Josh MacAlister
MP for Whitehaven and Workington · Labour · United Kingdom
“Just this Saturday, as a constituency MP, I saw the amazing impact of Kells in bringing the community together, especially children. That community building comes down to great characters, such as Peter Smith at Kells or Vince and Lana at Derwent Park Rangers, who have all been getting into schools to teach rugby league for well over 20 y…”
“The changes that we are making will address the objectives that the hon. Member set out in his questions. In closing, I place on the record my thanks to teachers, volunteers, coaches, school leaders, local clubs and national governing bodies for the work they do every day to create sporting opportunities for young people across our countr…”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing this important debate on rugby in schools. When I was asked to sub in for the Minister for School Standards in responding to this debate, I knew that it would not be trying.”
“That is exactly what we are trying to do with the school sport partnerships model. We recognise that despite the funding of recent years, participation in school sport has remained fairly flat; it is well below what we need as a country in order to have a healthy population of young people who benefit from all that sport has to offer.”
“We must ensure that girls in every community have access to high-quality rugby opportunities through curriculum PE, extracurricular activity and inclusive formats that allow them to build confidence, develop skills and enjoy being active.”
“Their contribution can help schools to achieve the right balance between participation and competition. We know that those are not competing priorities, as every child should have the opportunity to participate, develop competence and build confidence through the sport.”
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“Through excellent joint working between Stockport, the headteacher and the Department, all RAAC mitigations are in place. That means that pupils can once again use the spaces safely while we get on with the job of rebuilding the school. This is about not just resolving a building condition issue, but delivering a lasting legacy for pupils, staff, families and the wider Bramhall community. I am pleased to say that delivery is under way with real momentum behind it. Willmott Dixon is the appointed contractor, and it has worked closely with the school and the Department to design an ambitious new build. We expect to have spades in the ground later this year, but it is more than just a construction project. The rebuilding work will also provide valuable T-levels and placement opportunities and support apprenticeships, creating local jobs.”
“By 2029, every school and college in England that is not being fully or substantially rebuilt will be RAAC-free, and every school with RAAC that needs to be rebuilt through the SRP will be in delivery by that point. That includes Bramhall high school. As the hon. Member for Cheadle has set out, Bramhall high school has faced building challenges, with parts of the estate dating back to the 1960s and the presence of RAAC. However, what stands out is the positive and determined way in which the school community has responded to those challenges. It was a major operational challenge, but the school, Stockport council and the Department worked together to keep pupils learning safely and to minimise the disruption to pupils as much as possible. I recognise that achievement.”
“We are investing almost £20 billion through the school rebuilding programme. Over 500 schools are already in that programme, with well over half in delivery. Some 59 schools have already been rebuilt through the SRP, with 47 of those completed under this Government, and we will select a further 250 for the next stage of the SRP at the start of 2027. The renewal and retrofit programme, backed by £710 million to 2029-30, will improve the condition of schools that are coming towards the end of their life, but where deeper renewal and retrofit can extend that considerably. RAAC has been permanently removed from 80 schools and colleges, and we have set out a clear plan to finish the job.”
“For too long, schools have had to patch and mend buildings that have already deteriorated beyond repair, instead of undergoing the rebuilds they needed at an earlier point. We are turning the page on years of decline in the school estate, fixing a legacy of neglect and removing RAAC for good. At the core of our strategy is a shift to more proactive management, long-term maintenance, and more renewal of the existing estate. That comes alongside rebuilding more schools and making sure there are high-quality places from early years to post-16. Our 10-year plan for the school estate, which I published a few months ago, is backed by unprecedented long-term funding. By 2034-35, we will be investing almost £3 billion per year in capital maintenance to improve the condition of the school and college estate, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025-26.”
