Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards will be put in place to ensure children and young people who lose their EHCP under the transition to the new system are still provided with specialist provision.

Under the department’s proposals, a triple lock of transitional protections will mean no child loses effective support already in place.

Every child with a special school place in September 2029 will be able to stay in a special school until they finish education. Transition will only begin in 2029 once the new inclusive mainstream system has been built, and no child or young person with a current education, health and care (EHC) plan will transition until 2030. Children and young people who transition out of their EHC plan will have an Individual Support Plan in place ahead of their plan ceasing, developed in partnership with their families.

Over the next three years, we are investing to make our mainstream system more inclusive. For example, we are providing funding for every school to deliver a strong inclusive universal offer for every child and investing £1.8 billion in our new Experts at Hand offer, providing targeted health and expert education interventions from professionals such as speech and language therapists or educational psychologists so that more children and young people will get specialist support than they can currently. Experts at Hand will be developed by local area partnerships tailored to local needs and integrated with other local services.

The department will consider feedback from the consultation exercise carefully before making any final decisions on this policy.