Georgia Gould
MP for Queen's Park and Maida Vale · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act also replaces sections 10 and 11 and of the Education and Inspections Act with an amended section 10.”
“The current system means that there are real geographical discrepancies, and sometimes there is not a trust available to set something up quickly, so we want local authorities to have the flexibility to respond quickly to demands and to offer that provision where it is needed. The hon.”
“I thank Members for the range of important questions, although I think they are broader than the individual draft regulations we are discussing today. I will start with the question about special places in specialist schools and how we can ensure that there is consistency.”
“We want to have really strong standards and consistency in critically important areas. We know some of the real challenges that young people face in misinformation and the need for digital literacy in a changing world.”
“The statutory instrument makes consequential amendments arising from those provisions. The amendments, which are to both primary and secondary legislation, are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book, and to update provisions to ensure that…”
“Currently, where a new maintained school replaces an independent school, a teacher of the independent school transferring under transfer of undertakings legislation to the new school may choose to retain their existing terms and conditions or choose to opt in to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document.”
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“A local authority is able to put in place governance arrangements for a maintained school in anticipation of proposals being approved. That will also apply where only one proposal for a pupil referral unit has been published. These amendments will ensure legal clarity and consistency.”
“Currently, where a new maintained school replaces an independent school, a teacher of the independent school transferring under transfer of undertakings legislation to the new school may choose to retain their existing terms and conditions or choose to opt in to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. The instrument extends the provision so that it applies when an independent school is replaced by a pupil referral unit, affording teachers the same choice. Secondly, the statutory instrument applies and extends regulation 5 of the School Governance (New Schools) (England) Regulations 2007 to pupil referral units, when only one school proposal has been published under sections 7 or 10 of the Education and Inspections Act.”
“The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act also replaces sections 10 and 11 and of the Education and Inspections Act with an amended section 10. The draft regulations remove references to section 6A and section 11 in other primary and secondary legislation, and replace them with references to sections 7 and 10 respectively, where necessary, providing legal clarity. The amended provisions relate to land given to a local authority on trust for educational purposes, transfer of employment, proposers of new schools, governance of new schools and local government reorganisation. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act sets procedures for the establishment of new pupil referral units by local authorities. The draft regulations extend legislation to apply to newly established pupil referral units in two cases.”
“The statutory instrument makes consequential amendments arising from those provisions. The amendments, which are to both primary and secondary legislation, are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book, and to update provisions to ensure that they are compatible with the new legislative framework. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not introduce any significant new policy. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act repeals section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, relating to the presumption that new schools should be academies. Arrangements for inviting proposals for new schools are now contained in an amended section 7 of the 2006 Act.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Establishment of Schools) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 20 May 2026. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 changes the legal framework for opening new state-funded schools. It ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies, and helps to ensure that new schools can be delivered quickly where they are needed, by enabling proposals from local authorities and voluntary organisations as additional routes to delivery. That provides greater flexibility in the system, including in circumstances where suitable academy trust capacity is limited.”
“We want to have really strong standards and consistency in critically important areas. We know some of the real challenges that young people face in misinformation and the need for digital literacy in a changing world. Our new national curriculum, on which we have consulted widely with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authority schools, will set the standard we want for all children, and we think it is really important that all schools teach that. It is critical that children have access to a qualified teacher, so we are setting very clear standards through the schools White Paper on not only issues such as inclusion but offering the benefits that come from being part of a multi-academy trust, which is a really sensible approach to developing the new system.”
“The current system means that there are real geographical discrepancies, and sometimes there is not a trust available to set something up quickly, so we want local authorities to have the flexibility to respond quickly to demands and to offer that provision where it is needed. The hon. Member for Bridgwater raised the wider, more general debate about academisation. I am glad to hear his support for academisation; as he knows, it was something that a Labour Government first introduced. We support that system because we see so many benefits for schools, including collaboration and resilience, from being part of multi-academy trusts. We are setting out a direction to say that is the way in which we expect the school system to move, and we want those freedoms to be available to all schools.”
“As we have set out in the SEND reform consultation, we want the role of alternative provision to be focused on really reintegrating children back into school. The Experts at Hand model we have developed is about using some of the best practice from really high-quality alternative provision to support mainstream schools. The SEND reforms are subject to consultation, but I hope that gives a wider reassurance. The hon. Member for South Devon asked why we have created these new powers. As she correctly said, we have set out a steer to the system to say that we expect schools to move towards being part of collaborative trusts.”
