Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the year ending with
31 March 2024, for expenditure by the Department for Education: (1)
further resources, not exceeding £20,997,648,000, be authorised for
use for current purposes as set out in HC 500, (2) the resources
authorised for capital purposes be reduced by £304,572,000 as so
set out, and (3) the sum authorised for issue out of the
Consolidated Fund be reduced by £912,367,000.—(Mark Fletcher.)
Mr...Request free trial
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the year ending with 31 March 2024, for expenditure by
the Department for Education:
(1) further resources, not exceeding £20,997,648,000, be
authorised for use for current purposes as set out in HC 500,
(2) the resources authorised for capital purposes be reduced by
£304,572,000 as so set out, and
(3) the sum authorised for issue out of the Consolidated Fund be
reduced by £912,367,000.—(.)
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
I call to lead the debate.
1.14pm
(Worcester) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to colleagues on the
Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee for
supporting my application for the debate and giving it the
prominent position that it has today. I thank all those who
supported the application. I note that it is an unusual subject
that brings together the right hon. Member for Hayes and
Harlington (), my right hon. Friend the
Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir ), and the hon. Members for
Twickenham () and for Strangford (). Not all of them can be here today, but I know that
each has passionately supported the case for more and better
targeted investment to support children with special needs. I
warmly welcome the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen Kitchen)
to the Chamber. It is greatly to her credit that she has chosen
to make her maiden speech on this subject; I look forward to
hearing it.
There have been many debates on the importance of special
educational needs and disabilities in the House over the past few
years, so this is not new ground, and I make no apology for that.
There have been Green Papers, a Command Paper, and the excellent
Backbench Business debate under the auspices of my right hon.
Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, which was so well
subscribed. It is no surprise to me that today’s debate is
similarly well supported across the Chamber. I do not intend to
repeat all the arguments from the previous debate, in which 30
Members spoke. I hope that the Minister will take them all as
read in his response.
In my casework as MP for Worcester, and in the evidence that I
have seen as Chair of the Education Committee, there is a
consistent trend of schools at every phase and of every variety
struggling to meet the rising level of SEND, of families
struggling to get the needs of their children properly met and
supported, and of children with SEN too often being home
educated, not as a result of genuine elective home education but
as a result of their parents feeling that there is no other way
in which their needs can be supported. We have heard this at the
Education Committee described as “non-elective home
education”.
(Chesterfield) (Lab)
The hon. Member has secured a really important debate. One big
problem that comes across strongly in Derbyshire is the lack of
capacity within the local authority to do the assessment. Many
schools are supporting parents and their special needs children,
but are unable to get assessment for months or even years. How
big an issue does he think that local authority resources are in
all this?
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman is right: that is definitely part of the
challenge. I will try to come back to that later in my speech.
The briefing that the Local Government Association has provided
for the debate is very helpful in drawing attention to that. In
the previous Backbench Business debate, Members from both sides
of the House highlighted the need for earlier identification of
need, and all the different organisations across local
authorities, health and education that need resource and support
to deliver that.
(West Suffolk) (Ind)
The need for early identification is incredibly strong. There has
been some progress towards it, and I congratulate the Minister
for the strides that he has been able to make, but we cannot have
a genuinely universal education system unless we have universal
early identification of special needs, so will my hon. Friend
welcome the fact that I have secured the opportunity to
reintroduce my Dyslexia Screening and Teacher Training Bill, as a
ten-minute rule Bill, on 23 April?
Mr Walker
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing that opportunity,
and for all the progress that he has made in drawing attention to
the needs of dyslexic children and identifying those needs early.
He is right that we need to look at how we better support
universal identification of need at an earlier stage. He will
recognise that some conditions only show themselves over time, so
it is important that there are the right interventions at every
level to identify those needs and ensure they are properly
met.
When we debate children missing school, as we often have in
recent years, we often find it difficult to tell which are doing
so because of unmet need. The work of the Children’s
Commissioner, among many others, has highlighted that that is a
major cause. When we debate rising levels of home education
without the benefit of a much-needed statutory register, which
the Government have now pledged to support, we find it impossible
to tell how many of the rising number of cases are genuinely
elective. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs
Drummond) is sponsor of a Bill that seeks to address the issue,
and I hope the whole House will support its Second Reading
tomorrow. I welcome the fact that Opposition Front Benchers have
already done so and I believe that the Government have as
well.
Both those factors, as highlighted in the Education Committee’s
report on persistent absence, point to the need for urgent action
on SEND. The Government’s own Command Paper is also clear on that
point. In fact, in preparing for this debate, I was struck by
recent comments made by the Secretary of State at
the Association of School and
College Leaders conference:
“The massive demand, of more and more children diagnosed or even
not diagnosed but have special educational needs, that’s
something that I don’t think we’ve got the right system in place.
If you look at special education needs, we haven’t built enough
special educational needs places or schools. We have councils
under pressure because families can’t get the right support that
they need”—
a succinct summary of the nature of the challenge, which
colleagues across the House will recognise all too well.
In that context, we need to consider the departmental estimates
of the Department for Education, the £57.8 billion rising to
£58.5 billion for the core schools budget, and the £82 billion
rising to more than £100 billion overall in the supplementary
estimate, as well as the £6.3 billion capital budget. Although it
would be easy for a Government Member to point to those big
numbers and trumpet what are without doubt record sums in cash
terms for revenue funding, they do not tell the whole story.
The excellent House of Commons Library briefing prepared for this
debate confirms both cash and real-terms growth in spending on
high needs since 2015, as well as a faster trajectory of
increasing need as identified by education, health and care
plans. Within those numbers, it is to the credit of Ministers in
this Government that the amount spent on high-needs funding has
doubled in the past 10 years and has increased by more than 60%
since 2019. That shows some recognition of the importance of
investing in this space.
But it is also clear, as we debated on the F40—Campaign for
Fairer Funding in Education—motion a few weeks ago, that revenue
funding has not been sufficient to meet demand. Over the same
period, the growth of EHCPs alone has more than doubled. The
level of need demonstrated not only by the number rising from
240,000 nine years ago to more than 500,000 today, but by the
complexity of conditions and the demand for specialist places to
support highly complex pupils, has grown even faster. I am told
that 180 children per day are being identified as having special
educational needs.
For every child with an EHCP, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield
(Mr Perkins) pointed out, many more are awaiting assessment or
have their needs already met in public or independent schools
without the need for an EHCP. Nevertheless, those children also
need support. I do not intend to rehearse all the arguments for
the early identification of support need, but that is a vital
part of the argument.
Also to the credit of Ministers is the greater recognition in
recent years of the need for more capital investment in SEND
places. Even in the most recent Budget, the main capital
commitment for school-age education was a further £105 million
for 15 SEN free schools, delivering up to 2,000 specialist places
across the country. I welcome that, but I observe that the
calculation that just over £100 million can deliver 15 whole new
special schools seems a challenging one. That gives a cost of
£52,000 per place, compared with more than £86,666 per place in
the calculations that the Government made only three years
ago—before the impact of three years of high inflation for
building costs.
(Gillingham and Rainham)
(Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for all he does on the
Education Committee. In my constituency surgeries, I, like many
Members of Parliament, see parents in real pain. They want the
best for their child, and they are waiting for one to two years
to get a plan so that their healthcare and education needs can be
met. My hon. Friend asked about the allocation of the £105
million in the Budget. Can he clarify his understanding of how
the Government will allocate that across the country? I need an
allocation for my constituents in Gillingham and Rainham, who
urgently need it. All Members want to know whether that will be
done on a fair basis.
Mr Walker
I congratulate my hon. Friend for making the case for his
constituents. The question he asks is one for those on the Front
Bench, and I hope the Minister can further clarify the process of
allocating those resources.
At the last spending review in 2021, the Department secured £2.6
billion over the review period for a mixture of new specialist
settings, expansions of existing ones and delivery of bases in
mainstream schools. In total, that was designed to deliver 30,000
new school places. Will the Minister, in his reply, update the
House on progress on spending that substantial capital
investment? Can he update the House, too, on the total number of
specialist places already delivered? Will he explain how
deliverable the Government have found this programme, at a cost
of about £86,666 per place, and the rationale for the Budget
announcement being so much cheaper?
(West Worcestershire)
(Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for his exceptional work in this area. He
shares my passion for the new Malvern-based autism free school,
which will benefit children across Worcestershire and more
widely. Can he update the House on how he sees progress on
delivering the new free school?
