Special Educational Needs: Investment

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The 50,000 additional places that will be funded through the £3 billion that we announced last week are on top of the 10,000 new specialist places in mainstream and special schools, supported by the £740 million that we invested this year. That goes back to the point I made earlier: this is not about saving money, but it is about saying that, for many children, they will be best served in local schools with specialist provision to care for them and help them to thrive alongside their friends. A side benefit of that is that we will no longer need to be transporting children long distances at great cost for education that they could more effectively receive closer to home.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is me again, and I am still a teacher. We can agree that the SEN system could do better. School action plus was a really good halfway house to an EHCP, where a lot of students could have their needs met without having to go through the EHCP. It was abolished 15 years ago, but there are rumours going around that the Government are considering bringing that back. Could the Minister comment on that?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am very pleased that the noble Lord is one of the over 2,000 teachers that we have been able to retain in the classroom, despite his busyness in this House as well—I am very glad that the pupils of Mossbourne get the benefit of his teaching. The Opposition’s previous Secretary of State for Education described the special educational needs system as a “lose, lose, lose” system, and I agree with her about that. That is why this Government are taking by the horns the requirement to reform the system. It is why my honourable friend Georgia Gould, the Minister, is at this very moment engaging in widespread conversation with parents, teachers and children about how we can reform the system so that it identifies children earlier and provides the support they need. Where necessary, it should provide that really specialist support for those with complex needs, and it should help parents and children feel more confident their needs are being met. We will have more to say about that in the White Paper that we will publish next year.