SEND Provision and Funding

Jake Berry Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

What a pleasure and privilege it is to have the opportunity to speak today. I thank the Backbench Business Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for securing the debate.

Like many, I wish to start by thanking not just our specialist schools—Tor View, Belmont School, Cribden House School and Crosshill School in Darwin—but all the schools in my constituency that support children with special educational needs. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) in his place; he is the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, so he will not get the opportunity to speak today, but I know that he is a huge campaigner on this issue in his adjoining constituency. Many of those schools will be shared between us to support our constituents.

I come to this debate as a parent of a non-verbal six-year-old who has an EHCP. The experiences we are talking about today and the struggles that parents face have been the experiences and the struggles of my wife and I as we try to navigate the system on behalf of our son, which is why I am so grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate.

I want to ask every colleague in the Chamber to do a favour for me, my son and other parents with children who have autism and other additional needs. There is a brilliant organisation in my constituency called Spectrum of Light, which is run by Julie Nixon, who has given so much of her time to supporting the parents of children with additional needs. We teamed up to hold an additional needs, autism and special needs fair, bringing together all the councils, including Lancashire County Council and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, and the support groups into one room, and asked parents of children with additional needs to come along. It was the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I have done as a Member of Parliament for at least a decade.

It is our job to help people—to help parents. I know that many colleagues across the House support apprenticeship fairs and job fairs. We all try to support our constituents. We had 400 parents attend our fair. I had parents contacting me from Cumbria who wanted to attend. This is something that we, as MPs, can do. We can all support parents who, like me and my wife, have really had to struggle to get the support that they need for their child. As Members of Parliament, we can make a difference by coming and talking in this debate—it is a hugely important debate. We can also make a difference by using our offices to support parents.

The fair that we held made such a difference to all the parents who attended. I just hope that this is something that we can all do on a cross-party basis. It does not matter what party we are from; this is just about doing good work and rolling it out across our constituencies. If anyone wants to contact me about how to do it, I am more than happy to deal with the inquiries.

That autism, special needs and additional needs fair in Lancashire demonstrated to me that we have a real challenge in servicing the demands of people like me and other parents. I recently visited east Lancashire adolescent centre at Burnley General Teaching Hospital, because it had been given a national Quality Network for Community CAMHS accreditation award. The lead psychiatrist told me that there has been a 300% increase in the number of children presenting with a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder since the covid lockdown. The centre is trying to service that additional need without any additional funding, and that, in particular, is why this debate is so important. It speaks to the challenge that other councils face. I do not criticise anyone at Lancashire County Council or Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council; they are doing a brilliant job, but they are very, very pushed.

Spectrum of Light and I recently held a teleconference for parents who are struggling to receive an EHCP. I will talk about some of those conversations. Sarah, a Rossendale resident, said that the deadline for the completion of her EHCP was 8 December. She has had no appointment with the educational psychologist. Her seven-year-old son is rarely at school—he has attended school for only 20 hours since September. Hannah, another Rossendale resident, has three children who are currently trying to get an EHCP. Her daughter has ADHD and is struggling in school through isolation, but she cannot get an EHCP. Her son has autism and cannot get an EHCP. They both attend a school in my constituency—in fact, all three of her children attend schools in my constituency. The challenge, or the blockage, seems to be the lack of availability of educational psychologists to push through these EHCPs to support parents.

As well as asking every colleague to contact my office, which my staff will not thank me for, I want each of us to hold a fair to support parents who, like me, have a child with additional needs and really need help. My big ask of the Government—not just for Lancashire but for authorities across the country—is to find a way to increase the number and availability of educational psychologists. We cannot ration EHCPs through waiting lists; that is not the intention. It is not what the Government want to do, but it is, in practice, what is happening on the ground because of the lack of educational psychologists.

My ask of the Minister—I hope he will deal with this in his summation at the end of the debate—is to please find a way to support councils to fast track EHCPs. That would make a difference. EHCPs do work when people get them. I know that it works for me, my family and my son. The challenge is that people just cannot get them in a timely manner.