Lack of SEND provision is one of most common complaints received by MPs, an ITV News survey shows
In an anonymous survey sent to all MPs, 70% of the 85 respondents said issues related to special educational needs and disabilities were now among the top five queries from constituents.
In addition, 62% said SEND was coming up more than twice a week in their inboxes – with 17% saying it was now a daily occurrence.
The MPs who responded identified issues related to Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP's) – the legal document outlining the necessary support for SEND children - as the most reoccurring complaint, followed by concerns over appropriate school places and lack of support from local authorities.
ITV News' findings come as the government is preparing to reform SEND support, with an update expected in the autumn in the school's white paper.
Demand for SEND provisions has surged in recent years.
More than 1.7 million pupils in England now have special educational needs, up 5.6 per cent from last year.
Meanwhile, a growing number of parents are having to fight local authorities for support, with 24,000 SEND tribunals recorded in 2024/5 - a 36 per cent increase from the last financial year.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson says Labour inherited 'a SEND system on its knees" with too many children "not having their needs identified at an early enough stage, creating a vicious cycle of overwhelmed local services and children's support needs escalating to crisis point."
According to Department for Education statistics published on Thursday, the number of children with EHCPs increased to increased to 638,700 - as of January 2025, meanwhile only 46% of plans were issued within the required 20 week deadline.
Government officials told ITV News there remains an active debate about the implementation of EHCPs.
'It currently takes hundreds of bits of paperwork and long delays for a child simply to be advised to see a speech therapist - there needs to be a more efficient way,' one source said.
ITV News understands there are concerns within the Department for Education about how to pitch any possible reforms to parents - with officials acknowledging many have had to fight 'tooth and nail' for the little support they have.
Following reports that changes to support are under discussion, a petition urging the government to 'retain the legal right to assessment and support in education for children with SEND' has already surpassed 100,000 signatures.
We've spent the past few weeks travelling across the country, meeting with MPs and their constituents to understand the scale of the crisis – and it's clear frustration among parents is widespread.
'Every single week, I get parents approaching me with their children, unable to get EHCPs, not getting the support they need in schools,' explained Alex Ballinger, the newly elected Labour MP for Halesowen, in the West Midlands.
'I think it's probably the largest amount of casework of any type of support that people come to me for."
ITV News attended a SEND roundtable with Mr Ballinger, where he heard the concerns from parents and teachers.
The MP says these roundtables help inform his discussions with ministers in the Department for Education and Department for Health and Social Care, as they continue to work on reforming the sector.
In recent months, the government has ramped up funding to increase inclusivity in state schools.
'As part of our Plan for Change, we already taking the first steps, including more early intervention across speech and language, ADHD and autism to prevent needs from escalating and £740 million to encourage councils to create more specialist places in mainstream schools,' a Department for Education spokesperson said.
But Mr Ballinger argued under the current system 'there will never be enough money to make it work in the way that it should be."
His constituent, Natalie Child argues that reform is already too late for her ten-year-old daughter Amelia.
Amelia is autistic and is currently within a state mainstream primary school, but her mother is struggling to obtain an appropriate secondary school place.
'When she first started at her primary school, she was completely non-verbal, completely uncoordinated,' Natalie explained.
'But she has come on so much under their guidance. The teachers on the ground have been good with her, but she won't get that support going up into secondary school.'
Natalie is waiting for an already delayed EHCP review from her local authority and says she has had little communication with their caseworker.
'SEND schools have turned her down because they've said she's not got moderate or severe learning difficulties,' she added. 'So she's not disabled enough for a SEND school, but she can't cope in mainstream and it will restrict her academically.'
Natalie is doubtful that any changes will come in time to benefit her daughter.
'Her school placement is here and now," she insisted."Not in a year, not in five years. It's here and now.'
Many families have told ITV News they feel their children have been failed by a multitude of public bodies from councils to schools.
But Alberto Costa, Conservative MP for South Leicestershire, argues the role played by GPs and NHS trusts also requires further scrutiny.
'We're not reaching breaking point. We've long passed breaking point,' he argued. 'The system has totally failed. Children are being referred by their GPS for assessment and never receive an assessment.'
