Oral Answers to Questions

Elsie Blundell Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Bailey]

Absolutely. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman and all the parents and volunteers, Ofsted, and the early years professionals who have opened at impressive speed what sounds like a fantastic new provision for their community. I am pleased that the Government’s investment in childcare, which will total £9.5 billion this year, is helping ensure that more children have a fantastic early education and are supported to get ready for school.

[Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that local authorities in financial difficulty can deliver effective speech and language therapy for children with SEND.

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

I have talked to so many families who have had to watch their children fall further behind without the speech and language support they need. Alongside measures to address local authority deficits, we are providing £1.8 billion over the next three years for local areas to develop a new “experts at hand” offer, providing mainstream education settings with access to support from services including speech and language therapy.

[Mrs Blundell]

As the Minister knows, the SEND system is not working for children, families or local councils, and it has not been for some time. Despite the record of the Conservatives, we cannot allow children in need of speech and language therapy to lose out. Will the Minister assure me that when it comes to speech and language therapy, the new “experts at hand” service will be utilised effectively, so that each local authority will be able to provide all children with the support they need?

[Georgia Gould]

I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend and I thank her for her advocacy on this important issue. We are rebuilding support across the community. Best Start hubs in every community will be supported by £200 million for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and we are investing £40 million to train up new specialist speech and language staff and educational psychologists to ensure that this support is available in every community.