SEND Provision and Reform

Andrew George Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Stafford]

No, I will not.

That parent’s relief exists because there is a system that ultimately guarantees support. Replacing that certainty with ambiguity is not reform; it is regression.

The second test is whether the proposals improve delivery on the ground. The model set out in the White Paper relies heavily on early intervention through the NHS and local schools, but that depends on capacity that currently simply does not exist. For example, in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight integrated care board, CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—waiting times stand at about 28.5 weeks for an assessment, rising to 52 weeks for treatment, far beyond the NHS standard of 18 weeks. Without clinical capacity, the central delivery mechanism of these reforms cannot function as intended.

Schools are already being asked to fill that gap. In discussions with headteachers and special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinators across my constituency, including at South Farnham school, Highfield South Farnham, St Polycarp’s, St Mary’s, and Badshot Lea infants, a consistent picture emerges: rising demand, limited special support and growing pressure on staff to manage needs that should sit elsewhere in the system. One school put it plainly:

“CAMHS sometimes ask us to manage pupils ourselves because they do not have the capacity.”

That is not joined-up delivery; it is displacement of responsibility.

The consequences of this gap between the policy and the reality are severe. In my constituency, a 12-year-old whose needs were identified in year 2 is still awaiting an assessment. Without diagnosis, her school has been unable to put the right support in place. Her mother wrote:

“We are at our wits’ end. The delays are not just administrative—they are shaping the course of our daughter’s life.”

That is not an isolated example. I have also worked with a family who, despite clear professional evidence, were initially refusing an EHCP and forced into a lengthy tribunal process, only for the decision to be overturned.

There are further consequences of these proposals that need to be addressed. By moving away from a clearly defined, legally enforceable EHCP framework towards individual support plans, much of the responsibility for decision making—and, inevitably, dispute resolution—risks being pushed on to schools. That would place teachers and school leaders in an increasingly difficult position: they would be expected to determine provision, manage expectations and resolve disagreements with families without the protection of a clear statutory framework or the capacity to meet those needs. At a time when schools are under significant pressure, this risks shifting both the legal and emotional burden on to institutions that are simply not equipped to carry it.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, a fellow member of the Health and Social Care Committee, for giving way. Is he not making two contradictory points, however? He says on the one hand that it should be legally enforceable—a point with which I entirely agree, particularly as nearly 99% of tribunal appeals are partially or wholly upheld. But he also recognises that EHCPs are not coming through at the level they should within the 20 weeks—certainly, it is about the 10% level—so having the legal backing and framework is not delivering the outcome.

[Gregory Stafford]

I do not think those two points are contradictory. One is an issue of the legislation, which is what I am talking about and what the Government are potentially looking to change, and another is how the system itself is being implemented by local authorities and others. I have been very clear in my speech that although I absolutely believe—as I think the hon. Gentleman does—that the legal requirements should remain, I am in no way sugar-coating the difficulties that local authorities are having in meeting those legal requirements.

The third test is whether the reforms address the underlying pressures in the system. Demand is rising rapidly: over 1.7 million children in England are now identified as having special educational needs, with numbers increasing year on year. Yet the Government’s proposals place additional expectations on schools and local authorities without resolving the fundamental constraints: namely, workforce funding, certainty and system capacity.

The White Paper promises more educational psychologists, therapists and specialists, but training an educational psychologist can take up to eight years. So the question is simple: how are those gaps going to be filled in the meantime? At the same time, the Department’s own figures show that there are now 400 fewer teachers than when we left office. So schools are being asked to do more with less.

Local authorities are at the sharp end of the system and are being placed in an increasingly impossible position. Colleagues will know that in Surrey around £100 million has been invested locally to expand SEND provision alongside further investment in staffing, yet demand continues to outstrip capacity. In Hampshire, SEND overspend now stands at around £140 million, placing extraordinary pressure on finances. This is not unique to my areas in Surrey or Hampshire; across the country, councils are being asked to meet rising demand, fulfil statutory obligations and absorb increasing costs without that long-term funding certainty. The result is a system where families face delays, councils face financial instability and schools face mounting pressure.

Taken together, this is not simply a failure of local authorities; it is a failure of the system to meet demand. And into that system the Government propose a decade-long transition. Councils are already preparing for a surge in EHCP applications as families seek to secure existing protections before reforms take effect, and that is certainly not going to ease pressure—it is, in fact, going to intensify it.

Through my work on the Health and Social Care Committee, I consistently see that SEND cannot be addressed in isolation. The number of children with SEND is rising by about 5% each year, and meeting that need requires genuine co-ordination between education and health. Yet SEND was almost entirely absent from the NHS 10-year plan, and when I submitted written questions on conditions such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia, the responses revealed that data is not collected individually but is grouped into very broad categories, which is not joined-up government but fragmentation. That needs to change.

I want to touch briefly on the independent sector capacity, because independent schools also play an important role in relieving pressure on the system, particularly for children with complex needs. They act as a pressure valve. I am aware that some characterise all independent provision as little more than private equity extracting profit, but the independent sector in my constituency provides excellent and comprehensive coverage and capacity. I am fortunate to have excellent specialist provision in my constituency, including at schools such as Hollywater, Undershaw, More House, Pathways, the Abbey school and the Ridgeway school, which support children with complex needs every day and should be supported.

In conclusion, families do not need another wholesale structural overhaul or a decade of transition. Instead, they need a system that delivers on time, with clarity and with enforceable rights. I have a few questions for the Minister. First, will she set out the full cost of replacing EHCPs with individual support plans, including the transition and implementation? Secondly, will she guarantee that ISPs will carry the same legally enforceable rights, including access to a tribunal? Thirdly, when will additional SEND staff be trained and in post? Fourthly, what action will be taken against local authorities that consistently fail to meet statutory timelines? Finally, will the Government publish detailed data on specific conditions and system performance so that outcomes can be properly measured?

