What send reforms are expected to be brought in by the government – and will Labour MPs back it?
A total overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system is due to be unveiled on Monday in a schools white paper that could face major opposition from Labour MPs.
The changes will raise the bar at which children in England qualify for an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which legally entitles children with Send to get support. EHCPs will be reserved for children with the most severe and complex needs, but new plans for children on lower tiers will still confer additional support and legal rights.
Parents would have legal avenues for appeals under existing equalities legislation and through the tribunal, said sources with knowledge of the proposed new system.
The Send system overhaul is seen as the most high-stakes policy change the government has taken on since welfare, when plans had to be abandoned after a Labour backbench rebellion. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been leading a year-long lobbying offensive of hundreds of MPs, with many expressing support and recognition that the system has to change.
But some in government are worried that Labour MPs could vote the plans down in the next parliamentary session if MPs are bombarded with opposition from parents.
Phillipson has said children with Send would “always have a legal right to support”, and Labour would “not just protect but improve that support”. Sources said the old system was broken and, if legislation is successful, those children currently in year 2 with an EHCP would be assessed by schools to decide if they need to remain on a EHCP or their needs could be met “in a more flexible way”. You can read the full story by my colleagues, Alexandra Topping and Richard Adams, here:
Key events
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday politics programme, the education secretary Bridget Phillipson claimed that Send reforms will “transform support for children and families”.
Phillipson was pressed over whether any child who currently receives support will lose it under the reforms due to be set out in the white paper tomorrow morning (see opening post for more details).
“We are not going to be taking away effective support from children, and what I’ll be setting out tomorrow is a decade long, very careful transition from the system that we have, which everyone recognises isn’t working.”
Kuenssberg questioned the term “effective support”, pointing out that this isn’t the same as saying no child who receives support won’t lose it under the government reforms, something many parents fear. Phillipson said:
Children will be reviewed in terms of their needs assessed. That should be happening at the moment. We’re meant to have a system where every year an EHCP is reviewed. That doesn’t always happen, and where it does, it doesn’t always work well.
But what parents will see when we set out our vision tomorrow is a system where if, for example, your child needs speech and language support, the school will be better able to provide that than is the case right now.
The education secretary is asked about the growing anger of the cost of student loans which has escalated since the chancellor’s decision last November to freeze the salary threshold for “plan 2” student loan repayments for three years.
Rachel Reeves said the salary at which plan 2 student loans must be paid back would be frozen at £29,385 for three years starting from next April. It means borrowers will have to pay even more towards their student loans as they benefit from pay rises.
Plan 2 loans were taken out by students from England who started university between September 2012 and July 2023, and students from Wales who have started since September 2012. Graduates have to repay 9% of everything they earn over a threshold – now £28,470 a year.
Interest on the loans is charged at the rate of RPI inflation plus up to 3%, depending on how much a graduate earns. The Tories, which introduced the loans in the coalition government, have now promised to limit the rate on the loans to the retail price index (RPI) in a move that will heap further pressure on the Treasury.
Asked on Sky News how she will help loan 2 graduates saddled with huge amounts of debts, Phillipson said:
Now I get the problem. I see the issue. In reality, as a government, you have to look at a question of priorities and what you can do and how fast you can do it. Given the shape of what we have in the public finances, this is really hard.
Phillipson said she is bringing in maintenance grants for less well-off students. “The threshold for repayment is going up this year. It will then, in future years, be frozen.”
Parents will get educational support for their child within ‘weeks’, not months or years, education secretary says
Bridget Phillipson is asked about the government’s school reforms, namely around those concerning children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England.
Trevor Phillips points out to her that there are 1.7 million children with special educational needs, nearly 500,000 of whom are school pupils. He says the proportion of children with education, health and care (EHCP) plans – which identify a child’s needs and set out the support they should receive – has been increasing. He asks why this may be and Phillipson replies:
Part of what we’ve seen is that support for children with Send has been treated almost as an entirely separate issue, rather than it being integral to our school system. Lots of children at some point during their school lives will experience some form of challenge, will need extra support.
But the system that we have at the moment… is one that has made it the case that in order to get the support that children need, parents have to fight really hard to get that education, health and care plan. I’ve heard from so many parents just how difficult, how devastating that has been. It can take years. It’s really adversarial.
Pressed by Trevor Phillips if the government is promising that an EHCP determination will be delivered within weeks, not months or years, Phillipson said:
Yes. We will make sure that children get support much, much more quickly than is the case right now. And the commitment that I give to parents is that when they see all of the documents published tomorrow what they will see is a government that is focused on delivering better outcomes for their children. I am fiercely ambitious for every child in our country.
Phillipson later confirmed it will become “a question of weeks, not a question of months and years”. Many EHCPS are issued by local authorities beyond the 20 week deadline.
Education secretary to face questions as government sets out plans to halve attainment gap in England’s schools
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be speaking to the BBC and Sky News shortly and will likely be asked about government plans to halve the attainment gap between the poorest pupils in England and their more affluent peers.
The schools white paper, set to be published in full tomorrow, will set a target to halve the disadvantage gap by the time children born in this parliament finish secondary school.
It will detail proposals to change the criteria under which schools receive funding to support the most disadvantaged students, and will set out two new programmes to tackle performance of disadvantaged pupils locally in the North East and on the coast.
In the latest GCSE results, the disadvantage gap index for year 11s stood at 3.92, according to the Department for Education (DfE).
It had previously narrowed from 4.07 in 2011 to a low of 3.66 in 2019/20 with some small fluctuations in between. It then widened again post-pandemic to the highest it had been in a decade at 3.94 in 2022/23.
Phillipson, a Sunderland MP who grew up in the north-east, said the reforms will help end the “one-size-fits-all system” and present a “golden opportunity to cut the link between background and success”.
The schools white paper will also reportedly set out proposals to transform the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system, in what could be one of the defining policy challenges of Keir Starmer’s fragile administration.
Children with a legal right to special needs support will face a review when they move to secondary school, my colleagues Alexandra Topping and Richard Adams report.
The reforms will raise the bar at which children in England qualify for an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which legally entitles children with Send to get support.
