Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the effectiveness of the ‘education and healthcare plans’ process for identifying and delivering support to those with special educational needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I remind the House of my declared interests.

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

My Lords, this Government acknowledge the struggles faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families when trying to access the right support, particularly through a long and difficult EHCP process. We are currently working on plans to deliver our manifesto commitments to take a community-wide approach to special educational needs and disability. This work will improve inclusivity in mainstream schools and ensure that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does she agree that the current system has, basically, failed completely? When can we get an assurance from the Government that they will manage to get to a situation where schools are identifying special educational needs, rather than concerned parents going to the school and asking them what the problem is? This is the situation at the moment, which favours the wealthy and informed parent throughout the system, right up to the plans.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord. In fact, so does the National Audit Office, which published a report this morning, and so do members of the former Government, who have described it as a lose-lose system. That is exactly why we need to ensure that within our mainstream schools, and in our early years provision, where most children’s special educational needs can and should be identified, we have better support and training for the staff and more support for those children when their needs have been identified, short of having to go through the very arduous process of getting an education health and care plan, on which the noble Lord is absolutely right.

Special Needs Schools

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House once again of my declared interests. I am president of the British Dyslexia Association and chairman of Microlink PC, an assistive tech company that had an interest in education historically.

This has been a much wider-ranging debate than I was expecting. I felt that the original thrust from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, was on a more specialist and important part of this thing—the areas of special educational needs and preparation for adult life—but we have ranged widely here and on to territory that we covered in my Question this morning. But there is a degree of consensus, which happily the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, put his finger on.

I believe in the cock-up school of history. The idea of having a nice, special, personal entitlement to deal with the problem has fed the lawyers and no one else. It has meant that the government system has, in effect, become dependent on the private sector to fulfil some of its needs. We have a big problem here.

One of the things that will help—I do not think I disagree with anybody here—is early recognition, particularly of mainstream conditions. The consensus is that in most cases they can be dealt with in the normal classroom, or at least within supported units in the school. Dyslexia undoubtedly fits that, if you allow it to.

The first thing to say is something on which I and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, have crossed swords—although I felt that she probably had a sword in her own back at the time. It is the fact that you must have flexibility to allow somebody to succeed. Those with dyslexia learn differently. We always tend to go to our own little area first, and this is very true of the dyslexic. I hope, for instance, that at some point in the future the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, announces that the Government have removed the requirement to teach English in only one way. Systematic synthetic phonics overloads the short-term memory, which means that many dyslexics and other groups do not find it a friendly process and many cannot learn by it.

We equip teachers to give specialist support in different ways because, if you have failed once with some teaching process by which the majority pass, it means that you are not absorbing in that way. Giving a child more help in that line will just undermine them further.

We have ways of dealing with that, such as with technology. I bet that in all noble Lords’ pockets is a device that you can press a button and dictate to. True, the AI does not quite match up to my vocabulary on all occasions yet, but it is getting there. That is available on computers, but we need to make sure it is better available. That means a slight reordering of the classroom, but we can do it at university—indeed, it is a legal requirement—so why do we not bring those bits of knowledge together?

It has been said that the system is not joined up. I have spoken about this on so many occasions that many of the veterans of this Chamber will probably be able to start quoting me back, but the fact of the matter is that we have to be flexible to allow this to happen. This requires different uses of resources and capacity within the school system to spot and implement change for most of the most commonly occurring conditions at certain levels. If we get that right, these people stand a chance of getting the skills to progress through to training and other activities.

I talk about dyslexia too much because I know about it. I also know that I do not know that much about the other groups. We need a lot of expertise—more than can be provided by one person. Relying on the SENCO has to be a thing of the past. SENCOs might co-ordinate a group of experts but they will need more people, more resource, more knowledge and the authority to tell that teacher in, for instance, a maths class that bad short-term memory means that someone with dyslexia will not remember equations and formulae. That means they can understand a concept but will not be able to implement it in classroom tests. Do most maths and physics teachers know that? No, not because they are essentially evil but because they have not been trained.

I will now get away from my particular hobby-horse and go back to where the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, brought us in. Other groups will have different requirements. If you have major problems with life skills or learning difficulties or autism, you have other requirements and might need better support. That is one thing that was built into the education and health care plan; I did not think I would ever say a good word about it, but support until 25 is a good idea as you will need it later. How will the Government make sure that we continue to give that support and prepare people to be able to function as independent adults in later life?

