Special Educational Needs

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate.

Let me start by putting on the record my thanks to the Minister and her officials at the Department for Education for working closely with officers and councillors at the London Borough of Richmond to agree a settlement for the enormous historic funding gap in special educational needs and disability support. The local high-needs budget deficit hit a staggering £18 million and risked putting general education funding, and indeed wider council services, at risk.

When I was elected in 2019, I pledged to make adequate funding for SEND provision in Twickenham a priority, and I am very grateful for the engagement that the Minister has had with me and the council over the past year to address this important issue. I know that Richmond Council is looking forward to continuing to work with the Department to increase local provision for special needs and ensuring that our most vulnerable children receive the support that they need and deserve, through the promised annual 8% increase in funding. More broadly, I urge the Minister to ensure that the review of SEND that her Department is currently undertaking looks holistically at how the system is funded, so that the best interests and the needs of every child are at the heart of the system.

Too often, children are caught between the competing priorities of school and council budgets. Just recently, the chairs of governing bodies of local schools told me how stretched they are financially because of covid. Many costs are not being reimbursed, and they are losing thousands of pounds because income from lettings and fundraising has dried up. Those mainstream schools that are particularly well placed to provide SEND support for children are very conscious of the £6,000 that they have to find from their core budgets in order to offer this invaluable support, unless the family are able to apply successfully for an education, health and care plan, which will bring its own funding. The decision-making process on the level of support provided should not be driven by funding streams or disincentives to do the right thing, but entirely by the needs of the child.

The Minister is aware that I take a keen interest in children’s mental health and have repeatedly raised my concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children and young people’s mental health, and the critical importance of supporting social, emotional and developmental catch-up, not just academic catch-up. I know from talking to carers in my constituency that that applies even more to disabled children, who have been disproportionately affected, as we have already heard from other hon. Members, through both social isolation and lack of access to therapies. According to the Disabled Children’s Partnership, 91% of the parents it surveyed said that their child was socially isolated through the pandemic. Six in 10 parents reported observing symptoms associated with anxiety, and almost three quarters of parents report that their child is often unhappy, downhearted or tearful. There is a knock-on impact on the mental health and wellbeing of parents and siblings.

As other hon. Members have said, we need a bespoke covid recovery plan for disabled children. That must include, as well as social and developmental catch-up, additional support for the mental health and wellbeing of children and families and access to activities to overcome the social isolation that many have suffered during lockdowns. The Government recently announced a £79 million package of mental health support, but none of it was specifically allocated for disabled children and their families. Every single child deserves the best possible start in life, and that includes every child with a special need or disability.