Written questions by Bhatti.

What (a) responsibilities and (a) powers SEND practitioners will have in Best Start Family Hubs.

The department is investing over £200 million over three years to strengthen the special educational needs and disabilities offer in Best Start Family Hubs, including funding a family-facing practitioner in every hub to support children with additional needs and families from the earliest stages. The practitioners will offer practical, hands‑on advice about their child’s development and help families identify emerging needs much earlier and guide parents on what those signs mean and the next steps to take. They will also help run, or link families into, early support sessions in Hubs, such as toddler groups that promote speech and language. By joining up support across services, the practitioners will ensure families do not have to navigate services alone.We have published the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies guidance for local authorities, which sets out the role expectations and funding remit, ahead of April 2026 delivery. This guidance can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c6be4acdfd19de13d0f810/best-start-family-hubs-and-healthy-babies-guidance-for-local-authorities.docx.pdf.

When further details relating to the Mission North East and Mission Coastal programmes will be published.

Departmental officials are currently engaging school leaders, alongside local and national stakeholders, on the approach for the Missions and we will announce further details in due course.

What the projected costs per child of pupils in Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist layers of support are, respectively.

The department is providing additional funding to boost the capacity of mainstream settings to meet the continuum of needs children have, before any legislative changes.The ‘SEND Reform: putting children and young people first’ consultation document includes our aim that more support will be commissioned on a cohort basis to enable more flexible, responsive provision that meets children’s needs earlier and more effectively. For example, we will invest £1.8 billion over three years in our new Experts at Hand services that will ensure individual early years settings, schools and colleges can access expert support from professionals like educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, without having to commission this individually which is inefficient and high burdensome for education settings.The support in Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist layers of support will be developed through future work on National Inclusion Standards and Specialist Provision Packages. These will be developed by an independent panel of experts and tested with parents.

Whether she will publish guidance on quality standards for Individual Support Plans to prevent variation between local authorities and ensure consistent support for children nationwide.

There will be a legal duty on education settings to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted or specialist support, ensuring help keeps pace with their development, prevents challenges from escalating, and reduces the risk of them disengaging from learning.The use and quality of ISPs will be considered in Ofsted inspections, with clear routes for parents to raise concerns. Where there are concerns about provision, parents and young people will be able to resolve this directly with the setting, including making use of the improved schools complaints process if necessary. We will seek to strengthen the school complaints system with the inclusion of an appropriate, independent special educational needs and disabilities specialist (for example, a special educational needs coordinator, multi-academy trust inclusion director or senior school manager) on a panel, if the complaint cannot be resolved by the school’s senior management team or head teacher.The ISP will be tailored in line with the layers of support, with guidance to support education settings in creating high-quality plans. ISPs will be standardised across settings to facilitate transitions. ISPs will be interactive, accessible, and available in a digital format, supporting consistency across the system.

What assessment her Department has made of when mainstream schools will have the baseline staffing levels required to deliver the universal inclusion expectations set out in the Schools White Paper.

Recruiting and retaining expert teachers is at the heart of the government’s Plan for Change, with good progress already being made: the teaching workforce has grown by 2,346 FTE between 2023/24 and 2024/25, in secondary and special schools; the schools where they are needed most.We are investing £200 million in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) training to upskill staff in every school, college and nursery over the course of this Parliament. This training will cover children with SEND in their earliest years, through to age 25.We are providing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), to work together to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer, which will give schools direct access to support, advice, training and specialist expertise from professionals such as speech and language therapists (SaLTs), educational psychologists (EPs) and specialist teachers.We are investing £15 million to establish new speech and language therapist advanced practitioners in every ICB geographical area, to get more SaLTs working in educational settings.​In addition, we will continue to train at least 200 EPs per year in 2026 and 2027, backed by £26m..

What enforcement mechanisms will apply to ensure full compliance with Individual Support Plan commitments.

There will be a legal duty on education settings to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted or specialist support, ensuring help keeps pace with their development, prevents challenges from escalating, and reduces the risk of them disengaging from learning.The use and quality of ISPs will be considered in Ofsted inspections, with clear routes for parents to raise concerns. Where there are concerns about provision, parents and young people will be able to resolve this directly with the setting, including making use of the improved schools complaints process if necessary. We will seek to strengthen the school complaints system with the inclusion of an appropriate, independent special educational needs and disabilities specialist (for example, a special educational needs coordinator, multi-academy trust inclusion director or senior school manager) on a panel, if the complaint cannot be resolved by the school’s senior management team or head teacher.The ISP will be tailored in line with the layers of support, with guidance to support education settings in creating high-quality plans. ISPs will be standardised across settings to facilitate transitions. ISPs will be interactive, accessible, and available in a digital format, supporting consistency across the system.

