Local SEND Reform Plan Outcomes
Georgia Gould Excerpts(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Every child and young person should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential, whatever their needs or circumstances. This Government inherited a SEND crisis, and we are determined to fix it. The Government programme of SEND reform is intended to deliver a more inclusive system that delivers for children and families—one that identifies needs early and provides the right support at the right time. Local leadership and strong partnership working will be central to achieving that ambition. It was against this backdrop that, in March 2026, this Government commissioned all local area partnerships to develop and submit a local SEND reform plan jointly with education, health and care partners.
I want to express my thanks to all local partners for the engagement and dedication that they have demonstrated through this process.
The Department for Education, working with Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England, has reviewed all submitted plans against a consistent quality assessment framework shared with local area partnerships at the point of commission.
Today I am confirming the outcome of that process.
The plans of 139 local area partnerships have been approved upon first submission. This includes both areas with a strong track record of SEND delivery and those where improvement is still needed to secure better outcomes for children and young people. Approval of a plan is not an endorsement of current performance; it reflects the Government’s assessment that the plan has met the required threshold for approval and provides a credible foundation for accelerated delivery. Over 90% of local area partnerships—covering almost every part of the country—have now set out how they will improve support for children and young people with SEND in their local area.
Approval of a local SEND reform plan is a condition of payment of a local authority’s high needs stability grant allocation. The grant will meet 90% of each local authority’s high-needs-related dedicated schools grant deficit and forms a central part of the Government support for local authorities as we move to a reformed SEND system.
Local area partnerships with approved plans must now move swiftly from planning to delivery, implementing their commitments with pace and securing tangible improvements for children and young people with SEND and their families. Approval is a starting point for delivery, not an indication that that further improvement is not still required. Where performance remains inadequate, we will take decisive action. I will shortly publish improvement notices for a number of local areas, setting out the improvements required to strengthen delivery and secure better outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
Twelve local area partnerships’ plans were originally deferred pending revision and resubmission. We have made enhanced, hands-on support available to these areas, focused on helping the partnership to respond to the identified areas for improvement within their plans. We expect these local areas to resubmit their plans by 30 November 2026. Two local areas have already done so, and their revised plans have subsequently been carefully assessed and approved.
Government officials, together with SEND and financial advisers, will continue to engage closely with local partnerships throughout this process. Local areas whose plans have been approved, but where concerns about their delivery capacity and existing performance remain, will receive closer oversight and support focused on helping the partnership translate their plan into sustained improvement and better outcomes for the children and young people with SEND in their care.
As local areas move into accelerated delivery, officials from the Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care and relevant NHS England teams, working alongside expert advisers, will continue to support and challenge local authorities and integrated care boards. Local delivery will be kept under regular review through the Department’s local area SEND performance and delivery framework. The framework brings together evidence on outcomes for children and young people with SEND, local partnership readiness and capacity, and progress in delivering each local SEND reform plan. We will publish this framework later in the year, setting out transparently how local performance and improvement will be assessed.
Each area’s overall assessment will determine the level of monitoring, engagement and support it receives and, where necessary, the intervention required. All local areas will attend a quarterly review with officials to consider progress against their commitments, the steps that they are taking to strengthen partnership maturity and early evidence of improved experiences and outcomes for children, young people and families. My Department will also use quarterly data on local area progress and dedicated resources to closely monitor performance across the country. We will not hesitate to intervene where local delivery is failing to secure the outcomes children and families should expect.
Delivering this ambitious reform will require sustained collective effort across local government, the NHS, education providers, central Government and the wider sector. We will work alongside local area partnerships—providing the support, investment, challenge and national leadership needed to turn local plans into lasting change—and continue to put the experiences of children, young people and their families at the heart of delivery. Together, we can build a more inclusive, responsive and sustainable SEND system that earns the confidence of children and young people with SEND and their families, and enables every child to achieve and thrive.
Full details of high needs stability grant allocations have been published on the Department for Education section on the gov.uk website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-stability-grant-2026-to-2027
Areas with approved local SEND reform plans
Barking and Dagenham and NHS North East London ICB; Barnet and NHS West and North London ICB; Barnsley and NHS South Yorkshire ICB; Bath and North East Somerset and NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB; Bedford and NHS Central East ICB; Bexley and NHS South East London ICB; Birmingham and NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB; Blackburn with Darwen and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB; Blackpool and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB; Bolton and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and NHS Dorset ICB; Bracknell Forest and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Brent and NHS West and North London ICB; Brighton and Hove and NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB; Bristol and NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB; Bromley and NHS South East London ICB; Buckinghamshire and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Bury and NHS Greater Manchester ICB.
Calderdale and NHS West Yorkshire ICB; Camden and NHS West and North London ICB; Central Bedfordshire and NHS Central East ICB; Cheshire East and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Cheshire West and Chester and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Cornwall and NHS Cornwall and The Isles of Scilly ICB; County Durham and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Coventry and NHS Coventry and Warwickshire ICB; Croydon and NHS South West London ICB.
Darlington and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Derby and NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB; Derbyshire and NHS Derby and Derbyshire ICB; Devon and NHS Devon ICB; Doncaster and NHS South Yorkshire ICB; Dorset and NHS Dorset ICB; Dudley and NHS Black Country ICB.
Ealing and NHS West and North London ICB; East Riding of Yorkshire and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB; East Sussex and NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB; Enfield and NHS West and North London ICB; Essex and NHS Essex ICB.
Gateshead and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Gloucestershire and NHS Gloucestershire ICB; Greenwich and NHS South East London ICB.
Hackney and NHS North East London ICB; Halton and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Hammersmith and Fulham and NHS West and North London ICB; Hampshire and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB; Haringey and NHS West and North London ICB; Harrow and NHS West and North London ICB; Hartlepool and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Havering and NHS North East London ICB; Herefordshire, County of and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB; Hertfordshire and NHS Central East ICB; Hillingdon and NHS West and North London ICB; Hounslow and NHS West and North London ICB.
Isle of Wight and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB; Islington and NHS West and North London ICB.
Kensington and Chelsea and NHS West and North London ICB; Kent and NHS Kent and Medway ICB; Kingston upon Hull, City of and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB; Kingston upon Thames and NHS South West London ICB; Kirklees and NHS West Yorkshire ICB; Knowsley and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB.
Lambeth and NHS South East London ICB; Lancashire and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB; Leeds and NHS West Yorkshire ICB; Leicester and NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB; Leicestershire and NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB; Lincolnshire and NHS Lincolnshire ICB; Luton and NHS Central East ICB.
Manchester and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Medway and NHS Kent and Medway ICB; Merton and NHS South West London ICB; Middlesbrough and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB.
Newcastle upon Tyne and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Norfolk and NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB; North East Lincolnshire and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB; North Lincolnshire and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB; North Northamptonshire and NHS Northamptonshire ICB; North Somerset and NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB; North Tyneside and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; North Yorkshire and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB; Northumberland and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Nottingham and NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB; Nottinghamshire and NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB.
Oldham and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Oxfordshire and NHS Thames Valley ICB.
Peterborough and NHS Central East ICB; Plymouth and NHS Devon ICB; Portsmouth and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB.
Reading and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Redcar and Cleveland and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Richmond upon Thames and NHS South West London ICB; Rochdale and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Rotherham and NHS South Yorkshire ICB; Rutland and NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB.
Salford and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Sandwell and NHS Black Country ICB; Sefton and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Sheffield and NHS South Yorkshire ICB; Shropshire and NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB; Solihull and NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB; Somerset and NHS Somerset ICB; South Gloucestershire and NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB; South Tyneside and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Southampton and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB; Southwark and NHS South East London ICB; St Helens and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Staffordshire and NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB; Stockport and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Stockton- on-Tees and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Stoke-on-Trent and NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB; Suffolk and NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB; Sunderland and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB; Surrey and NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB; Sutton and NHS South West London ICB; Swindon and NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB.
Tameside and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Telford and Wrekin and NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB; Torbay and NHS Devon ICB; Tower Hamlets and NHS North East London ICB; Trafford and NHS Greater Manchester ICB.
Wakefield and NHS West Yorkshire ICB; Walsall and NHS Black Country ICB; Waltham Forest and NHS North East London ICB; Wandsworth and NHS South West London ICB; Warrington and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Warwickshire and NHS Coventry and Warwickshire ICB; West Northamptonshire and NHS Northamptonshire ICB; West Sussex and NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB; Westminster and NHS West and North London ICB; Westmorland and Furness and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB; Wigan and NHS Greater Manchester ICB; Wiltshire and NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB; Windsor and Maidenhead and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Wirral and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; Wokingham and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Wolverhampton and NHS Black Country ICB; Worcestershire and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB.
York and NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB.
Areas with approved local SEND reform plan following revision and resubmission
Cumberland and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB; Liverpool and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB.
Areas with deferred local SEND reform plans pending revision and resubmission
Bradford and NHS West Yorkshire ICB; Cambridgeshire and NHS Central East ICB; Lewisham and NHSE South East London ICB; Milton Keynes and NHS Central East ICB; Newham and North East London ICB; Redbridge and NHS North East London ICB; Slough and NHS Thames Valley ICB; Southend-on-Sea and NHS Essex ICB; Thurrock and NHS Essex ICB; West Berkshire and NHS Thames Valley ICB.
