SEND Funding

Richard Baker Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

Decisions on SEND funding in this Parliament directly affect the availability of resources for additional support needs education in Scotland. One of the best experiences of my career was working with the pupils, parents and teachers at the Royal Blind school in Edinburgh when I was at the charity Sight Scotland. There we created a happy and supportive environment to help blind and partially sighted pupils to reach their goals in education, and to gain the vital life skills they need to manage their visual impairments throughout their lives.

Such support should be available in every school—in every mainstream setting—but it simply is not. That is because the presumption of mainstreaming policy in Scotland has not been anything like adequately resourced. In February of this year, Audit Scotland concluded that the Scottish Government and councils must

“fundamentally evaluate how education is funded, staffed and assessed to support all pupils”,

including those with additional support needs,

“to reach their full potential.”

The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart)—we very much welcome his securing the debate—has mentioned the disparities in funding between local authorities. That is an issue in Scotland as well. Repeated poor funding settlements from Ministers for our councils have resulted in a number of local authorities cutting additional support needs budgets again and again. The impact on pupils, parents and local charities has been dramatic and, frankly, intolerable. The number of pupils who need such support has gone up by 32% since 2019, but the number of specialist teachers has increased by just 2%.

Sight Scotland and RNIB Scotland have reported falling numbers of specialist teachers for visual impairment. The National Deaf Children’s Society in Scotland reports a 40% decrease in the number of specialist teachers for the deaf. The brilliant charity Autism Rocks, which is based in Buckhaven in my constituency but supports families throughout Scotland, told me that in one school, the number of support staff has been cut from nine to four. I have seen the huge difference that specialist educational support can make for disabled young people. Specialist teachers give pupils the time and skills they need to have a level playing field in the curriculum. The brilliant Stepping Up programme run by Enable, another charity that I have worked with, helps pupils to manage that difficult transition from school to further education or work.

Because of the actions of this Government, we are finally seeing increases in funding for SEND, and therefore in Scotland for additional support needs, but for two decades SNP Ministers have presided over a crisis in additional support needs provision in Scotland. It is children, families and staff who are suffering as a result—a sorry decline in a Scottish education system of which we were so proud for so long. That is why we urgently need a new direction in Scotland’s schools to ensure that all our children have the support that they need—that is their right—to achieve their full potential.