Perran Moon

Meur ras —it is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important debate. I want to focus on SEND and home-to-school transport. On SEND, Cornwall is the 11th lowest funded of 151 local authorities, receiving less than half the per pupil funding of Kensington and Chelsea. Over the last eight years, the number of our pupils with an EHCP has almost doubled, but the delays in issuing EHCPs are far longer than average. In Cornwall, two thirds of those waiting for an EHCP wait for more than 20 weeks, compared with about 50% in England, meaning more stress and uncertainty for Cornish children and their parents. In a very large, long and remote coastal region, the additional costs of transport show up persistently in every aspect of Cornish life. Cornwall council’s expenditure on home-to-school transport has increased by nearly 300% over the past seven years—a far steeper rise than for our urban counterparts. When it comes to funding more broadly, being a coastal community with some of the UK’s finest beaches is actually a double-edged sword; in fact, it could be argued that we are damned by our natural beauty. Significant in-migration by wealthy English retirees not only places additional pressures on healthcare and our housing market but masks the true extent of deprivation in Treasury funding models. In my constituency, the average weekly wages in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle are nearly £100 less than the national average, and child poverty is currently at 35%. We were very thankful that the costs of being remote and coastal were recognised in the local government funding settlement for adult social care, but the cost pressures for home-to-school transport were not reflected. I respectfully say to the Minister that a principle cannot be half applied.