Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Education Committee. Before I call the Chair of the Committee, I remind hon. Members that questions should be brief and should be directed to her and not to those on the Front Bench.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
As Chair of the Education Committee, I am pleased to present to the House our fifth report of this Parliament, “Solving the SEND Crisis”. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement.
This inquiry was our first major undertaking in this Parliament. We chose the subject because the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities provision—SEND—is not just a challenge, but a moral imperative. Our report focuses on practical steps that can deliver an education system where every child, regardless of their needs, is given the opportunity to flourish.
The crisis touches every corner of our education system, from early years to post-16 education. It affects 1.7 million children and young people, their families, their teachers and a wide range of other professionals. For too long, children and young people have been let down by a system that is fragmented, not fit for purpose and, as a consequence, often too adversarial. Our report sets out a road map for change—a vision for an inclusive, equitable and sustainable SEND system, grounded in the voices and experiences of the children and families it serves.
Over eight months, we conducted a rigorous inquiry. I put on record my thanks to everyone who took part. We received over 890 written submissions and held seven oral evidence sessions. We heard from children and young people with SEND, whose courage and clarity moved us profoundly. We heard from parents exhausted by battles for basic rights, from teachers stretched beyond capacity and from professionals yearning to deliver but constrained by broken systems. We visited schools in Norfolk and learned from the inclusive model in Ontario, Canada, where children’s needs, not processes, drive support and where SEND provision is everyone’s responsibility.
The evidence is stark. The number of children identified with SEND has risen by 400,000 in a decade to 1.7 million. Nearly half a million children have an education, health and care plan, and 1.2 million rely on SEND support. Behind those numbers lie stories of frustration, exclusion and unrealised potential. Parents told us about sleepless nights, navigating a maze of bureaucracy, and the impact on the whole family of having to fight constantly just for their child to be able to access education. Teachers spoke of the deep frustration they experience when they are unable to meet every child’s needs. Local authorities describe the invidious situation they face, holding the statutory responsibility for delivering for every child, but without the powers to do so, and with a funding crisis that is driving them to the edge of bankruptcy. This is not what inclusion looks like—this is a system at breaking point.
Our report identifies a series of critical failures and offers practical, evidence-based solutions. First, inclusive education remains an aspiration, not a reality. A decade after the 2014 reforms, there is still no shared definition of what inclusion means. Without clarity, schools, local authorities and families are left adrift, with no consistent standard to aim for and no clear accountability for delivering it. We call on the Department for Education to publish a clear definition of inclusive education within three months, underpinned by national standards for SEND support and ordinarily available provision, backed by statutory duties and proper funding.
Secondly, trust has collapsed. Parents and carers feel sidelined, blamed or forced into costly legal battles to secure their child’s rights. Last year, 95% of SEND tribunal appeals were upheld, a damning manifestation of systemic failure. We must rebuild trust through genuine partnership. This means treating parents and carers as equal partners in their child’s education, ensuring access to independent advocacy and making transparency the cornerstone of every process.
Thirdly, while there are many committed, highly skilled professionals who work hard every day to deliver for children, there are some fundamental ways in which our workforce are not equipped to deliver. Teachers and support staff are dedicated but overstretched, lacking the training and resources to meet rising needs. Special educational needs co-ordinators are in short supply and are too often regarded as the sole person with responsibility for SEND support in a school. Educational psychologists are mired in assessments, preventing them from directly delivering interventions and sharing their expertise with other professionals. We propose a cross-departmental SEND workforce strategy, jointly led by the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, to invest in training, to secure the recruitment of specialists and to free professionals to focus on frontline support.
Fourthly, funding is broken. The notional £6,000 threshold for SEND support, unchanged since its introduction in 2014, is woefully inadequate. High-needs deficits are spiralling, and the statutory override is a temporary plaster on a deepening wound. We urge the Government to commission a full cost-benefit analysis of inclusive education and to ensure sufficient funding in the high-needs block to deliver early intervention, which can transform lives and reduce long-term costs.
Finally, accountability is failing and there is a structural misalignment of statutory responsibilities and powers. We heard time and again that health and social care partners are too often absent from the SEND table and cannot be held to account. In education, accountability is unevenly distributed, leading to an understandable over-reliance on the statutory part of the system—the education, health and care plans—because it is accountable.
We also heard that local authorities do not have the powers or the funding to deliver the school places that are needed, which is contributing to their financial pressures as they are forced to purchase expensive independent school places to meet their statutory responsibilities. We recommend statutory duties for health and social care, enforceable SEND tribunal powers for health provision and a SEND lead within the NHS to drive accountability, a statutory framework for SEND support and ordinarily available provision, and better alignment between local authorities’ responsibilities and their ability to deliver the school places that are needed to meet them.
