Graham Stuart MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Transport Infrastructure Funding · Hansard source

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  MPs and councils of all parties across east and north Yorkshire are united in wanting to enhance connectivity in the area, have greener options and optimise the economic output of the area, so will the Chancellor work with us on a cross-party basis to look at reopening a direct rail line from Hull to York, so that those great university cities can be united by effective transport infrastructure once again?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is always fair-minded in the Chamber and outside. She will recognise that 2.5 million, or perhaps as many as 3 million, more disabled people entered the workforce under the last Conservative Government. Does she share my concerns that the Bill could undermine the ability of people with disabilities to enter the labour market?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that the chief architect of the fiasco faced by people with disabilities and every member of the Labour party today is the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The fact that she is not here to face up and take responsibility is all we need to know about her and those on the Government Front Bench.

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  Twenty seconds.

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  We have, and I am chairing. You are not.

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  Order. Speakers have around four minutes—that is an informal initial steer.

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  Order.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Flood Defences: Chesterfield · Hansard source

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  You mean give him an update.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department for Education · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to be cheekily coming in at this point, but the East Riding of Yorkshire is the lowest-funded authority in the country for SEN. I hope we might hear from the Minister about how the distribution, as well as the quantum, can be made fairer. Unfair distribution exacerbates the strain in the system.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  At the weekend, Vivergo and Ensus workers learned that UK negotiators had successfully protected the UK bioethanol industry until President Trump called the Prime Minister and he sold out that industry, allowing a genetically modified bioethanol to flood the market and put all those jobs at risk. What can the Secretary of State tell those workers who feel that they have been sold out by our Prime Minister when negotiators had successfully protected an industry of the future?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Care in the Community · Hansard source

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  Dental patients with untreated need end up in hospitals. In places like Hedon in my constituency, we have seen more and more dental practices moving away from the NHS. I have a constituent who found it took her three years to get her child their first check-up, and that dental practice has now ceased to look after NHS patients. She also cannot get the NHS treatment she deserves herself, even though she had a child in February. What in the 10-year plan will change that and ensure that everyone can get access to NHS dentistry?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Support for Small Businesses · Hansard source

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  If the book that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) has written is a political thriller about fighting for small business, I am sure it features five heroes on the Government Front Bench doing everything they can to promote small business. But readers will ask, “Who is the villain of the piece?” Is it not obvious that it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is doing everything possible to undermine business, with 276,000 people having lost work since the autumn statement, and 109,000 in the month of May alone? When will the Ministers—the heroes of this story—fight against the Chancellor, who is getting so much so wrong?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Spending Review: Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) is absolutely right about social care. We have a system in which healthcare is dependent on social care—Lord Darzi says so, and I think even Ministers have said so—yet all funding is going into the NHS, not into social care. We are fundamentally pouring the money into a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The Minister pretends the exact opposite of the truth. Will she share a more honest assessment with the House? What went on? Labour had 14 years to think about it, and here we are with the funding going into the NHS. As the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), said, the Minister is following on from the last Conservative Government and pouring more and more money into an unreformed NHS with a social care system underneath it that is broken, and she is not doing anything about it.

