Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to consider the recommendations in the Law Commission's 2025 report on disabled children's social care; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of legislative reform alongside the rollout of the Family Help programme.

The Law Commission published its final report on 16 September 2025 following a department-commissioned review in April 2023 of the legal framework for disabled children’s social care.

The report sets out 40 recommendations, which we are now considering, aimed at improving how the law operates, with a focus on simplifying and strengthening the system to better support disabled children and their families.

In line with the protocol agreed between the Lord Chancellor and the Law Commission, the department provided an initial response to these recommendations on 16 March 2026 and is expected to provide a full response within one year, setting out which recommendations will be accepted, rejected or modified, and any implementation timeline. Policy development is ongoing and the department continues to engage with key stakeholders, therefore it would not be appropriate to comment on specific recommendations ahead of publication of the full response.

Alongside this, we believe the rollout of Family Help as part of the Families First Partnership programme, backed by £2.4 billion of funding over three years, is already beginning to deliver many of the intended outcomes of the report. Our wider reforms are designed to make a real and tangible difference to children and families, including disabled children.