensate steel undertakings, yet the Minister has told us nothing about the scale of that or the estimate of it. The Secretary of State tells the House that he has no trust or abiding faith in the company, but he is giving himself powers to give whatever sums he deems appropriate to the company. Do we not need more answers before we pass this legislation?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is reported that Jingye management has been turned away by workers and the Humberside police today, so will the Minister tell the House whether the Government’s policy is to bar Jingye management from going on to the premises?”
“The housing numbers for London were cut by 20% by the Government, but again and again we find in Hansard the Secretary of State asserting that 1.5 million homes will be built during this Parliament in England. Why did the Chancellor tell us a few days ago that only 1.3 million will be built across the whole of the UK, and will the Secretary of State please confirm that the 1.5 million target has gone?”
“The President and Vice-President of the United States have made clear their detestation of countries freeloading on defence and security matters. We are not asking for the detail, we are not even asking for the quantum, but we do deserve to know in this House today whether the Government have asked the US to contribute to the base on Diego Garcia that is so vital to it—yes or no?”
“Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. I will bring in an informal guide for Members: if everyone speaks for about four minutes, we can hopefully get everybody in.”
“I will call Anna Sabine to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister—that is often forgotten. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”