Literacy

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of hidden special educational needs and disabilities on levels of literacy in England and Northern Ireland, in the light of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s recent low ranking of England and Northern Ireland in terms of literacy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, there is a gap in literacy and numeracy levels for pupils with SEN, some of whom have their needs identified late. Twenty-three per cent get grade A* to C in GCSE English and maths compared with 59% nationally. All pupils need high quality teaching in the basics. Our focus on phonics is playing a key part in that. It also supports earlier identification of issues such as dyslexia, so that schools provide effective support in line with our SEN reforms.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer, especially as this Question was tabled at such short notice. However, would he agree that teachers do not receive enough training both initially and in service to have a good chance of identifying those who are finding it difficult to learn to read, particularly when they are on the less extreme end of the spectrums that they encounter? Will he consider that we should, at the first available opportunity, try to improve this level of training and awareness in the teaching profession?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, Teachers’ Standards requires that all teachers have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEN, and must be able to adapt their teaching to meet those needs. All teachers must also now receive IT in synthetic phonics, and Ofsted inspects against that. Also, the draft SEN code of practice that we published on 4 October requires that teachers’ ability to meet SEN is included in schools’ approach to professional development and their performance management arrangements. We have invested heavily in SEN training, educational psychologists and other programmes over the past few years, but I am sure there is more to be done.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, this is one of those debates in which you discover that you agree with most if not all of what has been said but that even the one point you have that you thought was going to be unique has already been touched on by someone. In this case, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has jumped in front of me on apprenticeships.

We have been waiting for this Bill for a long time. It is one of those things that has been coming along for a while. When I looked at its framework, I thought about what is required to make the education system work. I should say that I am going to talk only about Part 3. You start to look for what is not there, and one of the things that is not there is a specific comment about teacher training for dealing with special educational needs. We have to square up to the fact that many teachers get very little support in their initial training on special educational needs. Indeed, I am told that in some cases it is two hours.

Let us look at the conditions that those teachers are dealing with by considering the “dyses” first—dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia—along with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I pointed these out to a friend of mine who is not dyslexic but who said, “It would take me two hours to learn how to spell them all accurately”. Two hours of teaching is not enough. If you do not know what you are dealing with, how in hell are you supposed to give the correct support? I do not know; you are supposed to be a good teacher, so you will pick it up.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, has talked about the “sharp elbow brigade”. We dealt with this before when a previous Government were thinking about getting rid of statementing. It was clear that the average informed parent with sharp elbows knows a lot more about these individual conditions than the average teacher does. They might not have perfect knowledge and it might not be rigorously tested, but they have knowledge while initially the teacher will have none. They will acquire it via the bumps and bangs of being knocked around while going through the appeals system. Unless we deal with this properly, we are not going to make the progress we should. However, I am not talking about turning every teacher into an expert on a category of disability.

I must declare my interests, which arise from the world of dyslexia, which is reckoned to affect around 10% of the population. That would make dyslexics the biggest disability group, but the condition feeds into other groups such as those related to the development of speech and language, which can be contributing factors. Having sharp-elbowed parents is a factor in the personal cocktail. If you have mild dyslexia and you come from a middle-class background with wealthy parents who can afford interventions, you ain’t got that many problems in this world. If you come from a council estate with offending in the family and no one expects you ever to pass an exam, quite often you end up in the prison system. This has recently been recognised by the Government. I had the honour with Chris Grayling of launching the Cascade Foundation, which is considering the prevalence of dyslexia in prison.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is in his place across the Chamber from me. If you want to find any kind of disability group, look in the prisons first, because you will find a good study sample. It is reckoned that some 70% of the prison population cannot read properly, while many studies have shown that 50% of prisoners are within the dyslexia spectrum. Asperger’s syndrome is over-represented among prisoners as well. I ask this of my noble friends on the Front Bench: can we have an undertaking to describe what will be done for those who are incarcerated in the prison system? We need to find out exactly what is to happen because it will affect the rest of it.

