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- [00:00]
Adam Fleming
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Branwyn Jeffreys
I've spent the last three decades trying
- [00:08]
Marin Sumpset Webb
to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor. That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive, but even I've got questions. Join me Marin Sumpset Webb Every week for my show, Marin talks money from Bloomberg Podcasts where I have in depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you. Follow MarineTalksMoney on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
- [00:38]
Adam Fleming
Let's welcome Chris Mason back to Westminster after half term. Hello, Chris.
- [00:41]
Chris Mason
Hello.
- [00:42]
Adam Fleming
And we are assembling at 6:27 on Monday evening with some breaking news.
- [00:46]
Chris Mason
We are indeed. So we have learned this afternoon that Lord Mandelson, the former ambassador and former plenty of things at the top of Labour governments over the last few decades has been arrested.
- [00:59]
Adam Fleming
So we'll discuss the events around that and what's going on in this episode
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Alex Wasyth
of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC
- [01:06]
Chris Mason
Fat Boy Slim and me in the classroom doing our violin lessons.
- [01:08]
Daniel Sanford
I was the tattletale in the classroom.
- [01:10]
Chris Mason
Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. Then daddy has to sometimes do strong language.
- [01:15]
Branwyn Jeffreys
Next time in Moscow I feel Delulu with no Salulu.
- [01:19]
Chris Mason
Take me down to Downing Street.
- [01:21]
Adam Fleming
Let's go have a tour.
- [01:22]
Chris Mason
Blimey.
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Adam Fleming
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.
- [01:25]
Chris Mason
Hi, it's Chris at Westminster and joining
- [01:27]
Adam Fleming
me here in the studio is our home affairs correspondent, Daniel Sanford. Hello, Daniel.
- [01:31]
Daniel Sanford
Good evening on a very exciting evening.
- [01:32]
Adam Fleming
Well, yeah, and also we're getting quite used to asking people like you, Daniel, what's the actual law say about misconducts in public office? Because that is the crime in connection with which Lord Mandelson's been arrested this evening. Just remind us what that potential crime is.
- [01:50]
Daniel Sanford
It's a common law crime, very undefined in many ways. I think the best, most useful way of thinking of it is it's, it's kind of a very old fashioned English way of describing corruption, that essentially somebody who's been in the public office has allegedly done something which has been to their advantage towards someone else's advantage, maybe financial or some other advantage which they shouldn't have done.
- [02:12]
Adam Fleming
And so earlier on today, it was in connection with that, that Metropolitan Police officers went to Lord Mandelson'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.
- [02:24]
Chris Mason
Yeah. So let me explain to some newscasters, you know, how we've ended up with these pictures. So for the last handful of days at least, the BBC, alongside other broadcasters, have basically been taking it in turns to keep an eye on movements outside Lord Mandelson's house, conscious that there might be developments that would be newsworthy. And so our colleagues could see comings and goings. And what they were alerted to, because they were stood there watching this afternoon, was the arrival of some people who looked like they could be police officers, not because they were wearing uniform, they weren't. But because they had body mounted cameras, which, you know, I guess most people rolling up at any front door wouldn't necessarily have. Shortly after they left with Lord Mandelson in tow and he was put into the rear left hand seat of a car and was driven away. So in possession of that information, those journalists alert news desks and then people like Daniel with his police contacts and people like me with my 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 someone being arrested, either because of the potential that someone could be questioned without being arrested or that it was entirely unconnected to the, to the police investigation. But Daniel's calls came, brought forward, a led to the publication of a statement from the Metropolitan Police. And that's how we discovered, I think shortly after 5 o', clock that indeed Lord Mandelson had been arrested.
- [04:03]
Adam Fleming
And Daniel, what can we glean from that statement from the Metropolitan Police?
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Daniel Sanford
There's a few quite interesting things in
- [04:08]
Additional BBC Correspondent
what's actually a very short statement.