Parents and MPs say the emotional impact of such delays on the family can't be underestimated.
Stephanie Harris turned to her local MP – Liberal Democrat Monica Harding - last summer after struggling to obtain support for her nine-year-old son Austin who has dyslexia, dysgraphia and anxiety.
'I remember turning up to your (Monica's) office in tears and being at the point where I didn't feel like we could cope and go on as a family,' explained the mother of two.
'I think when you're at the point of applying for an EHCP, the child and the family are probably at their lowest because that's when their needs are highest, but they're not being met.'
Austin remains enrolled at his local mainstream school, but last December Stephanie and the family made the difficult decision to remove him from the setting.
'It went a whole calendar year of struggling to get him into school. He was out of the classroom for a lot of the time. His distress levels were getting higher,' she explained.
The process of obtaining an EHCP for Austin took more than 40 weeks – in the meantime Stephanie and the family have had to source alternative provisions for his education.
'It's been quite isolating. We missed out on a lot of family events. We've probably lost friends throughout the process," she said. "We've spent probably over £10,000 trying to get the right support in place, trying to advocate for Austin.'
Surrey County Council has now agreed to fund an independent placement starting this September, but Stephanie like other parents, stressed that any SEND reform needed to put the needs of the children front and centre.
'I think the curriculum needs to be overhauled," she told ITV News. "I think they need to have different ways of assessing children even from a very, very young age in school.
'Taking away legal rights of parents is something that I worry about and a lot of people that I speak to within the SEND community really worry about.'
Ms Harding, who represents the constituency of Esther and Walton, is among a handful of MPs – elected in July 2024 - who say they have been 'shining a light' on the challenges facing families.
She is critical of what she describes as the 'adversarial' approach adopted by many councils .
'The local authority, whose statutory duty is to the child, have to be more open with the family and work with the family instead of against the family.'
But her big concern is the cases that don't make their way to her inbox.
'These are the ones that we know about, the ones that come to my surgery...The vast majority don't come to me,' she said.
'These are children that are dysregulated, being excluded from school, their life chances are going down the pan because they don't have support in place. So Stephanie is amazing, she's talking for a community, but behind her there are so many children that are missing out.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wales Online
22 minutes ago
- Wales Online
Government strikes returns deal with Iraq in latest bid to deter small boats
Government strikes returns deal with Iraq in latest bid to deter small boats The deal, signed by Home Office minister Dan Jarvis, will set up a formal process to return Iraqis who have arrived in the UK with no right to stay in the country A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to the Border Force compound in Dover, Kent (Image: PA Wire/PA Images) The Government has agreed a new deal with Iraq to return illegal migrants as part of wider moves to limit small boat crossings. The deal, signed by Home Office minister Dan Jarvis, will set up a formal process to return Iraqis who have arrived in the UK with no right to stay in the country. It comes after an £800,000 deal last year with Baghdad to help the country crack down on smuggling networks and organised crime. Earlier this year Sir Keir Starmer and Iraq's prime minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani agreed to strengthen co-operation on migration. Mr Jarvis signed the agreement during a visit to the UK by Iraq's deputy foreign minister Faud Hussein. The Home Office said the accord would allow the "swift" return of illegal migrants. Home Office statistics said since previous deals, the number of Iraqis arriving in the UK by small boat has fallen to 1,900 in the year to March 2025, down from 2,600 in the previous year. Article continues below Mr Jarvis said: "By working together on security, development and migration challenges, we are building stronger relationships that benefit both our countries whilst tackling shared challenges like organised crime and irregular migration." The returns deal is the latest as part of the Home Office's policies to stop small boats crossing the channel. Similar agreements have already been made with Albania and Vietnam since Labour came into power. Another deal with France recently came into force, where small boat migrants who have arrived over the English Channel from the French coast can be returned to the country. The small boats migrant will then be exchanged for a legitimate asylum seeker in France who can demonstrate a genuine family link to the UK. The number has been capped, but it is hoped it will act as a deterrent to those crossing the Channel. The latest figures from the Home Office showed 116 migrants arrived aboard two small boats on August 15. Mr Jarvis said: "This visit reinforces the strength of the UK-Iraq partnership and demonstrates our government's commitment to serious diplomacy that delivers real results. "As someone who served in Iraq, I understand first-hand the importance of building enduring relationships in the region, and the new agreement we have signed is a testament to the trust and co-operation we've built with our Iraqi counterparts." However, the announcement was criticised by Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp. He said: "Over 50,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel in Labour's short time in power, the worst illegal immigration crisis in our history. "Labour has surrendered our borders, and the consequences are being felt in our communities, from rising crime to shocking cases of rape and sexual assault by recent arrivals. "Now they boast about a measly returns deal with Iraq, but barely any small boat arrivals are Iraqi, and most would qualify for asylum anyway. It's a sham designed to look tough while crossings keep soaring. Article continues below "Labour has scrapped Conservative deterrents and created the conditions for chaos, leaving the British people to foot the bill. Only the Conservatives will stop the crossings and restore control of Britain's borders."
