Free School Meals

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point about how we can smooth the process to ensure that people are able to gain their entitlement. We recognise—as my noble friend does—the vital role played by free school meals both in supporting individual children and identifying where additional support needs to be provided to schools.

To reiterate what I said previously, we are working to improve the eligibility checking system, making it available to parents, for example. We are also working with stakeholders to better understand some of the barriers to the take-up of free school meals. The improvement of data sharing could also help to ensure that local authorities have the information they need to work more closely with the families who could, and should, be entitled to free school meals. That is why we are working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore legal gateways that could enable data sharing to improve that ability, giving local authorities access to that data and enabling them to take action to ensure that more families who are entitled are getting their free school meals.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, there is a history of underclaiming of benefits running through the whole system. It is not to do with this Government or even the last one; it has been there for a long time. Will the Government look at how to increase the number of people who claim what they are entitled to in the new Bill that is coming before us on 1 May, as that would seem to be a good opportunity?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We are already taking action, as I suggested, through widening the ability of people to use the eligibility checker, by ensuring that there is better sharing of data with local authorities. On the point about reducing the friction in the application process, we are working with DWP to consider how we can more closely link applying for universal credit with entitlement to free school meals. There is a variety of activity that the Government are already undertaking. I am sure we will have the opportunity to discuss that in more detail and length when we bring forward the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to the House.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to give schools the capacity to make assessments of commonly occurring special educational needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I remind the House of my declared interest with the British Dyslexia Association and Microlink PC.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, we are improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream settings to ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need to thrive. To do this, we are funding the universal SEND services programme, which has supported professionals to access over 20,000 SEND-specific training modules, the PINS programme to support around 1,600 primary schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children, and the NELI programme which has helped staff screen an estimated 640,000 children to identify those with language development difficulties.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Will she expand on what has been done to disseminate knowledge throughout the teaching staff once this assessment has been made? Where anyone has problems, it is usually a case of working smarter, not harder, so more help from the mainstream types of support can often be counterproductive.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right: we believe that every teacher is a teacher of special educational needs and disability. Where we find good practice, we need to make sure that it is disseminated to all teachers because the best teaching produces the best results for all children, including those with special educational needs and disability. From this September, the initial teacher training scope will include improved measures and information about what works well for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Gavi: Covid-19

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

We are encouraging others to step up and donate to Gavi. It is high on our agenda in bilateral calls. We have already made our commitment and have seen lots of other commitments, both from countries and private companies, which are welcome if we are to achieve our aim.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Government commit to help, in every way they can, to make sure that those firms that have contributed to a vaccine will continue to get a good market opportunity, if they are producing the vaccine at an affordable price? This seems important to Gavi’s work.

[Baroness Sugg]

Yes, I can give that commitment. Kate Bingham, who was just appointed head of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, has outlined that one of her two immediate aims is

“to ensure adequate global distribution of vaccines to bring the quickest possible end to the pandemic.”

It is important that we support the private companies that are developing this vaccine to do so.

Knife Crime

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when I put my name down for this debate I had a series of points that I was going to raise, most of which, of course, have been covered. The basic premise, though, from reading all the information is that the spike in knife crime—let us hope it is a spike, as opposed to an upward trend—merely ties into what has happened before. The profile of the offender is almost exactly the same as it has always been. The first common denominator is that they are out of school by the age of 14. That is the one that has always been there. Anybody who has worked in prisons has discovered incredibly low levels of educational attainment and a fear of authority. Only while working in a youth offender unit have I been threatened and grovelled to in the same sentence. These people are difficult to reach.

One of the contributing factors is clearly the fact that, in our current education system, it has become okay to get rid of your failing pupils: off-rolled, excluded, you name it, you get rid of them because of the way we are going. The Minister looks shocked. I did not say that the Government had done it; it is something schools have to do to preserve their status. The argument of losing your academy status has clearly had an effect here. There can be no real argument with that. There is something there: you are going to punish a school or change its status if it gets bad results. If you have pupils who will not get their five “C”s or whatever it is now—I think it will be five “4”s in the exam system my daughter will present to me in August—and there is a punishment, the perverse incentive is absolutely there. Very good schools will resist it, but it will still be there.

Of course people have always excluded themselves from school and there have always been people who did not like it. Schools do not want them there and say, “Just go away”. It has always happened, but it is becoming more prevalent and exclusions are rife. We have this lovely growth that can be exploited for criminal or social reasons. If I remember correctly, my noble friend Lord Dholakia said that fashion and fear lead to people carrying these blades. It has always been there, but it is now more common.

We have this horrible situation where something has become more prevalent and more exploited, then gangs move in to exploit it for a criminal activity. Drugs have mainly been spoken about, but there will be other areas of activity as well. So what we do to try to get out of it? One of the things civil society can do is encourage people who are very good at reaching these groups. Sport is one of them. It sounds a little like you are going to say, “Oh, if everybody played jolly good sport and had a cold shower afterwards, everything would be fine”. Having had the cold shower, believe me, it does not help you turn up next time. But all sports have a cohesive effect. They have an objective and discipline.

Bizarrely, from certain attitudes taken by the Government, boxing and martial arts are the best for reaching this group. They just are. Learning how not to get punched in the nose is a great way to make sure that you are less likely to get involved in violence. You have a community, a group and a reason to stay fit. If you are staying fit you are not hanging around drinking and taking drugs on street corners. If you do, when you go to the gym you will get hit. There we are: a great incentive for you.

Since we have this there, what are we doing to encourage it? We could bring boxing into prisons, but apparently we do not like that because it encourages violence. Possibly somebody should have a look at that at some point, but martial arts are a very good way in. Other sports, such as basketball and other good urban sports, will have opportunities as well, but the lead one seems to be boxing. Are we going to encourage these groups to integrate with the rest of society? There is a very good organisation called Fight For Peace. Its centre in the London Docklands, which I saw, grew out of the activities of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Since boxing is acceptable there it could cross gang lines. If noble Lords want to look at real problems when you get this wrong, they should look there. It is not a couple of people with knives; it is people with automatics and spare clips of ammunition on street corners and the police go in in armoured cars. We should bear in mind that it can get worse.

