Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Johnston and Paulette Hamilton

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to reduce waiting times for children with special educational needs and disabilities to receive support.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

In our improvement plan, we set out plans to deliver consistent early support through our new national standards, backed by a 60% increase in high-needs funding and in programmes such as our £13 million investment in the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme, which supports the needs of neurodiverse children.

[Mrs Hamilton]

More than half of children with an education, health and care plan are now experiencing a delay, and even after receiving an EHCP, my constituent’s child was held back a year and had to wait another year before finding a space in a special school. Over 1.5 million children in the UK have special educational needs, so can the Minister tell me what he is doing to ensure that parents and children such as my constituents get the support they need quickly?

[David Johnston]

We are investing £2.6 billion to transform the special educational needs and alternative provision system. That has included a 36% increase in funding to Birmingham, where the timeliness of EHCPs has been getting better each year between 2020 and 2022.