Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate and pay tribute to the fantastic work that she does as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland, in addition to her duties in your Lordships’ House. As someone who has spent time in state mainstream and special schools, and also a mainstream independent school, I completely agree with her about the urgent need to address the damaging culture of low aspiration.

My noble friend speaks with great authority; I speak, if not with authority, certainly with the experience of someone who has lived with a disability since birth and, more specifically, as someone who provides proof of the way a mainstream independent education can transform the life chances of a disabled child who does not come from a privileged background. My remarks this evening therefore focus on this crucial question: does the Government’s proposed extension of VAT to private schools support the 99,000 children with SEN and disabilities who do not have an EHCP? Clearly, it does not. Indeed, if the Government proceed as planned, I am afraid that they will begin next year—the 30th anniversary year of the Disability Discrimination Act, or DDA—by in effect discriminating against disabled children.

I had the privilege of working with Labour parliamentary giants such as the late, great, Lord Ashley of Stoke and Lord Morris of Manchester. Labour played a pivotal part in securing the DDA; it was as much to Labour’s credit as to the Major Government’s that the DDA became law. So I am bemused that this Labour Government should be about to mark such a disability rights milestone by failing to take these children’s SEN and disabilities into account and exempt them.

The Minister may say that these are tough choices. I have to say that that would be a wholly inadequate and insensitive response to these children and their families, which serves only to underline the extent to which the Government have lost sight of one simple fact: these are innocent, vulnerable, disabled children, whose education will, because of their disability, quite literally be—as it has been for me—their salvation.

I conclude by pleading with the Minister to urge the Secretary of State and the Chancellor to begin the 30th anniversary year of the DDA not by discriminating against these children but by taking their SEN and disabilities into account and exempting them. They and I look to this Labour Government to show them some understanding and compassion, and to give them hope. Otherwise, some of these innocent, vulnerable children will be facing the worst Christmas of their young lives.

Sex and Gender: Official Data

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is participating remotely.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, one area where the data in the 2021 census is accurate is disability. I cannot help thinking that, if a fraction of the energy and resources devoted to identity politics had been given to disability access in the 30 years since the DDA was passed by your Lordships’ House, the world—[Inaudible.]

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think I can probably understand how the noble Lord was going to finish his question. I tend to agree with him, and I will be committed, alongside my other equality responsibilities to this House, to ensuring that we make progress on disability access as well.

Independent Schools: VAT

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, when I asked the Government in a Written Question what assessment they had made of the mental health implications of this policy on children with autism and neurodiverse conditions, the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, said that it was a “tough” decision. I agree—tough if you have autism, SEN or a disability. Can the Minister confirm that she will place in the Library a copy of her department’s rigorous assessment of the mental health implications for these children, which her noble friend seems unaware of?

Independent Schools: VAT Exemption

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. I too thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for securing the debate. I can hardly remember a time when the House has been so united in rejecting policy based on class envy at the expense of the life chances of vulnerable children.

I declare an interest: I am the beneficiary of a public school education. That was not the intention; it happened by accident—literally by accident, because as a child, as a result of brittle bones, I had too many accidents and too many fractures. My orthopaedic surgeon at the time told my parents that I had to carry on walking if my bone density was not to deteriorate further and my brittle bones worsen. The state system said I had to stay in my wheelchair if I was to remain at a state school. The only alternative was a segregated school for what were labelled “handicapped children”, where the headmaster boasted to my mother that one of the pupils had recently achieved one CSE.

My parents, being teachers in the state system at the time, knew that a solid education would determine the difference between my being able to realise my potential or sink in a pool of chronically low aspiration. Thanks to my parents’ huge sacrifices, their decision to join the staff of an independent school, and my gaining a scholarship, I was able to benefit from smaller class sizes, a safer environment that enabled me to walk at school, and educational opportunities I would not otherwise have enjoyed.