We have seen what is possible. At Aylsham high school in Norfolk, we witnessed a resource base seamlessly integrated into mainstream education where every child’s needs are met with flexibility and care. In Ontario, we saw a system where support is based on need, not diagnosis, and where parents are partners, not adversaries. These are not distant dreams; they are models that could be emulated across our country.
I make it absolutely clear that the statutory entitlement to an education, health and care plan should remain unchanged. That is a commitment the Government must honour. During our inquiry, it became crystal clear to us that if we build a truly inclusive and properly resourced mainstream education system, we can ease the pressure and the struggle that so many families face in securing an EHCP, because in settings that have a whole-school approach to inclusivity, the needs of more children are met without having to go through that process.
Inclusive education is not just a right; it is a necessity. It benefits every child, strengthens our schools and builds stronger communities. It is also cost-effective, reducing the long-term burden on public services by investing early in children’s potential.
This report is not a catalogue of despair; it is a call for action. Our 95 recommendations offer a blueprint for reform, rooted in the lived experiences of children, families and professionals. We cannot afford another decade of delay, so I urge the Government to act with urgency and ambition, to work across Departments, to listen to those at the heart of this system, to rebuild trust and to place inclusion at the core of our education system.
Every child deserves the chance to thrive. Every family deserves to be heard. Every education setting deserves the tools to succeed. Let us build a SEND system that delivers not just for today but for generations to come. Let us make inclusion a reality. I commend this report to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. It is usual to run Select Committee statements for only 20 minutes. Members can see that many are standing to speak, so some will be disappointed unless everybody keeps their questions short and the Chair’s answers are also short.
Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady and her Committee for a detailed and important report on a subject that is of huge importance to all our constituencies. I wanted to pick up particularly on parental involvement in the process, which is primarily covered in paragraphs 96 to 102 of her report. Too often, parents feel that the process is something that is done to them, rather than with them. I would be grateful if the hon. Lady could set out what immediate, practical steps she and her Committee think can be taken to move the process away from feeling like a confrontation and towards more of a collaboration.
Helen Hayes
I thank the right hon. Member for his question, which is an important one. The evidence we saw in Ontario in Canada is that where parental involvement is embedded in the system, partly through statutory entitlements to participation in decisions about a child’s education, that builds much better partnership working, builds trust and confidence, and fosters collaborative relationships between parents and professionals. Those are the steps that we have seen in practice and believe can make a difference in the area that the right hon. Member raises.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
For the record, my wife is employed as a local authority SENCO. In my local authority, the London borough of Bexley, we have not only a safety valve but an Ofsted judgment of systemic failings, one of which was around health services. From having rewritten my own daughter’s EHCP on three occasions to make sure it is legally compliant, and from my constituents, I know of those real issues with health provision. Paragraphs 289 and 290 of the report contain recommendations about the involvement of health services in EHCPs and in SEND provision. Could my hon. Friend elaborate on those recommendations and what we can do to make that provision fit for purpose?
Helen Hayes
I know that my hon. Friend has extensive experience of this area, not least through his own family experience. I am really pleased to see Ministers and the Secretary of State from the Department of Health and Social Care on the Front Bench for this statement—by accident, I think, but I will take full advantage of it.
We heard time and time again from parents and from professionals working in the SEND system that health has such an important role to play in the ability of children with SEND to access education, but that health services are too often absent from the table and there are no mechanisms to hold them to account. It is nonsense that the SEND tribunal can make rulings that are binding on education, but cannot make rulings that are binding on health. As we propose in our report, that is an easy fix that would create more accountability in the health system. Our report contains other recommendations, but we need to get this right, because the consequence of not getting it right is children being locked out of education.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
There is a 12-year-old child in Dorking who is autistic and has had two suicide attempts, the most recent within the past four weeks. They do not have an EHCP. As the Chair acknowledges in the report, there are serious concerns about local authority governance. I have received 120 family testimonies from Surrey and 650 from across the country of lawbreaking, unethical and harmful behaviour by local authorities related to SEND. How can parents have confidence that lives such as that child’s will be saved unless and until local authorities are held accountable under the law and there is swift and decisive intervention if they abuse their powers?
Helen Hayes
The hon. Member raises a devastating case, which is sadly not a unique example across the country. The pressures that families face as a consequence of this failing system cause further health complications, not least with mental health and wellbeing. He is right that there are problems with local authorities’ ability to deliver against their statutory responsibilities. We highlight in our report the broken nature of the link between powers and responsibilities—currently, local authorities do not have everything they need to enable them to deliver—but the crisis across the system also masks local authorities that are performing poorly, even by the current standard. I believe the hon. Member’s local authority is one that faces particular challenges.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for the report—we agree with the recommendations that have been made. Does she agree that the Select Committee reached those recommendations by engaging with communities and local MPs, such as in Corby and East Northamptonshire, which brought together local SENCOs, parents and others to input directly into the Committee’s report? Will she thank them, as I do, and say well done to them for shaping that report and its outcomes? That is where it needs to come from—people who face these issues day in and day out making sure that this report belongs to them.
