Luke Taylor

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. When it comes to the welfare of our children, the details should never be drip-fed to parents and carers. They do not deserve worrying speculation about potential changes to their children’s futures. Teachers should not be kept out of the loop about the way they will need to run their classrooms. For months now, the Government have kept the potential reform of SEND services secret and under review. Families up and down the country have spent the entire summer on tenterhooks after the Government’s vague pledge for reform during the spending review in June. That is a whole school holiday of uncertainty. Confusion around reform has only been made worse against the backdrop of changes to council funding, which will see councils across London lose vital funding as demand for EHCPs increases, as it has in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam by more than 8% in the last year. Councils cannot cope with that rise in demand alone. Across Britain, they are in need of real financial backing. I have worked hard to secure confirmation from the Government of extra SEND places in my constituency, and I am delighted that work should begin soon on the Angel Hill school in Sutton. If we are going to fix the crisis in SEND, however, the funding must be properly ringfenced for local authorities so that children can receive the best possible education. If reform is to be serious, it must be rooted in the genuine improvement of children’s lives, not just the improvement of balance sheets. Without the right funds, and without addressing the looming cliff edge for council finances when SEND deficits are shifted on to the main balance sheet, we risk a collapse of services. I am sure that the Government are keen to avoid that, so I invite them to reassure us by ending this uncertainty, agreeing to make any changes transparently, and putting any child on an EHCP at the heart of the discussion. Reforms must ensure that those thousands of children with SEND have the right to support, not just because it is a legal requirement, but because we owe it to them and their families.