If we are to make sure that the people who teach are trained, we must look at those who are supposed to be supporting them, because no matter what you do you have to support people so they can identify problems, understand what is said to them, and transfer it to the classroom. I say again that not everybody can be an expert—it will just not happen. What about SENCOs? This has been mentioned before. Will they have superior training and back-up to be able to support that person? If this is done and someone is competent, the need for any type of special label will be reduced. We do not know by how much, but it will be reduced, so how this works is very important.

In the few minutes left to me, I will draw the House’s attention to the ongoing saga of apprenticeships. I first discovered a problem with apprenticeships when the then head of the British Dyslexia Association told me during the passage of the apprenticeships Bill, when the party opposite was in power, that people needed to pass a compulsory English language test. During the course of the Bill I was assured, “Do not worry, we are not going to make life more difficult”. However, the wording was not changed and people regularly fail that test because they are dyslexic. Other groups suffer too, but I shall talk exclusively about dyslexics.

This was first brought home to me by a lad called David, who had passed every component of his test to become a carpenter, apart from the English test. He could build a replacement for the table that stands in front of us, but nobody would know it because he did not have that piece of paper that says he can do it. That is what a qualification is for. It does not give you the skill, but it says that you have it. It identifies the skill, and you can take the qualification with you and improve your employment prospects. The system fails because of that. Why can David not take the test?

At first we were told that this was in the legislation. However, I met the right honourable John Hayes when he was the Minister in charge and I told him about it. He shouted at an official—bizarrely, over a speakerphone, if I remember correctly—and told him, “Sort it out, sort it out”. Then as the meetings went on, I was told, “It is terribly difficult, you cannot do this”. Then I was told, “We can do this, but it is difficult. It has to be online and we have not formatted it”. The colleges now respond by saying that they cannot put people forward for a test that they will fail because it is not formatted.

We need some peripheral vision here. For nearly two decades we have been assisting people in the higher education sector by giving them voice-operated and other technological assistance on computers to allow them to prepare written work. In this society, how many times is anybody required to pick up a pen to provide written communication outside a classroom? Noble Lords should take that on board. It is ridiculous. I have a list here of other people who have failed. I would read it out, but I do not like reading things out—I am dyslexic.

Here are a couple of examples involving girls. One was a visual merchandising apprentice—I think that means a window dresser—but, hey, advertising sells and is necessary. Once again, she was refused entrance when it was realised that she could not get through the English assessment and the college did not have the support structure in place. Another girl doing retail failed again and was refused being put forward. An engineer passed the assessment on the third attempt by the skin of his teeth. If he had had a bad day and failed again, eventually he would not have been allowed to carry on taking it; colleges will not carry on putting you forward.

I will read out the best example. This involved somebody doing agriculture and animal husbandry. This is his final comment: “I am fed up with everyone reminding me what I cannot do. I am good at my job. My boss tells me that all the time. I even won an award from a professional body that recognised my skills, so why am I bothering with English and maths? I can count sheep and cows. Isn’t that enough?”. You have to sympathise with him. With a few lines in the Bill, the Government have the technical ability to make sure that something happens very quickly, and that person will at least stand a chance of passing those tests. I suggest that this is an opportunity that is way overdue.

Education: Reform of GCSEs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We believe it will be long enough. It is important that schools can see the full picture of reform to GCSEs, A-levels, the curriculum and the accountability framework at the same time. As I said, we do not think it is fair on pupils to continue with the current system for any longer than we need to.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that certain groups, such as those with dyslexia or other learning difficulties—I declare an interest here—find coursework a much easier way of accessing an exam result? If it is to be downgraded, will my noble friend give me an assurance that the Government have done a detailed study of what assistance has to be given in examinations, which account for more and more of the marks, to enable this group to pass basic examinations and to access further and higher education, where they have proved that they can succeed? If my noble friend can tell me what has happened, I will be very happy. If he cannot, perhaps he will give me an idea of what type of consultation will be done so that the most modern and up-to-date techniques, such as voice to text and text to voice, might be used to allow these people to access exams on an even footing. We have already heard that we are taking spelling into account. Will the Minister give some indication of what we are doing for this very big group in our society?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We have consulted with organisations representing SEN groups. The points he makes, particularly in relation to voice and text, are technical and something that we should discuss in detail on a separate occasion. It is very important that we make sure that we have consulted all the right people on this difficult matter.