None of this is in any way intended to detract from the wonderful work our state sector teachers, SEND specialists and support staff do today. It is fantastic to know that laws passed by your Lordships’ House prohibit the disability discrimination I faced. Yet like other noble Lords I fear that an unintended consequence of this dramatic change will be to deny the more than 110,000 pupils with SEND currently at independent schools the educational opportunities that I had—opportunities that mitigated the potential life chance limitations imposed by my disability. I cannot believe that that is the Government’s intention.

I close by supporting the call of my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie in asking the Minister to meet with those noble Lords who have expressed concerns relating to children with SEND, specifically to explore how, together, we can address the unintended consequences of this policy for disabled children and their families.

Ethnicity Pay Gap

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am delighted to celebrate with the noble Baroness.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend is aware that some people from certain ethnic backgrounds, for example African-Caribbean, face a much larger ethnicity pay gap. Does she agree with me that this is unacceptable in 2024 and that therefore we need urgent targeted action to address this?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right: there are particular groups that have not only a larger ethnicity pay gap but a larger employment gap than other communities. The Government have worked with specific communities. My noble friend raised the Afro-Caribbean communities but there are also, for example, significant barriers to employment and pay differentials for Bangladeshi women. The Government have a number of programmes to address those.

Schools: Safeguarding

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Roberts of Belgravia for his important historical perspective.

I join others in thanking my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington, not just for securing this important debate but for her courageous commitment to facilitating balanced and well-informed consideration of such vital issues as protecting the integrity of women’s sport, defending women’s and girls’ rights to safe spaces, and exposing, in many cases, the unintended consequences for women and children of the affirmation of gender self-identity, whether in our prisons or the classroom. I say “courage” because, sadly, that is essential to brave the bile and vitriol which anyone who has the temerity to challenge the cancel culture extremism seems to attract. We need only look at how JK Rowling, Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock and Joanna Cherry KC MP have been treated to know just how true that is.

It is hard to think of anywhere where the extremism, in terms of the intensity of the battle that we have heard about during this debate going on for the hearts and minds of our young people, is more acute than in the classroom and schools. To all intents and purposes, they have become a battleground. Anyone who has been through adolescence knows that it is torment enough without the complexity of considering whether you have been born in the wrong body or should change your gender.

I am not a parent, nor will I ever be one. The very strong probability that any child of mine would have the same condition that I have precludes that possibility. Others with brittle bones make different choices and I respect them for that, but I know I am not strong enough to risk visiting on anyone the pain, shame and discrimination that I have experienced as a result of it. But an inability to speak as a parent should not disqualify me, or anyone else, from voicing concern about the threat posed to the integrity and effectiveness of safeguarding guidance by advice from lobby groups that information about a child’s distress—perhaps about their gender—should be kept confidential from parents, family and other agencies, and that teaching materials should be treated as confidential and not shared with parents. Surely, that directly contradicts safeguarding guidance on information sharing.

As a disabled person, I have a personal vested interest in safeguarding progress towards greater equality, whether on the protected characteristics of disability, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Progress on each invariably impacts on the whole. Moreover, I am sure we all have reason to be grateful for the courage of people such as Simon Fanshawe, not just for co-founding Stonewall in 1989 but more recently for reminding us that

“Spaces have to be safe for disagreement, not from disagreement”—


in other words, and I paraphrase, that cancel culture is counterproductive because extremism engenders extremism, which puts progress towards equality as a whole at risk.

What I find remarkable is the extent to which the equality landscape has been transformed in the almost three and a half decades since Stonewall’s foundation, in no small part due to its formidable campaigning. I say “equality landscape” because I would not be in the least bit surprised if many people saw issues such as equal marriage as almost a key performance indicator of society’s attitudes towards equality per se. That is undoubtedly to Stonewall’s credit, but having played so crucial a role in securing that progress, surely it has an equally key role to play—indeed, a responsibility—to safeguard progress towards greater equality. I am not sure it appreciates that. In fact, Stonewall’s ostracisation of Simon Fanshawe and its unfortunate association with an aggressive, polarising cancel culture, the promotion of gender self-identity in our schools, and, at best, an indifference to the erosion of women’s and girls’ rights to safe spaces suggests the opposite.

