Darren Paffey
MP for Southampton Itchen · Labour · United Kingdom
“Three million passengers come through each year, and it is an important gateway for vehicles, manufactured goods and international trade, dealing with more than £71 billion of value every year. It supports 45,000 jobs nationwide, and anchors a wider Solent maritime cluster, worth £10.6 billion.”
“If the one UK port that is already leading on shore power cannot fully utilise that potential for another decade—we have been told that the grid expansion will not come until 2036—how much later will the rest of Britain be?”
“The investment we are asking for is not just about expanding ports for the sake of it; it is about redistributing that value back into the communities that generate it. That investment locally can be a catalyst for national growth.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) for securing a debate on this important issue.”
“I am grateful for his engagement with me and the sector recently. First, can we bring forward the grid supply point upgrade at Southampton? A 2036 timeline is not compatible with our 2030 shore power obligations or our sector’s decarbonisation ambitions.”
“I want to speak directly to anyone watching the debate, because the words of the campaigns that the Royal Life Saving Society, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and others have all got behind could save a life this summer: “If someone gets into difficulty in the water, ‘Float to Live’. Fight your instinct to panic and thrash about.”
The complete record
Every one of 306 lines we hold for Darren Paffey, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 7.
“I appreciate your patience, Mr Stringer—this is not the first time I have stumbled over Committee procedure and no doubt it will not be the last. I welcome the Minister’s comments and the inclusion of clause 8, which I strongly support. I want to address the sentiment of new clause 40 as well. The extension of the requirements around accommodation, extending the Children and Social Work Act 2017, requires councils to publish that local offer. That is crucial. Many of us have served in local government; it is at that local level that these crucial services, which can often make or break opportunities for care leavers, are delivered. The clause also takes steps towards making good on the Prime Minister’s commitment to guarantee care leavers a place to live.”
“Q5. Thousands of my constituents have had to put up with years of misery because of unsafe fire protection in their homes, developers dragging their feet and leaseholders having to foot the bill for mistakes that they did not make. Does the Prime Minister agree that enough is enough, and it is time for developers to make all homes safe? Will he reassure leaseholders, who bought their homes in good faith, that this Government have their back?”
“This also extends to the legal duties to publish a local offer, which already exist, but really the question is whether we can achieve greater consistency and transparency for young people. For example, our young people in A National Voice, the national council for children in care, have been campaigning on the fact that almost two years after the Department for Education announced the increase for their setting up home grants, 10% of local authorities are still not applying it. All too often, these young people therefore experience a form of postcode lottery. Finally, our research has shown huge disparity in relation to the appreciation of levels of disability and long-term health conditions among care leavers. This needs to be a key area of focus.”
“We know from the outcomes for young people leaving care that it is crucial that that level of stability and support is in place. Dr Homden: We support the extension of support to care leavers in the Bill. Provisions need to ensure greater consistency across the country in the support that is offered. It is important that the introduction of Staying Close provisions in this case will be offered to care leavers only where the authority assesses that such support is required. It is also important that that does not dilute the role and responsibilities of personal advisers. Young people speak very passionately in our Bright Spots surveys about the importance of the emotional and practical support that they provide. We must take care that that is not undermined. Staying Close must mean what is close for the individual.”
“Q I would like to ask about the requirement for local authorities to offer Staying Close. We have seen some success with that in Southampton, but from the direct work of both your organisations, do you think that the Staying Close offer meets the most pressing needs of care leavers, or are there other things that the Bill should consider? Anne Longfield: Carol will probably talk about the detail more than I will, but in principle it was a really important change to be made and a really important commitment. Young people I have met have appreciated it and seen the value of it. I do not think it is yet at the point where most care leavers would say that it is meeting all their ambitions, nor of course is it anywhere. Having it as part of the Bill, to extend and strengthen it, is important, but it is there to be built on.”
