Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Statement

19:41

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 23 February.

“Madam Deputy Speaker, please allow me to begin by saying that the unauthorised leaking of elements of today’s announcement is deeply regrettable. I have already asked officials to launch a full investigation into the source to ensure that such breaches do not happen again.

With permission, I will now make a Statement to update the House on this Government’s work to transform education in this country, because childhood is changing. Our children are growing up in a world of ever-increasing connectivity and communication, but uncertainty and mistrust are on the rise too. Our children have the curiosity, resilience and enterprise to succeed, but a vision for education that stops at the school gates has failed to deliver the opportunities they need.

Under the last Government, absence was at historic highs. Despite the heroic efforts of staff, the disadvantage gap is still stubbornly wide, children with special educational needs and disabilities are still sidelined, and bright pupils are still left to drift along. A system of high standards for some, but not for others, is not good enough; high standards and inclusion must go hand in hand.

The last Government’s vision for education was too narrow. No school is an island, and for children to do well, we need to look outside the classroom as well as inside it. We need to rebuild the services on which families rely. That is why we have acted fast, beginning to remove the stain of child poverty, rolling out free breakfast clubs, expanding free school meals and removing the two-child limit. I am deeply proud that this Labour Government will have lifted more than half a million children out of poverty by 2030. We have also delivered the expansion of 30 hours of government-funded childcare; we are rolling out Best Start Family Hubs, and we will fund a SEND practitioner in every hub.

Today, we go further. We are publishing our schools White Paper, a vision for schools that do not stand alone but are at the heart of happy and healthy childhoods. For every child, a great local school—a school of ambition and achievement; a school filled with sport, music and drama; a school of high standards and inclusion. Let there be no doubt: standards will rise for all children. Those born under this Labour Government will on average leave school with a grade 5 or higher across their GCSEs, and I will not have higher standards for some while others are left behind. The disadvantage gap was as stark in 2024 as it was a decade before, but now we will cut it in half. We will boost the impact of the pupil premium and the national funding formula, consulting on better targeting, and we will deliver three big shifts in our schools.

The first big shift will be from narrow to broad, capturing the true breadth of opportunity, starting before children even reach the classroom, with our Best Start Family Hubs. To improve the transition into reception, we will establish partnerships between early years and schools, and staff will work together to help children settle. School days will be energised by a broad and rich curriculum that contains the knowledge and skills for all our young people to succeed, and we will consult on measuring attainment and progress, improving the Progress 8 measure to strengthen the academic core and support students to pursue subjects that strengthen our economy and our society, such as drama, art and design, if that is the route they want to take.

We will set high expectations and standards for all, and nowhere more so than in reading. The ability to read opens up a world of opportunity, and falling behind locks children out of learning, so our new year 8 reading test will help them stay on track. Currently, too many children are sidelined and held back, with their needs not met. We know that the biggest challenges are concentrated in some communities: that is why we will launch and fund two place-focused education missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal. We will transform the life chances of local young people and draw a blueprint for national change.

We need an education system that works for every child: that is why our second shift is from sidelined to included, to inject excellence and rigour into the learning of every child. But, as a society, we have let those expectations slip for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Members across the House all know that our SEND system is not working. They have heard it from their constituents: parents who are tired of fighting, who are fed up with sending their children out of their community to have their needs met, and who are angry that their child’s future is being written off.

Parents and children have been failed, and they have been failed for too long. That is the reality that this Government inherited from the Conservatives: a system that was designed with the best of intentions, but which became “lose, lose, lose”, in the words of my predecessor, because of the choices and then the inaction of the Conservative Party. It was a system that drove local councils, again and again, to put process above people. Support was stripped away, forcing parents to run a legal gauntlet for what should have been their child’s by right: support that all too often just did not materialise.

Today, that changes. We will fix the SEND system once and for all. Today is a realisation of those children’s rights—the right to high expectations and outcomes—and the support to fulfil them. Far more children will be going to school with their friends in their local community, close to home. It will be better for them and, evidence suggests, better for the whole class.

Over the next three years, we will invest over £1.6 billion to strengthen the mainstream inclusion offer. For those children whose needs cannot be met through universal support, there will now be three further layers of support—targeted, targeted-plus and specialist—available from day one when a child needs them. Schools will now have a statutory duty to record and monitor each child’s special needs and provision in an individual support plan.

