SEND Provision: Kent

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND provision in Kent.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Sir John. Many dedicated people are working to support children with special educational needs and disabilities in my constituency—in schools, doctors’ surgeries and social services, alongside many other professionals—but I am afraid to say that children in Folkestone and Hythe are being failed every day by the broken SEND system in Kent, which is presided over by Reform UK-run Kent county council. This is not an entirely negative speech, but I do need to start by describing what we are seeing on the ground every day, before I move on to the way forwards.

The reality in Kent is that, under Reform’s stewardship, the situation for SEND support has deteriorated to crisis point. My inbox is full of emails from desperate parents. This is not a bureaucratic failure alone: it is a moral failure. In 2025, children in Kent with SEND are still denied the basic dignity, respect and support that any civilised society should provide. The stories from my constituency are not just troubling; they are harrowing indictments of a local authority that has lost its moral compass.

Let us take the case of one boy who was diagnosed with autism and pathological demand avoidance. He is now in year 6 at a specialist SEND school. His parents, supported by professionals, identified the secondary school that could best meet his complex needs, but instead, Reform UK’s Kent county council named a different school, which itself had admitted that it could not meet his needs. To compound this, the education, health and care plan, which is meant to be a living document, mostly referred to his infant years. He is 11 now. Disgracefully, his future is being locked to outdated paperwork. When his parents challenged the decision at tribunal, KCC brazenly admitted that its sole reason for choosing an inappropriate school was money. Let us call that what it is: institutional neglect, sanctioned from the very top of the council.

KCC is gaming the tribunal system as a delaying tactic, to push back the date when it must pay for SEND children’s needs. KCC spends far more on SEND tribunals than any other local authority in this country, amounting to millions of pounds every year, despite losing almost all of them. That is a failure of leadership of epic proportions.

My team is inundated with accounts of heartbreak, of children’s needs dismissed and of families abandoned. Another local child with complex SEND has been on a sharply reduced timetable since February 2025. The school was forced by a lack of resources to push forward a plan at pace and in a fashion entirely unsuited to him. He was failed not by his teachers but by the absent leadership of the council.

A child in my constituency was for an entire year denied any placement, simply due to the delays in drawing up an EHCP, which were a direct result of council paralysis. A further example, which is perhaps the most shocking and saddening, is a family whose child has been driven to despair by the failed system and has voiced the wish not to go on living. That should horrify all of us, and it is happening under the council’s watch.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairship, Sir John. The stories that my hon. and learned Friend is recounting completely match those that I get in my inbox and hear in my surgeries—these stories are repeated across the county. My constituency has a higher than the national, regional and county average of people with learning disability needs, and we are just not getting the support we need.

I want to flag two things. The SEND team at the council is extremely unresponsive to parents and schools and, indeed, to me and my office—I am sure that is true for colleagues, too. There is also a pattern of schools saying they can care for a child but being turned down. That is happening over and over again, and people are being forced to travel many miles across the county in a way that is simply not possible for children with this level of need.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be short—but I am a kind and generous Chairman.

[Tony Vaughan]

My hon. Friend’s experience is similar to mine. My postbag reflects a kind of ongoing unresponsiveness, which results in people feeling that they are just lost in the system. That is entirely unacceptable.

On a slightly different theme, for SEND children who wish to access a grammar school education in Kent, KCC seems to be refusing requests for extra time for the 11-plus test, in breach of the Equality Act 2010, and without giving any reasons. It is the law that extra time must be granted if a reasonable adjustment is required under that Act, yet Kent’s special access panel unfairly puts roadblocks in the way, stifling opportunities for our young people. The failures stretch beyond Folkestone and Hythe; they blight every corner of Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) said. This is county-wide neglect, shrouded in excuses.

I am not blind to the scale of the challenges, but I will not excuse the years of inaction and mismanagement, first under the Tories and now under Reform UK.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. and learned Gentleman for securing this debate. He is quite right to outline the issue of the growing demand and the complexity of needs. Similar things are happening in all of the United Kingdom, as indicated by the 51% increase in the number of SEND cases in Northern Ireland in seven years. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is perhaps now time for a completely different approach to SEND? Does he also agree that the educational needs of and opportunities for children must be prioritised and funded? Otherwise, we will consign a group of children to a life of feeling not good enough and not achieving enough.

[Tony Vaughan]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is precisely why we need wholesale change in the system, which is what the Government are preparing to consult on. We will of course listen carefully to the proposals when they come forward.

Let me talk briefly about the system in Kent. Nationally, the demand for SEND support has grown, and EHCP requests have surged by 140% since 2015, as per the National Audit Office. In 2022, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission handed down an improvement notice for nine glaring SEND failings in Kent. KCC scrambled to implement an accelerated progress plan and, after Government scrutiny in 2024, the notice was lifted. But still: where are the real improvements? My postbag tells a starkly different story.

I must raise concerns about the safety valve programme. The 2021 deal between the Department for Education and KCC was supposed to plug deficits, but in practice it has often made it even harder for families to access vital support. In areas like Kent with safety valve deals, EHCPs have become harder to obtain and parents are forced to jump over ever-higher hurdles. The priorities of the safety valve programme mean that financial savings are trumping the needs of children in Kent.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I call Neil Duncan Jordan.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Oh, no—he is slightly older than me. [Laughter.] It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John.

My constituency borders Kent, and we also have a safety valve programme, as well as an Ofsted judgment of “systemic failings”, so children in my constituency, who cross that border, experience similar issues. Will my hon. and learned Friend join me in encouraging the Minister to look, as part of the reforms, at how these issues work on a cross-borough basis when children live in one borough but use schools in another?

