Speeches by Wilson.

“Q Dr Homden, you have talked about the lack of provision for children with special educational needs. What do you make of the power in the Bill for local authorities to refuse parents the right to withdraw their children from a special school to home educate if they do not feel that the special school is meeting their …”

“Q You have both referred to wellbeing. The Bill is called the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but there is precious little in it on wellbeing. Other than measurement and making sure that children’s voices are at the forefront, what more can we be pressing the Government for on wellbeing in the Bill? Anne Longfie…”

“Q I want to pick up on the faith cap issue that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston raised. The 50% faith cap for all new free schools was a policy put in place by the coalition Government. There are concerns that the provisions in this Bill to allow other providers to open new schools would mean that the…”

“Okay. I will do so now. Thank you, Sir Desmond. I pay tribute to Ellen for her campaign. I also want to say how cross I am that Ellen is having to push this campaign to get access to Jools’ online data. A number of us who were here during the passage of the Online Safety Act in the previous Parliament attended a meetin…”

“I just want to pay tribute.”

“I did ask your permission, Sir Desmond.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I am delighted to contribute to this extremely important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for setting out in such a well-informed and balanced way the issues we are considering. With your permission, Sir Desmond, may …”

“On the children’s hospice grant, will the Minister confirm that it will be ringfenced, and that it will go beyond the one-year settlement?”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) for securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. As he stated, the debate has taken on an added salience since the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) brought forward her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Lif…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. I welcome the measures that put information about the local kinship care offer on a statutory footing, recognising the crucial role of kinship carers and finally putting a statutory definition into law, which we have long called for. Yet a definition …”

“After five years in this place, I am relieved and delighted that I and other hon. Members finally have the chance to consider a piece of legislation that focuses on children. The Bill gets to the heart of our shared duty as public representatives to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children. The Liberal Democrats…”

“I humbly say to the right hon. Gentleman, who has been in this place much longer than I have, that I understand that if the reasoned amendment were passed, the Bill would fall. That is why it is not a constructive amendment. That is why it is a wrecking amendment. I do not think killing a Bill that seeks to improve saf…”

“The point is that this is just an additional measure to ensure that children like her are safe. I want to reiterate to colleagues across the House that we absolutely support and champion the right of parents to home-educate. This is not an attack on home education; it is about ensuring that all children are safe. That …”

“I am happy to support that. In fact, when the previous Administration introduced the schools Bill, which they then decided to bin, the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords tabled an amendment that did just that, and I am sure that we will seek to do the same this time around to help the families who choose to home-e…”

“Absolutely, and I am very sorry to hear about that case. The last Government did not deal with RAAC in our school buildings, and it was as a result of work that my colleagues and I did, along with Labour Members, to expose some of the shocking extent of it that we finally started to get some traction on the issue. The …”

“I am not in a position to comment on the statistics relating to employment law issues in different types of school. I suspect that whichever type of school we look at, we will find cases across the board, but I am not sure that is up for debate today. The title of the Bill includes the words “Children’s Wellbeing”, but…”

“All the evidence points to the fact that the education and schools sector must be a key safeguarding partner, which is why it is in the Bill. When a child has been identified as being at risk, ensuring that they are in school, which the Bill seeks to do, will help to safeguard them. We saw this all too tragically in th…”

“Happy Christmas, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for her answer and for offering me a meeting on this topic earlier this week—I look forward to pursuing it with her. Given the wealth of authoritative evidence on the harmful impact on human health of PFAS in our drinking water, and that Scotland, the European Union and…”

“4. Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of putting the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s guidance on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances on a statutory footing.”

“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. My constituent David Parfett has been in the news speaking about his son Tom, who sadly took his own life following his visits to a very harmful site—quite possibly the same one that the hon. Gentleman is talking about—that promotes how people can tak…”