[0:00]Let's welcome Chris Mason back to Westminster after halft term. Hello Chris. >> Hello. And we are assembling at 6:27 on Monday evening with some breaking news. >> We are indeed. So we have learned this
[0:10]afternoon that Lord Mandlesson uh the former ambassador and former plenty of things at the top of uh Labor governments over the last few decades has been arrested. >> So we will discuss the events around
[0:22]that and what's going on in this episode of Newscast. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. >> Hi, it's Chris at Westminster. >> And joining me here in the studio is our home affairs correspondent, Daniel Sanford. Hello, Daniel.
[0:32]>> Good evening on a very exciting evening. >> Well, yeah, and also we're we're getting quite used to asking people like you, Daniel, what are what's the actual law say about misconduct in public office
[0:42]because that is the crime in connection with which Lord Manderson's been arrested this evening. Just remind us what that what that potential crime is. Well, it's a common law crime, uh, very
[0:54]undefined in many ways. I think the best most useful way of thinking of it is it's a kind of a very old-fashioned English way of describing corruption that essentially somebody who's been in
[1:05]the public office has allegedly done something which has been to their advantage to someone else's advantage, maybe financial or some other advantage which they shouldn't have done. >> Uh, and so earlier on today, uh, it was
[1:16]in connection with that that Metropolitan Police officers uh, went to Lord Manderson's home in Camden. And Chris, do you want to just describe the pictures because we've been running a loop of about 10 seconds of pictures of this actually happening.
[1:26]>> Yeah. So, let us exp let me explain to sort of newscasters, you know, how we've ended up with these pictures. So for the last uh handful of days at least uh the BBC alongside other broadcasters have
[1:38]basically been taking it in turns to keep an eye on movements outside Lord Mandlesson's house conscious that there might be developments that would be newsworthy and so our colleagues could
[1:49]see comingings and goings and what they were alerted to because they were stood there watching this afternoon was the arrival of uh some people who looked like they could be police officers not
[2:01]because they were wearing uniform. They weren't, but because they had um they had bodymounted cameras, they which you know, I guess most people rolling up at any front door wouldn't necessarily
[2:11]have. Shortly after they left uh with Lord Mandlesson in tow and he was put into the uh rear left hand seat of a uh
[2:21]car and was driven away. So in possession of that information, those journalists alert news desks and then uh people like Daniel with his uh police contacts and people like me with my
[2:33]political contacts then try to establish precisely what has happened because of course in that scenario it is possible there is an explanation that doesn't involve uh someone being arrested either
[2:43]because of the potential that someone could be questioned without being arrested or that it was entirely unconnected uh to the uh to the police investigation. But uh Daniel's calls uh
[2:55]came brought forward a uh or led to the publication of a statement from the Metropolitan Police and that's how we discovered I think shortly after 5:00 uh that indeed Lord Manderson had been arrested. >> And Daniel, what can we glean from that
[3:07]statement from the Metropolitan Police? Well, >> there's a few quite interesting things in what's actually a very short statement. The first was that a 72year-old man was arrested in Camden.
[3:17]So even before he went out of that house, he had been arrested by the officers who'd knocked on the door. >> Oh, it didn't happen at the police station. >> Exactly. Um and uh they then said that
[3:29]he was being questioned in uh connection with the suspicion of misconduct in public office. And so the uh reason for his arrest was that he was being taken away for questioning. So that may may
[3:40]sound quite obvious, but actually it deals with some of those issues that Chris was raising there. He was arrested. He was arrested at the house and he was taken away from the house for questioning because there are some other
[3:51]weird reasons that why you can be arrested but to prevent you causing harm to someone else and things like that but basically he was arrested for the purposes of questioning.