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Daniel Sanford
The first was that a 72 year old man was arrested in Camden. So even before he went out of that house, he had been arrested by
- [04:20]
Additional BBC Correspondent
the officers who'd knocked on the door.
- [04:22]
Adam Fleming
Oh, it didn't happen at the police station.
- [04:23]
Additional BBC Correspondent
Exactly.
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Daniel Sanford
And they then said that he was
- [04:27]
Additional BBC Correspondent
being questioned in connection with the suspicion of misconduct in public office. And so the reason for his arrest was that he was being taken away for questioning.
- [04:37]
Daniel Sanford
So that may almost may 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 weird reasons that why you can be arrested but to prevent
- [04:53]
Additional BBC Correspondent
you causing harm to someone else and things like that.
- [04:55]
Daniel Sanford
But basically he was arrested for the purposes of questioning. 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 crimes, somebody isn't sort of banged up for 24 hours and questioned sort of through the night. So at this stage, famous last words, I would anticipate that after some hours when that questioning is over, he'll be
- [05:21]
Additional BBC Correspondent
free to return home.
- [05:22]
Adam Fleming
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. What, why do we think this 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. Prince Andrew was arrested on the basis of a similar tranche of emails last week. Do we have any idea why this has happened today?
- [05:45]
Daniel Sanford
I mean, simple answer, no, but I think we can make some fairly informed speculation. What typically happens in 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 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 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 on here 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 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 further investigation. And so it won't necessarily be the one time that he's asked 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. This is the end of the line and there may well be some point several weeks, months further down the line where there are further questions to put to him.
- [07:05]
Adam Fleming
And your reference to the actual emails 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 raw emails ourselves and the metadata that comes with them. We, we can't say for definite who sent which email on which date, because it just appears that this person sent them.
- [07:26]
Daniel Sanford
Precisely. I mean, listen, it seems very likely that they are genuine emails because of the context in which they release, but essentially these are things that we only know what they are because they're. The FBI and others in U. S. Jurisdiction have gone through Jeffrey Epstein's devices and have recovered some emails. We don't know if they've recovered all of them. And then eventually, after some years under pressure, political pressures in 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 Manus and all those unlikely things, but there's no way at this stage that we can be absolutely certain because they are really definitive.
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Adam Fleming
Yeah, Chris, has there been any political reaction? And of course, political reaction tends to be quite muted when there's an active legal process.
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Chris Mason
Yeah, it's. It's very muted in terms of people commenting publicly, I think privately, there has been an expectation at Westminster that this moment at some point was likely, I think particularly in the context of last week's news relating to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, given that the investigations clearly have kind of overlaps and similarities. I think the thing that people here are most struck by, and this isn't the first time they've been struck 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 hand 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 Lord Mandelson was clearly reveling in the glamour and the splendor and the access to power and taking on another big job in a senior role in a Labour government. He'd twice been a Cabinet minister under Tony Blair, he was Gordon Brown's first Secretary of State, he'd been a European Commissioner, of course, and then here he was as U.S. 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, 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, whilst we should emphasize, as we repeatedly have, that 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 inquiry and investigation goes anywhere or not, etc. Etc. That is still quite a contrast, quite a moment from just a year ago.
- [10:10]
Adam Fleming
And, Daniel, if we go back to what was contained in the Epstein files and with your caveats about. About the reliability of the actual things we can see in front of us, the things that emerged from that appeared to show Peter Mandelson when he was in government, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, possibly forwarding information from within government to Jeffrey Epstein when Epstein was alive, that was the things we were reporting at the time as newsworthy.
- [10:37]
Daniel Sanford
Yeah. Or to put it another way, what prompted the Metropolitan Police to begin this investigation was reporting out of the Epstein files of a series of emails between Lord Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, appearing to show Lord Mandelson, for example, responding to a request from Jeffrey Epstein about rumours of a huge EU bailout and saying that should be announced tonight, speculating about when Gordon Brown might stand down as Prime Minister and other things that were going on in that time since the financial crash of 2008 and the fall of the Labour 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, are things which are incredibly market sensitive that somebody could make an absolutely stonking profit out of and which somebody who's in government shouldn't be sharing with somebody who could make a stonking 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
- [11:48]
Additional BBC Correspondent
no choice but to start an investigation.
