Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Fraser for securing this debate, bringing her expertise to your Lordships’ House, and making sure that the issues affecting children with special educational needs and disabilities stay on the agenda, with a real focus on ambition.

This is clearly a very long-standing issue. The Green Paper from 2011 identified many of the issues that your Lordships have raised this evening, and clearly it gives me no pleasure to recognise that. Despite everyone’s best efforts—those in schools, parents and children—the system is not working, and there is real inconsistency in the identification of SEND geographically, by school within regions, and by characteristic. For example, 50% of summer-born boys will be given a SEND identification during their time at primary. I do not think any of us can really believe that to be an accurate reflection of the situation.

Most importantly, the system is not working for children, whether that is in the classroom, where they have been described as being in it but not of it, or in relation to the results that they achieve. There is the risk that expectations are lowered for children with a label, and research suggests strongly that this is exactly what plays out in practice: parents fight for a label and then it backfires on their child.

We have seen an explosion in the identification of autism, ADHD, social, emotional and mental health problems, and speech and language issues. I would like to spend just a moment on those. Nearly every parent tries to make sure that their children are ready for school, but it seems that we need to do more to make sure that everyone understands the importance of early emotional development and language acquisition.

The Minister will be aware of the research showing the link between a family’s screen use and a child’s language environment, with the average toddler missing out on hearing more than 1,000 words a day due to screen time. Given the incredible rise in speech and language delays identified at school, surely the Government need to act on this. Similarly, in the other areas of rapid increase in identification, the evidence is growing about the harmful effects of screens on children with symptoms of ADHD and social, emotional and mental health problems in potentially both creating and exacerbating their symptoms. Will the Government look seriously at the impact of having smartphones in schools on the well-being of our children, particularly those with special educational needs?

The previous Government’s SEND and AP implementation plan recommended the introduction of national standards. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on the Government’s plan for those. This Government recently announced that they were not continuing with the Safety Valve programme, which provided funding to create local capacity. I wonder if she could expand on what will happen instead. Earlier today, I mentioned the Employment Rights Bill. Given the importance of teaching assistants and other support staff for children with special educational needs, I hope the Minister will ensure that it will not represent a ceiling on what trusts are able to offer their staff.

I end where my noble friend started: we must make sure that we ask children with disabilities what their dreams are and that we all work to help fulfil them.