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Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am afraid the situation is even worse than my noble friend has identified. A considerable amount of money is being spent on special educational needs and disability provision, but parents remain concerned about being able to access the support they need, the outcomes for children are not good enough, and local government is facing considerable deficits because of that. That is why we need the type of reform that this Government have undertaken. A test of it will be whether parents feel more confident at an earlier stage that their children are getting the support they need to flourish.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, is more being done to ensure that teachers have the time they need to assess the needs of people with particular educational needs? It takes time: no person is the same and individuals need to be assessed according to their own individual problems.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is absolutely right about that. That is why, for example, we are improving the ability for staff in early years settings to identify special educational needs. It is why we are also developing a national professional qualification for the special educational needs co-ordinators, who will play an important role in that assessment, and why we have invested in recruiting more educational psychologists, who play a really important role in assessment.