Schools: Sport

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords—

[Lord Addington]

My Lords—

[Lord Higgins]

Thank you. I was going to give way. I declare an interest as patron of Herne Hill Harriers. Does my noble friend agree that far too many people give up sport when they leave school and that it would both encourage the general standard of sport in schools and encourage people to continue sport after school if more schoolchildren joined outside sports clubs before they left school? Will he see whether the department can do something to encourage this?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

The latest Taking Part survey shows that the number of 11 to 15 year-olds participating in sport increased significantly in the six months to September 2012, from 86% to 94%. The school sport partnerships were expensive and patchy in their delivery. We have announced £65 million to release PE teachers to help primary school pupils, in addition to the funding that I mentioned earlier.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, there is a great deal of consensus that if we want school-age sport to follow on to adult activity we must involve clubs at an early stage, as my noble friend suggested. Will the Minister give me an assurance that in future, if any changes are made to the interaction between a club and a school, all those involved will be publicly consulted to make sure that the changeover does not take anybody by surprise and that we keep as much expertise as we have gathered so far?

[Lord Nash]

I am reluctant to give my noble friend that assurance here and now, but I am very willing to discuss this with him further to see whether we can do whatever we can to alleviate his fears.

Young People: Personal Finances

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I would like to think that day has arrived but I note the noble Lord’s comments.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that whenever it comes to an issue that needs to go into the national curriculum we always have our own hobby horse, and then another great cohort of us tells us that the curriculum is too crowded? Will my noble friend make sure, if we are going to take this on, that it is integrated into maths lessons?

[Lord Nash]

It will be covered in terms of some financial fluency in maths lessons but I think it is going to be more integrated into citizenship.

Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is very well informed on these two points. He raises two very difficult matters which we will undertake to consider very carefully.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, can my noble friend just elucidate one or two points he makes about standards? My interest in dyslexia will come as no surprise to the rest of the House; 10% of the population is in that spectrum. When he talks about improving standards of English will he undertake to ensure that teachers are better trained to deal with this very large minority group? Furthermore, will he undertake to ensure that the examination system treats this group fairly? Many dyslexics find the idea of one-off exams very intimidating and prefer coursework. You also have the problem of 25% extra time which has been abused. It is such a big group that there must be some consideration given to it.

My other point is: when it comes to heroes and heroines in history, who is judging? Is Henry V a hero because he won Agincourt or a villain because he killed lots of unarmed prisoners when he thought he might be attacked again?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, we are investing in training for dyslexia. We have consulted widely on the matter of dyslexic and other pupils with SEN in relation to the examinations. I assure the noble Lord that we will take their needs into account. I shall not attempt to answer his third question, but we think it is important that pupils study not only the broad sweep of history but a variety of figures from the past, of both sexes and of all races.

Education: Development of Excellence

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, we all carry a degree of baggage to these debates on education. Whenever I get involved in one, I am aware that I have a great deal of knowledge, and strong opinions, about education, but not always about the same areas of education. I shall limit myself to aspects concerning what I call the hidden disabilities, and to the changes that are coming within the education system.

In a recent conversation, my noble friend Lady Walmsley told me that she was a little fed up with people being frightened by everything. Within the lobby of School Action and Action Plus, there is a process for identifying needs outside the statementing system. This seems to be disappearing. This is a process by which you get extra help to people who are not going to be put into that very specific legal category of a statement. They are very worried because they have not heard what will replace that form of assistance.

As they have not managed to extract an answer from civil servants before now, I hope that the Minister will give us at least the start of that discussion and tell us where we have got to. We are talking about people with dyslexia, autism, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and other conditions that are recognised disabilities. The Equality Act states that we must help them and that if we do not there are sanctions; there is a duty there. Will my noble friend identify the process that the Government are minded to bring in, or tell us whether they are still discussing the process? If he does, he will remove some of the fear factor and the panic that is going on, and probably provoke a more coherent answer. If the Government are not doing this, they will simply end up in the courts somewhere—and I do not think that anybody wants that.