There is one thing that we often forget when we talk about this. It is that the people we are talking about are going to grow up. Let us hope that they will grow up and be able to function as individuals with technology, approach and flexibility, and are told how to ask for help. Even if an institution is prepared to help, being told how to ask for it is essential. We have to make sure that people are prepared. People learn at different levels and at different rates. How have they got this going forward?

A group that will talk to you about this is the parents. They live with a little nagging doubt, which can grow to a huge fear on their shoulder, about what will happen to their child as an adult when they are not there. Think about it: they will not be able to function, to go forward, or to have normal lives. Unless we interact with that fear to support them, we will let down everybody involved. This sector is still driven by tiger parents. I hope the Minister will be able to announce reforms and changes that will start to stop that, but at the moment it is. We have so many parents who are worried about the future of their child, and whose entire lives become driven around supporting their child. I hope the Minister will be able to start this process. I do not expect all the answers today, but she could start the process of engaging with it, because it has been known. None of this should come as a surprise to anybody who has been around this for any length of time.

We have to make sure we have a process whereby there is support in the education system and in training people to ask for help. Dyslexic people will not ask for a spelling check or a place to quietly go and process something, because they think that means weakness. I had two interns, and both had the disabled students’ allowance, for different reasons. Only once they saw the work that I was doing here were they prepared to admit that they had that help, and a slight change in working processes went through. I thought I had “dyslexic and disabled-friendly” stamped in the middle of my forehead, but they were still frightened of mentioning it. Just think about that.

How do we approach this issue? How do we go forward? How does the Department for Education encourage the other bits of society to become more user friendly? How do we stop saying, “Oh, that’s a problem that is dealt with in only one place”? This is a big topic, but remembering that education lasts a lifetime, and that the Department for Education is only the first step down that path, will be a real step forward. I hope we hear about those first steps today.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish.

It is an odd experience to find yourself looking at a document with a background that seems to agree with you. In the last speech I made in the previous Parliament on this subject I said that levels 4 and 5 needed tremendous support and encouragement. We now have a document which, in the policy summary notes, says more or less that. So I can sit down and say. “The Government are listening to me at last” and all will be right in the world.

But when you see something that is all going to the Secretary of State—their office, but really the person in charge—alarm bells start to ring. If the Secretary of State is going to do it, what happens if they do something which is slightly off? What is the warning construction? Does Skills England go back and say, “You’re wrong”? How would we resolve that? Would we actually find out if there was real disagreement? That is something we should have a long hard look at during this Bill.

We also have to make sure that we have a balanced approach to skills. Key to this is the approach—the previous Government did start this—to careers guidance. The two have to work together to get a decent result. We have to make sure that people know what the skills are and where you are going to start to apply them. I was never comfortable with the previous Government’s approach to the breakdown between the local skills structure and the national skills structure. We should get a better balance, especially for levels 4 and 5, with a big emphasis on the technician level. We have historically been bad at this—for decades we have been bad at this. When I first got into Parliament, I was told that we were bad at it.

If we are going to do that, where should that support come? Where are we going to look at that balance of getting a high technical level of training? It might be delivered by the higher education sector in places—indeed, it probably should be. One of the things we might have lost when we lost polytechnics was something that bridged that gap. I know that that battle was already lost before this came in, but how will we deliver that higher level of training? Apprenticeships are one way to access this, and colleges will be another. How do we balance these two things and how does Skills England take on this role? That is one of the important things we have not heard about in enough detail to pass judgment.

If we are being more flexible and removing barriers to flexibility, we are also removing potential safeguards. It is the trade off, balancing the two. How will we know when the Government have decided that something has gone wrong? And it will—there will be mistakes and misjudgments; all Governments make them. It is not making a mistake that damns you; it is not realising and not adjusting. How will they report back and let us know what is going on? How will they let the sector know that they are making changes? That will be vital to ensure confidence, which is once again a feeding-in point; if there is confidence across the sector, people will buy in. It is important that we hear that during the Bill’s progress. Our skill here will be tested with probing amendments, but we need to know what the Government’s approach is in more detail than we will get tonight.

