Education, Health and Care Plans

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as ever, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on securing this debate and on her excellent speech.

It is obvious from everybody who has spoken how much distress the delay in EHCPs is causing across the system. What is equally striking is the postcode lottery. We know that 15 local authorities completed less than 10% of their new EHCPs within the 20-week time limit, while 27 local authorities completed over 90% within 20 weeks. That is a stark difference, which I have not seen properly explained anywhere. I hope that as part of the work the Minister is doing in the Department there is some analysis of why the differences are so big. They cannot be explained away just by volume.

Obviously covid has had a huge influence, but the problems we are discussing are not new. In 2009, in the final report of his inquiry, Brian Lamb called for a “radical overhaul” of the SEND system. He cited a culture of low expectation and a system that failed to deliver what children needed.

The coalition Government, who have been referred to by a couple of Members, brought forward the Children and Families Act in 2014, which tried to address some of the shortcomings. It included changes that I think most Members would agree with, such as bringing together the education and health system, trying to make it more child-focused and getting parents to have more of a role in decision making. It was intended that needs would be identified earlier, but Ofsted’s SEND inspection found that many local authorities struggled to implement the changes properly, which led to the huge postcode lottery we have seen. Layered on that has been the explosion of numbers post covid. Many children with complex needs did not attend school during covid and missed the support at school, Ofsted found, which has led to some of the distressing cases we have heard about today.

In government we increased the high needs budget by more than 60% from 2019 to 2024, but we are still seeing these huge issues. There is something that I would be interested to know from the Minister. The previous Government pledged the improvement plan for SEND. I completely understand that the Minister has delayed this to have a look at it further, but can I ask about the timetable for bringing forward an alternative and what she plans to do with that?

The hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) talked about the school support staff pay negotiating body. One of the concerns I have about its reinstatement, and the reason we have opposed it, is that it will affect SEND provision. The Confederation of School Trusts said:

“School trusts do not all operate in the same way, and we must ensure that schools”

of

“all types…can benefit from the flexibility to deploy support staff…that most benefits pupils. The reforms so desperately needed to our special educational needs system rely on this, for example.”

[Laurence Turner]

Will the hon. Member acknowledge that the CST said it is the right time to take school support staff pay out from under the local authority umbrella, and that its concern was that a ceiling would be set on school support staff pay? It has been clarified in the Employment Rights Bill Committee that that is not the case; the policy is about establishing a floor, not a ceiling.

[Laura Trott]

I acknowledge absolutely that pay was part of that, but it was also about terms and conditions and flexibility, which I do not think we have seen adequately addressed to date. I am grateful for the engagement on these issues from the hon. Member and the Minister. It is really important that we get this right, because we will need extra flexibility as we go through with the reforms that the Government will, I hope, be bringing forward.

The hon. Member for Chelmsford discussed the Minister’s approach to mainstream education and the recognition that mainstream education is not right for every child. While it is always right and proper, if parents want to send their child to a mainstream school, to give them the opportunity to do that and there should be the facilities there for that to take place, parents should also have the option of a special school if that is what they prefer. We have heard a lot about mainstream schooling; I completely understand that and I support it where it is the parents’ wish. But can the Minister confirm that the Government support special school places and will increase their number if that is the parents’ wish? Some groups are concerned about being forced in one direction rather than the other, but I think choice needs to be at the heart of this system, so I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that today.

I have questions about the statutory override, which were raised by the Lib Dem Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). I would be grateful if the Minister responded on that as well. I am conscious of time—

[Helen Hayes]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

I was about to wrap up because I am conscious of time and I want to ensure that the hon. Member for Chelmsford has time to speak at the end of the debate, so I will close my remarks there.