Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that I have been asking for this to come out for a long time, so I thank the Government for getting there eventually. The document does accept that it is a difficult and slow process that we are starting, and anybody who kids themselves that it is not will be doing a disservice to everybody involved. We are talking about 2030 for getting some structure in place. You have to train people, to get other people used to being told that they are operating differently in the classroom, and to get schools to re-incentivise, with an inclusion strategy and individual support plans. This is a cultural shift which will take real effort and time to push through. If we accept that, how will we make sure that everybody in every school understands that they have a duty and the ability to identify and tell parents what the problem is? That is where it all starts to go wrong.

At the moment, there is a disincentive for anybody to be identified by a school as having a special educational need, because you have got a budget that comes from the main school budget, which means you have got a choice between four kids getting their dyslexia support or help for autism or ADHD, or the roof leaks. How is that to be squared? It is not just more money; it is the allocation of money, and it is the duty. If you have an individual plan going through, are you flexible enough to allow that to be implemented?

There has been an acceptance in this Chamber every time I have spoken that you do not work harder; you work smarter. Individual groups will have a different take on this. I am a dyslexic, and I declare my interest as the president of the British Dyslexia Association. I use technology and I work with people who use technology—I declare my interest as the chairman of Microlink PC. The incentives I have there and the problems I square up to are different to those in the autism sector, which is probably one of the most vocal groups. How are we going to work these two in together? How are we going to have the flexibility to allow a school to actually undertake these different types of approach?

If you have that, if you make that an incentive, you stand a chance of getting a better situation, but only if you have identified that you can get the right help to the right person. Take dyslexia—I will cling to mother and talk to the one I know about. If it is not just the English teacher but the maths teacher who realises bad short-term memory means these individuals will not remember formulas and equations, bring those two together so everybody knows you will work differently. You can go into dyscalculia and others. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, is not here but she has actually raised this and done a great service in bringing it further forward. When these groups come through, how are we going to get the capacity into the school to identify and bring it forward?

The reassessment of all plans and support structures when you get to secondary school is a natural break—you go from acquiring basic skills to acquiring knowledge to pass exams. But how are we going to make sure that is not something where somebody says, “Right, you are doing this here”; it should be about how you continue, not how you stop. There is a fear, and it has become very apparent. I recommend the “Woman’s Hour” podcast if noble Lords want to have a definition of the fear that has come out about this. How are we going to deal with that? These are the sort of questions we are going to have to start to answer today and carry on with.

I welcome the approach here, but unless you actually get a more coherent pattern that reassures those who have fought to get their EHCPs, spending time, blood and not a little money on them, what are we going to do? Can we also have a commitment from the Minister that the Government will be looking at how to remove lawyers from the system? In many cases, there are a lot of very second-rate lawyers who have taken this work on and are milking the system. We cannot go back to this. We cannot go back to this situation where only the articulate and well off are getting the help they need.

I applaud the attention towards subjects like sport and music, because it helps with special educational needs if you have got some positive attitude towards them. How are we going to bring this together? How is the flexibility and that inclusion pathway going to be put down so that the rest of this can be put on? If you get that right, you stand a chance of making a real improvement here. If we do not have that and we do not have the identification capacity, you will not achieve that much.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, our White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, sets out our ambition to improve the lives of all children and young people, combining the support they receive at home with a school experience that is challenging, enriching and inclusive.

First, we will broaden children’s experience of education with a knowledge-rich curriculum, smooth the transition between phases, and introduce an enrichment entitlement for every child and accountability changes that promote breadth.

Secondly, we will ensure that children who have been sidelined for too long are fully included. We want every child to have the best start in life, with support available earlier and locally. Deprivation funding will be targeted to boost outcomes for the most disadvantaged children, and we are launching two place-focused missions to provide a blueprint for national change. Our ambitious SEND reforms will support mainstream inclusion so that children can access help without waiting for lengthy assessments or having to engage with lawyers—including from our £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme, wrapping professionals such as speech and language therapists around schools, and removing the incentive that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have identified for parents, who are desperate for the support that they need and want for their children, to have to fight through a lengthy process to get an education, health and care plan. But for those with more complex needs, new specialist provision packages, designed with experts and parents, will define the support required. All this is backed by £7 billion more for SEND in 2028-29 compared with 2025-26.

