Educational Opportunities in Semi-rural Areas

Debate between Edward Leigh and Josh Dean

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Dean]

I agree. I often talk about public transport in terms of not just getting people to places but connecting people with opportunity. That is absolutely how it should function.

Issues around connectivity diminish the number of opportunities for our young people, making it harder for them to get to school and access work experience opportunities or apprenticeships. For many students, the extra activities outside the school day, such as clubs, trips or sports matches, are out of reach because they cannot get the buses they need to make it home safely. As we all know, those are the activities we remember most from school. They gave us the chance to develop our interests, explore culture, meet other students and expand our horizons. These opportunities should not be available only to those whose families can afford to drive them or pay for taxis.

Secondly, we know that young people are at the sharp end of the mental health crisis. I remember the challenges that my peers faced in accessing appropriate mental health support at school. When I speak to young people and school leaders today, they say that the situation has only got worse.

Isolation is a key driver of poor mental health. In a 2021 YoungMinds survey, a staggering 95% of children and young people from semi-rural areas cited feelings of loneliness and isolation. Child and adolescent mental health services in Hertfordshire are under huge pressure, leaving many young people facing long delays when trying to access desperately needed support. Schools are under huge pressure to keep young people safe and in school, but they are not always equipped to deal with mental health challenges such as emotional-based school avoidance, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Thirdly, compounding the situation further, children living with special educational needs and disabilities face huge challenges, which are all the more acute in Hertfordshire, where only 40% of education, health and care plans were issued by the local authority within the statutory deadline in 2023, compared with 50% across England as a whole. That is largely due to a shortage of educational psychologists and a significant increase in the number of EHCPs and assessment requests. A shortage of specialist places leaves many children and young people waiting years for school places, and many SEND children are out of education for long periods.

I recognise that these issues fit into the national context on SEND, but the problems are exacerbated in semi-rural communities. For example, transport guidance currently states that primary school-aged children should travel no more than 45 minutes, and secondary school-aged children should travel no more than 75 minutes, including pick-up times. It can be a real challenge in semi-rural communities to meet those timelines, and that often puts huge demand on children living with SEND, who may find travelling distressing or have specific medical needs. It can also leave children feeling isolated. They may attend schools many miles away from where they live and be separated from their peers, and their parents may struggle to access the natural support network that comes with schools.

I welcome the work that the Labour Government are undertaking to break down the barriers to opportunity for children and young people in Hertford and Stortford and across the country. That includes the roll-out of free breakfast clubs to ensure that every child starts the day well fed and ready to learn, and the additional £1 billion of funding for SEND across the country, which is a welcome first step as we seek to fix the broken system inherited from the Conservative party. We have also committed to putting specialist mental health support into our schools. I was very grateful for the Minister’s recent answer to my question on that in the House.

I recognise that there are no quick fixes to the challenges that I have set out facing semi-rural communities, but they must none the less be addressed to ensure that children and young people in communities like ours can find the right path for them and thrive. I know that the Minister takes these matters incredibly seriously, and I commend the Government on the progress they have made so far. I would be grateful if he addressed a few specific points in his response.

Some of the issues I have touched on, such as the cost of housing or transport, sit outside the Department’s brief, but they have an impact none the less, so will the Minister confirm that the Government are taking a cross-departmental approach to address the challenges? Will he set out in further detail what progress the Department is making on rolling out specialist mental health support in our schools? And what consideration has been given in Government to open access early support hubs in semi-rural communities, to ensure that provision is accessible outside school, too?

There should be no link between where a young person comes from and how far they can go in life. I welcome the Government’s work to tackle the barriers to educational opportunity for young people, and I look forward to hearing the contributions from the Minister and all hon. Members here today.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

This is only an hour-long debate, and lots of people want to speak, so we will have to have a time limit of three minutes on speeches. If we have interventions, not everybody will get in.