I'm very pleased to speak in this debate about the committee report. I welcome the committee's investigation into this. As the Chair said, it's absolutely right that we scrutinise how this money is spent—and it is a large annual investment of £94 million and a significant proportion of the overall education budget. I support the positive impact that the pupil deprivation grant has had, and that was the general conclusion of the committee, covering pupils who are eligible for free school meals, those who have experienced care, and those who are adopted. I think it’s absolutely right that we offer extra help to improve the attainment of these pupils, and also to make sure that they're as engaged as possible in the education system, because we don’t want any pupils, if possible, falling through the gaps. So, I welcome the report and the opportunity we’ve had as a committee to shine a light on how the pupil deprivation grant in particular is used.

I want to concentrate my remarks on how the grant is used to improve the educational attainment of adopted children in particular, because schools can have a tremendous positive force in the life of a child who has experienced trauma and loss. That, of course, applies to children who have experienced care and, of course, to adopted children, and some children who have been in care and are then adopted. There are schools that I think are doing absolutely fantastic work around inclusion and attachment and are making their staff aware of attachment theory and awareness of trauma, yet I think a significant number of children who’ve already had an unfair start to life struggle to cope in an education system that too often doesn’t recognise the true nature of the challenges that they face. I don’t think, often, within schools, there is awareness of what the children may have been through, and this does prevent the foundations of knowledge and accomplishment being built, and it exacerbates social and emotional problems and diminishes life chances.

I sponsored an event here in the Assembly last June with Adoption UK—and, of course, we do quote Adoption UK in our evidence—and their survey of 2,000 adoptive parents and 2,000 adopted young people is very significant. It showed that almost three quarters of adopted children and young people agree that, 'Other children seem to enjoy school more than me.' Two thirds of secondary school-aged adopted young people said that they'd been teased or bullied at school because they are adopted. That's two thirds. Almost 70 per cent of parents feel their adopted child's progress in learning is affected by problems with their well-being in school. Sixty per cent of adoptive parents do not feel their child has an equal chance at school, and nearly half of parents of secondary school-aged children have had to keep their children off school because of concerns about their mental health or well-being. So, I think this is a very, very sad story.

So, I do really welcome the fact that adopted children are eligible to receive support via the pupil deprivation grant and I also welcome the fact that the Government has accepted, in principle, recommendation 24, although it does seem that it is difficult to set up a system whereby a school can know that children are adopted in order to be able to offer their help. But I'm pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has said that she will pursue this issue. But I am disappointed that the next recommendation, recommendation 25, is not adopted, because, obviously, as the Chair said in her introductory remarks, if we aren't able to allocate an amount of money to cover the number of children that we estimate are adopted, it's not going to be possible for them to have the benefit of a pupil deprivation grant. I think this is an area that is very important, and the Chair gave the figures—I think about 3,000 to 5,500 adopted children are allocated the pupil deprivation grant—but if we don't have those systems for collecting the data, we won't be able to ensure that they get the help that is needed.

So, in conclusion, I've just concentrated that briefly on adopted children, because I don't think it's generally known, and I don't think schools always recognise that adopted children do have many of the traumas that children who've experienced care have, so I thought it was important to highlight that in my contribution today.