We will fortify mainstream provision with our new national Experts at Hand initiative, backed by £1.8 billion of new investment. Educational psychologists and occupational and speech and language therapists in our schools will support our teachers, benefiting our children. Earlier this month, we announced huge investment in school buildings. Every secondary school will have an inclusion base, a dedicated space to bridge the gap between mainstream and specialist provision.

This is about improving support, not removing support. Children with the most complex needs will still have access to education, health and care plans derived from a specialist provision package of support designed by experts. We know that insightful, holistic inclusion happens when schools share their expertise and their resources, so we will strengthen schools’ strategic SEND partnerships, with every school becoming part of a local SEND group. Our new national inclusion standards will set out clear evidence-based guidance for support. To restore parents’ trust in the system, we will improve the mediation and school complaints process, making the SEND tribunal the genuine mechanism of last resort, and we will give the Children’s Commissioner a new remit to oversee our SEND reforms.

I thank every parent, every organisation and every group who has taken part in our national conversation on SEND. I also pay tribute to my honourable friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North, Catherine McKinnell, and for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale, Georgia Gould, for driving forward that work.

This is not the end of the conversation. I urge everyone to get involved, as today we launch our national SEND consultation. I ask parents, carers, support staff, teachers, experts and leaders to work with us. We are building a system for children with SEND that will be unrecognisable from what came before. We are putting in the investment, care and time to get this right, with a smooth transition from 2030.

Schools need engagement from without as well as within, with communities coming together to support every child, so our final shift will be from withdrawn to engaged. We need to mend the broken social contract by helping children to feel that they belong in school and by providing calm, inclusive classrooms that welcome children with different needs, guarded by high standards for behaviour and attendance. Schools will build deep and meaningful partnerships with parents by inviting them in to see how their child can achieve and thrive. We will establish minimum expectations for home-to-school partnerships, making it clear what families can expect from schools and what schools can expect of families.

Excellent support staff, teachers and school leaders can transform children’s lives, but too many incredible young women are still leaving the profession, so I am putting an end to a quarter-century of standstill, and boosting maternity pay. I want to spread the excellence of our wonderful staff, so we will put purposeful collaboration at the heart of our education system. Strong school trusts are vital in sharing what works and driving improvement, so all schools will move towards forming or joining a high-quality trust, and we will empower local authorities and partnerships to establish trusts too. We will work with the sector through this significant change, set high expectations through new trust standards, and introduce trust inspection by Ofsted.

We in this House have a responsibility to look beyond the here and now—a duty not just to run the country of today, but to shape the society of tomorrow. Members will agree that, in Britain, background should be no barrier, success should be open to all, and talent, invention and hard work should matter more than class and connections. A stronger, fairer Britain is possible, but to make it true in our country we first have to make it true in our schools and for the little boys and girls now sitting in our classrooms, who can become the thoughtful and engaged citizens to take us towards the 22nd century. For them, we must come together today and build a Britain of opportunity for all. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Government for the Statement and the publication of the schools White Paper, the SEND consultation and the update on teacher recruitment. I also acknowledge the time taken by the Secretary of State and her ministerial colleagues in communicating in particular the Government’s proposals in terms of reforming support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including taking time to talk to parents. This is a very important and sensitive area, and that is appreciated by all.

The Government have been very clear about their intent with these reforms, but I will ask the Minister some questions, particularly on realigning the incentives in the system. Before the Minister points out any of the mistakes of the previous Government, I will be absolutely clear that there was an issue with the 2014 reforms in relation to incentives. The principles that underpinned the Children and Families Act, which introduced education, health and care plans, were not flawed. The aim of creating a tailored and comprehensive single plan for a child was not a bad one; nor was the requirement for local authorities and partners to jointly commission services and to focus on outcomes and participation of children; and nor was the extension of rights and support into further education and training, so that young people with SEND were better prepared for adulthood.

The problems came with the incentives, which ended up unintentionally pushing parents to seek specialist and, in many cases, very expensive support for their child. Every one of us, as a parent, would seek the best possible support for our children, but it ended up driving up costs in a way that no one anticipated. I hope that the Minister can set out how the incentives will work in the proposed system, because the existence of earlier intervention support, which is very welcome, does not equate to parents believing that it is sufficient for their child.