What are we doing to help groups such as this encourage into their gyms and training sessions social workers and people in careers support to make sure that these people can re-engage? We have a way in. All sports have it; boxing might have the best one. Anything that will build on what we are doing out there will work, because what they are saying is, “Re-engage with society”. The people who these young people respect, who are not the establishment or the teacher who failed them, should be the ones to come in and say, “You can succeed”. Bring in people who have the same accent as them to tell them, “You can succeed”, and to help. That is a way forward.

What are we doing to encourage these groups to have easy access to what the state can do to support and help them? This is a real question. We do it in small pockets and say, “Wonderful, isn’t it great?”, and then leave and do not change the rest of our activity. Ministers will have to lead this because they will always be punching through the Chinese walls of, “That’s not my budget”, or, “I don’t get the credit for it”. Everybody in Parliament can give a 10-minute speech on that any day of the week. What will the Government do to make sure good community projects can become part of this public health solution, which seems to be the only one we have identified? What are we do to make sure it happens? If we are not going to embrace this, we will probably end up losing out on one of our quick wins.

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Disability Commissioner

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is an interesting debate and, as many people have already stated, it comes down to this question: is disability something that easily fits with the rest of the commission? Personally, I think it should be there but that it needs to be treated slightly differently.

I and my noble friend Lady Thomas are both disabled people under every term of the Act, but our problems in day-to-day life could not be more different. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, said, if you have a disability—in my case, dyslexia—you often have to plan to do the normal differently. I am in a total mess if the voice-operated system on my computer breaks down. I cannot function as a normal Member of this House because I do not have access to email. It does not happen very often, but it does happen. Suddenly everything changes.

The perceptions of disabilities always exist in certain contexts. For example: “everyone in a wheelchair is only affected by transport”. That is something I went through many a time on many a Bill. “Dyslexia”, my own disability, “affects you only in the education system”. Both perceptions are patently absurd under any examination.

I recently took part, in the company of Barry Sheerman MP, in a commission on the neuro-diverse community and recruitment. We discovered—I throw this in merely to explain the great diversity—that the neuro-diverse community has tremendous difficulty with big-firm recruitment. It uses a series of online tests that we are bad at. I suspect that nobody else in this Room knew that, although you should have read our commission’s report. The difference is there and although all the other sectors here will have a great degree of difference, it is greater still. Many of the disabilities in the two groups which are to be discussed in the next debate have a great diversity of influence.

I have given the Minister warning of this question, although not much because I probably sent it to the wrong email account. I ask her: is there any evidence that the new approach is working better? I ask because that approach is not one that is reassuring to the huge and diverse disability communities—not “community”. We need to know that there is something working better and that information is getting out there. That is the important bit. Unless the Government can give us that assurance, we are going to have problems because we do not know what is happening.

Also, if your Lordships are looking at this huge, diverse and multifaceted group of things, yes, every disabled person happens to belong to at least one of the other groups in the commission but they will have little turns and changes in emphasis as things are gone through. Everything will be that little bit more complicated and, as my noble friend already said, we need to take some positive action to adopt this. Most bits of that action are actually much easier than people think, certainly with modern technology, but it still has to be taken. Somebody still has to be told that it is their duty to take it and, most of the time, it is my experience that people have to be shown that they can deal with the problem fairly easily.

In my professional life—I have to declare an interest here as chairman of Microlink, which deals with disability adaptation—often merely the structural changes in how something is paid for make life easier. For instance, it is often cheaper to do it without referring to somebody else’s budget and putting a central core down, but that is for another day. We need that reassurance that the information is getting through and that there is a central point, which is going down. If we do not have this, we will come back to this subject. We need the reassurance that it works, so is it being tested and, if so, how? What are the results? Make those public and we can move on.

International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am another of the minority that is welcomed into this gathering. We talk about female leadership; I cannot help but reminisce that when I first got here, a huge chunk of that leadership was provided by one Baroness Seear. I did not mention her the last time we had the debate on women’s suffrage. There is a military saying: “Anybody who takes the first step and says, ‘Follow me’ is a more efficient leader than anybody who shouts, ‘Forward!’, no matter how loudly”. Baroness Seear not only took the first step but shouted “Follow me!” in a very commanding tone. That is more of an aside.

I was going to talk about women’s sport but I was beaten to it by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. We all know that things are getting better there, but there is that old problem that there is still much more to do. Sport tends to think of its traditions, and the question is how you break out of those or adapt them to allow this new group in. The new group constitutes the slight majority of the population. We are addressing most of the institutions and structures, and we have an excellent example of how successful this approach can be if you give women in sport their moment in the sun: the winter Olympics.

The great success stories and great failures were female; they provided the drama. Elise Christie—a great champion who has not quite delivered at the highest level—crashed out three times. A defending champion came back, defying the odds and reasserting herself. There was the “nearly!” struggle of the curling. That provides the drama and the approach. Many people—at least one or two noble Lords in this Chamber—will say, “But does sport matter?” If you can think of a better way of expressing soft power and bringing nations together, I will be happy to listen. Is there something else that has such a mass appeal, bringing people together? I cannot think of anything. It is able to cut across, using an understandable language of activity and unity, and admiration for what somebody else does. Sport probably takes that all on. To come back to the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, I remember that trip to South Africa. The noble Lord may remember that it was a Parliamentary Rugby World Cup. I was playing, and the noble Lord was looking very elegant in a blazer. By the way, if anybody is interested, we are still turning out. I still have my jersey; I would like to say that it fits, but let us just say that I can still get into it.