“Q My question is about qualified teacher status, and the Bill is obviously about either having or working towards that. Do you think it is a reasonable expectation that, whatever your expertise and subject knowledge, if you are teaching, you are trained to teach? Do you think that remains a reasonable expectation? Julie McCulloch: I think it does in the vast majority of cases, but quite what working towards it looks like needs thinking about to ensure that it does not exacerbate existing crises. The only exception I might look at—I think there may be exceptions for this anyway—is at the very top end of secondary, and going into the college and vocational sphere, where there might be a slightly different set of skills needed in the people teaching those young people. But broadly, as a principle, I would agree.”
“We have been doing a lot of work with our members recently about the additional responsibilities that they have been taking on, some of which they have been expected to take on and some of which they have felt that they had no choice but to take on, because the agencies that had normally delivered those services previously no longer exist or have incredibly long waiting lists. The relationships that might be improved through this measure are really important, but there is a huge capacity issue as well.”
“This is really about making sure that, through the conversations with those safeguarding teams, all the services that support children are there to help them, and that schools have a voice in that, rather than having to assume some of the responsibilities of the other agencies, as has happened more and more over time. We see it as a positive step, but there is a risk that somehow more and more responsibility is placed on schools, which would not be correct. Julie McCulloch: I strongly agree with that.”
“Q My main question is about safeguarding. I know from experience that the good relationships between the different agencies, particularly schools and the local authorities, are forged locally, and therefore they depend on almost a bit of a lottery. Do you think that mandating will resolve that issue? Will that satisfy the leaders and the designated safeguarding leads who you speak to that they now have the position and the basis for a much stronger relationship through what is being mandated? Paul Whiteman: We do. I would not go as far as suggesting that it is a lottery, but there are differences of relationship and of quality of relationship, so putting that on a statutory footing will help. Our one concern is that schools are often seen as the thing that will fill any void that occurs, or that will assume a greater responsibility.”
“That is not just a today thing—it has been coming for 20 years, when we stopped running children’s homes in local authorities, really. The provision of the accommodation in the way that the Bill sets out is good but, as I said before, the issue is about who runs it and how much the staffing costs are for running very specialist provision—”
“Q The Bill proposes a number of measures on illegal children’s homes and a topic you have already mentioned a couple of times—deprivation of liberty, when that does not necessarily need to be in a secure children’s home. What are your reflections on how effective that is going to be in terms of protecting vulnerable children? Do you foresee in particular any impact on family court proceedings if there is now a different outcome in terms of what judges can decide? Jacky Tiotto : I do not think so, in terms of the strengthening of section 25 of the 1989 Act so that other accommodation can be used that is not a secure children’s home, but I think there is a gross underestimation of how intensive it is to look after those children.”
“My recommendation would be focusing on how, in local areas, we can build up and strengthen our local authorities so that they can be the champions of children, particularly vulnerable children, and convene the trusts and the schools so that everyone can work together to share their expertise. If we do that, we will have a great shot at it, and I think it could be really good.”
“Q The Bill seeks to move on from a fixation on structures and get back to outcomes and wellbeing. If I have understood your earlier comments, you welcome that. Do you think the Bill will sufficiently break that link between a child’s background and their future success? Do you believe that the measures will move us closer to that? Dame Rachel de Souza : I am delighted with the measures for vulnerable children. I am hopeful for the measures on the schools side, but we need to see a bit more of a vision before I can answer. What is that system going to look like?”
“Q Clauses 13 and 14 make provision for the financial oversight of care providers, and clause 9 looks at better regional arrangements for accommodation. What are your views on how effective that will be in improving provision for the care of children? Katharine Sacks-Jones: As I said earlier, these are welcome measures. There is very little oversight of the providers at the moment, so a number of measures will improve that oversight. The missing piece is that if you do not tackle sufficiency, the power imbalance will still sit in the hands of the providers who provide the majority of homes for children. Greater oversight needs to come alongside improving sufficiency. One way to do that is to have a national strategy, which is missing at the moment. We think the Bill is an opportunity to introduce that.”
“We need to recognise that with 80% of existing provision being provided privately, any sudden exit might also cause some challenges for children. So, the sufficiency piece is really important, but we need to rebuild what I reluctantly describe as the market, to provide care for children in a different way. That will take some time.”