Helen Hayes
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It was a real pleasure to meet some of his constituents who came to Parliament to participate in a workshop and to present their findings and their recommendations to me, which were then submitted as evidence to our inquiry. I hope that his constituents will see their experiences and their needs reflected in our report, and I agree with him that part of the key to solving this enormously challenging area of public policy is better engagement with parents, families and professionals across the country. That is how we understand where change needs to take place, and it is how we build trust for the future.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her statement. As part of the evidence we gathered, we went to Ontario to see its inclusive education system, and I am sure I was not alone in finding that one of the bits of evidence that made the most impression. A couple of things stood out. Ontario focuses on communication from kindergarten, because social integration is vital for children to thrive. Parents there do not have to fight, because dialogue works better. Families are listened to and their trauma acknowledged. All behaviour is a form of communication; we have to understand what these children are trying to tell us. Does the Chair of the Committee agree that there is so much we can do to transform the education we offer to children with SEND that does not need to cost huge amounts of money? It just requires a radical shift in attitude, and that starts with—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I made the point earlier that in order to get as many Members in as possible, we have to have short questions and answers.
Helen Hayes
I thank the hon. Member for her question, for her participation in this inquiry and for the contributions she made to our report. What we saw in Canada showed us what is possible here. We saw a system where SEND education is everybody’s responsibility in a school and across the system. We saw children with much higher levels of need than would ever be usually in a mainstream school here, with their needs being met well. There were huge benefits for the whole school community and the wider community from that approach. I hope that the Government will take seriously the recommendations that come from that experience in Ontario.
Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for her statement. Does she agree that improving ordinarily available provision alongside effective SEND support can meet many pupils’ needs without the need for an EHCP, as our Committee’s visit to Aylsham high school in Norwich proved? Does she hope, as I do, that the Government’s forthcoming White Paper will not seek to restrict access to EHCPs, but instead will offer earlier and effective support, thereby bringing the need for EHCPs down naturally?
Helen Hayes
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her contribution to this report as a member of the Select Committee. The situation that we saw in Aylsham high was one where children’s needs were met across the whole school through a whole-school approach to inclusion. The headteacher of that school told us powerfully, “We are not a net generator of new EHCPs.” We are talking about what we have seen being delivered and what we therefore know is possible. A system that delivers whole-school approaches to inclusion can restore the EHCP to what it was originally intended to do under the Children and Families Act 2014—specifically to deliver support for the children with the highest levels of need. An inclusive approach to education can work for everyone.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
One of the key findings of the report is that there needs to be a clear definition of what an inclusive education means. Does the Chair of the Select Committee agree that inflexible, draconian disciplinary systems at secondary level applied without consideration for reasonable adjustments are one of the things that contribute to a hostile environment for children with SEND? Will the Select Committee consider that and how we might improve education for all children?
Helen Hayes
This is why we are concerned that there should be a definition of inclusive education applying across a number of dimensions of the system, so that we can think about buildings and the extent to which they are inclusive, welcoming environments, about the curriculum and the flexibilities that it affords to deliver for children, about the expertise within the system, and about other aspects of education as well. The hon. Lady is right to say that the policy approaches taken by schools have a bearing on whether those schools are accessible to the widest possible range of pupils; that is why it is important for the Government to set out the definition, so that everyone is clear about the basis on which we are working.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
I started my teacher training in 2008, and I continued to work as a teacher and to be a teacher trade unionist until 4 July last year. I knew that the SEND system was broken, although I did not realise quite how broken it was until I opened my emails on day one. We all know that the system is broken throughout the country, but it is most broken in Staffordshire, a place that I have the pleasure to represent but which has the eighth highest refusal rate for EHCPs in the country, rejecting more than 45% of requests. It also has a high rate of appeals, more than double the national average at nearly 10%, and a startling 98% of those appeals are successful. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we genuinely want to solve the SEND crisis, we must solve the problem of the postcode lottery that so disadvantages people in Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages, and more widely across Staffordshire?
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend is right. As we made clear in our report, there are pockets of very good delivery—there are schools, local authorities and professionals across the system that are doing their best—but there is a postcode lottery in SEND, sometimes even within different schools that are very close to each other. We need a whole-system reset so that we can secure consistent delivery for all children, wherever they live.