If you look at the Olympics for examples of how women’s sport has taken off, you will find the perfect example in hockey. The women’s hockey gold medal has done more to lift that sport than just about anything else I can think of. Women’s football has done very well too. I was kept up very late watching England in a tournament the name of which I forget, taking on the world’s best in the USA. I was probably something of a jinx, because I decided that I could not stay up to watch the second half—and they lost. Then again, I support Scotland, so who cares? They have taken great steps. Rugby union has expanded its base and has made sure that it reaches out to schools. Those are traditionally male sports, which are moving on, but hockey has done it. It is true that for hockey, it is easier. I was chatting to somebody who said that one of the great problems in female sport is that the changing facilities seem to be too primitive for women. I do not see that at all in hockey; mind you, we built our clubs for women as well. An old rugby union player takes a bow on that one.

The fact is that you have to bring them in, but once you have done it, and if they are successful or at least competitive, you will build up the whole sport. The whole of hockey has expanded thanks to the shot in the arm that was provided by women. Everybody knows that sport is a social good, a medical good and an economic good. What’s not to like? If the women can do that, we must encourage them. All the sports I have spoken to are taking action in this area—for example, the government initiative whereby 30% of the board has to be female. However, the real challenges are coming not in recruitment but in establishing the underlying structures.

The difficult area is coaching—making sure that we get better female coaching, with more depth. You have really succeeded when, in football, there is no discussion about why you have not got a male coach. I was at a breakfast meeting here at which the FA basically said, “We wanted a coach who was good enough, and as we couldn’t get a woman coach we took a male coach, because of the need for quality at elite-level sport”. That is pretty unanswerable, unfortunately.

Unless you work on this and government encourages this, you will not get past the issue of who takes on the leadership role. Who is the person that will take this on? There is virtually no reason why females cannot take over in male sport. What attitude surveys have been done here? I have been coached by women in my time, such as the incredible and formidable Margot Wells, when I was in the second team at London Scottish. She was a person you did not mess with. I remember cowering in a corner when she shouted at a large group of men for not eating enough for her training programme—an experience that most people in this Chamber will not have been through.

Women have the capacity to get through if they are given the chance, knowledge and drive. What are the Government doing to encourage these sports to make sure that their coaching and development programmes reflect this? I know that work is going on and it is being looked at internally but what are we doing to help? If we do not do this, the hierarchical structure at the business end of a sport will dominate for a much longer period. How are we going to provide encouragement and make sure that the leadership—the person who makes the decisions and picks the team—is female, not only in female sport but male sport, and often enough to make a difference? Once that has been done, we will be close to achieving full equality.

Role of Women in Public Life

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am a representative of the minority 25%. Indeed, it is slightly worse than that, because I am a hereditary Peer with an older sister.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Addington]

Yes. I thought that my spiritual gum-shield might be required today.

If we accept that we have a society comprised of more than 50% of one group, that group should probably be represented in roughly that number among those who make the decisions about it. You will understand it better and have a better way in and so forth. You will be able to understand the pressures and things going on. That is a reasonable assumption to make. But it is one that has the weight of history against it. It also has a great track record of people trying to change that. That is what drew me to this debate. Why has it not happened?

A hundred years ago, women arrived as voters, and very closely after that they arrived as representatives. Then there was a very staggered process through. The amazing thing, looking at the guidance provided by the Library, was that in 1964 we had 29 female MPs. We did not exceed that number until 1987—six general elections in a row there were fewer. That suggests that positive action is required. Then we should discuss what type of action.

We have heard two primary schools of thought here—either to change the structure or to drive change through by action out there with shortlists. I suspect that we will have to work from both to achieve change if we are not to wait another 100 years to get close. But if we achieve change only by affirmative action, we have also failed. You have achieved balance when getting 50% is not a big deal and is not a surprise. You have it when you get to the point where you can say, “This time it was 52% and then it was 48%”. That is what happens when you achieve true equality.

How do we get there? The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who is also a friend, said that we should work across the parties and learn from each other. That is because we seem to agree on the target. There are different ways to move forward and different pressures, but unless we start to learn from each other, we are not actually going to achieve the target. The cultures and political stresses in the parties will fight against each other and slow things down unless we can establish a degree of consensus. The great virtue of this House is that we can probably start to get some consensus a little more easily than you can down the Corridor, and that is a fact. We are dealing with a practical question, and unless we work together, we will not get there as quickly, easily and sustainably as we might otherwise.

The other thing that attracted me to this debate was the fact that gender balance in representation is another example of how, if you want to change society, you have to be incredibly persistent. Most of the activities I have taken on in this House have been in the area of disability, where you hear similar types of arguments in different packages: “Oh, you can’t do that because”, or, “I know we can make the change, but really we haven’t done it before”, or, “What do you mean I have got to change the way I behave?”. That last is the worst one, and if anyone who has worked in this field has not come across it, I will buy them many beers. It is something that we have to address, so taking the messages from this area of social change is very valuable because, let us face it, it is the one which has the most experience and the most form. You also have potentially the biggest lobby, and it might set good examples to help you carry on. But unless there is a coherent attitude of persistence by saying that certain changes must be made, all of these areas will struggle.

We hear things like, “It doesn’t concern me and it’s okay because no one’s complained”. That is the best one. “We have never asked the question, we have never considered it, it has never arisen, so there is no problem and let’s move on”. You might hear, “We’ve passed a bit of legislation, so for the politicians the job is done”. We only get dragged back to look at an issue when the campaigners say, “It hasn’t worked”, or, “It hasn’t worked properly”. We must take this example into all areas of social change so that we go back, re-examine and make sure that what we are doing is right. Ultimately, time has to be spent on readdressing issues.

