I hear the same stories week after week in surgeries and inboxes. Exhausted parents fighting for the support their children need and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans stuck at home for months because no suitable place can be found. Our local schools doing their best under impossible pressure. Surrey has long been one of the areas hardest hit by the national SEND crisis, and families here know the human cost better than most.
This is not a partisan issue. I know that cross-party concern is growing, and organisations like the SEND Matters Coalition are right to sound the alarm. The Liberal Democrats have always believed that every child has a right to an education that meets their needs. That principle must guide any reform.
I welcome the Government’s declared ambition to improve early identification and strengthen mainstream support. Extra resources for mainstream schools are necessary and many children with SEND can and should thrive in inclusive settings when the right help is in place from the start. However, it is simply not credible to claim that this alone solves the problem for those with the most complex needs. There is already a shortage of specialist places. Pretending otherwise risks leaving the most vulnerable children behind while the system is redesigned around those who can more easily be included. We cannot spend the next decade building a better system for the future while allowing a generation of children with complex needs to fall through the cracks in the meantime.
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