SEND debate: let’s end the parent blame and solve the crisis

Yesterday, over 90 MPs participated in a three-hour debate on retaining the legal right to assessment and support in education for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The debate was in response to a petition created by our campaign partners at Save Our Children’s Rights, which currently has over 125,000 signatures. It asked the government to commit to maintaining the existing law, so that “vulnerable children with SEND can access education and achieve their potential”.

A rally organised by the Disabled Children’s Partnership, SEND Sanctuary, and Let Us Learn Too also took place on the same day. This was part of its Fight for Ordinary Campaign, which outlines a vision for a reformed system, but with clear red lines to protect vital existing legal rights.

Why so many SEND campaigns?

The government is set to publish its Schools’ White Paper this autumn, setting out its plans to reform the current SEND system in England. However, many are concerned that this reform will involve changes to assessment and statutory support in education, specifically the removal of the use of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).

This system is widely acknowledged to be broken due to spiralling costs and patchy provision, pushing schools, councils, parents, and children to breaking point. Yet, campaigners state that EHCPs were never the problem. Instead, it is the insufficient support for the education, health and social care systems that have been buckling under pressure for decades.

Obtaining an EHCP grants legal entitlements and protections, which can be enforced through an appeal to the SEND tribunal, judicial review or other means. An EHCP also provides parents or young people with a conditional right to choose their preferred school or college. Without one, schools have no legal duty to meet a child’s specific needs.

The petition added: “We believe that these rights do not only help vulnerable children and their families – they also reduce costs to the state in adulthood. We think that removing statutory obligations on local authorities could mean many children do not get the support they need to reach their potential.”

What was debated yesterday by MPs?

Petition debates don’t end with a vote to implement the request of a petition. Instead, the aim is to allow MPs to discuss the issues raised.

In a packed room, Dr Roz Savage MP, a member of the Petitions Committee, led the debate. She began by stating that the legal rights granted by EHCPs are not a luxury but “a necessary tool for ensuring that children get the support to fulfil their true potential. Without these legal rights intact, many families face months or years of legal challenge or delay just to obtain what should be automatic.”

She referred to a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) article that confirmed the seriousness of the crisis. It found that, since 2018, the number of pupils with EHCPs has grown by nearly 80%, from under 3% to over 5% of pupils, while local authorities face cumulative high-needs deficits, which are projected to reach £8 billion by 2027.

The report also shows that the cost of independent special school places is now more than double that of state special schools on average. The IFS warns that, without reform, spending pressures will balloon over the next few years.

• Further reading: Special Needs Jungle – The SEND Petition Debate: MPs speak up for EHCP rights at the start of big week of SEND news

Savage added: “This autumn, the Government will publish a SEND White Paper. This is a critical opportunity, but it is also a moment of danger. Change that simply cuts legal rights or dilutes statutory support to reduce short-term costs will fail children and ultimately cost more in the long run.

“The petitioners and the IFS urge the Government to ensure that the White Paper retains and protects legal rights, including EHCPs, so that each child can access what they are entitled to.”

Key messages from the SEND debate

Key messages debated included early intervention for children with SEND, mainstream inclusion and capacity, parental blame, and ensuring that the accountability of county councils and local authorities is maintained.

Here are some of the talking points raised by MPs.

On blaming parents

From my experiences with my own children and from my surgeries, I know the regular trials, the pain and the often extreme debilitating stress that families go through trying to get a basic, decent education for their children. Parents are driven to the very edge by a system that they have had to battle through every step of the way. It should not be like this.
Gideon Amos, MP for Taunton and Wellington

For too many children and their parents and carers, the system is slow, adversarial and fundamentally failing to meet children’s needs. Most importantly, the trust and confidence of parents in the system is utterly broken. In seeking to solve the crisis, the Government must turn their attention to the ways in which that trust and confidence can be rebuilt, so that children across the country who deserve far better than they get at the moment can access the education to which they are entitled.
Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood

“Again and again, I heard about services that do not speak to one another and processes that feel confusing and adversarial. The impact on parents’ mental health and relationships, and on children’s ability to learn and make friends, is real. Let us rebuild a SEND system with people, not processes, at the heart of its provision and with good communication and joined-up services as the norm. We can do better than this—and for the future of the children and young people stuck in a failing system, we must.
Josh Newbury, MP for Cannock Chase

We find ourselves in a bizarre and damaging place: the adversarial process that families must go through to access support for their child, often before their child can even get access to support in schools, has not only led to an existential financial crisis for councils, but traumatised parents and carers.
Sarah Smith, MP for Hyndburn

Parents do everything for their children, especially when they have special needs. That is why I am fed up with the demonisation of parents. They are blamed for gaming the system, for having failed as parents, for being too soft, for not putting in boundaries, for bothering overstretched teachers; they are blamed for going private, but also for costing the state too much money. The crisis in SEND is not the fault of parents.
Alison Bennett, MP for Mid Sussex

