Spending on speech and language therapy is vital to tackle SEND 

Around two million children struggle with words, and when they don’t get support it wrecks their life chances, says MP Jen Craft

I am honoured to serve as an MP, just as I am honoured to be a mother of children with additional needs.

This dual public and personal perspective makes one truth impossible to ignore – the current SEND system is forcing families to fight for the most basic expectations for our children.

I recently hosted a roundtable in Parliament with the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance and the Disabled Children’s Partnership.

It was memorable because it focused on something many people take for granted – the right to be ordinary.

Ordinary is the child who can ask to join in a game at breaktime. Ordinary is understanding the teacher’s instructions without panic rising in your chest.

Ordinary is being able to explain what’s wrong when you’re hurt, upset or afraid.

Yet for far too many children, an ordinary life is out of reach.

We can’t close the gap without communication skills

I know the love and the worry, the pride and the exhaustion. I know the background hum of advocacy that never really stops: the appointments, the school meetings, the forms, the waiting lists, the fear that if you don’t keep pushing, your child will slip through the cracks.

Speech and language challenges are now the largest single group of SEND needs in primary schools, and around two million children are currently struggling with talking and understanding words.

We often talk about “closing the attainment gap” and “breaking down barriers to opportunity”. But we cannot do either if we allow communication skills, which are so foundational, so predictive, to go unmet at this alarming scale.

The system too often leaves families without guidance. They are not supported – they are sidelined. They are not empowered – they are overwhelmed.

We, the policymakers, are in effect setting families up to fail, and then blaming them when they can’t navigate a maze designed without them in mind.

Families need actionable advice and education. They need practical strategies they can use every day, in real life, when under real pressure.

Withhold knowledge, multiply inequity

Simple tools, like visual supports, adapting how instructions are given and building communication routines into ordinary family life, can be transformational. This kind of accessible training for families is a low-cost intervention that is too often missing from the current offer.

When we withhold knowledge, we multiply inequality. Families with time, confidence, connections and resources can sometimes piece together what their child needs. Families without those advantages fall further behind. That is not a fair system – it is a lottery.

Early support is not only a benefit for the child. It is a protective factor for the whole family unit. It reduces conflict, stress and burnout. It allows parents to parent, rather than constantly manage a crisis.

Even if we set aside the moral argument – which we should not – the economic case is compelling. Without proper support, speech and language challenges can become a pipeline to NEET – young people not in education, employment or training.

When children don’t get the support they need early, they enter adolescence with gaps in understanding, weaker social connections and reduced confidence. As adults, they face reduced employment opportunities and greater social isolation.

Moving from firefighting to prevention

We must also face another difficult truth. Unmet speech and language challenges can be linked to increased risk of later involvement in the justice system.

So, what should we do? We must move from firefighting to prevention, from bureaucracy to outcomes, from a system that rewards persistence to one that delivers fairness.

If we want children to have an ordinary childhood – and an ordinary chance at adulthood – we must stop treating speech and language support as optional.

That’s why I’m calling on the Treasury and the Department for Education to view early intervention, the training of early years staff and teachers, and more speech and language therapy, not as an expense but as an upfront investment: one that saves money, strengthens families, reduces future demand on public services and most importantly, transforms lives.

Ordinary shouldn’t be extraordinary for any child in any classroom, in any constituency, and not in a country that claims to believe in opportunity for all.