Thirdly, we will move from children and communities withdrawing from school to engaging with a new pupil engagement framework. Improved behaviour and attendance support and clearer information for parents will help strengthen relationships between families and schools.

Finally, we are building the strong foundations needed to deliver this change—more expert teachers, better training and improved maternity provision, deeper school collaboration through a trusted model and innovation powered by data, AI and regional RISE teams. These reforms, shaped by the largest national conversation on SEND, put children, families and inclusion at the heart of our system, and together they will ensure that every child in every community can achieve and thrive.

To give more detail on the incentives and funding point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we have been clear that we will reform the system through the addition of £4 billion over the next three years, including the £1.6 billion for the inclusive mainstream fund, because we must get to a position where more parents feel confident that their children are receiving the support that they need in schools, alongside their friends and as part of their communities. We will provide £1.6 billion for that fund over three years, with over £500 million per year over the next three years to mainstream schools and other educational settings. That fund will give schools and other education settings direct responsibility over funding to empower them to deliver for children and young people with SEND. Over time, there will be a rebalancing of funding from the high needs budget into schools’ budgets, in line with new accountability arrangements—funding in schools where it needs to make the difference.

In addition, our £1.8 billion fund will enable there to be what we are calling Experts at Hand—speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, occupational therapists and others supporting children and teachers before the point at which children need to get to have an education, health and care plan. That funding will provide, for example, the equivalent of 160 days’ worth of support in a secondary school and 40 additional days in primary. We will expect schools to work in groups in order to ensure that, where it does not necessarily make sense or is not possible to provide that provision in one school, they can work together in order to ensure that that provision is available.

The key point here, as we think about education, health and care plans, is how we move to a system where children will not need an education, health and care plan to get support in the first place. Although, to be clear, education, health and care plans will remain for children with complex needs, they will be based on evidence-driven, expert-determined, specialist provision packages, which will enable better and more effective commissioning by local authorities of the provision that is most likely to provide support for children. They will back up the education, health and care plans, which will remain for those children with complex needs.

We are clear that we need to transform the system before we change the EHCP system. That is why we have been clear that no child will have their EHCP renewed before 2028-29 and that it will be only those children who are currently in year 2 or below, who will come to the end of their primary, at which point it would seem appropriate to review their education, health and care plan. Many of them may well continue with that plan; for others, the transformed system and the development of individual support plans for every child with special educational needs may provide a better opportunity at that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, is right. We need to train people and teachers in order to be able to deliver the inclusive education that is at the heart of this reform. That is why we have already announced the £200 million additional support for every teacher and educator, from early years through to colleges, to get training in special educational needs and the type of teaching required to support children and young people. That is why we will make additional support and practitioners available in early years to help to identify those children who need additional support, and it is why we will invest in research to find the most effective ways of doing that throughout the system.

To conclude, our ambition is clear: to build an education system that enables every child, wherever they live and whatever their needs, to achieve and to thrive. These reforms will deliver earlier support, stronger inclusion, broader opportunities and higher standards for all. They are shaped by parents, grounded in evidence and backed by significant investment. Most importantly, they place children at the heart of every decision that we make. Working together, we can create a system that is fairer, more ambitious and fit for the future. That is how we will ensure that every child can achieve and thrive.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I know from my work as an MP how sensitive this issue is and how important it is to families. I used to represent a constituency that the Minister will know very well.

