Children and Families Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Baroness Howe of Idlicote

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee]

I think it would be helpful if I reminded the Committee that provisions in the Bill do not change any arrangements. If it is found to be cost-effective to send a child overseas as part of the EHC plan, no doubt that will be done. However, as the noble Baroness explained, that will be an extremely expensive option and therefore will be most unusual.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I must say I find this extremely confusing. I share the concern that the result of it all may be that the opposite happens: that is, that there is rather more demand for this activity once it looks as if this sort of arrangement could be made almost around the world. Do noble Lords think that it might be more sensible to devote a little more time to this issue and perhaps have a meeting with the experts so that the right wording is put into the Bill? I do not know whether others feel as I do, but this is a bit confusing.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am always delighted to have meetings with noble Lords and I am sure that my noble friend Lady Northover would be delighted to have a meeting on this and perhaps look into it in a bit more detail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for moving this amendment and for continuing to raise this issue. In tabling this amendment, she is highlighting a specific need for local authorities to secure provision to support parents of children with a hearing loss. I think that the noble Baroness spoke in a recent debate in the Chamber when I was supporting my noble friend Lady Jolly. I agree that where there are identified needs, local authorities should provide communication support for parents of children with hearing loss. I recognise the importance of early access to language to help children to learn and to thrive, and it is vital that parents and families get support to communicate in those early months.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned the importance of early bonding between the child and the parents. I am not trained in social work, but even I understand that that is extremely important to the development of the child. If that does not take place, the development of the child will be permanently set back.

As noble Lords will note, the Bill already places duties on local authorities to identify, assess and secure special educational provision for all children and young people with SEN. This could include sign language support for those who need it. During the recent debate that I referred to, one of the issues raised was sign language training for parents, of which more later. Your Lordships may find it useful to refer to the Hansard of that debate, because I found the response of my noble friend Lady Jolly very interesting.

The Bill also requires local authorities to set out a local offer of the support that is available so that parents are aware of what is available to them. Clause 32 requires local authorities to provide parents of children and young people with advice and information about matters relating to special educational needs, which will include parents of deaf children. However, it is for local authorities to decide the appropriate way to structure that support. I can see that the noble Baroness is not entirely content with that statement.

There is already support available to assist parents of deaf children. Through teachers of the deaf and sensory support services, local authorities are providing support to parents of deaf children on communicating with their child, which can include sign language training. The Department for Education is working with the voluntary and community sector to enable local areas to benchmark the support that they provide to deaf children and to access tools and information on the most effective approaches. In particular, we are funding the National Sensory Impairment Partnership, NatSIP, to carry out a benchmarking exercise and develop an outcome framework for local authorities to assess how well they are supporting deaf pupils. They will work with sensory support services across the country in the development of a local offer for deaf, blind and multi-sensory impaired children and their parents. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about multiple sensory impairment.

We funded the development of an early support guide for parents of deaf children and the I-Sign project to develop a family sign language programme. We are funding the I-Sign consortium to build on the learning from this project and improve the availability of sign language support for parents and families. As part of this, I-Sign is testing the use of personal budgets to fund sign language.

As I have already explained, there is already support available for parents of deaf children in addition to the duties in the Bill. It will not be appropriate to have specific duties relating to specific types of need and support as this would lead to confusion and gives precedence to particular types of need over other, equally pressing types of need. With this reassurance I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his considered reply. I am not entirely happy with what he said, although I was not expecting to hear a great deal of detail. He gave some moments of hope with the I-Sign consortium being funded but, as we all know, that will go only some way. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilkins and Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lord Listowel for their brief contributions. I cannot say that I am not going to bring the amendment back because I and others will want to think about whether there is a better way of getting rather more out of this section. This is such an important group, and their basic human rights are at least as important as everybody else’s. We need to ensure that they have the proper proportion of whatever resources are available. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.