“This was only made possible by the decisions this Government have taken about the fiscal rules, which have supported a necessary step change in investment. We will increase and prioritise investment where it is most needed through maintenance, renewal and rebuilding programmes, and that is what we are doing for our schools. That is why we increased overall capital investment in education to £38 billion up to 2029-30—the highest level since 2010, when Labour was last in government. With over 22,000 schools and colleges in England, the education estate supports 10 million children, but we inherited from the previous Government the RAAC crisis and years of decline in the school estate. After years of under-investment, too many children are learning in buildings that have deteriorated and are in need of repair.”
“We published a 10-year infrastructure strategy, which—coupled with long-term capital budgets, the modern industrial strategy and a commitment to investing in skills and training—presents a lifetime of opportunities. Investing in infrastructure will drive growth and raise living standards in every part of the UK. Infrastructure will support our modern industrial strategy, and it will improve public services by taking a long-term approach to improving the fabric of our country. That, of course, includes our schools and colleges. We are maintaining public investment at the highest sustained level in four decades, supported by an increase in departmental capital spending of over £120 billion over this Parliament, compared with previous plans.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on securing this debate and on his advocacy for Bramhall high school. As a former teacher myself, who spent years standing in front of young people in Oldham and in Stockport, I know from first-hand experience that spaces around lessons really do matter—the classroom environment speaks to children before any lesson begins. That is why tackling our crumbling school estate is imperative: to show children that their education matters and their future matters. Now, as a Minister in the Department for Education, I am proud that we are calling time on RAAC and rebuilding Bramhall high school, so that children and staff have the high-quality classrooms they deserve. This Government are doing things differently to fix the failures of the past.”
“Under this Government, apprenticeship starts by young people are up. We are going further and investing an additional £1 billion to support 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships with the new foundation apprenticeships, and providing £2,000 for smaller employers when they hire young apprentices.”
“I think we should look at what people do, not what they say. This is a Government who are reversing the decline; apprenticeship starts by young people reduced by 40% under the previous Government. We are taking a range of steps, including supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, and giving greater flexibility in the apprenticeship system, all to create an extra 50,000 opportunities for young people.”
“My hon. Friend is a fierce champion for apprenticeships and technical education. I am happy to meet him to discuss those matters further. The Minister for Skills, my noble friend Baroness Smith in the other place, has taken a whole series of actions with the Secretary of State to reform our apprenticeship system, opening it up to create tens of thousands of additional opportunities for young people.”
“We inherited the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—crisis and years of decay in the school estate. Labour is investing almost £20 billion in the school rebuilding programme to rebuild over 750 schools across England. Over 500 schools are already in the programme, with well over half already in delivery. We will select a further 250 schools by early 2027.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy for Hudson primary school. He has spoken to me before about the excellent performance of the school and its headteacher. We will be selecting the 250 schools for the school rebuilding programme by the end of the year and announce them at the start of next year. It will be based on those schools that have the most acute need in terms of their building state. I am happy to discuss that further with him.”
“As detailed in “Post-16 pathways: implementation plan”, we are creating coherent pathways, aligning learning with the skills that employers need and improving progression. New V-levels, the expansion and improvement of T-levels, and clearer level 2 pathways will support young people’s progression to higher study, apprenticeships or employment.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to Bucks College Group and the work it does in her constituency. FE colleges have autonomy over staff pay. We have provided an additional £190 million for colleges and 16-to-19 providers for this financial year, which is broadly equivalent to the schools pay award. We have also set out positive new developments on FE teacher training support.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for the question and the serious spirit in which he asks it. We are providing £9 billion of funding for 16-to-19 programmes in the 2026-27 academic year. We are making a wider range of changes to further education support, qualification routes and apprenticeships to directly respond to the kinds of criticisms from providers and employers that he refers to, and I genuinely believe that the Government have got that right. If there are particular aspects that Alex Miles wants to write to me about, I will be happy to take a look.”
“We are investing almost £20 billion in the school rebuilding programme to rebuild over 750 schools up to 2034-35. Some 500 of those are already in the programme—we have a further 250 to select, which we will do later this year.”
