Julian Smith

The department is taking time to consider the various funding formulae that the department and local authorities use to allocate funding for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It is important that there is a fair education funding system that directs funding to where it is needed.

Budgets for the 2025/26 financial year have not yet been set, meaning that decisions on the high needs and schools national funding formulae and the publication of allocations for that year are not to the usual timescales. The department will publish information as soon as possible, after the Budget later in October.

The government is committed to making teaching a profession where all teachers, including those with disabilities, have equal opportunities to progress. This includes designing our world-class programmes such as the Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications to support teachers from diverse backgrounds. We expect schools, like all employers, to discharge their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and give due consideration to the way their employment practices affect staff at different stages of their careers.

To this end, we are improving data collection on disability within the teaching profession to better understand their barriers to success. In 2023, the department published a report on barriers to collecting disability data and have since enhanced guidance for schools on the School Workforce Census and conducted additional research via the School and College Panel and the Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders Study.

Additionally, the forthcoming Race Equality Act will require public services, including schools, to report data on staffing, pay, and outcomes by disability status, further promoting inclusivity. The department will support schools and multi-academy trusts to meet these requirements when they come into force.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs, in order to restore parents’ trust that their child will get the support they need.

To take this forward, the department will publish evidence reviews to identify the most effective tools, strategies and approaches for teachers and other relevant staff in mainstream settings to identify and support children and young people with different types of needs.

This government is committed to continuous improvement to transform the training and support for all new teachers, and to review the experiences and needs of early career teachers as well as trainees. The new Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) is due to be implemented from September 2025 and will underpin all Initial Teacher Training courses and statutory induction training for early career teachers across the country.

The ITTECF contains additional content related to inclusion, adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND. The inclusion content includes developing an understanding that teacher approaches to inclusion and SEND are a key determinant of pupil outcomes. The adaptive teaching content includes, for example, developing an understanding of different pupil needs, and learning how to provide opportunities for success for all pupils.

The department will also work with Ofsted to ensure that schools are held accountable for their approach to inclusion, so that all children are given the high quality support they need to learn and thrive. The department is committed to improving the inspection system, moving away from the single headline grade to a richer system to assess school quality through a report card, giving a more rounded picture of how a school is performing and providing parents with greater clarity on the support a school has in place for children with SEND.

This government is committed to making sure that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities receive the support they need to achieve and thrive, which includes a place in a special school where needed.

The window for trusts to apply to run these schools closed on 19 July 2024. The department will provide an update in due course.

The upcoming Spending Review and October Budget will set funding for the 2025/26 financial year. All other future spending decisions will be for the next phase of the Spending Review, which is expected to set budgets for future years in the spring.

The department recognises that many local authorities are facing challenges in managing their high needs budgets, which has impacted their ability to balance their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funding.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We will work with the sector as essential and valued partners to deliver our shared mission and restore parents’ trust, including considering how we can help councils manage the impacts of DSG deficits on their finances.

The department has taken action to help those authorities with deficits and will continue to do so. It has published guidance on good practice and provided help and advice through direct contact with all those authorities that have deficits. High needs deficit intervention programmes are designed to improve SEND services by making the very best use of resources to deliver the support that children and young people need. Where additional support is required in a local area, particularly following an Area SEND Inspection, the department commissions specialist SEND Advisors and Commissioners to support local authorities to build on existing strengths and address areas of weakness in local provision.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has made regulations which ring-fence DSG deficits from councils’ wider financial positions in their statutory accounts. This is a temporary accounting measure, currently in operation to March 2026, and it is still crucial that local authorities’ high needs systems move to a more sustainable position in the near future.

Budgets for the 2025/26 financial year will be set in the forthcoming Spending Review.

There is no specific policy guidance on metal mine pollution. The Environment Agency (EA) considers the primary risk from abandoned metal mines to be pollution of rivers and estuaries, with around 1,500km of rivers polluted by metals. The government has a long-term statutory target to halve the length of rivers polluted by six target substances from abandoned metal mines by 31 December 2038. The six target substances which pose the greatest threat to, or via the aquatic environment are cadmium, lead, nickel, zinc, copper, and arsenic.

Through the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines Programme - a partnership between Defra, the EA and the Coal Authority - government is taking action to develop mine water treatment schemes and diffuse interventions to prevent metals from abandoned metal mines and metal mine waste heaps from entering local river systems.

