SEND Education Support

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND education support.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful for having secured this important debate, and welcome the opportunity to discuss special educational needs and disabilities support, especially how it is failing and how it can be improved. I am pleased too that so many Members are present to contribute. I have no doubt that those MPs who, like me, are new to this House will have been blown away by the scale of the SEND crisis in their constituencies. Parents are quite literally crying out for help, and we must listen to them and act.

In this debate we will hear about the national crisis, as well as the many local failures experienced right across the country, and the devastating human impacts that the crisis is having on young people and their families. But while I have the Minister’s attention, and before I get into the detail, I want to set out two important points. First, tackling our nation’s SEND crisis must be a national priority—much like rebuilding our NHS or tackling the housing crisis. We must be determined to rebuild our SEND support as a nation, and build a system that works for our children. Sitting alongside that, we must plan for the sustainable funding of the SEND system.

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

SEND children are falling through the cracks. I have been told by a school in my constituency that it is experiencing a crisis, and is self-funding its own education, health and care needs assessments. As a result, it is facing an incredible deficit in funding. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is crucial for the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education to work together to deliver EHC assessments to ensure that our schools do not end up in unsustainable financial positions?

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I agree, and I will talk about those points later in my speech.

Secondly, I will highlight the severe challenges for SEND that are faced in rural areas, such as my constituency of Suffolk Coastal. I am keen that the Minister visits my rural constituency to see, up close and at first hand, how rural education and the rural SEND crisis differs from that of our urban neighbours.

Let me start today’s debate by setting out the scale of the SEND crisis. As the recent report from the National Audit Office highlighted, the crisis is severe and growing. There has been a 140% increase in children with education, health and care plans—or an equivalent statement of SEND needs—from 2015 to 2024. The total number of children and young people with SEND today is estimated to be 1.9 million. Despite that growth in demand, the NAO has raised real concerns that there has been no consistent improvement in outcomes for children and young people with SEND since 2019. Without drastic action, a full belt-and-braces review of SEND and a real determination to see improvements, we will only see SEND provision get even worse.

Funding is one part of the problem. With growing demand we need a sustainable funding plan—one that is able to tackle, and grow with, that demand—but, much like the issues facing our NHS, the answer does not lie just in funding. We need a belt-and-braces review that seeks to get to the heart of the challenges and build provision around current and future needs. I would like to see a national conversation about SEND, bringing in the voices of parents and young people and giving them the opportunity to share their experiences. Far too many families and young people have felt marginalised, silenced and kicked to the sidelines when they have battled hard to get the support their children are entitled to.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

In 2023, a report by Warwickshire county council revealed that only 9% of education, health and care plans in Warwickshire go to children with special needs in North Warwickshire, compared with 31% in Warwick, which has a lower rate of child poverty. A year later, Conservative Warwickshire county councillors made derogatory comments about SEND children and their parents. I am concerned about the effect of those councillors’ attitudes on the provision of support for SEND children across the county, especially in more deprived areas such as mine. Is my hon. Friend concerned that this is an example of a trend across the country, where families in more deprived areas are unable to get the support they need?

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they need to be succinct and short with interventions.

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I thank my hon. Friend for her timely intervention. I am about to give a similar example from my area. In Suffolk, the county council has failed to deliver 60% of outstanding care plans for SEND within the 20-week timeframe. Compare that with the national average of 50% and we can see that Suffolk is struggling.

The recent Care Quality Commission report for Suffolk, published last year, identified

“widespread and/or systemic failings”

across the local area partnership. It has the lowest possible rating, which means that the inspection identified failings that have

“a significant negative impact on the experiences and outcomes of children and young people”.

Suffolk county council responded with a blueprint, published in January this year, which it says is a forensic road map for change, but, as we sit here, there are parents in Suffolk and across the country who have been let down and are in desperate need of help. In January, I launched a survey in Suffolk Coastal asking parents and young people to share their experiences. That survey has shown some awful and tragic statistics, laying bare the true toll on families and young people of the SEND crisis in Suffolk.

More than 100 families from Suffolk Coastal filled in my survey and the report will be out next month. I would like to share some of that detail now. More than 50% of the children who filled in the survey have missed out on school because their SEND needs could not be met; 13% have been off school for more than a year. The impact that is having on young people’s education cannot be overstated. More than 30% who responded did not have an up-to-date EHCP in place, and one in 10 had been waiting more than a year to get that EHCP.

