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Carla Lockhart

Carla Lockhart

Democratic Unionist Party — Upper Bann

Speaking in the House of Commons on 9 July 2025

Debate

Early Years Providers: Government Support

Contribution

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point with regard to the interventions that have been made. However, returning to SEND growth, in Northern Ireland it is outpacing the growth of the general school population, and I believe that late identification of SEND and delayed support for it is one of the biggest failures right across the United Kingdom. So often, children are not identified as having SEND until they reach school age, by which point their language, social skills and cognitive delays are often entrenched. Therefore, does he agree that there needs to be more investment into funding specialist training for pre-school educators, because often early years is the poor cousin of the education system, despite the fact that, as we have already heard, zero to five is the most important time in a child’s life?
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