The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wednesday briefing: Is Rachel Reeves about to overhaul the dreaded council tax?
Good morning. Britain's fiscal outlook is bleak. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, faces the daunting task of closing a £40bn black hole in the public finances. There is intense speculation over how she intends to, as runs that oft-used phrase, balance the books. This week, my colleagues have reported that the chancellor is considering a new 'proportional' property tax. It would mark a radical overhaul of stamp duty and council tax. While there has been a good deal of focus on stamp duty, changes to council tax in England have the potential to be the most transformative – and explosive. Almost all political parties agree that the council tax system – which replaced the deeply unpopular poll tax in 1991 and has remained unchanged since – is unfair and must be reformed. But just how to do so is notoriously complex and politically tricky – especially when so many local councils are strapped for cash. To better understand how England's council tax system exacerbates inequalities and why it has proven so difficult to change, I spoke with Richard Partington, the Guardian's senior economics correspondent. That's after the headlines. Ukraine | Donald Trump ruled out the deployment of American troops in Ukraine in his first interview after yesterday's White House meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European leaders. UK news | Keir Starmer's asylum plans have been plunged into turmoil after a high court ruling blocked people seeking refuge from being housed in an Essex hotel. Gaza | Israel has said it will deliver its response to international mediators by Friday over a new Gaza ceasefire plan accepted by Hamas amid mounting pressure for a truce. UK politics | A Reform UK-led county council has served its residents a 'plate of chaos' from the start of its leadership, according to its Conservative opposition. Work | Older employees who are disturbed by younger, more boisterous colleagues in the workplace are not victims of age harassment, an employment tribunal has ruled. When you move into a new home, one of the first letters that comes through your letterbox is the amount of council tax you owe to the local authority. This local form of taxation is paid by every household living in the area, whether renting or owning. The funds are used to pay for services from rubbish collection to meals on wheels. It is a tax that people can see and feel in their daily lives. Just how council tax came to be goes some way to explain why there has been such a reluctance to try to change it. Before council tax, a system called rates used to fund local councils. In the 1980s, Margret Thatcher's Conservative government tried to introduce a flat tax, payable no matter the value of the property you lived in, or the income you were on. This became widely known as the poll tax. 'It was controversial. The poll tax was first introduced in Scotland as a sort of pilot scheme and there was a big uproar. When it was coming to England in the late 1980s, there were huge riots, which coincided with the massive unpopularity of the tail end of the Thatcher administration,' Richard Partington tells me. 'It was one of the factors that brought down her premiership. And to replace it, they went back to this compromised, fudged system between the old rates system and the poll tax, and it was called council tax.' The system was devised in 1991 and came into effect in 1993. The problem, however, is that the amount someone pays in council tax is still based on what property prices were in 1991. Which would work, if only we hadn't built any homes since then and prices had never changed. 'There's something like 4.5m new homes or more that have been built since 1991, and then countless more conversions of factory buildings, of barns, and other non-residential properties, like shops, to homes. And you've got this army of experts trying to guess how much it would have been worth in 1991,' Richard says. It's not just those on the left who think the system, as it stands, is absurd. Richard points to criticism by David Willetts, the chair of the Resolution Foundation, who was advising on tax policy in Margaret Thatcher's policy unit in the 1980s. 'He actually thinks that council tax has become as regressive as the poll tax.' Fundamentally unfair system It is worth spelling out just how ridiculous the council tax system is. Several taxation bands dictate how much a household will have to pay to a local authority. But a resident in Blackpool living in a band B property, where the average house price is £130,000, will pay £1,860; while in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average house is worth £2.2m, the same band B bill would be £1,220. 