‘The children we don’t see’

When I said the meeting would last fifteen minutes, I was wrong.

Politicians came for fifteen minutes. They stayed for two hours.

Committee Room 10 was standing room only. MPs and peers who had carved out a quarter-hour from a busy parliamentary day found themselves unable to leave. They stood at the back, lining the walls, listening.

The cross-party meeting I chaired in Parliament brought together families whose children have spent years waiting for the support they need. I had hoped that every Labour MP and peer would find fifteen minutes to attend.

We spend much of our political life debating growth, tax, immigration, defence and the NHS. Important subjects all. Yet there is another issue affecting hundreds of thousands of families that rarely commands the attention it deserves.

READ MORE: ‘SEND reforms are a crucial test of the opportunity mission’

What happens when a child needs help and the system designed to provide it cannot keep up?

For years, parents have been telling the same story: endless delays, battles and uncertainty. Families worn down by paperwork and appeals. Children waiting months, sometimes years, for support. Young people falling further behind while adults argue over funding, responsibility and process.

It is easy to talk about systems. It is much harder to confront the human consequences when those systems fail.

The Labour government has opened a national dialogue on SEND. The meeting was a chance for that conversation to continue.

That is why the room was full, and why the SEND Matters Coalition, of which I am proud to be a Patron, matters too.

This is not a niche issue affecting a small number of families. It is one of the biggest challenges facing our education system and one of the most urgent tests of our willingness to support the most vulnerable children in our society.

The families in that room were not asking for special treatment. They were asking for something more basic: that promises already made are kept.

Many had begun to feel hope when the Labour government announced plans to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The plans were not perfect, but they represented something important: an acknowledgement that too many children are being left behind.

Too many children are out of school. Too many parents are forced into battles they should never have to fight. Too many families are reaching breaking point.

With political attention shifting elsewhere, there is a real danger these children will become an afterthought once again.

Children cannot put their lives on hold while governments change, ministers move on or departments reconsider their priorities.

Reform is clearly needed; few would argue the current system is working as it should. But reform cannot become a euphemism for reducing support for the children who need it most.

For some children, specialist provision is not a luxury. It is the difference between thriving and failing. It is the difference between participation and exclusion.

If children with the most complex needs are denied the specialist support and settings that allow them to learn, the consequences will be felt far beyond those individual families. Those children will suffer first. They will lose opportunities, confidence and the chance to reach their potential.

Become a friend of LabourList and join our community. Our friends support our vital non-factional work and get access to exclusive content and events. 

Mainstream schools will feel the strain too. Teachers and support staff already stretched to their limits will be asked to meet increasingly complex needs without the resources, training or capacity to do so effectively. When that happens, every child in the classroom is affected.

This should never be framed as a choice between children with SEND and children without SEND. The truth is the opposite. A system that fails children with the greatest needs ultimately fails everyone.

We all have a responsibility never to forget the families that were broken by this, the parents who have given up their jobs and the mothers and grandmothers moved to tears as they told the stories of their struggle for their children’s education.

Getting support right for the most vulnerable children is not a special interest. It is a prerequisite for a school system that works for all children. The bill simply arrives later, paid through damaged lives, lost potential and problems that become far more difficult and expensive to address.

The measure of any society is how it treats those who need its help most. For Labour parliamentarians, that is the same test they apply to their own time in politics.

One parent I met that afternoon told me about the last seven years of their child’s life.

Seven years of watching other children leave for school each morning while theirs stayed at home. Seven years of trying to explain why the help their child needed never arrived. Seven years of forms, meetings, phone calls, assessments and appeals. Seven years of being told to wait. Seven years of watching confidence drain away, opportunities disappear and childhood pass by.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook. You can also write to our editor to share your thoughts on our stories and share your own. The best letters are published every Sunday.

Promises already made must survive the political changes ahead, or families will once again find themselves back at the beginning of a queue that never seems to move.

Children like theirs cannot wait for another review, another consultation or another government to decide what happens next.

They have already waited far too long. The politicians who came for fifteen minutes and stayed for two hours already know this.

Now they must act.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • BECOME A FRIEND: If you enjoyed this, why not consider becoming a Friend of LabourList? Help sustain our journalism, and of course Friends do get benefits…
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].