I am grateful to hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, but I must pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend
Since the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, the number of requests for EHC plans has risen year on year, doubling between 2016 and 2022. There was a further 7% rise in 2022 when 66,706 new plans were issued. Almost 400,000 school pupils are now supported through an EHC plan, while a further 1.2 million children are receiving support without a plan. However, it is clear from today’s debate that the support system for children with SEND is failing too many children and their families. Parents and carers are being forced into expensive and lengthy battles to access the support they need throughout their children’s time in school. In 2022, more than half of EHC plans were issued after the 20-week target.
Increasingly, families are turning to the tribunal process—with a 24% increase in cases last year—to secure a plan or appeal the detail of their child’s plan. An overwhelming 98% of cases were won by parents and carers last year. That process is not only draining for families but expensive for the taxpayer. Research by the Disabled Children’s Partnership found that lost cases cost councils and courts £60 million in 2021-22. We must not forget the families who do not even make it to the tribunal, and whose children’s needs are left unmet. These unacceptable delays are heartbreaking for families, who face years of stress and anxiety while their child is unable to access the education to which they are entitled.
More than a third of children with SEND were persistently absent from school in the autumn and spring terms last year. Although some of that absence is related to the need for medical appointments, much is due to the lack of tailored provision for a child’s needs. Children with SEND have one of the largest attainment gaps compared with their peers. A child with an EHCP is on average 28 months behind their peers at the end of primary school. The gap only grows throughout school, to a staggering 3.5 years—40 months—by the time they leave. We only get one childhood, and delayed support will embed lifelong inequalities and create barriers to the opportunities that children can pursue later in life.
The crisis in SEND support is having a devastating impact on local authority finances, as hon. Members have touched on. Increasing numbers of councils are issuing section 114 notices, effectively declaring bankruptcy, with many citing the impact of increasing SEND and home-to-school transport costs as reasons. No council takes this lightly, and councillors and officers across the country working really hard to balance the books. I am sure that the Minister may want to blame specific councils for the issues, but the sheer number of local authorities on the brink—with administrations of all political parties—cannot be dismissed. Reforming the SEND system is vital not only for children and families but to ensure that the wider local government services across the country are sustainable. Issuing a section 114 notice has grave implications for the delivery of all local government services, and it is often children who suffer most from the resulting cuts.
The Government’s SEND and alternative provision review should have been the opportunity to set out an ambitious plan for reform to ensure the best outcomes for children with SEND, better relationships with families, and a sustainable system for schools and local authorities. Yet after a four-year wait, the plan was met with widespread disappointment with its limited scope. Many measures will not come into effect until 2025—six years after the review was announced. In that time, 300,000 children with SEND will have left school.
The funding for 15 new special schools in last week’s Budget is welcome, but the schools will provide additional places for just 2,000 children and there is no clear timeline for when they will open to students. I hope that the Minister will update the House on the other 33 new special schools announced alongside the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan. More than a year on from the publication of the plan, the Department has yet to publish the details of approved academy trusts, and that is delaying the start of construction. When does the Minister expect those schools to open for students?
It is also disappointing that the Budget had little to say more widely on support for children with SEND, the majority of whom will continue to be educated in the mainstream sector. The Opposition are committed to breaking down the barriers faced by children with SEND. We believe in high and rising standards for every child. We know that there are children with additional needs in every classroom in every school but, as has been highlighted by Members on the Government Benches, the Government do not equip every teacher with the knowledge and skills they need to teach them.
Labour would look at every aspect of teacher training—undergraduate curriculum, early career framework and career change routes—and we will introduce an entitlement to annual continuing professional development, which we would expect to be used in many instances to boost SEND expertise. As part of Labour’s planned reforms to Ofsted inspection, moving away from the use of single-word judgments will ensure that schools are inspected on their inclusivity and that parents of children with SEND have access to clear information about their child’s school.