There are concerns that we should not ignore. A number of eminent clinicians and psychiatrists are now raising concerns that the expansion of diagnostic labels to conditions such as autism and ADHD is causing children with the most severe and complex needs to be overlooked. Given that one in three EHCPs is now given for autism and that the number of children overall with SEN is rising, does the Minister think there is any validity in these concerns? If she does, will she look at it? What is the response? Will the Fonagy review look at this issue specifically as well?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that I know that constituency very well, having proudly represented it for 13 years—although I am afraid that the history of Worcestershire’s approach to special educational needs has not always been as effective as we would want it to be. There is a challenge to be made to local authorities to ensure that they are stepping up to the mark, given the considerable additional investment that we are putting into the system.

On the point about diagnostic labels, the important thing is that we should not be waiting for a child to receive a label to determine whether they have needs that need to be met, both through more inclusive mainstream teaching and through additional support being provided within schools. Even when we get to the specialist provision packages, they will be determined not by labels but by the needs that children have in order to make progress.

On the point about overdiagnosis, we need to be careful. The Secretary of State has been clear about that. He has commissioned further research into the nature of the diagnosis, particularly in the areas of mental health and other learning difficulties. That is an appropriate thing to have done.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will agree that great teaching is vital to great schools and great childhoods. We both shared the pleasure of working at the chalkface for many years. What will the Government do in the months and years ahead to ensure that great teachers stay in the profession and that they themselves achieve and thrive?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right—and also about the joy that teaching brought to us both. That is why, alongside the White Paper, we published the implementation plan for delivering an additional 6,500 specialist teachers in our secondary schools and colleges. It is why, through the already improved pay for teachers, we are providing incentives for them to stay; why we are continuing to look at the working conditions that teachers operate under; and why, for example, the White Paper extends maternity pay for teachers from a pretty low base. Using all those things, and the support for teachers to do the job that they love even better, we are already seeing some progress in keeping more teachers in the classroom. We will continue to ensure that we focus on that.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this document. It is very important and ambitious, but it is not without risk. The way in which the Government have consulted on it—and, in a way, taken their time—gives us the best possible chance of making a success of it. I hope that is the case.

I have two questions, which I hope the Minister can address. First, on the extra money going into the system to support SEND, I very much welcome the work that the Government plan to do on a new formula for supporting children from disadvantage. Will the way the SEND money goes into schools be part of that review and go in with money in the normal way, or will it take a different route? Will the details of that be announced? Secondly, I note that the White Paper allows local authorities to set up trusts. There is a quirky sentence, I think in chapter 5, which says that these local authority trusts will not be allowed to intervene or get involved in the day-to-day running of the school. That is not my impression of what happens with trusts at the moment. Will the rules that surround a local authority-led trust be exactly the same as the rules that surround others, or will they be slightly different, as this seems to indicate?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the White Paper proposes a different approach to how we fund disadvantage, recognising that a “yes or no”, free school meals analysis of whether somebody is disadvantaged does not really get to the heart of the nature of that disadvantage. We will consult on that in relation to the money that schools receive for the pupil premium and for the disadvantage factors within the national funding formula, some of which would relate to children with SEND but is not specifically about SEND. The £4 billion additional funding for SEND will be allocated in the way I outlined in my first answer.

On the point about local authority trusts, it is the objective of the White Paper for all schools to be part of a trust. We are clear that, in some cases, there may not be existing trusts that could take on a school. For that reason we will also allow local authorities to set up trusts, but it is not the intention to recreate local authorities through trust provision. That is the reason for the particular arrangements for local authority trusts.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government. As a teacher, I think this is an amazing document and I look forward to talking about it a lot more. Something I particularly love about it is the high expectation of families. A question that comes to me—one of many—is that it talks about experts at hand, wrapping professionals around mainstream settings. I love the fact that the schools are becoming the experts, but it is pretty light on detail. Can the Minister be a little more specific about how this is going to happen?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord recognises the emphasis on families and the relationship between schools and parents. An important element of the White Paper recognises, as I know the noble Lord does from his teaching career, that although teachers make a phenomenal difference to how children succeed, many other factors outside schools also impact on that. That is why this builds on a range of other activities, including those to support children to arrive at school ready to learn and our efforts to tackle child poverty, and brings stronger expectations on schools to ensure that they develop better home-school agreements and communicate consistently.