It would help to understand how the department and Ministers have thought through the incentives for parents and for mainstream schools to intervene and improve outcomes. If the Minister could walk us through an example, it would be very helpful. Perhaps she could expand on the plan set out on page 84 of the consultation to redirect more money into the core budget and say how much the Government anticipate will be taken out of education, health and care plans to make that happen.

I would also be grateful if she could set out how confident the Government feel that the new funding for inclusive mainstream provision and for the specialist workforce will be sufficient. At first sight, the figures do not look sufficient when one thinks about them at an individual school level, although I appreciate that they are very large in relation to any negotiation with His Majesty’s Treasury. Unless they are sufficient, parents understandably will seek to revert to specialist support as the only route to adequate help for their children.

The same is true when one looks at the numbers set out in the document in relation to the specialist workforce, where I see that the plans of the previous Government, particularly in relation to educational psychologists, are being continued at a rate of 200 a year. I appreciate that it is difficult to recruit and find these staff but, again, they need to be there in sufficient numbers.

I apologise if I missed this in the document, but I wonder whether the Government considered using approaches that I think are used quite frequently on the continent, where funding is given to a local area and all schools can benefit from provision for the children with the most complex needs where no individual school has sufficient children to make it viable to support them. Finally, will the Government be piloting these approaches to test how they work in practice, so we avoid unintended consequences?

Apart from incentives, can the Minister address some of the concerns that have been expressed by parents who are worried that their rights will be eroded? I hope that this will be an opportunity for the Minister to reassure those who are listening. There are many areas that have been highlighted: I will pick just a couple. First, education, health and care plans were set with a legal test of whether it “may be necessary” for provision to be secured through a plan, not whether a child has “complex” or “severe” needs. That appears to be changing. The document says that education, health and care plans

“will be developed with the setting, and in consultation with parents, after the Specialist Provision Package and placement decisions have been made”.

The Minister will know that parents are worried about that.

Finally, can I give her the opportunity to answer the question that her colleagues have so far declined to answer? Could any child who currently has an EHCP lose it in future?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that I have been asking for this to come out for a long time, so I thank the Government for getting there eventually. The document does accept that it is a difficult and slow process that we are starting, and anybody who kids themselves that it is not will be doing a disservice to everybody involved. We are talking about 2030 for getting some structure in place. You have to train people, to get other people used to being told that they are operating differently in the classroom, and to get schools to re-incentivise, with an inclusion strategy and individual support plans. This is a cultural shift which will take real effort and time to push through. If we accept that, how will we make sure that everybody in every school understands that they have a duty and the ability to identify and tell parents what the problem is? That is where it all starts to go wrong.

At the moment, there is a disincentive for anybody to be identified by a school as having a special educational need, because you have got a budget that comes from the main school budget, which means you have got a choice between four kids getting their dyslexia support or help for autism or ADHD, or the roof leaks. How is that to be squared? It is not just more money; it is the allocation of money, and it is the duty. If you have an individual plan going through, are you flexible enough to allow that to be implemented?

There has been an acceptance in this Chamber every time I have spoken that you do not work harder; you work smarter. Individual groups will have a different take on this. I am a dyslexic, and I declare my interest as the president of the British Dyslexia Association. I use technology and I work with people who use technology—I declare my interest as the chairman of Microlink PC. The incentives I have there and the problems I square up to are different to those in the autism sector, which is probably one of the most vocal groups. How are we going to work these two in together? How are we going to have the flexibility to allow a school to actually undertake these different types of approach?

If you have that, if you make that an incentive, you stand a chance of getting a better situation, but only if you have identified that you can get the right help to the right person. Take dyslexia—I will cling to mother and talk to the one I know about. If it is not just the English teacher but the maths teacher who realises bad short-term memory means these individuals will not remember formulas and equations, bring those two together so everybody knows you will work differently. You can go into dyscalculia and others. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, is not here but she has actually raised this and done a great service in bringing it further forward. When these groups come through, how are we going to get the capacity into the school to identify and bring it forward?

The reassessment of all plans and support structures when you get to secondary school is a natural break—you go from acquiring basic skills to acquiring knowledge to pass exams. But how are we going to make sure that is not something where somebody says, “Right, you are doing this here”; it should be about how you continue, not how you stop. There is a fear, and it has become very apparent. I recommend the “Woman’s Hour” podcast if noble Lords want to have a definition of the fear that has come out about this. How are we going to deal with that? These are the sort of questions we are going to have to start to answer today and carry on with.