I could speak for a long time but I do not think it is appropriate—I could try to work salmon into my speech but I think I will give that a miss. The final brick that will make this work is knowing where we will get the structure to examine what is being done, if it is all held in the department. This has got to talk to every other bit of government, and then all the bits outside government. If there is a central structure, how that is intended to happen and its capacity to change—how to extend bits that work well and what to do when bits do not—is what we are coming to.

The intention behind the Bill is basically good; it is the delivery that we should talk about. How do we bring in practical solutions, from inside and outside government—indeed, from inside and outside the Department for Education? The Department of Health, for instance, will know what it requires, and if those two bits of Whitehall can talk to each other, that is great. But anyone who has been here for any length of time knows that Chinese walls take a lot of kicking to get through. Everybody here has done that. Whoever is looking after trade or local government will have an input. If Ministers can say what they expect to happen, at least within Whitehall, I would be much more sanguine about the Bill. But we will have to find out how this works to have real confidence in the process.

I wish the Government well, because any sane person would, but we are not writing them a blank cheque yet. We would like to hear about the process behind this, because if it achieves success then that will be great, but knowing how they will recover from any mistakes and adapt to them—the cock-up school of history is one I agree with—would reassure me. I hope that the Government will be forthcoming about their plans. In that way, we will all be able to rest a little easier in looking at the training agenda.

Education Sector: Equality of Opportunity

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that children with special educational needs and disabilities are not receiving the sort of education that they need and deserve, despite the enormously hard work of our teachers and others in supporting them. That is why we are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs. As announced in the King’s Speech, we intend to legislate to require schools to co-operate with their local authority on admissions and place planning.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that women and girls with special educational needs have a history of being underidentified because they tend to cope in the classroom by hiding and disappearing, as opposed to disrupting? When do the Government reckon they will have enough trained teachers to spot the girl who has her head down and is desperately excluding herself from the classroom by being quiet, as opposed to the boy causing trouble at the back?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about early identification of children with special educational needs or some form of disability—he is absolutely right. In the early stages, that needs well-qualified teachers, with the support of inclusive practice and expertise developed throughout the school, to recognise that. This Government are determined to improve that provision in mainstream schools.

Independent Schools: VAT

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when it comes to this subject, here is the tack I would take: what is the practicality? What are you achieving? The fact of the matter is that the independent sector has had a tradition of covering gaps that the state has, particularly in special educational needs. There is music education, which it has quite clearly taken over, and the issues raised about services families. I gave some warning of this question, the answer to which should arrive in the Minister’s reply: will the Government take an assessment of what has happened in those three areas at least, and will they publish it during this Parliament so we can see what effect this has had? It is a fundamental change that they are making here, and they are on very shaky ground, so I would suggest that that happens.

Computer Science Applications to English Universities

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The details of admissions arrangements are for individual universities to determine. However, as I outlined in my initial Answer, a higher proportion of UK undergraduates than international applicants received offers. Although the circumstances that the noble Lord outlined, where people do not get the places that they want, are obviously disappointing, I do not think we can put that down to discrimination on the basis of country. Many noble Lords will recognise that the international popularity and status of our higher education system in this country, and the financial, cultural and social contribution made by international students, directly financially benefit UK students, and the country more broadly.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this Question, and the Answer to it she has just given, point to the fact that the fee structure is not allowing the universities to function properly? When will the Government change it?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

From the very moment we came into government we have been considering how to deliver our objective of a funding system for higher education which provides stability and sustainability for institutions, that is fair for students and recognises the challenges they face, and which enables our higher education sector to continue providing its contribution to economic growth. We are looking at a whole range of options, and we will provide further information about those as soon as possible.

Independent Schools: VAT Exemption

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is a debate that I never thought I would be taking part in, the tone of which we should note. We on these Benches do not like what is going on here in education. Different bits of the education sector are being taxed differently. With special educational needs, you can claim some of the money back. Well, that is always going to run smoothly; there will never be a cashflow problem and nobody will ever get it wrong. Also, it is dependent on that wonderful thing, an education and healthcare plan.

If there is a more unloved bit of the education sector than the education and healthcare plan, I have not seen it. It takes about two years to get—if you have the right lawyer and the right type of parents, who fight for it. Schools are blocking it because they do not want it to go through. The weirdest thing about it is that we have broken the £100 million barrier of public money going into resisting it and going to tribunals. Some 90% plus of the tribunals are granted—it is almost a rite of passage.