[4:01]We don't know how long that process will take. It's unlikely to be the final police interview that he does. Typically in these kind of white collar kind of
[4:11]crimes, somebody isn't sort of banged up for 24 hours uh and questioned sort of through the night. So at this stage, famous last words, I would anticipate
[4:21]that after some hours when that questioning is over, he'll be free to return home. >> And in terms of the timing, I'm aware this is probably an impossible question to answer, but I thought I'd throw it your way anyway. Why do we think this
[4:32]might have happened now? because the police have been in possession of the emails that we've all seen for a couple of weeks now. Um, Prince Andrew was arrested on the basis of a similar
[4:44]tranch of emails last week. Do we have any idea why this has happened today? >> I mean, simple answer, no. But I think we can make some fairly informed speculation. What typically happens in
[4:54]these kind of paper trail cases is that the police will want to assemble some degree of a paper trail, work out what they think it might mean, because of
[5:05]course this is only all allegations from some very sparse number of emails that were seen in the Epstein files, which we don't even know if they're real emails, but I think the police have sort of started working on the assumption that
[5:16]they were. And then once you've built that paper trail, you might get to a point where you need to go to the person that you suspect might have been involved in misconduct and say, "Well, can you explain what this what's going
[5:28]on here?" Um, and put them on the spot as it were and say, make sure that they kind of give some answers or don't give some answers because obviously very often in those situations, the advice from your lawyer will be just make no
[5:40]comment. That's everybody's right. And then there may be quite a lot further investigation. that interview at the lack of answers or answers may then prompt uh further investigation. And so
[5:50]it won't necessarily be the one time that he's asked uh some questions. So my best guess is that they've got to a point where they feel there's some things to put to him, but it's unlikely
[6:00]this is the end of the line and there may well be some uh point several weeks, months further down the line where there are further questions to put to him. and your reference to to the actual emails
[6:11]or or purported emails within the Epstein files. The reason we're saying we don't know if they're real is because we don't have access to the the raw emails ourselves and the metadata that
[6:22]comes with them. We we can't say for definite who sent which email and which date because it just appears that this person sent them >> precisely. I mean, listen, it seems very likely that they are genuine emails
[6:33]because of the context in which they released. But essentially, these are things that we only know what they are because they're the FBI and others in US jurisdiction have gone through uh
[6:44]Jeffrey Epstein's devices and have recovered uh some emails. We don't know if they've recovered all of them. And then eventually after some years uh under pressure, political pressures in
[6:55]America, many of those emails have been made public. So, we don't know which ones haven't been made public. We don't know if actually somebody had spoofed Jeffrey Epstein for years and pretended to be Lord Manson, all those unlikely
[7:05]things, but there's no way at this stage that we can be absolutely certain they are definitive. Yeah. Um Chris, has there been any political reaction? And of course, political reaction tends to be quite muted when there's an active
[7:17]legal process. >> Yeah, it's it's very muted in terms of people commenting uh publicly. I I think privately there has been an expectation at Westminster that this moment at some
[7:28]point was likely. I think particularly in the context of last week's news relating to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor given that the investigations
[7:37]clearly have kind of overlaps and uh and similarities. I I think the thing that people here are most struck by and this isn't the first time they've been struck
[7:46]by this in recent weeks is, you know, here is a guy who a year ago was a few weeks into one of the kind of marquee jobs that the British state can can hand
[7:57]out. The prime minister had just sent him to be, you know, his majesty's ambassador to Washington. I was there in the British embassy a few weeks into his stint when the prime minister went over to meet President Trump in the White House for the for the first time. And
[8:09]Lord Manderson was clearly reveling in the the glamour and the splendor and the access to power and taking on another big job in a senior role in a Labor
[8:19]government. He'd twice been a cabinet minister under Tony Blair. He was Gordon Brown's first secretary uh of uh state. He'd been a European commissioner of course and then here he was as US
[8:30]ambassador. And you imagine that moment a year ago and obviously less than that because he was in post until the autumn and now imagine as we're talking at least at half six on Monday evening uh
[8:42]that he is in a police station potentially right now sitting opposite police officers in an interview room answering questions under arrest as part of a criminal investigation. You know,
[8:53]whilst we should emphasize as we repeatedly have that uh he has made clear repeatedly that he doesn't believe he has acted in any way criminally and he didn't act for personal gain and it's for the police to decide whether this
[9:05]inquiry and investigation goes anywhere or not, etc., etc. That is still quite a contrast, quite a moment from just a year ago. And Daniel, if we go back to
[9:16]what was contained in the Epstein files and with your um caveats about about the reliability of the actual things we can see in front of us, um the things that that emerged from that appeared to show
[9:27]Peter Manderson when he was in government, when Gordon Brown was prime minister, possibly forwarding information from within government to Jeffrey Epstein when Epstein was alive.
