Education Funding: Distribution
Pippa Heylings Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the distribution of education funding, because it goes to the heart of what kind of education system we want. As Liberal Democrats, we want every child to be provided with the opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential. However, I am sure that the Government and MPs from across the Chamber would agree that the current system is not working as well as it should.
Now is the time to tackle the historical unfair distribution of education funding. Every child should have access to the same resources and opportunities, regardless of where they live or their level of need. That unfairness in funding across local authority areas shapes what local schools can offer and how quickly children receive support, and ultimately affects whether families experience education as a source of opportunity or a source of constant struggle. That is wrong.
The national funding formula and the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant were intended to bring fairness and transparency to school funding, but historical proxy factors remain embedded within them. Those factors lock in funding patterns from decades ago, protecting some areas—regardless of how they have changed—while capping others, even as pupil numbers rise and needs become more complex.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She is absolutely right to bring this incredibly important issue to the House. It does not matter where we are in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the problems are the same. Over the past couple of years as an elected representative, I have seen a rise in the number of people with special needs requirements, while schools are deteriorating and need work done. These problems seem to be a burden upon education authorities. Does she agree that now is perhaps the time for the Minister and the Government to review how they allocate their funding? By doing so, it could bring about something positive for all schools.
Pippa Heylings
I agree with the hon. Member. It is exactly why we need this debate at the national level. I recognise the work undertaken by the f40 fairer funding campaign, which has provided comparative historical data for the whole country, exposing the huge variations in funding allocations per pupil by local authority. Nowhere is that unfair disparity more clear than in my constituency. Cambridgeshire remains in the bottom quartile nationally for the dedicated schools grant and for high needs block funding per pupil. We rank 133rd out of 151 local authorities in 2025-26. That ranking has been the same for more than a decade, despite the unprecedented growth in Cambridgeshire. The consequences are stark.
If Cambridgeshire schools were funded to the same level as Lincolnshire—a shire county funded close to the national median—they would receive an additional £23.8 million every single year. That equates to roughly £118,000 a year for a typical primary school—think of that. Equally, if Cambridgeshire were funded to the same level as neighbouring Peterborough, schools would receive around £33 million more annually. That is the scale of the gap we are talking about, and it is impossible to justify. This chronic underfunding interacts directly with the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities provision.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
My hon. Friend is raising incredibly important points on the distribution of funding, but does she agree that the distribution of funding during life stage is also important? [Interruption.] According to the Early Intervention Foundation, the NHS is spending £3.7 billion a year on the cost of late intervention. In theory, the Government could spend an extra £3.7 billion on early intervention on SEND at no extra net cost to the Government.
Pippa Heylings
My hon. Friend makes a hugely important point, and we have just heard agreement from across the Chamber about the importance of both the geographic distribution of funding and to which age groups it is distributed.
The underfunding interacts directly with the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities provision. Funding has been historically low in our county, and it cannot meet the rising demand. While there has been a 72% increase in high needs block funding since 2017, the demand for education, health and care plans has risen by 91% in Cambridgeshire over that same period.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I got some data this week that told me that our local authorities are spending £60,000 a child extra on independent special schools versus maintained special schools. In the south-west of England, only one third of children can go to state maintained schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that as schools are having that money taken away from them to support the councils, the problem is just getting worse?
Pippa Heylings
I could not have put it better myself. That issue is symptomatic of and a causal factor in the problems. We are seeing the gap between funding and spend widening year after year. In my area, that is compounded by rapid population growth. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough are forecast to grow by a further nearly 17% between 2023 and 2041. Schools are expanding quickly to meet demand, yet funding lags behind reality. Growth funding is limited and tightly constrained. Section 106 funding supports buildings, not staffing or ongoing SEND provision. While Cambridgeshire growth is seen as the golden goose for the national economy, local families, schools and councils are being penalised for that growth.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
As a vice-chair of the f40 group and as an MP in Cornwall, which has the 13th lowest SEND funding, I understand exactly what the hon. Member is talking about. Does she agree, however, that we now have a welcome focus on SEND, that we have increased funding, and that the schools White Paper and the SEND White Paper, which will be published soon, will provide a good opportunity to look closely at the SEND system and perhaps—although it will be very difficult to address those massive discrepancies in one go—start to look at how SEND funding is used across the country?
