Pica Eating Disorder: SEND

Debate between Lee Pitcher and Georgia Gould

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) for bringing this deeply important discussion to Westminster Hall. The story she told shows her effectiveness as a local MP. I know that she has listened to parents, professionals and school leaders at a number of different events in her local community. Bringing their voices directly to us is much appreciated.

I am grateful to the parents and professionals in the Public Gallery for making the time to be here today and for their leadership in campaigning on this issue. I would be keen to sit down with the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham and campaigners to discuss it in more detail. We have heard powerfully the profound impact that pica can have and the huge stress it can bring to parents who are desperately monitoring their child’s circumstances and safety.

As I have been going around the country talking to parents and visiting schools, I have seen schools with brilliant and extraordinary provision, and young people with pica who are really thriving. I have also spoken to parents who present stories similar to those we have heard today and who feel that support is not in place, leaving them in fear. Sometimes they have had to give up work to support their children.

The tragic cases we have heard today show how important this issue is: it goes to the heart of the relationship between special educational needs and health. All Members, I think, mentioned the importance of us working in partnership and having clarity on the role of teachers in supporting and safeguarding pupils, and the role of health professionals in diagnosing and giving advice and guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) talked about the importance of that guidance and of roles and responsibilities of health and schools.

Earlier this year, we consulted on revised statutory guidance on supporting children and young people with medical conditions. That reflects our commitment to ensuring that every child or young person can participate effectively in education, notwithstanding their medical conditions. Schools, colleges and early years settings should understand the risks that a medical condition poses and manage them proactively. That includes ensuring that staff understand the relevant medical conditions and their impact and can recognise and respond to an emergency.

We had a really positive response to the consultation and are still working through the responses. We had a lot of detailed feedback, including on specific medical conditions. The draft guidance did not make reference to pica. Given the conversations we have had, the responses to the consultation and today’s discussion, I can confirm that we will rectify that when we finally publish the guidance, to provide clear information and guidance around pica for schools.

As part of the SEND reforms, we are looking at developing national inclusion standards that will provide a baseline of ordinarily available provision that we expect of all schools. We have an expert panel working on those standards and on specialist provision packages, which will determine the support needed in an area for a range of different special educational needs and disabilities. Currently, our independent panel, which sits across health and education, is leading that work. I commit today to ask the panel to take a specific look at the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham raised in relation to pica, specifically those that relate to research and identifying gaps in support.

More broadly, a number of questions were asked about the SEND reforms, including about how we will support early intervention and ensure that the right training is in place and that we have the right professionals in schools. As part of the SEND reforms, we are investing £4 billion in early intervention. That includes £1.6 billion going directly into mainstream schools, and all schools are being asked to develop inclusion strategies. We are putting £1.8 billion into an experts at hand service, which includes occupational therapists, educational psychologists and specialist teachers. I had a brief conversation, just outside this Chamber, with an occupational therapist who specialises in pica. We talked about their critical role, and it is important to reflect on that as part of the experts at hand service.

We are also developing a new package of teacher training, into which we are putting £200 million. The purpose of that training is to support all schools to be inclusive, including by identifying needs and adapting classroom practice to support children. It will not be detailed training on specific conditions, but it will include how to provide wider support and adaptions for pupils. We should also give teachers the tools and strategies to find the relevant information about specific issues as they occur in the classroom. We are currently working with parents, disabled children’s organisations and teaching organisations to develop that training, and I welcome Members’ thoughts about the process.

Many Members mentioned the importance of engaging with parents. One of the components of the training will be ensuring that teachers are listening to the voices of parents and having strong relationships with them, so that schools can pick up on what is happening at home and put that into their plans.

[Lee Pitcher]

I thank the Minister for all the work behind the scenes prior to the debate to allow some commitments to be given today; it is absolutely phenomenal. We can see the impact that is having on people in the Public Gallery and how much it is welcomed.

On sustainability and thinking about the future, I am a very “head and heart” person, and I talk a lot from the heart, but in terms of the head, if we are to continue to provide funding, support and resources for things like pica, we first need awareness, so that we can start to understand the numbers, and for that we need a record. I realise that the Minister cannot answer this right now, but can some thought be given to recording the number of people with pica so that we can use that in future business cases and when funding is considered?

[Georgia Gould]

I will absolutely take away the issue of reporting.

Members spoke about the need to invest in inclusive spaces. We are continuing to invest £3.7 billion in the creation of new specialist places. That money can go into new special schools, inclusion bases or adaptions in mainstream schools. I have visited really high-quality inclusion bases, and I know that part of that investment has been about creating safe spaces for children with pica. We have also issued new guidance about how to create estates that are inclusive by design, which includes guidance to schools about how to work with children and understand their experience of the school. That will make sure that schools are genuinely inclusive for those young people. That is another area that is relevant to the conversation.

The hon. Member for South Devon made a really important point about accountability across our systems and about working in partnership. We are working closely with Health Ministers on this issue, as we recognise how critical that is. The hon. Lady also spoke about experts at hand and the workforce. We are investing £40 million in training up new ed psychs and speech and language therapists, and a lot of work is going on with Health colleagues about workforce planning to ensure we have a sufficient workforce to support experts at hand and specialist settings. It is critical that we have that specialist resource to deliver early intervention.

I was asked about how the funding will work in the new system. It is envisioned that for children with individual support plans, schools will get dedicated funding that is ringfenced for pupils with SEND, so that the necessary staff can be employed and the right support can be put in place. At the moment, the funding often comes quite late in the day after a huge battle for support, and it leaves with the child. The idea is to give schools sustained budgets so that they can build the necessary provision. For pupils accessing a specialist provision package, the funding will come with the package and the child into the school. Depending on where the child sits in the system, the funding will flow differently.

I welcome the tone of the debate—there has been cross-party recognition of the scale of the issue—and the way that Members throughout the House are working together to address these really difficult questions. I have heard so many stories of families who have been badly let down. We all acknowledge that things need to change and that we need to get it right. I am committed to continuing to work in partnership with all Members, and really appreciate their bringing stories like the ones we have heard today to me, so that we can continue these really important conversations. Critically, we must talk to young people and families. I really hope this is just the start of the conversation, and that we will have a longer conversation soon so that we can look at the issues raised today.