Children: Early Intervention

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I join everyone who has congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, not only on obtaining this debate but on her masterly introduction to it. Perhaps I may add my admiration for her tireless championing of issues affecting children. As always, I find debates in this House on this sort of subject absolutely fascinating. I find myself nodding with agreement and learning a great deal. Every time this subject comes up I am reminded of those wonderful words of Winston Churchill, uttered in 1910, that there is a treasure in the heart of every man if only you can find it—with the urging that it is your job to find it. That is coupled with my being one of the people who believe that the only raw material which every nation has in common is its people. Woe betide a nation if it does not do everything it can to identify, nurture and develop the talents of all of its people because if it does not, it has only itself to blame if it fails.

This debate has been preceded by three weighty documents, among others. In November came the White Paper on public health, Healthy Lives, Healthy People. Then there were the two excellent documents, already referred to, by Frank Field MP and Graham Allen MP. Only last week we received Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability. Reading that document reminded me of my time in the Army. Whenever you were invited to do a report, you immediately looked up the previous reports on the same subject to see what had happened to their recommendations. One persistent offender, which I was always concerned about, was where people regularly checked that getting progressively less sleep meant that you worked progressively less well.

I was reminded of that because I saw that that document was a consultation document, but containing a commitment that by 2014, there would be a single assessment process and education, health and care plan which would support children from birth until 25. It went on to say:

“The plan will be clear about who is responsible for which services, and will include a commitment from all parties across education, health and social care to provide their services”.

For heaven’s sake, what on earth have we been doing for the past 100 years if that has to be said as an aim by a ministry in 2011? I then looked at the back of that document and found no fewer than 102 documents quoted, all of which contained many recommendations that seemed to have got nowhere. Why?

Here, I declare interests as chair of the all-party group on learning and communication difficulties and as vice-chair of an organisation called the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour. I was extremely interested that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, began by talking about the developing brain because in the document that I referred to I was surprised to see no mention of nutrition and its vital role in pregnancy and the early years in helping to develop the brain. Then I looked to the list of documents and there they all were, so why has that been ignored? As chair of the all-party group, I am glad that that communication problem has come up over and over again. I am also grateful that the right reverend Prelate, in his excellent and thoughtful maiden speech, mentioned offenders.

If anyone ever wants to see the truth of the statement that is the subject of our debate, perhaps they would like to come with me into one of Her Majesty’s prisons. We could go to two places. We could go to any one of the landings, where every prisoner would be someone who had suffered from ineffective or non-existent early intervention. You see that repeated in spades and the costs cannot be quantified. Then we could go to the visiting centre and see the children of the people in prison. Those children are being deprived of one of the people who is so important in their early years, quite apart from having to go through the process of coming into that dreary place to visit the person who should be supporting them in that important process.

During my time as chief inspector I tried to get early intervention on young people, with regard to their communication skills or lack of them, properly investigated. A trial was carried out with speech and language therapists and it proved conclusively that, if they had only been able to connect with their education from an early stage, they might not have ended up there. I commend to the Minister the excellent briefing paper that has been produced for this debate by the Communication Trust, which has some very valuable information about the numbers of children who enter primary school without proper communication skills and who therefore cannot engage with a teacher. That is repeated at secondary school.

That last point has been mentioned over and again in this House in connection with legislation, which is why I conclude by asking the Minister why we have to wait until 2014 for a plan when all the evidence is already there. We do not need any more consultation; we have got it coming out of our ears. Who is actually going to be responsible for taking action rather than initiating yet another consultation?