Speech and Language UK responds to the King’s Speech

We welcome the King’s Speech and the commitments our new government has made through the Children’s Wellbeing Bill and Mental Health Bill. We look forward to hearing the detail of these bills. 

Labour was the first party to talk about the importance of early communication skills in their election manifesto and recognise a lack of speech and language support as a barrier to opportunity. We had hoped to see their pledge to fund early language interventions in every school honoured in the King’s Speech. The number of children struggling with talking and understanding words went up every year from 2021-2023. We urge the Government to act as soon as possible, firstly by honouring their manifesto commitment to fund early language interventions.  

A single language intervention would only be the first step, and not enough on its own. The previous government paid for a specific language intervention for schools as part of their Covid recovery programme, and in the four years it has been available to schools, the number of children with speech and language challenges has risen from 1.5 to 1.9 million.  

When they do introduce this policy, the new government needs to consider when these interventions are delivered. Interventions must be available for reception age children, but they should be looking at earlier interventions too. More needs to be done to identify and help children struggling with talking and understanding words before they reach school. Government should consider extending the funding of early language interventions to nurseries and Family Hubs. 

However, the scale of the challenge means these interventions need to be coupled with better training and tools for teachers and staff who work with children across all ages.  This means we can help all children to progress, rather than relying purely on group interventions in the early years which only ever reach a minority. There is no substitute for a skilled workforce who can support all children in their development. Government will also need to fund more specialist support for those children with lifelong speech and language challenges. 

We look forward to working with the Government on these and other important issues.

Jane Harris,  

Speech and Language UK 

Chief Executive 

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