SEND Provision: Rural Communities

Georgia Gould Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) for his speech and for all his work on this issue. I have his report with me; it is a deep and thoughtful reflection on the challenges in his area and also reflects some of the challenges that, as we heard from other Members, are common to rural communities.

I understand that my hon. Friend spoke to more than 300 parents. The themes that came through—the need to battle for support, children being out of education, and the huge stress this issue puts on families—are sadly ones I have heard from many parts of the country. It is incredibly important that he has brought those voices to us, and I want to assure him that the voices of the parents and teachers in his constituency are being taken seriously as we work through the consultation on the SEND reform plans.

My hon. Friend also took the time to sit down with me to discuss some of these issues in detail, which I really appreciate. He raised critical issues and common pressures, but some of those common pressures are exacerbated in rural communities by difficulties with recruitment, the long distances needing to be travelled and the availability of provision.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)]

The Minister recognises the difficulties in rural areas. I must stress that in Cornwall we have seen a 300% increase in the cost of home-to-school transport in the last seven years. In addition, two thirds of Cornish families waiting for an EHCP have to wait for more than 20 weeks. Does she agree that SEND provision is particularly difficult and costly in remote peninsula communities such as Cornwall, and that budgets and support need to recognise those geographical factors?

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for raising these issues. I absolutely recognise the additional pressures that exist in rural and more remote communities. I will go on to discuss some of the things that we are doing to address those pressures, and I will come on to home-to-school transport when I go through that list.

One of the first things that I want to highlight is the new Experts at Hand service, through which £1.8 billion is going in nationally, not only to deliver more occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, but to provide support from special schools and alternative provision into mainstream schools. We have just started rolling that service out and we are working with local authorities around the country. Every local authority has been asked to deliver a SEND reform plan and we are getting quarterly feedback on the data on how that is going, including the Experts at Hand service, so we will have a much clearer view of the gaps that sit around the country. As we build out the service, there will be the ability to work with those areas that are struggling to recruit and that see real gaps, in order to try and improve their provision in those areas. We will also be working with MPs to share some of the data that is coming through that national picture, which we have not previously had access to.

The second thing that I wanted to flag is access to teacher training. We are investing £200 million into teacher training. The first set of resources has gone out into the system and those resources can be used by schools on their inset days. A host of different resources are coming out across the year, making it easier for schools in more remote locations to implement training. We will also develop a set of courses, starting from next year, which will be a mix of online teaching and live teaching for teaching assistants, school leaders and teachers. Where it is not possible for teachers to attend courses in person, it will be possible for them to take those courses online, if that is what they want. I also want to flag the investment that is going directly into schools through the inclusive mainstream fund, alongside the existing funding in the system.

As we move forward on SEND reform and respond to the consultation, one of the big parts of that process is asking schools to come together in clusters. Some of the extra funding that will go into schools will go through clusters; some of it will go directly to schools and some of it will go through clusters. One of the things that we are really considering is how we can ensure that those clusters work in rural communities. We want to do a test and learn process in a mix of different contexts. I am really keen to talk to Norfolk MPs about this, to see whether it is something we can work on.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

The Isle of Axholme in my constituency is a big rural area. Many children have to travel long distances for EHCP assessments, but also to receive specialist support for special educational needs. At the Axholme school in Crowle, we have historically had a higher number of children with SEND than the national average. Of course, that is a concern, because I want to ensure that there is no postcode lottery when the SEND reforms are being made. Will the Minister absolutely and categorically reassure me that if someone lives in a rural community, they will get support equitable to that given anywhere else in the country?

[Georgia Gould]

As we move into this new system, we will be looking at all the funding going into it, whether that is through the local funding formula or the high needs funding.

The thinking behind the cluster approach is that in the new system we want every school to be inclusive, and to take and support students with a range of needs but who do not need to be in specialist provision. Within that, some schools might have higher need and the cluster approach is to ensure that we can move money to where the need is highest. However, we must ensure that that works in different contexts, which is why we are committed to testing and learning within rural contexts.

I also want to flag capital investment. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk mentioned the new special school, and said that that alone is not enough, which I agree with. We are investing £3.7 billion into capital investment to deliver a range of changes. Some are to mainstream schools to make them more accessible, but the funding can be used for new special schools. We are clear that it should drive an expansion of inclusion bases, which are really important because they bring SEND provision to more remote communities and closer to families. I have seen many examples where children were out of school and really struggling to get an education, and having that inclusion base on their doorstep has been completely transformative in opening up that access and reducing the need to travel. The high-needs capital funding that is going into Norfolk is £13 million in 2025-26 and £15.8 million in 2026-27, so there is significant investment going in to help that capital challenge and deliver inclusion bases.