What we do not do, and this is a problem across Parliament as a whole, is say, “Okay, we have passed the law, so now let’s see how it works in practice”. If we had done that in the areas I have talked about and in the areas other noble Lords could talk about it—if passing a law were enough—there would not be a problem. “We have the Equality Act. Hey, job done and problem solved. Go away”. But it does not happen like that, because you have to go in and back it up. We have two models in this area: affirmative action and culture change. Unless we learn to bring them together, we are going to come back and applaud ourselves for making small changes, not for the big ones. I hope that we can make progress and take the examples set in this area into other parts of our society that desperately need them.

Disabled Students

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to co-ordinate the assistance given to disabled students at school, in further and higher education, and in the world of work.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank those—we happy few—who have waited here. It is slightly later than normal. One should never underestimate the passions and the length of passion when it comes to Europe in this House.

This Question about the co-ordination given to disabled students throughout the educational process and into the world of work was inspired by changes to what, I think, had been a very comforting place to be in that process, for a disabled student—that is, in higher education. We had a system that seemed to provide just about everything needed and it was changed—or threatened with change—by a Written Ministerial Statement on 7 April. Everything is up for grabs. What particularly attracted my attention was that those with specific learning difficulties were mentioned twice. That was the only disability group that was.

As I have put on record before, specific learning difficulties is usually shorthand for dyslexia. I have been told by interventions from Ministers that it is now thought to include other groups as well, such as those with dyscalculia, dyspraxia and so on. It gets mentioned because it is thought to be an area where the amount of money spent is excessive, primarily because we are given a standard computer when going through the education process. I say “we”, though of course this system started in 1990 and I missed it, in my higher education experience, by a couple of years. The computer was something that was taken as an example of waste. I will come back to this, but that inspired me to look at the entire system.

The system had to be looked at as we had just been through the Children and Families Act. Both school education and further education are now covered under a unified system, up to the age of 25. However, because the disabled students’ allowance was in existence, we did not really look at that. There was an assurance given to us at the time, both informally and, I think, formally, that we did not need to look at it.

So what has happened when it comes to school and further education? For the first time, the education system has a duty to go out and identify those with special educational needs—to find them, not have them brought to you—and not have people struggling. The system is supposed to find them, find out what is the matter and give them the help required. This is a massive cultural shift—a far bigger cultural shift than, I think, many people realised at the time. It means that there is a duty not to say, “Oh, little Johnny”—or little Jane—“is not succeeding”. Rather, there is a duty to identify why. This would have been much easier if there was a duty for all teachers to be better trained to identify the more hidden disabilities. I try to get away from this cliché of my own, but special educational needs runs on something that I have always referred to as “reverse battlefield medicine”. The most severe cases are dealt with first, usually because they can be spotted. I hope those listening can identify the difference between a disability that leads to an educational need as opposed to a special educational need—that is somebody who has a need resulting from being in a wheelchair as opposed to someone who has autism, dyslexia or is deaf. Those conditions, if they are obvious, get dealt with pretty quickly. The legislation now says, “We should try to get these people to achieve”. So we now have a situation in which all this is going on, and we have established that this system does not change at further education.

My history in your Lordships’ House follows me throughout this debate. We managed to deal with apprenticeships. It had been decided, wrongly, by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, that they were not covered by the Equality Act. It became apparent, and it was confirmed that they were covered. Dyslexics had been prevented from taking the English requirements with any chance of succeeding, but the process was changed and now you have to give assistive technology. I have just heard from the British Dyslexia Association that that has been challenged by one or two of the exam boards because it is regarded as giving some form of unfair support. I do so hope that the noble Baroness will be shoving her thumb into that eye very quickly, because my fingers are getting a little bit too dirty from doing that. I hope that this will be done quickly.

Having had the situation where we are working towards taking exams and we are providing support, we go to the DSA. Did the DSA provide a lot of support? Yes. Did it provide some that I felt might have been wasteful in certain cases? Yes. Did it become slightly too bureaucratic? Yes. I have heard of cases of people with mental health problems who have been refused it because they did not have the documentation, despite the fact that they had documentation saying that they had mental health problems. Often you have to be assessed again to get this assistance, despite the fact that you are statemented, under the old system, or have a plan, under the new one, and have received support so far through the system because of your condition. These assessments are extremely expensive—they cost hundreds of pounds if not thousands—and put pressure on certain student categories. If we are to have reform in this area, I hope my noble friend will be able to say that this will be looked at, and that further unnecessary assessment on entrance will be dealt with.

If this is the system that we are working towards, do we have a working practice that will allow for the growth of independence throughout the system? If you start by being identified as having learning problems in the classroom, you expect to get a great deal of support as a small child starting this process. A standard part of the educational experience for many people is the enhancement of independent working and independent training—with guidance, but that decreases. One of the important things about the university system is that one works independently for oneself. Here we get to the nub of what I am trying to say. How are we ensuring that that growth of independence carries on? How are we making sure that we have a system that uses parts of all of this and combines them to ensure that the candidates can get through the process themselves?

I am a convert to, and a great advocate of, using assistive technology, particularly in the case of dyslexics. There are others outside here who will say that other disability groups will not benefit as much, but I suspect that all can benefit to a degree. I also know that no one person in any one of these spectrum organisations is identical to the next, so there must be a degree of working together. However, the idea that the assistive technology that allows me to send any notes that I have sent to any person in this room, by dictating into a microphone attached to my computer, which is running a bit of software, would not be beneficial to someone who is a recognised dyslexic and will be dyslexic throughout their life, and that they will not be supported when they are taking their GCSEs, is ridiculous. Later, they may have to take an exam using an amanuensis or a computer, so why can they not have access to it earlier? Why are we not encouraging them to maximise the benefits of this technology earlier?

