Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Debate between Vince Cable and Gary Streeter

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Before I call Sir Vince Cable to move the motion for this important debate on special educational needs and disabilities funding, I can report that 12 colleagues have put in to speak from the Back Benches. Therefore, after Sir Vince’s speech, there will be a voluntary time limit of three and a half minutes. Please try to contain yourselves a little in interventions; otherwise, we will go well over time.

[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.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that interventions should be brief.

[Sir Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is right; that is one of many anomalies. Many such issues were not properly accounted for and are not being fully funded. I will come to others in a moment.

The consequence of the growing demand is that many local authorities, which are genuinely trying to do their best in most cases, are accumulating large financial deficits. The Local Government Association, which has done lots of research on it, believes that there will be a gap of about £1.6 billion at the end of the next financial year. That is unaccounted for at present.

Some London authorities—I speak as a London MP, but I know that other parts of the country have similar problems—have a shortfall from the high needs block of about 7%. For about six boroughs in London, it is more than 10%. For my borough, Richmond, it is 20%, and I think three others are in an even worse position, including the borough of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). For his borough, I think it is 40%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Vince Cable]

I thank the 13 Members who have contributed to the debate, which was very rich in content. They all pointed in pretty much the same direction, regardless of region of the UK or political party. We heard plenty of examples of the extreme tensions that parents face because of the pressures of special needs, and how so many of them have been disappointed.

I was struck by the example that the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) cited of children being kept waiting and falling two years behind in their learning before they are even assessed. There are many similar cruelties and disadvantages of that kind. We also heard many examples of the pressures on schools. The Minister acknowledged the point raised by several hon. Members about the £6,000 hurdle—the perverse incentive—and although I did not hear in her speech whether she was going to change that, she at least acknowledged the problem and recognised that much of it is hidden by home schooling, which is growing rapidly.

Several Members from different parties mentioned how their councils—of different kinds—are being put into serious financial difficulties as a result of the problem. Worst of all, councils, schools and parents are reduced to fighting and blaming each other for what is actually a collective problem. The aim of the 2014 Act was to deal with all this in a consensual way, and to focus on the needs of pupils, but the issue has become a cockpit of conflict—manifested in the tribunals system—which is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly costly, both emotionally and financially.

To conclude, I wish to acknowledge some of the constructive thoughts in the debate. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) talked about creating an intermediate triage system for picking needs up early before the formal assessment process is completed. The hon. Member for High Peak and others suggested that we could focus on getting more information to parents about their entitlements, to avoid their missing out or finding out too late in the day, and on changing Ofsted’s terms of reference, so that it incentivises rather than penalises inclusion, as is very often implicitly the case in its rating system. We also heard suggestions from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and others about how the funding formula should be changed and how we could make more use of flexibility between health and education.

All that ultimately comes back to—I know that the Minster is painfully conscious of this—more money and the spending review. I know just how fraught that process is because I have been the head of a spending Department, but I can do no more than wish the Minister well and say on behalf of us all that we basically want a significant enhancement of special needs provision—alongside schools, not at their expense.

Finally, I will quote what I thought was one of the more memorable phrases. The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said that parents just want to stop fighting and get on with being parents. I thought that was a very good way of summarising what we are all trying to say.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

May I break a few rules by saying from the Chair that I strongly support the broad thrust of the debate? I very much hope that our Government will sort this out in the next 12 months. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That is the end of me chairing.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

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