Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Green Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Stephen Morgan
Breakfast clubs offer a huge amount, including food and club provision. I encourage the hon. Member to consider that for roll-out in his constituency. More broadly, he will be aware of the ministerial taskforce focused on child poverty, which will report in the new year.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
The Government recognise that breaking down barriers to opportunity for children with special educational needs and disabilities will take a cross-Government approach. To that end, I recently met the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), to discuss how we can work together to solve some of the challenges. The Department for Education is committed to ensuring adequate support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and recently announced £740 million of capital funding to support children with SEN to learn and thrive in mainstream settings.
Sarah Green
A recent National Audit Office report makes it clear that, without reform, the SEN system is financially unsustainable. The Minister will know that, since 2020, local authorities such as Buckinghamshire council have been able to exclude their dedicated school grant deficits from their main revenue budgets. That statutory override means that local authorities do not breach their duty to set a balanced budget, but it is due to end in March 2026, and there is currently no identified solution. Can the Minister share more on what urgent conversations she is having with colleagues to ensure that local authorities get the certainty they need?
Catherine McKinnell
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government regulations, which ringfence dedicated support grant deficits from councils’ wider financial position, were amended. The statutory override goes up to March 2026, when it expires, and we are currently considering how best to continue support for local authorities with deficits. Fundamentally, this is about reforming the system to ensure that more children can be educated within a mainstream setting, and that we have special school places available for those with the most complex needs.
Stephen Morgan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of early support for babies. The plan for change sets out that we will improve support through pregnancy and early childhood. The Start for Life programme is the responsibility of Department of Health and Social Care Ministers, but officials would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this important issue.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Lady raises an important point. We are working at pace to ensure that we have more professionals, along with the Department of Health and Social Care, which is also ensuring that we have the right workforce to support all children with special educational needs. I will write to the hon. Lady with specific details of the steps being taken.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Sarah Green Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important challenge that we are determined to address. We want mainstream inclusive education in our state school system, which every child should have access to and thrive in. However, we need specialist places for children with complex needs when that is the only place where their needs can be met, and a system that not only best serves the needs of children but is sustainable. I will take away his comments, and that will be part of our thinking as we go ahead.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Other Members have asked about educational psychologists. There is a real shortage right now. Are the Government considering enabling other professionals to undertake some of the assessments to help unblock the waiting lists?
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Lady for the constructive way in which she put her question. I will take it away, and consider how it would fit into our broader plans to ensure that we have an education system that can meet the needs of children in terms of both their educational requirements and their mental health, special educational needs and disability requirements, within a broader health system that can meet those needs as well.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Green Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
We want all children to receive the right support to reach their full potential. That is why, since March, we have opened 14 new special free schools, with 78 more approved; we have launched our £70 million change programme, benefiting every region in England and testing key SEND and alternative provision, including innovative approaches to speech and language therapy; and, to help young people with special educational needs into work, we are doubling the number of supported internships to 4,500 by 2025. By next year, we will have increased high-needs funding by 60%, to over £10.5 billion, in just five years.
Sarah Green
Last year in Buckinghamshire, one in three education, health and care plans were issued outside the legally required 20-week timeframe. Will the Secretary of State outline what concrete steps the Department is taking to improve access to educational psychologists and reduce waiting times for EHCPs?
Gillian Keegan
I know how hard parents fight to get the right support for their children. Sometimes that takes too long, and I am determined to make that easier, which is why we are simplifying and standardising the EHCP process. However, to deliver that support, we need our fantastic teachers, teaching assistants and specialist SEND teachers; without them, we could not provide children with the support they require. That is why we are boosting training opportunities through a new national professional qualification for special educational needs co-ordinators, which will be launched in autumn 2024, and investing a further £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists. We are also training up to 7,000 early years specialists, over 5,000 of whom have begun their training. We now have 280,000 teaching assistants in our schools, an increase of over 60,000 since we have been in office.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Green Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of educational psychologists. We are investing £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists, building on the £10 million already announced to train more than 200 from this term.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Nick Gibb
Schools must have suitable drinking water facilities. Where responsible bodies, such as local authorities or academy trusts, discover lead piping in a school, they must take action, working as appropriate with water companies. Capital funding allocated to schools each year can be used to fund the removal of pipe work if required, but when a school has a particular concern, it can contact the Department for assistance.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Green Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for T-levels in principle. T-levels are going extremely well, and we have very good uptake. The first year of T-levels was conducted in perhaps the harshest circumstances imaginable during covid, but thanks to the hard work of my officials and the hard work of principals, we managed to get almost all students—well over 90% of students—their work placements. If we can do it in the conditions of covid, I think we can do it at other times.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
We are currently consulting on the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision Green Paper. This includes our proposal to establish a single national SEND and alternative provision system, setting nationally consistent standards. It will set out how needs should be identified and assessed, and the appropriate provision should be made available to meet those needs.
Sarah Green
I thank the Minister for his answer. I have spoken to multiple parents in my constituency whose disabled children are entering the summer holidays without knowing where they are going to be in September or whether the support they need will be in place because of a lengthy delay for an appointment with an educational psychologist. While I welcome the Government’s announcement about increasing funding for educational psychologists, the 2023 intake is too late to help young people who need this support now. How do the Government intend to tackle the backlog in this support and ensure that the SEND Green Paper addresses the funding gap in disabled children’s services?
School Openings: January 2022
Sarah Green Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Alex Burghart
In answer to my hon. Friend’s second question, I think it is clear that they are off on their holidays. In answer to his first question, we absolutely want and expect education settings to be open, we want and expect children to be taught in person, and we want and expect school life to go ahead.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Our children cannot afford for schools to close again or to miss more face-to-face teaching through absence. As has been mentioned previously, evidence shows that ventilation equipment in schools reduces the airborne risk of coronavirus by up to 70%. Other countries have already rolled out ventilation equipment to their schools and are seeing the benefits. When can we expect the results of the Bradford pilot scheme to be published, and when can schools expect ventilation equipment to be delivered? It is needed now.
Alex Burghart
As the hon. Lady will have heard me say already, we take ventilation and the quality of air extremely seriously. That is why we have achieved our public commitment of delivering 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors over the autumn term; in fact, we have excelled on our target. We are absolutely clear that ventilation is one of the four pillars that will help us best maintain school in person.
Mr Speaker
Nobody has been to see me about a statement, but of course my office door is open, and I hope that those on the Front Bench will be listening to me say that I would welcome that statement. Once again, I say that Members of Parliament are elected to this House to hear things in this Chamber, not on the media. I hope the message goes back that new information should be shared with Members of Parliament. I would like to believe that somebody will be knocking on my door very shortly to say, “Can we have a statement later?”, and of course I would welcome that statement.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) asked where were the Lib Dem MPs at this very important urgent question. I may be new to the House, but I point out that I am a Liberal Democrat and I asked my question right after the hon. Gentleman, who is no longer in his place. I am sure it was an oversight and that all can be forgiven, but can I please ask that he withdraws that comment for the record?
Mr Speaker
The good news is that you have corrected the record, and yes, we can all see that you are here.