We then come to the process that is identified and used within the independent sector quite frequently, a process that is now made available as standard to people who get on to the DSA. This point is twice picked out in the statement made on 7 April, which says, “We will not provide you with the standard computer, and the software will now be provided by the higher education institute”. This is a huge cultural shift. Why has this been decided? Because everyone has a computer. However, let us put it like this: everyone has access to computing technology at some level. Whether you have a computer that is powerful enough to run the software properly is another matter, and that is the vital point. Other forms of software for the blind or hearing impaired also require a basic level of capacity to run the software, to allow the user to have the independence that has been denied by a disability plus their social background. That disability will have been identified throughout the education system, and in future will be identified earlier and in greater numbers, so the user will have a background knowledge that can prepare them to work independently. Why is this decision not coming to the fore? Why are we not doing something about it? If you deny students this technology, you are making the problem greater.

Having heard that I have a lot of time, I have now taken too much time. I leave the Government with one question: if we can provide a computer for roughly £300, and the software might cost us the same again, why are we not concentrating on that? We are providing non-medical support in terms of hours provided. In 1990, dyslexics probably needed someone to dictate their essays to, but they do not now.

The figures I have for that range between £50 and £65 an hour. They are offering 30 hours a week. How many properly equipped computers can you get for a person in their third year—who has, presumably, already been trained in how to use it properly and given a skill that they will need in later life to be able to function in most office environments? Why are we not looking at that as a structure and a way forward?

I finish by saying that when we say “complex”, a term mentioned in the statement, I always took that to refer to multiple needs, not severity. That language has already been challenged, but that led people into a spin. Unless the Government can start to address those questions in a way that the sector understands, they will get into more trouble here. There are savings to be made. We can modernise and bring the system up to date. Please, streamline it and make sure that people get the support that they need to function, not an idea taken from an imperfect understanding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for tabling this Question for Short Debate and for raising a number of crucial issues about the lack of continuity as young disabled people progress through the education system and into the world of work. I am also grateful to him for prompting me to revisit some of the detailed work that we did on the Children and Families Bill and look again at its progress towards implementation. When I looked back at the Bill, I was reassured to see that it came out of our scrutiny process in much better shape, and with more clarity about rights and responsibilities, than when we started. In that case, it was a job well done. I agree with the noble Lord that if we get the implementation right, it will turn out to be a transformative Bill and make a big difference to the lives of many young people with disabilities and special educational needs for many years to come. The challenge for us at this stage is about implementation.

The theme quite rightly established in the Bill was the need to be proactive. There is the need to have joined-up provision and the need for agencies to talk to each other and take joint responsibility for services. This was encapsulated in the notion of the education, health and care plans. It would be interesting to have an update on the progress being made to establish these local joint mechanisms, which are needed to make the care plans a reality. Perhaps the Minister could update us about what is being put in place to monitor the rollout of the Act to ensure that it becomes a reality on the ground and, in particular, to look at what local authorities are doing to fulfil their obligations in this regard.

In the mean time, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has identified some rather glaring gaps in our new model of information-sharing and joint working. It was interesting that in the initial response to the consultation on the code of practice, which we received a copy of and which was in the Library pack, the FE sector said that it was rather in the dark as to how the plans would affect it. I am not totally surprised about that because during the course of the Bill, I did not really get the sense that it was engaged in the debate or really understood what the implications for that sector would be. It is helpful that the code has now been redrafted to spell out the FE sector’s statutory duties more clearly. For example, there are the reciprocal duties to co-operate with local authorities on arrangements for all young people with SEN; to admit a young person if the institution is named in the education, health and care plan; and to provide the right support for students with SEN disabilities.

The list of types of support which should be provided and the access to funds are also spelt out. However, underpinning the code there is also an expectation that local authorities will provide top-up funding. It is clear that there is a potential pinch point for students caught in the middle of these funding negotiations. As all noble Lords will know, local authority funding is in a particular crisis at the moment. Can the Minister explain what rights young people have to be provided with that funding to ensure that they have the right facilities when they go into college and can make their college years a success?

The code also makes it clear that colleges should be involved in transition planning between school and college to ensure a successful transition into college life. However, underpinning that again, what guarantees do young people have that the assessments of their needs that were made during their school education will be carried automatically into their time at college? What is to stop an FE college asking for new assessments to be made—trying, if you like, to delay the inevitable or to put off its responsibilities? In addition, there is also all the extra bureaucracy and resources involved and, obviously, the extra upset that will be caused to young people, who feel that the original assessment that was made about them is now being challenged. Where, then, is that reassurance of continuity which was at the heart of the Act and can we be assured that that will follow through in the way the FE sector receives students?

Meanwhile, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, quite rightly raised concerns around the changes to the disabled students’ allowance that were recently announced by the Universities Minister. That announcement goes completely against the spirit and intent of the Children and Families Act. By any measure, it is a blatant cost-cutting exercise because, as we know, it has been judged that it will result in potential cuts to DSA funding in the region of about 60%. One can see why it is attractive to the department at this stage. As a result, only those students with complex disabilities will receive support. Many students will lose access to vital equipment which helps with their day-to-day learning and will lose vital specialist support. I do not claim to understand completely all the technical challenges which the noble Lord raised this evening. They made sense when he was explaining it but I would not be able to repeat it all.

[Lord Addington]

If they made sense only when I was explaining them, I have failed.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

As I said, the noble Lord explained it very well and it made sense, but I obviously have a lot more to learn about the technical facilities that are out there and about how they can be embraced by people with disabilities. However, it is clear that unless the funding is there and the DSA takes account of those up-to-date technologies, we will have failed. The noble Lord made the point that students with dyslexia and dyspraxia, for example, are likely to be particularly badly affected. I also accept the point the noble Baroness raised about autism. Both of those areas are sometimes difficult to define.

One of the concerns about this is that students will undoubtedly be put off from applying to higher education, which of course used to be the case in the old days; they never went to higher education because they never felt that the support would be there. There is a danger that they will fall back on less appropriate post-school choices. The problem with that is that, if nothing else, it runs the risk of being even more expensive for the Government to support. We therefore have a challenge to ensure that every child gets the right to have the best education and the best outcomes that they will be able to succeed in.

