Anna Dixon

It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Mark, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I have had to scrutinise the National Audit Office’s report on SEND. According to that report, local authorities spent some £1.4 billion on home-to-school transport in 2022-23—an 80% real-terms increase since 2015-16. I am delighted that this Government have brought forward an additional £1 billion in the recent Budget for SEND funding, which will go some way to covering the high costs faced by local authorities, but we know that we need to change the provision. In Bradford, the council’s travel assistance service spends £54,000 per day on home-to-school taxis alone. Those numbers are eye-watering. Only through prioritising SEND support in our mainstream local schools will we alleviate those financial pressures on local authorities, and I welcome the priority that the Government have given to that. The main point that has been made in this debate is that it would help all the many families in this situation if their children were in local schools. That would not only reduce expensive transport costs, but improve outcomes for disabled children and their families.