That is such a shame, because the extremism generated is inevitably provoking a backlash across the piece. In my experience as a disabled person, such a climate is legitimising regressive attitudes towards and treatment of disabled people, which I thought was ancient history. Progress towards equality is so precious. History shows that it is also incredibly fragile. That is why safeguarding progress towards equality for future generations depends on our safeguarding the current generation of children and young people in school today.

Life Skills and Citizenship

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for securing this timely debate. I say timely because it follows the recent publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report, Progress on disability rights in the United Kingdom. I pay tribute at this point to the commission’s excellent chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, for producing this report in the face of some very unpleasant distractions. I am sure my noble friend the Minister will share my concern that, as the commission has noted,

“Although some positive steps have been taken to combat bullying, more needs to be done to tackle negative stereotypes or prejudice against disabled people”.


As I can sadly attest, bullying and discriminatory behaviours in relation to disability start at school, and that is where the sneers, the snide remarks or worse—which I still encounter—need to be nipped in the bud. This is central to nurturing a society in which equality and respect for the individual inform citizenship.

The plethora of DfE guidance on the importance of respecting each other as unique and equal, and on how stereotypes, including those based on disability, can cause damage, is all very welcome. But in closing, I ask my noble friend, in responding to the important question of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, if she could also explain what plans her department has to evaluate the impact of its guidance in terms of the lived experience of school and bullying from the perspective of pupils like Archie? Archie features in the BBC’s excellent key stage two class clips film for PSHE, “Archie’s Story: cerebral palsy”, which I commend to my noble friend and indeed to all noble Lords.

Assistive Technology: Support for Special Educational Needs

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this debate. My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is a very hard act to attempt to follow, but I will endeavour to do so. His speech had such powerful and authoritative personal experience.

I declare an interest as chair of the Institute of Directors’ commission, “The Future of Business: Harnessing Diverse Talent for Success”, and as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Assistive Technology, with Lilian Greenwood in the other place as my co-chair. It was in the latter capacity that I was delighted to co-author the foreword to the excellent APPG report by Geena Vabulas, Talent and Technology: Building Bridges to Employment for Disabled People—because, as my noble friend quite rightly said, this is ultimately about talent.

I appreciate that my noble friend the Minister will have myriad reports to wade through at any one time, and I do not envy her that task. I am not assuming that she will have had a chance to read the APPG’s Talent & Technology report, but I commend it to her. While much of it focuses, as the title would suggest, on employment, four of its 10 findings look at the education end of the bridge to employment. While I am not disputing that education has its own intrinsic worth, I think we would all agree that, without it, the prospect of an individual being able to realise their potential, especially in employment, is inevitably limited. So it is an essential part of a much bigger life chances equation.

The report’s first finding was that current systems of assistive technology, or AT provision, leave disabled people in digital black holes at key transition points that affect their ability to find and secure employment. The APPG would encourage the Government to raise their sights and aim higher to ensure equitable access to digital for disabled people in their efforts to close the disability employment gap—mentioned by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond—which remains obstinately at around 30%, as the Minister knows. A practical way of doing this would be for the Government to appoint and empower a national assistive technology champion to develop and deliver, in collaboration with disabled people, a framework on disabled people’s life transitions, including between different educational settings and at different stages.

The report’s second finding was particularly worrying: disabled students are still leaving education without knowledge of work-based AT provision, without the skills to use it in the workplace, and without the confidence to navigate these issues when starting a new job—for example, as my noble friend mentioned, when having to justify the use of specific equipment, which could so easily be addressed by having a passport that enabled them to get on with the job from day one.

That is why the APPG also recommends that education providers should ensure that careers education, information, advice and guidance—or CEIAG, which is yet another acronym—and disability support and guidance are joined-up, so that education leavers know how to access AT and support to enable their transition into employment. It also informs the APPG’s recommendation that the DfE should produce and promote guidance and resources for education providers on AT and workplaces and preparing for employment. This should include information about Access to Work and other routes to securing timely access to AT.

