Campaigners and Send parents including Chris Packham, Carrie Grant and Sally Phillips urge ministers to work with families and organisations to preserve individual provision and improve accountability in the system

The legal rights of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are still under threat. The government’s proposed Send and education otherwise than at school (Eotas) reforms would significantly reduce existing legal rights to enforceable education, health and care plans (EHCPs), parental choice of educational settings and independent routes of appeal.

We support the government’s ambitions for a more inclusive education system. Better teacher training, earlier identification of need, greater specialist expertise and a properly staffed workforce are all necessary. But none of these initiatives require children and families to surrender the legal protections they currently have.

Exclusive: Letter to government says changes will unfairly remove legal protections for children in England

• Letter: Legal rights must be retained for children with Send

Campaigners are calling on Andy Burnham to abandon the core elements of the government’s overhaul of special educational needs provision in England, arguing they unfairly remove children’s legal protections.

A group of children, parents and experts, led by the broadcaster Chris Packham, have written a letter calling for the prime minister to gut the plans laid out under his predecessor Keir Starmer.