SEND Provision: Kent

Debate between Saqib Bhatti and Lauren Sullivan

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John, and to speak in this important debate. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing it and for his opening remarks, and I am grateful to all Members who have contributed constructively.

This is not the first time that the Minister and I have discussed SEND in the House, and I suspect it will not be the last. It is hugely important. Every Member who has spoken has set out their experience of similar SEND issues, and our inboxes are inundated with messages about them, especially from parents who need our support. Providing for children with special educational needs is one of the most complex issues facing the country today.

Before I talk about SEND in Kent in depth, I want to put on the record my concerns about the way that Kent county council is being run. It is now under Reform’s control, and it is clearly a blueprint for what will happen wherever Reform is in charge. We should not forget that senior members of Reform UK have claimed that SEND is being

“hijacked by…parents who are abusing the system”.

As I have said before in this Chamber, that is hugely disrespectful, and I believe apologies are necessary. Issues such as SEND are of profound concern to all our constituents, and such remarks are far from serious; they suggest that there is no real thinking going on in Reform about how to deal with one of modern Britain’s most important issues.

Kent county council is yet to set out a clear plan for meeting residents’ needs, and that has been the case since Reform took over earlier this year. Families are understandably anxious, given that the council is failing to provide certainty on vital services. We should focus on that seriously, because the pattern could be replicated right across the country if Reform takes charge of more councils.

The pattern is already being replicated in other Reform-run councils. Closest to my constituency, the Reform leader of Warwickshire county council recently declared an emergency over SEND funding. I worry about the council’s approach to education, because the council leader recently suggested that children as young as eight should have to walk more than 5 miles to school. Clearly, that is not a serious way to look at our approach to education, or to cut costs, if that is the intention.

In their campaigns last year, many Reform candidates said they wanted to cut council tax, but they have now discovered what we already knew: that a huge amount is spent on special educational needs. They have no credible plan for cutting council tax. In fact, many Reform-led councils are touting council tax rises of about 10%, so we should focus on that and hold them to account. The hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe said explicitly that residents will face higher taxes.

It is no secret that many local authorities, including Kent, face significant pressure in meeting rising SEND needs. To put it in perspective, Kent spends more on SEND than the England and south-east averages, and more than the 10 nearest comparable councils. In 2021-22, SEND pressure resulted in a £97 million overspend. In government, we recognised the seriousness of the challenge, not just for Kent but across the board, and introduced the safety valve programme to ensure that councils were not left to face the crisis alone. In Kent, that programme made great progress, which shows that the Department for Education and local authorities can work together.

The agreement with the then Conservative-led Kent county council was backed by £140 million from the Department for Education and £82 million from the council. It set out a longer-term plan to expand specialist provision, strengthen mainstream support, review EHCP processes and improve preparation for adulthood. Under the Conservatives, Kent submitted the required monitoring reports. The Department accepted them, and every scheduled payment was released. That shows that Kent county council was starting to deliver on its side of the agreement in challenging circumstances.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan]

When the previous Conservative Government introduced the safety valve scheme, which was essentially a blank cheque or a credit card, did they have a plan for how the money would be paid back?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I did not have the education portfolio at that time, so my remarks on that will be limited. We can agree that the system is and was under great strain; that is no secret. That is why I have said previously that it requires a cross-party solution. We will have to work together, because the challenges we faced will also be faced by the Reform council and the Labour Government. The hon. Lady will recognise that the circumstances were challenging and that Government money was put forward.

I want to ask the Minister, in the same vein that the hon. Lady put that point to me, whether she can provide clarity on what the Government will do to ensure that local authorities remain solvent and are not forced into section 114 notices as they look at SEND reform. Will the Government extend the statutory override, which is due to expire in 2026, to give councils certainty?

As progress is made in the SEND field, there is real concern about the delivery of special free schools. I will highlight those in Swanley and Whitstable, where families were promised places. It is clear from Kent county council’s response to the recent inquiry by the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), that the hold-up lies with the Department for Education. If we are to support children with SEND, and the Government say that is a priority, why are they not acting on that? We have a similar instance in Solihull borough that I am told is also being held up at the Department. Can the Minister give a cast-iron guarantee that the Swanley school will open by 2027? Is she in a position today to issue a clear timetable on that? If not, I am happy for her to write to me. She knows that I will certainly write to her to chase answers to those questions. Those promises were made to children and their families, and anything short of that would be a betrayal.

