Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving

Sureena Brackenridge Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

We are massively expanding investment in the early years, and early years staff will be part of that training requirement. We will make sure that they have the resources to do that. I agree that access to speech and language provision is one of the greatest issues that has been identified. The £1.8 billion of extra investment that we are putting in will allow schools to work with local authorities and integrated care boards to deliver more speech and language support directly into schools, without parents having to go through that fight for an EHCP to secure provision.

[Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Those who work in education, as I did, will know of the creaking bureaucratic SEND system that, too often, puts specialists behind paperwork rather than directly benefiting children. Will the Secretary of State explain how her SEND reforms will put children’s needs first and give schools access to specialists such as speech and language specialists and education psychologists when needed, and not after some awful adversarial process?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I could not agree more. I have heard time and again from educational psychologists, SENCOs and speech and language therapists that they spend all that time training to work with children to deliver better support and to drive up standards across a setting, but they find themselves sat at a desk sending emails and filling out forms. I want those amazing and talented professionals to work with children, delivering change. The move to a more flexible system away from that bureaucracy and fight will free up a lot of time for those amazing people to do that work.