Some government publications refer to enhancing the ability of teachers to secure good discipline. I encourage my noble friend to take a good, hard look at teacher training, both initial and in-service, to spot these hidden disabilities. I am appealing to the selfish gene of the teaching profession. As a dyslexic, you have two very basic survival strategies if you are not receiving the help that you need and are struggling in the classroom. Either you keep your head down, say nothing and hide in the middle of the classroom; or you disrupt the back. A teacher needs to identify that person and give them appropriate help. Often, the biggest thing you can do is to say: “You are dyslexic. Your learning pattern is different. You are not stupid or a write-off”. In doing that, you will solve part of the problem. The teacher will be able to teach and the people around the pupil will be able to learn. You are helping not just that one person at the back, but the people around them as well.

I also have examples concerning autism, which is more complicated. It was described to me as being a four-dimensional spectrum. There are different types of problems in the higher end. People may not be picked up by the health and education care plans. Whatever we think about special schools, most of these people, most of the time, will be in mainstream classrooms. There are just not enough special schools—and in many cases those with disabilities should not be there. We need to know something about how to integrate these people, and inform the rest of the class about them. I heard of a case—apparently this is quite common—of somebody who does not like being touched and who lashes out because it is painful to them when somebody touches them. Unless you have an idea about how to deal with these problems, you are always going to have trouble in the classroom. By giving this knowledge to teachers, you will enhance their ability to teach—and surely we are all agreed that that would be a great step forward.

Education and Training: People with Hidden Disabilities

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Addington]

That this House takes note of accessible education and training for those with hidden disabilities such as dyslexia and autism.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, first, I thank everyone who has taken the trouble to put their names down for this debate. I must also declare a series of interests. I am not only dyslexic but vice-president of the British Dyslexia Association and patron of the Adult Dyslexia Organisation, and I work for Microlink, a company that provides support for those with disabilities and of which I am chairman.

When I linked autism and dyslexia and included them in hidden disabilities, the main point that I was trying to make was that anything that is not easily spotted at the start of the educational process, whenever someone chooses to take that, leads to problems if it impedes one’s learning or classroom situation. How early one gets in and identifies the problem is crucial.

I will say only a few words on autism, starting with Asperger’s, for the simple reason that there are many people in the Chamber who know far more about the subject and can talk from greater depth of knowledge than I will ever be able to. Those with Asperger’s, who are on the edge of a spectrum, are often identified later as a result of interaction with other people outside the home when it becomes less difficult to spot. This would be made much easier if someone was trained in the initial stages of education and in the classroom, and indeed if that training was not a limited introduction, to be able to spot it later on as problems start to manifest themselves, often simply because they were not dealt with earlier.

The problems of social interaction—taking things too literally; not being able to communicate properly; non-verbal communication, which is so important even when talking in this Chamber—create other problems if they are not picked up. We must have someone who can recognise these problems and get in earlier. I am really calling for people to be trained throughout the education process to pick these up. Also, education and training are supposed to be lifelong. All conditions for which there is not this embedded knowledge, and even sometimes when there is, are going to be spotted later on in life. Therefore, we must not limit ourselves to training just in the education sector.

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Hill, may find himself having questions directed at him that might go to BIS, to the Department for Work and Pensions, or to the Department of Health—certainly in the case of autism. We had a little exchange earlier in the week when he asked what the best lead department would be to drive something. I suggest that when it comes to some of these conditions, the Department for Education could be of the most benefit, certainly for dyslexics. The basic few examples that I have given for autism and dyslexia are very clearly there.

A good point is dyslexia, because the problem occurs when one starts to use written language. Dyslexia, which I believe means “difficulty with words” in Greek, becomes apparent of course when one starts to learn to read and write. To access all forms of education and training in our society as we are going through, one has to have those two basic skills. If you do not deal with those, you are at an eternal disadvantage.

This situation is getting more prominent—I was about to say worse—for the simple reason that as we formalise our skill base more, measure it and try to support people, there are more and more occasions when you have to write something down or react to written information. Whether it is on paper or on the screen, that requirement is always there. There is a greater emphasis on the written paper in the modern driving test, as opposed to the one that I took. I do not have to go on much further because we can all think of examples. That is what we have if we do not deal with the situation for certain people.

