Speeches by Hall.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. Many families in Warrington South have been in touch with me over recent months, worried about their future. We opened the BNO pathway because it was the right thing to do. We did not do it out of charity but because we recognised a historic responsibility and…”

“In Warrington we see some of the starkest inequalities anywhere in the country. One area is ranked the 899th most deprived, and the highest position is 33,480th, a gap of more than 32,500. Those vast disparities are masked by population-weighted averages, with Warrington ranking 199th overall and only 43rd in range. Wi…”

“19. If he will take steps through the fair funding review 2.0 to ensure that the most deprived lower layer super output areas receive the largest increases in funding.”

“My constituents Colin and Wendy Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim was murdered, along with three-year-old Johnathan Ball, in the 1993 Warrington bombing, have waited over 30 years for justice. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the Government act on the extracts of the Shawcross report and the all-party parliamenta…”

“6. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered flood risk and flood defence infrastructure in the North West. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I asked for this debate because people in Warrington South are worn down by the constant risk of flooding. It shapes their day-to-day lives far mor…”

“I absolutely agree; my hon. Friend makes an important point. In September, we came within inches of another major event. The emergency services set up a temporary command post, and we were preparing to evacuate homes again. Then, just last Friday, we had another flood alert, with modelling suggesting that we were headi…”

“Thanks, everyone. It has been a fantastic debate.”

“I absolutely agree and would be more than happy to do that. Residents across Bewsey, Dallam, Sankey Bridges and Penketh are doing everything asked of them. They sign up for alerts, check river levels, move furniture upstairs and support one another through the worry. But what they cannot do is hold back water that rise…”

“I absolutely agree. We have also experienced that. At the time of the last flooding event, certain levels were predicted that did not come to pass. The accuracy is not there at the moment. I want to take a moment to thank the EA, Warrington borough council and our emergency services, because they have done everything t…”

“I understand that, and it sounds great but, in terms of that support, the project that I talked about before—the children’s mental health and complex-needs hub—came on the back of a conversation that I had with my director because nothing else was being proposed. There were no other streams of funding and no other supp…”

“The NAO Report states that the reduced use of wider settings has increased pressure on residential care. It points out that local authorities told the NAO that a decrease in youth custody places increases demand for secure home places, and that decreases in the use of mental health beds affected secure and other childr…”

“Can I stop you there? What does that look like? The NAO Report talks about forums, but also a lack of joint planning. Do you have specific people who are responsible for co-ordinating all this across Departments? In our various sessions we hear the same issue: everyone is very siloed and there is not that cross-departm…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but a lot of regions are already doing this unofficially, as I mentioned earlier. The challenge still comes: you can predict what you need collectively, but if the placements are not there, that is still going to be a barrier going forwards, which is what we are seeing at the moment. People are havi…”

“I am saying that you have an oversight ability, a lot of the need across the country is fairly similar, and a lot of local authorities are facing exactly the same pressures, so there has to be an understanding from the top of where we need to start. You have mentioned funding, but we are not talking about small figures…”

“That is not what I am saying.”

“I mentioned before that we had exactly that in one particular case. That is why we provided the help that we did, but again you need the areas to be sharing that best practice, and to have the resources to be able to do it, which are scarce.”

“On the capital, do you think that, rather than pots of money being intermittently available to bid for, it should be a more sustainable, long-term influx of funding so that local authorities, if they choose to do so, can follow the invest-to-save programme? In my experience of the children in our children’s homes, it h…”

“Having that information and knowledge is important for future planning as well. In terms of that wider strategy, are you confident that you know what placements are going to be needed down the line, and are you putting steps in place to provide that going forwards, or enabling it to be provided going forwards?”

“That leads me on to my actual question, which is about data. This is to you, Isabelle. In terms of the data and understanding the needs of children in the homes and settings they are in, the NAO Report says that the Department for Education “lacks up-to-date information on the support children need, demand for places, …”