Tracey Emin: ‘Against death, illness or pain, art wins’

As her cat Tea-Cup furtively sashays across the kitchen table in her seaside house in Margate, Tracey Emin can barely contain her excitement at her new 90-work show, A Second Life, at Tate Modern. It’s a blockbuster, which shockingly splits her work into two halves, life BC and life AC – Before Cancer and After Cancer.

Sipping tea, piano music filtering through the white painted rooms, dressed top to toe in black, she’s like the queen on a chess board waiting for her medication to kick in to stem bleeding and reduce pain. Her cancer may be in remission, but the aftermath is still searing. “I put all my energy into art, always have done, always will – against death or illness or pain, art wins. I feel lucky, and I feel happy,” she grins. “Remember, my surgeon called me a miracle woman.”

Her good cheer – for two hours she is candid, funny, diverting, shocking, laughing and revealing about her life and art – is heroic as she reels off the content of the first half of her show. “Margate, Cyprus, family, rape, abortion, abuse, unhappiness, sadness.”

The Tate’s main corridor divides her work with a “very bloody painting and then the first thing you see in the second block is My Bed”, her iconic monument to her chaotic life: crumpled sheets, empty bottles, used condoms and other detritus.

“It was something that saved me in lots of ways. So I put it into the second half of my life, even though it belongs in the first. Why? Because after cancer, my life is unrecognisable. The only thing I’ve still got going for me is painting, is art. The art stayed the same, but nothing else.”

“I just hope that people will think one thing: that she is a great painter,” she says tentatively. Emin’s has been a long journey, and one where early on she now admits she gave the impression of not taking herself seriously – drunken escapades, outrage, partying, and never seeming to stand still.

But that was yesteryear. As Tate Modern now honours her with its ultimate accolade with this show, the King has made her a Dame, the British Museum has appointed her a trustee and the Royal Academy has made her their Professor of Drawing. She is now unquestionably the eminence grise of women in the art world – her top prices are in the millions – yet it was so nearly a life cut short by sexual violence, poverty, homelessness, loneliness and shattered confidence.

At times, she considered suicide. “I was going to jump off Waterloo Bridge with my baby if I did not have an abortion.” Then she was surviving on £1-an-hour wages in a sex shop. The Tate show documents the highs and the lows of Tracey, but is mostly a joyous validation for Britain’s greatest female artist through her work – candid, vivid, and beautiful even when delving darkly. She enters the portals of the Greats with this show, even if, when she looks back, she sees the trail of despair, destruction, desire and dodgy men. But her work transcends the human cost and empowers transformation as only art can.

Dark facts and stark realities are inseparable from her stellar rise and success as an artist. One such fact she faces head-on is that, just as she celebrates her show at the Tate, it is also exactly 50 years since she was raped aged 13 – just a few hundred yards from where we are sitting in her tranquil, unusually warm house. The assault was in a poorly lit alleyway, and she knew her rapist. He went on to attack other women, but she has no idea where he is now.

Margate ever since has been both nemesis and sanctuary. A few days ago, her friend Madonna visited to see her and others’ art on display in the seaside resort championed by Emin. The two Margate mavens made international news as the friends of 25 years plus wandered around town.

“We go back a long way, and I was so glad she came to see the art and that she loved Margate.” Emin is proud she has made Margate an artists’ mecca. She owns around 20 houses in the town, which she has transformed into studios and accommodation for artists – she’s even turned a morgue into a community restaurant. She agrees that Traceyville, this extraordinary property portfolio, is partly an antidote to her shockingly impoverished beginnings. Every day, she gets sustenance and joy from seeing her artists find what she never had: a place to work and be supported.

But back to the defining nature of her show: before and after cancer. She was diagnosed in 2019. A massive surgical operation eviscerated her body and she permanently has a stoma attached in place of a bladder. She accepts this stoically, like everything else in her rollercoaster life – miraculously and transformationally, it has become part of her art. A Second Life is testament to grit, determination, brilliance and originality.

