Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Education

Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts
Monday 6th September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gavin Williamson Portrait Gavin Williamson
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend will be delighted to know that we will be reviewing the need for children to be doing home testing at the end of September. If there is not a requirement to do that, we will be looking at removing it. It is important that we continue to keep these matters under review. That is why we will be doing so at the end of this month.

Bambos Charalambous Portrait Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

T2. Disabled children and those with high needs have suffered disproportionately as a result of missed education and a lack of assessment. There is a huge shortage of educational psychologists, which is delaying the drawing up of education, health and care plans. Can the Minister tell me what steps she is taking to help those children to get the services they need and to catch up?

Vicky Ford Portrait Vicky Ford
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

We have increased the high needs budget by a record £2.3 billion, which is over a third over the past three years. We are also making good progress with the special educational needs and disability review, which has inevitably been a bit frustrated by the pandemic and changed the issues we are looking at, but we absolutely want all pupils to have access to the education they deserve. That is why our recovery funding has also been extra tilted towards those in specialist settings.