Six parents who responded to my survey have had to take their cases to a tribunal to attempt to get their children the right SEND provision. Many told me that they have had to use their personal savings, borrow money from friends and family or take out a loan to pay for legal support they need. That cannot be fair or right.

[Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She speaks to the heart of the issue. It is often only people with the means, resources and time who can become experts in the service they are trying to access, a right that is enshrined in the Children and Families Act 2014. Will she join me in encouraging the Government’s instinct that, in moving to a more inclusive mainstream education system, we cannot simply say, “Everyone in,” without protecting the necessary resources centrally when we issue those instructions?

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. As time is tight, I remind Members to keep interventions succinct.

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I believe it should be part of a wider conversation that includes today’s debate, and I hope the Minister will respond to it.

I submitted a freedom of information request to Suffolk county council and received information back yesterday. Over the past five years, between 2019 and 2024, 920 appeals were logged against Suffolk county council. It has not told me how many of those went to tribunal, but it did supply the breakdown of the figures. Except for a drop in 2020, which I suspect can be accounted for by the covid lockdown, the numbers have risen year on year. In 2019, there were 103 cases, and by 2024, there were 286 cases. The most staggering fact my survey revealed is the cost of the crisis to families. More than one in two families told me that the SEND crisis is affecting their families’ mental health. They are struggling as they battle to provide their children with the support they are entitled to.

I have two examples of families in my constituency. The first is that of Jacob, who is an example of how hard the situation is for so many parents in Suffolk Coastal. His parents are incredible, working two jobs each. They are young and doing everything in their power to provide for him. Jacob is just four and is already being let down. He has autistic spectrum disorder—ASD—and, though he has an EHCP in place, his parents have to fight “tooth and nail” to attempt to get him to the right school.

As his dad told me,

“We don’t choose to be parents of a child with SEN. However, this is our child, and I feel he is being treated like a number rather than a human being.”

It is equally tragic to say that Jacob has had a head start in many ways, because he has an up-to-date EHCP in place. I could tell countless harrowing stories about the delays and issues that parents in my constituency face just to get an EHCP completed.

The way the system is failing our children is equally highlighted by my constituent Tiffany, a young girl in year 6—another student with a brilliant mum advocating for her. She has struggled in the extreme with mental health issues. She has missed out on schooling for two years as she battled a serious and severe mental health breakdown, which caused her to spend long periods in hospital, all before she turned 10. It should be no surprise that, while she was battling for her health, she lost out on schooling. Despite having an up-to-date EHCP, she has been told that she cannot stay in the special school that has accepted her because she is too far behind academically. Somewhat absurdly, she is now expected to enter mainstream education in year 7, despite all the challenges that she has faced. Her mum asked me:

“Why should anyone with mental health issues be denied the support they require to access an education?”

I could give many more heartbreaking examples, but I want to give others Members time to do the same. Before I end, let me highlight again the complexities of SEND in rural areas such as my constituency of Suffolk Coastal. Rural areas are made up of small villages and tiny market towns. Such schools often teach mixed age groups, and teachers work across more than one year group. In one of my schools, years 6, 5, 4 and 3 are taught together. The transition from a tiny primary to a very large secondary school can be incredibly challenging for a child with SEND—or indeed any child. That produces a spike of SEND cases in year 7. Our SEND provision should therefore take the challenges in rural areas into consideration, and help schools and children with the transition from primary to secondary school. There are some great examples in my constituency of secondary schools working with feeder village schools from years 5 and 6 to try to bridge that transition and directly target children with SEND during that process.

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

For those who do not know, the hon. Lady is my constituency neighbour in Suffolk, and I think she is doing a fantastic job of highlighting the complexities faced by people such as Jacob and Tiffany—I see them in my inbox too. She has done a fantastic job of talking about the problems, and she is beginning to talk about the solutions. What does she think about universal early intervention programmes, which have been demonstrated to reduce cost at the acute end of the system in the long term? Will she join me in pushing for universal access to early language programmes in schools in Suffolk?

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The example of Jacob, a small boy aged just four, shows that interventions need to happen in the early years—right from the very start.

The model of secondary schools working with primary schools should be looked at nationally. I again call on the Minister to visit Suffolk Coastal to see that in greater detail.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I thank the Minister for her comments. It is great to hear that this issue continues to be a national priority. Members on both sides of the House will continue to work with the Government to ensure that each of our regions can deliver and help to fulfil that goal. I thank all hon. Members for contributing and look forward to welcoming them to Suffolk Coastal to see it at first hand.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered SEND education support.