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Higher Education Funding
Georgia Gould Excerpts(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on securing this really important debate. She is a passionate advocate for these issues: she has chaired the APPG on students and has regularly raised issues related to universities and students, and from her speech we heard how thoughtful and knowledgeable she is on these issues.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) for her characteristically thoughtful speech. She called for a wider debate, discussion and focus on these issues, and we have had a very important debate today. We have heard the range of expertise in the Chamber, from lecturers to others who have real experience of working in universities, and about the range of decades when everyone went to university—I cannot believe that anyone here looks old enough to have gone to university under Margaret Thatcher.
We should rightly be proud of our world-class higher education sector, which remains, by any objective metric, one of our nation’s greatest exports and a global beacon of intellectual excellence. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) that the UK’s university sector includes four of the world’s top 10 universities, of which we can be very proud. It contributes more than £265 billion to the UK and supports more than 750,000 jobs. In my work as Schools Minister, I get to see directly the contribution that universities make to places and how integrated they are in local innovation, support and access.
I have spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield and have seen the contribution that the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University make to the local area, whether through their pioneering work on opening up participation to university or some of their wider research: Sheffield Innovation Spine, the work that Sheffield Hallam University is doing on early years and Sheffield Children’s University, and the work that the University of Sheffield is doing on adult social care.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) was talking, I was reflecting on being in Sunderland two weeks ago, where we are working on Mission North East, and the role that Sunderland University is playing in partnership to support better outcomes for children in the area.
The Government are committed to maintaining a world-class higher education sector that delivers for students, our society and the economy. We of course recognise that the sector’s financial environment is challenging. The sector is rightly independent from Government, with providers managing their finances and ensuring that their business models provide long-term sustainability. However, I recognise the long-term challenges that many Members have raised and the strain that we saw over the last decade, including the legacy of seven years of frozen tuition fees. Universities have had to deal with the issues caused by that.
Dr Huq
I know the Minister is really passionate about this subject, and her Department has done excellent work with the Department for Work and Pensions on the phenomenon of those not in education, employment or training. A statistic shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) was that the UK has the lowest proportion of public tertiary education expenditure among OECD countries. Could the Minister have a word with Treasury colleagues about nudging that upwards, because that is a statistic we are not so proud of?
Georgia Gould
Of course, I always support greater funding for education and young people, but I was just about to talk about some of the changes the Government are making to support sustainability.
After they were frozen for eight years, we increased tuition fee caps in line with inflation for 2025-26. We will increase them once again in line with forecast inflation in 2026-27 and in 2027-28. We will then legislate when parliamentary time allows to increase tuition fee caps automatically for future academic years. Over the coming year, that is £6 billion-worth of safeguarded indexed increase in income underpinned by the Government, which will make a real difference.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central asked about the Government’s vision for universities. We have set out an ambitious programme of reform through the post-16 education and skills White Paper, with a clear vision for a more sustainable and collaborative higher education sector. We want providers to be clear about their distinctive roles but to be working in collaboration.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the importance of research. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) talked about the pioneering research on prostate cancer at East Anglia. Research is a critical role that universities play. The Government are investing a record £86 billion in R&D from 2026-27 to 2029-30; as part of that, UK Research and Innovation will deliver an expected £38.6 billion of research investment, rising to nearly £10 billion per year by the end of that period. In the Department for Education, we are working closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to deliver the White Paper’s commitments, which include research funding reform and improvements to research grant cost recovery.
We heard from almost all the Members who spoke in the debate about the importance of opening up access and ensuring that young people who want to go to university can always pursue that route. That is why we do not support the Conservatives’ proposals, which would pull up the drawbridge because they are about reducing the number of young people going to university. We know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will be the ones who do not get that opportunity.
Jayne Kirkham
It is important to note that in the 1980s, only about 10% of people went to university. The Blair Government opened that up to 50% of the population, and that is worth putting on the record.
Georgia Gould
We want two thirds of young people to participate in higher-level learning, whether that is going to university, pursuing an apprenticeship or a technical route. We see all of those as deeply connected.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for her helpful response. She has outlined a very clear strategy to try to address the issues that we have all raised. I ask her a specific question: would she consider sharing the strategy with the relevant Minister back home?
Georgia Gould
I regularly talk to colleagues across the four nations, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Baroness Smith, does the same. It is very important that we have that spirit of learning.
Those different routes are deeply connected. We think that the relationship between higher education and the Department is important, particularly on supporting outcomes for young people and as we think about how we respond to the changing nature of education, the introduction of the lifelong learning entitlement and long-term flexible learning. We want people to have access to education throughout their lives.
Georgia Gould
No, I must make progress. The lifelong learning entitlement will transform the student finance system, giving people flexible access to high-quality education throughout their working lives. From January 2027, for the first time learners will be able to use their entitlement to fund individual modules as well as full courses at levels 4 to 6 at colleges, universities and independent providers.
A number of Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central and for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), raised the issue of international students and support for them. I want to be clear: international students are welcome in the UK. They enrich our campuses and communities, and are ambassadors for this country long after they graduate. They made a vital contribution of £12.7 billion in fee income in 2023-24—almost a quarter of the sector’s income, as other Members said. The new international education strategy confirms our commitment to welcoming students who meet the requirements to study here.
A range of questions were asked about the international student levy. That is part of a wider package that also includes inflation-linked fee rises, and it is important to stress that every penny it raises will be reinvested in higher education and skills—including new maintenance grants for disadvantaged students, which many hon. Members raised, to remove some of the barriers around the cost of studying. We know how important those are. The levy is simple and proportionate: a flat £925 fee per international student per year from 2028-29, paid for by providers with an allowance of 220 students each. We listened to the sector; the flat fee is equivalent to around 4% of international fee income, down from the 6% first provided. To answer the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) and others, we will publish an updated impact assessment ahead of the Finance Bill.
I was asked a number of questions about the pressure that many students are facing, including from my friends from Cornwall, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham). We know that cost of living pressures have hit students hard. The previous Government removed maintenance grants and the real-term value of loan support for students fell by almost 20% between 2020 and 2024. We are taking action to put that right.
We are introducing a targeted maintenance grant from 2028-29 of up to £1,000 a year for disadvantaged students on top of their loan, putting cash in their pockets without adding to their debt. The new grants will support students from low-income households studying full-time courses, which is in line with the Government’s mission and industrial strategy. We are future-proofing maintenance loans by increasing them in line with forecast inflation every year, with the biggest cash increase going to students from the lowest-income families.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen raised the issue of student loans, and I want to address that in the time that remains to me. As we have heard from across the Chamber today, giving those who want it and have the ability the chance to study in higher education changes lives. We are determined to support students who want to go to university to fulfil their aspirations. We cannot lose sight of the value that student loans provide in enabling that and levelling the playing field at the point of access. They remove that upfront financial barrier to studying and enable students to repay when they are earning. We inherited a student loan system that is not working as fairly as it should, and we recognise that some students and graduates feel the impact of that.
We are making the tough but necessary decisions to deliver a fairer and more sustainable system. We increased the plan 2 thresholds in 2025—its first increase since 2021—and we again raised the plan 2 repayment threshold in April, to £29,385. We have also capped interest rates for plan 2 and plan 3 loans at 6% for the academic year 2026-27. There are a whole range of very important discussions that came up today. I know that myself—
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
SEND Provision: Rural Communities
Georgia Gould Excerpts(3 days, 22 hours ago)
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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?
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.
School Funding: Stockport
Georgia Gould Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I appreciate the hon. Member for Stockport opening this important debate.
Georgia Gould
Sorry—and I apologise to my hon. Friend for giving away his job. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for opening the debate and for her commitment as a school governor for more than 20 years. Our school governors do such valuable work, and I can hear how passionate she is about these issues. We are, too. Investment in funding for education and schools is critical, and is a huge priority for this Government.
As the hon. Lady set out powerfully, teachers do important work around the country. We want to back them. That is why we have prioritised investment in education by making a significant investment in the core schools budget in financial year 2026-27, with an extra £2.3 billion for schools. That means that the core schools budget will total £67.6 billion, compared with £65.3 billion in 2025-26. That is a significant investment that shows how important education and schools are to this Government.
The hon. Lady also mentioned how important it is that wider infrastructure around schools continues to be funded. I was a council leader for many years and my experience of working closely with schools was that through the cuts we saw to local services—whether in support for young people or families—schools were increasingly picking up those wider pressures. That is why we are investing in all of the crucial services that sit around schools: Best Start in Life hubs, which deliver early intervention; Experts at Hand, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport talked about and which provide much-needed speech and language therapists and educational psychologists to support schools; or Families First partnerships, which bring back the early help and intervention that was cut. We are investing in addressing child poverty, whether through the extension of free school meals or the end to the two-child benefit cap. All that reduces pressure on schools and builds back those teams around schools.
The hon. Lady also talked about the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, and about stepping in to support teachers. That was one of the main pressure points, and we have deeply heard the extent of those pressures on families, young people and educators. That is why we are taking forward the reforms to special educational needs and disabilities. We have consulted widely on the future model, which overhauls the system to create one that invests a lot earlier and brings funding directly into schools so that they are able to meet those needs in the long term. We have started that investment ahead of a full reform. We are putting £4 billion into early intervention, some of which is going directly into schools through the inclusive mainstream fund, and some into councils through Experts at Hand. There is also a significant £3.7 billion capital investment in creating new specialist places.
