Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what processes her Department has put in place to monitor the use of funding intended to improve SEND inclusion in mainstream school settings.

In February, we announced the £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund which will provide mainstream education settings over £500 million funding per year over the next three years to support them to become inclusive by design.

We will place conditions on this funding to make sure schools spend it on improving inclusion for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This will include publishing an Inclusion Strategy that reports on how they are deploying their resources for SEND.

We will publish guidance for school leaders on how to develop an Inclusion Strategy in due course.