SEND Provision: South-east England

Debate between Danny Chambers and Monica Harding

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for securing this hugely important debate. Like many other Members here, SEND is probably the subject that I get the most emails about, and it is very closely related to children’s mental health, which I will start by discussing.

The process of struggling to access an educational support plan starts right from trying to get a diagnosis. It is difficult to get a diagnosis through CAMHS for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or for being on the autism spectrum. Delays of more than two years are not only awful for individuals, but make up a huge chunk of their time in school. If a child is eight or nine years old and has to wait two years for diagnosis, it is very difficult for them to make up for that lost time.

Although we should be clear that ADHD and being on the autism spectrum are not themselves mental health issues, if such conditions are unrecognised and undiagnosed, and are not supported in school, that can lead to mental health issues, including children feeling inadequate and struggling to achieve what they should. That causes a lot of stress and anxiety.

[Monica Harding]

In Surrey, for example, 1,800 children with special educational needs are missing education because there is no provision. They are sliding into poor mental health as a result, and that needs to stop. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Dr Chambers]

I completely agree. The issue that everyone has brought up today is that the system is adversarial right from the point that parents try to get a diagnosis in the first place to show that their child needs support. When they finally do, they then have to fight tooth and nail—including in time-wasting tribunals, which take a large emotional and financial toll—to get the support that their child is entitled to.

Even once the child gets the support package required, that is not guaranteed all the way through schooling. Let me give a bit of an extreme example: I was recently contacted by a parent whose child, who has just one week to go in primary school, still does not know where he will go to secondary school. The parent and the headteacher of the primary school have asked continually, but there is no clear response. In this instance, Hampshire county council has failed to plan on time and ignored parental choice. It is insisting at the last minute on a wholly unsuitable mainstream school, which has no record that the child is coming and says that it cannot meet his needs—and we are talking here about a parent who managed get the package required for their child in primary school.

I could talk about this for half an hour, given the amount of casework I have. There is a huge issue about how we pay for SEND, but we must also consider what happens if we do not pay for it, as some other Members have touched on. The issue is a little like free school meals: if a child goes to school either hungry, or with undiagnosed learning needs that are not being met, they are clearly not going to fulfil their full educational potential. They will not get a job that pays as well as one they could otherwise have got and they will be more likely to end up on welfare throughout the rest of their life.

We have a prison in Winchester, and some 25% of the prison population are diagnosed with ADHD, compared with 3% to 4% of the general population, while 9% have autism spectrum disorder, compared with 1% to 2% of the general population. It costs £50,000 a year to keep someone in prison, yet apparently we cannot afford to give people the support they need in school to help them to make better life choices. If we did that, it would be better for those individuals and more cost effective for the taxpayer in the long run.

US Global Public Health Policy

Debate between Danny Chambers and Monica Harding

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Chambers]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend is completely right. The World Health Organisation is at the heart of international disease surveillance, co-ordinating early responses to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as Ebola and highly pathogenic avian influenza, both of which have been in the news in the last couple of weeks. In today’s interconnected world, speed is everything. Without robust early warning systems, outbreaks that might have been contained could spiral into pandemics, just as my hon. Friend said.

We also cannot ignore the worsening impact of climate change on global health. Due to changing temperatures, diseases that were classed as tropical when I was at university are now being seen in other parts of the world. The US withdrawal from the Paris agreement has already slowed efforts to tackle climate-driven diseases; now, its retreat from global health co-operation leaves us even less well prepared to handle the consequences. The UK must remain firm in supporting the WHO’s role in pandemic preparedness, not only because it is morally right, but because it is in our national interest.

This crisis affects more than just emergency outbreaks; it threatens our ability to manage persistent health threats here at home. Take seasonal flu. Every winter, the NHS faces immense pressure from influenza. Our ability to develop effective vaccines depends on international collaboration, including data from US research centres. If those partnerships are disrupted, how will we prepare for the 2025 flu season? The same applies to broader scientific research. The UK and US have worked closely on the One Health Initiative, studying how animal, human and environmental health intersect. Hundreds of these projects have now stalled, cutting off vital knowledge that could have helped us understand future pandemics. We must explore ways to sustain these collaborations. That includes securing funding for key research programmes and ensuring that our world-class universities remain engaged in global health security efforts. If we do not do those things, we risk falling behind in disease surveillance, vaccine development and pandemic preparedness.

