Is there now a black hole in Phillipson's school budget?

One bomb in the Budget minefield that took a while to explode was Rachel Reeves’s creative accounting on schools spending.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The Office for Budget Responsibility said that there is no provision for special educational needs and disability (Send) from 2028 onwards in the government's plans.

It estimates this at £6bn a year, and says that if the sum comes out of the department’s budget, “this would imply a 4.9 per cent real fall in mainstream school spending per pupil rather than the 0.5 per cent real increase planned by government”.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has sent a message to worried Labour MPs to say that these figures are “misleading” and to accuse the Conservatives, who had seized on the OBR statement, of “scaremongering”.

So what is going on?

The Budget document said that “the government would not expect local authorities to need to fund future special educational needs costs” from 2028, and that the costs would be “managed” within “overall” government spending. It says that Phillipson will set out plans “early in the new year” to reform Send provision.