‘The truth matters’ - Emma Lewell-Buck MP backs the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Yesterday the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill received second reading in the Commons. I voted for it.

Despite the Tories and Reform feeding the narrative that Labour MPs were whipped to vote against a national inquiry into grooming and rape gangs, this was simply not the case at all.

At second reading you vote for or against a Bill in its entirety.

This Bill outlines plans to have more qualified teachers front and centre of the classroom, free school breakfasts, cutting the cost of the school uniform, strengthening safeguarding and multi-agency working in child protection teams, support for kinship carers and care leavers, increasing accountability and cracking down on excessive profit-making in children’s social care.

A quick look at my record in Parliament shows that these are things I have campaigned for alongside my constituents tirelessly. To vote against these measures is unfathomable.

As a former child protection social worker, I know what will make a difference to our most vulnerable children. It is this Bill, acting on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and accelerating the work of the Grooming Gangs Taskforce.

No Bill is perfect. That is why I am looking at proposing and supporting amendments throughout the next stages of the Bill.

If the Tories are serious about protecting children, then why didn’t they act on a single recommendation of the 2022 IICSA report? Labour has committed to taking forward recommendations from all independent inquires.

If Reform were serious about protecting children, then they would put down amendments at Committee and Report stages to amend the Bill - not throw it out in its entirety.

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I will never vote against measures that improve and protect the lives of our children and put more money into their parent’s pockets and the public purse. To vote against this Bill yesterday would be to have voted against these very things.

The truth matters. Our political discourse is becoming more toxic by the day because those who play fast and loose with it are dominating and manipulating the narrative.

Please don’t let them do that.