[Adam Dance]

The Government are currently piloting assistive technology lending libraries. Will the Minister update us on that trial and whether it can expanded to more rural areas such as Somerset that do not have mayors so that kids do not have to miss out and schools are not ripped off on assistive technology by private companies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

We absolutely recognise the importance of assistive technology in the system. The hon. Member has raised and championed that, and I will follow up and give him a proper update on how it is going and our plans.

My next point is about the importance of partnership. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk talked about how parents have to navigate myriad different services and are bouncing between them. One key thing we want to deliver in the immediate term is asking local areas to strengthen their partnership arrangements across health, education and local authorities but critically also with parents and young people. In the long term we aim to have much stronger partnership arrangements in place so that whichever stage a child is at, whether they need early intervention or more specialist support, that comes in a timely manner and without a fight.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

In my rural community of South East Cornwall, I had the honour of visiting the Learning Paddocks, which is a specialist provision that worked very hard to get set up but faced many barriers to being a specialist provider of care. In areas such as mine with huge transport problems and when mainstream education is not the right choice, how are the Government going to work with providers to support specialist provision such as the Learning Paddocks?

[Georgia Gould]

We have an expert panel that is developing a set of specialist provision packages, which will set out what we expect from settings to meet a whole range of needs that will be consulted on. The expectation is that local authorities will need to commission against all of those specialist provision packages so the full range of need should be met within a local area. That will make it much easier for providers and local authorities to understand what is expected of them and to provide those packages. Critically, when a child requires that support, they will not have to wait for it because it is commissioned and available in that area. At the moment, there is a huge postcode lottery with some support available in some areas while in others it is completely absent—that is why we see some of the long distances that we have heard about.

[Steff Aquarone]

To go back to the Minister’s point about partnership working, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) talked about health visitors, rurality, schools, transport and the impact on work—those are five Departments. In a previous life, she and I met and discussed the need to shake things up in Westminster and rewire Government so that it works for people and not within silos. Does she agree that this is a classic example of how the Government need to change the way they work so that they can serve humans and not processes?

[Georgia Gould]

I agree. In a previous life I led a council, and I used to sit in frustration, asking, “Does anyone in Government talk to each other?” because we often saw very siloed decisions. People’s lives are not split into different Government Departments: they live in communities, travel, need healthcare, and work, and all those things come together. It is critical that we work together, and SEND is an area where there was a promise of greater integration in the 2014 reforms, but the experience, as we have heard, is that that promise has not been delivered. Working closely across Government, particularly with colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care, we are determined to drive integration, so that families get a seamless experience. That is a really important point.

I also want to respond to the points made about distance travelled. There are two important things to say. First, one way to reduce that is to ensure the right provision is available in local areas. Whether that is the greater roll-out of inclusion bases, or the development of specialist provision packages, which make clear what should be available locally, we expect to see a much greater range of local provision. We also recognise that the nature of rural communities means that travel distances are greater. That is why, in the changes to home-to-school transport, there is now a separate formula that includes distance travelled, and that is a key part of the system.

I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate; I know how important these issues are. Our aim is to ensure everyone gets early intervention, without a postcode lottery. People will get the support they need, wherever they live. That requires a focus on rural communities to understand the specific challenges.

We are committed to testing and learning, looking at those challenges, understanding the data and disparities, and working alongside local authorities to ensure that the national vision is felt by families and communities everywhere. I encourage hon. Members to stay involved in that conversation, to keep working with us by sharing feedback on the challenges in their areas, as Experts at Hand, the inclusion mainstream fund and teacher training roll out, so that we can respond.

[Alison Bennett]

Has the Minister considered the role of parent-carers and the assessment of their needs? Access to mental health services is worse in rural areas. Siobhan O’Dwyer said that 41% of parent-carers have had suicidal thoughts, which will be more acute in a rural area. Is that a consideration for the Government’s work?

[Georgia Gould]

Absolutely. That is why we have said that every Best Start hub needs a lead SEND practitioner. We are investing £200 million in the roll-out of SEND support through Best Start hubs, working closely with parent-carer forums on support for parents.

We have talked about integration. Another big programme we are rolling out is the Family First Partnership, to rebuild early help and support for parents. We want to ensure those partnerships are working with Experts at Hand and schools, so that parents and families get the support they need at the same time as young people. That is an important part of bringing it all together, looking at all the investments to ensure they work on the ground. I thank everyone for the debate and you, Sir Desmond, for your chairship.

Question put and agreed to.