In Kent and local authority areas across the country, the issue of SEND continues to cause deep stress and anxiety. The demand for SEND provision in Kent has been rising, especially in the post-covid world. Many families are already facing long delays, so parents are understandably anxious about proposed changes that might affect their children. The Minister knows that because her first outing was at a well-attended SEND debate. According to official DFE data, there are 54,497 pupils with SEND in Kent—that includes EHCP and non-EHCP special educational needs—and more than 6,600 of them are pupils in the independent sector. That means that 10.8% of SEND pupils in Kent are in independent schools. The Minister knows that I have been very vocal on the Education Secretary’s vindictive decision to impose an education tax on our constituents. Has the Minister considered the consequences of that for SEND pupils who are forced to leave the independent sector if independent schools are forced to close? I hope she has some data on that.

The point was made by the hon. Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) that parents should not feel blindsided. As the Government come forward with plans, communication is really important. There is also concern about the scrapping of EHCPs. Those are not just legal documents; they are lifelines that provide tailored support and set out binding commitments from schools, health services and care providers. Sixty per cent of children with an EHCP in England are in mainstream schools, yet Ministers have failed to clarify whether they will receive full support under the reforms. This is really important and I encourage the Minister to answer that point.

Unfortunately, anxieties have been further exacerbated by the delay in the SEND White Paper, which has been pushed to the new year. We know that SEND is not a new problem; we are holding debates and tabling parliamentary questions on the matter. Can the Minister today confirm a specific date for publication of the schools White Paper, and does she have any update on the future of EHCPs and how SEND will be provided for in future? As I said, parents and students in Kent deserve answers. They are clearly not getting leadership from the Reform-led council. I ask the Minister to commit to changing course and giving parents the clarity they deserve.

Educational Assessment System Reform

Debate between Saqib Bhatti and Lauren Sullivan

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Saqib Bhatti]

I can assure the hon. Lady that I listened to every speech. As I make progress, I hope to answer her question; if I do not, I will happily take another intervention from her.

The examination and assessment system has ensured that children are learning the basic skills and knowledge needed to succeed in life, that children are improving their understanding in a knowledge-rich curriculum, and that England’s position as an educational world leader in international league tables is secured. The wealth of evidence showing the benefits of exams as a means of assessment is clear, even in the very review of the curriculum and assessment system that the Government commissioned. The interim report, published earlier this year, highlighted that national assessment and qualifications are “working well”, and that examinations such as GCSEs play an important role in driving high standards and ensuring fairness,

“reducing the risk that assessment of students’ performance is influenced by their gender, ethnicity or background.”

Even more encouragingly, polling conducted for the interim report made it clear that students themselves value the role of exams as an

“opportunity to demonstrate everything they have learned in their studies”.

That students themselves recognise the value of exams shows that they understand what this Government seemingly struggle to: that exams offer students of all backgrounds the very best chance to succeed. Our educational system is designed to be a tool of social mobility and to allow the most disadvantaged children to demonstrate their potential—something that replacing exams with coursework would fundamentally undermine. In an instant, every advantage that some children have, such as access to a laptop at home, a tutor or a subscription to an artificial intelligence service, and some children from other backgrounds do not would be baked into our assessment of educational attainment. Students would no longer be rewarded for hard graft in the classroom, which they demonstrate in answering an exam question, but rather for the perks that can access outside school and pass off as their own work.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I was a teacher of chemistry and science. Under the new curriculum that was instigated by the Conservative Government, young people had to learn 19 equations for physics, including mass, units and all of that. I can go to Google and ask for that, but as a scientist, what I need is scientific inquiry and the curiosity to ask, “Is this fact real?” Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the change to a knowledge-based system has cut back on the ability for young people to learn curiosity and scientific inquiry?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady. Students need assessment and examinations so they can measure up not just within England but against the international landscape that we operate in. By the way, I am sure that she was an excellent teacher who encouraged and nurtured the curiosity in her children, just as my chemistry teacher and my physics teacher did, but we should be clear about what is at stake here and what is at risk if there are changes to the educational system that we reformed, built and created.

Let me make some progress, and I hope that I can answer the question from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). The students who would lose out are the very ones the Government claim they want to protect—the very students in our education system we should all strive to empower. There is no denying that exams can be stressful, as we have all acknowledged. Students want to do well, and they are setting themselves up for future study and careers, so it is no surprise that they feel some pressure—a lot of pressure, even—during exam season.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, exams are by their very nature stressful. As a father, it is true that I want to protect my children from every stress and injury, but I also know that they need to go through that process to learn the resilience that they will need to go through life.