B

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 December 2024

Debate

State-funded Schools: Special Educational Needs

Contribution

My noble friend is right. It is important that we tackle absenteeism in the way that this Government have outlined and that I have talked about at this Dispatch Box on previous occasions, whether that is persistent absenteeism, where we see a higher proportion of students with special educational needs, or those who have been completely removed from schools and are no longer on school registers. It is also important that we introduce, as we intend to do through legislation, the registers for children who are not in school, so that we can ensure, first, that our schools are appropriately inclusive, so that parents do not feel the need to remove their children and children do not absent themselves from schools because of their inability to be able to learn, but also so that we can track children when they are not in school.

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