Special Educational Needs

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, one of the things that the SEND review wishes to address is the differing experience across the country. It is looking at ways to ensure that people receive consistently high-quality services across the country, regardless of where they live.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible] Labour has managed to identify that £300 million will be spent in 2021-22 on children with special educational needs and disabilities. Can the Minister confirm that this is all new money and advise the House as to how many new places that will support? How will the Government ensure that we have an integrated strategy across the education, health and care sectors and what further thought have they given to ensuring that poorer-performing authorities level up so that young people with special educational needs and disabilities have fair access to services, regardless of their postcode?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I missed the beginning of the noble Lord’s question, but I believe he may have been referring to the £300 million that we are investing in capital projects to support the creation of new high-needs places and improve existing provision across a range of settings, including mainstream and special schools. On support for local authorities that may be struggling with the delivery of their support services, we have started a programme of visits by Ofsted and the CQC, working with local areas to understand the experiences of children and young people with SEND and their families during the pandemic and to make recommendations for improvements.