Speeches by Asato.

“In its first report in September last year, Skills England warned there were significant skills barriers in the UK and that 36% of UK job vacancies were due to skills shortages in 2022. We hear that the Government’s growth plans could be seriously hampered by skills gaps in areas like construction, clean energy, digita…”

“In light of the Government’s plans to support more people who may have health conditions back into work, how will Skills England both work with employers to ensure that they are willing to take on people who may have disabilities or fluctuating health conditions, and also make sure that education providers are supporte…”

“How has Skills England engaged in its shadow capacity with the skills sector to shape its decisions on the training to be covered by the new levy?”

“The Government have said that the growth and skills levy will not fund all apprenticeships and that businesses must fund more of their level seven apprenticeships. What impacts will the need to remove level seven apprenticeships from the levy funding have on the system and potentially on social mobility within the work…”

“The Government have said that the growth and skills levy will not fund all apprenticeships and that businesses must fund more of their level seven apprenticeships. What impacts will the need to remove level seven apprenticeships from the levy funding have on the system and potentially on social mobility within the work…”

“Any increase in preventative funding is very much appreciated, but the MacAlister review is now a number of years old. If anything, the estimates of the £2.6 billion will have increased, not least because the number of children in care at crisis has been increasing during that time and the number of children coming int…”

“I was talking about national guidance, because that is lacking. All of the research shows that local authorities would like to do much more of this but they lack the guidance nationally that would help them to do this consistently. There is a case to be made about it can benefit children, can benefit parents, but all r…”

“Talking about care leavers, your own written evidence tells us what we know, which is care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society. In our recent report into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we highlighted the confusing patchwork of entitlements faced by care leavers backed up by the…”

“Thank you. In this section, neglect is the only type of abuse that increased over the last year. What specifically are you doing to tackle neglect and ensure that social care is set up to respond to it?”

“Thank you. On the point as well about the sector, there is the potential for this to have wide-ranging impacts on the sector, particularly on children’s social care workers. There have been concerns around, for example, safe spaces for children—like Childline—being brought into the ambit of this in an unhelpful way, le…”

“Thank you. Obviously one of the ways in which you know whether the legislation has been successful is by being able to measure whether harm has increased or decreased, but NSPCC data suggests that data on child protection plans does not reflect the true prevalence of child abuse and neglect. Do you intend to carry out …”

“The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains a number of measures to improve the child protection system. Are you confident that these reforms will be enough to significantly reduce the number of children suffering serious harm?”

“If you could answer whether you could give us some information about the further guidance on this and how it will be implemented?”

“I can repeat it. I think everyone is very pleased to see the corporate parenting responsibilities amendments introduced into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but my understanding is that this corporate parenting extension exempts immigration and the adult criminal justice estate. Given that unaccompanied asyl…”

“Finally, there have been recently tabled amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to extend corporate parenting responsibilities to Government Departments and other relevant bodies, but why does the corporate parenting extension exempt immigration and the adult criminal justice estate, given the key area…”

“Recognising that we do not have huge amounts of time, I will rattle through these. The Department’s policy paper, “Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive”, makes no mention of any measures related to reunification, despite the NSPCC research finding that failed reunification costs £300 million each year. If you…”

“Some local authorities have made care experience a protected characteristic voluntarily. Have you made any assessment of how this has made any real difference in discrimination against care leavers or any increase in their outcomes and whether it should be put in place nationally?”

“I will move on to child sexual abuse. The proposed mandatory reporting duty for child sexual abuse, which is included in the Crime and Policing Bill, has a narrower scope than that recommended by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Are you satisfied that this will be robust enough, especially given that th…”

“Obviously it makes the case for making sure there is the cross-departmental mental health support in place, otherwise those parents won’t get the support they need.”

“I rise to speak in support of new clause 8 in my name, which has the support of many colleagues across the House and organisations including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner for England. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Twickenham (Munira Wils…”