Mr Walker
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her intervention and
for her campaigning to secure those vitally needed places in
south Worcestershire, which I hope will benefit my constituents
as well as hers. I want to more places delivered for autistic
students in Worcestershire as swiftly as possible. That is being
done through a combination of the provision that she has rightly
championed and campaigned for, a new base in my constituency in a
mainstream school—which the county council is commissioning—and
the provision recently created for an AP, or alternate provision,
school in the north of the county. There is some welcome progress
there, but as I will touch on later, I do not feel that it is
quite enough to meet need.
Back on that £2.6 billion, I have some concerns about the
progress of that much needed capital investment. Careful
examination of the supplementary estimates for the Department
reveals a £300 million transfer from the capital to the revenue
budget. I ask for reassurance that none of that has come out of
the £2.6 billion originally targeted for investment in SEND. If
any has, will the Minister tell us how much? Can he provide
figures for how many places have been commissioned in each of the
three categories set out in the 2021 spending review and how many
more are in the pipeline?
From long experience and from my work on the Select Committee, I
know that the DFE has routinely underspent its allocated capital,
but at a time when the need for SEND placements is so high and we
have the urgent challenge of RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated
concrete—affecting many mainstream and specialist schools, I hope
that the Department is protecting the precious investment that
Ministers, including me and my hon. Friend the Member for
Colchester (), fought so hard to secure.
(Cheadle) (Con)
I am grateful for my hon. Friend securing this debate and for his
work on the subject. In Cheadle, we are welcoming a new £70
million SEND provision being opened at the end of this year, in
September; 133 places will be provided there. Teachers and
headteachers I have talked to are telling me that in their
establishments and schools, they want more resource-based
provision, which might involve capital investment. Going along
with that as well, we have the problems mentioned earlier in
securing the education, health and care plan. Does my hon. Friend
agree that all those issues need to be addressed if we are to get
the right future for our children?
Mr Walker
Yes, is the short answer. My hon. Friend sums up some of the
challenges neatly.
I come to some of the recommendations of the Select Committee
before touching in a little more detail on the local picture in
my part of the world. During my time as Chair and under my
predecessor, now the Minister for Skills, the Education Committee
has held a number of sessions on SEND and the implementation of
the 2014 reforms. In 2019, before my time, the Committee
concluded that the reforms of 2014 “were the right ones” in
principle, but that implementation had “been badly hampered”,
notably by administration and funding, which at that time it
called “wholly inadequate”.
The Committee also called for a more rigorous framework for local
authorities; a direct line of appeal for parents and schools to
the Department for Education; powers for the local government and
social care ombudsman to investigate school complaints; and
development of more employment and training opportunities post 16
for people with SEND. The Government pointed to their Green Paper
and towards the Command Paper that was finally published two
years later in response, but only the first and last of those
recommendations have been fully addressed.
More recently, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend who
is now the Minister for Skills, and his predecessor, the
Committee held sessions and published correspondence in which
SEND funding, and delays in processing it, have repeatedly been
raised. I am grateful for correspondence in which Ministers have
unequivocally confirmed that there is no push from the Government
to ration or limit EHCP numbers, but I note that in his letter of
October last year, the Minister on the Front Bench stated
that
“in-year funding delays occur due to insufficient planning from
local authorities”.
Will he update the House on what steps he is taking to address
that and to ensure that every local authority has the resource
and support it needs to plan properly in this space?
The vast majority of local authorities have high-needs deficits,
which have been growing rather than shrinking in recent years. I
have no doubt that my hon. Friend will talk about the valuable
work that the Department supports through the safety valve and
“Delivering Better Value” programmes, but the fact that those
programmes are constantly growing, as is the cumulative deficit
of local authorities, surely makes the case for more funding. At
some stage, we have to acknowledge that producing ever more help
to manage the level of deficits is not a sustainable solution,
and that investment is required to clear or remove them. The high
needs deficits are now compounded by the fact that the same local
authorities have rapidly growing deficits in children’s social
care and transport, limiting their potential to
cross-subsidise.
The Government promised to introduce in their SEND and AP
improvement plan a new national framework of banding and price
tariffs for high needs funding, and more details were to follow
later in 2023. I am not aware that that has been published, but
my local specialist schools tell me that, although the total
level of high needs funding has seen much-needed increases, and
underlying per pupil funding has risen in real terms, the banding
for specific conditions has not had an inflationary increase for
over a decade. Given the rising costs of employing teaching
assistants to support complex needs, surely that needs to be
reviewed.
At every level of education, my Committee has made
recommendations about SEND and encouraged the Department to do
more to support SEND children and our families. In our childcare
report, we recommended that the Government amend the early years
foundation stage framework to ensure that more staff involved in
a child’s care receive mandatory training in identifying and
manging types of SEND. The Government rejected that proposal but
stated that newly revised criteria for level 3 early years
educator qualifications, alongside level 2 criteria, now include
standalone criteria on SEND identification and practice. They
also made welcome announcements about support for early years
special educational needs co-ordinators, and partially accepted
our recommendation to expand family hubs—although, to be clear, I
believe that they can and should go further.
Absence rates are significantly higher for pupils with SEND. In
our report on persistent absence, the Committee recommended that
the Government prioritise resources for early identification of
need, inclusion and assessment in mainstream schools to ensure
that they can adequately support pupils with SEND. We recommended
making attendance in specialist schools a key metric of success,
recognising both the support that having children in such
settings provides families and the developmental benefits to the
child. The Committee also recommended that the Government ensure
that pupils with SEND are placed in alternative provision only
for a limited time and as a way of addressing issues affecting
their attendance in mainstream schools. The DFE should discourage
its use as a way of managing behaviour.
The Department for Education said in its response that it is
working with 32 local authorities and testing approaches in
schools to improving early identification of SEND-related
conditions. Additionally, it is piloting early language support
for every child, jointly funded by NHS England, to have speech
and language professionals based in early years primary schools
to spot early delays in development and take swift appropriate
action. Pilots are great, but we need that support everywhere in
the country.
For our recent report on Ofsted’s work with schools, we heard
that lack of expertise among inspectors was seen by specialist
schools as a particular problem. The report recommended that
Ofsted ensure that the lead inspector always has expertise
relevant to the type of school, and that a majority of members of
larger teams have the relevant expertise. We recommended that
factors, such as the number of students from disadvantaged groups
and those with SEND, should be clearly described and visible in
the final Ofsted report. We hope that that will be reiterated
both to the new chief inspector, through his “Big Listen”
consultation, which was launched last week, and to the
Government.
Evidence to our careers inquiry suggested that pupils with SEND
were not receiving adequate careers advice and guidance, and
highlighted that they face additional barriers and need extra
support to access the same level of careers education and
opportunities as their peers. The Committee recommended that the
Department set out the steps that it intends to take to ensure
that all SENCOs are fully trained and working with career leaders
or with a school or college.
The Committee has welcomed the increased focus on supported
internships and apprenticeships targeted at SEND pupils, but as
we highlighted in our post-16 qualifications report, too many
SEND pupils are being held back by the focus on GCSE grade 4 for
English and maths as a gateway to progression. We have also
agreed in principle to look into the Government’s changes to
disabled students’ allowance to ensure that the consolidation of
that system does not lead to a reduction in opportunities for
SEND students to progress into and sustain higher education. That
matters because we know that pupils with special educational
needs are a rising proportion of the school population. Their
life chances matter just as much a everyone else’s, and their
parents’ ability to work, support them and live a full life
depends on their receiving the right support through childhood,
in school and into early adulthood.
(Ipswich) (Con)
This is not just the morally right and good thing to do for the
individuals in question and their families, but it is massively
good for wider society because it unlocks the potential of
neurodivergent individuals, who are among the most creative and
gifted people in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend puts it perfectly, and I wholeheartedly agree with
him.
The logic behind the Government’s welcome increase in investment
in childcare, which I have strongly supported, applies just as
much, if not more, when it comes to supporting children with
SEND. If we get this right, there are benefits for the life
chances of the individual and of the family who support them.
Mr Perkins
rose—
Mr Walker
I will not give way because I need to make progress.
I have lost count of the number of highly educated parents who
have felt that they needed to give up work to support their
children. An increase in the departmental estimate to support
SEND children would repay itself in the future earnings of their
parents and would help the Government to meet their worthy
aspiration of halving the disability employment gap and ensuring
that work pays for future generations.