Pippa Heylings
I have some key questions for the Minister about exactly that point.
A stark reality keeps county councillors and their finance officers awake at night. Cambridgeshire’s overall dedicated schools grant deficit stood at £62.8 million at the end of 2025. Forecasts show that the high needs block deficit will rise to about £94 million by March 2026, and potentially to £200 million by April 2028. The council is now paying about £3 million a year to service the interest on the debt, which places the county in severe financial risk. I raised this question with Minister McGovern when we had a meeting about the local government financial settlement—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. We must not refer to right hon. and hon. Members by name. Although the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern) was the Minister in post, we would still not refer to her by name.
Pippa Heylings
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Everyone now needs to know what will happen to the debt in 2028 when the Government centralise the funding, as they have announced that they will. If it is not absorbed or absolved by the Government, Cambridgeshire, like many other councils, could be approaching section 114 bankruptcy territory. That is what is keeping its councillors awake at night.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady aware of a device called the statutory override which allows local authorities not to declare a deficit in their accounts although they are still incurring a debt? As for schools funding, Gloucestershire is almost at the bottom of the league. This week we received the terrible news that one of our private schools is closing. It has been in existence for 100 years. When it closes at the end of the summer, 170 staff will lose their jobs and 324 pupils will have to find other schools. Undoubtedly, when these private schools close—and we have heard that Exeter Cathedral School will close part of its function at the end of the summer as well—some of the pupils will have to go into the state system, which will put even further pressure on it. The reason cited by the school was the 20% VAT charge, which is having an unfair effect on children in private schools.
Pippa Heylings
I am sorry to hear what has happened with that school, but I think we need to look, in the round, at what is happening to all schools and all school funding. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s mention of the statutory override, and I will come to it later in my speech.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing this important debate. Sadly, York falls below Cambridgeshire and Gloucestershire in the tables, and ours is the lowest-funded authority under the new fair funding formula, although we have high levels of deprivation. Does the hon. Member agree that when we are looking at school funding—pupils in York are worth as much as those in Camden—we need to look across the piece? York also receives the lowest amount of health funding, and low funding across the board means that our children are getting even less funding.
Pippa Heylings
That goes to the heart of it. All children, no matter where they live, deserve the right to, and the opportunity of, the best education they can have.
Let me return to the issue of the debt, and the deficit that the council is holding as a result of the statutory override. Independent analysis suggests that by 2028, the national dedicated schools grant deficit could lie somewhere between £5.9 billion and £13 billion.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Torbay unitary authority is the most deprived local authority in the south-west of England, and also the most deprived local authority that has the joy of having a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament. However, we are also a member of the f40 group. In 2023, we signed up to a safety valve agreement which effectively snatches SEND placements from children in our systems. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see the SEND White Paper rolled out there fast? Childhood is a very short period in one’s life, and children do not have the time to wait.
Pippa Heylings
I completely agree.
What does this mean for our schools? It is no surprise that 37 primary schools across Cambridgeshire are operating in deficit. Schools do not have any headroom left; they cannot absorb further pressures without making damaging choices about staffing, class sizes and support. I have heard from the schools in my constituency, including Linton infant school, Linton Heights junior school, Trumpington Meadows primary school, Fulbourn primary school, Comberton primary school and Barrington primary school. They have all told me that they have more children on their SEND register than their funding will cover. They are spending their core budgets on this provision, because they care, and because they know that they have a statutory duty.
Barrington primary school told me that staff are educating children in an area of rapid housing growth. The school is paying up front while waiting months for the funding to catch up. Schools are paying up front for education, health and care plans, and when the funding arrives, it falls well short of the true cost of full-time support. That makes responsible staffing and financial planning almost impossible, and I place on the record my thanks for the amazing work of all staff across all our schools.
As the chair of the children and young people’s committee at Cambridgeshire county council, Councillor Edna Murphy, has said, it is essential that every child has a good education that addresses their needs and supports their wellbeing. Teachers are working hard, and many children have a good experience, but all schools must be able to support children locally. That requires staff and facilities, which only proper funding can provide.
