Dedicated Schools Grant

Steff Aquarone Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I refer Members to my entry in the register of interests as a serving Norfolk county councillor. Across all the areas that the DSG exists to support, Norfolk is struggling. Early years settings in North Norfolk are under mounting pressures from the national insurance hike, rising wages and spiralling costs.

For many providers, there is simply not enough money coming in to match what they need to survive. It is estimated that 80% of the income from early years settings now comes from Government-funded childcare. When that funding does not match what is needed, these settings get into deep trouble. In North Norfolk, we cannot afford to lose them. Without childcare for working-age parents in my rural constituency, families who have cherished the area for generations will be forced to move.

The risk of a demographic doom spiral is huge. If schools and nurseries close, working-age people will not be able to both work and have families. If working families cannot survive and thrive in rural North Norfolk, people will not have children. We are already seeing an alarming pattern of those with children not going there. If there are no children, there will be no working-age people of tomorrow. That goes for all children, of all ages, abilities and aptitudes. It is a worrying slippery slope for our area both economically and in supporting vital services such as adult social care.

Good, accessible and affordable childcare is a basis on which we can build our rural economy. That is why, as a candidate, I marched 10 miles in protest at the closure of childcare provision in Wells; we got it reopened thanks to the hard work of parents. It is also why, just last week, I protested the proposed closure of East Ruston nursery with worried local parents who depend on it. Early years provision is an often undervalued but vital part of our education system and I am fighting to protect it in North Norfolk.

Meanwhile, Norfolk’s SEND provision is in crisis. The current system is not helping schools, parents, teachers or the local authority. Demand is rapidly outstripping supply, and Norfolk country council was at the last count running a deficit in the high needs block approaching £60 million. That is completely unsustainable, and we have to change the way our system supports these children and young people to give them a far better experience and to set them up for the rest of their lives.

I recently met a mother and her son at one of my constituency surgeries. He was a very smart, engaging and insightful young man. I shared excellent conversations with him about videogame development and computing, and his talent and potential shone through. However, the system has failed him. He has been out of education for three years, and his mother is battling the tribunal system to try to get him access to formal education again. The toll it has taken on both of them is clear and completely unacceptable, and he is not alone in facing such circumstances.

It pains me to think about a lost generation of talented and passionate young people who could miss out on bright futures because of the crisis in SEND provision. Trust has broken down, and we have to do better. We need to enable and encourage more mainstream inclusion for those for whom that is possible, we need to review the tribunal system, which is putting unnecessary stress on families and often producing unworkable outcomes for local authorities, and we need to better support schools in getting the best out of those pupils by ensuring that criteria for their inspection incentivises high-quality inclusion and looks not just at a pupil’s performance on paper, but at their readiness to learn.

Norfolk’s families were failed for many years by the disastrous duo: a Conservative Government and a Conservative-led county council. They have got rid of that Government, and I have no doubt they would have gotten rid of the Conservatives on the council, too, if they had not had their election snatched away from them. I am proud to stand side by side with the parents and children who are demanding better for their futures. I will hold the Government and the county council to account to make sure that is delivered.