Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for SEND practitioners to be provided with training on how to support children with speech, language and communication challenges.

The department recently announced an investment of £15 million to establish new speech and language therapist (SaLT) advanced practitioners in every integrated care board geographical area, to get more SaLTs working in educational settings. These advanced practitioners will be qualified speech and language therapists.

The government is also investing £200 million to give all staff in schools, colleges and early years settings the training they need to better support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, including those with speech, language and communication needs in mainstream settings.

This is in addition to £3.4 million being invested this year in the Early Language Support for Every Child programme, helping to identify and respond to speech and language needs, continued investment in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, which has demonstrated significant impact on speech and language skills particularly for disadvantaged pupils, and an expansion of English Hubs programme from the 2026/27 academic year to include intensive language and literacy support.