Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that schools can offer all children access to speech and language therapy.

Under the Children and Families Act 2014, all schools are required to identify and address the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) of the pupils they support, including those with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), and to endeavour to make sure that a child or young person gets the support they need.

Schools, along with the local authority and health partners, should work with families to co-produce arrangements for delivering speech and language therapy. Spending on speech and language therapy is determined at a local level.

The department recognises the impact that the COVID-19 outbreak has had on children and young people with SLCN. In the recent spending review, we announced £1.8 billion of additional funding for those who need it most, bringing total investment in education recovery to almost £5 billion. Within this, in June 2020 we announced a £1 billion catch-up package including a catch-up premium for the 2020/21 academic year. Schools were able to decide how this catch-up premium was spent, for example, on speech and language therapy.

As part of our catch-up package, we have invested £17 million to deliver the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme, which supports children in reception with their language skills. Over two thirds of eligible mainstream primary schools are taking part in this proven, evidence-based programme, benefitting around 90,000 children most in need of language support. This is in addition to £10 million for pre-school early language development training announced February 2021.

The government recognises that the current SEND system does not deliver the outcomes we want and expect for all children and young people with SEND, their families or the people and services who support them. The SEND Review is seeking to improve the outcomes for children, with high expectations and ambitions, and is looking at ways to support mainstream settings to identify and get support to children and young people more quickly, through making best use of precious expertise such as speech and language therapists. These issues are long-standing and complex, but the government is determined to deliver real, lasting change. We intend to publish the SEND Review in the first 3 months of 2022.