I should acknowledge some welcome local progress. In
Worcestershire, two new specialist settings for children with
autism have opened in the past few years: the one mentioned by my
hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (), and one in the
constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (). The county council is in the
process of commissioning a new secondary school with a specialist
autism base in Worcester. We have seen expansions in the number
of pupils supported at both Regency High School and Fort Royal
Community Primary School in Worcester, and we have seen
improvements in the opening of new settings in alternative
provision. An exciting partnership between Heart of
Worcestershire College and the National Star college in
Cheltenham promises better local progression opportunities for
further education students with SEND. Our university prides
itself on being one of the most inclusive in the country.
The demand on all our settings is rising insatiably. Fort Royal
in particular has seen a huge increase in severity among the
population of pupils it serves. That has led the school to seek
agreement with the county council to reduce its intake so that it
can ensure that pupils with highly complex needs are properly and
safely supported. The principal of the school has recently
written to local politicians to highlight that and the risk of
local needs not being met by 2030. Will the Minister look at that
correspondence and consider carefully the need for small
specialist provision in Worcestershire, particularly at primary
level? I have over many years made the case to move Fort Royal
Community Primary School—a brilliant school on a highly
constrained site—to a location where it could grow and
expand.
I also want to raise the concerns of respite settings such as New
Hope Worcester, which provides vital support to SEND families
during the holiday. New Hope has seen a reduction in the number
of places that it is commissioned to provide. Parents from that
setting have raised with me their concern that more support is
urgently needed for respite care, which helps to ensure that
their children can engage in specialist education and avoids the
far greater cost of children being taken into homes. Although
that support comes from the budget of the Department for
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities rather than the DFE, we
need to acknowledge the importance of cross-departmental working
to better support need.
The Local Government Association’s helpful briefing for this
debate, which I have touched on already, majors on that issue and
makes a number of constructive recommendations. It calls for a
cross-Government strategy for children and young people, arguing
that DLUHC should co-ordinate capacity issues impacting on
children’s social care, SEND and the early years. The LGA wants
councils to have the powers to lead local SEND systems, and hold
health and education partners to account for their work
supporting SEND children and young people.
The LGA calls on the Government to use the SEND improvement plan
to recognise the vital interconnection between SEN and mental
health. Children and young people with learning difficulties are
over four times more likely than average to develop a mental
health problem. That means that one in seven of all children and
young people with mental health difficulties in the UK will also
have a learning disability. The report points out that
good-quality early years provision can generate sustained and
significant improvements in children’s outcomes, reducing
disparities in later life, but neither councils nor early years
providers feel that they have sufficient funding, resources and
tools to properly support children with SEND and their
families.
This morning, I attended the excellent briefing by the Children’s
Services Development Group on the launch of its “Hopeful
Horizons” report. Among the key recommendations of that report
are urgent clarity on the banding and tariffs arising from the
new national standards, and speeding up the building and
registration of new services. The group pointed out that
independent specialist advisers have a wealth of knowledge and
want to work closely with the Government to make the process a
success.
It is good to see the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North
() in her place. I look
forward to hearing her proposals for ensuring that any future
Labour Government address SEND funding and provision better than
they have in the past. I expect her to point to her party’s
flagship policy of imposing VAT on independent schools as part of
the solution for providing the resource to meet needs. However,
having heard many of the uses to which Labour wants to put that
theoretical money, I am at a loss to see how any of it would
provide the revenue or capital needed to better support SEND
children.
In fact, in our last debate on this issue, in which no Labour
Back Benchers spoke, we heard from the hon. Lady’s colleague that
Labour does not plan to exempt specialist settings from its tax
grab—only pupils in independent settings with an EHCP. I
profoundly believe that that is a policy mistake that Labour
would come to regret if it ever carried it out. Many pupils with
SEND are supported either by their families or by local
authorities in independent provision, including many highly
specialised schools, and a small proportion of those pupils
currently have EHCPs.
The decision to make that, and solely that, the gateway for
avoiding a 20% increase in costs would create enormous and
immediate demand for EHCPs, which local authorities and health
structures are already struggling to provide in a timely manner.
It could result in many pupils with SEND leaving, or being taken
out of, settings that are currently meeting their needs and then
seeking EHCPs in order to access settings that might. I do not
believe that Labour has thought this policy through, or that it
has factored into its calculations that £86,000 per place for
public provision.
The DFE estimates show rising spend on public education and
schools and, within that, a rising level of investment in high
needs. All of that is welcome, but not sufficient. In 2014, this
House legislated to better support the needs of SEND children,
and as the Government themselves have acknowledged, the potential
of that legislation has not yet been realised. I hope Front
Benchers of whatever colour will reflect on the need for future
estimates to better support this vital and worthy cause.
In conclusion, I will support the departmental estimates, because
they provide record levels of funding for education in general
and SEND in particular, but I believe there is a strong case for
increasing both capital and revenue investment in the latter.
Mr Speaker
I call Gen Kitchen to make her maiden speech.
1.40pm
Gen Kitchen (Wellingborough) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech on
this vital topic, which came up a lot during the campaign.
It is a great honour to stand here as the new Labour MP for
Wellingborough. I was two years old when the last Labour MP for
Wellingborough made their maiden speech in 1997, but since then,
we have had a highly visible Member of the Chamber. Although
and I disagree on many things,
he was an experienced campaigner and a lead voice in the
Grassroots Out campaign.
Wellingborough is not just a constituency, but a tapestry of
diverse voices, experiences and aspirations. From the streets of
our market towns to the tranquil countryside that surrounds them,
each corner of the constituency tells a story of resilience,
ingenuity and community spirit. I pledge to honour, protect and
champion this rich tapestry with every ounce of my being. Many on
this side of the House will have visited the beautiful
constituency of Wellingborough during the campaign, but for those
who did not make it on to the campaign trail, the constituency
consists of the towns of Wellingborough, Rushden, Higham Ferrers
and Finedon, and the picturesque villages that surround them. We
are 50 minutes from London by train, and close to the M1 and the
A14, so there is no reason for Members not to visit for a cheeky
weekend away to help boost our local economy and high
streets.
As Wellingborough is a bellwether seat, the people of Orlingbury,
Wollaston and Irchester often know the problems that the
Government of the day will face before they do. The result of the
campaign saw the largest swing this century, and the cleanliness
of high streets, highways, policing, access to education for
children with special educational needs and disabilities, and
access to healthcare were crucial issues when knocking on doors
from Bozeat to Wilby and the Harrowdens. It was striking how the
communities of Chelveston, Newton Bromswold and Grendon had all
stepped up where the public sector had been cut.
One village in particular, Great Doddington, holds a special
place in my family history. The quaint village is where my
great-grandfather, the Reverend Henry Hacking, served from 1935
to 1938 as the parish vicar of St Nicholas after serving as an
Army chaplain in the first world war. As many will know, both
sides of my family have served in the armed forces for three
generations, and their commitment to public service and duty to
our country was instilled in me from a young age. I endeavour to
make them proud, and have dedicated my professional career to the
charity sector, fundraising for projects to help those in
need.
On that point, I would like to highlight a couple of charities
that have done incredible work to help the community and the
constituency. The “Off the Streets” knife crime campaign has
trained the public on how to use bleed kits, and has designed
knife amnesty bins that have been installed in Queensway. I urge
Members to look at the work of that charity and encourage similar
charities in their constituencies. The Victoria Centre and
Daylight Centre provide housing, food banks and a sense of
community to Wellingborough town centre. SERVE in Rushden has
stepped in to ensure that the elderly and disabled can get to
doctors’ and hospital appointments now that the bus service is
lacking and urgent care is challenging. Coming from the charity
sector, I am honoured to be in a position to further their causes
in this House.
As part of my commitment and economic pledge to the constituents
of Wellingborough, Mr Speaker, in the coming months you can
expect me to bang the drum for our town centres and high streets,
and encourage more tourists and Members to visit the area. For a
great Saturday, you could visit Irvin’s speciality tea shop,
whose tea I serve in my office, or have wine from the Wine
Chateau, which is the only bricks and mortar specialist shop that
sells Moldovan wine—again, in my office. You could visit Rushden
& Diamonds football club to support community football; it is
a great Saturday out—me and my dad have watched them score in the
97th minute. You could end your night at the award-winning Ember
restaurant in Wellingborough or the new restaurant in Rushden, La
Estrella.
If history is more your thing, the constituency is steeped in it,
with buildings from the Jacobean, Elizabethan and Caroline eras.
In fact, the Hind Hotel was the resting point for Oliver Cromwell
and his army before the battle of Naseby in 1645. Higham Ferrers’
town charter is from 1251, and the town has a charming farmers’
market on Saturday and Sunday in the historic town square,
opposite the English Heritage site of Chichele College. The
natural landscape of the constituency is breathtaking. Based
within the Nene valley—pronounced differently if you’re from from
Cambridgeshire—the constituency hosts the internationally
renowned Waendel Walk, which Members can participate in this May;
I hope to see many of you with walking boots on. As a bonus
attraction, my pugs will do a small section of it too.
