King's Speech 2026: Education for All Bill

Wednesday, 13 May 2026 12:09

“A Bill will be brought forward to raise standards in schools and introduce generational reforms of the special educational needs system” Every child deserves the chance to achieve and thrive, whatever their background and whatever their need. That means raising standards and raising expectations for all, because when we get things right for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), ...Request free trial

“A Bill will be brought forward to raise standards in schools and introduce generational reforms of the special educational needs system”

Every child deserves the chance to achieve and thrive, whatever their background and whatever their need. That means raising standards and raising expectations for all, because when we get things right for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), every child benefits.

This Bill will transform support for children and young people with SEND by providing early access to support close to home and ensuring all schools, nurseries and colleges deliver the stretching, rewarding education that all children and young people deserve. The Government will build a truly inclusive education system that works for every family.

What does the Bill do?

The Government is consulting on SEND proposals and will carefully consider the responses. Subject to this, and ongoing engagement with families, the sector and experts, the Government will meet the reform principles by providing support that is:

Early: Children and families should receive the support they need as soon as possible, with a quick response to changing needs.

Local: Children and young people with SEND should be able to learn at an education setting close to their home, alongside their peers, rather than travelling long distances from their family and community.

Fair: Every education setting should be resourced and able to meet common and predictable needs, including as they change over time, without parents having to fight to get support for their children.

Effective: Reforms should be grounded in evidence, ensuring all education settings know where to go to find effective practice that has excellent long-term outcomes for children and young people.

Shared: Education, health and care services should work in partnership with one another, Best Start Family Hubs, local government, families, teachers, educators, experts, the voluntary sector and representative

bodies to deliver better experiences and outcomes for all children and young people.

The Bill will:

Provide early support to Children with SEND by legislating to require settings to produce an individual support plan for every child and young person with SEND. It will equip early years providers, schools, and colleges to intervene early and effectively by creating National Inclusion Standards to support settings to identify and implement best practice.

Enable local support by making mainstream settings more inclusive. The Bill will ensure more children and young people receive the right support early on, by delivering more training on SEND and inclusion than ever before. This will be underpinned by a new requirement set out in the SEND Code of Practice, to ensure staff in every nursery, school, and college receive training on SEND and inclusion. This will be backed by over £200 million in investment which will cover children with SEND in their earliest years through to age 25, with all teachers, leaders, and teaching assistants and support staff benefiting from new training.

Improve fairness across the system by funding schools on a fair and consistent basis, wherever they are in the country, and requiring schools to pool a portion of their funding for SEND. It will ensure children and young people with the most complex needs receive high quality, consistent support, through new Specialist Provision Packages. It will end the postcode lottery for children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) by introducing a new national template, and moving from a system of annual reviews to reviews at the end of every key stage for school-age children, with parents able to request an earlier review. The role of the SEND tribunal will also be reformed.

Ensure a smooth transition from the current to the new system via a triple lock of transitional protections that will mean no child loses effective support already in place. Every child with a specialist setting place in September 2029 will be able to stay in a specialist setting until they finish education.

Ensure that support is effective and grounded in best practice by embedding inclusive practices and enabling leaders to determine their overall approach to identifying and meeting the needs effectively by requiring settings to publish an Inclusion Strategy to encourage strategic, cohort-level planning to remove barriers to education, and hold settings

to account on strengthening inclusive practice. Inclusion strategies would need to be based on new National Inclusion Standards, developed by a panel of independent experts.

Utilise partnerships and ensure that support is shared across settings. The Government will ensure that specialist services are available for mainstream settings to support children and young people with SEND. This will mean that early years, school, and college settings can quickly access specialist services such as speech and language therapists. It will establish smoother transitions between school and post-16 education by ensuring that schools and post-16 providers work together and transition planning for SEND learners starts 12 months in advance. Targeted support will also be provided for those identified as being at risk of becoming Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).

The Government has announced over £4 billion investment in SEND reform over the next three years. Early Years settings, schools and colleges will benefit from £3.7 billion of capital investment from this year to 2030 to create tens of thousands of new places in Inclusions Bases in mainstream settings, make buildings accessible, and create new special school places. The Government will also invest £1.8 billion over the next three years to create a new national offer called “Experts at Hand”, wrapping professionals such as educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, and occupational therapists around mainstream settings.

Territorial extent and application

The Bill will extend to England and Wales and apply to England only.

Key facts

The current system is not delivering for children and young people with SEND. Government research shows the gap between the GCSE results of children with SEN compared to their peers without SEN has not meaningfully narrowed over the last six years (2018-19 and 2024-25). 86.1 per cent of 16-17 year olds with SEN support were in education and training in March 2025, compared to 93 per cent of those without SEN.

Many have to travel long distances to attend school and they are disproportionately likely to be suspended, excluded, or persistently absent. In 2023-24 the suspension rate for pupils with SEN support was 29.4 per cent - nearly four times higher than pupils with no identified SEN, according

to government research.

Families are having to fight an ineffective system despite significant increases in funding. Whilst “high needs” funding for local authorities increased by 87 per cent between 2019-20 and 2025-26, outcomes have not meaningfully improved. In January 2026, the number of children and young people on a waiting list for speech and language therapy was 65,540, alongside 17,353 for occupational therapy, 17,195 for physiotherapy, and 1,528 for vision screening (NHSE, Community health services waiting lists). Less than half of EHCPs are produced within the statutory 20-week period.

Pupils with SEN in mainstream schools can achieve better outcomes compared to similar pupils in special schools, according to government research. Pupils with SEN in mainstream schools achieve around half a grade higher in GCSE English and Maths compared to similar pupils in special schools. International evidence highlights that young people educated in inclusive settings are almost twice as likely to have secured economic independence by the age of 23 to 25 than similar pupils who were in special classes.

Families have been pushed towards securing EHCPs because of a lack of reliable high-quality support in mainstream settings. Since 2014, the number of children and young people receiving an EHCP has doubled –comparisons with Wales suggest that around half of that rise is likely specific to the English system and context.

EHCPs are increasingly used for a broader range of commonly occurring needs. EHCPs were designed for the most complex needs. However, many pupils whose needs were met by mainstream schools are now being met via EHCPs.

The number of appeals to the SEND Tribunal has risen rapidly in recent years, leading to longer delays before children and young people receive support and increasing the pressure on the courts. In the academic year 2024-

25 there were 25,002 registered appeals recorded in relation to SEND, an increase of 18 per cent compared to 2023-24, and an increase of 694 per cent from 2014-15.

The Director of the Council for Disabled Children, Amanda Allard, said “Today's publication of the White Paper "Every Child Achieving and Thriving" is a milestone on a long journey, one which provides a vision and hope for much-needed improvement in the support for disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs. This publication is not the end of this journey, but a critically important landmark. We are pleased to see the scale of

its vision and commitment of resources for transforming our education system and ensuring it values children and young people with additional needs and their families.”

The Chief Executive of Mencap, Jon Sparkes OBE, said “We're pleased the Government is committed to reforming the SEND system, which is currently failing children with a learning disability.” “Right now, too many families are left waiting, fighting and worn down. No child's future should depend on parents battling for support. That isn't fair, and it isn't sustainable. “The move to make mainstream schools more inclusive is welcome news. Families must have their children's needs identified early and for them to be given the right help straight away, backed by services fully funded to do the job, and rights underpinned by law.”

The Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, Leora Cruddas, said “The current ‘deficit model' approach too often focuses on what children can't do. Encouraging inclusive support within mainstream schools while recognising the crucial work of the specialist sector offers a more positive approach, with quicker and more local support to help all children succeed.”