It is as if a dozen turbulent lives have been crammed into her six decades: the rape, two abortions, suicide threats, homelessness, grinding poverty, abandonment and plenty of troubling personal stuff, and, revealed with characteristically casual candour, a life without sex for 10 years. But what emerges triumphantly is her obsessional need to make art, as she clearly finds almost dizzying happiness at the prospect of this totemic show at Tate Modern. For many years, she was written off by some as too bad, even mad and certainly dangerous to know, or at least her art was. A small painting of a sink in her bathroom – “a bit coals to Newcastle” she quips – is an archetypal Emin emotional burst of celebration and appreciation of things that she sees, creates and shares.

All of this is despite the cancer that has defined her last few years. “It was not like most other people’s. It almost destroyed me. The most frightening thing is when you’re told you have cancer; everybody sees their life flash before them, regardless of what kind of cancer. I was sort of philosophical because I knew there was something wrong with me, because I was bleeding all the time and other things. The irony is, I was feeling on top of the f***ing world. I was madly in love, and considering having sex for the first time in 10 years.

“So I thought I’d go to see my gynaecologist to make sure all was OK because I’d had the menopause. I wanted to make sure that I could have sex. The day before I went, it was really, really hot weather and I was in my house in Fournier Street, on the roof naked, sunbathing, and opposite me lived the vicar who was having tea in his garden. He could see my hair from across the roof, but nothing else.

“And chatting to him from the roof, hidden but naked, amused me. I had a glass of champagne in my hand and I thought, I’ve never been so happy. I was going to the studio every day to paint. Covid was very sad and terrible, but it suited me because I don’t like going out very much, and I was working ferociously. I felt fit. I felt good. I was brown, holding a glass of champagne, and I was laughing. I thought, I’m so happy, and of course, you know when you say that… exactly!

“I then went down to the loo, and saw lots of blood, really thick, strange blood, and I knew something was wrong. So when I went to my gynaecologist, I had a scan. By the way, a woman examines you very differently from a male, who will actually avoid examining you if they can. So she says ‘this isn’t very good’, but she doesn’t want me to go and have a scan straight away. So I had to wait until the next day when I had the scan, went back to my studio and sat there.

“I was supposed to be driving down to Margate. And then I thought, I probably won’t go, I’ll have another glass of champagne. And I was staring in the studio at this painting for ages and ages, wondering what it was. And it was kind of like unfinished, but it looked finished. Suddenly, my phone rang, and I jumped. It was my gynaecologist. ‘Hi, Tracey, are you alright?’ And I said, ‘Yeah’. ‘Are you with anyone?’ I said, ‘No’. And she goes: ‘Are you sitting?’ and I went, ‘Yeah. It’s not good news. Is it?’ She said, ‘No, it’s not.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘is it cancer?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’” And so the Second Life began. It was dramatic and the end of her First Life.

“So my oncologist told me my bladder was really bad, but ‘the good news is we can replace it’. After a biopsy, that plan was ditched. ‘You’re having surgery as soon as we can get a team together.’ Major surgery. It was devastating.”

Tracey lists as calmly as a shopping list what followed. “I had this operation where they removed my bladder, half my vagina, my urethra, my ovaries, part of my intestines, my lymph nodes and a full hysterectomy.” It does not get much more drastic – there were 12 people in the operating theatre for seven-and-a-half hours.

Tracey is today almost shockingly calm and without self-pity. “I was really cool about it all the whole time. You’ve got a 70 per cent chance of dying, the chance of living is 30 per cent.”

And yet. There is always Ying to every Yang with her. She combines dire desperation with a determination never to fold. And the echoes and rhythms of her life are as epic, as emotionally draining.

She returns to the origins of Traceyville, created partly in response to a childhood where her valiant single mother was unable to provide a family home, as her father first went bankrupt and then awol. Similarly, her compulsive buying is a response to the shame and pain of “not having”. It’s why she owns so many properties (and may explain why the heating in her Margate house is so high). The gem of her property empire being an enormous London house in Fitzrovia.

The pictures she is showing at the Tate pivot around her famous unmade Bed, a scene of decay, sex, lovelessness and basic instinct. The stained sheets, used condoms and sordid detritus illustrated her inner life turned outwards by brutal exposure. It shocked and it screamed as it became the symbol of a generation upended and left listless in the Thatcher years.

