The paper says that education secretary Bridget Phillipson has insisted that ministers are committed to reforming support for children with learning difficulties or disabilities, which currently costs £12bn a year, but has refused to rule out scrapping key documents that families rely on to guarantee specialist help:
Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are statutory documents which outline the support needed to help children with special needs and disabilities achieve key life outcomes. Many seeing them as the only way to get schools to provide the support children need.
Asked whether she could rule out getting rid of EHCPs, Ms Phillipson described it as a “complex and sensitive area”.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she added: “What I can say very clearly is that we will strengthen and put in place better support for children.”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to parents, to disability rights groups, to campaigners and to others and to colleagues across Parliament as well, because it’s important to get this right,” she added, but said it is “tough”.
But one Labour MP told The Independent that a lot of his fellow backbenchers have strong relationships with Send campaigners, warning: “If they’re now being told by them this is a betrayal - combined with last week - they’ll be pushing back against any cuts.”
“People are angry with us. New MPs will be feeling that”, he added.
Other Labour MPs told The Times that the plans risk becoming “welfare mark two”, claiming that dozens of MPs are prepared to rebel over the issue.
One backbencher urged the government to “think again now or they’ll be repeating the same mistake they made with welfare reform.”
“We’re all in favour of reforming the system but that cannot be driven by saving money and taking support away from children”, they added.
A second Labour MP said: “If they thought taking money away from disabled adults was bad, watch what happens when they try the same with disabled kids.”
Having forced a climbdown by the government once, Labour MPs are now getting antsy and starting to assert themselves. If Starmer continues to pursue his blue Labour agenda there may well be many more rebellions.
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