Navendu Mishra
I appreciate the Minister’s points about the capital investment, but not a week goes by when a parent does not contact my office about their frustration with the local council not meeting the assessment deadline. I encourage the Minister and the Department to engage with Stockport council, because 18% is just not good enough. There is also a point to be made about parents from low-income backgrounds often just giving up, whereas people from other backgrounds perhaps continue the fight, contact their local councillors or pursue legal remedies.
Georgia Gould
I absolutely agree that it is not an acceptable performance. As a Department, we are determined to hold councils to account on their performance regarding children with special educational needs and disabilities. For too long, that has been on individual parents, as my hon. Friend set out, and for some parents, with all the challenges they face, that is incredibly difficult.
We have asked every local authority in the country to develop a SEND reform plan and are monitoring the data within that plan quarterly. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove set out, we are supporting local authorities to relieve 90% of their deficit, and that money is contingent on delivery of those SEND reform plans. We are putting in capacity support of £200 million around the country to support that as well as, where needed, to support intervention. We will be working closely with Stockport council, and I am very happy to meet Stockport MPs to discuss that in greater detail.
In terms of future years of deficit support, we have said that we will take a similar proportionate response to supporting local authorities, but that is contingent on them being proactive about reforming the system, supporting parents better and working with the authority. We have been clear on those expectations and how we will be holding them to account for delivery.
More broadly, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove asked about the distribution of the national funding formula and how it allocates funding. As she set out, it allocates funding based on pupil numbers and pupil characteristics. It means targeting funding at schools that have the greatest number of pupils with additional needs. In 2026-27, 11% of the schools national funding formula has been allocated through deprivation factors and 18% has been allocated for additional needs overall. That corresponds to £5.6 billion for deprivation and £9.2 billion for additional needs. There is a focus on the wide range of factors relating to the individual needs of children and young people that sit within the formula across the board. We have committed to keeping both the NFF and high needs funding under review as part of the system changes that we are working on more broadly.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said, there is extra investment already going in for Stockport through the inclusive mainstream fund, Experts at Hand and the capital investment. We are also putting support into schools to better manage their budgets and support their collective buying power. There is our new energy for schools service, the supply teachers and education recruitment framework and a free banking comparison tool. We are also developing a national procurement framework for management information systems, helping schools to reduce costs and ensure that more funding is directed into provision for the children and young people that we want to focus on.
We are seeing greater investment in education, but also in those wider services that support young people. We want to ensure that that supports early intervention and supports schools with the wide range of pressures that they are facing. I am committed to working alongside Members to make sure that this works in every part of the country. I am very happy to take forward that conversation about the particular challenges facing Stockport.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Georgia Gould Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
The inclusive mainstream fund is part of a £4 billion investment over three years to support early intervention for special educational needs and disabilities. Long term, the Government aim to move more money from the high-needs block directly into school budgets ringfenced for SEND, so that schools can plan their workforces and intervene earlier, ending the long waits for support experienced by too many young people in the current system.
Aphra Brandreth
Following a recent visit to Tushingham-with-Grindley primary school, the headteacher raised concerns with me that for many small, rural schools like Tushingham and Shocklach Oviatt, the new inclusion fund does not compensate for the impact of changes to the school’s block funding. Not every child with SEND needs one-to-one support, but many need teaching assistants and other staff to help them regulate, access learning and benefit from targeted support. If school budgets are being squeezed, it is often that support that ends up being reduced. How will the Minister ensure that the funding changes do not inadvertently reduce the support that children with SEND need to thrive in mainstream schools?
Georgia Gould
The reforms do not fully come in until 2030, so the extra money through the inclusive mainstream fund sits alongside investment through the current system and education, health and care plans. Once the reforms are fully in place, there will be more money going directly into schools. The inclusive mainstream fund is to build up funding in the meantime. Schools will also benefit from the Experts at Hand service, which is putting £1.8 billion into specialists.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Dudley cannot afford to lose another generation of young people to unemployment, exclusion or missed opportunity. The rate of our young people not in education, employment or training was recognised in Alan Milburn’s review. Local leaders at my February NEETs roundtable were clear: alternative provision for children with SEND is desperately needed. Dudley college has brought forward a credible plan. Will the Minister recognise the urgency and back children in Dudley by approving the plan?
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for her leadership on that critical issue. As the Secretary of State said, we are investing £3.7 billion into new specialist places. I will meet her to discuss the specific school she raises.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
Six months ago, the previous Secretary of State revealed the Government’s plan to carry out SEND reforms. Since then, we have had a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State, who last week stated her intention to carry out those reforms. Yet there has been little detail on how the Government will fill the £2 billion black hole in the SEND budget, despite fiscal pressures on the Government continuing to increase, as we all know. When will the legislation come to the House, and where will the money come from? Parents, teachers and children deserve answers.
Georgia Gould
We have been absolutely clear about the investment we are making in the SEND system, with £4 billion for early intervention and £3.7 billion in capital investment—funding that did not come when the previous Government were in power. We welcome the opportunity to work cross-party and for Members to work alongside Ministers, as this is too important an issue not to bring all the ideas of the House together. I am waiting to hear what Opposition Members think about SEND reforms; I look forward to their clarifying that.
Juliet Campbell (Broxtowe) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
We are determined that our schools be inclusive for all children, including those with neurodivergence. The work undertaken by our neurodivergence task-and-finish group has informed our proposed reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities system, including the national inclusion standard and the investment in continuous professional development and teacher training.
Juliet Campbell
I thank the Minister for her reply. Sixty-five per cent of teacher training providers say that new teachers are not equipped to support SEND pupils in mainstream schools, with too many teachers still leaving training without the skills and confidence to support neurodivergent children, including those with dyslexia. Will the Minister consider reforming the initial training requirements so that every trainee educator is able to demonstrate practical competency in identifying and supporting neurodivergent children before achieving their qualified teacher status?
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for her ongoing thoughtful work on this issue, which has very much informed our thinking. We have strengthened SEND content in the initial teacher training and early career framework, with Ofsted reporting that SEND is well integrated in that initial training. However, we do want to go further, and SEND will be a core focus for the 2027 review, as well as the £200 million we are investing into teacher training on special educational needs and disabilities.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
For some neurodivergent children, mainstream school is not a place where they can succeed. One such child is Livvi, who is 14. Following autistic burnout and a period of not being in education, education otherwise than at school has been an absolute godsend for her, but her amazing mum, Carrie, is worried about the Government’s proposed changes to EOTAS provision. Carrie is coming to Parliament this evening; when I meet her, what should I say about whether people who have fought for their kids, like her, will get a say in what future EOTAS provision looks like?
Georgia Gould
I thank the hon. Member for raising this important issue, which came up time and again when we were travelling round the country talking to parents—both the need to support young people who have fallen out of education or are in EOTAS and the need to have a full conversation about this. The Government took forward a consultation about EOTAS, which I hope the hon. Member’s constituent has responded to, and we are looking carefully at all the responses to that.
Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Our reforms focus on better meeting pupils’ needs through earlier and more effective interventions. Children can present very differently even if they have a similar diagnosis, and we want to ensure that schools have the tools to identify children’s individual needs. Our special educational needs and disabilities training for staff works on areas of development, and our national inclusion standard will support that approach by ensuring mainstream settings have the knowledge, training and specialist support to deliver it.
Sir Julian Smith
I thank the Minister for her answer and for all the work she is doing on this. Following on from the question from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell), the issue of differing profiles is really important; pupils with a pathological demand avoidance profile of autism will require a totally different strategy from staff at the reception desk and teachers to get them into school and get them engaged with education. Will she keep pressing the Department on teacher training to really focus on these different profiles and the responses to them, and can she confirm that she is also working with the Department of Health and Social Care on the independent prevalence review, as all that amazing work by mental health experts across the UK should be feeding into this work?
Georgia Gould
I can confirm that I am working closely with the independent prevalence review. On PDA especially, I have heard similar things from many parents. We have a national independent panel—they are in Parliament this afternoon, and there are sessions for all parliamentarians, so I encourage Members to come along and talk to them directly. We have asked them to look at PDA because there is not a strong evidence base, which has been asked for. As well as the teacher training, which is a huge priority, these new experts—educational psychologists, occupational therapists—will provide support for teachers in classrooms.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
This Government are investing £1.8 billion over three years to deliver the Experts At Hand service, which will give mainstream settings access to health and education specialists for SEND. We will also deliver new SEND and inclusion training courses and materials as part of a £200 million investment for teachers, leaders and support staff.
Jayne Kirkham
In Cornwall and my constituency, children needing specialist SEND places have missed out this September. Some have been offered partial education otherwise than at school arrangements instead or are even at home. We inherited a system that has let down a generation. Will the Minister confirm that the new Bill is on its way and that it will close the gap for children in my constituency? When will it take effect?
Georgia Gould
We are determined to ensure that every child who needs a specialist place has access to one. That is why we are investing £3.7 billion in specialist places and are proposing the new specialist provision packages system. We recently had a full consultation on the proposals, and we are carefully working through the detailed responses that we got to the consultation questions. We will bring forward the Bill as quickly as possible.
Perran Moon
Several schools in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency are reporting profound concerns about the lack of availability of educational specialists right across Cornwall, including occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists. As a result of our remote coastal location, recruitment and retention is particularly difficult. Will the Minister meet Cornish MPs to discuss this issue?
