The Bishop of Sheffield asked a question on ensuring vulnerable children with SEND on 11th December 2024, such as those in the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller community, and those living in extreme poverty, are able to fully access SEND services:
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, despite significant progress in the identification of pupils with SEND in recent years, some groups remain significantly underrepresented in accessing a formal diagnosis and acquiring an EHCP. Looked-after children as well as those experiencing the most severe poverty and those who belong to Romany, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities face particularly serious barriers. What steps will the Government take to ensure that the most vulnerable children with SEND are better served?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab, DfE): The right reverend Prelate is exactly right that, where you see an assessment of special educational needs alongside other areas of disadvantage, there is, if you like, an additional concern and an additional difficulty for those children to succeed. That is why we need to make our schools more inclusive, we need to make sure that we have the specialist workforce in place—some of which I have talked about today—and we need to make sure that investment is available in local authorities for those higher needs, and we need to make sure that we are intervening earlier. For example, as more children are able to get early years education alongside the trained support that we are providing in early years education, I hope that we will be able to identify those children earlier and start them off, at least, on a better chance of succeeding in our schools.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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