Thank you again, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden
speech in a debate on this vital topic, and basically to launch
the “Visit Wellingborough” campaign. I am honoured by the
opportunity, and will now give way to the estimates debate.
1.44pm
(West Suffolk) (Ind)
I begin by congratulating the new hon. Member for Wellingborough
(Gen Kitchen) on an eloquent speech and on her “Visit
Wellingborough” campaign. That campaign is just embryonic right
now; I know that she was encouraging some in the House to join it
a couple of months ago, but sadly, I could not do so. No doubt it
will continue.
I note that before entering the House, the hon. Lady was an
ardent fundraiser for many charities, including Sarcoma UK, a
children’s hospice, a children’s health charity and the Salvation
Army. I am delighted that she is taking such an early interest in
special educational needs, a subject that is very close to my
heart. I have just launched a charity, the Accessible Learning
Foundation, to champion early identification of neurodivergent
conditions. Maybe in the short time we will overlap in this
House, she can teach me something about charity fundraising. I
say “short time”, of course, because I am leaving, not just
because—[Laughter.] I will leave that hanging. It was an
excellent maiden speech: it was powerful, strong and clear, and
did not go on nearly as long as the speech by the Chair of the
Select Committee. By acting in that way, she will win many
friends right across the House, and I congratulate her.
This is an important debate, because it is vital that we have
stronger provision for special educational needs. I acknowledge
and appreciate the work that the Minister has done on this issue
and the progress that the Government have made. The Chair of the
Select Committee was right to say that some of the promise of the
2014 Act that is the cornerstone of the legislative framework has
been delivered on, but certainly not all of it. My particular
focus is on the need for early identification. The argument is
this: if we can identify special educational needs and
neurodiverse conditions early, we can get the support in early,
which is better value for the taxpayer as well as self-evidently
better for the individuals concerned.
In particular, I want to take on and defeat the argument that
identifying conditions leads to labelling, which some say makes
the problem worse for an individual. That is not true—it is an
antediluvian attitude that needs to be abolished from our policy
approach. Having more information and data about each child is
better for those children and their teachers. For instance, early
identification of dyslexia by assessing the gap between a child’s
phonic ability—already assessed in the early year 1 phonics
test—and their oral linguistic ability is now easily doable using
technology and artificial intelligence, which can automatically
assess oral capability in a way that simply was not possible even
a couple of years ago. Knowing about that gap can help a teacher
support a dyslexic child in a way that can mitigate the
challenges that dyslexia brings and give them the skills to deal
with those challenges, so that they can benefit from all the rest
of their education. That is not just in English—in reading and
writing—but in all other subjects, which are of course built on
reading and writing, especially those such as history that
require significant amounts of language.
The argument that these conditions are somehow not scientifically
valid and we should not identify them early has been put to me by
officials in the Department, and most recently in The Times
newspaper by the otherwise absolutely brilliant Matthew Parris,
whom I love. He argued that he did not think attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder existed, for instance. Those arguments are
simply wrong, and should be destined for the dustbin of history.
I urge the Minister to set out the further progress that has been
made on early identification. The pilots are good and some
schools are doing great work, but what we need in a universal
education service is universal early identification of
neurodivergent conditions, and the support that comes with
that.
I welcome the fact that the Minister recently said that there is
no rationing of education, health and care plans. That is
important because some people worry that, because EHCPs are
expensive to deliver, there is somehow an attempt to limit who
gets them. The challenge, however, is that they are not fairly
and evenly available. Because some parents can afford to pay for
a formal diagnostics test for dyslexia, there is a social
inequality in who gets access. Hence we need universal
screening—not necessarily universal formal diagnosis, which is a
more expensive process, but universal screening—so that we know
who is more likely to be neurodivergent, and then the plans can
be more properly and more fairly targeted. There are now proven,
cost-effective early years interventions that we know work. They
do not take up much time, and the time they do take up is more
than well spent in being able to target better support. They are
available online, and this needs to become a universal standard
across primary schools in England.
One of the reasons why this subject is so important is what
happens when things go wrong. We heard from my hon. Friend the
Member for Ipswich () that we need to support
neurodivergent children because of their ability to succeed. We
know, for instance, that about half of successful entrepreneurs
are dyslexic. We know that there are skills that dyslexic people
tend to have in more abundance than straight-line thinkers, such
as creativity, and we can understand why, because if someone has
had to spend their whole childhood working out how to get around
the fact that they are dyslexic, that will develop those parts of
the brain that enhance creativity.
However, we should not just be Panglossian; there is a darker
side to this. In our society, neurodivergent individuals have for
far too long been let down, and we have a school-to-prison
pipeline, much of which is due to the lack of early
identification. For instance, statistics for 2016-17—I would be
interested to know if the Minister has an update—show that
children identified with special educational needs accounted for
46.7% of all permanent exclusions, despite making up under 15% of
the school population, so almost half of those who are excluded
from school are identified as having special educational
needs.
(Twickenham) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about school
exclusions. I should not have been shocked because the statistics
are all out there for us to see, but last year when I visited
Feltham young offender institution, just down the road from my
constituency, I was told that the vast majority of young men in
that institution have special educational needs and had been
excluded from school. He is powerfully making the point that, if
we do not invest early, we are storing up huge social and
economic costs for ourselves.
That is absolutely right, and this issue unites colleagues from
across the House. The Bill I will bring forward next month has
cross-party support, and I urge the hon. Member to add her name
to it. It has support from my right hon. Friend the Member for
Chingford and Woodford Green ( ) all the way through to
the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (), and it is not often that
they sign the same piece of paper. If she will add her name to
it, that would create a triangle of support across this House,
which I would really welcome.
As the hon. Member said—in fact, she anticipated my very next
point—the Ministry of Justice reports that 42% of incarcerated
individuals had experienced exclusion from school, and we know
that just over half of those in the male prison population have a
primary school reading age. Addressing neurodiversity,
identifying it early, ensuring there is the right support, and
therefore reducing illiteracy and getting in support for the
behavioural consequences of neurodivergent conditions will lead
to fewer people in prison. It will also make sure that those who
end up in prison, having been missed by the education system, get
this support, and that will help to reduce reoffending. I am glad
to say that the Lord Chancellor is on this and is making
progress, and the Health Secretary made a huge amount of progress
when she was prisons Minister, but there is much more to do.
Here is one concrete example of a new policy that I would
propose, which I put to the Minister. The Ministry of Justice is
currently rolling out digital profiles of prisoners, outlining
their screening data and educational enrolments that are assessed
on entry to prison, and ensuring that that data follows prisoners
as they move from prison to prison. It is a very good initiative
that was started under the previous Lord Chancellor and is being
rolled out now. However, in the school system there is no
automated data flow from primary to secondary school. Often,
there are assessments early in secondary school, and that is
good, but if there is screening data or an assessment of
individual child need, there is no automated way for such data,
with the richness of the data that can now be available, to be
passed through to secondary school. Essentially, each child
starts from a blank canvas, and it all has to be reassessed.
We need an accurate assessment of where a child is up to at the
start of secondary school, but understanding their history as
well would be valuable, so I ask the Minister to look at what the
MOJ has done on data transfer—in its case, normally from initial
prison to the longer-stay prison—for use in the transition from
primary to secondary school.
It strikes me that my right hon. Friend’s suggestion about
passporting information from primary has much wider applications.
Something I have often observed in my work on the Education
Committee is that there are problems when, for instance, primary
schools build up a pupil’s ability in one language and then the
pupil transfers to a secondary school that teaches a completely
different one. Some form of passporting of data from primary to
secondary through a pupil passport, not only for special
educational needs but for learning, would be extremely useful in
managing such transitions.
Yes, I am absolutely certain that this approach to data is more
widely applicable. My focus is on this specific area, but there
is now a richness of data on individual children that simply was
not available 10 years ago or even five years ago, and I think
that such passporting of data would be invaluable.
I agree with everything the Chair of the Select Committee said on
the question of funding, so I will not repeat it. He has been the
leader of the f40 campaign for many years. Suffolk is
underfunded, as is Worcestershire, so I put in my plug, but I do
not need to add any more details. The Minister knows them for
sure.
