The new Commons Education Select Committee chair has warned of “an absence of trust in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system at the moment” and indicated this issue is likely to be priority for MPs.

Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, was elected as the new committee chair on Wednesday, beating Labour MPs Sharon Hodgson and Dr Marie Tidball.

Speaking to Tes after her election, Ms Hayes said SEND was the “stand out issue” that has emerged from conversations with colleagues and said it was “hard to imagine that will not be a very early priority for the committee”.

“Many teachers feel completely underequipped to meet the needs of children with additional needs,” Ms Hayes said.

“That causes a really big problem with the number of children and their families who are being failed by mainstream schools at the moment.”

Challenges in SEND funding

She added that there were “great challenges” with funding allocations in the education, health and care plan (EHCP) process and that she expected that the committee would likely want to look “pretty comprehensively” at SEND funding.

“This is not a system that is working at the moment, and parents and families know that.”

There is an “urgent need” to look at how some of the pressures on the system can be alleviated to restore trust, Ms Hayes said.

Ms Hayes, who was previously shadow minister for the early years, also said there is significant work to do around early education and childcare, the government’s aspirations to close the attainment gap and the recruitment and retention crisis.

• Election: Helen Hayes elected as education committee chair
• Read more: SEND pressures become ‘top tier’ DfE risk
• SEND: Pupil progress has not improved in 10 years

Education as a priority

She told Tes she believed that select committees have the potential to be “really influential” on policy.

“I think there was a real problem in the last government around the priority that was given to education, and the evidence for that can be seen in the revolving chair there was in terms of the number of secretaries of state that we saw, often in fairly rapid succession.”

Ms Hayes said the last education committee sometimes made recommendations that were “quite critical” of the government, but said she believed that some of the responses the committee received back from the government reflected education not being a priority.

Having recently been a shadow education minister, Ms Hayes said she has up-to-date knowledge of the challenges the Department for Education is facing. She also has been on select committees for seven years.

However, she said she “didn’t have any expectation of entitlement” of being given a ministerial position after Labour won the election.

Stephen Morgan was appointed as minister for early education as part of the newly elected Labour government.

The previous government expanded the entitlement for childcare, and Ms Hayes said one of the first challenges to look at in the early years is the impact of delivering this.

She added that the government is keen to look at the quality of early years education and the opportunity it presents to close disadvantage gaps.

The former select committee

The most recent chair of the select committee was Conservative MP and former schools minister Robin Walker.

Mr Walker had highlighted SEND as a key area in need of investment. He called on former chancellor Jeremy Hunt to extend SEND cash to allow more special schools, bases in mainstream schools and expansion of existing special schools.

The new chair will formally take up her position when the remaining members of the committee have been appointed by the House of Commons.