Labour is vowing to strip funding from independent special schools today amid fears of a new ‘class war’ in education.

Ministers have unveiled a major overhaul of support for SEND and disadvantaged pupils with panic mounting over spiralling costs.

A £4billion package over three years will aim to bolster provision in mainstream schools and colleges, with a bank of specialist teachers and therapists in every area.

But in the face of pressure from Labour MPs and unions, the Government has conceded that SEND spending will not ease for at least five years, and potentially not until after 2035.  

Education minister Georgia Gould also made clear in a round of broadcast interviews this morning that money will be diverted from independent special schools – which many parents are currently able to choose. She accused them of ‘making profit over vulnerable children’.

Labour MPs are nervous about changes to EHCPs – which entitle children to the highest levels of support. 

From 2029, the plans are set to be reassessed once children reach the end of primary school. The Government admitted that means the proportion of children with EHCPs will drop from 5.8 per cent currently to around 4.7 per cent by 2034-35.

But there will be a legally-enforceable lower tier of SEND support, individual support plans (ISPs). A diagnosis will not be needed to access them. 

Under the proposals, pupils with less complex and serious needs, such as autism and ADHD, will reportedly no longer be deemed eligible for EHCPs after the number of children with them soared from 240,000 to 639,000 in a decade.

The number of EHCPs is predicted to keep rising until 2029-30 but then fall as they are restricted to only the highest needs. By 2035 around 270,000 fewer children will have the plans. 

ISPs will have multiple tiers of support – targeted and targeted plus. 

Assessments for the new system, which will be consulted on for 12 weeks, will start in September 2029 with no changes to current support before ‘at least September 2030’.

Keir Starmer held a breakfast meeting with school leaders and charities in Downing Street this morning.

Ahead of the draft proposals being officially published, he said: ‘For so many children, they are held back by a system that doesn’t work for them.’

The PM referred to his own brother Nick, who died on Boxing Day 2024, who had struggled with learning difficulties and was ‘put to one side’, adding that ‘his life was very different from mine’ because the system did not work for him.

‘I’m not saying for a moment there haven’t been huge improvements since then, but that same sense is still there of children who cannot find the opportunities and chances they need to go as far as their talents and their ability will take them,’ Sir Keir said.

The measures will go out for consultation for a year. 

Ms Gould told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that ‘too much’ money is ‘going into the wrong places’ with ‘private equity backed special schools making profit over vulnerable children’.

She said: ‘I think what we’ve seen has been a massive increase in spending, kind of 86 per cent over the last five years, but too much of that money is going into the wrong places. 

‘You know, private equity backed special schools making profit over vulnerable children.

‘We want that money to be going into our classrooms, to the kind of things that I talked about, because, you know, too many children are being failed.’

Ms Gould went on: ‘We are changing the way we spend money. We’re moving money away from the kind of private equity-backed independent special schools, introducing a new price cap to ensure that the savings from that is invested back into our education, into mainstream schools.’ 

The White Paper said: ‘We will also change the law on independent special schools to ensure that children get suitable high-quality placements and that local authorities pay a reasonable price for them.’ 

The Government claims that independent special schools charge an average of £63,000 per child per year, compared to £26,000 for a state special school. 

Around a third of independent special schools are backed by private equity firms, according to the Department for Education.

The Government says it will introduce ‘clear national price bands’ for how much can be charged.

A central part of the proposals would see reforms to how £8billion in funding is targeted, with household income rather than whether a child receives free school meals used to allocate it.

Labour’s new disadvantage funding formula would also consider where a child lives, as well as how low parental income is and how long this has been the case.

The Conservatives have criticised the proposals as being part of Labour’s class warfare, after VAT was added to private school fees. 

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the Government was ‘fiercely ambitious for children and young people with SEND’, who deserve a system that ‘lifts them up, and that puts no limit on what they can go on to achieve’.

She said: ‘These reforms are a watershed moment for a generation of young people and generations to come, and a major milestone in this Government’s mission to make sure opportunity is for each and every child.’

But NASUWT general secretary Matt Wrack said the idea that SEND provision could be adequately overhauled with ‘this low level of funding’ was ‘ridiculous’.

‘While increased early support for SEND is welcome, years of underfunding and diminished external services mean that this new funding is barely a drop in the bucket of the investment necessary to drive real improvement in schools,’ he said.

Tory shadow education secretary Laura Trott said: ‘Every child deserves to receive the support they need. But it is wrong to narrow the disadvantage gap by dragging everyone down.’

Yesterday Ms Phillipson was forced to deny she was a ‘class warrior’ as she vowed to ‘come down hard on those who are profiting from the system’.

Speaking to Times Radio, she said: ‘We’ve seen a big expansion, for example, in private equity, in specialist schools, where the quality is often very, very variable, where the costs are high.’

Asked if she sees herself as ‘class warrior’, she responded: ‘No, I don’t. I’m really ambitious for every child in our country, regardless of background.’

Ms Phillipson has claimed the new funding formula is a ‘golden opportunity’ to cut the link between background and success.