• 12 Jun 2025 · UK-India Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  What’s it called?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She will be aware that the title of this debate, despite what it says on the screen, is “Distribution of SEND Funding”. I hope, therefore, that she will focus primarily on that particular technical point. The distribution of SEND funding across the country is, according to f40 and campaigners across the House, unfair, broken and needs to change. Is that the Government’s view and the Minister’s view? That is the first answer, and then we can turn to how it can best be fixed. The most important thing is to recognise whether it is broken or not. I feel it is unfair and broken, and I would like to hear the Minister say so, if she agrees.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is two things: she is quite right, and she is tempting me down a path I do not want to go down—I want to focus on the distribution, because it does not get the attention. However, she is absolutely right. Labour criticises the performance of the then Conservative Government, but I think funding for SEND actually grew 60% from 2019 to 2024. She is right that it is not about who is in government—somehow, we need to find ways of capping this demand, which will outstrip any Chancellor, however well intentioned. That is an issue. I will turn back to the point on which I am focusing, which is distribution. If demand in a system is growing at a scale that no Government can meet, distribution, although ignored, becomes even more important. If a system is straining and struggling, having grossly unfair distribution that no one seeks to or is able to defend—it is not a case of one party or the other claiming they are getting it right; they recognise it is unjust—is a major mistake, and we must find ways to balance it over time. It is not obvious at the moment that anyone is able to stop this imbalance between supply, which is so small, and demand, which is so big. Colleagues will have local champions back home who do their best to fight against regional inequalities. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Councillor Victoria Aitken in the East Riding, who is the portfolio holder responsible for SEND, and her role with the f40 group. For any newer Members present, the f40 group fights on the issues of and focuses on the funding formula disparities. It is technical and quite dull, but it is vital for the provision of services to our constituents. In her role with the f40 group, Victoria has been tireless in campaigning to address these issues within the SEND system, but sadly, the work of Victoria and others like her is not enough. I want to share the story of my constituent Ellie and her son Harry, who is nine and a half years old and has ADHD. From the very start of his education—as early as foundation stage—both Ellie and his teachers recognised that Harry needed extra support. However, without an EHCP in place, the help he required simply was not available, despite the school doing all that it could. Last summer, as Harry was preparing to enter year 4, Ellie contacted me in desperation. Harry was still only just beginning to read, and was spending his break times playing with children much younger than himself. Ellie had fought tirelessly to secure an assessment so that he could access one-to-one support, but the process was gruelling, and caseworkers were at capacity. Ellie had to give up her job to dedicate herself to the countless hours needed to complete forms, lodge appeals, chase responses and provide support at home. She put her own education on hold and, in her own words, has had to “battle the system” every step of the way. Just last week, after years of delay, Harry was finally granted an EHCP. However, the school still does not know when the funding will arrive to put the support, which has now been recognised, in place. Harry will start year 5 this September, several years behind his peers. Ellie describes Harry as a kind and lovely boy who has been failed—not by his school, but by a system that delays, deflects and denies the support that children like Harry need. Yet Ellie remains determined to keep fighting, no matter the cost to her or her family, to ensure that Harry gets the help he deserves.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the distribution of SEND funding. I am delighted to have secured this debate, as it gives us an opportunity to highlight the situation we are facing in England, where children with special educational needs and disabilities are being left behind due to the inherent regional inequality in the high-needs national funding formula. There is a bigger issue. The more typical thing we talk about is the overall quantum of spending based on overall need, but too little attention is given to the distribution of the funding that exists, whether in healthcare, education, policing or otherwise. I know I am not the only Member being turned to by constituents at their wits’ end, trying to navigate what feels to be a broken system; I thank colleagues across the House for their continued advocacy on behalf of some of the most vulnerable children in all our communities. My argument is a simple yet deeply important one: the current model of SEND funding is not only inconsistent but in too many cases profoundly unfair. It fails to account for genuine levels of need, the realities faced by families, and the systemic pressures that schools and local authorities are under. Unless that changes, we will continue to fail children who rely on Members to make their case and to get this right.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I was chairing the Education Committee when the coalition Government introduced the reforms that brought in EHCPs as a replacement for statements. I remember thinking then that lots of good improvements were made—there were very sincere Ministers working hard at it, and they brought in a better system—but the fundamentals remained as they were. One of the aims was to get away from an adversarial, legalistic process, in which articulate and typically better-off people were able to use sharp elbows to get their child what they needed, but pity the inarticulate single mother unable to engage with the system. What would she get? The then Government’s promise was to make that better, but the fundamentals remained. If demand is so much bigger than supply, this is what we will get. With the best will in the world, local authorities will end up being defensive and saying no as a matter of course, and will give way only when they are forced to. Am I going on too long, Madam Deputy Speaker?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank all colleagues for coming to the Chamber on this Thursday afternoon, because this issue is just so important. We have heard really interesting and reflective speeches from right across the House, as Members have sought to champion the children who probably most need help in our society, so it is right that we should be here. I thank the Minister for her response. I was slightly disappointed, because the title of this debate is “Distribution of SEND Funding”, and it is important to ask whether the distribution is right. Do the Government think that it is, or that it is not? I do not think that the system is defensible as it is, and it would be good to hear that said. Once one has recognised that the system is broken and unfair, the next question is: how shall we fix it? We did not get an answer to that, because we did not get an answer to the first question. The Minister’s response morphed into what we talk about generally, which is SEN overall, what the Government are doing, the £1 billion extra and all the other things, many of which are welcome, but the question underneath that is whether the distribution is right. If it is not, are we going to do something about it, while making these other changes? We did not get an answer to that. My appeal to the Minister—I think colleagues across the House will welcome this; I might even get a nod from some on the Government Benches—is to make sure that, in the White Paper, there is an opportunity to make the distribution fairer, if not immediately, then at least over time. We must recognise the problem and look to level up over time. That is not to penalise those who might be technically overfunded today, but to make sure that every child has a fairer and better chance of getting whatever we can best provide from the system. That is an important element of the overall discussion about SEND. We will doubtless hear more about this topic. The Minister did not seem absolutely clear whether EHCPs were here to stay. Resisting my own strictures on sticking to the subject of distribution, I will use the few seconds that I have left to talk about the EHCP system. When a child gets an EHCP, they get a better outcome. Perhaps that is driving parents to push their children to get one, and that may be contributing to the financial unsustainability of the system that we have today. It would be enormously controversial to look to remove it. At the moment we have a system that from 2019 to 2024 was increased by 60%. The Government are putting in another £1 billion, and another £760 million was announced yesterday, and that is welcome, but if we do not find a way of stabilising the system, we will still have those who are sharp-elbowed getting something for their kids and those who are not losing out. That is not a system that anyone across the House should be satisfied with. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the distribution of SEND funding.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  Perhaps my question could go through the hon. Member to the Minister if he does not know the answer. The £740 million is very welcome, but as he says it is frontloaded in one year and then halves the following year, with no indication of where it is going thereafter. Although it may be a welcome short-term intervention, how is it part of a sustainable effort to improve SEN?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  As usual, the hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. Many across this House will recognise the stories of the schools I have just mentioned, because the same thing is playing out in constituencies across the country. Parents are becoming de facto care co-ordinators; schools are dipping into ever-shrinking budgets to fund specialist provision; and local authorities are caught between legal responsibilities and budgetary reality.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a capacity issue, as I say, relating to demand. Getting people—not just specialists, but the whole system and everyone in it—to have a better understanding is really important. The hon. Gentleman will see that in his constituency, as I do in mine. It is not enough just to have the SENCO; it is about getting the leadership, the training and the right protocols in place to ensure that the whole system is better able to meet the needs of children, and that will then reduce some of the other impacts, including cost impacts, on the system. In recent weeks, I had the privilege of visiting Inmans primary school in Hedon, where staff spoke candidly about the mounting pressure created by soaring demand for SEND provision—pressures that far exceed the funding currently available. At St Mary’s school in Beverley, headteacher Laura Wallis expressed her deep concern at the growing gap between pupils’ needs and the resources she has at her disposal, making it ever-more difficult to provide the tailored support every child deserves.