“Despite those delays, I can confirm that the school will be considered for the school rebuilding programme, despite those avoidable delays. I thank my hon. Friend for his continued advocacy, both raising it personally with me on a number of occasions and writing to me on multiple occasions.”
“The OU was never second best: at the last assessment, 82% of its research impact was rated world leading or internationally excellent, and last year it was awarded gold—the highest ranking—in the teaching excellence framework.”
“The Open University, the institution founded as a consequence of that White Paper, is today the largest academic institution in the UK, with students in all 650 parliamentary constituencies. Since 1969, it has taught more than 2.5 million students worldwide. Three quarters of its undergraduates arrive with no previous higher education qualifications. The open door that Jennie Lee promised is still open. In the last five years alone, more than 15,000 people who began studying without any A-levels have earned higher education qualifications through the Open University. Two thirds of its students are working while they study. It is learning that fits around life—not the other way around.”
“At a famous Cabinet meeting at Chequers just before the 1966 election, she argued that while the national health service was the greatest creation of the post-war Labour Government, the “University of the Air” would make “just as much difference to the country.” The White Paper made a radical argument that higher education should be open to all, regardless of background or prior qualifications, that learning should be flexible, rigorous and lifelong, and that new technology would carry academic excellence far beyond the walls of traditional institutions. Jennie Lee won that argument, and 60 years on, every part of that vision—open access, flexibility and technology in service of excellence—reads less like history and more like a description of the task that sits in front of us today.”
“Friend explained, it will be 60 years ago next February since another Labour Minister, Jennie Lee, published the White Paper, “A University of the Air”. She did so in the face of immense scepticism. Whitehall was snooty, the press was cynical and much of the establishment argued that the money should be spent elsewhere, but Jennie Lee was, in Harold Wilson’s words, “a tigress”.”
“As he spoke about movingly, his example is of someone who enrolled with the OU at the age of 30, and five years later emerged with both an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree to their name. That, for me, is the Open University’s mission in a nutshell—not a makeshift second chance, but a genuinely world-class route to opportunity for people who were not on academic pathways at the age of 18. That is why his advocacy carries such weight. In Southport, he has carried that conviction into the community at the heart of his constituency, championing the learning festival that took place in the town last year and being a strong advocate for improving educational opportunities more broadly. I have been lobbied many times about school buildings by him, so I can attest to that. As my hon.”
“This is an area simply of disagreement on policy and on where the resources that sit behind the apprenticeships levy—which is now the growth and skills levy—should rest. I am really keen, as is the Education Secretary, for those resources to be targeted very much at those who might not have taken the university path and for those entry-level apprenticeship routes to be funded to the max. That is why that policy decision was made. I stand by it and believe it was the right decision on balance for the use of those resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport speaks in this debate not just as an advocate for lifelong learning but as living proof of its potential.”
“Although it is not within my area of responsibility, I am very passionate about it, and I believe that the Open University and other providers have a really important role to play, given the captive nature of the audience and the chance for prison to be a place where people can genuinely turn their lives around. I want to answer the question about UCAS before I turn to the wider debate. The Open University chooses to manage applications directly, partly because of the need for flexibility beyond the normal academic cycle, but information about OU courses, including modular courses, is available on the UCAS website. I am keen not to get drawn too far away from the topic of the Open University, but I will respond in short to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), who raised issues regarding level 7 apprenticeships.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on securing this very timely debate and on the characteristically thoughtful case he made. I also give credit to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), a graduate of the Open University himself, who reminded us of the analogue age of VCRs and the magic of Sir David Attenborough. I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for highlighting the genuine inclusivity of the Open University from its inception. He was also right to highlight the importance of prisoner education.”
“Sixty years on, that standard still binds us. From January next year funding will, for the first time, follow the learner, module by module, at any stage of life. Our ambition that two thirds of young people reach higher-level learning is matched by an entitlement that lasts to 60, because opportunity should not have a closing date. Jennie Lee’s revolution was to say that the door to education should never close behind someone. The task of the next 60 years is to hold that door open wider still, in Southport and in every community like it. When our learners thrive, our country thrives.”
