Education, Health and Care Plans Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Education
Alison Hume
Main Page: Alison Hume (Labour - Scarborough and Whitby)Department Debates - View all Alison Hume's debates with the Department for Education
Education, Health and Care Plans
Alison Hume Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours 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
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on securing this debate.
In my constituency, more than 100 children and young people classified as in elective home education, which includes 30 with EHCPs. We know there are many more who are unaccounted for. There must be a question mark as to whether home education is a genuine choice, or is due to the child not getting the support they need. One family in Scarborough reluctantly withdrew their child from a mainstream school as their needs were not being met, despite their having an EHCP. The child’s mother had to give up work to home school, which took a toll on her health and the family finances.
I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to address the SEND crisis, but I would like to encourage the Minister to use the register of children and young people not in school, proposed in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to gather the evidence we need to understand why those children and young people are not in school.