'It hasn't taken account of the huge booming property valuations that have taken place over the past 30-odd years. And that means that you've got people living in hugely expensive homes that are paying relatively low rates of council tax. And that is sort of fundamentally unfair,' Richard says. Of course, the question of how to fix a situation where the numbers are so out of touch with reality brings its own problems – but we'll get to that later. A worsening funding crisis Council tax is not the only way local authorities get money. They also receive grants from central government. But due to austerity measures under Conservative governments, spending power funded by these grants fell in real terms by more than 50% between 2010 and 2021. This is coupled with local councils' ballooning budgets trying to cater to the growing needs of the population. Councils are in charge of a lot more than just littering and local libraries; for example, they front the costs for social care for vulnerable adults and children. 'A large part of what councils do, most people won't see on a day-to-day basis. But adult and children's social care service spending has increased so much because we've got an older and increasingly unwell population, and the cost of delivery has increased. To pay for that, there have been cuts to other areas of spending like road cleaning and libraries,' Richard says. Several councils have declared bankruptcy as a result in recent years and they won't be alone in feeling the pinch. Almost half of councils in England risk falling into bankruptcy without action to address a £4.6bn deficit amassed under Conservative-era policies, according to the government's spending watchdog. 'Most people who wouldn't come into contact with adult social or children's services think that they're paying more to their local authority and not getting much for it. They don't understand why and that's a huge issue.' Winners and losers The problem with the council tax system is that the longer we wait, the harder it becomes to fix, Richard says. With the local council funding crisis coming to a head, the Labour government cannot choose to look away like its predecessors. But the solutions floated come with their own headaches. The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, is spearheading the 'fair funding review', to figure out a new way of distributing central government grant funding to councils. That is due to come in from April next year and is under consultation. 'Among the things they're looking at is rebalancing the amount of funding for councils in more deprived areas so that they receive more money in central government funding than wealthier areas. Largely that is going to help councils in the north of England and the Midlands, where they have historically been underfunded by central government grants. And the losers will be in London and the south and the home counties,' Richard says. But a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that some of the biggest losers will be inner London boroughs where property valuations might be high but there are pockets of deep deprivation and child poverty. 'It highlights that while reforming the system that is so broken, there are going to be all kinds of issues that pop up in the process. You might think that you're addressing one problem, but another one will arise as a consequence,' Richard says. More fundamental reforms Reeves is reportedly considering overhauling stamp duty and council tax in a bid to raise desperately needed revenue. This was an idea put forward last year by Dr Tim Leunig, who was a government adviser in Rishi Sunak's Treasury, in a report for the centre-right thinktank Onwards. 'His idea was to replace council tax and stamp duty in one go with a proportional property tax that would take more accurate account of current property valuations on a national level, and a local version that would fund local services that would over time replace council tax,' Richard explains. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The reporting suggests any changes to council tax will probably not take place until Labour wins a second term. Is this Labour kicking the can down the line? Richard doesn't think so. 'It's a slow process because there are all these issues to consider. One of the problems is that the scale of the house price changes since the 90s means that if you were to institute a council tax that was actually reflective of current property values, you'd probably crash the London property market and lots of other places where house prices have boomed since the 90s,' Richard says. He adds that there are many people across the country who might live in what are now hugely valuable properties, but it doesn't mean they bought them for those prices. And, perhaps most importantly, it doesn't mean they have high incomes to pay for a regular council tax charge that reflects the modern-day value of the home. 'People hate council tax, and the idea that your council tax would significantly rise would be politically toxic for Labour,' Richard says. 