Where contamination from abandoned metal mines impacts land rather than water then this is covered by the Government’s policy on land contamination including the Land Contamination Risk Management Framework which sets out the approach on how to assess and manage risks from land contamination and the statutory contaminated land regime (Part 2A of the Environment Act 1990, supporting Regulations and Statutory Guidance).

Environment Agency (EA) monitoring indicates that climate change could potentially increase the mass (kg/day) of metals washed into rivers from historic metal mines. Erosion of spoil heaps during storm events can increase the mobilisation of metals into rivers and re-suspend metal-rich sediments previously deposited in river channels.

For example, on average 127 tonnes of zinc and 40 tonnes of lead enters the Tyne estuary annually (all from abandoned metal mines); however, 50% of this zinc and 80% of this lead flows into the estuary during the highest 5% of river flows. However, while the mass of metals washed into rivers increases in storm events, the severity of water pollution (metal concentrations in mg/l) may decrease due to dilution.

In flood events these metals can be washed onto floodplains, causing land contamination. Climate change is expected to increase the risk of floodplains downstream from historic mining sites being contaminated by flooding.

Through the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines Programme - a partnership between Defra, the EA and the Coal Authority – the Government is taking action to develop mine water treatment schemes and diffuse interventions to prevent metals from abandoned metal mines, including lead, from entering local river systems.

In 2008, the Environment Agency (EA) published the report: Assessment of metal mining contaminated river sediments in England and Wales - GOV.UK. The report brought together all available information on metal concentrations in river sediments, riverbanks and floodplain soils downstream of abandoned metal mines. This confirmed:

• The long history of metal mining in England has contaminated sediments in rivers, estuaries and lakes, as well as floodplain soils with a range of metals, particularly lead, cadmium, zinc and copper.
• Although metal discharges were greater during the peak period of active mining in the nineteenth century, inputs of dissolved and particulate metals still occur. Past discharges have left a reservoir of highly contaminated sediments in lowland rivers many kilometres downstream of the mines.
• This metal contamination may pose a risk to aquatic wildlife and agriculture, but the report did not assess these risks.

Through Defra’s Water and Abandoned Metal Mines (WAMM) Programme, the EA is working with the Coal Authority to tackle water pollution from abandoned metal mines. The government has a legally binding target to halve the length of rivers polluted by metals, including lead, from abandoned metal mines by 2038. Through diffuse interventions and treatment schemes, WAMM has already improved water quality in ~100 km of rivers.

Local Authorities are responsible for identifying contaminated land under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. This includes where floodplains exist downstream of historic lead mines if lead washed out of rivers is causing an unacceptable risk to people, crops, or livestock.

Defra recently commissioned the EA to produce another State of Contaminated Land Report. The EA will seek to include additional questions in this desk-based survey to find out if Local Councils are assessing contaminated land risks downstream of historical lead mines.

Defra officials and Ministers have regular meetings with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) where a range of issues are discussed and I last met with Professor Susan Jebb on 5 September. Ministers have had no specific discussions on this with the Committee on Toxicity or the FSA.

The levels of lead testing in the United Kingdom are determined in accordance with legislative requirements which provide food safety assurances to both domestic consumers as well as export markets. Sampling levels are reviewed by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) each year to ensure that they are proportionate to livestock production; of note, the VMD has effectively tripled annual lead testing for sheep and bovine animals from 2024 to provide further guarantees on safety of these foodstuffs. The results of said testing are published by VMD on a quarterly basis and can be found on the VMD’s GOV.UK webpage here.

The impact of flooding on areas of land with historical levels of lead contamination is a matter for local councils to consider under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Local councils have the duty to inspect their areas to identify contaminated land including land contaminated by lead. In the context of flooding, this would cover situations where lead is washed from rivers or sediments onto floodplains or existing lead contamination on land is impacted by flooding.

The Environment Agency (EA) does have a role in tackling water pollution, including pollution from metals. Discharges from abandoned metal mines are one the main sources of metals in our rivers, polluting around 1,500kms (around 3% of English Rivers). In 2023, a target was set to reduce the length of rivers polluted by metals from abandoned metal mines by half by 2038. Lead is one of the 6 target metals. The EA are working with the Coal Authority under Defra’s Water and Abandoned Metal Mines (WAMM) Programme to identify and tackle the priority discharges.

So far 140 tonnes of target metals have been prevented from entering rivers through diffuse interventions and treatment schemes, but a 10-fold increase will be required in the WAMM Programme to meet the statutory target by 2038.

