The New Statesman.

The government is still licking its wounds from the fight over the welfare reform bill,

and already backbenchers amassing around the next battleground issue.

This time it's a planned shake-up of send special education needs and disabilities provision.

I'm Anusha Kellyan, and this is the New Statesman podcast.

You've got to feel for the Education Secretary Bridget Philipson.

Today is supposed to be a rare day of positive news

as the Education Secretary announces a plan for a new best start scheme,

undoing the disastrous Tory decision to scrap Shawstart

and providing early years support for thousands of children and their families.

But apparently emboldened by their success in forcing a U-turn on welfare reforms,

Labour backbenchers have another cause-selebre, defending S-E-N-D provision against rumoured cuts.

And in the studio with me are Will Dun, Hannah Barnes and Pippa Bailey to discuss this.

Hi.

Well, first of all, because you wrote today's morning call newsletter on this issue.

Can you bring us up to speed on what's actually happening and what's not happening?

Yeah, so it's Monday morning.

So let's get comfortable and have an argument about how much money the government could get out of disabled children.

You know, the recipe for a chatty bond on me, isn't it?

So the point I made in this morning call email is that, you know, sort of you have this system that is a lot like the welfare system, sort of extremely expensive.

It's costing, I think, around 11 billion a year, which has increased a lot in recent years.

And the number of people, children who are on these healthcare plans, which we'll talk about in a minute,

...