SEND Provision

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important debate.

Support for children with special educational needs and disabilities is an issue that has been raised with me consistently since my election three years ago. In Batley and Spen and now in my new Spen Valley constituency, I have had countless conversations and emails, held roundtables and had meetings with families, headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants, councillors and charities about the anger, frustration and, in many cases, deep trauma they have experienced trying to navigate the broken system that is SEND.

All any of them want to do is get our children and young people the help and support they need and deserve, because, as our new Secretary of State for Education has said, every child should have the support they need and deserve. Instead, we have amazing children and young people being prevented from being the very best that they can be, not enjoying their education, struggling in school and falling behind, which often has a deeply detrimental impact on their mental health and wellbeing.

It is not just the children themselves. I have had parents in tears in my office feeling like they have failed, as they have not been able to get an EHCP for their child. They have given up work so that they can support their child, meaning their own sense of identity and self-worth has suffered, and they feel guilty that they are not contributing to society and the economy. I have had headteachers and staff in schools feeling that it is their fault that they cannot ensure that every child in their care gets the education they deserve. The reality is that they are so desperately under-resourced and the system is so broken that they simply cannot do their jobs in the way that they want.

It is not just schools; as a former college lecturer, I know that there are challenges there too. Colleges are often a lifeline for students with SEND, but, as the association of college lecturers says, there are real challenges in the way that the SEND system fits together through funding and student transitions.

This is just not right. Like with so many other issues, this new Government are having to pick up the pieces of a broken system that is the result of years of schools and local councils being chronically underfunded and under-resourced. The previous Government did not give our education system the care and attention it needed. Ministers were just not listening to the sector and not providing the resources and funding that it so desperately needed.

I have been supporting parents and schools over the last three years. Laura Riach, a mum of two, recently got in touch. Her children are both academically bright, but cannot cope with sensory overload and cannot be in a mainstream school setting that is noisy and bright. The parents are getting very little support to home-educate the children and the situation got so severe that one of the children tried to commit suicide. After battling with the SEND system, they are getting only six hours’ support per child per week, when they should be getting 25 hours.

Many parents have contacted me about this issue. Children are losing vital education and the stories show just how broken the system is. I am very pleased that the new Government have already started to give SEND the care, compassion and understanding that is needed to address the crisis.

[Several hon. Members rose—]