“However, the current system was largely designed for younger, full-time students and lacks the flexibility that adults in work need. The LLE will expand access to higher-quality, flexible education and training, promote learner mobility and ensure that providers can respond to the needs of learners, employers and the wider economy. Sixty years ago, a White Paper of just a few pages was dismissed as vague, insubstantial and impractical. Today, the institution it created has taught more than 2 million people, with my hon. Friend the Member for Southport among them. That is the test that Jennie Lee set us: not whether an idea is convenient, but whether it changes lives. She insisted that there could be no question of offering students a makeshift project, inferior in quality to other universities.”
“We are determined to break the damaging link between background and success, and we want more people from all backgrounds to be able to access higher education as part of that. As part of our reforms, the lifelong learning entitlement —a policy from the previous Government that I am very pleased we are continuing, with cross-party support—represents one of the most significant student finance reforms in a generation. For the first time, it establishes a single, flexible funding system covering levels 4 to 6 across further and higher education, enabling people to learn, upskill and retrain throughout their working lives. The rationale for the entitlement is clear. More than a third of vacancies go unfilled due to skills shortages, and around 80% of the 2030 workforce are already in employment.”
“I completely agree. I will turn now to the Government’s actions, which will take the Open University to its next chapter, so that those opportunities are spread even more across our great country. Last October, we published the “Post-16 education and skills” White Paper. There is a powerful alignment between the Open University’s mission to widen access and our own vision, set out in that White Paper, for a world-leading skills system that breaks down barriers to opportunity. The strategy in the White Paper is the blueprint for delivering our new target for two thirds of young people to be participating in higher-level learning—academic, technical or apprenticeships.”
“Finally, I am particularly proud that we will work with faith and belief organisations to design a new lifelong relationships ceremony to recognise the important bonds between care-experienced adults and those who love them. Just as we have Christenings and naming ceremonies, Britain is generous enough to also mark these wonderful and unique relationships that give hope and meaning. I want these to start being offered this year. The most important thing for us in life is our relationships. The state often finds it hard to put itself at the service of building these loving relationships. In fact, too often it blocks or weakens them. That changes today by making one thing very clear: the purpose of our care system, above all else, is to build enduring loving relationships. I commend this statement to the House.”
“That is why today I am launching a national sprint to roll out family finding services across England by the end of the next two years. We know the impact that “Who Do You Think You Are?”-style services can have on building stronger tribes around young people, and we have already seen the impact of programmes like Lifelong Links. These services need to become the mainstream offer, rather than pilots on the fringe of the system. In the coming months, I will launch the new Staying Close programme, which will shift the system away from its current focus on preparing young people for independence and instead focus on providing homes for care leavers that build interdependence and connection. This will mean fewer teenagers dropping off the care cliff at 18 and being forced to live in a flat, lonely and isolated.”
“Later this year, a new metric to track the quality of enduring relationships at an individual level will be rolled out in the care and leaving care systems because, whether we like it or not, what gets measured is often the thing that gets done. If we are serious about putting enduring relationships at the heart of the system, the performance of the system itself needs to be judged on whether the relationships around those in and leaving care are getting stronger or weaker. This will, of course, have implications for Ofsted’s inspection regime. With a new measure of relationships sitting at the heart of the system, we also need to support practitioners to change what they do so that enduring relationships are strengthened.”
“That is why we have launched an expert-led review to assess the professional development offer to staff at children’s homes and set out instructions for change that we will action this autumn. Thirdly, we must support care-experienced children who are transitioning into adulthood by ensuring that we nurture and expand their long-term relationships. This is not to be confused with supporting their relationships with professionals, although that is important, but instead is about the relationships with people who can form a lasting family and tribe around care-experienced people. That starts with what the system measures and how it is inspected.”