- [11:50]
Adam Fleming
And the Met Police have been trying to get their own evidence as well as part of this inquiry, because for quite some time they were searching Lord Mandelson's properties.
- [11:57]
Daniel Sanford
Yeah. So there's a number of other sources, and I'm not saying this is comprehensive of where you could kind of expand the envelope of that information there. First of all, you can go to the FBI and other law enforcement agents in America, say, can you give us sort of unredacted copies of 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 a British government files and find out whether there's any record of Lord Manleton kind of moving documents around relating to that, then obviously Lord Mandelson might have his own personal emails 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 the properties that Lord Mandelson 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, it's all fine. And actually somebody's told Lord Mandelson 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, big a picture as possible, as big a context as possible of what these apparently dodgy emails might be.
- [13:12]
Adam Fleming
And Chris, there was another thread to this today, which is the government's pledge after they were forced to by a vote in the House of Commons, to release communications around Lord Mandelson's appointment to that job in Washington that you mentioned a minute ago. And we got an update on that from from Darren Jones, the Cabinet Office minister.
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Chris Mason
Yeah, and a reminder that the decision that the Prime Minister took to send Lord Mandelson to Washington 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 newscast just a couple of weeks ago was something relating to the whole Lord Mandelson affair, if you like, if we can call it that. That is entirely independent of what we are talking about on this edition, primarily of newscast. In other words, the arrest, because you'll recall a couple of weeks ago, Parliament deciding that the government ought to release loads of documentation relating to the appointment of Lord Maddelson and indeed documentation relating to his time as ambassador. Now, from the government's perspective, that has the potential to be deeply embarrassing, as would often be the case if, you know whatsapps and emails or whatever that are not intended for public consumption become. 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 anything released that could prejudice any future legal proceedings. Those documents are going to start coming and Darren Jones in Parliament was saying that the first of those documents are expected in early March, early March, it starts next week. So in other words, as soon as this time next week, the beginning of next week, we could start getting some of those documents. 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 might impact national security or what they describe as international relations, which basically means relations with the White House and with the Trump administration. But that gives you a sense of the political long tail of the consequence of the Prime Minister's decision to send Lord Mandelson to Washington. It's likely to be a significantly longer long tail, all of that. And as I say, that is a reality irrespective of what happens involving the police investigation. The two overlap, as I say, because the longevity, if it is a long running thing, could have implications for when some documents are released or not. But the two processes are also 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 documents to. Because they think it'll vindicate the language the Prime Minister was using a few weeks ago when he talked about Lord Mendelssohn lying to him prior to his appointment. But yeah, that whole process of document release is running simultaneously, at least for now, to the, to the police investigation.
- [16:22]
Adam Fleming
And Daniel, before we let you go, anything else you want to tell us about this?
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Daniel Sanford
Well, some of this will be familiar
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Additional BBC Correspondent
for people who are following the events with Andrew, the King's brother last week. A couple of pictures to paint it would be normal practice. We can't be sure, but it'd be normal practice that when somebody is arrested and taken to a police station, they would have their photograph taken. Police like mud shot type photograph. They'd have their fingerprints taken and they would have a DNA swab taken from the inside of their mouth, which as
- [16:55]
Daniel Sanford
I say, is normal practice.
- [16:56]
Additional BBC Correspondent
But if you're Lord Mandelson, then the 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 and then your lawyers. And we think he's engaged the firm of Mishkonderaya to do the white collar element of the allegations against him, advising him whether or not to answer police questions. I think nothing brings home the huge amount of trouble that he may be in than those events.