On the point about experts at hand, this is where I was talking about the additional funding that will enable some of those experts who, I am afraid, are currently spending too much time carrying out assessments or are in excellent special schools but are not able to offer that expertise out to schools, to develop it. Yes, there is work to be done on the design of how that happens, but this is considerable investment to deliver an average of 160 days to secondary schools precisely to get that support to children without them having to go through the torturous process of getting an education, health and care plan.

[Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking all the officials involved in producing this very ambitious White Paper and crediting Ministers for their determination to tackle this very difficult issue. I wholeheartedly support their emphasis on early intervention.

The Minister very helpfully set out the plans for the £4 billion of spending that I understand is coming from the department’s existing spending review settlement over the next three years. I wonder whether she could also confirm—or correct me if I am wrong—that the Treasury is providing an additional £3.5 billion in 2028-29 as a one-off payment. Is this funding earmarked to cover the projected £6 billion of deficits that the OBR set out? I would be grateful if she could clarify that for me and tell me if I have misunderstood.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The £4 billion is additional funding over the next three years. The £6 billion that the OBR identified was based on the premise of an unreformed system. That the system is being reformed means that, by the time we get to 2028-29 and 2029-30, we will be operating in a very different system. As part of the local government settlement, we have also begun the process of writing off and taking over responsibility for the money that local authorities have built up from overspending on special educational needs in recent years. Those two things are separate.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my diocese has more than 190 Church schools and we educate around 60,000 children, in the total roll across them. The Church of England has already officially welcomed the White Paper and these Benches echo that this evening.

In Manchester, we have been looking at those points of transition—the transition from preschool into primary and from primary into secondary. In the past five or six years, the Bolton metropolitan area has had a project called Children Changing Places, because we recognise that, in those points of transition, children’s academic, social and spiritual development can go backwards, so we have been investing money into those points of transition. I note that both the White Paper and the Minister, in her replies this evening, referred to those points of transition. Might I tempt her to say a little more about how children can be enabled to manage those transitions without dropping back in their various levels of attainment?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes a very important point. As an example, we are working on how we can ensure that children are better prepared when they start school with an ambitious target to improve that, and investment in Best Start in Life and childcare to enable it.

Another key transition is from primary to secondary. Too often, key stage 3—the first three years in secondary—is not spent as effectively as it could be. Developing a new programme around the best practice for key stage 3 and really focusing on that will be part of the work of the RISE teams.

Another area where transition is often raised is in relation to SEND and children going from mainstream schools into colleges. We will make better provision for that and expect schools, at an earlier stage, to provide the information that colleges need to help children with special educational needs to thrive.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my education interests, in particular as chair of STEM Learning and of the E-ACT multi-academy trust. At some of our E-ACT primary schools in Bristol, we have been investing in speech and language therapy training for all our mainstream teachers in reception and early years. As a result, we are identifying more pupils with special educational needs but fewer are going on to have education, health and care plans. That gives me optimism in the basis for early intervention in these reforms and that it will work.

My question to my noble friend is around the seven specialist provision packages. Getting the detail right on those is crucial to gain the confidence of parents. How can we ensure that the consultation that the department is carrying out will properly include all stakeholders, including those with special educational needs and disabilities?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend has identified the benefits of early intervention, as he says. We need a clearer and more evidence-based approach to what is appropriate for children with complex needs, which is why we are creating a new set of nationally consistent specialist provision packages. They will be designed to set clear expectations of what high-quality specialist provision should offer. They will be developed by experts and tested with families to make sure that they work in real life and reflect the best evidence about what helps children thrive. As I said, they are not based on diagnoses; instead, they will focus on the support that a child needs to learn, communicate, feel regulated and take part in school life. This important work will also be reviewed by an independent national expert panel, which will help to keep them up to date.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question relates to the plans for a review of education, health and care plans after primary school from 2030. For children with a special school place from September 2029, there is a promise to keep their place, but their EHCP will be reviewed.

