Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, as others have, I start by expressing my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, for opening this important debate. Notwithstanding that this is my third appearance at the Dispatch Box today, and not the first time I have addressed this issue from it, I think that identifies its importance for all Members of your Lordships’ House, and in particular for the noble Baroness. I know that she is a champion for those with cerebral palsy and that the organisation she supports plays a key role in helping children, young people and adults to build skills, knowledge, confidence and relationships.
We have heard a range of perspectives today from across the House, emphasising personal experiences and our understanding of how those shape our special educational needs and the SEND system, which so many rely on across the country. I was particularly interested in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the impact on premature children. I will have to undertake to look further at the committee report that he identified. We are aware of the challenges in the SEND system, where outcomes for children are often poor and in a system that can be adversarial for parents and carers to navigate. We understand how urgently we need to address these issues. We have the ambition that the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, urged on us. However, these are complex issues. We will need a considered approach to deliver sustainable changes, because we know that the current system needs to do so much more to meet the needs of children with SEND. We face significant challenges in the sufficiency of provision and public confidence. The outcomes for children and young people with SEND are often disappointing. Here I wholeheartedly support, as all noble Lords have, the aspiration that we should expect the highest possible standards for children with special educational needs and disabilities. We should start with the question: “What do they want to be and how can we support them to achieve that?”
As recent reports from Isos and the National Audit Office have identified, there is a crisis in the system—a system that has been neglected and failed to meet the needs of children and families for too long. Improving the SEND system is a priority for this Government. We want all children, regardless of where they are in the country, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives.
The noble Lords, Lord Shinkwin and Lord Lexden, and the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, raised the issue of VAT on private school fees, another issue that I have discussed on several occasions from this Dispatch Box. In sharing the view of noble Lords that we need the highest possible aspirations for our children, I re-emphasise that we need the highest possible aspirations for our children, whichever type of school they are in. Clearly, what is happening in our state sector is not good enough for the 93% of children educated there. Notwithstanding that, we are committed to ensuring that pupils whose needs necessitate a place at a private school are not impacted by the policy. Where children have their place identified as part of the education, health and care plan, they will of course not be impacted by the changes that are being made to VAT.
The reforms that families need and deserve will take time, but the Government have already taken action to support the system. First, all teachers are teachers of special educational needs and disabilities. To ensure that teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND, we are implementing a range of teacher-training reforms which begins with initial teacher training and continues into early career teaching, through to middle and senior leadership.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, quite rightly made the point that we need to start early to identify and support children. Early years will be part of the wider SEND reforms. We are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in all mainstream settings as well as ensuring that special schools cater for those with the most complex needs. To support this, we have launched new training resources for early educators to help them to support children with developmental differences. We have also funded training for up to 7,000 early years special educational needs co-ordinators.
High-quality teaching is central to ensuring that all children are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education. That is why we are recruiting an additional 6,500 teachers and have implemented a range of teacher training reforms, as I have outlined. On 1 September 2024, the Government introduced a new mandatory leadership level national professional qualification for SENCOs. We have also launched an independent curriculum assessment review to look closely at the key challenges to attainment that children and young people face, particularly those with SEND.
In reference to the calls from several noble Lords for investment in the professionals, who are so important, I say that we are also investing over £21 million to train 400 new educational psychologists, but we need additional funding in our broader school funding system. To improve outcomes for our most vulnerable children and ensure that the system is financially sustainable, we are providing almost £1 billion more for high-needs budgets in 2025-26, bringing total high-needs funding to £11.9 billion. This more consistent and widespread approach will be more important than the safety valve system that the noble Baroness referenced, which, of course, by definition was able to cope only with those local authorities in extreme situations. All local authorities need support and that is our reason for the approach that we have taken. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with complex SEND.
Last week, we also announced an additional £740 million for high-needs capital in 2025-26. This new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to be more accessible for children with SEND, and to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs, alongside continuing to support pupils in special schools with the most complex needs.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield and the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, also raised the important point about speech and language therapists. We know that continuing to build the pipeline of speech and language therapists is essential. That is why the speech and language degree apprenticeship was introduced, which is now in its third year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway into a successful career as a speech and language therapist. In addition, working with NHS England, the funding for the Early Language and Support for Every Child pathfinders will continue until at least 2025. It is trialling new ways of working to better identify and support children with speech and language issues in early years and primary school settings.
I am very attracted to the call of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, for more use of music not only with respect to students with special educational needs but broadly across our curriculum. As per our recent announcement, we expect all music hubs to have an inclusion strategy and lead to ensure that music education is fully inclusive in mainstream and special schools. We recently announced £5.8 million for the Music Opportunities pilot over four years to help support disadvantaged and SEND pupils.
Obviously, there is more to be done. The Government will bring a new focus on improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream education settings, where most children with special educational needs and disabilities are taught and where most children’s needs are identified. We are moving to an approach rooted in partnership, creating certainty for all children, parents and teachers, in a core offer of education. To transform the outcomes of all young people with SEND, children need to feel that they belong in school. We will support professionals who work with children and young people with SEND to increase their SEND expertise.
We will also encourage mainstream schools to set up resourced provision or special educational needs units to increase capacity so that more children and young people with SEND can benefit from mainstream education. We will strengthen accountability to ensure that mainstream schools are as inclusive as possible. As part of this, we are working closely with Ofsted to develop proposals for how inspections could operate in future and how outcomes could be reported within a new report card system. All our work will be guided by what families, experts, leaders and front-line professionals tell us. We can get this right only if we listen and work together on solutions.
This work has already begun with the appointment of Tom Rees, chief executive of Ormiston Academies Trust, to lead a group of experts to help us drive forward work on inclusion in mainstream education settings, and with the appointment of Dame Christine Lenehan as strategic adviser for SEND. She will play a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families, and will support work to engage parliamentarians as we refine and deliver our SEND reform. To drive support for neurodivergent children and young people in mainstream education, we have appointed Professor Karen Guldberg as chair of a new group bringing together neurodiversity experts and those with lived experience.
Together, we can restore trust in the system and improve it so that more and more children and young people get the support they need to succeed in their education and later in life. As we heard today, many noble Lords have considerable experience and expertise in SEND. I look forward to working and collaborating with noble Lords to realise this vision, which I know Members of this House will share.