I welcome the approach here, but unless you actually get a more coherent pattern that reassures those who have fought to get their EHCPs, spending time, blood and not a little money on them, what are we going to do? Can we also have a commitment from the Minister that the Government will be looking at how to remove lawyers from the system? In many cases, there are a lot of very second-rate lawyers who have taken this work on and are milking the system. We cannot go back to this. We cannot go back to this situation where only the articulate and well off are getting the help they need.

I applaud the attention towards subjects like sport and music, because it helps with special educational needs if you have got some positive attitude towards them. How are we going to bring this together? How is the flexibility and that inclusion pathway going to be put down so that the rest of this can be put on? If you get that right, you stand a chance of making a real improvement here. If we do not have that and we do not have the identification capacity, you will not achieve that much.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, our White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, sets out our ambition to improve the lives of all children and young people, combining the support they receive at home with a school experience that is challenging, enriching and inclusive.

First, we will broaden children’s experience of education with a knowledge-rich curriculum, smooth the transition between phases, and introduce an enrichment entitlement for every child and accountability changes that promote breadth.

Secondly, we will ensure that children who have been sidelined for too long are fully included. We want every child to have the best start in life, with support available earlier and locally. Deprivation funding will be targeted to boost outcomes for the most disadvantaged children, and we are launching two place-focused missions to provide a blueprint for national change. Our ambitious SEND reforms will support mainstream inclusion so that children can access help without waiting for lengthy assessments or having to engage with lawyers—including from our £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme, wrapping professionals such as speech and language therapists around schools, and removing the incentive that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have identified for parents, who are desperate for the support that they need and want for their children, to have to fight through a lengthy process to get an education, health and care plan. But for those with more complex needs, new specialist provision packages, designed with experts and parents, will define the support required. All this is backed by £7 billion more for SEND in 2028-29 compared with 2025-26.

Thirdly, we will move from children and communities withdrawing from school to engaging with a new pupil engagement framework. Improved behaviour and attendance support and clearer information for parents will help strengthen relationships between families and schools.

Finally, we are building the strong foundations needed to deliver this change—more expert teachers, better training and improved maternity provision, deeper school collaboration through a trusted model and innovation powered by data, AI and regional RISE teams. These reforms, shaped by the largest national conversation on SEND, put children, families and inclusion at the heart of our system, and together they will ensure that every child in every community can achieve and thrive.

To give more detail on the incentives and funding point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we have been clear that we will reform the system through the addition of £4 billion over the next three years, including the £1.6 billion for the inclusive mainstream fund, because we must get to a position where more parents feel confident that their children are receiving the support that they need in schools, alongside their friends and as part of their communities. We will provide £1.6 billion for that fund over three years, with over £500 million per year over the next three years to mainstream schools and other educational settings. That fund will give schools and other education settings direct responsibility over funding to empower them to deliver for children and young people with SEND. Over time, there will be a rebalancing of funding from the high needs budget into schools’ budgets, in line with new accountability arrangements—funding in schools where it needs to make the difference.

In addition, our £1.8 billion fund will enable there to be what we are calling Experts at Hand—speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, occupational therapists and others supporting children and teachers before the point at which children need to get to have an education, health and care plan. That funding will provide, for example, the equivalent of 160 days’ worth of support in a secondary school and 40 additional days in primary. We will expect schools to work in groups in order to ensure that, where it does not necessarily make sense or is not possible to provide that provision in one school, they can work together in order to ensure that that provision is available.

The key point here, as we think about education, health and care plans, is how we move to a system where children will not need an education, health and care plan to get support in the first place. Although, to be clear, education, health and care plans will remain for children with complex needs, they will be based on evidence-driven, expert-determined, specialist provision packages, which will enable better and more effective commissioning by local authorities of the provision that is most likely to provide support for children. They will back up the education, health and care plans, which will remain for those children with complex needs.