[9:38]That was the things we were reporting at the time as newsworthy. >> Yeah. Uh or to put it another way, what prompted the Metropolitan Police to begin this investigation
[9:47]was reporting out of the Epstein files of a series of emails between Lord Mandlesson and Jeffrey Epstein appearing to show Lord Mandlesson, for example,
[9:59]responding to a request uh from Jeffrey Epstein about rumors of a huge EU bailout and saying that should be announced tonight. um speculating about
[10:10]when Gordon Brown might stand down as prime minister um and other things that were going on in that time since the financial crash of 2008 and the fall of
[10:21]the Labor government in the election in 2010. And you could well interpret that a number of those things which are being discussed in those emails, if they're real emails,
[10:32]are things which are incredibly market sensitive that somebody could make an absolutely stoning profit out of and which somebody who's in government shouldn't be sharing with somebody who
[10:43]could make a stoning profit out of it. And so it was that at least the appearance of that which produced a situation where the Metropolitan Police frankly had no choice but to start an investigation. And the Met police have
[10:54]been trying to get their own evidence as well as part of this inquiry because for quite some time they were searching Lord Mandlesson's properties. >> Yeah. So there's a number of other sources and I'm not saying this is comprehensive of where you could kind of
[11:06]expand the envelope of that uh information there. First of all, you can go to the FBI and other uh law enforcement agents in America say uh can you give us of unredacted copies of
[11:17]these? Can you show us the sourcing of these? Can we understand where these came from? And then you might try and see the other end of the communication. So you might want to go through British
[11:27]government files and find out uh whether there's any record of Lord Mandelson kind of moving documents around relating uh to that. Then obviously Lord Manson might have his own personal emails
[11:38]account. So you need to go through that. But one of the ways of getting information about those kind of communications is seeing if in devices or in documents at uh the properties
[11:49]that Lord Mand Mandlesson owns is anything that supports the picture or of course to be honest makes you see the picture in a completely different way and actually says oh right okay actually
[11:59]it's all fine and actually somebody's told law man to do this and there's a good reason for doing it. So you kind of you're wanting to try and build as big a picture as possible, as big a context as
[12:09]possible of what these apparently dodgy emails um might be. >> And Chris, there was another thread to this today, which is the government's
[12:19]pledge after they were forced to by a vote in the House of Commons to release communications around Lord Mandlesson's appointment to that job in Washington that you mentioned a minute ago. Um, and we got an update on that from from
[12:30]Darren Jones, the cabinet office minister. >> Yeah. and and a reminder that the decision that the prime minister took to
[12:40]send Lord Mandlesson to Washington is is turning out to be one of the most consequential of his first couple of years in power because what we heard from Darren Jones of course was here on
[12:52]newscast just a couple of uh weeks ago was something relating to the whole Lord Mandlesson affair if you like if we can call it that that is entirely
[13:02]independent of what we are talking about uh on this edition primarily of newscast. In other words, the the arrest because you'll recall a couple of weeks
[13:11]ago, Parliament deciding that the government ought to release loads of documentation relating to the appointment of Lord Madison and indeed
[13:20]documentation relating to his time as um ambassador. Now from the government's perspective that has the potential to be deeply embarrassing as it would often be the case if you know WhatsApps and
[13:32]emails or whatever that are not intended for public consumption become public. It is also possible if they are able to release them because this is where it does overlap with the police investigation. The police wouldn't want
[13:42]anything released that could uh prejudice um any future uh legal proceedings. um th those documents are going to start coming and Darren Jones in parliament was saying that the first
[13:53]of those documents are expected in early March. Early March uh it starts next week. Uh so in other words, as soon as this time next week, the beginning of next week, we could we could start
[14:04]getting uh some of those documents. As you remember from newscasts of a couple of weeks ago, there's been a bit of a back and forth about the process in which via which they are released and the government concerned about how they
[14:14]might uh impact uh national security or what they describe as international relations, which basically means relations with the um with the White House and with the uh Trump
[14:24]administration. But that gives you a sense of the political long tale of the consequence of the prime minister's decision to send Lord Madison to Washington. It's likely to be a
[14:35]significantly long tale all of that and as I say that is a reality irrespective of what happens uh involving the police investigation the two overlap as I say
[14:46]because the longevity if it if if if it rem if it is a a long-running thing could have implications for when some documents are released or not. Uh but the two processes are also um
[14:57]independent and the document release comes with I mean political awkwardness to put it gently as well as as I say potential vindication because I think some ministers are desperate for some
[15:07]documents to be released because they think it'll vindicate the the language the prime minister was using a few weeks ago when he talked about Lord Mandlesson lying to him prior to his um appointment. But yeah, that whole
[15:17]process of document release is running uh simultaneously at least for now uh to the um to the police investigation. >> Uh and Daniel, before we let you go, anything else you want to tell us about this?