We cannot lose the support of the families and carers at the forefront of this issue. Alicia and Harry Watson are the parents of Penelope and Flora. Penelope is an autistic 10-year-old with pathological demand avoidance traits, severe anxiety, and complex sensory and eating difficulties, and she has been on the waiting list for an EHCP for over two years. Alicia and Harry are facing the horror that many parents in my constituency have had to face. They are navigating adversarial tribunal processes, exhausting all channels and doing the right things. Alicia says:
“Throughout this process, we have felt completely out of sight and out of mind. Passed between services. Told to wait. Told thresholds were not met. Told funding was not available. Told support was being ‘explored’ while months went by and nothing changed”.
Importantly, Alicia has had to give up her NHS career as a care co-ordinator—work that she loved and was proud to do in the public sector. She did not leave by choice; she says:
“I left because my children needed me to step in where the system would not”.
The system is affecting productivity and economic growth. It is emotionally devastating, inefficient and expensive. That would be avoidable if funding were aligned with need earlier.
As the Government look to unveil SEND reforms through the schools White Paper, we urge them to ensure that sufficient extra funding is in place, and to reform the funding formula. I ask the Minister for clarity and certainty. When will the Government publish the overdue schools White Paper? Do they intend to review and rebalance the proportion of funding that is for the high needs block, so that funding is fairer between different areas? How will fast-growing counties—or unitaries, under the local government reorganisation—such as Cambridgeshire be funded proportionately and fairly, so that schools, councils and communities are not penalised for growth?
Finally, when the statutory override ends in 2028, will the Government take over responsibility, or will they leave local authorities facing bankruptcy and carrying historical SEND debt, which is in no one’s interests, and definitely not in the interests of the children and young people whose education we are all striving to improve.
Gender Self-identification
Pippa Heylings Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for moving the motion and for her powerful speech. I also thank all the signatories to the petition. I want to add my voice to the calls for transgender people to be able to change their legal gender through self-identification and, in particular, without the need for recourse to a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The petition reflects a long-standing call for dignity, simplicity and fairness in how we treat some of the most marginalised people in our society. We seem to be going backwards rather than forwards. The Women and Equalities Committee spent years scrutinising the Gender Recognition Act. As early as 2016, and again in a 2022 report, the Committee recommended a move to a more streamlined, de-medicalised process, recognising that being trans should never be treated as an illness. Yet that is exactly what the current process continues to do. The requirement to obtain a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria from an NHS gender clinic doctor is not only dehumanising and daunting for those involved, but these days is practically almost impossible, and inaccessible.
As other Members have done, I would like to bring into the debate the voice of trans people, particularly from my South Cambridgeshire constituency. Let me share the very human story of what it is like in practice—the story of a trans woman who embodies the struggle that the petition seeks to address. Yannifer is a trans woman, a close friend and a colleague of mine. She happily changed her gender in her passport and driving licence back in 2023, after a visit to her GP—self-declaration in practice. I remember the joy of that day, and her joy and pride in what she said was her most life-affirming moment. But that was short-lived, because she then realised that that did not entitle her to the next steps towards a gender recognition certificate, nor to hormone treatment. For that, she needs a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from an NHS gender clinic.
With the NHS in crisis and the reality of the current provision, Yannifer is now two years into what is likely to be at least a six-year wait—a cruel and unnecessary delay for a basic recognition of her identity. She has been able to form the most special of relationships, but she is not able to marry her partner in her own acquired gender without a gender recognition certificate. More dangerously, she has had to turn to private treatment, at huge personal cost, because her GP still refuses to prescribe the hormones that she needs, citing loopholes that discredit private diagnoses.
We have heard today about the mental health impact of this process, and the stress and uncertainty that it causes are not hypothetical. The situation in which Yannifer finds herself is dangerous. She has told me that to procure medication informally is just to survive, because the alternative of not being able to live in her acquired gender and to change and transition, as she puts it, would be “practically suicide-inducing”. So she lives in limbo, denied the basic dignity of legal recognition. There are huge questions over the need for this medical diagnosis. As the Women and Equalities Committee concluded, the diagnosis is outdated. The World Health Organisation has moved from “gender dysphoria” to “gender incongruence”, under a non-mental health classification. The UK is now out of step with international best practice.
Ireland, Denmark, New Zealand and Argentina have all reported positive administrative and public health outcomes from policies based on legal gender self-declaration. As we have heard today, these nations are not collapsing and the sky has not fallen in. They are modernising, but in the UK we continue to ask trans people to navigate a legal process that is, according to the Government’s own consultation, dehumanising, overly bureaucratic and prohibitively expensive. We continue to ask trans people to prove that they are ill in order to access the legal right to live as their authentic selves. That contradiction is not only outdated, but harmful.
