Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 April to Question 171482 on Disability and Special Educational Needs, when she plans to publish the new national special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision standards covering early years, school, and post-16 provisions.

In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan published 2 March 2023, the department committed to publishing a significant proportion of the new national standards by the end of 2025. The department remains committed to this timeline, recognising the importance of ensuring the standards are evidence-based and that children, young people and their families are able to feed into the development process.

We are setting up a steering group of cross-sector representatives to oversee the work, and will test the standards with stakeholders across education, health and social care in the context of a £70 million Change Programme before rolling them out across the system.