'So they've been very careful with it.' A vivid and harrowing description from an academic in Gaza of what it's like trying to write and continue doing lectures while starving – and why producing knowledge there still matters. Phoebe Notting Hill Carnival returns this weekend and police have been told not to be seen dancing with revellers. Sound ridiculous? This comment piece by the Guardian's Hugh Muir will have you chuckling. Aamna Baffled by bramble bushes bursting with fruit since mid-summer, trees dropping their lives and acorns on the ground … when it's still August? This is because the seasonal cycle is completely out of whack. Phoebe What does it take to start one's own tiny country? The Guardian's Lucy Knight meets with the 20-year-old who claims a strip of forest between Serbia and Croatia with his friends. Aamna This is quite the insight into a relationship in which one partner bringing in an exotic strain of gonorrhoea can be followed up by a session of wedding planning. Phoebe Football | Bayern Munich's move for Christopher Nkunku has stalled, delaying Chelsea's attempts to sign RB Leipzig's Xavi Simons and Manchester United's Alejandro Garnacho. Cricket | A career-best haul from veteran spinner Keshav Maharaj inspired South Africa to a crushing 98-run win over Australia in the first ODI in Cairns. US Open | Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu were bulldozed by a sharp Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper, the top seeds, who reached the quarter-finals of the revamped mixed‑doubles competition with a 4-2, 4-2 win. 'High court rules asylum seekers must be moved from protest hotel' says the Guardian while the Times has 'High court puts asylum hotel policy into turmoil'. The Daily Express proclaims 'Asylum hotel closure is 'a victory for the mums'' and the Daily Mail goes with 'Labour's migrant hotels policy in disarray'. Similar in the i paper: 'Migrant policy in disarray as court rules protest hotel must evict asylum seekers' while the Telegraph says simply 'Migrant hotels facing closure'. Top story in the Financial Times is 'Trump hints at US air role in push to seal Ukraine peace' and the Mirror runs with 'Brit troops 'to keep the peace''. The Metro splashes on 'Fury at Reeves '£500k wealth tax on homes''. What price will Ukraine have to pay for peace? After a week of historic summits on the future of Ukraine, will the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have to trade land for peace? Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reports A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad A Swedish church that was built in 1912 is going on a road trip – albeit a short one. The 672-tonne church – which is in the Arctic town of Kiruna – is being moved 5km down the road. Dozens of cameras have been set up along the route to enable people across Sweden and the world to watch as part of the latest 'slow TV' extravaganza billed as 'Den stora kyrkflytten' (the big church move). More than 10,000 people, including the Swedish king, Carl XVI Gustaf, are expected to line the streets – which have been widened especially. The endeavour took eight years of planning, and the church is not expected to reopen at its new location at the end of next year. The whole town is being moved to make way for the expansion of Europe's biggest underground mine. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday And finally, the Guardian's puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The tax traps Reeves must fix to grow the economy
It is no secret that Rachel Reeves is strapped for cash. Against a backdrop of rising inflation and weak growth, the Chancellor is staring down a black hole that some predict could be as high as £50bn. Worse still, some efforts to save money have already been killed off by Labour backbenchers, while bond market vigilantes have driven up Britain's borrowing costs to their highest level since the 1990s. That is without even taking into account the impact of Reeves's Budget tax raid last year, which has crushed business confidence and dampened investment. All of which means that the Chancellor is now scrambling for reforms that will boost the economy at minimal cost. Here are some of her options. Clean up the income tax trap The top rate of income tax is supposed to be 45pc, but for those earning between £100,000 and just over £125,000, it is in effect 60pc. That is because workers in this bracket lose the tax-free allowance, which applies to the first £12,570 of pay for workers on lower incomes. As a result, it can appear rather unattractive to earn more if most of this extra income will be taken by the taxman. 'Where we have these kinks in the income tax schedule, those will tend to act as a disincentive to people to work more – I might not want to take that promotion, or I might want to go four days a week,' says Isaac Delestre, at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Scrapping this baffling tax quirk would help ease the pain. Smooth out benefits Losing child benefit can see families' effective tax rate rise to almost 60pc. This applies when one parent in a three-child household earns between £60,000 and £80,000. Believe it or not, that is an improvement on the old situation. Before Conservative reforms, a family with three children faced a tax rate of more than 70pc. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor at the time, called the system 'confusing and unfair'. Following changes introduced by the Tories, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) calculated reforms would encourage parents to work more hours, amounting to the equivalent of an extra 10,000 full-time jobs. However, perhaps the most egregious tax trap applies to adults with young children. The Government has ramped up subsidies for childcare in recent years to try to get more parents back to work. Yet for a cohort of highly productive workers, the way the system operates can be an enormous disincentive to seek out a promotion or put in extra hours. That is because the support schemes are withdrawn entirely once one parent's taxable income rises above £100,000. It means an extra penny of earnings can cost a family with two young children £14,500 in disposable income, according to the IFS. The think tank estimates that their disposable income – after tax and childcare – will not recover to its previous level until the parent earns £134,500. These parents have an enormous incentive to cut their taxable income, whether by pouring money into their pension to reduce their taxable income or by cutting the number of days they work each week. Turning the cliff edge into a smooth slope might cost the Treasury money, but would no doubt ease families' worries. Ramp up VAT Companies face similar cliff edges. Small businesses have to register for VAT when their turnover hits £90,000. That creates a huge incentive to stay below that threshold. Businesses and sole traders often stop earning once they edge closer to the limit as they seek to avoid the threat of introducing a 20pc tax on sales. Whether that means working only four days a week or closing for a month to keep takings down, it undermines growth in their business and the wider economy. The Conservatives cited this 'bunching' as a reason to raise the threshold from £85,000, but that just shifted the problem instead of abolishing it. Slashing the threshold would be a blow to small businesses and their customers, but might encourage more growth in the long term by removing it as a barrier altogether. That was the argument of the Resolution Foundation when it was run by Torsten Bell, now a Treasury minister. The think tank previously called the high threshold 'a tax on growth', claiming that: 'The best outcome would be lowering it to the point where almost no business owner would consider the option of deliberately staying below that level of turnover.' Cutting it to £30,000 could raise £1.5bn for Reeves. Cut stamp duty To say that reform of property tax is overdue is an understatement. The IFS has described council tax, which is still based on valuations from 1991, as 'out of date, regressive and distortionary'. The think tank has also branded stamp duty one of Britain's most hated taxes because it penalises people for moving. Back in 1988, a typical homeowner moved house every nine years, according to property website Zoopla. In the first six months of 2022, the gap was 21 years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has previously urged the UK to move away from 'transaction taxes which constrain housing and labour mobility'. Instead of a property sales tax, the Fund suggested adopting a new annual levy based on land or property values – a system some argue this would be fairer. After all, the average London house price is now more than seven times what it was in 1991, compared with a four-fold increase in the North East, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time, the distribution of central government funding to local authorities is still based on property values in 1991. This effectively means councils in Newcastle must now levy more tax on a property worth £250,000 than in Kensington and Chelsea to deliver essentially the same on valuations. However, as the think tank points out, any major revaluation would produce winners and losers. Back in 2020, the IFS suggested that a simple revaluation that reflected relative increases in property values would hit homeowners primarily in London and the South East. Back then, it said residents in Hackney and Wandsworth could see increases in their bills of up to 45pc, while people living in Fylde near Blackpool could see a 15pc reduction. A more radical reform that linked bills proportionally to a property's value could see bills in Stoke-on-Trent slashed in half. But it would also see bills quadruple in Kensington and almost double in parts of Surrey. There was a reason that Margaret Thatcher backed away from a poll tax. ... and planning red tape It is not just moving house that matters. Building them would boost the economy too. That is why bats and newts are high up on Reeves's hit list. The Chancellor has repeatedly grumbled about the many obstacles to getting things built in Britain, telling the House of Lords economic affairs committee last month that she cares 'more about getting a young family on the housing ladder than I do about protecting some snails'. She has a point. In a now infamous example, the chairman of the HS2 rail line admitted it was spending £100m on a shield to protect bats in ancient woodland in Buckinghamshire. Sir John Thompson said this was just one example of 8,276 'consents' required from public bodies, and expressed frustration at red tape across the UK. Reeves also knows there is a big prize on offer if she manages to reduce bureaucracy. The OBR said Labour's planning reforms were already expected to drive an increase in housebuilding of 170,000 homes until the end of the decade, which would in turn increase Britain's medium-term growth prospects by 0.2pc. Reeves has since ordered officials in the Treasury to go further. Prepare for more red tape to be slashed.
