Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for reforming education, health and care plans for children with special educational needs; and what steps she plans to take to ensure that children who require additional support in school receive adequate levels of assistance, in the context of the provisions in the (a) Children and Families Act 2014 and (b) Special educational needs and disability code of practice.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for North Northumberland, to the answer of 02 June 2025 to Question 54205.
Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support local authorities with (a) preventative and (b) early-years support for ECHPs in the North East.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed and thrive in their education and as they move into adult life.
Early intervention is critical to prevent unmet needs from escalating. To support early years educators to meet emerging needs, the department has launched new training resources to help educators support children with developmental differences. We have also announced 1,000 further funded training places for Early Years Special Educational Needs Coordinators in the 2025/26 financial year, which will be targeted at settings in the most disadvantaged areas.
The department, in partnership with NHS England, continues to improve access to speech and language therapy in early years settings and primary schools through the Early Language and Support for Every Child pathfinder project. This is being delivered through nine regional pathfinder partnerships within the department’s change programme. In the North East, this is being led by Hartlepool Local Authority.
The department’s North East Regions Group also maintains regular engagement with all 12 local authorities in the area, providing tailored support to individual authorities, as well as regionally.
Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with local authorities to help reduce the time taken for ECHP tribunals to be heard in the North East.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is working closely with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to help reduce the time families wait for appeal hearings about education, health and care (EHC) plan appeals.
MoJ recently recruited 70 new judges and increased administrative staffing by 10% to help process appeals. The use of judicial case management powers to settle cases earlier has also been expanded, and the Tribunal Procedure Committee have recently amended its rules to allow individual judges to determine whether appeals against a refusal to conduct an EHC needs assessment should be conducted in writing (known as ‘on paper’), which is quicker than a full oral hearing.
The tribunal always prioritises phase transfer appeals for children and young people who are moving school/placement in September and offers parents and young people the opportunity to have appeals heard throughout school holidays and paper hearings when there is capacity.
As the tribunal are hearing 99.5% of appeals remotely, all regions across England are served equitably.
Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to help ensure that eligible families have access to the Support for Families with Disabled Children programme.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Each year, the Support for Families with Disabled Children (SFDC) programme provides individual grants to approximately 60,000 low-income families raising a disabled or seriously ill child. The department is pleased to support the SFDC programme and we expect applications to the scheme to re-open shortly.
Asked by: David Smith (Labour - North Northumberland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department last made an estimate of the proportion of pupils who are eligible but not registered for means-tested free school meals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The new government has a central mission to break down barriers to opportunity for every child.
The government has inherited a trend of rising child poverty and widening attainment gaps between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers. Child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start at life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, which will be published in spring 2025. The taskforce will consider a range of policies in assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty.
The department does not make a formal assessment of the proportion of children who are eligible to receive FSM but who are not registered. The last assessment conducted in 2013 suggested that 89% of eligible pupils were registered for FSM. As with all policies, the government keeps the approach to FSM under review.