“To fund that measure, we are investing £3.7 billion into creating new specialist places. That money is going into the system now, and we are setting very strong expectations on local authorities to deliver new specialist provision both within mainstream schools on an inclusion basis and, where necessary, in new special schools. The policy that forms part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act makes it easier for local authorities to set up new maintained schools. On the specific question about pupil referral units and their role in the system, we will be very clear in the specialist provision packages about the kind of support we expect for children with internalising and externalising social and emotional needs.”
“I thank Members for the range of important questions, although I think they are broader than the individual draft regulations we are discussing today. I will start with the question about special places in specialist schools and how we can ensure that there is consistency. As part of the Government’s reforms to SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—we are proposing the introduction of new specialist provision packages. Those will be developed by a national independent panel and will set out the broad range of provision we expect to be available in every community. Local authorities will have a duty to provide specialist provision packages—that is, the type of special provision that, as the hon. Member for Guildford has set out, is missing from too many communities.”
“Through the national consultation and local special educational needs and disabilities reform plans, we are ensuring that multi-academy trusts play a key role in SEND reforms. New national inclusion standards will create shared expectations for all schools around inclusive education, and the SEND reforms make clear our expectations that all multi-academy trusts and schools work in partnership with local authorities to ensure the needs of every child in an area are met.”
“The Government will be setting national standards for all schools, including multi-academy trusts. National inclusion standards will be developed by an independent expert panel and all schools will need to ensure they are delivered. We are also introducing new inspections for multi-academy trusts that will focus on a range of levers, including the importance of inclusion in education. Through our focus on area partnerships, we are really clear that every player, whether schools, health services or local authorities, needs to work together to deliver for children.”
“I really appreciate that question. Making educational psychologists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists far more accessible for students in mainstream education is at the heart of our reforms. We are investing £1.8 billion in the new Experts at Hand service, which will start from September. As part of that, we are also investing £40 million into training new educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, developing the workforce to ensure that all children have access to an inclusive education.”
“We are deeply grateful for the service of military families and recognise the additional pressures that military life puts on the education and family life of those families. We are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to address this area. Schools receive service pupil premium funding to address challenges including mobility and family separation, and we are improving special educational needs and disabilities support for families who move frequently, including proposing new digital individual support plans and education, health and care plans to make those moves easier.”
“I am visiting a garrison in North Yorkshire in similar circumstances soon to talk to families and schools about the particular pressures they face in supporting children with that high level of mobility. We are working closely on this matter, as I have set out, particularly through the SEND reforms. Time and again, I hear from military families that one of the biggest barriers for them, where there is an additional need, is how hard it can be to move from place to place. I have set out some of the changes we are making, but it is an area that we are looking at closely, and I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.”
“As I have set out, it is far too hard to move SEND provision from place to place in the country at the moment. The changes that we are making—introducing national inclusion standards, national specialist provision packages and digital individual support plans and EHCPs—will make a massive difference in making it far easier to move provision. We are absolutely consulting on this; I continue to talk to military families and welcome their engagement on this important issue.”
“Last week, I met a Minister from the Ministry of Defence and we discussed exactly that issue. I have heard from service personnel who have turned down jobs as a result of being worried about provision for their child if they move. This issue is a massive priority for the Government, and we are working on it.”
“I would really like to thank my hon. Friend and the chair of the APPG for organising that meeting; it was an impactful conversation. Members have spoken today about service families really struggling to navigate the SEND system. The people I spoke to welcomed some of the changes I have set out today, but they also set out new ideas, which we will be looking at as part of our response to the consultation.”
“The Government recognise the essential role that small schools play in their communities, many of which are in rural areas. The national funding formula for schools accounts for the challenges faced by small schools in rural areas by providing additional funding through the lump sum and the sparsity factor.”
“I welcome the hon. Member’s taking the time to meet me to discuss the situation in his constituency and the pressure that falling birth rates are having on small schools. I have subsequently followed up on our conversation by meeting his local council about how we can work in partnership to support his constituency and the wider Norfolk area as it faces those pressures. I am happy to continue conversations about the Government’s work to support rural schools, which we are prioritising and funding, as I set out.”
“I wholeheartedly agree with my good friend, who is a great champion for rural schools; they have a very special place at the heart of our communities. The national funding formula allocates funding based on a consistent assessment of need. The lump sum is particularly beneficial to small schools, which are most reliant on the element of funding that is not driven by pupil numbers.”