I will close by saying that I appreciate the engagement the
Minister has shown on this subject, and I look forward to meeting
him in private in the next couple of weeks to continue this
discussion. However, I would urge him to support early
identification not just as a matter of social justice, not just
as a matter of progress for each individual child and not just to
ensure that each child can reach their potential, but, since this
is an estimates day debate, because we will then spend taxpayers’
money on education more wisely and we will get better educational
outcomes as a result.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
I would like to publicly congratulate Gen Kitchen on her fine
maiden speech. Well done.
1.58pm
(Twickenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for West Suffolk
(). I agreed with an awful lot
of what he said, particularly his point about early diagnosis and
not being afraid to attach a label to things, because that equips
parents and teachers to support a child appropriately. Even if
that does not necessarily mean additional funding is needed, it
is about making sure that we all have the right tools in our
armoury to support a child.
I congratulate the new hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen
Kitchen) on her maiden speech, and I look forward to seeing her
around—I hope for many more months and years to come.
I also congratulate the Chair of the Education Committee, the
hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), on securing this important
debate. I was very happy to sponsor his application for it, given
the desperation and exasperation felt by so many parents of
children with special educational needs and disabilities up and
down the country. As he said, we heard from Members from both
sides of the House in January in a well-attended debate secured
by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir ). They told harrowing stories
that they learned of from their constituency casework, and in
some cases from personal family experiences. Sadly, his plea for
more immediate support in the Budget fell on deaf ears, although
the longer-term commitment to build a few more special schools
was welcome, and I will say a little more about that later. The
insufficient funding for SEND has a visceral impact on vulnerable
children and their families, but it is also one of the most
pressing financial issues facing local authorities around the
country, many of which are on the brink of bankruptcy. I shall
focus my remarks on that issue, rather than repeating points that
I made in the debate in January.
Since March 2021, the Department for Education has made
safety-valve agreements with the 34 local authorities with the
highest dedicated schools grant deficits, and a further five are
in the pipeline. The Department is working with an additional 55
local authorities through its “delivering better value in SEND”
programme, so we are not far off having 100 local authorities
already engaged with the DFE because they are struggling with
funding for SEND. That number will continue to rise because, as
has repeatedly been said in the House, the available SEND funding
simply does not match the need. Ultimately, many of these
programmes are sticking-plaster solutions that will not address
the longer-term underlying challenge, because local authorities
are already predicting and modelling significant deficits in
years to come, beyond the lifespan of some of these
agreements.
It is worrying that so many local authorities are already
involved in these mechanisms, but more worrying still is the
number of local authorities using the statutory override.
Introduced in 2020, the override allows local authorities to
exclude any deficits in their dedicated schools grant spending
from their main revenue budgets. In effect, it allows local
authority to proceed with an imbalanced budget without requiring
a section 114 notice. That provision had been due to expire in
March 2023 but has been extended for a further three years and
will end in March 2026, yet there seems little prospect of local
authorities being able to manage these deficits down in such a
short space of time without a great deal more Government
support.
Are we just waiting for a deluge of section 114 notices when the
statutory override expires? The Select Committee on Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities certainly seems to think so. In its
recent “Financial distress in local authorities” report, it
concluded:
“The Government’s use of the statutory override and one-off
‘safety valve’ funding are temporary measures and do not address
the underlying mismatch between demand, costs, and annual
Dedicated Schools Grant funding”.
It added:
“the sector faces a cliff-edge of section 114 notices.”
There is no information on what will happen when the statutory
override concludes. A cynic might suggest that this Conservative
Government, who are clearly on their last legs, are happy to kick
this thorny issue into the long grass for the next Administration
to grapple with. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answer
to this problem, which is already keeping many council leaders
awake at night, even if he hopes that this will be somebody
else’s problem.
As for those local authorities that are in safety-valve
agreements, are the Government keeping their side of the bargain?
I have spoken before about the lack of SEND school places and the
costs that can lead to; for example, children may be placed in
private equity-backed schools that charge exorbitant fees and rip
off taxpayers, and there is also the additional cost of
transporting SEND children outside the local area. It behoves the
Government to set up new SEND schools and create new places, and
although the Government have promised 15 special schools in their
Budget, as we have heard, their track record on delivery is poor.
As the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for
Worcester, pointed out, it is an open question whether the
funding announced will allow the promise to be met.
We are told that we can expect these schools to open in three to
four years. Frankly, I will believe it when I see it, because
just last week it was reported that building work on 33 new
special schools that will particularly help children with autism
was seriously delayed, despite the expectation that they would be
up and running by 2026. The response from the Department for
Education was that it never set that target date. Councils are
trying to take matters into their own hands, but the Government
approved fewer than half of the 85 applications from councils to
open SEND free schools in 2022.
Local authorities trying to meet the requirements of their
safety-valve agreements will be significantly hindered if the new
SEND places promised by the Government are not forthcoming. The
day-to-day impact that the delays will have on mainstream schools
must not be underestimated. I hold a termly call with all the
chairs of school governing bodies in my constituency. My
discussions with those governors and with local headteachers
regularly feature SEND, as I am sure the Minister can imagine,
and in particular the massive impact on staff, other pupils and
school budgets of ensuring that children with high needs who are
waiting for an EHCP or desperately searching for a special school
place are adequately supported. One local school told me of
teaching assistants being bitten, and quitting as a result. When
that happens, it exacerbates the workforce challenges that many
of our schools face. The school was concerned about how to keep
other pupils safe, and was spending a large amount of money
trying to support a child who clearly should not have been in a
mainstream school. The mainstream school cannot claw that money
back once the child finally gets an EHCP and a special school
place.
These delays are exacerbated by a desperate shortage of
educational psychologists and speech and language therapists. I
agree with the comments about making sure that we have those
people in place to support the early identification that has been
talked about; these professionals are integral to the system. We
must address the chronic shortage of speech and language
therapists and educational psychologists if we are to provide any
sort of timely assessment. Scandalously, one school in my
constituency said that it had the budget that it wanted to spend
on speech and language therapy, but it had to hand the money back
because it could not find anyone to deliver the support, and it
was a “use it or lose it at the end of the financial year”
budget.
I come to the final issue that I want to raise. I heard about
this just last week from a Shropshire councillor, and it strikes
me as a real anomaly, and waste in the system that Ministers
could easily address without spending more money. I was told that
a statement of special need issued in one nation of the UK cannot
be passported to another. If a child with an EHCP in England
moves across the border to Wales, that EHCP is not recognised,
and vice versa, and the parents have to join a waiting list and
start the process again from scratch. The situation is the same
in Scotland. That will also have an impact on children coming
into England. They are being reassessed for EHCPs, as the
statements they received in Scotland or Wales are not recognised.
At a time when resources are being stretched to breaking point,
this lack of passporting is surely nonsense. The help and support
that a child requires in one nation of the UK is surely the same
in the next. I hope the Minister will take this issue away and
seek to resolve it. As always seems to be the case with SEND, it
is the children and their families who suffer the most. They wait
forever to get the help and support that they need, and families
often have to fight hard for their child’s rights.
I am afraid that the Government are letting down children with
special educational needs and disability. I hope that even if
Ministers choose to ignore those on the Opposition Benches, they
will listen to Back Benchers from their party, given that so many
Conservative Members chose to sign a letter to the Chancellor
asking for more SEND funding. We all know the statistics, and
know that there has been a huge increase in the number of
children with special educational needs. I recognise that
presents enormous challenges for national and local government,
but although those statistics are important, we must never forget
that behind every statistic is a child who is directly affected—a
child who, like every other, deserves the very best start in
life, because every child, no matter their background or needs,
can achieve great things.
2.08pm
(Ipswich) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. First, I pay
tribute to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen Kitchen). It
is always good to make a maiden speech about special educational
needs; I did so as well, and SEND is a critically important
issue. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for
Worcester (Mr Walker), who gave an incredibly long speech, but it
was not unenjoyable. I am dyspraxic and dyslexic, and my
attention is not great, so I often get bored easily, but the
content was really good. He covered virtually everything there is
to say in an incredibly comprehensive way. In fact, the Chairman
of the Education Committee covered points that I was looking to
make that I thought would be innovative, because he is so on the
ball. I was on the Committee for a couple of years, and it is a
shame that I never served under him. I left before he became
Chairman, and I supported him in becoming Chairman. I learned a
lot today about the work he has been doing. It makes me happy to
see him giving so much priority to special educational needs,
which he has such knowledge of and is so well versed in. That is
good news and great to hear.