- [17:27]
Adam Fleming
Very good way of putting it. And Chris, just remind us that we've approached Lord Mandelson a couple of times over the last few weeks. He hasn't given us anything on the
- [17:35]
Chris Mason
record, but, but it's my understanding we were reporting this a few weeks ago and we should report it in the context of Today's developments that clearly it is not possible for him to have responded since we learned of his arrest for obvious reasons, but he has consistently made it clear that he does not believe he has in any way acted criminally, nor acted for personal gain. That's been a consistent message that has been sent our way in the last few weeks since that huge sort of data drop from the Epstein files.
- [18:17]
Adam Fleming
And Chris, before you go, an update on another story that we covered a few days ago, which is about the Cabinet Office Minister Josh Simons, who before he was an mp was running Labour Together, which is a sort of think tank, but sort of a campaign group that was partly formed to help Keir Starmer be elected as leader of the Labour Party. And he had commissioned this lobbying firm to do a report into some journalists in the Sunday Times who'd been publishing stories about Labour Together and that became news last week. What's the news today?
- [18:49]
Chris Mason
So the news today also from Darren Jones, who had something of a busy afternoon in the Commons with two back to back statements in the chamber, one about Lord Mandelson and those documents we were talking about and then the other about this. He told MPs that the Prime Minister's ethics adviser is now investigating Josh Simons, who is a Cabinet Office Minister, but was the guy who was running Labour Together when all of this was swirling around. The clear implication, whilst not spelled out explicitly from, from the Minister today, from Darren Jones, is that we'll find out what the ethics advisor has to say, what he thinks of all of this. The lorry, Magnus, pretty quickly whether it amounts to 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 critique that was made by the Conservatives and in particular Conservative backed benches, and that made by Labour MPs who if you like, wouldn't regard themselves as part of the kind of Starmerite project. Because Labour Together was very much seen as a sort of vehicle of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer and those around him trying to, as they saw it, revitalise the Labour Party. In the post Jeremy Corbyn years, some would have loved to see an investigation into Labour 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 sacked or why has he not been suspended? Mr. Simons? The argument was that in order for the Prime Minister's independence advisor on Ministerial standards to conduct an investigation, 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, or a sacking. And so we now await the verdict of Solori, which it could determine, I suspect will determine one way or another whether Josh Simons is still a minister in a matter of days or not.
- [21:04]
Adam Fleming
And previously Josh Simons had said that he'd asked this lobbying firm, APCO Worldwide, to look into a suspected illegal hack at Labour Together. And he said that the claims that he'd wanted them to investigate journalists were, in his words, nonsense. Chris, thank you very much. Taraji and Daniel, thanks to you too.
- [21:21]
Additional BBC Correspondent
Well, let's see what the next day brings.
- [21:28]
Adam Fleming
Another big story at Westminster today was the government unveiling its reforms to the provision of support for children with send special educational needs and 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 education editor, Bramwood Jeffreys and Alex Wasyth to look into the details and also just find out the scale of the problem the government's trying to solve here.
- [22:03]
Podcast Narrator 1
This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline
- [22:07]
Adam Fleming
for the show from the BBC.
- [22:09]
Podcast Narrator 2
This is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
- [22:16]
Alex Wasyth
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews use.
- [22:19]
Podcast Narrator 2
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your
- [22:25]
Podcast Narrator 1
everyday life and all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet.
- [22:29]
Podcast Narrator 2
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:37]
Adam Fleming
Hello, Branwyn.
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Branwyn Jeffreys
Hello.
- [22:39]
Adam Fleming
Before we dive into the details of the reforms, do you want to just set the scene for us in terms of whether this felt like a big moment for Bridget Phillipson? And I'm just thinking, Branwyn, we had her doing a big interview with the New Statesman magazine last week. She was talking, talking about her life, her reputation, how she's perceived. She was doing a big speech with all the education editors today. Does this feel like a kind of set piece thing that she's doing?
- [23:01]
Branwyn Jeffreys
It feels like it could be a defining point in her political career. These are high stakes reforms and over the last few months I think I've seen more what we call pitch rolling, the preparing of the ground politically for a set of policy changes than I have ever seen for any single set of reforms across different areas of policy.
