Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings in the advance pre-publication draft report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Is Britain Fairer?, published on 25 October, that “in England, the long-term trend towards inclusion of children with SEND in mainstream schools has been reversed” and that this is “at odds with the UK’s commitment to progressively achieve inclusive education for all under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities".

We are currently considering the findings of the report. We remain committed to inclusive education of disabled children and young people and progressively removing the barriers to learning and participation in mainstream education. The Children and Families Act (2014) secures the general presumption in law of mainstream education in relation to decisions about where children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) should be educated; and the Equality Act (2010) provides protection from discrimination for disabled people.

We have very high expectations of our mainstream schools, where 98.3% of pupils are educated. As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State said in his speech to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services earlier this year: ‘Every school is a school for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND); and every teacher is a teacher of SEND pupils'.

While many parents of disabled children choose mainstream education, others will want a specialist setting. Some children have complex SEN that mean that the best educational experience for them is in a school that specialises in meeting those needs. For them, a special school is a positive choice.