We are clear that we need to transform the system before we change the EHCP system. That is why we have been clear that no child will have their EHCP renewed before 2028-29 and that it will be only those children who are currently in year 2 or below, who will come to the end of their primary, at which point it would seem appropriate to review their education, health and care plan. Many of them may well continue with that plan; for others, the transformed system and the development of individual support plans for every child with special educational needs may provide a better opportunity at that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, is right. We need to train people and teachers in order to be able to deliver the inclusive education that is at the heart of this reform. That is why we have already announced the £200 million additional support for every teacher and educator, from early years through to colleges, to get training in special educational needs and the type of teaching required to support children and young people. That is why we will make additional support and practitioners available in early years to help to identify those children who need additional support, and it is why we will invest in research to find the most effective ways of doing that throughout the system.

To conclude, our ambition is clear: to build an education system that enables every child, wherever they live and whatever their needs, to achieve and to thrive. These reforms will deliver earlier support, stronger inclusion, broader opportunities and higher standards for all. They are shaped by parents, grounded in evidence and backed by significant investment. Most importantly, they place children at the heart of every decision that we make. Working together, we can create a system that is fairer, more ambitious and fit for the future. That is how we will ensure that every child can achieve and thrive.

20:01

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I know from my work as an MP how sensitive this issue is and how important it is to families. I used to represent a constituency that the Minister will know very well.

There are concerns that we should not ignore. A number of eminent clinicians and psychiatrists are now raising concerns that the expansion of diagnostic labels to conditions such as autism and ADHD is causing children with the most severe and complex needs to be overlooked. Given that one in three EHCPs is now given for autism and that the number of children overall with SEN is rising, does the Minister think there is any validity in these concerns? If she does, will she look at it? What is the response? Will the Fonagy review look at this issue specifically as well?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that I know that constituency very well, having proudly represented it for 13 years—although I am afraid that the history of Worcestershire’s approach to special educational needs has not always been as effective as we would want it to be. There is a challenge to be made to local authorities to ensure that they are stepping up to the mark, given the considerable additional investment that we are putting into the system.

On the point about diagnostic labels, the important thing is that we should not be waiting for a child to receive a label to determine whether they have needs that need to be met, both through more inclusive mainstream teaching and through additional support being provided within schools. Even when we get to the specialist provision packages, they will be determined not by labels but by the needs that children have in order to make progress.

On the point about overdiagnosis, we need to be careful. The Secretary of State has been clear about that. He has commissioned further research into the nature of the diagnosis, particularly in the areas of mental health and other learning difficulties. That is an appropriate thing to have done.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will agree that great teaching is vital to great schools and great childhoods. We both shared the pleasure of working at the chalkface for many years. What will the Government do in the months and years ahead to ensure that great teachers stay in the profession and that they themselves achieve and thrive?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right—and also about the joy that teaching brought to us both. That is why, alongside the White Paper, we published the implementation plan for delivering an additional 6,500 specialist teachers in our secondary schools and colleges. It is why, through the already improved pay for teachers, we are providing incentives for them to stay; why we are continuing to look at the working conditions that teachers operate under; and why, for example, the White Paper extends maternity pay for teachers from a pretty low base. Using all those things, and the support for teachers to do the job that they love even better, we are already seeing some progress in keeping more teachers in the classroom. We will continue to ensure that we focus on that.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this document. It is very important and ambitious, but it is not without risk. The way in which the Government have consulted on it—and, in a way, taken their time—gives us the best possible chance of making a success of it. I hope that is the case.

I have two questions, which I hope the Minister can address. First, on the extra money going into the system to support SEND, I very much welcome the work that the Government plan to do on a new formula for supporting children from disadvantage. Will the way the SEND money goes into schools be part of that review and go in with money in the normal way, or will it take a different route? Will the details of that be announced? Secondly, I note that the White Paper allows local authorities to set up trusts. There is a quirky sentence, I think in chapter 5, which says that these local authority trusts will not be allowed to intervene or get involved in the day-to-day running of the school. That is not my impression of what happens with trusts at the moment. Will the rules that surround a local authority-led trust be exactly the same as the rules that surround others, or will they be slightly different, as this seems to indicate?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the White Paper proposes a different approach to how we fund disadvantage, recognising that a “yes or no”, free school meals analysis of whether somebody is disadvantaged does not really get to the heart of the nature of that disadvantage. We will consult on that in relation to the money that schools receive for the pupil premium and for the disadvantage factors within the national funding formula, some of which would relate to children with SEND but is not specifically about SEND. The £4 billion additional funding for SEND will be allocated in the way I outlined in my first answer.