Georgia Gould
I can confirm that, after very strong lobbying from my hon. Friends the Members for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), I will be visiting Cornwall to talk to them directly and see the issues at first hand. I absolutely recognise the issues around recruitment and retention in rural areas, and we are very much working on that.
Chris Vince
I speak to parents, young people and teachers in my constituency all the time about the need for SEND reform. One of my best friends is a special educational needs co-ordinator, and he often tells me how broken he and his colleagues are after battling this broken SEND system for so long. Will the Minister ensure that the SEND reforms cater for all the young people in Harlow who need them, and that they will make being a SENCO an attractive proposition again?
Georgia Gould
I really appreciate that question. I have talked to SENCOs around the country, and I know how much pressure they are under and how often they feel that they have to go into battle for the children they support. They play a critical role, and they need more support. Inclusion has to be the business of the entire school, not just one individual. We are determined to support them.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I speak to many families in Broxbourne who are struggling with the SEND system. Unfortunately, until there are more SEND school places, they will continue to struggle, as children with SEND need to be in the right educational setting. What is the Department doing to create more SEND school places for families today, as they are needed now, not in the future?
Georgia Gould
Over the past two years, that £3.7 billion investment that I have mentioned has started. That money is going into local authorities today, so that they can start building schools, creating places, and taking the action that the Conservative Government failed to take.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Barely a day goes by without hearing from a new family whose child is struggling or—worse—does not have a school at all. Given the long delays in autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnoses and the length of time it takes to get packages in place, what consideration has been given to screening for neurodivergence at a very early stage so that we can plan properly for those schools?
Georgia Gould
I hear the same stories from families about long waits. The new system that we are proposing is all about identifying needs as early as possible. Through the national inclusion standards, which the independent panel is working on, new tools will be developed to support schools to identify needs early, and then work will be done with the Experts at Hand service to put in place interventions to support those young people.
Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)
Children in Gorton and Denton are being left without suitable education while families wait for SEND tribunal appeals, but they are waiting for school places that do not exist. Does the Minister agree that we need an independent assessment of SEND school capacity? The Government reforms will not help if we do not first fix the capacity crisis.
Georgia Gould
I absolutely agree that we need more places in our schools. We are working as quickly as possible to get money into local authorities to deliver that capacity. That includes growing the number of inclusion bases, which can be built faster and often allow children to be educated in their community. As I travel around the country, I have seen how life-changing that has been. The money that we have put in is already creating new places, and we will continue to invest this year and next.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
I have heard from parents, young people, teachers and hon. Members across the House the scale of the challenges facing the SEND system and the impact on families. We are transforming support for special educational needs across early years settings, schools and colleges so that more children and young people can get the right support locally.
Chris Hinchliff
It is difficult to overstate the trauma that the SEND crisis has inflicted on children in North East Hertfordshire, so the Government’s commitment to reform is welcome. However, given the scale of the failure that families have experienced, many are nervous. Will the Minister reassure me and my constituents that the reforms will not mean pushing children into a one-size-fits-all approach and will ensure that there is a firm legal backstop so that every child receives the support they deserve?
Georgia Gould
I can confirm that these reforms are designed to ensure that the right support is available for children in every community and that there is accountability on every part of the system to deliver for families and young people, who have been let down for too long.
Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
The Department is bringing forward reforms to improve the SEND system long term. With this investment in local authorities and other parts of the systems comes a strong focus on improvement. Through SEND reform plans, we will be carefully monitoring performance and offering support, but also intervening strongly where there is persistent failure.
Nesil Caliskan
Creating additional SEND spaces is critical for my constituency as we have had a 100% increase in education, health and care plans and an extra 1,000 students now need special educational needs support. Will the Minister reassure us that when the schools Bill comes through, as part of the proposals there will be additional support for mainstream teachers to get the training they need so that there is support in mainstream schools?
Georgia Gould
My hon. Friend has been a passionate campaigner on this issue. It is because of representations from her constituents and those of many others around the Chamber that we will be introducing compulsory professional development on special educational needs and disabilities for teachers, backed by £200 million.
Dr Pinkerton
A great number of children across Surrey have been left without the special educational provision they need this year and a disproportionate number—64%—of those who require specialist autism provision live in the new West Surrey unitary authority area. Given Surrey county council’s historical failure to align provision with need, and with worrying reports that the SEND system is being allowed to collapse in Surrey’s final year of operation, will the Minister directly intervene to ensure that Department for Education capital investment prioritises the specialist autism places that West Surrey desperately needs? Will she meet me and the incoming leaders of West Surrey to see how that can be done?
Georgia Gould
I will meet the hon. Member to discuss that; I have heard directly from Surrey parents and from him. We invested £16 million last year and have invested close to £19 million this year in specialist places in Surrey. We are carefully looking at Surrey’s reform plan as part of our work on local authority accountability. I will keep working with the hon. Member on these important issues.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
A constituent’s 11-year-old autistic daughter attempted suicide last year, and she continues to experience severe anxiety and autistic burnout. The family still have no clarity about her education provision for this new term. Will the Government ensure that schools are able to offer placements to children like my constituent’s daughter only when they have the staffing expertise, resource and specialist support necessary to meet that child’s identified needs?
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
I am deeply sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent; nobody should have to go through that. We want every school to be an inclusive school, in which there teachers are trained and there are experts on hand to support children, so that no one is in that position in future.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)
Will the Secretary of State for Education join me in commending my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) on her proposal that every school in the land should fly the Union flag every day of the year, and that every school should sing the national anthem at assembly at least once a week? Is that not a policy that the Government could implement now, instead of waiting for a Reform UK Government to implement it?
Pica Eating Disorder: SEND
Georgia Gould Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) for bringing this deeply important discussion to Westminster Hall. The story she told shows her effectiveness as a local MP. I know that she has listened to parents, professionals and school leaders at a number of different events in her local community. Bringing their voices directly to us is much appreciated.
I am grateful to the parents and professionals in the Public Gallery for making the time to be here today and for their leadership in campaigning on this issue. I would be keen to sit down with the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham and campaigners to discuss it in more detail. We have heard powerfully the profound impact that pica can have and the huge stress it can bring to parents who are desperately monitoring their child’s circumstances and safety.
As I have been going around the country talking to parents and visiting schools, I have seen schools with brilliant and extraordinary provision, and young people with pica who are really thriving. I have also spoken to parents who present stories similar to those we have heard today and who feel that support is not in place, leaving them in fear. Sometimes they have had to give up work to support their children.
The tragic cases we have heard today show how important this issue is: it goes to the heart of the relationship between special educational needs and health. All Members, I think, mentioned the importance of us working in partnership and having clarity on the role of teachers in supporting and safeguarding pupils, and the role of health professionals in diagnosing and giving advice and guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) talked about the importance of that guidance and of roles and responsibilities of health and schools.
Earlier this year, we consulted on revised statutory guidance on supporting children and young people with medical conditions. That reflects our commitment to ensuring that every child or young person can participate effectively in education, notwithstanding their medical conditions. Schools, colleges and early years settings should understand the risks that a medical condition poses and manage them proactively. That includes ensuring that staff understand the relevant medical conditions and their impact and can recognise and respond to an emergency.
We had a really positive response to the consultation and are still working through the responses. We had a lot of detailed feedback, including on specific medical conditions. The draft guidance did not make reference to pica. Given the conversations we have had, the responses to the consultation and today’s discussion, I can confirm that we will rectify that when we finally publish the guidance, to provide clear information and guidance around pica for schools.
As part of the SEND reforms, we are looking at developing national inclusion standards that will provide a baseline of ordinarily available provision that we expect of all schools. We have an expert panel working on those standards and on specialist provision packages, which will determine the support needed in an area for a range of different special educational needs and disabilities. Currently, our independent panel, which sits across health and education, is leading that work. I commit today to ask the panel to take a specific look at the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham raised in relation to pica, specifically those that relate to research and identifying gaps in support.
More broadly, a number of questions were asked about the SEND reforms, including about how we will support early intervention and ensure that the right training is in place and that we have the right professionals in schools. As part of the SEND reforms, we are investing £4 billion in early intervention. That includes £1.6 billion going directly into mainstream schools, and all schools are being asked to develop inclusion strategies. We are putting £1.8 billion into an experts at hand service, which includes occupational therapists, educational psychologists and specialist teachers. I had a brief conversation, just outside this Chamber, with an occupational therapist who specialises in pica. We talked about their critical role, and it is important to reflect on that as part of the experts at hand service.
We are also developing a new package of teacher training, into which we are putting £200 million. The purpose of that training is to support all schools to be inclusive, including by identifying needs and adapting classroom practice to support children. It will not be detailed training on specific conditions, but it will include how to provide wider support and adaptions for pupils. We should also give teachers the tools and strategies to find the relevant information about specific issues as they occur in the classroom. We are currently working with parents, disabled children’s organisations and teaching organisations to develop that training, and I welcome Members’ thoughts about the process.
Many Members mentioned the importance of engaging with parents. One of the components of the training will be ensuring that teachers are listening to the voices of parents and having strong relationships with them, so that schools can pick up on what is happening at home and put that into their plans.
Lee Pitcher
I thank the Minister for all the work behind the scenes prior to the debate to allow some commitments to be given today; it is absolutely phenomenal. We can see the impact that is having on people in the Public Gallery and how much it is welcomed.