When the Government plans to publish the detailed national SEND standards and how compliance with those standards will be monitored and enforced across local authorities.

The National Inclusion Standards will set out evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches to identify and support children and young people with additional needs. Settings should consider the National Inclusion Standards when planning their Inclusion Strategy. To hold schools accountable for how they plan to deliver inclusive practice and meet the needs of their cohort, they will be required to produce an inclusion strategy outlining their plan to embed inclusive practice and meet the needs of their cohort. There will be a legal duty on settings to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted or specialist support. Ofsted will draw on settings’ inclusion strategies to assess effectiveness of leaders plans, implementing and delivering inclusive practice, and will consider the use and quality of ISPs in inspections. Local areas have been commissioned to develop local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform plans setting out how partners across education, health and care will deliver SEND reform locally.

Whether she has undertaken an impact assessment of the potential reduction in enforceable rights for families arising from restricting EHCPs to only the most complex needs.

Our ambition is to provide more opportunities for health and education professionals to support the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) more effectively and inclusively. This is why we are investing £1.8 billion over the next three years to improve access to professionals for mainstream settings, including local authorities and Integrated Care Board working together to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer.We are also developing National Inclusion Standards supported by an expert panel, to set out evidence-informed tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with additional needs.We have carefully assessed the impact of all our proposals, and this is included in our published ‘SEND reform: equalities impact assessment’ and ‘SEND reform child's rights impact assessment’ which include projections on how children and young people will be impacted by the proposals. The equalities impact assessment can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69985b33047739fe61889ebd/SEND_reform_equalities_impact_assessment_.pdf.The child’s rights impact assessment is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69985b75047739fe61889ebe/SEND_reform_child_s_rights_impact_assessment.pdf.The responses to the consultation will help inform our policy development and assessments of impact of the final reforms.

How the proposed fast‑track route for early intervention will be defined, including eligibility thresholds, time limits and approved evidence‑based programmes.

To achieve this, we will work with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), and NHS England to enable better information sharing between health professionals and local authorities. This will speed up the process of matching children to the right specialist provision package and create a more direct route to specialist provision for those with the most complex needs at the earliest stage.We have asked for feedback on this proposal as part of the consultation and will build on these responses to develop this policy in partnership with parents, local authorities, settings, DHSC and NHS England.

How much has been spent on Supported Internships; and what the projected cost of the 12‑month extension is.

Since 2022, the department has invested around £33 million into supported internships to provide more opportunities for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to transition into sustained, paid employment. This investment has been delivered by the Internships Work consortium and has provided training and support to local authorities, employers, education providers and job coaches to increase the number of supported internships and improve quality across the country.As part of this investment, we also launched a pilot to test supported internships with young people who have learning difficulties and disabilities and are furthest from the labour market, but who do not have an education, health and care plan. This pilot has helped hundreds of young people to develop the skills and confidence needed for the workplace, demonstrating positive outcomes.In the consultation on SEND reform that was published alongside the ‘Every child achieving and thriving’ paper, we set out that we intend to continue this pilot for at least a further year. Further details will be published in due course.

Whether safeguards will be introduced to help ensure that Individual Support Plans (ISPs) do not become resource‑led documents due to limited specialist provision.

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice sets out that the provision made for pupils with special educational needs should be recorded accurately and kept up to date. As a result, many settings already keep records of the needs and provision required by children or young people with SEND and communicate these with parents.The department is introducing a duty on settings to produce an individual support plan for every child or young person with SEND, ensuring help keeps pace with their development, prevents challenges from escalating, and reduces the risk of them disengaging from learning.Additional funding through an Inclusive Mainstream Fund will be provided to early years, schools and colleges to boost the existing core funding for SEND, with over £500 million per year over the next three years. This funding, alongside their existing core funding, will help equip settings to invest in high-quality, adaptive teaching, targeted evidence-based support, inclusive pedagogy and decision-making, and create safe, calm and accessible learning environments for all. On 25 March, we published the guidance ‘Inclusive mainstream fund: best practice for schools’, which provides examples and case studies of how settings can use this funding to enhance support for children with SEND. The guidance is available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inclusive-mainstream-fund-2026-to-2027/inclusive-mainstream-fund-best-practice-for-schools--2.Our proposed reforms go further to support educators, with easier access to expert advice through Experts at Hand and evidence-based tools and resources through the National Inclusion Standards.

If her Department will publish modelling underpinning its projection that EHCP growth will slow by 2029–30 and then fall.

The department has made modelling information available in the ‘Background on projections’ annex published alongside the special educational needs and disabilities consultation. These projections are illustrative of our proposed policy approach and updated projections will be published following the consultation.

What proportion of the £4 billion SEND investment package is allocated to universal SEND training for the 0–25 workforce, and what training standard will apply.