I am drawing on my experience as a governor at a primary school in London that had an autistic unit. When it was created, the assumption was that children would be there for a few years, would get support and would then be able to move into mainstream schooling. That was not the experience. As school years go forward, the curriculum becomes more complex and the social setting of a classroom becomes more complex, and children were not able to make that progression.

If there is to be a review of EHCPs at the end of primary, do the Government have any evidence or data on how many people with an EHCP will lose it? We have to pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about parents putting so much time, energy and money into securing these EHCPs and the fear of losing them. What will the benefit of the review be versus the cost to parents?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, to be clear, the majority of children who have an EHCP are in a special school. No child who is in a special school will need to leave a special school placement at any point. Secondly, on the point about bases in schools, part of the investment that we are putting in is to enable more opportunities within schools, to develop the type of bases that will provide specialist support for children but enable them to stay in mainstream schools in their communities, alongside their friends.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that these changes are desperately needed. The system is currently broken and we need to see change. I press the Minister on the issue of the pupil premium, a scheme designed for funding to follow disadvantaged young people. If any review is undertaken of how that money is allocated, can the Minister assure us that it will be done in a transparent way so that we know which people may lose out? Can the Minister commit to at least trying to protect funding for care-experienced young people when it comes to the pupil premium?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This is not about how we cut the money that is available for disadvantage; this is about how we ensure that it is spent in a way that recognises that not all disadvantage is the same. We will be maintaining—in fact, we have increased—spending on the pupil premium. In relation to the overall review of the funding formula and the way in which we allocate the pupil premium, all of that will be subject to consultation, which will be starting this summer.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this initiative and the document—they are brilliant. However, I want to ask about the children who might have to attend a special school because of their particular needs and the challenges that they face. As somebody has already mentioned, one of the problems that local authorities face in the overspend on this concerns some of the special schools that we already have, which are profit-gouging. They are overcharging huge amounts of money for our most vulnerable children. We know that there are excellent special schools in the sector run by charities, social enterprises and, indeed, some of the private enterprises, but it is clear that those making vast profits need to be dealt with. I welcome the investment that has been proposed, but I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister about the transition that will happen. Will new powers be needed for local authorities and others, to make sure that we do not leave children and parents vulnerable because of the schools that are having to be dealt with?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. There is excellent work going on in our special schools, in the state sector and the independent sector. However, it cannot be right that there is a differential of three times between that which is charged in independent special schools and that which is charged in state special schools. Where that reflects highly specialised provision, that is legitimate, but where it is feeding private equity and, as my noble friend says, focused on profit, it is wholly wrong. That is why we will improve the regulation of independent special schools and, using the specialist packages that we are developing, create price bands indicating what local authorities will pay for children to go there. We can then be clearer that the money we are spending is delivering outcomes for children and not profits for private equity.

[Baroness Debbonaire (Lab)]

My Lords, my question has been partly answered. I thank my noble friend the Minister for bringing the Statement to the House and for the White Paper. I would like to press her a little more on that very topic. While it is absolutely right that these schools not be run for such profit-gouging as has been mentioned, how will needs be assessed in the case of children with very complex needs who are currently in specialist education that is well-run? I declare an interest, in that my nephew works with those children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Children in special schools, either in the state sector or in independent special schools, will be there by virtue of an education, health and care plan. They will keep that education, health and care plan if they are in a special school. That will now be reinforced by clearer evidence and recognition of what the best practice would be for those children. Part of that evidence will be informed by the excellent work that is happening within special schools. If we can also get some of the expertise in special schools into mainstream schools through the £1.8 billion investment and the “expert at hand” provision then we really will have made sure that we are making the most of the excellent work that happens in our special schools.