On sustainability and thinking about the future, I am a very “head and heart” person, and I talk a lot from the heart, but in terms of the head, if we are to continue to provide funding, support and resources for things like pica, we first need awareness, so that we can start to understand the numbers, and for that we need a record. I realise that the Minister cannot answer this right now, but can some thought be given to recording the number of people with pica so that we can use that in future business cases and when funding is considered?
Georgia Gould
I will absolutely take away the issue of reporting.
Members spoke about the need to invest in inclusive spaces. We are continuing to invest £3.7 billion in the creation of new specialist places. That money can go into new special schools, inclusion bases or adaptions in mainstream schools. I have visited really high-quality inclusion bases, and I know that part of that investment has been about creating safe spaces for children with pica. We have also issued new guidance about how to create estates that are inclusive by design, which includes guidance to schools about how to work with children and understand their experience of the school. That will make sure that schools are genuinely inclusive for those young people. That is another area that is relevant to the conversation.
The hon. Member for South Devon made a really important point about accountability across our systems and about working in partnership. We are working closely with Health Ministers on this issue, as we recognise how critical that is. The hon. Lady also spoke about experts at hand and the workforce. We are investing £40 million in training up new ed psychs and speech and language therapists, and a lot of work is going on with Health colleagues about workforce planning to ensure we have a sufficient workforce to support experts at hand and specialist settings. It is critical that we have that specialist resource to deliver early intervention.
I was asked about how the funding will work in the new system. It is envisioned that for children with individual support plans, schools will get dedicated funding that is ringfenced for pupils with SEND, so that the necessary staff can be employed and the right support can be put in place. At the moment, the funding often comes quite late in the day after a huge battle for support, and it leaves with the child. The idea is to give schools sustained budgets so that they can build the necessary provision. For pupils accessing a specialist provision package, the funding will come with the package and the child into the school. Depending on where the child sits in the system, the funding will flow differently.
I welcome the tone of the debate—there has been cross-party recognition of the scale of the issue—and the way that Members throughout the House are working together to address these really difficult questions. I have heard so many stories of families who have been badly let down. We all acknowledge that things need to change and that we need to get it right. I am committed to continuing to work in partnership with all Members, and really appreciate their bringing stories like the ones we have heard today to me, so that we can continue these really important conversations. Critically, we must talk to young people and families. I really hope this is just the start of the conversation, and that we will have a longer conversation soon so that we can look at the issues raised today.
Draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026
Georgia Gould Excerpts(4 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 20 May 2026.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 changes the legal framework for opening new state-funded schools. It ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies, and helps to ensure that new schools can be delivered quickly where they are needed, by enabling proposals from local authorities and voluntary organisations as additional routes to delivery. That provides greater flexibility in the system, including in circumstances where suitable academy trust capacity is limited.
The statutory instrument makes consequential amendments arising from those provisions. The amendments, which are to both primary and secondary legislation, are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book, and to update provisions to ensure that they are compatible with the new legislative framework. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not introduce any significant new policy.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act repeals section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, relating to the presumption that new schools should be academies. Arrangements for inviting proposals for new schools are now contained in an amended section 7 of the 2006 Act. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act also replaces sections 10 and 11 and of the Education and Inspections Act with an amended section 10. The draft regulations remove references to section 6A and section 11 in other primary and secondary legislation, and replace them with references to sections 7 and 10 respectively, where necessary, providing legal clarity. The amended provisions relate to land given to a local authority on trust for educational purposes, transfer of employment, proposers of new schools, governance of new schools and local government reorganisation.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act sets procedures for the establishment of new pupil referral units by local authorities. The draft regulations extend legislation to apply to newly established pupil referral units in two cases. Currently, where a new maintained school replaces an independent school, a teacher of the independent school transferring under transfer of undertakings legislation to the new school may choose to retain their existing terms and conditions or choose to opt in to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. The instrument extends the provision so that it applies when an independent school is replaced by a pupil referral unit, affording teachers the same choice.
Secondly, the statutory instrument applies and extends regulation 5 of the School Governance (New Schools) (England) Regulations 2007 to pupil referral units, when only one school proposal has been published under sections 7 or 10 of the Education and Inspections Act. A local authority is able to put in place governance arrangements for a maintained school in anticipation of proposals being approved. That will also apply where only one proposal for a pupil referral unit has been published. These amendments will ensure legal clarity and consistency.
Georgia Gould
I thank Members for the range of important questions, although I think they are broader than the individual draft regulations we are discussing today.
I will start with the question about special places in specialist schools and how we can ensure that there is consistency. As part of the Government’s reforms to SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—we are proposing the introduction of new specialist provision packages. Those will be developed by a national independent panel and will set out the broad range of provision we expect to be available in every community. Local authorities will have a duty to provide specialist provision packages—that is, the type of special provision that, as the hon. Member for Guildford has set out, is missing from too many communities.
To fund that measure, we are investing £3.7 billion into creating new specialist places. That money is going into the system now, and we are setting very strong expectations on local authorities to deliver new specialist provision both within mainstream schools on an inclusion basis and, where necessary, in new special schools. The policy that forms part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act makes it easier for local authorities to set up new maintained schools.
On the specific question about pupil referral units and their role in the system, we will be very clear in the specialist provision packages about the kind of support we expect for children with internalising and externalising social and emotional needs. As we have set out in the SEND reform consultation, we want the role of alternative provision to be focused on really reintegrating children back into school. The Experts at Hand model we have developed is about using some of the best practice from really high-quality alternative provision to support mainstream schools. The SEND reforms are subject to consultation, but I hope that gives a wider reassurance.
The hon. Member for South Devon asked why we have created these new powers. As she correctly said, we have set out a steer to the system to say that we expect schools to move towards being part of collaborative trusts. The current system means that there are real geographical discrepancies, and sometimes there is not a trust available to set something up quickly, so we want local authorities to have the flexibility to respond quickly to demands and to offer that provision where it is needed.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater raised the wider, more general debate about academisation. I am glad to hear his support for academisation; as he knows, it was something that a Labour Government first introduced. We support that system because we see so many benefits for schools, including collaboration and resilience, from being part of multi-academy trusts. We are setting out a direction to say that is the way in which we expect the school system to move, and we want those freedoms to be available to all schools.
We want to have really strong standards and consistency in critically important areas. We know some of the real challenges that young people face in misinformation and the need for digital literacy in a changing world. Our new national curriculum, on which we have consulted widely with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authority schools, will set the standard we want for all children, and we think it is really important that all schools teach that. It is critical that children have access to a qualified teacher, so we are setting very clear standards through the schools White Paper on not only issues such as inclusion but offering the benefits that come from being part of a multi-academy trust, which is a really sensible approach to developing the new system. The draft regulations are really about implementing policy that has already been debated and discussed.
Question put.
Oral Answers to Questions
Georgia Gould Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Through the national consultation and local special educational needs and disabilities reform plans, we are ensuring that multi-academy trusts play a key role in SEND reforms. New national inclusion standards will create shared expectations for all schools around inclusive education, and the SEND reforms make clear our expectations that all multi-academy trusts and schools work in partnership with local authorities to ensure the needs of every child in an area are met.
Clive Jones
I thank the Minister for her answer. Without clear levers, accountability cannot be guaranteed and the Department cannot ensure that SEND reforms translate into consistent, high-quality support for children and their families on the ground. Will the Minister clarify what specific and enforceable powers local authorities will have to ensure that multi-academy trusts play their full part in delivering local area SEND plans?
Georgia Gould
The Government will be setting national standards for all schools, including multi-academy trusts. National inclusion standards will be developed by an independent expert panel and all schools will need to ensure they are delivered. We are also introducing new inspections for multi-academy trusts that will focus on a range of levers, including the importance of inclusion in education. Through our focus on area partnerships, we are really clear that every player, whether schools, health services or local authorities, needs to work together to deliver for children.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Special needs specialists in schools in my constituency have raised with me their concerns about the shortage of educational psychologists. A mum of a profoundly disabled child, who I met on Saturday, raised concerns about the shortage of occupational therapists. What are the Government doing to address the additional needs of that specific group of people?
Georgia Gould
I really appreciate that question. Making educational psychologists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists far more accessible for students in mainstream education is at the heart of our reforms. We are investing £1.8 billion in the new Experts at Hand service, which will start from September. As part of that, we are also investing £40 million into training new educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, developing the workforce to ensure that all children have access to an inclusive education.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
We are deeply grateful for the service of military families and recognise the additional pressures that military life puts on the education and family life of those families. We are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to address this area. Schools receive service pupil premium funding to address challenges including mobility and family separation, and we are improving special educational needs and disabilities support for families who move frequently, including proposing new digital individual support plans and education, health and care plans to make those moves easier.
Mr Forster
Brookwood primary school in Woking educates a significant number of military children because Army Training Centre Pirbright is nearby. Those children have their education disrupted because of the nature of their parents’ vital work in the armed forces. In this Armed Forces Week, will the Government look at what further support they can give, including by increasing the service pupil premium, which has gone up by just £20 in two years?
Georgia Gould
I am visiting a garrison in North Yorkshire in similar circumstances soon to talk to families and schools about the particular pressures they face in supporting children with that high level of mobility. We are working closely on this matter, as I have set out, particularly through the SEND reforms. Time and again, I hear from military families that one of the biggest barriers for them, where there is an additional need, is how hard it can be to move from place to place. I have set out some of the changes we are making, but it is an area that we are looking at closely, and I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.
Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)
This morning I had the honour of taking part in the flag raising ahead of Armed Forces Day in Thurrock in my home patch. I reflected that while the impact of service is one of pride, there is also a big impact on the families of the men and women who bravely serve our country, and particularly on those with special educational needs and disabilities. What measures is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that when a child with SEND follows their parent due to their military service, they are not adversely impacted?
Georgia Gould
As I have set out, it is far too hard to move SEND provision from place to place in the country at the moment. The changes that we are making—introducing national inclusion standards, national specialist provision packages and digital individual support plans and EHCPs—will make a massive difference in making it far easier to move provision. We are absolutely consulting on this; I continue to talk to military families and welcome their engagement on this important issue.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
In this Armed Forces Week, I want to draw the Minister’s attention back to the issue she has just been discussing. I have heard too often from the service families in my area that when they need to move, their child’s EHCP, which they have spent some time arguing for, does not automatically follow them. That not only disrupts the child’s education but makes it much harder for the family to move together; often the person serving has to move first. I implore the Minister not just to come up with digital solutions but to work closely with the Ministry of Defence to address this crucial matter.
Georgia Gould
Last week, I met a Minister from the Ministry of Defence and we discussed exactly that issue. I have heard from service personnel who have turned down jobs as a result of being worried about provision for their child if they move. This issue is a massive priority for the Government, and we are working on it.
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for all her work on SEND issues, particularly in relation to service families, and for meeting me, service families and personnel through the work of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces community. Those service families took so much strength from the fact that the Minister was there to listen to them. Will she make a commitment that service families will be recognised within the work on all future SEND reforms?
Georgia Gould
I would really like to thank my hon. Friend and the chair of the APPG for organising that meeting; it was an impactful conversation. Members have spoken today about service families really struggling to navigate the SEND system. The people I spoke to welcomed some of the changes I have set out today, but they also set out new ideas, which we will be looking at as part of our response to the consultation.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
The Government recognise the essential role that small schools play in their communities, many of which are in rural areas. The national funding formula for schools accounts for the challenges faced by small schools in rural areas by providing additional funding through the lump sum and the sparsity factor.
Steff Aquarone
I was deeply saddened last week to receive from the Minister the news that Corpusty school will close from September. Across North Norfolk there are small rural schools just like Corpusty, and they are worried that they might be next to face closure. The Department for Education’s research and guidance about running a small rural school was conducted eight years ago and published in March 2019. That is about to be six Prime Ministers ago. Will the Minister commit to undertaking new research and publishing up-to-date guidance so that small rural primary schools can be protected in future?
Georgia Gould
I welcome the hon. Member’s taking the time to meet me to discuss the situation in his constituency and the pressure that falling birth rates are having on small schools. I have subsequently followed up on our conversation by meeting his local council about how we can work in partnership to support his constituency and the wider Norfolk area as it faces those pressures. I am happy to continue conversations about the Government’s work to support rural schools, which we are prioritising and funding, as I set out.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Small rural schools in Suffolk all face an uncertain future. I met with the brilliant Stephany Hunter, head of Barningham school, who explained the difficult problem of per-pupil funding in her very small classes. I would like to see more affordable housing in villages for young families by changing the rural exception sites. Does the Minister agree that village schools have a very special place in the heart of our rural communities?
Georgia Gould
I wholeheartedly agree with my good friend, who is a great champion for rural schools; they have a very special place at the heart of our communities. The national funding formula allocates funding based on a consistent assessment of need. The lump sum is particularly beneficial to small schools, which are most reliant on the element of funding that is not driven by pupil numbers.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Children with special educational needs and disabilities have been let down for too long. We are determined to transform their experiences and outcomes. We are working with young people, parents and professionals to create a system where needs are identified and met early and schools have the training, resources and physical environments to be inclusive for all children. We will end the postcode lottery for children with complex needs, with stronger national standards for specialist provision and a new role for the best specialist schools as centres for excellence.
Max Wilkinson
Recent events lead me to believe that we will have an in-depth discussion about regional funding inequalities in this country. With that in mind, may I draw Ministers’ attention to the f40 group of local authorities, and in particular Gloucestershire, within which my constituency falls? In the last couple of weeks, I have met Caroline Parker from Gloucester Road primary and Rachel Penney from St Gregory the Great school, who told me that there is a particular problem with the provision of SEND in the f40 area. Will Ministers meet me so that I can tell them in more detail about that problem?
Georgia Gould
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member to discuss funding. As he knows, it is an area that we are heavily investing in, with £4 billion going into early intervention to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. We will be consulting on how we fund special educational needs and the formula in the future, and I would be happy to discuss that.
Sarah Green
Like local authorities across the country, Buckinghamshire council submitted its SEND improvement plan on 19 June, but it will not receive a decision on deficit relief until 21 September, after the school year has started. With a cumulative deficit of over £45 million already on the books, it is being asked to plan blind. Will the Minister meet me to discuss what support will be available to councils like Buckinghamshire if such applications are rejected, and to discuss bringing forward the decision timeline?
Georgia Gould
Many hon. Members across the House have talked to me about the issues with local authorities’ delivery on SEND. The Department is determined to hold local authorities to account and ensure that they are all doing everything they can to support children and young people. We are putting in significant funding and support, but it is critical that that support really transforms things for children. We are carefully looking at all the SEND reform plans that have come back from local authorities and ensuring that they are of sufficient quality to turn things around, but we will be working with local authorities who need more support.
Tom Gordon
I have been campaigning for a number of years to get the special school at Bilton Woodfield open. It was first set to open in September 2024, then it was delayed to September 2025, and we have now been told that it will open in September 2026. It beggars belief that a school that has had millions of pounds spent on building and funding it is sat empty when we have a SEND crisis in Harrogate and Knaresborough, and across the country. Will the Minister meet me, apply pressure to the school trust and the local authority, and ensure that no further delays are made to the opening of the special school so that we get it open on time in September and do not fail a further generation of SEND kids?
Georgia Gould
I would be happy to meet the hon. Member, and I did not get a chance to say that I am also happy to meet the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green). These are critical issues, and we want to see provision come forward.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
Can the Minister provide an update on the Experts at Hand offer, and in particular how the £2.1 million that will be given to my local authority, the London borough of Bexley, can be used to support disabled children across Bexleyheath and Crayford?
Georgia Gould
We have set out guidance on investment for local authorities and I know that local authorities around the country are busy building that offer. I was in Rochdale last week, where the amazing work going on with speech and language therapists in schools has seen a more than 80% reduction in waiting lists for children. We are really excited about the opportunity to bring these vital experts—specialist teachers, speech and language therapists and many others—directly into schools, and as we have heard, there is work going on to start this in September.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
I am delighted that St Martin’s primary school in Scarborough is establishing a brand new targeted mainstream provision centre, backed by funding from this Labour Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that our plans to deliver more TMP places will mean that the many children in my constituency who are currently not in school due to unmet needs will be able to return to school and resume their education?
Georgia Gould
Absolutely. We are investing £3.7 billion into creating 60,000 new specialist places, and I have heard from families how life-changing it is to have that provision in their community. Children who have been out of school, sometimes for years, are now back in education. Earlier we were talking about the issues affecting rural schools, and there are real opportunities to create inclusion bases in schools around the country.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
Just a few months ago, the TES reported that the Government had frozen the high needs funding block, which special schools rely on. Headteachers are warning that the Government’s decision means that children will not get the support they need due to a lack of funding. The Minister may well point to the Experts at Hand service, but it is not the same and does not come close to meeting what each school will have lost. How can she justify freezing the high needs funding block when the demand for special schools is rising, the demand for education, health and care plans is rising, and the Government’s reforms are years away?
Georgia Gould
When we came into Government, we made a significant increase to the high needs block, precisely because we knew that investment in special educational needs and disabilities was desperately needed. Hon. Members across the House will know that the current system has been failing for a long time. We are acting to reform the system, but we are also investing £4 billion into early intervention, £3.7 billion into capital places and £200 million into teacher training and supporting local authorities with their deficits. This is something we are taking absolutely seriously. It is at the heart of our agenda, and we are acting where the previous Government failed.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
As a former teacher, I know that these SEND reforms are not just necessary but vital for young people in my constituency of Harlow and beyond. Does the Minister agree that reforms in Harlow will be strengthened by multi-academy trust-level inspections and Ofsted’s welcome of the new focus on inclusion?
Georgia Gould
I very much agree that Ofsted inspections of multi-academy trusts are a really important lever in ensuring that inclusion is part of the decision making of all trusts and all schools.
Georgia Gould
That is just not true. In considering this issue, I have spent time with MPs from across the House and the families that they represent, and I cannot put into words the thought and care that so many MPs have put into holding surgeries and bringing groups together. I have talked to families with Liberal Democrat MPs, with Labour MPs and with many Conservative MPs. This is an area that everyone is taking really seriously. We have talked to families from all parts of the country with very strong views, and we are continuing to do that as part of our consultation.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
We are committed to prioritising early intervention and making major increases in investment in SEND, investing £4 billion more over three years. That includes £1.8 billion so that every community has experts on hand, £1.6 billion to settings for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.
Bradley Thomas
Looking out to 2028-29, there is a £2 billion gap between what the Government say they will be spending on SEND and what the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that SEND spending will be in that period. That will risk children across Worcestershire being forced to fit into a box that does not fit their needs. What steps will the Government take to address that?
