SEND Provision: South-east England

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND provision in the South East.

It is an honour and pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I will speak specifically about Kent and my Tunbridge Wells constituency; I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will speak about examples in their constituencies. We are speaking about some of the most vulnerable people we represent and, as the Government are reviewing special educational needs and disabilities, it is important that the voices of children and families are heard, because they see the system from the inside and can see its shortcomings.

In Kent, more than 21,000 children have an education, health and care plan—that is 14% above the national average. As a result of rising demand and some mismanagement by the previous Conservative administration, there was a SEND overspend in a recent year of nearly £100 million, which is now being managed down by the Department for Education. At the same time, alongside all other local authorities, Kent has statutory duties to meet EHCP deadlines and provide provision. This creates a conflicting pressure. The story is the same for local authorities everywhere where there is rising demand and declining resources.

The balancing act required creates a false economy. When children do not get the support they need, they fail in their educational setting, but that means they are less likely to achieve in the world of work and are more likely to become a burden on the state in their later years. So getting this right now creates a long-term economic benefit for our society, and it is not just economically right: it is morally right that we do so to create life chances for the children under our care.

To go back to the situation in Kent, under the previous Conservative administration, only 13% of EHCPs were completed within the statutory 20-week deadline in the year to March 2024, and because of that Kent was put into special measures. I have called a number of times for that status to be continued because there was some improvement, in that the provision of EHCPs within the deadline went up to 65%. Kent was therefore taken out of special measures. But unfortunately, quantity does not equal quality. I do not have time to go into the litany of mistakes on some of the EHCPs, but they included incorrect names of schools, schools that do not exist, schools that are not approved, schools that do not have funding, incorrect needs and spelling mistakes—really basic errors.

Often, when families complain about the errors, they are told by Kent county council to go to a tribunal. This is deeply cynical. Kent county council has been using tribunals not as a last resort, but as a tactic to delay, to deter and to exhaust families. In other words, the council is using tribunals to try to get families to give up seeking appropriate support for their children. And it works. Tribunals are utterly gruelling. Families and children spend months preparing for them. The emotional toll is enormous throughout the time they are preparing, and it costs, as they have to get legal advice to go to a tribunal. All the while, they do not know whether, at the end of this year-long process, the child will get the special provision that their EHCP says they require.

I have spoken to Matt, one of my constituents, whose daughter Ella has cerebral palsy and has just finished year 4. Her original EHCP was issued when she was at nursery and was recently reissued. This is an example of the problems with EHCPs in Kent: the only change the council made was to replace the word “nursery” with “school”. When the family complained, they were told to go to a tribunal. They declined, for all the reasons I outlined relating to the financial and emotional cost.

It later emerged that Ella’s teachers believed that a mainstream school would not meet her needs. Their application for a specialist placement was lodged but rejected by Kent council, which did not consult anyone, including Ella’s teachers or parents. It was purely a paperwork exercise. The family were again told that the only option was to go to a tribunal. At that stage, because it is so important for Ella to get specialist secondary provision for her cerebral palsy, they opted to go to tribunal. They have been given a date in May 2026.

Currently, Ella has an insufficient plan because her parents declined to fight the first tribunal. They will have to wait for more than a year to fight the second tribunal, all the while wondering whether they will get the specialist provision that all the experts agree is what Ella needs.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this incredibly important debate; the number of people who wish to speak is a testament to that. As one Kent MP to another, I agree that the problems he is outlining—the inability to access the system because EHCPs and other assessments take so long, and the poor-quality provision when they have been completed—indicate a broken system in Kent. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to see EHCPs done properly, with a substantial increase in pace? We also need an increase in resources, so that the quality of provision following assessment is up to the standard that parents and pupils expect. Getting those two elements of the system right will go a long way towards fixing what is currently broken.

[Mike Martin]

I thank my fellow Kent MP for his intervention; I will address many of those points as I make progress. He is right that there is a reason for the statutory deadline for EHCPs, and it would be nice if local authorities could meet it.

To return to tribunals, between 2021 and 2024 Kent council spent more than £2 million on SEND tribunals, of which 98% were successful for the parents. If parents have the money and the emotional bandwidth, and can go to tribunal and fight, they will be successful. But we do not know the percentage of parents who decide that they are not able to put themselves through that process. That is one of the legacies, I am afraid to say, of Conservative mismanagement in Kent.

Since Reform took over two months ago, it has gone from bad to worse. A cabinet member resigned within 45 days, which is a day longer than Liz Truss managed, so one assumes his lettuce is still going strong. Another councillor has been suspended and is under investigation by the police. The matter is now before the courts, so I cannot say much more about that, but Members can have a google. The June meeting on children, young people and education was postponed indefinitely. That meeting was relevant to this debate, but it is only one among a plethora of committee meetings, cabinet meetings and sub-committees that the Reform administration in Kent has cancelled because it is unable to deliver government. Reform cannot even organise its own house, let alone grapple with a crisis of this magnitude and scale.

I am glad the Government are reviewing the system, because it needs to be reformed, but real change must be driven by the principles that the Lib Dems have articulated time and again. We must listen to the voices of children and families. They do not have all the answers, but they do have insight into how the system works, and we would do well to listen to them. Where appropriate, specialist capacity must be provided for the minority of children who have EHCPs and need specialist support.

For the vast majority of children who have special educational needs, we must drive inclusion in mainstream schooling, because that is appropriate. Mainstream schools prepare people for the mainstream world in a way that is more appropriate, provided that there is the extra provision, with teaching assistants and speech and language therapists, that can help the child to thrive in a mainstream setting. We are ready to work with the Government to improve the system.

Some of the media reports around the scrapping of EHCPs are concerning. It seems like a bit of a red herring. The Lib Dems introduced EHCPs in coalition—we are very proud of that—and before that we had statements. If we get rid of EHCPs, we will still need a statement of needs for passporting to services. If we scrap EHCPs, what will we replace them with? I am sure the Minister will speak to this in her response to the debate, but we must have an outcomes-based review of the system rather than a Treasury-driven, cost-cutting exercise. I hope the Government will learn from some of their recent travails in that regard.