Only Emin could have an abortion room in her show. But life and death she has juggled all her life. “My cancer surgeon told me I wouldn’t be here at Christmas. That was in June.” She defied the odds. She also defied the utter ignominy of cancer. “I had my vagina sewed up with barbed wire stitches – pretty painful I can tell you,” and then she grins, as if she is happy her trauma is something she can now relate to rather than experience. She has somehow conquered it, or appears to have. “When I first learnt I had bad cancer, I emailed all my friends to tell them not to talk to me about it. I had a survival strategy…

“You’re ecstatically happy to be alive, to survive, but then you have the reality of being a survivor, of having a disability, a hidden disability for which you get zero sympathy. But importantly, I am much happier than I used to be. Also, I stopped drinking, which is a massive thing; it was something I had done all my life since age 13.” The one other time she had stopped was when she was broke, “which my dad said shows I wasn’t an alcoholic!”

She points out that Munch gave up drink, and so has David Hockney; it makes artists more productive. “I don’t paint at four o’clock in the morning after two bottles of wine, do I! Massive difference.”

But some things have not changed. She paints always when there is a full moon. “I used to make jokes about this, but it really is true.” She feels there are forces which alter her creativity. “When you are painting, there is a force coming through you from a million miles back, 1,000 million miles back, and it comes through you if you’re there at the right time and you have the right canvas in front of you.”

She credits an outside force at work. “One thing I know is everything I paint isn’t just down to me because I don’t know what I am going to do. I have got my shapes in my head, which I call my cavewoman painting. My leg up. My leg down. My bridge thing, these templates are in my head and where I go first, but I never know what the image will end up as.”

She describes starting a picture by drawing a kitchen table, but quickly hates it, so paints over it a blue colour which then – with the table coming through the paint – looks like a landscape to which she adds a figure and then a house. Then she overpaints it white, but this leads to another figure somehow emerging, which looks like her mother, and the fruit bowl she started with now looks like a bed, and then she remembers her mother, when she was dying, trying to tell her that her grandmother was at the end of the bed. And so then it changes again, and now the figure looks like Tracey herself, and through this slightly hallucinogenic process, a self-portrait emerges.

There is a fearlessness to the process of exploration, and that fearlessness is what defines so much of what she does or tries to avoid. “My surgeon said to me, ‘Are you not afraid of anything?’ And I said no, not really and definitely not of death. He said, ‘Why not?’ I said death looks after itself, it’s unavoidable. It’s life we have to focus on. This was when I faced cancer and I said I just want to make the most of it now because I don’t think I have ever done that before in my life. But he persisted and said, ‘Are you not afraid of anything?’ and I said just one thing: torture. And he said, ‘That is because they keep you alive,’ and I said, yes. So I am not afraid of death, but also, to be clear, I don’t want to die.”

There is a heightened drama at the very beginning of her life as an artist. At the Royal College, she was so poor she could not store her pictures at home, and unlike every other student, she did not have parents with a garage to house her works. In a rage, she took a sledgehammer and destroyed them in the art school courtyard. “I destroyed all the paintings that I did before I got into a college of art. I just smashed them all up. I had nowhere to put anything. I just had, like, nothing, nowhere.”

It was the start of trying to fit in for a young woman who left school at 15. “I was put on the pill by my mother aged 14. I also had a massive chip on my shoulder and didn’t fit in. Even filling in forms at the Royal College of Art, it says: father’s occupation, mother’s occupation. There is no room for ‘unemployed’ and no room for nothing, nothing, nothing. There is only room for something, something, something.”

But always good humour saves her. “I never took drugs so I was able to buy a house as soon as I could when I started to sell work. In the end, art kept me alive. Art has always been there for me. When I was young, I was so nihilistic and so suicidal in my head, but whenever I took on the idea of suicide, something bizarre would happen and give me a high, and it would always be something artistic.”

And so she bubbles on. Unstoppable and riveting. She is passionate about helping other women who faced the attacks she suffered, but lightheartedly suggests a plaque should mark where she and other women were raped. She would fight to the nth degree for women to have final say on what they do with their bodies.

The Tracy Emin of today is rich, loved and wildly successful. She has an able team around her led by Harry Weller, her assistant and manager. She has a life of comfort and security, which she appreciates with a passion. Never forgetting she was at risk of losing her life and her existence. Art and her survival instinct has always stepped in. She says if there was a plane crash and only one passenger was reported as having survived, she always knew it would be her. She laughs. She pauses. She knows, for all her joy and her triumphs, how hard life can be. Cancer takes few prisoners. She has survived. Brilliantly. But there is always a cost. And that cost is here at the Tate, for all to see, admire and wonder at.

