Oral Answers to Questions

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Member for her thought-provoking question. She really advocates for care leavers and for ensuring that they have the durability they need at school to ensure they have a seamless experience. I reassure her that care leavers who start an apprenticeship are entitled to £3,000 bursaries, and local authorities must provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go on to university. Let me just say that this Government are extremely concerned with education not being broken for care leavers and ensuring that we support them in every which way we can.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking to support children with SEND who do not have an education, health and care plan.

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

17. What steps she is taking to improve support for children with SEND.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

We are engaging extensively with families and experts as we seek to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. We have invested £1 billion into high-needs budgets and £740 million into creating more specialist places. We are rolling out schemes, from the partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools—the PINS programme—to Inclusion 2028, which are laying the groundwork for long-term reform. We are building a system in which every child can achieve and thrive.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I thank the Minister for that answer. On Friday, I had the opportunity to visit the outstanding Springfield primary school in my constituency. It has 500 pupils, 30 of whom have education, health and care plans, with six applications in currently. Can the Minister reassure the parents of those six children and the many, many parents across the country that, while this review into EHCPs is going on, local education authorities will not slow-roll existing applications or fail them as a default in order for them to go to tribunal and try to beat the clock?

[Catherine McKinnell]

We have yet to decide on the future of education, health and care plans, but we are extremely focused on strengthening the support system so that every child can receive timely, high-quality help. We will set out further details about our approach to special educational needs in this autumn’s White Paper. In the meantime, obviously, children should be getting the support they need, and we are putting in the groundwork so that more children can have that.