Georgia Gould
The Government are investing in special educational needs and disabilities, as I have set out. We have set out substantial investment over the next few years. We are currently consulting on special educational needs and disabilities reform. We will set out final plans on that reform after we have carefully looked at all the considerations.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
Many parents rely heavily on SENDIASS—special educational needs and disabilities information, advice and support services. We know that these services are free, impartial and vital for parents. Given that we expect demand on these services to increase, how will the Minister ensure that local authorities have the necessary financial and practical resources to maintain the independence and quality of SENDIASS?
Georgia Gould
I have heard from many families how critical SENDIASS is. We are continuing to fund SENDIASS, and in our consultation on SEND we included a question on how we can better support parents and on what investment we need to put in to do that, so it is an area that we are looking at.
David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
We are determined to reverse the declining rates of activity for children and the stark inequalities we see across the country. We have confirmed £1 billion in funding for PE and school sports over three years to create stronger local partnerships to revitalise PE and school sports.
John Glen
I thank the Minister for that answer, but I visited Woodlands primary school and Matthew Kitley 10 days ago. He has been there for 17 years and works extremely hard to make very limited resources work for the pupils, 60% of whom receive the pupil premium. He tells me that £17,000 has been taken off the budget that he has set for this coming year, a really difficult settlement, and that is all taken from the PE budget. So can the Minister explain what is happening for this immediate financial year, where there is a shortfall for numerous schools across the country, including many in my Salisbury constituency?
Georgia Gould
At the moment, too many children do not have access to sport and are not meeting the recommended 60 minutes of daily activity, so it is critical that we build something that supports schools, like the one the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, with national bodies to provide those opportunities. The funding breaks down into £580 million to build the new PE and school sport partnerships network, £200 million for improved facilities, and the rest for transitional support for schools through the year before we build the new service. There will be transitional support in place, but we will build something that is better for schools. I am happy to have a discussion with him to clarify matters.
Georgia Gould
Only half of children meet the chief medical officer’s recommendation of 60 active minutes a day. Although well intentioned and despite huge efforts from primary schools, the current system is not doing what it needs to do to turn the situation around. We know through talking to national bodies that a partnership model that brings our huge national resources, the energy from the world cup and the different clubs that are out there together with local schools is going to transform that investment. We are investing £1 billion over three years. I was in local government when the Conservatives cut youth clubs and community sports facilities, but we are investing.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Officials are meeting with Kent county council to understand the model. We are in favour of schools pooling resources to support children with special educational needs and disabilities, but there have to be safeguards. I would welcome the opportunity to speak further to understand my hon. Friend’s concerns.
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
Georgia Gould
Every year we review the bursaries across the system—there is a limited pot, so we look at where the need is highest—and we will review bursaries this year. We are also setting up a national centre for the arts, which will support teacher training for music as well as wider arts, because that is so critical to our agenda.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, and pay tribute to the amazing work she has set out. I thank Devon for her leadership and extend my heartfelt condolences to the family. It is so critical that we keep young people safe, and I hope we can continue to work together to do so.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
I recently joined a class of year 5 pupils from St Peter’s school in my constituency on a visit to the National Holocaust Museum in Laxton. I saw at first hand that places such as that are vital to ensuring that young people absorb lessons about the Holocaust. Will the Minister therefore commit to visiting that museum with me and a local school?
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy of the National Holocaust Museum, which plays a critical role in ensuring that children are educated about the Holocaust. That is a key priority for the Government, and I can of course commit to visiting that museum with him—I really welcome his work.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Georgia Gould
We are working with experts nationally to develop new national inclusion standards and specialist provision packages and to set out how we want to see children supported in mainstream schools and specialist schools. I would be happy to discuss that further with the hon. Member.
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
Some 40,000 children each year acquire a brain injury, which are recorded, if at all, under a broad range of categories. Will the Minister meet me and the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum to look at how we can better record acquired brain injuries in a special category to deal with their specific neurological needs?
Georgia Gould
I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that issue. We have been talking to families of children with neurological issues, and it is an important area.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Schools in North Shropshire received an average of £6,460 a head last year, compared with a national average of around £7,910. Outcomes at GCSE and key stage 4 are consistently lower than the national average. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss what resources can be put in place to improve outcomes for children in North Shropshire?
Georgia Gould
We are increasing investment in schools, and I would be happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss their concerns.
Georgia Gould
We are investing £1 billion over three years to build new sports networks. That money will be used by many different partners to support schools, bring resources together, and put funding directly into school budgets. We will be setting out more plans to reassure primary school heads of our commitment to increasing activity for children and young people.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
Like many other Members on both sides of the House, I have heard from countless families who have been let down by the existing SEND system. In one particularly upsetting case, a bright young boy was expelled from infant school owing to the mishandling of his complex needs. Thankfully, he was later re-enrolled as a result of his mother’s tireless work. Does the Minister agree that the reforms outlined in the Government’s SEND White Paper will support productive early intervention and create a fairer, more fulfilling school experience for every child?
Georgia Gould
I have spoken to families around the country who set out exactly that experience: watching their children fall further behind, and having to battle for the support that they desperately need. Our SEND reforms are about putting early intervention in place, supporting children at the earliest possible point, and transforming the system so that parents no longer have to battle to get their children the support they need.
Home-to-School Transport
Georgia Gould Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank all Members for an incredibly constructive and thoughtful discussion. It was particularly powerful that so many Members brought the lived experience of their constituents and some of the challenges that they face with home-to-school transport to the Chamber. I welcome the visibility given to those stories.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on securing this important debate. His passion for and commitment to this subject came across in his speech, as did the fact that he has been an avid campaigner who has widely engaged with families. We have heard today why this is such an important issue.
We also heard why the support that is available through home-to-school transport matters to families. It is the mechanism through which many disadvantaged families, many children in rural communities and many young people with SEND are able to access education. We heard how the existing statutory rights are incredibly important.
In addition, we heard about the particular challenges faced by rural communities, where the distances are greater and home-to-school transport costs are higher. That is why the Government made changes as part of a fair funding review, which included a distinct home-to-school transport relative needs formula, based on pupil numbers and home-to-school distances. The focus on distance deliberately supports those authorities with the longest distances and recognises the needs of rural communities.
We heard about the statutory guidance and about the discretionary opportunities available to local authorities. Local authorities have a discretionary power to arrange free travel for children who do not meet the eligibility criteria, in recognition of specific local factors. We have heard about some of the challenges that areas face, and local authorities are best placed to make those decisions.
We heard from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough about the importance of data, and about the data that the Department holds, in holding local authorities to account. We have added a new absence code to reflect issues with local authority-arranged transport. Since September 2025, local authorities have been able to evaluate absences that are the result of home-to-school transport. Just 0.011% of the total number of school sessions that are missed is due to such transport; for special schools, the percentage is higher. That is really important data. Of course, any missed school session is one too many. Data helps with accountability, but I understand that the hon. Gentleman was referencing wider data and I would be very happy to have a follow-up conversation about that.
We also heard from many other Members about the interaction between SEND and disabilities, and about the increase that we have seen in the need for home-to-school transport for children and young people with SEND. As I have engaged with children around the country, that is something that I have heard time and again. Sometimes, children have to spend up to two hours on transport to access education. For some children who sometimes have issues regulating and who can find change disruptive, as well as for their families, that can be an incredibly distressing experience, despite the best efforts of the providers.
This also disconnects children from their communities. I always remember speaking to an 18-year-old who travelled a long distance to school every day. He said that when he returned to his community, he did not have friends or networks within it, so he felt very isolated going into adulthood. It is therefore incredibly important that children have access to SEND provision locally and closer to home, and Members today have agreed with that. Improving home-to-school transport is core to the SEND reforms.
The hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), who spoke for the Opposition, rightly challenged me on how we can move as quickly as possible to deliver such improvement. As he knows, we are investing £3.7 billion into 60,000 new places. That investment has gone in last year and this year, so it is going into communities urgently to help them to address those challenges.
We are supporting a large number of free schools to go forward. As we have heard, some local authorities have chosen to use their share of that investment to move faster in providing new places, at a cost of around £50,000 per place. The development of new places is critical, but it is also critical to make schools more inclusive for students—everything from improving school buildings and teaching—to develop the expertise around schools, so that local schools are accessible for children with SEND and every area has the right specialist provision available.
This investment will transform children’s outcomes; it not only reduces travel time but, as we have heard, saves money, which is also important. And the money that is saved can go back into improving outcomes for children in some of the really critical issues that have been raised during this debate.
We also heard a number of Members talk about support for young people post 16. There was a particularly powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) on the topic.
At the moment, local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure no young person is prevented from attending education post 16 because of a lack of transport. Local authorities must publish annual transport statements on this, and it is expected that local authorities will make reasonable decisions. Many local authorities do subsidise transport for young people post 16, but I have very much heard the passionate responses in the Chamber today. The issue also came up in the SEND consultation that we recently completed. We will look carefully at those responses.
As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor, said, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) made a powerful speech about an incredibly distressing story from his constituency. I will of course meet him and Lewis’s family to discuss it and look at what we can do to make changes in the future. I thank him for raising that—I am sorry that they got caught in that transition.
