SEND Funding

Debate between Graham Stuart and Peter Swallow

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the distribution of SEND funding.

I am delighted to have secured this debate, as it gives us an opportunity to highlight the situation we are facing in England, where children with special educational needs and disabilities are being left behind due to the inherent regional inequality in the high-needs national funding formula. There is a bigger issue. The more typical thing we talk about is the overall quantum of spending based on overall need, but too little attention is given to the distribution of the funding that exists, whether in healthcare, education, policing or otherwise. I know I am not the only Member being turned to by constituents at their wits’ end, trying to navigate what feels to be a broken system; I thank colleagues across the House for their continued advocacy on behalf of some of the most vulnerable children in all our communities.

My argument is a simple yet deeply important one: the current model of SEND funding is not only inconsistent but in too many cases profoundly unfair. It fails to account for genuine levels of need, the realities faced by families, and the systemic pressures that schools and local authorities are under. Unless that changes, we will continue to fail children who rely on Members to make their case and to get this right.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a profoundly important point. There is a real and urgent need to reform the SEND system, and that of course includes how it is funded. Does he welcome the £750 million ringfenced in yesterday’s spring statement for exactly that: to transform our SEND system to make it fairer for parents, better for young people and more sustainable for the future?

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman takes me to a point further on in my speech, but he is absolutely right. He makes the case to the Minister, exactly as I intend to: given that we have a broken distribution system and given the severity of its impact on so many children and families, will she ensure that the money in the spending review is, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, used precisely for that purpose and that we target those who are most left behind?

At the heart of this debate, I am calling on the Government to identify and commit to a clear baseline cost for delivering effective SEND support per pupil. The figure must reflect what it genuinely takes, in both urban and rural settings, to support children with complex needs across the country. Only then can we ensure that no child’s opportunity is limited by where they live.

I want to bring to the attention of the House a stark example that illustrates the postcode lottery in SEND funding: the disparity between the East Riding of Yorkshire, which covers my own constituency of Beverley and Holderness, at the lowest end of the funding spectrum—we are the lowest funded in the country—and the London borough of Camden, which happens to be the highest. Camden, by any standard, is a well-resourced inner-city borough with strong proximity to specialist services. It currently receives £3,564.95 of SEND funding for each pupil in its area. Meanwhile, in East Riding—a rural area with fewer nearby services, longer travel distances and greater challenges in recruitment and retention—per-pupil high-needs funding comes in at around £968. That is a gap of over £2,500 for every single child requiring extra support. In real terms, if East Riding’s funding was matched not with Camden but with the second most poorly funded local authority, we would have an extra £18 million per year on top of the £43 million we receive in the higher needs block—£18 million extra. If we were brought into line with Camden, we would have an extra £100 million.

Some might argue that urban areas face different pressures, and of course they do, but let us be clear: the cost of delivering quality SEND provision in rural areas is not lower. In fact, it is often significantly higher. Transport costs—colleagues across the House will be aware of children who have to be moved great distances to access their support—for children with complex needs can be astronomical. Recruiting specialist staff, such as special educational needs co-ordinators, to work in isolated schools is a constant challenge. When services such as educational psychologists or speech and language therapists are not based locally, schools and families face unacceptable delays in accessing the assessments needed to unlock further support. Why, then, is rurality not factored into the high-needs funding formula?

What that means in practice is that two children with identical needs, living in different parts of the country, will receive vastly different levels of support. One might have their education, health and care plan reviewed on time, access in-school provision, and benefit from local therapy services. The other might be left waiting months for assessment, with a school already at breaking point trying to bridge the gap. This disparity will have a long-term detriment to children’s outcomes.

This is not a criticism of any local authority—Camden, like all areas, faces its own pressures and challenges—but the system we have allows such disparities to persist without sufficient recourse or flexibility. These widely varying funding allocations create a two-tiered system in what should be a national commitment. Colleagues from across the House will be familiar with constituents whose stories lay bare the human cost of this imbalance, whether it is parents desperately trying to navigate the EHCP system, the lack of suitable school places nearby to cope with the measures required by their EHCP, or schools struggling to cope.

This is also certainly not a party political point. Successive Governments have sat over funding disparities and struggled with the politics. They have been unprepared to reallocate, perhaps for understandable reasons. The people you take money from tend to be much angrier than the people you give it to are happy: one marches on Westminster, the other grunts and says, “About time.” It is a truly difficult thing. I have been in this place for 20 years and have struggled to get Ministers to accept reallocation and reapportionment. Rather than asking for that demand, which I have so far failed in 20 years of effort to get anybody to implement, I hope to come up with something more practical, if compromised as a result.

Winter Fuel Payment

Debate between Graham Stuart and Peter Swallow

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that committed to delivering economic stability, security and growth. After 14 years of Tory recklessness with our economy and after the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget drove up inflation, food bills and mortgage repayments and pushed my constituents to the brink, the public voted for change. That change must start with getting our economy back on its feet.

When the previous Labour Government left office, Trussell Trust food banks were giving out 40,000 food parcels a year. Last year they gave out 3 million. When we on the Labour side of the House talk about the recklessness of the previous Government, it is not academic. We are talking about taxpayers’ money being poured into ideological gimmicks while children are going to school hungry, working adults are one rent rise away from homelessness and a broken NHS is stalling productivity and failing those who most rely on public services, including our pensioners. We face a £22 billion black hole in the public finances that they covered up and walked away from.

Stability means bringing the economy and the country back from the brink to which the Conservative party knowingly pushed it. No one doubts that this policy is tough, and it is not a measure we want to take, but we have been left a huge bill to pay. Means-testing the winter fuel allowance will allow us to support those pensioners most in need as we take the difficult steps we have to take to right the ship.

Members across this House know that in our communities there are too many pensioners struggling. That is why I welcome this Government’s commitment to the triple lock, under which the state pension has risen by £900 this year and will rise by more than £450 in April. I also support the extension of the warm home discount, worth £150 for more than 1 million low-wage pensioners.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Tory triple lock was introduced by the Tories, precisely in order to deal with the legacy left by the previous Labour Government when, unless I have got this number wrong, there was a lower take-up of pension credit than there is today—we raised that. The triple lock raised pensioner incomes, and the first act of the Labour Government, of whom he is clearly aiming to be a loyal member, is to take £300 away from people who really need it.

[Peter Swallow]

Three million food parcels were distributed last year. That is the legacy of the Conservative Government. And the triple lock that the Conservatives purport to defend? They broke it in 2022.

I also support the extension of the household support fund to help the families most in need this winter, as well as the Government’s commitment to introducing tougher regulation to the energy market, which has let customers down for too long. I am working hard with Bracknell Forest council to ensure that pensioners in the Bracknell constituency who are in need but not claiming the support to which they are entitled are identified and encouraged to get help. I urge any pensioner who is concerned about their finances to go to Age UK’s benefits calculator to see what support they may be entitled to.