‘Tracey Emin: A Second Life’ at Tate Modern from 27 Feb to 31 August; tate.org.uk

If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.

Suspected rapist leaves UK after being accidentally set free weeks before trial

A suspected rapist has managed to leave the country after being accidentally set free from prison just weeks before he was due to stand trial, it has been revealed.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with multiple allegations of rape, sexual assault and violence against a woman and held in custody in a UK prison.

After a pre-trial hearing in early February, a court accidentally told the prison that the defendant could be set free on bail, triggering his release from jail.

He then left the country shortly after regaining his freedom.

Details of the case emerged as a top London judge called on the government to intervene to try to ensure the man returns to stand trial.

“Although such errors are extremely rare, and indeed this is the only instance I am aware of when there has been an erroneous release of a prisoner held in custody to this court, we take this error extremely seriously,” said Judge Martin Edmunds KC, the Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, in a ruling.

“We will fully investigate how it occurred and what steps can be put in place to prevent it occurring again.”

Isleworth Crown Court heard the defendant, who denies all the charges against him, was remanded in custody after being charged with multiple counts of rape, and was originally due to stand trial in June this year.

He appeared in court on 26 January for a hearing to consider whether his trial date should be brought forward to March.

At a further hearing on 6 February, when the defendant was not brought to court from prison, a blunder was made that led to his accidental release.

“By error on the part of HMCTS (HM Courts & Tribunals Service) at the court, the court issued a notice of grant of bail,” outlined the judge, adding that it appears there was confusion because the defendant faces a second criminal case in which he has been granted bail.

“A mistake was made assuming he was on bail on both matters,” the judge said.

The defendant’s barrister told the court on Friday that her client left the UK for a European country after his mistaken jail release, and though he says he wants to return to face trial, he is unable to travel.

“He is now in a position where he is unable to return to the jurisdiction,” she said.

“He is unable – without further assistance from the state – to return to the country.”

The court was told he left the country on the passport issued by the country where he originates, and cannot now obtain a visa to return to the UK because his British passport is still being held by the police, and he also cannot say on which date he will return.

“What I consider is required is confirmation from Foreign or Home Office that confirms that arrangements are in place, that if the defendant chooses to engage with them, will allow him to return to the UK,” said the judge.

“In short, a clear and practical plan.”

A further court hearing is due to take place on Tuesday to determine if the trial in March can take place and whether the defendant will be able to return to the UK.

The problem of prisoners being accidentally released came into sharp focus last autumn when it emerged that HMP Wandsworth had wrongly freed a convicted sex offender and a fraudster.

Official figures showed that in the year to March 2025, 262 inmates had been mistakenly let out – a 128 per cent increase on the 115 in the previous 12 months.

The government responded to the crisis with promises to improve systems in prisons that deal with releases.

Tourists stranded after violence erupts in wake of killing of cartel drug lord in Mexico

U.S. tourists have been stranded and told to seek shelter in a Mexican beach town after the killing of a notorious cartel leader sparked a wave of violence across the country.

Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was killed in a military operation in the western state of Jalisco Sunday, officials said.

Video footage shared online shows cars set ablaze in Puerto Vallarta, where frightened tourists described a “war zone” as plumes of dark smoke rose into the sky from around the bay.

American tourists in the city have told CNN that they have been locked in their hotels awaiting guidance for when it is safe to go outside.

Air Canada, United Airlines, Aeromexico and American Airlines have all suspended flights in the area, while the U.S. State Department has urged its citizens in multiple Mexican states to remain indoors.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stressed that activities in most areas of the country are proceeding as usual.

However, schools in various states across the country had protectively canceled classes for Monday, according to local authorities.

Family of man shot dead by police at Mar-a-Lago express disbelief: ‘We are big Trump supporters’

The 21-year-old man shot and killed by Secret Service agents after allegedly attempting to break into President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in the early hours of Sunday came from a family of “avid Trump supporters,” according to a relative.

