Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of holiday clubs for parents of children with SEND.

The department’s Holiday Activities and Food programme, backed by £200 million per year to 2025, provides heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families over the holidays. The programme is targeted at school aged children who receive benefits-related Free School Meals (FSM), and the department expects the local authorities we fund to ensure that all programme providers offer inclusive and accessible provision.

As in previous years, local authorities have discretion to use up to 15% of their funding to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children who are not in receipt of benefits related FSM. This can include children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities who are not also in receipt of benefits-related FSM, but who the local authority believe could benefit from the programme.