Can the Minister explain what discussions took place between the Department of Education and BIS before the announcement was made? Does she accept that the cutbacks in DSA funding go against the whole principle of supportive and integrated progression in education for young people with SEN and disabilities? Are we sure that BIS understood all the good work that was done around the Children and Families Bill? Has it got the message and taken it on board in the way that it is beginning to review the DSA?

Finally, the support that young people receive from nought to 25 should mean a smooth transition into the world of work. We worked hard during the passage of the Children and Families Bill to put those mechanisms in place as well. Again, the noble Lord referred to better access to work placements and apprenticeships, on which we spent considerable time. However, since there are now worrying signs that Ministers in BIS have not bought into that agenda, can the Minister reassure us that that active liaison is taking place between the departments to make sure that, not just in the letter but in practice, funding and support will be made available to all young people so that they all have the best opportunities to make the best of their lives and to thrive and succeed at work? I look forward to her response.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Addington for securing this important debate and for his, as ever, knowledgeable and passionate speech. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Uddin and Lady Jones, for their contributions. I especially thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her kind words about the potentially transformative effect of the Children and Families Act, on which we both worked.

Our reforms for children and young people with SEN and disabilities are aimed to create a new system to support young people through school, further education and training and focus much more strongly on independent living and helping them to find paid employment. My noble friend Lord Addington is absolutely right to focus on that. The reforms are aimed to create a more streamlined and transparent system at school, which provides support tailored to individual needs and does not require endless reassessment—which noble Lords mentioned.

I am personally grateful to my noble friend Lord Addington, whose help with my own then teenage dyslexic son opened his eyes to what was possible through assistive technology. I have to say that I was a form of assistive technology, finding myself reading my son’s economics textbook to him. I would read a chunk; he explained it to me; and I trust that we both benefited—I certainly did. I did object that economists were taking for granted the way that people acted. I certainly identify with the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, about the battles that one used to have—I hope, now, less so—to gain support for children with particular needs.

[Lord Addington]

I interrupt my noble friend merely to say that I had forgotten to declare my interests. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me if I do that now.

Women: Sport and Physical Activity

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this subject before us. My point, as the token man in the debate, is that although there is conclusive evidence that body image is a problem that may bite harder on women, it still bites men—and for virtually the same reasons.

Body image is where the problem starts to manifest itself and where physical activity might provide an answer. If you are doing a sport, the starting point is not what your body looks like but what it does, and suddenly a change will be there through physical activity. As an athlete it does not matter whether you look like Adonis or like Venus rising from the sea if you come last consistently. We have a little input there, a point where physical activity and sport put in a reality check.

As the noble Baroness said, what someone decides in a magazine is the fashionable and desirable size and shape, or the best shape to hang clothes on, often bears little resemblance to what most people look like. The fact that tall, thin people are easy to dress and can model the clothes, and thus become the style, does not change the fact that to sell those clothes you will have to be adapt them to what people look like. We could go on in this vein forever—I admit that I have never been able to buy an off-the-peg suit—but we have to try to insert a degree of reality.

We should also address the language of weight. We talk about weight all the time and imply from it that we are referring to fat. However, if you become more physically active it is possible that you will gain weight because muscle is heavier than fat. You can reduce all your measurements and gain weight—that is quiet easy to do. Anyone who plays a sport or takes a reasonable degree of physical activity will, at the very least, increase the density of their muscles. So the language we use and the way in which we approach this issue has to change.

I have ranted against the body mass index, which was clearly designed for an inactive person in the 1950s. I have been dead for 20 years according to the BMI, as has every other rugby player on the planet. Yet it is still actively used despite the fact that it has been proven again and again not to imply anything. We cannot counter it because people go, “Oh, that weight is not right”. We must have a better degree of education about what is required in that, with an awareness that if you are doing physical activities your body will change. For example, how many tennis players look like models? Not many. Indeed, somebody commented that the last female Wimbledon champion did not look like that, and they got their knuckles severely rapped for saying it. We must do something about that because this is a person at the top of an area of very competitive activity.

If sport provides help and a series of answers for these people, how do we access it? Looking at the same information as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, used earlier, I note that it talks about people lacking the skills to do well in sport but not liking the activities in PE. That is not uncommon, because we do not invest in basic physical literacy and good introductory skills. Traditionally it has been far too easy to concentrate on the person who does sport naturally and well—they get the attention, not the person below them. If you do that, you allow for the idea of casual—use sport—I do not like the term “non-competitive”. The fact is we do not have that idea of sport. What you get is a long structured list, and you are expected to turn up every week to complete a series of activities. Being able to take on a casual, non-organised, occasional type of activity with a degree of confidence means that you will have greater enthusiasm for it. If, for instance, you know how to hold a tennis racquet properly and can hit a shot that enables someone to rally with you, then that becomes available, it is easier to do. Racquet sports provide us with excellent casual-use sports activity. You only need two or four of you to do it. My own sport, rugby union, needs 31.

We need to get the skill levels, and the educational levels, right. Most introductory-level types of education, even if they are based on one sport, open you up to other sports: you learn the language of movement and how to be instructed, and when somebody tells you to move your body you get an idea why you have to move your body in order to be better at it. For instance, in racquet sports you learn how to move your feet in order to make a shot. This type of education has to be instilled fairly early if we are to have easy access throughout. We can of course go back later, but it is easier this way. We must try to get into this structure.