This is a matter of social justice, fairness, equality and equity. Like many parents of a disabled child, I am tired, I am constantly anxious and I am constantly ready to go into battle for my child, but what I am not, and what my beautiful child is not, is a burden. We did not cause this crisis, but we want to fix it. We want to work with the Government to make things better for our children. I do not want a single other parent to have to fight for the very basic rights of their child—for what parents of non-disabled children do not have to fight for.
Jen Craft, MP for Thurrock

On early intervention

We need a system built on collaboration between schools, families, healthcare professionals and local authorities. We need early intervention, not late reaction. We need to move from a model in which parents fight for support to one in which support wraps around the child from the start.
Paul Davies, MP for Colne Valley

If we reduce SEND rights and throw children away to local authorities we cannot trust, we throw away their lives. The answer is early intervention. The Government must resist the siren calls of local authorities to reduce SEND rights. There are too many people in despair right now, but if the Government focus on early intervention for our children, they can set out a path for hope.
Chris Coghlan, MP for Dorking and Horley

On the use of EHCPs

Obtaining an EHCP is merely the start of the struggle. It is certainly not the end of the struggle for those families who desperately need the support that their children deserve. Many view the legal right to which the petition relates—the right for SEND children to get assessment and support in education—as an important guarantee in what for far too long has been an unstable, broken and chaotic system characterised by long wait times and prolonged poor communication with little or no meaningful action.
Linsey Farnsworth, MP for Amber Valley

Changing an EHCP requires a full consultation process, which is arduous, expensive and time consuming—a structural barrier that is impeding common sense. It often does not matter whether a child has an EHCP if the school they attend is not equipped to provide the support outlined in the plan.
Sarah Dyke, MP for Glastonbury and Somerton

Families are going through that broken system daily, and are being broken themselves. That is why legal rights must remain. Without them, families like that of my constituent would have no route to redress when things go wrong.
Iqbal Mohamed, MP for Dewsbury and Batley

As someone who has ADHD, I know how much difference the right support makes. For me, this issue is simple. Support in education is not a favour—it is a legal right, yet too many families have to battle to get what the law already promises.
Sarah Hall, MP for Warrington South

On accountability

There are major problems with accountability in the SEND system. Accountability is overwhelmingly loaded on to the statutory part of the system, which means that if ordinarily available provision is not there or goes wrong, there is no recourse for parents. That problem needs to be fixed.
Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood

One of the major complaints that I receive is about a total lack of transparency and accountability in the provision of SEND support. It has already been mentioned that we need there to be early intervention. We need to provide support before students reach a crisis point. There should be a legal requirement for each school to have a dedicated SENCO, and SEND education needs to be mandatory as part of teacher training.
Warinder Juss, MP for Wolverhampton West

Parents feel that they must fight every step of the way just to get the help that their children are entitled to. One problem is that under current law, schools are only required to use their “best endeavours” to support children with special educational needs. That is quite a vague obligation. Some schools—including in my constituency—step up magnificently, but others, under financial pressure, reduce or remove support and nothing holds them to account.
Ben Coleman, MP for Chelsea and Fulham

On special school provision

There are fantastic examples of excellent SEND provision in my constituency, including in mainstream settings, as well as excellent examples of special schools. We all recognise, however, that there are nowhere near enough state-funded special school places. the evidence shows that independent school places cost about two and a half times more than state special school places. We need investment to expand state educational provision so that we can get more bang for our buck in what we are providing for our children.
Dr Ellie Chowns, MP for North Herefordshire

On funding

With SEND falling on local councils to fund, but with councils lacking the powers to properly raise money to support increasing demand, the current situation is inevitable. Parents are waiting months, if not years, to receive the support and documentation that they need. Even if that is secured, overstretched caseworkers are making mistakes, referencing out-of-date or draft EHCPs as part of negotiations with schools and councils. SEND needs central funding, and potentially centralised management.
Robbie Moore, MP for Keighley and Ilkley

What next?

In her summing up, Georgia Gould, Minister of State for the Department for Education, said that the voices of children, young people, and their families, as well as those of teachers and those supporting them, must be at the forefront.

She stated that children should receive support when needed, with early intervention serving as the foundation for reform. They should also not have to go miles away from their families and communities to get the right support, so more investment in community support is needed.

Gould concluded by stating that her commitment was to work with the parents who had turned up and those who had signed the petition to ensure this was right for families and to implement reforms that would truly transform young people’s lives.

Rachel Filmer, Campaign Manager at Special Needs Jungle, who began the petition, said:  “There has been so much that is positive about today’s debate, but what has struck me the most is the overwhelmingly supportive and informed positions of the 90 MPs who requested to speak in this debate.

“Hearing so many MPs sharing stories about their constituents with SEND, understanding the complex issues so clearly, and underlining the importance of existing legal rights. The overwhelming majority of MPs stated explicitly that legal rights must be protected, alongside the need for accountability, inclusion and early intervention.

“The question remains: if the white paper doesn’t deliver on these issues, will these MPs go to bat for our children? Time will tell, but the overwhelming defence of our children’s rights in a packed hall has been a moving experience which has restored some of my hope.”

Alison Bloomer

Alison Bloomer is Editor of Learning Disability Today.

See Full Bio