Speech, Language and Communication Education

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I like his point about linking up with business so that the skills young people acquire, such as communication skills, match what businesses need. We need to look at that in terms of young people, in 2015, coming to their GCSEs and, indeed, reaching the age of 17 or 18 and remaining in some form of learning environment.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I, too, apologise to my hon. Friend because I have to leave shortly for another meeting. I have two brief points. Does he agree that we must start picking up the problems in pre-school and nursery? Otherwise, we get intense behavioural problems, which is not a good start to the child’s period at school. On GCSEs, does he share my concern about the potential impact of Ofqual’s proposal to remove the speaking and listening assessment from GCSE English language?

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for both those points. I will come to the concerns I share with her about Ofqual and GCSE English language in a little while, but let me deal with her first point, about early years. Often, we are talking about a pre-education setting and a health setting. I have long advocated the need for a proper, health-based assessment of speech, language and communication needs at the age of two, and I am supported by people such as Jean Gross, the communications champion. The Government are similarly committed to moving in that direction. With the increase in health visitor numbers—an extremely welcome initiative, which is already having an effect in places such as Swindon—and with extra training for health visitors and other professionals, we can start to identify a cohort of young people who, at the moment, are not being identified until early years education or, sometimes, even later.