SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire
Debate between Alistair Strathern and Rupa Huq(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
As this is a 30-minute debate, I will call Alistair Strathern to move the motion, then I will call the Minister to respond. People can intervene on Alistair; that is the format for these debates.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered SEND provision in Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Dr Huq. While I regret not being able to secure more time to discuss this important topic, I am very glad to see the keen interest across the House evidenced in the room today. I am particularly grateful to see many more Labour colleagues in this room than might have had quite such a geographical interest in the debate prior to the election.
I would like to start by welcoming the Minister to her new role. In my admittedly rather short time as an MP before the election, her energy, wisdom and reassuring positivity was a real source of comfort for me in what can be a pretty mystifying place to navigate. I have no doubt that young people across the country will be better off for her ability to bring exactly that same warmth and drive to her new role. As a former teacher and children’s lead, I am under no illusion of the scale of some of the challenges she will inherit. I am sure she will agree that fixing special educational needs and disability provision and the broken national system we have inherited is right up there with the biggest of them.
It is a near universally accepted truth that SEND provision across our country is simply not working. Indeed, the system had become so broken that, by the time of the election, the Conservatives’ own Education Secretary had to admit that they were presiding over a system that had become, “lose, lose, lose”. Vulnerable young people right across the country looking for the support they need to thrive at school are the ones who are losing.