Hansard

Mr Balfour raises a hugely important point. He is absolutely correct to say that additional support needs in our schools have grown in recent years. That has been driven, in part, by greater identification, but it has also been driven by increasing complexity in the support needs that are emerging in our schools.

The Government is taking a range of actions. Mr Balfour will be aware of the statement that I gave to the Parliament in January, when I provided members with an update on the work that the Government has been leading through the additional support for learning action plan, which was informed by the Morgan review.

More broadly, Mr Balfour’s former party contributed to a cross-party review of ASL, which was published last week and was led by Janie McManus, the former chief inspector of education. The report includes six recommendations that set out the next steps for strengthening our system delivery: having a clear national approach to planning and staged intervention; workforce alignment to match today’s level of need; stronger early intervention capacity; improved national visibility of need and progress; a more coherent delivery model; and a more coherent curriculum.

We are taking a range of actions through the ASL action plan. Last week, I was delighted to attend the launch of Janie McManus’s review, which was commissioned on a cross-party basis. We will take further steps in that regard to protect the funding that I identified through the budget.