2025: Week 36 - All about SEND

This week I took part in a Westminster Hall debate about SEND, which was tabled after a petition calling to “Retain the legal right to assessment and support in education for children with SEND” reached over 125,000 signatures. 

I have never seen the Westminster Hall so full, there was literally standing room only.  Members of parliament from nearly all parties brought stories from their constituencies. 

My inbox is full of emails from parents across the constituency who feel they have nowhere left to turn after huge delays in getting the support their children desperately need.  Parents having to fight at every juncture for basic education. And stories from teachers who tell me that the systems aren’t adequate to provide them with the support and training they need to ensure that SEND children have equal access to education. 

The whole system is in crisis, and needs completely overhauling, but what shouldn’t happen is the removal of the EHCP - the very document that outlines the support required for each child that has one. 

Without an EHCP, there can be no clear framework to guarantee appropriate support is put in place, and once again we will be failing vulnerable children. 

A well written and frequently updated EHCP is a hugely valuable document which will accompany a SEND child throughout their full education and ensure the best possible outcome. 

The Government are insistent they want to get Britain working and maintain that they will create opportunities for differently abled adults to achieve that. 

However, by refusing to rule out the removal of such a vital piece of support as the EHCP, they are undermining that very aim.  It would remove the one tool that can ensure positive outcomes for SEND children throughout their education. 

The UN have finally published their report into the situation in Gaza and have stated that the Israeli Government has committed Genocide against the Palestinians. 

This report powerfully describes the crimes being committed, and UK ministers are bound by international law to act to prevent genocide. 

The Prime Minister must use Trump's state visit to put pressure on Netanyahu to end the targeted suffering in Gaza and the illegal settlement of the West Bank. 

The US President has the power to stop this horrifying spectacle, get aid in for the starving children of Gaza and get the hostages released from Hamas' captivity. If Keir Starmer fails to raise this with the US President, it would be a dereliction of moral duty.