Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Debate between Vince Cable and David Drew

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered special educational needs and disabilities funding.

It is a privilege to speak on this subject, which is of immense concern to a large number of us and to our constituents, and that is reflected in the demand to speak. It is rare that we get a Brexit-free zone in Parliament at the moment, but this is one, and it is right that we pay attention to it. Far too many Government problems have been squeezed out by the attention given to a single issue, but how we treat children with special educational needs will have enormous implications for decades to come.

Essentially, I will speak about the conflict between two sets of pressures: an irresistible force and an immovable object. The irresistible force is, of course, the demand of parents of children with special needs, who have been led to believe, by the very progressive Children and Families Act 2014, that their children’s needs will be met and their full potential realised through education, health and care plans. The immovable object is money, manifesting itself now in a serious financial crisis for local authorities, which are expected to meet statutory obligations, but find that demand is rising and becoming much larger than the funding available through the special needs block. In some cases, those local authorities are in extreme difficulty.

I will introduce the debate by quoting a parents’ group called Richmond SEND Crisis, which wrote to me yesterday, describing the problem from the parents’ point of view. The group said:

“The crisis in funding has consequences. It means more stress and mental health issues for both parents and children, parents being forced to give up work, increased levels of family break up, increased levels of children being disruptive in school, failing in school or not being in school at all. It means that schools and the wider school community suffer, as children without proper support tend to absorb a disproportionate amount of time from school staff and may be disruptive in class.

All of these consequences inevitably hit the most vulnerable… families the hardest.”

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one significant change is the growth in home-school education? Given the amount of time it takes to get an assessment, parents are now just taking their children out of school. That cannot be a good thing.

[Sir Vince Cable]

Indeed. That is happening on a growing scale, and is augmented by the fact that many children are being excluded because of the lack of support. That, in turn, contributes to home education, which may be inferior.