I mention that it should be timely because the final recommendation relating to the DfE, as well as to DWP, concerns Access to Work. At the moment, the scheme does not put in place AT fast enough for disabled students on short-term work placements, and education professionals can be unaware of this DWP-sponsored support. This makes collaboration between the two departments essential to ensure that disabled people on work placements, traineeships or apprenticeships are able to use AT from day one of their placements. I do not think this need involve a lot of work and money. The support could be developed as an enhanced Access to Work offer, jointly sponsored by DfE and DWP, or as a fund available to education providers, or a combination of both elements.

I would be really grateful if my noble friend the Minister could address the report’s recommendations in writing and detail not only what the Government have done but what they plan to do in response and, crucially, when.

Statistics make it clear that AT is not a niche subject. Indeed, only last year a survey found that nearly a third of higher education students reported using captions or transcriptions. I could go on, but what is equally clear is that the onus should not be— as, unfortunately, it too often can be—on the individual student to self-advocate. The Government need to accept their responsibility as the facilitator of appropriate, effective and timely provision.

Secondary Schools: Autistic Pupils

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The whole strategic focus of the improvement plan that we will be publishing in response to the SEND and AP Green Paper consultation is to address the problem we see today of late diagnosis, late intervention and needs escalating; that is absolutely our aspiration. On the diagnosis of girls, we are running two pilots at the moment, one testing new screening tools and the other seeing whether we can adapt existing ones, because we are all aware that four times as many boys are diagnosed as girls.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sewell of Sanderstead, on his introduction. A more diverse House is a stronger house. I also commend the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, on his long-standing work on autism. Will the Minister ensure that guidance for schools on transgender issues takes into account the Cass interim report finding that approximately one-third of children and young people referred to gender identity development services have autism or other types of neurodiversity?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. The data he cites underlines the importance of having a truly skilful and expert diagnosis of the full range of issues a young person is facing before finalising any diagnosis of gender dysphoria. I cannot yet comment on how that will be addressed in the guidance because obviously, we are going to publish the draft and then consult on it.

A Manifesto to Strengthen Families

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I, as one of the signatories to this manifesto, thank my noble friend Lord Farmer very much for his work in this area and for securing this debate. I also welcome my noble friend the Minister to his important new position. My support for this manifesto is not based on value judgments or a desire to turn back the clock, but neither do I think we should disown the past as if it had nothing positive or worth while to teach us.

As we all know, Britain has an increasingly serious childhood mental health problem, with one in 10 children estimated to have a diagnosable mental health condition. Indeed, in a survey of more than 4,500 children seen by child and adolescent mental health services in 2015, “family relationship problems” were cited by half of these children as the cause of their mental health problems. Moreover, the Marriage Foundation conducted research that shows that being with their married parents significantly improves both the self-esteem and life chances of teenagers. In other words, having married parents can boost children’s mental health. Yet, nearly half of all teenagers are not living with both parents.

What does the data show to be the main driver of family breakdown? The data shows that it is cohabitation—that the separation of unmarried parents now accounts for the majority of family breakdowns. Thus, although cohabiting parents account for 21% of all couples, the separation of cohabiting parents accounts for 51% of all family breakdown.

I want to stress that I am not condemning parents in cohabiting relationships or those parents—in many cases mums—who find the courage to take themselves and their children out of an unhappy marriage. However, neither situation in itself devalues the case for supporting marriage as a model, which all the evidence shows brings tangible benefits across the piece. It is worth noting that a ComRes poll conducted only in August this year shows that 71% of British adults agree that marriage is important and that the Government should support couples who get married.

I say to my noble friend the Minister: what better way for this Government to show they are on the front foot on social justice than to introduce the measures contained in this manifesto, and thereby strengthen the primary tried-and-tested source of stability in our country—the family.