“Q To what extent does the regional co-operation deal with sufficiency? Katharine Sacks-Jones: I think there are benefits to be had in regional commissioning. We are concerned to ensure that provision for children is not then condensed in certain areas of a region, which could mean children still being moved great distances. We would like to see a safeguard in the Bill around not moving children far from home unless it is in their interest, to go alongside the new regional co-operation arrangements. Lynn Perry: I echo some of what Katharine said there. There has to be a focus on outcomes for children in care, and in particular for all providers to be able to demonstrate that they are taking the sort of steps that Katharine describes, which would lead to better outcomes for children.”
“I had a school in south Essex in a trust that I led where we needed to reduce the curriculum for a little while. It was post covid. You may say, “Well, that was covid,” but we do not what is coming. I needed to work with some children in key stage 2 on a slightly narrower curriculum to really help them with their maths and English so that they would be able to access secondary school. That is what we decided to do, and it was an academy school, so I had the freedom to address that. I think that it was a moral duty for me to make sure that they got those core skills, so that they would be able to access a broad and balanced curriculum in the secondary. I am just very worried about there being these kind of concrete bricks. If there is permissiveness and agility within it, then that is fine.”
“Q I want to pick up on the previous point about the curriculum floor. I wonder whether the panel agree that the opportunities of a broad, balanced curriculum that is modern, engaging and offered regardless of the badge and branding over the school door should be available to young people everywhere. Would you consider that a good thing, or would you consider the Bill—as I think Rebecca described it—a reactive, retrograde step? Rebecca Leek: I do believe that a broad entitlement for children is really important. What I am concerned about is that, first, we do not know what will be in the national curriculum and, secondly, schools sometimes need a little bit of flexibility to maybe not do a couple of subjects because they are addressing something that has happened within their school community over a couple of years or months or a term.”
“Jane Wilson: Can I comment? I think Ofsted has played an important role in that. As a serving inspector, part of the work I do on every inspection is to look at whether the curriculum is meeting the needs of the children; that where modifications have been made, they are appropriate; and that the curriculum the children are receiving is of equal quality to the national curriculum. So I think Ofsted, with the work it is doing, is already enabling that oversight of curriculum entitlement across the country.”
“Some years we have to put together years 2 and 3, sometimes we have to put together years 4 and 5, and then the next year we have to put together years 2, 3 and 4 because of the pupil numbers. So we just have to have a certain level to be able to work around. We do not want headteachers to always be worrying in the back of their heads, “Am I allowed to do this? Am I not allowed to do this?” There just needs to be a certain level of permissiveness. What I say in my headteacher assembly at the end of year 6 is that I want to give all my children a travelcard to all zones in London. I do not just want to give them a zone 1 and 2 travelcard. We all believe that as school leaders, but sometimes we just have to focus on one thing, or we have to do some crisis management, so there has to be some agility within the system.”
“Q I think we all recognise that there are sometimes staffing issues in particular curriculum areas, but if something gets taken out of the curriculum, particularly at secondary but sometimes at primary, does that not risk equating to a freedom to shut off that opportunity for future generations of children? I know from having taught modern languages that when you lose those staff, you end up not replacing them, and you do not replace the subject on the curriculum. Is that not a risk? Rebecca Leek: It is a risk. Basically, sometimes schools have to do things that are a bit of an emergency, or to handle a crisis situation. We do not have a factory line of ready-prepared teachers that are already available. We also have fluctuations in pupil numbers.”
“The hon. Member mentioned directors. I think we all agree that the strength of this Bill is its clarity, but in his new clause, he has chosen to write “any individual”. Does he agree that it is the directors, not the catering team, the cleaning staff, the admin people, the accountants and so on, who have sought to swindle customers or flim-flam the taxpayer? That is where we should focus the attention, and that vagueness does not add to the Bill.”