“This new system also depends on expanding regional care co-operatives so that the majority of England will be covered by an RCC by the end of this year. RCCs will give areas the scale to create the types of homes that children in care need and the leverage to drive out profiteering and poor quality practice. My Department will use RCCs as the vehicle to roll out a new approach to wrap around children who are on or at risk of a deprivation of liberty order. This programme, called Home Again, will de-escalate crises and be delivered in partnership with health services. I will share more information about this in the coming weeks. I have also been concerned about the lack of support and attention that has been given to those working in residential care.”
“It is leading to children being placed in residential care inappropriately, at great cost in terms of both money and poorer outcomes. We are therefore on the cusp of dramatically expanding a new approach to running our care system. This is made up of new end-to-end fostering hubs, where we will pull together individual local authority fostering teams into larger and more specialised fostering services, with more resource and higher expectations on recruitment and support for carers. This is the main action that will deliver the 10,000 additional places in foster care that we need by the end of this Parliament. It is backed with £88 million and includes funding for new innovation, grants to build extensions and home improvements for existing carers, and modernisation of the foster carer recruitment process.”
“Every local authority will be required to publish a local kinship offer, giving families the clarity and support they need. We have also committed £126 million to seven kinship zones, which are now up and running, that will test the impact of a non-means-tested allowance, equivalent to the fostering allowance, for kinship families with a legal order. Secondly, we must create more stable and loving homes for children in care that support long-term relationships. A shortage of foster homes is leading to too many children being moved far away from their communities and the people they know. It is putting pressure on existing foster carers to be matched with children where their needs and their relationships with brothers and sisters often cannot be met.”
“The strategy I have published today sets out how we will make creating a loving tribe around every care-experienced young person the central obsession of the care system. To enable this, our reforms cover four key areas. First, all of children’s social care—not just the care system—must prioritise relationships. That means working to bring about change in families for children by strengthening the bonds found in existing family networks. This is at the heart of the Families First Partnership programme, where family group decision making and family network support packages are bringing children’s families and their wider networks into their care decisions at an earlier stage. It also means unlocking the potential of kinship care.”
“At present, care often prioritises the management of professional anxiety over the nurturing of lasting, enduring relationships that care-experienced people need in order to feel loved and safe. We see this in children being sent to grow up in homes far away from their community, thereby rupturing their school career, their friendships and their family relationships. We see this in the rules that mean foster carers are not trusted to make day-to-day decisions about whether the child they have in their care can have an overnight stay with a friend or have a haircut without seeking permission from a social worker. We see it when the young person turning 18 is pushed towards living independently, when what they really need is a housing and social support model that helps them build community.”
“I am publishing the enduring relationships strategy that sets out how we will deliver that change. In 2022, I published the independent review of children’s social care, a review that was informed by listening directly to thousands of people with experience of the care system. What I heard then, and have heard since, is that our care and leaving care systems are too often breaking rather than building lifelong loving relationships. Care can leave young people isolated, lonely and lacking belonging. This heightens vulnerability to poor mental health, unstable housing and unemployment. In that review, I called for a system where every young person would leave care with someone who loves them—a simple goal, but one that is not the central focus of our current system.”
“With permission, I shall make a statement on the Government’s progress to reform children’s social care. Transforming support for families and protection for children is central to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. That is why we introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which received Royal Assent in April. It has enabled the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. The whole-system reset that is needed to shift money, staff and attention to earlier intensive help for families, rather than late-stage crisis management, is under way, supported by over £3 billion in funding. I want to use this statement to focus on the care and leaving care systems that form an essential part of children’s social care.”
“Finally, let me turn to the new metric. The Department has worked with foundations to set out a shortlist of options of standardised measures that are valid and can be used at a practitioner and young person level but do not create undue bureaucracy or distract from the important relationships that are needed in those conversations. I am confident that we can find and roll out a measure this year that will achieve that goal.”
