Free School Meals

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

This, of course, is the latest step in our plan for change to put extra pounds in parents’ pockets. It is a down payment on the child poverty strategy, as I mentioned earlier, building on our expansion of free breakfast clubs, our national minimum wage boost and our cap on universal credit deductions through the fair repayment rate. Those are real measures that will make a real difference to people’s lives.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I welcome wholeheartedly the announcement, not least because it means that almost 4,000 children in my constituency will benefit from free, healthy school meals, saving parents almost £500 a year. That is in addition to the breakfast clubs, of which we have two on the early adopter scheme. Does the Minister agree that as grateful as we are to wonderful people including the bean man, who can often be seen in Willington, Repton and surrounding areas collecting food for food banks, this is a step towards lifting people out of poverty so that we will no longer need food banks?

[Stephen Morgan]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I know that she will want to feed into the child poverty strategy to ensure that it is ambitious, but I assure her that that is our intention.

SEND Provision: Derbyshire

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) for securing this crucial Adjournment debate. As she rightly indicates, SEND provision in Derbyshire has reached crisis point. Her point about Conservative-run Derbyshire county council’s unspent SEND funding, and the heartbreaking consequences for families, is sadly all too familiar and echoes so many of the stories brought to me by my own constituents, who are in desperate need of support.

The scale of this issue is staggering. Throughout my election campaign, it was no secret that SEND would be a key issue for me if I was elected. A week after I was elected, I held my first community SEND meeting, which was packed. What I had not expected was that after seven months in office, a third of all my constituency casework would relate to SEND—and the number continues to climb. In my inbox, at my surgeries and on the doorsteps across South Derbyshire, parents tell me heartbreaking stories about the declining mental health of their children, who are out of education or stranded in inappropriate settings. Many parents, including those working in education, describe extreme stress, financial hardship and lost work time as they navigate a broken system. Others who are less familiar with the process find it totally overwhelming. Meanwhile, their children’s mental health deteriorates as they are left without the support they desperately need.

A lack of communication from Derbyshire county council leaves parents feeling unheard and their children forgotten. In some cases, SEND caseworkers have left post without informing families, leaving them emailing outdated contacts in desperation and without response. Gaps in specialist provision mean that many children, particularly those with social, emotional and mental health needs, are not receiving the support they are entitled to.

Under section 19 of the Education Act 1996, if a child is out of school for 15 days or more, the local authority must provide suitable full-time education. My constituents tell me that this is not happening. There is a lack of alternative provision, a lack of tutoring options and a lack of accountability. Despite parents, schools and professionals agreeing that mainstream settings often cannot meet SEND children’s needs, the local authority continues to name unsuitable placements on education, health and care plans. That forces many families into lengthy and costly tribunals that can take over a year to conclude. Valuable placements in appropriate schools are lost due to local authority delays, leaving children stranded and without education.

Consider my constituents Theresa and Nathan. Their daughter has cerebral palsy, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Transitioning into mainstream secondary school severely affected her mental health, leading to self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Delays in her EHCP process meant that she lost a place in a suitable special setting. At 14 years old, she is on antidepressants and has remained out of education since January 2024—that is over a year. Theresa, Nathan and their daughter deserve better. The reams of families who contact me for support deserve better, and the countless families across Derbyshire who are fighting to secure the right provision for their children deserve so much better.

[James Naish]

This Government have made a very clear and welcome commitment to turn 3,000 spare classrooms into nurseries. Does my hon. Friend agree that where demand for nursery support is lower, we could look at alternative ways of using those classrooms to enhance SEND provision at a local level?

[Samantha Niblett]

I agree, but frankly it would be great if Derbyshire county council could get the basics right.

Although my team and I will always work constructively with the local authority to right the wrongs endured by SEND children and families across South Derbyshire, the council’s chronic mismanagement of this crisis is indefensible. Schools are struggling, parents are out of work and their children are left without opportunities to thrive. I stand firmly with my hon. Friend and fellow Labour MPs across Derbyshire in holding Conservative-led Derbyshire county council to account and calling on it to spend the millions of pounds in unallocated funding to make this right. The status quo cannot continue.