“T3. The national youth strategy is a crucial step forward, and I welcome its progress. Will the Secretary of State outline how new youth programmes, such as the better youth spaces initiative, will help to rebuild facilities in Southampton Itchen, where years of Conservative cuts have impacted opportunities for our young people?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement and for the measured, practical and common-sense approach that it takes, which is in sharp contrast to what we are hearing on the Opposition Benches at the moment. Although we will always defend their right to their opinions, a right to their own facts is rather regrettable and their revisionism is quite astounding. I know at first hand the value of a university education. It is about having our views challenged. It is about critical thinking based on evidence and facts and having our horizons opened. Does the Minister agree that this foundation and the measures announced today are the right way to secure academic freedom in the future?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I rise to speak in support of clause 3, which deals with defining emergency overflows and reporting requirements. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye, I have the great fortune to live on the south coast and the great misfortune of being in the area where Southern Water is a local provider.”
“I have the greatest respect for them: they go where I would not be willing to at the moment because the levels of illness that people have reported. The stench of what goes into the river also affects local schoolchildren, who cannot play outside. There are all kinds of reasons why the clause will deal with the issues being experienced in my constituency. We want bathing water status in the area, but that is almost an impossibility at the moment because of the water quality. Again, clause 3 will guarantee the openness, monitoring and forcing of accountability in the area. I welcome the clause and thank the Minister for bringing it forward. The Bill takes action and makes achieving that status much more likely. People in my constituency and beyond, across not only Southern Water’s area but the country, will welcome it too.”
“Thank you, Mr Vickers—so keen was I to support the clause that I tried to speak to it too early. I appreciate your forbearance. Clause 3 has my full support. As I mentioned, I live in an area served by Southern Water. The citizen scientists on the River Itchen have done such good work that they regularly and consistently show that there are unacceptably high levels of faecal matter in the river, even when there has been no storm or emergency. The fleshing out of the requirement for monitoring so that there can be greater accountability is hugely welcome. Furthermore, my area is entirely relevant to new clause 25 because of the aquatic sports, particularly during the pandemic. A great wild swimming group use the river, and there are also paddle boarders, canoeists and kayakers.”
“I share my hon. Friend’s shock and disgust at not only what people are suffering, but the entirely avoidable reasons why people are becoming ill. There are so many benefits to what the clause and the wider Bill can achieve, not just on the issues that Members on both sides of the House have mentioned in relation to trust in our water companies and the use of public money, but for public health. How much more public health benefit could people across all our constituencies experience if they were able to engage with aquatic sports or just enjoy the park areas that surround so many of our rivers, beaches and waterways? I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and am grateful that her point adds even more weight to why this clause is absolutely necessary.”
“The goal of this important Bill is to ensure opportunities for every child and young person—not just those in the Tories’ preferred model of school, but 100% of schoolchildren: a safe start for every one of them. The Government who take this seriously are those who act on it. That is this Labour Government—not posturing like the Opposition, or ideologically wrecking it, but taking action so that children can thrive in life.”
“It represents a transition to independence and steps to get decent housing and vital services for those young people, but it is not just a theory or a programme—it is already working. When I was cabinet member for children’s services in Southampton, we introduced it three years ago. It has been an enormous success in terms of the quality of support and the outcomes for young people. In a rare moment of cross-party agreement, I reflect on the comments of the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). I agree that the supported lodgings scheme from the Home for Good and Safe Families charities is worth looking at. The results are impressive in terms of safety, good relationships, confidence and being more likely to be in education, employment and training.”
“Ensuring that local authorities offer family group conferencing is hugely welcome and will give opportunities for the children’s voices to be heard when planning potentially life-changing interventions, to ensure that those are the best possible changes. For some, living with a member of extended family will turn their life around, so I welcome the legal recognition of kinship care. That will ensure solid support and a home closer to their support networks for the 153,000 children and young people in that situation. I ask that the Minister perhaps reflects on the extent to which children and young people’s voices will be heard in designing those measures. Support for care leavers is crucial, so I welcome the extension of the Staying Close support.”
