Oral Answers to Questions

Lizzi Collinge Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

[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.

[Lizzi Collinge]

We know that early intervention is most effective for children with SEN, but too many children in my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale have been let down in that respect. However, Lancashire is, for the first time, receiving funding for Best Start hubs. Can the Minister tell me how that will improve early support for those children?

[Catherine McKinnell]

As I said, we are already investing in supporting children and their families, including through Best Start family hubs, as my hon. Friend mentioned. We want to ensure that all children have access to a family service professional who is trained to support inclusion, can identify where children have additional needs ahead of starting school, and can support parents to navigate services.