I have supported my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk
() in his work on early
diagnosis. I have told this story so many times, and I am sorry
if I am a bit like a broken record, but when I was 12, I had the
reading and writing age of an eight-year-old. I could not do my
shoelaces until I was 14. Frankly, it was only when I was
diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia that things started to
change in a positive way for me, so diagnosis makes a huge
difference. Some people say that sometimes it can go a bit far,
or that sometimes there is a bit of an obsession with people
feeling like they need to be labelled. That might be an issue,
perhaps in a minority of cases, but in the vast majority of
cases, people need and deserve to know what they have got if they
are neurodivergent, because then other people can better
understand them, and they can better understand themselves.
Things that may have been real challenges can, over time, in the
course of their life, become assets.
Certainly if somebody turned up today and said, “Tom, I can wave
this magic wand and you will no longer have dyspraxia and
dyslexia,” I would say, “Don’t wave it, because I want to have
dyslexia and dyspraxia.” It presents me with a number of
challenges. Some people try to say that I use it as an excuse
when I should be a bit more on top of things. Two weeks ago, I
left my phone in the back of a cab and lost it. Last night, I
left my rucksack in the back of somebody’s car. I have only just
got it back; that is why there has been lots of activity here,
and messages being passed. I will not blame my forgetfulness on
my dyspraxia, but it might have something to do with it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir
)—I think that is right; I have
not had a phone to check his constituency online. I had to get
advice from colleagues about the name of his constituency.
[Interruption.] He is here! You have just missed my excuse for
not knowing it. [Interruption.] I will speak through the Chair
from now on, sorry. I was pleased to sign his letter, because I
know there are significant funding issues. I sat and watched the
Budget, and I welcome the additional funding, but do I honestly
feel that it was the game-changing moment we need on SEND
funding? The answer is no.
Pretty much everyone sees special educational needs as being a
very important issue, but it is not that. It is a critical issue.
It is one of the most important issues, and it links in with so
many other things. We need to see the big picture of how getting
SEND right relates to tackling crime, how it links to
entrepreneurialism, and how it helps us to deal with providing
mental health services. These connections and links must be seen
if we are to truly understand how important SEND is. It cannot be
seen in isolation.
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk knows that in
Suffolk, we sadly have had a failing SEND system. I have got to a
stage, particularly over the past year, where 50% to 60% of my
surgery appointments are with parents fighting to get the support
that their children need. More than 50% of my surgery
appointments are about SEND, and probably about 20% are about
mental health. For some of those individuals, or individuals
whose loved ones are struggling, often crippled by mental health
problems, that is not disconnected from the fact that they have
not got the support they need, because they are
neurodivergent.
Earlier this week, I met the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation
Trust, whose mental health services have been in special measures
for a long time. We heard some tragic stories from campaigners
whose loved ones are no longer with us because they were failed.
I remember hearing from one lady in particular. She was not a
constituent, but she explained to me how her son, who is no
longer with us, had dyspraxia, dyslexia and autism, and the
profound impact of not getting the support. When you are not
understood, or you feel like you are not understood—sometimes not
even understanding yourself fully, or the world around you—that
can breed deep upset and anguish. The two things are linked.
Since 2019, we have had two new special schools in Ipswich: the
Sir Bobby Robson School and the Woodbridge Road Academy. Each
provides up to around 50 places. I remember speaking to the head
teacher of the Sir Bobby Robson School, and already it has taken
a few more pupils than it planned. There just are not enough
places, even with those two new special schools. It is great for
those who get in—it has been transformative and turned some of
their lives around—but for every young person who gets a place,
there are a number who cannot.
Part of SEND needs to be about the mainstream. EHCPs are not
appropriate for everyone, so we have to get that support in the
mainstream, too. We need more SEND specialists, but we also need
to have general teachers having a much higher knowledge of all
different types of neurodiversity. That is one thing I want to
probe with the Minister at some point, because the SEND review
made a commitment to a higher amount of initial teacher training.
When I visit schools in my constituency, I make a point of trying
to find newly qualified teachers, and I always ask them, “How
much of your teacher training was about SEND?”, and the consensus
is that hardly any of it is. I need to see evidence that since
that commitment from the Government, things are changing in
practice. For existing teachers—those who have perhaps been
teachers for many decades—we must put in place resources to
ensure they get the knowledge they need, because there is not a
teacher I have met who is not passionate about wanting to do more
to support SEND; they just need the knowledge and support to get
to that place.
When I was on the Education Committee, one link we discussed was
40% or 50% of those in prison being neurodivergent to some
extent. They feel like the system has failed them. They feel
alienated from the system, and then they turn against it, and to
a certain extent that is understandable. One good thing that was
done was by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire
() when he was a Justice
Minister—he is now an Education Minister—and he committed to
putting a neurodiversity manager in each prison. Before then,
there were only enough neurodiversity managers to cover four
prisons. That was a good change.
Ultimately, we have got to get to that game-changing moment on
funding. There are many things that Suffolk County Council could
and should have done better on SEND, but I have sympathy that in
Suffolk we are particularly badly funded. We have met the
Minister about that, and we understand that that gap is
apparently narrowing, but how is it defensible for me to have to
explain to parents in my constituency why their children who are
neurodivergent are worth less than children who are
neurodivergent not just in London—we have become used to that
kind of disparity—but in Norfolk and Essex? It is extraordinary,
and I cannot defend that. I do not want people in those areas who
are neurodivergent to get any less investment—I want them to get
all the investment in the world—but I want young people in
Ipswich and Suffolk who are neurodivergent to get that support as
well.
Why does this matter? I raised this in an intervention earlier.
Because this is a debate about the Budget, I will not just make
the argument about why investing in SEND is morally the right
thing to do. Even taking the bean-counter’s approach—the Treasury
view—that game-changing moment in funding for SEND is good for
the taxpayer, because it unleashes the talent and ability of so
many people who think differently. I am in the process of setting
up the all-party parliamentary group for neurodiversity in
defence and national security because the soldier-first principle
is difficult for many neurodiverse people who think differently,
but we really need them when it comes to cyber.
This might surprise people, but I briefly flirted with joining
the Royal Navy as an officer. I went to the open day where six of
us got together and it was like, “Here’s a barrel. You’ve got to
tie loads of knots and get it over these imaginary shark-infested
waters to the island.” At that time—I think I was probably 25—I
felt like I was 11 or 12 again. I felt thick again. I felt that
people were looking at me like I was stupid.
We have got to do this. I served on the Education Committee with
the Minister, who I know is in this place because of his passion
for education, and I know that he gets SEND. I want to help him
to make the case for why investing in SEND is of monumental
importance and game-changing.
2.21pm
(Bracknell) (Con)
It is an enormous pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member
for Ipswich () and his typically powerful and
forthright speech. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for
Worcester (Mr Walker) for securing the debate and, of course, the
hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen Kitchen) for her maiden
speech. A massive “Well done” to her— it is not an easy thing to
do.
I have been a pretty robust champion for SEND for some time and
have spoken on it at length in the House, so I do not want to
detain hon. Members for too long, but there are some important
points that I wish to raise, particularly with the Minister. The
backdrop for SEND across the UK is getting ever better. In March
last year, the Government published their SEND and alternative
provision improvement plan. Why was that important? Because it
commits to a huge increase in funding for education across the
UK, and for SEND in particular, with investment increasing by
more than 60% from 2019-20 to more than £10.5 billion a year by
2024-25. That is a huge increase in money, and we know beyond
doubt that this is the highest funding ever for education in the
UK.
I was also pleased that, as part of that plan, there is a new
leadership-level SENCO NVQ, which is an important professional
qualification. We have also got expanded training for staff
ranging from up to 5,000 early years educational needs
co-ordinators to 400 educational psychologists. Excitingly, in
Bracknell Forest, a proposal is being mooted in conjunction with
Bracknell and Wokingham College for a pilot to be run for
recruiting and training additional teaching assistants, and
particularly those who may be focused on special educational
needs.
As the Minister knows, last year’s review identified three key
challenges. First, navigating the SEND system and alternative
provision is not a positive experience for families. Indeed, the
EHCP process is too long, too convoluted and too difficult—it
requires a degree to fill it out and submit it. Secondly,
outcomes for children and young people with SEND are consistently
worse than their peers’ across every measure, as my hon. Friend
the Member for Ipswich just mentioned. Thirdly, despite the
continuing and unprecedented investment, the system is not
financially sustainable and insufficient places are available for
those needing specialist provision.
What do we need to do? Given that I try to focus nationally as
well as locally, I think that first we need to better
operationalise the process. We know that the money is available
and the policy is in place, but it is not being translated right
now to improvements locally. I am working locally with Bracknell
Forest Council to do that. Additional staff are being recruited
and response times are improving for those who contact the
Department, but these improvements need to happen much more
broadly across the DFE’s area.
