Claire Young

Claire Young

Liberal Democrat — Thornbury and Yate

Speaking in the House of Commons on 12 June 2025

Debate

SEND Funding

Contribution

Absolutely. South Gloucestershire is in an even worse position, and I am sure all the authorities in the f40 group would agree. Yesterday, I raised with the Prime Minister one of the impacts that lack of support for SEND has on families. He did not take up my request for a meeting, but I hope he will consider meeting me to discuss this aspect of the issue, and meeting charities that represent parents who are in this situation. Of course, the lack of support for children with special educational needs has many other impacts; I simply do not have time to go into all of them today. We need overall SEND funding to reflect the level of need. We need more funding during the transition to greater inclusion, to reflect the fact that we will be supporting people with a high level of need, as well as funding early intervention. We need a national body for SEND to end the postcode lottery, and to fund the very high-need cases that cost over £25,000 a year, and schools need funding to be distributed in a way that reflects their needs, not some overall and potentially flawed perception by their local authority.

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