Special Needs Schools

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, special educational needs, or SEN, and special education needs and disabilities, or SEND, cover a wide variety of needs, including dyslexia and autism.

Two out of four of our children are dyslexic. When our younger son Josh was in kindergarten, it was spotted by a teacher. His next school gave up on him by the age of seven, and he went to a specialist school across the river, Fairley House, where they tried, and then he went on to Bruern Abbey at the age of nine, a boarding school near Oxford, which specialises in dyslexia and dyspraxia. He entered that school barely able to read or write and was innumerate—he could not even hold his pencil. He left four years later, coming top of the school in his common entrance, and scraped into what is—whether you like it or not—one of the best schools in the world, Eton. At that school, where they mark you out of the whole year, he came 262 out of 262 in his exams in his first couple of years: bottom of the school. With special-needs, one-to-one help at that school and everything else it offered, he left Eton with three A*s in his A-levels, entered the London School of Economics and has just graduated with a first-class degree in international history.

Why was that possible? First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, said, it was because of early detection: that teacher who spotted it when he was in kindergarten; and, secondly, intensive help, which was provided to him at Fairley House, at Bruern Abbey and at Eton. What are the Government doing to encourage those two things? For early detection, we should train every teacher in this country to be able to spot dyslexia or dyspraxia and to provide the special needs.

I qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young—EY—here in London, which produced a report in conjunction with Made by Dyslexia called The Value of Dyslexia: Dyslexic Capability and Organisations of the Future. There are a couple of quotes in there. Steve Hatch of Facebook said:

“Dyslexic thinkers are often able to see connections that others may miss, and create narratives that can simplify complex products or tasks”.


There is another quote from Jonnie Goodwin, whom I know:

“Dyslexia should not be viewed as a disadvantage, but a strength”.


The report summarises the top dyslexic strengths and trending competencies in all industries that they are exceptional at: active learning, originality, spatial abilities, idea generation and reasoning abilities, creativity, social influence, innovation, and leadership. I have seen this at first hand.

I am privileged to know one of my heroes, Dame Stephanie Shirley—we call her Steve. She is the biggest benefactor of autism in the world and has set up a school in memory of her son, who was severely autistic: the Prior’s Court school. When I asked her what her school does that helps autistic children, she noted: specialised education, which can

“help mainstream schools to support autistic learners”;

inclusive expertise:

“Special schools often act as centres of excellence”;


holistic support:

“Integrate education with mental and physical therapies, reducing call on public health services”;


vocational training; advocacy for student rights:

“Raise awareness of rights and needs”;


assistive technology:

“Specialist school pilot of the use of assistive technology”;


parental involvement:

“Support the child within the family”;


and structured environment:

“What is essential in special education is good practice generally”.


She is 90 years old and is still going strong.

By the end of 2023-24, there were 1.6 million children in England with SEN—the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, gave a figure of 1.9 million—and of these, around 434,000 had an education, health and care plan, with autism being one of the most common situations.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, for leading this debate and for her excellent opening speech. In special education settings, if you have smaller classes, specialised staff, tailored equipment and focus on life skills training, 90% of parents whose children attend special schools feel that their children are well supported compared with only 59% of parents with children in mainstream schools. We need more special schools. The Government have spent £2.6 billion on SEND provision; I point out to the Minister that we surely need to spend more on this. In addition, by May 2023, two-thirds of special schools were operating at or above capacity, leading to further strain on the sector.

This debate is very timely. On 21 October, just a few days ago, the Financial Times ran an article headed “The funding crisis threatening England’s special needs education”, which said:

“The Department for Education said it was focused on ‘fixing the foundations’ of local government, providing long-term stability through multiyear funding settlements and ending the need for councils to spend time and money bidding for pots of government cash. However, with the number of children with EHC plans in England rising to more than 434,000 over the past eight years, surging Send deficits leave many councils with near-impossible choices to meet their obligations”.


Do the Government recognise this?

The article went on to say:

“Sam Freedman, a former government education policy adviser, said the rapid rise in EHC plans reflected a decade of cuts to other Send support in mainstream schools, such as specialist teachers and occupational therapists. This had led to a ‘vicious cycle’ in educational funding as parents turned to EHC plans to get support. ‘The lack of early-years intervention and a lack of other kinds of provision means that the only way for parents to obtain help and funding is by obtaining a statement, which means more money is sucked into plans, so there is less money for everything else,’ he added.


Demand has far outstripped the capacity of state-funded special schools, forcing councils to pay for much more expensive privately run alternatives … The Department for Education said children with Send had been ‘let down’ by the system and it was determined to tackle the issues with better inclusivity and expertise within mainstream schools. … Freedman said any solution must involve giving parents other options than seeking a Send plan for their child, although he admitted this would be challenging at a time of fiscal belt-tightening”.


Surely the Government realise that the solution is more funding overall for government schools, including special needs schools.

Just yesterday, my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about the proposals for VAT on independent schools’ fees. Of course, this issue affects all private schools specialising in special needs as well. I quote the noble Lord’s letter, with his permission:

“It is true that from December 2018 to December 2023 there has been a 20.4% increase in independent school fees but this is over a six-year period during which the average yearly increase in fees was 3.4%. Similarly, since 2005 there has been an increase in independent school fees of 77.2% but the average yearly increase from December 2005 to December 2023 has been 4.06%. It is, therefore, complete nonsense to conclude that this provides the evidence of the ability of independent school parents, having coped with these small yearly increases in fees, often being matched by increases in their wages … It will cause great damage to the Government, which you lead, to have launched a policy which provides no benefit to the state sector and much suffering by pupils and their parents of ordinary working people whose only ‘sin’ has been, at their considerable cost, seeking to provide for their children a better education”.