[15:29]>> Well, some of this will be familiar for people who are following the events with Andrew the King's brother last week. A couple of pictures uh to paint. It would be normal practice, we can't be
[15:41]sure, but it would be normal practice that when somebody is arrested and taken to a police station, they would have their photograph taken, uh, police like mudshot type photograph,
[15:50]they'd have their fingerprints taken and they would have a DNA swab taken from the inside of their mouth, which as I say is normal practice. But if you're Lord Mandlesson, then the
[16:02]process of sitting in a police station and having your photograph taken and then your fingerprints taken and then having a DNA swab taken from the inside of your mouth
[16:12]>> uh and then your lawyers and we think he's engaged the firm of Mishonderea to do the white collar element of of the allegations against him advising him whether or not to answer police
[16:23]questions. I think nothing brings home the huge amount of trouble that he may be in than those events. >> Very good way of putting it. And Chris, just remind us um that we've approached
[16:34]Lord Mandlesson a couple of times over the last few weeks. He hasn't given us anything on the record but >> but uh it's my understanding we were reporting this a few weeks ago and we
[16:45]should report it in the context of uh today's developments that clearly it is not possible for him to have responded since we learned of his arrest for
[16:54]obvious reasons. But he has consistently uh made it uh made it clear uh that he does not believe uh he has any in any
[17:04]way acted criminally uh nor acted for uh personal personal gain. That's been a consistent uh message that has been uh sent our way in the last uh few weeks
[17:16]since that huge uh sort of data drop from the Epstein files. And Chris, before you go, an update on another story that we covered a few days ago, which is about the cabinet office
[17:26]minister Josh Simons, who before he was an MP was running Labor Together, which is a sort of think tank, but sort of a campaign group that was partly formed to help Kier Starmer be elected as leader
[17:36]of the Labour Party. Um, and he had commissioned this lobbying firm to do a report into some journalists in the Sunday Times who'd been publishing
[17:46]stories about Labor together. Um and that that became news last week. What what's the news today? >> So the news today also from Darren Jones who had something of a busy afternoon in
[17:56]the Commons with two backto-back uh statements um uh in the chamber. one about Lord Mandlesson and those documents we were talking about and then
[18:05]the other about this uh he told MPs that the prime minister's ethics advisor is now investigating Josh Simons who is a
[18:16]cabinet office uh minister but was the guy who was running Labor together when all of this was uh swirling around. The clear implication whilst not spelt out
[18:26]explicitly from uh from the minister today uh from Darren Jones is that we'll find out what uh the ethics adviser has to say what he thinks of all of this
[18:36]magnus uh pretty quickly whether it amounts to a a breach of the ministerial code. What I was struck by, Adam, listening to the debate in the House of Commons is the distinct overlap of the
[18:47]critique that was made by the Conservatives and in particular Conservative backbenches and that made by Labor MPs who if you like wouldn't regard themselves as part of the the
[18:57]kind of Starite project because Labor together was very much seen as a sort of vehicle of the um the Labour Party uh
[19:08]Lord Karma and those around him trying to, as they saw it, revitalize the Labour Party in the post Jeremy Corbyn years. Some would have loved to see an
[19:19]investigation into Labor together. We should be clear, this investigation is into a sitting minister, Josh Simons. And interestingly, when it was put to Darren Jones, well, why has he not been
[19:31]sacked or why has he not been suspended, Mr. Simons. The argument was that in order for uh the prime minister's independent adviser on ministerial standards to conduct an investigation,
[19:43]the person being investigated has to be a minister, which does have a certain logic to it, even though there are those who think there should have been a suspension or a uh or a sacking. And so
[19:54]we now await the verdict of Salari, which it could determine uh I suspect will determine one way or another uh whether Josh Simons uh is still a
[20:05]minister in a matter of days uh or not. >> And previously Josh Simons had said that he'd asked this lobbying firm APCO worldwide to look into a suspected illegal hack at Labor Together. And he
[20:16]said that the claims that he'd wanted them to investigate journalists were in his words nonsense. Chris, thank you very much. T >> and Daniel, thanks to you, too. >> Well, let's see what the next day
[20:26]brings. >> Another big story at Westminster today was the government unveiling its reforms to the provision of support for children with sand, special educational needs and
[20:38]or disabilities. This is a huge set of reforms that will affect hundreds of thousands of families in England and pretty much every single school in England. So I caught up with our
[20:48]education editor Bramman Jeff and Alex Rasy to look into the details and also just find out the scale of the problem the government's trying to solve here. Um before we dive into the the details of the the reforms, do you want to just
[21:00]set the scene for us in terms of what a big whether this felt like a big moment for Bridget Phillips? And I'm just thinking Bran when we had her doing a big interview with the New Statesman magazine last week. She was talking about her her life, her reputation, how
[21:12]she's perceived. She was doing yet a big speech with all the education editors today. Does this feel like a a kind of setpiece thing that she's doing?