I have spoken in this House before about the urgent threat of antibiotic-resistant infections to the NHS. Alongside the UK, the US has been a strong supporter of WHO-led efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance, which experts warn is one of the greatest global health challenges of our time. Antibiotic resistance does not respect borders. Drug-resistant bacteria and fungi travel with people and goods across the world. Without global surveillance, the consequences will be dire. More people will die in NHS hospitals from infections that we can no longer treat. This is not a distant problem; it is happening now. The UK has been helping Ukraine tackle antimicrobial resistance worsened by war. Despite severe funding challenges, collaborations between Chelsea and Westminster hospital, Great Ormond Street hospital, University College London and Ukrainian institutions have made progress. This proves that even in difficult circumstances, proactive partnerships can make a difference. We must apply these lessons to protect our own health security. I pay tribute to the laboratory team and Professor Inada-Kim in our hospital in Winchester, who are helping to lead the national effort to tackle AMR in our NHS.

The UK has a proud history of leading on global health. It was here that Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, revolutionising modern medicine. Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine laid the foundation for immunisation efforts that have saved hundreds of millions of lives. British researchers helped eradicate rinderpest in cattle, the only other disease besides smallpox to be wiped out completely. Today, smallpox is gone. Rinderpest is gone. One day, we hope to say the same about polio, but that vision is now at risk. I recently visited the rotary club in Winchester and learned about the long involvement of rotary clubs worldwide in supporting polio eradication over a period of many years. The US withdrawal forces us to consider how we reaffirm our leadership in global health.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

Twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela stood in Trafalgar Square waging a war on poverty. As my hon. Friend will know, he was also the first chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which has inoculated more than 1 billion children and saved 18 million lives. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour Government must fulfil their commitment to Gavi, and not fall behind? Even the Conservative Government said that they would fund Gavi properly. Mandela’s life reminds us, does it not, that the great victories are often in times of darkness, like today?

[Dr Chambers]

You are completely right about that very important organisation, which I shall come on to shortly. We cannot highlight enough to the impact that Gavi has had.

The World Health Organisation must adapt. This crisis highlights the need for a more resilient system, one that does not depend so heavily on any single nation. The UK must lead efforts to strengthen the World Health Organisation by broadening its funding base and encouraging greater collective responsibility among member states. At the same time, we must invest in our own global health capabilities, which means strengthening research funding, protecting key collaborations, and engaging with middle-income nations to forge new partnerships. Global health security is not just about pandemics; it is about economic stability, national security, and the long-term wellbeing of our people—and let us be absolutely clear: disease does not respect national borders. A threat anywhere in the world is a threat to the UK. If polio still exists anywhere, it is still our problem. If antibiotic resistance is surging in one part of the world, it will reach our hospitals. If a new pandemic emerges in a distant country, it will be on our doorstep faster than ever before.

When it comes to global public health,

“nobody wins unless everybody wins.”

Those are the words of Bruce Springsteen, but they apply as much to public health as they do to any other struggle. If we allow global health systems to weaken, if we turn our backs on international collaboration, we are not just failing others; we are failing ourselves. However, this is also an opportunity. The UK has a chance to lead the world in global health innovation while strengthening our economy. We have significant human capital available through our universities, businesses, learned societies and research institutions, and if we invest now we can become a global hub for public health expertise, vaccine development, artificial intelligence and cutting-edge medical research. We should also remember the power of our capacity to offer education and training as cost-effective interventions. We can export solutions, shape international policy, and create high-skilled jobs right here at home. The last Government saw universities as a battleground for culture wars. We must see them as engines of innovation, global collaboration and economic growth. They should not be political footballs; they should be powerhouses of discovery, opportunity, and progress. If we get this right, we will not just be protecting global public health, but securing Britain’s place as a leader in the industries of the future.

The US has made itself and the world weaker. The UK now has a choice: we can watch as global health security unravels, or we can take decisive action to lead, collaborate, and strengthen the systems that keep us safe. With the UK’s aid budget being stretched thin, not least by the diversion of funds to cover domestic asylum costs, there is growing concern that our leading contributions to the work of Gavi, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), could be significantly reduced. That work has vaccinated over a billion children—over half the world’s children—and supports cutting-edge efforts to tackle major causes of death such as malaria. Let me ask the Minister two questions: how can we justify cutting support for an organisation that has saved over 18 million lives, and will the Government commit to restoring overseas development aid to 0.7% of GDP, to ensure that lifesaving initiatives such as Gavi and other key World Health Organisation initiatives can remain viable?

This is not charity. This is global health security, preventing outbreaks before they spread, reducing suffering, and strengthening healthcare systems in some of the world’s most fragile regions. This is a question of national security, moral responsibility and economic opportunity. I urge the House to ensure that the UK does not waver in its commitment to a healthier, safer, and more prosperous and secure world.