If the Government had said that they would help the private sector in dealing with special educational needs, having dealt with this first, they would be getting a much more favourable hearing from me. It is an absurdity to base an exemption on something that favours—guess who?—the educated, wealthy parents who can afford the legal fees to get through. There is something fundamentally wrong here.

I am in favour of making sure that we get better provision in state schools to address special educational needs. However, the whole system has gone wrong. If it is based around this, I cannot see how it is going to happen. Let us remember that private education has been looking after X amount of those with SEN for more than half a century; it is a very established pattern.

Also, the schools doing this have a percentage of pupils who do not have the plan, often because their parents are not prepared to put themselves or their children through the delays and the process of getting that plan. They are creating a critical mass for the economic reality of that school. If we lose these, or a percentage of these, what happens to those schools?

I hope that the Government have, at some point, done an analysis of how many pupils they can lose from this sector. The Government have recognised that it is important, so I hope they have. For pupils who do not have a plan for leaving the sector or going back into a state school, it would help to know the economic benefit. I do not know what it is—is it positive or negative? It would help if we could find out.

This contribution from the independent sector is clearly necessary at the moment. I hope the Government will tell us what they are going to do that will mean it is not necessary. Can they please tell us how they will do this, and when it will arrive? I do not like the idea of people having to go to independent schools to get the education they need but, at the moment, it is clear that they do. Will the Government address this problem in the round, and will they tell us when they are going to get rid of the plan?

King’s Speech

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Jolly, with a sense of sadness. She is someone who arrived, went straight into the hard work and has stayed there for such a long period of time. We will miss her at all levels, and I hope that her retirement in north Cornwall is fun—fun should come first, she deserves that—and also that she does not gloat too publicly about it.

When it comes to maiden speeches today, there is of course the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I congratulate her both on her role and a very good speech. With her track record, what else did we expect? I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, as well. Both speeches were linked by the emphasis on education, and it is there that I would like to put most of my efforts, although the noble Lord, Lord Wrottesley, just spoke about the football Bill. I will be having a good look at that, about whether we can get something for sport in general out of that bit of administrative mess. Let us wait and see.

When it comes to education, I will concentrate on the area where I have to declare interests. I am chairman of Microlink PC, an assistive technology company, president of the British Dyslexia Association, and I am severely dyslexic myself—that is, apparently, the official definition.

When I look at the current state of special educational needs in this country, I know why these things were done. The road to hell is paved with good intentions: we may not be in hell yet, but we are certainly at about the third stage of purgatory. We have a system which has encouraged specialist law firms to form, to make sure that parents can get the help that they are legally entitled to. If that is not a definition of failure, I do not know what is.

Other Ministers have helped to put some sanity into this system. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, probably deserves some credit for making small changes there as much as she could. As a Minister, she did not need to have assistive technology explained to her—the first I had ever come across. We must have a saner approach to how we deal with this. The idea that you have a £6,000 budget for every child with special educational needs to come out of a school is a fiction. It just does not happen, because that £6,000 is taken away from the school and every other pupil. It would be infinitely saner to start investing some of that fictional spend on specialism and better awareness within the school. You will take the pressure off, and many people can be dealt with like that.

Certain things scare local authorities—which are another big factor here; they are at war. How many years ago did we break the £100 million barrier, with local authorities contesting EHC plans and then losing 90% of the time? It is ridiculous. Can we do something so that the schools are better placed to handle this? Many more people can be helped in the school by a proper, trained person—and be given some actual incentive to do so. The system is frightened of itself. The lawyers come in, and the articulate and informed parents get the help that they need—but those who are not articulate and informed do not. We have to change that.

I realise that I am running out of time. Can we also have certain other things that are needed, such as flexibility? Dyslexia is only one condition. Systematic synthetic phonics is a great phonic tradition for learning to read, but it overloads the short-term memory of dyslexics and other people who have problems reading. The best defence I ever heard from a civil servant on that approach was, “Well, some dyslexics learn with it”. Oh, so some do not? Can we bring back a system where flexibility is taken a must-have when dealing with special educational needs? If we get only more central guidance on how the whole school should conduct itself, we will have more failure. I plead with the Minister to take on board the fact that she will have to address things by individual need not by diktat.