“The adoption and special guardianship support fund is hugely important, which is why we have increased the fund by 10% this year to ensure that we can reach more families and young people with that support. The consultation response will come later this year. At the moment, the Department is focused on implementing the changes and improvements that we set out in the consultation a few months ago. The fostering hubs will be allocated in the next few weeks, and I hope to make an announcement next month on the fostering hubs and RCCs that will be rolled out and extended further. In terms of improving matching, regional care co-operatives will play an important role in the future system in enabling us to get a much better sense, looking ahead at the years to come, of the actual sufficiency required for children in their areas.”
“I thank the hon. Member for the spirit in which he shared his remarks and the questions that he put to me. He is right to say that this issue requires serious and sustained attention from the House and from parties across every corner of the Chamber. It is worth highlighting to people the disparity between what care-experienced people tell us about their experience and the experiences of the general population. Some 22% of care leavers are always or often lonely, and 15% of care leavers do not have a really good friend. Compared with the general population, those numbers are so much higher, which illustrates why this issue is so important. Let me turn to the questions asked by the hon. Member.”
“Every quarter, my officials and I are monitoring the pounds being spent by children’s social care across the country, and we will be prepared to support and, if necessary, to intervene if the system reset that we expect is not being seen on the ground in how spending is done. The geography of RCCs will be large. In some areas, they will have the footprint of a mayoral combined authority or multiple mayoral combined authorities, but there will be a specific target for creating homes that keep children in close proximity to their existing communities.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, not just for those remarks, but for the Committee’s work over the last few years in keeping a focus on these issues. I also thank her for her support for the Government always going further and taking more actions to improve outcomes for children and their families. In answer to my hon. Friend’s first point, the fundamental shift required in this Parliament is that we start to see funding across the children’s social care system being rebalanced away from late-stage crisis spending towards earlier, intensive support for families. We are not leaving that to an annual check-in.”
“Finally, on kinship allowance, the take-up has been impressive already; it is only a few weeks into the roll-out, and I have looked at the data. I look forward to going to Grimsby soon, hopefully, with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) to see one of the areas that, at the moment, is more successful than the others—there is a competition under way—and see the success of that programme.”
“We need to start seeing those numbers go up in a big way so that the homes are created close to where children already live, and there is not a need for distant placements. Turning to accountability, we definitely need greater visibility on those numbers in the system; if the metric I talked about in the statement is embedded across the system as well, we will start to see the strength of those relationships. We speak to young people who have been moved two hours away from their home community; earlier this week, I spoke to a young woman who that had happened to. It was impossible for her to keep the quality of relationship that she wanted to with her father, which was safe. We need to measure that. That needs to be the central focus, and then everything else will flow from it, including the location of placements.”
“I thank the hon. Member for her questions and, again, for the spirit in which she has made her contribution. I also thank her for her leadership on this issue—she has spent a lot of time in this place raising many of these points time and again. She is right to highlight the work of the noble Baroness Tyler in the other place, and I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) in this place; both of them, working cross party, have long highlighted the importance of brothers and sisters in the care system. The most important relationships can often be relationships with siblings. I want the number of distant placements to start to come down in this Parliament. The leading indicator of that would be an expansion of fostering, and we are monitoring that at the moment.”
“Over the past few years, there have been councils across England that have been very successful—in some cases without any Government support—in bearing down on the need for late-stage crisis costs, holding their nerve as both elected members and directors of children’s services, and have seen that shift towards keeping more families safely together. This is a resource question, but it is also a question of leadership and culture.”
“The Government have prioritised this issue, with £2.4 billion of funding for the Families First programme over the next three years to get some up-front spending into the system and achieve the rebalancing that is needed. For a smaller number of local authorities, the scale of the care population and the legacy of the erosion of services makes that a challenging transition. I am committed, alongside MHCLG Ministers, to taking representations from local areas and—where we can—to going further in resourcing the changes that are required. However, this applies to every local authority across the country, so I will say that although that transition is not an easy one, it is one that many areas have undertaken.”