The department is investing over £200 million over the course of this Parliament to upskill staff in every school, college and nursery, ensuring a skilled workforce for generations to come. This significant investment, forms a central pillar of the government’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform plans, helping to secure a fairer system where effective support is available for every child with SEND from early years to the age of 25. This investment will be supported by additional direct funding of £1.6 billion over three years in the inclusive mainstream fund for early years, schools and colleges.We are currently in the development phase of the programme, working with a wide range of experts, including the department’s Inclusion Expert Advisory Group, and the Education Endowment Foundation, to identify what content will be most impactful in supporting schools and colleges to be more inclusive.

What guidance the Department plans to issue to help ensure that Individual Support Plans (ISPs) are portable across phases and settings, including post‑16 and further education.

There will be a statutory duty on schools and colleges to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted or specialist support, ensuring help keeps pace with their development, prevents challenges from escalating, and reduces the risk of them disengaging from learning.Our ambition is that ISPs will be interactive, easy to use and available in a digital format, supporting consistency across the system and smoother transitions for children moving between settings and phases, as well as reducing workload for teachers and educators. Drawing on user‑centred research with schools, post-16 settings, families and professionals, we are exploring how best to design the ISP as well as exploring digital approaches, so that it reduces workload for teachers and educators by bringing information together in one place and cutting down on duplicated recording, while also supporting smoother transitions so children get the support they need in their new setting from the very beginning.

How many additional educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists will be required annually to deliver the Experts at Hand programme.

The government is providing substantial, targeted investment to help local areas grow and strengthen their specialist workforce. Over the next three years, £1.8 billion will be made available to local area partnerships to develop and rollout of the Experts at Hand offer.Local area partnerships will design and implement their own Experts at Hand models, tailored to local needs and workforce capacity. This will be supported by strong national oversight. The department will set the overall framework, provide guidance and tools, and work closely with local areas to ensure consistent quality.​To support this, we have also announced £15 million for new speech and language therapy advanced practitioner roles, as well as continuing our investment in the educational psychology workforce with £26 million to train at least 200 educational psychologists per year from 2026 and 2027, building on previous investment.The department knows that continuing to build the pipeline of speech and language therapists is essential. That is why we are working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with SEND.

How compliance with ISP duties will be enforced at school and local‑system level, and which body will hold ultimate enforcement responsibility.

I refer the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East to the answer of 20 April 2026 to Question 120023.

What estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of trends in the growth of EHCPs on costs to the public purse.

Families are having to fight and go through bureaucratic and legal processes to get special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support for their children despite funding increases to the high needs budget. These and other failures in the current system mean that families are rightly demanding reform and that is what the government is delivering. The plans for a reformed SEND system, including the allocation of £4 billion investment to support transformation of the system, were set out in the recently published Schools White Paper and SEND reform consultation, and annexes.The department’s assessment of future SEND spending will be updated following the SEND consultation and subject to future spending reviews.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of maternity pay reforms on teacher retention.

This government is committed to tackling recruitment and retention challenges and supporting teachers to stay in the profession and thrive.The recent Schools White Paper announced our commitment to fund improvements to maternity pay for school and college teachers, leaders and support staff. From September 2027/28, school teachers and leaders will see their period of full maternity pay, doubled from the current offer of 4 weeks of full pay to 8 weeks. The announcement responds to evidence that women aged 30 to 39 are the largest group of leavers from the school teacher workforce in terms of volume, which could be linked to choosing between a career and having a family.While we are not able to share the exact funding amount at this stage, we will fully fund the improved maternity offer at a national level and are currently finalising the estimates.

What estimate her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of her proposed maternity pay reforms; and how she plans to fund this additional cost.

This government is committed to tackling recruitment and retention challenges and supporting teachers to stay in the profession and thrive.The recent Schools White Paper announced our commitment to fund improvements to maternity pay for school and college teachers, leaders and support staff. From September 2027/28, school teachers and leaders will see their period of full maternity pay, doubled from the current offer of 4 weeks of full pay to 8 weeks. The announcement responds to evidence that women aged 30 to 39 are the largest group of leavers from the school teacher workforce in terms of volume, which could be linked to choosing between a career and having a family.While we are not able to share the exact funding amount at this stage, we will fully fund the improved maternity offer at a national level and are currently finalising the estimates.

What estimate she has made of the number and proportion of pupils that would need to move from the independent to the state sector for VAT revenue from school fees to fall below the additional cost of educating those pupils in the state sector.

HM Treasury published a tax information and impact note on applying VAT to private school fees: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees/applying-vat-to-private-school-fees. This is a comprehensive assessment of the VAT policy, including estimated revenue and costs of increased pupil numbers in the state sector.