“I want to focus my remaining comments on measures that will make a difference to a group whose voices are often not heard enough in this debate: children and young people who have experienced being in care. We have had the excellent independent review of children’s social care, carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), which, we should remember, was commissioned by the last Conservative Government and then, inexplicably and unforgivably, put on the shelf and ignored. In that report, my hon. Friend warned that without a significant change of course, the number of children in care would exceed 100,000 in this country. This Bill can and must be that change of course.”
“Any Member who has worked in education or social care will not recognise the fanciful picture of the Tories’ record. If it was so rosy, they may want to reflect on why they are now on the Opposition Benches. Let us have a bit of honesty: what they left was inadequate funding and crumbling buildings. They were against fully qualified teachers; there were endless strikes over pay; and recruitment and retention were a complete disaster. Those are the inconvenient facts that some of them want to avoid, all because of an obsession with buzzwords and structures, not with children’s outcomes. They talk about educational vandalism, but they are guilty of it.”
“The very real and transformational merits of the Bill are clear. Measures on branded uniforms and free breakfast clubs will help families in Southampton Itchen and put money back in their pockets. Registering children who are not in school and having a unique number for every child will help multiple agencies to safeguard our children and work better together, more importantly. Having already dealt with the Tory legacy of endless teacher strikes, Labour’s Bill will start valuing qualified teachers once again who inspire our next generation, and will be paying them consistently. The Bill will also ensure that all children, regardless of school model or structure, can be inspired by a refreshed curriculum that sets them up for life.”
“That means long-term investment in our water networks and ensuring that every penny spent benefits customers and the environment, not just shareholders. I am grateful to the groups that have campaigned to keep these issues on the agenda. Now it is over to this Government of service to finish the job and hold those responsible to account.”
“That is why I welcome the tough new penalties in the Bill, which will ban unjustifiable and undeserved bonuses. We have seen and heard how water companies have piled up debt and demanded bail-outs from the taxpayer, all the while paying bumper bonuses—more than £41 million since 2020—to executives who fail to meet the most basic standards of competence. Meanwhile, it is my constituents and those of other colleagues here who have paid the price—in higher water bills, and in the frustration of seeing a river that they treasure polluted by negligence. The Bill draws a line under those wasted years. That is what we mean when we say we are a Government of service, because we are not afraid to stand up to corporate interests. We are here in service of the British people.”
“That is why I am campaigning for bathing water status for the Itchen, and I would like to work with Ministers to see how we can clean up the river and achieve that. This is a big local issue, and one that I am determined to try to help resolve, but—as has been made plain by the excellent contributions of other Members—there is no doubt that it is also a national issue, and that private water companies have been treating our rivers with utter contempt. Let us not forget how we got here: 14 years of Conservative failure have left us with crumbling water infrastructure and record levels of pollution. That is the legacy. Instead of addressing the crisis, Conservative Ministers buried the scale of the problem, hiding sewage data and shielding water companies from scrutiny.”
“It is a pleasure to welcome this much-needed legislation. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Bitterne Park primary school, which is just across the River Itchen from Southern Water’s treatment works. I met the school’s Eco Warriors, an inspiring group of schoolchildren who are passionate about improving their environment. They told me that the stench from the treatment works sometimes makes them feel so ill that they cannot play outside at lunchtime. That is what happens when there are more than 1,000 hours of sewage dumping, as there were last year alone—a 350% increase on the year before. Those children expressed their outrage, and their desire for change, in a way that grown-ups are often less good at. Let us be clear: this is not something that our children should have to accept as normal.”
“Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting the winners of my first Small Business Saturday awards in Southampton Itchen. They were Riann Care, The Bunker, Miss Ellie’s Café and Julie’s Dance Studio. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating them on their role in ensuring a thriving local economy? What assurances he can offer them that this Government have the back of small businesses?”
“It is the developers’ responsibility now to guarantee that quality and get it right the first time, rather than remediating later. It is the Government’s responsibility, of course, to hold developers to account when they do not get it right, so I would appreciate the Minister’s assurances on how we will ensure that those things are right the first time. On that, and on other issues rightly raised by hon. Members, we cannot allow developers to wash their hands of their responsibilities.”