Funding to support local authorities in fulfilling their statutory obligations under part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, to inspect potential contaminated sites and to seek remediation where required, remains in the form of the Revenue Support Grant.

The Revenue Support Grant is an unringfenced block grant covering many services. It is up to local authorities to decide how much funding is allocated to any service based on local priorities and they are held to account locally.

Through the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines Programme - a partnership between Defra, the Environment Agency and the Coal Authority - government is taking action to develop mine water treatment schemes and diffuse interventions to prevent metals from abandoned metal mines, including lead, entering local river systems. Pollution from abandoned metal mines can contaminate land, such as when spoil heaps contaminated by these mines wash into rivers following heavy rainfall, prior to wash onto agricultural floodplains following flooding events. Many diffuse interventions include natural flood management measures to slow the flow of rivers, along with planting of trees and other vegetation which sequester carbon dioxide in soils.

Local Authorities have the duty to inspect their Areas to identify contaminated land, including land contaminated by lead. If a Local Authority had concerns about land contamination, then they have relevant duties and powers under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to investigate and require the responsible person(s) to carry out remediation if they identify any contaminated land.

There are a variety of resources available to local authorities in regard to testing potentially contaminated land.

The Interdepartmental Committee on the Redevelopment of Contaminated Land (ICRCL) issued guidance on The Restoration and Aftercare of Metalliferous Mining Sites for Pasture and Grazing in 1990 (ICRCL 70/90). Although outdated, parts are still relevant due to the focus on the risks to plants and livestock grazing. The Environment Agency have since taken on the role of issuing technical guidance.

The current overarching guidance on managing risks for land contamination is found in Land Contamination Risk Management (LRCM). This sets out the 3-stage approach for managing all risks from land contamination including the first stage of risk assessment.

This work is supplemented by additional guidance such as the Sewage sludge in agriculture: code of practice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) which deals with risks to crops, livestock, and consumers from trace elements in soil. Other guidance such as the Environment Agency’s Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) Software Model, and C4SL project issued by CL:AIRE provide detailed guidance in other areas, and the Food Standards Agency also play an important role in terms of the potential introduction of contaminants into the food chain.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) does not have a specific statutory role in relation to contaminated land but plays an advisory role in the overall health risk assessment process. UKHSA may be asked for support by local authorities in providing public health advice to their communities.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is reviewing dietary lead as part of its ongoing risk analysis of environmental contaminants in food, including in areas with higher exposure. Scoping work has begun to identify the additional evidence needed, including plans to gather data on lead levels in food from high geochemical lead areas. The detailed schedule and plan for this work is not yet finalised. Updates on its progress will be made available on the FSA’s website.

In response to recommendations by the Commission on Human Medicines, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced an indefinite ban on gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues for new patients with gender dysphoria and/or incongruence. This legislation came into effect on 1 January 2025 as the previous section 62 emergency order expired, and is available at the following link:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/1319/made

This indefinite order continues to prohibit the sale or supply of GnRH analogues prescribed by private United Kingdom-registered prescribers, for gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, to under 18 year olds not already taking them, and the sale and supply of the drugs against prescriptions from prescribers registered in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, for any purposes, to anyone under 18 years old.

Regarding other hormone treatments, we would always recommend patients use services and clinical practitioners registered in the UK so they can be assured of the safety and quality of the services they receive. Medicines bought outside the legal supply chain do not have a UK marketing authorisation and may be harmful. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency works with national and international partners to prevent unlicensed medicines from entering the UK.

The Government is committed to protecting those most at risk from vaccine preventable diseases through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. This includes the offer of a seasonal flu vaccine to children aged two or three years old, primary school aged children, from Reception to Year 6, secondary school aged children, from Year 7 to Year 11, and children in clinical risk groups aged from six months old to less than 18 years old.

NHS England is responsible for the commissioning of school age immunisation programmes that are delivered as part of the routine vaccination schedule. NHS England has confirmed that dedicated Immunisation Team providers are commissioned to deliver a 100% offer to all eligible school aged children, from Reception to Year 11, to get their flu vaccine at school. This is a mainly school-based model, with additional opportunities offered in community clinics for those who miss the school opportunity or who are not in mainstream education, for instance if they are home schooled. General practices are also commissioned by NHS England to deliver catchups for school aged children and young people on an opportunistic basis to maximise uptake. This information can be found at the National Health Service website, and is available at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/child-flu-vaccine/