Budget Resolutions

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I congratulate all of today’s maiden speakers on their excellent contributions.

In her Budget statement last week, the Chancellor announced a £1 billion increase for special educational needs and disabilities. Any additional funding is of course very welcome, especially in Surrey, where the SEND system is in crisis, but it is important to put that figure in context. Estimates suggests that the national SEND budget is running an annual deficit of £4 billion, rising to nearly £6 billion in 2025. The whole system is being saved from complete collapse thanks only to a statutory override—an accountancy trick that allows councils to keep these deficits off their books until March 2026. What happens after that no one yet knows, but the National Audit Office has warned that the UK’s SEND system teeters on the brink of collapse.

Surrey county council alone is carrying an eye-watering £118 million SEND deficit, so while the Chancellor’s additional £1 billion investment may sound promising, it really only buys a little time. A few weeks ago, I spent a morning with a group of nearly 70 parents, each of whom has a child or children with special educational needs. Many of those children have been unable to attend school for months, and in some cases years, due to the lack of an appropriate setting or support. Parents are being forced into becoming full-time carers, with one or both parents giving up paid employment to take on caring responsibilities. Each year, thousands of private and public sector workers are lost from the economy because SEND provision is failing children and parents alike.

Parents tell me that when they are not educating their children, they work late into the night administering appeals processes, gathering evidence for tribunals, and seeking help from charities and agencies that might just help to unlock the broken SEND system for them. That is the daily pattern for many thousands of households across the country, yet the experience can feel crushingly lonely. The SEND system pulls working people out of their careers and out of the workforce, while permanently limiting the life and career chances of children with incredible potential. Those human and economic costs are barely accounted for in the Government’s budget-setting.

If this is indeed a Government who prioritise economic growth and seek to invest in working people, I encourage them to see reform and proper funding of special educational needs as a vital component of their national mission.