It is reckoned that 10% of the population are on the dyslexia spectrum. I think it is 1% for autism. We could have mentioned many other hidden spectrums, such as ADHD, dyspraxia and dyscalculia. We are probably getting up to about 15% without trying. I do not know what that percentage is in every classroom, but it is a very high one, so we must have a degree of knowledge based in that classroom for early intervention.

Why have I brought this matter forward at this present time? It is because we are having a look at the whole special educational needs sector—we are coming down the track. The Government have made proposals. However, I do not know whether this was intentional—I hope that it was not—but the people concerned with these non-obvious disabilities have heard warning bells rung by some of the language that was used. This may be a chance for the Minister to muffle those bells a little in the process of his speech. I refer to things like, “We will concentrate on things and get a whole cross-departmental approach towards making sure that people go through. We will cut down the number of people on the special educational needs register. We will concentrate better”.

Unless we have people with expertise based in the front, identifying the problem, we cannot do these things. Even if we redefine someone with dyslexia as not having a special educational need, because the system can use it, they are still dyslexic, and dyslexic throughout their lives. It is not something that you get rid of; it is a disability and it is to do with the organisation of your brain. It is there for ever, as I know to my cost.

Aside from this, going into my personal history, I wonder how many other people in this Chamber have been congratulated on their improving handwriting on Christmas cards in their forties.

[Lord Storey]

The opposite!

[Lord Addington]

My noble friend says “the opposite”. I look forward to hearing from him later on.

It is something that stays with you, and you have a different developmental pattern. Sir Jim Rose said in his report:

“Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling … Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness”—

I shall not try to say that twice—

“verbal memory and verbal processing speed … Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities”.

There is a great deal more in that vein to be found in the document from Dyslexia Action. It is always there, and you will always have a different learning process, which means that every time you go into a new phase of your educational and training process you will always have the problem. The way in which it is dealt with will change over time, as will the way in which you deal with it and your interactions with other people. That will change under the pressures on you, but it is always there. If we get teachers trained initially and then make sure that others throughout the system have the support and knowledge of what was happening, we will take a huge step forward. We must make sure that the interaction and the different learning process never become a barrier. We must allow people to explain it.

If someone has the condition explained to them, they start to be able to take the appropriate steps to mitigate the condition. If a teacher goes up to a child and says, “You’re not stupid, you’re dyslexic”, that teacher and all other teachers have an infinitely better chance of a positive relationship than they would if they did not identify the problem. You can then go and tell the parents. The dyslexia world is full of the recurring story of parents saying, “My child is dyslexic and I have discovered that I am”. How do people get through life? They will say, “I never take notes—I always ask someone to do it for me”—as a result of having never kept a pen on their person for more than about three seconds at a time. They are dependent on partners, and so on. Those are the success stories.

In our prison population, about 70% or 80% are reckoned to have problems with literacy. Every single assessment of the prison population that has looked at it has come up with the figure of about 50% being in the dyslexia spectrum. If you take on board the idea that if you cannot access education you cannot access training because you cannot go through the process with a technical ability to read and write—and thus you cannot get employment—you have a far greater likelihood of becoming an offender. Asperger’s, I am afraid, is also highly represented. Possibly not communicating as other people do might lead to conflict. It is a very complicated and worrying situation. If you do not get in there early and coherently, it will cause problems.

What do I want done? Sir Jim Rose presented, under the previous Government, a model for the better training of dyslexics within the teacher training programme. You have to make sure that that is used not only in the initial training but throughout the system. Throughout the process of training, it is equally appropriate. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, might well be able to regale my noble friend on the Front Bench with the long series of meetings that we have had over apprenticeships. The previous Government decided that they would reassure employers about standards in training and said that everyone must pass an English key skills—now functional skills—test. When challenged on this, they said that they would make a change, but I think that it fell through the cracks in the changeover of Governments. All I know is that I have spent the better part of two years chasing around to get those people the same support and help to get an apprenticeship that you currently have to get a degree—or at least for there to be no greater barriers.