[21:20]>> It feels like it could be a defining point in her political career. These are highstake reforms. And over the last few
[21:30]months, I think I've seen more what we call pitch rolling, the preparing of the ground politically for a set of policy
[21:39]changes than I have ever seen uh for any single set of reforms across different areas of policy. >> Oh wow. So it's it's a big deal. And also, Alex, um, when you when you talk
[21:50]to backbench MPs, they all have stories about how difficult this system is for pupils, teachers, parents, local authorities. >> Yeah. Schools, everybody. And that's
[22:02]why, exactly as Brwin says, it is a sort of high stakes reform because every MP you speak to will tell you this is one of the issues that regularly tops their inboxes. And even the prime minister himself was in the House of Commons, I
[22:13]think it was during prime minister's questions last month and said that this is one of the issues that is raised with him more than anything else. And the reason for that is pretty obvious because there are tens of thousands of
[22:24]children and parents who depend on this system of support for those with special educational needs. And yeah, it has a knock on effect of councils and schools and almost everybody. I mean, there are examples that people will point to of
[22:36]what they call good practice or where things are working well. But on the whole, most people right across that sector, including the parents and young people, will tell you that too often it just doesn't work for them. So the
[22:47]provisions really patchy. Parents have to battle to try and get support, go through tricky legal routes. So politically speaking, all the parties recognize something needs to be done, but there's been a lot of nervousness
[22:58]leading up to this point about what exactly the government might propose, which is why the government's been treading pretty carefully and carrying out lots of engagement with parents and young people and teachers and councils,
[23:10]as well as lots and lots of engagement with Labour backbench MPs. and Bramman, the big problems they're trying to solve here in England are not just that everyone involved in the system complains that it doesn't seem to work
[23:21]for anyone, but the fact that more and more children are having these needs and it's the budget's going up and up and up quite quite dramatically. In some cases, >> it is I mean there are a number of
[23:32]couple of things it is and there are a couple of things happening in parallel. One is a genuine increase in need in different ways and
[23:42]we're seeing that internationally. So there are three big drivers. An increase in autism diagnosis, an increase in social, emotional and mental health
[23:52]issues, and an increase in speech and language need. And because parents find it so hard sometimes to get the support they want in the system, there has been
[24:03]a push to get that support via a legally binding education, health, and care plan. So over the last decade, we've seen the numbers go up exponentially.
[24:14]The spending go up exponentially in line with it and the outcomes for children with special educational needs uh have not really kept line with that. They
[24:25]haven't massively improved. So more money being spent to help more children without getting necessarily better results for all of them. >> And Brownin, that EHCP is such an
[24:36]important kind of part of this puzzle, isn't it? Just just elaborate a bit more on what what that document is and how it's just so much more than just a piece of paper.
