Linsey Farnsworth

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government need to grip this issue across the country. Unfortunately, we understand his plight only too well in Derbyshire. Parents and carers talk about barriers at every stage of the process and about how they are “ignored” by an “unresponsive” council. A big part of our challenge in fixing the foundations of SEND provision is, of course, funding. That made it all the more shocking to learn of the SEND budget left unspent by Derbyshire county council. In a debate in the Chamber on 23 April 2024, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) highlighted that of £17.5 million received since 2019, only £1.5 million had been spent. That is nothing short of a scandal—£16 million unspent. That money was specifically allocated to create new school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Derbyshire county council claimed that it could not rush the allocation of the funds, but we are talking about six years—children will have started and ended their secondary school education in that time. What it has managed to spend, however, is about half a million pounds on two consultants for strategic help on children’s services. The families I have spoken to say that, despite that, they have seen no improvement. They say that had the council just engaged with parents, carers and educators, they would have received a wealth of advice for free. Our children and their families are paying the price. These children are missing education, being labelled as “disruptive” and suffering from poor mental health. While Derbyshire county council was failing to create the new, much-needed and funded SEND places, my constituent Chris Spencer’s son was missing school. Chris told me that his son had been assessed as needing a place in a SEND special school but that none were available. His son was missing out on vital education, making friends and the support he needed. Without a school place, Chris was caring full time for his son at home, making it impossible for him to go to work. He told me: “I want a job…I want to work, but I can’t”. Derbyshire county council not only failed to supply Chris’s son with a promised school place but issued him with two fines for non-attendance. The first was withdrawn by the council after I intervened on Chris’s behalf, but the second went to court, where the judge threw out the case. It should not come to this—for an MP and a judge to have to intervene—before anything is done. I am afraid that that story is just one of dozens. Angie Hardy, another constituent of mine, after years of fighting on behalf of her three sons, each with SEND, was still waiting on an EHCP, an annual review and the much-needed transport that had been promised. As a result, one of her sons has not been able to attend school since February 2022—yet another child missing out on education and the support they need to succeed. Many other parents talked about resorting to legal challenges. They have found tribunals and judicial reviews not only extremely stressful, but with legal aid solicitors now so hard to come by—another victim of Tory austerity, I am afraid, and one that the Justice Committee, of which I am a member, fully understands—extremely costly. That is a common experience. One mother told me that “judges are awarding places now, not the local authority”.