David Davis
Main Page: David Davis (Conservative - Goole and Pocklington)Department Debates - View all David Davis's debates with the Department for Education
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Westminster HallWestminster 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
The hon. Gentleman will remember that we had a debate like this one in the main Chamber, and there was record demand—that tells the Government something. He is right that there is not enough money for SEND generally, but it is also distributed very badly. In my constituency we get £900 per child from central Government versus, let us say, Camden’s £3,500. That means that we have delays of two, three or four years—education, health and care plans not delivered, places not delivered and therapy not delivered. If we do not solve both issues, we will not solve either of them.
I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who makes the point—among other points—that this is a holistic issue: unless we solve all the interconnected root causes of the SEND crisis, we will never solve the crisis at all.
We have all had so many heartbreaking constituency cases. For this debate, I asked on social media for people to send in their case studies, and I was inundated with cases from right across the country. I will not be able to cite them all today, but I have read them all and they form the basis of what I will say today.