Numerous families have reported that Surrey County Council have failed to secure their child’s Alternative Provision or EOTAS for the next academic year. In some cases, concerns have been raised for months, often with no direct communication. Providers have also allegedly been ‘explicitly instructed’ by Surrey to stop all provision beyond current approval dates. Alongside fellow Surrey Lib Dem MPs, I’ve written to the council calling for transparency on the scale of this issue and clear action to ensure no child is without vital provision this September.

Last week, I presented Christopher’s Law to Parliament, which would tighten safeguards in the Mental Capacity Act, potentially saving countless lives. I spoke about three mothers. Each one has tragically lost a son due to failings in this Act. Earlier this year, the government committed to reviewing and reforming this law, so I have written to them, alongside these three mothers, calling on them to make time for a second reading of Christopher’s law, which realises this commitment.

Yesterday I spoke during the debate of the Hillsborough Law, which would create a legal duty on public bodies to tell the truth. The government is finally listening to Hillsborough victim’s families. It is galling that there continues to be a conspiracy of silence on SEND misconduct. I have given the government evidence that potentially hundreds of SEND children are avoidably killing themselves due to public authority negligence and misconduct, including my constituent Jen Bridges-Chalkley aged 17. Appallingly we don’t even know how many avoidable child suicides there are because there is no national preventable death tracker. 

Among the hundreds of dead, Fiona lost her Christopher, Annabel lost her Charlie, and Jo lost her Harley. This is the cost of Parliament failing to act when it learned in 2014 of failures in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. These three mothers came to Parliament today, not only in grief but to save lives. I presented a Bill to Parliament, Christopher’s Law, with cross-party backing to honour that. 

The Education Secretary has described the sickening revelations from a SEND local authority whistleblower broadcast by ITV as “completely unacceptable”. Yet I have supplied her with similar evidence of widespread local authority misconduct, some possibly criminal, for over a year. To my knowledge no one has been fired or held accountable. I have also given her evidence of an epidemic of avoidable SEND child suicide caused by public authority negligence, including by some of these same local authorities. I expect further sickening revelations in the national media in the coming months. It is now morally indefensible for the government to proceed with reducing children’s legal protections in favour of these local authorities. I have written again to the Ed Sec. Further inaction risks the government being complicit.

“Senior council managers encouraged colleagues to make it difficult for families to access special needs support and laughed about denying help to children with SEND.” ITV has broadcast shocking footage of council officer misconduct on SEND. I believe this should be investigated whether it constitutes criminal misconduct in public office. This corroborates some of over 1200 family testimonies that I have received related to council misconduct across 134 local authorities. It is staggering that the government is seeking to reduce children’s legal SEND rights in favour of local authorities in the face of industrial levels of misconduct. We potentially have an epidemic of avoidable child suicide because local authorities are knowingly breaking the law and denying families support.

Read more here: Managers told council staff to delay access to SEND support and laughed about it, whistleblower says | ITV News 

Share your testimony here: https://survey.yourviewsyourvoice.org