On the point about local authority trusts, it is the objective of the White Paper for all schools to be part of a trust. We are clear that, in some cases, there may not be existing trusts that could take on a school. For that reason we will also allow local authorities to set up trusts, but it is not the intention to recreate local authorities through trust provision. That is the reason for the particular arrangements for local authority trusts.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government. As a teacher, I think this is an amazing document and I look forward to talking about it a lot more. Something I particularly love about it is the high expectation of families. A question that comes to me—one of many—is that it talks about experts at hand, wrapping professionals around mainstream settings. I love the fact that the schools are becoming the experts, but it is pretty light on detail. Can the Minister be a little more specific about how this is going to happen?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord recognises the emphasis on families and the relationship between schools and parents. An important element of the White Paper recognises, as I know the noble Lord does from his teaching career, that although teachers make a phenomenal difference to how children succeed, many other factors outside schools also impact on that. That is why this builds on a range of other activities, including those to support children to arrive at school ready to learn and our efforts to tackle child poverty, and brings stronger expectations on schools to ensure that they develop better home-school agreements and communicate consistently.

On the point about experts at hand, this is where I was talking about the additional funding that will enable some of those experts who, I am afraid, are currently spending too much time carrying out assessments or are in excellent special schools but are not able to offer that expertise out to schools, to develop it. Yes, there is work to be done on the design of how that happens, but this is considerable investment to deliver an average of 160 days to secondary schools precisely to get that support to children without them having to go through the torturous process of getting an education, health and care plan.

[Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking all the officials involved in producing this very ambitious White Paper and crediting Ministers for their determination to tackle this very difficult issue. I wholeheartedly support their emphasis on early intervention.

The Minister very helpfully set out the plans for the £4 billion of spending that I understand is coming from the department’s existing spending review settlement over the next three years. I wonder whether she could also confirm—or correct me if I am wrong—that the Treasury is providing an additional £3.5 billion in 2028-29 as a one-off payment. Is this funding earmarked to cover the projected £6 billion of deficits that the OBR set out? I would be grateful if she could clarify that for me and tell me if I have misunderstood.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The £4 billion is additional funding over the next three years. The £6 billion that the OBR identified was based on the premise of an unreformed system. That the system is being reformed means that, by the time we get to 2028-29 and 2029-30, we will be operating in a very different system. As part of the local government settlement, we have also begun the process of writing off and taking over responsibility for the money that local authorities have built up from overspending on special educational needs in recent years. Those two things are separate.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my diocese has more than 190 Church schools and we educate around 60,000 children, in the total roll across them. The Church of England has already officially welcomed the White Paper and these Benches echo that this evening.

In Manchester, we have been looking at those points of transition—the transition from preschool into primary and from primary into secondary. In the past five or six years, the Bolton metropolitan area has had a project called Children Changing Places, because we recognise that, in those points of transition, children’s academic, social and spiritual development can go backwards, so we have been investing money into those points of transition. I note that both the White Paper and the Minister, in her replies this evening, referred to those points of transition. Might I tempt her to say a little more about how children can be enabled to manage those transitions without dropping back in their various levels of attainment?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes a very important point. As an example, we are working on how we can ensure that children are better prepared when they start school with an ambitious target to improve that, and investment in Best Start in Life and childcare to enable it.

Another key transition is from primary to secondary. Too often, key stage 3—the first three years in secondary—is not spent as effectively as it could be. Developing a new programme around the best practice for key stage 3 and really focusing on that will be part of the work of the RISE teams.

Another area where transition is often raised is in relation to SEND and children going from mainstream schools into colleges. We will make better provision for that and expect schools, at an earlier stage, to provide the information that colleges need to help children with special educational needs to thrive.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my education interests, in particular as chair of STEM Learning and of the E-ACT multi-academy trust. At some of our E-ACT primary schools in Bristol, we have been investing in speech and language therapy training for all our mainstream teachers in reception and early years. As a result, we are identifying more pupils with special educational needs but fewer are going on to have education, health and care plans. That gives me optimism in the basis for early intervention in these reforms and that it will work.