One of the ways to improve the situation is to encourage more women to get involved in coaching. At the moment it is quite common for men to coach women; at senior level it is expected. The reverse is very unusual. There is no great difference in the way a woman throws her foot to kick a ball in the right direction to the way a man does it. I have not heard that said and cannot see why it should be true. Yet professional coaching at all levels, including high-level sport, seems to be dominated by men. When we cut into this, and those sports involved make it no longer noteworthy for a woman to coach men, we will have taken a step forward. I do not aim for parity yet, because we must take one step at a time, but we are encouraging women into some of the traditionally male-dominated sports. Surely it is time coaching followed.

To conclude, if we encourage people to be active, and they see their bodies as functional, rather than as clothes-horses, or something seen as an image in itself, then we stand a chance of giving people a better body image, so that they see themselves as individuals who do something as opposed to someone who just stands there. Take the preparation of a male model before a modelling job; it is described as being like the process a bodybuilder goes through before a competition. After amassing the muscle you go on a crash diet, strip away fluid then pump yourself full of sugar to have your photo shoot. That sounds rather more painful than Photoshop, and apparently it is about as sustainable in real life. Across the board, we must get people more used to the idea that their body is a functional thing that will allow them to do various forms of activity. In this way we will start to attack this neurosis and possibly take a step forward.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, on Amendment 155 and it is to that cause that I wish to speak. If there is one thing where I find myself at one with the Government, it is in our shared ambition to encourage young disabled people to have the highest aspirations for their lives and to be self-assured and confident about their future. More and more disabled youngsters are liberating themselves, to the extent of refusing to accept their disability as a barrier. They are self-assured, confident and determined to have a full life.

For many, the pathway to that full life is through a university education but higher education facilities are currently excluded from the new framework created by the Bill. Given that I share with the Government this ambition that disabled youngsters should have the highest aspirations, I am mystified why they should be excluded. Indeed, I am sure that I am not alone in this Committee in thinking that. Many universities already meet the educational needs of disabled young people. Surely we want to feed and encourage this.

All too often, unfortunately, disabled students, even when given first-class support at universities, find it hard to access other services that they need. A report by the Trailblazers group found that 30% of young disabled people felt that the number of places where they could study was limited because of their concerns about an all-round care package. One student named Zoe, who was at Oxford, told Trailblazers:

“My local council had never sent a disabled person away to university before. They were quite insistent that I should stay and study at my local university (ranked at 119th as opposed to Oxford, ranked first), and do a course that I had absolutely no interest in. My decision to move away was treated with complete bewilderment; there was no understanding of how my care package would be accommodated, and the idea that agency care was more expensive in the new local authority caused real problems when negotiating”.

Lauren, who graduated from Manchester in 2012 and is now doing a master’s degree at Leeds, recalled:

“My local authority would not give me the required hours straight off. We had to appeal. Luckily we started the process a year before so had enough time to do this”.

Katy, who studies at Bedford, said:

“After an argument my home county agreed to pay for my personal care but I nearly didn’t qualify for funding as their criteria for supporting people was for those whose needs were ‘substantial or severe’”.

Finally, Rupert, who is at Canterbury Christchurch, added:

“First of all, I was living in Lewisham and Lewisham Council didn’t want to tell us that they were responsible for providing and funding the care themselves. They knew they had to but didn’t inform me. We found out through other sources, so they eventually paid up”.

Disability discrimination legislation has been in force since 1995, yet disabled people still have to struggle for equal access in many areas of our national life. Young people with a disability face challenges and hurdles enough that the rest of us do not face. Amendment 155 is a step in the right direction. It is one more step in creating a level playing field for all our citizens, able-bodied and disabled, thus ensuring that all can use their talents to the full and have a full life.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Sometimes higher education provides better support than further education. I must declare that I have commercial interests in a firm that enables it to be done through the DSA. The transition between the two bits of education is probably unnecessarily complex. Making sure there is a smoother connection and an exchange of education from higher to further and the other way around would enhance the system and would probably allow people to study better in both places. I am interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this matter. This is a recognised problem of transition and has been around a long time. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s thinking on this matter.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a briefing from Universities UK on this subject, which I suspect was compiled largely by talking to registrars, who wish that the problem would go away and who feel that it is not really their responsibility. I think disability officers in universities would take a rather different attitude, which is that they are not receiving the support they need regarding health and social care from their local authorities or clinical commissioning groups, which tend to regard the itinerant student population as somebody else’s responsibility and to think that an 18-month waiting list for mental health treatment for a student is appropriate.

I think there is a wish within universities for a better connected, more responsive system, such as we are putting in place for students in FE. I understand from what various noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have said that there are some aspects of the system that has been put in place for younger ages that would not fit universities. We ought to look carefully at what would suit university students. We ought to do so by talking to the people in universities who have to deal with these problems. They are conscious that the system they face at the moment is not by any means as good as it might be, and not as good as the sorts of things we are putting in place through this Bill.

I hope my noble friend will allow me to come and keep her company between now and Report with some of the people who deal with this as a daily issue in higher education to see whether there are some changes, whether in guidance or the Bill—I suspect probably in guidance—that would alleviate the problems they suffer in doing well by the disabled students they have to look after.

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[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Sharp is not able to be in her place at the moment so, in her absence, I am speaking to the amendment in her name, Amendment 106. This is a probing amendment intended to obtain reassurances from Ministers that the entitlements of children and young people with SEN and their families will not be weakened by the passage of the Bill or by the revision of the statutory SEN code of practice.

The local offer, as currently described in Clause 30, imposes a significantly weaker and more narrowly defined duty on local authorities than the equivalent provision in the Special Educational Needs (Provision of Information by Local Education Authorities) (England) Regulations 2001, which remain in force. These regulations set out what information a local authority must provide, including, among other things, requirements to provide information about the action that the local authority is taking to promote high standards of education for children with SEN, and what action the local authority is taking to encourage schools in their area to share best practice in making provision for children with SEN. There must also be information about the general arrangements, including any plans, objectives and timescales for: monitoring the admission of children with SEN—whether or not they have a statement—to schools in their area; providing support to schools in the area with regard to making special educational provision for children with SEN; auditing, planning, monitoring and reviewing provision for children with SEN in their area; securing training, advice and support for staff working in their area with children with SEN; and securing training, advice and support for staff working in their area for children with SEN.