While the details remain confidential—that is a safety valve—I am
supporting Bracknell Forest Council in its endeavours and am
meeting here in Westminster with Ministers to ensure the best
possible deal for councillors and officials at the council. I am
grateful to the Government for their ongoing co-operation and
investment, which is pivotal. However, to better operationalise
the provision, we need the right settings for all our children,
and sufficient places. Even with the increased funding, we need
to build additional schools—and that is now, not in five years’
time.
Last year, I was pleased to play my part in securing funding for
the new SEND school in Crowthorne in my constituency, which was
one of the 60 new schools announced last year. Bracknell Forest
Council assures me that it is ready right now to scope and build
the school, so can we please have the money right now, not in
five years?
Why stop there? We need to be ambitious nationally and locally.
We could also invest locally in a third school. An obvious site
in Bracknell is the Warfield site, which I have raised with the
council before. I encourage the council in Bracknell to be more
ambitious and go for it. Let us not just go for a second SEND
school; let us go for a third as well. We need to do the same
thing across the UK: identify settings where schools can be built
and make the money available now, because these settings are
non-discretionary.
Before I finish, I will raise two points. First, I have a
particular issue with Labour’s policy on VAT for private schools.
Aside from the huge impact on parents who choose—it is about
choice—to educate their kids privately for good reason, that
policy would have an adverse effect on service families and those
with children with special needs. We must be careful what we wish
for. Lastly, while I absolutely welcome the huge progress being
made on SEND right across the UK, it does need operationalising
both locally and nationally. It is about results and outcomes,
not policy and money. I urge the Minister please to wave his
magic wand on this one.
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
We come to the wind-ups.
2.27pm
(Newcastle upon Tyne
North) (Lab)
I thank the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for
Worcester (Mr Walker), for securing this important debate and
commend him for the work he does as the Select Committee’s Chair.
I also pay tribute to those who work with and support children
with special educational needs and disabilities. Across the
country, teachers, teaching assistants, support staff, speech and
language therapists, occupational therapists, mental health
professionals and many more work tirelessly every day to ensure
that children with SEND have the best possible education.
I am grateful to hon. Members who have contributed to the debate,
but I must pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member
for Wellingborough (Gen Kitchen). It really is to her credit that
she has chosen this debate to make her maiden speech and to be
that powerful voice for some of the most vulnerable children and
most challenged families in her community. She is clearly a
powerful advocate for her communities. If they vote her back in
at the general election, they will also hopefully have a Labour
Government with whom she can work to truly deliver on her “visit
Wellingborough” campaign.
Since the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, the
number of requests for EHC plans has risen year on year, doubling
between 2016 and 2022. There was a further 7% rise in 2022 when
66,706 new plans were issued. Almost 400,000 school pupils are
now supported through an EHC plan, while a further 1.2 million
children are receiving support without a plan. However, it is
clear from today’s debate that the support system for children
with SEND is failing too many children and their families.
Parents and carers are being forced into expensive and lengthy
battles to access the support they need throughout their
children’s time in school. In 2022, more than half of EHC plans
were issued after the 20-week target.
Increasingly, families are turning to the tribunal process—with a
24% increase in cases last year—to secure a plan or appeal the
detail of their child’s plan. An overwhelming 98% of cases were
won by parents and carers last year. That process is not only
draining for families but expensive for the taxpayer. Research by
the Disabled Children’s Partnership found that lost cases cost
councils and courts £60 million in 2021-22. We must not forget
the families who do not even make it to the tribunal, and whose
children’s needs are left unmet. These unacceptable delays are
heartbreaking for families, who face years of stress and anxiety
while their child is unable to access the education to which they
are entitled.
More than a third of children with SEND were persistently absent
from school in the autumn and spring terms last year. Although
some of that absence is related to the need for medical
appointments, much is due to the lack of tailored provision for a
child’s needs. Children with SEND have one of the largest
attainment gaps compared with their peers. A child with an EHCP
is on average 28 months behind their peers at the end of primary
school. The gap only grows throughout school, to a staggering 3.5
years—40 months—by the time they leave. We only get one
childhood, and delayed support will embed lifelong inequalities
and create barriers to the opportunities that children can pursue
later in life.
The crisis in SEND support is having a devastating impact on
local authority finances, as hon. Members have touched on.
Increasing numbers of councils are issuing section 114 notices,
effectively declaring bankruptcy, with many citing the impact of
increasing SEND and home-to-school transport costs as reasons. No
council takes this lightly, and councillors and officers across
the country working really hard to balance the books. I am sure
that the Minister may want to blame specific councils for the
issues, but the sheer number of local authorities on the
brink—with administrations of all political parties—cannot be
dismissed. Reforming the SEND system is vital not only for
children and families but to ensure that the wider local
government services across the country are sustainable. Issuing a
section 114 notice has grave implications for the delivery of all
local government services, and it is often children who suffer
most from the resulting cuts.
The Government’s SEND and alternative provision review should
have been the opportunity to set out an ambitious plan for reform
to ensure the best outcomes for children with SEND, better
relationships with families, and a sustainable system for schools
and local authorities. Yet after a four-year wait, the plan was
met with widespread disappointment with its limited scope. Many
measures will not come into effect until 2025—six years after the
review was announced. In that time, 300,000 children with SEND
will have left school.
The funding for 15 new special schools in last week’s Budget is
welcome, but the schools will provide additional places for just
2,000 children and there is no clear timeline for when they will
open to students. I hope that the Minister will update the House
on the other 33 new special schools announced alongside the SEND
and alternative provision improvement plan. More than a year on
from the publication of the plan, the Department has yet to
publish the details of approved academy trusts, and that is
delaying the start of construction. When does the Minister expect
those schools to open for students?
It is also disappointing that the Budget had little to say more
widely on support for children with SEND, the majority of whom
will continue to be educated in the mainstream sector. The
Opposition are committed to breaking down the barriers faced by
children with SEND. We believe in high and rising standards for
every child. We know that there are children with additional
needs in every classroom in every school but, as has been
highlighted by Members on the Government Benches, the Government
do not equip every teacher with the knowledge and skills they
need to teach them.
Labour would look at every aspect of teacher
training—undergraduate curriculum, early career framework and
career change routes—and we will introduce an entitlement to
annual continuing professional development, which we would expect
to be used in many instances to boost SEND expertise. As part of
Labour’s planned reforms to Ofsted inspection, moving away from
the use of single-word judgments will ensure that schools are
inspected on their inclusivity and that parents of children with
SEND have access to clear information about their child’s
school.
Children increasingly start school without the foundational
language and communication skills that they need to take part in
their education. We are committed to improving speech and
language support, and will equip every school with funding to
deliver evidence-based early language interventions, such as
Nuffield early language intervention. More than 280,000 children
received SEND support last year for their social, emotional and
mental health, while many children with mental ill health were
out of school entirely. The need for mental health support has
soared in recent years. Alongside urgent action to address the
unacceptably high waiting times for CAMHS support, we will embed
professional mental health support in every school and deliver
open access youth mental health hubs in every community.
We will build a modern early education and childcare system that
works for the families of disabled children. The early
identification of needs is vital to provide the intervention in
the most important years of a child’s development. Last year,
Coram found that just 18% of local authorities had sufficient
places for disabled children. Will the Minister confirm that
there will be sufficient places for disabled children ahead of
the expansion of entitlements in April?
Children and families deserve much better than Government
sticking plaster solutions. We will work with parents, carers,
schools and local authorities to rebuild the support that
children with SEND rely on, and deliver the change needed to
ensure that every child can thrive in school. For 14 years, the
Government have failed children and families. As we have always
done in government, Labour will put children first again.
2.36pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education ()
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) for
opening this important debate. I know how important it is to him
that our investment in education gives children and young people
the very best start in life, and his work on these issues both as
Chair of the Education Committee and as an excellent former
Schools Minister is well recognised across the House. I, too, pay
tribute to all the staff and parents doing all they can to
support children with special educational needs.
Before I turn to the substance of the debate, may I say what an
excellent maiden speech the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen
Kitchen) gave? It is nice to see someone else from the charity
sector join the House. Her speech was a great advert for visiting
Wellingborough, and specifically her office, where she seems to
keep all of its best products. She said that she would like to
make her family proud, but I have no doubt that she has already
done that and will continue to do so a great deal more in the
coming years.
