Skip to main content
Advertise Buy the paper Contact us Shop Subscribe Support us
Proper funding must be restored for special educational needs
Labour’s refusal to restore council funding is a betrayal of the vulnerable, and particularly of Send children and young people, says independent candidate CLAUDIA WEBBE

LABOUR’S refusal to promise to restore council funding to the levels in place before the 2010 Conservative government is a betrayal that means many of our most vulnerable people will continue to live in poverty and hardship and our communities will remain in economic decline.

Councils across England have cut services to the bone because of the Tories’ ideologically driven cuts — and the Labour Party will not reverse these cuts if it gets into government this week.

To take a very concrete example, Leicester City Council, like many local authorities, is treating young people with special education needs and/or disabilities (Send) as scapegoats for the budget-cutting measures forced on the council by central government funding cuts.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 10 February 2025
10 February 2025
The Labour Party, once the proud architect of our health service, has become its undertaker, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Features / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
What we are seeing now in the policing of Gaza protests is a manifestation of an authoritarianism that the government intends to inflict on our country, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Features / 14 January 2025
14 January 2025
Instead of responding to changed circumstances by adjusting policy, Reeves is using fiscal ‘rules’ as an excuse to force government departments to make even deeper cuts than she had already flagged, says CLAUDIA WEBBE
Features / 17 December 2024
17 December 2024
While Starmer courts BlackRock and backs genocide, leading to despair and historically low voter turnout, the vultures of the new populist right circle Britain’s crumbling institutions, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
Similar stories
Features / 27 August 2024
27 August 2024
The so-called peace deal trumpeted by Blinken is so weighted towards Israel’s political goals as to be a total non-starter, while at the same time the US continues to reject any meaningful arms embargo, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
Features / 7 June 2024
7 June 2024
Breaking the duopoly of British politics is not easy, but it is essential as working people are crying out for change, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Features / 12 March 2024
12 March 2024
The Britain-India trade deal must stop until the truth is known about the anti-Sikh murder campaign, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
Features / 29 February 2024
29 February 2024
We must not turn a blind eye to Britain's complicity in the suffering of the Palestinian people through its billion-pound weapons deals with some of the most oppressive governments in the world, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP