Special Educational Needs

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, different schools will approach these issues in different ways. Our commitment is to give them sufficient funding to deliver on the needs of children. However, the right reverend Prelate will be aware that there is some discretion in how schools define whether a child has special educational needs. One thing that we hope will come out of the Green Paper is much more consistency on that.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister simply saying that equalisation of funding will be a good thing? Is it not the case that equalisation will mean that the poorer schools with the worst problems will have less funding than they have at present?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord: that was not the impression that I sought to give. We are looking for a consistent approach to funding so that children with the same level of needs in two parts of the country get the same per-pupil funding, which is not the case today. I hope that the noble Lord agrees that that is a good ambition.