At the last meeting I had, it was agreed that assisted technology could probably be used to get through this test. Someone said, “Well, no one has complained about it—we haven’t had one letter or e-mail”. You get that degree of resistance further up. I have had meetings with the Department for Work and Pensions, usually under the last Government. There is nothing new here. They said, “Well, yes, we’ve got people with needs who are long-term unemployed. We should help them”. “How?” “Oh, it’s complicated—we’d have to get more training packages”. “Yes, please do”. The Department for Education is uniquely placed to set a precedent for good training and awareness. That department can drive this. If it cannot, it can at least build the engine and hope that someone else will put their foot on the accelerator.

We must do something here to address the problem. Some 10% of the population with dyslexia are underachieving in many cases, sometimes becoming a drag on our society. The figures for autism might be smaller, but the problem is as profound, man for man, if not more so. We have to try to address the problem, but we will not do so unless we get a greater degree of awareness throughout the system. We have to get agreement. Every time a dyslexic has to deal with a form, they are at a disadvantage. Every time you ask someone to fill in a process that has anything to do with reading and writing, a dyslexic is potentially disadvantaged. We have to make sure that at all these points there is someone there who understands and, when you say, “I am dyslexic”, will understand that slight adaptions should be made. Assistive voice to text and text to voice technology is very old beer now. I have been using it personally for over 12 years. It is now comparatively easy to use. We have a way forward. This is something that could be integrated into the classroom more easily. It need not be that big a problem—all you need is slightly different patterns of dealing with this.

I look forward to hearing from my noble friend when he replies that the Government are taking this on board and that his department is driving this through the whole machinery of government. If it does not do so and merely concentrates on the schools aspect, it will leave people with a wonderful set of skills for one part of their lives and leave them to fall off a cliff the next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, in the few moments remaining to me in this debate, I would like to thank all those who have spoken. I could speak again at considerable length, but I do not think that would be wise. The only thing I would say is something that we used to hear from the previous Government when we were in opposition. They used to state, “We have done more”—I think it was in the field of disability—“than any other Government before us”. My response was, “Yes, you have, and so you damn well should have”. That is also true of this Government now, in this field. If we can leave it, having said that we have made things a little better than they were before, and hopefully a lot better, we will have succeeded. However, we are standing on the shoulders of what has gone before, much of which was good, despite the mistakes, and I hope that we can carry on in that vein. This discussion has demonstrated a degree of consensus that is actually very helpful.

Motion agreed.

Education: Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, first, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about the importance of doing everything that we can to address the problem of how we help young people with autism into work. The previous Labour Government published a strategy on that in 2009, which the current Government are working with and trying to build on. As the noble Lord says, my noble friend Lord Freud is working in this area. He recently set up an employer round table, where guidance was published for employers to help them with recruiting young people with autism. That is clearly work that we have to carry on. I do not have an immediate and easy answer because, as the noble Lord knows better than I do, this is a long-rooted and difficult problem. But I can say that the Government are committed to doing what we can to work with a range of organisations to address the problem.

[Lord Addington]

Does my noble friend agree that when dealing with the less commonly occurring disability groups there will need to be a driving sector for unusual problems? Has my noble friend got an example of where this has been successfully achieved—for instance, with the Department of Health being able to drive what happens in the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department for Education and Skills?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I think the point that underlies my noble friend’s question is the importance of finding good practice and sharing it, and trying to make sure that the historic divisions and silos between different parts of Whitehall are overcome. I cannot find an immediate example, although he may have one that he can share with me. But we need to find ways in which to overcome those silos—and that is, of course, the principle that underlies the proposals of my right honourable friend Sarah Teather on reforming the whole special educational needs system.

Disabled People: Access to School Examination System

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all those with recognised disabilities can access all parts of the school examination system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, qualifications need to be designed and delivered so that disabled candidates can demonstrate their full knowledge, skills and understanding. That is why the Equality Act 2010 imposes duties on awarding bodies to make reasonable adjustments to qualifications such as GCSEs. We and the regulator Ofqual seek to ensure that the qualifications system provides for appropriate reasonable adjustments to be made for disabled candidates wherever this can be done without weakening the qualification.

[Lord Addington]

I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he agree that the impression given in an article in the Sunday Times last month that a lot of schools were effectively trying to get around the system and get an advantage for their candidates by going for 25 per cent extra time was untrue? Will he take the opportunity to explain exactly what advantage 25 per cent extra time is to a candidate who does not know the answer?