The information that I have just listed is important for parents, but it also incorporates a set of important principles in relation to education for pupils with SEN: the recognition that pupils with SEN need high standards of provision; that these standards should be regularly monitored and reviewed; that teachers need training, advice and support; and that schools should collaborate to share good practice.

Clause 30 merely provides that regulations may make provision about the information to be included in an authority’s local offer. It is important that the information listed in the 2001 regulations is collected and publicised by local authorities. The local offer should carry this forward into the new framework. It is not clear that this will be the case with the loose wording of the Bill. As far as I can see, there is nothing proposed in the code of conduct which would impose these duties on local authorities. Are the 2001 regulations going to be carried forward? What is the position? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the situation.

[Lord Addington]

I shall speak to my Amendment 108A. I should probably declare again the interests I have already mentioned. I declare another interest: I am a convert to the fact that assistive technology and computing generally can transform somebody’s life because I use assistive technology for everything I send out. Without voice operation, I cannot send an e-mail unless I take a week over it, and I cannot guarantee to send it properly. This is due to dyslexia. However, there are dozens of different types of assistive-technology solutions for dozens of different types of problems. You can now get a computer which bounces light off the user’s eyes to transfer the user around the screen. This was pure science fiction a few years ago. You have to run to keep up with the ideas and even the names of the technology at the moment.

The technology allows people to act independently. I could have stuck something at the end of another list about independence. I could have added a paragraph (d) to subsection (3) to provide that when you go into adult life you get a package to go with you. You probably already do. Access to work will give you some assistance, so there is a degree of consensus around this. Getting assistive technology early is very important because it allows people independence. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me some idea about how it is being taken on. What is being done to allow people to work like this? It is great to have somebody at your shoulder who assists you all the time. Unfortunately, you cannot take them home with you or guarantee that they will be with you when you are middle-aged, so learning to use other forms of assistance is vital. I hope that we will get a positive answer there.

The idea of the expression “assessment settings” is to find out how we will integrate the use of information technology into the examination system. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has proved himself tough, durable but human by not being here. I have had some discussions with him on this subject. The Government seem interested in making sure that you can get into the examination system properly—I will return to this subject when we reach apprenticeships—but only if you make sure that the examination that is set online is compatible with the assistive technology that is used. If you get the wrong format, the two computing systems cannot talk to each other, so you cannot take the examination. In many parts of the examination system we go back to nurse—an amanuensis or extra time. It does not take a genius to figure out that those are two fairly blunt instruments. The first removes a great deal of responsibility from you, and the other is of limited utility. Extra time has attracted a great deal of attention because people say people are getting more of it. I have always wondered how much assistance extra time is if you do not know the answer. I suspect that 25% extra time to stare at a blank page does not help very much.

However, some idea of how that is progressing in the Government’s thinking would be extremely helpful at this time, as it all ties into the important standards of education—examinations. I look forward to what my noble friend will say about this and I hope that this is the start of a positive discourse on the subject.

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We feel that we have addressed the issues my noble friend is talking about but I see him looking at me intently, as ever. He and those advising him might like to look at the draft SEN code of practice. Chapter 5 deals with the guidance on the local offer and chapter 6 refers to the responsibilities of education settings for identifying and supporting children and young people with SEN. If they feel that there are problems with the text and are concerned that there should be improvements, we would obviously welcome that input.

[Lord Addington]

I thank my noble friend for that offer. However, before we do that, will she consider how the whole chain needs to be put together, including the examining bodies, providers, teachers and so on? This comes from experience of a breakdown in this area.

[Baroness Northover]

I am very happy for us to look right across the board. We need to focus on the individual child or young person and their experience throughout the system.

Coming to Amendment 109, we can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that the term, “finding employment” in the Bill goes wider than providing support for young people in looking for jobs—important though that obviously is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, noted, the draft code of practice refers to the local offer including information about support available for job coaches, for example, who can support young people when they are working, and the financial support available, including accessing any benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions, both when looking for work and when employed.

Noble Lords pressed harder about support to stay in employment, which is extremely important. I assure them that we are well aware of that. Preparing for adulthood is an important element in the SEN reforms. Clause 30(2) requires local authorities to include in the local offer,

“provision to assist in preparing children and young people for adulthood and independent living”.

That term is defined in subsection (3) as,

“finding employment … obtaining accommodation … participation in society”.

Support for preparing for adulthood would include the kind of support that young people can expect when they are in employment. I hope that noble Lords find that reassuring as a very important point is being made there.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said that he was pressing the case again, rightly, on speech and language communication, and the provision for children and young people. No doubt we will continue to discuss this as it is a very important area. We recognise the importance of this, and the Government are supporting the work of the Communication Trust—I expect he knows that—including through a grant of £550,000 over two years to pilot an online speech, language and communication qualification for early years practitioners. That shows our commitment. We are also providing £1.5 million to the trust to identify gaps in provision and services, which will no doubt spark more amendments from the noble Lord, to promote and extend the What Works database of evidence-based interventions and to implement the reforms in Part 3. I hope that that is an indication of the seriousness with which we treat this.

Regulation 10 of Schedule 1 to the draft local offer regulations sets out the requirement to include:

“Speech and language and other therapies, including any criteria that must be satisfied before this provision can be provided”.

The noble Lord makes a very important point about how practitioners, from health visitors to those supporting children in school, need to work together. That is one of the reasons for the local offer: to try to bring all this together so that support for these children is delivered in a much more effective way.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked about child development and is expecting a letter from my noble friend Lord Nash. I think that that is in train, if it has not already come out. If it has not come out, I am sure that it will speed along.