SEND Provision and Reform

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend speaks very well on behalf of his constituent, whose situation is replicated across the country, which gives urgency to the need to reform our SEND system.

It is the right approach to be increasing the expertise of teaching staff and to be making specialist expertise available to schools whenever they need it. The long waiting times for diagnosis and specialist support, such as speech and language therapy, are one of the most appalling aspects of the current system. Childhood is so short and children should not be seeing years of their education pass them by without the support they need to get the most out of it.

My Committee is undertaking our own scrutiny of the Government’s proposals tomorrow, when we will hear directly in an oral evidence session from witnesses with a wide range of perspectives and expertise. We will write formally to the Government in due course with our reflections following the evidence session.

As I have spoken with parents and the organisations that represent them, I have heard about anxieties with some of the Government’s proposals that I hope the Minister will address today. The proposals involve, over time, a scaling back of EHC assessments and EHCPs, replacing some EHCPs with individual support plans. Parents and carers who I have spoken to are understandably concerned about replacing a statutory plan with an ISP that will not be on a statutory footing. The concern is about how accountability will be guaranteed if there are problems with the ISP, if their child’s needs are not correctly identified, if the ISP that is drafted is not fit for purpose or if it is not being implemented properly.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I am afraid I will not because of the lack of time.

Parents and carers of children with SEND have often been let down so much and by so many different parts of the system that they simply do not trust that anything will work as it should. Their children have rights on paper that are often not upheld in practice. In such a context, accountability matters.

Rebuilding the broken trust and confidence of parents and carers in the SEND system will be critical to the success of the Government’s reforms. It is why my Committee recommended no changes to current rights and entitlements, so that a new system can be built while parents still have the same access to redress to fall back on. I hope that the Minister will speak to the ways in which her reforms are designed to ensure that trust and confidence are rebuilt, and especially that parents and carers know exactly what will happen if things go wrong.

There are also concerns about the proposed reassessment of EHCPs in year 6. The transition from primary to secondary is one of the most high-risk times in a child’s education. We hear time and again from parents who say that starting at secondary school was when their child’s education started to unravel, or that if only they had been able to transport what they had in primary school into secondary school, things might have gone better.

I am grateful to the Minister for the considered and thoughtful approach that she has taken to SEND reform, and for the extensive listening she has undertaken with parents, carers and professionals. The current consultation on draft proposals is an important part of the process and I hope that if it is necessary to make adjustments to the proposals in the light of feedback from the consultation, the Government will be willing to do so. It is so important that these reforms are absolutely right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—in fact, I made a number of interventions in place of my speech. I wanted to respond to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), because she was making a very strong case about the need to ensure that these reforms are forced through. The three tests that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) introduced to this debate set the template, on which I hope the Minister will respond in due course.

In my constituency and across Cornwall—it is good to see Members from Cornwall in the Chamber this evening—the issues that are causing the greatest concern relate to the large number of tribunals that take place in order for parents to ensure that their children get the decent education they desperately deserve.

[Ms Creasy]

Let me tell the hon. Member that in London people have the same concern that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) set out. We have to change the system, but too often, parents have had to go to tribunal to be heard. Any reform must support parents to continue to be heard as part of the educational system supporting these children. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Andrew George]

I absolutely agree. What worries us most is the fact that parents have to be sharp-elbowed enough to take on the tribunal system, which is no mean feat. What worries me is how many other parents do not have the confidence to challenge decisions, to use the tribunal system, to make a complaint to the ombudsman or to use local authority facilities to pursue those issues. There are major issues that need to be reflected upon. It certainly should not just be those parents with the self-confidence to navigate their way through the system whose children benefit, while so many others fall by the wayside. That causes me a great deal of concern.

Another issue that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon identified in his opening remarks is the very low number of authorities meeting the 20-week EHCP target. That results in many pupils simply not getting on and getting the services in the education system that they desperately need.

Given that I have already made a couple of interventions, I will conclude my remarks and let others come in.