Trans people such as Yannifer are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for respect, safety and recognition. I would like Yannifer to know that she is heard, and that we see, value and respect her. That is why I am urging the Government and the Minister to reconsider the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee, to allow self-identification, remove the requirement of a gender dysphoria diagnosis from the Gender Recognition Act and reform the Act completely to enable self-identification, as the petition requests.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pippa Heylings Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Stephen Morgan
School uniform plays a valuable role in creating a sense of common identity and reducing visible inequalities among pupils. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson made a number of points in the Bill Committee, and the Department will certainly take forward her views and ideas.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Stephen Morgan
Every child has the right to succeed in education. We publish data termly and review trends, including where pupils with SEND are disproportionately affected by exclusions. We know that some groups of children are at higher risk of exclusion, which is why the Government are breaking down barriers to opportunity by ensuring early intervention in mainstream schools for all pupils, including those at risk of exclusion. We are clear that schools have a legal duty not to discriminate against pupils with SEND under the Equality Act 2010.
Pippa Heylings
Too many children with SEND in South Cambridgeshire are out of school, due not only to exclusion but to the long waiting times for specialist or alternative provision when mainstream schools cannot meet their needs. I was shocked to hear about Harry, a constituent of mine who has been receiving just two hours of forest school a week for the past 15 months as his only education—15 months! What urgent action is the Minister taking to increase specialist and alternative provision, so that children like Harry can get the full and adequate education they need and deserve?
Stephen Morgan
I thank the hon. Member for sharing Harry’s story—I know she is a champion for such issues in her constituency. The Government’s ambition is for all children with SEND to receive the right support to succeed. The curriculum assessment review will look at how barriers to exclusion can be removed and high standards supported for children, to support further the vision that the Department announced. There is also £740 million for the high needs capital block next year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pippa Heylings Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Stephen Morgan
I thank the hon. Member for raising those matters. I would be happy to meet her to understand the issues in more detail.
SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD
Pippa Heylings Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to address this critical issue that affects so many families and carers, not just in my constituency but across the country. I rise to speak up for all those who feel they are not being heard and to speak about the crisis in the provision of special educational needs and disability support, particularly for children and young people with autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This crisis is failing children and young people, their families and carers, the professionals who support them, and society as a whole.
Before I proceed, I thank all the courageous parents and carers who have taken the time to tell me their stories. Some of them have come to Westminster today to be with us in the Gallery. I pay special tribute to the staff from schools in my constituency, including Bassingbourn, Melbourn and Hauxton primary schools, who have taken the time to attend this critically important debate and are with us in the Gallery.
I was privileged to meet staff at Bassingbourn primary school, where I witnessed at first hand the inspiring work undertaken by dedicated and caring professionals, who are creating safe spaces, such as the hub. I saw for myself the calm and trusting relationships built with students, and heard about the difference that the hub makes for students. Rather than spiralling into disruptive behaviour or not even being able to make it through the door to registration some days, students are now seeking out the hub as a space to ready themselves for registration or to take time out before going back to class.
The headteacher, staff and the SEND co-ordinators go above and beyond, often making miracles happen on very limited budgets. However, let me share the words of one dedicated professional from my constituency, so that the House can hear what the current crisis is leading to. She says:
“On a daily basis I am setting up, delivering and helping other Teaching Assistants to deliver bespoke curriculums for children with SEND as they are mostly educated outside the classes of their peers. We do not have a special unit for them, we are just accommodating them as best we can in quieter areas of the school, including corridors, because they are not able to work in the noise and business of a primary classroom. The needs of these children vary though they all need 1:1 TAs to help them and others stay safe, regulated and learning throughout the day. At present we have two non-verbal children with an Autism diagnosis who, years ago, you would not have expected to see in a mainstream school. Up until this week I have believed that I was doing the right thing trying to make sure they are happy and secure and genuinely learning and making progress with us.”