The FBI confirmed the suspect was Austin Tucker Martin, who entered the premises at the resort’s north gate armed with a shotgun and a gas canister around 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, were not at the Florida residence at the time.

The couple was in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night for a dinner with state governors, but the president often spends the weekend at the residence, where he golfs on Sundays.

Martin, of Moore County, North Carolina, was reported missing from his home Saturday by his family, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Martin’s cousin, Braeden Fields, told the Associated Press of his disbelief over the incident and described the family as “avid Trump supporters.”

“We are big Trump supporters, all of us. Everybody,” Fields, 19, said, but added his cousin was “real quiet, never really talked about anything.”

“He’s a good kid,” Fields told the outlet. “I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing.”

He said Martin worked at a local golf course and would send money from each paycheck to charity.

“He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun,” Fields said.

At a Sunday morning press conference, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said two Secret Service agents and a deputy confronted the suspect and told him to drop the gas can and his shotgun.

The suspect then “raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” said Bradshaw.

“The only words we said to him was ‘drop the items,’” Bradshaw told reporters. “He put the gas can down and pointed the shotgun at the officers.”

Law enforcement officers were not injured in the incident.

The FBI is leading the investigation, Bradshaw added.

Trump is yet to comment publicly on the shooting but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the Secret Service for acting “quickly and decisively” — and used the opportunity to blame Democrats because of the partial government shutdown.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said she has spoken with Trump and is working with federal partners on the investigation.

“Grateful that @potus and our law enforcement agents are safe,” Bondi added in a post on X.

FBI director Kash Patel said the bureau was dedicating “all necessary resources” into the investigation in a brief statement on social media.

“FBI is dedicating all necessary resources in the investigation of this morning’s incident at President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago – where an armed individual was shot and killed after unlawfully entering the perimeter,” Patel said in a post on X. “We will continue working closely with @SecretService as well our state and federal partners and will provide updates as we are able.”

Trump has faced threats to his life before, including an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.

And on September 15, 2024, a man with a rifle was captured after waiting near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach while the president played a round. He was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.

British national among 19 killed as bus plunges off Nepal mountain

At least 19 people, including a British national, died after a packed passenger bus drove off a mountain slope in western Nepal on Monday, local police officials said.

The bus had left the tourist town of Pokhara before it fell 200m (650ft) from the road at Behighat in Dhading district, 80km (50 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, police officials said in a statement. It rolled down a mountainous slope and landed on the banks of Trishuli River.

Around 44 people were on board when it drove off the hilly stretch on the Prithvi highway. Officials said 25 people were injured in the accident, including a New Zealander and a Chinese national.

Of those killed, only nine bodies have been identified so far, the police said.

Preliminary visuals of the accident from the early hours showed rescuers sifting through the mangled iron remains of the bus to inspect the damage after pulling passengers out of the vehicle.

The injured are being treated at the National Trauma Centre in Kathmandu, officials said.

The Chinese embassy in Nepal had issued a statement earlier saying that one other Chinese national was missing.

It is not immediately clear what caused the bus to drive off the highway and police officials are investigating the cause of the accident.

Regional government administrator Mohan Prasad Neupane said rescuers reached the accident site soon after the mishap was reported, and the injured were pulled out of the wreckage and rushed to hospitals for treatment.

The hilly area has seen deadly accidents recently. In 2024, two buses with 65 people on board also fell into the same river and tragically resulted in the loss of most aboard. Authorities said that the passengers were either killed or are still missing.

Officials said the wreckage of one of the buses was found only this year and was buried deep in sand.

Nepal is a popular south Asian destination among foreigners for trekking in its mountainous regions and attracts thousands from across the world throughout the year. However, the country faces poor infrastructure issues on roads and vehicles to sustain the increasing footfall.

Much of the Himalayan country is covered by mountains and connected only by narrow roads.

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My brother’s school struggle inspired Send overhaul, PM says

Sir Keir Starmer has revealed that his late brother’s “fight every day to be seen” in the classroom has inspired his £4bn overhaul of special educational needs (Send) to make the system more inclusive.

The prime minister said his brother Nick, who had learning difficulties, faced a constant battle in a system “that never had any expectations for him” and that the government’s plans to transform the system would bring an an end to the “one size fits all system”.