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Adam Fleming
Oh, wow. So it's a big deal. And also, Alex, when you talk to backbench MPs they all have stories about how difficult this system is for pupils, teachers, parents, local authorities.
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Alex Wasyth
Yeah, schools, everybody. And that's why exactly, as Branwyn 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 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 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 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, people will tell you that too often it just doesn't work for them. So the provision's really patchy. Parents have to battle to try and get support, go through tricky legal routes. So, politically speaking, all the parties recognise something needs to be done. But there's been a lot of nervousness 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, as well as lots and lots of engagement with Labour backbench MPs and Brianwyn.
- [24:56]
Adam Fleming
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 for anyone, but the fact that more and more children are having these needs and the budget's going up and up and up quite dramatically. In some cases it is.
- [25:12]
Branwyn Jeffreys
And there are a couple of things happening in parallel. One is a genuine increase in need in different ways, and we're seeing that internationally. So there are three big drivers. An increase in autism diagnosis, an increase in social, emotional and mental health 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 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, the spending go up exponentially in line with it, and the outcomes for children with special educational needs have not really kept line with that. They haven't massively improved. So more money being spent to help more children without getting necessarily better results for all of them.
- [26:10]
Adam Fleming
And Brandwin, that EHCP is such an important kind of part of this puzzle, isn't it? Just elaborate a bit more on what that document is and how it's just so much more than just a piece of paper.
- [26:21]
Branwyn Jeffreys
So it came about from reforms in 2014 and it was meant to lead to a child centred approach where a child with special educational needs or disabilities was assessed. And in that plan, the education, health and care plan, there would be a clear statement of what they were legally entitled to. And 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 provision from the NHS as well. And that legal right has taken on really totemic value for parents. And a lot of the anxiety and a lot of the campaigning we've seen has been around whether or not the number was going to be reduced, whether the access to it was going to be changed, with campaigners saying, do not take our children's legal rights away.
- [27:20]
Alex Wasyth
Yeah. And so many parents will tell you about the legal battles that they have 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 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 Branwen 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 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 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 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 early is, look, how can we be sure that there will be the provision there in the schools when and where we need it?
- [28:37]
Adam Fleming
Which brings us nicely onto the details of the reforms. So, Bramond, I think if we first of all, talk about sort of the first tier of needs that is being introduced, and that's that point Alex was just making there, about making 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 other institutions and lots of paperwork.
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Branwyn Jeffreys
So the plans today set out two clear tiers of support. The first is targeted, and that will happen within mainstream schools. And in order to bolster provision ahead of any child being reassessed, they've announced £4 billion additional funding, which is going either directly into schools or to local authorities to help provide, you know, more educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and a bit of money within that to go to things like teacher training and helping councils work differently. So that is 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 school or in a mainstream setting, in perhaps a child who's fully integrated but with their needs supported, or a child who's in a resource space that's specially for children with these additional needs within a typical mainstream secondary school. And so they are. Although they're saying that the 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 and bring the proportion back down to where it is now by 2035. So they are going to be restricting, moving the bar 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 be going from primary to secondary, will have their needs reassessed and at that point they will be sorted into targeted 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 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 school 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 they deal with inclusion.
- [31:31]
Adam Fleming
Well, Brandon, I was going to say, I mean, as a non expert, this seems like a whole lot of extra work for schools.
- [31:37]
Branwyn Jeffreys
It does. And I think that's where some of the grit and the pushback could come from so far. The head teachers unions have given it a pretty cautious but quite warm welcome. They're saying this is the right direction of travel. We think we can work with this. Essentially the National Education Union, so that's the biggest union for classroom teachers. The General Secretary, Daniel Kebabe, has said we think it needs more resources. We are concerned about teachers workload. But the principals are broadly right. And the one dissonant note is from Matt Rack, the General secretary of the NASUWT, who's basically said the 4 billion is a drop in the ocean is nowhere near enough to start putting in that upfront changes to the system which are essential for parents to see and to experience, and then for that to flow into the political system and reassure
- [32:37]
Adam Fleming
Labour MPs and Alex, what things are making your political antennae twitch about all of this?
