‘Support for children with additional learning needs is our red line’

Next week the new Plaid Cymru Government will face its first big vote – their supplementary budget. Plaid Cymru, who were elected in May for the first time ever, have made their first set of spending proposals. Why, then, did their initial spending plans allocate not a single penny to additional learning needs?

In England, it’s called special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND for short. In Wales, it’s called additional learning needs, or ALN, and over 40,000 children in school in Wales experience it. 

As a council leader myself, with responsibility over ALN provision in schools, the scale and complexity of needs is only increasing. This issue is not going away. The struggle to give these pupils the support they deserve is one of the things that keeps me up at night as a council leader.

In Torfaen, where I live and work as a council leader, we’ve made funding for schools our top priority over the past term. But despite everything we’re doing, I still too often see the lack of opportunity that robs children of the chance to realise their full potential. 

READ MORE: ‘How Burnham’s devolution revolution can deliver for North Wales’

So I was pleased that, underpinned by that core Labour value of fairness, the UK Labour Government designated extra funding to expand the support and opportunities afforded to all children. 

In Wales, we had a proud record under the previous Welsh Labour Government – we ensured that every single child in primary school had a free hot meal every lunchtime in termtime. Breakfast clubs, now being rolled out in England under Labour, have been running in Wales for almost twenty years. And the Welsh Labour Government spent hundreds of millions of pounds to support children with ALN, including £250 million spent on building new facilities and improving existing ones.

There is much left to do on both sides of the border, but I’m pleased to see that lead is now being followed in England. The UK Labour Government has invested in SEND, and invested in pupils who need that extra support in education, in order to fulfil the government’s mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child. 

In the 2024 General Election campaign, I knocked doors with that very mission printed on the leaflets I was holding, and with that very mission at the forefront of my mind. 

As readers may know, when the UK Government increases spending in an area that is the responsibility of the Welsh Government, Wales receives additional consequential funding. Education in Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government, so when the UK Government spends money on education in England, the Welsh Government gets some cash. 

I should note that the Welsh Government can spend that money on whatever they like – it doesn’t have to be education, even if the money is a consequence of education spending in England. That’s an important principle of devolution.

As I mentioned, the UK Labour Government has recently invested in SEND in England, so Wales has received £327 million in consequential funding. This has gone to the Welsh Government to decide what they want to do with it. And as I said previously, it is important to the future of devolution that the UK Government does not dictate what the Welsh Government spends its money on, nor is it trying to do so here. 

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But in Plaid Cymru’s initial supplementary budget, where they outlined how they would spend this and other leftover money, they did not commit to spending a penny of it on ALN in Wales. That is despite repeated calls from Plaid Cymru, including from Rhun ap Iorwerth, while in opposition, for more ALN funding for local authorities.

Plaid Cymru put out a social media post on ALN that said “under Plaid Cymru, the pupils who need support, will receive it.” But now, with their first chance to put action behind slogans, they are turning their backs on children with ALN.

Welsh Labour, alongside every single one of Wales’ 22 local authorities, as well as teaching unions, have called on the Welsh Government to use the additional money to fund support for ALN in schools in Wales.  In the spring, the Welsh Local Government Association reported that education was one of the ‘most acute pressures highlighted by councils’ as ‘ALN spending accounts for more than a quarter of all school budget pressures’.

Plaid Cymru do not have a majority in the Senedd. They need help to pass this budget vote, which will take place on Tuesday 14 July. Welsh Labour has been clear there needs to be more funding for ALN. The scale of the funding must match the scale of the enormous pressures facing schools. 

We recognise there are difficult choices running an administration – you don’t need to remind us as council leaders of that.

Our ask is not unreasonable – many councils would have liked to demand the full consequential amount, all £327 million. Instead, our Welsh Labour Senedd group has tried to be reasonable and seek a compromise and a solution to get more money for ALN.

We’ve heard warm words from Plaid Cymru, but little action. Those pupils who experience ALN aren’t asking for a head start, they’re asking for extra support to level the playing field, and for a fair shot to realise their full potential. If children in England are getting this support, why should children in Wales miss out?

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