Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will make a statement on support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

Every child deserves the opportunity to achieve and thrive, but at the moment far from every child is being given that chance. Today’s report from the National Audit Office is, sadly, bang on the money: the system has totally lost the confidence of families. Families and children with special educational needs are being failed, on every measure, and even shadow Ministers have admitted that they should hang their heads in shame at the failure to support them.

Our promise to families is that we are absolutely committed to regaining parents’ confidence in the special educational needs and disabilities system, but that will be a huge and complex reform. There is no magic wand and no quick fix, so we continue to ask for patience as we work as quickly as we can to make the changes that I know families are crying out for.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Today we have published independently commissioned insight that suggests that if the system were extensively improved through early intervention and better resourcing in mainstream schools, the needs of tens of thousands more children and young people could be met without an education, health and care plan, and in a mainstream setting rather than a specialist placement. That can pave the way for a sustainable system in which schools cater for all children, and special schools cater only for those with the most complex needs.

Our plans include strengthening accountability for mainstream settings to be inclusive, for instance through Ofsted, and helping the mainstream workforce to have SEND expertise. It is clear that we need to work with the teachers, parents, children, therapists and councils who, for so long, have been trying but have been set up to fail by a broken system. This work forms part of the Government’s opportunity mission, which will break the unfair link between background and opportunity and will start by giving every child, including children with special educational needs and disabilities, the best start in life.

[Munira Wilson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

Today’s National Audit Office report confirms what parents, carers, children and young people across the country have been telling us for years: that our system to support those with special educational needs and disabilities is in crisis and on the brink. The last Conservative Government’s abject failure to tackle the systemic problems facing SEND provision has been laid bare for all to see. With half of children waiting longer than the statutory 20 weeks for an education, health and care plan, with outcomes not improving, with special schools over capacity and, damningly, with the Department for Education not knowing how much capacity is required to meet future need, we are failing our most vulnerable children. Shockingly, 43% of councils are at risk of bankruptcy, given the deficits that they are racking up in their high- needs budget.

This is a nationwide issue. Colleagues on both sides of the House have, like me, been inundated with casework from concerned and often desperate parents who just want to know that their children will receive the support they need without waiting for months or years. The report makes clear the urgent need for whole-system reform, with joined-up thinking across local and national Government, the NHS and schools.

Will the Minister please give us a clear timeline for the full reform called for by the NAO? Will she consider Liberal Democrat proposals for a new national body for SEND to support children with the most complex needs to tackle the postcode lottery? What steps is she taking to incentivise early intervention, including training specialists for assessments and reducing the contributions that schools have to make before they can apply for an EHCP? What is she doing to speed up the building of state special schools, given that local authorities are spending a staggering £2 billion on independent special schools? Is she pressing the Chancellor for an urgent cash injection in next week’s Budget so that we can start cleaning up this mess?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue and bringing it to the House. She is absolutely right to draw attention to the National Audit Office report and its damning indictment of a system that has lost the confidence of families and is failing children with special educational needs and disabilities. She rightly calls for the system to be reformed. That is what this Government are absolutely focused on and determined to do.

One of the first differences that we made on coming into office was moving the special educational needs and disabilities remit within the schools sector. Our vision is one of mainstream inclusive education for all children who would benefit from it, while having specialist schools where we know that children with the most complex needs can have those needs met. That is not being delivered, and for far too many families it is not the reality. It is a reality that we urgently need to see, not only to address the local authority deficits to which the hon. Lady rightly refers, but to create better outcomes for children.

At the moment, the system costs the Treasury a significant amount. The hon. Lady tempts me into anticipating next week’s Budget statement or making announcements ahead of it, which she knows I cannot, but she is right to identify that the system costs an increasing amount but is not delivering the outcomes that children deserve and families want.

We are absolutely determined to reform the system. We are working at pace. All the changes that we have made since coming into office are to that end. We have launched the curriculum and assessment review, which will support a broad and inclusive education for all children. We have made changes to Ofsted; those changes are continuing at pace to ensure that the system takes into account the whole school life and journey. That includes creating an inclusive environment for children with special educational needs.

Most of all, we are determined to restore parents’ trust that, in our education system, if their child has special educational needs they will be identified early— we know that early identification is key—and supported. We are continuing to support early language and speech intervention and to prioritise the roll-out of special educational needs training for the early years workforce to ensure that children’s needs can be identified at the earliest point. We are expanding our childcare system to ensure that more children can get into settings as early as possible, so any needs can be identified and so we can rebuild the public’s trust that every child in our state sector will get the opportunity of a fantastic education, regardless of any additional special educational needs or disabilities.