SEND Funding

Gagan Mohindra Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend on his length of service to this House.

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend, the Opposition Deputy Chief Whip—and indeed my Whip—is very welcome. Thanks very much; I am grateful for that.

We have this issue of how we fix a broken and clearly unfair system. Newer colleagues, and there are many of them in the House, might think, “Well, surely people would want to fix it. There is no perfect system and there will always be dispute, but if the Government did a map of need—fundamentally, an assessment of what fair would look like—and then mapped against that line where everyone was, newer Members might think, “The Government might be prepared to do something with those who are most overfunded to help compensate the underfunded.” My experience is that they do not and will not, so I will discuss practical ways of getting change. What typically happens is that despite Ministers’ talk in debates like this one, we end up with the Treasury at a spending occasion like yesterday giving 3%; if inflation is 2.5%, it gives 3% to everybody. That means that the cash gap between one authority and another grows, and in a sense the injustice grows with it.

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[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Before I start my speech, I acknowledge the awful tragedy in India. I am aware of my own constituents being directly affected by it, so my thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this important debate. I have spoken many times about education in this place, including about my own experience. As a former governor of a school for autistic pupils, I have always been passionate about ensuring that our children and young ones can fulfil their full potential.

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to visit one of my SEND schools, Breakspeare school in Abbot’s Langley, which is absolutely life-changing not just for the children that it supports and educates, but for the families and the wider network associated with those young, brilliant individuals. I have two other such schools in my constituency, Colnbrook school and Garston Manor school, but I want to focus my comments on Breakspeare.

Breakspeare hopes to move to a different site in Croxley in my constituency. There has been a change of administration at Hertfordshire county council, but I know from the plans of the previous Conservative administration that funding would have been put in place for that new school, because the current one does not have the capacity to meet the demand associated with it, not just in South West Hertfordshire but in the wider area. The school supports predominantly Hertfordshire children, but also those from Buckinghamshire and London. I am grateful that two fellow Hertfordshire MPs from across parties—the hon. Members for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) and for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins)—are in their places, acknowledging that SEND remains an apolitical but very important issue for all our residents. Today, I urge the county council to do all it can to ensure that that school breaks ground as soon as possible. The current location is not fit for purpose, not just because it is an old building that was not built for SEND provision, but because the significant demand for such provision in Hertfordshire means that it will quickly be out of date and not able to accommodate sufficient student numbers.

I hope that the Minister will provide not just additional support, but—going back to my right hon. Friend’s earlier suggestion—fair funding for those areas that really need it. There is a perception that Hertfordshire is an affluent county, but as someone who has not always been based there, I know it is still a significant concern for my residents that across Hertfordshire, we do not receive the average provision that other counties benefit from. If the Minister was willing and able to speak to Treasury colleagues, I am sure she would get cross-party support in her long-overdue fight to right this wrong. We all want to ensure that children in our communities do better and fulfil their potential.