Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support the education of students with special educational needs.

The department has increased high needs funding by £1.65 billion over two years, bringing total high needs funding to over £9.7 billion by the 2023/24 financial year. We are providing additional support to local authorities through our Safety Valve and Delivering Better Value in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) programmes. These programmes will help local authorities provide effective and sustainable services that will support children and young people with SEND to achieve better outcomes.

Alongside this, the department is investing up to £18 million in supported internships over the next three years, aiming to double the number of supported internships by 2025. This will help more young people with education, health and care (EHC) plans have the skills they need to secure and sustain paid employment.

Later this year, the department will publish a National Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) improvement plan, setting out our response to the SEND and AP Green Paper consultation and the next steps for implementation of system reform.