“Children with special educational needs and disabilities have been let down for too long. We are determined to transform their experiences and outcomes. We are working with young people, parents and professionals to create a system where needs are identified and met early and schools have the training, resources and physical environments to be inclusive for all children. We will end the postcode lottery for children with complex needs, with stronger national standards for specialist provision and a new role for the best specialist schools as centres for excellence.”
“I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member to discuss funding. As he knows, it is an area that we are heavily investing in, with £4 billion going into early intervention to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. We will be consulting on how we fund special educational needs and the formula in the future, and I would be happy to discuss that.”
“Many hon. Members across the House have talked to me about the issues with local authorities’ delivery on SEND. The Department is determined to hold local authorities to account and ensure that they are all doing everything they can to support children and young people. We are putting in significant funding and support, but it is critical that that support really transforms things for children. We are carefully looking at all the SEND reform plans that have come back from local authorities and ensuring that they are of sufficient quality to turn things around, but we will be working with local authorities who need more support.”
“I would be happy to meet the hon. Member, and I did not get a chance to say that I am also happy to meet the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green). These are critical issues, and we want to see provision come forward.”
“We have set out guidance on investment for local authorities and I know that local authorities around the country are busy building that offer. I was in Rochdale last week, where the amazing work going on with speech and language therapists in schools has seen a more than 80% reduction in waiting lists for children. We are really excited about the opportunity to bring these vital experts—specialist teachers, speech and language therapists and many others—directly into schools, and as we have heard, there is work going on to start this in September.”
“Absolutely. We are investing £3.7 billion into creating 60,000 new specialist places, and I have heard from families how life-changing it is to have that provision in their community. Children who have been out of school, sometimes for years, are now back in education. Earlier we were talking about the issues affecting rural schools, and there are real opportunities to create inclusion bases in schools around the country.”
“When we came into Government, we made a significant increase to the high needs block, precisely because we knew that investment in special educational needs and disabilities was desperately needed. Hon. Members across the House will know that the current system has been failing for a long time. We are acting to reform the system, but we are also investing £4 billion into early intervention, £3.7 billion into capital places and £200 million into teacher training and supporting local authorities with their deficits. This is something we are taking absolutely seriously. It is at the heart of our agenda, and we are acting where the previous Government failed.”
“I very much agree that Ofsted inspections of multi-academy trusts are a really important lever in ensuring that inclusion is part of the decision making of all trusts and all schools.”
“That is just not true. In considering this issue, I have spent time with MPs from across the House and the families that they represent, and I cannot put into words the thought and care that so many MPs have put into holding surgeries and bringing groups together. I have talked to families with Liberal Democrat MPs, with Labour MPs and with many Conservative MPs. This is an area that everyone is taking really seriously. We have talked to families from all parts of the country with very strong views, and we are continuing to do that as part of our consultation.”
“We are committed to prioritising early intervention and making major increases in investment in SEND, investing £4 billion more over three years. That includes £1.8 billion so that every community has experts on hand, £1.6 billion to settings for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.”
“The Government are investing in special educational needs and disabilities, as I have set out. We have set out substantial investment over the next few years. We are currently consulting on special educational needs and disabilities reform. We will set out final plans on that reform after we have carefully looked at all the considerations.”
“I have heard from many families how critical SENDIASS is. We are continuing to fund SENDIASS, and in our consultation on SEND we included a question on how we can better support parents and on what investment we need to put in to do that, so it is an area that we are looking at.”
“We are determined to reverse the declining rates of activity for children and the stark inequalities we see across the country. We have confirmed £1 billion in funding for PE and school sports over three years to create stronger local partnerships to revitalise PE and school sports.”
“At the moment, too many children do not have access to sport and are not meeting the recommended 60 minutes of daily activity, so it is critical that we build something that supports schools, like the one the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, with national bodies to provide those opportunities. The funding breaks down into £580 million to build the new PE and school sport partnerships network, £200 million for improved facilities, and the rest for transitional support for schools through the year before we build the new service. There will be transitional support in place, but we will build something that is better for schools. I am happy to have a discussion with him to clarify matters.”
“Only half of children meet the chief medical officer’s recommendation of 60 active minutes a day. Although well intentioned and despite huge efforts from primary schools, the current system is not doing what it needs to do to turn the situation around. We know through talking to national bodies that a partnership model that brings our huge national resources, the energy from the world cup and the different clubs that are out there together with local schools is going to transform that investment. We are investing £1 billion over three years. I was in local government when the Conservatives cut youth clubs and community sports facilities, but we are investing.”
