18/11/2025
Richard Tice’s comments are not just misinformed, they are harmful 🤬
Calling it a “crisis of overdiagnosis” ignores the reality that most families spend years pushing, pleading, and proving their child’s needs before anyone listens. There is no queue for diagnoses. There is a backlog of unheard children.
Saying “schools know best” while schools themselves are begging for training, funding, and specialist input shows a complete detachment from reality. Pushing responsibility back onto teachers without resources isn’t policy, it’s abdication.
Mocking ear defenders is even worse. Ear defenders aren’t fashion accessories. They’re pain prevention. They’re regulation. They’re the difference between coping and overwhelm. Dismissing them tells neurodivergent children that their sensory needs are laughable.
And the idea that non-diagnosed children are “feeling left out” is an attempt to pit children against each other rather than fix a broken system.
Labels aren’t the problem.
Labels protect children.
Diagnoses aren’t vanity, they’re access to rights, safety, and support.
The real crisis isn’t overdiagnosis.
The real crisis is politicians who would rather deny needs than fund them.
Neurodivergent children are not a burden.
They are not a punchline.
They are not the cause of the system’s failings.
They deserve understanding, not minimisation.
They deserve support, not scorn.
They deserve leaders who listen, not leaders who belittle.
Tice said that there is a “crisis of overdiagnosis of children with neurodiverse issues”.
Asked what Reform UK can do to tackle this, he said: “The best thing to do actually, is to push almost all of it back to the schools. The schools know best, the teachers know best.
“And stop labelling people, just say ‘you need a bit of extra support, you might need a bit of extra time’.
“You’ve got to the mad situation now where children who don’t have any form of label are starting to feel left out."
“I’ll just raise one more point, the sight of children in classes wearing ear defenders, I’m sorry, this is just insane. It’s got to stop. The teachers want it to stop. Heads want it to stop. It’s not the right way forward.”
------------------------------------
Richard Tice, you don’t get to decide that neurodivergent children are the problem just because the system is failing them. How dare you?
You call it a “crisis of overdiagnosis” as if children are queuing up for fun to be misunderstood, pathologised and scrutinised every single day. As if families aren’t fighting for years just to get someone to take their child’s needs seriously. You act like diagnoses are handed out with party bags...
You say “schools know best”, while teachers everywhere are pleading for training, funding and specialist support. You want to push everything back onto classrooms already held together by goodwill and exhaustion. That’s abdication. You're clueless and venomous.
You mock ear defenders like they’re comedy props, and talk about children feeling “left out” if they don’t have a label. You reduce real sensory pain and struggle to a punchline. You turn vulnerable kids into a joke?!
You pretend you’re helping by “stopping the labels,” but those labels as you call them, are what protect children from being failed. Diagnoses are not vanity... they’re validation. They unlock support, rights and safety without which our children are discarded like second hand citizens.
You are not challenging overdiagnosis.
You are challenging legitimacy.
And that is dangerous.
Neurodivergent children are not the crisis.
The crisis is politicians like you who would rather silence needs than fund them.
P.s. F**k you!
