It is with a heart that feels really heavy, and feeling a sense of urgency and dread that I cannot shake, which draws me to put "pen to paper".
Recent reports that the government is considering stripping parents of their right to properly appeal decisions about their children’s Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are nothing short of chilling.
Appeals will just be limited to just the process, and not the actual decision, is, as leading experts have called it, a “two-finger salute to the rule of law.”
For them to justify this by pointing to a 96-99% parent success rate at Tribunal is an admission of catastrophic failure—not by parents, but by a system that is consistently letting our most vulnerable children down.
There are over 600,000 children with EHCPs in England. This isn’t about statistics; it’s about childhoods, potential, and families being pushed to breaking point. Removing enforceable rights doesn’t magically meet needs. It leads to educational exclusion, mental health crises, and greater long-term human and financial costs. It is a profound betrayal.
This comes on top of a system where, as many teachers will tell you, ‘inclusion’ has too often become mere ‘containment’—children placed in libraries or cupboard size rooms, without the specialist support they need and are legally entitled to.
The problem is not a lack of teacher goodwill, but a chronic, systemic lack of the basics: people, time, space, and genuine expertise.
It paints a bleak picture. But I want to tell you, with every fibre of my being, that it does not have to be this way. There is another path.
The Green Party offers real hope and real change. We believe education should be about inspiring a love of learning and ensuring every young person can thrive, not just survive. Our vision is for a Fairer, Greener Education System, and our policies are a blueprint for transformation:
· Proper Investment & Respect: We will continue to fight for an £8 billion increase in school funding, including £2 billion for a long-overdue pay uplift for our dedicated teachers. We want to ensure every school building is safe, investing £2.5 billion a year to fix the RAAC concrete scandal and crumbling infrastructure.
· Ending the Factory Line: Our plans will abolish OFSTED and end high-stakes testing, liberating our schools from fear and data-chasing. We also pledged to review assessment so arts, vocational subjects, and outdoor learning are valued equally.
· Support from the Start: We continue to advocate for £1.4 billion per year for restored Sure Start Centres and will extend truly affordable childcare from nine months.
· A Fair System for All: We have pledged to move academies into local democratic control.
· Crucially, we will continue to push for £5 billion to be invested in SEND provision within mainstream schools. We will fully restore school nurses and ensure every school and college has access to a qualified counsellor. We believe in enforceable rights backed by resources.
· We will also scrap university tuition fees, restore grants, and bring back the Education Maintenance Allowance, and ensure every child learns about the climate and nature crises, with hands-on growing and cooking food in the curriculum, and the effective delivery of a new Natural History GCSE.
This is the greenprint. It’s about valuing our children as individuals, not outputs. It’s about equipping them for the future, not warehousing them in the present.
The current approach to SEND is at a crossroads—one path leads to the dismantling of hard-won rights; the other, which we champion, leads to building the capacity and community our children deserve.
I see the detailed, and consistent evidence from your lived experiences, and my own, every single day.
This fuels my determination. Together, we can build an education system that nurtures, not neglects; that includes, not excludes; that offers a future of possibility for every single child.
In hope and solidarity
Mark Webster
Green Party
Telford and Wrekin Disability Officer
Recent reports that the government is considering stripping parents of their right to properly appeal decisions about their children’s Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are nothing short of chilling.
Appeals will just be limited to just the process, and not the actual decision, is, as leading experts have called it, a “two-finger salute to the rule of law.”
For them to justify this by pointing to a 96-99% parent success rate at Tribunal is an admission of catastrophic failure—not by parents, but by a system that is consistently letting our most vulnerable children down.
There are over 600,000 children with EHCPs in England. This isn’t about statistics; it’s about childhoods, potential, and families being pushed to breaking point. Removing enforceable rights doesn’t magically meet needs. It leads to educational exclusion, mental health crises, and greater long-term human and financial costs. It is a profound betrayal.
This comes on top of a system where, as many teachers will tell you, ‘inclusion’ has too often become mere ‘containment’—children placed in libraries or cupboard size rooms, without the specialist support they need and are legally entitled to.
The problem is not a lack of teacher goodwill, but a chronic, systemic lack of the basics: people, time, space, and genuine expertise.
It paints a bleak picture. But I want to tell you, with every fibre of my being, that it does not have to be this way. There is another path.
The Green Party offers real hope and real change. We believe education should be about inspiring a love of learning and ensuring every young person can thrive, not just survive. Our vision is for a Fairer, Greener Education System, and our policies are a blueprint for transformation:
· Proper Investment & Respect: We will continue to fight for an £8 billion increase in school funding, including £2 billion for a long-overdue pay uplift for our dedicated teachers. We want to ensure every school building is safe, investing £2.5 billion a year to fix the RAAC concrete scandal and crumbling infrastructure.
· Ending the Factory Line: Our plans will abolish OFSTED and end high-stakes testing, liberating our schools from fear and data-chasing. We also pledged to review assessment so arts, vocational subjects, and outdoor learning are valued equally.
· Support from the Start: We continue to advocate for £1.4 billion per year for restored Sure Start Centres and will extend truly affordable childcare from nine months.
· A Fair System for All: We have pledged to move academies into local democratic control.
· Crucially, we will continue to push for £5 billion to be invested in SEND provision within mainstream schools. We will fully restore school nurses and ensure every school and college has access to a qualified counsellor. We believe in enforceable rights backed by resources.
· We will also scrap university tuition fees, restore grants, and bring back the Education Maintenance Allowance, and ensure every child learns about the climate and nature crises, with hands-on growing and cooking food in the curriculum, and the effective delivery of a new Natural History GCSE.
This is the greenprint. It’s about valuing our children as individuals, not outputs. It’s about equipping them for the future, not warehousing them in the present.
The current approach to SEND is at a crossroads—one path leads to the dismantling of hard-won rights; the other, which we champion, leads to building the capacity and community our children deserve.
I see the detailed, and consistent evidence from your lived experiences, and my own, every single day.
This fuels my determination. Together, we can build an education system that nurtures, not neglects; that includes, not excludes; that offers a future of possibility for every single child.
In hope and solidarity
Mark Webster
Green Party
Telford and Wrekin Disability Officer
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