I say to right hon. and hon. Members across the House that this is not about defending a White Paper; it is about defending the families we represent. Families are not asking for perfection; they are simply asking for a system that works. The question for the Government is simple: will they strengthen what exists or will they replace it with something weaker, slower and less certain? On the current trajectory, that is the risk, and it is one that I believe this House should not accept.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this really important debate.

Children in West Lancashire have previously felt let down by the SEND system. People lost faith in the very system that is meant to support the children in our communities who need it the most. That is the inheritance that this Government took from the last Government. I know how important getting this right is to the Secretary of State, and the work that this Government have done in the past few years has not gone unnoticed by my constituents, but it is so important that we get these changes right. The people who write to my inbox or visit my surgeries are simply desperate for a system that treats SEND pupils with dignity and truly recognises them as individuals filled with all sorts of potential.

There is much good in the Government’s plans. The vast increase in specialist places and the training and upskilling that will give our teachers more tools to help SEND students will make a real difference to the lives of children and their families.

SEND parents are no different from any other parents. Every day, they fight to give their children the best possible start in life, and it is so important that this Government support them to do so, without them having to fight endless layers of bureaucracy and constantly push back against a “computer says no” culture that requires individuals to fit cookie-cutter templates to get bespoke assistance. We must ensure that, through these changes, we are giving parents respite, not just inadvertently moving the fight from one place to another.

[Andrew George]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Ashley Dalton]

I will briefly.

[Andrew George]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, and congratulate her on having been a great Health Minister—I was sorry that she stood aside. She will be aware that there is a party whose Members are not present this evening. A lot of people in the media are suggesting that they will form the next Government, but their policy in this area is that this is a crisis of overdiagnosis. Does she share my concern that this debate is not being properly engaged in by the people who want to damage the system most?

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and his kind words, and I agree that we cannot simply say that there is overdiagnosis. It has been said previously that there were not as many people with SEND before; the reality is that we do not know that, because for many years, SEND simply went unnoticed. People were not diagnosed, and were simply written off as naughty or backward. We must recognise how important these children are and how much support they need.

Dozens of parents in West Lancashire have contacted me to request that I come to the Chamber today to protect the rights they have under current legislation to enforceable provision based on a child’s particular needs. We all know the deficiencies that exist in the current EHCP system, but we must make sure that we listen to SEND parents. I know that this Government are committed to ensuring that these changes make life easier for SEND children and their families, not harder.

Twice, I have met a constituent who has a son with severe and complex special needs—he is nonverbal and has sensory challenges. Even when her son was offered a place at a special school, the local authority did not accept that place, despite it being cheaper than the local authority provision. It ignored recommendations and assessments, and my constituent’s son was out of education for seven months. My constituent had to use the rights that exist in current legislation to fight for the most basic right—for her son to have an education—and the issue was only resolved because of his legal right to legal enforceability and the tribunal power to name a school. Had that not been the case, her son might still not be in education. My constituent agrees with the Government that the system we inherited is not working, and she is not asking us to scrap these reforms, but we must ensure that the changes we are making to an unfair system support SEND children and their families as much as we possibly can.

Last year, Reform took control of Lancashire county council, the authority that makes decisions about SEND provision for my constituency. It is obvious that, despite claiming that it would tackle the issue, Reform has demonstrated no interest in it. Its national party does not care—as has already been pointed out, not a single one of its Members is present for this evening’s debate. Reform-led Lancashire county council has failed to provide tailored support for children in my constituency, and has failed to support families in my constituency who are fighting tooth and nail for their children to have the same opportunities that the rest of us rightly expect as standard. It would be an abdication of my duty to represent my constituents if I did not seek to give parents every tool in the box to defend the right of their children to a decent education, in the face of a local authority whose leadership turns its gaze away and plugs its ears.

I am proud that this Government are tackling this issue in a constructive way—parents have waited for these changes for far too long. As part of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s commitment to give every child the best possible start in life, I would be grateful if the Minister gave a clear reassurance today that the legal right to an EHCP or similar for those who need it will remain, and that the ability of families to enforce provision will not be weakened by reforms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—in fact, I made a number of interventions in place of my speech. I wanted to respond to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), because she was making a very strong case about the need to ensure that these reforms are forced through. The three tests that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) introduced to this debate set the template, on which I hope the Minister will respond in due course.

In my constituency and across Cornwall—it is good to see Members from Cornwall in the Chamber this evening—the issues that are causing the greatest concern relate to the large number of tribunals that take place in order for parents to ensure that their children get the decent education they desperately deserve.

[Ms Creasy]

Let me tell the hon. Member that in London people have the same concern that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) set out. We have to change the system, but too often, parents have had to go to tribunal to be heard. Any reform must support parents to continue to be heard as part of the educational system supporting these children. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Andrew George]

I absolutely agree. What worries us most is the fact that parents have to be sharp-elbowed enough to take on the tribunal system, which is no mean feat. What worries me is how many other parents do not have the confidence to challenge decisions, to use the tribunal system, to make a complaint to the ombudsman or to use local authority facilities to pursue those issues. There are major issues that need to be reflected upon. It certainly should not just be those parents with the self-confidence to navigate their way through the system whose children benefit, while so many others fall by the wayside. That causes me a great deal of concern.

Another issue that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon identified in his opening remarks is the very low number of authorities meeting the 20-week EHCP target. That results in many pupils simply not getting on and getting the services in the education system that they desperately need.

Given that I have already made a couple of interventions, I will conclude my remarks and let others come in.