“Some of those constituents are young couples and families who have bought their dream first home but now find themselves in a long and drawn-out nightmare. I have met the building safety Minister to discuss some specific cases in my constituency: Oceana Boulevard and French Court, among others. They require immediate attention and they are getting it, for which I am grateful. But let us be clear: the housing industry has to act very differently in future on the issues that hon. Members have raised, to ensure that we avoid the gross mistakes of the past. I want the industry to learn those lessons from my constituency, and to ensure quality in what it builds from here on. None of us wants to be here in a decade, clearing up a different housing mess—whether that is to do with location, quality or form of ownership.”
“We do not want to be here dealing with the same issues in 10 years’ time under new developers. This is also about ensuring the wellbeing of the very people we are talking about, namely our constituents—those on waiting lists, and those saving hard to buy their first home or put down rent deposits. Their overall wellbeing and financial stability have been compromised too much in the past. We are putting right the mistakes of the past. In my constituency of Southampton Itchen, I have met constituents who have painstakingly shared stories of how their families are struggling. They set out with these great new developments—they have bought or rented houses that they could afford—only to now be saddled with unscrupulously high service charges to cover the cost of remediation works for leasehold buildings.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for securing this wide-ranging and important debate. Colleagues have made salient points about the need for more housing, and more housing in the right place. I will focus my comments on the responsibility of developers to build quality, safe homes. When it comes to development, I am quite straightforward: I want developers to build more housing and I want them to get on with it, but they have to build good, safe homes. Too many do not have their own house in order, and I worry about them being awarded contracts in the future to build more as part of Labour’s ambitious plans for 1.5 million more houses. The time for asking nicely is over; we have to demand that people’s safety is put first.”
“Does the Secretary of State agree that the successful introduction of similar schemes in places such as Manchester, and indeed in successful tourist destinations around the world, shows that the Conservatives should stop fear-mongering and support something that could really boost Welsh tourism?”
“Itchen sixth-form college in my constituency was recently judged to be “outstanding” by Ofsted. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the college? Does she agree that future success requires us to sort out financial inconsistencies such as lecturers’ pay and VAT liabilities?”
“I would be interested in the Minister’s response on whether the Department for Transport and the Department for Education could speak together and require bus companies to work with local authorities to look at route planning and making public transport more accessible for those for whom independent travel is a possibility. This is about breaking down barriers to opportunity for SEND children; they have to be in school to open those barriers and so that we can meet their needs.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this important and oversubscribed debate. Southampton, like many other local authorities, is struggling with the cost of meeting the need. Meeting that need is most important, but costs have trebled in the past few years and council resources are put under immense strain. I welcome the Education Secretary’s commitment to a whole-system review, with travel a crucial part of that. The Chancellor’s recent investments will have relieved some of the pressure.”
“I have been meeting a number of maritime companies in and around the port of Southampton, and they tell me that the single biggest key to unlocking further investment would be the expansion of the national grid to our city. What steps is the Chancellor taking to secure that vital investment, and will she meet me and local industry leaders to discuss how this would boost our local and national economy?”
“They want much better-quality housing, so they can move into places where they know they are safe. In short, people want, need and deserve a way out of this mess. The remediation action plan shows that this Government are taking these issues seriously. I would just urge Ministers, even where deadlines are set, to move even more quickly, where possible. We have begun the crucial work to put right this scandal, and we must not rest until that is done in full.”
“They want a clearly defined single construction regulator that can channel efforts to drive change, and I am sure they will welcome today’s announcements. Many are stuck in unsellable flats, and they could not tell us who exactly is responsible for keeping them safe. That needs to change. They want to see a much clearer role for managing agents. What exactly are their responsibilities, and what standards will they be held to? They want to see improved regulation of insurance and service charges—again, that is touched on in the report—so they are not charged for remediation works through the back door, which is simply not fair. With an eye to the future, people want us to move away from the feudal system of leasehold, which this Government are committed to delivering.”