“Officials are meeting with Kent county council to understand the model. We are in favour of schools pooling resources to support children with special educational needs and disabilities, but there have to be safeguards. I would welcome the opportunity to speak further to understand my hon. Friend’s concerns.”
“Every year we review the bursaries across the system—there is a limited pot, so we look at where the need is highest—and we will review bursaries this year. We are also setting up a national centre for the arts, which will support teacher training for music as well as wider arts, because that is so critical to our agenda.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, and pay tribute to the amazing work she has set out. I thank Devon for her leadership and extend my heartfelt condolences to the family. It is so critical that we keep young people safe, and I hope we can continue to work together to do so.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy of the National Holocaust Museum, which plays a critical role in ensuring that children are educated about the Holocaust. That is a key priority for the Government, and I can of course commit to visiting that museum with him—I really welcome his work.”
“We are working with experts nationally to develop new national inclusion standards and specialist provision packages and to set out how we want to see children supported in mainstream schools and specialist schools. I would be happy to discuss that further with the hon. Member.”
“I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that issue. We have been talking to families of children with neurological issues, and it is an important area.”
“We are investing £1 billion over three years to build new sports networks. That money will be used by many different partners to support schools, bring resources together, and put funding directly into school budgets. We will be setting out more plans to reassure primary school heads of our commitment to increasing activity for children and young people.”
“I have spoken to families around the country who set out exactly that experience: watching their children fall further behind, and having to battle for the support that they desperately need. Our SEND reforms are about putting early intervention in place, supporting children at the earliest possible point, and transforming the system so that parents no longer have to battle to get their children the support they need.”
“We absolutely reject some of the calls we have heard from, for example, the Reform leader of Warwickshire county council to try to reduce those statutory distances. We are not in the business of reducing disabled children’s rights to transport. In conclusion, this has been a thoughtful and important debate. A number of issues have been raised that we must continue to look at. I hope we can follow up on conversations in relation to not only special educational needs and disabilities but the wider system and our shared ambition, which have been highlighted in this debate, to ensure that people have access to opportunity and education.”
“I will of course meet him and Lewis’s family to discuss it and look at what we can do to make changes in the future. I thank him for raising that—I am sorry that they got caught in that transition. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) also raised issues about safeguarding and an appalling tragedy that happened in his constituency. He will know that some of the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 were very much a response to the lessons learned from that horrendous case, but again I am very happy to meet him to discuss this further. More widely on the national criteria and the statutory guidance, we heard a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft), who is a brilliant campaigner on these issues. I want to reassure her that there is no intention to look at means testing.”
“At the moment, local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure no young person is prevented from attending education post 16 because of a lack of transport. Local authorities must publish annual transport statements on this, and it is expected that local authorities will make reasonable decisions. Many local authorities do subsidise transport for young people post 16, but I have very much heard the passionate responses in the Chamber today. The issue also came up in the SEND consultation that we recently completed. We will look carefully at those responses. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Windsor, said, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) made a powerful speech about an incredibly distressing story from his constituency.”
“The development of new places is critical, but it is also critical to make schools more inclusive for students—everything from improving school buildings and teaching—to develop the expertise around schools, so that local schools are accessible for children with SEND and every area has the right specialist provision available. This investment will transform children’s outcomes; it not only reduces travel time but, as we have heard, saves money, which is also important. And the money that is saved can go back into improving outcomes for children in some of the really critical issues that have been raised during this debate. We also heard a number of Members talk about support for young people post 16. There was a particularly powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) on the topic.”
“Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin), who spoke for the Opposition, rightly challenged me on how we can move as quickly as possible to deliver such improvement. As he knows, we are investing £3.7 billion into 60,000 new places. That investment has gone in last year and this year, so it is going into communities urgently to help them to address those challenges. We are supporting a large number of free schools to go forward. As we have heard, some local authorities have chosen to use their share of that investment to move faster in providing new places, at a cost of around £50,000 per place.”
“For some children who sometimes have issues regulating and who can find change disruptive, as well as for their families, that can be an incredibly distressing experience, despite the best efforts of the providers. This also disconnects children from their communities. I always remember speaking to an 18-year-old who travelled a long distance to school every day. He said that when he returned to his community, he did not have friends or networks within it, so he felt very isolated going into adulthood. It is therefore incredibly important that children have access to SEND provision locally and closer to home, and Members today have agreed with that. Improving home-to-school transport is core to the SEND reforms. The hon.”