[Tony Vaughan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we are looking at how to change the system overall, we have to avoid a situation in which we have postcode lotteries and inconsistency, because a child who lives on one side of a border should not take any blame for the failures of the two local authorities.

The safety valve system has created financial targets that have led to perverse incentives to withhold help, suppress demand and punish aspiration. That is not reform: it is rationing. The result is that we see inappropriate placement, adversarial council relationships and broken trust. Kent’s families have had enough. The safety valve programme was policymaking for short-termism, not for real change. It was exactly the kind of sticking-plaster politics that we saw in recent years under the Tories, and Kent’s children are paying the price. I demand from Kent county council urgent, transparent and measurable actions to improve SEND support in our communities.

I will say a few words about those who have been running Kent county council since May. Reform UK recently accused SEND parents of “abusing the system”—a view that shames that party and this country. Reform UK was elected in Kent because it said it would cut waste and abuse, yet when its baseball cap-wearing smart young guys turned up, they found what everyone else already knew: after 14 years of Tory austerity, there is nothing left to cut. They promised millions in savings, but delivered only empty rhetoric and more hurt for those in need. According to Reform, the reason for our SEND crisis is waste and abuse, but that grotesquely misreads the reality faced by the children and parents who are battling for support.

Genuine, practical, long-term change is needed, and long overdue. As Folkestone and Hythe’s first Labour MP, and as part of a Labour Government determined to repair what has been broken, I am committed to forging solutions, not division. I therefore welcome the Government’s drive to build a fairer and truly inclusive SEND system, and agree with the Government’s position that inclusivity for SEND students must be embedded in mainstream schools and accountability moved to the heart of the Department for Education’s schools group, led by the Minister for School Standards. Reform has to have inclusivity at its core. I fully support the Government programme, which covers one in six primary schools, to train teachers in understanding neurodiversity.

I recently read an article in The Economist about how Portsmouth is providing an inclusive approach to supporting children with SEND. In Portsmouth, students with behavioural and learning difficulties are no longer automatically referred to the NHS for a medical diagnosis. Instead, each school’s SEND co-ordinator, or a designated teacher, sits down with parents to draw up the child’s neurodiversity profile, which allows teachers and parents to identify how best to accommodate the children’s needs and to identify stressors that make it harder to learn. This helps to identify specific things that could help the child. Only if that approach does not work are medical professionals brought in.

The adaptions that are needed are often quite simple. At one school, some students have a time-out pass to leave class for a few minutes when they need a quiet space, a reset, or a short break to run up and down the stairs. Tinted plastic overlays can help children with dyslexic symptoms. Teachers use an empathetic approach to things such as missing a uniform tie: a friendly greeting before asking nicely about the tie’s whereabouts prevents the build-up of tension, which causes problems.

The approach ensures that help for children with additional needs does not depend on a formal medical diagnosis or referral, and creates a culture where everybody can receive timely assistance through flexible, graduated support. Portsmouth’s commitment to shared best practice and ongoing collaboration makes SEND support a normal part of mainstream education, which benefits everybody. I am glad to say that Kent has started to pilot the same approach.

I support the Government’s work to ensure that Ofsted now grades down any school that excludes or off-rolls SEND students. The additional investment from the Labour Government, including the real-terms increase to the core schools budget, is crucial for SEND children, as well as for recruitment and retention. Frontline staff deserve security, reward and respect. Last year’s autumn Budget pledged an additional £11.2 billion in education spending by 2025-26, with £1 billion ringfenced for SEND. The new funding will enable more children with SEND to thrive, and not simply survive, in our schools. It is right that the Government are carefully considering how SEND should be reformed, and I support the Education Secretary’s commitment to real co-creation and to reform that is designed with—not for—children, families and practitioners.

I want to end on a positive note. I recently visited the Beacon school in my constituency, which supports children and young people with profound, severe and complex needs. I was blown away by the dedication of the staff, who were not just educating children but setting them up for life. I enjoyed meeting the children and young people, who were learning, creating, building and thriving. The school’s work to prepare children and young people for the world of work was cutting edge.

To every teacher, support worker and professional working with children with special educational needs across all Folkstone and Hythe schools, and in Kent, I say a huge thank you. They hold the system up. I will make sure that the system backs them and the children whose lives they change every day. We must ensure that every child gets the support they need to thrive and achieve their potential in life. That is the mission of this Labour Government. Despite the scale of the challenge, we will and must make this hope a reality.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Vaughan]

I thank all Members for their contributions, which echoed the same problems that I identified in my constituency. Kent MPs highlighted similar experiences with Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), with her huge experience in this area, questioned the correctness of taking KCC out of the special measures regime, as did the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) through his colleague, the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden). I am grateful to the Minister for undertaking to write to us about the nature of the ongoing scrutiny of Kent county council. The testimonies that we have heard today and that come into our inbox put pressure on those of us who are in the field, so to speak, to ask whether we are moving forward or backwards.

We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) and for Gravesham, and from the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), about the importance of maintaining existing legal protections in the upcoming changes to the SEND system. They are absolutely right about that.

Several Members mentioned home-to-school transport. As the hon. Member for South Devon said, it is a huge source of expenditure for Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford mentioned that specialist hubs could be a way of reducing travel time. I would add that creating and expanding specialist units within mainstream schools is another way of doing that. There are several examples of good practice in my constituency that avoid the need to travel long distances and that integrate children with special educational needs into mainstream schools, making it easier to go between the two units.

I thank the Government for their collaborative approach to formulating proposals for change in the upcoming White paper. We need to get to the point where mainstream schools can meet the needs of the vast majority of children with special educational needs, although I appreciate that they will not be suitable for all. Equally, where a child has a need, the currently available legal protections that enable that child to access the necessary support must be there. That is ultimately the route for children to achieve their potential.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered SEND provision in Kent.