The government is set to publish the Schools White Paper today, which includes plans to give more funding to mainstream schools to support pupils with special educational needs, as well as targeted interventions such as small-group language work and help for staff to introduce adaptive teaching styles.

Writing in The Times, the prime minister explained: “I saw how much Nick had to fight every day just to be seen. To count. To be recognised by an education system that never had any expectations for him because he had difficulties learning.”

“My brother Nick had so much to contribute to Britain. He belonged in mainstream society, as do the wonderful adults that today’s children with Send will grow up to be. And so I believe, where possible and right, these children also belong in mainstream schooling.”

As part of the proposals, some £1.6bn over three years will be provided to early years, schools and colleges through an “inclusive mainstream fund”.

Another £1.8bn over the same period will go towards creating an “experts at hand” service, made up of specialists such as Send teachers and speech and language therapists in every area.

Schools will be able to draw from this bank on demand regardless of whether pupils have education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legal documents setting out the support children with Send are entitled to – the Department for Education (DfE) said.

Unions broadly welcomed the commitment to reform but warned they would be scrutinising the detail when the Schools White Paper is released to see whether the changes are enough.

A further £200m will be invested in Send outreach teams for communities, and another £200m for local authorities to “transform how they operate in line with our reforms while maintaining current Send services”, the DfE said.

Sir Keir Starmer claimed that “tailored support” for families would bring an an end to the “one size fits all system”.

“I’ve heard first hand the struggles and exhaustion faced by too many parents who feel they have to fight the system to get their child the support they need,” he said.

“But getting the right support should never be a battle – it should be a given.”

Meanwhile, the education secretary said the government was “fiercely ambitious for children and young people with Send”, who deserve a system that “lifts them up, and that puts no limit on what they can go on to achieve”.

She said: “These reforms are a watershed moment for a generation of young people and generations to come, and a major milestone in this Government’s mission to make sure opportunity is for each and every child.”

But public service union Unison said the money “has to go where it’s needed” and “exactly how that will happen under these new plans is not clear”.

Head of education at the union Mike Short said: “The broad themes in the White Paper are encouraging and cutting the disadvantage gap is key if every child is to achieve and thrive.

“Any reforms must ensure there’s enough funding to support all children and pay staff properly for the work they do.”

He added: “Ministers and schools must properly recognise and reward the vital role support staff play in delivering for children with Send.”

It comes amid concerns that Send children will have plans setting out their right to support reviewed as part of the reforms.

Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said she has some “big concerns” about “what is being floated” in proposals to reform special education provision in schools, amid reports that children with a legal right to special needs support will face a review when they move to secondary school.

Ms Trott told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “For too many parents … they’ve had to fight for the support and the idea that they’re going to be reassessed will be genuinely frightening, and I do worry about that.”

Ms Trott said it has been “way too hard” for many parents to get support, adding: “Once that support is in place, for many young people that has actually been very effective.

“So, it’s important that that is not taken away. The stress that this system has meant for so many parents up and down the country, they’ve been worried for about a year now, because there was a leak that EHCPs (education, health and care plans) were going to be taken away.

“Now we’ve got the education secretary on here saying that they might be reviewed. I mean, it’s just too much for parents. They need to just take away this anxiety and we would absolutely oppose any support being withdrawn.”

The National Association of Headteachers welcomed the “principle” of more support for pupils in mainstream schools and said “along with this significant investment, we will be scrutinising the details closely and speaking to school leaders to weigh up whether it is sufficient”.

“There will always be some pupils whose needs are so great that they require support in a special school, and it’s crucial the government’s plans ensure all children get the support they need at the right time in the right setting,” Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the union, said.

Jon Sparkes, chief executive of learning disability charity Mencap, said: “The move to make mainstream schools more inclusive is welcome news.

“Families must have their children’s needs identified early and for them to be given the right help straight away, backed by services fully funded to do the job, and rights underpinned by law.”

The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank said “no plan will be perfect” but that reforms to the system should not become the next “political flashpoint” in Westminster.

“The costs of delay are already being felt,” associate director Avnee Morjaria said.

“This must now be a moment for everyone to get behind a serious programme of reform.”

The White Paper, set to be published in full on Monday, will also set a target to halve the disadvantage gap by the time children born under this government finish secondary school, as part of a plan to improve the education system in England.