[24:46]So it it came about from reforms in 2014 and it was meant to lead to a child centered approach where a child with special educational needs or
[24:57]disabilities was assessed and in that plan the education health and care plan there would be a a clear statement of what they were legally entitled to. And
[25:09]of course in the name there's a recognition that that might flow not only from what happens in schools or where they go to school but also the
[25:18]provision from the NHS as well. And that legal right has taken on really toemic value for for parents. And a lot of the
[25:28]anxiety and a lot of the campaigning we've seen has been around whether or not uh the number was going to be reduced, whether the access to it was
[25:38]going to be changed with campaigners saying do not take our children's legal rights away. >> Yeah. And so many parents will tell you about the legal battles that they have
[25:48]to go through to try and get this kind of legal protection for their children, which can be really costly as much as anything else and difficult potentially when you're dealing with a diagnosis for
[25:59]your child to then have to go down this kind of legal route to access one of these education, health, and care plans. And the part of the government thinking in this and they have been careful around this because exactly as Branwin
[26:11]says it's been a potential flash point is any of are any of these reforms going to erode the legal rights of parents and their children to get the support to which they're entitled and the
[26:22]government's kind of thinking on this is rather than to take away these education health care plans altogether what they are kind of hoping is that if you improve the provision in mainstream
[26:33]schools in particular enough so that parents get the support that they need from the earlier stages, then fewer parents will feel the need to go down what can be an adversarial and legally
[26:43]challenging route to try and get an EHCP for their child. But the way all of that is communicated and managed I think is going to be absolutely crucial and obviously what a lot of parents and people in the sector are flagging quite
[26:55]early is look how can we be sure that there will be the provision there in the schools when and where we need it. >> Which brings us nicely onto the details of the reforms. So Bramman, I think if
[27:05]we first of all talk about um sort of the first tier of needs that is being introduced and that's that point that Alex was just making there about making
[27:14]sure there's just much more provision in schools so that schools are sort of the first point of looking after a child's needs rather than a huge bureaucracy involving local authorities and lots of
[27:25]other institutions and lots of paperwork. >> So the plans today set out two clear tiers of support. The first is targeted
[27:35]and that will happen within mainstream schools. And in order to bolster provision ahead of uh any child being reassessed, they've announced4 billion
[27:46]pounds of additional funding which is going either directly into schools or to local authorities to help provide you know more educational psychologists,
[27:57]speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and a bit of money uh within that to go to things like teacher training and helping councils work differently. So that is
[28:08]the first tier. The second tier which will be specialist and that will be for children with the most complex needs. That could happen in either a specialist
[28:19]school or in a mainstream setting in in perhaps a child who's fully integrated but with their needs supported or a child who's in a resource base that's
[28:30]specially for children with these additional needs within a a typical mainstream secondary school. And so they are although they're saying that the
[28:40]number of EHCPs which are going to be aligned with that specialist complex level will go up in the short term, they're then aiming to flatten the curve
[28:50]and bring the proportion uh back down to where it is now by 2035. So they are going to be restricting moving the bar
[29:02]higher to get an EHCP. And the way that that will happen is from autumn 2029, children as they move up through the education system. So the first slot will
[29:12]be going from primary to secondary will have their needs reassessed and at that point they will be sorted into targeted
[29:22]support or specialist support. And if it's specialist support they can keep an EHCP. All of these children, whether they have an EHCP or not, will have an
[29:33]individual support plan, which is the safety net that Alex was just talking about, the reassurance part about inclusion that will be drawn up by the
[29:45]by the school um and they will have the responsibility. And there's a bit in the white paper and the consultation today about how they're really going to try and hold schools to account more for how
[29:56]they deal with inclusion. Well, Brandon, I was going to say, I mean, as a non-expert, this seems like a whole lot of extra work for schools. >> It it does, and I think that's where
[30:08]some of the grit and the push back could come from. Um, so far the head teachers unions have given it a pretty cautious but quite warm welcome. They're saying
[30:19]this is the right direction of travel. We think we can work with this. uh essentially the national education union. So that's the biggest union for classroom teachers. Uh the general
[30:30]secretary Daniel Keday has said we think it needs more resources. We are concerned about teachers workload but the principles are broadly right. And
[30:40]the one dissonant note is from Matt Rack, the general secretary of uh the NASWT who's basically said the four billion is a drop in the ocean is
[30:50]nowhere near enough to start putting in that upfront changes to the system which are essential for parents to see and to
[30:58]experience and then for that to flow into the the political system and reassure Labor MPs. M and Alex um what are your what things are making your
[31:09]political antenna twitch about all of this? >> So I think very broadly a couple of points. I mean the government has put an awful lot of groundwork into trying to get MPs on side, Labour MPs um included
[31:19]because they saw what happened before when for example they tried to reform the welfare system and there was that huge push back and rebellion from Labour MPs um and the government had to back down. Now in part that was because
[31:31]Labour MPs at the time felt that that was partly down just to cost cutting and they were pretty furious about that notion. So the government has been really really careful to try and say
[31:42]this isn't about cost cutting and as Branwin said the curve for example of the number of people getting education health and care plans will continue to go up for a bit before it kind of flattens off and the government's pointing heavily to the upfront
[31:53]investment in schools to try and get the main mainstream system in a place where it can support children adequately who need extra support in schools. So they've been trying to kind of see off that bit of it, but I do think there
[32:05]still will be questions about the level of resource and funding and whether it's going to be enough to ensure that the provision that the government's effectively promising in mainstream school settings is going to be adequate.