- [32:43]
Alex Wasyth
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 included, because they saw what happened before when, for example, they tried to reform the welfare system and there was that huge pushback and rebellion from Labour MPs and the government had to back down. Now, in part that was because 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 this isn't about cost cutting. And as Branwyn said, the curve, for example, of the number of people getting education plans will continue to go up for a bit before it kind of flattens off. And the government's pointing heavily to the upfront 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 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. 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 presented, particularly to their backbenchers. 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 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 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 school draws it up with the parents and it looks at what the child might need, what, where's the kind of protections around that? You know, the government's saying that will have a statutory footing. Those schools will, as Branwin said, be monitored by Ofsted to make sure they are being 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 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 on offer strengthened or weakened ultimately. Now, the government's argument is it's going to be much better that 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 parents who've been battered or bruised by this system can 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.
- [35:28]
Adam Fleming
And Brandon, just to be really clear on the timeframe, and I don't necessarily mean the timeframe for passing the legislation or getting everything drafted and in place, just the timeframe for how this will affect individual children and individual families.
- [35:41]
Branwyn Jeffreys
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 education system by the time these changes come into force. And just picking up on something that Alex was saying there, which is about the parents right to push back. So the individual support plan, so that's the school based plan for your child support, you initially have to go through the school 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 a parent to go to tribunal, to the send tribunal, if you want to challenge a decision around an ehcp. So there's 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 waking for the next government as families go through that process of, of their children being reassessed in autumn 29 onwards and some of them 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 parked down the line
- [37:01]
Adam Fleming
politically and I suppose actually looking at from the other point of view that there might not be a massively positive story to tell the next election about these reforms because lots of them won't be in place yet.
- [37:11]
Branwyn Jeffreys
That it'll entirely depend on what the lived experience is and that huge weariness which most parents have. We've already seen a rush in the last year to 18 months of parents seeking to get 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 so children who, 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 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 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 for what each level of care or support will look like and that will be based on expert independent advice. So it's a move away from a child led, child centred, 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 then being met.
- [38:30]
Adam Fleming
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, is different from the one in England and actually the Welsh system has a lot of similar things to these reforms already.
- [38:43]
Alex Wasyth
Yeah. That we implemented a few years ago and actually there was a review 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 parents in Wales is that is do these reforms mean that all children will, with who need some sort of extra support are being picked up and identified under the new system. And interestingly, the 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 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 to lose any support Reform UK that Bramwood mentioned. 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 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 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 out what this is going to mean for 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.
- [40:15]
Adam Fleming
Very, very interesting. Alex, thank you very much.
- [40:17]
Alex Wasyth
Pleasure as ever.
- [40:18]
Adam Fleming
And Bram, and thanks to you too.
- [40:20]
Branwyn Jeffreys
My pleasure.
- [40:20]
Adam Fleming
And that's all for this episode of Newscast, apart from to say in the next episode, Chris and I are going out and about hitting the ground on location and we will be spending time with a VIP whose identity I cannot reveal yet, but who you will hear from extensively in the next episode of Newscast heading your way very soon.
- [40:39]
Daniel Sanford
Bye bye.
- [40:40]
Chris Mason
Newscast.
- [40:41]
Alex Wasyth
Newscast from the BBC.
- [40:43]
Chris Mason
Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? And then, without having to do anything else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone.
- [41:10]
Podcast Narrator 1
This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline
- [41:14]
Adam Fleming
for the show from the BBC?
- [41:16]
Podcast Narrator 2
This is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
- [41:23]
Alex Wasyth
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reactions reviews.
- [41:26]
Podcast Narrator 2
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your
- [41:31]
Podcast Narrator 1
everyday life and all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet.
- [41:36]
Podcast Narrator 2
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.