Scarborough and Whitby MP Alison Hume Welcomes Government’s “Reset Moment” for SEND Education

Alison Hume, the Member of Parliament for Scarborough and Whitby, has expressed a positive initial response to the government’s newly published education white paper.

The ambitious document outlines significant reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system, aiming to support the approximately 1.7 million children in England—roughly one in five—who require additional assistance in school.

For Ms Hume, the issue is not merely a matter of policy but one of deep personal significance. Speaking about her own experiences and the feedback from her constituents on the Yorkshire Coast, she highlighted the emotional toll the current system takes on families.

“My initial reaction to the white paper is positive as a a send parent who survived the send jungle with my son, this is incredibly personal for me and also my inbox has been jammed with hundreds of emails from constituents from families who are currently being failed.

I really understand what it feels like to be a parent fighting for what your kid needs and being failed.

The adversarial situation where you just feel like you're in a battleground the whole time trying just trying to get your child an education is is just horrendous and it's happening not just in Scarborough and Whitby but across the country”.

The government’s proposed changes seek to move away from this "battleground" by creating a simpler, more logical system. Central to these reforms is the introduction of a digital Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child with additional needs. These plans will serve as a transparent record of day-to-day support, accessible to both teachers and parents, and will be legally required for every school, nursery, and college to maintain.

To support these changes, the government has announced several key initiatives:

• A £200 million training programme to ensure every teacher, not just specialist staff, is equipped to support SEND children in their classrooms.
• The creation of 60,000 specialist places through more than £3.7 billion in funding, which includes the establishment of "inclusion bases" in mainstream schools to provide dedicated specialist teaching spaces.
• A new “Experts at Hand” service, backed by £1.8 billion, providing mainstream schools with easier access to specialists such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists.

Ms Hume believes these measures represent a significant step forward, noting that the government has been receptive to local concerns. She recently conducted a survey of approximately 300 people to ensure the voices of families in her constituency were heard at a national level.

“I think that this is a reset moment. It's a very ambitious pathway for us to go down.

I think it'll need tweaking. There'll be things that we perhaps haven't seen that need looking at. But what's really important is the government have listened. It's been delayed because they were listening.

I've done a recent survey. About 300 people got in touch with me and I've fed that back into government.

It's the start of a journey. It's not the complete solution. But we are over the next 10 years moving to a system which will deliver locally, deliver faster and be accountable because the lack of accountability has been one of the main issues for parents”.

While the white paper sets out a long-term vision, the government has stressed that these major changes will not happen overnight. No changes to the support provided by existing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) will begin before September 2030, and the government has pledged £7 billion more in SEND funding for the 2028-29 period compared to 2025-26 to facilitate the transition.