[32:16]And the other kind of bit of this I think still is around the changes to the legal protections. So again, the government's treading carefully, mindful of where it's made some missteps on policy in the past in the way it's been
[32:28]presented, particularly to their backbenches. So they are saying this is going to be super gradual. So you know they're saying that basically none of this legislative changes are coming in until 2029. They want to lay all the
[32:38]groundwork first and make all those changes to the school system first and then only after that point will these reassessments start happening and they're very clear that you know children who've currently got ECHPs they're going to stay in place until
[32:50]2030. So they're really pushing the fact this is gradual. I think there are still some questions about things like when you've got this new individual school plan which is the schools draws it up with the parents and it looks at what
[33:01]the child might need. What where's the kind of protections around that? You know the government saying that will have a statutory footing. Those schools will as Bin said be monitored by offstead to make sure they are being
[33:12]inclusive. There will be you could go through a school complaints procedure if you don't like it but is that going to be enough to kind of satisfy parents? And the other big thing is that every MP will tell you the trust in this system
[33:23]is really really low among many parents. And so it's whether they believe that actually their children at the end of this are going to have their rights, their right to support and the support
[33:34]on offer strengthened or weakened ultimately. Now the government's argument is it's going to be much better that the what the support they get and all of their rights around it will be strengthened. But it's whether that is really feeding through to parents and
[33:46]parents who've been battered or bruised by this system can really trust and believe that and I think that's going to inform over the next 12 weeks because this is a consultation now how MPs react to it. >> And Bramman just to be really clear on
[33:57]the time frame and I don't I don't necessarily mean the time frame for passing the legislation or getting everything drafted and in place just the time frame for how this will affect individual children and individual
[34:08]families. children from year two and below will be the ones who are caught up in this. So any children who are older who are in the system already are likely to have largely washed through the
[34:19]education system by the time these changes uh come into force. And just picking up on something that um Alex was saying there which is about the parents
[34:28]right to push back. So the individual support plan, so that's the school BL based plan for your child's support. You initially have to go through the school
[34:38]complaint system which they say they're going to make stronger with more expertise about special educational needs. You will still have the right as
[34:48]a parent to go to tribunal to the send tribunal if you want to challenge a decision around an EHCP. So there's
[34:58]potential here if these reforms do go ahead on the timeline that this government is predicting that after the next election, there's a huge stink bomb
[35:08]waking for the next government as families go through that process of their children being reassessed in autumn 29 onwards. And some of them
[35:18]start going to tribunal say, "Hang on, you're trying to take my child's EHCP away and I'm not happy." and that could blow up into a huge row, but it's been
[35:28]parked down the line politically. >> And I suppose actually looking at from the other point of view that there might not be a massively positive story to tell at the next election about these reforms because lots of them won't be in
[35:38]place yet. >> It'll entirely depend on what the lived exper experience is and the that huge
[35:48]weariness which most parents have. We've already seen a rush in the last year to 18 months of parents seeking to get an
[35:58]uh a care plan in place, education, health and care plan in place before these reforms. We might see that accelerate I think over the next year or two particularly for children who are
[36:09]coming towards the end of primary whose parents are thinking right I want to get this in place so that they are in a good place and they don't lose it because
[36:18]they will have transitioned before 2029. >> So it will be really interesting to see where the costs go on this and it's about cost management
[36:28]uh at the moment and spending money against national standards. That's the other bit we haven't mentioned that it will be a shift to national standards
[36:37]for what each level of care or support will look like and that will be uh based on expert independent advice. So it's a move away from a child-led child
[36:49]centered primarily approach to one where you've got national standards and levels of support and a child is slotting within that with their individual needs
[36:59]then being met. >> I'm so sorry. I was going to say part of the reason for that is because one of the criticisms or complaints you hear frequently about the system at the moment is it's it's one of the elements