That professional is now questioning the very fundamentals of her profession as a result of the heartbreaking experience of those children when they are facing key transitions: starting school, primary to secondary, getting to 18, 18 to 25 and afterwards. One of the children she had been working with was excluded a few days after starting secondary school because their behaviour was not manageable. In her words:
“It broke my heart to hear from her Mum what she had gone through in such a short time in mainstream Secondary and I knew at once that she must have been so frightened to have behaved as she did. The child was subsequently at home for most of the remaining school year receiving education from a tutor paid for by the Local Authority—after her parents fought hard and demanded it—and then was finally given a place at their local special school in the summer. What I now understand is that the broken system means that a child has to fail in a very distressing way before they are given the provision they need. I could not sit by and see another child I have known for many years go down the same path with all the knowledge of how damaging the experience will be for them without saying something about it!”
Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
The account the hon. Lady is giving is incredibly powerful and I am really grateful that she has chosen to share it with the House. As somebody who was teaching maths at a secondary school until a few months before the general election, I can state that the situation she describes, while certainly not unusual, is not universal to all schools. I am pleased to report that despite the stresses that were put on schools by the previous Government, we teachers did all we could in secondary education settings to ensure there was an inclusive education for those with SEND. Does she agree that with the change of Government, we have seen a change in direction and intention, and hopefully we will see the wins for SEND students that they so desperately deserve?
Pippa Heylings
Absolutely; I am here to pay tribute, as is everybody, to what teachers are doing, both with regard to the failure of the previous Government and with the current situation. Let us get to what is happening with the current Government.
Every child deserves access to education to get the best start in life and build a strong foundation that can provide valuable skills that allow them to thrive. That is not the case for all children across the country and particularly not for those with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD. Every professional I have spoken to agrees that early diagnosis and support are essential.
Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
In respect of early diagnosis and onward support, in my constituency of Congleton we have two specific problems. First, although some children receive a diagnosis under the right to choose pathway on the NHS, others, often from more deprived backgrounds, face considerably longer waits than they would under that pathway. The impact of that on those children concerns me very much. Secondly, Cheshire East council sometimes goes for periods of time when it closes the education, health and care plan application pathway to new entrants because it is so overwhelmed by the number of applications it already has. Both those are serious issues for children in my constituency, and I thank the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire for securing this debate and giving me the opportunity to air them. Does she agree that it is a huge improvement to have a Government who are integrating SEND support and that there is so much more that we are all looking to do?
Pippa Heylings
I will come on to what I think is a postcode lottery. We see regional disparities in the care and provision given, so I thank the hon. Member for raising that point.
For many, the wait to get assessments for education, health and care plans can be months, if not years. Lord Darzi’s investigation of the NHS in England notes,
“Waiting lists for community services and mental health have surged.”
The report also mentions how
“Demand for assessments for ADHD and Autism have grown exponentially in recent years”,
with children disproportionately represented among them.
Recent research found that 200,000 children in England are struggling to get an education, health and care plan. That is 200,000 families left in uncertainty, desperate for help and struggling without the support they need.
Cambridgeshire currently has 8,033 students with EHCPs—a 51% increase in the last five years—and of those, 2,593 plans primarily address autism spectrum disorder. Indeed, I was told by the chief executive of Cambridgeshire county council that there has been an increase of 270% in the number of children presenting with autism. Requests for education, health and care needs assessments have risen faster than the national average. Why? We think that is driven by greater awareness of SEND and the statutory responsibilities of local authorities, the impact of the covid pandemic and the overall increase in mental health issues for children, even at a very young age. Those numbers help to underline the scale of the issue, but we should not get drawn purely into statistics and figures, because behind every number and every percentage there is a child, a family or a sibling being failed every single day.
I come to the issue of disparity that the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) mentioned. Families who can afford to seek private neurodevelopmental assessments tend to receive help much faster than those who are reliant on public services. For the rest, it is a postcode lottery. NHS England data reveals stark regional disparities in waiting times for diagnosis. For example, the north-west region has the longest average wait of three years and four months, from referral to diagnosis. We therefore have a health inequality element to this too, as certain groups of children are less likely to have their needs identified or met, punished just because of where they live.
For some children, mainstream schools are simply not suitable, and parents and carers bear the brunt of that reality, managing reduced timetables, enduring repeated exclusions and watching their children receive only a few hours of education each day.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for bringing this important debate to the House. Following on from her comments about mainstream education, one of my first jobs after leaving university was as a teaching assistant. I also spent a year in a special needs school. Does she agree that the issues we are seeing are partly the result of the lack of recognition and appreciation over the last 14 years for support staff in mainstream schools and of the role that they play in ensuring that every child has a decent education?