Children increasingly start school without the foundational language and communication skills that they need to take part in their education. We are committed to improving speech and language support, and will equip every school with funding to deliver evidence-based early language interventions, such as Nuffield early language intervention. More than 280,000 children received SEND support last year for their social, emotional and mental health, while many children with mental ill health were out of school entirely. The need for mental health support has soared in recent years. Alongside urgent action to address the unacceptably high waiting times for CAMHS support, we will embed professional mental health support in every school and deliver open access youth mental health hubs in every community.
We will build a modern early education and childcare system that works for the families of disabled children. The early identification of needs is vital to provide the intervention in the most important years of a child’s development. Last year, Coram found that just 18% of local authorities had sufficient places for disabled children. Will the Minister confirm that there will be sufficient places for disabled children ahead of the expansion of entitlements in April?
Children and families deserve much better than Government sticking plaster solutions. We will work with parents, carers, schools and local authorities to rebuild the support that children with SEND rely on, and deliver the change needed to ensure that every child can thrive in school. For 14 years, the Government have failed children and families. As we have always done in government, Labour will put children first again.
]]>This is one of those topics that reminds us why we got into politics: to ensure that all children get the best start in life. I know that my children have enjoyed many a World Book Day, getting stuck into stories and the occasional dressing up. I had a look through some old photos of costumes that we had made over the years: many were of dubious creativity and quality, but the experience of sharing them has always been fun. I really commend the work of the World Book Day charity.
Beyond World Book Day, there is something incredibly special—hon. Members have touched on this point—about reading with a child, rediscovering old favourites and discovering new stories and authors with them. Anything that promotes and encourages that is to be hugely applauded.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. We have heard many examples of the contribution that World Book Day, and reading generally, can make to a person’s life and particularly to a child’s education and life chances, yet we know that there are huge challenges in this space. Last year, the annual literacy survey found the lowest levels of reading enjoyment since the survey began almost 20 years ago, with just two in five children saying that they enjoy reading in their free time and only 28% saying that they read daily. Those are incredibly worrying statistics. They form a trend that we really need to work to reverse.
For the 1 million children in the UK who do not have a single book in their home, World Book Day is a fantastic opportunity to introduce or reintroduce reading into their life. That is especially true for the children in our poorest households, where books can often be seen as a luxury during a cost of living crisis. Ensuring that every child can choose a book with their £1 token is an important step towards igniting that passion for reading and making it accessible to all.
Being immersed in a story can help a child to think creatively or to become interested in an entirely new topic that they may never have encountered. Reading is so important, as many hon. Members have highlighted, and too many children are leaving school without those essential reading and writing skills. Without getting the basics right, they are being left behind, and it is often the children in the most challenging circumstances, who have the least access to books, who are hit the hardest.
A Labour Government would prioritise a curriculum and assessment review to ensure that we provide an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths. We want to get the basic building blocks right and give every child access to a broad curriculum that not only reflects the issues and the diversities of our modern society, but ensures that children from all backgrounds do not miss out on the things that make school fun, like music, art, sport, drama and reading. Together, those building blocks will ensure that children are able to develop life skills such as better communication skills, which are essential for their future. For Labour, the key to that is resetting the relationship between Government, schools and families so that we can improve literacy outcomes together as a community.
Schools that have faced challenging budgets have had to make some difficult decisions, and many do not have designated funding for libraries. Whether they are in schools or in our communities, libraries play such a vital role in encouraging children to read and ensuring that every child has those resources. I have vivid childhood memories of going to our local library when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, flicking through the dockets of books and seeing what delights might have newly arrived when the exchanges took place. I also remember the library buses that used to come round our school, and how excited I always was about books. We all need to recognise, as we have done today, how important that is for every child. Every child should have books available to them.
A lack of books in schools can entrench inequality in access to reading, and we know the impact on literacy outcomes. Michael Morpurgo, among others, has highlighted that crucial point. We also know that parents value it when children have access to books, or to a good school library or local library. It is a big pressure for parents to ensure that their children have the same access to books and the same love of reading as every other child.
There is a gap in the support available, and many charities have filled in where they can. I pay tribute to the amazing work of the National Literacy Trust and BookTrust. In its strategy, the World Book Day charity says that it wants to see
“more children, from all backgrounds, developing a life-long habit of reading for pleasure, benefiting from the improved life chances this brings them.”