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman takes me to a point further on in my speech, but he is absolutely right. He makes the case to the Minister, exactly as I intend to: given that we have a broken distribution system and given the severity of its impact on so many children and families, will she ensure that the money in the spending review is, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, used precisely for that purpose and that we target those who are most left behind? At the heart of this debate, I am calling on the Government to identify and commit to a clear baseline cost for delivering effective SEND support per pupil. The figure must reflect what it genuinely takes, in both urban and rural settings, to support children with complex needs across the country. Only then can we ensure that no child’s opportunity is limited by where they live. I want to bring to the attention of the House a stark example that illustrates the postcode lottery in SEND funding: the disparity between the East Riding of Yorkshire, which covers my own constituency of Beverley and Holderness, at the lowest end of the funding spectrum—we are the lowest funded in the country—and the London borough of Camden, which happens to be the highest. Camden, by any standard, is a well-resourced inner-city borough with strong proximity to specialist services. It currently receives £3,564.95 of SEND funding for each pupil in its area. Meanwhile, in East Riding—a rural area with fewer nearby services, longer travel distances and greater challenges in recruitment and retention—per-pupil high-needs funding comes in at around £968. That is a gap of over £2,500 for every single child requiring extra support. In real terms, if East Riding’s funding was matched not with Camden but with the second most poorly funded local authority, we would have an extra £18 million per year on top of the £43 million we receive in the higher needs block—£18 million extra. If we were brought into line with Camden, we would have an extra £100 million. Some might argue that urban areas face different pressures, and of course they do, but let us be clear: the cost of delivering quality SEND provision in rural areas is not lower. In fact, it is often significantly higher. Transport costs—colleagues across the House will be aware of children who have to be moved great distances to access their support—for children with complex needs can be astronomical. Recruiting specialist staff, such as special educational needs co-ordinators, to work in isolated schools is a constant challenge. When services such as educational psychologists or speech and language therapists are not based locally, schools and families face unacceptable delays in accessing the assessments needed to unlock further support. Why, then, is rurality not factored into the high-needs funding formula? What that means in practice is that two children with identical needs, living in different parts of the country, will receive vastly different levels of support. One might have their education, health and care plan reviewed on time, access in-school provision, and benefit from local therapy services. The other might be left waiting months for assessment, with a school already at breaking point trying to bridge the gap. This disparity will have a long-term detriment to children’s outcomes. This is not a criticism of any local authority—Camden, like all areas, faces its own pressures and challenges—but the system we have allows such disparities to persist without sufficient recourse or flexibility. These widely varying funding allocations create a two-tiered system in what should be a national commitment. Colleagues from across the House will be familiar with constituents whose stories lay bare the human cost of this imbalance, whether it is parents desperately trying to navigate the EHCP system, the lack of suitable school places nearby to cope with the measures required by their EHCP, or schools struggling to cope. This is also certainly not a party political point. Successive Governments have sat over funding disparities and struggled with the politics. They have been unprepared to reallocate, perhaps for understandable reasons. The people you take money from tend to be much angrier than the people you give it to are happy: one marches on Westminster, the other grunts and says, “About time.” It is a truly difficult thing. I have been in this place for 20 years and have struggled to get Ministers to accept reallocation and reapportionment. Rather than asking for that demand, which I have so far failed in 20 years of effort to get anybody to implement, I hope to come up with something more practical, if compromised as a result.