Pippa Heylings
I could not concur more. Over the past decade or more, we saw chronic under-investment from the Conservative Government, despite the needs having been recognised in statute, and that has left us in this pressure point situation. We are now seeing the results of that. I have also been told that this is a time bomb, because we will see the impacts in the future in the quality of life, in opportunities, in the NHS and in social services—in all services really—if we do not deal with this situation.
I have also been told about the situation for siblings. When a child is not given the support that they need in school, young carer siblings are often drawn out of their class and asked to be with their sibling during their lunch break or lessons. There is an impact on all those affected.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
On that point about young carers, does my hon. Friend agree that, at the moment, schools struggle to recognise how many young carers are on their rolls? Does she think that the Department for Education would be wise to look at better ways of measuring the number of young carers and giving schools the toolkits to identify them?
Pippa Heylings
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The Carers Trust has provided us with these stories and pointed out that we really need to collect this evidence. It would be easy to point the finger at local councils and say that this is their failure, but, as we have said, they are stretched to their limits by a chronic lack of funding. We have heard that f40, the cross-party local authority campaign group, has estimated that an additional £4.6 billion of annual SEND revenue is required to meet the current need, yet most of our county councils face a black hole in their budgets. One issue is the training and retention of educational psychologists, because they and council workers are overwhelmed. Turnover rates are high and burnout is common, which leads to an exacerbation of those waiting lists.
Mrs Russell
I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene again; I appreciate it. Cheshire has some of the lowest per-pupil funding in the country. There is a direct link between schools that receive relatively low levels of funding and councils that have relatively high levels of SEND diagnoses, because there is not the same support in mainstream classrooms as when there are higher staffing ratios, which we find in areas that have better funding. We need to look at equalising that funding as best we can in the current environment to improve support at an earlier stage, as the hon. Lady was mentioning.
Pippa Heylings
I agree with the hon. Member. My constituency of South Cambridgeshire also has among the lowest per-pupil funding, which exacerbates the fact that, even though we have EHCPs, most of them are not funded to the amount that is required for each of those students. That compounds the situation that our amazing schools are trying to deal with.
Let me return to educational psychologists. Cambridgeshire county council has 17.5 budgeted educational psychologist roles, but 6.4 remain vacant due to a national shortage and the fact that psychologists can get better pay in other jobs and other places. We are seeing an inability to fill those roles and to support psychologists.
The Liberal Democrats are calling for a national body for SEND to end the postcode lottery faced by families of children with the highest needs. That would include looking at immediate Government action to prioritise early diagnosis and support for children with SEND, and to increase funding for diagnostic services.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
One concern is that many children end up being out of education because they are not getting the support that they need in school. Does she agree that it is an outrage that, in that situation, some parents face prosecution? Does she also agree that we need to provide support for children to receive an education, whether in school or through alternative provision, and that we should record that in a better way? At the moment we have authorised and unauthorised absences. We do not record the fact that some children are missing school because their parents do not believe that they are receiving the support that they need.
Pippa Heylings
I thank my hon. Friend for raising one of the complex issues around this provision. While we support the current Government’s additional allocation of funding to this critical area, we really want them to look at the fact that it is not just about mainstream provision; it is also about specialist provision. As she says, we must look at all types of provision, because this is complex. Even if support is given in mainstream schools, it is often on very reduced timetables, which means that parents and carers are unable to work and be productive for society, because they are either covering the spaces in that provision, unauthorised or otherwise, in other settings, or covering for the times when the school cannot provide timetabled support.
I return to what the Liberal Democrats think we should have: a national SEND body, an urgent increase in diagnostic services, action to address the chronic lack of educational psychologists, targeted resources for local authorities to improve their capacity, support for our schools and for more special school places, and interim support measures for children awaiting diagnosis so that they do not fall through the cracks. The Lib Dems have always said that we need mental health professionals in every school. It is great to hear the Government talk about mental health professionals in secondary schools. We have heard about the need in primary schools, so let us get in there early too.
A capacity for early diagnosis and management means, as somebody said to me, in the words of Desmond Tutu, that we can stop pulling people out of the river, and instead stop them falling in the river in the first place. Once again, I pay tribute to all the amazing parents and carers who have spoken to me, and the amazing teachers, headteachers and SEND co-ordinators who are working in this area.