We could not sum up the purpose of this debate any better. In a recent Westminster Hall debate, the Minister himself said that
“we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well.”—[Official Report,
I could not agree more.
We should all focus on improving literacy outcomes for our children. A Labour Government would focus on that as part of our curriculum review to make sure that we have the building blocks in place. We would focus on hiring more teachers to fill the gaps left in our classrooms and make sure that everybody can be supported to reach these aims. We would invest in early language and speech interventions to ensure that the very youngest schoolchildren get the strongest possible start.
I conclude by paying tribute to the amazing work that World Book Day does year in, year out to encourage more children and their parents to take up reading. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster for giving us the opportunity to discuss such a positive thing today.
]]>Going back to mental health support, we would ensure that there are dedicated counsellors in every secondary school and that there are mental health hubs in every community. Children and their families are waiting and waiting for the mental health support they need. The absence levels in schools are clearly being affected as a result.
It is clear that there is an attainment gap between boys and girls. It is Labour’s view that we need to do everything we can in government to break down the barriers to opportunity that too many of our children face, and we will do that. I agree with hon. Members: there is no silver bullet to solve this. That is why we have proposed a whole range of measures that match the ambition we have for every child. We would put the education of all our children at the heart of national life. It is the very least that our children and our country deserve.
]]>I want to echo the points that have been raised about mental health. As has been highlighted, we know that boys are far less likely to reach out for support and often struggle to speak about mental health challenges. That is holding children and young people back, impacting on their ability to learn as well as their health, and the number of children waiting for support continues to rise, along with absence from schools.
]]>We would also reintroduce a school support staff negotiating body to ensure a proper voice for support staff, because we know that they power our schools, but unfortunately are currently leaving the profession in droves.
]]>The attainment gap between boys and girls is something that starts at an early age and grows throughout a boy’s time at school. In 2022-23, according to Department for Education statistics, by the end of the reception year, just under two thirds of boys had what is classed as a good level of development, compared with about three quarters of girls. By the end of primary school, the proportion of boys reaching the expected standards of reading and writing remained lower than girls. Going into secondary school, boys lag behind girls across every headline measure collected by the Department for Education and, as hon. Members have mentioned, boys are more likely to be excluded from school during that time.
As hon. Members have also touched on, other significant attainment gaps exist in our school system. For example, following the covid pandemic, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others grew, while white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds underperform compared with those of other races and ethnicities. Labour has set out how we would tackle the inequalities in our education system with our plan to break down the barriers to opportunity for everyone in this country, because all boys and girls should have the same opportunities to have an excellent education, leading to a good job and a good standard of living.
We know that the gap starts at a young age, where boys start school at a lower attainment level and with less developed language skills. Indeed, the pandemic shone a light on how a child’s early language development goes on to affect their later education. That is why Labour has called for primary schools to be equipped with funding to deliver evidence-based, early language interventions. That is something we would prioritise in government. Better communication skills would boost boys’ and girls’ outcomes and improve engagement with school.
Research has also consistently shown that the attainment gap is largest for those on free school meals, coming from the poorest families. Again, that issue has been raised by hon. Members today. We all know that there are shocking levels of child poverty in this country, leaving children too hungry to learn. That is why we would introduce free, funded breakfast clubs in every primary school to provide children with a softer start to the school day. That would give them an opportunity to play and socialise with their friends, developing their communication and social skills, as well as providing them a breakfast, setting them up well to learn throughout the day.
We know that the quality of teaching is a huge driver of pupils’ attainment. Quite simply, there are not enough teachers in our schools. Many teachers feel overstretched, and turnover is higher than before the pandemic, and there is no real plan to tackle the issues with their working conditions. They feel badly let down by this Government. To ensure that we have the best—and necessary—teachers in our schools who can deliver the best life chances for all our young people, Labour would recruit 6,500 new teachers to fill the gaps. We would pay for that by ending the tax exemptions that private schools currently enjoy.
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