[37:10]of support out there where there's just such a patchwork. Um and you know there's this sense you get from government that they want to sort of level the playing field a bit so that every school, every council has
[37:21]standards to meet so that hopefully wherever you are with your child you can access the same sort of level of support. >> Whether that works is the question of course >> and actually that whole thing about national standards. So what sort of of
[37:32]support you provide for what particular need? It sounds like that's the thing the government wants to do really quickly. Start getting them rolled out so people can have an idea of what what they would look like. Um, Braman, I'm always intrigued with these big reforms
[37:42]and then you dive into the details and you hear the pros and cons. I then always wonder, was there an an alternative? Was there lots of other different more radical or less radical
[37:52]options that were considered here? Um, and could we be talking about a totally different announcement if a totally different type of government was looking at this problem? >> Well, I think there's two things. One is
[38:03]that there is absolutely no doubt that Bridget Phillipsson and the Department for Education looked down the long barrel of what would happen if they tried to repeat something akin to the
[38:14]welfare reforms. So there was a core bit of this which is not taking away something that people have as a legal entitlement now in the near future and
[38:25]really recognizing the jeopardy around that. When you look across the the political spectrum, there is a a broad acceptance that change was needed
[38:36]because of all the factors that Alex has mentioned. It is worth pointing out that um there have been some voices within reform which have also added to that
[38:47]broader debate about whether or not we have overdiagnosis of certain conditions or overproviding against diagnosis. And
[38:56]that is an ongoing debate and it's worth just restating that these are internationally visible trends which a number of different countries are
[39:07]grappling with without clear solutions. >> And Bramman um it seems the white paper doesn't really go there. >> It it doesn't no there's a clear
[39:17]recognition that the need that's there is there. Um, if you look at the main drivers, we know from separate information outside the education
[39:27]system, the NHS has recorded an increase in probable u mental ill health amongst teenagers in particular. We know that
[39:37]autism diagnosis has changed with more girls being diagnosed, for example, over the last decade. And we know that speech and language development that multiple
[39:47]factors may have affected that in recent years. The pandemic, access to services then, but also the ongoing debate we're having about very young children and
[39:58]screen time and what's happening to their capacity around language as a result. And Alex, we do actually have an example of other governments doing this differently in the UK because the system in Wales and the system in Scotland is
[40:10]is different from the one in England. And actually the Welsh system has a lot of similar things to these reforms already. >> Yeah. That we implemented a few years ago. Um and actually there was a review
[40:21]done of them towards last year looking at how effective the end of last year, forgive me, looking at how sort of effective or not they had been. One of the things that has been flagged by some
[40:31]parents in Wales is that is do these reforms mean that all children with who need some sort of extra support are being picked up and identified under the new system? And interestingly, the
[40:43]Liberal Democrat response to what we've heard from the UK government about England reforms today is that they're saying there should be some sort of universal screening system for children to see if they've got any sort of special educational needs that might
[40:54]require additional support in schools. So I think the debate is going to continue around it for a little while yet. The Conservatives agree with the notion of reform, but they are talking about making sure that children's rights are protected and that they're not going
[41:06]to lose any support reform UK that Braming mentioned. Um they say they're going to come out with their their sort of package of reforms for this area down the line. But just I was literally as
[41:17]you were speaking Adam scanning a few more kind of reactions and responses that I've had coming in from people. And do you know what I think if you were going to sum up the response to what the government's announced so far is that the principle seems to be broadly
[41:28]welcomed. But the one phrase that keeps cropping up is the devil is in the detail. And I think genuinely on this occasion it is one of those because it is a complex area. And I think parents in particular are going to be trying to work out what this is going to mean for
[41:39]them and their children and what they determine about that is going to inform how the kind of politics of this plays out in the next few weeks because there is still this consultation period. >> Very very interesting. Alex, thank you very much. Pleasure as ever
[41:51]>> and Bramman. Thanks to you too.