My question to my noble friend is around the seven specialist provision packages. Getting the detail right on those is crucial to gain the confidence of parents. How can we ensure that the consultation that the department is carrying out will properly include all stakeholders, including those with special educational needs and disabilities?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend has identified the benefits of early intervention, as he says. We need a clearer and more evidence-based approach to what is appropriate for children with complex needs, which is why we are creating a new set of nationally consistent specialist provision packages. They will be designed to set clear expectations of what high-quality specialist provision should offer. They will be developed by experts and tested with families to make sure that they work in real life and reflect the best evidence about what helps children thrive. As I said, they are not based on diagnoses; instead, they will focus on the support that a child needs to learn, communicate, feel regulated and take part in school life. This important work will also be reviewed by an independent national expert panel, which will help to keep them up to date.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question relates to the plans for a review of education, health and care plans after primary school from 2030. For children with a special school place from September 2029, there is a promise to keep their place, but their EHCP will be reviewed.

I am drawing on my experience as a governor at a primary school in London that had an autistic unit. When it was created, the assumption was that children would be there for a few years, would get support and would then be able to move into mainstream schooling. That was not the experience. As school years go forward, the curriculum becomes more complex and the social setting of a classroom becomes more complex, and children were not able to make that progression.

If there is to be a review of EHCPs at the end of primary, do the Government have any evidence or data on how many people with an EHCP will lose it? We have to pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about parents putting so much time, energy and money into securing these EHCPs and the fear of losing them. What will the benefit of the review be versus the cost to parents?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, to be clear, the majority of children who have an EHCP are in a special school. No child who is in a special school will need to leave a special school placement at any point. Secondly, on the point about bases in schools, part of the investment that we are putting in is to enable more opportunities within schools, to develop the type of bases that will provide specialist support for children but enable them to stay in mainstream schools in their communities, alongside their friends.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that these changes are desperately needed. The system is currently broken and we need to see change. I press the Minister on the issue of the pupil premium, a scheme designed for funding to follow disadvantaged young people. If any review is undertaken of how that money is allocated, can the Minister assure us that it will be done in a transparent way so that we know which people may lose out? Can the Minister commit to at least trying to protect funding for care-experienced young people when it comes to the pupil premium?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This is not about how we cut the money that is available for disadvantage; this is about how we ensure that it is spent in a way that recognises that not all disadvantage is the same. We will be maintaining—in fact, we have increased—spending on the pupil premium. In relation to the overall review of the funding formula and the way in which we allocate the pupil premium, all of that will be subject to consultation, which will be starting this summer.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this initiative and the document—they are brilliant. However, I want to ask about the children who might have to attend a special school because of their particular needs and the challenges that they face. As somebody has already mentioned, one of the problems that local authorities face in the overspend on this concerns some of the special schools that we already have, which are profit-gouging. They are overcharging huge amounts of money for our most vulnerable children. We know that there are excellent special schools in the sector run by charities, social enterprises and, indeed, some of the private enterprises, but it is clear that those making vast profits need to be dealt with. I welcome the investment that has been proposed, but I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister about the transition that will happen. Will new powers be needed for local authorities and others, to make sure that we do not leave children and parents vulnerable because of the schools that are having to be dealt with?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. There is excellent work going on in our special schools, in the state sector and the independent sector. However, it cannot be right that there is a differential of three times between that which is charged in independent special schools and that which is charged in state special schools. Where that reflects highly specialised provision, that is legitimate, but where it is feeding private equity and, as my noble friend says, focused on profit, it is wholly wrong. That is why we will improve the regulation of independent special schools and, using the specialist packages that we are developing, create price bands indicating what local authorities will pay for children to go there. We can then be clearer that the money we are spending is delivering outcomes for children and not profits for private equity.

[Baroness Debbonaire (Lab)]

My Lords, my question has been partly answered. I thank my noble friend the Minister for bringing the Statement to the House and for the White Paper. I would like to press her a little more on that very topic. While it is absolutely right that these schools not be run for such profit-gouging as has been mentioned, how will needs be assessed in the case of children with very complex needs who are currently in specialist education that is well-run? I declare an interest, in that my nephew works with those children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Children in special schools, either in the state sector or in independent special schools, will be there by virtue of an education, health and care plan. They will keep that education, health and care plan if they are in a special school. That will now be reinforced by clearer evidence and recognition of what the best practice would be for those children. Part of that evidence will be informed by the excellent work that is happening within special schools. If we can also get some of the expertise in special schools into mainstream schools through the £1.8 billion investment and the “expert at hand” provision then we really will have made sure that we are making the most of the excellent work that happens in our special schools.