The government's SEND consultation, published last month, sets out plans to overhaul a system that the previous government worked hard to build and strengthen.

The 2014 Children and Families Act introduced the Education, Health and Care Plan – a reform that gave families a single, legally binding document designed to guarantee coordinated support across education, health and care. Before EHCPs, families navigated a fragmented patchwork of statements with no single body accountable for delivery.

Conservative investment in specialist places, early intervention and the EHCP framework created the architecture this government has inherited.

The number of children with EHCPs has grown significantly and local authority budgets have felt the pressure, including here in Warwickshire.

But the right response to a system under strain is to strengthen it, not to quietly unpick the legal protections that families depend upon.

I know from constituents across Kenilworth and Southam just how challenging the current system can be to navigate, and I share their concerns about consistency. That is precisely why legal safeguards matter. They are the floor, not the ceiling.

There is a real risk that this consultation incentivises families to rush to secure acute provision ahead of the September 2029 deadline, before new and less bespoke arrangements take effect – arrangements the government has yet to clearly define or guarantee.

That is not reform, it is manufactured anxiety and a direct consequence of the government's failure to give parents clear answers about what could replace the EHCP's legal force.

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The government has offered warm words about quality and complexity being protected, but assurances are not guarantees, which an EHCP is designed to be.

It means that from school to school, from setting to setting, a child's care is legally enforceable and cannot simply be withdrawn at an institution's discretion.

Any reform that weakens that certainty is not progress. It is a step backwards for the children who need our support the most.