This Government are making record investment in education, with
total schools revenue funding reaching over £60.7 billion this
coming year. That is the highest level in real terms per pupil in
history. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell () said—a great champion
for children with special educational needs—within the total
funding amount, high needs funding is increasing to more than
£10.5 billion in the coming financial year, which is an increase
of over 60% compared with 2019-20.
The Department is also making a transformational investment in
capital funding. We have published over £1.5 billion of high
needs provision capital allocations for the 2022-23 and 2023-24
financial years to support local authorities to deliver new
places and improve existing provision for children and young
people with SEND or who require alternative provision.
(North West Norfolk) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. I
am grateful that there will be two special schools in Norfolk,
including one in west Norfolk, but at the moment Norfolk County
Council spends £40 million a year moving children with special
needs to special schools rather than on their education itself.
Will he look at the urgent funding need for counties like Norfolk
that face those very high costs?
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The amount being spent
on transport rather than provision is too high. The solution is
both to create more provision and to meet children’s needs in
mainstream schools at an early enough stage wherever possible,
though that is not always possible.
The investment is on top of our ongoing delivery of new special
and alternative provision for free schools. Currently, 108
special free schools are open, with a further 77 approved to open
in future. Last week, we announced funding for an additional wave
of 15 special free schools. My hon. Friend the Member for
Worcester asked some questions about that investment. I can
confirm that it is intended to provide 30,000 additional
specialist places and that we remain on course to deliver that. I
can also confirm that we will still be spending £2.6 billion in
this area.
Despite our investment in education funding, it is right to
acknowledge that the SEND and alternative provision system
continues to face challenges. The SEND and alternative provision
improvement plan, which we published in March 2023, seeks to move
us to a national system where every child gets the right support
in the right place at the right time. We have already begun the
process of testing our reforms. In September last year, we
launched the SEND and AP change programme, which is delivering
some of the things we talked about in the plan, including
standardising and digitising the EHCP process, testing advisory
tailored lists, and strengthening mediation.
On financial pressures, as has been touched on, the Department
for Education has two main programmes—the safety valve programme
and the delivering better value programme—to support and
stabilise local authority expenditure. The programmes are
designed to improve SEND services by helping local authorities to
make the very best use of their resources. The local authorities
with the highest percentage deficits are invited to join the
safety valve programme, and there are now 34 local authorities
with safety valve agreements. By March 2025, the Department will
have allocated nearly £900 million through the programme to help
local authorities to eliminate their historic deficits while
continuing to deliver high-quality provision.
Local authorities with substantial but less severe deficits have
been invited to join the delivering better value programme—an £85
million programme launched in 2022 that helps selected
authorities to structure and deliver their SEND services so young
people get the support they need at the right time. The
authorities work out the causes of their challenges and develop
action plans. They are given £1 million to support the
implementation of the plan. We have published some of the
learnings and insights from the programme so far, and will
continue to find and share examples of good practice in local
areas. That is, in part, to address the question from my hon.
Friend the Member for Worcester, the Chair of the Education
Committee, about helping local authorities to plan
appropriately.
Turning to other areas of funding to support children with
special educational needs, we are investing £21 million to train
400 more educational psychologists by September 2024. We are
investing £18 million between 2022 and 2025 to double the
capacity of our supported internships programme. We have a new
programme called PINS— partnerships for inclusion of
neurodiversity—which is a £13 million investment that will deploy
specialists from both health and education workforces to train
more than 1,600 mainstream primary schools to better meet the
needs of children with autism and other neurodiverse needs. There
is plenty more I can say, but I want to address some of the
questions raised.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk () said, we know that effective
early intervention can reduce the impact that a special
educational need or disability may have. I commend him on his
continued campaigning in that area. On childcare, we are working
with every local authority to ensure they have the places
available for all children, as part of our childcare
roll-out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester asked me to review the
correspondence relating to the location of Fort Royal. I give him
that commitment. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk
asked me to look at what the Ministry of Justice has done on
passporting information; I will do that. On exclusions, we do not
recognise the figures he quoted, but the proportion of children
with special educational needs within the exclusion figures has
been falling—although it is still too high.
The hon. Member for Twickenham () asked about EHCP passporting
between home nations. We would expect English local authorities
to accept the evidence they have been given, but I will discuss
that further with the team. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich
() has been a consistent champion
for children with special educational needs since we arrived here
and served together on the Education Committee. We recently
reviewed the frameworks for teacher training and there is now
significantly more content on supporting children with special
educational needs, but I am very happy to have a further
discussion with him separately.
I am pleased to hear that. I would be interested to sit down with
the Minister and the Chair of the Select Committee to interrogate
and understand that in more detail.
I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friends on that point.
There is then the question of what the Labour party would do
differently. I did not hear anything that the Labour party would
do differently. The only thing we know that it would do
differently is to charge families with a child at a special
school having their special needs met an additional 20% on the
cost of that place. It can often be a huge struggle for families
to meet the cost of a place in the first place, yet Labour will
add 20% to that on the spurious grounds that otherwise—and I
quote—“any school could claim it’s a special school.” That seems
to me a particularly poor way of making education policy, not
that there is much of it from the Labour party. I wonder how many
Labour MPs, when they sit with constituents in their surgeries,
tell those parents that they will hike their fees by 20%. I
suspect not many, but every parent in the country deserves to
know that.
Does the Minister agree that this is ultimately about choice? It
should be about parents having a choice about where they send
their children to school, without being fiscally penalised for
doing so. Does he also agree that imposing VAT on school fees
will massively overload the state school system, because of the
number of parents who may not be able to afford to send their
kids to private school and who will therefore send them to state
school? Does he agree that that policy is complete nonsense?
My hon. Friend makes some important points. The honest truth is
that I just do not think the Labour party thought it through. I
think they thought it was ideology that would please a particular
wing of the party, but they did not think through the fact that
it would hammer families with a child in a special school, trying
to get their needs met, with an additional 20%. We will see what
those families think about that policy.
I thank the Minister for giving way, because I actually support
quite a lot of what he is saying on this issue. Just in the last
couple of weeks, I have come across two or three families that
have children with lower levels of additional needs that do not
warrant an EHCP who have gone into state mainstream schools and
really struggled. Those families told me that they scrimped and
saved to get their child better support in a mainstream, but
smaller and more nurturing, private school. In one case, a mother
had inherited a little bit of money from a parent that she was
then able to invest. She said to me that so many children will
not have that opportunity. We should not penalise parents who
want to make that choice to support their children with special
needs. That is why the Liberal Democrats will also oppose putting
VAT on private school fees.
It is not often I say this, but I entirely agree with the hon.
Lady, and I hope we can work together. The Labour party believes
in the myth that everyone who puts their children into these
schools is wealthy and can afford the 20% increase, but, as the
hon. Lady says, often people are just trying to get the right
support for their children. Whether they can secure an EHCP is
not within their control—all sorts of factors are involved—and it
is completely unacceptable to hammer those families with another
20% on the cost of trying to meet their children’s needs.
At the risk of focusing on an issue that is a distraction, let me
emphasise that we need to invest in special educational needs
provision in mainstream schools, for all the reasons that have
been advanced today, including in the necessary teacher training.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that this policy
would bring in £1.3 billion to provide the 93% of children in the
state sector who are currently being failed by the Government
with the support that they need.
I agree that it is a distraction. This policy is a distraction
from Labour’s having no plan for any area of education—schools,
apprenticeships, universities or childcare. It is a distraction,
and Labour has not thought through the consequences of it.
Our investment in special educational needs is a key part of the
Government’s mission to set all children and young people up for
success. I am proud that the Government are providing record
levels of investment, and I look forward to continuing to work
with Members as we strive to make the special educational needs
system the very best that it can be. I commend this estimate to
the House.
2.50pm
We have had an excellent debate. We have heard from Members in
all parts of the House about the importance of continuing to
increase investment in special educational needs across both
capital and revenue.
I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Gen
Kitchen) on a fantastic maiden speech. I was very impressed to
hear about her ancestor who was a chaplain in the great war. We
had a famous one in Worcester, Woodbine Willie, who went on to
become a great Christian socialist. I am sure that the hon. Lady
will make a big contribution on education issues, and I invite
her to join us on the Education Committee, where I hope she will
be able to contribute further.
We have heard brilliant speeches from Members on both sides of
the House, and although I do not have enough time to talk about
all of them, I congratulate them on the case that they have made
for their constituents. I recognise that the Minister has done
some very important work and that and he takes the issue
seriously. I say to him, “Keep it up, and help us to help you
make the case to the Treasury to ensure that these estimates
continue to increase.”
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