Children with SEND: Assessments and Support

Gregory Stafford Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Dr Huq. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for leading the debate on this petition.

Across my Farnham and Bordon constituency, we are fortunate to have excellent specialist provision: in the community, we have Hollywater school; on the independent side, we have the Undershaw Education Trust, More House and Pathways; and in the academy sector, we have The Abbey and Ridgeway. But however good those providers are, the wider picture is stark. Demand is surging, particularly for autism and social, emotional and mental health needs.

Surrey is rightly investing, with nearly £190 million committed to expand provision and create thousands of new places, and an extra £4.9 million was approved in July to recruit staff and reduce caseloads. Three new special schools are planned as part of the long-term SEND capital programme, but that programme and that progress is in jeopardy. The Department for Education has just paused the capital funding for those schools—funding agreed under the last Conservative Government to expand local provision and reduce reliance on the independent sector. Without it, Surrey faces a shortfall of 500 places, forcing children into the independent sector at an extra cost of roughly £26.5 million each year. Surrey has made it clear that it cannot meet the Department’s targets without that funding, which is why I wrote to the Secretary of State to ask why this funding has been withheld, what bridging support will be offered and how the Department will ensure that vulnerable children are not left waiting at the start of the term. So far, there has been no response.

In Surrey, there have been constructive cross-party discussions on these issues. I particularly want to recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) has worked closely with me, not just for her constituents, but to push this agenda across Surrey. Instead, we hear rumours that this Government may scrap EHCPs altogether. That would be disastrous. Such a move would not be reform; it would be abdication, driven not by evidence but by ideology. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the lifechanging role that specialist provision plays in our system.

I urge the Minister to act to end the delays in EHCP assessments and convene a cross-party MPs’ forum with parents and stakeholders to drive urgent solutions, to commit to long-term investment to reinstate that capital grant and back bids from high-pressure areas like Surrey and Hampshire, and to protect parental rights, uphold children’s legal entitlements and guarantee that EHCPs remain the foundation of SEND support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

I will make some progress as we do not have much time and there were so many different comments.

I have heard from young people who found when applying for college that their EHCP had not been updated since they were very young and colleges said they could not meet their needs. Some of the stories that are hardest to hear are those of people who have had to fight every single year, whose child is now 18, and who can see all the missed opportunities and feel so deeply let down, and of children have lost confidence in the support available.

Too many parents feel they have to arm up for battle when interacting with the system. They do not want to resort to the tribunal, but sometimes feel that is the only way to get support. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) said that parents are exhausted. So many parents say that they are exhausted by having to fight and, heartbreakingly, that they feel broken by the system. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), who criticised the comments by the Reform leadership attacking parents who are just fighting for their children to get the support that they need. I know parents will never give up, because they want to support their children.

We cannot start this discussion without acknowledging how many children and families have been badly let down by the system. Many within the system are also struggling: teachers who do not feel like they have the right training or support to meet need in the classroom, as we heard from so many Members today; schools that want more specialist support, such as speech and language therapy, for their children but do not have access to it; and local authorities that did not get the investment they needed to build a local offer and so are paying for expensive private provision far away from communities.

[Gregory Stafford]

I thank the Minister for outlining many of the problems in the system. She has now had six out of her 10 minutes and she has not told us what the Government are going to do. Can I press her to tell us what the Government are actually going to do?

[Georgia Gould]

I think it is just very important that we hear from parents. When I spoke to them yesterday, one of the things they said was that it is critical that they hear from the Government that we understand the challenges that they face before we move forward.

There is also some amazing practice going on, and we heard about it today: schools that are supporting children and young people, and teaching assistants who are investing in that support. We heard the wonderful example from Colne Valley, where neurodiversity training has been put in place.