SEND Provision
Debate between David Davis and Richard Burgon(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
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.
Richard Burgon
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.