The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) also raised issues about safeguarding and an appalling tragedy that happened in his constituency. He will know that some of the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 were very much a response to the lessons learned from that horrendous case, but again I am very happy to meet him to discuss this further.
More widely on the national criteria and the statutory guidance, we heard a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft), who is a brilliant campaigner on these issues. I want to reassure her that there is no intention to look at means testing. We absolutely reject some of the calls we have heard from, for example, the Reform leader of Warwickshire county council to try to reduce those statutory distances. We are not in the business of reducing disabled children’s rights to transport.
In conclusion, this has been a thoughtful and important debate. A number of issues have been raised that we must continue to look at. I hope we can follow up on conversations in relation to not only special educational needs and disabilities but the wider system and our shared ambition, which have been highlighted in this debate, to ensure that people have access to opportunity and education.
Children: Development of Essential Skills
Georgia Gould Excerpts(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I welcome today’s constructive and thoughtful debate and the constructive tone of both the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). I know we all share a desire to ensure that our children are supported to grow up into well-rounded adults. It is brilliant to see young people in the Gallery listening to the debate.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. He has been such a champion of these issues, and almost on a daily, or at least weekly, basis he stops me to discuss these questions. As he said, I have visited his constituency and seen some of the work that he is leading in practice. As we have heard today, these are massively important topics. The Milburn review has shown the real cost of unemployment for young people and how critical it is to ensure that they have the skills that can support them into the workplace, but also, as we have heard from so many people, support them to be active citizens participating in community life.
I will start where my hon. Friend did in his speech and focus on the importance of children and young people feeling confident to face challenges and shape the world around them. So much change is happening, and we cannot fully imagine the world that young people will go out into. It is therefore critical that they have the core foundations of knowledge as well as a love of learning. We want young people to return to and enjoy learning as their time in the workplace goes on; learning should be core throughout their lives. They must feel that they have the skills to be able to deal with uncertainty, to shape the world and to feel confident. So many young people tell me that that is not how they feel at the moment. That is why the curriculum and assessment review and this debate are so important.
The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked whether we have to choose between knowledge and skills and standards and inclusion. For me, they are two sides of the same coin. It is absolutely critical that we support our children to attain academically. We all know that too many young people are being left behind, and we have stark gaps for disadvantaged young people that we need to address. A big part of that is how they are engaged in education. School has to be unmissable, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell said, the joy of learning is critical. It is important that children are engaged and want to come to school to develop their knowledge, whether that is through enrichment or through teaching the core things that they really want to know about, such as financial education.
In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we often talk about inclusion and the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Too often, they have not felt that, and that has left them feeling disengaged from education. We will pursue both knowledge and skills and inclusion and high standards for our young people.
We have heard throughout the debate about the curriculum and assessment review and the work that we commissioned Professor Becky Francis to do with an incredibly expert panel. It did a really careful and thoughtful piece of work for the Government, setting out the things that it felt needed to change to support children to be able to go out confidently into the modern world. Lots of the themes that came up in this debate—media literacy, digital literacy, the importance of citizenship, oracy—came out in the review, and we have committed to embedding them. In terms of next steps, a huge amount of work is going on to draft programmes of study and to test them with a range of different partners. We have committed to giving schools four terms to prepare for implementing the new curriculum.
The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked about space in the curriculum. What was really powerful about the work that Dr Becky Francis led was that it gave careful thought to the sequencing of the curriculum, how things fit together and how duplication can be prevented. We are developing a digital curriculum for the first time, so it will be much easier for teachers to make links between different subjects.
The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell also raised enrichment and its importance in making school unmissable and making young people excited about coming to school. I travel around the country talking to young people, and they often say that it is the thing they really look forward to and that it helps them to feel part of the wider school community. We will publish an enrichment framework with a focus on developing wider life skills relating to arts and culture, civic engagement, nature, outdoor adventure, and sport and physical activities.
Many Members made really important points about making sure that the enrichment offer is open to students who feel further away from those opportunities, and we are working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to build up the enrichment offer in 400 schools in the most disadvantaged areas. We are investing £22.5 million from the dormant assets fund to make that a reality, as well as working with a whole range of partners to ensure that the enrichment framework for all schools is a really powerful tool.
Another point raised by a number of Members was about citizenship and political education. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a really powerful speech about how important that is for votes at 16, but also for our democratic institutions and our ability to disagree agreeably and have these political debates. When we have so much misinformation and division, embedding that in our education system is incredibly important. We have committed to citizenship being statutory in key stages 1 and 2, and to strengthening and modernising citizenship across the curriculum, looking at many of the themes that we have talked about, including media literacy.
The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) talked about digital literacy and AI and about making sure that those are core skills. We are looking to embed key areas such as digital and media literacy across the curriculum, because every single subject will have an element of these AI and digital skills, but we are also refreshing the computing GCSE so that particular content is focused on that.
On media literacy, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) mentioned misinformation. That is another really important theme that will sit in citizenship but also in other subjects. In history, for instance, people will really think about sources and how to decipher information, and in English people will look at emotive language. Those are areas where we can look at these core themes embedded into the wider curriculum.
My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and others mentioned financial literacy, which comes up more than anything else from young people as being a skill that they really want to have and learn about. We are working across the maths curriculum and the wider piece to look at how we really embed financial literacy, and we will be doing a number of test and learns around implementation and working with teachers.
Turning to the different contributions on early years childcare, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She made an incredibly powerful speech about what a lifeline childcare is for families, and I completely agree. I see that all the time as a constituency MP, and particularly how essential it is for mums, who often end up doing so much of that childcare. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of the 30 hours of free childcare; that has made a difference for people taking up the full entitlement, which we think has saved them an average of £8,000. She also mentioned how fees and different practices can pull away at some of that really important cost of living support. The Secretary of State for Education has written to the Competition and Markets Authority to request a review of the early years childcare market, which is to look precisely at many of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is worth having a look at that letter, and it is a really important issue to pursue.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of early years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke powerfully about the long-term impact of delayed language development for children. Sadly, since the pandemic we have seen many more children coming into school with delayed language. We know the long-term impact on children, so that has been a key focus for the Government in developing Best Start hubs, which will give that wraparound support to children, but also introducing new programmes such as the early language support programme, which brings NHS services to schools to identify needs earlier, and the Nuffield early learning intervention programme, which puts support in for reception children. I would be interested to hear more about what is going on in Cornwall and some of the challenges that my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth mentioned, and to discuss that further. This is also a key part of our thinking around the SEND reforms, putting more investment, earlier, into speech and language support and the new Experts at Hand service, which will include speech and language therapists.
Jim Shannon
First, may I welcome the Minister’s comments on all the issues that have been raised, particularly mine on screen time? Sometimes we must engage with parents in a way that shows that we understand that children should be given a bit of time on their iPads but that that time should be restricted, too. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that?
Georgia Gould
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue. We have developed guidance for parents to support them with screen time in early years. As a parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old, I know how confusing it can be. It is not something that I was spoken to about when I had my son. It is important we have guidance that is not judgmental but gives parents the best advice. We have put that out now. A lot of expertise has gone into developing it and I have had really positive feedback. Certainly, I have found it very helpful personally in shaping those important decisions. It is also important that through our Best Start hubs we are able to have that conversation and support for children, not just about not being on screens, but about what engagement looks like: what are the activities, how does one encourage a child to speak, and as they get older what are the enrichment activities that they can engage in after the school day?
The hon. Member for Yeovil is always a passionate advocate of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and I welcome him mentioning that as part of these wider issues. On the questions on identifying needs, he will know that we are developing national inclusion standards which include research into identification around the needs we have set out in our SEND consultation document. That work is ongoing and it will form part of national inclusion standards. We are working on appointing the panel of independent experts at the moment. It is critical that we get that right, and have that early identification of needs, whether on speech and language or others.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of support for young people who are constantly having to re-sit English and maths. He will know we have been consulting on a new level 1 English and maths qualification, which is precisely designed to support children and young people to consolidate their knowledge and be a gateway qualification to deal with exactly that problem, which is one I have heard time and time again.
Adam Dance
I thank the Minister for giving way and for answering all my questions, as always. Concerned parents in Yeovil also tell me that kids who have autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, sensory issues or attention deficit disorder cannot find apprenticeships or work, nor have they had help developing the skills they need to get into the creative or agricultural sector. Can the Minister set out what more the Government are doing to support rural schools and employers to get neurodiverse people into those industries?
Georgia Gould
I really appreciate that question. Again, talking to families and young people around the country, that comes up all the time. I welcomed the Milburn review’s focus on the experience of young people with SEND and disabilities, and on some of those barriers. There is action we are already taking, through supported internships and our work with further education, but it is an area in which we need to go further. It is something we are continuing to work on with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am happy to have further conversations about those issues.
I want to conclude by thanking everyone for this really important debate. These are areas we are actively looking at as we develop the new curriculum and think about developing the oracy framework we have committed to. Employers have said to us that it is essential young people have the skills they need for later life. Many of us will have seen how powerful some of these interventions are. I was recently with the Duke of Edinburgh, talking to young people in a school in my constituency. They talked about the confidence and problem-solving skills that the programme gave them, changing their sense of what was possible for them. That sits alongside the core knowledge that young people must learn, supporting young adults to be well rounded and able to shape their futures confidently. I hope that we can continue these conversations, as a lot of important ideas were mentioned today. We will consult fully on the new curriculum, which I am sure that all Members will look at with interest.